The Leap

Chapter 2

It was a strangely incongruous sight in more ways than one: the almost-autumnal tree, the strong, vital, woody branch, from it dangling a lifeless, young body, a thick rope providing the brutal, somehow unnatural link between the living wood of the tree and the lifeless flesh of the corpse. And around this still and as yet untouched centre piece, a hive of activity: the focussed and industrious manoeuvring of the forensic team, two policemen taking initial statements from the small group of hunters who had made the gruesome discovery, their dogs tied to some nearby trees, barking and growling. The ambulance driver and her medical assistant in their luminescent orange overalls were standing by, passively. The ambulance was parked at an awkward angle on an incline - God only knew how they had even managed to get here.

Stepping closer to the corpse, he noted the telltale bluish colour of the lips which were in morbid harmony with the coppery-green pallor of the girl’s skin, the swollen tongue that protruded from the distorted mouth, the unnatural angle at which the girl’s head was slumped sideways against the chest, at almost forty-five degrees to the loosely hanging body. The girl’s eyes were heaven-turned, empty, bulging, still fixed open. He had to suppress an instinct to close them. He knew better: the small gesture intended to restore some dignity to this wretched case of the human condition would be futile whilst the body was still appended by a rope, the pressure exerted on the eyes by the bright red noose around the neck too great to allow them to be shut. He would have to wait until the forensic examinations had been carried out before the body could be taken down and the young girl’s eyes closed for eternity.

Inspector Giordano broke away from the hunters to greet his colleague and immediate boss.

“Morning Commissario.”

“Morning Ispettore. Good to see you. Sort of. Has the Coroner bee informed?”

“Yes, Graziani’s on his way.”Giordano and Lorenzetti, who was just under two years younger than his Inspector, had worked together for almost three years. They had one another’s full respect and - perhaps more crucially - trust. Trust had to be absolute, it had to be one hundred per cent. If it could be quantified at even ninety-nine point nine per cent, it no longer merited its name because a mere nought point one per cent represented the opposite: a lack of it. It hadn’t taken long for the proportion of trust and mistrust between him and Gigi to favour the former. They had immediately liked one another and the cautiousness and suspicion that was the professional hazard of their chosen area of work had rapidly given way to mutual confidence and high regard. Somehow, the fact that Gigi was a family man and just that little bit older helped.

“What have you found out? Put me in the picture, Ispettore.”

“The hunters were out this morning, at about 5.30, stalking a boar. There are three of them, all locals. Giuseppe Filippo Mori, Claudio Giampaolo Pietro Schifo and Michele Serafino Diotiallevi. Mori and Schifo live in the upper part of town. They’re both unattached. Diotiallevi, his wife and three kids live in Foligno, at his mother-in-law’s house.”

“Oh, and can I have the full spelling of all the kids’ names, please? And how old is the mother-in-law? Does he get on with her?” Even the best Inspector in all of Italy had his shortcomings. “You don’t expect me to remember all these names now, do you? Just tell me what happened, Ispettore.” But his irritation with Giordano’s tendency to focus on unnecessary detail so soon in the game didn't stop his own mind from going down a sidetrack of philological tidbits. Diotiallevi – literally ‘may God comfort you’. What a name. How on earth - or more aptly heaven - did the first bearer of this name come to be known by it? What had happened to him that merited owning that name? And for that name to be so defining that centuries later a boar-hunting farmer still identified himself by it? He had to give the idea more thought at a later, more befitting time. The case hanging before him needed his full attention now.

“With all respect, Commissario, you may not think names are important, but they are. Anyway, they had split up to ambush the boar and one of them – Giuseppe Filippo Mori,” Gigi insisted, “stumbled across the girl. His dog must have picked up on the scent and led him here.”

“Not quite the boar he was hoping for. Did he touch anything?”

“No.”

“And the fellow hunters?”

“Mori called them immediately. And they called us. Carducci was on duty. He took the call.”

Coroner Graziani, who had clearly left the comforts of his bed in some haste, was scrambling his way up to the dangling corpse. As soon as he had the first glimpse of the body, he turned to Lorenzetti. Still catching his breath, the Coroner, whose vanity led him to dye his thinning hair an ill-advised magpie-tail bluish-black, triumphantly exclaimed, “You know who this is, don’t you? It’s Tomasina Mandorli!”

“Doctor Mandorli’s daughter?”

“Well, unless Doctor Benvenuti has a lover. Or had.”

Doctor Stefano Mandorli was one of the pathologists in the district. One of two, the other being his wife, Doctor Maria-Grazia Benvenuti.

“Ironic, don't you think, Commissario?”

“What's that, Coroner?”

“Well, the two pathologists… Their only child… Dead. I wonder who will be in charge of the autopsy. Oh, to be a fly on the wall of

that

theatre!”

With his last remark, the Coroner's tone had taken on the mocking, insolent quality that rarely failed to provoke a kind of bristling in Lorenzetti’s chest. An effect that, he was certain, was entirely intentional. Graziani simply had a knack for winding him up and for reasons unbeknown to both men, had enjoyed doing so since time immemorial. He ignored the provocation, fixed Graziani and replied, quite factually, “I doubt either of the parents will be permitted to perform it.”

Shame Graziani’s demeanour could be so offensive - there was no faulting his work. He knew this appraisal was entirely reciprocal.

The Coroner put on his gloves and his mask and overalls and took a step closer to the corpse. He stood there for a while, taking in the big picture, scanning the body from top to toe and back up again, walked around the body, just carefully observing. Then he took another step closer, fishing for his duty phone in the overall pockets and started to take photographs from every distance and angle. Arms and legs in turn, taking his time, focussed on his task, completely oblivious of his audience. He lifted Tomasina’s limbs, examined the veins on the back of her hands, felt between her toes. He patted her abdomen, twisted her hip this way and that and when he was satisfied he made audio notes of his observations. And eventually declared Tomasina Mandorli dead by self-administered hanging.

“I’m certain she was herself responsible. But for final confirmation, you’ll have to wait for the autopsy findings. If the powers that be decide there is to be one. In the meantime, you can proceed on the basis of no suspicious circumstances.”

“Time of death?”

“Some time between nine o’clock last night and four this morning.”

Four in the morning of the day that had just begun, for most.