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Chapter 3

The young Deputy Commissioner, executioner of Germans and in charge of investigating the man in overalls, was a twenty-four-year-old Neapolitan by birth and maternal descent. He had thick, naturally curly black hair, kept short in military fashion according to the regulations of those years. He was not tall, five feet four, but well proportioned and robust. He had graduated in law at the Federico II of Naples with honors and recommended for pubblication and, if he was brilliant in mind, in spirit he was clean, forged in the family and in college on the basis of classic ethical principles, in essence the precepts of the ten Judeo-Christian commandments.

But because of his young age, however, which had made him suffer a few disillusions for the moment, Vittorio D'Aiazzo was a little immodest. He lived with his father, Amilcare D'Aiazzo lieutenant colonel of the Regi Carabinieri, and with his mother, Mrs Luigia-Antonia a graduated primary school teacher but housewife, in the apartment they owned. It was not located in a prestigious area as the family would have liked, not in Via Caracciolo or on the Riviera di Chiaia, for example, but in the popular Sanità district, in Via San Gregorio Armeno where there were lodgings within the reach of the not generous salaries, at that time, and the meagre savings of a high-ranking officer of the Carabinieri. Vittorio lived alone in the accommodation at the time, apart from a part-time cleaning lady, because his mother had been evacuated to the countryside at the beginning of the war. His father, had crossed the lines at night a couple of weeks earlier, even though he was sixty-one, fifteen years older than his wife, and he had done this because, in reality, he did not want to answer to the occupying Germans and to join his sovereign.

Until then he had served in the 7th Provincial Carabinieri Group of Naples, as head of the Provincial Investigative Coordination Section. The D'Aiazzo couple had two sons. While they were proud of Vittorio, they did not think highly of the other, Emanuele, who had been a lazy person since he was a child. After several failures, he had received the elementary school diploma at fourteen and with the lowest of grades. He had then abandoned his not hard-earned studies at the beginning of the first year of complementary school for introduction to the work-force. His father had resigned himself to enrolling him because, unlike high school¹³ , it did not require an entrance examination. At sixteen years old, he had run away from home, and could not be traced. He sent news of himself only years later, once he came of age¹⁴ , with a single postcard addressed to the mother, sent from Switzerland in May 1940, with a few words of greeting. Since Emanule had not presented himself for the call-up visit, he had been considered a draft dodger and sentenced in absentia to prison by the Military Court of Naples; and when war broke out, he had been considered a deserter.

That son had damaged the image of Lieutenant Colonel D'Aiazzo and he feared that, because of him, he would nor rise through the ranks, despite his many personal merits. Vittorio what’s more, because of his brother, had not been able to follow in his father's footsteps and enter the Carabinieri, as he and his parents would have liked. In those days, in fact, not only those who were personally dishonest, but also those who had ancestors or relatives not absolutely unblemished, could not apply for the Benemerita¹⁵ . Disappointed but not completely resigned, Vittorio had graduated and had participated in the public contest for Deputy Commissioner in the Public Security Guards Corps, an entity that required only the personal integrity of the aspirant and not his relatives as well. He had passed the test brilliantly and, at the end of the vocational graduate school which followed, he was the first in the standings with every hope, therefore, of being granted the chosen destination, his Naples, and had been assigned precisely to his home city.

After reading warrant officer Branduardi’s brief report, Deputy Commissioner D'Aiazzo had headed to the holding cells on the ground floor to take a look at the self-styled Gennaro Esposito. He had then gone down into the damp underground archive and had checked if anyone with those personal details had a police record and if his photos, from the front and in profile, corresponded to the physiognomy of the prisoner. He had found several criminal records with the same name and surname, but all of them concerned people who did not look like the alleged murderer. Back in his office, he had the arrested man brought to him.

He had interrogated him with the help of his assistant brigadier Marino Bordin who, sitting at his table, had typed his superior’s questions and the answers from the man being questioned on the office typewriter, an obsolete black Olivetti M1, 1911 model.

Bordin was a sturdy blond Venetian, five feet nine tall. He was forty-five years old, had served in Public Security for a quarter of a century, and had a wife and two children that he had evacuated to a farmhouse in the Neapolitan countryside, sacrificing two thirds of his salary to the farmer hosting them and resigning himself to eat and sleep in the barracks with what was left.

For hours the suspect, without giving in, had said and repeated, in a correct idiom that made one think he had at least attended primary school classes, very strict at that time, that he was an unemployed cook, that he lived as was written on his license, in Vicolo Santa Luciella and that he was on his way home when he had seen the door of the dead woman's house ajar and had heard moans coming from inside. Out of mere altruism he had gone in, asking for permission, had seen the woman on the ground in the entry still moaning. Having noticed a telephone on a wall, he had decided to call an ambulance; but at that very moment the Public Security patrol had entered and had handcuffed him.

The Deputy Commissioner had kept at it and shortly after 7 am he had finally obtained a new detail, that the man visited the prostitute regularly and that he had gone into her house, because he was expected, to have some quick sex so he could leave early and get to his own house before the curfew. When asked, he had specified that he had made the appointment by phone from a bar, as he had done many other times. When asked to recite Demaggi’s telephone number, he had said that he no longer remembered it and, when D'Aiazzo showed his skeptiscism, he had justified the amnesia because he was in a state of mental turmoil due to the situation. Otherwise he had not changed his version reiterating that, once he went in the door left ajar especially for him following the phone call, he had seen the woman on the ground and had immediately decided to call for help from the telephone in the apartment, but then the patrol had arrived and had detained him.

Just like the the patrol officers, the Deputy Commissioner could not believe that the man was a client of the pricey hooker, taking into account his cheap shabby clothing and no money in his pockets. Considering that the door had ostensibly been left open for him, he had conjectured that he was an accomplice in the black market. He had therefore accused him of killng her because of some argument: "Confess and I’ll let you go to sleep!"

"It isn’t true, it was definitely an accident that took place before I went inside," the other had denied.

"If you weren't an accomplice at loggerheads, then you were sent to kill her by a competitor," the officer had pressed.

"Commissioner I’m telling you again that it is not true!" the man had become angry, abandoning the docile attitude he had kept until then.

Without being asked, Brigadier Bordin had snapped: "Busòn!¹⁶ Be respectful to the commissioner or I'll kick you where you like to get it!"

The Deputy Commissioner did not allow bad manners and had reprimanded him: "Marino, keep the kicks and the insults to yourself." He had resumed: "Gennaro, provided that Gennaro Esposito is really your name, and you can be sure that we’ll check at the Registry Office tomorrow ... no, this morning, seeing the time, listen up: I too, like you, would like to finish this, so I'll make you a proposal," – the man had visibly raised his attention threshold, half-opening his mouth as his pupils dilated a little – "if you confess guilty to homicide, which means that you killed going beyond the intention you had ..."

"... I know."

"Then listen: you could tell me for example that you had no money and that the victim didn’t want to concede herself on credit, so in an irrepressible impulse of anger you pushed her, without wanting to kill her but, unfortunately, she fell and was fatally injured; well, you know what I mean: in this way you don’t end up in front of the firing squad¹⁷ , you just get a little jail time. Instead, if I write in my report for the investigating judge that I suspect you’re the hitman for some camorra blackmarketer who wanted to eliminate her, or a direct competitor of the woman on the black market who wanted to take her out once and for all, you are already good and shot."

Even though he was more tired than the Deputy Commissioner, the man had not confessed: "Not only will I repeat yet again that I am not a murderer and, as far as I know, the woman died from an accident which took place before I entered her apartment, but now I’m also telling you that I am a sergeant major gunner and that I crossed the lines and arrived in Naples yesterday evening."

"Hmm... tell me more."

"I am also a cook, I was serving as kitchen manager in the officers' club of the 3rd battalion, 1st Coastal Artillery Regiment, stationed five miles north of Paestum, in the province of Salerno."

"I know where Paestum is... okay, assuming that you’ve told me the truth now, it’s in your own interest that we check your military identity, so tell me about the school for cadet non-commissioned officers you come from and which course." In reality, that verification would probably have been impossible in the chaos following the armistice and D'Aiazzo knew it, but he had counted on the fact that if the other lied to him, he would give himself away.

The man had not turned a hair: "My career started with an apprenticeship: at twenty-eight, after I lost my job of assistant cook in a trattoria ..."

"... what did you do?"

"...nothing wrong! The restaurant had closed because, as the owners said, the final consequences of the crisis of '29 had arrived."

"Okay, go on."

"I had looked for work elsewhere but found nothing: no one was hiring, if anything they were firing. Then, so as not to weigh on my mother who had been widowed and worked hard doing the cleaning in shops and sewing and embroidering at home for strangers, I enlisted as a volunteer in the end, hoping to work my way up and become a non-commissioned office. I had been discharged from the service six years earlier, with honor, with the rank of corporal, which was recognized at the reaffirmation. And since I had already been in kitchens during the draft, after a refresher course on certain regulations, they had sent me in front of the pots again, apart from the periodic shooting exercises with the artillery, rifle and pistol. That’s how it was right through my military career, first as a corporal, then as a sergeant and, finally, as a non-commissioned officer¹⁸ : sergeant major manager of the kitchen of the officers' club.

After the armistice and the landing of our former enemies¹⁹ on our coasts, I was left in the lurch with my fellow soldiers in the hope of not running into Anglo-Americans or Germans. I hid, eating fruit and vegetables I took from vegetable gardens and, the few times someone put me up in a farmhouse, bread, milk and eggs as well. But farmers, or at least the ones I met, are not generous people, and they all asked me for compensation, first in money, and little by little I gave them what I had left of the last salary, then when the money ran out I had to leave my watch: it was steel, but a good brand; and to the last purucchio²⁰ I gave my medal of San Genna' on a little chain, both in 18 carat gold, a gift from my parents for my First Communion, in exchange for the old shirt and the work overalls I’m still wearing. I got myself into plain clothes and threw away the military dog-tag and the military documents too, because they are not only another color for us career people but they say that we are in fact military and our rank as well..."

"... I know"

"Yes, it’s like that for you too. I threw away my identity card and military license and only kept my civilian license. Then, no longer in uniform, I headed to my Naples and managed to cross the front line and last night I arrived in the city. I moved cautiously even though I was in civilian clothes and had a document with me, and I got to Piazzetta del Nilo, which is not far from the little house where mamma and I live in Vicolo Santa Luciella; and, because of my good heart, after what I had already been through, I still had the impulse to help that woman who was groaning and ... here I am, just when I was very close to home."

"How come your domicile in the area of Paestum is not indicated on your driving permit?"

"I had a room in the barracks, with another sergeant major who was a bachelor as well, I didn’t have any place outside: I never considered the barracks my home and I never thought of having the address in Naples removed. I just had it changed on the identity card and the military driving permit because it was mandatory, apart from the fact that on the civil license I would often have to have the Department of Motor Vehicles change my address, since they moved me every few years. Whereas the military card and license were done again directly in the new department; and then, after all, I came back to Naples to see mamma every time I went on leave."

"You should know that we’ll go to Vicolo Santa Maria to check if your mother really lives there and if other people know you."

"... and I thank you, Commissioner, because that is exactly where mamma lives and you will have confirmation about me from her and the neighbours as well. But please, I beg you with all my heart: don’t frighten mamma. Tell her, please, that I have asked you to say hello to her since I couldn’t come in person because of service reasons."

"If we find your mother, we won't scare her and we’ll talk to her as you wish." At this point, however, the Deputy Commissioner had started on him again: "Earlier you tried to make me believe that you had an appointment with Demaggi and then you admitted that it was not true. So tell me: if that was the first time you saw her, how did you know that the woman was a prostitute?"

Unperturbed he replied: "I heard your patrol chief talking about it with his colleagues when they were with the deceased."

"I'll check. Now tell me one more thing" – D'Aiazzo had left the question for last, to fire it when the man was very tired – "Why were you wearing wool gloves at this time of year? So as not to leave prints, right?"

"... no, Mr. Commissioner," the other wasn’t worried, "the reason is simple, I’ve been wearing them for some time now, I also had them when I was in service, with the captain’s permission. I suffer from pain in my fingers and also in my left palm."

"Hm..."

"... yes I do, because of the humidity in the kitchens over many years, what with steam from pots and water where we washed the cauldrons, as the lieutenant doctor explained to me, and he was the one who told me to wear gloves."

The man was exhausted and the two policemen were physical wrecks; the Deputy Commissioner had ordered Brigadier Bordin to escort the alleged sergeant major Gennaro Esposito to the holding cell.

Vittorio D'Aiazzo had not been able to form a concrete idea with just the information he had collected: to his mind it could possibly be both an accident and a murder must, the latter not necessarily perpetrated by the man arrested; however, if he were guilty, the motive could be competition between black marketers if the self-styled Esposito’s identity and in particular his position in the Army were not confirmed, otherwise a different motive would come into play.

Moreover, if the anatomopathologist established that it was an assassination, and even though he had not confessed, he would be transferred to the Prison of Poggioreale as a suspect. As well as that, the Deputy Commissioner would have to write a report containing both the medical examiner’s conclusions and the details that D'Aiazzo himself had collected during the interrogation, and send it to the Office of the Public Prosecutor. Based on his report, the investigating judge would decide whether to open proceedings against the suspect or release him for lack of evidence.

It was almost eight in the morning and the young officer was about to finish his shift; but just the same, before going home he still intended to order the warrant officer to go to Vicolo Santa Luciella to check if the suspect’s mother really lived there and, in this case, if she recognized her son in the photo on the license and confirmed that he really was a sergeant major in the artillery. But the Deputy Commissioner did not plan to wait for the man to return and he would hear the report the following day. At any rate, it would be two or three days at least before the anatomopathologist’s report arrived in his office, during which time the detained man would remain in the holding cell.

After having taken the suspect back to the cell, Bordin had gone back to D'Aiazzo. As he entered the office he had said to him: "Mr. Commissioner, in my opinion that Esposito, or so he claims, was sent by the camorra to kill Demaggi for two possible reasons: either because of competition on the black market, or because that filthy whore no longer wanted to pay the kickback ..."

"... Marino, the woman is dead and you don’t insult the deceased," the young superior had reprimanded him, "and in any case I’m not convinced that the suspect is a murderer."

"Forgive me if I take the liberty, but I think... well, that you are always too good: if we gave him a few blows in the stomach with sandbags ..."

"... that don’t leave a mark?"

"Just to be prudent; and be sure that that delinquent sayts he is guilty and a camorrista to boot, and who knows what else. But like this..."

"... instead like this I didn’t risk making an innocent person confess, apart from the fact that if I saw you hitting someone with a sack ... do you understand me, Marino?"

"Yeah...."

"If anything, it will be the investigating judge who makes him admit that he is guilty, provided the doctor doesn’t tell us that it was an accident, and then I can archive the case and free that man."

"Yes, maybe, but speaking in general terms you, Mr Commissioner, are perhaps the only one here who doesn’t give people being interrogated a few slaps. The late Dr. Perati I served with before you made everyone confess."

With the fervor of age, and not without that pinch of presumption that he always had, the Deputy Commissioner had instinctively let slip in the Neapolitan dialect that he used at home: "Tu si' 'nu fésso.²¹ "

"What?!" The non-commissioned officer had turned red with rage.

His superior had partially corrected himself: "All right, Marino, I take back the idiot, but you are wrong to speak disrespectfully to me just because I am half your age. Be careful, because if it happens again I will punish you."

Bordin had thought it wise to apologize, albeit through gritted teeth: "Forgive me, Mr. Commissioner, I was just saying, I didn’t want to criticize you."

If, over time, Vittorio D'Aiazzo would fully acquire humility thanks to the metaphorical slaps of life, at the time he still wanted to have the last word: "Alright, but from now on think about what you say, before saying what you think."

The man had thought it wise to stand stiffly to attention: "Signorsì."

"At ease, and don’t be mortified," his superior had softened the tone, with compassion finally prevailing. He had continued: "You said that Perati made everyone confess: of course, I know that very well, they’d told me that when I arrived here; but do you remember who killed him?"

"Yes sir, the mother of a habitual thief..."

"... thief that Perati had accused of stabbing a baker in the hand, to rob him, and that he had indeed made him confess, but how? Tying him belly up on a table and whipping him with his belt; and two days later, do you remember? the suspect died of internal bleeding."

"Excuse me, may I speak to you freely but with all due respect?"

"You can."

"I believed that Dr. Perati had been right because he had not been reproached by superiors."

"Then you don’t know that the matter had been buried by order of the federal of Naples²² , because Perati was extremely fascist and a bootlicker; and yet, in the mind of the dead man’s mother the thing had not been buried at all, and what’s more, a couple of weeks after her son’s death, she had learned that he was innocent of both the wounding and the theft, and you knew this, didn't you?"

"I knew that the baker had recognized the real culprit in the street and had reported it to one of our patrols, who had stopped him and brought him here."

"Yes, and the dead man’s mother had been made aware of it by a friend of her son’s, who heard the truth going around, and you know what? It had not been too unjust, after all, that the woman had come to us asking to speak to Perati, with the excuse of having revelations to make to him, and once she was in front of him she had pulled out a small meat knife from her breast and let go a slash that had gone into his heart; and I’m almost sorry that she was blocked immediately afterwards and that she is now awaiting trial, because I fear she will be sentenced to death for premeditated murder."

"Let’s hope they grant her mental semi-infermity," Bordin had agreed.

"Let's hope so; but apart from that, you can go to the vehicles depot for me now with this service sheet... here: it’s my authorization to pick up a car with driver. Then go and check is Esposito is known in Vicolo Santa Lucia." He had also given him the suspect’s license: "Show this photo to the mother, that’s if she exists, and to the neighbors as well, and gather as much as you can on him."

"Yes, sir! On the way back though, Commissioner, maybe I could go to my room to sleep because I’ve already completed my hours of service for today."

"Duty and sacrifice is our motto," he had responded smiling.

Since Police Headquarters knew that the social temperature in the city was climbing and an uprising was quite likely, the brigadier had decided to go by the radio room to get some news on the situation outside before going to the garage. As soon as he had heard it, he had returned to his direct superior and told him that patrol trucks had communicated that isolated gun battles had begun. He concluded asking: "Sir, do I really have to go there today, or can I wait for tomorrow, when maybe things will have calmed down?"

Before D'Aiazzo had decided, the rumble of the diesel engines of vehicles had started to come up along Via Medina where Naples Police Headquarters were located, and still are, and were going past the main entrance of the building in column, as they had done every day for two weeks. It was a motorized platoon of German grenadiers going to relieve another one, of the same battalion, sent to guard a corridor on the top floor of Castel Sant'Elmo, a mighty bulwark that stands on the Vomero hill at 820 feet above sea level overlooking the Gulf and the city. Two non-communicating rooms opened onto that corridor and, at that time, were used as the armory of the fortress. One of them was a large room with conventional weapons and ammunition stored there and in the other, a smaller space, the secret armaments of Italian design and production were guarded.

The weapons were kept under surveillance around the clock in two shifts, from 8.30 am to 8.30 pm and 8.30 pm to 8.30 am. The Germans had occupied Castel Sant'Elmo since September 9, and had seized the armaments, with particular interest in the special ones. The castle itself was a primary target for the Allies in those days precisely because of these unconventional weapons, and for some time their own secret services had been interested in it.

Vittorio D'Aiazzo was about to tell his subordinate to ignore his previous order and to go and get some rest, when there were gunshots from Via Medina, first from rifles and a light machine gun, then, in rapid succession, an assault rifle and a machine gun.

Deputy Commissioner and assistant had instinctively ducked then, with their legs bent, had moved to the window and peeked out to look below, showing themselves as little as possible.

At the same time, several other policemen had looked down from their respective offices, both the staff coming off duty and those coming on, as it was chngeover time, 8.00 am on the dot. Having just arrived, the deputy Head of Police Remigio Bollati had also glanced surreptitiously out his window; his office opened off the same corridor as Vittorio's and the two rooms were next to each other.

Depending on the position of his window and as he looked down, he had seen or glimpsed the German platoon standing still in the middle of the road about fifty yards past the front door and the neighboring driveway. From the shelter of their vehicles, lined up transversely, they were engaged in a gun battle with people who had to be further down the street that couldn’t be seen from the Police Headquarters building, but the gunshots coule be heard very clearly. It could be assumed that they were taking cover behind the walls in ruin and the piles of rubble of two nearby buildings facing each other, bombed a few days before September 8 by American fast-response fortifications.