Read Marco Vichi - Inspector Bordelli 04 - Death in Florence for Free Online

hole. A small naked foot, half eaten by an animal and already decomposing, was sticking out.
    ‘Wild boar,’ Bordelli muttered. The nauseating stench of the corpse almost completely covered the crisp scent of the underbrush.
    ‘It can only be him,’ said Piras, a hand over his nose.
    ‘We’ll know straight away … Calosi, have you already taken pictures?’
    ‘Yes, Inspector.’
    ‘Pass me the spade.’
    Bordelli started digging, trying to be careful. The hunter watched the scene with his mouth half open. The boy’s leg appeared, then his thigh, bottom and back … And, in the end, his head. Completely naked. The smell was unbearable, and Calosi walked away, suppressing an urge to vomit. The boy lay face down. Bordelli turned him over with the help of the spade, and Piras frowned in disgust. The eye sockets were full of worms. The face was smeared with dirt, the features barely distinguishable. They heard a thud behind them and turned round. The hunter had fainted, and the dog started howling.
    ‘Take care of that, would you, Calosi?’ said Bordelli. He pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and started cleaning the boy’s face, careful not to touch it with his fingers. He felt as if he’d stumbled into an old painting about the plague. Every so often he had to turn his head away to breathe. He’d seen many corpses during the war. Children too, even newborns.
    ‘It’s him,’ said Piras, immobile as a rock.
    ‘Yeah, it’s him,’ the inspector muttered, tossing aside his muddied handkerchief. He’d seen only a few photos of the boy, but even so, it wasn’t hard to recognise him. Giacomo Pellissari had finally been found. There he was, naked, soiled with mud, dead. The thought of having to tell his parents turned Bordelli’s stomach. Meanwhile the hunter had come to, though he remained seated on the ground. The inspector approached him.
    ‘Do you come up this way very often?’ he asked him.
    ‘Yes, I live in La Pescina, down by Lucolena,’ said the hunter, looking away from the child’s corpse. He was hollow-cheeked, with skin the colour of leather and ravaged by wrinkles. He must have been a peasant and was probably not much older than forty.
    ‘Do you know the area well?’ Bordelli asked.
    ‘Like the back of my hand.’
    ‘Are there any other roads that lead up here, aside from the one at La Panca?’
    ‘There are several. From Figline, from Poggio alla Croce, and from Ponte agli Stolli by way of Celle, but all three are a lot rougher.’
    ‘So a car can’t make it up there?’
    ‘No, too many rocks and holes. You’ll drop your oil pan, you will …’
    ‘And on foot?’
    ‘On foot it’s another matter.’
    ‘Is Poggio alla Croce far from here?’
    ‘Not very. Farther on there’s the fork at the Cappella de’ Boschi. You just keep to the left and it takes about an hour.’
    ‘And where does the path on the right lead?’
    ‘To Pian d’Albero, where Potente’s 4 partisans were massacred. You can get to Poggio from there too … On foot, of course. They’re nasty trails.’
    ‘Thanks.’ Bordelli lit a cigarette, thinking of his outing with Botta. Without realising, they had passed not far from the boy’s corpse, but all they’d found were mushrooms.
    ‘Can I go now?’ the hunter asked.
    ‘Just be patient for a little while longer. You’re going to have to come down to the station to sign a statement,’ said the inspector.
    The sun was beginning to filter into the woods, spreading a golden glow between the black tree trunks. Piras caught Bordelli’s attention with a whisper and pointed to two men approaching through the trees. It was Tapinassi and Diotivede.
    The doctor gave a nod of greeting and went towards the lifeless child without stopping. As soon as Tapinassi saw the corpse, he stopped dead in his tracks, white as a sheet. He stood there for a moment, slack-jawed, then turned away.
    Diotivede opened his black bag, took out a towel, and laid it down beside the