Marco Vichi - Inspector Bordelli 04 - Death in Florence by Marco Vichi

poo.’
    ‘Can’t they do it all by themselves?’
    ‘Not when they’re this little. And if they don’t poo, their intestine gets blocked and that’s the end of them. I had to rub her bottom with cotton, the way the mama kitty does with her tongue. I was at it for a good fifteen minutes. Finally this little thing as hard as a rock came out … and I cried for joy.’
    ‘You’re such a good little mum,’ Bordelli commented.
    ‘Wasn’t that yummy?’ Rosa said to the kitten, kissing it on the head and setting it down on the carpet. Gideon jumped down from the sideboard, ready to square off. The kitten ran towards him and jumped on him, trying to bite his nose. Despite the bad eye, she seemed to see quite well. Gideon flopped down on the floor and started swiping at her with his paws as though toying with a mouse.
    ‘They’ve already made friends,’ said Rosa, touched. Even after ten years of brothels she could still blush and feel moved like a schoolgirl.
    The cats carried on playing. Briciola would attack Gideon, who then defended himself. Suddenly the kitten stopped wrestling, took a couple of little steps back and forth, then collapsed on the carpet.
    ‘Is she unwell?’ the inspector asked, alarmed.
    ‘No, no, she always does that. She’ll play and play and then suddenly fall asleep.’
    ‘I wish I could do that.’
    He looked at Briciola, thinking that if he hadn’t passed by those brambles, she would have suffered the same fate as her little brothers and sisters. It was chance, or fate, that saved her. And he hoped that chance or fate might deign to lend him a hand in his investigation as well.
    ‘Would you like a little grappa?’ asked Rosa, rescuing him from his thoughts.
    ‘You’re a sweetheart … I’ve also got this pain in my neck …’ Bordelli said, in all seriousness. Rosa went up to him and wrinkled her nose at him the way one does to children.
    ‘You chase after every skirt you see, but you’ll never find someone to spoil you like your Rosina, not in a million years,’ she tittered. She picked the kitten up from the floor, and without waking her put her in a little box with an old sweater inside.
    ‘She sleeps like a rock, the little thing.’
    She filled two small glasses with grappa, took off her purple stilettos, had Bordelli lie down and then straddled his bottom. She started massaging his neck with soft but decisive movements, laughing as he moaned with pleasure. But it wasn’t just pleasure he felt. Rosa’s little massages also had the power to empty his mind and suspend his judgement of the world, a rather relaxing thing.
    ‘I must admit you really know how to use your hands,’ he managed to say between groans.
    ‘If you only knew how many overgrown little boys I’ve massaged while they complained about their bitchy wives and witchy mothers-in-law …’
    ‘I am
not
an overgrown little boy,’ he grumbled.
    ‘You’re the most childish of them all,’ she laughed, massaging harder.
    ‘At any rate, I haven’t got any wives or mothers-in-law …’
    Hearing the roar of the violent, driving rain outside, Bordelli remembered he’d come on foot.
    ‘You’re going to have to lend me an umbrella; I walked here.’
    ‘You walked here?’ Rosa asked in surprise.
    ‘It’s a pretty easy walk.’
    ‘Why don’t you sleep here tonight? Just listen to the weather outside …’
    ‘It’s not the end of the world if I get a little wet. I can take a nice hot shower when I get home.’
    ‘Well, I’ve got all the umbrellas you want,’ said Rosa, a little disappointed. But luckily she didn’t stop massaging him.
    ‘Why don’t you tell me some old story about your family?’ Bordelli mumbled. He loved listening to Rosa reminisce about times gone by. She was a good storyteller, and she liked doing it almost as much as she liked shopping for shoes and provocative little dresses.
    ‘Have I ever told you about the time Zia Asmara fell in love with the parish priest?’
    ‘I