They have their exits
ONE OF the hazards of Italian commercial life is suicide. It must date back to the Bor- gias, or the emperors. Raul Gardini, the sugar baron, appears to have shot himself, but most of these suicides require ingenu- ity, and some are downright vicious. Gabriele Cagliari, the former ENI chief, has been found dead in prison with his head in a plastic bag. (In South Africa, he would have fallen downstairs or out of the window.) Michele Sindona, 'God's banker', was sent to a prison for women, where he drank a cup of coffee which turned out to be poisoned. Roberto Calvi, who took over the account, was found suspended under Blackfrairs Bridge — an athletic suicide, this one. The unluckiest overtook a witness scheduled to give evidence against Sindona. He found himself shut up in an American prison cell with a very fat burglar. Someone arranged for a rope and a file to be smug- gled in to them. They filed through the bars of the window, and climbed out onto the rope, which snapped. The burglar cush- ioned his fall by landing on top of the wit- ness. Nero or Lucrezia would have been proud.
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