Mitchell Rose and the Bologna Massacre

Milanese judge Remo Rhimare calls Mitchell Rose, a private investigator, to Milan and asks him to investigate the Bologna bombing of 1980. Remo states that Rose can give him an independent view of the events of that day. As Remo was a close friend of his late father he accepts and he is handed the double mission of finding those behind the bombing and reigning in Remo’s errant daughter, Clara. His first lead is Giuseppe Serra, who has previously been gaoled in connection with the bombing and subsequently released. Serra is protected by the Italian security forces, but eventually reveals Carlos Insigne (Josef), who has holed up in a block of flats in front of Bologna Station, as the man responsible for the massacre. Meanwhile, Remo’s daughter, Clara, is frequenting with a well-known local politician Anselmo Cambio. Rose begins an affair with Cambio’s wife. He is assisted in his investigation by a local barmaid, Elisa. Roses’s investigations into the two cases overlap and the events move from Milan to Bologna. He stakes out the block from the bar in front and spends days trying to get a glimpse of the Jackal. Roses’s gun disappears and then reappears. Rose discovers that Cambio is involved in a political plot to pay bribes to terrorists in order to ward off further attacks. When a payment is not made, as a warning to the political establishment, Cambio is eliminated and cut into four pieces; three pieces are left at the scene of the crime and one disappears. Rose is led to the corpse by a distraught Clara. Clara then goes back to her family in Milan. Elisa follows Rosa to Bologna. He tells her to keep away from him as he fears for her safety. Cambio’s wife asks Rose to retrieve the fourth part of her husband’s body. Insigne discourages Rose from getting any closer to him, but he persists with his investigation. He threatens Rose, kidnaps Elisa and reveals that he has the fourth part of Cambio’s body with a bullet from Roses’s gun buried inside it. Insigne reveals that the Bologna bombing took place as Remo had threatened to release details of arms being smuggled across Europe in the 1970s and 1980’s to the press. This would have upset the political equilibrium of the time. He claims that using Rose, Remo was essentially investigating himself and the consequences of his own actions. Neither Rose nor the authorities will ever be able to touch him. Terrorism is essentially part of what makes Italy work and guarantees stability within the political system.