Pinta

Pinta is the daughter whose growing attachment to Creasy gives the story’s bodyguard relationship the shape of a chosen, father-like bond. Her trust appears in small domestic gestures, including the crucifix she selects for his birthday; its fragility becomes devastatingly clear when she is kidnapped in front of him and later dies in captivity. Her death is not presented as the kidnappers’ intended outcome, but as the consequence of their panic and neglect, and it becomes the loss that sets Creasy on his course of revenge.

Identity and Growing Attachment

Pinta is Rika’s daughter, and her relationship with Creasy develops beyond the ordinary terms of a child and her bodyguard. Rika recognizes that the girl is becoming deeply attached to him, to the exclusion of other things, but rejects the idea that there is anything sinister in the bond. As she understands it, Creasy regards Pinta as a friend, while Pinta looks on him as a father. The difference in how each experiences the relationship does not diminish its importance: Pinta’s affection has acquired a familial meaning, while Creasy’s place in her life has become more than a professional duty.

Rika traces her recognition of this change to Pinta’s preparations for Creasy’s birthday. Pinta insists on accompanying her mother from shop to shop until she finds the crucifix she wants to give him. Rika considers the present an odd choice for such a man; Pinta answers that Creasy is strange and will understand. Her certainty suggests a particular knowledge of him and a confidence that he will receive the gift in the spirit she intends. The object makes her affection visible: rather than explaining their closeness, she chooses something she believes speaks to Creasy himself.

That tenderness sits within a strained adult household. Rika has also begun to see Creasy as a threat to Ettore, both because of Pinta’s growing attachment and because Rika herself has had an affair with him. The text therefore places Pinta’s father-like bond with Creasy beside the unsettled loyalties between the adults. Pinta’s gift is not described as a response to that conflict; its significance lies instead in how plainly it shows the emotional connection Rika has only recently begun to recognize.

Kidnapping

The bond is abruptly tested when Pinta leaves the apartment and walks toward Creasy’s car. He is waiting there when a black car turns the corner, mounts the curb onto the grass, and brings four men into view. Creasy understands what is happening and gets out of the car for his gun. Pinta, who has stopped in surprise, is close enough to hear his warning to run.

When the car blocks her path to Creasy, two men jump out with revolvers. Pinta ducks beneath one man’s reaching arm and runs around the rear of the car toward her bodyguard. The detail gives her an immediate, physical response to danger: she does not remain still but tries to reach the person she trusts. The men pursue her. Creasy has a shot at them but hesitates because Pinta is between him and his targets. One man catches her, lifts her off her feet, and turns back toward the car; the other fires high. Creasy shoots the second man twice in the chest, but Pinta is carried away.

The scene makes the limits of Creasy’s protective role brutally concrete. His ability to use force is checked by the presence of the child he is trying to save, and the kidnappers exploit the moment to take her. Pinta’s movement toward him brings their closeness into the action itself: she runs toward her bodyguard, while he cannot fire freely without risking her. The abduction thus converts the trust that had grown through their daily relationship into an immediate, life-or-death vulnerability.

Death in Captivity and Consequences

After Creasy has been wounded, Guido visits him in hospital and tells him that Pinta is dead. The news is delivered without preparation; Creasy turns his head toward the ceiling, his face expressionless and his eyes empty. The narration registers the shock through his stillness rather than through an explanation of his feelings. When Guido continues, Creasy asks whether there is anything else, and Guido walks to the window. The silence and separation between the men give the disclosure a weight that neither can readily put into words.

The circumstances make Pinta’s death a grim consequence of the kidnappers’ fear. The ransom had been paid two days earlier, and she was supposed to be released that night. She did not appear. A police sweep for a Red Brigade gang is thought to have made the kidnappers nervous, and they hid for several hours. Pinta was left in the trunk of a stolen car with her hands and mouth taped. She vomited, probably from petrol fumes, and the autopsy concluded that she choked to death. Her captors had not intended to kill her, but their decision to go to ground and leave her confined turned an abduction intended to end in ransom and release into a fatal ordeal.

Narrative Role

Pinta’s importance rests in the contrast between the ordinary care of her birthday gift and the sudden violence of her disappearance. The crucifix records a relationship developing through attention and understanding; the kidnapping shows how little that intimacy can protect her against organized violence. Her death is both intimate and consequential: it destroys the future implied by her father-like bond with Creasy and gives his subsequent revenge its defining personal cause. The account preserves the distinction between the intended ransom release and the actual death, making Pinta’s fate the result of a specific chain of choices, panic, and confinement rather than a planned killing.