Property of Blood (11 page)

‘Do you have any proof of Salis’s guilt?’ asked the Captain. ‘I mean concrete proof, apart from the blood.’

‘I don’t have the blood,’ Bini said. ‘It was August. Before the forensic people got here there was a storm. Sheets of rain that made every ditch and stream overflow and flooded the lanes. No, I’ve no blood. All I’ve got is a dog. Like Guarnaccia here, when I went to question his wife, the day of the murder, that was what struck me. The sheep in the fold and an empty kennel. A shepherd has a dog. I said to her, I said, “Where’s the dog?” and she said, “It’s dead.” According to her, her husband had shot the dog, had to put it down because it was sick. I asked her where it was buried. She showed me and I had it dug up. They did an autopsy. The dog had been shot, all right, but it hadn’t been ill. And the weapon used was the one that killed the boy. It was the bullet that had ricocheted off the moped, you see. I’ve got evidence. That dog’s still in the fridge at the medico-legal institute.’

‘Surely he knew,’ the Captain said, ‘that you’d find the dog.’

‘Of course he did,,’ Bini said, ‘and he couldn’t have counted on that storm, either, but he did nothing to hide all that blood. Salis is a bandit of the old school, you have to understand that. According to him, he had the right to do what he did and no reason to hide it. He dumped the body on the Puddu clan because the boy had betrayed him to them and, as far as he was concerned, they could keep him. He’d die in those hills before he’d let behaviour like theirs go unpunished. I know him. He’s proud and he’s strict in his code.’

The Captain refrained from wishing aloud that Bini had spoken up before. It would hardly have been just. Nobody had confided in Bini that there had been a second suspect, other than Salis, and that this suspect was the head of the rival clan, Giuseppe Puddu, who the year previously had escaped while on parole. All he said was, ‘And Puddu? What do you know about him?’

‘No, no, Puddu … No. A man like Salis you can follow his way of thinking but Puddu’s got involved with all sorts of people, mixed up with Tuscans, moneylenders, mafia, too, in my opinion. No, Puddu forgot he was a Sardinian years ago. It’s not a bad thing, is it, that after today’s search he’ll think he’s pulled the wool over your eyes? You ought to ask Francesco Salis what he thinks about Puddu but, as far as I’m concerned, he should be put away for life. It seems to me a bit too easy for some people, this parole business after serving half their time. They plan their next job inside, and the minute they’re out the door they vanish and we’ve another kidnapping on our hands.’

‘So it seems,’ the Captain said.

The Marshal drove back to Florence, leaving the Captain to call off the search of Salis’s territory at the end of the day and explain the new development to the Prosecutor.

So much for the empty kennel. But one dead dog lying in the fridge at the medico-legal institute wasn’t the end of it, as far as what the Marshal called his ‘day of dogs’ was concerned. He paid his regular visit to the Palazzo Brunamonti towards seven in the evening and found Leonardo and Patrick Hines—not, thank goodness, the detective—sitting on the white sofa, bending over something that lay on the floor between them. Silvia the maid, crying rather more than usual, let the Marshal in and disappeared.

‘She’s come home,’ Leonardo said, looking up with shining eyes. ‘Tessie …’

On the floor between the two men was a basket. The litde sandy mongrel lay in it in a state of collapse. Leonardo was gently washing away the encrusted blood from her mouth and giving her water from a dropper. There was gauze round all four feet. She was too weak to lift her head or even open her mouth but as the drops of cool water slid in between her teeth and rolled over her parched tongue, her tiny tail made a feeble attempt at wagging her gratitude.

‘She’s a mass of injuries,’ Patrick Hines said. ‘Heaven alone knows how she managed to drag herself home. She couldn’t get up the stairs and was trying to get near the fountain. She can’t have had a drink for days, let alone food. I found the people from the workroom standing round her when I arrived and they carried her up here on a piece of cloth. She has more than one bone broken, I should think, and the pads on her feet are completely worn away and bleeding.’

The Marshal stood looking down at the litde rag of fur and bone, the flesh all gone but the spirit still capable of a tiny wag of the tail. She looked so fragile, so racked with pain, that he wouldn’t have dared stroke her with his big clumsy hand. All he could do was ask, ‘Doesn’t she need a vet?’

‘She’s too weak,’ Leonardo said. ‘She needs water and peace and a night’s rest before she can be properly examined and X-rayed. It could damage her now. I’m sure she’ll live. She’s got to live!’

He got up to go and get clean warm water for bathing the wounds. When he was out of the room, Patrick Hines told the Marshal that the dog’s return was a blessing in more ways than one because it gave them something concrete to do for Olivia instead of sitting around helpless. ‘And I speak for myself as well as Leo in that.’

‘It’s very understandable. You’ll feel less in limbo when contact is made.’ The Marshal, though he regarded Charles Bendy, the detective from London, as though he were a creature from an alien planet, rather admired Patrick Hines. He was a tall, well-built man, athletic looking, grey-haired and blue-eyed. He was quiet and he was discreet and, from what the Marshal knew of Olivia Birkett’s past, the ideal man for her. It seemed, too, as though his presence there gave the son considerable relief.

Loud sobbing announced the imminent arrival of Silvia. The Marshal and Hines exchanged a glance and the latter murmured, ‘Thank goodness she has a married sister nearby. I think she’s going there tonight.’

The sobbing girl came into the room and wailed from behind a paper tissue that the signorina wanted to speak to the Marshal. She seemed to expect him to follow her so he did, not to the signorina’s room but to her mother’s.

The room was bathed in a soft, glowing light from some invisible source, and this time the big bed looked as though it had been slept in. The pillows were bunched at the centre of the headboard and the counterpane flung over the foot. Perhaps the daughter had sought comfort in her distress by sleeping there to feel nearer her mother. A pile of clothing lay in the centre of the bed, and all the wardrobes and drawers were open. A small, decorated writing desk was also open and a great many papers were strewn on it.

‘You can leave now, Silvia. I’m sorry there’s nowhere to sit down, Marshal, but as you can see—Silvia, you can go.’

‘I am making supper, Philippine supper. Mister Patrick ask me—’

‘You can go.’

Silvia’s response to what the Marshal supposed to be an evening with her sister to cheer her up suggested that it didn’t help. She left the room crying loudly, and a diminishing series of ‘my signoras’ reached them as she retreated down the long corridor.

The daughter apologized yet again for the disorder. It seemed early to be doing the seasonal changeover, an event which most women dread, with all its hard work of climbing up to high, little-used cupboards and endless trips to and from the dry cleaner’s with the winter clothes. The Marshal himself disliked the business because a chilly, rainy spell invariably set in as soon as it was done, necessitating the search for parcelled-up sweaters and an ensuing stink of mothballs.

He was about to comment on this prematurity but stopped himself in time. The wardrobes lining all the walls of the room surely accommodated four seasons, the changeover being a question chiefly of the restricted space that went with a restricted income. The thought also crossed his mind that, pessimistic as the daughter always seemed to be, she was doing something of the sort on the assumption that her mother was unlikely to be with them before winter was over. In this she was probably right. She confirmed his idea by saying, as she moved a fur over to a pile of them at the end of the bed, ‘These may as well go into refrigeration since they’re hot being worn. And there’s a lot of stuff Olivia had been intending to take to the Red Cross shop and never found the time. I thought I ought to see to it.’

‘It’s very sensible of you to keep busy. The little dog seems to be keeping your brother and Mister Hines occupied.’

‘Oh yes, I know they’re fussing round her but she needs to be taken to the vet. I’ll take her tomorrow. What I wanted to talk to you about was this private detective from London. Have you met him?’

‘Once.’

‘What did you think of him?’

‘I… well, his Italian’s very good and he seems well informed.’

‘But what use is he?’

‘To us? None at all. He can only be useful to you in dealing with the kidnappers when the time comes.’

‘Excuse me, but aren’t you here to do that?’

‘Yes, I am. But I can’t prevent you—’

‘Me? My brother and Patrick! Have you any idea what he’s going to cost us?’

‘I don’t… It’s not something …’ Surely she wasn’t taking all that transparent white stuff to the Red Cross … hadn’t the maid said—

‘He’s costing a fortune. A four-star hotel, heavy daily expenses, and a fee you wouldn’t believe. I want you to speak to Leo and Patrick. I’ve been going through my mother’s private accounts so that I can deal with anything that comes up. She’s been pouring money into her business in the last year and we just can’t afford this waste. It is waste, given that you’re here, isn’t it? Surely we’ll need all the money we can manage to get together if we have to pay a ransom?’

‘That’s true but I don’t think I can—’

‘I want you to speak to them. They’ll have to agree that the ransom money’s more important. I read all those articles about kidnapping in the paper today. You need contacts, informers, phones tapped, men in disguise hidden out in the hills, not that fat creature with his greasy hair eating his head off at our expense in a first-class hotel. It’s true, isn’t it?’

Yes, Signorina, it’s true. But remember that all those things are being done for your mother anyway and that if Mister Hines and your brother feel more comfortable having this man here too, then they will cope better with the stress that’s yet to come. Try not to upset yourself over it. As long as, at the end of the day, you have your mother home, nothing else is of serious importance, now is it?’

‘He doesn’t even seem to be very intelligent. I’ve talked to him twice, and when I saw him this morning he couldn’t even remember my Christian name.’

The Marshal decided to excuse himself before his own intelligence was put to the test. He left her lifting and discarding evening dresses that glittered softly in the diffused light, none too sure of her name—though by now he’d written it down in his notebook—but very sure of one thing: Right though she was about the detective’s being superfluous, he had no intention of speaking to her brother about it. He couldn’t afford to alienate him.

His last call of the day was on his Captain. He found him out of sorts, as was to be expected, now that the powers that be had taken control of the case from him. A lesser man, and there were many such in the army, seeing himself deprived in advance of any credit should the case be solved, would tread water and turn his real attention to something he would get credit for. As it was, though his face was drawn and he sent for a glass of water to take a headache pill while the Marshal was with him, he didn’t even take this opportunity of getting his frustration off his chest. The Marshal wondered that he could even find time to receive him, never having understood the calming and supportive effect he had on his commanding officer. It was likely that, had the Captain properly understood it himself and tried to communicate it, the result would have been an uncomprehending stare. Their interdependence was as deep-rooted as it was unacknowledged.

The captain’s news, once the Marshal’s latest dog report had been made, was that his men were now working overtime on the whereabouts of all Puddu’s associates and, in particular, on any contacts he might have made in prison who could have given him information about the Brunamontis.

‘The workforce,’ said the Marshal. ‘I only glanced in there but I suppose you’ve …’

‘Clean as a whistle, all of them. Why? Do the family suspect something on those lines?’

‘No, no. I got the impression, just at a glance, you know, that they were very loyal and united ‘But?’

The Marshal examined the hat on his knees, his left shoe, the painting on the wall facing him. ‘There’s something The Captain restrained himself from prompting or questioning.

‘I don’t know. I felt right from the start that there was
something,
but I couldn’t quite … and then, you see, there was the business of the dogs and that—but of course it couldn’t be anything like that bothering me … No, you see, it was right from the start… “Her ladyship”, they called her, and it didn’t seem right to me. I’m not well up in these things—you’d know better—but would you think it the correct thing? To refer to the Contessa as “her ladyship” like that?’

‘I would say not, but—’

The Marshal went on, slow and inexorable as a steamroller. ‘And in that tone of voice. It was that bothered me more than anything.’

The Captain sat listening, turning a pen slowly between his fingers on the polished desk, well aware that Guarnaccia in this mood was only using him to bounce images off.

‘There’s something wrong,’ the Marshal declared at last, ‘something in the family but you can’t fault any of them individually—I’m including Hines.’

‘As family?’

‘Something the maid said. He and Olivia Birkett are lovers but he’s discreet. Some men might act like they owned the place. He’s in a hotel, though he spends the day there with the young people, sometimes with the detective chap, sometimes without.’

‘But you do feel they’re still cooperating? You’ve no worries there?’

“Yes and no. They’re not agreed between themselves, you see, so I do have to be careful not to be seen to take sides.’

Given the Marshal’s Sicilian background, the Captain had no worries on that score, but all he said was, ‘I’ve got a couple of men hidden up on Puddu’s territory on the lookout for feeders, changes of guard, and so on. Helicopters are going over tomorrow, though they’ll see nothing. Puddu’s an expert at his job.’