Some Bitter Taste (3 page)

‘Don’t imagine that I shall allow myself to be bullied. I shan’t.’

‘That’s the spirit, Signora. Why don’t you have a talk with your lawyer and tell him what I’ve told you.’

‘I will. I intend to make a number of calls immediately on my return home. I intend to defend my rights. I have more cards up my sleeve than these people know about. I am not weak, even when I feel weak.’

It could be, of course, that every word of her story was true and that she was cra2yjust the same. Things happen to crazy people as they do to everyone else. That last speech sounded like she rehearsed it to herself every day.

She seemed to him to be torn between her anxiety to get away and her anxiety to convince him. She jumped back to her earlier story as though reading his mind.

‘Whatever you may think, everything I’ve told you is true. That knife was lying right inside the front door.’

‘I see. And where’s your kitchen?’

‘Immediately off the hall, on the right as you go in—you’re not trying to suggest I dropped it there myself?’

‘I’m not trying to suggest anything. No, no. You don’t have a cat? Or a dog.’

‘No. I’ve always wanted a cat but until I’m more settled in life—what are you trying to say?’

‘Nothing, except that—’

‘Listen, there’s something else …’

‘If there’s anything else you can leave a note about it with the carabiniere. I’ll come and see you one afternoon this week when you’ve had time to talk to your lawyer.’ He took the carabiniere aside to say quietly, ‘Find out if she had her locks changed after her bag was stolen, will you? You know how it is with people living alone. They frighten themselves into hysterics and then you find out they haven’t taken the most obvious precautions.’

She was watching, trying to hear. As the carabiniere approached her she fixed the marshal with frightened eyes and said, ‘You’ll really come and see me as you promised?’

‘I’ll come.’

The marshal was late for lunch.

‘You’re late,’ Teresa said. ‘I’ll put some fresh pasta in. The boys have eaten your share.’

‘Where are they?’

‘In their room playing that new computer game.’

The fresh, buoyant postholiday feeling returned with the smells in the kitchen where Teresa was pinching big leaves of basil from a plant for his pasta. One of the rows and rows of bottled tomatoes was open on the marble worktop, and a crate of oranges and lemons, picked yesterday morning in Sicily, stood in one corner, their peel rough, their leaves smooth and shiny. The perfume filled the whole flat. The smell of his childhood. What was Teresa going on about?

“You’re not listening to me.’

‘What? Of course I am. No, I won’t try and learn their wretched computer games.’

He had tried once but Toto got more and more infuriated with him.

‘Oh, Dad!’

Giovanni had been more patient. He was a bit on the slow side himself and never won though he always wanted to play.

‘I’ve got better things to do with my time, and so should they have.’

‘It was your sister bought it for them.’

‘They couldn’t have talked Nunziata into buying a computer game if you hadn’t talked me into buying the wretched computer last Christmas “because they need it for their studies".’

He let the blips and yells coming from the bedroom say the rest. He knew very well that Teresa was trying to cover the noise by an unnecessary clattering of pans. The spaghetti slapped into the colander. While he stirred a lump of butter into the glistening sauce she started the washing up.

‘Aren’t you sitting down for a minute?’

‘I ate with the boys. You didn’t phone to say you’d be late.’

‘Couldn’t interrupt.’ He hated it when she washed up instead of talking to him.

‘Well, neither can I. I’ve another two wash loads to do, not to mention all the ironing. I don’t know which is more work, leaving or coming home. Besides, there’s no point in talking to you when you’re in this mood.’

‘What mood?’

‘This mood. If you ask me, you won’t play with them because you’re too slow and Toto loses his patience with you, like anybody would.’

And wasn’t that what he’d just said? He was offended and not all that sorry to have to drink off an espresso standing at the sink and go back early to the queue of people he’d sent home in the morning. He nodded to them all as he passed through the waiting room to his office, muttering, as he closed the door behind him on his equivalent of the holiday washing and ironing, ‘I don’t know which is worse, setting off or coming back.’

In the end, Teresa got her workload back to normal within three days. On the fourth day he was just beginning to see over the top of his.

A girl from Brescia, worried to tears: ‘It’s the keys I’m worried about. I feel such a fool.’

‘No, no … Signorina, you mustn’t worry so much. If you say your friends’ son can be contacted and a new set of keys made—’

‘But the locks will all have to be changed! They’ll never let me stay in their house again after this, I know they won’t.’

‘It wasn’t your fault, Signorina. These bag snatchers are very fast. Now, try and remember: You said you were in Piazza del Carmine. Was it a moped or a scooter?’

‘A scooter, dark blue.’

‘Was he wearing a helmet?’

‘Yes, he was. That was dark blue as well, with white zigzags on it, like lightning.’

Blast that boy. As if his mother, fighting a losing batde against cancer, hadn’t troubles enough.

Domestic violence. A regular customer, immense, with lap-dog: ’Yap! Yap yap yap!’

‘Baby! Poor Baby. Hush now, it’s all right.’

‘Yap yap!’

‘Did you call your lawyer?’

‘Of course I did. She said the case won’t come before the judge until September. She says I shouldn’t let him into the house in the meantime. You’ve no idea how violent he is.’

‘I do know how violent he is, Signora. You called me out a number of times if you remember—’

‘That was before I asked for the separation. You’ve no idea—’

‘Yap yap yap yap yap! Grrr.’

‘You know, I don’t think she likes your uniform.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Shh … nice man, he’s a nice man. Look, he’s going to stroke you.’

‘Not on the desk, Signora, if you don’t mind. Keep the dog on your knee. And if your lawyer told you not to let him in, why did you?’

‘Because Baby won’t eat her dinner if he’s not there.’

‘Yap!’

A man of seventy-odd, stiff with rage: ‘You and I understand each other! I did my military service in the cavalry, I don’t know if I mentioned that.’

‘Yes, I think you did.’

‘A missing streedight is an invitation to a mugger. I’ve written to the mayor but he hasn’t deigned to answer so I’ll leave the matter in your hands. You’re a man of good sense.’

‘Thank you.’

A stolen bicycle: ‘Worth nothing so why steal it? That’s what I don’t understand.’

‘You’re sure it wasn’t street-cleaning night? You should check that the municipal police haven’t picked it up.’

A woman whose top-floor neighbour spent his evenings leaning out of the window, smoking: ‘With
my
patio as his ashtray. I’ve put a nice bit of matting down and what’s going to happen if it catches fire?’

‘Ah, ignorance, Signora, ignorance is an ugly beast. You tell him I know all about it, that should do the trick. If it doesn’t I’ll come round.’

The cat-shooter girl: “There must be something you can do.’

‘Yes, but we’ve already done it.’

‘I just can’t believe it.’

‘But there it is.’

She lived in one of the little terraced houses down near the Ponte alia Vittoria, and one of her neighbours, she couldn’t distinguish which, was regularly taking potshots at the local cats from his bedroom window with a shotgun.’
And there’s an elementary school playground immediately beyond our little gardens! What if he hits a child? All you have to do is check which person in the street has a shotgun.’
So they had and it turned out that the young lady was the only person in the row who didn’t have a shotgun.

‘They all have regular licences, Signorina. If you could lean out a bit farther when the shooting starts perhaps you could manage to work out which house it is. Otherwise …’

‘He shot two yesterday. One dead and the other with its spine full of shot. I found it and brought it in but it’s paralysed and I know I’ll have to have it put down.’

Another cat. This one lost: ‘Didn’t settle, you see. They don’t, do they, in a new house? She must have got over the wall into the Boboli Gardens so, with you being right on the spot here, I thought I’d leave you a photograph—you can’t mistake that black patch on her knee. I suppose your men patrol the gardens?’

‘No, no, they don’t. If you give the photo to one of the gardeners—they feed all the cats in there twice a day—I’m sure they’ll find her for you.’

A stolen camera, mimed:
'Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

‘Lorenzini!’

Nevertheless, when at half past five that afternoon he opened the windows and the outer shutters and turned off the light, he was able to congratulate himself since it looked as though he might just clear the backlog this evening. But wasn’t there something he’d forgotten, somewhere he’d said he’d go this week? Later, as he was writing up the duty sheet for the next day it was still nagging at him. As he finished it, he remembered: the woman with the postcard. It wasn’t urgent but he had promised her he’d go this week. If he didn’t turn up she would be more frightened than ever because his reassurance had been false. He stood up and got his jacket from behind the door. The phone rang. Captain Maestrangelo at HQ.

‘There’s been a burglary at the Villa L’Uliveto, Sir Christopher Wrothesly’s place up behind the Piazzale Michelangelo … Pian dei Giulari, so it’s on your territory. Small stuff, I gather, but you ought to go up there so I’ll pick you up in ten minutes. You’ve nothing on you can’t leave?’

‘No, no.’

The marshal buttoned his jacket and went to look in at the duty room door. ‘Lorenzini?’

‘Marshal?’

‘I have to go out. If there’s anything, you can reach me through Captain Maestrangelo’s car. Minor robbery. Nothing interesting.’

Lorenzini looked sceptical. ‘When did the captain ever leave his desk for a robbery, minor or otherwise?’

‘Oh, important foreign resident. Bit of pressure to make a show, I suppose.’

‘Hm.’

‘You might finish the duty sheet.’ Even so, thought the marshal as he locked up behind himself and stumped unwillingly down the stairs towards the furnace of the outdoor world, pressure wouldn’t account for it. A personal favour maybe, but the captain …

Then he was outside on the gravel and the still-burning sun plus the stored heat coming from the great stones of the Pitti Palace overpowered him and melted down all thoughts beyond self-defence. He fished for his handkerchief and sunglasses and shifted from fiery exposure to simmering shade.

Three

H
eat and silence. Too hot even for the birds to sing. And the rhythmic sawing of crickets only accentuated the stillness. Captain Maestrangelo and the marshal stood waiting by the smaller door on the left as instructed by the lodge keeper, who had opened up for the car and pointed the way along the cypress alley. A double-sided staircase led up to the central doors giving on to the first floor in the style of the Medici country houses. This one had been built by a banking family of almost equal fame. The captain gazed up at the balustrade, where statues and urns were silhouetted against a pale, vapourous sky. The marshal was looking down to his right at the layer of sulphurous filth that indicated the city. It was impossible not to feel pity for Florence, lying there beautiful and defenceless, unable to cough up the smog that was rotting and choking it.

‘Until you come up to a place like this you don’t realise …,’ murmured the captain, gazing up in admiration.

‘That’s true,’ sighed the marshal, gazing down in dismay.

‘I’m so sorry to keep you waiting. Please forgive me. Come this way.’ The man who opened the door was Jeremy Porteous, Sir Christopher’s secretary. When they introduced themselves he shook hands first, attentively, with the higher-ranking officer and briefly, without eye contact, with the marshal. They followed him into the coolness of a circular hall with a silent fountain at its centre. The marshal, taking off his dark glasses and trying to refocus in the dim light, only had time to glimpse a curving stone staircase and part of the pattern of a mosaic floor. They crossed a corridor where a feeble lightbulb in an elaborate chandelier made only itself visible and then reached a spacious room, where a stronger bulb illuminated plain painted cupboards and a big square table, obviously part of the kitchen offices. Here Porteous stopped and faced them, saying, ‘Sir Christopher will receive you in the garden. I feel I ought to warn you that he is not well and that anything in the nature of a shock could be very dangerous for him.’

‘Does he know about the burglary?’ the captain asked.

‘He does … but … we all feel that if possible we should not have him think that any member of his permanent staff could be involved. That would distress him a great deal more than the robbery itself—especially in the case of one young person—any disappointment in that quarter … So that, whatever your conclusions might be, we’d be grateful if you’d confide them to us in the first place. I’m sure you understand me.’

Are you indeed? And who’s ‘we’? The marshal already disliked this man. A handshake can tell you a lot. Not that it was limp, or damp, for that matter. It was too … elegant, somehow, and a bit too warm and clingy for the marshal’s taste. And watching him now, as he gave careful instructions to the captain, he was altogether too nice-looking and, though he was tall and thin and his nose was sharp at the end, everything else about him was soft. Soft skin; soft greying dark hair; soft floppy suit, silk presumably; soft, delicate voice. And the perfume. The marshal took a small step back. His presence was irrelevant anyway. Porteous spoke exclusively to the captain.

‘It was, as I said, a very tiny stroke—he remained confused for two or three days, couldn’t read or tell the time or remember what he’d just said—but he was quite aware of his condition and it was very frightening for him.’