Some Bitter Taste (7 page)

‘Did she mention where she’d been?’

‘Yes, to her brother’s. She sometimes visited him for an hour or so in the afternoon, more often lately, I think.’

‘Did she ever mention his name?’

‘Not that I recall, no.’

‘Did he ever come here?’

‘I couldn’t say. I never saw him. But what I wanted to tell you was that we’d no sooner got in and shut our door than the phone rang. It was Signora Hirsch in an absolute panic, saying there’d been somebody in her flat. It wasn’t the first time. My husband went down and when he didn’t come back right away I followed him. She was in a terrible state. I asked her if there was something she could take to calm her down. I’ve always noticed that she takes the stairs very slowly and wondered if there wasn’t something … Anyway she took some medicine but she wouldn’t go to bed, saying she preferred to be on the living room sofa with the television for company. I advised her to go and see you as soon as possible and she promised she would. I never saw her again.’

‘And you haven’t seen anyone, any stranger, on the staircase recendy?’

‘No, never. The flat just below us is empty at the moment and there’s very little movement in this building other than Signor Rinaldi’s furniture being shifted between the shop and his first-floor flat, where he sometimes stores things because he’s so short of space. I’ve certainly never noticed any strangers on the stairs or hanging about on the second-floor landing.’

The marshal looked at his watch. ‘I suppose I’ll find this Rinaldi in his shop at this hour.’

‘No, not today. When I saw him and we were talking about calling the carabinieri, he was on his way out. He works alone, you see, so when he goes out buying or visiting the antique fairs he has to close the shop except very occasionally when he finds someone to look after the place for him. There’s no one there today.’

‘I’ll have to come back, then. Now, what about when Signora Hirsch’s mother was alive? Did they have visitors then?”

‘Oh, that was well before we moved in. We’ve only been here a couple of years and I gather that this flat, like the one below, was on short lets before, usually to foreigners, people here for the academic year, that sort of thing. I know that because it was Signora Hirsch herself who said she was glad we’d taken the flat and that now she’d have permanent neighbours, a bit of company. What—I suppose I shouldn’t ask you but—I mean was I right about something being wrong with her? Was it her heart?’

‘I can’t tell you much. There’ll be an autopsy, but it will be in the papers so you’d better know now: It looks as though she was attacked.’

‘Attacked? You mean somebody really did get in? Was she murdered?’

‘We don’t know yet exactly what happened.’

‘But is it safe? I mean for Lisa? I’m sorry … it’s the shock, it’s only just sinking in.’ Her hands were shaking and she tried to cover her nervousness by affecting to tidy the sitting room, which was already tidy. ‘Perhaps you want to sit down … I have to sit down. Feel a bit odd. Sorry.’

She sank into an armchair and the marshal stood beside her, holding her shoulder steady with a large warm hand. ‘Will your husband be home soon?’

‘He never gets back before nine.’

‘Call him and tell him to come home. The little girl is in?’

‘She’s in her bedroom doing her homework.’

‘Well, you get on with whatever you would normally be doing.’

‘I should be getting supper on.’

‘Then do that. You have nothing to fear. The second-floor flat is full of people and I shall certainly be there until your husband gets home and will come up later to see that you’re all right.’

‘Thank you.’

As she let him out, a voice on the stairs below was calling, ‘Marshal? Is that you, Marshal? There’s something you’d better have a look at!’

He hurried down, hat in hand. The men in Hirsch’s flat were grouped round an open cupboard set in the left wall of the entrance. There was a coat rail in there but most of the outdoor coats which had hung there had fallen from their hangers. Whatever had taken up most of the space behind had been torn from the wall and the resulting mess of dust and plaster swept onto the piles of coats. A red-handled sweeping brush had been thrown in and had fallen out when the cupboard was opened.

‘Makes the scenario pretty clear,’ remarked the prosecutor, pointing at the gaping hole with his little cigar ‘By the look of it I’d say there was a safe there. They no doubt threatened her in the hope of learning the combination but she didn’t give it up.’ He glanced around him. ‘Wouldn’t have thought she possessed anything worth her life. Of course, you know more about the victim, Marshal.’

‘Not a lot…’

‘They’re still fingerprinting. Come out on the stairs. They’ve finished out there.’ When they were out he lowered his voice. T wish I could light up. Would be an improvement on the smell at least. Right, tell me all.’

The marshal told all, including the kitchen knife story, the postcard, and the smell of cigars. The prosecutor removed his, looked at it with a brief smile, and popped it back in his mouth. ‘Never mentioned a safe?’

‘No, but the top-floor neighbours might be able to help there. It won’t take a minute.’

‘I’ll accompany you.’

‘I don’t think … it’s a child, you see—might be a bit overawed by someone of your importance.’ If the prosecutor had doubts about what he really meant, the marshal felt sure that he would choose to think himself important rather than imagine he might not be too good with children. The prosecutor let him climb the stairs alone. Signora Rossi must have recovered her equilibrium because there was a good smell coming from the kitchen.

Lisa Rossi, looking up from her exercise books, looked and acted nearer fifteen than twelve but the marshal assumed that meant he was getting old. Her figure was light and pretty and only a thickly concealed rash of teenage spots indicated her immaturity. Pop stars stared sullenly from posters all over the walls of the tiny room. Soft toys sat in line on the single bed.

‘She’s a bit weird but I like her.’

‘In what way was she weird? Your mother has told you that she’s dead?’

‘She did but I forgot for a minute—I mean I liked her … do I have to do that?’

‘Do what?’

‘Talk about her like she doesn’t exist anymore. It doesn’t feel like she doesn’t exist anymore. I’ve never known anybody who died before.’

‘It’s all right. You don’t have to if you don’t want. As long as you remember her she does still exist in a way.’

‘My mum said robbers attacked her. She’s really upset.’

‘And what about you? Does it upset you?’

‘No. It just feels … weird.’

‘Weird like Signora Hirsch? Tell me why you think she was weird.’

‘Oh, I don’t know … like she was really old—like my gran. She never talks about now, always about things that happened years ago and people I’ve never heard of. I don’t mind, only she’s not that old, is she—I mean was she? She doesn’t look it, doesn’t wear old lady’s clothes and stuff.’

He’d had the same thought himself, hadn’t he? So perhaps it wasn’t just a question of her mother’s furnishings. ‘Lisa, can I sit on the end of your bed a minute?’ There was no room for more than her desk and chair and he didn’t want to loom over her.

‘All right.’

‘I’ve got something important to ask you. There’s a built-in cupboard in the entrance hall in Signora Hirsch’s flat and I need to know if you ever saw inside it.’

The girl hesitated, twining a strand of long fair hair round her finger. ‘Does a secret still count when somebody’s dead?’

‘It depends.’

‘So how do I know whether I can tell you?’

‘Don’t worry. You can tell me because if it’s the sort of secret that should be kept forever I’ll tell you and neither of us will ever tell anyone else. Telling me doesn’t count because of my job.’ She seemed like a twelve-year-old now, a little girl venturing into adulthood and then retreating.

‘There was a safe. She didn’t say so but I saw. She got some things out and showed them to me.’

‘What sort of things? Did they look valuable? Were they jewels, things like that?’

Lisa shrugged. ‘Old things. Candlesticks and some old books and clothes, stuff like that. Maybe they were her grandma’s. She never knew her grandma and grandpa but she talked about them all the time like old people do.’

‘And what about her brother? Did she talk about him?’

‘No. Only her grandparents and sometimes her mum and dad. There was a picture of her mum and dad in the safe and another picture of flowers. That was her secret, she said, having those pictures. Don’t you think that’s weird?’

‘It depends. Were the pictures paintings? Perhaps they were valuable.’

‘These were just old black-and-white photographs. So is it a real secret, or not?’

The marshal considered. He was never dishonest with children if he could help it.

‘I’m not quite sure. I promise you that when I find out I’ll tell you. In the meantime you keep the secret.’

‘Even from my mum and dad?’

‘Even from them. You have done up to now, haven’t you?’

‘Yes …’

‘You needn’t tell a lie. If they ask about it you can tell them I said to ask me. You’ve been a big help, Lisa, and I’m very grateful to you.’

He could see she was pleased and felt he could rely on her. On his way downstairs he heard the noise of journalists and press.

‘Is it true that her throat was slashed?’

‘Must have been in there for days judging by the stink.’

‘In this heat…’

‘Just one from outside the door showing the hall?’

‘Was the house ransacked?’

‘Just one of that cupboard—was there a safe?—’

‘Gentlemen, please.’ This prosecutor was quiet-spoken, very calm and very much in control. ‘We’re trying to remove a body here. If you’ll let me complete my business in peace I’ll give you a statement. Downstairs. Ah, Marshal. Have those carabinieri clear the staircase and the exit, will you? And don’t let the TV cameras up. They can film the body being loaded and that’s it.’

The story of the safe would get into the papers and no journalist would be so lacking in imagination as to invent contents for it as dull as old clothes and a few photographs.

Within twenty minutes or so the prosecutor emerged into the street and gave them a provisional date and time of death as established by the marshal, who had visited the building next door. Its second-floor occupants had been infuriated by the battering on the wall during the removal of the safe: ‘Apart from anything else, we were giving a dinner party that night—and since when do builders work till that hour? What was worse was that we thought they were going to knock right through. It happens with these old houses. Half past eight, anyway, give or take a few minutes. Is it true they slit her throat? I always said there was something funny … of course, she was a foreigner, wasn’t she? She had no accent but her name …’

The pathologistjoined the prosecutor and, unwisely in the marshal’s opinion, gave the press a statement which, while not giving a cause of death as such, admitted to the throat wound and considerable loss of blood, which had them all scribbling ‘Murdered woman’s throat slashed!’

Then the questions: Did the safe contain stolen jewellery she had never dared wear? Was it true she paid regular visits to a mysterious stranger who never returned her visits? Could it be the man was in prison, which would explain why she wouldn’t have wanted to tell anybody? They received no answers. They would quote their own questions and any more exotic ones they could think of to pad their articles for the next day’s paper, ending with the usual ‘Investigators are releasing no further information at present’

‘Oh, well,’ thought the marshal, in a philosophical mood as he climbed the slope towards his station in the left wing of the Pitti Palace, ‘only doing their job, I suppose.’ As he walked under the stone arch with its great lantern, which was now lit, he hoped his wife was also in a philosophical mood. He was late again, very late, and he hadn’t phoned.

//

‘The war on football hooligans: forty-five Fiorentina fans to be excluded from the stadium for the rest of the year—

‘The mayor on line: Work is to begin in the Clemente VII room in the Palazzo Vecchio, where the mayor will be in contact with citizens on their personal computers once a month from next October—

‘A woman bled to death in her own home after thieves slit her throat. The death is thought to have taken place four days ago—

‘Good evening. Those are the main headlines of our third edition of the
Regional News.
Now from the stadium here’s—’

‘Salva! Hurry up, your case is coming on!’

The marshal appeared after a moment, muffled in a white bathrobe, and stood near the sofa rubbing at his head with a big towel. Supper had already been spoiling when he got in so he’d had to wait for his shower.

‘Aren’t you going to sit down and watch it?’

‘There’ll be nothing much to see.’

‘Look! You see, now we’ve got a PC we’ll be able to contact the mayor.’

‘We haven’t got a PC, the boys have, and unless the mayor wants to play computer games with them I don’t think he’ll be hearing from them.’

‘Is that her they’re putting in the ambulance?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve read about these thieves who gas old people and rob them, but slitting her throat … Why do they keep saving ‘they’ anyway? How do they know it wasn’t just one person?’

‘A safe that size would be too heavy for one man to—’

‘There you are! Isn’t that you next to the ambulance? No, it’s not.’

‘Let’s go to bed.’

The first forty-eight hours following a murder are crucial. After that, witnesses are already jumbling times and dates, alibis have been set up, and borders crossed. Stories which might conflict are adjusted, phone calls are made, stained clothing destroyed. And anyone who in those first two days of limelight might want to take centre stage giving vital information shouldn’t be given time for second thoughts about getting involved. So, surely to God, the captain wouldn’t expect him to go trailing up to the Villa L’ Uliveto to waste time over a few trinkets?