The Marshal at the Villa Torrini (7 page)

'Perhaps he means it.'

'Hmph. And if it all goes badly?'

'I really don't think you should worry. I confess I felt the same way about him in that respect, but I have to admit that when things got difficult he stood by me.'

The Marshal stood up. He still looked unhappy.

'I shouldn't be taking up so much of your time.'

'I'll walk down with you. I have to go out anyway.' He rang for his adjutant and ordered a car.

They walked the polished monastic corridor in silence. Below them in the cloister a squad car was revving up. In the old refectory, which ran the length of the opposite wing, off-duty lads were playing table tennis.

On the stone staircase the Captain said, 'If it makes you feel any better, I remember him telling me that you were a good man, reliable.'

It didn't make the Marshal feel any better.

'The only thing that needs watching,' added the Captain, 'is the business of his being so friendly with the Torrini woman. No point in treading on anyone's toes if you can avoid it. There's a reception tomorrow night—the Mayor, the Prefect and so on. My colonel's going. He's the right sort and I'm sure he'll check which way the wind's blowing for me—where's your car?'

' I sent it back. Need a breath of fresh air.'

Walking back up Borgo Ognissanti, the Marshal realized that he did feel better—not about Fusarri, he couldn't do with Fusarri at any price—but about getting this investigation sorted out in normal terms. He was grateful for the advice the Captain had given him. He'd be even more grateful if the Captain had taken the whole business off his hands. You needed an officer, an educated man, to deal with someone like Forbes. Mind you, that was hardly an excuse for him, of all people, not to have thought of the woman being on a diet. Blast this tepid, sickly weather!

He had reached the Piazza Goldoni which opened on to the river bank and his eyes were streaming. He'd forgotten to put his dark glasses on. Damn! He paused under the statue to fish for them in his greatcoat pockets. He'd never gone and left them . . . No. They were there. The plump playwright looked politely the other way with a little smile on his face as the Marshal gave the glasses a polish with a clean white handkerchief and dabbed his eyes dry before putting them on.

He set out across the bridge. The Arno was brown and swollen from the recent rains. It wasn't that much of a pleasure, walking with so much traffic streaming past, and as for breathing fresh air—it was ninety per cent exhaust fumes. And the noise . . . someone was shouting above it.

'Glad to see you taking my advice! Hallo! Hallo!'

A Tyrolean hat had popped up at the level of his breast pocket, forcing him to back up against the parapet. At once he was surrounded by bobbing, smiling faces.

Signorina Müller's chipmunk teeth were in full festive view: 'Out for a stroll! Good! We haven't much time, ourselves. Got a minibus waiting over at the Excelsior car park to take us up to the Certosa. I suppose you've seen the Pontormo frescoes a hundred times or I'd invite you. This is Marshal Guarnaccia. Can't get him interested in silver, but he's very fond of paintings. He's at the Palazzo Pitti. Now: this is Professore Tomimoto of Kyoto University.'

In stunned silence the Marshal held out his hand.

Professore Tomimoto, ignoring it, bowed.

'And Professoressa Kametsu.'

The Marshal's hand wavered and withdrew.

Professoressa Kametsu bowed.

'And their students.' The students bowed and smiled.

'Delighted to see you getting some air, Marshal. How did you like the book?'

'Ah . . .'

'A brilliant writer. We shall miss her. Spoken to the girl?'

He had to think a moment before he got there. 'The daughter? No, not yet.'

'She should be here. Have to come to the funeral. You come back and see me. There are things I'd like to talk to you about. Must get on.'

She got on, stumping along on her heavily-shod feet. The professors and their students all bowed courteously and got on, too.

The Marshal, watching them go, thought that sometimes she must fall asleep during these outings, perhaps in front of a painting, perhaps even at the traffic lights, but that those polite people would never mention it.

He hadn't, he recalled, asked for any advice about Signorina Müller from the Captain who was always more dismayed by bullying old ladies than he was. Besides, he fancied he was beginning to like her. Before leaving the bridge, he gave a hopeful glance upriver in search of the purplish blue stripe that formed across the horizon when the mountain wind was on its way. Nothing. The ochres and reds of the Ponte Vecchio were muted, the hills beyond screened by mist. Well, as long as it arrived before he caught the 'flu. He'd been lucky up to now, he'd escaped with only a heavy cold at the end of November. Unconsciously, he quickened his pace as though to prevent the virus from catching up with him.

*

'Just don't imagine he's angry with you, even when that's the way it looks.'

The Marshal had left his young brigadier, Lorenzini, in charge of his office, and at five o'clock he was in there talking. The Marshal hesitated at the door, not sure whether he was on the phone or had somebody with him, not wanting to interrupt if he could help it. There was definitely somebody in there, but so quietly spoken he could only hear a faint murmur of distress without distinguishing the words.

Lorenzini sounded sympathetic. 'I know, I know, but it's nothing personal. He gets like that and there's no point in telling him because he doesn't hear, let alone answer.'

More murmurs of distress. The Marshal took his glasses out and gave them a rub before slipping them back into his pocket. A coffee wouldn't come amiss when Lorenzini had got rid of whoever was in there.

'I'm sure you have—and the other thing is, that when it passes off there's still no point in talking to him about it because he can't remember and wouldn't believe you. You just go about your business—and keep your eyes open because, however much he seems to be bumbling about . . . I was going to say he knows what he's doing, but of course he doesn't. Only he'll do it. And you might learn something even without the aid of the spoken word. And cheer up! It's better than being stuck inside all day, isn't it?'

A great talker, Lorenzini. Good at dealing with people, especially foreigners . . . knew a fair bit of English, too . . .

The Marshal showed his face at the duty room door.

'Everything all right?'

'Fine.' Di Nuccio was alone at the radio switchboard.

'Where's young Fara?'

'In with Lorenzini, won't be long.'

'Oh . . . ? Ah, here he is.'

Fara's face turned beet red when he saw the Marshal, who stepped back to let him into the duty room and at once turned away to talk to Lorenzini.

'Can you prepare a package for me for the Prosecutor's office while I get the paperwork done?'

'What size?'

'It's only a couple of capsules—oh, and put in this complete pack of them the chemist gave me. Save them a bit of time at the lab if they check against those—By the way, what's the matter with Fara? Not getting himself in any trouble, is he?'

'No, he just wanted a bit of advice . . . ' Lorenzini's eyes searched the Marshal's face and, finding it blank, felt free to add, 'Just feeling a bit homesick, really.'

'Well, he'll soon get over that—though I must say these boys these days don't look old enough to be here. That must be me getting old, mustn't it?'

'I'm afraid so.' Lorenzini smiled. 'It's happening to me, too, now, ever since we had our little boy. Must be paternal feeling at the root of it. The photos and house plan for the Torrini case have come, by the way, so if you can get through the reports we can have it all ready to go off by the time we shut shop.'

'If I
can get through them . . .'

He just about made it. He did the search report and the receipts for the passport and capsules first, and then opened the packet of photographs in the hope of seeing something he hadn't seen, noticing some detail he'd overlooked. There was nothing. The perfumed suds on the cold pink water, the sightless eye turned towards him just above the surface. His own hand was still in the first picture after they'd turned her. The broken glass embedded in her buttock: it hadn't killed her. Whatever it had contained, she hadn't drunk from it. Why was it underneath her, though? He tried to imagine dropping a glass into the bath and the glass breaking. Well, you'd get out, wouldn't you? You wouldn't sit there fishing for the pieces, you'd get up . . . and slip perhaps and cut yourself—and wouldn't you scream? Or faint . . . whichever you did you'd make some commotion and Forbes—Forbes wasn't drunk, not yet he wasn't. They'd just come in and Signora Torrini saw them. She'd have said—or would that come under the heading of speaking ill of the as good as dead? He'd have to ask her. One thing he could check in the meantime. He called the Medico-Legal Institute.

'No, I'm sorry, he's not. Can I be of any help? I'm his assistant . . . yes . . . yes, I did—no, there's no need, I remember quite well that the cuts were post-mortem— there was a fair bit of seepage, the cuts being on the underside and immersed in water, but nothing like the bleeding such deep wounds would have caused had she been alive. Anything else? Not at all.'

A dead end. The diet, then. The only person he could think of to ask about that was the Signora Torrini, but she didn't answer her phone though he let it ring and ring, knowing that it might take her a long time to get to it. Odd. He'd been under the impression that she didn't go out, though of course the famous Giorgio must occasionally show up and perhaps take her somewhere. Well, if that was the way it was he would ask Forbes himself at some point. The idea didn't please him. He was still of the opinion that he would rather anyone but himself asked Forbes anything. He allowed the Signorina Müller to cross his mind briefly and dismissed her from it. It would almost certainly be one of the things she did
not
think about. He could imagine her reaction: 'Diets!' and the instant removal of the conversation on to a higher plane.

There was nothing for it. He began to type.

On arrival at the scene the presence of a cadaver in the bathroom
of the habitation described in the enclosed plans was established
. . .

The thing was to cover yourself for all eventualities. Tongue between his teeth, two plump fingers picking out the letters, he wrote:

From the on the spot evidence obtained, at the present time, no
hypotheses of any specific crime emerge.
Reserving the right to communicate the results of my further
inquiries I enclose:
—
Death certificate.
—
Search report.
—
Sequestration report for two medicinal capsules.
—
Sequestration report for the passport of
FORBES JULIAN.
—
Photographic file.
—
Statements obtained from
TORRINI EUGENIA
and
MÜLLER ELISABETH.

'Marshal?' Lorenzini tapped and came in with the package as the Marshal put his signature to this report which listed everything and concluded nothing.

He accepted the small box tied up with string. 'Ask one of the lads for a lighter, would you?'

Lorenzini held up a black plastic lighter between two fingers. 'Done'.

'Ah. You go home, it's late. This can all be sent to the Prosecutor's office tomorrow. He'll hardly be there at this time.'

But the Marshal was wrong. As he let the hot red wax drop on to the string of the parcel, his phone rang.

'Damn!' Whoever it was had to wait until he had melted enough wax and had a hand free. It was Fusarri.

'Glad I caught you. I gather you've been at the Medico-Legal Institute. Bad news, eh?'

The Marshal, thinking it somewhat improper to give voice to the idea, said nothing. This only made Fusarri laugh. 'Now then, Marshal, don't tell me that a stomach containing a suitable mixture of alcohol and sleeping pills wouldn't have been as welcome to you as it would have been to me.'

No point in angering the man unnecessarily.

'Yes, sir. He would have said it was suicide, of course.'

'Of course. But better than nothing, which is what we've got now. You think he did it.'

'At present,' quoted the Marshal, referring unhappily to the report on his desk, 'no hypotheses of any specific crime—'

'Oof! We shall have to find one. Go and see him. Take his statement.'

'I thought perhaps that you—'

'No, no, no. You're the man for it.'

The Marshal's heart sank. Remembering just in time, he reached for the seal and pressed the State symbol and
Carabinieri Tuscan Region Palazzo Pitti Station
into the cooling red wax.

'Are you still there?'

'Yes, sir. I'll go tomorrow morning.'

'Excellent. I gather he's an intellectual type. He'd try to talk all over me. Pah! I don't think he'll be able to do that to you. Pity I can't be a fly on the wall for this meeting of two diametrically opposed minds, but there it is. Tell him I'm issuing a release order for the body. He can bury his wife.'

'And his passport . . . Should he ask, I mean.'

'Oh no! He's not getting that. Make the proper excuses, bureaucratic delays, everything under control, matter of days, all that stuff. By the way, there's money, I believe, quite a lot of it. I've had a solicitor round here—but don't you worry about that, I'll deal with it and inform you.'

'Thank you.'

Could it be that the Captain was right? That perhaps Fusarri—but no. 'Meeting of two minds!' He could only be making a joke of him.

'Not at all. It'll involve a few calls to England. Your talents are better employed elsewhere. You talk to Forbes. I rather think you'll frighten him.'

'I . . .
frighten?'

'Do you wear those dark glasses of yours all the time?'

'It's an allergy I have,' the Marshal defended himself, 'the sunlight hurts my eyes.' What the devil . . . ?

'Good, good.' He rang off.

It wasn't right. Somebody eccentric like that—it wasn't right. You needed serious men in this sort of business, men like Captain Maestrangelo. It just wasn't
right.