The Marshal and the Madwoman (9 page)

'Don't worry,' Teresa said twenty minutes later, 'after all you've only got to ring the paper tomorrow morning and they'll give you a copy.'

Which was true. Even so, his curiosity had got the better of him. Where had they found the photograph when he had found none? It was usual for the journalists to ask the Carabinieri for a loan of one of the photos they found in the house in these cases. If that fellow Galli had found one while he was up there in the Marshal's absence and made off with it, there'd be trouble!

'What was it like, anyway,' he asked his wife. 'Did it look recent?'

'It must have been. I recognized her straight away.'

Their walk was ruined. He quite forgot that they had intended to stop and sit down for a while and his wife was almost trotting to keep up with his determined strides.

Nevertheless, out of habit, they were following their usual route, and it was when they were back on their own side of the river and passing the little garden where they often sat down to look at the view that the Marshal spotted a man in shirtsleeves seated on what they regarded as 'their' bench, reading the paper by lamplight. The Marshal turned in by the path.

'Salva,' whispered his wife, 'you're surely not going to . . .'

The man was a bit surprised but not too put out.

'Help yourself. Is it in the main paper or the local pages?'

'The local pages, I imagine.'

His wife kept her distance, too embarrassed to look.

When he rejoined her they walked on in silence until she became exasperated enough to say: 'Isn't that just like you!'

'What?'

'You drag me all over town looking for a newspaper photograph as though it were the only thing that mattered on this earth and when you find it you don't say a word!'

And he still didn't. He had nothing to say. The photograph had certainly been recent and it was a very good one, too, with a professional look about it as opposed to the usual blurred and formless look of the enlarged snapshots often used in such circumstances. But what was keeping him silent more than anything was that he was convinced he'd seen it before.

They were back at the Pitti Palace and turning in under the arch on the left to the barracks before she tried again.

'What about the article? Did you look at it?'

'No. How could I? I'll ring Galli tomorrow.'

She gave one of her ostentatious sighs and began: 'It's just like your mother always used to say . . .'

He fished for his keys as they climbed the stairs.

'You were the same as a child. She told me once . . .'

To the comforting background of this familiar speech, he went on searching his memory. Where had he seen that picture before?

CHAPTER 5

'No mystery about that, it was in our archives—if you want to phone back this afternoon Galli should be in. He's out on a story but he'll be here about three.'

'It doesn't matter, if you can tell me about it.'

T doubt if I can be that much help. Galli told me all about it the other night—I live just further down the road from Clementina and he was on his way to supper at my house that night. The supper was ruined but Galli got himself a scoop—not that he let me in on it until the next day, the bugger, but that's journalism for you.'

'Not much of a scoop, a suicide.'

'In August? Are you kidding? I gave two columns to the plight of abandoned animals in the city yesterday! You know the sort of thing . . . people who get a pet and as soon as the holidays come round they don't know what to do with it. They just throw them out to roam the streets. Anyway, as to Galli's scoop, he squeezed as much mileage out of it as he could and he even went through the archives just in case we had anything on her, found that photograph and slapped it in as padding. If you've seen it before it's because two summers ago, when we had the same problem of too much space and no news, we ran a series of articles— July, it was, if I remember rightly, not August. "Florentine characters" it was called. Well-known eccentrics, colourful characters of the Quarter, that sort of stuff. Each of us contributed a couple of short pieces based on our own neighbourhood. I did three of them, as a matter of fact, because San Frediano's full of characters like that. I did the old flower-seller who used to stand on the corner of Piazza Santo Spirito—he's dead now, run over by a bus, and then Torquato who sells a few vegetables and a lot of backchat on the market there. He's still going, you know who I mean?'

'Oh yes. He was there yesterday when I passed.'

'Well, and then I did Clementina, just for a laugh, really, and because I knew how much she'd enjoy having her photo taken. She liked attention.'

'So I've heard. And did she enjoy it?'

'I'll say. The whole square was in an uproar. They were falling about laughing at the way she posed for us and she was so insistent that we ended up taking twice as many shots as we needed. It's not bad, though, is it, the one we used? You have to admit she's photogenic—was, I should say.'

'You didn't give her a copy?'

'I don't know whether she ordered one or not—they have to be ordered and paid for. Our photographers are an independent firm though they're here in the same building, so anyone who wants a copy of a photo has to fill in one of their forms and pay for the print, and so on. I expect our Clementina just kept the one out of the paper.'

'I expect so. You don't know anything else about her, do you, given that you live so near?'

'Not really, except that it's a lot quieter at nights now she's no longer with us. She used to be shouting and creating until all hours. You'd do better to ask people who've lived there longer. I'd only been in the area a couple of months when I did that piece.'

'But to write that you must have talked to her, asked her some questions about herself.'

The young reporter burst out laughing. 'I tried to! But for all the good it did me I might as well not have bothered. She made up all sorts of rubbish. I remember one of the things she said was that she was going on a cruise for her summer holidays. One of the local chaps shouted "That's right, down the Arno!" This was out in the square, so of course everybody was standing round, joining in and taking the mickey out of her. Whoever made that crack about the river Arno got cracked himself, over the head with Clementina's sweeping brush—she never put it down, even for the photographer.'

'"Who's paying for your cruise?" one of the others shouted. "The Pope? Is that what you were ringing him up about?"

' "Not the Pope, though I might go and see him sometime. It's a man I know who's paying for me."

'"Eeh! Clementina, if you go away with another man it's all over between us." This chap tried to clasp her in his arms and she was struggling like mad to get her brush free and lay into him. But her face was pink and you could see she was delighted to be at the centre of attention. Then she stopped fighting and started giggling.

'"All right, then, maybe I won't go."

'"You go, Clementina, and we'll all come with you." Then they started singing to her. You can imagine how much useful material I got for my article. Afterwards, we had a drink in the bar there and I talked to a chap called Franco—I don't know if you've met him.'

'I've met him.'

'Well, anything useful I got, I got from him, and he'd been the one to come out and shut them all up because they were getting out of hand. So there you are ... I said I couldn't be much help to you.'

'Thanks, anyway.'

'If Galli had been here . . .'

'Never mind. It was really just the photograph that interested me for a particular reason. I won't keep you from your work any longer.'

The young man laughed again. 'If you really want to know, I'm trying to fill in time by tidying out my desk drawers. It's amazing the things you find when you're not looking for them.'

When he'd hung up, the Marshal sat staring at the photograph in yesterday's paper which he'd just begged from the park-keeper's office downstairs. His mind was a blank. Only a couple of weeks later, when the first faint breeze began to refresh the September air, was he to wonder at himself. Was it his innate stupidity or was it the heat that made the tiniest mental or physical effort seem huge? What, after all, would it have cost him to say Yes instead of No to the young reporter's suggestion that he talk to Galli? Looking back on it, nothing at all. And it would have saved a man's life. But at the moment, his brain, never a great force, felt like an overboiled cauliflower. The facts went in but then lay stagnating until it was too late. So he sat there, staring at Clementina's bright, excited eyes peering out at him over the handle of her sweeping brush, his mind, if you could call it that, rambling round and round on the same course. Why were there no photographs in her house? Why did she seem to have no past? It wasn't that they were the wrong questions. On the contrary, they were exactly the right questions, but he just went on asking them without finding any answers. He felt hot and weary and fed up with himself. That, as far as it went, was understandable, but that he could have sat gaping at that picture of Clementina without reading the article underneath was almost beyond belief, even for a man with his record of what his mother used to refer to as 'being asleep on his feet'.

The only piece of luck, if you could call it that, was his leaving the wretched thing there on the desk while he got on with some minor paperwork. Because of this he was able to save face when, half an hour later, the phone rang.

'Substitute Prosecutor for you, Marshal.'

'Put him on.'

'Guarnaccia? I've just read your report.'

The Marshal coughed and shuffled in his chair. 'I'm afraid there isn't much to go on at present.'

'I can see that,' snapped the Prosecutor. 'We'd cut a better figure all round if these journalists got their information from us instead of the other way round. I gather that's the situation since there's no mention of San Salvi in your report. If you did know anything about it I'd have appreciated your letting me know before the Press, whether you thought it relevant or not! Are you there?'

'Yes . . .' The Marshal was sliding the newspaper towards him, trying to open it without making any tell-tale rustling noise. Never had he been so grateful for being in receipt of such a long-winded roasting which went in one ear and out the other as his big eyes scanned the article until the words
San Salvi
jumped off the page at him, the name of the city's mental hospital. He went on reading until the Prosecutor ran out of steam and then said, 'It was the journalist who found out. There was something in their archives, which is where they found the photograph. I've already called the newspaper.'

'In that case, you might also have been good enough to call me, too, before this article was published.'

'I telephoned you yesterday but you weren't in,' the Marshal said, hoping the Prosecutor wouldn't inquire too closely into the sequence of these events.

'I see. Well, at least, first thing this morning then.'

'I thought I'd better look into it first. A newspaper is hardly a reliable source of information.' Not bad, that, for somebody asleep on his feet, and he was still reading the article.

'Ten years in San Salvi
. . .
released as a result of the new law
. . .
inadequate supervision . . . poverty . . . suicide . . . is this
the Ministry of Health of a civilized country . . .'

'I take it you're going up there, then?'

'Almost immediately.' Well, he hoped he could count on their not shutting for August, at any rate.

'In that case, get in touch with me as soon as you get back.'

'Of course.'

'I shall push for the postmortem to be done tomorrow. I don't see why August should be an excuse for the lackadaisical attitude one finds everywhere.' A remark obviously aimed at the Marshal's own deficiencies. Still, at least he was showing a bit of interest, which was unexpected.

'I may well decide to break the news of its being a murder tomorrow. It might bring in more information.'

'I wonder . . .' The Marshal tailed off uncertainly.

'What's that?'

'I was thinking that perhaps if we waited . . .'

'Waited for what? The paper's making altogether too much of this business and the chief public prosecutor wants it cleared up with no loose ends. I'm leaving for my holiday on September 4th so I'd appreciate a bit of effort on your part.'

A succinct enough explanation of his sudden interest.

'I'll do my best,' the Marshal said, 'and I'll be in touch the minute I have something from the asylum.'

This time, when he hung up, he read Galli's article with great care.

By eleven o'clock he was ready to pay a visit to San Salvi, but he only got as far as the stairs when Di Nuccio called him.

'Phone for you, Marshal. They say it's urgent.'

He went back to his office and picked up the receiver.

'Is that you, Marshal? I've got a bit of news for you.'

There was no need to ask who it was. There was no mistaking the calm, slow voice of Franco. As if well aware of this, the barman didn't bother to identify himself.

'Has something happened?' the Marshal asked him.

'No, but I've been chatting to my customers, like you said, and I've found out that somebody called on Clementina a bit ago, a stranger.'

'How long ago?'

'I can't tell you exactly but about a month. It's a long time ago, I suppose, for it to have anything to do with what happened. All the same, I thought I should tell you because nobody ever came to see her before.'

'You did right. Who was it told you?'

'The young woman who lives underneath her, when she came in this morning for a bottle of wine.'

'I see. They're back from Arezzo, then?'

'Late last night. You knew, did you, that they'd been to her mother's?'

'Yes, I did.' And it gave the Marshal a mild feeling of satisfaction to have known something without Franco's telling him. But then Franco took the edge off it by saying:

'That's right. Of course, you were ringing their bell yesterday, I remember Maria Pia saying.'

'Hmph . . . Did you get a description of this stranger?'

'How do you mean exactly?'

'Did this young woman—what's her name?'

'Signora Rossi.'

'This Signora Rossi. Did she tell you what the man looked like?'

'Oh yes. Every detail. She saw him on the stairs, you see, going up, and then she watched for him coming down and got a good look at him.'

'Why was she so interested that she watched for him coming down?' It was a habit of old people with nothing better to do than watch the goings-on of their neighbours but it seemed odd in a young woman. It was true, of course, that she'd been looking out the first time that the Marshal had gone up to Clementina's flat. 'Is she the nosey type?'

'No, I wouldn't say that.'

'Then why was she watching for him coming down?'

'I couldn't tell you . . .'

You won't tell me, thought the Marshal, but I'll find out.

'So what did he look like?'

'Well, she said he wasn't all that tall but he was big, stocky like, with a thick bull's neck. He was balding but not that old. She said he looked a real brute—oh, and that he walked with a limp.'

'Anything else? How was he dressed?'

'It was a wet day and he had some sort of dark raincoat on. Wait—she said he wore a very big ring with a jewel in it, size of a knuckle-duster. She said he gave her a fright.'

'Why? He was calling on Clementina, wasn't he?'

'Even so, he was in the building and he looked like a nasty specimen. Well, there it is. That's all. Nobody else seems to have seen him.'

'What time of day did he call?'

'Lunch-time. That's probably why nobody else saw him because everybody eats about the same time round here.'

'I see. I'm very grateful to you.'

'D'you think it might be him?'

'What do you mean?'

'Him. You know . . .' He lowered his already quiet voice to a whisper: 'Could it be him . . . who did it? Don't worry, I'm ringing from the flat, not down in the bar. I didn't want anybody listening in.'

'That was sensible of you. I'll be in touch.' And the Marshal hung up without answering Franco's question.

Whether it was 'him' or not, there was no saying. The Marshal was just as interested to know what the problem was with that couple downstairs. Well, it was something that would have to wait. He had a fractious prosecutor and the San Salvi story to deal with first. He went off down the stairs again, fishing for his dark glasses as he went, and this time nobody called him back. By the time his phone started ringing again, he was driving along the river bank and it was too late. Had he been there to answer, he'd only have had to make the same journey he was making now, and without knowing, even then, that it would only lead to a dead end.