The Marshal's Own Case (3 page)

‘Thinking what?’

‘If it were one of our boys. Just vanishing like that in another city, how we’d feel . . .’

‘All right,’ he said more kindly, ‘I’ll see what I can find out.’

‘Perhaps I should have waited until tomorrow to ask you. You’ve had a long day and one lost child’s enough to be going on with. I must say it made me wish we had a little girl—though I should say she was a bit of a handful. Her mother didn’t seem to be able to cope with her at all. “Fat right up to the sky”!’

‘What?’

‘That was how she described you.’

‘Hmph.’

‘Such pretty hair.’

‘She wasn’t the first today either. Lost children, I mean. I had a woman in looking for her forty-five-year-old son. Unpleasant sort, too. If her son’s anything like her . . . Still . . .’ He got up and turned up the sound again, ready for the late news. ‘Takes all sorts to make a world . . .’

It was about to be brought home to him just how true that was.

Two

H
e was standing with his back to a low stone wall gazing down at the scene before him. The grassy slope, littered with illegally dumped rubbish, ended where an olive grove began and, far below that, the jumbled red roofs of the city spread along the Arno valley with the dome and bell-tower of the cathedral rising in the centre. A blood-red autumn sunset was reflected in glimpses of the river. Had he taken his dark glasses off the sky would have appeared pinker and less ominous, but the Marshal never did take his glasses off until the sun went down because sunlight made his eyes water copiously. So he stood there, a large black figure in a sea of green, watching. He was hungry, but what Bruno had found he had found just before lunch and they would be lucky if they discovered the rest of it before supper.

Bruno himself, unlike the Marshal, was never still for a moment. He darted from the orange-and-green clad group of municipal refuse workers to the line of dog-handlers working their way down the slope, then back again, talking and gesticulating. Lorenzini, who had been on patrol with him, had disappeared. Perhaps he was up on the road behind the wall where the ambulance was waiting and the Public Prosecutor was talking quietly to the doctor. The Marshal could hear their voices on the calm evening air. If any spectators were still hanging around they were as silent as the Marshal. Once or twice he glanced down at the contents of two polythene bags lying on a rubber sheet beside him and then his gaze would drift again to the city below. He reckoned he must be almost directly behind his office in the Pitti. A part of the palace was visible through the trees of the Boboli Gardens. He wondered about Bruno. You’d have thought a boy of his age—he was only just nineteen—would have stayed on the sidelines, or even gone off to hide himself and been sick, but not Bruno. He was climbing up towards the Marshal now, a little breathless from his exertions, his eyes bright with excitement.

‘They’re beginning to think there can’t be any more of it here or else the dogs would have traced it by now.’

‘Hmph.’

‘You don’t agree?’

‘Maybe.’

Bruno, too, looked down at the plastic bags but his face registered nothing more than puzzled disappointment.

Lorenzini had called the Marshal at eleven-fifty but he was on the line to Headquarters at Borgo Ognissanti and so he was kept waiting while the Marshal waited in his turn.

‘Got anything?’

‘Nothing yet.’ The man at the other end of the line had fed the name of the missing boy from Syracuse into the computer terminal and was awaiting the response. ‘Here it comes . . .’ The Marshal could hear the computer spurt out a brief reply and then stop.

‘Well?’

‘Nothing. No convictions. Anything else I can do for you?’

‘No. Thanks, anyway. I’d better check the hospitals but I can do that myself. I’ve nothing much on this morning.’

But then Lorenzini’s call came through.

‘I wish I could talk to the doctor,’ Bruno said. ‘Do you think—’

‘No,’ the Marshal said, for once not at a loss for a reply to the boy.

‘I suppose not.’ He was still staring down at the transparent bags. ‘I heard what he said, though, to the Prosecutor, about the breasts. It’s a very young woman.’

‘Yes.’

Bruno crouched down suddenly, peering at the other bag.

‘Did you notice? Her nail varnish is freshly done, not cracked or anything. Do you think that’s important?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘If only we could find the head. Do you think it was done by a maniac?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But the doctor said he thought it had probably been done with a saw! It could be a maniac.’

‘Yes.’

‘What will we do next?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Unless we’re asked to do some auxiliary work on the case. It’ll be taken over by Headquarters once I’ve given in my report.’

Bruno looked crestfallen. ‘It would be really something, to work on a case like this. Good experience for me. If only I could be the one to find the head.’

And in the event he was. The dogs were moving in a line down the slope and the handlers didn’t want Bruno in the way, so he joined the municipal workers who were up on the road on their way to the next blue and white skip. When they started to empty it, he was the one to spot the strands of long dark hair flowing out of a split in a rubbish bag.

The upper part of the trunk, a forearm and hand, now the head. They never found the rest. It was doubtful whether they would have found anything at all if the residents of the houses along the road facing hadn’t been complaining for weeks about the illegal dumping of rubbish over that wall. The municipal workers had finally turned up that morning to clear the field and Bruno, who’d been driving the patrol car, insisted on stopping to see what they were doing because their truck was causing an obstruction. A battered suitcase had burst as they threw it in the back along with some mattress springs and a broken chair and Bruno had seen the hand poking out with its red-varnished nails.

It was already dark when they got back. Bruno was still chattering excitedly with no thought in his head of two missed meals. The Marshal’s stomach was rumbling, but he switched the light on in his office and telephoned his commanding officer whom he disturbed at supper in his quarters at Borgo Ognissanti across the river.

‘Captain . . . Ah, you’ve heard. Yes, a young woman. No clothing, no identity papers. Can you wait until tomorrow morning for a written report or . . . Thank you, sir. No, nobody missing in my district that I know of.’

And that was that. He went through to his quarters where the boys had already gone to bed. Teresa was in the kitchen, washing up.

‘I’ve saved you some supper as I don’t suppose you’ve had chance to eat anything. Di Nuccio said—’

‘I need a shower.’

‘Well, there should be plenty of hot water. The boys had theirs before they ate.’

When he came back he was in pyjamas and dressing-gown. Teresa waited a while to see if he intended telling her about what had happened but he sat at the kitchen table forking up risotto in silence.

‘It must be a bit spoilt. I wouldn’t have made risotto if I’d known you were going to be so late.’

Nothing. Only after a moment did he rouse himself to think of saying, ‘It’s all right. It’s good. Is there another piece of bread?’

She knew better than to force matters. He told her most things sooner or later. In any case, there was something she had to tell him.

‘I hope you won’t have to be late tomorrow night. There’s parents’ night at school and it starts at half past six. Do you think you can get away?’

He poured himself half a glass of wine. ‘You can go, can’t you?’

‘Of course, but the thing is, Totò’s class teacher telephoned at lunch-time. She specially wants to talk to both of us.’

‘What for? Is something wrong?’

‘She didn’t want to say over the phone, but you know Totò always has more difficulties than Giovanni. In any case, if she went to the trouble to telephone me specially I think we should make the effort. Of course, if you can’t get away because you’ve got something particular on—’

‘No, no. I can leave Lorenzini in charge for an hour.’

And she had to be content with that.

Only when they were in bed and she had switched off the lamp did he offer, ‘I checked up on the Luciano boy—what’s his name . . .’

‘Enrico.’

‘Hm. He’s had no trouble with the police.’

‘Well, that’s something. I could call his mother tomorrow and tell her.’

‘Wait till the evening. I meant to check the hospitals but I haven’t had a minute. What was the last address they had for him?’

‘I can’t remember off hand but it’s somewhere in the Santa Croce area. I’ve written it on the pad by the phone.’

‘I might go round there and take a look . . .’

He was still pretty well convinced that the boy had simply had enough of his family, but the day’s events had brought it home to him that the nightmarish dreads that assail us all about our children at one time or another sometimes become reality. After all, the three pieces in plastic bags now lying in a refrigerated drawer at the Medico-Legal Institute were once somebody’s daughter.

The next day was as beautiful, as calmly sunny, as the last. If it didn’t start raining soon there would be a water shortage. It was already being talked about after such a long dry summer. Perfect for the wine-growers who had got in their harvest and were already proclaiming a first-class vintage. The weather would surely break by the end of the month and, in the meantime, the Marshal for one decided to make the most of a fine afternoon and walk over to Santa Croce, the address of the Luciano boy tucked into his top pocket. If he turned out to be still there it would be enough to have a short talk with him, suggest he let his mother know he was alive and well and leave it at that.

Santa Croce wasn’t an area he knew particularly well. It was on the other side of the river and off his beat. His intention was to cross the Ponte Vecchio but as he approached it he saw a gesticulating knot of people blocking the way. It looked as if the ‘Wannabuys’ were in trouble again. These unfortunates were always in trouble with somebody. They were West Africans who sold their trinkets, belts and bags on the pavements of the city and had been christened ‘Wannabuys’ by the Florentines because ‘wanna buy?’ was about the only thing they knew how to say. It wasn’t as though they even earned enough to eat, since the vicious organization behind them took most of what they earned. They had trouble enough with the police because they were both illegal immigrants and unlicensed traders, but their worst enemies were the Florentine shopkeepers who saw themselves as the real victims of the situation. This time it was the jewellers whose shops lined the bridge who were complaining. Doing more than complaining, it seemed, as the Marshal drew near. It sounded like one of the jewellers had come out of his shop and assaulted a ‘Wannabuy’. The tall white helmets of two municipal policemen were visible in the middle of the violently quarrelling group but they were having no success in dispersing it. An enraged jeweller was shouting: ‘If you don’t do your job we have to do it for you. Do you know the rates we pay to trade on this bridge? And if I find that shit outside my door again with his junk blocking the way for my customers I’ll kick his backside again, do you hear me!’ The assaulted ‘Wannabuy’ was weeping. The others clustered round trying to defend him, their distress more comprehensible than their Italian. The Marshal squeezed past the group and pushed his way through the silently gaping tourists who couldn’t understand what was happening but weren’t going to miss it anyway.

What sort of unthinkable situation did the ‘Wannabuys’ escape from in their own country that could induce them to tolerate their life here? Had they left families behind who believed they were making their fortune?

The Marshal crossed the Piazza della Signoria, which was a mass of scaffolding and fenced-in excavations, and made for the church of Santa Croce. There, he had to stop and ask for directions. The street he was looking for turned out to be a very short and narrow one where washing dripped on his head and not a tourist was in sight. Someone was playing the saxophone. There was no Luciano on any of the doorbells but that didn’t mean much. He pressed a bell at random at No. 5. The saxophone music stopped and presently a head appeared at a first-floor window.

‘What’s up?’

‘I’m looking for someone.’

‘Not me, I hope?’

‘Luciano.’

‘Not me.’ The head vanished and the music resumed.

The Marshal rang again and the head reappeared.

‘Now what’s up?’

‘Come down a minute, will you, or let me in?’

‘You’ll have to come up. I’m not dressed.’

The Marshal waited and soon the street door clicked open. The narrow staircase was lit by one weak light-bulb and the walls were peeling with damp. The door to the first-floor flat on the left was ajar and the Marshal pushed it open and went in. The small bare room was bursting with music from the rippling saxophone and the face of the young man blowing it looked on the point of bursting too. He ended on a high note with a flourish and grinned. His face was young and round and sunny, his head surrounded by a halo of brown corkscrew curls.

‘Have the chair,’ he said. There was only one. The Marshal looked around him. Apart from the chair there was a truckle-bed and a small battered table. There were clothes strewn on the floor, a coffee cup and an overflowing ashtray on the window-sill. The young man wore torn white pyjamas.

‘It’s not much, and I can’t even say it’s my own because I’ve only got it for a month while the person who lives here is away.’

‘The person who lives here isn’t a boy called Luciano, by any chance?’

‘It’s a girl. Why don’t you sit down?’

‘No, no . . .’ He doubted whether the frail wooden chair, pricked with woodworm, would bear his considerable weight. ‘I’m trying to trace a boy called Enrico Luciano—he’s not in any trouble. His mother hasn’t heard from him and just wants to know if he’s alive and well. This was the last address she had.’

‘Ah, mothers!’ He laid the saxophone on the bed as gently as if it had been a child and sat astride the little chair himself. ‘I call my mother in Salerno every week, otherwise she’d be up here banging on the door.’

‘In that case you know what I mean. Do you know the other tenants in this house?’

‘By sight, but apart from me they’re all families except for an old pensioner on the top floor. He never goes out because he can’t get down the stairs. The woman in the flat next to his does his shopping but I sometimes fetch him a packet of fags when he’s run out. He lets a basket down as far as my window and we have a natter. He enjoys the music, says it cheers him up. Nice, that. Some people grumble because I play most of the day.’

‘You’re a professional musician?’

‘You could call it that!’ His round smiling face had such a cheerful pink shine on it that it was easy to believe he cheered up the housebound top-floor tenant. ‘I play in clubs when I can, and when I can’t I go out and play in the streets. Florence is a good outdoor theatre, made for it. I’ll stay if I can find somewhere to live . . . Listen, Mirella—that’s the real tenant of this flat—has only had it for about six months. She might have got it from this what’s-his-name. If you want, I’ll ask her when she gets back. It’ll be a month, though.’