The Marshal and the Madwoman (10 page)

The gates of the asylum stood open and the tree-lined avenue was deserted and silent except for the chirping of birds. The Marshal began to wonder, as he drove past a tightly shuttered villa on his left, if he would end up finding nobody even here because it was August. He'd never had occasion to visit the place before but he knew, as everyone knew, that it was supposed to have closed down about ten years ago, according to a new law which abolished asylums. But he also knew, as not everyone did, that it was still operating for the benefit of such chronic patients as had nowhere to go.

He passed yet another deserted building. Had the patients been farmed out somewhere for a month? He was relieved to see a few cars parked outside the next villa and someone disappearing through the main door. He parked his car near the others, pushed his dark glasses under the dashboard and then got out and locked up.

'Hello.'

The Marshal looked about him, blinking, but he saw no one at first, unaccustomed to the sudden light.

'Hello.'

A tall, fat man was standing on the lawn in the shade of a big magnolia tree to the Marshal's right. He was dressed in a soiled white T-shirt and cotton trousers which left his enormous belly bare, and he was standing so still that it had been difficult to spot him right away.

'Hello,' he repeated.

'Good morning,' answered the Marshal.

'Hello. Hello.' Apparently satisfied, the fat man turned away and lowered his trousers, crouching to relieve himself in the grass.

The Marshal put his keys in his pocket and entered the building. The entrance hall was bare and the whitewashed walls badly scuffed. There was a porter's lodge on the right and he looked in at the window; the porter was buried in his newspaper. Rather than tapping on the glass, the Marshal knocked on the door and went in.

'Good morning. Marshal Guarnaccia's the name. I'd like a word with—'

But the porter had already jumped to his feet and picked up the telephone, saying as he dialled, 'I'll get you the archivist right away.'

'Archivist. . . ?' The Marshal frowned. 'It was the director I wanted.'

'Director? There's no director here—hello? Mannucci? They've sent somebody from the Carabinieri. I'll send him straight to you, shall I? Yes . ., Right.' He hung up. 'Mannucci's coming to fetch you himself. I can't leave the lodge unattended. You were quick about it, I must say.'

'What do you mean?'

'Mannucci sent for you, didn't he?'

'Nobody sent for me, as far as I know.'

'Well, that's a turn-up for the books. Here he is.'

A bustling, grey-haired man appeared at the lodge door. He had a pleasant face and very bright eyes but he was looking anxious.

'Ah, Marshal, good morning.' He shook the Marshal's hand briskly. 'You were very prompt. Come this way, will you.'

The Marshal made no protest but followed the archivist down a series of corridors to his office, where he was offered a chair in front of the desk. The area around this desk was a little island of colour and cheerfulness in a sea of grey. There were reproductions of paintings on the walls and a clutter of photographs and personal belongings on the desk, which gave a human touch in contrast to the otherwise unrelieved drabness of steel filing cabinets occupying the rest of the room. There was a stack of dusty old files on the floor labelled with spidery brown handwriting, looking even more depressing than the grey cabinets.

'A sort of hobby of mine,' Mannucci said, following the Marshal's glance. 'Those files there contain reports on deaths occurring in the asylum since it opened. I've reached the year 1919. I'm compiling a survey on the history of this place before it disappears altogether. But I'd better not get on my hobby-horse or I'll waste your entire day. I called you in, rightly or wrongly—'

'Just a minute,' interrupted the Marshal, 'before you go any further, I don't know who you called and why but I'm not here because of that. I'm here on my own account to make some inquiries concerning a case I'm looking into at the moment. Whoever you've called in will no doubt turn up in due course, but if you don't mind—'

The telephone rang.

'Excuse me . . . Speaking. Put him on . . . Yes, yes, he is. I'll pass him to you. It's for you.'

The Marshal took the receiver, puzzled. It was the lieutenant he'd called the night they found Clementina.

'I telephoned you at Pitti and they said you were on your way up there, though I don't know how you got on to this business by yourself.'

The Marshal was more puzzled than ever. 'I came here because of the . . . suicide case. It seems the woman was a patient here for some years and I thought they might be able to give me some information about her.'

'I see. Well, they called here about the same thing so I wanted to put you on to it. It seems somebody's been up there already making inquiries and they got suspicious.'

'When was this?'

'Yesterday afternoon. Apparently, the archivist you're with now had some doubts and told the man to come back this morning so as to give himself time to consult his colleagues. When the man didn't come back, he got worried and called us. I'll leave you to deal with things there, though I suppose I'd better give the Substitute Prosecutor a ring and let him know.'

'He won't be too pleased.'

'You think not? Why's that?'

'He's already annoyed that the paper was better informed than we were and now it looks as though if I'd at least read that article as soon as it came out I'd have got here before this mysterious visitor. No, he won't be pleased at all.'

'Hm. Well, if it makes you feel any better I hadn't read that article myself until I got the call from the asylum. Don't worry about it. Get on with things there and I'll see to the Prosecutor. I've worked with him before and it's not easy, I know.'

'Thanks.'

The Marshal hung up and sat back, looking at Mannucci.

'So, tell me all about it.'

'It was yesterday afternoon, 'Mannucci began, 'about three o'clock, I think, though I can't be exact to the minute.'

'It doesn't matter. Go on.'

'There was a knock at my door—well, I'll not waste your time with all the ins and outs and ifs and buts—what this chap wanted was the medical file of Anna Clementina Franci.'

'You didn't give it to him, I hope?'

'Certainly not. We don't give people's files out just like that. In certain cases the patient's family doctor can ask to consult it and in even rarer cases we let medical students doing research consult our files. On the other hand, we can release a photocopy of the file if the patient, after being released from here, supplies a written request for it. This man claimed to be a relation with authority to act for Anna Clementina Franci and he had the written request signed by her—don't worry, I still didn't give him what he wanted. It so happens that I heard about this woman's death even before it came out in the paper because I've got friends in that Quarter and I met them strolling round the centre that very evening. The wife and I usually go for a stroll after supper. She likes to look at the shop windows and since it's too hot to sleep anyway . . . So, as I was saying, we met up with these friends of ours and they were telling us how they'd seen a big crowd outside a house on their way out, and when they'd asked what was going on they were told that crazy Clementina had committed suicide.'

'Did they know her?'

'No. They're from the same Quarter but two squares away. They've got their own version of a crazy Clementina who writes slogans and insults on the walls inside their building, like a juvenile delinquent though she's pushing eighty. Anyway, I was pretty sure that this "crazy Clementina" was Anna Clementina Franci, so I rang the newspaper the minute I got back home. It was very late but they put me on to the journalist who was writing the thing up in a rush so it could go to press that night.'

'Excuse me, but why did you ring the paper?'

'To get publicity. That must sound odd to you but I'm always on the lookout for a chance to get this place named in the papers or on TV because, I can tell you, we can't go on much longer—I'm sorry . . . another hobby-horse of mine. I'll try to stick to the point. Suffice it to say that the journalist was very obliging. Despite the fact that he had already got his story together and was half way through writing it he let me convince him to do a different version, giving as much emphasis as possible to the plight of the mentally ill and the situation here. "No problem," he said to me. "To tell you the truth I don't give a monkey's what goes into the thing as long as it helps fill the paper. Just leave it to me." Of course I know only too well from experience that I've got more of a chance in the summer when there's not much news, which is why I jumped to it as soon as I heard. So when this character turned up with his written request for the file, I'd known since the night before that the woman was dead.'

'You think the thing was a forgery?'

'Not necessarily. It was dated before her death. Not that that proves anything, but I knew Anna Clementina Franci and I knew her signature—she was already a patient here when I took this job—so the first thing I did was to look into her file there and then and compare the signatures. I'm not a handwriting expert, of course, but it didn't look genuine to me, though it was like enough to have convinced me if she hadn't been dead.'

'You had her signature?'

'On her transfer documents—I'll explain in a minute.'

Was he always so energetic and enthusiastic or was it the novelty? To judge by his 'hobby-horses', the former, thought the Marshal. He seemed quite undaunted by an environment that would have reduced a less buoyant personality to tears.

'Now, the next thing I did, because for some reason, despite the plausible date and signature, I wasn't convinced—'

'Why weren't you, exactly?'

'Well, legally, I could have let him have a photocopy but, after all, the woman was dead so he wasn't intending to give it over to her. And if she had written the request, why had she? I mean, if she was intending to kill herself. . . there's no knowing, of course, but I got the impression that he was the one who wanted it. It went through my mind that if I should commit suicide after being a patient in here for years, maybe my family wouldn't want it publicized. But the harm was done in this case. It made no sense. Wouldn't you have thought it odd? So, I thought to myself, I'll get to the bottom of this because there's something fishy about it. I said to him, crafty as I am, that there was no difficulty, that I'd put the request through and a copy would be made and that he should come and pick it up this morning.'

'And he didn't come, is that right?'

'Not a sign of him. So I called you people, just to be on the safe side.'

'I'm very glad you did.' Was the Prosecutor right, after all, in thinking it would be better to let the true story out? It was lucky that the archivist was both quick-witted and cautious, but if he'd known it was a question of murder he might have managed to keep the man waiting and called the Carabinieri straight away . . . But what was he thinking of? Whoever the fellow was, he wouldn't have had the nerve to show his face here if it weren't that he thought he'd pulled off the suicide trick. I'm beginning to lose my grip, he thought, annoyed with himself. An impatient prosecutor and this wretched heat will be enough to make me mess things up good and proper if I don't keep calm.

'I even gave him an appointment for 9.30,' Mannucci said, 'to make it sound more convincing.'

'Is the file still here?'

'Of course. It's—you surely don't think he could have . . .'

'If he didn't come back,' the Marshal said, 'it might be because he caught on to your being suspicious, but more likely it was because he'd got what he wanted.'

'No!' Mannucci got up and went to one of the filing cabinets. 'No, I'm quite sure that when he left I closed the drawer and it was in its place—yes. Here it is.'

'Can I be permitted to see it?'

'Well...'

'I'd better tell you at this point—but please keep it to yourself—this woman didn't commit suicide, she was murdered. And the man you talked to yesterday might well have been the murderer.'

'In that case . . .' Mannucci came and sat down at his desk and opened the file. He was neither upset nor surprised at this piece of news. No doubt, after working many years in a place like this, nothing shocked him.

'If you feel you want to consult your superior first. . .' the Marshal began.

'There's nobody to consult in this place, Marshal. It runs itself as best it can. Surely you know that it's officially closed?'

'But somebody must run things. Isn't there at least some sort of administrator?'

'Certainly there's an administrator. He keeps a record of how many slices of meat we consume and how much we spend on laundry.'

'I see. Then perhaps the senior doctor.'

'We have no doctors, either. Not in residence. There are a number of doctors who each do a short spell of duty here each week. We have a few of our own nurses and some nuns, the few that remain—they once had a house here but since the place closed there are only a handful still with us. There used to be almost three thousand patients in here, Marshal, many of them chronically insane and many more without a soul to care for them, and then along comes some bright spark, full of fancy new ideas, and makes a law closing the asylums. All nice and tidy on paper. Once these places cease to exist it's that much easier to pretend the people who were in them no longer exist either!'

'Three thousand . . . but where did they all go?'

'According to popular rumour, home to their loving families who were waiting for them with open arms. In reality, we found homes for a few, a very few. A large part were transferred by their families to a private asylum run by the Church, and those of them who knew how to wangle it got the National Health to foot the bill. Short-term patients who used to be brought in here just the once, or who were in and out of here when they needed it, now go into the psychiatric wards of regular hospitals—and even those wards officially shouldn't exist, according to the new law. The psychiatric patients are supposed to be mixed in with the physically sick ones, but you tell me how that can be managed. The patients you see here now are the chronically insane who have nobody to retrieve them and dump them elsewhere. They'll be here until they die, with no director, no resident physician or psychiatrist, and precious little money even to keep the place decent because you don't get votes by pouring money into an asylum that everybody likes to think doesn't exist any more. That's how we get along here, Marshal, and if you want to know what it means in real terms I'll give you an example: last week a visiting doctor was kind enough to stay overnight because there wasn't a nurse available for night duty on one of the wards. That should give you an idea.'