The Marshal and the Madwoman (6 page)

'What?'

'She used to go for people with her brush, especially if they got in the way of her cleaning. She was fanatical about it.'

'My wife mentioned that, said she swept the whole square.'

'Swept it? She washed and polished it. She was forever down on her hands and knees. And I've seen her go out of a shop and take her receipt straight to the skips, struggling away to lift up those high lids—she was only small—despite her little bag of shopping and the inevitable sweeping brush that was always under her arm. What a case she was. She got much worse when it started going dark, sweeping and mopping as though her life depended on it.'

'Franco?' A woman appeared from somewhere at the back of the room. She was as large as Franco and just as placid and smiling. A big brooch decorated her dress on her ample breast and she was smoking a cigarette.

'My wife, Pina,' Franco said. Evidently there was no need for him to tell her who the Marshal was.

'Eeh, poor creature . . .'

The Marshal took this to be a comment on Clementina rather than a greeting to himself.

'I'll sit down a minute,' she went on with a sigh, 'my feet are swollen. The doctor says I should walk more but I don't know where he thinks I'm supposed to walk to or how I'm to find the time.' Her beringed fingers slapped a packet of cigarettes and a plastic lighter down on the formica table and she sank on to a chair that looked far too fragile for her. Franco started to get up.

'I'll get you a glass.'

'No. I don't want anything. What were you talking about? Clementina, I suppose.'

'About the way she cleaned the square,' Franco said, 'even at night.'

'She was a strange one all right.'

'Did she always have this mania?' the Marshal asked.

'As long as she's been here and that must be ten years— isn't it, Franco? You never know, maybe she got that way when she lost her husband. It takes some women funny.'

'When did she lose her husband?'

'I couldn't tell you. I'm only guessing she was a widow because she wore a wedding ring. It's funny, now you mention it, but although she always had plenty to say for herself in her own way, she never said a word about her past.' Pina took a long drag on her cigarette which was stained with bright red lipstick. 'You can see somebody every day and in the end you don't know that much about them. I do know she had a bit of a job up to not so long ago, though goodness knows who was good enough to give it to her.'

'What sort of job?'

'Cleaning, of course!' Pina laughed. 'I know it sounds like the ideal job for her, poor creature, but she had her own ideas about cleaning and they weren't everybody's. I wouldn't have wanted her cleaning my house, I can tell you.'

It was true that when the Marshal had been in Clementina's flat he had found it tidy enough but certainly not fresh and sparkling. He'd put it down to everything in it being so old but perhaps it hadn't been too clean, at all. There was all that fluff on top of the wardrobe . . .

'Somebody doing her a good turn,' Pina suggested, 'though I don't know who. She hadn't a soul in the world to care for her.'

'Where was this job?'

'Some sort of office, wasn't it, Franco?'

'That's right. Not far from here, near the river. I don't know the name of the place.'

'I ought to know,' Pina said, 'she mentioned it many a time when she was going there . . . What the devil was the name of it?'

The Marshal didn't urge her or insist on its importance because he knew that would make it harder to remember. He couldn't even be sure that it was important but he still felt that the murder had been an 'outside job', nothing to do with the people here in the square, and anything which connected Clementina with someone outside the area might be useful.

After racking her brains a while longer, Pina stubbed out her cigarette and heaved herself up from the small chair.

'I know who'll remember. Maria Pia! Pippo's wife,' she explained to the Marshal. 'You've met Pippo.'

'Yes, I've met Pippo.'

'Well, if anybody remembers it'll be her. She never forgets a name or a face. I'll give her a shout.'

'Now?'

'She won't be in bed. She never goes to bed before midnight.'

And Pina waddled slowly to the open doorway. The Marshal saw her pause there on the pavement. One of the men at the tables must have said something to her in an undertone. Whoever it was couldn't be seen from inside. Pina shrugged and murmured something of which the Marshal only caught the word 'Franco'. He looked across at the barman, who smiled and said, 'She won't be long. Do you mind if I leave you a minute and wash a few glasses? We can still talk.'

'Of course.'

They heard Pina outside calling up in the darkness.

'Maria Pia! Maria Pia!'

Shutters creaked and banged open.

'What's up?'

'Can you remember what the place was called where Clementina worked? That office?'

'Why?'

'The Marshal's here and he wants to know.'

'But she stopped going there a while ago.'

'It doesn't matter, he still wants to know.'

'Wait . . . it's on the tip of my tongue . . .'

Why did Franco, behind the bar, remind the Marshal of some sort of mechanical toy? He was so big and his bald head was so shiny . . . and now he wrapped a huge apron round his paunch—but it wasn't his shape that did it. . . That was it. It was because whether he was talking or silent, working or doing nothing at all, his large head bobbed slightly as if it were on a spring. It was that, along with his constant gentle smile, which made him look like a giant toy.

'There! I knew she'd be the one to ask.' Pina waddled back in, triumphant, and smiled at the Marshal. 'It's called "Italmoda". Something to do with the clothes trade but I don't know exactly what.'

'Did she work there long?'

'As long as I can remember. She always worked there, didn't she, Franco?'

'Ever since she moved here. Only three mornings a week, though.' Franco lifted a steaming wire basket of glasses out of the sink.

'Make me a camomile tea, love, while you're there. And then we might as well close, what d'you think?'

Franco only nodded and smiled. He dropped a camomile teabag into a white cup and held it under the boiling water spout.

'Don't close early on account of my being here,' said the Marshal placidly. How could he make them understand that he didn't want to disturb their normal habits without admitting that he had guessed what they amounted to? On the contrary, it was essential that things went on as usual, but there was no way he could openly say so. All he risked saying was, 'I'm not here to keep an eye on you, you know . . .'

If they started closing early, he would lose his best watchdogs. The best thing he could do might be to gain their confidence by taking them into his. He was pretty sure he could trust them not to gossip, and in any case, Franco had already said he knew it wasn't suicide. Their amiable solidity and their position of trust in the neighbourhood convinced him. Even afterwards, when the story got out with tragic consequences, it never crossed his mind to blame them. He remained convinced that he had done right in saying as he did: 'There's something I'd like to say to you in confidence, to both of you.'

He waited as Franco dried his hands and came back to the table with the teacup for his wife.

'Sit down a minute.' He glanced around him, but the television was flickering in front of empty chairs and no one was playing the computer game that was beeping somewhere out of sight. Everyone was outside, hoping for a whisper of cooler air that never came.

'Whose deal is it?'—'Mine. One more hand and I'm off to bed . . .'

The Marshal leaned forward a little towards the couple facing him across the round table but his gaze was averted, fixing the doorway to be sure no one appeared there to listen in.

'Clementina didn't commit suicide. I'm sure of that.'

'There! It's what you said, Franco.'

'The Marshal knows I know. I told him.'

'I must say, though,' pointed out the Marshal, 'that I can't begin to imagine how you found out. You didn't even look at her.'

'There was no need to. As soon as Pippo said he'd found her with her head in the oven I knew. There wasn't enough gas in that canister to kill a sparrow. I checked it myself yesterday. She was forever running out of gas. They're not that keen on delivering just one and she sometimes hadn't the cash for two. She was pestering me yesterday when we were up to our eyes in work getting ready for the party. She thought I might have a spare canister but I didn't, and with the two-day holiday coming up she thought she was going to be without. I managed to find time to go up and check and I told her she'd enough to make her coffee and that she'd be eating here that evening and I'd see she got some leftovers or something tonight. They'll be open tomorrow so I was sure she'd manage. No great mystery, you see. Even she wasn't crazy enough to try and gas herself without gas.'

'No. Well, there it is. The fact that she was left with her head in the oven like that can only mean that somebody wanted us to think it was suicide.'

'Oh, Franco, just imagine.'

'How did they do for her, then.'

'I don't know. There'll be an autopsy. Now. . .' He turned his gaze on to them, one by one, 'You were right in thinking it had better not get about. I've told you two, not just because you already suspected something but because I think you can help, and I don't want anybody else round here to find out.'

'You surely don't think that anybody round here—'

'No,' the Marshal reassured Franco, 'I don't think anything of the sort. But if people get to know, the papers will get to know and so on. I prefer to let whoever did it think he's pulled the wool over our eyes. It's the only advantage we have over him at this point.'

Franco mulled this over for a few minutes, his shiny head bobbing gently as he thought. Pina watched him, sipping her tea daintily.

'If it's nobody round here,' Franco pointed out, 'I don't see what help we can be to you—not that we're not willing, you follow me, it's just—'

'Don't worry, I'm not expecting you to do anything. Just keep your eyes open. If I start asking questions around here the story will soon be out, but you can chat to your customers, it will be natural enough for everyone to talk about Clementina after what's happened. You might pick something up, anything odd that involved her in the last few weeks, for example.'

'Everything about Clementina was odd,' put in Pina.

'But perhaps some stranger visited her recently.'

'Nobody as far as I know.' Franco's brow was corrugated.

'When did she stop working, do you know that?'

'I can tell you that,' Pina said, 'because it was my birthday. July 15th it was. I offered her a glass of something on the strength of it—she liked a glass when she could get it, and she said "Here's to that bastard and good riddance" and I said "What's this? Have you packed in your job?" To tell the truth, I thought it more likely that she'd got the sack, probably cracked the boss with her sweeping brush, but I didn't say so. Anyhow, all she said was, "I know my rights and what he says isn't true! I won't go!" So what the truth of it was I don't know.'

'I'll find out.'

'I suppose you will, but I don't imagine anyone would— you know—do that . . . because they were having trouble sacking her from a cleaning job. Well, you know more about these things than I do.'

'But you'll be better at keeping a watch on things round here. I'm sure you realize as well as I do that it wouldn't be worth my while putting even a plainclothes man on the job here where everybody knows everybody.'

'He'd stick out like a sore thumb,' Franco agreed. 'I see what you mean and you're right, of course. They did once send a plainclothes man round here for something or other, and everyone knew right away.' He glanced at his wife and then back at the Marshal. 'You don't think the chap would come back?'

'We're not safe in our beds, then!' cried Pina.

'I'm sure you are,' the Marshal assured her. 'Don't worry.'

'It gives me the creeps, I don't mind telling you,' Pina said. 'After all, Clementina wasn't safe in her bed—d'you think she was asleep when it happened?'

'Quite probably.'

'I'll bet she was,' Franco said, 'because if she'd had the chance to get one scream out she'd have woken the whole of Florence with that voice of hers.'

'You know,' said Pina thoughtfully, 'it's a shock. I mean, nobody expects somebody they know to get murdered, but I think I'd have been more surprised to hear she'd done away with herself. Whatever her faults, she wasn't one to feel sorry for herself. She might crack you one with her brush, she might swear like a trooper and even criticize the food you gave her as if she were in a restaurant, but she never asked for pity or felt sorry for herself. From the minute she got out of bed in a morning to the minute we could persuade her to go home and get back into it, she was out there and doing; cleaning, quarrelling, playing cards, swearing, giving as good as she got. . . She'd never have committed suicide in a million years, no matter what troubles she had. Am I right, Franco?'

'I think you are. And to my way of thinking it's just as well she was crazy. Given how poor she was and that miserable flat and not a soul in the world, she'd have had a miserable life if she'd been normal and kept herself to herself. It's just as well she was the way she was.'

'You may well be right,' the Marshal said. 'Anyway, let your customers have their say, and if it turns out anybody noticed anything unusual or saw any stranger about lately, let me know.'

'You'll be back, then?' Franco asked.

'At some point. I'll phone you in a day or two if I don't get a chance to come round. And now I'll be on my way and leave you in peace.' He got to his feet.

'You can rely on us,' Franco promised.

Only about half the tables outside were still occupied.

At one of them, Pippo's white shirt glowed yellow in the lamplight.

He interrupted his deal to say, with a touch of self-importance, 'Good night, Marshal. Will we be seeing you again? I imagine there'll be an inquest.'