The Marshal Makes His Report (24 page)

‘You’ve seen the size of him. I don’t want him turning on me. I’m off.’

They settled down to wait again.

‘Usual place,’ muttered Lorenzini. ‘I followed Leo for days. What usual place?’

‘They’ll have been avoiding each other.’

‘I know that. But even so, Tiny gets up and starts work when Leo’s going home to bed—could just be a street corner, I suppose.’

‘No . . .’ The radio interrupted them but only to report all quiet. ‘No. There has to be a “usual place” for them to know each other at all.’

They fell silent. Except when the disco door opened to release people, letting out a short spurt of light, noise and smoke, the small piazza, was hushed and deserted. So hushed that they could hear the trains hooting as they rattled into the central station at Santa Maria Novella.

Lorenzini suppressed a yawn. More to keep himself awake than anything else, he made another attempt at getting blood out of a stone.

‘I suppose this Catherine Yorke is the reason why Corsi withdrew his support from the Palazzo Ulderighi, as it were?’

‘Mph.’

‘Bit of a cheek, though, getting her in there as a tenant in the circs.’

‘Mph.’

‘Can hardly blame the woman if she wanted him bumped off or whatever—that’s if she knew.’

‘She knew.’

This was progress. Lorenzini sat up straighter and persisted.

‘Grillo? The chatty little cricket?’

‘Yes. Grillo.’

He spent a lot of time in here. Many an evening. Playing
with his little pistol.

Of course he was next door in Catherine’s room, and who would know it better than the dwarf whose web of service doors and passages gave him access to everybody’s secrets? Then he would scuttle back to his lair and decide what he should tell to whom so as to maintain the status quo and his sheltered situation. The Marshal was willing to bet that he never told Neri anything except what would amuse him. Neri, no more capable than his servant of surviving outside his tower, was in the same boat. Neri in his tower watching his mother and Hugh Fido knowing it. Grillo watching Buongianni Corsi and Catherine. The old aunt trying to watch them all and find out.

I want to know what’s going on in this house.

And after the violence had been precipitated all of them went on watching. Watching the Marshal now as he circled the gloomy courtyard filled with music, himself filled with a sick apprehension that rose and subsided but never left him. He saw himself pacing heavily round and round and from each window eyes were watching him as the dwarf dodged in and out between the columns, grinning and beckoning.

‘Come on! Come on!’

He hadn’t played the game for years and had never been any good at it anyway. He was too slow. The old tata sitting among the red lights of her icons and who, as it turned out, was his mother, was watching him from behind her closed door.

‘Come on, Salva! You’re so slow. You never win.’

‘He’s off!’ cried the dwarf. ‘Warmer and warmer . . . No! Cold! Cold!’

The Marshal didn’t care. There was a heap of clothing near the well and he wasn’t going near that no matter how the dwarf taunted him. It was probably Corsi’s clothing and the thought of touching it made him shudder. He stayed under the colonnade and kept walking, ignoring the dwarf’s shouts of ‘warmer’ and ‘cooler’. All that mattered was that he should keep walking until the piano music stopped and then . . . Or was that musical chairs? No wonder they all laughed at him as they watched him trailing round and round without even knowing what he was trying to do. Asleep on his feet, that’s what they were saying. Asleep. Was he asleep? He was, he must be . . .

‘Marshal?’

‘Eh?’

‘I said, if we find them together what do you intend to do?’

‘I don’t know . . . I think I must have nodded off. What time is it?’

‘Closing time. Look.’ The last clients were pouring noisily out of the disco. Leo wasn’t visible among them.

‘As late as that?’ The Marshal sat up, wide awake now. ‘But Tiny? We haven’t heard anything.’

‘But they called in ages ago.’ Lorenzini couldn’t hide a note of irritation. ‘They said “He’s off”. They’re following him to the market—there’s Leo.’

He came out with the owner and stood talking to him for a moment until a taxi drew up. The owner got in and Leo went off in the wake of the last bunch of clients. Lorenzini started his motor. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Wait.’

They waited only six or seven minutes before the radio message came.

‘He’s stopped work and he’s standing looking about him—Damn! There’s a meat truck pulled up, we can’t see . . . wait, it’s backing up . . . He’s still there. He’s talking to somebody—’

‘Describe him,’ the Marshal interrupted. ‘Is he big, shaved head, dressed in black?’

‘Nothing like. Not your man—he’s too old. I reckon Tiny’s asking him to take over. He is. Slapped him on the back and now he’s crossing the road . . .’

‘Don’t lose him!’

‘No fear of that. He’s going across to the café where they all have breakfast. Nowhere else he can be going at this hour. This could be what you’re looking for.’

‘We’re on our way.’

Much as Lorenzini would have loved to take off at full speed with lights and siren on, they had to go slowly and discreetly for fear of overtaking Leo. When they got near to the market square they parked and continued on foot. As they walked the vegetable-littered streets dawn was breaking, the sky as clean as a pink pearl, but the lights were still on under the glass roof of the big market hall. The lorries that had converged on the square during the night were mostly emptied and gone but there was still a lot of noisy activity among smaller traders with their tiny three-wheel trucks. It was easy enough to spot the café. Everything else along the street was closed and shuttered and a lot of traders were heading across for their breakfast.

‘There it is,’ said Lorenzini. ‘What now?’

There was no occasion to decide. A sudden commotion inside the café caused those approaching it to rush forward for a look and, almost at once, one of the plain clothes men pushed his way out to look about him desperately. Lorenzini and the Marshal began to run.

By the time they got inside, a number of Tiny’s equally large mates had got Leo off him but they were having trouble keeping him off.

Four men were holding on to Tiny. One of them screamed, ‘Get him out of here! Get him out or he’ll kill him!’

It was true. Leo himself, infuriated, had been brandishing a knife which was now lying at his feet but it was Tiny, his eyes glittering and a low, uncontrollable whine issuing from between clenched teeth, who would have killed, and killed with his bare hands. He didn’t even notice the presence of two uniformed men. Leo noticed and lunged impotently forward in an effort to free himself.

The Marshal nodded towards Tiny indicating that he should be immobilized first. Lorenzini, like a hunting dog let loose, bounded forward with handcuffs. It took all the strength of the men already holding him plus the two plain clothes men and Lorenzini to get Tiny down on the floor on his stomach with his wrists handcuffed behind him. Even then one of the plain clothes men took a hard kick in the stomach, which put him out of action.

Then they made for Leo. He flung himself backwards, crushing a man against the bar counter. A lot of the customers were getting out for fear of being hurt.

‘Not me!’ Leo bellowed, ‘you’re not taking me! I never touched her except to hold her down! You can’t do me for it, I was never meant to touch her at all. He made me because she was fighting like a cat—but he was the one raped her! He was the one killed her! Not me!’

Ten

TO THE REPUBLIC PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE FLORENCE

At approximately 21.45 yesterday, June 24th, in the course of
duty, namely the examination of the cellars of the Palazzo
Ulderighi . . .

The Marshal typed fast with two thick fingers. He had been right to leave it until after lunch and Teresa had been right to insist on his having a sleep. He had thought he would be unable to drop off but he was away in seconds and she’d had to wake him at a quarter to five.

‘Not that I want to know your business, if you don’t want to tell me, you don’t, but I hope whatever it is will soon be over because if you don’t get a night’s sleep—’ ‘

It’s over.’

Over except for the one decision and now he had made it. He only had to type it.

In the presence of the undersigned . . .

Lorenzini knocked and came in.

‘This is ready. Will you sign it? I’d rather you checked through it first . . .’

‘Give it to me. Has the doctor signed?’

‘Everyone except you.’

The printed form was filled in by hand and contained the description and recognition of the cadaver. The section marked ‘Describe position and clothing of the cadaver’ had been filled in by Lorenzini. The lower part of the body, unclothed and curled up tightly on itself, showed damage from the masonry. The Marshal forced himself to read on, determined that his decision must encompass all that Catherine Yorke’s terror and suffering and death might evoke in him, all that he had walked away from that evening in the cellars when the stone of Cinelli’s wall tomb had been removed and he had seen her hair flash golden in the strong spotlights.

‘With trails of ivy I will bind your shining hair . . .’

The men around the body were wearing masks, the Marshal wasn’t. When one of them noticed him retreating he probably thought that was the reason.

‘Will you stay?’ he had murmured to Lorenzini. ‘The brother . . .’

‘Of course.’

A click of the technician’s camera. He had photographed the stone, too, before they removed it.

Here is an end of all my woes

And a beginning of your own.

The courtyard, for once, was silent. Emilio had deserted his piano and stood under the colonnade with Flavia Martelli and Hugh Fido. They spoke in whispers and in their glance at the Marshal, even in that dim light, he thought he detected a twinge of guilt. It was almost certain that the other two had known about Hugh, but then didn’t they, too, have an interest in maintaining the status quo? However much they might grumble, flats were hard to come by. ‘Better a corpse in the house than a Pisan . . .’ He knocked on Catherine Yorke’s door.

‘Come in.’

William was perched on the edge of the single bed, his knees pushed tightly together as though to prevent him from falling, his eyes glittering. The Marshal’s glance took in the room and found the glass and bottle on Catherine’s desk.

‘It’s all right. I’m perfectly sober. You’ve come to tell me something’s happened to Catherine, haven’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘I knew when I saw them going down to the cellars . . . I feel as if I’d known all along. She’s dead, isn’t she?’

‘Yes.’

William sat as still as ever but his face seemed to dissolve as the tension was released and his tears flowed in silence. The Marshal held his shoulder for a moment and then sat down, turning the chair at the desk to face him. There was no need to tell him everything. Not all at once.

‘I shan’t know what to do . . . you’ll help me? I mean . . .’

‘I’ll help you. Don’t worry. Most of the formalities will be dealt with by us. Afterwards, when you feel calmer, you can tell me where you’d like her to be buried.’

‘I don’t know. She had no real home, did she? If she’s buried here she’ll be alone. There’s nobody else, only the two of us . . .’

‘Perhaps where your parents are buried?’

‘My parents . . . If I’d been in that day she called—’

‘No, no. Don’t do that. Don’t start thinking like that. You’ll only upset yourself more and it can do no good now.’

A rumbling of drums in the distance announced the arrival of the cortège on its way to the final match of the football tournament.

‘Leo. Leo and that other one, the one in the photo.’

‘Yes.’

‘You have to tell me what happened. I don’t want to find out from anybody else, I want you to tell me.’

The Marshal understood his need, but even so he would have tried to hide some of it had the boy not been too intelligent for him.

‘And it was La Ulderighi paid them to do it.’

It wasn’t a question.

‘Nothing’s come out yet.’

‘It won’t, will it?’

‘Perhaps not.’

William’s body remained more or less upright at the edge of the divan but it was like the body of a puppet whose strings have dropped in a tangle. His arms and hands seemed too long. His face, still and expressionless, was bathed in tears. His nose was running. The Marshal gave him a big white handkerchief, but though William accepted it he didn’t make use of it.

The drumming outside grew louder and trumpets played a fanfare, but it was all muffled by the thick walls of the palazzo and seemed to come from a great distance.

William shuddered. ‘Is she in the house?’

‘The Marchesa? No. I believe not, but she’s expected soon. Don’t you think you’d be better off away from here? I can arrange a
pensione
for you, if you like?’

‘You’re afraid I might get drunk and go for her, is that it?’

‘No.’ The Marshal remembered his remorse about having let off a firework and frightened the sick Neri. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. ‘No, I don’t think that. I only think this house distresses you and that you’ll pass a bad night here alone.’

‘Yes,’ William admitted, ‘you’re right and I’m grateful to you for thinking of it, but I’ll stay. I let her down, you know, by not being there when she needed me. You don’t know—it’s no use trying to comfort me, you don’t know. In her letter she said I was either out or asleep . . . Well, I’d been drinking the night before and I didn’t get up to answer the phone—’

‘You couldn’t have known.’

‘That’s not the point. That’s not the point. It shouldn’t have happened. I drink, you see, because I don’t know quite where I am—sexually. I like women but men like me. I suppose I shouldn’t complain, as long as somebody’s taking an interest there’s hope for me, wouldn’t you say? I don’t want you to think better of me than I deserve just because I’ve lost my—’