The Monster of Florence (34 page)

“What he said? Or that he gave the idea some thought?”

“It’s the same thing, isn’t it? We’ve never given him any serious consideration, but what if it really was him?”

“But apart from anything else, his age …”

“His age, his age! There’ll be some explanation for that. All this stuff in Bacci’s books … books are all very well but that’s all foreign stuff, anyway. At the end of the day you can only rely on your own experience.”

“Yes …” the Marshal agreed slowly, “but we don’t have any.”

“Come on, a murderer’s a murderer—and this chap is a murderer, we know that. Oh, I’m not saying I’m completely convinced, I’m just saying there might be something in it, after all. I mean, however many
tricks they’ve pulled on him—we’ve all pulled a few in our time—that doesn’t mean he’s innocent. Anyway, now you know. They might be right, Romola might have been right, you might be right. It’s just not our responsibility, so why bother? Our only hope was to find Flavio and he’s dead. That’s it.”

There was nothing the Marshal could say. After he’d hung up he stood where he was, wondering what to do. Then he went back into the kitchen and sat down at the table. He was carried forward by inertia as much as anything, and perhaps by there being nothing to stop or distract him. If Teresa had arrived as she should have, then everything might have gone differently. If the official enquiry had been more convincing …

He sat for some time without touching the papers in front of him, thinking about what Ferrini had said about his conversation with the Suspect. He could imagine that rheumy sideways stare, weighing up Ferrini, weighing up the proposition.

“And what do I tell their parents?”

He could think of one girl’s father, in particular, who wouldn’t accept such an outcome and who might well think he had nothing to lose by punishing the Suspect himself with a hunting rifle. But did his awareness of that danger mean the man was guilty? He must know by now, given the tricks that had been pulled on him, that Simonetti would stop at nothing to get a conviction and that against a false accusation there can be no true defence. The man wasn’t stupid. He knew what he was up against. He had an animal sense of danger and a peasant’s faith in lies. The path mapped out for him by Ferrini would be no less attractive because it was dishonest. Defending himself by lying, denying he was a Peeping Tom, denying, the Marshal recalled on one occasion, even the murder he’d done time for, came naturally to him. If he thought a string of lies would get him off the hook, he wouldn’t hesitate to tell them, even to his lawyer, or perhaps especially to his lawyer. Those were the rules he played by, that was the world he lived in. Lie and lie and lie, lie to your lawyer, first of all, so you’ll have someone respectable to tell your lies to the judge. But in this case there were fourteen sets of parents with ruined lives
behind them and his trial before them. It was a very big risk to take. Besides which, it was his proper business to lie, but he couldn’t get his mind round the idea of Simonetti’s lying, even though the fact was staring him in the face. His rage and frustration were owed to a childlike belief that authority was there to be lied to and made a fool of but that authority must be just. However much he smelled danger and saw treachery, he was having difficulty relinquishing his traditional beliefs. Unless he did so, and adjusted his defence accordingly, he was done for. In the Marshal’s opinion, he knew that and must have seen the sense of Ferrini’s proposal. But then, Ferrini’s proposal might be a trick …

“And what do I tell their parents?”

“No, no …” The Marshal spoke aloud to the table. Whatever the Suspect’s reason for not rejecting the insanity plea faster, he couldn’t see its being guilt. What might be the problem was his having something else he needed to hide. At his age there’s a limit to how many years you can serve in prison and a sentence for something rather less drastic than fourteen murders would be enough to ensure he’d never see daylight again. That something, whatever it might be, was probably the reason for his denying being a Peeping Tom. That was not a sensible or useful lie. Being a Peeping Tom would have been an acceptable reason, a credible reason, for his presence in lonely country spots at night, even in the face of a more suitable witness than Nenci. There were hundreds of these men out there on any Saturday night and the ones like the Suspect went about their business in groups. Admitting to his vice and calling the rest of his band as witnesses could be what would save him. But he denied it; Nenci denied it. Whatever was being hidden here it seemed the Suspect thought it worth the risk of being tried as the Monster. He wasn’t the Monster and so should be acquitted since there could be no proof. The alternative, the true story that would release him from the false accusation, must be serious enough …

“Those videos …” The answer, the Marshal felt instinctively, lay in that direction but he couldn’t grasp it. “Twenty percent of what?”

“Boh …” He slapped a big hand on the table. No use breaking his
head over that. Something might well come out as they went along. He opened the ’68 file and tried to concentrate his mind on his own line of enquiry. It took him half an hour to recognize the fact that it was impossible. He’d worked on his own before and, however much he’d bumbled about, written useless lists, grumbled, and lost faith in himself, it hadn’t been like this. Thinking about it now he couldn’t remember how all this had come about. In some way or other it seemed to have started and gained impetus of itself. There’d certainly never been any conscious decision on his part to start looking for the truth in this case. But however it happened, for whatever reason, Ferrini was inextricably bound up in it. Losing Bacci had been a blow because he was useful. The information, books and notes he’d provided were useful. He’d really needed the list of symptoms he’d promised to provide and still didn’t know how he’d manage without it. But Ferrini was different. It was because Ferrini wasn’t sitting in the chair opposite, lighting up his tenth cigarette and launching into one of his stories to prevent the Marshal from getting on, that he wasn’t getting on. The sheets of paper before him remained just sheets of paper, the notes just notes, the lists meaningless. The same ingredients were there but nothing was happening. The Marshal tried to remember just how they had made such progress as they had made, but he couldn’t. He remembered their meals, the stories, the clouds of smoke, Ferrini laughing at him, provoking him with cynical comments. Ferrini the devil’s advocate, forcing him to defend his position.

Well, now there was no Ferrini and he might as well pack it in and go to bed. He might not feel so wretched if he got a decent night’s sleep.

He slept, but it was a disturbed and unhappy sleep. He seemed to spend the whole night exhausting himself with the effort of trying to convince Ferrini of something or other. The few times he came to the surface and got up to wander half awake to the bathroom or to the kitchen for a drink, he couldn’t for the life of him remember what his insistent arguments had been about. Nevertheless, the minute he closed his eyes he was off again, trying and trying, but always failing, to convince Ferrini of something, whatever it was.

The worst thing was that he realized even as he dreamed that he no longer knew what he was talking about himself. The alarm went off at a quarter to seven and he opened his eyes with relief. After relief came a sinking feeling in his stomach that everything was wrong. Teresa hadn’t come home, that was the first thing that registered. Ferrini had abandoned him, that was the next. What else … Marco, he hadn’t phoned him to hear how things went. Too taken up with his own problems and perhaps reluctant to hear any more bad news … It could be a good sign, though, that Marco hadn’t phoned himself. It might mean everything was all right. There was something else, something he had to do. With a sigh, he recalled that though he had the morning to himself to go through the business of his own station with Lorenzini, he had been given the task of visiting the mother of one of the murdered girls to whom the trinkets recovered from the Suspect’s house were thought to belong. Having assembled all his troubles he got up and looked at himself in the bathroom mirror, adding to the list of temporary problems the permanent one of which he always felt more conscious when things were going badly: he was overweight.

An hour or so later he was feeling a little better because of the effect of sitting a while in his own chair, in his own office, talking to Lorenzini about familiar problems. He found himself thinking wistfully of some calamitous crime occurring on his doorstep so that he could be released from the special squad to deal with it. As it was, he didn’t think two snatched handbags, a fight in a bar and a missing dog offered him much hope of escape.

“Anything in the post?”

“Nothing you need bother with. How’s your business going?”

“Oh, you know …” The Marshal shrugged. It would have been comforting to confide in Lorenzini, to have someone to talk to about all the things that were disturbing him, not to feel so alone. But it wouldn’t be fair. He said nothing. Lorenzini waited a moment and then said, “I’ll get back next door.”

“No, no … Stay. I think … I’m going over to Borgo Ognissanti …”
He got up from his desk and went to reach for his greatcoat. “Give them a ring, will you? Check that the Captain’s in.”

He buttoned his coat slowly, thinking of the first day when Captain Maestrangelo had sent for him. He’d been embarrassed and must have known all along that things were not as they should be. It was time they put their cards on the table; he couldn’t go on like this, not alone.

“He’s with the Colonel,” Lorenzini said, hanging up. “The usual morning meeting. It’ll be over by the time you get there. They’ll tell him you’re on your way.”

“Thanks. And while I’m thinking about it, that big envelope there …”

“This?”

“That’s it. Send it round to Dr. Biondini’s office, will you? It’s a photograph he wants to look at, and I don’t want to go there myself just now.”

On any other day he’d have been pleased to, but today he felt too put out to make conversation or to discuss anything other than what was weighing on his mind.

“Do you want Di Nuccio to drive you?” Lorenzini called after him as he started down the stairs.

“I’ll walk.”

The weather had changed, that was the first thing he noticed as he came out under the archway into Piazza Pitti. The mountain wind had dropped and the temperature had risen enough for a few clouds to gather. The fog that always hung over the river in the mornings hadn’t risen and the buildings were damp, their colours muted. It seemed an age since the Marshal had found time to walk anywhere, sniffing the morning smell of coffee, exhaust fumes and fresh woodsmoke. He was tempted to stop for a coffee, but he didn’t want to risk the Captain’s having been called away when he got there so instead he quickened his pace. He crossed Ponte alla Carraia, glancing down at the sludge-green water that smelled strongly on the damp and stagnant air of mud and rotting vegetation carried down from the country, and more faintly of the sea air from Pisa.

He would talk to the Captain, tell him straight what was going on and get his advice. And whatever that advice was, whether he agreed or not, he would follow it, and let that be an end of the story.

It was as he walked in at the entrance to the cloister, nodding to the carabiniere on guard duty, that he remembered something he should have told Lorenzini, or rather asked him. He put his head in round the guard-room door and asked them to get his number.

“Lorenzini? Listen, I meant to ask you. If you open the top drawer of my desk, right there by the phone … there’s a book.”

“Wait a minute … An English book?”

“That’s it. There’s a slip of paper marking a page. Have you found it? And a note at the top right-hand margin in red biro.”

“Mm. Right … it says, ‘
Is this us?
’ Is that it?”

“That’s it. I think it’s a translation of the phrase near it that’s been underlined, something about special investigations. You know a bit of English; can you translate those few lines?”

“I think so. I’ll have a go, anyway.”

“Thanks. I’ll not be long.”

As he made his way along the cloister a large car drove out towards him. The driver was a policeman and in the back were Simonetti and his registrar. They seemed to be sharing a joke and the Marshal saw a flash of Simonetti’s brilliant smile as the car slowed to wait for the automatic gate. He himself was in shadow and stayed very still, but he felt that, as the car moved on, Simonetti’s glance caught his, quick as a snake’s and away again before he could be sure it had happened.

Well, there was nothing to be done about it. There was no reason, he thought, as he climbed the stone staircase to his right, why he wouldn’t have legitimate business here with his commandant. He reached the upper corridor and then paused by a large rubber plant as he saw the officers from the various departments coming out of the Colonel’s room. Their footsteps echoed loudly on the highly polished red tiles. He didn’t see Captain Maestrangelo among them and, thinking he’d already gone back to his own office, he walked on a few steps. Then he stopped dead, hearing the Colonel’s voice raised in anger.

“No, no, no, Maestrangelo, it’s out of the question. We can’t spare him! He’s the best investigator we’ve got and I’m not taking him off that money-laundering business until he’s cleared it up—and not even then am I sending him over there! Find him another Bacci, somebody polite who’ll give him no bother and looks good on television. Find him another Guarnaccia from some other superfluous little station, but I want my investigators working here for me! If they’re running an idiot investigation, they’re only getting idiot men!”

He didn’t stop there. The Marshal could still hear him shouting as he turned at the end of the corridor and started back down the stairs to go home.

He went back across the river. He was walking quite slowly but his heart was beating fast, and despite the cool damp air his face felt hot.

He should have known. He should have been able to put two and two together. The Captain’s discomfort when he’d asked, “Why me?” Then there’d been that funny remark of Esposito’s the first week. He’d complimented him on having solved that transsexual murder.