Vita Nuova (18 page)

He switched off the light as he left and crossed the hall. Again, he knocked, waited, and then went in. This was a very big room, twice the size of the other, with a dining room and sitting room divided from each other by an arch. Six tall shuttered windows, more expensive carpets, a gigantic vase of artificial flowers. But there were three cardboard boxes in here, too.

A respectable old age under construction. A long way from running prostitutes down at the park.

As was always the case, the one person he needed to talk to was dead. Daniela Paoletti somehow seemed separate from all this pretension. Her rooms were simple and appropriately furnished, her books read. Would she have got away from here once she finished her studies? The lodger, her mother called her.

He left the room and walked back past the iron railing of the kitchen staircase. Further along was another staircase up to the next floor, and beyond that a cloakroom and the improvised child’s bedroom. His footsteps on the stone floor were loud in the dead silence. Water flushed and the cloakroom door opened. Frida came out, barefoot and wearing a long T-shirt.

‘Everything all right?’

She nodded.

‘The little boy asleep?’

Another nod. He wasn’t sure she’d even understood him.

‘Frida!’ Piero came running out in his vest, trailing his fluffy toy by the nose. He stopped dead when he saw the marshal.

‘Shouldn’t you be in bed? It’s very late.’

‘I have to wait for Frida. Look.’ He held up the toy. ‘Do you know his name now?’

‘Oh . . . oh dear, I’ve forgotten.’

‘It’s Nosey!’

‘Nosey, that’s right.’

‘Don’t forget again!’

‘I won’t. And you be good, for Frida.’

‘She’s my mummy now.’

‘Good night.’

He watched them go in and shut the door. His phone rang.

‘Marshal?’

‘Where are you?’

‘Piazzale Michelangelo.’

‘What?’

‘I followed the car—I don’t think she’s seen me. They went to the station first and the blonde girl got out there and went in, so I suppose she caught a train. I carried on following the car. Should I have followed the blonde one? Only, you said. . . .’

‘No, no. You did right. And she drove up there? What’s she doing now?’

‘I’m not sure. She stopped the car and went in that little bar. Then she walked to the balustrade and looked down at the city like everybody else. The place is crawling with tourists, so I’m parked where I can see her car. I thought if I got out, I might lose her in the crowd . . . wait a minute. I can see her again. She’s still near the balustrade, chatting up some American students. They’re trying to get her to drink from a wine bottle. It looks to me like they’re laughing at her. What do you want me to do?’

‘Nothing. Tell me how she’s dressed.’

‘It’s pretty dark. Those big white globe things don’t really give that much light.’

‘But you saw her up here when she got in the car. I know it was dark then, too, but give me an idea. Was her skirt long or short?’

‘Oh, I can tell you that. Short, really short. I mean, getting into a mini . . . and a low-cut top. I noticed that. What should I do next?’

‘Wait and follow her home.’

‘What if she goes off with somebody? It looks like that’s what she’s after.’

‘If she does, ring me. But I don’t think she will.’

Even when the cage is open. . . .

He went back down to the kitchen and got himself a glass of water. That first morning, sitting where he sat now, he had watched her cry, squeezing sodden tissues that showed a trace of eye makeup. She was twenty-odd years old and her idea of rebellion was to throw off her daddy’s little-girl persona and go up to the piazzale in short skirt and makeup to flirt. He really didn’t believe she did more than flirt, or she’d have been gone from here long ago. And she drove Danuta to the train. So nobody belonging to the club was seen around here after the murder. No doubt Mauro would pick Danuta up at the other end. One little mystery solved, for what it was worth. He waited, alert for the sound of her car, wondering what it must be like to have daughters to worry about. He knew some of his colleagues had their daughters followed. It was all wrong, in his opinion, but seeing the things they saw, it was difficult to blame them. When it came to Paoletti, women were his property, to be bought and sold, put to to work, controlled. It was easy enough to see why he would marry a prostitute, even without his need to stop her testifying against him. But his own daughter? She was his property too, and even more dependent than the girls who worked for him. Even so. . . .

There. That was the car. A father would go to the door and say ‘What time do you call this?’ But it wasn’t yet eleven, and she was a grown woman. He heard the door, her footsteps on the stairs going up to her room. A tiny, rather pathetic rebellion against the ruler. Daniela, perhaps, was a more serious case, his as a daughter, his as a wife. The marshal was quite sure of that. He couldn’t allow her to break free, and he had a prosecutor at his service and an alibi. He could hardly have predicted his stroke, though. Whatever had gone wrong, it had to have started there.

His phone rang.

‘Is that you? Yes, she’s come in. You did well.’

‘Are we staying here all night?’

‘I don’t know. Are you tired?’

‘No!’

Anything but tired. He was evidently pleased. Well, it’s an ill wind. . . .

Another small mystery he could solve was to find out what was in what he thought of as the servants’ quarters down here, other than a broom cupboard and storage space where the cleaners kept their stuff. Somebody had been watching him the other morning from there, whatever Silvana said about the girls not arriving until twelve. He had no search warrant, but—though he couldn’t risk going up to the first-floor bedrooms, disturbing the family members, possibly provoking a call to the prosecutor—he was going to take a look in there if it wasn’t locked.

He got up and walked across to the closed door. As with the other rooms, he went through the formality of knocking before grasping the handle.

‘What do you want?’

He was too shocked to reply for a moment, though he recognized the voice.

‘You can come in.’

He opened the door. He thought of ‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ or ‘I just want to know you’re all right.’ But he only stood in the doorway and took the scene in. High, barred windows like in the kitchen, a big room, a white bed. The woman was sitting in an armchair next to it, alone in the silence.

‘It’s not what you think,’ she said.

‘Signora. . . .’

‘Come in.’

He went through an anteroom with metal broom cupboards on each side and entered the big room. She was in her nightdress. She was sweating. He could smell that and the drink. She wasn’t quite drunk, though, because she had a book in her lap.

‘No, this is not a prison, Marshal. That’s what you’re thinking, so don’t say you’re not. This whole building. . . .’ She looked up at the high, horizontal windows with their thick curved grills. ‘It looks like a prison, but it was built to keep people out, not in. That’s true of my bit of it, too. I don’t do the stairs, you see. It would interfere with my drinking. So I stay here. You might as well sit down.’

He looked about him, hesitating.

‘It will have to be on the bed. This is the only chair. I don’t have visitors. I can give you a drink, though. Whisky?’

‘No, no . . . thank you.’ He sat on the edge of the bed near its foot, where there was a big television. It was on but without the sound.

She saw him glance at it before turning to her. ‘There’s never anything worth watching. It’s the colour and movement. It keeps me company, like a fire might. I suppose that sounds ridiculous.’

‘No . . . I’ve done the same myself.’

‘You?’

‘I’ve been alone a lot lately.’

She picked up the bottle. ‘You’re sure you . . . ?’

‘No.’

‘You don’t drink? Well, if you don’t need it.’ She put the bottle down on the bedside table between her chair and the bed and stroked it. ‘My best friend and adviser. I suppose you think I’m an alcoholic.’

‘No.’

‘Of course. You were at the funeral.’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, some people can put on a show of being sober.’

The marshal said nothing.

‘But you’re not the sort to be convinced by a show.’

‘No.’

She drank. Her glass was a tumbler and it was over half full. She put it down and closed the book on her knees.

‘Not even the wonderful show put on by my husband, I suppose. I drink too much. Even when I don’t really want to, I still drink too much. It anaesthetises me for the evening and knocks me out so that I sleep for a long, long time.’

‘And when you wake up?’

‘I have a hangover, if that’s what you mean, and that’s the most important thing. Getting the hangover just right. It’s not a question of how much I can drink without making a fool of myself. I sit here on my own and then fall into bed. It’s the hangover that counts. The thing is to get through the afternoon in a fog, still a bit drunk and with just enough of a headache. It’s like a glass wall, keeping all their voices out. Too much makes me sick and the headache’s too painful, too little lets the voices through.’

‘And the earplugs keep the voices out, too?’

‘That’s after supper. I get through the family meal he insists on, and then I escape and shut myself in here. The earplugs keep his voice out. He shouts.’

Instinct told him he could trust this woman, but caution warned him that he couldn’t rely on an alcoholic. She was also frightened of her husband. She never said his name. There was a telephone by her bed. One call from the hospital, checking up on her, would be enough. There was so much she could tell him, but at this eleventh hour he daren’t risk the children’s lives. He must only speak to her as though the prosecutor himself were in the room.

‘If I’m not mistaken, the first time I saw you, you had more than just enough of a headache.’

‘You mean the day . . . they got me up. I can’t be got up.’

‘No. I can understand that—and I didn’t mean to disturb you now. I was checking through the building.

It’s just a precaution. Your daughter’s safely home and has gone up to bed.’

‘Where’s Piero?’

‘In bed. Frida’s with him. And I have two cars and three men just outside.’

‘Well, that’s all right, then.’ Her ironic glance spoke volumes. ‘He won’t like it, you know, your discovering me in here.’

‘I’m sorry. I was just checking round the house. I had no idea, otherwise. . . .’

He looked about him. The bed he was sitting on was big and its counterpane snowy white. It reminded him of Daniela’s room in the tower. Everything here was clean and simple. The door at the far side of the room no doubt led to a bathroom and he imagined that, too, being like Daniela’s. Dark blue and white. Clean and simple again—even if the cleanliness here was thanks to Frida and Danuta. Mother and daughter looked alike. Blonde, plump, and pink. Paoletti had replaced his wife with the younger, fresher version. All in the family, all under control. And if she had been underage when it started, no one could prove that now. He was too clever. He was always operating just inside the law, always in control. And yet something had got out of control . . . a messy murder in his respectable house. He couldn’t have wanted it. Something had got out of his control when he was in hospital, and whatever it was . . . he was sure it must have started with the stroke.

They’d never get him. Somebody else would get the blame for Daniela and for all the rest. Everything on paper would be in order, he was always somewhere else, and this morning’s priest would be his character witness.

‘Are you going to arrest my husband?’ She was looking at him, apparently reading his mind.

‘I . . . it’s not really for me to decide what—’

‘Of course not. That would be Fulvio’s decision. Fulvio was once a regular . . . customer . . . of mine. Had strange tastes. Preferred watching to anything. He’s my husband’s lapdog, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. I think he’s frightened of him.’

He had to change the subject, steer her away from this dangerous ground.

‘You’re from the north, I remember. Do you still have family there?’

‘Family? I’ve no idea. Families. . . .’ She made a little spitting sound of disgust. ‘I worked for a family up there before I ran away. My father chucked me out at sixteen because his new wife didn’t like me, and I went as a nanny, unqualified, paid a pittance. A very respectable family. Husband was screwing me, wife threw me out. Usual thing.’

‘Why did you choose Florence?’

‘Florence . . . ?’

Did she even remember or care, shut up in here, that Florence was where she lived?

‘I went to Milan. There was this boy, Daniele, the one I ran away with. When the money ran out, he said he had contacts here and I should follow him. When I didn’t hear, I hitched a lift. . . .’

‘Did you ever find him?’

‘Of course not. I don’t suppose he ever left Milan. He’d dumped me, that’s all. I really liked him—I still think about him sometimes. I don’t blame him. We were so young, and I’d have done the same in his place.

You sure you won’t . . . ?’

‘No.’

‘You’re working, I suppose. Pardon me if I do.’ She filled her glass. ‘Don’t worry, I don’t get maudlin. I just wonder sometimes where he is, that’s all. Daniele . . . let’s hope he did better than me. Just look at me.’

‘Do you never go out? At least into the garden?’

‘Garden? I used to, when the children were young. Not now. Not here.’

‘You do go out, though. Your neighbour, Signora Donati across the road, mentioned that she sees you all going off to church on Sunday mornings.’

‘That’s
him
—and I don’t know any Signora Donati.’

‘No, she didn’t say she knew you—it’s just that her garden overlooks your gates, so . . . I don’t really know her myself, but her son did his military service with us, so we got talking. . . .’ He caught that ironic glance again and corrected himself. ‘I’m sorry. I had to question her because of your daughter’s death. I thought she might have seen somebody leaving here that morning.’