Authors: Magdalen Nabb

Death of an Englishman (12 page)

'Your people have all gone,' a breakdown man informed him briefly, on finally noticing him, and then began to shout urgent instructions to some invisible colleague. The lights were all out on the bus.

The Christmas lights had all been turned off by now and the streets seemed much darker than usual. What would the Captain say when he got back to Via Maggio? Carabiniere Bacci still remembered his face after the Miss White episode. And the two Englishmen … he could already feel the cold-eyed gaze of the older one going over him from head to foot without comment. The younger one was more
simpatico
—but he hadn't gone running after the escapees like a kid playing cops and robbers.

It took him almost an hour to trail back to Via Maggio. When he reached number fifty-eight, someone was coming out and closing the main door. Carabiniere Bacci quickened his last few steps. Then he heard the radio buzzing on and off. The private guard.

'Is the Captain still here?' he asked the guard, with as much of his crushed dignity as he could muster.

'What Captain?'

'The Carabiniere Captain who was here with two English detectives, in the ground-floor flat!'

'Not that I know of. Brigadier there outside the door, as usual, that's all. Nobody inside.'

'Have they made an arrest?'

'Arrest?'

'Yes, an arrest! Don't you know there's been an important operation on here tonight?'

'No. I don't know anything of the sort. Quiet as the grave last time I came round and quiet as the grave now. Do you want to go in? I've got to be on my way.'

'No,' said Carabiniere Bacci, 'there's no point if—'

'I'm off then.' He slammed the door and went on his way, radio crackling, and let himself into the next building.

Carabiniere Bacci noticed then that there was a light on in the bank, a light that was always on, he remembered now, so it hadn't been his fault that he didn't notice the bank cleaners that first morning. He couldn't have known without actually seeing them. So that, at least, hadn't really been his fault. Slowly he crossed the Piazza with its metal shutters closed over the shops, and made his way back to Pitti. His weary footsteps plodded up the sloping forecourt and echoed under the stone archway. He let himself into the office and sank on to the Marshal's chair, still wearing his hat, coat and gloves.

Conscientious to the last, he pulled a piece of lined, government stamped paper towards him and began writing a report. At a quarter to four he found he couldn't go on without a rest and he flopped on to the camp bed. He remembered he was wearing his hat and gloves and took them off and flung them towards the chair. Someone had removed the blanket from the camp bed so he took off his greatcoat and covered himself with it. He fell asleep immediately and the report lay unfinished on the desk. A little later, one of his soiled white gloves slid to the floor.

CHAPTER 5

'What did you do with the gun?'

'What gun?' Cesarini was sneering. He had a slightly wizened look about him and, although he could not have been all that old, his hair and small moustaches were white. His clothes were from the most expensive and fashionable shops in Florence but you had to look at their discreet but visible labels to tell. There was a tinge of the fairground operator about him which hand-painted silk and supple, expensive leather did nothing to dispel. He was as calm as when they had first brought him to Headquarters just before two in the morning, and the sun was up now, coming in low at the windows of the Captain's office and warming the polished floor tiles. The Captain was exhausted, his eyes sore and his face dark with beard, but he would not give in, especially in front of the two Englishmen who were sitting slightly apart from the action, hunched in their chairs. Jeffreys, too, was pale and bleary-eyed.

The Captain repeated tonelessly: What did you do with the gun?' The man's flat had been searched as soon as it was light, his shops were being searched now.

'You haven't told me yet what gun.'

'Yours. I suppose you keep one?'

'Yes.'

'Where is it?'

'In the shop, the bigger one. Your men will find it if they know their job.'

'They do.'

'Well, then.'

'I take it you have a licence?'

'That's right.'

'What time did you visit the Englishman on Tuesday night?'

'I didn't.'

'All right, then, in the early hours of Wednesday morning.'

'I didn't.'

'What were you going to do there, last night?'

'I've told you. I was checking my property. I have every right to look over my own property. You'd taken your guard off and I'd heard the case was closed, so why shouldn't I? I rented him a flat and that doesn't make me a murderer.'

They all blamed themselves for not thinking of it, and nobody more than Inspector Jeffreys who had meant to pick Miss White up on that remark, 'Signor Cesarini, well, he's been a few times, naturally …' Naturally. It had struck him at once as odd, that 'naturally'. Why should he be interested in her little museum? But he had been anxious to get to Langley-Smythe, to stop Miss White from rambling so much in her story— should have taken a bit of his own medicine and been patient. Cesarini visited all the flats because he was the landlord—all except the Cipriani flat which had been in their family for generations. Cesarini had been buying them up over the years with their tenants in them. Of course, when the tenants were asked about Langley-Smythe's visitors, nobody bothered to mention Cesarini. He wasn't a visitor. The Captain had even telephoned Signor Cipriani as soon as the hour was reasonable and asked him if he had ever, by any chance, seen Cesarini go into Langley-Smythe's flat, or vice-versa.

'Yes, quite often, I suppose, but naturally, as he's—'

'Yes. Thank you, we know that now …'

Naturally.

The Captain was now as irritated as he was exhausted.

'What was your business relationship?'

'What makes you think we had one?'

'You deal in a lot of imported furniture.'

'So? Your men have seen my books, if I remember rightly.'

'And found nothing illegal. The Finance Police are looking at them now.'

'And will find the same, nothing illegal.'

'But a lot that is interesting. And the fingerprints of your two friends of last night are all over the furniture in the Englishman's room.'

'That's hardly my responsibility.'

'Why were they with you last night, if you were only checking over your property?'

Cesarini shrugged.

'You refuse to answer?'

'Why should I? Am I under arrest?'

'Not yet.'

There was that, at least. The Captain had waited for Cesarini last night with every intention of making an arrest
in flagrante,
and only the key had, fortunately, made him hesitate.

Cesarini shrugged again. 'They're friends of mine.'

'Really? Their fingerprints could mean that they'll be charged with murder.'

Another shrug.

'You don't seem to be too concerned for your "friends'".

Cesarini glanced out of the window as if he were bored.

The Chief Inspector had lit his pipe and was chewing on it, concentrating, sometimes looking to Jeffreys in the hope of a bit of translation, but mostly just concentrating. This battle was the same in any language, the rise and fall of tension, the gradual building up of a peculiar intimacy between questioner and questioned that, more often than not, ended in a confession if a guilty man were anything other than a professional killer. The Chief sensed that things weren't developing as they should.

'Mind if I have a smoke myself, seeing as this is just a social visit?' Cesarini asked cockily. Drifts of blue pipe smoke from the Chief Inspector's corner were revolving in the sunbeam that was now striking the edge of the Captain's desk.

'By all means. If you have any cigarettes.'

'Well, well, I thought you were supposed to be the most civilized cops in Italy,' said the dealer, with his eye on the carved cigarette box on the desk.

'We are,' said the Captain quietly, but not moving. 'Otherwise you might be a great deal less comfortable and cocksure than you are just now.'

'Are you threatening me?' The dealer's face reddened. It was the first reaction they had had out of him.

'Not at all; merely pointing out a fact. How much did you pay him? A percentage of each deal?'

'What deal?' Cesarini scrabbled in his pocket for cigarettes and a lighter. Just as he was about to thrust a cigarette into his mouth, the Captain said:

'How much rent did he pay you?'

The dealer stopped; he took out the cigarette slowly, looking down at the floor, then put it back in and snapped the lighter.

'Who?' he asked eventually, inhaling deeply.

'You know who.'

'I have a lot of tenants.'

'The Englishman.'

'Not much.'

'How much?'

'I don't know how much, not off-hand. Why should I?'

'Every reason. Nobody lets a flat and doesn't know what the rent is.'

'Perhaps I'm inefficient.'

'Perhaps. The people who checked your books didn't seem to think so. They thought you remarkably efficient; books beautifully kept, copies of import and export licences, invoices for every sale. Remarkably efficient.'

'Thanks.'

'How much was the rent?'

'If you know, why bother asking?'

'What makes you think I know?'

'If you didn't, you wouldn't think the matter worth enquiring about. Do you think I'm a fool?'

Yes, thought the Captain, you are. Because I didn't know. I was guessing.

Aloud he said: 'He didn't pay any rent, did he?'

Cesarini leaned back again and blew smoke at the ceiling without answering, but his face was dark, his nonchalant pose unconvincing.

'Is that how it started? You offered him a free flat?'

'Why else would anyone live on the ground floor, and in a hole like that?' he said it disgustedly.

'You don't seem to have liked him.'

'Why should I?'

'It's a little unusual to offer someone a free flat if you dislike them, even on the ground floor. What had you against him anyway?'

'He was a miser. I didn't say I disliked him but I suppose I despised him.'

'But you gave him the flat, although you despised him and thought him a miser.'

'So? That's a personal opinion. I don't let personal opinions get in the way of …'

'Of business, Signor Cesarini?'

'I want my lawyer here—you're deliberately twisting everything I say, trying to trip me up. I want to telephone my lawyer!'

'Would your lawyer happen to be Avvocato Romanelli?'

'How do you know that?' He was wary now, though still affecting a sneering confidence.

'I just thought it might be. He happens to have been the Englishman's lawyer, too. An interesting man. I hope to have further talks with him. However, you're not really in need of a lawyer now. After all, you're not under arrest, if you remember.'

'Then you can't keep me here.'

'I can get a warrant for your arrest any time I want it; meanwhile, my men will go on looking for that gun.'

Cesarini's face visibly relaxed.

'That doesn't worry you.'

'I've already told you I've got a gun, and a licence for it, and that it's in the shop. Your men will find it and much good may it do them. You'll find it hasn't been fired for years.'

'Then why keep it?'

'Why not? I sell some valuable stuff. A shop like mine could be robbed, and robbers have a habit, in this city, of turning up in the daytime with guns, since they can't get into the buildings at night, as I'm sure you've noticed.'

'Somebody seems to have got into one on Via Maggio, unless he was in there already. And perhaps the Englishman had a gun, a 6.35 possibly.'

'Possibly.'

'What about your two friends?'

'What about them?'

'Did they carry arms?'

'You've picked them up, haven't you? Ask them.'

'I will. They weren't armed when we brought them in but just now I'm asking you. Do they carry arms?'

'No.'

'Never?'

'Not that I know of.'

'Let's return to the furniture. Your friends were frequently seen moving furniture in and out of the Englishman's flat by one of your tenants.'

No answer.

'It seems a little eccentric on his part, to have wanted to change his furniture and his paintings and statuary every month.'

'The English are eccentric, so they say.'

'So they do. We have two Englishmen with us now, but I have a feeling that they think it was eccentric of him, too, so perhaps not all English people are eccentric.'

The dealer didn't look round but he evidently seemed to feel the Chief's eyes boring into him.

The telephone rang: 'Marshal Guarnaccia at Pitti for you, sir.'

'Put him through. Good morning, Marshal. How are you? Are you sure? I see. Well, if you think you ought to go … you have my man there? Yes, certainly. I'm not sure, but keep in touch, will you? Ah yes, indeed—I'd forgotten him, to tell you the truth. You'd better leave him to get some rest as we're not really in need of an interpreter, at this stage, and you have my Brigadier there—oh, on second thoughts, if he's had some rest, you might wake him up and send him over to Via Maggio. We're desperately short-staffed and the man I left over there last night still hasn't been relieved. The lad shouldn't come to any harm standing outside the flat, I'll send someone else as soon as I can … He certainly does … Good thing when he gets back into school, though I must say his English has been a help. Tell him to try and keep out of trouble for about the next two hours. And take it easy yourself …I'd like a talk with you later if you're feeling fit … Yes … Till later, then …'

There was a moment's silence after the Captain had replaced the receiver. He was looking down at his own hands on the desk. They were still brown from the long summer, he thought. The irrelevance of that thought struck him; he was too tired to be questioning this man. They were getting nowhere, and yet it would be unwise to let him go away knowing that. The only hope was to worry him at least a little so that he would have something nagging at him while he waited around for a few hours. But what? The man was very confident that nothing could be proved against him as far as his dealing was concerned, and he was probably right. Everything had gone so well for years … But then why …

'What did you quarrel about?'

'Quarrel? Who am I supposed to have quarrelled with?'

'Who had the customs contact, you or he?'

'What contact?'

'Had you found someone else to do the Englishman's part? Whatever was wrong, he wasn't expecting it.'

'Nothing was wrong.'

'You admit, then, that you were dealing with him?'

'I admit nothing. And nothing can go wrong with nothing.'

'He let you in and turned his back.'

'I wasn't in his flat that night and you'll never prove I was.'

'It may, in the end, be up to you to prove you weren't. You were his only contact.'

'So a thief broke in '