The Marshal at the Villa Torrini (15 page)

'You're very young and you've had a bad shock, but you're old enough to realize, I think, that we're obliged, in the circumstances, to make inquiries . . .'

Nothing. When it came down to it she didn't look old enough. She had the air of a child, obedient but unresponsive, so unresponsive that it crossed his mind that perhaps she wasn't normal. He'd seen mad people retreat into their own heads like that—yet she was at university and neither Mary Mancini nor her daughter, sane, sensible people, had suggested there might be something wrong with her. He sighed inwardly. His only experience of a wall of silence so impenetrable was with dull-witted and patently guilty criminals. That brute Saverino had been one of them. Hadn't opened his mouth until the trial. It had been the pathetic little Pecchioli who'd told all.

With less tough characters a few days in the cells often did the trick, but he could hardly lock up this fair and delicate creature. He tried another tack.

'What I'd really like to talk about is you.'

'Me? Why should you be interested in me?'

It wasn't much but it was better than silence. 'I'm sure a lot of people are interested in you, in how you're feeling, what you intend to do.'

She shrugged her shoulders.

'You'll continue at university?'

A shrug, this time evidently meaning, 'I suppose so.'

'You'll be independent now, economically and . . . in every way. You might feel there's something else you'd prefer to do.'

'I'll never do anything!' She almost shouted it at him and her face changed colour. She was surely about to cry. The Marshal gave an unhappy glance at the door, knowing that Sissi would be listening in. This was going as badly as his visit to Forbes, when, trying to work his way around dangerous areas, he had set off a mine with an innocent remark about the furniture. Well, so be it.

'I'm sure that's not true. You have every advantage. You're obviously a bright girl, studying at university— Italian, isn't it?'

A nod.

'Which you already speak well. You're very pretty and you'll have more than enough money for your needs. Most girls would envy you.'

Her only response was a downward twist at one corner of her mouth whose meaning was not lost on the Marshal. Though often accused of not following what people were saying, he was always aware of what they were thinking. That disdainful little smirk said that he didn't know what he was talking about.

'Have you given any thought at all to a career?'

'I'll have to teach, I suppose.'

'But you don't want to, judging by the way you say it.'

He wondered how she imagined she'd be able to teach without the aid of the spoken word. He looked at her hands lying one over the other, smooth and flawless with short, very white nails. Not a tremor. They lay as still as dead birds. He had a distressing feeling that he wasn't just dealing with shyness or even a chronic lack of confidence, that the apparently perfect creature was somehow irreparably damaged. Her mother, who had loved her, had grieved for her as a lost child. When he looked up at her face again she stared back at him accusingly.

'You're not interested in me, you're here because of my mother and how she died.'

'Do you know how she died—I mean, do you know any more than we do?'

'How should I know? I wasn't even here.'

'You might know from Forbes.'

Silence. A silence that might have lasted indefinitely if the Marshal, as much to break it as anything, asked, 'You aren't disturbed by my carabiniere taking notes? He can leave if you prefer it.' But she only shrugged. Fara looked at the Marshal for guidance but he, too, shrugged. What was the point? He might as well stay. The poor lad hadn't written a word, anyway. What was there to write?

'Did you quarrel with your mother, Signorina? At Christmas, or a little before?'

'No.'

'But she was very distressed at that time about you. Had you been in some trouble in England?'

'No.'

'You can't think of any reason why she should have been so distressed about you?'

'She was disappointed in me, I suppose. I'm not as bright as she expected.'

'And was Julian Forbes disappointed in you, too?'

Silence.

'He used to help you with your school work, your friend Katy told me. Did he get bored with you because you were not as bright as he expected, either?'

That, at least, touched a spot. She stared at him in hatred and her face flushed deep red.

'He didn't want you here any more, did he?'

'It was her, she was the one who wrote—'

'No, no . . . I can promise you that she was deeply grieved about it. If you fought with your mother and accused her—'

'She even sold my bed!'

'No. He did. He was very jealous, my dear, and he wanted himself at the centre of everything. You shouldn't have blamed your mother. I realize that it's an unhappy thought for you now that it's too late to make up your quarrel, but it's important for you, and will be throughout your life, to know that your mother loved you very deeply. And you did come for Christmas in the end, didn't you?'

She nodded, again with that downward twist of her mouth.

'Your mother must have been the one who told you to come.'

She nodded miserably.

'I suppose it wasn't a very happy visit after what had happened. It may be that, in the end, your mother decided to leave her husband because of his rejection of you. Doesn't that say that she cared a lot about you?'

She was staring past him in silence again. The Marshal persisted a little while longer, chiefly in the hope of persuading her to go and stay with the Mancini family, but he elicited no further replies. Her tension disturbed him deeply. He had in a fairly long career dealt with many bereaved people. Some were hysterical, some unbelieving, some collapsed from the shock and others almost attacked him physically as the bearer of bad tidings. Never had he encountered this paralysing tension. It was affecting him so badly that he had to bring the interview to a close. It was a relief to get to his feet and make for the door with Fara behind him. The girl didn't move from her chair. Sissi opened up as he was reaching out his hand for the doorknob.

'I could hardly hear half of it,' she complained, 'I'm always having to tell that girl to speak up—when she
does
speak—but I didn't think you'd have been a mumbler.'

As they returned to their car by the. lemon pots in their furiously snapping polythene shrouds, they glimpsed the worried face of the Signora Torrini gazing down at them from an upper floor window. There was no sign of life in the barn, no face behind the lattice-work.

'We're not going in to see him, then?' Fara ventured to ask.

'He's not there,' the Marshal said, 'there's no fire lit and it's well below freezing point.'

Fara looked up. It was true that no curl of smoke was coming from the chimney. The sky above, seared by the icy wind, burned a deep, pure blue such as was never seen in summer.

'I wish I lived in this place,' Fara said, gazing out at the villa as he turned the ignition.

'The people who do,' observed the Marshal, 'don't seem to be enjoying it much.'

The Marshal lay in bed rolling the day's images through his mind and enjoying the sound of Teresa chattering to him as she pottered in and out tidying away their day.

'The fishmonger says they'll never in this world dare arrest the hunchback—he always calls him that, never uses his name, but of course he's a communist, so . . . but that retired professor was in, I forget his name but you met him once at the opening of that exhibition so you know who I mean, he buys a lot of fish, doesn't care for meat, and
he
said that that written defence he'd submitted to the magistrates was a typical Mafia document, the language used, the reasoning, everything—do
you
think he'll ever be arrested? Salva? Salva!'

'What? I don't know . . . ' He plugged himself into the conversation and ran it back a bit. 'You didn't make any comment, I hope?'

'Of course not. I must say it's nice to have the boys back.'

It was. They'd burst in, sunburnt, grubby and noisier than ever. Dropping rucksacks, polythene bags and anoraks in a trail through the flat, shouting each other down with stories, complaints, jokes and confessions, it had been like having the
tramontane
rip straight through the house. Now all was peace as they slept the sleep of the exhausted and contented.

There had been one brief interlude of discontent, however, only shortly after their arrival. Teresa brought it up now as she slid into bed.

'Why didn't you let them go, by the way?'

'What?'

'Why didn't you let them go for the end-of-trip pizza with all the others tonight? The teachers were going, they'd have been all right.'

'They've just had a week's holiday.'

'Well, it was only to round it off. It was a nice idea.'

'They have too much. They're spoilt.'

'Even so, it's not like you. You usually like them to enjoy themselves.'

She received no further enlightenment on the subject and so left it at that, to observe after a few minutes' silence, 'Have you noticed how quiet it is?'

'Mm?'

'I was thinking it was because the boys had gone to bed but it's not. The wind's dropped.'

It was true. Not a sound disturbed them from outside their shutters.

'Thank goodness for that.'

'Thank goodness is right,' Teresa said, turning over and settling down. 'It was so tiring battling against it. It should be lovely tomorrow if it doesn't cloud over again right away.'

'It won't.' He lay awake after her, turning over some doubts in his mind. He wondered whether it had been the right thing to let Fara go over later to take a look in at Il Caffé in case Forbes turned up and . . . well, and what? He hadn't wanted to discourage the lad and it was true that he'd been inconspicuous and that Forbes would never recognize him out of uniform . . . well, it couldn't do any harm . . .

The other thing he had doubts about was much less clearly defined. He had been sure all along that Forbes had murdered his wife and now he was sure why. She must have decided to leave him. If she had, he'd have been jobless, homeless, penniless and by all accounts friendless. Another golden goose like Celia Carter wouldn't be easy to come by. Even so, he wasn't convinced. He felt he was seeing all the component parts of the picture but not seeing the meaning that held it all together. When, later, he did see it, he was forced to admit to himself that he'd been trying to avoid it, that he preferred on this windless, peaceful night, to push his doubts to one side and concentrate on getting a good night's sleep.

After all, he reasoned, as he slid deeper into the warmth of the big bed, it didn't much matter what he knew or didn't know since he had no hope of ever proving anything. Before he quite dropped off he opened his eyes to check that the alarm on his bedside cabinet was set. It was. The luminous hands said a quarter to midnight. He closed his eyes.

Out in the still winter night, the temperature climbed steadily. Needles of gold light glittered in the dark waters of the Arno beneath the Ponte Vecchio where the silence of the deserted city was being rudely broken by Julian Forbes, drunk and bloodied, resisting arrest by the police.

CHAPTER 9

'How long did he stay at Il Caffé?' The Marshal sat down at his desk as he asked the question. The pink-faced Fara had barely let him get into the office, so full was he of his story.

'Not so long, not much more than an hour. I got there well before him. He arrived at half past ten.' He consulted his notebook, 'Ten twenty-seven.'

'And was this girl with him or did he pick her up there?'

'She came in with him. He was all over her. He insisted on trailing round the whole room to speak to everyone he knew and introduce her. He was feeling her the whole time, and she looked a bit uncomfortable, but she didn't stop him.'

'And where were you, that he didn't spot you going around like that?'

'Up on the balcony. It's tiny, just four tables lined up, but there are potted palms and stuff and very low lights, romantic. The only thing was they're all couples up there, so I felt a bit stupid, anyway . . . When he'd buttonholed everybody he could think of they sat down near Galli who was there with a tall blonde woman.'

'His wife.'

'I suppose it would have been, he didn't talk to her much. He didn't talk to Forbes much either and you could tell he didn't want him there, kept turning his back and getting deep into conversation with another journalist—I don't know his name but I've seen him around. I saw him going into court the other day when I was waiting for you. Forbes kept trying to butt in, but Galli must have said something pretty sharp, so in the end he gave up and started slopping all over this girl he was with. Then he managed to persuade another girl who was leaving to sit down and have a drink with them. After that, he had an arm round each girl and was talking nineteen to the dozen. I couldn't hear what he was saying because there's always music playing. The second girl was the first to leave. I don't think Forbes wanted to move but his girlfriend persuaded him.'

'Was he drunk?'

'I suppose . . . I don't know. He looked—feverish. You know? Excited. I suppose he might have drunk a lot of wine at dinner before going there, but he only had two drinks— marc de champagne both times, I heard the waiter. I don't think anybody'd be likely to get drunk in that place because there's nothing costs less than eight thousand lire . . .'

He tailed off, embarrassed. The Marshal fished some money out of his pocket. Fara's face got redder.

'I didn't mean . . .'

'Take it. You can't afford that, son. I should have thought on. You didn't keep the receipt?'

'Of course, but I threw it away when I got in. I wasn't intending . . .'

'Well, another time keep it. So, you don't think he was drunk?'

'Not really. Like I said, he was excited. He started raising his voice a bit, and I think that's why the girl wanted to leave.'

'He was raising his voice at her?'

'Oh no. I think at Galli. I think Galli must have offended him, though I couldn't hear. Then he turned his back. Forbes shouted then. I heard him say "a bunch of hacks", which meant the journalists, I suppose, then he pointed to himself, prodding his chest, no doubt telling them he was something a cut above. Luckily the girl managed to get him out and I rushed downstairs to follow them. I didn't know, of course, about the bike.'

The bike was one of those enormous efforts—Fara apologized for not being well-informed enough to distinguish the make—with engines as big as a car's, and bristling all over with accessories.

'He must have bought it that day. It glittered with newness.'

When he saw the two of them mount the monster motorbike, Fara had intended to give the thing up and cross back to the Pitti.

'Only they went the wrong way, roaring along the Via Guicciardini towards the Ponte Vecchio. I knew they wouldn't get far before they were stopped, going back up a one-way street like that. So I strolled along, listening. The streets were very quiet because, at that time everything's shut round here except Il Caffé.

'And were they stopped?'

'Of course they were. I didn't see the very start of the business, but once I heard the commotion I started running. Evidently he'd managed to get between the bollards that keep the traffic off the bridge. I heard a whistle blow, a bit of a roar and then a crash. When I arrived on the scene a little group of spectators had appeared out of nowhere, so I mixed in with them and watched.'

'What was the crash? Had he come off the motorbike?'

'From what I could gather he must have got on the bridge and two municipal police—a man and a woman—had waved him down. I suppose they whistled when he didn't stop, and when I arrived they were yelling at him that he could easily have killed them. As it was he'd run into the bollards at the other end. The girl hadn't a scratch on her, but Forbes's face was bleeding and one of his hands, too. He was hysterical, screaming at the police that it was their fault and they would pay for it. They asked him for documents but he refused to show any, saying the British ambassador was a personal friend of his and that he would see to it that they lost their jobs. He went on like that for a bit while they were waiting for a patrol car to come and pick him up.'

'And you still don't think he was drunk?' The Marshal didn't want to discourage the lad who, after all, had done a good job, but he couldn't have much experience of the different ways drunkenness can take people.

But Fara, despite his timidity, insisted. 'I know he hit the bollard but he was going too fast, and it was a big bike, I don't think he knew how to control it. He was hysterical—'

'He was also,' interrupted the Marshal gently, 'on the Ponte Vecchio on a motorbike, having got there by going along a one-way street the wrong way.'

'I know, but . . . I mean, everybody does that sometimes. The streets were empty—I don't mean I do it—'

I didn't think you did,' the Marshal said. 'I take your point. In that case what do you think he was so hysterical about?'

When the boy hesitated he said, 'Come on. You were there and you have your own idea about this, don't you? Let's hear it.'

'I think . . . I think he was hysterical because he was scared.'

'Of being stopped by the Municipal Police?'

'Well, he perhaps had no documents—and who knows if the motorbike was his? We never saw it up at the villa and, anyway, it was brand new, only—we've got his passport and he can't leave, so maybe it's getting to him. Showing off that girl in II Caffé like he was doing, it's not normal just after the funeral. I think he's doing it on purpose because he's frightened. He must know you suspect him and he's trying to pretend he doesn't care, but he's so hysterical it comes out all wrong . . .'

Fara tailed off because he could see the Marshal wasn't really listening. 'Shall I go and type my report?'

'No, no . . . ' The Prosecutor had said that time on the phone,
'You'll probably frighten him to death.'
And then Mary Mancini had said that when Forbes was frightened, a couple of drinks . . . Even so, it wasn't true. It might well be true that Forbes was frightened, but why now? When they had let him bury his wife he ought to have been less frightened. The autopsy hadn't worried him but, apparently, the funeral had sent him into hysterics.

'I'm probably talking rubbish. I just thought—'

'No, no . . . You're not talking rubbish at all. It's quite possible that he does feel threatened, but not by me. Not by me. I wonder . . .'

He had been going to say that another chat to Forbes might be in order, when a commotion in the waiting-room saved him the trouble.

'It's him!' Fara got to his feet. 'He'd better not see me, had he? I mean . . .'

'Don't worry about it. Just go to the duty room.'

Lorenzini knocked and looked in with his eyebrows raised in question. 'Forbes . . .'

'Let him in.' There was hardly the time or the need to say it since Forbes was already pushing past Lorenzini, his bearded chin stabbing the air arrogantly, but his eyes not quite meeting those of the Marshal who gazed at him blandly.

Lorenzini nodded towards the girl Forbes was towing behind him. 'I suggested the young lady stay in the waiting-room . . .'

'She's with me!' The girl was holding three Gucci carrier bags. At a look from the Marshal she seemed only too glad to scuttle out behind Lorenzini, the look on her face suggesting that there was more to this than she had been told.

'Take a seat,' offered the Marshal mildly.

'I'm not here to sit and chat, I'm here for my passport. I have business to transact in England, lawyers to see. The British consul—'

'Sit down. Or be shown out.'

He sat. He was shaking visibly. A bruise was developing round a cut on his temple.

'That girl,' the Marshal said, 'looks very young.'

'She's over eighteen, if that's what you mean. She's an American student studying history of art. I'm giving her a few pointers.'

'Really.'

'Yes, really. These girls arrive here with no background knowledge at all. They can't be expected to find their way about in the maze of Florentine history.'

'She seems to have found her way to Gucci.'

Forbes tried to sit back in the leather chair and cross one leg over the other. He was so tense he almost found it impossible.

'I took her there, too, if it interests you. I can afford it— though I fail to see what my sex life has to do with you.'

'I didn't know that was what we were talking about. I beg your pardon.'

'Look, I'm here because I need my passport!'

'I'm afraid I don't have it. It's in the office of the Public Prosecutor who will return it to you in due course.'

'Now listen here, I intend to go straight to the British Consulate when I leave this office, and you're going to find—'

'Excuse me.' The Marshal picked up his phone which had rung twice. 'Put him on. Guarnaccia.' The Marshal listened in silence for some time, frowning, his gaze fixed on Forbes's shaking knee. Then he said, 'Can I ask you to hold the line a moment?'

He rang for Lorenzini, who must have been keeping an eye on the girl in the waiting-room because his head came round the door immediately.

'Marshal.'

'Show Mr Forbes into the waiting-room, will you, until I've finished with this call?'

'You can't keep me waiting. I'm getting on to the ambassador. I—'

But Lorenzini was a big man, and the Marshal had already picked up the phone and turned away.

'Captain? I'm sorry. He was here in the room with me.'

'Really? Did you pick him up?'

'No, no . . . it seems to be some sort of social call. He's asking for his passport, but since he can't be stupid enough to think I've got it, or that I'd give it to him if I had, I imagine he was here to show me the girl he's picked up.'

'Girl? Whatever for? Hardly puts him in a good light.'

'No.'

'So why?'

'I don't know. Last night he got himself arrested and I don't know why he did that either.'

'Arrested? By whom?'

'Municipal Police.' The Marshal gave him a brief account of the episode on the Ponte Vecchio.

'Good Lord.'

'Yes. Well, they must have let him loose first thing, probably couldn't stand any more of him. It didn't boil down to much in terms of charges, I suppose, anyway.'

'And neither will this, I'm afraid. It's indicative that Sotheby's called the consul and got him to call me. They can't afford a scandal. They do business on trust. Besides, he didn't actually steal anything so they've just got a very irate client on their hands. A good client, too, it seems, so they're pretty livid.'

'Even so, if the goods are still there . . .'

'But they shouldn't be. They should be sold, and would have been if it hadn't been for Forbes.'

'Yes, well, I'm not sure I know how these things work . . .'

'It's simple enough; he went in there and started bidding for a batch of antique Persian carpets. He outbid everyone and they were marked down to him, but then he vanished. Never turned up to pay or take them. You can imagine that if that sort of thing happens too often the firm's reputation would hit the dust.'

'But . . . Didn't the auctioneer have any doubts?'

'Apparently he did. But of course he knew Forbes by sight as a member of the British community here, knew Celia Carter's highly respectable reputation and so on— and they'd bought one or two things before, nothing grand. And let's face it, knowing about her death—'

'They were counting on his having inherited.'

'I'm afraid so. The god Mammon plays nasty tricks on his worshippers.'

The Marshal thought, privately, that it rather served them right. Without being able to define quite why, he found their reasoning in some way offensive to the dead woman.

'What do they want us to do?'

'Keep him out of their saleroom but not take any official action that would get the story made public'

'Hmph. You don't want me to provide a man just for that? I can't manage . . .'

'No, don't worry. I'll send somebody for a day or two in the interest of diplomatic relations. But what do you think all this lunatic behaviour means in terms of your case? You don't think he's preparing the way for an insanity defence, as a precaution?'

'I don't know.' It hadn't even crossed his mind. He wished someone more intelligent would take over this business. 'I think, though, unless he does anything too serious, we should let him carry on. Some sort of explanation might offer.'

'You don't think he really is mad?'

'I think he's weak, and nasty with it, or because of it. I'm not qualified to say whether people like him are mad or not, only . . .'

'Only what?'

'Up there at the villa, there are only two old ladies and a very young girl . . . ' He didn't finish the sentence and nothing came over the line for a moment until the Captain mentally finished it for him.

'Yes. I see your point. If I can spare a man to hang around Sotheby's . . .'

'I didn't mean quite—'

'Guarnaccia, you did, you did, and you're right. I think I'll have a word with Fusarri and the three of us should get together. There's some stuff through from England on Forbes, I know—by the way, you've no reason to worry about Fusarri's friendship with the woman at the villa— what was her name?'