The Marshal Makes His Report

The Marshal Makes His Report

Also by Magdalen Nabb

Vita Nuova

The Innocent

Property of Blood

Some Bitter Taste

The Monster of Florence

The Marshal at the Villa Torrini

The Marshal’s Own Case

The Marshal and the Madwoman

The Marshal and the Murderer

Death in Autumn

Death in Springtime

Death of a Dutchman

Death of an Englishman

with Paolo Vagheggi

The Prosecutor

The Marshal Makes His Report

Magdalen Nabb

Copyright © 1990 by Magdalen Nabb and
© 1994 by Diogenes Verlag AG Zurich

This edition published by
Soho Press, Inc.
853 Broadway
New York, NY 10003

All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Nabb, Magdalen, 1947–2007.
The marshal makes his report / Magdalen Nabb.

p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-56947-532-4 (pbk.)
1. Guarnaccia, Marshal (Fictitious character)—Fiction.
2. Police—Italy—Florence—Fiction. 3. Florence (Italy)—Fiction.

I. Title.
PR6064.A18M33 2008
823'.914—dc22

2008018089

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The Marshal Makes His Report

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

One

T
he Marshal’s memory of the scene that night remained vivid in every detail. And yet, there was something about it that made it seem more like the memory of a spectacular film or the climax of a stage play, so that it crossed his mind even at the time that it didn’t look real. Maybe distance had something to do with it, because the tower, when he at last reached the top of it, gasping for breath, was so very high and the figures acting out the drama below in the courtyard looked so tiny.

The Florentine night was hot and the sky velvety with a big bright moon. It was just possible to make out that there was a light on down there in the huge iron lantern that marked the entrance to the courtyard, but the bulb was so weak that if it hadn’t been for the moonlight he would hardly have been able to distinguish the colonnade and the well in the centre. The body was lying face down near the well and he could see the dark shape of the woman kneeling over it. Everything was silent. Other dark figures were closing in, emerging from the deeper gloom of the colonnade and moving hesitantly towards the central tableau, but before any of them reached it they paused and settled more or less in a circle. A torch was switched on but went off almost at once. No one disturbed the kneeling woman who was as still as the body. She might have been a mother watching over a child’s sleep, afraid that any movement might wake it. No voices reached the Marshal at that height. The tableau held its stillness for what seemed like an unnatural length of time until the ambulance men attempted to get to the centre, with a white rectangle between them. The circle of heads widened and separated.

The Marshal’s big hands clutched the warm stone parapet and he leaned further over. His body was tense, waiting for the woman to break down. She surely must, now, and it would bring a sort of relief to him, too. He saw the white rectangle placed on the ground and one of the black figures bend over her. He saw her head go back, the face turned up towards him as though to accuse him, though she couldn’t have seen him. He felt the wail of pent-up grief leave her body but he never heard it, because right then the first of the fireworks went off, drawing a glittering red fountain on the black sky and exploding in soft hissing blobs that fell down towards the rooftops in slow motion. For a few seconds all the roofs and towers of Florence appeared in a warm glow, a flash of pink river snaking between them, and the crowd along the embankment roared and clapped its approval. Then it was dark again and a cloud of rosy smoke obscured the moon. The Marshal was dazzled and distracted, hearing only his own heavy breathing, and feeling the smooth warm stone beneath his hands.

His memory of getting his great bulk down all those hundreds of stairs was vaguer. He remembered only that the staircase was so narrow that he frequently bumped his right shoulder against the rough wall and that the worn steps were treacherous in the gloom. He went slowly, not wanting to catch up with the uneven thump and shuffle of the small figure struggling down below him. That, at any rate, was his reasoning then. Now it was over he could admit, at least to himself, that he’d been in no great hurry to face the scene in the courtyard. In the event, hardly anyone had noticed him. The chief public prosecutor had caught his eye for a second but he was fully occupied with the Marchesa, so he waited until she had been calmed and led away and then went quietly across the dim, hushed courtyard and out into the noisy street. There he paused to wait for a gap in the traffic and drew in a deep breath of relief as the bright lights of Gino’s and a waft of hot pizza dough welcomed him back to life and blessed normality.

So now he sat in his office in the carabinieri station at the Palazzo Pitti, two fat fingers poised over the typewriter keys, examining his conscience. What really bothered him was that when he’d come to his own conclusions about what to put in his final report his conscience hadn’t made any objections at all. That came later when the chief public prosecutor asked him to do what he intended to do anyway. A man like that . . . well, not to put too fine a point on it, if you agreed with a man like that, you must be as bad as he was. The Marshal didn’t like the chief public prosecutor. A non-commissioned officer like himself could reasonably expect to pass his whole existence without ever so much as setting eyes on the chief public prosecutor. Even the substitute prosecutors who directed the cases he might be involved in would normally communicate directly with the Marshal’s superior officers. He typed ‘On the evening of June 24th’ and stopped. To agree with a man like that . . .

The idea that two very different men might reach the same conclusion for two very different reasons was beyond the Marshal’s powers of reasoning. He wasn’t very good at reasoning. He wasn’t very good at writing reports either, even simple HSA reports, and this one was far from simple. What was it his wife had once said to him when they’d quarrelled over something or other and he’d said that whatever it was wasn’t right. ‘It may not be right,’ she’d said, ‘but what’s right isn’t always what’s good.’ He’d been too furious at the time to think of asking her what the devil that was supposed to mean, but he wished he had because it described the way he was feeling now.

‘On the evening of June 24th . . .’

‘Oof!’ He yanked the page out of the typewriter and crumpled it with one big hand. His large, slightly bulging eyes stared at the map of his Quarter pinned on the opposite wall. The sun was shining in on it. He was hot. He was hungry, too. A phrase came into his head:
‘Whoso foregathers with great people is the last at table
and the fast at the gallows.’
That young Englishman had said it, or read it. True enough, too. He felt again the Marchesa Ulderighi’s beautiful eyes turned on him that first time, making him feel like some sub-human creature who was soiling the air she breathed. The memory made him squirm and he got up, irritated with himself for such weakness, and began plodding about the room. As he plodded he periodically bumped into the rubber plant his wife had bought him and placed right in front of the window just where he liked to stand and stare out. Grunting a little, because the pot was heavy and he was more than a bit overweight himself, he pushed the thing to one side and opened the window. The warm air came in from the Boboli Gardens, carrying with it a strong savour of tomato sauce with garlic and basil, the clink of cutlery and the signature tune of the lunch-time news. The lads were up in the barracks kitchen eating and he hadn’t noticed the time! With a sigh of relief he shut the window and abandoned his office. A good lunch, a rest, and a chat with Teresa and the boys in his own quarters and then he’d start all over again, right from the beginning.

It began, at least for the Marshal, on the second Sunday in June and with the first round of the football tournament. That wretched football business could be said to be at the root of the whole affair, that and the Marchesa Ulderighi’s bright freezing eyes. Not that the Marshal had anything against football, real football that is, in which he took a vaguely benevolent interest and in front of which he dozed and woke alternately in his armchair in front of the television on Wednesday nights. But this Florentine version was something else. He’d never forget the first time he saw it, more than fifteen years ago, it must have been. He’d enjoyed the procession through the city. Halberdiers and guildsmen and so on in their medieval costumes under the brilliant sunshine, the drummers and the flag-throwers and the restive horses constrained by the narrow streets and the crowds. Picturesque, he thought, a nice show for the tourists who sat peaceably licking melting ice-creams on the stands around the sand-covered city square. They and the Marshal too were diverted by the prize, a white cow with gilded horns, looking a bit dazed as it was led into the arena among the flying silk flags and rattling drums.

It was only when the fancy dress brigade had cleared off and left the field to the players that the Marshal began to have vague doubts. They were in fancy dress too, but the slashed sleeves and knee-breeches and long, coloured socks did nothing to soften the impression made by their bull necks and murderous expressions. The Marshal, being on duty that first time, was right on the edge of the pitch and the tension, the threatening language and certain gestures were not lost on him. The tourists, placed at a safe distance in the expensive seating behind the city nobility and the mayor, were still licking their ice-creams and chatting. But in the other stands where the local supporters were sitting, waves of unrest were building up. The Marshal looked about him uneasily as some announcements were read over a loudspeaker in various languages. Nobody else seemed to look worried. The supporters, after all, were throwing nothing more lethal than dyed carnations, flying dark silhouettes criss-crossing against the blue midsummer sky and settling in a pattern of the teams’ colours on the sandy pitch.

Near the Marshal stood the Master of the Games, decoratively dressed in a cloak and hat of black velvet and wearing a sword which he clutched with his right hand, to the Marshal’s amusement, as though about to draw it for a fight. That was his last thought before a cannon shot boomed and echoed round the square. He just had time to notice the ball fly upwards in one direction when the bulk of the players rolled itself into one struggling mass moving the opposite way and a desperate fight broke out. The local crowd stood up, roaring. The Marshal’s mouth fell open and he gazed about him. Shouldn’t he intervene? Good God! Somebody should intervene. Hadn’t he seen a referee? There was a referee. After a while he emerged from between the legs of the fighting mass, got to his feet and started yanking at the shirt of one of the more vicious fighters. At first he was ignored but then the huge player noticed this irritating attack from behind, turned round, picked up the referee and tossed him over the paling that bounded the pitch. The roaring increased. The Marshal heard a metallic swish beside him. The Master of the Games strode forward, almost at a run, his black cloak flying and his drawn sword raised. The sword was not decorative. Within seconds order was restored. When the tangled mass of men was separated and the point was argued out it appeared that one particular player had been the designated victim, the biggest and most ferocious man on his team. The idea had been to eliminate him as early on as possible. Now he stood, red-jowled, sweated, and howling in fury. The remains of his T-shirt hung in ribbons around this slashed breeches. His nose and the side of his head were bleeding. Somebody had bitten his ear off but the real cause of his fury was that he was being sent off as injured. He disdained the stretcher that was brought and managed to get in a good right hook at one of the enemy before being dragged away. A search was instituted for the ear but the Marshal never knew whether it was successful because the cannon boomed and play was resumed; the Marshal lifted his sunglasses and mopped his sweating face. For the rest of the match he contented himself with occasionally murmuring ‘Good God . . .’ and keeping an eye on the reassuring figure of the swordsman beside him.