The Marshal Makes His Report (2 page)

After so many years, of course, he’d got used to it all and had learned to distinguish the four teams sent by the four Quarters of the city, only two of which were really dangerous on the field. One of those, unfortunately, was the white team of his own Quarter. Unfortunately, because his own two little boys, when they and his wife at last moved up from Sicily to join him in Florence, became instant supporters of the Whites along with their schoolmates from the Quarter and expected that in his position he should produce tickets for the match. His feeble attempts to claim that the only tickets he could get were for the play-off between the Greens and the Reds met with disgusted howls of ‘Oh, Dad!’ He had allowed himself to be bullied into producing tickets for the match between the Whites and the Greens which should turn out to prove fairly innocuous. Anything to avoid the inevitable final battle between Whites and Blues, a floodlit and terrifying spectacle on the night of San Giovanni, the patron saint of the city. The night of June 24th.

So it was that on the second Sunday in June as he pushed his bulky dark-uniformed figure through the crowds on the narrow pavement of Via Ulderighi, the only thing really worrying him was the fact that the boys would be at the match with their mates, that and the burning afternoon sun which was making his sensitive eyes stream a bit despite his dark glasses. Every now and then he was obliged to fish for his handkerchief and pause, jostled on all sides, to try and dab them dry without actually removing his sunglasses. He could hear drums behind him thundering out a tattoo that echoed between the high eaves of the buildings. The procession was on its way. He’d had to spare quite a few lads from his station for duty at the match but he had no reason for going there himself other than wanting to keep an eye out for the boys. Even so, he had to admit, as the grey horse leading the cortège came level with him, that despite his disapproval of the violence of the tournament he did rather enjoy the pageantry. The drums and trumpets and the shining silk nags spinning upwards in the narrow streets towards a strip of blue sky made Florence look as it ought to look, and the people leaning out to watch from high windows between the bunting made a cheerful atmosphere that was infectious.

His cheerfulness was short-lived. He had paused for a moment, distracted by the antics of the grey horse which was getting too excited for comfort. It was snorting and trying to throw up its head and a lather of sweat was forming on its neck and shoulders. The cloaked nobleman in the saddle maintained a stern and competent expression but, in the Marshal’s opinion, his stern rigidity was impressing the crowd but not the horse which was trying to break into a trot and sidled towards the crowd when prevented. People were pressing back on the Marshal. He felt someone tug sharply at his sleeve.

‘Here! Marshal!’

He turned. A very tall man was standing directly behind him, intent on photographing the antics of the grey horse.

‘This way. Quick!’

‘Who the devil . . . ?’

A woman tapped his arm and pointed to a pair of gigantic studded doors surrounded by scaffolding, one of which was open just a crack.

‘He went in there.’

An odd little face peered out and a hand beckoned impatiently, then vanished.

Puzzled, the Marshal went nearer to the great doors and peered into the gloom beyond. He could see nothing. He took off his sunglasses, pushed on the door and went in. He had hardly stepped inside when the door boomed shut and a small figure dodged out from behind him.

‘This way.’ He unlocked high wrought-iron gates. They were in a large colonnaded courtyard in the centre of which was a stone well. It was cold and dark after the brightness and heat of the street and the noise of the procession barely penetrated. Instead, he could hear faint music coming from somewhere above. The Marshal followed the agitated little figure that ran before him and came back to urge him on, the way dogs sometimes do. Now he was waiting by a door under the colonnade on the right. The Marshal reached him and said, ‘Well?’

The man was a dwarf and barely reached the Marshal’s waist, but to judge by his face he was well past forty. He was fishing for a key now in the pocket of his black overall.

‘I locked the door. Well, you never know. Not that
he’ll
be going anywhere!’

The Marshal waited in silence. He could already sense that something very serious was afoot and he couldn’t reconcile this feeling with the dwarf’s attitude. So he just waited.

The dwarf unlocked the door and went in with the Marshal following him. It was a gun room, quite small and windowless. A light was burning. Apart from the rifle rack and a cupboard, there was nothing but a table and a leather chair in the room. Nothing, except the man lying dead on the floor.

‘Who is he?’ The Marshal’s big eyes were taking in every detail of the room and the body.

‘Gaffer. The boss, or so he liked to think. Now he knows better. More of what they call a Prince Consort. Know what I mean?’

‘No.’ The Marshal bent to look at the dead man more closely. He had been shot at point blank range close to his throat. Or more likely he’d shot himself. He was lying on his back and a rifle lay across his chest. He wore a silk dressing-gown over evening clothes and there was a dark patch on one side of his face.

‘Who is he?’ repeated the Marshal, adding, as the dwarf opened his mouth to answer, ‘His name.’

‘Corsi. Buongianni. You must have heard of his famous apéritif. “Perks you up when you’re feeling down”—you’ll have seen the ad on the telly. Mind you, it’d take more than one at this point—’

‘And what’s your name?’ said the Marshal, glowering.

‘Me? I’m usually known as Grillo.’

The Marshal could well believe it. It was the common name for a cricket, which was just what this rattling little creature looked and sounded like.

‘Well,’ said Grillo, rubbing his hands together with relish, ‘she’ll have to be told so you’re the man to do it. I was just wondering what to do when I saw you out there through the window. Not in here—’ he was quick to catch the Marshal’s glance at the blank walls—‘from next door.
I’m
not going up there. Not my job, is it? I don’t operate “up there”. The porter ought to deal with it but him and his wife are “up there” already, tarted up as butler and maid for the do. I wonder what she’ll say to this?’

‘Sit down.’ The Marshal was beginning to look dangerous. Grillo sat down. There was only the one chair and the Marshal stood over him glaring down with his huge bulging eyes. Grillo folded his arms and stared back brightly.

‘At your service, provided you don’t expect me—’

‘Shut up.’ But having shut him up, the Marshal wasn’t at all sure where to begin. Buongianni Corsi . . . The apéritif business rang a bell, though he never touched the stuff himself. The faint sound of a fanfare of trumpets came from outside. It seemed to come from another world. The Marshal began to feel suffocated in the small room. It was a feeling that was to stay with him for a long time. With a sigh he looked from the dwarf to the dead man and back again.

‘What time did you find him?’

‘I haven’t a watch!’

‘What time approximately?’

‘Might have been half an hour ago. I came in—’

‘Why?’

‘Why? To clean the guns, of course. It’s my job, always has been.’

‘And did you?’

‘Clean them? No point, was there? He’ll not be needing them. I didn’t get that stuff out if that’s what you’re thinking.’

He didn’t miss a trick. The Marshal had deliberately not looked at the rags and gun grease on the table.

‘Cleaning it himself, wasn’t he? I mean, he must have been. Shot himself, I suppose, wouldn’t you say so?’

The Marshal expressed no opinion.

‘You said it was your job.’

The only answer was a long-drawn-out cackle.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘Nothing. He spent a lot of time in here, playing with his guns. Many an evening. Playing with his little pistol.’ He grinned lewdly at the corpse. ‘Preferred that to his wife and her friends. Now why do you think that would be, eh? Ha ha!’

The Marshal glowered. He was beginning to feel like the straight man in a comic act. He decided to try a policy of threatening silence. It worked. At first the dwarf, too, maintained a defiant silence but he soon began to look uncomfortable.

‘Well, anyway . . . she’ll have to be told. I expect . . . I expect you need to know who and where to find . . .’

The Marshal shifted his feet slightly and settled into stillness again. The room was so bare, windowless and severe.

You’d have to be in a bad way to want to spend long silent evenings in it.

‘It’s the Marchesa you want. The Marchesa Ulderighi. His wife. You’ll find her on the first floor. There’s a concert going on, there always is on Sunday afternoons.’

The Marshal turned to go out the door.

‘I’ll lock it again, shall I? I’d better, don’t you think?’ Grillo came chattering after him. The Marshal waited as he turned the key, then took it from him and slipped it into the top pocket of his uniform. He looked up to where the music was still playing.

‘Where’s the lift?’

‘You’ll have to use the stairs. Only, the family have keys to the lift.’

‘Where can I phone?’

‘Phone . . . there’s one in the porter’s lodge but you can’t use that, can you? Locked. They’re “up there” like I said, in fancy dress—’

‘All right.’

The Marshal started plodding up the broad stone staircase. Perhaps, after all, it wouldn’t be politic to fill this Marchesa whatshername’s house with carabinieri and ambulance men before she even knew her husband was dead, though he’d rather have got the business off his hands and left an officer or a magistrate to tell her . . . tell her what? If he had to do it himself he’d better be careful how he phrased it. An accident . . . probably that’s what it was anyway if the fellow was cleaning his gun, happens all the time. For a number of reasons already firmly lodged in his mind, he didn’t believe what he was thinking. What he did believe, wrongly, as it turned out, was that anything involving high and mighty people like this would instantly be taken out of his hands.

‘Oof!’ He paused for breath and mopped his brow. At the first turning in the great staircase a carved wooden shield painted with the family coat of arms hung on the wall. The Marshal came upon it on turning the corner and it stopped him in his tracks. It was at least twice his own height and there was something about the way it leaned forward from the wall at the top that gave it a threatening air. The muffled, gentle music continued playing somewhere above. He continued his climb, slightly out of breath, and on the first-floor landing he stopped. There were high double doors to his right and left. The music was coming from the right. A concert, Grillo had said. He looked at the bell on the wall, imagining the interruption its pealing would cause. A brass plate above it was engraved in copperplate:
Bianca Maria
Corsi Ulderighi Della Loggia.
That must be her—but why only her name? What about the husband? He hadn’t been dead when that plate was put up. Prince Consort, the Grillo had said . . . What a creature!

The Marshal didn’t ring the bell. When it came to people who had that many names on their doorbell you did well to tread softly or you might wake up one morning and find you’d been transferred to some godforsaken spot at the other end of the peninsula. He raised his big fist and tapped gently. The music continued. It was a sad but pleasing tune, the melody picked out by what he thought was probably a flute. He knocked discreetly three more times and then tried the door. It opened. After all, it was a concert and presumably open to the public, so he stepped gingerly in. He was in a broad corridor with a terracotta floor of tiles so old and darkened with polishing that they seemed almost black. There were no windows, but light came from small silk-shaded lamps on four half-moon tables flanking more double doors to the right and left. The flute continued its soft lament and the Marshal tried to tread the polished floor in his big black shoes without making too much noise, his fists clenched with the effort. He reached the door on the left, took off his hat and pressed the brass handle.

As the volume of the music increased he got a brief impression of a high-ceilinged yellow and white salon with the same darkly polished floor and an enormous central chandelier. There were perhaps sixty or eighty sleekly dressed people in there sitting on tiny gilded chairs. He drew the door shut quietly and stood thinking what to do for the best. Wait for an interruption in the music and slide in under cover of the applause? This was ridiculous. The woman’s husband was lying dead down there. Why the devil hadn’t she even missed him if they had all these guests? Perhaps the best thing to do, after all, would be to go out and phone for help from a bar now that the racket caused by the procession would likely be over. The only thing that made him hesitate to do just that was the thought of that chattering Grillo who was undoubtedly waiting below to see how he’d got on. By this time he could well understand why the dwarf had balked at coming up and barging in on that lot himself and could just imagine his grinning triumph at the Marshal’s own lack of courage and aplomb.

‘Blast,’ he said to himself, and thought again about waiting for an interruption in the music. Then he heard the door behind him open. He turned round to see a plump woman of middle age dressed in a maid’s uniform. She was still holding the doors open wide and was staring at him in apprehension. With a little wail of fear she turned and vanished. He could hear her calling for someone urgently.

‘Mauro! Mauro!’

‘What’s up with you now, woman?’

‘Mauro!’

The Marshal had followed in her wake. The room to his right was almost identical to the other but a bit smaller and it contained two very long tables covered in white damask and set with glasses and bottles of the famous apéritif. A small service door had been left open at the other end of the room and now a man appeared there. He had a wizened, monkeylike face and was dressed in black trousers, a short striped cotton jacket and white gloves. His wife—for this was surely the porter, reappeared behind him to peer anxiously over his shoulder. Her white face was now blotched with red. It was plain that they felt as incongruous as they looked in their ‘fancy dress’ and that this exacerbated their distress at the sight of the Marshal. The porter looked not so much at the Marshal himself as at his uniform and let out a single word under his breath.