Death in Springtime (15 page)

Do you remember who gave you the wild flowers?

Did you see Rudolfo come up behind him with a knife?

She had looked at her father, terrified not of the Captain but of saying the wrong thing. The second time there had been an English-speaking lawyer there, too.

Did Rudolfo start unchaining you as soon as the second guard stopped coming?

She couldn't have managed the walk to La Selletta after being immobile for almost a month.

He had dug out the article that had appeared in a police magazine two years ago. There was a photograph of the New York sergeant with a quote underneath. "It's the simplest, most effective defence there is; you just dig your thumbs in to the eye sockets. But most women wouldn't do it."

Not to defend herself from rape perhaps, but if her life were at stake?

According to Garau's statement they had talked of killing her if the risk became too great. He had nothing to lose in saying so since he had been in prison when the gamekeeper was killed.

And Scano's boy had been picked up that same afternoon in a bar down in the city:

I intend to answer. I intend to tell the truth.

A.Q.: We were in difficulty because of the death of PILADU who had taken an overdose. It was the gamekeeper who decided it was safest to get rid of the girl once we had fixed for the ransom to be paid. She was still there when I left on Sunday morning, and he came up to relieve me. We were short of guards since GARAU had been arrested after a fight.

A.Q.: I don't know what the fight with the scarred man was about. It's possible that he suspected something and wanted a share because he had introduced the girl to GARAU but I don't know.

A.Q.: I know PRATESI, Giuseppe, because he has a factory near Pontino. Everybody knows him. I don't know whether GARAU re-cycled money for him though I know he did re-cycle money because he told me so, sometimes through drugs, sometimes through an arms dealer. I think the dealer was Sicilian but I don't know. I don't know the names of any of the people GARAU dealt with. I know he took a percentage of the money but I don't know how much. GARAU was to re-cycle the ransom money.

A.Q.: The cloak I wore in Piazza Pitti was Rudolfo's. I asked him to lend it to me because it was snowing. I told him I was cold. The pipes are my father's, I can't play them. I had them hidden in the back of the truck. I don't remember who the truck belonged to. GARAU borrowed it. We planned to make Rudolfo take the blame if anything went wrong, he's a bit simple.

A.Q.: I have only ever bought heroin for my own use.

The telephone rang.

'Marshal Guarnaccia at Pitti, sir.'

'Put him through. Good morning, Marshal. I thought you might have gone home to Syracuse.'

'No, no. It's not much over six weeks since I was last home. My mother died . . . And since my Brigadier's just got married I thought he should have Easter ... I rang you because I remembered something that might tie up a loose end for you, something I saw.'

'Yes?'

'Garau—Baffetti, as they call him—was caught stealing clothes from the Prisoners' Assistance at the Appeal Courts. I was there for something else but I caught sight of him slipping out through the gate and the woman there said it was the day for women's clothing not men's.'

'I see. That's why the Maxwells couldn't identify all the clothing we found in Rudolfo's house. We knew they hadn't come from Demontis's sister-in-law who's short and fat.'

'Did you find Demontis?'

'Easily. Needless to say the sister-in-law wouldn't shelter him and we found him in Scano's hen house.'

'What about the girl? Has she said anything?'

'Practically nothing. Her father won't let her.'

'It's been a messy case.'

'Very. How's Cipolla?'

'He's better, but he'll try again. For somebody like Baffetti who's as at home in prison as out it's one thing, but fifteen years inside for Cipolla . . . He'll try again. He's nothing to hope for. He hasn't even any children. A man should have children. You must be snowed under with paperwork.'

'I have been but I hope to finish this morning.'

'I'm going to go out for a breath of air while things are quiet.'

'You won't be able to get through the streets!'

'I shan't go towards the centre. I shall take a stroll down the river.'

'If you cross over you might call in here. I'd like a word with you about Rudolfo.'

'Have you talked to the Brigadier?'

'I have, but now he's away on holiday. Their new Marshal's arrived.'

'Well . . . I might look in.'

'If you should be over this side of the river.'

The Captain worked on for another half-hour before stopping to stretch his legs and make a decision. He would never get anywhere trying to make Maxwell see his point of view. He had no choice but to insist on seeing the girl alone. She needed to talk to someone anyway for her own good. He sat down again and picked up the telephone.

'Get me Mr Maxwell at the Excelsior.'

When he got through a voice said:

'I'm sorry, sir, Mr Maxwell and his family checked out yesterday evening.'

'Checked out? Do you know where they've gone?'

'I think they've gone back to America.'

'Thank you.'

He put the receiver down and sat for a moment looking at his fingers on the edge of the desk. The headache, which he only now noticed had subsided, was coming back again. Even if he had known he could hardly have stopped them. The evidence was all against Rudolfo, and the girl had suffered enough already. It would have taken at least a month to get at the truth, and he had no licence to kidnap the victims of kidnappings. The Nilsen girl had only stayed because the kidnappers had instructed her to stay.

He felt defeated, partly by the squalid bunch he had arrested who, after all, had succeeded in making Rudolfo take most of the blame, and partly by Maxwell, because the Maxwells of this world were a law unto themselves. At least, he reflected wryly, it was a change from feeling defeated by the magistracy.

He fished a series of telephone numbers out of his top pocket and tried a few of them, discounting the ones he knew were restaurants since it was too early.

The fourth try was successful.

'I thought you'd want to know, Maxwell's left.'

'For America?'

'Yes.'

'Then you'll have to follow him.'

'Yes. Preferably in about three weeks' time. I think she'll want to talk to me. I have strong hopes that first she'll talk to her stepmother who'll get in touch with me. In the meantime, I'll be finished with the paperwork today and will send the files to you tomorrow. The case can go under Instruction.'

'I'll ring the Instructing Judge in the morning.'

Fusarri put the receiver down and dropped his head back on the pillow. The sun was shining through the outer shutters, making stripes across the tangled white sheets.

'Who was it?' asked a drowsy voice beside him.

'Carabinieri.'

'Do you have to go out?'

'No, no. They don't need me any more . . . if they ever did.' He gazed up at the cherubs disporting themselves on the frescoed ceiling. 'Some of those fellows frighten me to death.'

'Rubbish ... I don't believe you.'

'You haven't seen Maestrangelo. I think he's the most serious man I've ever met.'

'So are you serious.' She roused herself sufficiently to drop a kiss on his shoulder.

'Only when I'm with you.'

'Ooh, now you're being ridiculous!'

'I'm not being ridiculous at all,' he said gravely. 'Come here . . . that's better. This is what life is for.'

There was no hint of irony in his voice, and not the least suggestion in his look that he might just as easily have been somewhere else.

The Marshal passed only a few tourists who were checking street names against their guidebooks and making for the centre and the Cathedral. For the rest, there was nobody much about except one or two people from his Quarter, women hurrying back from nine-thirty Mass to get the mixed roast on for Easter dinner, and small groups of men in Sunday suits but without ties gossiping outside the Communist club. The bars were hung with forests of foil-wrapped eggs and there were tiny pink and yellow sugar eggs stacked in the windows.

"Morning, Marshal.'

' 'Morning.'

'Happy Easter.'

At the corner of Piazza Santo Spirito an old man with a flower in his buttonhole was selling daffodils and lilies from big plastic buckets on a stone ledge.

Some of the very tiny streets were quite empty.

He crossed the river at Ponte alia Carraia and paused a moment to watch the canoes and skiffs passing underneath in the olive-green water. A dozen or so men were fishing by the weir.

He hadn't intended to walk as far as II Prato but an echoing drumroll in the distance and a glimpse of silk flags spinning up between the buildings into the light attracted him. He got there too late. Families were dispersing and the giant three-tiered doors were being closed. Two men in orange jackets were clearing up the mess left in the road by the white bulls. One of the animals had lost a big blue plastic flower from its garland.

The Marshal would quite like to have seen the pagoda-shaped cart set off for the Cathedral since it was the first time he had stayed for Easter, but by now it might well have reached the streets near the centre where thousands of people were waiting for it, and with the fire-engine going along behind he had little chance of seeing anything but the top of it. In any case, he'd better call in at Headquarters seeing as he was on that side of the river. Once he had sent a postcard of it to the boys. One of the town hall workers, dressed up as peasants in leather jerkins and straw hats, was holding on to a bull by its gilded horn. The boys had been disappointed because they'd wanted a picture of the cart exploding. Perhaps he would find one later today when things quietened down.

He ought to speak his mind to the Captain about young Bacci but he probably wouldn't. The Captain worked the boy too hard. There was no harm in him making a career for himself but that wasn't everything. He ought to find a nice Italian girl and settle down, stop him making a fool of himself. But if he was working seven days a week what could you expect?

The Marshal ambled slowly on. Perhaps he would say something after all.

For Rudolfo he knew there was nothing to be done. Another shepherd was taking care of his sheep and the younger brother had gone back to Sardinia.

Rudolfo was lying in an overcrowded cell, staring up across the room at a small barred square with an even smaller square of blue in its top left-hand corner. When the other four had invited him to join their card game he hadn't answered, or else he hadn't heard. One of the players, a Neapolitan, had laughed and said, 'Let him be, if he won't speak. Sardinians are all alike. Another card . . .'

Rudolfo turned on his blanket and stared at the pitted wall.