Death in Springtime (2 page)

CHAPTER 2

'Ring Pisa first for helicopters, I want the car found. They'll need to start around the Via Senese at this end and work south—no, there's no point in road blocks by this time, it's too late . . . sometime yesterday morning, I've nothing more definite. I'll need dog-handlers immediately and they'll have to be sent out to Pontino, there's no need for them to check in here first—the girl they released is in shock. I'll have her brought down here to Florence as soon as she can be moved but we'll have to leave her where she is for the moment—in fact, put me through to Pontino again now, will you? They might have something more for me by now . . .'

There was a clean notepad lying on the desk before Captain Maestrangelo, and he held a pen in his hand but he made no notes. There was no need to. The routine at this stage never varied. It was unlikely that he would find it necessary to leave his office until the time came to visit the missing girl's parents and in the meantime he was capable of giving the usual orders while half asleep— which he very nearly was, having been called from his bed not much after five in the morning. It was now five twenty-five and he rubbed a hand over his unshaven face as he hung up and leaned back in his chair for a moment until the call from Pontino should come through. The lights were on in the office from which he commanded the Carabinieri Company covering the section of the city that lay south of the river Arno and a large tract of country going south through the Chianti hills to the borders of the Province of Siena. It was just his bad luck that the village of Pontino lay just within that border and that it was he, and not some Sienese colleague who had been awakened at dawn. The city outside his window was still invisible except for a barely discernible outline of the roofs of Borgo Ognissanti against the paler darkness of the sky. It was still raining but less heavily. The occasional small truck rumbled along the riverside going towards the central market. In half an hour a dozen or so cars would drive into the inner courtyard and the morning shift would take over. The routine never varied . . . road blocks if the kidnapping was reported immediately, helicopters, dogs, inform the Substitute Prosecutor, set up the search for the base-man, the wait for the first communication. The parents were the only variable and even they didn't vary much; their reactions followed a predictable pattern as well understood by the police as it was by the kidnappers. The Captain's call from Pontino came through. The Carabinieri Brigadier out in Pontino was now ready with a completed preliminary report which he read slowly, word for word as he had written it, meticulous and too long. The Captain didn't interrupt him. No Substitute Prosecutor would appreciate being called at this hour.

'
The girl then said, in very approximate Italian, "They 've still
got Deborah. I have to call the American Consulate."She later
became much less coherent. I then telephoned the local doctor and
Headquarters
...'

The only thing bothering the Captain at this stage was the sort of Substitute Prosecutor he would get. These cases were lengthy and delicate. It wasn't just that the parents had to be kept under control despite the fact that they and the police were in many respects working at cross purposes, it was the danger of some third party interfering ... a go-between with power and influence was what the Captain dreaded most . . .

'A woollen sweater, blue with red and darker blue pattern across
the shoulders. One pair of bluejeans, faded, American label, in the
pockets of which were found two cinema tickets, one wallet, brown
leather with a red painted design, containing . . .'

An experienced Substitute Prosecutor who would stand by him if things got tricky . . . and he hadn't always been lucky . . .

'
Throat lozenges labelled
''
Winky'
',
made in Milan, the paper
torn and three of the lozenges remaining. A folded letter handwritten
in English on lined exercise paper and addressed to the
American Consul General of Florence, no envelope
—'

'What!'

'There was no envelope—'

'The letter, Brigadier, the letter! The contents?'

'I'm afraid there's nobody here who can . . .'

'I'm coming out there immediately.' Well, whoever the Substitute turned out to be, he was going to be got out of bed at quarter to six whether he liked it or not. It wasn't the best foot to start off on but there it was . . .

The Substitute was a new man, Milanese, judging by the rapidity of his speech and the way he mumbled his S's, and far from being annoyed, he seemed to be amused.

'I was just asking myself whether it was worth while going to bed or not. I'll take a shower and be with you in twenty minutes—I trust you've had plenty of experience in this sort of thing?'

'Yes.'

'Good. I haven't. I'll take that shower.' And he rang off.

Nonplussed, the Captain ordered a car and, after a moment's thought, told his sleepy adjutant that he was going back to his quarters to shave and have a coffee.

Asking himself whether there was any point in going to bed . . .? What sort of man . . . this letter business didn't ring true at all . . . that they had taken the two girls and released one could simply mean a problem of identification, although even that was unlikely, but to send a first message before the parents had time to become frantic, possibly before they even knew . . . the whole thing could be a hoax, and yet the girl's condition ... a hoax gone wrong! Impossible to judge anyway without reading the thing when they got out there . . . whether it was worthwhile going to bed at five-forty-five in the morning? What sort of Substitute Prosecutor was this going to be?

One who smoked too much, that was evident by the time the car turned on to the autostrada going south towards Siena, its light and siren going although the roads were fairly quiet. It was still dark and the weather was wet and foggy, but the blue fog inside the car was worse as the Substitute lit his third pungent little Tuscan cigar. The Captain tried to slide the back window down as unobtrusively as possible when the young Sub-lieutenant sitting beside the driver began to choke. But the Substitute caught his movement and, with a quick sidelong smile and a rueful glance at the offending object, he leaned back in his seat and said solemnly: 'It's my only vice.'

Out of the corner of his eye the Captain took in the man's elegant, obviously expensive clothes, noted the perfume not quite smothered by cigar smoke, and remembered the remark about whether it was worth while going to bed. He said nothing.

The car left the autostrada and the bright new factories dotted about the valley and took a narrow, winding road up into the hills on the right. Even in the dreary beginnings of a rainy dawn the newly sprouting vines dotted the hillside with a green that was almost luminous, but the olive trees were the same ghostly grey as the fog. A few people were already astir in the first village they passed through, and when they reached the piazza in Pontino higher up a huddled group stood within the light and warmth of the doorway of the Bar Italia waiting for the first bus down to Florence. The baker and the newsagent were open and there was a light on in the Carabinieri station that stood between them. An anxious young face disappeared from the window as their car drew up and parked under the dripping trees, but it was the Brigadier himself who appeared at the door to meet them. He looked harassed and he was. He hadn't expected this precipitate visit and in the last hour he had bawled out everyone in sight. Whoever had washed up last night hadn't cleaned the cooker, there was no light-bulb in the one cell in the basement and someone had had to be dispatched to wake up the ironmonger because nobody could find a spare. The coffee made by that blasted mother's boy Sartini had been like water as usual and the Brigadier himself hadn't had time to go home and shave. One of his men had been foolish enough to point out that the Company Captain was unlikely to want to use the cooker and that there hadn't been anybody in that cell in all the eight years he'd been there. The Brigadier had still been bawling him out when Sartini had spotted the car.

'Captain.' The Brigadier saluted the Substitute and Captain and the young lieutenant, and stepped back to let them in. The driver waited in the car. 'I'm afraid every- thing's not as I would like it to be here—you know, of course that we've been without a Marshal for two months now—not that I can't cope after twenty years service in this village, but even so—'

'Twenty years . . . then you know this area inside out.'

'Every blade of grass. That's not what I—'

'Good. The girl? Is she conscious?' The Captain sat down in the Brigadier's chair where the girl's effects were neatly folded and labelled. He immediately took up and unfolded the piece of lined paper. The Substitute had refused the chair offered to him, choosing instead to wander about the room, taking brief puffs on his cigar and regarding everything and everyone with an amused detachment that gave the impression of his being mildly surprised but pleased at having to perform the office of Public Prosecutor. He settled by the window and stared across at the red brick Communist club beyond the budding trees.

'She's in the cottage hospital, still unconscious as far as I know—I've left one of my boys there in case she comes to, but she's running a high temperature and they're afraid of bronchial pneumonia. We've no way of knowing how long she was out in that rain. She's wounded, too, in one leg, but she can't be moved down to Florence until twenty-four hours have passed because she cracked her head when she fell and there could be concussion.'

'Lieutenant.' The Captain passed the note up to the young officer standing stiffly just inside the door. The Captain's own English was passable but the younger man's was fluent. He read the letter aloud:

Dear Daddy,

Debbie

The Captain stared before him in silence for some time.

'That's all there is, sir.' The young Lieutenant handed back the letter. The Captain took it and looked at it, still without speaking. Finally he said: 'Thank you. Go over to the hospital and relieve the local man. Sit by this other girl's bed. Her name' he picked up the Brigadier's report from beside the telephone 'is Katrine, Katrine . . . If she comes round, talk to her. Write down anything that she says, even in her sleep or in fever. You'll have to stay even through the night, if necessary. We don't know what nationality she is but since her Italian is poor it's likely that she spoke English with her American friend. Get over there immediately. Can you spare a man, Brigadier, to show him the way?'

'Yessir. Sartini!' The Brigadier went off in search of 'that blasted mother's boy', pleased with the thought of being rid of him, even for twenty minutes.

The Substitute had turned from the window and was watching the Captain curiously A typewriter was clacking disjointedly in the next room.

'Something odd?'

'It seems so. But then, it's too early to judge. We'll go on with routine procedure for now.'

'Which is?'

'Dog-handlers will be here shortly. With the girl's clothes we should be able to trace her back at least to the point at which she was dropped during the night—or I hope so, after all that rain. In the meantime, the helicopters will patrol the surrounding area, especially where there are empty farmhouses or huts—the Brigadier here will know every possible hiding-place. Normally I'd also put out road blocks but in this case it's already too late.'

'Isn't it possible, though, that the other girl could be a hundred kilometres from here and that this one was dumped here to put you off the scent?'

'It's more than possible, it's probable, but until we know where else to look we'll look here. The real search can't begin until we find out what sort of kidnappers we're dealing with. For the moment—for all we know— they could be a couple of amateurs from this village who've got the girl hidden ten minutes from here. So we search here. And at least we'll find the girls' car because according to what one can make out of her statement, they were removed from it somewhere on the road between here and Taverna yesterday morning . . .'

A commotion outside the window announced the arrival of the van with the dogs and their handlers. A small crowd had gathered in the piazza as the morning advanced and people came out to buy bread or eat a hurried breakfast in the bar before catching the bus. One or two of the cars parked beneath the trees in the centre started up and moved off. The dogs were restless and panting, their breath steamy in the rain. One of the handlers came into the office and saluted briefly.

'Captain. What have you got for us?'

From the heap of clothing he took the girl's blue jeans, grumbling, 'After that downpour last night . . .'

As soon as the handler had left, the Brigadier poked his head round the door.

'I've kept the florist here in case you wanted to talk to him. Otherwise I'll let him get back to work. I've had his statement typed up.'

The clacking in the next room had stopped.

'I'll see him. Bring his statement in, too.'

The florist had removed his big green apron but the Brigadier had to force him to take off his trilby as he brought him in the door, muttering under his breath, 'This is a State office, you know very well . . .'

The florist sat down, his back straight, his hat gripped tightly on his knees, mortified at having to exhibit his bald crown, a thing he never did, even at mealtimes. He uncovered his head only after switching out the light at bedtime.

The Captain glanced at him and said quickly: 'Cavalry?'

The old man, who had been about to start grumbling about being kept so long from his work, blushed with pride and pleasure. 'Second Geno'va.'

He kept a photograph of himself on horseback in full dress uniform in the back of the shop. In those days he'd had thick wavy hair. There wasn't a girl in the village he couldn't . . . but when he thought about it, there was nothing in his statement, so far as he could remember, that said anything about . . . He tried to read it again, upside down, but the Captain picked it up, murmuring as he glanced through it: 'It's obvious from the way you sit. Something you never lose ...'