The Etruscan Net (10 page)

Funeral

Black satin sashes round their lamps and bumpers, black ribbons on their handles, black rosettes at their windscreens, the cars crawled in a long line up the Via Dell’Arte della Lana and headed for the church of Orsan Michele.

Commander Comber had arrived early and was standing by the Church door. He had counted fifteen cars in the cortége. Let no man say how many relatives he possesses until he comes to die. When you were young, funerals were a bore. In your prime, they were a joke. As you grew older, every funeral became a rehearsal for your own. Here came another half-dozen cars! He had thought of the Zecchi family as an isolated unit of three people. He had overlooked the fact that they came of country stock on both sides. The Italian family was a complex and cohesive unit, a long-lived matriarchy spreading its roots sideways and downwards into the soil of the Campagna.

The women were predominant, erect, self-possessed, portentous, dressed in suits of weeds which had graced half a hundred such solemn occasions, attended by uncomfortable, brown-faced husbands and retinues of scrubbed children. It was a woman’s day.

In the leading carriage Annunziata and Tina sat alone. Annunziata had hardly stopped talking from the moment they had left the house. This flow of words was so unlike her that Tina was worried. She mistrusted the febrile mood. Something was bound to give way soon. She would have preferred silence, or even tears.

‘If we crawl like this,’ said her mother, ‘we shall be late at the Church, and the arrangements afterwards will be upset.’

‘We started late. It was because you insisted on locking everything up. Not only the house, the workshop too. Did you imagine that thieves would break in whilst we were at the funeral?’

‘Ordinary thieves, no.’ Annunziata’s mouth was set in a firm, hard line. Onlookers who noticed this, approved. Tears on such occasions, they considered, were for young widows and weaklings.

‘Who then?’

‘Who other than Dindoni? Three times already, he has tried to make his way into the house.
Our
house. Does he think, perhaps, now that Milo has gone, that he owns it?’

‘He has little sensibility,’ agreed Tina. ‘Did he say what he wanted?’

‘On the first occasion it was to offer condolences. Did I need
his
condolences? On the next, some story of accounts which had to be paid. I told him it was not time to think of money. The third time, he came sneaking into the house through the kitchen, when he thought I had gone out. Fortunately, I had changed my mind, and came back, and found him. Otherwise, who knows what his thieving fingers might not have lighted on. Since then, I have kept
all
doors locked,
all
the time.’

‘At least he can be up to no mischief now. He will be at the Church.’

‘Certainly he will be at the Church. I allotted him a place in the last carriage but one. Are all arrangements made for after the interment?’

‘For the tenth time, yes,’ said Tina. ‘The Professor himself has seen to everything. We go from the cemetery to the hotel. A room has been reserved, and a meal arranged.’

‘He was good to Milo during his life,’ said Annunziata, ‘and his kindness continues after his death.’

The Church was already crowded. The Guild of Carpenters and Picture Frame Makers, and the allied guilds of Carvers in Metal and Stone had sent full delegations. The townspeople seemed to have turned out in force. The Commander sensed something behind this, and it made him uncomfortable.

He could not put out of his mind a sentence he had read in the
Giornale
the day before. ‘Being knocked down by an English motorist and left to die.’ That was, of course, a flagrant prejudging of the case, and it would have got an English editor committed for contempt of Court on the spot; but Italian newspapers seemed to enjoy more freedom. There was an air of demonstration about the assembly in the Church, quiet but menacing.

The coffin had been placed on a black-draped erection of benches at the back of the Church. After the Requiem Mass it would be followed, in procession, to the cemetery and interred.

Here came the family. Heads were turning as they walked to their seats in the front row. Tina saw the Commander and gave him the ghost of a smile.

L’eterno riposo dona loro, Signore –

The church was hot and stuffy. The candles guttered on their sconces like souls about to take flight.

E splenda ad essi la luce perpetua –

Why did the Christian Church make such a sombre matter out of exchanging this life into what, according to their teaching, was a better and a happier one? The Etruscans had a sounder notion of it.
They
celebrated the departure with feasting and dancing, and sent the traveller on his way with food and drink, and his luggage packed for the journey.

In Sion Signore ti si addica la lode –

Hullo! Someone was going. It was Milo’s wife.

There was a disturbance in the front row, as Annunziata groped her way to her feet. With Tina’s strong right arm round her, she stumbled towards the small door in the transept. Heads turned in the congregation, but the priest continued unfalteringly with the office. His business was with the soul of the departed. The feelings of the living, the weaknesses of their flesh, were an irrelevance.

Commander Comber pushed his way out of the west door, circled the Church, and found Tina and Annunziata sitting on a tombstone. Annunziata was still white, but she had herself in hand again.

‘She wishes to go back into the Church,’ said Tina. ‘I have told her, no. If she does, in five minutes she will be as bad again.’

‘It’s pretty stuffy,’ said the Commander. ‘I shouldn’t risk it if I were you.’

‘I must go back,’ said Annunziata. But when she tried to get to her feet her legs gave way under her and she sat down again suddenly.

The Commander said to Tina, ‘You get back and show the flag. I can deal with this. My car’s just round the corner. As soon as your mother can move. I’ll get her home and make her lie down.’

‘Are you sure you can manage?’

‘Trust the Royal Navy.’

‘Then I will go. I will come away as quickly as I can. You will do what he tells you, and be sensible.’

‘Sensible,’ said Annunziata, crossly. ‘How can I be sensible when my legs feel as though they belong to someone else?’

‘All right if we take it slowly,’ said the Commander. ‘Put one arm round my shoulder, and put all your weight on me. That’s it.’

The car ride seemed to revive Annunziata. By the time they had reached her house, she was almost herself again. She was a lot more worried about the funeral ceremonies she had abandoned than she was about herself.

‘You go in and sit down quietly,’ said the Commander. ‘No one’s going to think any the worse of you for missing it. I’ll bring Tina back as soon as it’s all over.’

‘You are kind,’ said Annunziata. She unlocked the front door and went in. The house was very quiet. It was so quiet, that when she heard the sound there was no mistaking it. There was someone in her kitchen.

Dindoni? Of course! He must have slipped from the Church and made his way back to the house. But how had he got in? She would soon find out.

She strode across the room, and jerked the kitchen door open. There were two men there. The stout man was standing close to the door. He kicked it shut as Annunziata came through. The tall man with the broken face was standing on a chair, doing something over the fireplace. He had a small metal box in his hand and was detaching a length of black wire from behind the wainscoting, coiling it up neatly as it came away from the wall.

‘What–’ said Annunziata.

The stout man picked a kitchen chair up in one podgy hand, pushed it behind her legs, and said, ‘Sit down and keep quiet.’

Annunziata said, ‘I will not sit down, and I will not keep quiet. You will leave at once.’

‘We’ll leave when we’ve finished.’

Annunziata glared at him, her faintness quite banished by the shock. She looked at the door. It was clear that she could not get out of it in time. Shouting was useless. The walls were too thick. She needed a weapon. There was a knife on the dresser, a heavy, sharp paring knife. She grabbed it.

‘Now,’ she said, ‘get away from that door.’

‘You’re being silly,’ said the stout man. The thin man had not even turned round. He was quietly finishing his job.

‘Stand away, or take the consequences,’ said Annunziata. She was a big, heavy woman and she held the knife resolutely.

The stout man allowed her to come within a pace of him. Then, instead of retreating, he leaned forward. The knife went up, but with no great resolution. The man’s hand followed it. He did not try to grab her wrist. He executed a chopping blow and the knife fell from Annunziata’s suddenly nerveless hand.

‘Enough of these heroics,’ said the man. ‘I told you to sit down and keep quiet. Do I have to tear your dress off your back to make you do as I ask? Well?’

Annunziata sat down. Even now she was more angry than frightened. She said, ‘I will do as you say, because there are two of you and you are stronger than I am. But you cannot stay here forever, and when you go, I will send for the Police. Then we shall see.’

‘What shall we see?’

‘You are criminals. You have broken in here. To – to–’

‘Well? What will you say to the Police? We have broken in. Prove it. To steal. To steal what?’

‘That black box. I know what it is. I have heard of such things. It is a listening machine.’

‘A listening machine! They will laugh at you. Why should anyone trouble to put such a thing in
your
kitchen. Are you a politician? An ambassador? A general?’

‘I am a householder,’ said Annunziata, with dignity. ‘This is my house. And you have broken into it. The Police shall draw their own conclusions.’

The tall man had finished his work. He had removed each of the tiny black staples which had held the wire in position, and had drawn in the loose end of the wire through the ventilator above the kitchen window. There was no sign that anything had been disturbed. Both men, she noticed, were wearing gloves.

‘I think it would be better for you if you said nothing at all to the Police.’

‘I’m not afraid of you,’ said Annunziata. ‘As soon as you have gone, I shall go straight to the Police. They have pictures of criminals such as you. I will point you out to them. You will not escape easily.’

The stout man examined Annunziata carefully. What she had said was true. This middle-aged, white haired, queenly woman was not afraid of him. He was something of a specialist in the inspiring of fear, and was unlikely to be mistaken about it.

He considered the problem, rubbing his round chin with his stubby fingers. Then he said, ‘I don’t think you have any idea of what you are doing. That we are in your house is unimportant. You have not been hurt. Nothing of yours has been damaged. But if you do – what you say – and go to the Police, then it will be different. Then you will be interfering with people more important than you. And you will suffer for it.’

‘You tell me,’ said Annunziata, her voice choked with anger and outrage, ‘that nothing of mine has been damaged.
What of Milo? What of my husband, Milo?’

The two men looked at each other. The thin man, speaking for the first time, said, ‘He was knocked down by the Englishman, in his car. It was nothing to do with us.’

‘It was something to do with you. You
knew
that he was going out that night. You knew it because you had heard it, with that box of yours.’

‘This box is one thing you are going to forget about,’ said the thin man. It had disappeared into his pocket, with the coil of black wire and the little envelope of black staples.

‘I shall
not
forget about it, and I shall see that the Police do not forget about it.’

The thin man slid a hand inside his jacket, and pulled out a leather wallet. From it he took a newspaper cutting, creased and faded with much fingering, and unfolded it.

‘Read it,’ he said.

‘Why should I read it?’ Annunziata took it suspiciously.

‘What is it to do with me? What is it about?’

‘It is about a young girl who was found by the Police, in a street in Palermo.’ The thin man’s finger pointed to a paragraph. ‘There, you see. It describes how she had been injured. It does not tell you the whole truth. I saw the girl myself, afterwards. The left breast had to be removed, entirely.’

Annunziata was staring at the newspaper cutting. Her eyes flickered between the print and the man who was holding it. She said, in a whisper, ‘Why do you show me this?’

‘It was not the girl’s fault. It was her family. They had been stupid. They did not heed a warning – two warnings. Then this happened. It was sad for them because she was their only daughter.’ The thin man’s mouth opened, showing discoloured teeth. ‘You have a daughter yourself. Bear in mind that what happened in Palermo could happen, just as easily, in Florence.’

He folded the newspaper, put it back in the wallet, and put the wallet away. All his movements were neat and economical.

After the men had gone Annunziata sat for a long time, only her lips moving. Two hours later Tina found her, still sitting there. She saw the look in her eyes and ran to her, saying, ‘Mother, what is it? What is wrong?’

The old woman put an arm round her waist and said ‘Nothing is wrong,
carissima,
and nothing shall be wrong.’

The Commander Gets Up Steam

It would appear, (wrote Harfield Moss to his colleague in Pittsburgh,) ‘that some sort of hitch has developed. I got the red light about it yesterday. It came through at third hand, because none of the principals here can afford to be seen talking to each other. The opposition is very much in evidence and everyone is watching everyone else like cats around the cream bowl. It did occur to me that the delay might be a try-on to jack up the price, but I don’t believe this to be so. They’re as anxious to close the deal as we are. Anyway, I shall stay on for a week or so to see how things pan out. Nothing much else to report from this end. There seems to be some sort of election boiling up. All the walls are covered with bills, and loudspeaker cars and helicopters all over the place. The Commies are making most of the noise. They seem to think they may swing a few more seats this time. A man I had lunch with the other day – an Englishman, called Broke – has been arrested for hit and run. I’m told you can go down for seven years for it –

‘I’ve had a letter,’ said the Commander. It had become a daily routine for Tina and Elizabeth to meet in his flat. ‘I can’t make all of it out. The spelling’s phonetic and the hand-writing doesn’t win any prizes. It’s from a man who signs himself Labro Radicelli.’

‘Labro!’ said Elizabeth. ‘Isn’t that the man Robert was talking about?’

‘Let me see it,’ said Tina.

The Commander handed the letter to her. It was a double page of green deckle-edged paper, and the laborious writing was in purple ink.

‘Did you keep the envelope?’ said Elizabeth.

‘Naturally. But if you’re pinning your hopes on the postmark, you can unpin them. Like all Italian post-marks it is illegible. It might end in “O”.’

‘And conceivably begins with an “A” or an “E”.’

‘Equally likely,’ agreed the Commander. ‘What do you make of the letter, Tina?’

‘It is clear this man has information to sell. It relates to Signor Broke. He asks for a hundred thousand lire, to be sent to him, at the Ferma Posta in Arezzo. Then you will get the information.’

‘In other words,’ said the Commander, ‘if we’re prepared to send off sixty or seventy pounds into the blue we might, or might not, get something back for it. I’m not playing games like that.’

‘Oughtn’t we to hand the letter over to the Police?’ said Elizabeth. ‘If he’s got information about the accident, he ought to be
made
to tell it. He can’t try to sell it. It’s a criminal offence.’

‘Trouble is, he doesn’t say information about the accident. He just says information. It might be anything.’

‘All the same, it sounds shady. If he’d been honest surely he’d have given us his address, so that we could have gone along and talked to him about it.’

‘Agreed,’ said the Commander.

Tina said, ‘Do you wish to speak to this man? If so, I can probably find out where he is living.’

‘You can?’

‘It would not be too difficult. The Radicellis are a large family, many hundreds of them. They come mostly from Arezzo. My mother’s nephew, the son of her elder brother, married a Radicelli. They would know what part of the family Labro came from, you see. If he is frightened to stay in Florence, it is most probable that he has gone out into the country to stay with them for a time.’

‘Sounds hopeful,’ said the Commander. ‘See what your mother can tell us.’

A cloud passed over Tina’s face. ‘I will ask her,’ she said.

The other two stared at her.

‘What’s up, Tina?’ asked Elizabeth. ‘Is your mother in some sort of trouble?’

‘It’s nothing,’ said Tina. ‘Since the funeral she has been a little upset. I will see what I can do.’

After she had gone, Elizabeth said, ‘Whatever we find out, we ought to keep Robert’s lawyer, Toscafundi, informed. After all he’s the man who’s going to fight the case for us.’

‘True,’ said the Commander. He said it reluctantly. It was foreign to his nature to fight battles by proxy. ‘I suppose he’ll have to be kept in the picture. I ought to go along and make my number with him.’

The Toscafundi office was in an old building in the Corso Borgo degli Albizi. The entrance, fronting the street, was a thirty-foot archway embossed with the arms of the Cardinal Prince who had originally owned the building. A notice pinned to the lintel of the door said, ‘It is strictly and absolutely forbidden to bring bicycles or perambulators into the interior.’ The hallway itself was entirely occupied by a low-slung open Maserati coupé, with olive-green coachwork and old-fashioned brass head-lamps. The Commander squeezed past it, and located the lift, which lurched up with him to the third floor. Avvocato Toscafundi, whom he had warned by telephone, kept him waiting just long enough to suggest what an important and busy lawyer he was.

‘Please be seated,’ he said. ‘This is indeed a sad case. You are a friend of Mr Broke’s. Will you please have a cigarette?’

‘Don’t smoke myself,’ said the Commander. ‘Can’t afford it.’

Toscafundi smiled faintly, and inserted a cigarette into a long holder. He said, ‘I have just received a copy of the
Verbale
from the Procura.’

‘
Verbale?
’

‘It is the statement Broke made to Sostituto-Procuratore Risso. An ambitious young man, that one. But reasonably capable.’

The Commander turned rapidly through the half-dozen pages of typescript. ‘There doesn’t seem to be much here. Nothing new, that is.’

‘I agree. It confirms the facts as we knew them. Broke was out in his car that night. He drove down the Via Canina. He has no recollection of striking Milo Zecchi.’

There was something in the lawyer’s tone which the Commander found disturbing. He said, ‘When you put it like that it sounds as though you think he
may
have hit him.’

‘It is a possibility which has to be borne in mind.’

‘I should have thought our job was to put it right out of our minds.’

‘That, if I may say so, Commander, is because you are not a lawyer. My task, as I see it, is to visualize all possibilities, and to advise my client as to his best course in the light of these possibilities.’

‘I’m not sure that I follow you.’

‘There are two points in Broke’s statement that I find disturbing, and if I find them disturbing, be sure that the Court will too. First, that he suffers from periodical fits of amnesia. Secondly, that he can offer no real explanation of how his fog-lamp came to be broken. Not just cracked, you see. The glass shattered and the metal rim dented. He speaks of children playing. But no one saw them. No one heard them.’

‘Are you suggesting – better get this straight – that Broke ought to plead guilty?’

‘It would not be a light responsibility to advise him to take such a course, but I might have to do so.’ The lawyer shifted in his chair, leaning forward slightly, as though to underline his words. ‘If this case was mishandled – it could have very serious consequences.’ He pulled another paper out of the pile on his desk. ‘I have seen the report of the autopsy. Milo Zecchi was alive
for at least two hours
after the main blow on his head, which probably paralysed him, but did not kill him. Can you visualize the reactions of a Court to this evidence? The picture which they will form of old Milo, lying in the gutter, for two whole hours, helpless, dying, and not dead. So that, had the motorist stopped, and summoned help,
he might still have been saved.’

‘It raises the stakes,’ said the Commander uncomfortably, ‘but why do you suggest that it alters our course?’

‘It offers us, if I may pursue your own metaphor, Commander, a choice of courses. On the one hand, and I appreciate that this is what you wish to do, we could fight the case, as you would put it, tooth and nail. We could say that he did
not
hit Milo. That the identification of the car by this witness, Calzaletta, was either a mistake or a downright lie. That the damage to the fog-lamp was unconnected with the accident. We could say all that. But – if the prisoner is disbelieved, if he is thought to be covering up, it will follow that his failure to stop and render assistance will also be thought to be deliberate. And the consequences of that would be very serious indeed.’

‘All right. What’s the alternative?’

‘The alternative is for Broke to plead guilty – to the lesser offence. To admit, on the evidence, that he may have struck Milo. But to say that he had no recollection of doing so. In that case the evidence of his amnesia could be used for him, not against him. You follow me?’

‘Yes,’ said the Commander, grimly. ‘I follow you.’

‘Excellent. Now, if there is nothing else just at this moment–’

‘There is one thing I came round to tell you. It may not fit in with the rather definite view of the case which you seem to have formed, but you may as well have it. It’s about this man Labro Radicelli–’

‘Ah, Labro, yes.’

Toscafundi listened politely. At the end, he said, ‘I fear it is a wild goose, but there is no reason why you should not chase it.’

‘Then you don’t think Labro has anything to do with the case.’

‘I am perfectly sure he has not, and I advise you to forget all about him. Thank you, my dear.’ This was to a girl, wearing her hair over one eye, and a skirt so short that it hardly started. She had come in carrying hat and brief-case. ‘Will you telephone the Commendatore and tell him I shall be a few minutes late.’

‘I am sorry to have made you late for your appointment.’

‘Think no more of it.’

The two men travelled down in the jerky lift together. When they reached the hall the porter was already holding open the door of the Maserati. Toscafundi said, ‘Perhaps I can give you a lift somewhere?’

‘Thank you,’ said the Commander, ‘but I enjoy walking.’ The olive-green coupe slid confidently out into the traffic, which seemed to open up and make way for it.

The Commander stood for a moment, looking after it. His beard was at a dangerous angle. Then he swung round on his heel, and stumped off in the opposite direction.

‘I understand, Commander,’ said the Sindaco, ‘that you are working in the interest of Robert Broke. In such a case, you may undoubtedly count on my assistance. Signor Roberto, as you know, was a companion-in-arms during the war, and such experiences forge bonds which are not lightly broken.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Nevertheless, at this precise moment, it is hard to see exactly what I can do.’

‘For a start I’d like to know what you think of a lawyer called Toscafundi.’

The Sindaco smiled faintly.

‘I know him, of course,’ he said. ‘In fact, I was qualified as a lawyer myself, and we passed our examinations at the same time. Then our ways parted. I branched off into politics. He adhered to the law. He has undoubtedly made a lot more money than I have.’ The Sindaco glanced round his homely looking parlour. ‘Whether he has had such a satisfying career is another matter.’

‘But do you think he’s a good lawyer?’

‘He is a very successful one. Probably the most successful in Florence.’

‘Is he honest?’

‘Really, Commander, that is not a question you should ask one lawyer about another. I think he will fight very hard, and very skilfully, for the man who pays his fees.’

‘Quite so,’ said the Commander. ‘
But it isn’t Broke who’s paying his fees
.’

The Sindaco opened his heavily-lidded eyes and stared at Comber. ‘Indeed,’ he said ‘Then who is?’

‘Professor Bruno Bronzini.’

‘That is very generous of him. Is he also a friend of Robert Broke?’

‘As far as I know, they have met once. At a party, at the Professor’s villa. In the course of which they had a heated argument, which nearly developed into an open quarrel.’

‘I can imagine that they would not have found each other sympathetic. Robert Broke is a Stoic. The Professor is an Epicurean.’

‘Then why should he help him?’

‘I fancy you will find the answer to that in the forthcoming elections. The case against Broke is being handled by Antonio Risso. He is a political animal. This year he is standing for a seat on the City Council. If he is successful, next time it will be for the National Assembly. Who knows – maybe he will end up as Minister of Grace and Justice. The Professor is of the opposite party to Risso. He would think it well worth paying Toscafundi’s fees to put him down. This case has already aroused feelings out of all proportion to its merits.’

‘I noticed the crowds at the Church,’ said the Commander grimly. ‘I realized then that we might be up against it. And that was before people knew that Milo was alive for two hours after he was hit.’

‘
Who told you that?
’

‘Toscafundi.’

‘And how did he know?’

‘He said he had seen something he called the
Verbale,
I imagined that it was a summary of the prosecution’s case. I didn’t look at it closely.’

‘It is nothing of the sort. The
Verbale
is a record of the two interrogations. The first one at the Police Station, and the subsequent one at the Procura. Neither of them would mention the medical evidence, or any other part of the prosecution’s case. This is a matter that wants thinking about. It needs most careful consideration. Thus.’ The Sindaco held out a thick left hand, to tick off the points. ‘
First
, there was no need to bring forward this medical evidence at all. In a legal sense, it does not affect the issue of guilt – although it might affect the feelings of the Court.
But
, to bring it forward demonstrates to us the danger of a heavy sentence.
Therefore
it could have been the first move towards a bargain with the defence.
If
Broke will plead guilty to the lesser offence, they will not press the graver charge of hitting him, and running away and leaving him.’ The Sindaco, who had started with his thumb, had now reached his little finger. The Commander noticed that the top joint was missing. ‘So, can we deduce a final point? That their case is
not
as strong or as conclusive as they would wish us to believe. Yes. I think, perhaps, we can.’