The Marshal at the Villa Torrini (9 page)

'She'll be here for the funeral?'

'Yes, and that's all.'

'I take it you didn't get on.'

'I didn't say that.'

'No, but if you don't want her here . . .'

'She's at university in England. She has a life of her own.'

It was only to be expected, the Marshal told himself. A man who doesn't feel sufficiently responsible to organize his own wife's funeral is hardly likely to want the responsibility of a daughter. Forbes had stood up. He was very agitated and tried to cover it by removing their coffee cups and himself to the other end of the room. The Marshal rather thought it must be costing him enormous effort not to run out of the house. The most he dared to do was to keep his back to the Marshal by washing and re-washing the two cups.

'I take it this is it? I mean, you've taken my statement and we can bury her. End of story, right?'

'Very probably. The pathologist has still to examine the internal organs before he can make his report.'

That produced no effect.

'I have to get on with my life. What's happened has happened, and I have to get on with my life.'

My life, thought the Marshal. My life, my article . . . It distressed him to the extent that he said Forbes's lines for him:

'How very sad,' he said to the burning logs, 'that your wife was unable to get on with her life, that a young woman of such brilliance should die like that.'

'Are you trying to imply that in some way I could have prevented it?' He still kept his back turned, fidgeting in the wall cupboard now.

'No, no . . .'

'Well, if that's all . . . There's nothing else I can tell you.'

The Marshal sat still, worried, uncertain, but immovable.

'Take your time,' he said, 'and when you've finished your chores you'd better tell me about the other Marys. I imagine there are others.'

One of the logs rolled off the burning stack and sent a spume of aromatic smoke curling out into the room. Forbes was still fidgeting out of sight. After a moment he reappeared by the fire.

'What's that got to do with anything?'

'Oh, just the usual routine, as much to rule out suicide as anything. An upset wife . . . we can't be a hundred per cent sure, as I said, until the pathologist makes his official report.'

'My private life has nothing to do with you or your pathologist. I have had other women, yes. Who hasn't? But never anything serious and I never intended to leave Celia, never.'

'And did she know about the other women?'

'Yes, she did. I told her.'

He would, thought the Marshal. He was just the sort to go confessing everything so that he'd feel better.

'And why did you do that?'

'Because I prefer relationships to be open. I wouldn't have felt happy about hiding things from her. Besides, you didn't know her. She had a heart as big as a cathedral. She was the most forgiving person because she
understood.
I told her everything.'

Poor woman, thought the Marshal.

'And did you also tell her you would never leave her?'

'Of course I did. She knew that.'

Then she indeed had a cross to bear. Why did women do it? Why, instead of a strong man who would cherish them, did they marry men like this? Why couldn't they reserve their maternal instincts for their children?

'I'd like to talk to these women. Can you give me their names and addresses?'

'No, I can not! Look, are you trying to accuse me of something, or what?'

The Marshal, who was trying to do just that but failing, said not. He would find the women anyway. The funeral would produce Mary, and Mary would produce the others.

'Please do sit down,' he said, 'I didn't mean to upset you. Surely you understand that if someone dies in mysterious circumstances, and there's no obvious cause of death, we have to make inquiries.'

Forbes hovered a moment longer and then sat down in silence, his eyes fixed on the fire. The Marshal looked him over from head to foot. The clothes seemed to be the same except for the shirt. He had pushed up his sleeves to wash the cups and one of the shirt cuffs, dangling now below the rolled up brown sweater, was very frayed. The forearms were thinnish and very pale. He began rolling the sleeves down but stopped at one, distracted. Not a mark on him. The hands slim but with strong tendons. The Marshal imagined them pushing Celia Carter's head under the water even though we knew it couldn't have happened, not without a scratch on him.

Babies choke like that. They're helpless, can't lift their heads .
.
.

Why should Celia Carter be helpless?

Still watching the hands, he said, 'Your predecessor . . .'

'Predecessor? What's that supposed to mean?'

'You just said your wife was married before. The child had a father, I imagine?'

'Oh, him. He's dead. He was old. Celia must have been looking for a father figure—Still, he had plenty of money so she did well out of it. She was a merry widow when I met her.'

'Then the child is alone in the world—or are there other relations?'

'She's not a child. There's no question of my having her here!'

'No, no . . . . You'd hardly have room, of course. There's a house in London, you said?'

Again, Forbes folded his arms tightly. 'She's sure to get it. I live here.'

'Why?'

'Why what?'

'Why do you live here? Just my curiosity. I can't imagine suddenly leaving my own country and settling somewhere else—not,' he added, 'without good reason.'

'No, I don't suppose you could.' The implication was clear enough. The Marshal couldn't do it because he was an inferior sort of being, not of the right ambience, the one which allowed you to flit from country to country and in and out of other people's beds with your wife's consent. The Marshal insisted, 'Some problem, was there, that encouraged you to leave England?'

'No there wasn't
any problem.'

'A relationship, then, that you wanted to get away from?'

'No! Have you never heard of people moving to Italy or France because they like it? Because it's more civilized, especially artists and writers — Well, I suppose you don't meet many in your job.'

'Not a lot,' admitted the Marshal humbly, 'I expect that's what makes me so curious.'

And he was curious. More than that, he was unconvinced. It sounded all right, as it had when Signorina Müller had talked about the best architects in the world and all the rest of it. But he wasn't having it, not by a long chalk. If you're born and grow up in a country you belong there. And what about the language? And you don't have the same culture, the same feelings. You don't take all that on because of a few nice buildings. No, no, no, there has to be a reason. Italians who went to Germany went out of economic desperation and they couldn't get home fast enough. Emigrating was one thing, making yourself into an exile another. There'd be a reason, there had to be. You might have to dig for it, people might lie through their teeth about it, but it would be there. And he would find it. As he was reaching this decision he was saying, 'Of course, I know foreigners are fond of the paintings and architecture. Italy's a beautiful country. I come from Sicily, myself.'

'You're a long way from home, too, then.'

'Yes. Well, the army, you know . . .'

He could make a start by finding out whether Forbes had a criminal record in England. Not that he was very hopeful. Forbes looked the sort who left a lot of human wreckage behind him but always came out unscathed to get on with his life and his next article. But he would check.

And still the Marshal sat there, having asked all he could think bf to ask, letting the other fill his increasing silences until it was one long silence on his side and Forbes was talking, talking, talking, trying to move, to convince, to make himself
liked.
But the Marshal only gazed at him with bulging, expressionless eyes, his body as still as Forbes's was agitated. When he thought he had been there long enough, he got up abruptly in the middle of one of Forbes's sentences. He didn't do it out of rudeness. The truth was that, as usual, he hadn't been listening to a word, only observing the increasing tension which he felt had now reached its limit. The man was very frightened. You could smell it in the room. So frightened that he couldn't even relax in relief at the Marshal's imminent departure. If he had done so, his relief would have been short-lived.

'I'll be back,' the Marshal announced, settling his hat, 'a bit later in the day.' This was true, though what he was thinking of doing was visiting Signorina Müller.

Forbes was rubbing a handkerchief between his palms which must have been sweating.

'You mean I'm supposed to stay in all day . . .'

'Oh . . . ' The Marshal looked vague. 'Not if it puts you to any inconvenience.'

He felt sure that Forbes would stay in, would have stayed in anyway, even had he known his visit was to someone else, just so as not to miss anything. Well and good. He might think of something useful to ask him if he came back.

The Marshal did come back. His car was parked in the yard in full view of the little barn for a good hour and a half. The noise of its short-wave radio punctuated the quiet air with its sudden splutterings and its rasping, staccato messages. From behind the brick lattice-work, Forbes was undoubtedly watching and listening.

When the Marshal was ready to leave, the short winter afternoon was darkening. Automatically he buttoned his greatcoat and settled his hat as he approached the car and Fara started the engine. But he was surprised when he found himself feeling chilled. During the last hour or so, the temperature had dropped sharply. Looking across the Arno valley to his left, he saw the lights of Florence coming on beneath a stagnant burden of heavy clouds. But beyond that, where the lowering grey mass ended, the hills were sharply outlined against a horizon of ice-cold, purplish-blue daylight. And because the Villa Torrini was so quiet, you could hear it, a faint, far, distant moan.

CHAPTER 6

The
tramontana
reached Florence during the night, whipping red tiles from roofs, tumbling flower pots from their sills, slamming loose shutters against crumbling stucco. Television aerials were dragged free of their moorings to dangle precariously over the street, and rubbish bags from over-spilling skips skittered along the roads until they burst and their contents whirled away to freedom. Mopeds crashed on to their sides to lie in the road and trees moaned and swayed as their weaker branches were torn off to destroy the cars parked in their shelter. By three in the morning the wind had roused just about every inhabitant of the city and sent them scurrying to bolt shutters, bring in forgotten laundry, rescue a favourite plant. When they had done all they could they lay awake because of the noise, sinister crashes that sounded too near for comfort, ambulance sirens, police sirens, fire engines. And when they got used to that they lay awake as the temperature plummeted below zero and tried to decide if they had the energy to get up again and fetch another blanket, or even turn up the heating which had been off for three warm, muggy weeks. Those who were managing to sleep through all this were woken very brusquely by their husbands or wives.

'Listen! Was that our roof?'

'Did you close all the shutters? Something's banging!'

'Are you asleep? Put your dressing-gown on and go and check—and while you're up . . .'

The Marshal, whose shutters were properly closed and whose heating was on, lay awake, nevertheless, listening to the noises outside. Not that they could be blamed for keeping him awake. He was listening to them because he already was awake and had been for some time. It was his own fault and he knew it. He was in agony. At supper he had kept dutifully to his diet which meant that, instead of dozing peacefully in front of the television, he had felt wakeful enough to study his notes on the new criminal procedures. He sat at the kitchen table to read so that Teresa could watch a film, and after about an hour and a half of it he was so gnawed by hunger that he found himself reading the same sentence five or six times without being able to take in a word. Full of righteous anger at being prevented from doing his duty, he made four sandwiches, chunky ones, from a fennel-flavoured sausage spiced with peppercorns. A fresh and fatty sausage which couldn't, with the best will in the world, be washed down with water. He washed it down with red wine.

For about half an hour he felt euphoric and read on with cheerful determination.

It is evident that the nature of these activities must be considered
incompatible with the accusatorial role of the Public Prosecutor who
must be on a plane of dialectical equality with the accused and can
therefore have no powers of coercion over the latter and cannot assume
a position of privilege in procedural terms.

All of which sounded reasonable enough while he was reading it but tended to evaporate as soon as he moved on. He took another run at it, shifting a little on the uncomfortable hard chair and absent-mindedly patting his stomach with one hand.

Consequent upon these considerations the new penal code provides
for the elimination of the fudge of Instruction and a redefinition of
the role of the Public Prosecutor . . .

It might be easier to concentrate in a better chair. He struggled on for a while before realizing just what was causing him so much discomfort. The four sandwiches seemed to have swollen into four loaves inside him. He must have overdone it. How could he have been so careless?

Well, there it was. By four in the morning the peppercorns were burning holes in his insides and the irritation confounded itself with the turmoil outside and the problems churning round and round in his head. With all the ingredients of insomnia in place, he added the final touch that counts by starting to worry about how he would cope with appearing in court tomorrow if he got no sleep tonight.

Another siren . . . ambulance that one. He'd need one himself before long if he went on swelling. Perhaps if he got up and took something for the burning sensation, the movement might ease the situation. But he felt too tired and wretched to get out of bed. The ferocious howling of the wind distressed him like the noise of a crying child. He was filled with an undefined apprehension and was too tired to pinpoint its source, though he tried. After all, if he had to stay awake he might as well try and work a few things out. This exile business for a start. He hadn't been far wrong about that. Signorina Müller had left Austria during the war because her mother was Jewish . . . No, before the war, she'd said, seeing the way the wind was blowing, she'd gone to London. Then to a tiny seaside village to escape the bombing . . .

There was a crash and something metallic went bowling along on the gravel outside. There'd certainly be some damage to the trees in the Boboli Gardens.

He turned carefully on to his side in search of a comfortable position, but it was worse. He rolled on to his back again, always careful to try and avoid waking Teresa.

They'd threatened her with imprisonment as an enemy alien in England. It was true, what she'd said, that after an experience like that you're never at home anywhere, so you might as well choose whichever country you like best.

What about Forbes, though? She hadn't known of anything to his discredit but then, she didn't take that much interest in people. Couldn't blame her, after what she'd gone through, if she went in more for things than human beings. Less risky. If he did have a criminal record, the news would soon come through. System there was accusatorial . . . what was that part about the accusatorial role of the Public Prosecutor?
Must be on a plane of dialectical
equality with the accused and therefore . . . and therefore . .
. therefore what?

He listened. That was the fire brigade, if only that wretched wind would die down a bit, but it would be three days. It always went on for three days. He had heartburn. If only he could get up the energy to go into the kitchen and make himself some camomile tea. Had he been asleep at all? He couldn't remember.

He did fall asleep for brief intervals, but the difference was slight. The wind still raged and the same thoughts fought with each other in his head and he was always aware of being in pain. Even so, there were things he could only be dreaming rather than thinking. At one point, Forbes had been showing him his forearms and explaining why they, and his hands, were free of scratches. The explanation had been convincing and the Marshal had even allowed himself to feel better disposed towards the man now that the mystery was cleared up. It was the wind, of course. He hadn't thought of that. How could anyone be expected to think with so much pain? He was doing his best. Therefore . . . the Prosecutor therefore . . . therefore . . .

'Salva!'

'What's to do?'

'You're talking to yourself. Are you all right?'

'I was asleep.'

He didn't want to tell her what the trouble was and have to start explaining about the sandwiches.

'You've been tossing about for hours.' She didn't ask any awkward questions but got up and went into the kitchen. He heard her put some water on to boil. He also heard her open the fridge and after a moment say, 'Oh, for goodness' sake . . .'

She brought him two tablets to chew and then a cup of camomile, not too hot. At about five-thirty he fell asleep.

'Professor Forli, you have described the injuries sustained by the deceased, Anna Maria Grazzini. Which of these injuries was the cause of death?'

'The internal haemorrhage caused by the blow which punctured the pancreas.'

'There is no question about that?'

'None whatever.'

'In your opinion, Professor, could Anna Maria Grazzini have recovered from these injuries had she received prompt medical attention?'

'It is possible.'

'Would you go so far as to say "probable"?'

'I think I could say that, yes. A blood transfusion would have saved her there and then. I can't, of course, say at this stage whether there might have been complications arising later from the head injuries but they were not so severe as to make it very likely.'

The Marshal had only just arrived and taken his seat. His face was burning, but as he looked around him he saw that almost everyone had the same problem. The freezing wind had whipped at their faces on the way here and now the courtroom was overheated.

'So, had the accused, on ceasing to inflict blows on the now virtually unconscious victim, decided to call an ambulance rather than reaching the decision they did reach, in your opinion Anna Maria Grazzini would be alive today?'

'With the reservation that other complications might have arisen, I'd say almost certainly.'

'And had the accused later followed the advice of the man answering their emergency call to the police and sent for an ambulance—then, even
then,
could she have lived?'

That would depend on how much time had gone by, how much blood she'd lost in the meantime.'

'I can't tell you, Professor, how much blood she'd lost, but I can tell you that since they carried or dragged their bleeding, half-conscious victim down to a car and drove that car to a quiet lane behind the Belvedere Fort, that approximately fifteen to twenty minutes would have passed—assuming the times given us were correct.'

'In that case, it's less likely . . .'

'But still possible?'

'Perhaps, yes.'

'And yet, as we have heard,
& further ten minutes
—'

'Objection!' The defence counsel was on his feet. 'There is no possible way that my client could have known that Grazzini was suffering from an internal haemorrhage. This line of questioning is tendentious in the extreme.'

'Objection sustained. The Prosecutor will confine himself to the facts as they presented themselves at the time. Hindsight is out of place in a courtroom.'

Quite right, too, thought the Marshal. Even so, the things he'd said, even if they were cancelled from the records, would have had their emotional effect. The defence was going for manslaughter and technically they might be right, but the Prosecutor was after a verdict of culpable homicide and would get it in all probability because of the way they'd dumped her. Dumped her, in the end, on himself.

'It is my contention,' boomed the Prosecutor, unabashed, 'that the three accused knew only too well that the injuries they had inflicted on Grazzini were serious. They knew they were serious because, otherwise, why did they try and dispose of her? Why not, if, as they say, her chief problem was her drunkenness, did they not simply—put her to bed! Leave her to sleep it off! Saverino Mario and Giorgetti Chiara had achieved what they wanted to achieve, had they not? They could now remove the child to their own home for Christmas. So why, ladies and gentlemen, did they not do just that? Why instead did they conceive an elaborate plan to get
rid
of Grazzini, to get her, and not the child, out of the flat? We have heard Saverino Mario say, "We didn't want her to die. We didn't want her to die and that's why we called the police." And that is proof, from the mouth of one of the accused persons, proof offered, not extracted, that they
knew,
ladies and gentlemen, they knew that her injuries were indeed grave. Grave enough for them to want to get rid of her. Grave enough for them to think that should she die and be found dead in that flat—'

'Objection!'

'Sustained. Mr Prosecutor, I hardly think your suppositions are relevant to the pathologist's evidence. Perhaps you would like to reserve them for your summing up. Defence.'

It was a relief for the Marshal to see that, though the Prosecutor was as aggressive as ever, he didn't use his repeating tactic on the pathologist. Perhaps it was a tactic unsuited to the authoritative witness and reserved only for the vulnerable and ignorant. Then he tried to decide where, between the extremes, he belonged.

That was Chiara Giorgetti's lawyer speaking. He needed to get a suspended sentence for her, no matter what the verdict, because of the little girl. It had been decided in the end that the child should not testify. That was something. She had been questioned and her answers recorded but had she been brought into court she could not, at ten years old, have failed to understand that she was testifying against her own mother in a murder trial.

The Marshal had visited the child twice in recent weeks. The grandmother had stopped sending her to school. There was trouble over that, but he could hardly blame her. The only answer would be to send her to a new school when all this was over.

Goodness, it was hot. Giorgetti's lawyer was short, fat and vociferous and his face was as red as a peony against his crooked white stock.

'Is it reasonable to suppose that Giorgetti Anna Maria— that Giorgetti Chiara, I beg your pardon—wanted merely to get rid of the injured woman? Why then did she—and it was she who decided—make that first phone call to the police? A phone call that could easily incriminate her, and which did incriminate her! She made that phone call on her own initiative and against the wishes of . . .'

Why the devil couldn't he manage to remember their names? The case had been going on long enough. Was he just a bad speaker or was he, too, floundering in the new system?

'Of . . . Saverino Mario. They were wrong. They were ignorant—ignorant of the consequences of their actions, and why? Because they had no way of knowing how serious the injuries to Grazzini were. Professor Forli, could a lay person possibly have known that an internal haemorrhage was in progress?'

'I would doubt it.'

'There are no, shall we say, outward signs?'

'Oh yes—'

'But not such as a non-qualified person like Giorgetti Chiara, or even like myself, would be capable of interpreting?'

'I should say not, except—' the pathologist glanced at the judge and then decided to carry on: 'Except that in this case one of them had inflicted the damage, and a blow so violent to the abdominal region can hardly fail to have consequences.'

Very put out, but unable to find a comeback to this, the lawyer shuffled his notes unhappily and started trying to point out to the judge that the blow delivered was not in question since it had already been established that his client—whose name he managed to remember in time— had not been the one—