The Monster of Florence (20 page)

“Marshal?” It was the man from the house across the road again.

“I’m on my way over to you. My gloves are upstairs.”

“It’s about my coat.”

“What coat?” The Marshal kept walking. He’d had enough for today.

“
My
coat! I’m not asking for it. I’ll tell you the truth, he scares me. I’m keeping away from him.” He held the huge umbrella over them both as the Marshal crossed the dirt road. “I said to my wife, I said they’re bound to come across it while they’re searching his house. Am I right? I said I’m not asking him for it. You never know. Only it’s what I go to work in, so I could do with it. But I’m not one for taking risks and he frightened the life out of me going for me like that. Curiosity killed the cat, the wife said, but I’d just got up for a piss and I heard you going down. Anyway, it’s a green windjammer, if you take a quick look round you’ll find it. What was it he threw in the skip, anyway? It was something hard, I can tell you that much, but I hadn’t the chance for more than a quick prod at it before he grabbed me.”

The Marshal stopped, closed his eyes for a second and then turned back.

“Come with me.”

“You’re kidding!” On the other end of the line, the head of police laboratories couldn’t suppress a laugh.

“No. It’s true, I’m afraid.”

“Better keep that out of the papers.”

“Yes.”

“Wouldn’t look good.”

“No.”

“You’re taking it badly.”

“No, no … I’m exhausted, that’s all. I’ve just got back to my station after being on duty for over thirty hours.”

“Not much fun.”

“No.”

“And it’s not as though I’ve got anything interesting for you, though I must say it never ceases to amaze me what people throw away, even after all these years. I mean, a dead dog, for instance. I could understand it in the city, but in the country why not bury it?
Pretty high it is, too. Now then … We’ve got a whole lot of Walt Disney films on tape and, in contrast to that, a rubbish bag filled with porn—that’s probably his stuff, wouldn’t you think?”

“Could be. Is it anything special?”

“Not really. Straight-up-and-down hard core. Sort you can buy at any newspaper kiosk. Then we’ve got half a sofa. Half of it! Is somebody still sitting on the other half, d’you think?”

“There was another skip. Perhaps …”

“All right. I was just trying to cheer you up.”

He was a new man and the Marshal had never met him, but he certainly was cheerful. Of course, he hadn’t been on his feet for thirty-six hours, most of it on an empty stomach. The Marshal had shown sufficient foresight to put some water on to boil in the kitchen before embarking on this call. The list went on and on …

“And … Let me see—right: I knew there was something that would amuse you. There’s a smashed video camera!”

Why should that be funny? The Marshal was nonplussed.

“You didn’t see the news last night?”

“I—no, no, I didn’t.”

“Ah, well. His wife has got it in for the journalists—not that you can blame her—and there was this bit of film of her on the eight o’clock news last night. All she’s doing is sweeping the yard, but all of a sudden she spots the camera and she’s coming towards it, brush raised ready to kill. You get just a few seconds of spinning image and then it goes black. Everybody thought the cameraman was running for his life but it looks like she got the bull’s-eye.”

“Yes.”

“After that we’ve got three chicken-feed bags, ripped, a rabbit’s head—probably the property of the dead dog—and five black sacks of everyday rubbish, all of which we’ve gone through carefully just in case. Usual stuff: coffee grounds, tomato tins, vegetable peelings. That’s about it. You would have preferred a Beretta twenty-two long rifle, or even a spot of grease from one, I know, but no luck.”

“Well, I wasn’t hoping for it.”

“I suppose not. It would have been too good to be true, wouldn’t
it? As for what we did find … was he just up early spring cleaning, do you think?”

“It’s winter.”

“Oh well, I’ve done what I can for you. Make of it what you will.”

The Marshal, who could make nothing of it and was pretty well past caring, ate a huge bowl of spaghetti in front of the television and then went to bed.

The next morning was beautiful. The marble towers in the city washed by the heavy rain, glittered in the strong winter sunshine. In the country the sky was deep blue against the tall black cypresses in a way that never happens in the muggy heat of summer. The air was so cold and clean it was intoxicating and the Marshal felt more cheerful than he had for weeks. When they drove round the village square at Pontino he saw it was market day and the stall holders were setting out their wares, plastic flowers, buckets and brushes, cheeses, eggs and chickens, long johns and frilly knickers, bunches of tiny stored tomatoes, sacks of potatoes and barrels of salt cod under running water. The men of the village stood gossiping near the bars, the women near the stalls.

It took some time for the jeep to nose its way through it all and take the yellow stony road that led past a deserted villa to the little group of houses where the Suspect lived.

The road ran straight over the hilltops to the glistening horizon and so gave the impression of being very long. It ran between vineyards and olive groves and past the cypress avenue leading to a huge and crumbling villa on their right. Along the balustraded roof of the villa terra-cotta Roman ladies were silhouetted against the blue sky. The gate to the avenue lay rusting by the roadside, Just after the villa the road swung away to their left and they embarked very slowly on the stony track to the right. Within a few minutes they were back to the captured rabbits in their stinking darkness and the scowling red-faced Suspect sitting at the kitchen table, his trousers held up with string. He was furiously denying ever having set eyes on the pile of pornographic magazines that
the smiling Simonetti had brought back with him this fine morning.

The Marshal listened for a moment, his eyes scanning the room. Something that ought to be there was missing but he wasn’t concentrating enough to remember what it was because he was also looking about him for Ferrini. That morning they were to search the vegetable garden, orchard and vineyard, so perhaps he was out there. He went out to see. He found Bacci and Noferini laying some old vine supports across the passageway which led between a barn wall and the house to the garden. The passage was almost knee deep in water and the supports would at least allow them to cross from one patch of thick mud to another.

“Ferrini arrived?”

Bacci straightened up. “He called in sick. Flu, I think.”

That was bad news. Well, there you are. The Marshal himself had got soaked to the skin yesterday and his wet clothes had dried on him during the long day’s work, and yet it was Ferrini, all correctly kitted out for the weather, who was now sick. He was really quite put out because Ferrini was the only person he felt at ease with and a word exchanged here and there helped to lighten things up a bit.

As it was, he passed his morning more or less in silence, replacing the thousand bits and pieces that had been moved from the potting shed, trying to remember to stand out of the way of the cameraman, taking notes to order. The one positive element of the morning, apart from the bright winter sun, was that during a short break for reloading the camera, he noted out of the corner of his eye Simonetti having a word with Bacci. It appeared to be a friendly word, given that he had a hand on the young man’s shoulder, and the Marshal was glad of it. However little he desired the man’s approval for himself, he recognized that it was a good thing for Bacci.

Because of this he was a bit surprised to see Bacci looking far from happy when they found themselves working side by side after the lunch break. They had been told to dig up a little pear tree which someone on the local force said he’d seen the Suspect change the position of for no apparent reason. The Suspect explained tearfully
that it hadn’t been getting enough light and that if they moved it now it would die. Simonetti thought he might have buried something under cover of moving the tree, which was now lying on its side near the big hole they’d made.

“Nothing here,” the Marshal said.

“No.”

“We’ll replant the tree but I’m afraid he’s right. It’ll probably die.”

Bacci picked up the delicate little tree and stared at it without answering.

“Is something the matter?”

Bacci went on staring at the tree. He looked dazed. Then, with a sidelong glance at where the others were working, he said, “Yes. There is. Can I talk to you?”

“Go on. Nobody can hear us from over there.”

“They could see us … They’ll notice. Do you mind if I come to see you this evening?”

“If that’s what you want.”

Still Bacci stood looking dazed. And if the Marshal wasn’t mistaken he was also a little frightened. When he made no move after a few more minutes, he suggested, “Shall we get on with replanting this tree, then, Lieutenant?” And they got on.

They had almost finished when the Suspect came panting up to them, purple and gasping in his distress.

“My little pear tree! My little pear tree! You’ve killed it!”

“I’m sorry,” the Marshal offered, “we’ve done our best …”

The Suspect raised his tear-stained face and his thick, cracked hands to the heavens.

“God help me! God help me! I’m an innocent man! Why is this happening to me? You’ll burn in hell for this!”

The last remark was addressed not to God or to the Marshal but to Simonetti who was crouched near the flooded passageway, too intent on something he was looking at there to listen. Only the cameraman behind him turned to look their way. His video camera was in one hand and not on his shoulder so it must have
been switched off. He wasn’t interested in filming the Suspect’s rages but other people were. When the Marshal looked up in the direction of the nearby roof there were two or three newsmen filming. This was just the stuff for them. Then a shout went up:

“Camera!” It was Simonetti and something in the urgency of his voice stopped the Suspect in mid-curse.

“What’s he doing?” He started to run back. “That bag of shit! What’s he doing?”

“He must have found something,” the Marshal said, throwing down the spade. “Let’s take a look.”

“Don’t!” Bacci’s voice was even more urgent than Simonetti’s. “Stay away.” His fingers clutched the Marshal’s arm. “Stay here.”

“How did you know?”

Ferrini grinned. “Sit down and make yourself comfortable. I’m going to bring us a bottle of very special grappa. Blows the top off your head but good, really good. I imagine you need it.”

The Marshal sat down in a big armchair and stared across the highly polished floor to a glass-fronted cabinet against the opposite wall. It contained lead models of carabinieri in historic uniforms. Ferrini’s wife and children were in the kitchen nearby. He could hear the television and their chatter.

“Here you are.” Instead of being colourless, the grappa in its tall very thin bottle was faintly tinged with green because of the bunch of basil leaves that appeared to grow inside it. Ferrini filled two tiny glasses.

“Tell me all.” He settled in a chair opposite the Marshal.

“How did you know?” he insisted.

“You’re exaggerating. I didn’t know what they’d find.”

“But you knew it would be planted.”

“Guarnaccia! That anonymous letter.”

“But you didn’t even see it.”

“No. Did you?”

“No … I see what you mean …”

“So it was a bullet?”

“A twenty-two. It has been loaded and unloaded and it’s the right brand, of course.”

“Even so, you need hardly worry that it’s been loaded in
that
twenty-two. We’ve got—what? Something like fifty-three recovered bullets. Anyway, however many there are, if this was one of them the defence would suss it out. They wouldn’t dare go that far. Too easily checked. No, this is purely for the benefit of Joe Public. The newspapers and telly will have a good time of it without overdoing the details of the ballistics report. You’ll see that on the day
that
becomes available to the press they’ll be given something better to distract them. I suppose there’ll be a break in the film somewhere before it, but that won’t sell any papers, will it? I’m sorry to have missed the show really, but there are times when it’s wiser not to be among those present. Let’s hear the details then.”

“I wasn’t nearby when they actually found it—”

“Surprise, surprise.”

“I suppose you’re right. And that’s why Bacci would have been with me. Anyway, they’d laid those wooden supports down across this puddle and it was jammed quite deeply into the surface inside one of those holes where the support wires pass through.”

“The obvious place to store your bullets. So how did he explain finding it if it was so embedded?”

“It had rained a lot. He said he saw the exposed surface glinting.”

“Do me a favour! I thought he was brighter than that. Anyway, that proves to you that it’s only for Joe Public. Nobody else would swallow that. It’s young Bacci I feel sorry for. It was a rotten trick to choose him instead of one of his own cronies.”

“He knows how urgently Bacci needs his promotion.”

“Still, it was a squalid trick. Everybody’s pulled tricks on suspects in their time. I know I have. But if it had gone wrong and the suspect had turned out to be innocent rather than confessing then I’d have been the only one to pay for my mistake. What did he want him to do, anyway? Be the one to spot it glinting?”

“No, no … It was a quite different set-up. He started chatting to Bacci this morning when the camera was being reloaded. They were
walking about near the vegetable garden. I remember seeing them and thinking … Anyway, it seems Simonetti was making small talk about the weather and the amount of mud around and how difficult it was making the job.”

“My feet got soaked yesterday. All in a day’s work, of course, but I can’t afford to be ill just now.”

“No, sir, I suppose not.”

“We’re not issued with those wonderful amphibians they give to you carabinieri so I bought myself these. What do you think?”