The Monster of Florence (32 page)

“It’s hopeless. We’re just guessing. There are three people young enough but we’re not going to get any further than that without more information, more facts. Besides, I’ve run out of cigarettes and I’m frozen.”

But the Marshal was reluctant to let go. He was afraid that it would all slip away from him, that he was working against time, that once you grasped at the truth something would intervene, the way it had with Romola.

“Nobody will give us any information,” he said. “We’ll have to work with what we’ve got in this report and what we can find for ourselves.”

“Find for ourselves? You do realize that we can’t find anything for ourselves without it being known we’re looking for it? Who can we trust? And if it’s someone we can trust, how can we justify the risk of getting them into trouble? I’m pretty sure we’ve got all three of them on file but where do we put our hands on the files without involving anyone else?”

“We don’t.”

“Eh? So how …?”

“Those three files mustn’t be moved. With the people who have them we’ll have to play it by ear. If they’re trustworthy we talk to them and go through the files on the spot. No official request, no taking the stuff away with us. After that, we’ve never been there.”

“But in the end, when we’re sure …”

“What if we get it sorted out and worry about that later?”

Ferrini grinned. “Well, we can’t start looking for these files at this time of night, but I’ve thought of another source of info. Flavio.”

“Are you serious?”

“Dead serious. I never met Silvano but I did once, in the course of my duties, as they say, come across poor, wicked Flavio. Nothing at all to do with this case so don’t get excited. It was something and nothing, the theft of a truck with a few sheep in nineteen eighty. Flavio had done a few jobs of the sort—you know the trail, the Apennine trail from above Bologna to down near Rome. All stolen sheep go that same route and are deposited with some shepherd at the farthest point from the original robbery. Flavio had the usual bit of land and an abandoned cottage and sheepfold up on the hills, but it just so happened that this time he was innocent and I was the one saved his skin. Somebody was putting one over on him, using his place while he was away. We were poking about in the area at the time because of a kidnapping and I’d spotted the real culprits, even taken the licence plate of the van in case it turned out to be relevant to the job I was on. Well, it wasn’t, but a mate of mine asked me about whether I’d spotted any movement around Flavio’s place, knowing I was up there. Flavio had named some men he suspected of having it in for him. It was a godsend for him because he couldn’t provide an
alibi worthy of the name. He’d gone up to somewhere near Como to bring his nephew home. He’d got in some bother up there and been ordered to leave. You can imagine that a member of that family was no sort of alibi and nobody else had seen them.”

“He should be grateful to you, then. But what’s he likely to tell us?”

“I can’t be sure, but he’s bound to be able to give us some personal stuff that will make things clearer. Stuff about his quarrel with Silvano. I mean, on what grounds did Silvano say he hated him because he’d corrupted his son? And wouldn’t Flavio know whether Nicolino was really Silvano’s son and if the kid knew it? And then there’s our friend … what’s his name again?”

“Salvatore Angius? That’s true.”

“He wasn’t just Silvano’s boyfriend, he was a relation of some sort. I’m going to try. Can I use your phone?”

“What? At this hour?”

“I’m not calling Flavio. I don’t know his number but I know who does. A certain Captain Frilli, man after my own heart. Promoted from Marshal and went through officer training with me. He’s in the right area and he’ll have a file on Flavio.”

“But it’s still two in the morning!”

“He’ll be watching telly. He sleeps about two or three hours a night, lies there with films running on the telly at the end of the bed with the sound low so his wife can read herself to sleep. Don’t worry, they’ll put me through to him.”

But the Captain wasn’t in bed watching television and the carabiniere who answered the phone wasn’t surprised by the call. It was for Ferrini to be surprised.

“I’m not with you … How could he …? No, no. No. You must have got your lines crossed. Whoever he was expecting hours ago it wasn’t me … Well, where is he now? Mm. Mm. No, no, I didn’t. Tell me from the beginning …”

There was a long silence on Ferrini’s part as he listened, his alarmed eyes fixed on the Marshal’s, but unable to break off and give him a clue.

“What time was this? Mm … Mm … well then, does he know for
sure who …? I see. Right. Right. Listen, we’ll leave right away and come straight to you. If he’s back, well and good, if not we’ll go out there.”

Ferrini hung up. “We have to go out.”

“Out? Where?”

“Pisa. It’s Flavio. You’re not going to believe this but there’s been a murder. Two bodies in a car—”

“No, no, you can’t tell me after all this that we’re back to Flavio again after eliminating him so certainly.”

“No, we’re not back to Flavio again because somebody’s eliminated him for good. He’s one of the two bodies in the car.”

They couldn’t see much. The night was black and the area too far from any source of light. The nearest village was some miles away. With torches they could only get a vague impression of steep wooded slopes, a pale stony road and a ravine dropping away to their right.

“If you’d turned up when the fire engines were still here they had good lights. You can’t see a thing down there now.”

They peered down into the ravine but even with their headlights and those of the Captain’s car they could make nothing out. The smell on the night air was overpowering as the wind wafted it up to them. The acrid stink of burnt green leaves, burnt rubber and plastic, and burnt flesh.

They spent an hour or so with the Captain back in his office. He was a good man, as Ferrini had said, and he knew his business. He’d been called out at three that afternoon, along with the fire brigade. A car was burning down in the ravine and it had set fire to the surrounding trees to the extent that the flames could be seen from a considerable distance. It had taken a little time to deal with the fire and as yet the car hadn’t been retrieved. They’d have to leave that until daylight tomorrow. It had been photographed
in situ
, as had the bodies which they found in the boot and which were later taken to the Medico-Legal Institute. They were burnt beyond recognition. Nevertheless, the Captain knew who they were, though it would have to be confirmed officially.

Flavio’s car was easily recognizable and stuck out like a sore thumb in this sleepy rural area where people drove three-wheeled trucks and old utility cars. His was a massive estate car with a huge roof rack of his own invention. It had been seen parked outside the one bar in a nearby village where Flavio and his companion, a shepherd boy he’d taken into his employ and protection recently, had stopped for a coffee. The village was perched on a little hill and only two roads led out of it. One, the one they’d arrived on, curved up on to a higher hill, and the nearest town. The other was little more than a stony track leading down into a valley and to the next village. It was this lane they had taken, after having asked the barman directions to a farmhouse lying in the centre of the valley. The car had not arrived at the next village and could be assumed to have stopped at the farmhouse mentioned. At about the time they would have reached the farm a number of shots were heard by a hermit living in the woods nearby. Within an hour the fire was reported. There was a trail of blood from the farmhouse along the road to the ravine. An attempt made at disposing of the car and its contents by pushing the vehicle down the ravine had failed when it stuck between trees at a depth where it was still visible from the road. So it had been burned.

“I’ve got every possible proof I could need,” the Captain told them. “His rifle was still hanging behind the kitchen door. He’s a terrible character and I’m pretty sure that this isn’t the first time he’s thought fit to bump one of his enemies off.”

“And why was Flavio his enemy?” Ferrini asked, hoping against hope perhaps that there would be something in all this for them.

“Vargius? No, it was the other chap he was after, the shepherd boy. Vargius got shot because he happened to be with him. It’s a running quarrel that’s been going on for some time now between two rival clans. This kid worked for the farmer in the valley and never saw a penny for a year. He slept with the animals and was given bread, cheese and wine, barely enough to keep body and soul together. He ran away and started work for Vargius, who’s friendly with the opposing clan. They went there that day to get the lad’s wages. What they got instead was shot. No, when I called Florence it
was just that I thought somebody ought to know Vargius was dead. He was a suspect in that Monster case, wasn’t he? I’m not mistaken?”

“No, you’re not mistaken,” Ferrini said, “but who did you call? I knew nothing about this. I called you because I wanted to talk to you about Flavio but I had no idea he was dead.”

“I see. I understood you were on the case, on this special squad. To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to be bothered calling if it hadn’t been for you.”

“Thanks. I mean that. But whoever you did tell didn’t think fit to communicate the news to the rest of the group.”

“I see. Well, I must confess this man Simonetti they put me through to was little short of rude. I got the impression he was anything but pleased.”

“Yes.” It was the Marshal who spoke, and the other two looked at him as though they’d quite forgotten he was there. He hadn’t opened his mouth since they arrived. “I think,” he said, addressing his own big hands that were planted squarely on his knees, “that he doesn’t want the name Vargius to be mentioned in connection with our investigation. And I think you shouldn’t mention, if you can avoid it, that we ever came here at all. Ferrini, I think we should leave.”

Late the next morning the Marshal was feeling very queasy and so had more than his usual difficulty in concentrating on what was going on. Tiredness was at the root of the problem, and the fact that he’d had two coffees instead of the usual one that morning in the hope of waking himself up. He’d have done better to stay sleepy. The coffee had begun to irritate his stomach almost at once so that when the bad news started to arrive it was inevitable that it would, as it were, attack him in this already weakened spot.

He’d been consoling himself, as he shaved, with the thought that, tired or not, nauseous or not, the day would end better than it had begun because Teresa and the boys were already on the train on their way to Florence. It was just a question of getting through to supper time. He had to sit through another wearisome session with the Suspect, whose act never varied and whose situation seemed to worsen daily. He intended to try and get a word with Ferrini over lunch and avoid working on their private investigation tonight so as to be with his family. In the afternoon they had to go out again to the scene of the last crime with the day’s witness. Then, with any luck, they’d finish reasonably early and he could …

That was when it had started. The phone had rung and the day had begun to fall apart before it had even begun. There he’d stood, a picture of misery, his chin half shaved and half lathered, protesting. As if protesting would change anything.

“But …”

“It can’t be helped, Salva.”

“But why couldn’t you have booked earlier?”

“How could I book earlier? I didn’t know when all the tests would be finished, and who was to say she was going to be all right? You don’t expect us to travel without couchettes?”

“Of course not …”

“Needless to say, the boys are delighted because they’ll miss a few days of school.”

So at least somebody was happy. He’d been so upset that he’d stumped back to the bathroom and irritably splashed his face and dried it before seeing his half-black chin in the mirror.

Then the post. Well, that had been a pinprick in comparison, but he was too tired to distinguish between pinpricks and brickbats; the business was still irritating him now as he sat in their usual overheated conference room listening to this man Nenci, a noisy and aggressive character, known to be a friend of the Suspect and here to give evidence against him.

He should have opened the post last night, but he hadn’t. There hadn’t been time before going out to meet Ferrini and his intention had been to look through it all before going to bed. Then there’d been the business of Pisa. Well it was too late to do anything now, but Marco’s note had left him uneasy.

Well, he’d known that all along for what it was worth. He’d hardly forced the lad to tell him.

And, of course, he’d found nobody in. The Marshal glanced surreptitiously at his watch now. The auction was underway if not over. Had nobody told Marco about the anonymous letter? Had Benozzetti by now staged some sort of scene? He ought, if anything, to be trying to concentrate on what was going on in front of him since he couldn’t do much now about Marco. Not that he could do anything about this lot, either. For what it was worth, he knew the man across from them was lying through his teeth, and there was bound to be a terrible scene any minute when the Suspect was brought in to be confronted with him.