Death in Autumn (12 page)

'He was going to lend me something, that's all. I didn't even know that woman!'

'All right. Go on.'

'When we got there I hid myself and the scooter.'

'Did the woman come alone?'

'She didn't come. A car drew up where Christian was waiting. The driver wound his window down to talk to him. It was a man.'

'Could you hear what they were saying?'

'I was too far away . . .'

The boy was cradling his wounded hand close to his chest. It must have been hurting him badly but the Marshal didn't dare make a move.

'Did Christian get into the car?'

'No. The man got out and they walked down the hill a little way. I followed them part of the way and hid again.'

'You still couldn't hear what was going on?'

'I was too far away. I didn't dare go any nearer. He'd never said anything about a man. He said the woman lived on her own. I thought it might have been a policeman. But then I saw him give Christian an envelope and then he . . . When Christian turned away the man got hold of him, he just got hold of him by the neck. There was no noise . . .'

'You didn't try and help him?'

'There was no noise. Just the crickets, and it was hot, I was sweating, soaked to the skin. There was no noise at all and there were houses all down one side of the lane with their shutters closed in the dark. It was as if nothing was happening. If Christian had called out ... I saw his hands fly up and then they were still, both of them, for what seemed a long time. I didn't dare move . . .'

'You could have helped him.'

'I couldn't! I couldn't help him! If the man had seen me he'd have got me too! There were houses there, he should have screamed but there was no noise! He was crazy, I've told you, he was crazy, he should have screamed to make somebody come, screamed and screamed, and I couldn't . . . and the man bent over him . . . then he walked back up to his car and just drove away. I saw Christian in the ditch with his eyes open, staring at me . . .'

'Did you take his documents?'

'I didn't touch him, I ran up the hill and got my scooter. I could hardly stay on it because I was shaking so much. It was his fault, don't you understand? He should have screamed . . .!' He flung himself against the side of the wooden shelves with his head crooked in his arm, heaving long dry sobs. The Marshal backed slowly towards the door and opened it. He saw the grey tiles and the broken glass swimming in blood-streaked disinfectant, and heard the Captain's footsteps hurrying towards them along the corridor.

CHAPTER 10

'What's happened to him?'

'He cut his hand. We'd better get him over to the hospital and have it stitched. I'll call the porter to explain this mess . . . Have you finished?'

'Yes. I've sent them back in my car. The woman's in a bad way but she has identified the boy pretty conclusively, mostly by his hands and the leather bracelet. He'd worn it for years. We can manage without Sweeton seeing him.'

'I don't want to, don't make me . . .' From inside the store room Swceton's voice had lost all its rebelliousness.

'Come on, let's get you out of here.' The boy allowed the Marshal to lead him out of the room without protest.

They left in the remaining car with its light and sirens going and drew up outside the nearby emergency hospital within minutes. The doctor who received them looked from the injured boy to their uniforms and asked, 'A road accident?'

'No.' The Captain offered no explanations. It would have taken too long. The doctor took the boy away without comment but looking none too happy about it. When he returned to where they were waiting he looked frankly suspicious. There was no knowing what the boy might have told him.

'He seems to be in shock. More so than those injuries could account for. What are you intending to do with him?'

It was a problem the Captain had been rapidly thinking over as they waited, having heard the Marshal's account. He could arrest Sweeton on a charge of blackmail but he'd have trouble making it stick. The boy's father was an English judge and would go straight over his head to the Substitute as soon as he arrived, and he knew well enough how things would go from then on. But the boy was a key witness and a frightened one. If they let him go now and he vanished, the Substitute would be equally furious. And things were already going to be bad enough with those injuries to explain.

@@'It might be as well if you kept him here,' he said at last, 'at least until tomorrow.'

'This is an emergency hospital. We don't have beds to spare.'

'You said he was in shock.'

'He's not in danger. Where are his parents?'

'His father's arriving from England tomorrow.'

'Is this boy in trouble with you?'

'Yes, he is. And if you can't keep him it will probably have to be the prison hospital.'

'I see. In that case I'll keep him here under sedation until tomorrow. After that the father can take responsibility. In the meantime I need a written account of the cause of the injuries. You'll find the appropriate form at the reception desk.' He looked as though he would have liked to say more but two ambulances had drawn up outside and a nurse called to him as the first stretcher was wheeled in. With a curt nod he left them.

It was the Marshal who filled in the form. When he had finished he said, 'Now it's a question of whether the boy tells the truth when his father arrives.'

'Do you think he will?'

'I don't know.' The Marshal was fishing for his dark glasses as they approached the glass doors of the entrance. 'I don't know.'

'Running awayl
What do you mean, running away?' the Substitute Prosecutor snapped. He had never made any secret of his preference for working with the police rather than the carabinieri and no doubt he now considered his opinions vindicated. The Captain held the receiver a little further from his ear as the tirade continued unabated.

'And who is this Marshal who was supposed to have him in charge?'

'Guarnaccia, sir, Stazione Pitti.'

'Guarnaccia? Guarnaccia? I've heard that name, has he been in trouble before?'

'Certainly not. He's often been exceptionally helpful.'

'Has he? Well, he's been exceptionally unhelpful this time. You realize that this boy's father is a judge and that when he gets here there's going to be trouble. Why wasn't he properly guarded?'

'He wasn't under arrest, sir, and the men I have are fully occupied on another case—'

'I'm not interested in other cases! I'm interested in this case and I want a full report of this whole business before the father gets here tomorrow. Where's the boy now?'

'Under sedation in the hospital.'

'Get a man out there immediately to stand guard! If he gets out and disappears before his father arrives—'

'I've already done that. Of course, if you'd care to sign the warrant we can arrest him on a charge of blackmail.'

'You'll do nothing of the sort! I'll deal with this—and you'd be better employed getting some concrete evidence against this man Querci. If you knew your job you'd have got him to talk before now.'

Especially, thought the Captain grimly, as he hasn't a father who's a judge and might take exception to a few bruises. He could have defended himself, as far as evidence was concerned, by telling the Substitute about Hilde Vogel's will, but he didn't. He was going to wait for Guarnaccia. However long it took, he was going to wait, Substitute or no Substitute, because if he'd had the sense to give the man a hearing in the first place . . .

On the way back from the hospital the Marshal had mumbled apologetically, 'It was my fault, I should have spoken out before you arrested him. It would have made things that much easier. If I'd known he needed money ...but he seemed content enough to me.'

'He was. It was his wife who'd wanted to get him out of hotel work after that business in Milan. She wanted him to buy into her father's shop.'

'I see. I didn't know. Only it seemed obvious that if he didn't take anything from the room . . . Well, I should have spoken out.'

'And I should have thought of it myself.'

He hadn't minded admitting that, but he could hardly admit that he'd been glad enough to let Guarnaccia go that night before the Substitute arrived. Getting out of the car at Pitti the Marshal had said, 'They have children, don't they?'

'One. A little girl.'

'I'll be with you as
soon
as I've finished. I'll take Lorenzini with me.'

Now, at last, the Substitute was coming to the end of his tirade, since the Captain, his mind elsewhere, was answering 'yes, sir' and 'no, sir', giving him no fuel for further attack. At the end of it he hung up, feeling rather better than otherwise. He'd done his best to avoid this sort of clash, as he did with all magistrates, but now that it had happened anyway he felt free to get on with the job in his own way and to let Guarnaccia get on with it in his. He pulled the Vogel file towards him and opened it. With luck he had about two hours before he would be interrupted, and now he had all the information he needed apart from what Querci would shortly give him. He opened the grey passport and met that cool, ironic glance once again. Not blackmail, it couldn't have been that. Whatever it was, everything had changed when her son arrived, a repetition of her own arrival all those years ago. But this time the roles were reversed. It was the son who didn't want to know. One thing, at any rate, was certain. Whatever Hilde Vogel had been up to all those years, if she'd carried on with it, been as stubborn and cold-hearted as her father, she would probably have still been alive today and so would her son. That moment of maternal affection, or sentimentalism, her attempt to make up for a miserable past, had resulted in worse disasters than most crimes ever did. The page from the newspaper where the unidentified body in the Arno was reported was also in the file. Maestrangelo read it. He read it again, frowning. Then a faint smile crossed his face as though he thought himself absurd for what he was thinking.

Nevertheless, still looking at the newspaper, he picked up the telephone receiver and asked for a call to be put through to a German colleague with whom he had worked for over six months on a kidnapping case the previous year. He wasn't the right person to ask but at least they managed to understand each other in a mixture of Italian and English and he would push the request on to the right quarter. It took some time for the man to be found, but when his booming voice finally answered it conjured up an instant picture of the big man with gingery hair whose fair-skinned face used to turn bright red after the first glass of wine. He was an exceptionally clever policeman whose bearlike appearance gave him the added advantage of looking harmless and a bit stupid. His first reaction to the Captain's request was surprise.

'There was nothing in the papers here about it.'

'There was precious little here. I know I shouldn't really be asking you . . .'

'Of course you should! I'm delighted! Let me write the name down . . . Becker, you said?'

'Walter Becker. I'm pretty sure there won't be anything at all on your records but it's better to check.'

'And you could use some background information, I expect?'

'I'd be very grateful for anything, if it's possible.'

'Where did he live?'

'Mainz.'

'Mainz. I'll get on to them right away. Same number, same office?'

'Yes.'

'You can't imagine how I miss Italy. I bet it's still warm there even now.'

'Fairly.'

'You don't know when you're well off! It's been raining and blowing for over a week here and half my men are down with some sort of 'flu. I'll ring you back.'

After hanging up the Captain began a systematic reading of all the statements in the Vogel file, making notes for his own report to the Substitute as he went along. The expected interruption came after only an hour when one of his plainclothes lads came in and placed a small packet on his desk.

'We've got him, sir.'

Thank goodness for that. If ever he had needed all his concentration on one case it was now.

'Take it to the lab yourself. I'd like the analysis before we bring him in, if possible. Have you found out where he lives?'

'No chance of that, sir, but I'm meeting him in the piazza at ten tonight. He's giving me some of this stuff to push.'

'Go to Lieutenant Mori. He'll get your warrant. He can go with you tonight and I want at least three other men there.'

He gave the rest of his instructions and tried to share in the lad's enthusiasm. After all, the boys on this case were young and had done a good job. What was the use of depressing them with a reminder that for every supplier or pusher they picked up, another would quickly take his place?

'You've done well,' he said eventually. 'But remember, you haven't finished until you've got him in here. Above all, be careful. That appointment could be an ambush for you too, despite all our precautions, and if it is it won't be that easy to get help to you in time. It only takes seconds to knife somebody or push him into a car.' And he wouldn't be the first to be beaten to death or stabbed on a job like this.

'I'll be careful, sir.'

'Go and get some rest when you've seen the Lieutenant and dropped this at the lab.'

And with that problem out of the way the Captain settled down to work again, only pausing occasionally to glance at Hilde Vogel's photograph or at the window, wondering how soon Guarnaccia would arrive.

'Take your shoes off,' the Marshal suggested, 'or we'll be in more trouble for making a mess.'

Lorenzini sat down on the edge of the bath to undo his laces.

'It seems an unlikely place.'

'It's the only place left. It's got to be here somewhere. Wait, I'll move this stuff.'

The Marshal took all the bottles and a glass with two toothbrushes from the shelf of the bathroom cabinet and put them in a corner on the floor. 'Up you go.'

Lorenzini balanced himself precariously on the edge of the bidet and peered behind the glass cabinet.

'I can't see anything.'

'We might have to take it down.'

'But it's screwed to the wall.'

'The hooks will be but you should be able to lift the cabinet off them.'

'Balanced like this it won't be easy . . . Just a minute, it might come forward a bit . . .'

The top of the cabinet slid forward about a centimetre and something dropped a little way behind it.

'It's coming . .. Push it back now and slide the lower edge forward .. . There it is. Hold still, I've got it. Right. You can get down.'

When they had tidied up they came out through the bedroom. It had taken on a different character now that it was occupied by other people. Two brightly coloured raincoats lay across the bed and there were maps and a guide to Rome on the dressing-table along with a box of some foreign breakfast cereal. The manager of the Riverside was waiting out in the corridor, ill-tempered and anxious at the thought that his guests might turn up before they had finished.

'It's all right,' the Marshal said, 'we've finished. You won't be seeing us again.'

'I take it you found what you were looking for?'

But the Marshal volunteered no information.

About half an hour later he was sitting alone in the Querci's kitchen, balanced on a formica chair that was too small for him. He was staring out of the window at an identical window in the block across the street. The afternoon had turned grey and overcast and the atmosphere of the tiny room was dismal. The remains of a hasty cold lunch cluttered the draining-board. The Marshal's hat lay on the formica table next to the typewriter. The little girl, he knew without turning to look, was still peering at him through the crack in the slightly open door. The only voices came from the next flat.

Signora Querci came in with a packet in her hand.

'It was where you said, on top of the wardrobe.'

She didn't appear to have been crying but her face and her whole body had sagged and she looked older than her years. The Marshal got up and took the package. At the door the little girl spoke in a sudden, high-pitched voice. 'Where's my dad?'

'I've told you, he's in the hospital,' her mother said quickly, knowing that the question hadn't been for her.

But the child, unbelieving, kept her eyes fixed in accusation on the Marshal. He was so put out that he turned and walked down the interminable flights of stairs, afraid that they would both stand staring at him while he waited for the lift.

The call came through from Germany at a quarter to six in the evening. The sky had darkened prematurely with heavy clouds and the Captain had switched on his desk lamp.