The Marshal Makes His Report (25 page)

He was unable to get the word ‘sister’ out. His head dropped forward as the word choked him. Then he took a deep breath and tried to pull himself together.

‘I feel exhausted, as if I’d made a long journey and been beaten up at the end of it. Perhaps I could sleep if I covered myself up a bit. I feel cold.’

The airless room was unbearably hot. The Marshal helped him to get himself under the counterpane. William lay still, his eyes half closed.

‘Lift your head.’ He gave him the pillow which had fallen to the floor. He looked to be in shock and should have someone with him. The Marshal decided to get Flavia Martelli to come in. William’s eyes were closed now but as the Marshal began to tiptoe away he murmured, ‘Wait . . .’

‘What is it?’

‘You didn’t come to the theatre.’

‘What?’ With a start the Marshal remembered. The complimentary tickets were still in the pocket of his uniform.

William’s eyes had opened but he didn’t look up at the Marshal, only stared ahead. ‘I wish you’d come. I’m not so good at life but I’m good on stage. I wanted you to see me, I don’t know why.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s all right. I’m glad you were here today. They did it . . . They did it in the cellar, didn’t they, not in here?’

‘Yes. She must have been working.’

‘Will you arrest them?’

‘I already have.’

‘It was written on that document she was restoring . . . funny . . . “Whoso foregathers with great people is the last at table and the first at the gallows.” ’

William said nothing else and after a while his eyes closed and he slept.

Also present were two Radiomobile units and an ambulance
of the Misericordia. Dr M
ARTELLI
Flavia, being present as a
resident of the Palazzo Ulderighi, was asked to proceed to an
external examination . . .

The Marshal himself had suggested it because the doctor who had done the preliminary examination of Catherine Yorke’s body had left. It had been easy enough to tell William not to think like that, not to go over and over the story, telling it the way it should have been if only . . . Who was there who could tell the Marshal not to do it, not to retrace his steps and do in his head what he ought to have done? If, for instance, it had occurred to him to put Lorenzini in the dwarf’s place?

The S on his typewriter was dirty. His mind went blank as he stared at the page with each letter S almost a solid block.

The phone rang.

‘Guarnaccia?’ It was Captain Maestrangelo.

‘Captain.’

‘I hope you got some rest.’

‘Yes, thank you, I did.’

‘Well, I thought you’d want to know. Charges have been brought and, as we expected, two very expensive lawyers are now with us.’

‘And their story?’

‘The girl was Tiny’s girlfriend and he found out she was two-timing him with Leo. He came to the Palazzo Ulderighi to have it out with her on June 11th. She was in the cellars sorting documents. Tiny claims he had intercourse with her there with her consent. Leo came down and caught them
in flagrante
and a fight ensued. Leo says the girl took his part and Tiny turned on her and strangled her. Breaking open Cinelli’s tomb was Leo’s idea but it turned out to be a lot smaller than they expected. In Tiny’s words: “We had to double her up. She might have got scratched a bit when we pushed her in.” Incidentally, your fears that she might have been walled in before she was quite dead were groundless. Her neck was broken. As for their being paid assassins—well, if it’s any comfort to you I know you’re right, but I think that’s about all the comfort you can expect. These lawyers are good. Neither Tiny nor Leo can afford to talk. With a story like theirs they could get away with manslaughter and when they come out they’ll be rich men.’

It was true. If they involved the Marchesa Ulderighi it would be murder, and murder for financial gain. They wouldn’t see the outside world again.

‘I’m sorry,’ the Captain said. ‘You did an admirable job, anyway.’

An admirable job. There had been two deaths and his ‘admirable job’ had caused a third.

‘Are you still there?’

‘Yes . . . yes, I’m still here.’

‘You sound depressed. You shouldn’t be. You realize we’d never have got them at all if you hadn’t found out how they knew each other.’

‘That’s true.’ For what it was worth. Funny how it hadn’t registered there and then—though not that funny, considering the panic in the café. So simple. Half, or rather more than half, of the people having breakfast were market people, their early morning faces shiny and pink, their clothes old and dusty. The women wore aprons with their money in a wide pocket in the front. And the others were exotic in leather and black lace, the girls’ faces white and slashed with purple lipstick. Some of them strung out and weary, others still high from the disco. All of them stopping there for breakfast before sleeping the day away.

‘I’m probably interrupting you,’ the Captain said coldly, annoyed at the lack of reaction.

‘I . . . No, no. I was writing my HSA report for the public prosecutor’s office.’

‘I see.’ The coldness left his voice. ‘He’s putting you under a lot of pressure.’

‘Yes. But it doesn’t matter.’

‘Well, if you need any help . . .’

‘Thank you.’ But he repeated, ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘As you wish. By the way, we need to call in this character they refer to as Grillo. Can you give me his correct name?’

‘Yes. Just a moment.’ He was obliged to look it up in his notebook. ‘Filippo Brunetti.’

He kept the notebook before him after he’d rung off. According to the Captain, they intended to call Grillo as a witness to the relationship between Catherine Yorke and Leo Mori. Once that would have been a safe bet but now . . .

At approximately 21.45 yesterday, June 24th, in the course
of duty . . .

Filippo Brunetti . . . There must have been a time when someone had called him Filippo. His mother, if he’d known her. Before he became just Grillo, just a dwarf.

The Marshal had found him that evening on the spiral staircase after he’d left William. He knew he must go up and see Neri, but Grillo was blocking his way and the Marshal had stood there, amazed at what he was seeing. Three stairs above, the dwarf laid a tray of food, mostly covered by a cloth. Clutching the thick rope to help himself, Grillo hauled himself laboriously up two of the high stone steps, stopped to breathe deeply for a moment and then moved the tray up three more steps. Another pause for breath and he grasped the rope again.

‘Can I help you?’

The dwarf had been too absorbed in his task or his heavy breathing had been such that he hadn’t heard the Marshal’s approach. He whipped his head round now, still clinging to the rope, but he didn’t acknowledge the offer, only flattened himself against the wall to let the Marshal pass him. This the Marshal did as best he could, trying not to push against the dwarf but it was impossible to avoid it. He expected some wisecrack about his size but it didn’t come.

The dwarf only said, ‘Be careful,’ as the Marshal, with the help of the rope, took two stairs at once to avoid the tray. But it wasn’t the Marshal he was worrying about.

‘He hasn’t eaten for two days. I’ve made him soup. Maybe he can get that down . . .’ And he resumed his laborious climb.

The tower that night was as silent as the courtyard. No flute. No sound at all. When he entered the room the Marshal found Neri’s habitual chair empty. He came back out on to the staircase. Far below him, still struggling, the dwarf jerked a finger, pointing upwards. The Marshal climbed to the next floor. There he found only a bathroom and what appeared to be a dressing-room though it was difficult to make out in the fading light. The next floor was a bedroom.

Neri was not in bed but lying on the coverlet, clothed and with a thin dressing-gown over him. The shutters were open and there was a little more light up here beyond the roof of the palazzo. A suffused pink light of a midsummer sunset. He was sleeping. Not, the Marshal thought, a natural sleep, but drug-induced. His face was flushed and a small trickle of saliva escaped the corner of his open mouth where it pressed on the pillow. He had seen dying people sleep like that when they had been given morphine to ease their pain. Their limbs collapsed in abandoned attitudes. Only babies slept like that naturally. The Marshal sat himself down quietly by the bed and waited. In the silence he listened to Neri’s breathing. The intake of breath seemed to require an effort. A pause, then, as though too much energy had been expended, the lungs collapsed with a low bubbling snore.

The only other noise was the dwarf’s slow progress on the stairway. One two, one two, pause. The scraping of the tray. One two, one two, pause . . .

Neri caught his breath. Nothing outside had disturbed him. He was dreaming. His head began to move slowly from side to side on the pillow, then more quickly, each movement accompanied by a brief moan. The movement became more violent, the protest articulate.

‘No. No. No. No. I won’t do it. I won’t do it. No. No. No. I won’t do it.’

‘Wake him!’ The dwarf was in the room. Dumping his tray, he ran to the bed on his short wobbling legs and clutched at Neri’s arm. ‘Wake up! Can you hear me? Wake up!’

Neri’s eyes opened. They focused on the dwarf’s face hanging over his own and at once tears poured down his flushed cheeks.

‘You promised to keep me awake. Grillo, you promised. Don’t let me fall asleep again, for God’s sake don’t let me . . .’

‘Hush. I had to get you something to eat.’

He could hardly have seen him up to then because Grillo had been blocking his vision, but now he stood out of the way.

At the sight of the Marshal’s large, still figure a ray of hope lit Neri’s feverish eyes. His head had left a patch of sweat on the depressed pillow.

‘You’ve come to talk to me. You’ll help me to stay awake. The doctors don’t understand. They say I must sleep, but I must keep awake at all costs . . .’ He tried to hoist himself into a sitting position but he was too weak. The Marshal moved to help him but the dwarf was there first. ‘Thank you.’

‘Thank me by eating your soup.’

‘I’ll try. Leave me with the Marshal now—but don’t go far.’

‘I’ll be on the floor below so I can hear you.’ He shot an angry look at the Marshal as he left, clearly thinking that his presence would interfere with the soup.

Whether or not that were the reason, Neri ate nothing, though he tried, and in the end he asked the Marshal to put the tray outside the door.

‘Just the smell of food makes me feel ill.’

When the Marshal came back he said, ‘Sit here as you were before. I’m glad you’re here.’

William had said that, too, but what comfort could he offer? What could he offer to soothe the nightmares of this ageing twenty-four-year-old who, anyway, knew he was dying?

‘As long as you’re here, you see, I can talk to you and stay awake. You can’t imagine the nightmares . . . and yet nothing ever happens, nothing frightening at all, so that when I tell Grillo he laughs. Of course he laughs to make me laugh . . . And sometimes I do laugh. But the minute I close my eyes they’re there waiting for me. The very minute I close my eyes . . .’

‘Who’s waiting?’

‘I don’t exactly know. I can’t see their faces but they’re people I know or people who know me and they give me the box, a small oblong box, and expect me . . . they expect me . . .’

Sweat rolled down his temples and he clutched the Marshal’s arm. ‘Don’t let me fall asleep, please God don’t let me!’

‘I won’t. Steady, now.’

‘I’ll get up!’

‘Are you sure you’re fit to—’

‘It’s wearing off now. They give me tranquillizers, do you understand? They make me helpless and the nightmares overwhelm me. It’s wearing off now. Help me to get up.’

With or without help he was determined to get out of bed, and so the Marshal helped him. There was a sickly bluish tinge around Neri’s lips that frightened him.

‘Here. Have my chair and I’ll bring another one.’

‘Thank you. How kind you are to me. Bring it close. It’s strange. Everyone is kind to me and yet the people in the nightmares are so cruel and relentless.’

‘What do they want of you?’

‘They give me the box . . . They give me the box and I have to stick something sharp into it. That’s all. They don’t say anything but I know that’s what I have to do and I won’t do it! I know it sounds stupid. What makes me so afraid is that if it goes on, every time I close my eyes, I’ll give in and then—I’ll give in and—’

‘Don’t distress yourself. It’s all over now. That’s what I’ve come to tell you.’

It wasn’t true. It was all over, but what could he tell Neri?

Everything in the room was suffused with the fading pink of the dying sun. Soon it would be dark. The Marshal felt a great weight of sadness dragging him down. He had felt it for Corsi’s disembodied presence and now it had transferred itself to Neri, whose eyes, the same eyes, were looking at him, waiting for help.

‘Is it over?’ Then he turned away to ask, as though he didn’t quite want to hear the answer, ‘Catherine?’

‘We found her body an hour ago. The two men who killed her have already been arrested. It’s over.’

Neri dropped his still averted head and was silent a moment.

Then he began to murmur in a very low voice,
‘Est in
horto, Phylli, nectendis apium coronis; est hederoe vis multa,
qua crinis religata fulges . . . Qua crines religata fulges . . .’

The voice faltered and a tear fell on to one of his big limp hands.

The Marshal, thinking he had been praying said ‘Amen’.

Describe the position and clothing of the cadaver.

The body lay prone with the head turned to the left in the
direction of the well in the centre of the courtyard and was correctly
dressed.

The Marshal’s two big fingers paused over the keyboard. It had occurred to him, after Neri had received the news of Catherine’s death, to leave him to assimilate it and make his own decision about what he wanted to know, what he wanted to tell. The idea had been to go down a moment to William and check up on him and then to have a word with the men down in the cellars. He wanted the ambulance to draw right up to the cellar door—there was space enough and to spare—so that the girl’s body could be removed discreetly. It had just crossed his mind that if he didn’t interfere they would naturally ask William to identify the body there and then and in its present condition . . . He had gone so far as to get to his feet but he was unsure, even then.