The Innocent

by Magdalen Nabb

  ‘He seemed to me’, the marshal said, ‘to be taking Akiko’s story very badly, considering their relationship, and I was right. The girlfriend he’d introduced me to in the trattoria before we came up to his apartment to talk was American and they were in a crisis because she wanted them to go and live in California once she’d finished her year here and he felt he needed to be in Rome because of his work. I tried to reassure him but he wasn’t convinced. He said:

  —You think you’ve found the perfect person as long as you’re just in love and living in a sort of vacuum. Then you start talking about marriage and suddenly it’s not just about two people any more.’

  The captain got to his feet and started to walk about the room. The marshal, supersensitive as he was in his tired and distressed state, felt his agitation and the cause of it. Again, as in Rome, he tried to reassure. ‘It needn’t have ended like it did, it wouldn’t have ended like it did.. They would have talked. They would have found a way through. People get over their problems if they love each other.’

  Behind him, he heard the captain stop, then stride back towards his desk. He rang the bell. ‘They don’t get over death. I’ll have some coffee brought for you. Then you’re going home.’

  Teresa tried to send him straight to bed but he didn’t go. He didn’t tell her so but he was afraid of going to sleep because if he went to sleep, the nightmare would come back. What was worse, he would yet again wake up to find that what happened in the nightmare had really happened and the only part that wasn’t true was the part about everything being all right, about Esposito walking beside him, comforted, healed. That really was a dream. He would be obliged to face the nightmare and the worse awakening when it came to bedtime, but at least Teresa would be there. He wasn’t going to fall asleep alone if he could avoid it. Teresa look hard at his face. She didn’t argue with him.

  ‘Well, at least let Lorenzini deal with everything. You’re in no fit state. And come home early. I’ll make you a good meal and then you can watch the news and have an afternoon nap on the sofa.’

  He didn’t say anything, only looked at her, pleading in silence.

  ‘I’ve those jeans of Totò’s I’ve promised to shorten, so you’ll keep me company. Now have a shower and get into uniform. You’ll feel more yourself.’

  Back in uniform, feeling more himself, the marshal stayed in his office and dealt with every available scrap of dull, blessedly normal paperwork as he waited for Lorenzini to finish ‘dealing with everything’ and join him. When he came in and sat down, he wanted details of Esposito’s suicide. He didn’t get them. It wasn’t squeamishness. It wasn’t distress. It was a question of concentration. He didn’t know how he was going to get where he was going, only that he had to go there and there was so little time.

  Lorenzini had to help him. ‘You mean you refuse to believe—even now that he’s killed himself, even though he lied about his mother and went missing …’

  ‘I’m not interested in believing things or not believing things.’

  ‘And what about the facts in the case? Are you not interested in those either?’

  ‘The facts … yes. You see, you’re better at those things than I am.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly what I mean except that now I’ve got another date, apart from May twenty-first when Peruzzi last saw her. The ninth of May. Going by what her friend—Toshimitsu—told me, that was the date she booked for the abortion.’

  ‘Easy enough to check round the hospitals, then. There’ll be a paper trail, even if she didn’t turn up.’

  ‘Yes. She couldn’t go through with it because she loved him. Between the ninth and the twenty-first she must have been so distressed … I haven’t a lot of time. I want this sorted out before the funeral. It’s too big a burden for his mother. Losing her only son, suicide, an accusation of murder.’

  ‘Death extinguishes the crime.’

  ‘Not for her. The papers will put two and two together.’

  ‘While you …’

  Had he been wanting to say:—While you won’t?—It didn’t matter.

  ‘You understand me? There’s no time.’

  ‘If you want me to deal with checking the hospitals, of course I will.’

  ‘Yes. But help me. I have to find someone …’

  ‘Out of thin air.’

  ‘Yes. I need more facts, maybe more dates.’ He had to keep on at Lorenzini until he came up with what he needed. There was nothing he could ask for exactly because he didn’t know what he was after, only that Lorenzini was the one who had to provide it. He stared at him, dogged, insistent. That irritated, almost pitying look meant he was getting there.

  ‘Well, dates would be something—I don’t know about plucking a suspect out of thin air for you but they might well result in an alibi for Esposito, given that his movements are all recorded here. If his mother’s your only worry, that would be enough, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know …’

  ‘All right. You want your phantom suspect behind bars.’ The marshal brooded on this a moment, staring past Lorenzini at the map on the opposite wall and a tiny piazza with no name.

  ‘Yes,’ he said at last. He couldn’t explain just who and what he felt the need to protect, even to himself. ‘But you’re right. To start by proving Esposito’s innocence would be something … Only, Forli can’t give me a precise time of death, just a rough idea of the number of days. In water it’s not easy. The fish …’

  —It’s because I have no face.—He could still hear her voice, so cold and sad. He hadn’t even remembered her name. She was just ‘the Japanese girl’. He still couldn’t shake off the nightmare. It was more real than anything around him. He must try to listen to Lorenzini.

  ‘So, if you put Forli’s estimate together with the day Peruzzi last saw her—I mean, you might not need the exact time if Esposito was on duty all day. It had to happen in the daytime if it happened in the gardens. Esposito was here inside already, but the girl, even if she’d fixed to meet him, wouldn’t have been allowed through the gates anywhere near closing time.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So ask Peruzzi. If she left the workshop when it closed, half past seven or something, to go home, then the Boboli Gardens were already shut and you’re talking about the next day and Forli’s estimate should be enough. I’ll check the daily sheets for you and any reports with Esposito’s name on them.’

  ‘Yes. Thanks.’

  ‘So: Forli’s estimate, opening hours of the Boboli Gardens, Esposito’s movements. If there’s an alibi there, I’ll find it for you but if there isn’t … the scene’s so close by and if there’s even half an hour of Esposito’s time unaccounted for …’

  Lorenzini was getting to his feet.

  ‘Wait.’ He had to make him stay. He needed more. ‘I was wondering how things were going with …’ With what? He must keep him there. Pictures flipped around in his weary head, a kaleidoscope of useless images: a builder trundling through clouds of cigarette smoke, that awful woman with the handbag and her skewed eye-shadow, a duty roster for the medieval football, Nardi—

  ‘Nardi.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Nothing. I’ve been leaving you to deal with so much. I just wondered how that was going.’

  ‘Oh. It’s all calming down. I think I’ve pretty well got to the bottom of the problem. I talked to the butcher and their neighbours …’

  Keep talking … just keep talking … That was his brain, slopping about … he was so clever and now his brain …

  ‘Anyway, there’s one woman—I don’t know if you know her but she’s not bad looking. She doesn’t look so much like a housewife from around here as like Claudia Cardinale playing the part of a housewife in a film, if you know what I mean. Funnily enough, she is called Claudia.’

  ‘I know her. She’s a beautiful woman who always looks worn-out. Always wears down-at-heel shoes. Married to a short fat chap who looks twice her
age.’

  Two halves looking two different ways … If he let his mind drift, he felt as though he were still on the train, his body feeling the rhythm. Was he falling asleep? Listen to Lorenzini ‘And she told me she’s been following the whole story.

  She said:

  —It’s better than any soap opera, I can tell you. I missed most of the fight but I managed to get to the window in time to see them being separated and Monica leaving in an ambulance. Fancy calling the Misericordia for a scratch or two! Is she really going to go on telly?

  ‘I told her it wasn’t our business, as long as it stayed out of the courts but that I hoped to put her off doing it, seeing as they’d all got on so well for so many years except for a bit of a quarrel every now and again.’

  ‘And what did she think about it?’

  Keep him talking. He mustn’t go yet …

  ‘That’s just it. She said there’d been a bit of jealousy at first but Monica and Costanza had got used to each other years ago and even get together, now and again, to talk over his faults—he was drinking a bit too much at one time but they soon put a stop to that between them.’

  ‘Poor chap … Why don’t you sit down?’

  ‘I can’t. It’s late and I ought to be getting home—and didn’t you say your wife was expecting you early? It’s after one. Anyway, I’ve started so I’ll finish. She said this fight was different. She said it’s not about love, it’s about money.’

  The marshal stood up, his gaze still fixed on Lorenzini.

  ‘Money? What money? I didn’t know any of them had any money.’

  ‘No, but Nardi has a pension, a pretty decent pension after working on the railways all his life.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So Monica’s claiming half of it. She says he spends as much time in her house, using her hot water, her heating, her electricity, as he does in his own—which isn’t quite true—and as much time in her bed as in Costanza’s—which is. Of course, Monica has her mother’s old age pension now but her mother’s nearly ninety. She has to think of the future. She has a point, you know. It must be twenty years they’ve been together.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Monica didn’t need to stay a widow. She could have married three times over, they say.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it. What I can’t understand is what any woman could see in Nardi.’

  ‘They say he looks better with his teeth in.’

  ‘But he never puts them in!’

  ‘No. Anyway, what Costanza says is that if his pension—or half of it—goes, he goes. Hence the scrap.’

  ‘Hmph. I have to go. Teresa …’

  He left Lorenzini standing there. He was vaguely aware of the puzzled frown that followed him but it didn’t matter. He had to get on. He was still exhausted and still upset about Esposito, but under all that, deep inside, he was now calm.

  Nine

  The chatter at table flowed around him, comforting. He felt Teresa watching him but she didn’t bother him at all, except to say every so often in a gentle voice, ‘Salva …’

  ‘What?’

  This was because the boys were asking him something, looking at him, expecting an answer.

  ‘We’ll see …’ was all he could manage. And sometimes, ‘Ask your mother …’

  Later, they took their coffee through and settled on the cool leather sofa in the drawing room to watch the news. He leaned back and dozed a little, always aware of the newsreader’s urgent voice. He was aware, too, of the small movements Teresa was making as she sewed beside him. Sometimes he was rocked by the train in a weary journey that went on and on and on, but when his head fell sideways it touched Teresa’s warm bare arm and he was comforted. He woke after almost an hour, refreshed. The two boys were waiting outside the drawing-room door, having been told to keep quiet because their dad had been up all night. They were still quiet but staring at him, their eyes hopeful. What did they want?

  ‘Mum says we can but not on our own. She says only if you take us.’

  It was Giovanni talking and that was odd. Totò was always the ringleader when they were planning something—but what was it?

  ‘We wanted to go with everybody from school. There’s a whole gang … Mum says the final’s too dangerous because there’s always a fight afterwards.’

  The medieval football, then.

  ‘Hmph.’

  ‘But we can if you take us.’

  ‘All right, we’ll see.’

  ‘Oh, Dad! You always say we’ll see, and it’s San Giovanni! It’s my birthday—and my name day and the Whites are playing and we’ve never been to the final, ever!’

  ‘I know. We’ll talk about it later.’ He was opening the bedroom door to go and get changed but a voice in his head stopped him.

  —If you don’t water a plant, it dies. It can’t wait.

  That’s what it was—Totò was there, a little boy again, at least for a moment. He wasn’t taking the lead but he was there, supporting his brother, wanting something from his dad, no longer shut in the bedroom, crying.

  So he placed a big hand on the shoulder of each and promised, ‘I’ll get tickets—but for all of us, your mum as well, because we’re going to go to Lapo’s place for a good meal first.’

  ‘With cake and spumante after?’ Giovanni’s dark eyes became as huge as the marshal’s own.

  ‘Of course with cake and spumante after. It’s your birthday and your name day, isn’t it? And now let me get changed and go back to work.’

  There were no windows in Lapo’s small back room, so the lamps were on, illuminating the paintings by local artists, rows of bottles on the shelves, stacks of white plates. Even so, the circles of yellow light they gave out weren’t strong and the corners remained shadowy. The pushed-back tables with only their dark-green undercloths and the solemn faces looking at the marshal gave a funereal air to the gathering. Lapo had rounded up anybody from the square who wanted to come and now he offered a glass of vin santo to everyone. At this odd afternoon hour, the room smelled only of wine stains, cigarette smoke and coffee.

  ‘The marshal says they’ll eventually send our little Akiko back to her family in Japan so this is a bit of a farewell gathering for her. She always liked vin santo. Now, let’s hear what the marshal has to tell us.’

  ‘Well, I’d better tell you first of all that I’ve been up all night, so you’ll forgive me if I’m a bit … it’s been an upsetting business, too, I know you’ll understand that … Anyway, if I’m not making myself clear, you only have to ask.’

  The men wore grey or black cotton coats, aprons, overalls. Santini’s hair was tied back with the usual bit of rag.

  He scanned their faces, those close to him that he could see properly, those behind in the shadows. There was still some diffidence there, he could feel it, but they were listening. They were giving him a chance. So, he planted his big hands squarely on his knees and began. ‘I know a lot of you must have thought I was trying to keep Esposito’s name out of this. Some of you were even understanding about it and very discreet. I couldn’t see it at the time but I want to thank you for that now, for your trust, I mean. You relied on me to do the right thing and when I didn’t, well … you felt let down. So for those of you I haven’t said this to already, I didn’t know about Esposito and Akiko. I can only ask you to believe that. If you don’t …

  ‘He hadn’t been with us all that long. When you live in barracks you’re cut off from old friends back at home, from your family. You can’t be on familiar terms with the men you command …’

  The next bit was difficult but he was determined to say it. He took a sip of the vin santo, which he didn’t want and could ill afford to drink in his exhausted state. ‘I wish … I’d have liked to think he could have confided in me, but these are delicate matters and maybe he thought I wouldn’t understand. Maybe he thought I was too old. Anyway, he didn’t confide in anyone—he didn’t confide in me. Now he’s dead. You’ll have seen that on last night’s news and—t
hough they didn’t say it in so many words because there has to be an autopsy and so on—we think he killed himself.’

  Some discreet murmurs, a scraped chair, a loud voice:

  ‘But did he kill Akiko?’

  ‘What are you on about? He wanted to marry her!’

  ‘No, no. He’s right. The question has to be asked. The marshal knows that and he’ll think no worse of us for asking.’

  ‘What do you know about it?’

  ‘Let him finish! We’ve all got work to do!’

  The marshal waited until they’d shouted each other down and seemed ready to listen. He, too, had work to do but he was all quiet inside now and moving steadily forward. He had to satisfy their curiosity about Esposito’s death and then listen to what they could tell him. He coughed and the last mutterings died down.

  ‘As far as I can piece it together, what happened was that Esposito was given leave to go home to Naples and visit his mother.’ He had to be honest with them. He didn’t want to say it but he needed their trust and, this way, they had to give it to him. ‘He’d told us his mother was ill. It wasn’t true.’

  More murmurs, but nobody ventured to comment on that. It had worked. Any diffidence had melted. They gazed at him now like children being told a story.

  ‘He took the train for Naples, as he’d said he would, but he got off it in Rome. Given the lie he told us about his mother, we have to think that he always intended to do that. He went looking for a friend of Akiko’s. He was very agitated and, according to the friend, he said nothing much other than “It’s all over.” Some of you may have known that Akiko was expecting a child. Although she didn’t go through with it, she had planned on an abortion. This all makes things look very bad for Esposito, I realise that, but I hope now you’ll believe that nobody’s trying to cover anything up here.’

  He paused and glanced at Peruzzi. Most of the men in the room turned to look at him, too. He had taken care to inform Peruzzi about everything before the others arrived, mindful of his heart condition. Things had to be done in the proper order, smooth and steady. Even so, when he’d first heard it all, Peruzzi had been obliged to sit down, his face pale.