The Marshal at the Villa Torrini

by Magdalen Nabb

  'If you can get as far as the bathroom—'

  The word acted on him like a knife in the stomach. He double forward with a wail of panic and then curled sideways on the bed and began to sob in a high-pitched voice like a child.

  The Marshal sighed inwardly. It was going to be a long night. A commotion outside announced the arrival of the magistrate. The Marshal's relief turned to dismay, however, when the magistrate's head appeared round the door, his eyes bright with irony, a small cigar in his mouth.

  'They said it was you. Splendid! What have we got— apart from an appalling smell of vomit?' He held out his hand, giving a wicked smirk in the direction of the sobbing figure.

  The Marshal shook hands.

  'His wife . . . ' He nodded towards the bathroom and the magistrate popped across to look.

  Forbes, without ceasing to cry, asked, 'Who's that, for God's sake?'

  'Substitute Prosecutor Fusarri.' And if the Marshal, too, was thinking, 'For God's sake,' he didn't say it aloud.

  Fusarri wandered back in, cigar poised delicately aloft. He never spilled a flake of ash on his fine grey suits. Forbes was still sobbing loudly, his face covered by his hands.

  'What's his name?' mouthed Fusarri silently.

  The Marshal offered his notebook.

  'Well, well, Mr Forbes. What have you been doing to your wife?'

  Now that was the trouble with Fusarri. He had no scruples, no tact! The Marshal who had been thinking precisely the same thing would never have dreamt of saying it. He was Milanese, of course, so you couldn't expect . . . Even so, he always left the Marshal uncomfortable. He never knew whether the chap was serious or not. Not, to look at his face, but then you couldn't be sure . . . One thing was sure, he knew how to sort this Forbes character to whom the Marshal had already taken a strong dislike. It was a pleasure to watch.

  'Your wife is dead, sir, and in what look to us to be unusual circumstances. It may, of course, have been an accident, in which case we shall have no need to bother you further once we have the results of the post-mortem. In the meantime we require the answers to a few questions.'

  Forbes still had his head in his hands, but he'd quietened down. Fusarri sat neatly down beside him and a curl of pungent cigar smoke found its way from the smiling mouth in the direction of Forbes's eyes. He lifted his head to cough.

  'Good, good. I see we understand each other. So much more comfortable here than in somebody's office, don't you think?'

  'Well, Marshal.' Fusarri stood up and strode out of the room, waving the little cigar at shoulder height. 'He's all yours!'

  The Marshal stood there, staring down. He certainly wasn't going to sit on the bed for a start. Fusarri . . . The Marshal had no vocabulary to deal with Fusarri. It was the standard complaint that the magistrates trod all over the police and carabinieri, armchair detectives most of them, giving out orders like generals who never go near the battlefield. But Fusarri . . .

  'Hmph.'

  The Marshal fetched himself a wickerwork chair, hoped it was up to his weight, and sat down near Forbes.

  'Tell me about it,' he said.

  Forbes crossed one leg tightly over the other and folded his arms. His forehead and nose became beaded with sweat. He smelled of alcohol, of vomit and of fear. He didn't look at the Marshal and he didn't say a word.

  'You'll have to, you know. Me or somebody else.'

  Forbes darted a quick glance at the Marshal and then his eyes swivelled away. He was sweating so profusely now that some drops rolled down his temples and down under his open shirt collar which was striped green and white. Since there was nothing to listen to, the Marshal's big eyes looked, taking in every detail. A brown sweater that looked very old—it was certainly very worn. The striped shirt stuck out through the elbows and a bit of unravelled wool was hanging . . . Corduroy trousers, rather baggy, red wool socks. He was thin, but there were signs of an incipient pot belly. Too much drink, probably.

  The Marshal was prepared to sit in silence for as long as was necessary. If you keep on asking questions people go on refusing to answer, but silence is very unnerving and a nervous person will try to fill it, no matter how reluctant he is to tell you anything. This man was nervous all right. So the Marshal, hands planted firmly on his knees, eyes fixed on his prey, waited.

  Forbes was shaking now and having difficulty staying still, so that the Marshal knew what he wanted to do was get up and run and keep running. The reaction of a frightened animal. And yet he was surely an intelligent man. The Signora Torrini hadn't said much about him, come to think of it, she'd only talked about the woman. A writer . . . Well, she wouldn't be married to a road-sweeper, he didn't suppose. Besides, his hands . . . He'd never done a stroke of physical work in his life.

  One of the slim-fingered hands now fished in a trouser pocket. Forbes pulled out a handkerchief and dried his brow thoroughly. It immediately became beaded with drops again. He went on mopping himself. It was something to fill the vacuum but it wasn't enough. He said, 'I can't remember anything. It happens when I drink.' He bent over and righted the Chianti flask that had rolled from the bed on to the rug. To hide his face, the Marshal thought.

  'I understand. Perhaps you'd like to go to the bathroom and clean yourself up.'

  He went rigid. 'Is she . . . have you . . .'

  'She's still there,' the Marshal said. 'But I thought you didn't remember. The bathroom seemed to ring a bell last time I mentioned it.'

  A pause. His mind was going like a steam engine, you could almost hear it. He was intelligent all right, but they were the ones who in the end always talked themselves into trouble. The stout denial of the most stupid criminal was much more effective, but a chap like this one couldn't keep it up. The temptation to run rings round a bunch of none-too-bright policemen was always too great, and sooner or later the brilliant story that explained everything would be concocted. Still Forbes was being cautious—or the hangover was saving him.

  'I remembered when you said it. That . . .'

  The Marshal didn't help him. He sat very still and hardly appeared to be interested even. His ear was cocked to Fusarri's fast rattling accent with its slurred Milanese S. He would have filled the entire house by this time with the pungent blue smoke of his tiny cigars which he chain-smoked. He'd be sure to get on well with Signora Torrini. A vehicle drew up outside. Doors slammed and someone gave an order.

  The Marshal sighed and his heavy, black uniformed torso made an almost imperceptible movement forward. The other man flinched and drew back.

  'That will be the ambulance. Do you want to see your wife before they take her away?'

  Forbes dried his brow quickly and swallowed hard.

  'What's happened to her?'

  It was so calculated, so infantile, so blatantly false that the Marshal, thinking of a still young woman lying dead and alone for hours while he snored in a drunken stupor, could have hit him. Someone else in his place might have done just that and perhaps saved himself a lot of time and trouble since the man was clearly a moral and physical coward. But the Marshal didn't move.

  'I don't know,' he said, and waited.

  But Forbes only narrowed his eyes and then dropped his head once again into his hands.

  'Oh God : . . My head!'

  It was useless. The headache and nausea were more pressing than any need to save himself from accusation. Besides which, it could well turn out after the autopsy that there was nothing to accuse him of. After all, there was no getting away from the fact that he had been found asleep next door to his dead wife when he had a car and a current passport at his disposal. At any rate, it was useless to try and do much with him until he recovered. The Marshal got to his feet and again Forbes made that slight cringing movement which he covered by opening the bedside cabinet.

  'Christ almighty, I need some aspirin . . .'

  There were a few boxes of pills in the cupboard.

  'If your wife was in the habit of taking sleeping pills or tranquillizers of any s
ort I'll need to take them with me.'

  Forbes swept everything out of the cupboard on to the floor in a fury. 'Shit!'

  'In the bathroom, are they?'

  The man flung himself back against the crumpled pillows and started weeping loudly again.

  'Did she?' insisted the Marshal.

  'Did she what? Oh God! Oh God . . .'

  Take sleeping pills?' But what was the use? The Marshal stooped and picked up the tablets, checking each label. Mineral salts, throat pastilles, a tube of liniment for sprains and bruises, capsules for relief from colds. Nothing. He put them back and closed the cabinet door. As he stood up he noticed a little screw of paper in a flowered ashtray by the bedside lamp. Picking it up, he gave a sideways glance at the sobbing figure on the bed. Forbes again had his hands over his face and was burrowing into the pillows as though he hoped they might envelop him completely. The Marshal unscrewed the twist of paper. There were two red capsules in it.

  'Are these sleeping pills?'

  Forbes didn't even look up.

  'Oh God, my head . . .'

  I'll need to take them away. You'll be given a receipt.'

  Fusarri's voice called from the bathroom. By the sound of it, they were starting to remove the body.

  'Are you sure you don't wish to see your wife before they take her away?'

  His only response was to curl in on himself, drawing up his knees in a foetal position. The Marshal stood staring down at him. He must still be drunk, of course, but even so . . .

  'Marshal!'

  'Yes, sir.'

  It was no easy business for the porters to get their burden down the spiral staircase. They had to keep it vertical and they were afraid of slipping and breaking their necks. They complained bitterly.

  'Go more slowly, for God's sake, or there'll be three stiffs to shift instead of one.'

  'Keep, your voice down. I think the husband's up there . . .'

  'Doing what? Powdering his nose?'

  'They might well ask,' the Marshal said as the porters reached the floor below and he and the Prosecutor followed.

  Fusarri began wandering about the living-room, his little cigar held aloft.

  'Find a suicide note?'

  'No, sir.'

  'Didn't expect to, either, did you?' Fusarri paused in his wanderings and fixed the Marshal with a bright glance.

  'No, sir.'

  'Ah. Well, of course, I'm no expert . . . ' He wandered on.

  He always made some remark like that, but what the devil did he mean by it? That he really was an expert—he was supposed to be an expert, damn it, that was his job . . . or did he really mean, 'Don't imagine you're an expert'? Now he was flipping open their passports as the Marshal had done earlier, the cigar parked at the side of his mouth and his eyes half closed against the smoke.

  'So what did you find?'

  'Her date of birth on the passport . . .'

  'Which tells you.'

  'It's her birthday today.'

  'Ha!'

  'And he's a lot younger. I also found these.'

  'Sleeping pills, d'you think?'

  'Possibly.'

  'Find out. Then send them over to me. And I think we'll hang on to that young man's passport for the moment. See to the receipts. Notice her shoulders?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Of course. That's the thing about you, isn't it? You notice everything . . . Well . . . ' He pursed his lips and raised his eyes towards the floor above where Forbes could still be heard whining. 'Not a prepossessing character, but we can't make a move at this stage. Not a mark on her, damn it. Still, there are the sleeping pills. No bottle, no prescription?'

  'Not that I've found.'

  'May have slipped her something. Well, a warning that he's to remain at our disposal etc. then I must pay my respects to Eugenia.'

  They forgave her, individually and jointly. Not, this time, for the wait while she searched for the keys to admit them, though that was considerable, but for having a little weep.

  'I'll miss her.' She dried her eyes and tried to smile. 'In a lonely place like this and what with my leg . . . You count on your neighbours no matter what they're like, but I was so fond of Celia.'

  'Someone to share your passion for books with.' Fusarri lit her cigarette for her. It turned out he was an old friend of the signora's late husband who had been a lawyer. It was all very cosy. The Marshal was choking on all the smoke and doing his best not to give way to a fit of noisy coughing and offend them. He was also so hungry he was in pain.

  'What about him?' Fusarri asked, after finding a glass and pouring himself a drop of whisky which the Marshal once again refused.

  'Oh, Julian. Well, he was very nice, of course . . .'

  'He's not dead, Eugenia, only his wife is.'

  'Even so, it won't be the same, you see . . . She didn't have a heart attack, that wasn't it?'

  'No, we're pretty sure not. Why? Was her heart a problem?'

  'Oh, I don't know. She never said so . . . I just remembered a friend of mine who had a heart attack in the bathroom and they didn't find her until the next day. Of course, she lived alone. Giorgio's always saying I should have someone living in and, of course he's right but I won't—Anyway, whatever he says I was right to call you, wasn't I, Marshal? But why . . . Oh dear, you must forgive me for being a curious old woman. I was going to ask you why her husband didn't call you and why he didn't answer the phone . . . I suppose I shouldn't ask these things but—'

  'He was asleep, my dear Eugenia. Out cold on the bed, dead drunk. What do you think of that?'

  Another tear escaped her blue eyes. She dried them and dabbed at her nose.

  'Poor Celia.'

  'Never an unkind word about anybody. You haven't changed. Nevertheless, you didn't like him and you might as well admit it, because the Marshal here misses nothing so you won't be able to hide anything from him!'

  'Hide anything? Oh, Marshal, you don't think I was trying to hide anything, not seriously?'

  'No, no . . . ' Wretched man!

  'I had nothing against him . . .'

  'Eugenia, he's not dead.'

  'No but . . . He often helped me, you know. He saw to the lemon trees this year because Giorgio hadn't time, and that was kind . . .'

  'Eugenia!'

  'Oh, you must forgive me, but you shouldn't speak ill— There I go again, I don't know what you must think of me, Marshal . . . Well, I'll be absolutely straight. He often did things for me. Sometimes he insisted on doing things for me that I wasn't altogether sure I wanted him to do. But Celia was a friend, I really felt that. She would help me if I wanted help, but mostly she just spent time with me— Oh, I don't know how to explain it exactly, but I just think Celia did things because she liked me whereas he . . . he did things so that I'd like him and that's the difference! You see, everybody liked Celia, she didn't have to do anything to make herself liked. She told me once he was jealous, not sexual jealousy. They'd actually had a row over some people they'd had to dinner because, according to him, their friends were not really their friends at all but her friends. He got drunk, I think, during the dinner and disappeared. She found him on the bed out cold. She said he'd drunk a lot before the meal—well, he must have done because he only got as far as the soup . . .'

  Fusarri glanced at the Marshal.

  'Must make a habit of it.'

  'Oh, I don't think so,' said the Signora Torrini, 'Of course he could have done it on other occasions, but she only mentioned the one time.'

  'Sorry, Eugenia, I was joking. It seems to be more or less what he did tonight, whether before or after his wife died we don't know.'

  'I suppose if he was upset . . . I think I'll have another drop. Giorgio thinks . . . But I will. Just a drop—and oh heavens, who's going to tell Jenny? There's a daughter, Jenny, you know.'

  'We didn't know. I don't think we knew.' Fusarri looked the question at the Marshal, who shook his head and wondered why the devil Forbes himself hadn't wondered who was going
to tell his daughter.

  'Hmph . . . ' They both looked at him. 'Where is she? This daughter?'

  'Jenny?' Signora Torrini rested her glass on her neat grey lap and thought for a moment. 'In England—I'm trying to remember where exactly—I'm afraid I forget names. But you'll see she'll be home tomorrow for half-term. Celia told me that.'

  'Then her father will tell her,' Fusarri said. 'He'll no doubt have sobered up by then, eh, Guarnaccia?'

  'He was always very good with Jenny . . . Oh dear . . .'

  Fusarri decided to give up on reminding her which one was dead, only registering his observation by a wink in the Marshal's direction. But the Marshal didn't see it. He was frowning.

  'Where does she sleep, this daughter, when she comes here? There's only one bed.'

  'She stays next door at Sissi's now.'

  'O my God, no! Don't tell me she's still going! Ah, Marshal, you have a treat in store—pity we can't go round there now. I'd like to have seen the old girl again. She must be ninety!'

  'Ninety-one and going strong. She likes to have Jenny. It's company, you know, and they play piano duets together.'

  Fusarri roared with laughter, which led to a fit of coughing.

  'Really, Eugenia, this room is full of smoke!'

  'Oh dear, you must forgive me. I do smoke a lot, but when I'm alone it doesn't matter . . . ' She wafted ineffectually at the drifting clouds with a long pale hand, the nails well-manicured but unvarnished. 'I know what Giorgio would say and he's right—'

  'Never mind Giorgio,' said Fusarri. 'You're going to suffocate the Marshal here who is the most precious element in this inquiry. Come along, Guarnaccia, I shall remove you from this den of iniquity and tomorrow you shall return and tackle the famous Sissi—what is the woman's real name, Eugenia?'

  'Elisabeth obviously, but her surname . . . Wait a minute, I do know it—Müller I think . . . yes, it is. Müller. Are you really going? Oh dear, the keys . . .'

  Fusarri, who had been careful to take them from her as soon as she'd finished locking everybody in, held them aloft with a wicked smile and blew a last smoke ring into the air. 'Les voilà!'