The Marshal at the Villa Torrini

by Magdalen Nabb

'What?'

  'Where were you while your wife was at the hairdresser's?'

  'I went to see this friend—Mary. She's the one—'

  'I remember.'

  'She had some books I needed for my article. I wanted her to help me, that's all. She'd written something similar for the Herald Tribune so I thought I could save myself some research. Nothing happened.'

  'Did you try?'

  'No, I had other things on my mind.'

  'And then?'

  'Nothing. We did some food shopping and came home. Celia wanted a bath . . . a bath before . . .'

  Beads of sweat began forming at his temples. He jumped up and poked the fire again, then sat down on the edge of his chair and refolded his arms tightly.

  'Go on.'

  'Nothing! I unpacked the shopping while she had a bath, that's all. That's all. When she didn't come out I shouted something. I wanted a bath myself, that was it— I'd forgotten that—and she didn't answer, so I went in and she was there . . .'

  'She didn't lock the door?'

  'Of course not. Why should she, with just the two of us here? There isn't a lock . . . ' The knee was tapping the air with amazing rapidity that could only be involuntary.

  'Go on.'

  'Go on what! I can't . . . I saw she was dead. She was dead . . .'

  'And what do you think she died of?'

  'I don't know, how could I? I mean, I thought a heart attack, something like that. What was I supposed to think? How do you think I felt?'

  'I don't know. Most people would have called a doctor or at least a neighbour, asked for help.'

  'I was too upset. I was in shock. I can't even remember now., that's how upset I was, can't you understand that?'

  'So you had a drink. You were quite sure she was dead, were you? You checked her heart or pulse?'

  Forbes looked horrified. About to speak, he suddenly stopped himself. His whole forehead was beaded now.

  'She could have been alive. If you thought it was a heart attack you could have called the coronary unit out.'

  'She was dead! What was the use if she was dead?'

  'But you didn't check.'

  'I couldn't touch her . . . I couldn't! I've never even seen anyone dead before, let alone touch—'

  'And yet you're quite sure she was dead.'

  'You know these things.'

  'And so you drank a whole flask of wine.'

  'I don't remember. I was upset. I started drinking.'

  'What was in her glass?'

  'Wine. It was wine. Sometimes she liked a gin and tonic at that time, but it was wine—and I poured it for her in the kitchen down here. She took it up with her.'

  'And you didn't see her again until she was dead, or you thought she was.'

  'She was dead.' He dropped his head into his hands and a stifled whine escaped him. 'Oh, why did this have to happen to me? Oh God, why?'

  It happened, the Marshal thought, to your wife. He didn't speak the thought but backed carefully a little further away from the fire which was now roasting his knees.

  'I understand your wife has left you provided for. And your daughter, of course.'

  'She's not my daughter. She's Celia's daughter by her first husband.'

  'I beg your pardon. I imagined . . .'

  'Well, don't. Celia will have left her the London house, I know that.'

  'She'll be here for the funeral?'

  'Yes, and that's all.'

  'I take it you didn't get on.'

  'I didn't say that.'

  'No, but if you don't want her here . . .'

  'She's at university in England. She has a life of her own.'

  It was only to be expected, the Marshal told himself. A man who doesn't feel sufficiently responsible to organize his own wife's funeral is hardly likely to want the responsibility of a daughter. Forbes had stood up. He was very agitated and tried to cover it by removing their coffee cups and himself to the other end of the room. The Marshal rather thought it must be costing him enormous effort not to run out of the house. The most he dared to do was to keep his back to the Marshal by washing and re-washing the two cups.

  'I take it this is it? I mean, you've taken my statement and we can bury her. End of story, right?'

  'Very probably. The pathologist has still to examine the internal organs before he can make his report.'

  That produced no effect.

  'I have to get on with my life. What's happened has happened, and I have to get on with my life.'

  My life, thought the Marshal. My life, my article . . . It distressed him to the extent that he said Forbes's lines for him:

  'How very sad,' he said to the burning logs, 'that your wife was unable to get on with her life, that a young woman of such brilliance should die like that.'

  'Are you trying to imply that in some way I could have prevented it?' He still kept his back turned, fidgeting in the wall cupboard now.

  'No, no . . .'

  'Well, if that's all . . . There's nothing else I can tell you.'

  The Marshal sat still, worried, uncertain, but immovable.

  'Take your time,' he said, 'and when you've finished your chores you'd better tell me about the other Marys. I imagine there are others.'

  One of the logs rolled off the burning stack and sent a spume of aromatic smoke curling out into the room. Forbes was still fidgeting out of sight. After a moment he reappeared by the fire.

  'What's that got to do with anything?'

  'Oh, just the usual routine, as much to rule out suicide as anything. An upset wife . . . we can't be a hundred per cent sure, as I said, until the pathologist makes his official report.'

  'My private life has nothing to do with you or your pathologist. I have had other women, yes. Who hasn't? But never anything serious and I never intended to leave Celia, never.'

  'And did she know about the other women?'

  'Yes, she did. I told her.'

  He would, thought the Marshal. He was just the sort to go confessing everything so that he'd feel better.

  'And why did you do that?'

  'Because I prefer relationships to be open. I wouldn't have felt happy about hiding things from her. Besides, you didn't know her. She had a heart as big as a cathedral. She was the most forgiving person because she understood. I told her everything.'

  Poor woman, thought the Marshal.

  'And did you also tell her you would never leave her?'

  'Of course I did. She knew that.'

  Then she indeed had a cross to bear. Why did women do it? Why, instead of a strong man who would cherish them, did they marry men like this? Why couldn't they reserve their maternal instincts for their children?

  'I'd like to talk to these women. Can you give me their names and addresses?'

  'No, I can not! Look, are you trying to accuse me of something, or what?'

  The Marshal, who was trying to do just that but failing, said not. He would find the women anyway. The funeral would produce Mary, and Mary would produce the others.

  'Please do sit down,' he said, 'I didn't mean to upset you. Surely you understand that if someone dies in mysterious circumstances, and there's no obvious cause of death, we have to make inquiries.'

  Forbes hovered a moment longer and then sat down in silence, his eyes fixed on the fire. The Marshal looked him over from head to foot. The clothes seemed to be the same except for the shirt. He had pushed up his sleeves to wash the cups and one of the shirt cuffs, dangling now below the rolled up brown sweater, was very frayed. The forearms were thinnish and very pale. He began rolling the sleeves down but stopped at one, distracted. Not a mark on him. The hands slim but with strong tendons. The Marshal imagined them pushing Celia Carter's head under the water even though we knew it couldn't have happened, not without a scratch on him.

  Babies choke like that. They're helpless, can't lift their heads . . .

  Why should Celia Carter be helpless?

  Still watching the hands, he said, 'Your predecessor . . .'
<
br />   'Predecessor? What's that supposed to mean?'

  'You just said your wife was married before. The child had a father, I imagine?'

  'Oh, him. He's dead. He was old. Celia must have been looking for a father figure—Still, he had plenty of money so she did well out of it. She was a merry widow when I met her.'

  'Then the child is alone in the world—or are there other relations?'

  'She's not a child. There's no question of my having her here!'

  'No, no . . . . You'd hardly have room, of course. There's a house in London, you said?'

  Again, Forbes folded his arms tightly. 'She's sure to get it. I live here.'

  'Why?'

  'Why what?'

  'Why do you live here? Just my curiosity. I can't imagine suddenly leaving my own country and settling somewhere else—not,' he added, 'without good reason.'

  'No, I don't suppose you could.' The implication was clear enough. The Marshal couldn't do it because he was an inferior sort of being, not of the right ambience, the one which allowed you to flit from country to country and in and out of other people's beds with your wife's consent. The Marshal insisted, 'Some problem, was there, that encouraged you to leave England?'

  'No there wasn't any problem.'

  'A relationship, then, that you wanted to get away from?'

  'No! Have you never heard of people moving to Italy or France because they like it? Because it's more civilized, especially artists and writers — Well, I suppose you don't meet many in your job.'

  'Not a lot,' admitted the Marshal humbly, 'I expect that's what makes me so curious.'

  And he was curious. More than that, he was unconvinced. It sounded all right, as it had when Signorina Müller had talked about the best architects in the world and all the rest of it. But he wasn't having it, not by a long chalk. If you're born and grow up in a country you belong there. And what about the language? And you don't have the same culture, the same feelings. You don't take all that on because of a few nice buildings. No, no, no, there has to be a reason. Italians who went to Germany went out of economic desperation and they couldn't get home fast enough. Emigrating was one thing, making yourself into an exile another. There'd be a reason, there had to be. You might have to dig for it, people might lie through their teeth about it, but it would be there. And he would find it. As he was reaching this decision he was saying, 'Of course, I know foreigners are fond of the paintings and architecture. Italy's a beautiful country. I come from Sicily, myself.'

  'You're a long way from home, too, then.'

  'Yes. Well, the army, you know . . .'

  He could make a start by finding out whether Forbes had a criminal record in England. Not that he was very hopeful. Forbes looked the sort who left a lot of human wreckage behind him but always came out unscathed to get on with his life and his next article. But he would check.

  And still the Marshal sat there, having asked all he could think bf to ask, letting the other fill his increasing silences until it was one long silence on his side and Forbes was talking, talking, talking, trying to move, to convince, to make himself liked. But the Marshal only gazed at him with bulging, expressionless eyes, his body as still as Forbes's was agitated. When he thought he had been there long enough, he got up abruptly in the middle of one of Forbes's sentences. He didn't do it out of rudeness. The truth was that, as usual, he hadn't been listening to a word, only observing the increasing tension which he felt had now reached its limit. The man was very frightened. You could smell it in the room. So frightened that he couldn't even relax in relief at the Marshal's imminent departure. If he had done so, his relief would have been short-lived.

  'I'll be back,' the Marshal announced, settling his hat, 'a bit later in the day.' This was true, though what he was thinking of doing was visiting Signorina Müller.

  Forbes was rubbing a handkerchief between his palms which must have been sweating.

  'You mean I'm supposed to stay in all day . . .'

  'Oh . . . ' The Marshal looked vague. 'Not if it puts you to any inconvenience.'

  He felt sure that Forbes would stay in, would have stayed in anyway, even had he known his visit was to someone else, just so as not to miss anything. Well and good. He might think of something useful to ask him if he came back.

  The Marshal did come back. His car was parked in the yard in full view of the little barn for a good hour and a half. The noise of its short-wave radio punctuated the quiet air with its sudden splutterings and its rasping, staccato messages. From behind the brick lattice-work, Forbes was undoubtedly watching and listening.

  When the Marshal was ready to leave, the short winter afternoon was darkening. Automatically he buttoned his greatcoat and settled his hat as he approached the car and Fara started the engine. But he was surprised when he found himself feeling chilled. During the last hour or so, the temperature had dropped sharply. Looking across the Arno valley to his left, he saw the lights of Florence coming on beneath a stagnant burden of heavy clouds. But beyond that, where the lowering grey mass ended, the hills were sharply outlined against a horizon of ice-cold, purplish-blue daylight. And because the Villa Torrini was so quiet, you could hear it, a faint, far, distant moan.

  CHAPTER 6

  The tramontana reached Florence during the night, whipping red tiles from roofs, tumbling flower pots from their sills, slamming loose shutters against crumbling stucco. Television aerials were dragged free of their moorings to dangle precariously over the street, and rubbish bags from over-spilling skips skittered along the roads until they burst and their contents whirled away to freedom. Mopeds crashed on to their sides to lie in the road and trees moaned and swayed as their weaker branches were torn off to destroy the cars parked in their shelter. By three in the morning the wind had roused just about every inhabitant of the city and sent them scurrying to bolt shutters, bring in forgotten laundry, rescue a favourite plant. When they had done all they could they lay awake because of the noise, sinister crashes that sounded too near for comfort, ambulance sirens, police sirens, fire engines. And when they got used to that they lay awake as the temperature plummeted below zero and tried to decide if they had the energy to get up again and fetch another blanket, or even turn up the heating which had been off for three warm, muggy weeks. Those who were managing to sleep through all this were woken very brusquely by their husbands or wives.

  'Listen! Was that our roof?'

  'Did you close all the shutters? Something's banging!'

  'Are you asleep? Put your dressing-gown on and go and check—and while you're up . . .'

  The Marshal, whose shutters were properly closed and whose heating was on, lay awake, nevertheless, listening to the noises outside. Not that they could be blamed for keeping him awake. He was listening to them because he already was awake and had been for some time. It was his own fault and he knew it. He was in agony. At supper he had kept dutifully to his diet which meant that, instead of dozing peacefully in front of the television, he had felt wakeful enough to study his notes on the new criminal procedures. He sat at the kitchen table to read so that Teresa could watch a film, and after about an hour and a half of it he was so gnawed by hunger that he found himself reading the same sentence five or six times without being able to take in a word. Full of righteous anger at being prevented from doing his duty, he made four sandwiches, chunky ones, from a fennel-flavoured sausage spiced with peppercorns. A fresh and fatty sausage which couldn't, with the best will in the world, be washed down with water. He washed it down with red wine.

  For about half an hour he felt euphoric and read on with cheerful determination.

  It is evident that the nature of these activities must be considered incompatible with the accusatorial role of the Public Prosecutor who must be on a plane of dialectical equality with the accused and can therefore have no powers of coercion over the latter and cannot assume a position of privilege in procedural terms.

  All of which sounded reasonable enough while he was reading it but tended
to evaporate as soon as he moved on. He took another run at it, shifting a little on the uncomfortable hard chair and absent-mindedly patting his stomach with one hand.

  Consequent upon these considerations the new penal code provides for the elimination of the fudge of Instruction and a redefinition of the role of the Public Prosecutor . . .

  It might be easier to concentrate in a better chair. He struggled on for a while before realizing just what was causing him so much discomfort. The four sandwiches seemed to have swollen into four loaves inside him. He must have overdone it. How could he have been so careless?

  Well, there it was. By four in the morning the peppercorns were burning holes in his insides and the irritation confounded itself with the turmoil outside and the problems churning round and round in his head. With all the ingredients of insomnia in place, he added the final touch that counts by starting to worry about how he would cope with appearing in court tomorrow if he got no sleep tonight.

  Another siren . . . ambulance that one. He'd need one himself before long if he went on swelling. Perhaps if he got up and took something for the burning sensation, the movement might ease the situation. But he felt too tired and wretched to get out of bed. The ferocious howling of the wind distressed him like the noise of a crying child. He was filled with an undefined apprehension and was too tired to pinpoint its source, though he tried. After all, if he had to stay awake he might as well try and work a few things out. This exile business for a start. He hadn't been far wrong about that. Signorina Müller had left Austria during the war because her mother was Jewish . . . No, before the war, she'd said, seeing the way the wind was blowing, she'd gone to London. Then to a tiny seaside village to escape the bombing . . .

  There was a crash and something metallic went bowling along on the gravel outside. There'd certainly be some damage to the trees in the Boboli Gardens.

  He turned carefully on to his side in search of a comfortable position, but it was worse. He rolled on to his back again, always careful to try and avoid waking Teresa.

  They'd threatened her with imprisonment as an enemy alien in England. It was true, what she'd said, that after an experience like that you're never at home anywhere, so you might as well choose whichever country you like best.