Some Bitter Taste

by Magdalen Nabb

  At that point the marshal had walked back as quiedy as he could to the doorway he had come through, then started across the hall again with heavy steps. When he passed the double doors this time they were shut.

  In the hospital at one in the morning, none of this seemed real as he told Lorenzini about it, more to distract himself from the news they were waiting for than anything. It didn’t make much impression. Lorenzini just shrugged.

  ‘So they’re all homosexuals including this Sir whatever-he-is. And if stolen hairbrushes are all he’s got to worry about—’

  ‘And his health,’ the marshal reminded him. ‘They said he was very bad yesterday and today.’

  ‘So they got a lawyer in?’ Lorenzini, a dyed-in-the-wool Tuscan, spoke as he found. ‘You’d think they’d call a doctor.’

  ‘Yes, you’d think so … Of course I was only there a minute. They probably had the doctor at some point, but I get the impression he’s more agitated by who to leave his estate to than by the fact that he’s going to die.’

  ‘Wish I had his problems—is that nurse looking for us?’

  She was, but only to send them away. ‘If she’s still alive tomorrow the surgeon will have a scan done and decide if he should operate.’

  ‘Is there much chance that she will be alive?’

  ‘No, but if she is she’ll have a grim future in front of her. If you can get us that identification we’d appreciate it.’

  ‘Of course. We’ll be in touch.’

  They stretched their limbs and left the cool of the big waiting room for the suffocating night outside. The young carabiniere had been left in the driver’s seat and it was easy to tell from his voice and slight unsteadiness when he got out to return to the backseat that he must have dozed off and was worrying about it.

  Nothing was said to him. Lorenzini drove them back to Pitti and set off home in his own car. The marshal, feeling for his keys, could not remove from his head the images that filled it in turns. That trusting smile as she tottered towards him—what had she been saying? Who did she think he was? Then the floppy little body, poor rabbit ready for skinning. As he let himself in quietly he prayed that the faint click of the door would wake Teresa so that she would talk to him.

  ‘Salva?’

  She didn’t talk much at first. She listened to him tell her about the girl, looked carefully at his face, then let him get washed and into bed and brought him some camomile tea with honey in it.

  Then she got into bed, leaving the bedside lamp on so he could drink his tea while she talked. It didn’t matter to him what she said. She’d never understood that, and when they were much younger he had sometimes offended her by saying what a chatterbox she was. He didn’t say it unkindly; he wasn’t even making fun of her. He was just amazed at the pleasure she took in talking to him since he didn’t know how to chatter himself.

  ‘Don’t stop. I didn ‘t mean you to stop.’

  I’m wasting my breath if you’re not listening to a word I say.’

  ‘That’s not true. I am listening, I really am.’

  She was right. He wasn’t listening to a word she said, he was listening to her—her voice, her presence, her affection. One of those permanent misunderstandings that occur in all lasting marriages, lasting because they lead not to understanding but to acceptance. So she took his cup and went on talking to him, sensing his need, talking first of what had happened and then meandering on quietly, naturally, to their own problems, especially Giovanni’s next school, to those of other people, family and friends, winding down with a coda on the minutiae of her day—Totò getting eight in his math test, the plumber who hadn’t turned up. He kept hold of her as she talked, needing to feel the vibration of her voice against his chest as well as to soak in its comforting murmur. His heartbeat became calmer and his breathing more relaxed. After a long time he fell asleep. In his sleep he sensed her absence, a cooling, and knew she had gently extricated herself from his bearlike grasp and switched off the bedside light.

  The story of the girl thrown out on the motorway, given that she was yet another Albanian prostitute and not even dead, warranted only a small paragraph on the local news page of La Nazione. It wasn’t the sort of thing that sold newspapers. It had happened too often, and those not working actively against it reacted to it no more than to the dogs who would meet a similar fate at the start of the August holiday. The paragraph had been cut out and put on the marshal’s desk for him when he came back from the Land Registry with disappointing results. He was glancing at the cutting when Lorenzini came in.

  ‘This report came for you.’

  The marshal took it. ‘Did you find Dori or Mario at those numbers I gave you?’

  ‘Mario. I left a message and he called me back about an hour ago. Not married yet but it’s definitely on and the girl’s who you thought she was. Dori had heard about it. I’ve found the copy of Dori’s letter to her in our files. Name’s—wait, I’ve got it written down but I can’t pronounce it—N-D-O-K-E-S—first name’s Enkeleda and she’s eighteenish. Problem is, this address is no use to us. It’s care of the contact for shipping the girls over here. It seems she’d already run away from her family in some mountain village in the north, to escape an arranged marriage, when Dori met her.’

  ‘Nobody’s going to be looking for her then, are they? She’s already dead for them. Give Captain Maestrangelo the address for the Lek Pictri file. Bring me the name and I’ll call the hospital and see if there’s any change.’

  There was no change. The girl had not regained consciousness. The surgeon was to operate next day. After he put the phone down, the marshal couldn’t avoid the image of that limp little body or the thought that, quite apart from the Albanian question, youngsters travelled all over the world these days and if one of his children should get run over in some foreign country—well, he wouldn’t have it. They were going nowhere alone until they were mature adults … only, when did you stop thinking about your children as children, when did the fear go away? Did it go from one day to the next? Did it ever go when you saw the things he saw all the time? He knew that some of his colleagues went so far as to have their teenaged children followed, afraid of drugs, bad company. That was wrong but, if he got really frightened, wouldn’t he do it himself?

  Before him on the desk lay the autopsy report on Sara Hirsch. Hardly a change of subject to cheer him, but at least one which must concentrate his attention.

  It did more than that.

  To the Public Prosecutor for the Republic, Florence.

  On the 15th inst, the undersigned pathologist, Dr. Federico Forli of the Medico-Legal Institute of Florence, was called to Sdrucciolo de’ Pitti 4 to make an external examination of the cadaver of HIRSCH SARA, and following that was asked to proceed to a dissection of the said cadaver. In response to the specific requests of the magistrate, my findings are as follows:

  1) Death occurred approximately seventy-two hours previous to discovery.

  2) Cause of death: cardiac infarction of the left ventricle…

  //

  The marshal sat back in his chair, relieved. Sara Hirsch had been to see him on Monday, had gone home and called her lawyer as she’d said she would. She had shown the cards she had up her sleeve, and that same evening, as the autopsy and the neighbours agreed, someone had entered her flat and threatened her to try and obtain those cards. She had heart trouble as the grocer had said. She had died of fright. She had died by mistake. If she’d coughed up the combination to the safe when they held the knife to her throat she would still be alive and trying to get the marshal or some psychiatrist to believe her story without really telling it.

  The autopsy went on to give an account of the wounds Sara Hirsch did not die of: a superficial knife wound on the left side of the throat, lifting a flap of skin upwards; a scalp wound and contusion of the skull where her head had hit the marble floor. Most of the blood loss was from there, as the photo file showed. Scalp wounds bleed profusely but this one had not bled for lon
g. The heart attack had been a big one. The prosecutor would now order further detailed reports on those superficial wounds through which the dynamics of the victim’s death could be reconstructed.

  The marshal was more concerned with what followed. Had they hesitated? A dead body had been no part of their plan. Their plan had included a threatening postcard, warning visits to the flat, the knife in the entrance hall, things—except perhaps the knife—that spoke of an unscrupulous landlord …

  ‘We know where you live…’

  It still spoke of an unscrupulous landlord. Whatever must be added to the equation had to be added on her side. She had to be the threat. Somebody had been defending themselves from her in the end. If only the Land Registry were up to date. The whole of the building where the victim had her flat was registered as the property of Jacob Roth. An unhelpful and defensive clerk had insisted that the records were never more than two years out of date, which the marshal knew was nonsense. The Rossi couple had deposited their contract of purchase two years before, and Rinaldi supposedly owned both his shop and the first-floor apartment. There was still hope since changes of ownership were deposited in the first instance at the Real Estate Registry in Via Laura by the purchaser and the delay was caused by the bureaucratic backlog between there and the Land Registry map update. There were, of course, people who failed to register and so avoided taxes for years. At first, the name Jacob Roth had given him hope. The name was surely Jewish and could mean a personal connection, perhaps a friendly arrangement without a rent contract. That happened, and there could also be a low rent or rent-free arrangement where the tenant paid, instead, restoration and maintenance; hence Sara’s facade and roof repairs problem.

  The marshal interrupted his speculations to have lunch. He then visited the Registry of Births, Deaths, and Marriages in the Palazzo Vecchio. He found no Jacob Roth living. Hardly surprising, since the Land Registry printout had given Roth’s date of birth as 13.6.1913 in London, G.B. He found no Jacob Roth dead.

  ‘He doesn’t have to be living here,’ pointed out the prosecutor, when the marshal arrived at his office with this news, ‘to own a building here. If he was born in London, perhaps he returned there.’

  ‘Yes … it’s just…’

  The prosecutor remained silent and the marshal, to his own surprise, said quite firmly, ‘It’s just a feeling I have that whatever’s going on is going on in this city. Sara Hirsch only gave me bits of a jigsaw puzzle but the other pieces are here in Florence. Maybe it’s what she said or maybe it’s how she said it. I wish I could remember her exact words but—don’t you think if the problem had its roots somewhere else she’d have gone there? She wasn’t one of the ones left stateless after the war. She had a passport. And … she was nervous, she was tearful, but she was very sure of her ground. Really convinced.’

  The prosecutor continued silent, examining a cigar, waiting.

  ‘And then there’s the war … She was Jewish but they baptised her …’ The marshal frowned, unable to connect the facts in a logical way.

  The prosecutor, very quiedy, offered, ‘“If things were as they should be …” It was in the psychiatric report. Marshal, we must find out who her father was. I don’t think we should give up looking for this Jacob Roth who owns or owned the building. And what if he’s her father? Mind you, if he was, I can’t imagine Sister John Dolores’s being concerned to hide the fact.’

  ‘The money. We don’t know how much it was. Perhaps it was a lot and she doesn’t like the convent’s having large deposits of Jewish money in its bank account.’

  ‘If that’s the case,’ said the prosecutor, ‘we’ve more chance of getting it out of her. If it’s false pride we’re dealing with rather than a secrets-of-the-confessional type scenario, then another little visit to the good sisters might be indicated. I’ll deal with that. What’s your next move?’

  The marshal failed to notice this extraordinary question. The usual way of things was that he regarded the prosecutor’s running a case with respect and wariness up to the point where he became as absorbed as a bulldog locked on to a bone and forgot about him. He was entering into this phase now. So he hardly noticed either that he was doing something he had never done in his life before—explaining quite easily what he wanted to do. He wanted to spend some time alone in Sara Hirsch’s flat now that evidence of the crime had been cleared away and he was free to wander at will through her rooms, sit on her sofa, look at her bookshelves, interrogate those things that bore witness to her daily life. He avoided admitting as much, even to himself, but he was about to pay Sara Hirsch the visit he’d promised to make before her death. Armed with a written permit and a bunch of keys he returned to 4, Sdrucciolo de’ Pitti.

  ‘Now then …,’he said to the silent drawing room. Now then, what? Nothing except for that feeling a child gets when left alone in the house. It is a bit frightening but mosdy exciting. There is no one to say ‘Don’t touch’, no one to dissipate the terror of the shadowy places. The atmosphere tingles with possibilities, with adult secrets to be discovered, locked drawers to be opened, letters to be peeped at. No foreign land, no faraway planet, has so many secrets as a house left unattended, let alone a house where a violent death has occurred. But a crime scene full of investigators and technicians holds none of that magic. You have to be alone and quiet to hear a house speak.

  The shutters in the drawing room were closed. The marshal switched on the light, looked carefully at a leather sofa, identified Sara Hirsch’s habitual position, and sat down in it to look about him. It was true, as Rinaldi had said, that there was nothing here up to his standard. It was all good-quality stuff, even so. There was no reproduction furniture but no remarkably fine craftsmanship either. None of those pieces that stand alone against a background of rich brocades in the Via Maggio antique shops. There was nothing that the marshal could imagine had been chosen by Sara rather than her mother. There was something not right about the way the furniture was arranged, too. He was certainly sitting in Sara’s place. There was a table to his right with a little silver tray on it where he could place his glass or coffee cup while … while what? While he read? The overhead light, a chandelier affair with glass drops and half a dozen candle-shaped lamps, didn’t give light you could read by and there was no other. So … while what? While he stared straight ahead at the doors of a tall oak cupboard? Furniture used to be arranged around the fire. These days it was more often arranged around the TV. He got up and opened the cupboard doors. The television was a large one and there was a videocassette player, too. On a lower shelf he found a bottle of cognac and a balloon glass. He was more interested in what he didn’t find on the empty shelf direcdy above the television. He closed the cupboard and decided on another chat with Lisa Rossi, the little girl upstairs.

  ‘A whole shelf full—well, nearly a whole shelf. Sometimes we used to watch one if I finished my homework before my mum got back. I didn’t like them so much, though. A lot of them were black and white and they always look sad, don’t they? Because they’re about people in the old days. Are they to do with the secret?’

  ‘I don’t really know. Perhaps.’

  ‘Is it important, my secret? I haven’t told anybody.’

  ‘It’s very important. Can you draw?’

  ‘Draw? Not really. I’m never any good at it at school.’

  ‘But could you draw the things in Signora Hirsch’s safe—the candlesticks, for instance? Just try … here, in my notebook.’

  ‘They were like this … kind of flat with a lot of candles but I can’t remember how many. It’s come out all crooked; I told you I couldn’t draw.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. And the other things?’

  ‘I can’t draw those. There was a cloth thing with a fringe—I thought it was a long skirt but she never unfolded it—and a little hat. The rest was just books, I think. It was only the photographs she used to show me. She never said anything about those other things but I saw them.’

  The marshal hesit
ated. It was essential not to suggest the answer to a question with any witness but he had to insist. If all the videos had gone, there had to be a reason. They must have known there was one that mattered, one that was something other than a favourite film classic. With an unexpected dead body on their hands they wouldn’t have hung around searching but would have taken the lot, just in case the one they wanted wasn’t in the safe. He mustn’t suggest … Lisa gazed at him with calm grey eyes, waiting.

  ‘And she kept all the films in that cupboard, on the shelf above the TV? You never saw a video anywhere else?’ Don’t suggest, mention any place but the safe. ‘What about the drawers, Lisa? People sometimes keep things tucked away in drawers if they’re important. Did you ever—’

  ‘No! I never, I never meant … I want my mum!’

  Tears spilled from her eyes and her pale face was suddenly red. What had he done? The door at his back was open and he called out, ‘Signora!’

  ‘What’s happened? Whatever have you said to her?’ The child flung herself forward and hid her face against her mother’s breast, sobbing loudly.

  ‘You shouldn’t have done it, you know that?’ The prosecutor, surprised, with his little cigar lit, went on smoking and regarded the marshal without a trace of annoyance. ‘Always with a parent, or at least a witness, in the room. We live in difficult times, Marshal, times when it’s no longer possible to give a child a kindly stroke on the head. This girl, now, could invent anything. She couldn’t prove anything but she wouldn’t need to.’

  ‘But why on earth …’

  ‘She obviously has something to hide, something ridiculously trivial that you’ve accidentally put your finger on. And you’ve put yourself in a position that could suggest to her that she could blame you for her tears instead of confessing the truth. It remains to be seen whether she does that. She didn’t say anything specific while you were there?’