The Marshal Makes His Report

by Magdalen Nabb

‘There’s no mystery about that, Marshal. It was Buon-gianni Corsi’s money which kept this house going. The restoration of a building such as this, you may or may not know, is obligatory. The State makes a contribution but also determines the extent and quality of the work. Buongianni, shall we say . . . withdrew his support.’

  ‘And why was that?’

  ‘There was a quarrel. Serious. I don’t know any details but I know that divorce was talked of. Out of the question, of course, but talked of. That was the end of Corsi money paying for the Ulderighi estate. According to Bianca, he felt the house must support itself.’

  ‘The reason for the quarrel couldn’t have been Hugh Fido?’ He was watching her face as he asked but it registered neither surprise nor annoyance.

  ‘Of course not. That began when the house was let and he moved in here.’

  ‘She could have known him before.’

  It was obvious that she hadn’t thought of that.

  ‘That’s true . . . she’d be capable of it, too. Moving him in here once she had nothing more to lose since he knew. But no, Buongianni and he were on perfectly good terms. No, no.’

  ‘Then perhaps the quarrel was about his having someone else.’

  She looked at him with a mixture of pity and amusement.

  ‘My dear Marshal, given their situation, I have no doubt whatever that Buongianni had someone, no doubt some person connected with his business and removed from our circle. That would hardly be relevant to the issue. Excuse me if I’ve offended you. It may be that in the army life is rather more monastic.’

  And the priest forever in and out of the place! What people! Only Neri was different, unless . . . Who was to say Neri didn’t take after his father? He was a Corsi, wasn’t he? Yet the fact that this had only just occurred to the Marshal was an indication of how the unfortunate Buongianni Corsi had been sucked in to feed the Ulderighi clan.

  ‘Buongianni Corsi . . .’

  ‘Yes. What of him?’

  ‘I was wondering if you were fond of him.’

  ‘I was not. Whatever happened to him, he may for all I know have deserved it. I am interested in the health and future of Neri. Please keep that in mind. Visit him. Convince him that the burden he is carrying is rightly yours. Neri’s is, in some respects, a brilliant mind but he is in other ways . . . childlike. He sees you as a figure of authority. He trusts you.’ She leaned heavily on her stick and got to her feet, staring at the Marshal with her sick eyes. Evidently the interview was at an end and he was dismissed. He got to his feet, ready to offer her his hand, but she had turned from him and was making her way with heavy painful steps towards the door.

  Before she reached it, when he was still standing looking after her, she paused and turned to say, ‘By the way, Marshal, we received, I should say my niece did, a parcel containing the shoes Buongianni was wearing when he died. They were returned here from the public prosecutor’s office along with a form of some description, officially releasing all Buongianni’s belongings and a note informing us that you would be the person to apply to for the rest of them. Is that correct?’

  ‘I—yes. Yes. I’ll bring them to you.’

  ‘I can see no necessity for it myself but if it’s a question of correct procedure, then of course, do bring them. Leave them with the porter.’

  Nine

  From that moment until he read Catherine Yorke’s letter, the Marshal trod more carefully than he had ever done in his life, and he was by nature a careful man. He trod carefully, but always in the same direction, towards the Marchesa Bianca Maria Corsi Ulderighi Della Loggia. He never saw her, never spoke or attempted to speak to her, but she was his prey. He knew it by instinct though he didn’t know why. She frightened him, the house frightened him, the thought of whatever it was she had done frightened him. Only two things encouraged him, and the first of these was the fact that Fiorenza Ulderighi was as frightened of her niece as he was. The second was the removal of the shoes.

  ‘They’re your only evidence!’ protested Lorenzini.

  ‘I know,’ said the Marshal, satisfied. That was something he understood, about the only thing. He’d been baffled by foreigners, Florentine and English, and he’d had enough of it. At last something had happened which made sense to him. A vital piece of evidence had disappeared. He might have been in Palermo! The importance of those fingerprints was confirmed, the vanishing prints demonstrated fear. He was delighted. Lorenzini gave it all up as a bad job.

  To the Captain, the Marshal’s commanding officer over at Headquarters on Borgo Ognissanti across the river, the Marshal, treading carefully, explained the real problem about the shoes.

  ‘I don’t know what she meant, you see. Of course, she may not have known—about the prints, I mean—so that her saying what she did, “If it’s a question of correct procedure” . . .’

  ‘Meant exactly that. Guarnaccia, you do have a tendency to read baroque intricacies into a straight line.’

  The Marshal only stared, not understanding. Then he said, ‘I don’t want to be transferred. Teresa . . . The way the shoes were withdrawn from the lab—and, I imagine, nicely polished—the message through the Ulderighi—it’s a warning shot.’

  ‘Yes, I see your point there.’ The Captain didn’t say, ‘Of course you won’t be transferred, what rubbish.’

  The Marshal sat with his hands planted on his knees, looking across the big desk at him hopefully, his stillness and his slightly bulging eyes giving the impression of a bulldog hoping for a titbit. His trust in the Captain in these matters was absolute. He was a Florentine, after all, and an officer too. The Captain, though unable to follow the workings of Guarnaccia’s mind, trusted him and always helped him.

  They both believed that their mutual reliance was based on the solid facts of their shared work experience. Neither of them knew that it was really based on affection and deep need. The Captain, Guarnaccia always thought to himself, was clever, ambitious and adaptable. Guarnaccia, thought the edgy and overworked Captain, was fatherly, solid and unchanging. Their thoughts lay buried, unexpressed. They never sought each other out except for reasons of work.

  Captain Maestrangelo was a good-looking man, or would have appeared so had he smiled. He never smiled.

  ‘I’ll put feelers out,’ he said. ‘If there’s any real threat to you it will be possible to find out. I don’t think there is, if that’s any comfort to you, because I’d probably have heard already.’

  ‘It might be a comfort to me and it might not,’ the Marshal said. ‘It depends on the reason.’

  ‘Yes.’ The Captain contemplated the bulky, motionless figure before him. ‘I doubt . . . with all due respect to your investigative powers, that they consider themselves in any real danger from you. I’m saying “they”, having no idea who “they” might be. Perhaps you have?’

  ‘Hmph.’

  ‘Guarnaccia . . . I want to help you but you’re not really allowing me to, are you?’

  ‘Yes and no. I don’t want to get transferred. I’d have come to you before but I didn’t want to involve you.’

  ‘I see. And now?’

  ‘I need two men.’

  ‘And I’m to give them to you without knowing exactly what you’re doing.’

  ‘I just thought it might be better, yes.’ The Marshal’s face remained expressionless.

  ‘All right. Two men.’

  ‘Night duty,’ the Marshal said. ‘If you should need an official reason, we’re coming up to the final of the football tournament. There’ll be some trouble. There always is. And Leo and Tiny will be in it.’ As far as the Marshal was concerned, that ought to have been the end of their conversation but the Captain was unable to restrain his curiosity and as Guarnaccia got to his feet, he, too, stood up and followed him to the door.

  ‘Wait . . . I just want to understand. You say this boy, the Ulderighi son—’

  ‘Neri.’

  ‘Neri. You say he actually saw his father kill himself.’

  ‘That�
�s right, he did.’

  ‘And you believe him.’

  ‘And I believe him.’

  ‘So you think he wasn’t dead, is that it?’

  The Marshal stared at him. The Captain had brains, that’s what it was. He’d never have thought of that in a million years. Yet it was a solution and a simple one. Neri hadn’t touched his father. He’d seen him fire and slump over the edge of the crenellated tower. Then the mother had taken over, sent him down and presumably sent for Tiny and Leo. It was so simple, except . . .

  ‘Surely you can tell me that?’ insisted the Captain. ‘You must suspect something.’

  ‘Something . . . something that—I hadn’t thought of his not being dead. You may well be right about that, only, you see, he was hanging over the edge of the tower, a little push would have finished him.’

  ‘No, no, no. Think of the scandal. The gun room was much better.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right.’

  ‘It all fits.’

  ‘Yes. I’d best be off. I’ll expect your men.’

  And he was gone.

  He trod carefully, he kept his head down, he was dutiful, humble, a little stupid apparently, watching his chance.

  By night he watched with Lorenzini, both of them in plain clothes, both of them very uncomfortable, squashed inside the Marshal’s own little Fiat. They parked on the pavement of a side street barely wide enough for a car to pass them. From there they could see into the small piazza where Leo guarded the entrance to a disco club which had bulletproof steel doors and a second guard on the inside who, in quieter moments, opened up to poke out his head and chat with Leo.

  Ten minutes’ walk away, another unmarked car in another side street watched the market square for the arrival of Tiny.

  On Monday night nothing happened. When the Marshal and Lorenzini had discreetly followed Leo back to the Palazzo Ulderighi and Tiny was fully occupied humping meat at the market, the four watchers shrugged their shoulders and went wearily home to bed, three of them thinking privately that it was time wasted but not their business to say so.

  On the second night, the Marshal was vindicated to the extent that blood was shed over the question of the football tournament.

  There had already been a minor scuffle at the door during which Leo had shouldered a group of youngsters away with what looked like more than necessary violence, either because they weren’t members—the club was a private one—or because the place was full. They were hardly out of the way when a gang appeared with the clear intention of making a ruckus. They were all men and quite a few of them, even at that distance, were evidently a bit old for disco life. The minute he saw them Leo slapped his hand against the doors behind him. His mate came out and the doors closed.

  ‘Trouble,’ Lorenzini said, and got out of the car.

  ‘Don’t. He could recognize you!’ The Marshal had too much to worry about without Lorenzini’s getting involved in a street fight. Besides which, if they didn’t recognize him, which was the more likely contingency, he’d probably get himself beaten up or knifed.

  The threatening noises were growing louder. There was a plunging in the centre of the group which widened. The fight was on.

  ‘Shouldn’t I at least get to a telephone and call a car?’

  ‘Somebody inside the club will have done that by now. They must be used to dealing with this sort of thing. Don’t worry.’

  It was some time, however, before a squad car did draw up with its light and siren going. By then, Leo and his mate had the situation in hand. Leo had a half-nelson on the most vicious of the gang who had been flashing a knife about earlier and who was obviously the leader. He was smallish and older than the others and was kicking like a mule in Leo’s grip. Leo’s mate was struggling with a bigger, younger man and getting the better of him by the look of things. The rest of the gang were evidently only there to make up the numbers and contribute threatening noises.

  ‘The two of them seem to be managing all right,’ commented Lorenzini as the squad car drew in.

  But the two uniformed men who jumped out of it got hold of the wrong end of the stick. Without stopping to ask questions, one of them, seeing the huge figure of Leo fastened on to a smaller, loudly protesting man, drew out his staff and brought it down with a thud on Leo’s shaven head.

  ‘You fool!’ they heard Leo shout as his hand went up to clutch his streaming head. Then he slumped to the floor. By that time the attacking gang had fled. The half-conscious Leo was booked for assault and the incident was over.

  ‘What do we do now?’ asked Lorenzini.

  ‘We wish,’ said the Marshal, ‘that there’d be somebody there to take his prints at this time of night but there won’t be.’

  ‘You never know. They might lock him up for the night.’

  ‘I do know,’ the Marshal said, ‘and they won’t. Follow them.’

  So they followed the car to Headquarters and waited an hour or so until Leo was released and taken, still clutching his head, to the emergency department of the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. There they waited two hours and then they followed him on his journey home in a taxi to the Palazzo Ulderighi. Another night was over.

  ‘Of course, I don’t expect you to tell me what’s going on,’ lied Teresa, shattering his short, tormented sleep the next morning. ‘I just think I’m entitled to some explanation when you stay out all night, that’s all.’

  If there was any logic behind that remark, the Marshal, in his much reduced condition, was unable to grasp it. He offered her no explanation. If the worst should happen and his career was blocked, she’d never know he’d asked for it.

  The breath of the flute was as sweet and sad as the summer dusk. It had accompanied the Marshal as he puffed up the narrow spiral staircase behind the dwarf, who needed both his hands to pull his short body upwards with the help of a thick rope looped through iron rings in the wall. The Marshal had entered alone by the service door and seen Neri seated near the window but turned a little away from it. He leant forward over the flute, his back stretched, swaying slightly with the current of the music. When it stopped, he laid the flute gently on his knee and leaned back. A sigh that was almost a sob escaped him.

  The Marshal, not wanting to embarrass him, crept back a few paces and tapped on the door, shutting it behind him then with a cough. The figure in the chair didn’t move or look back.

  ‘You’ll tire yourself,’ Neri said sadly. ‘I don’t need anything. You mustn’t bring up my supper. Stay here with me and make fun of the idiot child. You have good reason, I can tell you. All these years I’ve been so afraid of dying and now . . . now, I only feel sad, so sad, for things I’m leaving that I hardly know . . .

  ‘The breath of flutes at eventide,

  Mere seaweed on the shore . . .

  ‘Such a weight of sadness. Grillo, stay and make me laugh.’

  Then he turned his heavy head. His face was flushed with drugs, his eyes too bright.

  ‘Ah, it’s you . . . Forgive me. Tonight I—you’re so busy and I should help you . . . tell you things, but tonight I—’

  ‘No, no.’ The Marshal laid his big hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘No, no . . .’

  A sea of expressionless white faces bobbed in and out of the shadows, the gyrating black bodies all but invisible against black walls and against each other. The figures moved as though controlled by an earsplitting drumbeat and their movement was momentarily illuminated and intensified by a flash of silver light that left only a fleeting sense of staring eyes and frozen attitudes as the room blackened again.

  Lorenzini was shouting something but the Marshal’s attempts at lip-reading were a failure. In any case, there was hardly any need to say it. How could they possibly locate Leo in this crowd? Just their luck that the place he chose to go on his night off—supposedly he was meant to be resting up for tomorrow’s final—was the same disco he worked in, a black and airless cellar that was probably meant to accommodate half the number of bodies now crushin
g each other. If they didn’t find Leo quickly the Marshal knew he would have to fight his way out because his eyes were streaming with the smoke and he could barely breathe.

  ‘What?’ What was Lorenzini trying to . . . now he was gesticulating and pointing to the far corner behind the Marshal. Had he seen Leo? What an impossible business! The Marshal’s idea of meeting up with someone in a crowd was to stand stock still, making a landmark of himself, until they found him. It would hardly do this time, not only because the darkness of his uniform, instead of making him conspicuous, in this place was practically camouflage, but also because Leo, if he did chance to spot his visitors, might well run away. There was only one door, which was something, but the Marshal was intent on keeping his back to it while trying to work out what the devil Lorenzini . . .

  At last he caught on. On a raised dais in one corner a disc jockey dressed in black and wearing large earphones was working at the turntables and a bank of dimly lighted controls. If he was the regular disc jockey he was bound to know Leo and from up there had a better chance of spotting him. The Marshal had signalled to Lorenzini that he should go ahead. The young brigadier was thin and agile, much more suited to wriggling his way through the mass than the Marshal, who felt more suited to his role as blocker of the exit. Lorenzini was swallowed up and reappeared a few moments later on the steps up to the dais. The tall young man with the big earphones, his face lit from below with the pinkish light coming from the control panels, remained heedless of any attempts on his concentration until Lorenzini managed to reach up and tap his arm. Then he looked down, raised a hand to indicate that Lorenzini should wait a moment and bent to do something beneath the control panel.

  Ah, thought the Marshal with heartfelt gratitude, he’s going to turn the volume down.

  No such happy occurrence ensued. The young man straightened up and placed another record on the turntable to his left. Wasn’t one enough? Then he held it in position with one finger of his right hand, and with his left raised his earphones. The noise continued unabated but Lorenzini seemed to be making himself understood. The young man in black leaned down from his pulpit to listen and then stood up and looked about him. Further discussion took place and then Lorenzini stepped down and disappeared from view. The disc jockey resumed his earphones and bowed his head in solemn concentration. It was some time before the sweating, suffocating Marshal saw Lorenzini again, but when he did push into view Leo’s head was visible behind him, his stitches sprouting from a patch of iodine.