The Monster of Florence

by Magdalen Nabb

  What had he been expecting? Perhaps he couldn’t have explained exactly what, had anybody asked him. He must have constructed some sort of image in his head over the last couple of weeks. How could he have failed to? But he’d never tried to clarify it, much less put it into words and now he couldn’t remember what it had been at all. Only that it wasn’t anything like this. Nothing odd about that. He was no expert so nothing he could have imagined had any value. Even so …

  He strained sideways a bit in the hope of seeing better. The others were doing the same but the Suspect was so small that he was almost entirely obliterated by his escort of four men, all of them tall and robust.

  They couldn’t see much of him but they could hear him. He was crying, and crying very loudly, the way children do when they want to gain their parents’ attention. In the moment when they did get a better view of his face, blood-red, swollen, wet with saliva, snot and tears, he also saw them and at once began to scream:

  “It’s not me you want! I’m not the one! It’s not me!”

  Six

  “Do you understand the accusations made against you?”

  “I don’t understand anything. What do you expect me to understand? I’m just a peasant farmer. I’ve spent my life digging in the fields, sweating for every penny. I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know what you want from me.”

  “You are accused of the murder of Herman Mainz and Ulrich Richter and of Nathalie Monde and Maurice Clément. By implication, since we intend to demonstrate by ballistic and medico-legal evidence that all the double homicides in this series were committed by the same hand, you will be accused of all the murders attributed to the so-called Monster of Florence. Do you intend to answer our questions?”

  “How can I answer your questions? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just a poor farmer. What questions? You can’t ask me questions. I’m not the man you want!”

  With an exaggerated sigh of forced patience, Simonetti turned to the lawyer sitting by the Suspect’s side.

  “Would you care to elucidate?”

  “We’ll answer your questions.” He put a hand on the Suspect’s arm. “It’s all right, now. Keep calm.”

  “It’s not all right! Why is he accusing me? Why me? What did I ever do to him? He wants to crucify me and he knows it’s not me, so why? Why?”

  He rubbed a thick hand over his face, still wet and dark red, and began sobbing loudly again. Simonetti pursed his lips in amusement.

  “You’re wasting your performance on us, you know. You’d do well to wait at least until there are a few journalists present—and I’m not allowing them to see you today so you might as well save your energy.”

  The Suspect put his head down in his hands and the lawyer bent close to his ear and whispered something. The Suspect whimpered in protest but nevertheless became quieter.

  “May we proceed?”

  The Marshal observed the Suspect, who now raised his head and watched each of them in turn, seeking perhaps for a sign of sympathy. He didn’t look at anyone directly but sideways on out of one shiny eye, which seemed not to belong to the weeping red face but to be looking through it like an eye peering from behind a mask. Are we, the Marshal wondered, looking at the face of the man who did that? “That” was right behind the Suspect’s head on the screen. A torso, punctured, bruised and bleeding, one breast cut away and the pudenda gouged into a red and black cavity that appeared and disappeared as the Suspect’s brush of thick white hair moved before it in agitation.

  “It’s because I’m poor and ignorant, because I didn’t even finish primary school. I’ve spent a lifetime sweating for every penny, trying to put a bit aside the way I was taught—”

  “Would you mind …?” Simonetti appealed to the lawyer to stop him. It took some time. In the Marshal’s opinion, this was a futile exercise, anyway. He’d been expecting he didn’t know quite what by way of the Suspect, but in any case, something out of the ordinary—a monster, a novelty, something at least unfamiliar. But this character was only too familiar and he was the worst kind of all to deal with. Logic had no meaning for him. He was of the stout-denial brigade and nothing would ever shift him, no matter how much proof you waved before his eyes. And the worst thing was that his was the best defence in the world. The Marshal had seen so many like him and knew that unless you could trick them into a confession, nothing shifted them. A clever man, caught out in a lie or discrepancy, gives in. A stupid man goes on denying and denying, making up a different set of lies day after day, admitting they’re lies and still denying. Perhaps after all, you shouldn’t really call it stupidity because after the eighth or ninth version of the story you couldn’t possibly know what to believe, so unless you had physical proof …

  No holds barred, Simonetti had said, but where would that get him with a character like this unless he did find physical proof—the gun … or the pieces missing from that mutilated body there behind the white head …

  The lawyer was on his feet, trying to restrain the Suspect’s violent reactions to every question. The Marshal didn’t envy him his job because he would be getting the same garbled lies as they were now hearing in public. That was another fixed rule. Never tell your lawyer the truth. He looked like somebody … somebody the Marshal had arrested years ago but the name wouldn’t come. That same pig’s eye, violent, he’d killed an old woman but his name … same clothes, too, the patterned shirt, its collar creased and open, the big coloured lozenges on the jumper, the too-tight checked jacket, it was almost a uniform. The bulging stomach never quite contained by the outgrown clothing.

  “Poisonous little bitch!” Sweat was pouring from his temples and rolling down under the creased collar. His eyes were so swollen with crying they were almost shut. “Poisonous sodding little bitch!”

  “Come, come now, you’re not trying to blame your daughter for what you did to her, surely?” The angrier the Suspect became the more Simonetti enjoyed his own super-calmness.

  “Filthy little creep trying to ruin me, ruin me! She’ll burn in hell for this … She’ll burn … that’s the thanks I get for bringing her up, for working and sweating all my life, for making sacrifices to give her a roof over her head. She didn’t refuse the house I bought her, the little bitch, she didn’t refuse that, did she? What harm did I ever do her to make her ruin me like this? Jesus fucking—”

  “Please advise your client to refrain from swearing and blaspheming.”

  “I’ll curse as much as I want and blaspheme as much as I want and if there’s a God in heaven you’ll burn in hell for what you’re doing, along with that miserable bitch whose throat I should have slit when she was born so’s she couldn’t bring me to this.”

  He only stopped shouting to cry again. Then his voice was lowered to a pitiful whine:

  “I feel ill. I’m sick, you’re murdering a sick man … Oh God help me, my heart … you’re killing me …”

  “My client is ill. The prison medical report will demonstrate …”

  “Yes, yes, we know all about the prison medical report. Your client has, if I’m not mistaken, some cardiovascular problems.”

  At this Simonetti gave his squad a significant glance and then addressed the lawyer again. “Yes? Is that the case?”

  “He suffers from angina. He’s not at all strong and he’s getting on in years. He can’t be subjected to—”

  “He’s going to be subjected to an enquiry followed by a trial and no medical report is going to stop that happening. Now, if you’d care to remove him”—he looked at his watch—“for ten minutes and no longer. Give him a glass of water and then bring him back.”

  “He’s going to need more than a glass of water. His medication—”

  “You will give him whatever he requires and be back here in ten minutes precisely with your client in a calmer frame of mind. I’m sure you, at least, realize that his behaviour is as damaging to him as it is time wasting for us.”

  Which was true, the Marshal thought a
s the four carabinieri led their charge away, followed by his fussing little lawyer. But it was also true that the man really did look ill. His blood pressure must be desperately high and his face was purple by now. And what, in any case, were they achieving? In real terms this was simply Simonetti’s way of introducing them to the Suspect. The episode had no other meaning that he could think of so, surely, if the man was feeling ill they could leave it at that?

  Nobody seemed inclined to chat during the interval. It might have been because the grotesqueness of the Suspect’s behaviour had disconcerted them, or it might have been the slide still projected on the screen—the Marshal looked at Bacci and could tell that he was trying not to see it. Simonetti was sitting at the back with his legs crossed and his arms folded, his face serene and confident, quite prepared to let the ten minutes pass in silence if necessary.

  Not too surprisingly it was Ferrini who spoke up.

  “I suppose smoking’s not allowed …”

  Simonetti raised an eyebrow and then in silence indicated that they should leave the courtroom by the opposite exit to that used by the Suspect. He looked at his watch as the smokers rose. “Be punctual.”

  For the first time in his life the Marshal wished he smoked. It wasn’t because he felt in need of any stimulant or even a distraction, but because he didn’t want to be left there with Simonetti, and somehow the size of the bunker courtroom, its vast unlit stretches, inhibited him from walking about to stretch his legs as he did in the small room where they usually convened. Not that he was quite alone with Simonetti since Bacci was a non-smoker too, but that was no help. The lad looked sick to the stomach, perhaps because of the slide still projected on the screen. What good reason was there for leaving it there all this time? Surely Simonetti’s intention couldn’t be to distress them the way the thing was distressing Bacci? All of them had seen worse in their time and even Bacci himself oughtn’t to be so susceptible. Whatever was the matter with him?

  He found the opportunity to ask when Simonetti suddenly left them, striding down the length of the dark room and engaging someone in conversation just outside the public entrance, presumably the man on guard there.

  “It’s not squeamishness,” Bacci explained, “even though it’s …” He glanced again at the large screen but didn’t find the words to say what it was. “It’s just that I can’t look at it without thinking of the risks I ran … You know how at first, before anyone realized it was a maniac—I mean nobody took precautions until …”

  “I see.” It was true that the Monster had overturned the sex lives of Bacci’s whole generation. With the housing problem as bad as it was, youngsters had to go on living with their parents until they got married and usually even after that. Their only chance of privacy was when they were alone in their car. There they could exchange love and secrets, make their plans, giggle at their private jokes. There they had been screened by thick vines and guarded by tall black cypresses on peaceful moonlit nights. Until that first bullet came out of nowhere …

  “It could have been her … Us. That’s why I—she has long dark curls just like that.”

  Which must have been why he couldn’t drag his eyes from the photo he didn’t want to see. The poor body was so punctured and torn that there was little to recognize about it except its youth, and the head was out of frame. The long curls had undoubtedly been drawn back so as not to obscure the knife cuts on the slim neck, but one dark strand had escaped and curled forward over the smooth unmarked shoulder.

  “The risks I took …” repeated Bacci. “I mean, I keep seeing it happen, like watching a film …”

  “Pull yourself together,” the Marshal said. Then he remembered that the youngster was his superior officer but there seemed little point in adding ‘sir’ to such a remark. “It’s as well not to get too involved, just get on with the job.”

  “I intend to. I really intend to.” Bacci fixed his earnest gaze on the Marshal. “I’ve got a number of books, English and American. I’m going to read up all the case histories available, for a start. After all, none of us knows anything about this sort of thing.” Bacci the perfect student. He hadn’t changed much since he was eighteen.

  The Marshal was saved from having to comment on the idea of looking for the Monster in a bookshop by the return of Simonetti and the other men.

  The Suspect, when they brought him back, was quieter, though his face was still red and his forehead creased in a deep frown. He kept looking about him as though hoping to see a way out. He kept his voice lowered this time round, presumably on the strict instructions of his lawyer, maintaining an injured whine.

  “It’s not true that I’m a Peeping Tom, I’ve never been a Peeping Tom. What time have I got for stuff like that? I have to work for a living, I’ve worked like a slave all my life. Anything I’ve got I’ve sweated for, putting a bit aside each week the way I was taught. D’you think I’ve got time to be trailing around the countryside at night when I’ve been breaking my back all day? I’m a sick man, the doctors can tell you that, a sick man, not a Peeping Tom. I’m being made a victim of and anybody who says I’m a Peeping Tom’s out to get me with their lies.”

  The tears were rolling fast again, though he didn’t sob aloud the way he’d done before. His head lolled sideways and his big fists clenched and unclenched themselves on his fat knees.

  “What sort of man would want to be watching other people? You’d have to be sick to get any excitement out of that. I’m a normal married man.”

  “A normal married man?” repeated Simonetti. “Who raped his own child? You said before you were a sick man which sounds more like the truth.”

  “He’s twisting my words!” wailed the Suspect, waving an accusing hand at his tormentor and appealing to the others. “He’s taking advantage of me because I’m a poor ignorant peasant and he’s clever!” He began crying again.

  “No, no, no,” counselled his lawyer, getting hold of his shoulders in the hope of restraining another violent outburst. He didn’t look as though he was going to be successful, but before the outburst could happen there was a commotion at the public entrance.

  “What is it?” shouted Simonetti angrily, peering through the gloom.

  The guard showed his face. “I’m sorry, sir.” He vanished again.

  “I’ll deal with this.” Simonetti stamped down the steps of the stage and strode down the room.

  “Well, well,” murmured Ferrini in the Marshal’s ear. “Journalists. What a surprise.”

  The Marshal said nothing, feeling, like the unfortunate Suspect, that Simonetti was too clever for him and that if he wanted to manipulate the press that was his business.

  A photographer wandered into the room alone and made his way towards the stage. So, he must be letting them in. No one else appeared and voices were still raised outside the room. It wasn’t like Simonetti to waste so much time and surely his decision on this had already been made one way or the other?

  The Marshal was staring down the room, wondering at the delay, half listening to the row out there, half to the urgent murmurs of the lawyer to his sniffing client when the first flash went off.

  “You bastard!” screamed the Suspect, jumping up from his chair and overturning it. “You’ve got no right to do that! You’ve got no right!”

  He raised his fist and started towards the photographer, his face crazed and purple, his menacing figure outlined against the mutilated corpse. The flash went again and the photographer leapt off the stage and ran.

  This portrait pleased the Grand Duke and Duchess very much and the Prince Corsini was given the job of summoning the painter to court. He seemed reluctant at first, not believing himself to be up to the level required by such a task; but in the end, convinced and reassured by Corsini, he accepted, and “at nine in the evening (it was in August) I went to the Pitti Palace and was introduced to the Grand Duchess who received me with great courtesy and when the Princess was brought in I began the portrait. Within an hour and a half by God’
s grace I was able to sketch in such a good likeness that the Grand Duchess, getting up and putting on her glasses, said in that bellowing voice she has: ‘Good, good! If you finish it as well as you have begun it I shall declare myself well satisfied!’ A good many ladies in waiting came to see it and were all amazed by the likeness and said: ‘That is our Princess exactly!’ At last I finished it and succeeded not only with the likeness but with everything else, such as the clothing and the background scenery.” This was Antonio’s entrance into the Grand Ducal Court according to his own account, but it should not be forgotten that already, some years previously, he had executed some copies for the Grand Duke. As regards the number of portraits of Princess Anna Maria Luisa, Franchi confirms that there were seven, differing from Baldinucci who has destroyed this certainty. It is probable that among the seven there were the two portraits mentioned by Bartolozzi (1754), one to send to Madrid when it seemed likely that the Princess would marry Charles II, recently widowed, the other sent to Düsseldorf for the marriage with the Palatine Elector Johann Wilhelm. Another was certainly the one ordered by her brother, the Grand Prince Ferdinando. It seems probable that the beautiful oval portrait attributed to an unknown artist is also by Franchi. Franchi himself says he did only two portraits of the Grand Prince; according to Bartolozzi, as well as the portrait of the Prince in full armour, there are another two. The notebooks in which Franchi kept his accounts show that the number is far greater, but, as in other cases, we are faced with the problem of distinguishing variations and repetitions from the originals. We do have an order for a portrait of the Prince dated 18th January 1687. Another order, dated June 1688, is for two more portraits, together with a copy of one of them which he sent to the bride. The fifteen scudi shown in Franchi’s accounts as the first instalment paid in August is confirmed in the palace accounts and dated 4th August 1688. Two more large portraits are registered as having been commissioned in 1688, but in a separate file we find a note of “two original head-and-shoulder portraits, a full-length portrait in fashionable clothes, another full-length in armour, another three-quarter-length in armour, plus three copies.”