The Monster of Florence

by Magdalen Nabb

  The muddle wasn’t nearly as bad as he’d thought, it was just the bit he’d read last that was in confusion, the pages as muddled as his memory of them. He scanned them as he put them in order, separating dream and fact as he went.

  Amelio Vargius, Flavio’s nephew and his accomplice in some recent crimes, including an arms theft for which Flavio was wanted at the time of his arrest, said Flavio was unfairly arrested for the ’68 murder, that he was always being accused unjustly when other people got away with things they’d really done. It transpired that Amelio’s relationship with his real father, Silvano Vargius, was so negative that he had been to all intents and purposes adopted by his uncle, so it was understandable that he should go out of his way to defend him. This same transferral of affection likewise explained why Silvano was so very bitter against his brother Flavio, confirming that he was Belinda Muscas’s lover at the time of the murder. He admitted that he, too, had had an affair with Belinda but that it had ended long before Flavio took up with her. He confirmed stories of Flavio’s violent jealousy whilst failing to confirm Flavio’s alibi.

  A young man by the name of Salvatore Angius, a friend of both Silvano and Flavio, recounted that he had been in prison with Sergio Muscas twice, in 1969 and 1970, and that Sergio had told him he was innocent and Flavio had murdered Belinda and Lo Russo. Other witnesses claimed that Flavio Vargius had a Beretta 22 and was often seen practising shooting with his nephew in the woods near his home. He could produce no alibi for the times when the couples had been murdered.

  During 1981 extensive checks had been made on the registration numbers of cars being driven by men alone in the countryside at night in the hope of tracking down solitary Peeping Toms. These numbers were looked at again now and though none could be traced to Flavio, one did turn out to belong to the nephew Amelio who might well have lent it to him.

  Enquiries revealed that Flavio was a habitual Peeping Tom from the same band as Elio Sassetti. Bullets and cartridges were then recovered from the woods where he had been seen shooting. They were Winchester 22-calibre with an H impressed on the base, the ammunition used by the serial killer.

  The warrant for Flavio Vargius’s arrest was signed on 6th November, 1982.

  The Marshal put aside this chapter and the next, imagining the frustration of the investigators when that little house of cards had been blown down. Not only had Flavio been checked by psychiatrists and found to be perfectly normal, but the bullets found in the woods turned out to have been fired from a quite different gun; the one he used, as he had quite truthfully told them, was for playing target shooting with his nephew. And if that weren’t enough, while they still had him in prison in September 1983, Herman Mainz and Ulrich Richter were shot and killed in their camper with the Beretta 22 L.R.

  So much for Flavio. At which point, after a visit from his brother which must have gone badly, Sergio suddenly accused him, producing as evidence a note in his brother’s hand which said:

  “Keep accusing Vargius. You have to protect the family.”

  There should have followed a report on the investigation leading to Fabio’s arrest, but the Marshal couldn’t find it. If he remembered rightly, Fabio had some pretty weird sexual habits and an alarming collection of knives which he claimed were for his hobby of carving cork. None of it had come to anything because they’d had to release him after the next murder in Vicchio. Where was the thing? That must have been the missing page he’d dreamt about, perhaps aware of having dropped it as he fell asleep. He ran it to earth at last under the television and put it back in the pile.

  “Even so,” muttered the Marshal as he went off to the shower, “he was in up to his neck in that sixty-eight job with Sergio, though nobody will ever prove it now.”

  He wasn’t feeling as tired as he had a right to. Whatever the reason, it was encouraging. And even more encouraging was the thought that all being well, this would be the last day of their much-publicized search of the Suspect’s house. He’d had enough of that.

  “I’ve had enough,” the Marshal said.

  “What about you, Bacci?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Then I’ll finish it.” Ferrini forked the last slice of salami on to his plate.

  They were in the back of the little bar where they regularly ate breakfast and where four tiny tables were set each day for cheap lunches cooked by the barman’s wife and her mother. He kept one table for them by arrangement and they went there in relays. The other three tables were occupied by workmen from the sausage factory. The salami presumably came from there. There was no menu. If you didn’t want the meat they’d prepared you could ask for an omelette instead. There was always pasta with either meat or tomato sauce. Today it was meat sauce. The barman’s wife set their three bowls down.

  “Everything all right?”

  “Fine … you can take it.” Ferrini popped the last scrap of salami on to a piece of bread and let her remove his plate.

  “In a perfect world,” he went on, continuing the discourse that the last slice had interrupted, “everybody’d be in uniform—well, not exactly in uniform but identifiable. The Monsters of this world ought to go about with knives hanging from their belts and have green faces and little horns so when you caught one you could say, ‘Ah! A Monster!’ I remember a chap I arrested once. Burglar. He went about Florence wearing a striped T-shirt, driving a little truck with ropes and ladders on the back and a blonde gangster’s-moll-type girl beside him. And when he was on the job he’d wear a black mask.”

  “But he’d surely have got caught,” protested Bacci, looking at the Marshal to see if Ferrini was just having them on.

  “He did.” Ferrini wound a generous forkful of spaghetti. “All the time. Spent more of his life inside than out, but he didn’t mind that. Part of the job. He just wanted to be a burglar. The trouble with this case is that even if you pick the right man you’d have a job proving it without the gun.”

  “They always confess,” Bacci offered. “That’s what I’ve read. They enjoy dodging and teasing and playing the investigators, but once the game’s over and reality steps in they confess.”

  “Well, that’s as may be, but I don’t think we’re in any danger of reality stepping in here, eh, Guarnaccia? Did you read that stuff?”

  “A lot of it. I’ve still some to go. Did you read it when it was first published?”

  “I haven’t read it—not all of it; I’ve skimmed through it. I knew already what was in it. Being at Headquarters I couldn’t help but know what was going on from the men on the job. Have you got to the missing page yet?”

  The Marshal stared at him.

  “Second to the last chapter?”

  “You mean … there really is a page missing? I don’t think—”

  “No, no. Second to the last chapter. It’s headed: ‘The Missing Page.’ That’s when things got interesting, you’ll see. Now then”—he picked up the jug of red wine—“Bacci? Give me your glass.”

  He poured the wine and pushed it back. “Get this down you and don’t take life so seriously. It’s never worth it. Tell you what, though, I’ll be glad if we really do finish the job today. I should have thought, in the circumstances, they could have done without emptying the poor bastard’s wine vat. I think even I’d have cried. Right, what’s it to be? The breaded veal cutlet or an omelette?”

  “I thought an omelette because—”

  “Your diet. But you’re about to remember how bad eggs are for your liver. You’re all liverish in your family, you told me so yourself this morning. So: three veal cutlets and a nice green salad. Signora? We’re ready for you!”

  It seemed as though they really would finish today. The Marshal and Ferrini were in the tiny bedroom of the daughter’s flat. From the window they could see the piazza and its little church. The young woman was not present. Her name was still on the doorbell but she no longer appeared to be living there.

  “Where is she, do we know?” the Marshal asked as he moved a few clothes a
bout in the nearly empty drawers.

  “There’s a question,” said Ferrini, grinning. “We do but we don’t. She’s being ‘protected’ from the journalists.”

  “I was wondering …” The Marshal closed the bottom drawer of the dressing table and walked over to the window. “It struck me as funny and I’ve been meaning to mention it to you.”

  “Eh? What’s funny?”

  “I don’t know … this business of this young woman suddenly deciding to bring an action against her father. It doesn’t sound right to me.”

  “Does anything in this whole business sound right to you?”

  “No … no, it doesn’t but, after all, this was before and—Well, it sounds all right on the surface but I never heard of such a thing. I mean, she’s grown up and she no longer lives at home. Can you imagine her getting up one morning and saying, ‘Well, it’s a nice day: I think I’ll go and report my father for raping me from when I was nine.’ She can hardly get two words out about it now, three years later. She’s desperately embarrassed, she doesn’t want to talk. She’s frightened.”

  “That’s true. She’s certainly frightened.”

  “Well, it doesn’t ring true to me. I’ve been meaning to mention it to you for a while but what with one thing and another … Then, last night, reading about Flavio Vargius, it struck me.”

  “What’s he got to do with it?”

  “Nothing. But when they thought he was the Monster and he disappeared they needed a warrant so as to get hold of him fast and investigate him.”

  “And?”

  “And they didn’t have any real evidence to warrant arresting him as the Monster. The judge’s report said something like, ‘A visit to his wife Valeria resulted in her reporting him for domestic violence. They arrested him for that and were able to keep him inside. Then another murder happened …’ ”

  Ferrini stopped dragging the mattress off the bed and turned to look at the Marshal. “I see … Right. You mean they’d already chosen him as the Suspect. He went to prison and another murder, for one reason or other, didn’t happen, so they felt safe.”

  “Not just that. They’d made him into a monster. You’ve heard the people in the village, read the articles in the paper—and if we’re honest, we’ve said it ourselves: what does it matter if he’s not guilty? The murders have stopped and given what he did to that girl …”

  “It’s true. You’re right. But that’s a pretty clever move for an imbecile like Simonetti, I’d have thought.”

  “He’s not pulling the strings, though, is he? He’ll go down if this show doesn’t come off, but I doubt if he’ll get the credit if it does.”

  “That’s true, too, only—I’m being the devil’s advocate here—they couldn’t actually force the girl to sign, could they? Or force her to give evidence. You’ve seen what she’s like.”

  “I’ve seen that she’s frightened. I just don’t know why. The barman—where we have lunch—he said something one day … something like she’d told his wife she’d had to sign, that otherwise she would have gone to prison.”

  Ferrini shrugged. “But she’s completely off her head. I suppose they could have got the story out of her and then, once she realized what it meant she tried to back out. It’s one thing confiding in a friendly employer, another having to testify in court. They might have come on a bit strong with her in terms of, ‘You told us this story and if you don’t sign it looks as if you were lying to us.’ Something of that sort might have happened, but I can’t see anything more than that in it. Local Marshal’s probably known her all her life, knew how to handle her.”

  “No …”

  “No? He’s been here for years, hasn’t he?”

  “Police Headquarters is where all this happened. I found a tiny reference to it in his file. She didn’t go to the Marshal of carabinieri here in the village at all. I asked him. He told me Police Headquarters and he was no more convinced by the story than I am. Of course, this employer she’s supposed to have confided in would know whether the story’s true or not but she, if I remember rightly—”

  “Must remain anonymous because of the press interest, etcetera. So, we can’t check.”

  “No. But it’s not credible, is it?”

  “No,” Ferrini admitted, looking at his colleague, now with a bit more respect. “No, I’m afraid you’re right. It’s not credible at all.”

  As expected, the search came to an end towards seven that evening. All they had taken away at the end of it was the bullet from the garden and, from the farmhouse kitchen, a plastic soapdish containing a few worthless trinkets which the Suspect said belonged to his daughter but which might have been among the contents of the murdered girls’ handbags. The Chief Public Prosecutor, interviewed on the eight o’clock news, said he wasn’t by any means disappointed, that the enquiry was proceeding as planned and that he wasn’t able to reveal anything further at present.

  “And if that’s supposed to sound like there’s a lot you could reveal if you wanted to …” mumbled the Marshal, with one eye on the screen as he struggled with the can opener.

  “Ouch! Blasted thing …” He sniffed at the soup warily and then tipped it into a pan big enough to boil a couple of hens. He could have gone over to the mess but he was too tired and, besides, he wanted to get back to the Missing Page. While the soup was warming, he remembered that he ought to get the washing out of the washing machine. He opened the door and pulled at the damp bundle of mixed shirts and socks and underwear which was entangled in a tracksuit belonging to one of the boys. His own stuff hadn’t been enough to make a full load and it seemed wasteful to run it half empty. It all smelled a bit odd. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been left in there so long … was it two days or three?

  “Mmph …” His white shirts didn’t look quite right but he decided that was because they were still wet.

  A sudden hissing noise sent him back to the cooker in time to prevent the brightly coloured soup from boiling over. This was ridiculous. He’d looked after himself for years and was a perfectly adequate cook when it came to the two or three dishes he knew how to prepare. But in the old days he hadn’t had this Monster business to contend with and there’d been time to do his bit of shopping every day.

  “It doesn’t taste like any minestrone I ever ate.” He broke off a chunk of rather stale bread and dipped it unhappily into the offensive mixture. Not that he wanted to be unreasonable, but if his sister hadn’t overstuffed herself at Christmas while he’d been left here alone to work all hours and have no Christmas dinner at all …

  He soon forgot his troubles when he took up the judge’s document again. His only interruption was when he realized something was annoying him and got up to switch off the small black and white television. After that he didn’t pause until he reached the end and even then he went back and read over some of it again, hoping that what it said couldn’t be true and that on a second reading it might end differently. But it didn’t.

  Eleven

  PART SIX

  -1984–5-

  6.1. THE MISSING PAGE

  This page concerns Silvano Vargius.

  As has already been observed, Sergio Muscas, on the few occasions when he withdrew his accusations against Flavio Vargius, transferred them to Flavio’s brother Silvano. The last time this happened was in 1984 when Flavio was under arrest and Sergio was being questioned yet again about his accomplice in the ’68 murder. The transferral, as always, was of short duration and the one-page report of it separated from the main file as being irrelevant. Only after the murder of the two German boys seemed to demonstrate Flavio’s innocence did the investigators find and re-examine it. Its contents ran as follows:

  Quite suddenly, for no apparent reason, Muscas began to talk about Silvano Vargius: “Still it’s true that Silvano was no better than he should be. He killed his wife before he left Sardinia and the kid was saved that time as well—no, I’m not saying anything against Silvano. I’m not suggesting anything. Silvano Vargius had a
car.”

  6.2. SERGIO’S AMBIGUITY

  Muscas had made this reference to the death of Silvano’s wife the first time he accused him in ’68 but immediately after that he confessed and the seemingly irrelevant remark, though recorded, was ignored as being an invention. As regards the car, Sergio by now knew that his other accusations were against people who did not possess a car and so were unconvincing.

  As regards Muscas’s original accusation against Silvano it should be remembered that when the latter was brought to Sergio’s cell for a confrontation Sergio fell to his knees sobbing and begging for forgiveness. When the case went to trial in 1970, Silvano was present and was wearing the dead woman’s engagement ring.

  6.3. CAUSE OF AMBIGUITY

  A re-examination of the documents of Sergio’s trial revealed an alarming piece of information. Sergio’s sister-in-law Tina declared in the witness box that Belinda Muscas had frequently declared that Nicolino was not Sergio’s son but the son of one of the Vargius brothers. Tina said she didn’t know which brother was referred to but that Sergio himself admitted the story was true. In fact, the brother referred to could only have been Silvano. At the time of Nicolino’s conception, Flavio was still living in Sardinia. Silvano had just arrived in Tuscany and was living with the Muscas couple. This puts Sergio’s twice-repeated statement, “He killed his wife … and the kid was saved that time as well,” in an even more alarming light. What remained unclear was a credible motive for Silvano’s having killed Belinda and any reason why Sergio, instead of accusing him openly, continued to accuse his brother.

  In 1985 Sergio was questioned again about Flavio, once it was clear that he was not guilty of the six double homicides committed since 1974.

  “It’s true that I was lying about Flavio when I accused him. It’s true as well that Silvano wanted me to accuse Flavio because they’d quarrelled. They didn’t quarrel about Belinda, though. It was to do with Amelio, Silvano’s kid. He always said Flavio had ruined him, teaching him to steal and to hate his own father. Silvano took the kid to live with him when he married again but it went badly. He ran away from home and went to work for a shepherd for a bit—a bad sort—I forget his name but he was always in and out of prison and, in my book, it was him got the kid involved in thieving, not Flavio. Anyway, then he did go and live with Flavio for a bit and that was when him and Silvano started fighting. It’s not true that it was because Silvano had picked up with Belinda again—I know he said he didn’t but he did. It wasn’t her, it was that he was pissed off about his kid running away and he even went to the carabinieri to try and get him brought back, claimed the kid had stolen a truck and a moped from him and set fire to his workshop. Silvano reckoned it was all Flavio’s fault. I don’t know whether it was or not. It’s true the lad got caught trying to steal an Alfa Romeo when he was fifteen or so but it was only a kid’s trick so it came to nothing. He just had a passion for red sports cars. I think he pinched a few of them—or he tried to—until he bought himself one when he came home—he took off from Flavio’s after only a few months and went somewhere up north to his mother’s sister. Stayed away for years. Anyway, that’s all there was to it. Silvano called that corrupting him and he never forgave Flavio and that’s why he wanted me to accuse him. You can believe me or not as you want but I swear it wasn’t because of Belinda. Now I’ve told you the truth, but Flavio did it, anyway, and if you bring him here I’ll accuse him to his face.”