Death in Autumn

by Magdalen Nabb

  'Well, at least it's stopped raining,' muttered the Marshal to himself as he took the left fork towards Greve in Chianti, under a soft blue autumn sky. It was all very well, but by the time the Captain had called him that morning he was already breaking his head over the daily orders because two of his men were on duty over at the assize courts. But all he had said on the telephone was: 'I'd better go myself, sir. The only two lads I could spare are too young and inexperienced.'

  'I hope I'm not causing you difficulties?'

  'No, no...' And he had buckled on his holster and fished out the sunglasses he was forced to wear because his eyes were allergic to sunshine.

  He stopped at the Garabiniere Station at the bottom of the sloping piazza in the village of Greve to get exact directions for finding the villa, and perhaps some information about the tenants.

  'A right funny bunch,' the Marshal of Greve told Guarnaccia over a quick coffee at the bar nearby. The shoppers passing in front of the open door looked busy and cheerful, perhaps because of the sunshine. There was a smell of fresh bread and wood smoke mingling with the aroma of the coffee. 'But we've never had any trouble with them. Do you want me to come with you?'

  'No, no. I shan't do more than take a look at the place and find out if any of the tenants know the owner. You don't know her? A Signora Vogel, German.'

  'I knew the previous owner, he was German, but he died long since. The villa's let through an agency—you can see their offices across there under the colonnade between the baker's and the newsagent's. Do you want me to have a talk to them?'

  'If you're not too busy?'

  'We don't get many crime waves in Greve. I've got to visit an old dear who reports her next-door neighbours for one reason or another every day, but I can call at the agency after that. Come and see me on your way back. It's a beautiful place, that villa, but you'll see it's been neglected.'

  It was a beautiful place. The Marshal got out of his car, took a deep breath of warm air and looked about him. The villa had large gardens around it, and beyond that it was surrounded by a mature oak wood where brilliant autumn colours contrasted strongly with the misty hills that stretched to the horizon, but a lot of the ochre-washed stucco had crumbled from the villa's facade and one of the peeling shutters on the first floor was hanging askew. Although it wasn't more than five or six minutes' drive from the village there was an almost unnatural silence. So much so that the Marshal was startled by a large wet leaf that brushed his shoulder and fell to the ground with a soft pat. The damp earth was deep in rotting yellow, red and brown leaves which nobody must ever have tried to clear away. The Marshal trod through them round to the back of the building. There was a swimming pool there but it had no water in it. A lot of the tiles were missing and it, too, was strewn with fallen leaves.

  The silence was suddenly broken by a trill of music, followed by a pause and then a tune played very softly. The music came from a ground-floor room where the shutters and the window were open. The Marshal walked towards it and stood looking in. It was the kitchen. It was large and had a wooden table in the middle surrounded by straw-bottomed chairs. On one of these a fair-haired young man sat playing the flute. When he saw the big, uniformed man in dark glasses he continued playing, staring at him all the while. The Marshal stood there staring back, his huge eyes taking in everything, from the young man's expensive-looking skiing sweater to the water coming to the boil on the cooker.

  'Can I help you?'

  The young man was still playing. It was someone else who had spoken, someone who had come round the side of the building and joined the Marshal outside the window. A second young man, little more than a boy, thin and brown-haired, dressed in jeans and an old tweed jacket.

  'I saw your car,' he stated when the Marshal turned to look at him, but the statement had the tone of a question.

  'I'm making routine enquiries,' the Marshal said, 'regarding the owner of this villa, Signora Hilde Vogel. Do you know her?'

  'No. I rented through an agency. They put an advert in The Times.'

  'In the . . .?'

  'The Times. The London newspaper.'

  'I see. You're English. How long have you been here?'

  'Almost a year. I paint.' He seemed to consider this an ample explanation since he added nothing further. The young man in the kitchen was still playing, watching them quizzically over his flute.

  'A friend of yours?' the Marshal asked, indicating the musician.

  'No. He's just arrived here. His name's Knut. He's from Norway. I don't know anything about him except that his English isn't up to much.'

  'Does he speak Italian?'

  'I've no idea. Would you like me to ask him?'

  'Yes.'

  The English boy had a certain diffidence which might be taken for politeness, but despite a strong accent and imperfect grammar he spoke Italian with a languid assurance that the Marshal found almost insolent though he couldn't have explained exactly why. He was talking to the flautist now, but the latter only shook his head very slightly and went on playing.

  'Ask him if he knows the owner of this villa,' persisted the Marshal.

  This time the music stopped and the young man said something and shrugged his shoulders before resuming his playing.

  'No, he rented through the agent, as I did.'

  'Which of you is John Sweeton?'

  'I'm John Sweeton,' replied the English boy, correcting the Marshal's pronunciation.

  The Marshal took out his notebook.

  'And Graham . . .' He couldn't get his tongue round the surname but John Sweeton put in immediately:

  'Graham didn't stay much more than a couple of weeks, though he arrived in July about the same time as Christian. He paid up the rest of the rent on his room according to the contract and then went off to Greece.'

  'Who's Christian?' The name wasn't on the Captain's list of tenants.

  'I don't know his surname. He's staying here on and off.'

  'Is he here now?'

  'No, he isn't.'

  'When do you expect him back?'

  'I've no idea. He comes and goes as he pleases like the rest of us.'

  The Marshal was beginning to feel out of his depth and was inclined to agree with his colleague. A right funny bunch.

  'He did say he was coming back?'

  'Why should he say anything? His things are still here so I presume he'll be back, that's all.'

  'Why doesn't he have a contract like the rest of you?'

  'You'd have to ask him. Maybe he does know the owner.'

  The Marshal said nothing. His big eyes were again roving over the kitchen and its contents.

  'If you want to come in and look around,' said Sweeton, following his glance, 'feel free.'

  'I don't have a warrant.'

  Sweeton shrugged. Despite this remark of the Marshal's, he showed no curiosity as to why inquiries were being made about the owner. After a moment's hesitation the Marshal decided to go in. Sweeton took him round the place in a disinterested way.

  'Nobody ever uses these ground-floor rooms much. Most of us keep to our own rooms.'

  Most of the shutters were closed and the Marshal took off his sunglasses to see better in the gloom. The reception rooms were well, if sparsely, furnished with heavy antiques. The red-tiled floors were dusty and there were tiny mounds of sawdust under the furniture, showing that woodworm had been at work. Everything smelled musty. The stairs and banisters were in smooth grey stone.

  'My room.' The bed was unmade and there were paintings stacked against the walls. A badly painted modernistic landscape was propped on an easel. On the floor beside it stood a flask of wine and a glass. 'I was working when you arrived. The room next to mine was Graham's. It's empty now. I suppose Knut will take it. Do you want to look?1

  'No.'

  'The bathroom's up those two stairs.'

  Some modernization work had been started in the bathroom and left unfinished. Tiles had been removed from the walls, leaving the cement bare.
The fitments were green except for a very old-fashioned white bath with rust marks where the tap had dripped for years.

  'Christian's room is on the other side of this landing. None of the others rooms are in use.' The Marshal only glanced in at the door which had been left slightly ajar. Christian's bed was made and the room was fairly orderly. There were a lot of paperback books. In the few seconds that he stood there looking in, the Marshal managed to take in everything. What he couldn't be sure of was whether John Sweeton had noticed what he had noticed. There was no way of telling from his attitude. Nevertheless, the Marshal saw what he saw. A leather belt dangling from the bedside cabinet, and beside it the two shrivelled halves of a lemon. The other things were probably hidden behind a stack of paperbacks, but even without seeing them the Marshal knew they were there.

  CHAPTER 5

  'So I called on the Marshal at Greve on my way back.'

  'Could he tell you anything?' The Captain's voice on the other end of the telephone sounded tired. In fact, he had stayed up practically the whole night waiting for his young plainclothes men to come in from their round of the piazzas and bars where they mingled with drug addicts in the hope of finding the new supplier.

  'Well, he'd had a talk to the agent who said he'd been instructed not to let again once the present contracts ran out. It seems the place was to be restored. Apart from that, he could only repeat that they had never had any trouble with these youngsters. It seems they keep themselves to themselves and there have never been complaints from anyone about them. Of course, they're in a very isolated spot so they could get up to anything without anybody knowing,'

  'And you think they're up to something?'

  'I'm sure that one of the ones who's staying there now is on heroin. I had a quick look at his room and got a glimpse of the usual stuff lying about.'

  'Did you talk to him?'

  'He wasn't there. He comes and goes and nobody knows exactly where he is. We could have a talk to him when he gets back—incidentally, he wasn't on your list of tenants whose contracts you found, so it would be worth having a word with him in case he knew the owner and is staying there under some friendly arrangement, though of course he could just be a squatter. I've asked the Marshal out there tt>keep an eye on the villa and let me know when the boy turns up.'

  'Good. If there's nothing else . . .'

  'Just one thing, sir,' persisted the Marshal slowly, pausing to get the images and words in order. He didn't like the goings-on in that villa one bit but he was having difficulty explaining his disquiet.

  'Well?'

  'There was another boy . . . Graham something, you gave me his name . . .'

  'Allenborough. You think he may be an addict, too?'

  'He wasn't there. He's left. . .'

  'I see. So only one of them was there?'

  'No. . . there was another, a Norwegian who's just arrived . . .' Again the Marshal felt out of his depth. 'What I'm trying to say is that this Graham who left ... the English boy said he'd paid up the rent due according to the contract and gone off to Greece, just like that. You told me how high the rent was so I thought it was a bit funny, going off like that . . .' He wasn't explaining himself at all.

  'No doubt,' the Captain said patiently, 'they're young people from wealthy families who can afford to do as they please.'

  The Marshal gave it up, adding only: 'I'll send you my written report. Nothing new on the hotel staff?'

  'We're still checking up on them but it's a long business and I can't spare more than one man to work on it. He hasn't come up with anything of interest yet. In the meantime, I've been in touch with Signora Vogel's lawyer, who's Swiss. He's going to call me back after getting in touch with the bank in Mainz tomorrow morning. It would be a help if you could visit her hairdresser—it's on your hotel route, in Via Guicciardini. His name's Antonio.'

  It would be, thought the Marshal glumly, another one like that receptionist.

  'I'll try and get there before they close this evening.'

  But when he rang off his thoughts returned to the villa with its smell of rotting leaves outside and mustiness inside. The sound of the flute in all that silence, and the self-assurance of the English boy who couldn't have been more than nineteen or twenty. And those telltale signs by the other boy's bedside, the dangling belt and the shrivelled lemon.

  He got up slowly from his desk, buttoned up his jacket and took his holster from the hook behind the door. He didn't like it one bit and he was gradually beginning to decide why. Because if they were all from such well-to-do families they should surely be at home, studying or working, making a career for themselves with all the advantages they had. Instead of which they were drifting about wasting their time and drugging themselves like the poor unemployed wretches who hung about the city centre. Like the lad who had died from a bad dose two weeks ago and whose parents he knew. He decided, as he called to Brigadier Lorenzini that he was going out again, that he would call on the parents on his way to see the hairdresser.

  'Antonio!'

  "What is it?'

  'Somebody to see you!'

  The stifling atmosphere laden with the smells of wet hair and hot shampoo started the Marshal sweating before he had been in the place two minutes. And the reflections of a dozen pairs of eyes staring at him from mirrors all over the room didn't help. Among all that flimsy pink and blue nylon he felt more than usually conscious of his own bulk and that of his heavy black uniform, and he didn't know where to put himself so as not to be in the way of all the bustling assistants with their trays and towels.

  Antonio finally appeared. He wasn't wearing an overall like the girls but a navy polka dot shirt and a pale blue silk scarf knotted round his neck.

  'Can I help you?'

  'Is there somewhere we could talk?' the Marshal asked, shifting himself as a woman was led past him, her head wrapped in pink towels.

  'There's nothing wrong? If it's the woman in the flat upstairs again complaining about my using all the water—' 'No, no . . . it's about one of your clients, but I'd rather we—'

  'Of course! The Vogel woman!'

  'You know all about it?'

  'The wife of the manager at the Riverside has her hair done here. She came yesterday. In fact, it was she who first recommended Signora Vogel to come to me—just a minute . . . Caterina! Is Signora Fantozzi dry?'

  'Another five minutes.'

  'I'll be in the back for a moment—No, don't rinse yet, that colour needs another two minutes. Go and comb out the little girl. This way . . . Marshal, is it? I don't have an office but perhaps Mariannina has a cubicle free . ..'

  A manicurist looked up from soaking an elderly lady's hand in a small bowl. 'Number two's free. I've just switched the wax off.'

  'That's fine. This way, Marshal.'

  The cubicle was so tiny there was barely room for the two of them to stand beside the narrow bed with a paper sheet on it. There was a strong smell of hot beeswax coming from an odd-looking contraption in the corner. Fortunately, Antonio turned out to be much more sensible than he looked, quite the opposite of the receptionist at the Riverside.

  'I don't know how I can help,' he began.

  'By telling me anything you know about her. We're trying to establish what sort of life she lived, who she mixed with.' 'Hm. Difficult. She always struck me as a loner.'

  'No men?'

  'Well, not from the way she talked . . .'

  'What way?'

  'Ironic. I don't know ... a little bitter. She took good care of herself. She came here every week, for example, as I suppose you must already know, but I remember once she said she wondered why she bothered at times— joking, you understand—and that she was thinking of going into a convent if things didn't improve. She often talked that way.'

  'But without explaining why?'

  'Exactly. You wouldn't believe the way some women talk, they tell me everything, but she was rather secretive, just came out with odd remarks like that one.'

  'Did you
know she owned a villa out near Grove?'

  'Now that she did tell me. A long time ago, I'd almost forgotten. It occurred to me at the time to wonder why she didn't live there; in fact, I asked her but she didn't seem keen on being out in the country on her own, which is understandable.'

  'Did she say who did live there?'

  'I think she said it was rented but I've no idea to whom. It really was a long time ago.'

  'You can't think of anything else, anything at all?'

  Antonio hesitated.

  'Even if it seems of no importance to you, it could be useful to us,' the Marshal encouraged him.

  'It isn't that. . . it's just that it's gossip, really. In my job I listen to everybody but I don't repeat. I dislike gossip.'

  'In this case gossip might help us to find out who killed her and why.'

  'You mean it's really true what the manager's wife told me? That you think she was murdered?'

  'Yes.'

  'I see. In that case ... It was a woman who has a regular appointment at about the same time as Signora Vogel. She toid me she'd seen her in a restaurant with a young man. A very young man, practically a boy. They gave the impression of being fairly intimate. They were whispering, she said. I'd rather you didn't quote me as telling you that—I mean to the newspapers and so on. I can give you the woman's name and you can talk to her yourself if you think it's important.'

  'Thank you.'

  A young man, practically a boy. The Marshal was thinking again of the villa, and he was liking it even less.

  'How long ago was this?'

  'I can tell you exactly, it was August 27th. I rarely go to restaurants since my husband died but my son insisted on taking me that day because it was my birthday—that's why I'm sure of the date.'

  'A month before she died.'

  'That's right. I apologize for keeping you in the kitchen but I have to see to the supper.'

  The eight o'clock television news was on in the adjoining dining-room where a table was set for two. Everything in the apartment seemed as orderly and calm as the woman who was now putting a clear soup to heat. She didn't strike the Marshal as a gossip.