The Marshal and the Murderer

by Magdalen Nabb

  'We needn't go into that now. If he hasn't seen your friend since Friday, then don't you think that makes it likely she's gone away somewhere and will soon turn up?'

  'She was wearing her working clothes,' the girl persisted.

  'All right.' He took a small card from one of the desk drawers. 'Here's my telephone number. If your friend turns up let me know.'

  He stood up. The girl didn't move.

  'Aren't you going to do anything?'

  'I'm going to get my colleagues out there to check up on whether she was seen at work yesterday and I'll circulate a description of her. There's very little else I can do, Signorina.' He opened the door for her. She kept her head down as she passed through, murmuring 'Thank you' under her breath.

  Feeling rather sorry for this odd stubborn creature, the Marshal placed a fatherly hand on her shoulder as they approached the outer door.

  'Don't worry too much. I'm sure she'll turn up.'

  But far from appreciating his gesture the girl flinched and hurried off down the stairs without another word.

  Back in his office the Marshal sat down heavily m his chair and pondered a moment before dialling the number of Borgo Ognissanti Headquarters and asking for Captain Maestrangelo, his commanding officer. Maestrangelo made a note of the girl's particulars but pointed out:

  'She's over eighteen.'

  'Yes. But it seems she left home in her working clothes taking nothing else with her, so . . .'

  'I see . . .' The Captain didn't hesitate for long; over the years he had come to know Guarnaccia well enough to trust his instincts better than he trusted his own. 'Well, if you think it necessary you could take a look out there, maybe have a word with the local man.'

  'Pieri, isn't it?'

  'Pieri? No, he died, hadn't you heard?'

  'No

  'Heart attack, about a year ago. There's a new marshal there, a good sort. Have a word with him. No doubt he'll be able to tell you something about this potter she worked for - what did you say his name was?'

  'Berti! I'll say I know him. What a character!'

  'You mean he's got a record?'

  'No, no!' The Marshal's colleague in the potteries was roaring into the telephone with such gusto that the Marshal had to hold the receiver well away from his ear. To judge by his accent, the new marshal was a Roman and certainly the most cheerful-sounding character he'd ever come across. What on earth did he find so funny?

  'Ladies' man - and at his age! But some of them never give up. He's well known about these parts.'

  'Is he? Well, I don't like the sound of that because the reason I'm ringing you is that there's a young Swiss girl who's been working for him, probably illegally, and she seems to be missing.'

  'Blonde girl, nice-looking?'

  'That's right. You know her?'

  'Of course I know her! She picked a bad one to work for there - not that there's any real harm in him but even so I told her to watch out. She reckons she can look after herself but these foreign lasses are sometimes a bit naive. Pretty, though, very pretty!'

  'How exactly did you come across her?'

  'In the restaurant. Everyone eats there including us as we've no canteen. You'll see if you pay us a visit -are you thinking of coming out here?'

  1 don't know . . . it's out of my area. On the other hand, the girl lives in this quarter so I thought I ought to look into the thing. Her friend who shares a flat with her seems to think she must have left for work on Monday morning since the only clothes missing are her work clothes. You didn't see her yesterday by any chance?'

  'No. Yesterday no. I was there at my usual table but she didn't come in, I remember remarking on it at the time because it's some months she's been coming and I don't think she's often missed before. She wasn't there today, either.'

  "Then I suppose she didn't go to work after all unless something happened to her on the way - you couldn't be mistaken, could you? Is it a big restaurant?'

  'Big? It's big all right! As I said everybody eats there, but I couldn't be mistaken because she always sat with us. Tozzi, the owner, insisted on it. She always came in alone, you see, and the place is full of workmen - you don't often get a woman in there except the occasional buyer who's been round the factories. No, I'd say I'm not mistaken.'

  'What about this man Berti? If she worked for him didn't he eat with her?'

  'Not him! He has to go home for lunch. His wife's up to all his tricks, she's no fool. He used to drop her oft" in the car and go on home.'

  'Well, you never know, maybe he managed to slip the leash yesterday and take her somewhere else to lunch.'

  'He'd never get away with that in a small place like this - mind you, the way he used to look at her when he thought she wasn't noticing, the old rogue!'

  The Marshal thought for a moment and then said: 'I think I will pay you a visit ..."

  'Delighted to hear it! We'll be here - we never close! Filthy weather we're having and you'll find it ten times worse out here.'

  But he sounded as pleased as if he were remarking on the brilliant sunshine!

  'When do we expect you?"

  The Marshal felt like setting out immediately, it had been a dullish day and he wouldn't have minded spending an hour with this man who seemed to be bursting with cheerfulness. Even so, he said: 'Tomorrow morning. It might be a good idea if I came on the bus she caught and ask if anyone saw her yesterday.'

  'Good idea, good idea! Now, what I can do for you is to go along and see what our friend Berti has to say for himself, nose around the area, how would that be?'

  'Thank you,' said the Marshal uncertainly, 'but perhaps it would be better if you didn't say'

  The other roared with laughter. 'Don't you worry about that! I won't tell him a thing, soul of discretion, that's me! Pass the time of day and have a look at his pots - might say I'm looking for something for the wife's birthday. Crafty! Trip out in this filthy fog is just what I need! Be seeing you, then. All the best!'

  When he'd hung up the Marshal leaned back in his big chair and gave a tiny satisfied belch. He'd eaten too much lunch yet again. Every day he swore he wouldn't, but after all those grass widower years of snatching a bit of bread and cheese the pleasure of going through to his quarters to be greeted by a warm smell of cooking and the comfortable noise of the children was too good to resist and he always ate with relish. Now his eyelids were smarting and heavy and he could feel that his face was flushed in the hot little room. For two pins he'd have fallen asleep there and then.

  This wouldn't do. His head jerked up and he blinked. This wouldn't do at all. Now what had he meant to see to . . . ?

  The bus, that was what he needed to know. He dialled the number that was written on the telephone pad. It only rang once before the receiver was snatched up at the other end.

  'Monica, is that you?'

  'Signorina Stauffer? This is Marshal Guarnaccia speaking.'

  'Oh . . .' She was evidently disappointed but she added anxiously, 'Have you found out something?'

  'It's a bit soon for that, Signorina, but tomorrow I'm going to visit the place where your friend Monica worked and I'd like you to tell me what time she caught the bus out of Florence so that I can ask the other passengers if they saw her yesterday, do you understand?'

  'Yes. All right. She caught the eight twenty-five.'

  'Always?'

  'Yes . . . You get off at the last stop before the town and you'll see the place right there on the roadside to your left. Do you think something's happened to her?'

  'I've no reason to think that at this stage.'

  'Something has, I can feel it. She would never . . . Thank you for trying to help.'

  Again he felt sorry for her but before he could say anything comforting she suddenly hung up. What a strange creature. He decided he'd better have another cup of coffee. Even then it was an hour before he felt really awake again and he swore to himself that tomorrow he would eat less. Then he remembered that in all likelihood he'd end up in tha
t restaurant with his cheery colleague and got to wondering what the food would be like there.

  'Viareggio and Forte dei Marmi, bay number two. Viareggio and Forte dei Marmi . . .'

  The fluorescent lighting in the bus station waiting-room only made everything look even dirtier. Outside it was drizzling steadily and the city looked grey, even the soaked grass around the concrete station building opposite. The Marshal was sitting on a hard bench surrounded by the smell of wet clothing, and to make matters worse the fat woman next to him kept giving her umbrella a shake so that drips of water rolled from it down the trousers of his uniform. The espresso machine on the bar at one end of the room added its steam to the general dampness and the fug of cigarette smoke. A man in a dirty overall was sweeping up cigarette ends and biscuit wrappings from the wet floor. How could anyone be going to the seaside in November and on a day like this? And yet two or three people got up when the Viareggio bus was announced and went out to the departure bays where the blue buses waited. Maybe they lived there ... or worked there or had someone to visit there . . .

  'Bay number six, Lastra a Signa, Ponte a Signa, Montelupo,Empoli,Fucecchio. Bay number six . . .'

  That was the one. It was already eight twenty-five and the driver was aboard with the engine going. The Marshal waited to let everyone else get on so that he could have a word with the driver without blocking the queue. The last to get on was the fat woman who managed to give the Marshal a poke with her wet umbrella as she pushed past him and heaved herself up the steps.

  'Help yourself/ the driver said as he switched on his windscreen wipers. Trails of dirty water ran down on each side of them. 'Filthy morning.'

  The bus was only half full. The Marshal clipped his ticket in the machine and squeezed himself into a window seat as the bus bounced along a wide road leading out of the city. Once they were out of the heavy traffic the driver switched a radio on and loud music from some local radio station drowned the buzz of conversation that had started up as soon as they were under way. The Marshal took the Swiss passport out of his pocket and squeezed his way out again.

  He took the passengers one by one, leaning over their seats and showing them the photograph inside the passport. They were all women except for one elderly man in a shabby raincoat and a greasy black beret. As he had judged from the way they had all started chattering even between separate seats, most of them were regulars and had seen the girl. Unfortunately there was some disagreement as to whether she had been on the bus on Monday.

  'It's no use asking me,' said the woman with the umbrella with some satisfaction. 'I only go Wednesdays and Fridays to see my sister in the hospital.'

  Somebody sniggered.

  "What's there to laugh about? Disgusting, that's what it is, laughing at other people's misfortunes!' And she turned to the window, rubbed a patch in the steam with a brown woollen glove and stared out at the rain, tightlipped.

  Somebody prodded the Marshal in the back and he turned. It was the old man in the greasy beret.

  'What she means,' he whispered so that the Marshal had to bend over to hear him above the noise of the radio, 'is that she goes to see her sister in the asylum.' He broke off cackling, 'And she isn't the only one on this bus . . . I'm going there myself, if you want to know, to see my son who's never been right in the head. With his mother gone, you see, there was nobody to see to him and he got into trouble — well, it's better than prison - but that madam's the only one who calls it a hospital. You mark my words, her sister's as mad as a hatter and if you ask me she's not much better herself.'

  The Marshal looked around him, his eyes bulging more than usual.

  'You mean all these people . . . ?'

  'Oh, not all of them but a good part. You mark my words - but they'll not all admit it.'

  'And what about you?'

  'I've told you, my son ..."

  'No, I mean do you recognize this photograph?'

  1 recognize it all right. A pretty thing, isn't she? What's happened to her?'

  'I don't know. Did you see her on Monday?'

  'I wasn't on the bus Monday. Wednesdays and Fridays, same as her ladyship there. Why don't you ask the driver?'

  The people who had been on the bus on Monday were still arguing loudly.

  'She was sitting right in front of me!'

  'No, you're wrong. She was on the bus but right at the front.'

  The Marshal pushed his way forward along the narrow aisle and signalled to the driver to turn the radio down.

  'I want a word with you when you stop.'

  'Right you are.'

  They were well out of Florence and following the river and the electric railway line in the direction of Pisa, passing through a series of small towns that looked depressing in the rain. In the centre of one of them the bus stopped and the driver looked up.

  'What can I do for you?'

  'I'm trying to trace this girl. Do you know if she was on the bus on Monday morning?'

  'Yes, she was.'

  'You're quite sure?' By this time it seemed too good to be true. 'You saw her on Monday morning?'

  'That's right.'

  'It couldn't have been last Friday?'

  'No, it couldn't. I was on afternoons last week. She caught this bus every morning, has done for a while. And on Monday she did her usual trick of getting up too late for her stop - there's nothing along that road until you come round a big bend and the stop's right there. She was always missing it and I often let her off well past the stop though I shouldn't. Otherwise she'd have to get off in the town and walk back. It's quite a way and it's a dangerous road with no pavement.'

  'I see. Thanks. In that case you'd better warn me when we get to her stop or I'll be doing the same myself.'

  'Will do.'

  He turned up the radio again and the Marshal swayed back to his seat. His damp trouser legs were getting hot and itchy from the blast of the bus's heaters. He rubbed a big patch on the steamy window as the other passengers had all done.

  The small towns had petered out and they were travelling between wet fields and ghostly orchards. The rain and fog were getting increasingly heavy so perhaps his cheery colleague hadn't been joking about the weather being ten times worse out here. Probably it was the proximity to the river. On the right, the railway was now hidden behind a dripping high black wall and only the overhead wires were visible. The bus picked up speed and big lorries with their headlights on came roaring towards them out of the gloom from the direction of the industrial towns ahead. The driver was right, it was a dangerous road and had no doubt had its share of fatal accidents.

  The bus swished round a broad curve and slowed to a stop, apparently in the middle of nowhere.

  'Here you are, chief!'

  The Marshal climbed down. 'Thanks.'

  'You're welcome.'

  He had almost to flatten himself against the wet wall as the bus pulled away and then was forced to stay there for some time as lorries and a few cars streamed past in either direction. He could see a huddled little building on the other side with a patch of dirt surrounded by junk and plastic bags beside it, just wide enough for the light blue car that was parked there. By the time he managed to get across the road his hat and greatcoat were quite wet. It was obvious that, as the girl had said, this had once been an ordinary peasant's cottage and it had probably stood in a pretty deserted spot until this road had been constructed to serve the new factories. The biggish window on the left which was covered with torn brown paper must be the artisan's workshop. Light was showing through the tears. To the right, a woman's face appeared for a moment behind the ragged curtain of a tiny, barred window and vanished again. Out of curiosity he approached this window and peered into the gloom. At first he couldn't make out anything but he could hear the soft crowing of hens and a vague scuffling noise. A tiny black cat jumped on to the inside windowsill and rubbed itself against the wet bars. There was no glass, just the bit of ragged curtain which hung crookedly. The smell of animal excrement was al
most overpowering. After a while he managed to make out the beady eyes of the hens as they paused in their scratching and pecking to observe him in case he might be the bearer of more food. The scuffling noise must be coming from inside a wine barrel. A pair of long ears flashed every so often above its rim and he gathered it must be a hare being fattened.

  'There's nothing very interesting in there.'

  The Marshal turned. The artisan was standing in his doorway watching him, a small paintbrush in his hand.

  'Just curious.' The Marshal looked him up and down, a little surprised to see that he was wearing a grey mohair suit that had once been quite good though now it was worn and rather dusty. Perhaps he had taken his overall off, seeing someone approach. The Marshal was quite sure that he kept an eye on the goings-on on the road through the tears in the paper. 'It was you I came to see. Your name's Berti?'

  'That's right. Don't you want to come in out of the rain?'

  'I wouldn't mind.' He followed Berti, a much shorter man than himself and rather scraggy, into the workshop.

  'I must be disturbing you . . .'

  Berti shrugged. 'People come in all the time.'

  A paraffin stove was hissing in the oblong room which was bigger than the Marshal had expected. Every inch of wall space was taken up with majolica plates and the place was crammed with pottery of every description, some of it on crooked dusty shelves and makeshift tables and a lot of it on the stone floor so that the Marshal hardly dared move for fear of breaking something.

  I'll get you a chair,' Berti said, and picked his way through it all easily to the back of the room, where he shifted a stack of dishes from a dusty chair which he carried back with him without dislodging so much as an eggcup from the jumble.

  'Thanks.'

  'Don't sit down yet . . .'He dusted the chair off with a bit of rag. 'That's the best I can do but you'll find it'll brush off all right.'

  Berti sat down himself at what must have been his habitual place by the window. A small table beside him was crammed with pots of colour and brushes of various shapes and sizes and more similar pots stood about the floor at his feet. The Marshal, who would have immediately crushed or knocked over the whole lot, was amazed by the man's delicacy which seemed so effortless and unconsidered. It was his habit when finding himself in a new place to wander around it getting his bearings, rather like a dog roaming about and sniffing in corners in an unfamiliar house, but in this place he decided he had better keep still or he'd find himself paying for any number of breakages.