Death in Springtime

by Magdalen Nabb

  Slowly he ran through the scene, saw the big flakes falling, the boy in the white apron scattering sawdust, the cars coming towards him. He stopped, remembering. A car was coming towards him, signalling. Someone in the back was holding a map. He had been through it before and had already told the Captain he was sure that was the car, though he hadn't looked at the driver and front passenger, having been distracted by the map and by watching the traffic coming from all three directions because he wanted to cross over. It wasn't all that much help, anyway, as far as tracing the kidnappers was concerned, but it did mean that on that point at least the Nilsen girl was telling the truth.

  It was something else that was bothering him, something illogical that he couldn't explain to the Captain until he had explained it to himself.

  Again he saw the car signalling, signalling to turn right into Via Mazzetta which was the route south out of the city. Then he was crossing the road and the long ochre-coloured palace came into view with the snowflakes falling slowly in front of it to land on the roofs of the cars parked on the sloping car park in front. A Sardinian piper was coming towards him. Just one. No matter how he looked at it, it didn't make sense. It was true that there were usually two of them together and he remembered thinking at the time that the other one was probably in a shop begging. Even so, it was all wrong. He tried again. The piper was coming towards him wrapped in a black cloak, playing . . . what had he been playing? The Marshal couldn't for the life of him remember that. Normally you didn't think about it. At Christmas they always played 'You came down from the stars' and at Easter they usually played a Pastorale, and what with the roar of the traffic and the crowds of chattering shoppers or tourists it was practically impossible to distinguish the tune except in short bursts. Everybody just assumed that that's what they were playing. Nobody took much notice. Some Florentines liked them because they were picturesque. They would give them money and accept the little religious pictures or good luck messages that the shepherds handed out. Others hated and ignored them, saying they only came down to the city to steal. Certainly nobody had been taking any notice of this one—but then, hadn't he been playing very badly, anyway? And what would he have been playing? It had been neither Christmas nor Easter. The Marshal could recall no hard and fast rule about it but he couldn't think that he had ever seen the pipers during Lent. It always seemed that they reappeared around Palm Sunday when people were pouring out of the churches carrying little sprays of olive leaves that looked silvery in the hard sunlight.

  The piper that morning had only worn an ordinary shepherd's cloak, not the short swinging cape, long white woollen socks criss-crossed by leather straps . . . Well, not all of them had those things . . .

  This wasn't helping at all. If the piper was early, he was early. But if he had nothing to do with the kidnapping of that girl it seemed to be too much of a coincidence that he should have appeared just then. Nobody he had questioned had seen a second piper. But then, only three people in the whole piazza remembered seeing the first one! That was the snow again . . . Odd that the Captain had thought it would help. It had done nothing but distract everybody. The kidnappers couldn't have chosen a better day.

  The Marshal would have liked to turn this problem over to the Captain who could have applied some brains to it. The only thing that stopped him was that he couldn't decide exactly what the problem was. Either that Sardinian's being there was coincidence or it wasn't— and, for goodness' sake, if it wasn't—

  'Marshal?' His young Brigadier, Lorenzini, clattered down the stairs and put his head round the door. 'It's half past two.'

  'Yes.' The Marshal looked at him unseeingly.

  'That road accident. The doctor said the driver should have come round from the anaesthetic by now.'

  'Yes . . .'

  Lorenzini waited and then asked: 'So do you want me to go and take his statement?'

  'Yes—no. Send Di Nuccio. I'd rather you stayed here in case I have to go out.

  'All right. Oh—Cipolla's sister came round when you were out before.'

  The imprisoned man's sister was married to a gardener in the Boboli and lived just next door.

  'She said if you could spare an hour . . . she'd just come back and said he was very low and asking for you. I did explain to her that you were on this case—'

  'That's all right. I'll manage to get round there . . .'

  'She left something in the kitchen for you, I think.'

  She always did. Some soup or little homemade cakes, convinced that as a grass widower he couldn't cope. His wife down in Syracuse was of the same opinion. In fact, he managed perfectly well if you didn't count a certain lack of variety in his evening meals and the fact that he was forever missing the lunch that the boys brought over from the mensa dead on twelve-thirty.

  'Should he take the van?'

  'Who?'

  'Di Nuccio. To the hospital?'

  'Yes.' Now he'd lost track of what he'd been thinking of completely. And besides, there were two things bothering him at the same time and he had assumed that the second problem nagging at him had been Cipolla. But now that Lorenzini had mentioned him he realized that it wasn't. It was something more closely connected with the piper . . .

  He leafed through the stack of notes that was the result of their questioning everyone in the area about what they had seen that morning. Almost every interview ended with 'I don't remember much except that it was snowing . . .' or words to that effect. Almost every interview— but there was somebody he wanted to go back and see. That was it. It stuck in his mind because she was the one person who, of course, hadn't mentioned the snow, hadn't even noticed it because of being stuck in 'that gloomy hole' as she put it herself, day in, day out, and that evil husband of hers never there, never] But he slept there, didn't he? The Marshal had called back a number of times and each time the woman's sobs had had a note of triumph in them.

  'You see? I'm alone all the time. I'm the one who's always here to let you in, you can testify.'

  But she hadn't let the kidnapper in, she could swear to that because, having pressed the switch, she always put her head out to see who was coming in since there wasn't a housephone. The first person she had opened up for that morning had been the postman at five past eight. It always was. And he had put the post in her hand personally as he always did. The Marshal had made a point of checking on that because although the Florentines spent a small fortune on electronic locks, bars, security doors and burglar alarms they quite often pressed the switches and opened up the lot to anybody with the wit to ring the bell and call ' Telegramme!' The thief, having got past ninety per cent of the gates and gadgets blocking his way, would break into one of the flats in the building. Not the one whose bell he had rung, of course.

  The Marshal stood up. If that wretched woman's husband wasn't there today, he would search the city until he found him, however slight the hope that he might know something. The woman was more concerned with gathering evidence for her divorce than with the truth, and she was determined to browbeat everyone into believing her. He buttoned up his black jacket and slid a hand into the top pocket for his sunglasses, calling up the stairs to where Lorenzini's typewriter was clacking rapidly:

  'I'm going out!'

  No. 3 was directly opposite the palace, only a minute away, but he was stopped twice by tourists whose thick German accents he couldn't begin to understand, and then by having to settle a violent argument between two drivers who had managed to crash while manoeuvering their cars out of their parking spaces. He eventually gave this one up and left them both threatening the car park attendant, but it took him half an hour to cross the street and ring the bell at No. 3.

  Just as she had said, the porter's wife opened up the main door and the inner gate from her room and then poked her head out. Her door was set back so that she didn't see him until the was past the cars in the centre of the courtyard. He gave her no time to start crying.

  'I want to speak to your husband. And if he's out—' she
was reaching for the handkerchief in her apron pocket—'I want to know where he is. If he really has got another job, as you say, I want to know where.'

  'Do you think he'd tell me? He hasn't spoken to me except in anger for nine years!'

  'Then how are you going to prove in court that he's breaking his contract here by working somewhere else?'

  'I know he works in a restaurant. I know that. But only from my neighbours, not from him.'

  'Which neighbours?'

  'The porter's wife at number five.'

  'You go round there talking to her?'

  'How can I? You know I'm stuck here all day.'

  The Marshal had seen them as they stood gossiping in the street at an equal distance between the two buildings f so as to keep their doors in view, but it would be a waste of time trying to get her to admit it.

  'So she comes round here for a gossip?'

  'She comes to see me.'

  'How often?'

  'Quite often. When she can.'

  'Every day?'

  'Usually when she goes shopping . . .'

  'Every morning, that is.'

  'If I had a husband like hers—even so, underneath they're all as bad. If I had my time over again—'

  'How does she know where your husband works?'

  'Because she's seen him with her own eyes! And she'll testify—she's as good as said so, unlike some who don't—'

  'If she's seen him with her own eyes she knows which restaurant it is.' Blood out of a stone! The Marshal was red in the face. They should have known all along that she was lying but everyone was in a hurry to get away from her embarrassing tears and her insistence on their testifying to this and that.

  'It's somewhere in Piazza Signoria ...'

  The Marshal opened his mouth and shut it again. There weren't that many restaurants in Piazza della Signoria. It was quicker to go and ask there. He banged his hat on and stumped off through the courtyard, muttering, 'I'll give her testify . . .'

  It turned out to be the restaurant nearest to the Palazzo Vecchio. There was only one couple lingering over coffee and cigarettes. All the other tables had been cleared and had clean white cloths on them. The head waiter was putting his coat on. The Marshal found his man sweeping up in the kitchen. He was as surly and unprepossessing as his wife and about half her size. To avoid losing his temper the Marshal said it himself along with his first question: 'It was the morning that it snowed . . .'He was prepared for a battle if the porter turned out to be as difficult a customer as his wife. He needn't have worried.

  'I remember. Yes, I did open the door for somebody when I was leaving for work. It's unusual for anybody to ring at that time. I thought perhaps it was the postman come early. My wife was in the bathroom.'

  'Who was it?'

  'I've no idea. Nobody came in so perhaps it was a mistake. I was going out anyway and I was a bit surprised to find nobody there.'

  'You didn't do anything about it?'

  'What should I have done if there was nobody there? To tell you the truth, I thought it was probably one of those Sardinian beggars with their bagpipes. There was one of them on the other side of the street. I wouldn't have opened up if I'd known; they're a thieving bunch and they usually work in pairs. I thought it was probably the other one who had rung, on the cadge.'

  'But you never actually saw the other one?'

  'No, I told you. There was nobody there when I came out.'

  'What time was it?'

  'Eight o'clock.'

  'How long after pressing the door switch did you come outside?'

  'A few minutes. I don't know. The time it took to put my coat on and pick up my keys and stuff.'

  As simple as that. And he, too, had remarked on the one piper. The Marshal decided it was time to pay a visit to Headquarters. Before he left he asked: 'What's your full name?'

  'Bertelli, Sergio.'

  'I'll need a written statement from you later. If you didn't think of mentioning this caller to your wife, didn't it even occur to you to mention it to us when you heard what had happened?'

  'Nothing happened that I know of. Why should I have told you?'

  'You don't know that a tenant from your building was kidnapped that morning and that the evidence you've just given could be vital?'

  'I don't know anything of the sort.'

  There was no point in asking if his wife hadn't told him if they never spoke.

  'Don't you read the papers?'

  'Only the sports page.'

  'And you didn't even notice that a tenant from the first floor is missing?'

  'I know nothing about the tenants. That's my wife's job.'

  '"I am not in the least racist. I don't object to these people on grounds of race and I don't believe that any other Florentine does either. All we ask of anyone coming to live in a civilized city is that they accept the code of behaviour of civilized, decent people" etcetera, etcetera . . . The ones that start off with "I'm not racist but" are always the most racially prejudiced.'

  'True.' The Substitute flipped open the latest of the pile of newspapers on the Captain's desk. 'Another three letters . . . But the editor declares the correspondence closed. So much the better.'

  The polemic in the newspapers had begun not over the kidnapping but over a fight that had broken out a few days previously in a bar much frequented by the young Sardinians who hung around the city and by the city gangs who sold them drugs. No one knew what the quarrel had been about and no one cared. In recent months the residents of the area around the bar had been complaining almost nightly to the police about the noise that went on until the small hours and about the hypodermics left strewn around the piazza, a serious health hazard to the children who played there during the day. The fight, in which one Sardinian had slit another's throat from ear to ear without succeeding in killing him, had been the last straw and had resulted in an unprecedented outburst of anti-Sardinian feeling that involved not just the affected area but the whole city. The 'Sardinian problem' became the chief subject of conversation in every bar, drawing-room and noble palace in the city.

  What I say is, if they want to live here they should live like us, not sleep outside on that mountain like animals.

  I never realized there were any that near, I thought they were all in the Mugello region . . .

  I remember when my husband was alive and we had a Sardinian couple with some unpronounceable name and it took me three months to teach her to make tea properly. I don't think she ever let the water boil.

  I had an aunt who rented afield to a shepherd. The one who left me that brooch you always liked. So simpatico, / thought. I was only about ten. He used to pay with cheese . . .

  Lorenzo was in Sardinia last month. He wanted to see Gari-baldi's house. He gets so easily depressed that I'm happy if anything will distract him.

  You should suggest he visit Portugal. Italy wouldn 't have any of the problems she has if the King were still here.

  Few people mentioned the kidnapping. There had been nothing about it on the television news since the day the car was found.

  'Who's the man they arrested for the throat-slitting?' The Substitute lit a cigar and began to fold the newspaper neatly and rapidly.

  'Garau. A regular customer of ours. Very shifty.'

  'He's not on your list of suspects?'

  'Frankly, apart from Antonio Demontis, the terrible brother, who's being watched, we don't have any real suspects—though I'd very much like to know where Piladu's son and Scano's boy have got to. There's a young plain-clothes man working on it but he has to go slowly. He's infiltrated the group and is buying regular small doses but he can't start asking questions too soon.'

  'Is it the same bar?'

  'As the stabbing? Yes, but they all go there.'

  'Not much chance of finding out what that fight was about?'

  'None whatever. And still nothing from the Consulate. No contact.'

  'Do you think she's dead?'

  'Not yet . . .'

/>   'What about the Nilsen girl?'

  'If anything, she's more nervous since she came out of hospital. Probably she feels more at risk. It's not easy to take up your life again when it's been so brutally interrupted. She's still in regular contact with Sub-lieutenant Bacci and I have every hope that he'll gain her confidence.'

  After considering this aspect of the case for some moments the Substitute remarked: 'You chose your man well.'

  'Yes. His English is excellent and he's very conscientious.'

  The Substitute hid the faintest of smiles by drawing very deliberately on his cigar.

  The Adjutant knocked and came in.

  'Sub-lieutenant Bacci to see you, sir.'

  'Send him in.'

  As Bacci emerged through the blue fog that had collected near the door it occurred to the Captain that if Fusarri had been the normal sort of Substitute he would have had to go and report to him at his office, leaving his own smoke-free. But by this time the Captain had grown used to living in a blue haze. He motioned the young officer to sit down.

  'You have something for me?'

  'Yes. I've had to piece it together over the last three days. The information only came out bit by bit since she's still not easy in her mind about talking to us. I suppose she's afraid of anything happening to her friend as a result. I'm not even sure if what I've managed to get will be all that useful . . .'

  'Go on.'

  'Well, they were blindfolded before they got out of their own car that morning, as you know. Even so, I thought it was worth persisting, trying to get her to remember noises, smells, anything that would give us a clue to where they were taken. It seems that when they were made to lie down in the back of the truck and their hands were tied behind them, Katrine remembers there being rags underneath her. Some of them smelt of oil or grease of a kind she didn't recognize. I gave her a few samples from the labs without telling her what they were and she picked out gun oil as being the nearest. It was almost sure to be, of course, out in the country and at this time of year. Almost everyone hunts. But there were also some other rags, a sort of muslin, she thought, very soft but with stiff patches and it stank of bad meat. So much so that she remembers trying to wriggle her face away from it without success. I still thought it meant the truck was used for hunting but I asked the labs to check her clothing just in case. They had already found what I was looking for, traces of gun oil, some brown dog hairs and minute traces of dead flesh.'