DEATH OF A DUTCHMAN
Also by the author
DEATH OF AN ENGLISHMAN
DEATH IN AUTUMN
DEATH IN SPRINGTIME
THE MARSHAL AND THE MURDERER
THE MARSHAL AND THE MADWOMAN
THE MARSHAL'S OWN CASE
THE MARSHAL MAKES HIS REPORT
THE MARSHAL AT THE VILLA TORRINI
THE MONSTER OF FLORENCE
PROPERTY OF BLOOD
SOME BITTER TASTE
THE INNOCENT
with Paolo Vagheggi
THE PROSECUTOR
DEATH OF A DUTCHMAN
Magdalen Nabb
Copyright © 1982 by Magdelen Nabb
and 1992 by Diogenes Verlag AG Zurich
Pubished in the United States in 2007 by
Soho Press, Inc.
853 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nabb, Magdalen, 1947-
Death of a dutchman / Magdalen Nabb
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-56947-482-2 (pbk.)
1. Guarnaccia, Marshal (Fictitious character)—Fiction.
2. Police—Italy—Florence—Fiction.
3. Florence (Italy)—Fiction.
I. Title.
PR6064.A18D38 2007
823'.914—dc22
2007010145
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
DEATH OF A DUTCHMAN
CHAPTER 1
'Signora Giusti!' protested Lorenzini, holding the receiver away from his ear and throwing open his free hand in despair. Across the room, the plump, pink-faced carabiniere who had been about to roll a fresh sheet of paper in to the typewriter stopped and grinned. He could hear everything that the chattering voice on the other end of the line was saying from where he sat, and when it stopped he was still grinning.
'That's twice today and three times yesterday,' he said.
'Oi-oi-oi!' grumbled Lorenzini, replacing the receiver with a grimace. But he added, 'Poor old biddy.'
Last time she'd got him round there she had kept him for most of the morning, telling him the story of her life, interrupting herself each time he got up to leave to invent some new complaint against one or other of her neighbours. The Florentines hated her, she claimed, because she was Milanese. As she recounted the persecution she had to suffer, huge tears rolled down her face and splashed on to her tiny hands which were as thin and pale as a sparrow's legs.
'And I'm ninety-one years old!' she would wail pitifully. 'Ninety-one years old ... I'd be better off dead . . .'
'No, no, Signora, come on, now.' And each time the unfortunate young man sat down on the edge of a hard chair and tried to quiet her, off she would go again about the quarrel that had broken out over her engagement— seventy-three years ago but it seemed like yesterday! — and the tiny hands would gesticulate happily, the moist eyes glitter with malicious delight at having recaptured her victim.
'Do you want me to go?' the pink-faced carabiniere asked, starting to get up.
'I don't think you'd better, you'd never cope. I'll tell the Marshal — is he still downstairs?'
'Yes ... at least, he was still struggling with that American couple when I came up.'
Lorenzini rolled down his sleeves and reached for his khaki hat.
'I'll have to go round there, I suppose . . .' He glanced at his watch. 'It's going on for twelve, anyway. I'll take the van and pick up the lunches. Ciao, Ciccio.'
Ciccio's real name was Claut, Gino Claut, but in Florence nobody ever called him by his real name, perhaps because it sounded German. He had dozens of nicknames: Gigi, Ciccio, for his plumpness, Polenta—either because he came from the north or because his cropped yellow hair was the colour of polenta, the maize flour they eat up there—and Pinocchio, for no particular reason, although his shiny, smiling face and slow movements were a bit puppet-like. His uniform never seemed to encompass all of him no matter how he adjusted it, and a corner of his shirt collar was usually sticking up awkwardly against his pink chin. He had enlisted with his brother who was a year older and looked just like him except for being a bit taller and slimmer, and together they were known as "the boys from Pordenone", always with an accompanying smile. In fact, they didn't come from Pordenone itself but from a tiny village twenty kilometres to the north, right at the foot of the Dolomites. Gino liked all his nicknames. His smile got wider and his face pinker the more the other lads teased him. He smiled now as Lorenzini clattered down the stairs. Lorenzini always clattered everywhere, always in a rush. Then a look of wide-eyed concentration settled on his face as he stuck his tongue out at one corner of his mouth and began to type slowly with two stubby fingers.
Downstairs, in the small front office, Marshal Guarnaccia's broad expanse of back entirely blocked the grille through which the Americans were making their complaint. A patch of sweat had soaked through his khaki shirt between the shoulders, and every now and then he stopped to run a handkerchief round his neck. First he'd had to explain to them, in sign language and Italian words of one syllable to which they made no effort to listen, that they must go to a tobacconist and buy a sheet of carta bollata, the government stamped paper on which all official communications have to be written. When they finally got back with it, sweating and furious after having quarrelled with three bar owners who didn't have a stamp and tobacco licence, he'd had to write it out for them, laboriously eliciting each morsel of information by more sign language. Now, an hour later, they had reached the description of the stolen Instamatic camera, only to announce that it had been stolen the day before in Pisa. The Marshal, red in the face, put his pen down and turned away, glad to be interrupted by Lorenzini.
'What is it?'
'Signora Giusti, Marshal.'
'Again?'
But it was always like that; sometimes -they heard nothing from her for six or seven months, then the calls would start coming in every day. Once she had telephoned six times in one day, and always with a plausible story. Nevertheless, if once they failed to check and then something happened to her, the newspapers would have a field day; "Ninety-one-year-old woman dies alone after SOS call ignored."
'Shall I go round there?'
'You'd better, I suppose—no, wait. You can speak a bit of English, can't you?'
'A bit. Not properly, but enough to deal with them . . .'
'In that case, try and explain to them that they should have denounced the theft in Pisa. They've had me pinned here all morning and I still haven't checked the hotels. I'll call on Signora Giusti myself on the way back . . .'
He buttoned himself into his jacket hurriedly and took his hat from the hook as he went out the door. He was a little ashamed at leaving the lad to cope—they would be furious now at having been palmed off with a subordinate— still, if he knew a few words of English, that might help to quiet them. But when he paused under the big iron lamp of the stone archway to put on his sunglasses he could hear the American's voice clearly:
'Because we were just there for the day! Why should we use up the bit of time we had there! We're staying right here just across the way—listen, I can't see why you should waste our whole morning like this!' And all the time the woman's voice lamenting uncertainly in the background, 'Maybe I did leave it on the bus, after all. . .'
Even without understanding a word the Marshal shook his head at the hopeles
sness of it all.
It was July, and the sloping forecourt in front of the Pitti Palace was filled with brightly-coloured coaches, the hot air shimmering above them. To make your way down among them would bring your blood to boiling point. The Marshal walked across in front of the palace where the postcard-sellers had their stalls and a man with a cart sold ice-cream that began to melt sloppily before the customer had even paid for it. He saw two Japanese girls walking away from the ice-cream man, licking their cones and talking rapidly, and paused to tap one of them on the shoulder. They both turned to stare up at the fat military man in black glasses who silently handed them the guide book they had left on the edge of the cart.
No doubt, he thought uncharitably as he went on his way, they'd have decided it was stolen and gone to Milan to denounce it.
He made his way down the slope at the far end of the forecourt where the high stone wall offered a little shade, and crossed the narrow road, threading his way through a stationary queue of cars. Some of the drivers were hooting and groaning in a desultory manner but it was too stickily hot for them to bother getting out to argue.
The Marshal walked slowly from hotel to hotel, his hands dangling at a distance from his body like the overweight hero of a Western, glancing unobtrusively into each parked car he passed, glancing for a split second longer into those that didn't have Florentine number plates. Every day except Thursday, which was his day off, he checked the blue police registers of every hotel and pensione in his district against a list of wanted terrorists supplied to all the police forces by Digos, the secret police. He wasn't obliged to do it, and he knew well enough that terrorist operations were conducted from private houses, but he did it just the same. Sometimes it got results because if it was just a case of a meeting or a long journey they did use hotels, and if they used the ones in his quarter the Marshal wanted to be the first to know about it. It wasn't a personal vendetta but he had his own private reasons. Terrorism was to him a middle-class phenomenon which he didn't consider himself competent to understand. He understood people who were just trying to keep their heads above water and who resorted to thieving and prostitution to do it, and those who gave up and went begging on the Via Tornabuoni. Young ones, too, who gave up before they started. Crossing Piazza Santo Spirito to his last call before lunch, he saw two of them slumped on a bench under the dappled shade of the trees. The boy seemed to be asleep, the girl listlessly watching a trickle of dark blood roll down her forearm. A dirty hypodermic, a teaspoon and half a squeezed lemon lay on the ground beside the bench.
' 'Morning, Marshal.' The proprietor of the Pensione Giulia was downstairs at the main entrance in his shirtsleeves, watching the Marshal pick his way through the squashed fruit and pecking pigeons that surrounded the scattering of market stalls, along one side of the square.
'Nobody new since yesterday,' he added hopefully.
'I'll come up just the same,' said the Marshal blandly, quite unperturbed by the unpopularity of his little calls. The pensione was on the third floor.
'This one here—' the Marshal's plump finger pointed to the last name on the register—'wasn't here yesterday.'
'Yesterday, no . . . it's someone who was here . . . must have been a month ago . . . went off on a tour and asked me to save the same room—well, I wouldn't want to waste your time on somebody you'd already checked a month ago . . .'
'A month ago?'
'I could be wrong ... or, of course, it might have been a Thursday when you don't—'
'A Thursday?'
'I'd have to check . . .'
'Check.'
The proprietor was fiddling nervously through the register when a door behind him opened and a jaunty little man in a crumpled blue linen suit came out. He stopped dead when he saw the visitor but then sauntered forward with his hands in his pockets.
'Looking for someone, Marshal?' he chirped brightly.
The Marshal considered him for a moment and then said, 'You.'
The little man turned furiously on the proprietor.
'You cretin! You said you wouldn't let him in!'
'And you promised to stay in your room! It's not me who's a cretin!' The little man turned to the Marshal who was watching them both with expressionless, bulging eyes while telephoning to Borgo Ognissanti headquarters for a car.
'I only had six months left to do, d'you know that? Six months! I might as well have stayed inside . . .'
The Marshal said, nothing.
When the car arrived and three carabinieri thundered up the stairs, he said:
'No panic, lads. Just one harmless chap.'
They looked at the Marshal and then at the little man.
'Who is he?'
'I've no idea. Even so, he says he's still got six months of a sentence to serve, and he doesn't seem to have signed the register.'
'Come on, come on!'
The little man was struggling and swearing violently as they tried to remove him.
'What the devil's the matter with you? Let's go!'
'He's annoyed,' the Marshal said, 'about having told me. He seemed to think I knew who he was.'
'All egoists,' one of the lads remarked as they finally got their man out the door.
'Yes,' sighed the Marshal, considering his little trick rather ashamedly, 'I suppose we are.'
Then he turned, leaned heavily with his big fists on the reception desk and stared so long and so hard at the proprietor that his great eyes seemed about to bulge right out of his head.
'You were saying? This person booked in a month ago?'
'Last night,' the proprietor corrected himself, much subdued.
'Nothing to do with our escapee friend, I take it?'
'No, no. Just a tourist. I just didn't want you to come up . . .'
'Of course you didn't. But one of these days—' the Marshal looked up and wagged a finger—'you'll be shouting for help and then you'll expect me to come running.'
His finger went back to the new registration.
'British passport . . . why haven't you recorded the date of issue?'
'Haven't I? I must have forgotten . . .'
'Was it out of date?' The Marshal was leaning towards him so that they were almost nose to nose.
'No, of'course not. I expect I've jotted it down somewhere . . .'
'In that case you'll find it for when I call tomorrow.'
The Marshal copied the name Simmons and the passport number into his notebook to remind himself.
'One of these days . . .' he warned the proprietor again.
'It was only for a night, Marshal. No harm done.'
Out in the piazza the market traders were packing up amid a strong scent of basil and big ripe tomatoes, the smell of summer. There were only a few stalls because it was Monday morning. The artisans' workshops were closed for the same reason and only the bar, with its white-painted iron tables outside, was open and busy with the tourists.
The rest of the piazza was rapidly emptying, and new smells were starting to filter out between the slats of the brown persian shutters, all closed now against the midday sun; smells of roasting meat, garlic, herbs and frying olive oil. The Marshal noticed he was hungry. The last stall in the line still had one tray on the end of it with a dozen or so huge, furry peaches packed in fresh grass.
'One thousand five a kilo,' said the stall-holder in the large green apron, catching his glance and reaching for a brown paper bag. 'Here you are, two thousand the lot, and let's get home to our dinners!'
The Marshal fished two thousand-lire notes out of his top pocket. The lads could share them with him after lunch.
He left the piazza at the end near the church, and crossed Via Maggio. The road was already empty and the shops closed; it must be after one. He glanced at his watch: ten past. Then he remembered Signora Giusti, and paused. He could smell the peaches, cool and heavy in their brown bag. He was thirsty, tired and hot, and his meal, collected from the mensa by Lorenzini, would be spoiling. The street was silent except for oc
casional muffled sounds of crockery and women's voices. A narrow strip of blue sky ran overhead between the dark eaves. He thought of the tiny old lady in her flat, sitting alone, waiting . . . and he turned back.
She lived on the top floor in the corner by the church. There was a goldsmith's workshop in the ground floor left, and on the right was a tiny place, hardly more than a hole in the wall, that sold flowers. Both had their metal shutters down. He rang the top bell and stepped back on to litter-strewn cobbles, expecting a face to appear at the window since there was no housephone. But the door opened immediately; she must have been waiting beside the switch. Inside, on the left, was a door with a frosted glass panel in it and a brass plate beside it saying 'Giuseppe Pratesi, Goldsmith and Jeweller.' The flower-seller's tiny den was entered directly from the piazza. Nevertheless, the scent of flowers mingled with the smell of metal filings and gas burners as the Marshal began to climb slowly up the gloomy staircase, having looked in vain for a lift. A thin rope, worn smooth by many hands, served as a banister; it was looped through black iron protruberances set into the pitted walls at each turn in the staircase. Each floor had two brown-varnished doors with big brass doorknobs.
She was waiting for him inside her doorway, and she began to cry as soon as he came into view, hat in hand, on the last flight. He was too out of breath to speak and made no effort to interrupt her first tirade as he followed her inside.
'And it's hours since I telephoned, but nobody listens to an old woman—I could be robbed of what few scraps I have left in this world—but that witch won't get me out! They don't know what it's like to be old and defenceless . . .'
He almost had to run to keep up with her because the straight-backed chair on castors, which was supposed to help her to walk, careered madly along the tiled corridor with her tiny figure tottering after it, chattering and wailing as it went. The flat was long and narrow, all the main rooms opening off the left side of the passage. The bedroom door was always open to reveal the scanty furniture inside it, but all the other big rooms, the Marshal knew from Lorenzini, were bare. Over the years she'd had to sell her good old furniture bit by bit. They came to rest in the kitchen at the end of the passage.
Death of a Dutchman Page 1
