The Marshal Makes His Report Read online

  The Marshal Makes His Report

  Also by Magdalen Nabb

  Vita Nuova

  The Innocent

  Property of Blood

  Some Bitter Taste

  The Monster of Florence

  The Marshal at the Villa Torrini

  The Marshal’s Own Case

  The Marshal and the Madwoman

  The Marshal and the Murderer

  Death in Autumn

  Death in Springtime

  Death of a Dutchman

  Death of an Englishman

  with Paolo Vagheggi

  The Prosecutor

  The Marshal Makes His Report

  * * *

  Magdalen Nabb

  Copyright © 1990 by Magdalen Nabb and

  © 1994 by Diogenes Verlag AG Zurich

  This edition published by

  Soho Press, Inc.

  853 Broadway

  New York, NY 10003

  All rights reserved.

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

  Nabb, Magdalen, 1947–2007.

  The marshal makes his report / Magdalen Nabb.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-56947-532-4 (pbk.)

  1. Guarnaccia, Marshal (Fictitious character)—Fiction.

  2. Police—Italy—Florence—Fiction. 3. Florence (Italy)—Fiction.

  I. Title.

  PR6064.A18M33 2008

  823'.914—dc22

  2008018089

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  The Marshal Makes His Report

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  One

  The Marshal’s memory of the scene that night remained vivid in every detail. And yet, there was something about it that made it seem more like the memory of a spectacular film or the climax of a stage play, so that it crossed his mind even at the time that it didn’t look real. Maybe distance had something to do with it, because the tower, when he at last reached the top of it, gasping for breath, was so very high and the figures acting out the drama below in the courtyard looked so tiny.

  The Florentine night was hot and the sky velvety with a big bright moon. It was just possible to make out that there was a light on down there in the huge iron lantern that marked the entrance to the courtyard, but the bulb was so weak that if it hadn’t been for the moonlight he would hardly have been able to distinguish the colonnade and the well in the centre. The body was lying face down near the well and he could see the dark shape of the woman kneeling over it. Everything was silent. Other dark figures were closing in, emerging from the deeper gloom of the colonnade and moving hesitantly towards the central tableau, but before any of them reached it they paused and settled more or less in a circle. A torch was switched on but went off almost at once. No one disturbed the kneeling woman who was as still as the body. She might have been a mother watching over a child’s sleep, afraid that any movement might wake it. No voices reached the Marshal at that height. The tableau held its stillness for what seemed like an unnatural length of time until the ambulance men attempted to get to the centre, with a white rectangle between them. The circle of heads widened and separated.

  The Marshal’s big hands clutched the warm stone parapet and he leaned further over. His body was tense, waiting for the woman to break down. She surely must, now, and it would bring a sort of relief to him, too. He saw the white rectangle placed on the ground and one of the black figures bend over her. He saw her head go back, the face turned up towards him as though to accuse him, though she couldn’t have seen him. He felt the wail of pent-up grief leave her body but he never heard it, because right then the first of the fireworks went off, drawing a glittering red fountain on the black sky and exploding in soft hissing blobs that fell down towards the rooftops in slow motion. For a few seconds all the roofs and towers of Florence appeared in a warm glow, a flash of pink river snaking between them, and the crowd along the embankment roared and clapped its approval. Then it was dark again and a cloud of rosy smoke obscured the moon. The Marshal was dazzled and distracted, hearing only his own heavy breathing, and feeling the smooth warm stone beneath his hands.

  His memory of getting his great bulk down all those hundreds of stairs was vaguer. He remembered only that the staircase was so narrow that he frequently bumped his right shoulder against the rough wall and that the worn steps were treacherous in the gloom. He went slowly, not wanting to catch up with the uneven thump and shuffle of the small figure struggling down below him. That, at any rate, was his reasoning then. Now it was over he could admit, at least to himself, that he’d been in no great hurry to face the scene in the courtyard. In the event, hardly anyone had noticed him. The chief public prosecutor had caught his eye for a second but he was fully occupied with the Marchesa, so he waited until she had been calmed and led away and then went quietly across the dim, hushed courtyard and out into the noisy street. There he paused to wait for a gap in the traffic and drew in a deep breath of relief as the bright lights of Gino’s and a waft of hot pizza dough welcomed him back to life and blessed normality.

  So now he sat in his office in the carabinieri station at the Palazzo Pitti, two fat fingers poised over the typewriter keys, examining his conscience. What really bothered him was that when he’d come to his own conclusions about what to put in his final report his conscience hadn’t made any objections at all. That came later when the chief public prosecutor asked him to do what he intended to do anyway. A man like that . . . well, not to put too fine a point on it, if you agreed with a man like that, you must be as bad as he was. The Marshal didn’t like the chief public prosecutor. A non-commissioned officer like himself could reasonably expect to pass his whole existence without ever so much as setting eyes on the chief public prosecutor. Even the substitute prosecutors who directed the cases he might be involved in would normally communicate directly with the Marshal’s superior officers. He typed ‘On the evening of June 24th’ and stopped. To agree with a man like that . . .

  The idea that two very different men might reach the same conclusion for two very different reasons was beyond the Marshal’s powers of reasoning. He wasn’t very good at reasoning. He wasn’t very good at writing reports either, even simple HSA reports, and this one was far from simple. What was it his wife had once said to him when they’d quarrelled over something or other and he’d said that whatever it was wasn’t right. ‘It may not be right,’ she’d said, ‘but what’s right isn’t always what’s good.’ He’d been too furious at the time to think of asking her what the devil that was supposed to mean, but he wished he had because it described the way he was feeling now.

  ‘On the evening of June 24th . . .’

  ‘Oof!’ He yanked the page out of the typewriter and crumpled it with one big hand. His large, slightly bulging eyes stared at the map of his Quarter pinned on the opposite wall. The sun was shining in on it. He was hot. He was hungry, too. A phrase came into his head: ‘Whoso foregathers with great people is the last at table and the fast at the gallows.’ That young Englishman had said it, or read it. True enough, too. He felt again the Marchesa Ulderighi’s beautiful eyes turned on him that first time, making him feel like some sub-human creature who was soiling the air she breathed. The memory made him squirm and he got up, irritated with himself for such weakness, and began plodding about the room. As he plodded he periodically bumped into the
rubber plant his wife had bought him and placed right in front of the window just where he liked to stand and stare out. Grunting a little, because the pot was heavy and he was more than a bit overweight himself, he pushed the thing to one side and opened the window. The warm air came in from the Boboli Gardens, carrying with it a strong savour of tomato sauce with garlic and basil, the clink of cutlery and the signature tune of the lunch-time news. The lads were up in the barracks kitchen eating and he hadn’t noticed the time! With a sigh of relief he shut the window and abandoned his office. A good lunch, a rest, and a chat with Teresa and the boys in his own quarters and then he’d start all over again, right from the beginning.

  It began, at least for the Marshal, on the second Sunday in June and with the first round of the football tournament. That wretched football business could be said to be at the root of the whole affair, that and the Marchesa Ulderighi’s bright freezing eyes. Not that the Marshal had anything against football, real football that is, in which he took a vaguely benevolent interest and in front of which he dozed and woke alternately in his armchair in front of the television on Wednesday nights. But this Florentine version was something else. He’d never forget the first time he saw it, more than fifteen years ago, it must have been. He’d enjoyed the procession through the city. Halberdiers and guildsmen and so on in their medieval costumes under the brilliant sunshine, the drummers and the flag-throwers and the restive horses constrained by the narrow streets and the crowds. Picturesque, he thought, a nice show for the tourists who sat peaceably licking melting ice-creams on the stands around the sand-covered city square. They and the Marshal too were diverted by the prize, a white cow with gilded horns, looking a bit dazed as it was led into the arena among the flying silk flags and rattling drums.

  It was only when the fancy dress brigade had cleared off and left the field to the players that the Marshal began to have vague doubts. They were in fancy dress too, but the slashed sleeves and knee-breeches and long, coloured socks did nothing to soften the impression made by their bull necks and murderous expressions. The Marshal, being on duty that first time, was right on the edge of the pitch and the tension, the threatening language and certain gestures were not lost on him. The tourists, placed at a safe distance in the expensive seating behind the city nobility and the mayor, were still licking their ice-creams and chatting. But in the other stands where the local supporters were sitting, waves of unrest were building up. The Marshal looked about him uneasily as some announcements were read over a loudspeaker in various languages. Nobody else seemed to look worried. The supporters, after all, were throwing nothing more lethal than dyed carnations, flying dark silhouettes criss-crossing against the blue midsummer sky and settling in a pattern of the teams’ colours on the sandy pitch.

  Near the Marshal stood the Master of the Games, decoratively dressed in a cloak and hat of black velvet and wearing a sword which he clutched with his right hand, to the Marshal’s amusement, as though about to draw it for a fight. That was his last thought before a cannon shot boomed and echoed round the square. He just had time to notice the ball fly upwards in one direction when the bulk of the players rolled itself into one struggling mass moving the opposite way and a desperate fight broke out. The local crowd stood up, roaring. The Marshal’s mouth fell open and he gazed about him. Shouldn’t he intervene? Good God! Somebody should intervene. Hadn’t he seen a referee? There was a referee. After a while he emerged from between the legs of the fighting mass, got to his feet and started yanking at the shirt of one of the more vicious fighters. At first he was ignored but then the huge player noticed this irritating attack from behind, turned round, picked up the referee and tossed him over the paling that bounded the pitch. The roaring increased. The Marshal heard a metallic swish beside him. The Master of the Games strode forward, almost at a run, his black cloak flying and his drawn sword raised. The sword was not decorative. Within seconds order was restored. When the tangled mass of men was separated and the point was argued out it appeared that one particular player had been the designated victim, the biggest and most ferocious man on his team. The idea had been to eliminate him as early on as possible. Now he stood, red-jowled, sweated, and howling in fury. The remains of his T-shirt hung in ribbons around this slashed breeches. His nose and the side of his head were bleeding. Somebody had bitten his ear off but the real cause of his fury was that he was being sent off as injured. He disdained the stretcher that was brought and managed to get in a good right hook at one of the enemy before being dragged away. A search was instituted for the ear but the Marshal never knew whether it was successful because the cannon boomed and play was resumed; the Marshal lifted his sunglasses and mopped his sweating face. For the rest of the match he contented himself with occasionally murmuring ‘Good God . . .’ and keeping an eye on the reassuring figure of the swordsman beside him.

  After so many years, of course, he’d got used to it all and had learned to distinguish the four teams sent by the four Quarters of the city, only two of which were really dangerous on the field. One of those, unfortunately, was the white team of his own Quarter. Unfortunately, because his own two little boys, when they and his wife at last moved up from Sicily to join him in Florence, became instant supporters of the Whites along with their schoolmates from the Quarter and expected that in his position he should produce tickets for the match. His feeble attempts to claim that the only tickets he could get were for the play-off between the Greens and the Reds met with disgusted howls of ‘Oh, Dad!’ He had allowed himself to be bullied into producing tickets for the match between the Whites and the Greens which should turn out to prove fairly innocuous. Anything to avoid the inevitable final battle between Whites and Blues, a floodlit and terrifying spectacle on the night of San Giovanni, the patron saint of the city. The night of June 24th.

  So it was that on the second Sunday in June as he pushed his bulky dark-uniformed figure through the crowds on the narrow pavement of Via Ulderighi, the only thing really worrying him was the fact that the boys would be at the match with their mates, that and the burning afternoon sun which was making his sensitive eyes stream a bit despite his dark glasses. Every now and then he was obliged to fish for his handkerchief and pause, jostled on all sides, to try and dab them dry without actually removing his sunglasses. He could hear drums behind him thundering out a tattoo that echoed between the high eaves of the buildings. The procession was on its way. He’d had to spare quite a few lads from his station for duty at the match but he had no reason for going there himself other than wanting to keep an eye out for the boys. Even so, he had to admit, as the grey horse leading the cortège came level with him, that despite his disapproval of the violence of the tournament he did rather enjoy the pageantry. The drums and trumpets and the shining silk nags spinning upwards in the narrow streets towards a strip of blue sky made Florence look as it ought to look, and the people leaning out to watch from high windows between the bunting made a cheerful atmosphere that was infectious.

  His cheerfulness was short-lived. He had paused for a moment, distracted by the antics of the grey horse which was getting too excited for comfort. It was snorting and trying to throw up its head and a lather of sweat was forming on its neck and shoulders. The cloaked nobleman in the saddle maintained a stern and competent expression but, in the Marshal’s opinion, his stern rigidity was impressing the crowd but not the horse which was trying to break into a trot and sidled towards the crowd when prevented. People were pressing back on the Marshal. He felt someone tug sharply at his sleeve.

  ‘Here! Marshal!’

  He turned. A very tall man was standing directly behind him, intent on photographing the antics of the grey horse.

  ‘This way. Quick!’

  ‘Who the devil . . . ?’

  A woman tapped his arm and pointed to a pair of gigantic studded doors surrounded by scaffolding, one of which was open just a crack.

  ‘He went in there.’

  An odd little face peered out and a hand beckone
d impatiently, then vanished.

  Puzzled, the Marshal went nearer to the great doors and peered into the gloom beyond. He could see nothing. He took off his sunglasses, pushed on the door and went in. He had hardly stepped inside when the door boomed shut and a small figure dodged out from behind him.

  ‘This way.’ He unlocked high wrought-iron gates. They were in a large colonnaded courtyard in the centre of which was a stone well. It was cold and dark after the brightness and heat of the street and the noise of the procession barely penetrated. Instead, he could hear faint music coming from somewhere above. The Marshal followed the agitated little figure that ran before him and came back to urge him on, the way dogs sometimes do. Now he was waiting by a door under the colonnade on the right. The Marshal reached him and said, ‘Well?’

  The man was a dwarf and barely reached the Marshal’s waist, but to judge by his face he was well past forty. He was fishing for a key now in the pocket of his black overall.

  ‘I locked the door. Well, you never know. Not that he’ll be going anywhere!’

  The Marshal waited in silence. He could already sense that something very serious was afoot and he couldn’t reconcile this feeling with the dwarf’s attitude. So he just waited.

  The dwarf unlocked the door and went in with the Marshal following him. It was a gun room, quite small and windowless. A light was burning. Apart from the rifle rack and a cupboard, there was nothing but a table and a leather chair in the room. Nothing, except the man lying dead on the floor.

  ‘Who is he?’ The Marshal’s big eyes were taking in every detail of the room and the body.

  ‘Gaffer. The boss, or so he liked to think. Now he knows better. More of what they call a Prince Consort. Know what I mean?’

  ‘No.’ The Marshal bent to look at the dead man more closely. He had been shot at point blank range close to his throat. Or more likely he’d shot himself. He was lying on his back and a rifle lay across his chest. He wore a silk dressing-gown over evening clothes and there was a dark patch on one side of his face.