The Marshal at the Villa Torrini Page 13

  'Caffellatte all right?'

  'That would be nice.' He watched her making it, feeling completely at ease as though he'd known her for years. Perhaps that was because she was so at ease with herself. She was as tall as the Marshal, and very relaxed and sure in her movements. Her light brown hair was going grey and she had very deep blue eyes. She didn't wear any make-up. She looked nice like that, the Marshal thought. A nice woman in every way.

  'Thank you.'

  'Sugar's on the table.' She sat down opposite him, warming her hands around her cup. 'How did you get on with Father Jameson?'

  'I liked him.'

  'He's a dear. Was he able to help you?'

  'A little. Well, a lot. Galli, the journalist, you know him?' She nodded. 'He was the one who said something must have happened between Forbes and his wife at Christmas, and that's when she went to see Father Jameson—or happened to see him. But Father Jameson pointed out that things tend to come to a head at Christmas and I think he's right about that.'

  'Did she tell him what it was?'

  'No, no . . . She said she was ashamed.'

  'Ashamed? I can't imagine Celia—Unless she was ashamed of something Julian had done. She was protective and I suppose there was her pride involved too.'

  'Yes . . . ' However comfortable he felt with her it wasn't an easy question to ask. Even so, he'd no choice but to ask it. 'He gave me to understand . . . ' He looked into the deep blue eyes for help. 'He gave me to understand that he . . .'

  Help came. 'Made an attempt on my virtue, as they say? He actually told you that?'

  'Well . . . What he told me was that he succeeded.'

  'What? You didn't believe him?'

  'I didn't believe him or disbelieve him, not knowing either of you. Galli told me it was rubbish.'

  'Yes. But it's very odd as well, isn't it? I mean—you don't think Celia killed herself, do you?'

  'No, no . . .'

  'Then you must have some suspicions about him. I have, I can promise you, and I don't imagine you'd be here if you hadn't, so why should he make things look even worse for himself than they are?'

  'I don't know. And now that I've met you I can't think how he could have taken it into his head even to try—'

  He stopped, dismayed at what must, after all, have sounded like an insult, though it wasn't. 'I don't mean—'

  'I know exactly what you mean.' She smiled at him. 'I'm not offended. I'll take it as a sort of compliment. Thank you. Poor Celia. No, you haven't understood what he was after. It wasn't sex. He never struck me as being highly sexed. It was his own ego he was interested in, not our bodies.'

  'Our?'

  'Oh yes. He didn't tell you all of it, then?'

  'You were the only one he named but he did say there were others.'

  Mary gave a grim smile. 'Well, there weren't, of course, any more than there was me, if you understand me. Oh yes, he tried it on with every single one of Celia's friends. Systematically, one after the other, and one after the other we turned him down.'

  'It was no secret, then?'

  'Certainly not. I gave him a good talking-to, sent him away with a flea in his ear. But I was sure he'd try elsewhere, so I checked. There were five I knew about. He was impotent with Celia and had been for some time and this was his way of punishing her and trying to prove we loved him as much as her, that he was as brilliant and important as her. Well, we didn't and he wasn't. It's a funny thing, isn't it? The world's full of adoring wives, proud of their husbands' success, but it doesn't seem to work the other way round.'

  'Perhaps if he'd had some success himself . . .'

  'The adoring wives don't. They just bask.'

  'They were married, were they? The name on her passport . . .'

  'Oh, yes, she went on using Carter, partly because of Jenny, partly because she was known as a writer, but she did marry him. I often think she regretted it, though she never said so. They'd lived together up till then and I've a feeling things had already gone wrong and she was trying to right them, you know how people do—like those women who get pregnant to save their marriage. Anyway, it didn't work and his trying to take her closest friends to bed was one of his ways of taking, or trying to take, what was hers. Another charming little trick of his was to be present whenever any journalist came to interview her, especially here in Florence. In London she could arrange things better. The house there is big and anyway there was always the pub and so on. But here, in that little barn, she'd have had to throw him out physically unless he discreetly disappeared of his own accord, and of course he never did.'

  'He'd sit in and listen?'

  'Listen? Not on your life! The journalist—in one case it was me doing an interview for an English colour supplement— would ask Celia some question and, before she could open her mouth, he'd answer it, and at length, talking about her work as though she weren't there, or as though . . .'

  'As though she were dead?'

  'Do you know, I think I was going to say that, though it hadn't crossed my mind. He'll be her literary executor, won't he? He'll take her royalties, re-edit her books and put his name on them . . . He'll probably even write a book about her, make himself an entire career on her poor dead bones—and he's plausible enough, you know, to anyone who doesn't really know him! Didn't you find that?'

  'Well, my first sight of him he was lying dead drunk next door to his wife's body, so . . . Does he always drink a lot?'

  Mary sipped her coffee and frowned, thinking. 'Mm. No. Not if you mean actually getting drunk. Usually he just drank what the rest of us drink, but it's funny . . . I'm trying to think . . . . those few times I've seen him drunk and he's passed out—of course I've no way of knowing whether he'd been drinking elsewhere so I can't swear to it, but I'm almost certain that he hadn't drunk much more than anyone else.'

  'You think perhaps he took something, drugs of some sort?'

  'No. I know what it was. He was frightened. I'm sure of it. It was when he was frightened. One time was after I'd had that episode with him. We were at Galli's house to supper and, if you'll believe me, he tried it on again, touching me and asking me to let him come and see me. Celia was in the room. I told him then that I intended going to see Celia and telling her and that I knew about the others. He was terrified. Dinner started, and before we got to the main course he excused himself and went to the bathroom. He never came back, and Celia eventually found him out cold on their hosts' bed. Now, you see, he couldn't have drunk that much—What is it?'

  The Marshal turned. The young girl who had thrown down the key was at the kitchen door. She said something to her mother which the Marshal didn't understand.

  'Speak Italian, please,' her mother reminded her gently, indicating the Marshal.

  'I'm sorry.' The girl offered him her hand. 'I'm Katy. Have you come about Jenny's mother?'

  'They're friends,' Mary explained, 'or at least they're at university together. Katy brought her home, you know. That's what the delay was—Katy had an exam. We didn't think Jenny should travel alone. I just wish I could have persuaded her to stay here.'

  'You should have done, Mum. I don't think she should stay with that crazy old Sissi. She'll be miserable!'

  'I couldn't force her, now could I—How many sweaters have you got on, you comic?'

  'Five!' The girl laughed at herself, pulling the largest of them down over her wool clad knees, 'And leg lag! It's freezing in my room.'

  Her mother reached up and put an arm round her. 'Oh, come and sit here with us. You can tell the Marshal about Jenny.'

  'There's not much to tell about Jenny! Mum, you didn't answer my original question, as per usual.'

  'I've forgotten what it was . . .'

  'As per usual! Shall I put the water on for pasta?'

  'Go on then.' Mary glanced at her watch. 'The boss'll be home in ten minutes. Not my husband,' she explained to the Marshal, 'he doesn't come home for lunch. The boss is my youngest—we have a seventeen-year-old son as well—Lizzy's only six
.'

  'She's Mum's mistake!' Katy heaved the big pan on to the cooker and then collapsed in giggles.

  'You shut up and sit down. It happens in the best of families.'

  Katy sat down with them, her numerous sleeves pulled down over her cold hands.

  'Mum, what are we going to do about Jenny? Shall I try and make her come out with us tonight so it'll be too late to get back and she'll have to stay over?'

  Mary looked doubtful. 'I'd wait till tomorrow. It doesn't seem right on the same day as the funeral. What do you think?'

  It was the Marshal's opinion she was asking and it pleased him. 'I'd say tomorrow. Are you good friends?'

  'Oh, you know . . . We're at the same university and our parents are friends so we have to be.'

  'You don't like her?'

  'It's not that. I feel sorry for her, I suppose. She's cleverer than me, at least I think she is, but she takes a week to write an essay when it takes me a few hours. And she never goes out, just sits thumping away at the piano.'

  'Not everybody wants to be a social butterfly like you,' Mary pointed out.

  'Social butterfly! Mum, you're so old-fashioned—anyway, I don't see why playing the piano should stop her going out, or having a boyfriend, but she never has anybody. They take her out once because she's so nice-looking but she never speaks. Honestly, I'm not kidding, she sits there like a stick for hours, answering Yes or No if you ask her anything.'

  'She doesn't confide in you, then?' The Marshal asked, his last hope fading, 'She didn't tell you about some sort of upset with her mother over Christmas?'

  'No . . . we didn't see them at Christmas, though, did we, Mum?'

  'They were meant to have Christmas dinner here,' Mary explained, 'but they cried off at the last minute.'

  'And when you went back after the holiday? You didn't notice any difference in her?' The Marshal looked from Katy to Mary, 'If her mother was in such a state . . .'

  'She did get thinner,' Katy said, thinking. 'Not that she was ever fat but she got really, really thin after Christmas. She still is. You noticed, didn't you, Mum?'

  'You're thinking of drugs, aren't you?' Mary asked the Marshal.

  'Oh, Mum!'

  'Katy, you can't always tell, just like that.'

  'You can't always tell, my generation can. Everybody knows exactly what everybody else is on!'

  'You mean you're all on something? Katy, you're not—'

  'Oh, Mum! For goodness sake! Jenny wasn't on anything except perhaps a diet. Anyway, she didn't tell me anything if there was anything to tell. Even so, I bet she was pissed off with Julian and I don't blame her. I can't stick him. Every time I see him he asks what I'm studying and then gives me a lecture on it.'

  'He's only trying to help, I suppose,' Mary said.

  'To show off, more like. I don't want him helping me. Jenny has to put up with it but I don't. She said she wouldn't have got through her A levels without him but how does she know she wouldn't? Wait a minute . . .'

  'You've remembered something about Christmas?' The Marshal looked at her hopefully.

  'Sort of—I mean, it was before Christmas. I wanted to book our tickets to come home and you have to do that really early at Christmastime to get a seat. We'd been at a lecture and everybody was leaving. She was packing her notebooks and I pushed along to where she was sitting.

  '"Listen, my money's come. I could go and book our tickets this afternoon. Are you coming with me?"

  'She just shook her head and carried on putting her stuff away.

  "'You'll have to buck up, you know, or there'll be no seats."

  'She still didn't answer. "If you haven't got the money we can use mine for a deposit on both and then when—"

  ' "I can't!"

  ' "For God's sake, Jenny, what's the difference—"

  ' "I can't. I'm not going."

  ' "Well, where are you going to go? Not that you have to tell me your business, but I can't see you going on holiday by yourself or spending Christmas alone in that great rambling house in London."

  'She didn't tell me, of course. She burst into tears—she does that sometimes if you try and make her talk. It's useless. Anyway, I didn't think of all that right away, because in the end she did come, so goodness knows what was up with her that day.'

  The Marshal sat a moment looking out at the tormented treetop outside the window. He was thoroughly warm himself now but the angry whine of the wind sent a little shiver through him at the thought of the bitter cold out there. Or at the thought . . .

  'You don't think—' it was Mary who put his half idea into words—'that he didn't want the child there because he . . . you know . . . didn't want a witness. But she came anyway and he had to put off . . .'

  'The furniture . . . ' the Marshal said, as though he hadn't heard a word. 'He changed the furniture without his wife's knowledge, though presumably with her money. There was something very wrong about that. He didn't like my knowing. And he said it was a Christmas present.'

  'You're right!' Mary said. 'There was a divan there that opened into a double bed. That's where Jenny slept up until then. That Christmas she had to stay at Sissi's like she's doing now. He didn't want her there, then. I'm right. It wasn't Celia, I'll never believe that. She adored Jenny, she was the light of her life. He didn't want her and he got rid of the only place she could sleep. No wonder she cried. If only she'd told you, Katy, then you could have brought her here.'

  'But she didn't tell me. She never tells anybody anything. She just sits there like she was modelling for a Botticelli painting and if you try and shake her out of it she cries.'

  The Marshal was dismayed. He would have to talk to the girl, but he didn't fancy his chances of success with a Botticelli painting that wept real tears. Well, it had to be faced, though he'd have preferred to spend the rest of his day in that cosy kitchen. Mary accompanied him downstairs since she had to meet the school bus at the door.

  'You must have your hands full with three children and working as a journalist as well.'

  'Oh, I gave up the full-time stuff when Lizzy was born. I write for the monthlies, so I'm not fraught with deadlines. You know, we almost nicknamed our little Elizabeth Sissi instead of Lizzy but she might have thought it cruel. She's a dear old thing, potty or not.'

  'Cruel? Wouldn't she be flattered?'

  'Ah, you don't know the background. Sissi's parents gave her that name after the Austrian Empress who was so famous for her beauty. Our poor Sissi was as ugly as sin even as a tiny child. I've seen photos of her. She shows them to you and makes out it's a fine joke her parents made at her expense. But you can't tell me she didn't suffer because of it. Our bossy little Lizzy's a beauty. It might look like rubbing it in—Here she comes!'

  A yellow minibus with a seething burden of small children inside was coming towards them. Before it came to a stop Mary looked hard at the Marshal. 'Don't answer, of course, if I shouldn't ask, but do you think he might have killed her?'

  'I've no evidence for it.' His eyes were invisible behind dark glasses. His voice was devoid of expression.

  She understood him.

  'Chopin!' Sissi managed to hiss a great deal of contempt into the word, making no further comment necessary. Nevertheless, she gave the Marshal a sharp prod with her finger and added, 'Bach!' Settling the matter. She then stumped along in front of the Marshal and Fara, so that they only got the briefest glimpse of the girl in a room to their left. Her back was to the door as she played, a back rigid as a statue's, with heavy coils of blonde hair hanging behind to her waist.

  'Relax those fingers!' roared Sissi over her shoulder. She hustled them into the bookfilled study where she had first fallen asleep, smiling at the Marshal. The piano music was still audible. Sometimes it faltered, then began again with more determination.

  'Sit down,' ordered Sissi. 'I might as well warn you, she doesn't talk much, might not talk at all to you, so don't be surprised.'

  They sat down in comfortable armchairs. Outside th
e arched window they could see the rows of cypresses, their tops thrashing frantically. It was very warm in the little room which was heated by a stove in one corner. A small glazed dish holding an apple stood on the flat surface of the stove. Sissi showed her teeth at the Marshal when she saw his puzzled glance.

  'My apple. Put it there in the morning and the heat bakes it slowly. Eat it at five. Very good.'

  'I'm sure it is.' It certainly gave a sweet and welcoming smell to the warm room. Young Fara was gazing about him at the heavy foreign-looking furniture and the hundreds of pictures and books. The Marshal remembered the package he was carrying and consigned it to Sissi.

  'Ah! Enjoyed it?'

  'Yes . . . yes, thank you for lending it to me.'

  'A prompt returner of books. Knew you would be or I wouldn't have lent it. I'll send the girl. Remember she doesn't speak much. Families!' A word that came spitting through the chipmunk teeth with a venom that left Chopin far behind. 'She'll be better off without.'

  The Marshal frowned. 'From what I understand, her mother was very much attached to her.'

  'Oh yes. Also successful, very clever. My mother was beautiful. Got out. Best thing. Listen!'

  They listened. She was playing something different now. The Marshal thought it sounded very nice, and he was impressed.

  'You see. Plays badly, very badly but she needn't. It's all a question of nerves.'

  'Well, I'm no judge . . .'

  'Phuh! I'll get her.'

  When she'd gone, Fara, with a pink-faced glance at the Marshal, got out a notebook and pen. The Marshal's face remained expressionless but there was a lot going on behind his blank eyes.

  The fact that Fara was sitting there with the Marshal, notebook at the ready, was largely thanks to Mary Mancini. In the car on the way up here, Fara had, after a lot of stuttering, asked permission to follow the case more closely.

  'I feel I can learn a lot. That is, if you . . .'

  And the Marshal, embarrassed, remembered Mary Mancini's saying he looked intelligent . . .

  And he obviously worships you.