The Marshal at the Villa Torrini Page 15

  But Fara, despite his timidity, insisted. 'I know he hit the bollard but he was going too fast, and it was a big bike, I don't think he knew how to control it. He was hysterical—'

  'He was also,' interrupted the Marshal gently, 'on the Ponte Vecchio on a motorbike, having got there by going along a one-way street the wrong way.'

  'I know, but . . . I mean, everybody does that sometimes. The streets were empty—I don't mean I do it—'

  I didn't think you did,' the Marshal said. 'I take your point. In that case what do you think he was so hysterical about?'

  When the boy hesitated he said, 'Come on. You were there and you have your own idea about this, don't you? Let's hear it.'

  'I think . . . I think he was hysterical because he was scared.'

  'Of being stopped by the Municipal Police?'

  'Well, he perhaps had no documents—and who knows if the motorbike was his? We never saw it up at the villa and, anyway, it was brand new, only—we've got his passport and he can't leave, so maybe it's getting to him. Showing off that girl in II Caffé like he was doing, it's not normal just after the funeral. I think he's doing it on purpose because he's frightened. He must know you suspect him and he's trying to pretend he doesn't care, but he's so hysterical it comes out all wrong . . .'

  Fara tailed off because he could see the Marshal wasn't really listening. 'Shall I go and type my report?'

  'No, no . . . ' The Prosecutor had said that time on the phone, 'You'll probably frighten him to death.' And then Mary Mancini had said that when Forbes was frightened, a couple of drinks . . . Even so, it wasn't true. It might well be true that Forbes was frightened, but why now? When they had let him bury his wife he ought to have been less frightened. The autopsy hadn't worried him but, apparently, the funeral had sent him into hysterics.

  'I'm probably talking rubbish. I just thought—'

  'No, no . . . You're not talking rubbish at all. It's quite possible that he does feel threatened, but not by me. Not by me. I wonder . . .'

  He had been going to say that another chat to Forbes might be in order, when a commotion in the waiting-room saved him the trouble.

  'It's him!' Fara got to his feet. 'He'd better not see me, had he? I mean . . .'

  'Don't worry about it. Just go to the duty room.'

  Lorenzini knocked and looked in with his eyebrows raised in question. 'Forbes . . .'

  'Let him in.' There was hardly the time or the need to say it since Forbes was already pushing past Lorenzini, his bearded chin stabbing the air arrogantly, but his eyes not quite meeting those of the Marshal who gazed at him blandly.

  Lorenzini nodded towards the girl Forbes was towing behind him. 'I suggested the young lady stay in the waiting-room . . .'

  'She's with me!' The girl was holding three Gucci carrier bags. At a look from the Marshal she seemed only too glad to scuttle out behind Lorenzini, the look on her face suggesting that there was more to this than she had been told.

  'Take a seat,' offered the Marshal mildly.

  'I'm not here to sit and chat, I'm here for my passport. I have business to transact in England, lawyers to see. The British consul—'

  'Sit down. Or be shown out.'

  He sat. He was shaking visibly. A bruise was developing round a cut on his temple.

  'That girl,' the Marshal said, 'looks very young.'

  'She's over eighteen, if that's what you mean. She's an American student studying history of art. I'm giving her a few pointers.'

  'Really.'

  'Yes, really. These girls arrive here with no background knowledge at all. They can't be expected to find their way about in the maze of Florentine history.'

  'She seems to have found her way to Gucci.'

  Forbes tried to sit back in the leather chair and cross one leg over the other. He was so tense he almost found it impossible.

  'I took her there, too, if it interests you. I can afford it— though I fail to see what my sex life has to do with you.'

  'I didn't know that was what we were talking about. I beg your pardon.'

  'Look, I'm here because I need my passport!'

  'I'm afraid I don't have it. It's in the office of the Public Prosecutor who will return it to you in due course.'

  'Now listen here, I intend to go straight to the British Consulate when I leave this office, and you're going to find—'

  'Excuse me.' The Marshal picked up his phone which had rung twice. 'Put him on. Guarnaccia.' The Marshal listened in silence for some time, frowning, his gaze fixed on Forbes's shaking knee. Then he said, 'Can I ask you to hold the line a moment?'

  He rang for Lorenzini, who must have been keeping an eye on the girl in the waiting-room because his head came round the door immediately.

  'Marshal.'

  'Show Mr Forbes into the waiting-room, will you, until I've finished with this call?'

  'You can't keep me waiting. I'm getting on to the ambassador. I—'

  But Lorenzini was a big man, and the Marshal had already picked up the phone and turned away.

  'Captain? I'm sorry. He was here in the room with me.'

  'Really? Did you pick him up?'

  'No, no . . . it seems to be some sort of social call. He's asking for his passport, but since he can't be stupid enough to think I've got it, or that I'd give it to him if I had, I imagine he was here to show me the girl he's picked up.'

  'Girl? Whatever for? Hardly puts him in a good light.'

  'No.'

  'So why?'

  'I don't know. Last night he got himself arrested and I don't know why he did that either.'

  'Arrested? By whom?'

  'Municipal Police.' The Marshal gave him a brief account of the episode on the Ponte Vecchio.

  'Good Lord.'

  'Yes. Well, they must have let him loose first thing, probably couldn't stand any more of him. It didn't boil down to much in terms of charges, I suppose, anyway.'

  'And neither will this, I'm afraid. It's indicative that Sotheby's called the consul and got him to call me. They can't afford a scandal. They do business on trust. Besides, he didn't actually steal anything so they've just got a very irate client on their hands. A good client, too, it seems, so they're pretty livid.'

  'Even so, if the goods are still there . . .'

  'But they shouldn't be. They should be sold, and would have been if it hadn't been for Forbes.'

  'Yes, well, I'm not sure I know how these things work . . .'

  'It's simple enough; he went in there and started bidding for a batch of antique Persian carpets. He outbid everyone and they were marked down to him, but then he vanished. Never turned up to pay or take them. You can imagine that if that sort of thing happens too often the firm's reputation would hit the dust.'

  'But . . . Didn't the auctioneer have any doubts?'

  'Apparently he did. But of course he knew Forbes by sight as a member of the British community here, knew Celia Carter's highly respectable reputation and so on— and they'd bought one or two things before, nothing grand. And let's face it, knowing about her death—'

  'They were counting on his having inherited.'

  'I'm afraid so. The god Mammon plays nasty tricks on his worshippers.'

  The Marshal thought, privately, that it rather served them right. Without being able to define quite why, he found their reasoning in some way offensive to the dead woman.

  'What do they want us to do?'

  'Keep him out of their saleroom but not take any official action that would get the story made public'

  'Hmph. You don't want me to provide a man just for that? I can't manage . . .'

  'No, don't worry. I'll send somebody for a day or two in the interest of diplomatic relations. But what do you think all this lunatic behaviour means in terms of your case? You don't think he's preparing the way for an insanity defence, as a precaution?'

  'I don't know.' It hadn't even crossed his mind. He wished someone more intelligent would take over this business. 'I think, though, unless
he does anything too serious, we should let him carry on. Some sort of explanation might offer.'

  'You don't think he really is mad?'

  'I think he's weak, and nasty with it, or because of it. I'm not qualified to say whether people like him are mad or not, only . . .'

  'Only what?'

  'Up there at the villa, there are only two old ladies and a very young girl . . . ' He didn't finish the sentence and nothing came over the line for a moment until the Captain mentally finished it for him.

  'Yes. I see your point. If I can spare a man to hang around Sotheby's . . .'

  'I didn't mean quite—'

  'Guarnaccia, you did, you did, and you're right. I think I'll have a word with Fusarri and the three of us should get together. There's some stuff through from England on Forbes, I know—by the way, you've no reason to worry about Fusarri's friendship with the woman at the villa— what was her name?'

  'Torrini.'

  'Torrini, yes. Well, I did mention it to the Colonel and, as it happens, he knows her. Delightful woman, very beautiful, he said, in her day, a bit daffy now.'

  'Yes.'

  'Well, she's the last person to try and interfere with the course of justice, as they say. He's all right, you know, Fusarri, even though he's a bit odd.'

  'Yes.'

  'What will you do with Forbes now, boot him out?'

  'Yes.'

  'I'll let you get on, then, and be in touch when I've talked to Fusarri.' He hung up.

  Only when he'd hung up himself did the Marshal have a vague feeling that perhaps he hadn't been very forthcoming with his answers. But the thought was pushed to the back of his mind by an idea about Forbes's behaviour. Not a clear idea—it had almost been clear while the Captain was talking, but he'd lost it. All he could remember was that it had something to do with his poor little friend Vittorio, but what the devil the connection had been he couldn't for the life of him work out. He tried working back logically through Pecchioli who, when he was being cross-examined, had first brought Vittorio to mind, but it was a dead end and he had to give up.

  Still frowning and shaking his head at his own incapacity to think logically, he got up and went to the door. Lorenzini had parked himself outside it, facing the two leather armchairs and the low table covered in magazines that filled the small space between the Marshal's office and the door and so constituted the waiting-room. Forbes had taken up his habitual 'None of this bothers me' position, leaning well back with his leg crossed over, affecting to read the official carabinieri magazine, holding it at a distance and pointing his beard rather than his glance at it. Lorenzini stood back to let the Marshal out.

  'Get on to the municipal police,' the Marshal told him quickly. 'They picked him up last night. Get their end of the story—and then warn that young lady off.'

  'Of course—you don't think it might be more effective coming from you? I mean . . .'

  'She won't know the difference. Just got here. You'll have to speak English to her.' The Marshal beckoned to Forbes without a word. Forbes stood up, said something to the girl and strode, his head a little too high, into the Marshal's office.

  'Sit down.' He didn't pretend this time.

  'You're getting quite famous,' the Marshal informed him, taking his own seat. 'News of you coming in from everywhere. I hear you've bought yourself a motorbike.'

  'Yes. It's something I always fancied doing—and the sort of thing to do while you're young. You probably know by now that my wife was considerably older than me. We lived rather a quiet life.'

  It was fortunate that the Marshal's Sicilian blood told. His face betrayed nothing of his reaction to this remark.

  'I know you'll pardon my asking—you know how it is, once a policeman, always a policeman, even in ordinary conversation—how did you pay for it? A cheque? Cash? Promissory notes, perhaps?'

  'I—I paid a deposit and . . . Promissory notes, why not?'

  'Why not, indeed. Of course the law comes down very hard . . . Still, anyone with a regular monthly income can make their calculations accordingly . . .'

  Forbes's lack of a monthly income at this point was left drifting on the air. It was a long shot, since Gelia Carter might well have provided for this by a banker's order which would still be effective. The silence indicated otherwise.

  'Ah well,' the Marshal went on cosily, 'you'll have inherited a goodish bit of money, I dare say.'

  'Enough.' Forbes's expression was supremely arrogant but still his eyes never quite met those of the Marshal whose unblinking gaze was fixed on the quivering figure before him.

  'Usually takes six months or so to prove a will, though, or does it? I'm no expert. Nobody ever left me anything except their relations and funeral bills.'

  'I can imagine.'

  'Yes. Well, six months soon passes—and I've heard that the lawyers are usually reasonable about advancing a bit of money, if only to pay for the funeral—Ah! When I think about it, our investigations might have messed things up a bit there. Now that I think about it, the Public Prosecutor will have been in touch with—oh, but there's the young lady, your stepdaughter. No reason why they shouldn't advance money to her. That means she'll pay for the funeral.'

  'She did, as a matter of fact. Why not?'

  'Yes. Of course, you'll be able to reimburse her when things get sorted out . . .'

  'What things?'

  The Marshal chose to ignore this. 'Well, what are your plans now?'

  'What?'

  'I'm sorry. You were kind enough to call on me so I thought . . . I didn't intend to pry into your business. Just a sociable inquiry, you know. I thought you might be thinking of buying a house . . .'

  The pale eyes met his for a fleeting instant and veered away. Young Fara wasn't far wrong. They were feverish.

  'I have got my eye on something, as it happens, but I'd prefer not to mention it until it's settled, if you don't mind.'

  The Marshal, face bland and innocent, opened his hands in total submission. 'You'll think I'm prying again. No, no . . . it was just the carpets that made me think . . . natural association, as you can imagine.'

  'I can imagine, yes. Those stuffed frogs from Sotheby's have been talking. Well, it's a lot of fuss about nothing. I'll go round there and collect them when I have time. At the moment, I've rather a lot on my mind, you know that.'

  'I do, indeed. Was there anything else?'

  'What?' Forbes looked alarmed. It was clear that he had quite forgotten that he was the one to initiate this little meeting. Now he didn't know how to get out of the room.

  The Marshal, who found his presence oppressive in the extreme, decided to help him. 'I don't want to delay you for your appointment with the British consul . . .'

  Forbes had been trying, during the last part of this conversation to tip his chair back in a careless attitude. When the Marshal suddenly got to his feet and came round the desk towards him he almost fell backwards. The Marshal, it was true, was three times his weight, but it wasn't so much that as his presence, his gravity, that made Forbes dither. Beads of sweat appeared on his temples, though the room was not too warm. Saving himself from falling backwards, he jumped to his feet and was swept towards the door merely by the force of the Marshal's stare.

  'Allow me.' The Marshal opened up. 'Your girlfriend seems to have deserted you.' He stopped on the threshold of his office and watched Forbes scuttle in silence across the bit of waiting-room where Lorenzini waited at the door and ceremoniously saluted him out, following the retreating figure with a grimace.

  'The girl left,' he said, locking the door.

  'So I see. What did she have to say for herself?'

  'She was furious. Seems he told her he was coming here to report the theft of a camera. She got wind there was something up, and I told her she was right, there was. She's only eighteen. Beats me what an eighteen-year-old sees in him.'

  'He gives them pointers.'

  'Eh?'

  'That's what he says. You'd have to be no more than eightee
n to fall for it, his great knowledge of Florentine art and history and what-have-you.'

  'What's that got to do with it? He looks like he couldn't get it up to me.'

  'Yes. Well, people are peculiar. It's not our problem. What we need to know is why he brought her here.'

  'Just trailing her along?'

  'Oh no. No, no. He brought her to show her to me.'

  'But why—Well, yes, as you said, we don't know why.'

  'Hm.' The Marshal turned back to go into his office. 'That's the trouble, damn it. I do know why, I just can't remember . . .'

  He closed the door. Lorenzini stared after him for a moment and then turned to the duty room, shouting, 'Fara!'

  'Mortified! I'm just mortified! Nobody ever comes to see me and now all of you are here and I can't even—'

  'Eugenia!' Fusarri put an arm round her and almost carried her to the door of the sitting-room to eject her.

  'If I could just offer you a cup of tea! If I'd known before one, when Giorgio calls, I'd have told him to organize something with Doney but although I make tea for myself it's a teapot for one and I can't possibly reach the top of the cupboard where the others are—there's an English one—Doulton—and a Japanese one that Giorgio—'

  'Eugenia!' He shut the door on her. 'Ha!' He made a pretence of mopping his brow. 'Ye gods!' He fell into a deep armchair opposite Captain Maestrangelo. The Marshal stood at the window, his large, black uniformed shoulders blocking most of the light, staring out in silence. Fara was out there in the courtyard, in his usual place in the car. Given the presence of the Captain and the Prosecutor, there was nothing else for it. Directly below the window the sun was warming the polythene shrouds of the lemon trees, the uneven stones of the yard, the red roof of the little barn. For the almond tree it was too late. The tiny unfolding buds were dropping around it, their frail pink petals burnt brown by the bitter wind. Beyond the bare lines of the sloping vineyard lay an olive grove, its silvery leaves pale against the glossy brown folds of a ploughed field. Far below, the city of Florence spread its terracotta roofs and marble towers against a backcloth of blue hills. Even after all these years, the Marshal never tired of looking at it. At this distance, filthy pavements, unemptied rubbish skips, traffic jams and the stink of drains and exhaust fumes ceased to exist. At this distance it was a paradise and the gentle warmth of the sun and the quietness lay over every- thing like a blessing. Except for the almond tree . . . 'This is the fax from her lawyer's office—that's your copy, Maestrangelo—and there should be one with a translation attached for Guarnaccia who seems to be admiring the view . . .'