Death of a Dutchman Page 3

  'The other one,' she said impatiently. 'The old keyhole, lower down. You should be able to see the entire house through it.'

  The old keyhole was a good three inches high. He crouched and peered through. He sat back on his heels, blinked, and peered again. The hall, like Signora Giusti's, was long, narrow and gloomy. The doors in this flat opened on the right.

  'Can you see anything?'

  'Nothing.' He straightened up. 'Can I use your telephone?'

  'So, you believe me now?'

  'I believe you.'

  'Even though you can't see anything?'

  'As a matter of fact, I heard something. Is it likely that the owner would go off leaving the tap running?'

  'Good heavens no! He turned the water off at the mains. Everything else, too.'

  'Hm. There's a tap running in there. I'll have to use your telephone. I can't go in there without a warrant.'

  'No, but I can. I wasn't going in there on my own.'

  She wheeled herself round and reached for a bunch of keys that was hanging on a hook behind her front door.

  'He left me a set. You see how it is? He was like a son to me. Once or twice when he's been back—always on business; he's a jeweller—he's brought his wife with him. She likes to buy clothes here; they're well off, you see. In that case he used to telephone me and I'd go in and open the windows, air the place a bit. I can't do more these days. Usually, though, he turns up by himself and so doesn't bother. If he trusts me with the keys it's so I can keep an eye on things, and I'm not going in there without you.'

  She handed him the keys, and after a moment's hesitation, the Marshal unlocked the door without touching it.

  'Wait there. Better still, go back behind your own door.'

  He was certain she would come creeping out again as soon as his back was turned.

  He went towards the sound of running water, drawing out his Beretta as he went. But there was no feeling of life in the flat, only of something being wrong. In the bathroom, water was running into the sink which was filled to overflowing, evidently partially blocked by vomit, some of which was floating on the water's surface. The contents of the bathroom cabinet had been tumbled out on to the floor, and there were pieces of broken glass and streaks of blood in the bath and on the grey floor tiles. The Marshal looked about for a towel and, not finding one, took out his handkerchief and turned off the tap with one finger.

  The door to the kitchen at the end of the corridor was open, and he could see, even at a distance, that there was a mess in there, too. Going along the marble-tiled passage, he could smell fresh coffee. Probably it had been spilled.

  There was a tiny sound. The Marshal stopped and whipped round. It could just be Signora Giusti following him . . . but she made more noise than that, and she was nowhere in sight. He began to walk back along the corridor, quickly, almost running. He went to the bedroom by instinct. The room nearest the door, like Signora Giusti's. With the handkerchief still in his hand he tried to open the door, but it wouldn't move. How did he know, as sure as if he could see through the door, what sort of thing he would find? Nothing quite like it had ever happened to him before. He turned the handle and pushed steadily but gently until he heard the man's body fall over with a soft thud. As if drawn by the same knowledge, Signora Giusti came rattling along the passage.

  'What is it? What have you found? Is someone dead?'

  The Marshal turned from what he had been contemplating and withdrew from the room to turn her away.

  'Do you have the number of the Misericordia on your telephone list?'

  'Of course I have, but what's happened?'

  'Go and call them, will you?'

  Quieted by his manner, the old lady rattled away towards her own flat, then stopped and called out:

  'But I ought to tell them—is he dead?'

  The Marshal switched on the weak centre light in the bedroom, then one of the bedside lamps.

  'I think so . . .'

  Why had he said that, when before he had been sure... ?

  The man, though young, was very heavily built, and the Marshal doubted whether he could lift him on to the high wooden bed. He got a pillow which had no slip on it and some of its musty feathers poking through the greyish cloth, turned the body over, and propped up the head. A bunch of keys fell to the floor. There was no sign of life, and the face was ashen, the lips blue. And yet . . . The Marshal bent and put an ear to the chest. Nothing. Maybe the pulse . . .

  The man's hands had been slashed and impaled by pieces of glass. They were big hands, but the fingertips were highly articulate, almost delicate. Wrapped around one hand was the towel that the Marshal had sought in the bathroom. So, he had tried to bind up his cuts, perhaps, or at least stop them bleeding. There seemed to be no pulse and yet, still the Marshal was not convinced. Something was bothering him—the little noise he had heard? Could have been a mouse, something falling over, the body settling. But his hands . . .

  Suddenly he got to his feet and strode out into the passage. Signora Giusti was trundling back in at the front door.

  'Go back!' he called, 'and let me use your phone.'

  'They're already on their way . . .'

  'It doesn't matter ... I should have thought . . .'

  He dialled the Misericordia number and spoke hurriedly with the Servant.

  'I should have thought of it before, but there are so many other things wrong with him ... It was only when I realized that one of the cuts was still bleeding just a little . . .'

  'The coronary unit will be with you in less than five minutes.'

  The doorbell was ringing urgently. The first ambulance had already arrived.

  'I gave them my name,' said Signora Giusti, tottering rapidly to the front door. 'No use their ringing there if. . .'

  The Marshal was back beside the body when the four Brothers of the Misericordia came in. One of them was very young, not much more than sixteen, and wore his black gown and hood self-consciously. He didn't look at the body but at the senior Brother, waiting for instructions.

  'Can we put him on the bed a moment?' asked the Marshal.

  "We'll see to it.'

  The four Brothers lifted the big man expertly and laid him on the bed. The senior Brother looked at the Marshal, who said:

  "I just wasn't sure. There's something ... I called back for the coronary unit.'

  'I'd say you did right. That's them now.'

  The siren was wailing outside, breaking into the peace of siesta-time.

  'I'll go and meet them—frankly, I'd say it would be fatal to move him at all, but they might be able to do something on the spot . . .'

  The other three were taking off the man's tie and unbuttoning his shirt. He was wearing one slipper. The young boy took it off carefully, then stood back. The Marshal kept an eye on him.

  'Is it your first time out?'

  'Yes.' He was very pale, but calm. Occasionally he fingered the huge black rosary which the Brothers wore as a belt.

  'Toni! It's my Toni!'

  'Signora!' The Marshal cursed himself for having for- gotten her. 'Come away; they'll do all they can.'

  'No! I'm staying. I'll keep out of the way but I'm staying. If they bring him to he'll recognize me; he'll tell me what's happened.'

  She wheeled herself over to one of the windows and tried to open the shutters with one hand.

  'Help me.'

  The doctor and his assistant had come into the room without a word and were making a rapid examination of the man on the bed. The doctor prepared to do a massage whilst his assistant plugged in a portable monitor.

  The Marshal wrenched open the inner shutters, the window, then the brown louvred shutters on the outside. The sunlight blinded him. He had almost forgotten it was still daytime. A small crowd had gathered on the pavement. He closed the window and switched off "the electric lights which were practically invisible in the beam of sunlight coming in at the window. Only then did he notice that the bed hadn't been made up. There was jus
t a cotton counterpane covering the bare mattress which was visible near the pillow.

  The doctor had paused and now he lifted the patient's eyelids.

  'I'm afraid it's far too late,' he said quietly. Tt was you who found him?'

  'Yes . . .'

  'There's some response but it won't last. Apart from the heart attack I'd say he'd probably taken a massive dose of sleeping pills, and to try and pump his stomach now would kill him. Is the old lady his mother?'

  'A neighbour who's known him since he was a child. Actually, she's old enough to be his grandmother. Is there any chance he'll come round before . . . ?'

  'Not much. Why? Do you think there's foul play involved?'

  'Don't you?'

  'I wouldn't like to say without further information. However, I can inject a stimulant and we'll see . . .

  'It won't harm him?'

  'It's either that or letting him sink into a coma.'

  Signora Giusti pushed herself towards the bed, and the Marshal brought a chair up for her, wheeling her own out of the way.

  'Toni! What's happened to you? Tell me what's happened?'

  She wanted to touch him but his hands were covered in dried blood, the hair wet and streaked with vomit. She took her tiny handkerchief and wiped his face with small dabbing movements as she must have done when he was a small boy with rheumatic fever.

  'Toni . . .'

  His colour, especially about the lips, was slightly better.

  The old lady's shaky, age-spotted hands went on dabbing and stroking as though she could soothe away whatever was happening to him.

  'Toni, it's me.'

  It was as if the man's eyes opened by her willpower rather than his own volition. He was evidently unable to focus on any of the faces surrounding him.

  'It's me, Toni, your old mammma.'

  The man's lips and fingers twitched slightly. He might have been trying to speak or it might have been the effect of the drug. His lips were parched and one of the Brothers came forward with a little water and wet them.

  The doctor, who was preparing to leave, looked at the Marshal and shook his head.

  The senior Brother had slipped away quietly, and he came back now with the priest from Santo Spirito. The Marshal touched Signora Giusti gently.

  'The priest is here. But if his father was Dutch, perhaps . . .'

  'No, no, he was brought up a Catholic. His mother .. . I dressed him myself for his First Communion.'

  The priest unrolled his stole and put it on carefully. He beckoned the youngest brother, saying in a stage whisper:

  'You know how to help me?'

  The boy nodded and took his place beside the priest who whispered again, this time to the senior Brother:

  'If you would find me a bit of linen, anything at all, so long as it's clean . . . and a little water . . .'

  He was an old man and not at all perturbed by unusual circumstances, or by occasionally having to welcome or dispatch his parishioners in a hurry with the aid of a hastily rinsed jam-jar and a tea-towel.

  A small jug of water was produced, a scrap of bread from Signora Giusti's kitchen, and a white damask cloth from the marble-topped chest of drawers in the bedroom. The priest spread the cloth on a small bedside table, laid out his silver containers and lit a candle.

  The dusty shaft of sunlight from the one unshuttered window lit the bed and its half-naked occupant, and the small bent figure of the old lady beside it. The priest in his white surplice and purple stole murmured a confiteor and then moved forward into the sunbeam and lifted his pale hand to grant the Dutchman a plenary indulgence and the remission of all his sins.

  'In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.'

  'Amen.'

  The three Brothers knelt down in the gloom at the foot of the bed with a faint rustle of their black cotton gowns and a click as their dangling rosary belts touched the marble floor. The Marshal's pale bulk was just visible, very still, in the far corner of the room.

  The priest turned and whispered to the boy who handed him the tiny silver container of oil. He dipped his thumb into it and made a cross on each of the Dutchman's eyelids.

  'Through this holy oil and through His everlasting mercy, may Our Lord Jesus Christ forgive you all the sins you have committed with your sight.'

  'Amen.'

  The boy wiped away the oil with cotton-wool while the priest anointed the nostrils.

  'Through this holy oil and through His everlasting mercy . . .'

  A little whimper escaped the old lady's lips, but she was probably unconscious of it, her eyes fixed on the Dutchman's face, not following the movements of the pale, dry hand that gently touched the parched lips and the ears in turn and then reached over towards the wrist she was holding.

  '. . . Forgive you all the sins you have committed by your touch . . .'

  The cross of oil glistened in the palm of the bloodied hand. The boy dabbed it away and, at a glance from the priest, moved down the bed to uncover the feet, rolling back grey silk socks.

  'Through this holy oil . . .'

  The old lady's eyes never left the dying man's face. Perhaps she was seeing not the man but the little boy she had nursed through his fever long ago.

  The half-lit room was musty and airless, and the Marshal, who had not eaten or drunk for many hours, felt his mouth uncomfortably dry. He ought to be formulating a report in his mind, but the stillness of the room and the priest's rhythmic movements and droning voice were hypnotic. The noise of children and dogs running round in the piazza below came from another world where people were waking from their siesta and going about their business.

  'For the sins you have committed . . .'

  'Amen.'

  The priest wiped his thumb on the small piece of bread and held his hands over a silver bowl to let the boy pour a trickle of water over them.

  'Our Father . . .'He continued the prayer silently, and the only movement was of dust revolving in the shaft of sunlight, until he raised his head and continued aloud: 'And lead us not into temptation.'

  'But deliver us from evil.'

  Another rustle and a faint chink as the Brothers got to their feet. It was over. The priest and the boy were quietly packing everything they had used, including the scrap of bread and the stained cotton-wool which had to be taken back to the church and burnt. There was no sound or sign from the Dutchman who must surely die any minute. The Marshal slipped out of the bedroom, hoping to find a telephone in one of the other rooms. It was obvious that this wasn't going to be a job an NCO could deal with and he would have to telephone Headquarters who would send an officer to take charge. He found a phone in the sitting room where the white shapes of dust-sheeted furniture were visible in the shuttered gloom. The line was dead and he had to creep back into the bedroom to get the keys to Signora Giusti's flat.

  'Hello? Guarnaccia, stazione Pitti . . . yes, again . . .'

  But that first call, from the Pensione Giulia, seemed to have happened in another age, so strongly did the dying man dominate everyone and everything in his immediate surroundings.

  'And you'll inform the Public Prosecutor? Yes . . . no, there's no need; the Misericordia will take him straight to the Medico-Legal Institute. And there's no great hurry. . .'He didn't want the whole bustling crew turning up before the poor man was even dead. Although perhaps by now . . .

  But the Dutchman was still alive. The priest had left and the senior Brother was sitting beside the bed holding one of the dying man's arms while Signora Giusti held the other. The Marshal came and stood beside her, wondering whether, at her age, she could take all this upset.

  'Signora . . .'

  'I'm all right. Leave me here with him.'

  Perhaps this time he recognized her voice. He couldn't have seen her for his eyes remained closed, but he spoke suddenly in a firm, almost normal voice:

  'Mammina?'

  'I'm here. I'm right beside you. You're going to be all right.'

  'It wasn't
her.' There was silence for a while. Then he said wearily, 'Pain . . .' Shortly after that, one eye opened slightly and stayed open while his last faint breath rattled weakly in his throat and stopped.

  CHAPTER 2

  "What about his suitcase?'

  'Take it with you" as it is. And this, and these keys . . .'

  'Oh! Luciani! Take care of these!'

  'Try and open that shutter. The light in here . . .'

  'Make way, will you? The doctor's arrived . . .'

  The flat was crowded with people, some of whom were carrying things away, and others who were examining things on the spot, all of them raising clouds of dust everywhere they went. The photographer's flashes lit the bedroom intermittently. When the doctor came up he had to step over the scratched, black metal coffin that was blocking the narrow passage. It wasn't Professor Forli, but a younger man who had just become his assistant. He was very reserved and formal and didn't chat to anyone as Forli would have done while preparing to make his examination.

  The Marshal had said his piece, taken Signora Giusti back to her flat and returned, as unobtrusively as he could, to watch the technicians at work. It was a business he disliked, this dismantling of a person's life to examine it under a microscope, and he could not have said himself why he was still there. He knew he was in the way as he pushed along the corridor to the kitchen to watch a white-coated man systematically collecting the remains of a meal and an almost empty pot of coffee. There were coffee grains all over the floor and a lot of dried blood under the table.

  The latest person to arrive was the Substitute Prosecutor, the jacket of his white linen suit swinging open, his striped shirt a little tight about the paunch. He was but of breath and pink in the face from hurrying up eight flights of stairs, and not a little irritated at having been disturbed after a heavy luncheon-party and made to rush about in the heat looking for his registrar.

  "Well? Tell me?'

  He hardly looked at the officer in charge as he spoke. The Marshal came back to the bedroom doorway and watched. He didn't know the officer, who was very young and a little nervous. Could it be his first case? At any rate, after making his report he continued to give his men orders but glanced worriedly at the Substitute Prosecutor each time, as if expecting approval or correction.