Vita Nuova Read online

  ‘Walk with us a moment and tell me how it went.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve nothing to report, even the other matter you mentioned. . . .’ He glanced at the victim’s sister in embarrassment.

  ‘That’s all right. I just thought we should take a look at the garden, get our bearings.’

  The young carabiniere was confused. He was ingenuous and enthusiastic and clearly itching to get back to the search for the weapon with the other men, perhaps hoping he’d be the one to find it. It was easy to see he couldn’t understand what the marshal wanted.

  ‘We’re going to search an empty cottage, Marshal, just inside the wall. There’s a gate down there and a track. The lieutenant says somebody could have got in there easily and that—’

  ‘Walk with us,’ insisted the marshal, silencing the carabiniere. ‘It’s very pleasant here. . . . A garden this size, now,’ the marshal pretended to look about him, ‘must be a lot of work. And a pool to look after, too.’

  ‘Daddy likes doing that. There’s a robot thing.’

  ‘Ah, yes. I know what you mean. I think there’s even one that mows grass by itself—does your father like gardening, too? No, I suppose you have a gardener.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you’re not interested in gardening yourself?’

  ‘No.’

  Not interested in this line of questioning either, that was evident. Not a flicker of reaction. If little Piero had been fathered by a sprightly young gardener, she didn’t know about it.

  ‘All these hedges to cut. And watering in this heat. So, who does it?’

  ‘Contract gardeners cut the hedges, once a month. The watering system’s automatic. We did have a man once. . . .’

  ‘How long ago was that?’

  ‘I forget. A few years ago, but Daddy had to sack him.’

  ‘Can you remember why?’

  ‘I think because he was stealing. There was a quarrel, anyway. Daddy was furious with him, said he was ungrateful.’

  ‘I see. Shall we go along here—this didn’t used to be a vegetable garden, by any chance, did it?’

  ‘I think so. Why?’

  ‘Oh, no reason, just that I saw one like it once, divided up with these little hedges. Why should he have been grateful? The gardener.’

  ‘Because he was an ex-prisoner and Daddy gave him a job as a favour.’

  ‘I understand. Well, we have to consider anyone with a grudge against your father as under suspicion. I’ll talk to him about it once he’s home. What about the two girls you mentioned? I imagine they were here when . . . when you left with the little boy yesterday. I’ll need to talk to them. You said yesterday you didn’t see anybody around the villa or coming away in a car when you returned, but they might have noticed something. I didn’t see them here yesterday.’

  ‘Because they weren’t here. I told you there was nobody here except Mummy and me. They don’t come until lunchtime. They bring the shopping and prepare lunch. Then, in the afternoon, they do the housework and leave everything ready for supper. They usually leave about nine, only now Frida has to stay. Are we going down to the vineyard?’

  ‘No, no . . . we’ll turn back. The sun’s hot and you have nothing on your head.’

  ‘I never wear anything on my head.’

  ‘Well, of course, you have lovely thick hair. Even so, you can’t be too careful, eh, carabiniere?’

  ‘What? Oh . . . no, Marshal.’

  ‘Unusual hours. The two girls, I mean.’

  ‘It’s because of Mummy. She’s not well and she always has trouble sleeping. She takes something for it and she never gets up until late.’

  ‘Except yesterday, of course, when all the noise—but no, you said you woke her, didn’t you? You understand that I’d rather not have to press her too much. She’s very upset and, if you say she’s not well, anyway—but I do need to know whether she heard anything.’

  ‘She didn’t. She couldn’t have. I told you she takes sleeping pills and she wears earplugs as well. I didn’t wake her, it was the woman across the road when she came back here with me. It took her a long time to wake Mummy at that hour.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Signora Donati. Let’s walk down this path. The carabiniere here has just been chatting to her. Do you know her well?’

  She didn’t answer right away. Her gaze shifted away and up. He followed her glance. The tower. It was going to be a long time before she could look up there without that image coming back. It had been hard on her to expect her help today, but then who else was there to ask? Not the mother, that went without saying.

  ‘I’m sorry. What did you ask me?’

  ‘I was asking if you knew Signora Donati well.’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘The neighbour who helped you yesterday.’

  ‘I don’t know her at all.’

  Of course not. How much easier it was to investigate a crime in the poorer parts of the old city where everybody knew everybody else’s business.

  ‘You went to her for help, though.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I was just running away. I was frightened and he was out there and—and I was screaming. . . . I’ve been thinking about what you asked me yesterday—I mean about whether I saw anybody. . . .’

  ‘You’ve remembered something?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I just thought—I was upset and I couldn’t remember anything clearly. I’ll try. . . .’

  ‘The person you thought you saw, was it somebody you recognized? Don’t be afraid to say. Even if you’re mistaken and remember more clearly later, it’s all right.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Of course. I’m not writing anything down, am I? And the carabiniere here is not writing anything down, either, are you?’

  ‘I—no. No.’

  ‘After what you’d just seen, anybody would be confused and in a panic. If you take things calmly, it will all come back, bit by bit. We won’t write anything down until you’re quite sure.’

  For a moment she remained silent. Their footsteps on the gravel seemed very loud in the silence. The marshal didn’t insist, didn’t prompt. She had said ‘he was out there.’ She wasn’t seeing Signora Donati watering her flowers, she was seeing a man. But he mustn’t suggest it. She seemed to him a bit too docile to be a good witness. Like so many people looking for a lifeline in their distress, she would probably be only too willing to say what she thought he wanted to hear.

  ‘It was a man.’

  ‘She actually said she saw a man? You didn’t suggest it? Well, of course not, with your experience and know-how. Excellent!’ The prosecutor, with his wide grin, really seemed pleased.

  Fortunately, the shutters of his office in the Procura were closed against the sun and the desk lamp was on. The marshal always had an ample supply of folded white handkerchiefs, but he would not like his sun-sensitive eyes to start acting up here. Despite their newfound friendship, he didn’t fancy having to wipe away his tears in front of this man. ‘Experience and know-how. . . .’ Good Lord. Well, it made a change for the marshal to be receiving compliments, even if he hardly believed them. It would make life easier.

  ‘I’m just thinking that if she said “he” like that, then what she was seeing in her head wasn’t the neighbour watering her flowers. It was the man. I don’t know if I’m making myself clear. . . .’

  ‘Perfectly. I couldn’t agree more.’

  The marshal was almost encouraged to go on. But the other images crowding his head were more difficult to get into focus. The slender figure with long dark hair, the exposed fat legs dropping into a metal coffin . . . well, married man or not, would you bring any boyfriend home if your sister were that good-looking? First-born children are always jealous—not Giovanni, though . . . adored Totò. Even so, it could have happened before, maybe with the father of the child. Silvana was twenty-five and single. Of course, these days women had careers, didn’t marry so young as they used to. Not much of a career, ferrying a nephew around and working part-time in daddy
’s office. She’d been ill, of course, but so many women were sacrificed by the family. His own sister, Nunziata, would have been a candidate for that, and it was thanks to Teresa if she’d had any freedom at all after their mother. . . .

  The mother’s face . . . was she all there? Was it just the sleeping pills?

  ‘Hmph . . .’ was all he said, looking at the photographs spread on the desk.

  ‘Six bullets to the abdomen,’ the prosecutor followed his glance. ‘One to the back of the head. One missing.’

  ‘One missing?’

  ‘Eight shell cases—incidentally, bad news from ballistics. I don’t have their report yet, but they’ve already told me we’re talking Beretta 22 LR, shells are Winchester.’

  ‘Oh, dear. . . .’

  ‘Commonest gun in the country, used by every target shooter. Well, it’s not the end of the world but it’s certainly no help. People imagine ballistic evidence can provide cast-iron proof of a gun’s identity, but you and I know that’s far from the truth. Unless they come up with some extraordinary defect by way of a distinguishing trait, it’s more difficult than telling identical twins apart.’

  ‘Yes. . . .’ You and I . . . a newfound friend. Well, as long as it lasted. . . .

  ‘It’s the man himself we need to find, anyway. Keep talking to the sister, get her to be more precise.’

  ‘I’ll be talking to the young lady again tomorrow. To the father, too, as soon as he gets home. Not that he can help us much with the event itself, but he might at least have some suspicions about his daughter’s relationships and so on—the mother didn’t have anything to say about that to you when you saw her this morning?’

  ‘No. Not really, no. She said her daughter didn’t confide in her, so she couldn’t give us a name to work on. And I’m afraid I got nothing out of her about yesterday morning. Apparently, she takes sleeping pills and wears earplugs too.’

  ‘That’s what her daughter told me. She’s very distressed, of course, and not in good health either . . . odd that they weren’t at all close . . . they look alike.’

  As plump as a pigeon with six holes puncturing her smooth belly, four of them hitting almost the same spot . . . the opening . . . washed before these photographs. . . .

  ‘Pretty . . . I expect the sister’s like her father, being dark-haired and so on.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, he is dark—not so slim, though. Put a lot of weight on with the years—haven’t we all? He’ll have to be more careful now, I would imagine. Tidy shot. Short range, of course, apart from the last shot; no burn marks, though. I’m pushing for the autopsy report for tomorrow morning but I’ve already had a word with Forli. Technically, cause of death was the bullet in the back of the head, instantaneous, very little bleeding. She would have died anyway from the other wounds.’

  ‘Yes. The missing bullet. . . .’

  ‘I’ve told them I want it found today. I’ve looked at the video of the area near the body and it looks from the enhancement as if the most likely thing is it went through the photograph that was smashed. It’s got to be lodged there somewhere. I’m holding a press conference at six. Have to give them something. It’s August and they’re desperate. You needn’t bother coming back. You have enough on your plate, and Maestrangelo will be here.’

  Thank goodness for that. The captain was good at that sort of thing.

  ‘Right, Marshal. I’ll get a copy of the autopsy report to you as soon as I have it. Call me, of course if there are developments. . . .’

  ‘Yes . . . the sister was wanting to move the child back into his own room along with a maid. I explained—’

  ‘No, no, no. The crime scene stays sealed. I’ll speak to her. And, Marshal, I want to be kept informed of any and every development in this case. You’ve got my mobile number. Call me any time.’

  ‘Of course.’ Important people. But there were less-important people in this story, too.

  ‘Is there something else?’

  The marshal remained seated, hands firmly planted on his knees, his hat clutched between big fingers.

  ‘Yes. Yes, the workmen. I promised to let them know whether they could carry on tomorrow. They’d be working on the disused outbuildings, mostly on the roofs. The area’s been searched.’

  ‘Yes, well, that shouldn’t be a problem.’

  Some people could go to bed happy then. The marshal wasn’t among them. Well, he wasn’t going to eat alone in the kitchen. It was too depressing. After a battle with That Thing over the daily orders for tomorrow, he showered and changed and went to the NCO’s club to eat supper. He ate with a recently retired man who had taken a job with an industrialist.

  ‘All he really wants is for me to be there so that when he has to be away I act as his eyes. I really don’t have to do much, and it’s decent pay.’

  ‘You don’t get bored?’

  ‘Now and again, but there are plenty of people to chat to.’

  With a good meal under his belt, he escaped from one of those depressing ‘Did you hear So-and-so died’ conversations and the prostate problems of long-retired colleagues and got home just in time to catch the tail end of what the late edition of the regional news was saying about his case. He turned off the television and wandered through the rooms as though he were looking for something. The rooms were empty and silent, and what he wanted he wasn’t going to find there. Far too late to call her now. He could have called her before he went out to the club and he had to confess to himself, now, that he hadn’t done it because she’d have asked him again about the flat he hadn’t done anything about. Well, tomorrow he would be seeing the captain. He’d talk to him about it then and call Teresa tomorrow evening. He went to bed and fell into a dreamless sleep, only to open his eyes suddenly at five in the morning, wide awake and with two questions in his head. The man was cold-blooded, watching her crawl away from him all that time, but why did the prosecutor think the man was such a tidy shot when there was a missing bullet, meaning he’d missed a dying target since he could hardly have missed her when she was facing him in the doorway? And why did that woman wear earplugs in a place as silent as a graveyard?

  ‘The bulldozer,’ he answered himself aloud, shutting his eyes again. That was it. She liked to sleep late. ‘And until they find the bullet . . . that’s Forensics’ problem.’ He turned over, pummelled Teresa’s pillow, pulling it to himself, and went back to sleep.

  Three

  The morning was stale and dank. If only it would really rain. Sometimes you felt a few tiny drops, but it never amounted to anything except an increase in the general humidity. The buildings in the city looked dirty, and with fewer cars you could smell more drains. The marshal’s driver was nosing his way out into Piazza Pitti, pushing through trailing groups of tourists instead of traffic. The marshal had retreated behind his dark glasses from the colourless glare. After a brief visit to the the Faculty of Science out on Viale Morgagni and an hour’s desk work, he already felt he wanted to take another shower.

  They crossed the Ponte Santa Trinita. The river was low and sluggish. People were taking photographs of each other with the Ponte Vecchio in the background. All the colours were drab and the hills upriver were invisible.

  ‘Will you want me to wait for you, or should I come back later?’

  ‘Wait for me. You can drive me up to the villa afterwards.’

  But when they reached Headquarters in Via Borgo Ognissanti, the marshal saw the captain sitting in his car as it was drawing out of the cloister. The driver stopped the car and the window went down on the passenger side.

  ‘I’m sorry, Guarnaccia. It’s an emergency. There’s been another episode at the gypsy camp and the press are all over it, attacking the mayor for giving them a permanent camp, and so on. He needs an update and some advice before he calls a press conference at the Palazzo Vecchio. Come with me and get me up to date on your business. Your driver can follow us.’

  The marshal instructed his driver and got into the captain’s car.

 
‘How’s it going?’

  The marshal thought a moment and then said, ‘Oh . . . I don’t know. It’s . . . difficult. Nothing you can get a handle on, nobody with anything to say. The wealthy middle classes . . . you just can’t tell what’s really going on. . . .’

  ‘And you’re afraid things are not as they seem?’

  ‘Well, they hardly ever are, are they? But, I mean, none of it makes much sense to me—for a start, why buy a place like that just to pull it apart and change it into something else? What’s the point?’

  ‘I agree with you. I saw the place, years ago, when it was abandoned. There were a lot of those medieval villas once—you can still see them in paintings, but most of them disappeared long ago—within a two-mile radius of the city, more or less. And they were the wealthy middle classes of their day, you know, the people who built them.’

  ‘Oh . . . I thought they’d be the big names, the nobility.’

  ‘Not at all. The important families operated from their country estates, much further out. No, these were merchants, bankers and so on. It was good insurance, growing a bit of food and wine, having somewhere to hide from enemies and plagues.’

  ‘I suppose it was. He’s wrecking the place, anyway, in my opinion—not that I’m setting myself up as a judge of architecture.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right, but it happens all the time that these rambling places get divided up. As often as not, the banks buy them. Speculation.’

  ‘But he lives there.’

  ‘So perhaps he’ll sell up once all the work’s done. Probably make a fortune.’

  ‘Mmph.’

  ‘All right. You’re not to be moved. Did you get anything useful from the university?’

  ‘Nothing, except that she was an exceptionally good scholar. She was hoping to stay on as a researcher, which is of no interest to us except. . . .’

  ‘Except?’

  ‘The professor who was supervising her thesis—I managed to have a word with him, and that was a piece of luck because he stays at his house on the coast for most of August and he’d only come back to pick up some stuff for a paper he’s working on.’