The Innocent Page 6

  The phone rang. It was Forli.

  ‘I was just thinking about you!’

  ‘Thinking, “Why doesn’t he get those internal organs done?”’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Sorry. You know how it is. That drugs shoot-out, a suicide and the post-operative … Anyway, I’ve done yours now and I’ll get the written report to the magistrate tomorrow, but there was something I thought you’d want to know quickly. She was pregnant—ten weeks. Could be the beginnings of a motive so I’m looking at the DNA of the foetus. I’ve started to track the woman’s dental work but you know how slow and difficult that is unless we’re very lucky. Another thing: I cleaned off the skull because it doesn’t look Caucasian to me. Mongoloid, I’d say. Now, it’s possible, these days, to determine race, which might help you. Unfortunately, I can’t do that here but I have a colleague in London who’d do it for me. Amazing chap. I’ll get a sample to him right away.’

  ‘But … the bureaucracy—’

  ‘No, no, no! No bureaucracy. A little bit of research between friends. You don’t know this man. They once turned up some fragments of a skull on a building site and he spent every spare minute he had on those fragments until he’d rebuilt the skull, modelled the face and given the woman the right sort of hairstyle for the period when, according to his calculations, she died. Put a photo in the papers and on TV. Solved a thirty-year-old murder case.

  A case like this one he could see to over his breakfast with the crossword. He has a passion for crosswords. I’ll give him a ring tonight—no, tomorrow night. I’ve got nothing on tomorrow night and, believe me, when he starts talking about his cases, you’d better have nothing else on. He’d talk the hind leg off a donkey. Good man, though. Very good man. I rang him once on a case, I don’t know if you remember it …’

  Some fifteen minutes later, the marshal hung up and rubbed at his ear. It felt hot. His spirits, however, were much refreshed and when Lorenzini came in with some evidence bags he found the marshal in good humour.

  ‘What have you got for me?’

  ‘Her clothes. Dried out and tested in the labs. Not good news, I’m afraid, as regards hard evidence, after so long in the water, but all bought in Florence. Good quality and well-known labels. Nothing from the marble fish—samething, the water. They’re sending it to Forli anyway, to check it against the shape of the wound. That’s it. Any luck with the missing persons list?’

  ‘Nothing. Is there anybody in the waiting room?’

  ‘An elderly couple. English. A stolen—or more probably lost—bag. Their passports were in it so the consulate sent them over here to report it.’

  ‘English …’

  ‘I’ll deal with it.’

  ‘Thanks. I want a bit of peace to look through this stuff.’

  He caught a glimpse, as Lorenzini went out, of a passing wheelbarrow pushed by a wiry little man with a hat pushed to the back of his head and a cigarette dangling from his mouth. The English couple stood on a piece of corrugated cardboard, looking perplexed. The door closed.

  He had asked the builders four or five times not to smoke in the waiting room. Each time they said, ‘Don’t you worry, Marshal. We shan’t be wanting to use your waiting room. We only light up when we go out to the truck. All right?’ And forty times a day they left their trails of smoke. The youngest one sometimes remembered and stopped to grind his cigarette butt into the tiled floor. Things could be worse. He’d seen some boxes of tiles. They were on the last leg …

  The marshal sat down and removed each piece of the drowned woman’s clothing from its bag and laid everything out on his desk.

  Underwear: plain white cotton, bought in the department store in Piazza della Repubblica. Dark-blue linen sweater, label of a big, expensive fashion shop near the cathedral, elasticised blue jeans, the label cut out, plain white shirt, label cut out but a small white V embroidered on a pocket. Unmistakably Valentino. A very simple necklace of coral beads. A belt, pale, natural leather, narrowish, rather a nice buckle, and a maker’s name impressed on it. No cutting that out.

  The marshal stared at the name, trying to decide whether to be pleased or not. There was nothing surprising about it. The woman had been found in this Quarter and there were only three possibilities when it came to handmade leatherwork of that quality. He was pleased to have a solid fact to go on but he’d have been even more pleased had it been one of the other two. Peruzzi, the crossest shoemaker in town. The only hope was to catch him in a good mood though, of course, he probably had no reason to remember this customer. Unless she was a regular. Unfortunately, the single shoe didn’t carry his name. It looked like a handstitched shoe but you would expect the maker’s name to be written on the inside and there was nothing. Besides, it was a funny sort of shoe. It was a very low bootee with a small heel and a pointed toe, laced up the front. The sort of thing he remembered his grandmother wearing, though hers were black and this one was pale natural leather like the belt. What was strange, though, was that one part of the shoe seemed to be different from the rest. The rest was all perfectly smooth and pale, but the left side was a little darker and had a different texture. Of course, it had been in the water but he couldn’t imagine that would account for it. Well, Peruzzi could help if he had a mind to and, if not, the marshal would certainly be spending the rest of his day away from the dust and noise. He collected up the clothes and called for a car.

  ‘I’m sorry about this. Be careful of …’ The piercing whine of three electric drills drowned the rest of the shop manager’s warning and the marshal followed her through a cloud of dust, stepping over a tangle of cables, to a tiny room at the rear. There was corrugated cardboard on the floor and filing cabinets and stacks of boxes were swathed in polythene. ‘It’s meant to be finished before the menswear fair starts but I’m beginning to doubt it. You can’t magine what it’s like trying to work in the middle of all this mess and the noise … Let me close this door so we can hear ourselves think.’ She looked around and started shifting polythene sheets. ‘I don’t think you’d better sit down, unless …’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll stand. I just want you to look at this sweater. You might have seen on the news or in the paper that we’re trying to identify a woman who was found drowned.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I never read the crime page.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. If you’d just look at this—it is your label—genuine, I mean? There are so many fakes about.’

  ‘No, that’s ours. Besides, I recognise the sweater. It’s last year’s, though.’

  ‘And I suppose you sold hundreds of them.’

  ‘Hundreds, no. A linen knit as fine as this is very expensive. Over five hundred euros. Even so, I have five sales girls here and, with so many customers being tourists, we really don’t know them all.’

  ‘Of course not. Would your last year’s accounts show anything? If there weren’t all that many sold, if she paid, let’s say, with a credit card?’

  ‘I suppose it’s possible …’ She was a very nice woman, about the marshal’s own age, her grey-blonde hair simply dressed, her clothes quiet, and you could see she would have liked to help. ‘It’s just that, in all this mess and with the winter collection to organise for when the fair starts and the summer sales right after that, I don’t know how we’ll find the time. I really don’t.’ She opened her hands to indicate the chaos around her, frowning. She was wearing hardly any make-up and he could see brownish rings beneath her eyes.

  ‘What if I sent you one of my men and you—’

  ‘No! That’s the last thing I need! I’m sorry, but if you could just wait until the workmen have gone. It should only be a day or two.’

  How could he not sympathise? He gave her his card and took one of hers. Picking his way out through dust and noise, he hoped, for her sake as much as his own, that it really would be a matter of days. She would help him if she could, he felt. Besides, he had learned one thing: over five hundred euros for an everyday sweater to wear with jeans mean
t that the drowned young lady had money. He got into his car and gave directions to the carabiniere driver, bracing himself for an interview with the angry shoemaker.

  ‘It’s closed to traffic,’ the driver reminded him. ‘Shall I go through anyway?’

  ‘Yes.’ He was trying to remember any occasion on which the shoemaker had been calm and cheerful. All he did remember was the time a pyromaniac had set fire to his car. Still, he needn’t have worried. The apprentice was alone in the workshop, standing at a workbench, his back to the door.

  ‘Good-morning.’

  The young man was cutting out a piece of leather on a slab of marble, using a sort of scalpel, freehand. He finished his stroke and put the knife down carefully before turning with a smile.

  ‘Go to shop, please.’ He pointed. ‘Borgo San Jacopo.’ He wasn’t Peruzzi. What’s more, he was obviously Japanese and there was going to be a communication problem. On the other hand, he was certainly calm and cheerful.

  ‘Is Peruzzi in the shop?’

  ‘No Peruzzi. Today hospital.’

  ‘I see. I need to talk to him. Will he be here tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes. Today hospital.’

  ‘And you’re his apprentice? How long have you worked here? A year? A month? How long?’

  ‘Yes. Ten months.’

  Was that long enough to make it worth asking him anything about the shoe? He’d know more about it than the marshal did, at the very least. He opened the bag and held the shoe out. ‘Can you tell me anything about this shoe? Anything at all?’

  The smile vanished.

  ‘You recognise it? Was it made here? Is it Peruzzi’s? A copy?’ He was breaking every rule. Suggesting, talking instead of listening and watching. It was because of the language problem. But words are not everything. The young man was worried. He took a step backwards away from the proffered shoe, glanced behind him and then stood still. The marshal sat down on a polished wooden bench and remained silent. If you leave enough silent space, people rush to fill it out of fear or embarrassment. He placed his hat and sunglasses squarely on his knees and waited. He didn’t stare at the apprentice but let his eyes rove around the workshop. There was a show window, mostly hidden from view by a linen curtain on a brass rail. He could see into one corner of it and out at the little square. Some people, particularly regular customers for whom Peruzzi had made shoes for years, came here rather than go to the smart shop on Borgo San Jacopo. There, casual customers and tourists were dealt with by a patient woman, well away from any danger of encountering Peruzzi whose gimlet eye and raucous Florentine voice would have scattered the customers like a fox scattering chickens. The young man still didn’t utter a word. And yet there was no real tension in the air, just silence. Like the silence of an empty church. Why should that be? The strong smell was of new leather so it wasn’t that. The light perhaps … a narrow beam of sunlight beside the linen curtain and, elsewhere, the gloom pierced only by a lamp on the workbench. The one over the last was switched off. Not the light, then … this bench. The long, broad bench he was sitting on might well have come from a church. Its smoothness owed as much to hundreds of years of use as to polish. The armrests were carved.

  Not a word from the apprentice. It had never happened before and the marshal didn’t know what to do. Should he repeat himself to fill the space? Can you tell me anything about this shoe? Wouldn’t that be ridiculous? He decided to look at the young man, try to judge his attitude.

  His attitude was one of polite submission. He stood quite still, his thinness accentuated by a long canvas apron that reached his ankles, his hands folded in front of him, his head very slightly bowed and his gaze lowered. Baffled, the marshal looked away and saw, through the window, Lapo passing by behind his bit of hedge with two plates held high.

  He stood up. ‘I’ll come back tomorrow and talk to Peruzzi about this.’ He slid the shoe back into the evidence bag.

  The young man smiled and bowed his head just a little more. ‘Thank you very much. Goodbye.’

  The marshal replaced his hat and glasses and went out. His driver wound the window down.

  ‘No, no … take the car back. I want a word with a few of the people here and then I’ll walk. It’s only a couple of minutes. Do me a favour and let my wife know I’ll be late.’

  The car moved off slowly through the narrow space filled with pedestrians.

  ‘Lapo!’

  ‘Oh, Marshal! Come and sit down. Come on! You can’t say no today. Sandra’s made a pollo alla cacciatore that’s out of this world. Sit here where I can talk to you.’

  ‘You’re busy …’

  ‘Don’t worry—Sonia! Come and say hello to the marshal!’

  Lapo’s daughter, Sonia, was very plump and looked older than her sixteen years but she was pretty, her skin clear and rosy. She shook his hand.

  ‘Take over here, Sonia. Let me have a chat with the marshal—and bring Santini some more bread with his chicken.’

  When she’d gone in, he said, ‘There’s no “table number two” and “table number four” here. I know my customers and they all have their regular places and their regular times.’ This with a black look in the direction of his rival over the hedge. ‘What do you think of my daughter, eh?

  Is she a treasure or isn’t she? There aren’t many like her these days. We’re lucky.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘They all want to go to university, whether they’ve the brains for it or not. And none of them want to work hard or dirty their hands. And where’s it going to end? Have a glass of red with me.’

  ‘No, no … on an empty stomach …’

  ‘You’re right. I eat before we open.’ Lapo blocked Sonia as she passed carrying a plate of chicken in a glistening tomato sauce and a basket of bread. ‘Leave this bread for the marshal so he can have a drop of wine with me while he’s thinking what to eat and get some more for Santini.’ He waved the basket at the young restorer at the far table.

  ‘Sorry! She’ll bring yours right away.’

  Santini raised his glass in salute and grinned. The marshal nodded. ‘That’s a talented lad.’

  ‘You’re right there,’ Lapo agreed. ‘But he’ll never make any money. He spends weeks restoring those old kitchen cupboards with the painted flowers on them that he buys up north and then sells them for half what they’re worth. He always says he just enjoys doing his work and if he keeps things hanging around with a high price on them he’ll have no room for new stuff to buy and work on. Good health, Marshal.’

  Sunlight splashed through their glasses to make two wine-coloured spots dance on the white paper covering the table. The bread was crusty and fresh, and that chicken smelled so good …

  ‘What were you doing at Peruzzi’s place? He’s at the hospital today for an ECG.’

  ‘So I heard. I went in to ask him about a shoe we found.

  It belongs to somebody we’re trying to identify—I’ll tell you about that in a minute, if you haven’t already seen it in the paper.’

  ‘Not me. Politics only. And I can tell you that these elections—’

  ‘Yes. I know how involved you are but I need to know about Peruzzi.’ And the last thing he needed was for Lapo to start sounding off about politics. ‘There’s an apprentice there …’

  ‘Issino? He’s a good lad. A treasure. Bit funny till you get used to his ways—you know how the Japanese are.’

  ‘Careful.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I’ve never yet had a Japanese tourist in my office whose lost his camera or had his pocket picked. There was a stabbing once that involved a Japanese journalist and a band of gypsy children. Stabbed him in the leg near the station but we only found out by accident because he got his train to the airport and left for Japan, bandaged up with his own first aid kit. He fainted at the airport and one of our men got the story out of him so it got around, but there was no stopping him getting on that plane.’

  ‘I can’t say I blame him.’

  ‘No.
But what I mean is I never come across them because they seem to be so sensible and careful. This lad—what did you say his name was?’

  ‘Issino—well, that’s what we call him because his real name’s Issaye, or something like that, and it’s a bit difficult for us Italians. I’m not saying it right now, I don’t think.’

  ‘Issino … he seemed—I don’t know. He wasn’t keen to talk.’

  ‘Issino? No! Santini! The marshal’s asking about our Issino, says he’s not keen to talk.’

  Santini put down the bread he was dipping into his sauce and laughed. ‘Get him to tell you the one about St Peter and the prostitute, but you’ll have to finish it yourself.’

  ‘Sonia! Chicken for the marshal and a green salad. Green salad all right? Green salad and another quarter of red! Issino’s learning Italian and he wants to be able to tell jokes. He reckons that’s the test. You should see him. He struggles and struggles through the whole thing with everybody prompting him with the verbs and then, when he gets to the punchline—the only line he knows by heart—he cracks up laughing and can’t get it out.’

  ‘He eats here, then?’ The marshal glanced over the low hedge at the workshop but nothing was visible beyond the displayed shoes and the partially drawn linen curtain behind.

  ‘Once a week. But the other days he comes over for a coffee and a chat, and what he calls his Italian lesson. He hasn’t a bean. I think he eats something at his bench the other days.’

  ‘Peruzzi doen’t pay him much, then?’

  ‘Pay him? He doesn’t pay him. He’s teaching him. That’s how it works these days, Marshal. Foreigners come here to learn from our artisans and pay them for the privilege. Take on an Italian kid of fifteen who has to be taught everything and produces nothing for years and you’re into paying a wage plus huge contributions. Nobody can afford it. It’s a policy that’s all wrong and if the Left can’t get itself together and realise the damage—’