The Marshal and the Murderer Read online

  'We heard about that in Rome even. Of course; an international crook of that calibre, everybody knew, though I didn't realize at the time that you were the one who got him for doing in that German woman.'

  'I didn't get him,' pointed out Guarnaccia, disturbed by such garbled tales going about. 'He died – '

  'Here we are . . .' Only one young man in uniform stood guard beside the shrouded form by this time.

  'You can go, lad. We'll stay until the ambulance comes.'

  'It's already arrived. They're parked in front of the factory since they can't get any nearer and will have to bring the stretcher for her. The magistrate's gone now to say they can take her.'

  'Get along, then. Go back in the van with the others.'

  'What about you?'

  'Marshal Guarnaccia here will give me a lift -you're in your car today?'

  The Marshal nodded and the young man left them, touching his cap in salute and walking around the canvas sheet at a good distance without looking down. Probably he had managed to avoid looking at the body the whole time he'd been there.

  'National Service?' the Marshal guessed.

  'That's right. And you can bet your life his mother'll be on the phone to me before long, wanting me to keep him out of this lot. Comes from a good family, you know the sort of thing - wanted forty-eight hours' leave a couple of months ago to ride his horse in the Four Year Old Trials at Grosseto, and he got it, too, since they know all the right people. Take a look . . .'

  Niccolini had lifted the sheet as he spoke.

  'That cut . . .' began the Marshal, frowning.

  'It looks odd, I know, but that's because it happened after she died, probably caused by a sharp piece of broken pottery when she was dumped here.'

  'There's no doubt that she didn't die here?'

  'None. And what's more she wasn't dressed when she died, or not fully. She wasn't wearing these jeans, for instance. They were put back on her afterwards, according to the doctor.'

  The Marshal looked down in silence at the dark, swollen face. A flap of skin hung down from the gashed cheek and one glazed eye was partly open, giving the impression of an unpleasant leer. Only the blonde hair, wet and dirty though it was, gave an idea of what the girl's appearance had been when alive.

  'What a wreckage . . .' Niccolini might have been reading his thoughts. 'If you'd known her . . .' He dropped the sheet abruptly. 'Her underwear's missing.'

  Once the stretcher-bearers arrived they turned away and crossed the sodden field in the direction of the factory.

  'I'm going to have a word with Moretti,' said Niccolini as they neared the building, one wall of which shimmered with heat. It seemed as though the fierce roar of the kiln inside must burst the whole ramshackle construction. 'He put up a bad show when the Captain and the magistrate were here. Even if he knows nothing, he needs to change his attitude or he'll find himself in trouble.'

  'Do you think he really knows nothing?'

  'At this point I've honestly no idea - no, that's not strictly true. In my opinion, in a town this small everybody knows something about whatever happens. I'll talk to him anyway.'

  'I can wait for you in the car if you want to see him alone,' suggested the Marshal.

  'You're to stay with me, no?'

  And the Marshal had no choice but to follow reluctantly in his wake as he took the steps two at a time and strode into the factory, making his way towards the source of heat and noise through the labyrinth and grumbling each time he mistook his way: 'What a place!'

  When they entered the kiln room the Marshal all but took a step backwards, not so much because of the intense heat which hit him in a sudden wave but at the sight of the kiln itself, which he had last seen gaping and dark and which now seemed alive as it roared and trembled, the flames licking around holes in the bricked-up front as though some dragon inside were trying to fight its way out. There was no sign of Moretti but the big man in the woolly hat was there, bending over to adjust the tap on a gas pipe leading to the fire. Niccolini tapped him on the shoulder and he looked round without straightening up. His face was red and sweat trickled down from his hat which made the Marshal wonder that he didn't take it off.

  'Where is he?' bellowed Niccolini.

  The man looked up at the high, blackened ceiling and pointed without troubling to try and make himself heard, then indicated with a brief nod the direction they should take.

  In the next room a man sat working alone, gouging deep patterns into a red jar that revolved slowly between his knees. His hands and face and clothes were stained with the same rusty tint and his boots were buried in the leathery red ribbons he had cut away, so that he seemed to have been planted there and to have absorbed the predominant colour of his surroundings over the years. He watched them walk by with eyes devoid of expression and with no pause in the rhythmic movements that sent more ribbons of clay spinning on to the pile at his feet.

  Niccolini strode past without bestowing a glance on him, but the Marshal met his blank gaze, conscious again of being an intruder and of having no real existence for these people. He would have liked to stop, to insist on making some sort of contact, but the last thing he wanted was to get lost in this maze of a place alone and Niccolini was already into the next room and blustering:

  'Looking for Moretti! Where's the staircase?'

  The Marshal had no choice but to follow him.

  One of the three throwers working side by side at their wheels withdrew a muddy red arm from inside a spinning cylinder to point: 'Through there on your right.'

  There was no chance to linger here either but, even so, Guarnaccia's big eyes took in the room at a glance and he murmured as he passed the man who had spoken: 'Who works there?' There was a fourth wheel with a wedge of clay waiting on it.

  'Moretti.' The thrower plunged his arm back into the cylinder and bowed his head over it as its sides suddenly bulged and grew at the base.

  He caught Niccolini up on the wooden staircase, puffing a little in an effort to keep up with the Iatter's determined strides.

  'What a place,' Niccolini went on grumbling, 'what a shambles . . . Now where are we . . . ?'

  They paused at the top of the stairs, doubtful as to which way to go next until they heard voices ahead, two voices, one of which suddenly rose above the other in anger.

  'And I'm telling you, like I've always" told you, you'll not get away with it twice. The girl's dead, for God's sake!'

  The other voice made some inaudible reply. The Marshal and Niccolini moved towards the noise, quickening their pace slightly as if conscious of some impending danger.

  'What's it got to do with me? The same as it's got to do with anyone in this town who has a daughter! It's bad enough that crazy bitch of a nymphomaniac – '

  Niccolini and the Marshal were almost running, stumbling over unexpected steps, brushing against protruding shelves and tables that marked their black greatcoats with red dust, but over the noise of their own heavy footsteps they heard the choked cry and the short scuffle that preceded a crash so violent it made the floor beneath them shake. Then they came into the long bare room above the kiln and saw Moretti and one of his men struggling with each other in silence. Moretti's hands were at the other's throat but it was his own face that was red, as though he were the one being choked.

  'That's enough!' bellowed Niccolini.

  Moretti's hands dropped slowly to his sides and hung there.

  Neither he nor the man looked at the intruders; they continued to stare at each other, breathing heavily.

  'What's it all about?' said Niccolini, approaching them. 'Well? Moretti? Sestini?'

  The Marshal stayed away from them, watching. Moretti, with his red-stained clothes, disordered red hair and flushed and angry face, looked like a devil popped out of his own kiln. The other man, Sestini, was white all over. He must have been in charge of the strange plaster shells which had so puzzled the Marshal on his first visit. One of these huge shapes lay smashed into three pieces on
the floor, and one of the pieces was rocking with a gentle bumping noise.

  In the end it was Sestini who spoke, though with his eyes still fixed on Moretti.

  'Nothing,' he mumbled, 'just a personal disagreement . . .'

  'Disagreement?' thundered Niccolini. 'Good God! Listen, Moretti, I came back to warn you to change your attitude if you don't want to find yourself in trouble with us, and I find you trying to choke one of your best workers '

  'Like I said,' interrupted Sestini, 'a personal matter.' And he turned away, bending to examine the broken plaster shell. 'Blast! I can't do anything with this

  Moretti's colour was returning to normal but his eyes were still fixed on Sestini, following every move he made. The Marshal, from his position near the door, was pretty sure that the expression in them was one of gratitude. The expression on his colleague's face was of someone about to lose his temper. He was almost as red as Moretti had been.

  'Listen!' he began again.

  'No, you listen to me,' shouted Moretti, suddenly turning on him. 'I've had enough for one day! People nosing around the place, interrupting the work, asking stupid questions - whatever happened to that girl is no responsibility of mine. What happens to people is more often than not their own fault!'

  "Their own fault!' roared Niccolini, towering over the smaller man as though he would have liked to pick him up and shake him. 'Did you see the state of that girl's body? Well? Did you?'

  It's no responsibility of mine!' insisted Moretti, running a hand roughly through his hair and glancing about him as if in search of some concrete proof to offer for his statement.

  The Marshal came forward and asked quietly:

  'Nymphomaniac, was she? Isn't that what somebody was saying?'

  Moretti looked taken aback, either by this remark or because he had been unaware of the Marshal's presence until then.

  'Nobody said that ..."

  'Oh no?' Niccolino looked from Moretti to the Marshal and back again. 'Well then, Marshal Guarnaccia and I must be getting hard of hearing. Both of us.'

  'Or you've got it in for me, like everybody else around here.'

  'Nobody's got it in for you to my knowledge, have they to your knowledge, Guarnaccia?'

  The Marshal remained silent. Heat was coming up through the floorboards in suffocating waves and he would have liked to take off his greatcoat. He tucked his hat under his arm and fished for a handkerchief to wipe his brow.

  'Well, let's hear it?' Moretti was almost bowed over backwards by Niccolini's aggressiveness.

  'I . . .'

  'Well? For instance?'

  'I didn't mean anything by it,' mumbled Moretti. 1 just lost my temper - and so might you if you were in my position.'

  'If I were in your position I'd be a damn sight more careful about losing my temper. Now, you listen to me: if you had nothing to do with this business you've nothing serious to worry about, but don't go putting people's backs up. Keep your head and give a straight answer to a straight question, not like this morning. No good can come of that sort of behaviour. You've got a cast-iron alibi and so have all your men since they were all of them at Tozzi's - but start trying to be clever with us and we're going to start thinking that one way or another you had something to do with that girl's death. Do I make myself clear?'

  'I had nothing to do with it.'

  'Then stop trying to pull the wool over my eyes! What were you two fighting about just now?'

  'Like he said, it was a personal matter, something between us two and nothing to do with the girl. I've never harmed a soul in my life, anybody in this town can tell you that.'

  'I don't doubt they could, but unfortunately nobody in this town is likely to tell me anything. They're all like you. And you'd do well to remember on that score that the people in charge of this investigation don't know you or anything about you. All they know is that the girl's body was found on your sherd ruck - and then I find you with your hands at Sestini's throat - Stop that blasted row, can't you?'

  Sestini had rolled the broken shells of plaster into a corner and was breaking them into smaller bits with a mallet. He stopped what he was doing without comment and began dropping the pieces into a black polythene rubbish bag. The Marshal left Niccolini to his fruitless attempt at reasoning with Moretti and walked over to him.

  'What are those things, anyway?'

  'Moulds.'

  'They're a funny shape.'

  'They're in two parts, sometimes three. Have to be bound together with wire. This one's had it, that's for sure . . .'

  'Does he often get that violent?'

  Sestini shrugged without answering and the Marshal gave it up. He didn't see how anybody would ever get to the bottom of this business if guilty and innocent alike remained silent, and it looked as though that was how it was going to be.

  He stood looking out of the broken window where the rain had been blowing through the day before. The busy road, having swept away in a big curve from the railway and its high black wall, was slightly less dreary here than outside Berti's place, but no^much. No doubt this had been a pleasant enough country area when the big house across the way had been built.

  The house of the seven lavatories . . .

  Niccolini's voice was rising in exasperation again

  Niccolini's voice was rising in exasperation again but the Marshal was unaware of what he was saying. It had occurred to him that there was one person in the town who did talk, and incessantly at that. Robiglio, unpleasant though he was, didn't belong to the rest of them. He didn't have the stubborn peasant mentality that maintained an obstinate silence against all the odds, not trusting himself to speak nor anyone else to believe him if he did. A sophisticated man, a man of the world, Signor Robiglio. He might lie through his back teeth but he'd say something. The yellow facade of the big house was beginning to dry in patches in the pale sunshine. Probably it never got thoroughly dry before the rain began again in this Godforsaken place . . . except perhaps in midsummer when Robiglio was no doubt away. He was the sort who'd have a house in some fashionable seaside resort, or even abroad.

  The tall windows returned his gaze blankly.

  Sestini had begun hammering again and this time nobody told him to stop. The Marshal glanced over his shoulder. Niccolini had a big hand on Moretti's shoulder and was talking in a lower, more urgent voice, but Moretti wouldn't meet his eyes. Where was the use of it? He would go his own way, for good or evil, as people always did who had been brought up to trust nobody outside their own families. With a sigh, the Marshal turned back to the window. Then he took a step forward and peered out more intently. The tall windows were no longer all blank. Someone was staring out over here as he was staring out here. Were they staring at each other? The house of the seven lavatories, being set well back from the road with its drives leading in from the high gates, was too far away to tell. The Marshal didn't move away. In any case, his car was parked outside advertising his presence. There was no telling who the person across the way was. It might well not be Robiglio himself, who would surely be at his factory at that hour, but even so, that pale blur served to confirm the impression that Robiglio was disturbed for some reason by the Marshal's presence, disturbed enough to make him take on an apprentice he didn't need. And if he remembered correctly . . . Sestini had tied up the rubbish bags and was stacking them against the wall.

  'Isn't it your son who's going to be taken on at Robiglio's?'

  'What of it?'

  The Marshal just stared at him. There was no point in wasting his breath. You couldn't arrest the entire population of the town for reticence.

  Perhaps the same thought had crossed Niccolini's mind.

  'You'll end up inside, you mark my words! I advise you to think over what I've said because if you do end up inside you'll find it anything but easy to get out again. Well, answer me! Or am I talking to the wall? Ye gods!'

  And without a word of warning he turned and strode out of the room, forgetting, or choosing to forget, that he h
adn't arrived alone. The Marshal mopped his brow again, put on his hat and followed slowly in his wake. And if he got lost again it was too bad. He was in no mood to go chasing after this volcano of a man every time he went steaming off in a temper.

  In fact he only got lost once, having got a better idea of the place by now, and luckily he came across the apprentice who was cutting big wedges of clay with a length of wire as it issued in a thick tube from what looked like a giant sausage-machine. The boy gave him directions sensibly enough, though the Marshal couldn't help remembering the childish clay models he had seen on the windowsill the day before and wondering if the lad weren't a little backward.

  Niccolini was stamping his boots by the car.

  'Cold,' he said, glaring about him, and once in the passenger seat: 'Damp, more than anything.'

  The Marshal started the engine and glanced across at the gates of Robiglio's house.

  'I was wondering'

  'We'll go to Berti's place if you don't mind,' interrupted Niccolini, 'He knows more about that lass than anybody else round here, and, by God, if he starts being shifty with me I'll have him inside before he knows what's hit him.'

  Berti was anything but shifty in his greeting.

  'You're back, then, are you? Have you arrested Moretti?'

  Niccolini was too taken aback at this opening to be aggressive.

  'What do you mean by that?'

  'A straight enough question, I would have thought. If that's where the girl was on Monday . . .'

  'That's yet to be proved. For all we know she could have been here.'

  'She was found at Moretti's, wasn't she? You don't mind if I go on working . . .' He was seated in his usual place near the blocked-out window. 'You're not going to tell me you're looking for something for your wife today, I imagine.'

  'You don't seem too put out by what's happened.'

  'Life goes on,' said Berti, searching among the pots of colour for the brush he needed, 'life goes on. Nobody knows that better than I do. I can't offer both of you a seat but one of you could sit down.'