The Marshal Makes His Report Read online

  ‘Monday’s such a heavy day for me.’ She sat down opposite him in a large white linen chair and poured the coffee. ‘A thing I never noticed when I worked in a hospital, but then every day was a panic. Being a GP is neither ambitious nor exciting but at least I get time to shop! That’s better, I think I’m awake now—though I don’t know how I can be much help to you. It was suicide, I imagine?’

  ‘That or an accident.’

  ‘Hm. Well, people do strange things, of course, and nothing’s impossible but surely it all happened in the middle of the night?’

  ‘That’s one of the things I need to find out. That and whether it was suicide. The insurance, you understand . . .’

  ‘Of course. Well, I heard a commotion but it’s all a bit vague, so not much help really.

  ‘At what time?’ The Marshal slid his black notebook from the top pocket of his jacket. Go through the motions. Don’t let it matter. Those were the rules of the game. ‘If you can remember . . .’

  ‘Oh yes, I think so. It was around half past two.’

  ‘You’re so sure?’

  ‘Nothing strange about that. I’m not a very good sleeper, so I’m often forced to take a tranquillizer. I try to stick to half a tablet, though I’m often obliged to take the other half during the night. I have to be careful about that because if that happens too late in the night I feel groggy when I get up—not the sort of thing to do in a job like mine.’

  ‘No, no . . . I understand. So you woke up and looked at the time so you could decide whether or not . . .’

  ‘Oh no, you see it was Saturday night. If you’ve ever suffered from insomnia you’ll know that half the problem is caused by worrying about not getting to sleep because you’ve got to get up and work next day.’

  ‘I don’t think I ever . . .’

  ‘Well, think yourself lucky. Of course, different people have different ways of reacting to anxiety. Some people can’t eat.’

  ‘I don’t think . . .’

  ‘No . . .’ her glance at his portly figure was involuntary and withdrawn at once, but even so she couldn’t help adding, ‘And others eat too much to comfort themselves.’

  The Marshal was silenced.

  ‘Anyway, where was I? Oh, Saturday night. Well, since I don’t absolutely have to get up early on Sunday I try not to take anything. I do hate to think of being a slave to any drug, so Saturday night I make my bid for freedom. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. That night it didn’t—at least, I did fall asleep reading, but then, as often happens I woke up with a start about two hours later. It’s not just a question of waking up, you understand. More of a leaping from the pillow like a gaffed salmon, heart beating fit to burst.’

  ‘Had you heard a shot?’ asked the perplexed Marshal, his pen poised hopefully.

  ‘A shot . . . ? No, no, I’m just explaining the way I wake up in the night when I’m anxious. When that happens I have to give in and take the tranquillizer. Do you follow me?’

  ‘I think so . . . and you looked at the time so that—’

  ‘Exactly. It was half past two, near enough. I took a whole tablet. I was annoyed about it because even though it was Sunday the next day I’d wanted to get up at a decent hour because there were various things I wanted to do, but since I wouldn’t have got them done after a totally sleepless night . . .’

  ‘But the noise you heard?’

  ‘I’m coming to that. That was after I’d taken the pill.’

  ‘You didn’t fall asleep at once, then?’

  ‘Good heavens, no! It takes me half an hour or so to calm down. I read for a bit. Then I heard the row. I think their bedroom must be directly below mine.’

  ‘The Ulderighi?’

  ‘Yes. I hear all their quarrels. Heard I should say— though mostly I heard her. Hysterical woman. He always tried to keep his voice down and I often wondered whether it occurred to him that I could hear it all. He was always very civil to me.’

  ‘And the Marchesa isn’t?’

  ‘No. I don’t know if you’ve any idea what she charges for these flats, but I can tell you that it’s plenty. All of us are good tenants who look after the property and pay regularly and we’re treated like we were squatters or something. She loathes us. She can just about force herself to say good morning if you meet her in the courtyard but her face is saying “how dare you set foot in this building”. You know we’re not allowed to use the lift?’

  ‘I heard not.’

  ‘But the rent is based on precisely that sort of thing, you know, whether there’s a lift and so on. She charges us for it but we don’t get keys to use it. She wouldn’t let us use the main entrance if there were another, you can be sure of that! They’re all alike, these people, keeping their old lifestyle going at the expense of the middle classes and looking down their noses at us at the same time. That’s the reason, of course. They’re dependent on us and that’s why they hate us, whereas creatures like that poisonous little gnome and their mad old nurse are dependent on them and so get treated well.’

  ‘You must be very unhappy living here,’ observed the Marshal.

  ‘Well, I’m looking for something else, yes.’ Dr Martelli’s face which had become flushed during her short diatribe paled again. Even so, her fingers which had been tapping on the polished arm of her chair continued their rhythmic movement. Her small hands were strong-looking, the nails short and neatly trimmed. For some reason he couldn’t explain, the Marshal felt convinced that as a child she had bitten them. She had, of course, made it clear that she was an anxious person. As gently as he could he persisted.

  ‘Can you tell me anything more about this commotion, this row? Can you actually hear what’s said from here?’

  ‘No, not at all. You can imagine how thick these walls and floors are. No, just that they were quarrelling—and when they stopped someone, I suppose it was him, went down in the lift. The lift’s the last thing I can remember hearing, so at that point I must have fallen asleep. It’s awful when you think about it, isn’t it? I heard someone in the last stages of desperation going down there to shoot himself and I turned over and fell asleep.’

  ‘But you didn’t know,’ the Marshal pointed out.

  ‘I know I didn’t know. It’s just ironic, that’s all. The way we can all live in such proximity but we might just as well be miles apart for all the help we are to each other. I didn’t know him very well but what bit I did know of him I liked. His eyes were sad . . . He looked as though he had a heart, do you know what I mean? And for a man with a heart to live with a woman like that . . .’

  ‘He married her,’ the Marshal said.

  ‘Well, people do marry people, don’t they? She’s a very beautiful woman, even now. Think what she must have been like twenty years ago. She’s also sexy, which is something else again. Men do like her. You must have met her.’

  ‘I . . . yes.’ All he could remember feeling was fear. He could hardly admit to that.

  ‘Then you know what I mean. Hugh fancies her, I’m convinced. Hugh Fido, the painter next door. She’s commissioned a portrait from him. Of course, being a man he doesn’t get treated as badly as I do, and the same probably goes for Emilio. Have you met Emilio? The pianist?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘And of course they’re artists, which might have something to do with her accepting . . . Anyway, Catherine and I probably get the worst treatment, though even Catherine’s been invited to tea once—I’ve just thought of something!’

  ‘Yes?’ The Marshal prepared to make a note.

  ‘No, no, sorry, nothing to do with all that. It’s amazing. I’d never have got it if it hadn’t been for talking to you. Do you know what it is? Hugh is her court painter, Emilio is her court musician, and Catherine—that’s Catherine Yorke who has a little studio flat on the courtyard—is a restorer and the Ulderighi woman has got her to work on the books that were damaged in the flood, books and documents, plans of the house and so on. Don’t you see?’

&
nbsp; ‘No . . . No, not really.’

  ‘You must see! She can ignore the fact that they pay rent and mentally fit them into her feudal system. I’m the odd one out! There’s no excuse for my presence here except that I pay her rent. I don’t fit in at all.’

  ‘I think I understand. Even so, you’re a doctor so if she wanted . . .’

  ‘Good Lord, you must be joking. I’m not a grand enough doctor to attend the Ulderighi. Still, you’ve got the idea. If I were grand enough that would solve her problem. Anyway, she wouldn’t call someone like me in if her cleaner had a cold, so that’s that. You should see the fleet of specialists who descend on her son every six months. Only one is Italian. Two are from London and the rest from Switzerland.’

  ‘What’s wrong with him exactly?’

  ‘I couldn’t say. I’ve never seen him. Certainly, I’ve never heard anyone mention any specific illness, so it may well be that it’s just a question of nine hundred years of inbreeding.’

  ‘You mean he might be a bit mental?’

  She smiled at him, her face relaxed and pretty again once they had abandoned the personal for the medical. ‘That’s not a term a doctor would use.’

  ‘I beg your pardon. I just thought . . .’ He wasn’t really thinking but remembering an image. A gloomy courtyard and the sound of a flute high up in a darkened tower. You couldn’t call that normal. ‘I mean . . . he could be strange.’ That was just as bad. She was still smiling, perhaps even laughing at him.

  ‘It’s quite probable that his health is poor and that he could be, as you put it, a bit strange. As I say, I’ve never seen him. As far as I know, he doesn’t go out. Emilio’s seen him, though, because when he’s feeling well enough he does appear at the Sunday afternoon music lectures—and Catherine’s seen him a few times. He collects coins and medals or something of that sort and she took him some things she found among the flood-damaged stuff down there. She didn’t seem to think he was all that strange. He spent all his time at his desk by the window messing with his coin collection and watching the world go by in the courtyard below. I know she felt sorry for him, but she also said he was highly intelligent. Oh . . . ! You surely don’t think—’

  ‘No, no. I don’t think anything of the sort.’

  She looked disappointed. It was evident that a Crazed Son Shoots Father story would vindicate her feelings about these people. The Marshal had enough trouble on his plate without starting rumours of that sort within the Palazzo Ulderighi.

  ‘The official feeling is,’ he lied rather pompously, ‘that the victim died by accident while cleaning a rifle. Naturally, I have to make these inquiries so as to be sure there was no possibility of his having taken his own life.’

  ‘Well,’ said Dr Martelli, unabashed, ‘I suppose you know your own business best, but even so—’ she leaned back in the big white chair and pushed back a bunch of crisp brown curls—‘nobody will ever convince me that it was anything other than suicide. Quite ridiculous. Going down to clean a gun at two-thirty in the morning.’

  ‘We don’t know that he did.’

  ‘I’ve just told you that I heard him!’

  ‘You heard the lift.’

  ‘What? Ah . . . You’re right. Well, as I said, you know your own business best. What time did he actually die?’

  ‘I don’t have an autopsy report yet.’ He didn’t add that he’d never have it. He was feeling very uncomfortable with himself. This woman was far from stupid and he didn’t much care for reciting official lies to her while she observed him with lively and intelligent eyes. But it wasn’t just that. It was—

  ‘I can’t make you out,’ she said, interrupting his thoughts as she observed him. ‘This accident story—it’s exactly what a family like the Ulderighi would claim, as much to avoid a scandal as to collect the insurance, and of course if it’s the official line you have to give it out in just the way you did and in just the tone you did. That far I can follow you. And yet you really seemed to mean it when you rejected my suicide theory and even more the suggestion that the son or somebody might have been responsible.’ She was almost but not quite laughing at him. ‘So! What in the world do you believe happened?’

  It was fortunate that the doorbell saved him from having to reply because he didn’t know the answer to that himself.

  He looked at his watch as she was answering the door. He should get on. There was no point in spending more than the minimum time necessary on these visits since he wasn’t meant to be finding out anything. The Martelli woman was talking rapidly to whoever had called on her. Talking rather under her breath, it seemed to him. Was she talking about him, sending someone away because of his presence? ‘Come back later when he’s gone and I’ll tell you all. He seems to be a bit stupid and contradicts himself all the time.’

  That wasn’t what he was hearing. He couldn’t make out a word. He was getting paranoid, that’s what. This house did something to his nerves, made him uncomfortable in his skin, unsure of himself.

  ‘It’s Hugh!’ Dr Martelli re-entered the drawing-room, followed by a very tall man with limp brown hair and a crumpled linen suit. ‘Hugh Fido. I mentioned him before, didn’t I? The painter from the flat next door.’

  ‘Oh . . . yes. Yes.’ The Marshal got up stiffly, clutching his hat.

  ‘Please don’t get up for me. Hugh Fido. Pleased to meet you. Flavia says you’re coming to talk to all of us about Corsi’s death. Are you coming to me now?’

  ‘If it’s inconvenient . . .’

  ‘Not at all. Flavia, is that all right for Friday?’

  ‘Of course. I said so. I can’t believe you really need me, but I’ll be there with pleasure.’

  ‘Fine. Great. Er . . . Marshal, is it? If you’ve finished here I’ll take you next door to the studio.’

  ‘If you need me again, do come back.’ Dr Martelli touched the Marshal’s arm lightly as he left. ‘It was interesting talking to you—Hugh, I must tell you afterwards about a theory we worked out about the way things function in this house. It’s absolutely fascinating. I’ll invite you for a drink after evening surgery and tell you all about it.’

  The Marshal, following the Englishman, was amazed at his lankiness. He really was extraordinarily tall. Nor was he the very young man he had seemed at first sight. The hair that fell forward over his eyes as he fitted the key into the lock was greying at the temples. He was probably as old as the Marshal himself, but looked twenty years younger.

  ‘Do come in. Where would you like to sit? Let me move this stuff and we’ll sit on the sofa, it’s the most comfortable spot.’ He lifted a pile of art magazines, foreign newspapers and catalogues and, finding no uncluttered surface to place them on, dropped them on to the floor. The Marshal was staring about him in amazement. He had never seen so much colour, so much elegant clutter, so many paintings, drawings, sculptures. Mountains of discarded sketches were piled on pieces of antique furniture, one whole wall was painted with a mural of prancing naked figures in a garden vivid with huge flowers, and everywhere in the long, light room grew plants that trailed and twisted and climbed and intertwined and cascaded.

  ‘It’s a bit untidy, I’m afraid,’ the painter said, watching the Marshal’s face.

  ‘Oh no . . . Well, yes, but it’s very interesting . . .’ His voice tailed off as his glance came round again to the mural and took it in better than the first time. Most of the figures in it were involved in or observing with glee an explicitly depicted orgy.

  ‘It’s . . .’ What on earth had he intended saying? Why hadn’t he kept his mouth shut? He could feel himself blushing and wished to God he’d noticed that thing better before accepting a seat on this sofa where they would have to face it for their entire conversation.

  ‘Allegorical.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘The mural. That’s perhaps the word you were looking for.’

  ‘Ah. Yes. I expect . . .’

  ‘Actually it’s not a mural. It’s detachable, since of course this is not my own
flat. Still, I’m very dissatisfied with the figure of Spring. I wanted her to be spread out in a sort of limp—limp’s not the right word—abandoned, yes. Abandoned, giving attitude on this great soft heap of flowers. But I think—possibly because of the problem of the pose and wanting to keep the pudenda fully visible—I’ve made her right leg look too stiff. It really should be open and relaxed, not in tension like that. I don’t know if you understand what I mean.’

  This was terrible. Pornography, when he came across it in the course of duty as he sometimes did, left the Marshal feeling cold and disgusted. But this was something quite different and he was feeling anything but cold. He was hot and distressed and sweat was starting to trickle down the inside of his collar.

  ‘Would you mind showing me your passport?’

  ‘My passport?’ Fido looked puzzled. ‘Well, of course, if you need to see it. I’ve got a five-year police permit if you—’

  ‘No, no. Just your passport will do. A formality, that’s all.’

  And the minute he was out of the room the Marshal got up and looked for somewhere else to sit. It wasn’t easy. There were a good many attractive-looking armchairs but they were all occupied by papers and books. In the end he removed an ashtray and a glass from a bamboo stool and sat himself gingerly on that to wait.

  Fido came back with his passport, giving the Marshal an odd look as he handed it over.

  ‘I’m afraid you can’t be very, very comfortable there.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ He opened the passport. ‘British nationality.’

  ‘Yes. Ahem . . . I don’t want to appear fussy but I do think you’d be more comfortable on a chair.’

  ‘A stool’s fine.’

  ‘Yes, of course, but it isn’t. Isn’t a stool. I mean, it’s more of an occasional table, if you follow my meaning.’

  The unhappy Marshal got to his feet. He wasn’t going back to that sofa, though, not at any price. The effects were only just wearing off. Frames were removed. He was given a chair near a tall window.

  ‘If you don’t mind my saying so, it’s a funny sort of name, yours. Not English-sounding.’