Vita Nuova Read online

  ‘But what if she doesn’t want to? We all like to be in our own homes. You, of all people, should understand that.’

  ‘But not alone. And not when we’re ill. She’s bound to feel upset and to need looking after.’

  ‘She’s perfectly calm and organized. She’s here now and she’s shaking her head.’

  ‘Let me talk to her.’

  And Nunziata had taken the receiver and laughed at him.

  ‘That’s you all over. The Tyrant of Syracuse!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t you remember?’

  ‘Remember what?’

  ‘Dionigi! The Tyrant of Syracuse! That story they told us at school—what was that teacher’s name? I forget—anyway, the one who used the throw the chalk at you because you could never remember your subjunctives. Surely you remember the story—the old woman who prayed for Dionigi when he was dying, when everybody else wanted to see the back of him!’

  ‘I don’t—you’re not dying—’

  ‘And when they asked her why, she said she wanted him to stay alive because whoever came after him was likely to be worse—and she was right, too!’ Roars of laughter. ‘I called you the Tyrant of Syracuse for months afterwards! Don’t pretend you’ve forgotten. From the minute you were half an inch taller than me, you always had to be the boss.’

  ‘Mmph.’

  ‘Well, you’re still bigger than me, but you can play the tyrant all you like. I’m not going anywhere. I’ve got everything organized here, and I’ve no intention of dragging my carcass to somebody else’s house to be ill. Teresa’s got her work cut out as it is, with you and the children. Now get off the line. We have to go out. ’Bye, Tyrant of Syracuse!’

  ‘Well, it’s not right,’ declared the marshal to the map on the wall. He remembered once having a really bad bout of flu years ago when he was here by himself, tormented by fever, embroiled in nightmares, unable to keep anything down except water and sometimes not even that. His head spinning each time he had to get up and drag the sweat-soaked sheets off yet again.

  ‘No, no. . . .’

  A carabiniere tapped and put his head round the door. ‘Did you call?’

  ‘What? No.’

  ‘Oh. I thought . . . I was just going to tell you: There’s nothing on Paoletti. No criminal record.’

  ‘All right.’

  The carabiniere retreated, and the marshal remembered that he hadn’t called the bank about that mortgage. Just as well Teresa hadn’t asked him. Tomorrow. But tomorrow was Saturday and the bank would be closed. Damn! He decided to do the daily orders and switched on That Thing. Something to focus his ill humour on.

  Piazza della Repubblica had a dark, deserted air despite a couple of bars and a restaurant that remained open for tourists. The colonnade running in front of the central post office was empty of its usual newspaper kiosks, and almost all the shops had their metal shutters down. Paszkowski’s outside tables were surrounded by potted hedges hung with fairy lights, which should have been cheerful but somehow looked a bit sad. A band was playing wearily.

  ‘Christ, this clammy weather,’ was Nesti’s greeting. ‘Unless you want to sit sweating out here, let’s get inside to the air-conditioning.’

  A waiter in cream jacket and dark gold tie passed them, holding high a tray full of huge, brightly coloured drinks with flags and fruit bobbing about on sticks.

  One of the barmen greeted Nesti.

  ‘A quiet table. We need to talk.’

  ‘Mario! A table.’

  They were led to a quiet area where only one couple sat eating. The man had a gigantic, elegant white dog on a leash. It raised its long head and showed a set of perfectly white teeth and a lolling pink tongue, then slumped down again.

  ‘What can I bring you?’

  ‘Two of your aperitifs and a menu—and, Mario, a pack of cigarettes.’

  They both ordered pasta and when he’d tasted his, the marshal said, ‘It’s really good. . . .’

  ‘It’s always good. You sound surprised. Don’t tell me you’ve never eaten here.’

  ‘Of course not; why would I?’

  Nesti shrugged. He had put his fork down to light up. ‘There’s nowhere else to go when it’s late at night and you need something decent to eat and you’ve run out of fags.’

  ‘Do they allow smoking in here?’

  ‘No. Listen: this Paoletti chap.’

  ‘I’ve run a check. He has no record.’

  ‘Maybe not, but he has a history.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Pimping.’

  ‘Pimping?’

  Nesti stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette and took up his fork again. His face was perfectly serious. ‘Down the Cascine Park. He was arrested for beating a prostitute to within an inch of her life. Can’t find out why. Probably trying to cheat him—or, even more likely, trying to get away from him. She was very young.’

  ‘But there was obviously no conviction.’

  ‘No. That’s why it’s interesting. She was found by punters driving through the park, lying in the road covered in blood, and one of the other prostitutes named him as her pimp. But there was no proof, and the victim couldn’t testify against him, so he got off.’

  ‘You mean she died? Or was she just too scared?’

  ‘Neither. She couldn’t testify against him because she was his wife. It took them a while to find him, and when they did he’d married her and convinced the priest who did the job that he was saving her from the streets. Saved himself from a good stretch, more like—pimping, grievous bodily harm. The minute she came out of hospital, he snatched her up and by the time they arrested him, he’d married her. If she hadn’t been a prostitute, she might have been given some protection as a witness, but . . . and the priest made a statement as a character witness. I’ll send you a copy of the articles about it tomorrow, if you like.’

  ‘Thanks. Where did she end up, I wonder. . . .’

  ‘I can tell you that. Drop more wine?’

  ‘Yes . . . thanks. That’s a very fine wine you ordered.’

  ‘You don’t want to be drinking cheap wine, it’s bad for your liver. I’m sorry I’m broke, but it’ll be my treat next time. Anyway, so she ended up a princess in a fairytale castle, where you found her. What did you think of her?’

  The marshal was stunned, so much so that, at first, he connected the young prostitute found bleeding in the park with the murdered young woman found in the tower. But, of course, it was the mother, the frightened, silent, glassy-eyed mother. And what made Nesti’s story inescapably credible was the bit about the priest.

  ‘They all go off to church together on Sunday mornings.’

  Four

  By the time they left Paszkowski’s, they’d done themselves pretty well, between them, and the walk back across the river was much needed. They took the Ponte Vecchio which, though it was dark with all the shops battened down under their wooden shutters, was at least a little bit busier than the other bridges with perfumed after-dinner holidaymakers and couples kissing on the balustrade in the middle. Once they were on the other side, silence fell and they could hear nothing but their own footsteps in the sweltering night.

  ‘Just as well I went to take the waters today,’ said Nesti, giving his paunch a friendly pat. ‘Should stand me in good stead digesting all that.’

  ‘You weren’t serious?’

  ‘Well, no. I didn’t actually drink any of the foul stuff, if that’s what you mean. But I went there.’

  The marshal looked sideways at him, but there wasn’t enough light to make out his expression. As always, a cigarette dangled from his mouth, its end glowing, his eyes screwed almost shut against the smoke.

  ‘God, those watering places are dire. Of course, they don’t do as much business as they did in the days when it was so easy to book in for your wining and dining, gambling and nightclubbing on the National Health— though you lot can still get away with it on your insurance, can’t you? You ever try it?’
>
  ‘No.’

  ‘No liver problems?’

  ‘Now and again, but my wife would never leave the children and you won’t catch me in a hotel alone.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be alone long, if my little visit was anything to go by. I told you Paoletti had gone up in the world. Got a very fancy nightclub now, catering to the rich and particular who don’t mind leaving their wives at home so as to indulge their specialized tastes while taking the waters.’

  The big stones of the Palazzo Pitti glowed yellow in the lamplight, and they paused at the bottom of the forecourt to finish their conversation, their voices lowered in the silence of the night.

  ‘The Emperor, it’s called. I told you I could help you.’

  ‘Well, it tells me where his money’s coming from. I can’t say the daughter’s story about a staffing agency explained it.’

  ‘It does, though, officially. It’s his cover. Perfectly legal operation—only there’s more staff coming into the country than you’ll find on the files in that office, if you follow me, and we’re not talking cooks and cleaners.’

  ‘Prostitutes?’

  ‘From Eastern Europe. Leopard never changes his spots. The staffing agency’s useful because he can give a few girls real jobs and word gets around that it’s legit.

  And I think there’s more to it than that. I’ll be going back there. I reckon there’s a story in it, and a big one.’

  ‘And will it produce a murderer?’

  ‘More than one. If somebody’s out to punish Paoletti— and attacking the family is just their style—it’s because he’s overstepping the mark. Importing prostitutes from ex-commie countries for his own place is one thing, but supplying other clubs, if that’s what he’s doing, that’s Russian mafia territory.’

  ‘Well, if that’s the case, I can sleep easy. Nobody will expect me to deal with that.’

  ‘True. Might get me the front page, though.’

  They were about to part company when they heard running footsteps in the dark and a woman’s voice screaming.

  ‘Bit of business for you, Guarnaccia. . . .’

  The woman came into view, still running, as she passed under a lantern on the other side of the road. It was impossible to make out what she was screaming: Her voice was too high-pitched and hysterical. She was escaping from a big man who was running after her in silence.

  The marshal was about to cross the road. Behind him, Nesti remarked, laconic as ever, ‘I wouldn’t like to be in his shoes if she turns on him.’

  The marshal stopped. ‘You know them?’

  ‘Seen them around. They’re rubbish. Drugs, smalltime theft, pathetic.’

  ‘Even so. . . .’ The marshal was inclined to agree that the overweight silent man pursuing her might well be in danger from the woman’s fury. Her rage seemed to make the air vibrate.

  ‘Get away from me! Fucking bastard! Get away from me!’

  He had caught her and blocked her in the doorway of a bank.

  ‘Leave them to it,’ advised Nesti.

  ‘Come across with me. If he sees us watching, he’ll not hit her.’

  They went and stood close.

  ‘Come on, now,’ the marshal said quietly, ‘let her be. Let her calm down.’

  The big man ignored him. He clutched her arms.

  ‘Let me go! Get away from me!’ Her face looked a yellowish white. She wasn’t breathing properly. She tried to protest, but her eyes turned up and she was collapsing.

  ‘Nesti, call an ambulance.’

  She was down on the pavement, her whole body rattling in a fit. Her legs began to jackknife. The marshal knelt and tried to keep her mouth open.

  ‘Is she epileptic?’

  The big man was kneeling, too, but all he did was to keep hold of her arm in a vise-like grip. He didn’t answer.

  ‘Is she epileptic? Answer me!’

  ‘She takes some pills . . . or else injections. Injections . . . maybe she’s asthmatic. . . .’

  ‘Lift her feet up! Oh, for God’s sake . . . Nesti, lift her feet up. Is the ambulance coming?’

  ‘On its way. I think she’s coming round a bit.’

  ‘Let go of me.’ But the man kept his grip on her arm. ‘Let me go! I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!’

  ‘You can breathe,’ the marshal said. ‘You are breathing. You’re talking, so you’re breathing, aren’t you? Just lie still. There’s an ambulance coming.’

  ‘No! No! I’m not going to hospital! I don’t want to go to hospital! Let me go!’

  But her voice was feebler now and she didn’t move.

  When the ambulance turned up, it took some time to calm her protests sufficiently to get her onto the stretcher, but the ambulance men were very patient and they at last managed to loosen the man’s grasp on her as they lifted her inside. He tried to get in with her, but they blocked him. After some argument, the ambulance left and the piazza was silent again.

  ‘Well, I’m off. Got an article to write. We’ll be in touch.’ Nesti lit a cigarette and disappeared into the night, his footsteps echoing down a nearby alley.

  The big man was still standing there, his arms dangling.

  ‘You’d better be going home,’ the marshal said. ‘She’s in good hands.’

  He didn’t answer or even look at the marshal. His lower lip dangled. He only had one bottom tooth. He seemed to be in a complete daze. The marshal wondered if it was drugs, or alcohol.

  As if in answer, a stream of wine-dark vomit spouted from the dangling mouth, splattering on the pavement and spraying up the marshal’s beige trousers.

  The man remained immobile, as if he hadn’t noticed. The marshal crossed the road and climbed the wide emptiness of the forecourt to the Palazzo Pitti. At the top, he paused before going under the archway to the left and turned to look back. Below, in the gloom, he could just make out the man’s form, still standing in the bank doorway.

  How do you get red wine stains off beige cloth? The marshal had no idea. He had something else on his mind anyway. He didn’t go and change right away, but unlocked his station and looked in at the empty waiting room. Facing him were the two cells, their cream-painted doors bolted. A long time since they’d had to use one.

  ‘Yes . . . that’s it. . . .’

  Years ago, that man, Forbes. Nasty bit of work he was, and he’d vomited litres of red in his cell the night they picked him up. And that was it: the unpleasant memory brought up by the faintest trace of a smell. Alcohol and vomit, cleaned up but still in the air. In that big fancy kitchen in the cellar, it was almost imperceptible but it was there. That’s why the mother was too dazed to react to her daughter’s death. The sweating, the glazed eyes . . . an almighty hangover. And, given what Nesti had told him, it was hardly surprising.

  The afternoon heat was oppressive. Without the builders, not even the cement mixer broke the silence. The marshal reached the shelter of the cool stone portico and rang the bell. A young woman opened up. Blond, almost colourless hair tied back, jeans, a cheap-looking T-shirt. He followed her down to the kitchen. To understand this family, you had to fit into its timetable. At this hour, both the girls who did the household chores should be there—and the marshal was willing to bet that it was only their day job—and the lady of the house would be out of bed, cleaned up, and in a fit state to talk to him should she want to.

  He was more or less right. She was sitting at the big glass table with a cup of something in front of her and a plate with the remains of some dry toast, but she wasn’t dressed. She was in her nightdress with a wrap of some sort over it.

  ‘I’m sorry to have to disturb you again. . . .’

  When he sat down, he got the yeasty warm smell of sleep and sweat coming off her, with a cloying hint of alcohol.

  ‘Maybe . . . some coffee. . . .’ She looked from the marshal to the girl, uncertain.

  ‘If you mean for me, no, Signora. I’ve only just had one on my way here.’

  That was a lie, but he wouldn’t hav
e wanted to drink anything in here, not even a glass of water. He couldn’t help it, he was keeping his breathing shallow again.

  ‘I’ll get on, then. . . .’ The girl hesitated and, when there was no answer, went through the door that was standing ajar, perhaps to her room. Would she be the one who had been watching him from the barred windows at his feet the other morning, or was it the other one?

  ‘I understand from your daughter that you have someone staying here now, and I’m glad to hear it— would that be the young woman who’s just left us? What’s her name?’

  ‘Danuta.’

  ‘And she sleeps here now? Helps with the little boy?’

  ‘I don’t . . . perhaps, sometimes. . . .’

  It was obvious that she didn’t know.

  ‘Or perhaps the other young woman? The one I haven’t seen?’

  She didn’t answer right away but lifted the cup to her lips very carefully, as though it were brimming over, but it wasn’t. The problem was that her hands were trembling. Her forehead was beaded with sweat and her head must have been throbbing. Frowning with the effort, she said, ‘It might be Frida. I’m sorry, I should be dressed at this hour.’

  She looked frightened, and her glance shifted to the staircase. She wasn’t apologising to the marshal. It must be Paoletti she was afraid of, even in his absence.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m not well.’

  ‘I understand. Your daughter, Silvana, explained— and of course, now, after such a shock. Two shocks. Your husband and then your daughter.’

  Again she lifted the cup and sipped.

  ‘It’s milk,’ she said, as though he’d asked, ‘with just a drop of coffee. Coffee on its own upsets me.’

  ‘Well, yes, it’s heavy on the stomach if it’s strong.’

  Should he even have come here? Yes. He couldn’t imagine the prosecutor getting anything out of her. Hadn’t he already tried? She’d surely have taken something for her hangover, and the milk and toast might settle her stomach sufficiently to enable her to talk. Even though he was thinking this, he was taken aback when she put down the cup and said without expression, ‘Is my daughter dead?’