The Marshal Makes His Report Read online

  ‘No, thank you. You didn’t bring any luggage?’

  The young man laughed. Though his face was pockmarked and his figure slight, his deep grey sparkling eyes and his readiness to break into laughter made him attractive. ‘You don’t miss anything, do you?’

  ‘You did say you’d just arrived . . .’ The Marshal felt a little embarrassed. He liked the look of the youngster and didn’t suspect him of anything at all. It was just a question of a lifetime habit of noticing. Still, the boy wasn’t at all offended.

  ‘I’ve arrived,’ he said, ‘but my luggage, such as it is, hasn’t. I came by train from Venice as I always do. Some members of the troupe drive down in the van with all our luggage, props and costumes. I’ll be going to the theatre in an hour or so to collect my stuff. I keep a clean shirt and the odd pair of socks here anyway. I like to come and see Catherine for a day or two when I can, even when I’m not here for work.’

  ‘You’re very close?’

  ‘I suppose we are, in a way. We’re orphans and have no family except each other. I suppose that does make a difference. She lived in Venice with me for a time but I think she found it too decadent. Now I love decadence— theatrical decadence such as you only find in Venice. Catherine’s better off here really, given her job. What happened to Corsi exactly? Or aren’t you allowed to say?’

  ‘We don’t know a great deal as yet.’ Was he being overcautious? It was only by talking more openly that he would encourage people to talk openly to him. That was the way it always worked. That was the way to find out things. Again he had to remind himself that this time nobody wanted to find out anything—or if he did no one would want to be told about it. But mightn’t he feel better, relieve himself of the feeling of stress and fear that persisted inside him? He might. But in that case he’d better keep what he found out to himself or he’d really have something to be frightened about.

  As these thoughts wandered through his mind, his eyes drifted over the shelving above the worktable which held labelled jars, brushes and sponges, like a painter’s studio except there were no colours. William Yorke followed his gaze and tried to interpret his silence.

  ‘I understand. You can’t say anything. Still, a rifle . . . everybody in the place must have heard.’

  ‘No!’ said the Marshal abruptly. ‘Nobody.’

  ‘Well, of course, it’s none of my business. I’m just interested in the family—decadence again, you see. You can follow the whole history of Florence through the history of this house.’

  The Marshal didn’t like to say that the house gave him the creeps, so he said nothing.

  ‘From a purely personal point of view the place gives me the creeps,’ continued William. The Marshal’s heart warmed to him. ‘Give me the faded colour and elegance of Venice any time. These Florentine palaces are fortresses, built to keep people out, not to receive them, don’t you find?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of it but I don’t like this place.’

  ‘Exactly! Of course you don’t. You were never meant to. It was built to keep you out, like the whole of this city. Whoever heard of a city where all the great houses turn their backs on the street and have their gardens and façades on the inside? Do you realize what that implies about the character of the Florentines? You’re not a Florentine yourself, I can tell from your accent. Sicilian?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes. I suppose La Ulderighi won’t receive you?’

  ‘I’ve seen her once but—’

  ‘You must have seen her by accident—and I suppose, whatever did happen to Corsi, she’ll want an accident verdict. She needs the money.’

  ‘You seem to know a lot about her . . .’

  ‘I do rather. Catherine tells me things, of course, and then, when I’m here, La Ulderighi invites me to tea.’

  ‘She invites you?’

  ‘Certainly. You look surprised.’

  ‘Well, I . . . I understood—particularly from Dr Martelli—that the Marchesa took a rather snobbish attitude to her tenants. Of course, you’re not a tenant.’

  William’s dark grey eyes twinkled with merriment. ‘No, no. You’re not there. Dr Martelli—she’s a nice woman—comes from Milan, in case you hadn’t noticed. You come from Sicily, which is worse, altogether unforgivable, but I come from England, which makes me an honorary Florentine with no other credentials required. Now do you understand?’

  ‘I’ve been here over fifteen years—’ the Marshal rubbed his face glumly with a huge hand—‘and I decided long ago I’d never understand the Florentines. You must have been in Italy a good while yourself?’

  ‘Donkey’s years. My mother came over after the flood doing volunteer restoration work—nothing fancy like Catherine does, just shifting mud and that sort of thing. Then she and my father bought a part share in a country cottage in Chianti, so we all used to come over for the holidays. We were still at school when my parents were killed in a road accident. We’d have liked to keep the Chianti cottage on but we weren’t old enough to decide for ourselves . . . Anyway we both drifted back here, as you see. After death duties and our school fees and so on we were left without a bean. When I think what that cottage would have been worth today . . . Well, that’s us. The proud poor. Still, we are both doing what we like to do and that’s important.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ agreed the Marshal, who thought it all very precarious, imagining his own little boys adrift in a foreign country with no family and no money.

  ‘You said, did you,’ he went on, picking up on an earlier remark, ‘that the Marchesa was in need of money. Why was that?’

  ‘She’ll want to collect on the insurance, won’t she? I mean, surely it has to have been an accident. If it wasn’t . . .’

  ‘You have reason to think he might have wanted to kill himself?’

  ‘Mm. Lots of people have good reason to kill themselves but they don’t, do they? I mean, think of people dragging round with incurable diseases, no money, no friends, no family. There are people like that and they struggle on. You have to be the suicidal type and I wouldn’t have thought it of him particularly. Not that you can always tell. You ought to talk to Catherine when she gets back. She may know things I don’t know. They won’t thank you round here for suggesting suicide, though, will they?’

  ‘No,’ the Marshal said glumly. ‘No, they won’t.’

  The Marshal liked William Yorke. He was intelligent, sympathetic. He wished . . . Well, it was no use wishing. But as though reading his thoughts, William made a tentative suggestion.

  ‘Perhaps . . . If you think it might be any use to you, I could listen around, chat to people while I’m here. I’m afraid there’ll be no invitations to tea if she’s in mourning, but I’m on good gossiping terms with everybody in here, just about.’

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘If I’m talking out of turn just say so.’

  ‘No . . . No. I was wondering, do you ever talk to the old nurse?’

  ‘The tata? Always. I always go in and take her a few sweets. She reminds me of the witches in the Scottish play except that she tends to tell you about the past rather than the future. She’s pretty batty though, you know.’

  ‘But you like going in to see her?’

  ‘I’ve already told you about my taste for the decadent and the theatrical! She’s both in a big way.’

  ‘I ought to talk to her myself . . .’

  ‘But she waved her stick at you and warned you off the Ulderighi territory.’

  ‘That’s about the size of it.’

  They smiled at each other like good friends.

  ‘She’s done that to me before now,’ William admitted. ‘There are days when she doesn’t recognize me. I go back five minutes later and she welcomes me with open arms. Half the time she thinks I was one of her Ulderighi babies.’

  ‘But why . . . I mean, why do you . . . ?’

  ‘Why do I bother? I collect eccentrics. One day I’m going to write a play of my
own. In the meantime I keep a notebook—no doubt you keep one yourself?’

  ‘I—yes, but for information—’

  ‘So is mine for information.’ He whipped out a notebook very like the Marshal’s own. ‘Listen to this: Two large and wealthy ladies are floating down the Grand Canal and one says to the other as she stares at the crumbling grandeur drifting by, “I thought these places were supposed to be beautiful.” And the other one says, “They are.” Then she looks at them for a bit and adds uncertainly, “On the inside . . . ” ’

  ‘I don’t—’

  ‘Wait—wait! A Florentine one: Tourist couple standing looking at the Baptistry. Wife reads from guidebook: “Probably built between 1059 and 1150. Nine hundred years that’s been standing right there!” And her husband says, “Well, it’d probably cost too much to pull it down.” You see? I collect treasure everywhere and one day I’ll write a comedy. While collecting for me I can be collecting for you. I often think I could have been a policeman. What do you think?’

  ‘I’m sure you’d be a great detective with your brains.’

  ‘Another Sherlock Holmes? Is that how you think of your job?’

  ‘My job? Good Lord, no. My job’s just routine stuff. We don’t often get anything more exciting than handbag-snatching at my little station, and just as well since I haven’t your brains.’

  ‘But you notice things.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You notice things. My lack of luggage, the invisible spare bed, that sort of thing.’

  Once again that lurch of anxiety. He’d pushed it to the back of his mind, but he had noticed—how could he not have noticed?—a dark patch on the side of Corsi’s face and him lying on his back and nobody had touched him, they said.

  ‘I hope I haven’t offended you? You did notice those things. It’s to your credit, after all, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’d better go.’ He’d hardly heard what the lad said. ‘I really must . . . I’ll come back, though—when will I be able to talk to your sister?’

  ‘Sunday. She’ll be back Sunday afternoon—I’m hoping she’ll be in time to come to the theatre. Sunday’s our last night. I’ll tell her you were here— and, as I said—I’ll be chatting to people. You never know, I might just hear something useful.’

  As he opened the door, the Marshal saw between the columns a short black figure approach the lift and stand waiting. The lift door opened at once and the man stepped inside. When he turned the Marshal saw his dog-collar and also that he was carrying a small black case. The lift doors closed on him but the Marshal had got a glimpse of the person who had brought the lift down for him. It was the Marchesa Ulderighi. Her face was very white. She appeared not to have noticed the Marshal.

  Under the brilliant June sunshine the cathedral square was swarming with people. It always was, of course, and the traffic swirling round it made matters worse. But now there was this demonstration as well, so that the cars and buses were blocked and exuding useless exhaust fumes into the shimmering air. As usually happened in these cases, the Marshal had ‘lent’ two of his men but where the use of it was he couldn’t see. They had called in a half-hour ago saying that although there was no danger it was quite impossible to get the traffic through and that it looked as if there was little to be done until the demonstration broke up. The Marshal himself, on his way to the Palazzo Ulderighi, had missed lunch to stop and check on his boys and for the moment at least he was thoroughly stuck. He had got into a sort of backwater between the cathedral and the bell tower and was trying to dry his streaming eyes, but even there he was getting crushed. He had been glad enough to delay another attack on the Ulderighi house because of the claustrophobia that overwhelmed him there, but the crush of people, the burning heat and the stench of exhaust fumes had pretty much the same effect here.

  He had managed to get over to the other side of the square to where his boys were but hadn’t succeeded in getting back as yet. He finished drying his eyes and now mopped his brow. His hat felt too tight. A voice was exhorting the crowd through a megaphone and leaflets were being passed over people’s heads, many of them taken and then dropped on the ground by tourists who couldn’t read them. The Marshal caught one as it fell and folded it up and put it in his pocket without looking at it. He couldn’t read properly with his sunglasses on and he had no intention of taking them off. Besides, he had already signed the double petition, a copy of which had come to his office.

  ‘The administrative factions in the Palazzo Vecchio are struggling for power, for political power. But political power is not what the administration of Florence is about. The administration of Florence is the administration of an inheritance. A priceless inheritance which belongs not only to Florentines but to the whole of the civilized world . . .’

  A gang of youngsters roared by on mopeds, drowning the voice for a moment.

  ‘They’ll surely never get away with it,’ commented one of the bystanders squashed up against the Marshal.

  ‘That other lot got away with it near the Ponte Vecchio.’

  ‘Yes, but not on the Ponte Vecchio, for God’s sake . . .’

  Perhaps they would get away with it, but the Marshal hoped not. A hamburger joint practically within the precincts of the cathedral was going too far and he’d been more than willing to object to it along with the traffic business, though where the cars would go if they didn’t flow round the cathedral neither he nor anyone else could say. He tried to remember when he last went inside the cathedral. Had he taken Teresa and the boys when they first moved up from Sicily? He wasn’t all that sure. They’d gone up to the top of the bell tower, he remembered that. The boys had insisted. And they’d looked at the doors of paradise, one panel of which had been missing, being restored after the ravages of exhaust fumes. It was a bad business.

  And now hamburgers. Exhaust fumes mixed with the greasy fumes of fried meat and onions. There’d always been a little trattoria in that sheltered corner. He’d never eaten there but remembered three or four tables with snowy cloths set out under the green shade of a vine. Presumably their lease had run out and they couldn’t compete with the world-famous hamburger chain. Still, they were fighting back. You had to hand it to the Florentines, they didn’t take that sort of thing lying down. Reluctant though he was to move out of the shade, he had to do it. He shouldn’t hang about here. He must really be on his way. There were enough police there, as well as carabinieri, to sort this mess out. Besides, his boys were quite right, there was no danger and it would soon be over.

  As he began to push his way forward a delicious smell floated to his nostrils, sharp, aromatic, cutting through the smell of car fumes. A pity, he thought, that he was in uniform, otherwise . . . The enticing smells got stronger as he made his way through the crowd. He couldn’t see the long table from which the demonstrators were being served but he knew what was on it. He could smell the hot toast with garlic, oil and salt, the crisp, wafer-thin pizza with rosemary scattered on it— and surely that was Tuscan sausage? Well, there was nothing to be done, so it would do him no good to think about it. Some good at least came from the fact that the crowd was shifting in the direction of the food, which meant he could get along better. And get along he did until a voice shouted, ‘Marshal!’

  He paused. Of course, whoever it was need not be calling him. The square was full of uniformed men.

  ‘Marshal!’ He recognized the voice though, he thought.

  ‘Over here!’ Foreign. That was it. Yorke, the English boy. An umbrella was being waved furiously above the heads of the crowd. The Marshal stood still and waited, letting the people flow round his great black bulk as though he were a rock in a choppy sea. The umbrella disappeared, reappeared, then its owner came into view. ‘Ah!’ The umbrella was lowered. In his other hand he cradled a miniature pizza, still sizzling on a small paper napkin, as carefully as though it were a baby bird. A swift mouthful disposed of it.

  ‘Excuse me.’ He waggled his umbrella in the direction of the source. ‘But
it’s in a good cause.’ And to the Marshal’s mild astonishment he folded the little paper napkin as though it were of silk and slid it into the top pocket of his blue linen jacket, adjusting the protruding folds with a little flourish.

  ‘Never drop litter,’ he said. ‘I saw you from a distance,’ he went on. ‘Well, you’re very visible for one reason and another. You, of course, didn’t see me.’

  ‘No, no, I . . .’

  ‘An umbrella is a useful object. Look!’ He pointed to where a tour guide held a large red umbrella aloft and strode off with a crocodile of weary-looking people straggling after him, their arms burnt to the colour of the umbrella. ‘Very useful—really I’ve always regretted not joining the Guards. Too small, you see, though nicely made. There are things I want to tell you. Which way are you going?’

  ‘Me? I—to the Palazzo Ulderighi . . .’ He almost added, ‘Unfortunately.’ He felt at ease with this young man, strange though he was with his quick way of talking and the odd things he said that you couldn’t at all follow. And though he was so young he had a way about him that was old, a sort of mock-gravity which, combined with the umbrella, made the Marshal think of Charlie Chaplin.

  ‘In that case,’ William Yorke said, looking about him solemnly, ‘we shall leave this merry scene and hope that all this effort, including my heroic champing of all that good food, will prevent the barbarians from opening their hamburger joint in the precincts of the cathedral. We’d better not talk Ulderighi talk here. Follow me!’ He raised his umbrella, pressed the spring and snapped it open. The Marshal, the ghost of a smile flitting across his face behind the dark glasses, followed him.

  For the Marshal, it was a relief not to have to ring the bell and affront the sullen face of the porter who always made him feel like an unwelcome guest rather than an official caller. William let them in with his keys. In the courtyard the piano music filtering down from the dancing school was almost entirely drowned by that of Emilio who was practising something very loud and, the Marshal thought, modern.