The Marshal's Own Case, page 4
‘How do you mean?’ Teresa asked.
‘I’m afraid he’s got in with a bad crowd. That’s why I rang to ask you both to come. I thought perhaps . . .’ Her glance moved from Teresa to the silent Marshal whose big hands were placed squarely on his knees. ‘There’s a small group of boys in the class who are constantly in trouble in one way or another. They’re all from fairly rough families and it’s only to be expected that they’re the way they are. The trouble is that your son’s attached himself to them and since he’s so obviously not really one of them, he’s being led like a sheep and has to go out of his way to prove that he can behave worse than they do. It’s the sort of thing that happens fairly often with well-brought-up children who want to be thought one of the lads. But in this case . . . well, they have been known to get in trouble out of school. I just thought it’s the sort of thing that could cause you a lot of embarrassment, apart from anything else.’ Again, she looked at the Marshal.
‘What sort of trouble?’ he asked.
‘Oh, nothing too serious. There have been one or two complaints from the shops here in the square, for example. They go round them all asking for stickers, you know the sort I mean, the little coloured trademark stickers you see on shop windows and doors. They collect them. As I said, it’s nothing serious, but some of the smarter shops don’t want children of that sort running in and out. I’m not suggesting you take that in itself too seriously, but I do think we should try and find out why he’s taken up with these boys at all. It’s not like him and I do feel it’s a sign that there’s something wrong. I suppose he never brings any of them home?’
‘No, never,’ Teresa said. ‘Giovanni sometimes has a friend in after lunch. They do their homework together, but not Totò.’
‘I thought not. They’re not the sort he’d want you to see. Does he go out much himself?’
‘He does sometimes go out but he always says he’s going to Leonardo’s house to do homework with him. There seemed no harm in that. He did the same all last year, so I never thought . . .’
‘But he doesn’t bring Leonardo home with him any more?’
‘He doesn’t, it’s true . . .’
‘I thought not. He never bothers with Leonardo any more. I think you should find out where he’s really going and perhaps even keep him in—it’s a difficult decision to make because setting yourselves against the friends he’s chosen can have a negative effect. Nevertheless, the fact that he never brings these boys home or even mentions them to you means that he must be ashamed of his association with them. I don’t want to worry you too much but I do think we should find out what’s wrong, why he’s doing it. It’s out of character and I’m afraid he must be very unhappy for some reason. I thought you might have noticed at home . . .’
The two of them sat silent, trying to remember anything different about Totò, but they couldn’t. Both their faces were a little red. It wasn’t comfortable to be told something about your own child that you were completely unaware of. They felt crushed. And yet, the Marshal thought, why was it that parents were always taken by surprise like this? He’d done any number of things himself that would have horrified his mother if she’d ever found out, but she hadn’t. So why was it so impossible to believe that Totò did things they knew nothing about?
‘We’d better have a talk to him,’ Teresa said, recovering herself first.
‘If you don’t mind my offering advice,’ the young teacher said gently, ‘I wouldn’t come down too heavily on him. It could make him worse. I don’t know whether it wouldn’t be better to avoid mentioning those boys at all. You could just keep him in on the grounds that he’s behind with his work and needs to study more. That’s certainly true. And we should keep in touch. Watch him, and try to find out what’s making him unhappy and causing all this.’ She glanced at the door where the next parents in the queue were peering in, wondering what was taking so long.
The Marshal stood up. Teresa seemed rooted to the spot, reluctant to leave without having solved anything, without even understanding. Nevertheless, she stirred herself when she saw him standing. They thanked the teacher and left.
They crossed the road and walked up the sloping forecourt towards the Pitti Palace in silence. Only when his wife was unlocking the door of their quarters did the Marshal murmur, ‘Should I talk to him?’
‘I don’t know. It might make it seem too serious. After all . . .’
They went in without her finishing the sentence, she didn’t need to. She was always the one to deal with discipline, and her threats of ‘if I have to tell your father you’ll get a hiding’ never came to anything.
‘I suppose you’re right.’
‘We’ll have supper first, anyway.’
It wasn’t a happy meal. Nobody spoke except to ask for the salt or be offered a second helping. The Marshal ate without knowing what he was eating. You did everything you were supposed to do for your children, worked for them, fed them, clothed them, sent for the doctor when they were ill, and all the time they weren’t really just ‘the children’ they were people, quite separate from yourself. He knew it was ridiculous but he felt as if Totò had given him a kick in the stomach and instead of feeling concerned he felt hurt. It was just as well that Teresa was going to deal with it. Maybe mothers felt things in a different way. That woman, whose name he’d by now forgotten, who came to report her son missing and he was forty-five years old . . . ‘We’ve always been close.’ Did it never wear off then, this feeling that your children were just your children and not people? Not even when they grew up?
‘Do you want anything else, Salva?’
‘No.’
‘In that case, I’ll clear away.’ She gave him a significant look and indicated Giovanni.
The two boys made to go off to their room and he was so slow on the uptake that it was Teresa who had to say, ‘Giovanni, stay with your dad a minute, he wants a word with you.’
Totò shot off to the bedroom and Teresa cleared the table and then followed him.
‘What is it?’ Giovanni asked, puzzled at seeing his father turn on the television and sit down in front of it.
‘What?’
‘Mum said you wanted to talk to me.’
‘Mm.’ He got up again and turned the sound down. ‘Sit here with me.’ After all, Giovanni might know what was wrong, even if they didn’t.
‘I’m not in trouble at school, am I? The maths teacher said—’
‘No, no . . . You’re not in trouble . . .’ It didn’t seem right to talk about Totò behind his back but, after all, Giovanni spent more time with him than anybody else. He might know what was the matter.
‘It’s Totò we’re worried about. His teacher thinks . . . She says he’s got in with a bad crowd. Do you know who they are?’
‘I know one of them, the one called Innocenti. I don’t know his first name. He has a gang.’
‘And is Totò in this gang?’
‘I don’t know . . . maybe.’
‘Well, have you seen him with them or not?’
‘Sometimes at break. They play cards.’
‘Cards? Not for money?’
‘A hundred lire or something. I don’t know. I don’t go near them. Innocenti’s dad . . .’ Giovanni eyed his father sideways, reluctant to continue.
‘What about him?’
‘He’s in prison. At least, that’s what everybody says.’
The Marshal digested this piece of information in silence. He wondered how Teresa was getting on. He couldn’t hear a sound from the boys’ bedroom.
‘Can I go?’ Giovanni asked, ‘I’ve not finished my homework.’
‘No, wait. Do you think . . . do you think Totò’s unhappy?’
‘Unhappy? Why should he be? There’s nothing wrong with him.’
‘No, no . . . it was just something his teacher—no, of course there’s nothing wrong with him.’ He was well-dressed, well-fed and looked after. What could a teacher who only saw him for a couple of hours a day know about it? He had nothing in the world to complain of. The trouble was that kids never knew when they were well off. When he thought of his own childhood . . . He’d been luckier than most but so many children went without shoes and never got a square meal. He remembered all the money they’d spent at the beginning of term . . . and that little girl crying for a satchel. Perhaps the boys were spoilt and that was the problem. But there was plump, quiet Giovanni beside him, trying now to catch what was being said on the television, and he never got in trouble. He thought he might as well turn the sound up since they were sitting there saying nothing, but then Teresa came back so instead he said, ‘Go and finish your homework.’
Teresa took the boy’s place on the sofa.
‘What did he have to say for himself, then?’
‘Nothing much.’ Teresa looked unsatisfied. ‘I took the teacher’s advice and just told him his work was below standard and he’d have to stay in every afternoon and study. I didn’t mention the other business. Even so, there was no getting anything out of him. I tried asking if he was unhappy at school, if he felt his teacher didn’t like him, if he didn’t feel well and so on. He hadn’t a word to say—except, as usual, that we always pick on him and Giovanni’s always the favourite. He was just saying that for the sake of saying it. I have a feeling that teacher was right. There is something wrong but he’s hiding it.’
‘Well, there’s no point in sitting here all night trying to guess what it is. I suppose it’ll come out sooner or later.’
They watched television for a while, or pretended to. But the Marshal knew they were both more disturbed than they wanted to admit. It wasn’t long before they gave up the pretence and went early to bed where they lay side by side in sleepless silence until Teresa said, ‘You’re not worrying about him, are you? It’ll be something and nothing.’
‘Of course it will. I wasn’t worrying. I was just remembering I’ve got to go over to Borgo Ognissanti tomorrow first thing. The Captain wants to see me but in his message it didn’t say why. That’s what’s worrying me.’
It wasn’t, but once he’d produced it as an excuse it began to.
Three
Captain Maestrangelo was a serious man. The Marshal had only very rarely seen him smile, and when he did it was such a fleeting smile and so instantly replaced by utter solemnity that it was difficult to believe he’d not imagined it. He wasn’t showing any signs of smiling now, but what exactly he was showing signs of the Marshal couldn’t fathom. So he sat there in silence, his big hands on his knees, his big eyes watchful but fixed not on the Captain so much as on a gold-framed oil painting just behind his head.
‘I imagine you’ll need more men. I can spare you two on a regular basis—you’ve nobody off sick?’
‘No . . .’
‘Then put one of your own lads on the job as well and with my two you should be able to manage. Your brigadier’s capable of taking your place when necessary.’
The truth had dawned but the Marshal was having difficulty believing it.
The ‘pre-packed’ body, as Lorenzini had christened it, had been found on his territory by his men, but a case like that, needing a number of men and a lengthy investigation, would normally be dealt with from here at Headquarters, the Marshal himself giving any local assistance that might be called for. The Captain was within his rights to do what he was doing, but even so . . .
‘You want me to lead the investigation?’
‘Certainly. You’re more than capable of it.’
What the Marshal wanted to ask was ‘Why?’ but it wasn’t his place to ask that sort of question of his commanding officer so he said nothing. Nevertheless, his eyes, bulging rather more than usual, were eloquent with the unspoken question and the Captain avoided them. The answer was not long in presenting itself, anyway.
‘I had a call yesterday afternoon from Professor Forli.’
‘He’s already done an autopsy?’
‘Only the first stage. He can’t give me anything further on the cause of death yet as he hasn’t examined the internal organs. But what he did find out he thought he should communicate right away because it will affect the direction of our—your inquiry. He opened the thorax yesterday and got a surprise. To be more exact, he opened the left breast, then the other to make sure. He says he never would have believed it, he would have excluded the possibility from the size alone. However . . . the breast was a bag of silicone. So, there it is. Not the body of a young woman but of a young man. Obviously, this means the point of departure for your inquiry must be there. The transvestite prostitute contingent in the city is large, but closely knit and virtually closed to outsiders. They all know each other, so at least you’ll have no trouble working out which one is missing and getting this . . . creature identified.’
And there it was, the reason. What was veiling the Captain’s dark and solemn eyes was distaste. No doubt it was reflected in the Marshal’s own face as he began, ‘I don’t know much about—’
The Captain rose at once and took a small stack of files from a cupboard. He placed these on the desk between them and sat down again. There was nothing else on the broad polished surface of the desk except an unused blotter in a leather case and a heavy glass ashtray, also unused. The Captain was a fastidious man. In the Marshal’s private opinion he ought to marry, have children, allow a bit of human disorder into his life, but his face was expressionless as ever as he listened to what he was being told.
‘These are the files on all the transvestite murders in the city, or to be more precise, murders committed in and around their world. In some cases the prostitute himself is the victim. Others were probable clients, others again Peeping Toms who may have been seen as a threat by some client who didn’t want to risk being discovered because of having a wife and children or a respectable job. A number of them occurred in the Cascine as that’s the park where there’s most transvestite traffic. As you’ll see, all the victims were either battered to death with a handy stone or stabbed with common or garden kitchen knives. There’s never been a case like the one you’re handling, where the body was cut up and concealed, and before you can find out where the killing took place you’ll need to identify the victim so as to know where he operated, whether in the Cascine or at home.’
The Marshal stared at the files one by one. He was dismayed, not by their contents but by their covers, each of which had one word written large in red: UNSOLVED.
The globular white lights along the length of the avenue barely lit the road they were cruising along. They seemed rather to emphasize the blackness beyond it on either side. Every so often a ghostly figure appeared near a tree or a bench, then dissolved into darkness again as they passed by. Some of the figures moved slightly, thrusting themselves into visibility or turning their heads slightly, but the effect was still that of statues placed at intervals. The slow-moving cars which passed in an endless stream, sometimes settling into a queue in front of one of the pale figures, added to the sense of being in some crazy museum without a catalogue and little more than a torch to find your way about.
The Marshal, hunched silently in the civilian car, found it claustrophobic. So much activity taking place with so little light and all of it confusing. Ferrini, the Captain’s man, was driving and he, thank God, knew his way about. Even so, it was bizarre and not at all what he had expected. When the Public Prosecutor had directed them to sift through the transsexual population, the Marshal had imagined a road block, lights, uniformed men, anything but this creeping around in civvies at three in the morning, one more kerb-crawling car among the hundreds of others. Where did they all come from? Out of town, a lot of them, to judge by the number plates, but there were plenty of Florentines, too. There must have been more traffic than there ever was in the daytime.
Ferrini slowed and wound down his window. A white figure standing beneath a tree came to life and glided forward. The Marshal caught a glimpse of long pale thighs, white lace barely covering a thrusting pair of breasts. Then a white fur swept down over it all and a face appeared. A man’s voice murmured gruffly, ‘It’s you . . . I didn’t recognize you.’
‘You weren’t meant to,’ Ferrini said. ‘We don’t want to frighten your customers away.’
‘What’s up, then?’
‘Plenty. Listen, is anybody missing off this patch that you know of? That tall one, for instance, the one who’s usually over there by the railings?’
‘Carla? She’s got the ’flu.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Positive. She’s a friend of mine and anyway we ate together this evening. She could hardly eat a thing she had such a temperature.’
‘Anybody else?’
‘Missing? Not that I know of, but I keep myself to myself so any number of people could be missing for all I know. You get some funny people on this game, I can tell you. I just stick with my own few friends. You know what I mean?’
‘Well, take my advice. Stick even closer to your friends than usual. Pair off with somebody. Take precautions, you know how.’
‘Has somebody been attacked?’
‘Murdered. And nastily. Read the paper. And in the meantime, take precautions. Think on.’
They moved away. The Marshal turned to look out of the back window and saw the white figure staring after them uncertainly.
‘You think he’ll take your advice?’ he asked Ferrini.
‘Oh yes, at least for a week or so. They always do. Work in pairs so one can take the number of the car the other gets into, that sort of thing. Soon wears off though, since they know well enough what a risky job they’re in. Mind you, a body chopped up like that’ll give them something to think about . . . Let’s hear what Titi has to say.’
He braked and poked his head out the window.
‘Fish not biting tonight, Titi?’
More thighs, this time with black suspenders, and all the Marshal could think of was how cold they must be. For goodness’ sake, it was two in the morning and he was in a car with an overcoat and scarf on and the heating turned on full. But each time Ferrini wound the window down he felt the cold. All these people were practically naked!
