The Marshal and the Madwoman

by Magdalen Nabb

  'I saw her once.'

  'Let's see what her file has to say . . . These are her transfer documents, which mean that, according to a law passed in '68, she became a voluntary patient where before she'd been committed—that was in '67. There's her signature. That was long before my time. I only knew her in her last years here when she was pretty settled. Here's a medical report from just before she left us. She didn't ail a thing, healthy as a baby. And she'd been taken off the tranquillizers she'd been taking in the evenings. She used to get a bit agitated towards dusk . . .'

  'Did she clean up a lot when she was here?'

  'She certainly did—if you could call it that. She always had a brush in her hand as long as I knew her and she'd sweep and sweep, even the grass out there. She was no trouble to anybody as long as she was busy with that. We did have problems with her, though, I remember—there's a note on it here . . .' He looked up from the file. 'It's something that needs to be seen in context or you'll get a false idea. One of the everlasting problems in a place like this is the women getting pregnant. You can imagine that not many people, however desperate for a child, are willing to take one born in here. Despite all our efforts, quite a few children have been born here.'

  'The wards are mixed?'

  'The departments are separate but the patients aren't locked up. They need to go out in the grounds, they have to have fresh air and exercise. Every effort is made to keep an eye on them, but needless to say . . . We introduced the contraceptive pill at one point but the thing was hopeless. The nursing and supervision was mostly done by nuns in those days—and don't get me wrong here because we don't get on nearly so well without them now they've almost all gone—but as for putting the women patients on the pill, it was useless for the doctor to prescribe them even after getting the family's consent because the nuns simply didn't administer them so what could we do? Anyway, that's just to give you the background. It's a constant problem and an understandable one. Clementina was one of those who went after the men. She liked attention and when she didn't get it she'd invent it, making out that this or that man was after her.'

  The Marshal was on the point of saying 'She still does' until he remembered that Clementina was dead. Nevertheless, this opened up a new line of thought.

  'She didn't have a child in here?'

  'No, she didn't.'

  'But she was here long before you, you said.'

  'True, but it would be in this file.'

  'I see.'

  'Is there anything else I can tell you?'

  'I don't know.' The Marshal was silent for a moment, then he said, 'Nothing particular seems to have happened to her while she was in here ... A lot of patients were released under this new law, you said; was that when she left?'

  'Yes.'

  'Well, I'm trying to imagine what reason anybody could have had for killing her. As far as we can make out, she had no money or anything at all worth stealing. She was harmless and seemed to have no contacts much other than her neighbours . . .'

  'What you're trying to say is,-could it have been another patient, or ex-patient, some sort of homicidal maniac'

  'I suppose so.'

  'This isn't a criminal asylum, Marshal, and however disastrous the new law was, we didn't release a gang of homicidal maniacs on to the streets.'

  'No, of course not.'

  'I'm not saying it can be excluded absolutely. After all, sane people up and murder somebody and a mentally sick person could, by the same token, up and murder somebody too. But there'd still have to be a reason.'

  'Somebody came to see her last week. A stocky man, balding slightly and with a limp. That doesn't ring a bell?'

  'I'm afraid not.'

  'It doesn't fit the man who came here?'

  'Not at all. He was nondescript. . . About my age, though, and very well dressed. He didn't limp.'

  'Did Clementina have any visitors while she was in here?'

  'Not that I remember, but she could have done without my knowing anything about it. Remember we had three thousand patients then, and it's not my job to deal with them personally; my time's spent in here. What I can tell you about Clementina comes mostly from her file, though I used to see her about the grounds with her sweeping brush, and occasionally picked up news about her goings-on from other members of staff.'

  'I see. But she had a husband. Her identity card states that she's a widow.'

  'I can't remember anything about a husband—wait a minute! If I'm not mistaken, what triggered off her illness was a bereavement, so perhaps she lost her husband before she came here. It was long before my time, of course, but the circumstances of her admission should be mentioned in this file. What if we look through it right from the beginning?'

  'It was so long ago,' murmured the Marshal, 'but perhaps you're right.' It would have looked more hopeful if Clementina had only just been released and somebody didn't want her in circulation, but she'd been living in that same house all those years without anything happening to her. There had to have been something new and it seemed useless to go so far back. 'Well,' he said, 'anything that helps me to get to know her and, if possible, her family—she couldn't have been committed wrongfully?'

  'That wouldn't be easy,' said the archivist, 'because there are too many checkpoints. No patient ever comes straight in here—or came straight in here, I should say, since we no longer admit anyone. I'll explain the procedure as it was in the days when Clementina was admitted. The first thing they needed was a certificate stating that the person was considered dangerous to himself or others—herself, in this case. That had to be made out by the police, but in some cases it was made out by the mayor. In either instance, we don't have a copy. It remains with the police or in the mayor's office. With that the patient could be admitted to the observation ward in a hospital, a normal hospital such as Santa Maria Nuova. After that, the patient would either be released or an admission order made out and the patient sent here—but she wouldn't be committed even then. She'd be put in our clinic, which was a University clinic—you may have noticed the large building on your left as you came in the gates. At that point, a time-limit came into operation, because a patient could only be kept there for up to thirty days. Once the thirty days were up she would either have to be released or committed to the asylum proper here. I think you'll agree that it would have been impossible for her to have been wrongfully committed. That's a lot of people to get past.'

  'Yes, it is. Do any of these certificates state the exact reason ... I mean the cause of her illness?'

  'Not the certificates, no. I'll show you. The dangerous persons one, as I said, we don't have here. What we do have is the admission order that sent her to the clinic and then the committal order . . . somewhere . . . that's funny, it should be right at the beginning . . . perhaps I've mixed things up.'

  The Marshal watched Mannucci go through the file from beginning to end, sure that he wouldn't find what he was looking for. Then he said: T presume that few people present themselves to the police claiming to be dangerous?'

  'It does happen,' Mannucci said, still turning over the pages one by one, working backwards this time. 'In fact, it happens fairly frequently these days, since we stopped admitting people. A great many ex-patients who found they couldn't cope outside tried to get back in.' He paused and looked up. 'There was one last week who set his house on fire and then went to the Carabinieri saying they had to re-admit him to a hospital because he was still mad. When they sent him home he went to the next village, smashed up a car that was parked in the central square and tried the Carabinieri there. When that didn't work he got himself a shotgun and killed the first person who happened to walk by his house. When they came for him he said: "Now will you believe I'm mad?" And he's not the only one by any means. There was another case—'

  'But,' interrupted the Marshal firmly, 'if Clementina didn't give herself up to the police, somebody else must have done it.'

  'Yes,' said Mannucci, 'the name and address would be on—you're
not still imagining that she was wrongfully committed?'

  'No. I'm just trying to think why anyone would come in here and remove his name and address from that file.'

  Mannucci gave up his search. 'You're right. It's gone— and not only that, there should be the notes from the observation clinic . . .'

  'How long did you leave him alone?'

  'I didn't! No . . . You're right, I did. He'd just arrived and presented his request. As I told you, it struck me as odd right away with Clementina being dead.'

  'Try and remember your movements exactly.'

  'Well, I looked at the date first, obviously.'

  'And then?'

  'And then at the signature. I thought of looking at Clementina's signature in her file. I didn't have anything definite in mind because it might well have been all above board. Just instinct, I suppose.'

  'So you got Clementina's file out and then, for some reason—'

  'No. Nothing of the kind. I thought of checking the signature but before I could get the file out my assistant called me from the door. She's in the room just across the corridor, there, and she needed me ... It couldn't have been more than five minutes.'

  'If you'd intended to get the file out you probably walked towards it.'

  'I may have done.'

  'Well, it wouldn't take him more than a matter of seconds to find it, then. They're in alphabetical order, I imagine?'

  'Yes. The cabinets are all labelled.'

  'Is anything else missing?'

  'I don't think so.'

  'What's missing, then, is not anything that refers to her years in here but to her past life and to whoever got her admitted and why. Well, it's a pity, but it's also a help.'

  'A help? I'm mortified. I obviously wasn't suspicious enough . . . Wait! Perhaps he didn't know about the first certificate, the one we don't have, and if he does know he'll have a job to get his hands on that. You'll be able to find it in the archives of one of the police stations. It won't have much on it but it will have Clementina's home address at the time she was first taken into hospital.'

  'In that case,' the Marshal said, 'I'll get on to it right away.'

  CHAPTER 6

  Mannucci accompanied the Marshal to his car. The fat man had disappeared but in the doorway of the next building a middle-aged woman appeared naked, trailing a dress of some sort on the floor. A tiny nun wearing a big rubber apron over her habit came out to persuade her to come away. The woman allowed herself to be led inside. She was laughing in a raucous, uncontrolled voice that sounded all the louder for the desolate silence of the grounds.

  'I suppose,' the Marshal said, 'that there's no chance of any patient who knew Clementina . . .'

  Mannucci shook his head. 'At one time, when there were short-term patients . . . With the poor creatures who are left in here now. . . Wait, though—there's Angelo. Clementina, I think, used to sit with him in the grounds.'

  'Sit with him? Is he crippled?'

  'No, he's not crippled. You'll see for yourself. He's a reasonable enough soul when he's not in a crisis—but don't expect too much, he's very childish. I doubt if he can tell you a lot.'

  'To be honest with you,' the Marshal said, 'I don't even know what I want him to tell me.'

  They walked together along the tarmac between rows of pollarded trees, and the Marshal fished in his top pocket for his dark glasses without finding them.

  'It's just that I know so little about her. She seems to have had no contacts other than her neighbours and yet someone . . . There must have been other people in her life before she came in here. Family, friends—do you think her being in here so long would explain there not being a single photograph in her house from her past life? It's something that bothers me.'

  'It could explain it,' Mannucci said. 'It does happen but usually only in really bad cases, people who have no contact with reality at all, such as those who are severely retarded from birth. But I'd have thought someone like Clementina would have had her little box of treasures. Even Angelo has, and he's a great deal worse than Clementina was or he wouldn't still be here. There he is on his bench. Neat as a pin and as good as gold . . . Angelo!'

  He was indeed as neat as a pin, and he sat with his feet together and his arms tightly folded, watching their approach with dark, shining eyes. His face would have been handsome but his forehead was far too big and the back of his head very flat. He could only have been in his early forties, the Marshal judged, as they came up close.

  'I haven't done something bad, have I?' Angelo asked Mannucci at once. 'Because I don't think I have, I don't think so.'

  'No,' said Manucci very gently, 'the Marshal here's been paying me a visit and he wanted to know about Clementina. You remember Clementina?'

  'Yes, oh yes. She used to sit with me, she used to . ..'

  'Well, the Marshal would like to talk to you about her.'

  'Will he sit with me, will he?'

  'Yes, of course. Sit down, Marshal. I'll nip in and tell the nurse on duty what's going on.'

  The Marshal was a little disconcerted at being left alone with Angelo. Since he had no idea how to proceed when dealing with the mentally ill, he proceeded in his usual way.

  'Excuse me for disturbing you,' he began.

  'It's all right. It's all right. I'm very sick, you know, very sick, and that's why I have to stay in here but I'm all right at the moment. I've been very well all morning. I've been . . .'

  'Can you remember Clementina?'

  'Oh yes. Yes. She used to sit with me. I liked Clementina. She kept herself clean, you see. She kept. . .' He looked hard into the Marshal's eyes, his own full of distress. 'It's terrible in here, terrible. There are dirty people, filthy . . . who think nothing of. . . out here on the grass, anywhere. And some of them are dangerous. I know. I know! I'm dangerous when it comes over me, I know that. But the rest of the time I'm frightened, the rest of the time . . . you see . . .'

  'I see,' the Marshal said, 'but you weren't frightened of Clementina?'

  'Clementina no. Clementina ... Is she coming back?'

  'No, she's not coming back.'

  'She went home.'

  'Yes.'

  'I—I could have gone home only I'm very sick. Very, very sick . . . when it comes over me . . . My mother's at home waiting. They let me go home once, but it came over me. I get frightened ... I get frightened and it all goes up in my head and then it comes over me, that's why it happened. I didn't want to hurt her, I didn't want. . .'

  'You hurt your mother?'

  'Yes. And she hit me. She hit me ... It all goes up in my head and I can't—I have to stay here, I know that. I have to . . . I'm very sick. Nobody's forcing me, I understand I'm very sick. Nobody's . . .'

  'Was Clementina very sick?'

  'Clementina wasn't frightened like me. She used to sit with me but she was very busy. She was . . . Clementina had her cleaning to do. She had a lot of cleaning to do and then she wouldn't sit with me.'

  'Did she talk to you?'

  'Yes. Yes.' Angelo's arms were folded so tightly it must have hurt him. A blackbird hopped by and he jerked himself forward to watch its movements, his eyes bright. Then he sat back just as suddenly and smiled at the Marshal, his face radiant.

  'A bird . . .' he whispered.

  'How long have you been here?' the Marshal asked him.

  'A long time. A long. . . maybe since I was twenty. Before that I was in another place but I can't remember it. I have to stay.'

  'I understand. You were here before Clementina, were you? You were here when she came?'

  'Yes. I have to . . .'

  'I understand. What did Clementina talk to you about?'

  'She didn't talk. Not for a long time. She didn't talk for years and years . . . Then she . . . maybe she was frightened then. But when she started to shout she shouted wicked words. Filthy . . . she shouted.'

  'But not when she sat with you? You liked her to sit with you, didn't you?'

  'Oh yes, but she wanted
to marry me, she wanted. She had her pension, she said. She had . . . I've got one too and my mother . . . No—it's not true. Don't be angry with me.'

  'I'm not angry.'

  'Don't be angry with ... I know I shouldn't tell lies. Perhaps I have got a pension but I can't remember. Some- times when I'm frightened I can't remember things. But Clementina had a pension and they used to send it for her and she kept some money in her apron.'

  'Who sent it for her?'

  'If you can't go they get it for you. She told me.'

  'Who got it for her? Did somebody come to see her?'

  'Her sister. Sometimes her sister came.'

  'Clementina had a sister? What was her name?'

  'I don't know.'

  'Try and remember.'

  'I don't know. Don't get angry with me. Don't get. . . Sometimes I can't remember things because I'm sick.'

  'That's all right. It doesn't matter.'

  'Is it all right?'

  'Of course. Don't worry.'

  'I can't help it.'

  'No, no ... It doesn't matter at all. I'm very grateful to you for telling me that Clementina had a sister. I didn't know that.'

  'She had a house, as well. That's why she could go home, but I can't because I'm not well enough.'

  'She was married once, did she tell you that?'

  'No. But she had a ring and I saw it. Everybody said her husband was dead and her baby, but she didn't say. Perhaps she couldn't remember things, like me, because she was sick.'

  'I expect that's the reason.'

  'I wish she'd come back . . .' He turned his pleading eyes on the Marshal. 'I'm so lonely.' His breath was shallow and halting. 'I'm so lonely I could . . . Ym frightened of being by myself, they know that. I'm all right if somebody's near me.