The Monster of Florence

by Magdalen Nabb

  “Perhaps you should have told us.”

  “No, that was out of the question. That would have meant involving you in a move that wasn’t strictly correct. I thought that, if you came round to my way of thinking on your own account, you’d have come here to see me. I hoped, when I heard you were on your way over the other day … Well, it was an unreasonable expectation. It’s just that, somehow or other, I felt sure that you were the one person who had the tenacity to get to the bottom of all this, to cut through all the hysteria and exaggerated fantasy that had built up around the case. And with Ferrini to help you and the literature I lent Bacci …”

  “You did?”

  “It’s all in English. I found it hard going when I was struggling with it myself in eighty-three, but Bacci’s English is excellent. Well, I was asking too much, I suppose.”

  “No, no …” The Marshal stood up. “No, that’s not the problem. With your permission, I’d like to go back to my office.”

  “Of course.” The Captain turned and faced him, his voice cold. “You must have a great deal to do.”

  “I’ll be back, if you have time for me, in about half an hour or so. You see, we’ve found out who killed these youngsters, but now we don’t know what to do, so, if you could decide … With your permission …”

  He left quietly, leaving the Captain staring after him.

  He was as good as his word and returned within the half-hour to deposit with relief his burden of papers and worries on the Captain’s desk. Then he sat in silence, gaze fixed on his big hands planted squarely on his knees, until Maestrangelo had finished reading.

  “You did all this, you three?”

  “No, sir. Judge Romola had already done all the work but he never had the chance or the peace to understand all its implications.”

  “Even so, I don’t begin to understand how you found the time.”

  “No.” And yet, thinking back on it, he could only remember Ferrini’s dinners and stories … that and all the tiring reading in the night … “Anyway, we don’t know what to do now.”

  “I’ll tell you. What we shall do immediately is to send a report to the Chief Public Prosecutor with a copy to Simonetti and the Preliminary Enquiry Judge. I hope that for the moment they’ll simply ignore it as they have all other information that’s come in. I think the very connection with the Vargius family should ensure that. Then we’ll have to sit on it until your Suspect goes to trial and hope he gets off. Even so, there’s an element of risk. So, who will sign it? Do you want to?”

  “I’ll do whatever you think is right.”

  “You’ll be safe from risk if I sign it, but on the other hand, if we could ever get it into court …”

  “Glory’s not really in my line, Captain.”

  “No, I know it’s not. Still, there’s Ferrini to consider—and Bacci. I think you should talk it over and then come back to me. And whatever you decide, Guarnaccia, my compliments. I’m glad to know my trust in you was warranted.”

  “Yes … So am I.” The Marshal took up his hat, correcting himself, “I mean, thank you, sir.”

  “Well done. Marshal! You succeeded where I failed. Couldn’t get anywhere near.”

  “I’m not surprised,” the Marshal said, offering Dr. Biondini his hand, “but I didn’t even try.” He indicated the glass of red wine he was holding. “Somebody going round with a tray gave it to me. I’m not much good in crowds.”

  “And there’s certainly a crowd this evening. I’m delighted you managed to get here this time. Have you had a look at the paintings?”

  “No, no … Perhaps another day my wife and I will walk up again. I was just admiring the view.”

  “Isn’t it wonderful? And such a perfect evening.”

  It was September and the evening sun was dissolving over the city into a lake of pink and green and misty purple.

  The stone parapets of the star-shaped fort were still warm to the touch and people were pouring out across the lawns from the exhibition to sit there and marvel at the magical beauty of the city they spent most of their days complaining about. The Marshal, after losing Teresa in the crush, had been standing there for some time, listening to snatches of their gossip: the notorious stinginess of a certain marquis, the scandalous behaviour of a countess, the failure of the municipal authorities, the inaccuracy of that article in the paper …

  “They say it was the daughter, ingenuous soul, who called the carabinieri, thinking the mother had been kidnapped, so what could he do when he got there but play the part. Imagine his embarrassment when she swanned in at dawn in her evening gown, rather smudged, to find them all sitting round the telephone waiting for the ransom demand. My dear, I ask you!”

  “So she’s trying to sell the villa before he’s actually declared bankrupt …”

  “No, no, the marriage is to be annulled. It’s a tedious business but his uncle’s a member of the Holy Roman Rota so it won’t take as long as some …”

  But in the end, they all fell silent before the daily miracle of the sunset over red tiles and white marble below.

  “We don’t come up here nearly as often as we should,” the Marshal said, “and each time we do I ask myself why not.”

  “The answer’s all too simple, my dear Marshal,” said Biondini with a rueful smile, “we don’t get the time. But you really must come up and have a look at the exhibition on a quiet day. I’ll send you round some free tickets.”

  “No, no … There’s no call … we’ll come anyway.”

  “I insist. There’s a painting by a friend of yours, you know.”

  “A friend …?”

  “Antonio Franchi! A portrait of Ferdinando de’ Medici, from the Uffizi. Genuine, I believe.”

  “Ah, I should like to see that.” It occurred to him that Biondini was one of the people Benozzetti referred to as genuine studious lovers of art. “What did you think? You saw the two photographs.”

  “I couldn’t fault them. Of course we never got a chance to see the third.”

  The story of the third version in an American museum had come out in the papers without mention of its provenance. The museum still refused to comment, much less produce a photograph for comparison.

  “You don’t think,” suggested the Marshal, “that when the fuss has died down they will try and check whether it’s genuine?” He explained, as best he could, Benozzetti’s version of how things would go.

  “He’s quite right,” Biondini laughed. “Think of the money they spent on it. They’ll never get it back. Not to mention how ridiculous they’d look. They’d lose their reputation entirely. No, once a painting’s that far along the line it has to remain genuine. The world’s galleries are full of Corots and De Chiricos, like the churches are full of pieces of the true cross, a veritable forest full! Your friend Benozzetti was cleverer than most. He took on much more difficult artists and with a lot more success.”

  “What about Titian?”

  “That would be much more difficult indeed—at least, his later work. The photographic style is easier, that or the very modern. Titian’s late work would be impossible to imitate, I think.”

  “That’s why he retired, then,” the Marshal said. “That’s what he was trying to do when I met him and he failed. Landini’s presence was essential to him. Well, I’m glad I can’t afford to buy paintings, I’d be sure to be made a fool of by someone as clever as that.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. You’d buy something you enjoyed looking at and if someone came along and said it was painted by artist B instead of artist A you’d still go on enjoying it. It’s people who buy paintings as investments who are in danger. I don’t think you or I need worry. At any rate, you can be sure that you’ll not hear another word against the three Antonio Franchi portraits of Anna Caterina Luisa dei Gherardini. Think of the auctioneers, the museum’s buyer of whoever made the attribution. No one will react because there’s too much at stake.”

  The Marshal sipped his wine for a moment, frowning, then his fa
ce cleared. “At least, it’s the best thing for young Marco, who was used as an unknowing accomplice.”

  “You see? Nobody wants to hear the truth, so Benozzetti might as well have kept it to himself. He had his brief moment of glory and his private satisfaction, but there’s no possibility of his being acknowledged. Anyway, I promise you the Franchi portrait in my exhibition is impeccable, so come up again. I take it your life has quietened down now that you’ve found your famous Monster?”

  “Yes, except that I can’t … Ah, you mean the arrest of the Suspect …”

  “Didn’t I see it on the news?”

  “Yes, yes, of course … I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

  “You’re not going to tell me that, after all the fuss and publicity, he’s a forgery, too?”

  “There’s no such thing as a forgery. Isn’t that what you told me? Though I didn’t understand it at the time. Benozzetti said the same.”

  “You give me too much credit, as usual, Marshal! ‘There is no such thing as a forgery. There are only false attributions.’ It was said—or rather written—by a very great art historian.”

  “Ah. Well, like the painting, it went too far for anyone to retract, and since he’s such a dreadful character anyway …”

  “I see. Depressing for you. I mean you worked so hard for such an unsatisfying conclusion. What a world! I’d better get back inside, I suppose. I’ll send you those tickets.”

  Most of the brilliant colour had drained from the sky by now, leaving only a silvery yellow light, reflecting from the smooth chilly water of the river. The surrounding hills topped with pines and cypresses had merged into one black silhouette.

  He had his private satisfaction but there’s no possibility …

  Did he, too, stop because his whole plan failed? Silvano had come near to being arrested as the Monster but, then, as always he slid away. On the other hand, perhaps he felt he’d succeeded. As long as he had that pistol he had power. He’d rid himself of Silvano’s presence and should he ever dare to set foot in Italy again he’d shoot somebody with it. In the meantime, in Silvano’s absence, he would never again strike at a courting couple, of course. On the other hand, he might not have lost his acquired taste for killing and mutilating. If he hadn’t, and he killed again, he might well be caught and then confess the lot the way they all did …

  What was he thinking of? He could hardly wish death on some other innocent soul just for the satisfaction …

  He had to let go. Like Romola. He felt sure that, in the long run, he would only remember that dead girl’s parents waiting in their separate loneliness for the final release from pain. And a woman living out her joyless life, the loneliness only punctuated by devastating headaches. And Romola who had cared, and fought, and lost. And yet he had been right. He had been on the right road and he had uncovered everything. But to see your way clearly you had to walk the road the other way like the road Nicolino had taken, running at the last, towards the big light.

  Silvano as the protagonist. And Silvano as the victim, hunted and destroyed without ever really understanding why and by someone so innocuous—not only—but who ought, if anything, to be grateful to him. It was outside the range of his comprehension that he had destroyed someone’s world not once but twice. Silvano was guilty of murder and he couldn’t point the finger at the one who had brought down this terrible punishment on him without admitting his own guilt. The seventeen innocent people who had died at their hands were forgotten by both of them, a matter of indifference, battle casualties. And the battle was presumably over. Unless Silvano came back.

  The huge autumnal sun dropped out of sight behind the dark silhouette of hills, and lights sparkled softly all over the city.

  “It’s so beautiful.” Teresa came and slid her arm through his, looking down with him at the floodlit marble towers and the sparkling reflections in the dusky river. “We should come up here more often.”

  “Yes. I was saying the same. But it’s going dark …” For some reason the falling darkness made him feel an ache of sadness and anxiety. He realized why when she answered him.

  “We should be thinking of going home. The boys will be waiting.”

  He thought to himself, “We’re so lucky. Please God let it stay that way.” But aloud he only said, “They’ll be hungry. Let’s go now,” and he held her arm close to him as they steered their way through the crowd.