'I've got to catch him …' whispered Carabiniere Bacci to himself, and he turned and ran on. The fugitive had reached the bridge but he was limping badly. The traffic lights at the bridge were red and a bus was waiting there. Only yards further on, by the statue of winter, was a bus stop and the man was limping towards it, looking back over his shoulder.
'No … ! Don't let him …' shouted Carabiniere Bacci uselessly. The street seemed to be getting longer as he ran and he realized he should never have stopped to look round. 'Oh God … no … !' But the bus had slowed and opened its rear doors and the man was on it and away over the bridge. Again Carabiniere Bacci slowed, then he began to run again, faster than before. The car and bikes had taken another route and might not even know the man was on a bus, let alone which bus. He could still do something. Racing over the bridge, he gasped as the icy mountain wind seared his lungs. He was running towards the floodlit crenellations of the Palazzo Ferroni on the other side. The bus had gone straight on but he knew its route and how to catch up with it. He veered suddenly to the right when he reached the opposite bank, ran along under the portico, dodged across the still busy Lungarno amid a squealing and honking of cars, and vanished under a dank and ancient tunnel where his thudding steps echoed.
The bus driver was whistling. It was his last trip before the depot and he was feeling cheerful, but he was also in a hurry to get home. When Carabiniere Bacci suddenly appeared, hurtling towards the bus from a nearby alleyway with his hand raised, he put his foot down just a little.
'See that?' he inquired of his only passenger who was standing behind him. 'Cops! I suppose they think you've to stop just anywhere for them, but not me. He can get himself to a bus stop like everybody else has to.' And he continued whistling.
The passenger didn't answer. The empty body of the brightly-lit orange bus was bouncing on its springs as they sped along, the ticket machine rattling enough to shake itself off its pole.
'Cops everywhere tonight,' muttered the driver, seeing the spinning light in the distance behind him. They bounced and rattled along an empty shopping street, between big sprays of Christmas lights, and made for the Cathedral, swaying round to the right by the Baptistry. A huddled group of people was waiting for the last bus. A bearded man stepped out and waved his arm.
'Don't stop,' said the passenger quietly at his back.
'Have to stop here, even for a cop, my route—'
'Don't stop!' screamed the passenger, panicked, and the driver felt steel in his back.
'Jesus Christ …'
'Put your foot down or I'll fire.'
The driver, white-faced, put his foot down and the waiting group got out of his way just in time, astonished. They chased after the bus for a few yards and the bearded man whipped off his cap and waved it threateningly, shouting unheard insults until they left him far behind.
The terrified driver was gripping the wheel with hands that were sweating so much that it threatened to slip through them. His leg trembled on the accelerator as he tried to keep it down and his paralysed brain was making hopeless attempts at remembering the instructions he had been given for emergencies like this. 'Open the doors … open the doors … open …' but that was to let a dangerous thief get off rather than risk hurt to the passengers. This one might not be a thief, there were no passengers, anyway. And if he were a terrorist … ?
'Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I don't want to be killed … the kids … and it's Christmas … I'm going to be late home … oh, don't let him …' His back was soaked. He fixed his eyes on the smiling picture of John 23rd stuck by his window with two plastic flowers, the nearest he could get to praying. The police car that he had seen behind him had vanished. Then he saw it ahead of them, blocking the road.
'Turn!' ordered the passenger.
'I can't! I can't turn, I'll-'
'Turn!' ramming the steel harder into his back.
The driver turned right, bumping over the pavement. The little street was hung alternately with red and white lights saying 'Merry Christmas' and blue and green lights saying 'Happy Holiday.' Merry Christmas … Happy Holiday … Merry Christmas … Happy Holiday … Merry Christmas … A flashing green tree … a flower … a star … then darkness.
The driver closed his eyes.
The Marshal heard the sirens and they became entangled in his fevered dreams. He was stumbling. The sandy plain kept rising to meet his face and then dropping away underneath him with a sickening lurch. But he was calmer now, having fixed in his mind that this was something to be endured, and that he must periodically get himself to the bathroom to vomit and then resume his hot and wearying journey. The little cleaner was still with him which wearied him even more. He had enough to do, trying to keep himself going without worrying about his companion's grief, the dark-ringed, patient eyes that pleaded with him constantly, although he never looked round at them. Sometimes they were alone, sometimes devils with pitchforks came and prodded them maliciously, not to make them go faster, only to torment them. They prodded the Marshal mostly in the back and he was in great pain from it. It was getting hotter. If it got much hotter they would die. Thank God there was the crate of water under the bed … and now the sirens were going, what did that mean … ? He had sorted out what it was that was happening to him once but now he had forgotten again. Something to do with a funeral … or with going home … but where did the sirens come in? He had lost track … if only he could stop for a minute and think it out. But he couldn't stop, he realized, because it was the ground that was moving, not himself.
'Keep everything still,' he said aloud in the dark, but nothing stayed still and the devils were poking him gleefully as the landscape slid about before his eyes. 'What is it?' demanded the Marshal, giving up trying to reason for himself. 'What's happening? Why can't we stop?'
'Didn't you know?' said the little cleaner's voice, although he was no longer there. 'It's the end of the world …'
Suddenly the Marshal couldn't stand any more.
'No!' he shouted. 'No! It is not the end of the world. I don't believe it. I did know what was wrong with me and now I've forgotten, but it is not the end of the world and, what's more, I'm just about sick of all this, sick and tired of it, night after night — and you —' he pointed a furious finger at the grinning creatures around him —'can get out! Get out of this bedroom! All of you, and don't come backl I can't stand any more and I don't see why I should—now get out!' He was shouting himself hoarse but they were going. 'Right. Now, we'll see whether it's the end of the world or not. In a moment, I'm going to wake up properly and drink a glass of water. End of the world! Rubbish.'
He opened his eyes, sat up, and poured himself a tumbler of water. He drank it slowly, relishing its delicious coolness. Then he got out of bed, feeling very light and peaceful. His pyjamas were clinging to him with sweat. He washed and put on a clean pair. He felt more comfortable than he could ever remember feeling in his life. 'Clean sheets,' he said to himself, and he laboriously re-made his bed. There was a blissful smile on his face as he settled in between the fresh bedlinen with a feeling of ecstatic comfort. With the smile still on his face, he sank gently into a peaceful, healthy sleep.
Carabiniere Bacci was still running. Knowing, as he did, the route of the bus, he took another of his short cuts, undaunted by his first failure, and came out in Piazza Santissima Annunziata, gasping painfully, to await the bus's arrival. It was some moments before he realized that if the bus were on its way he would have been able to hear it. Everything in the Piazza was closed and silent, the church silhouetted against the starry sky, the only other figure the motionless one of the equestrian statue in the centre. He could hear his own laboured breathing and his loud heartbeat. Then he heard a siren. It was behind him and receding. He had come too far. The bus must have been stopped lower down, perhaps near the Cathedral. He started running back down Via de' Servi, the tall slice of floodlit marble jogging up and down before his weary eyes. Eventually he came upon a barrier blocking a side alley a
nd heard some commotion going on out of sight. He wandered about among side streets until he saw the front of the bus visible at the end of a narrow passageway and the turning blue light of a breakdown truck behind it. He walked slowly towards the bus. It was wedged between the stone walls of the passage and its sides were crushed in.
'Your people have all gone,' a breakdown man informed him briefly, on finally noticing him, and then began to shout urgent instructions to some invisible colleague. The lights were all out on the bus.
The Christmas lights had all been turned off by now and the streets seemed much darker than usual. What would the Captain say when he got back to Via Maggio? Carabiniere Bacci still remembered his face after the Miss White episode. And the two Englishmen … he could already feel the cold-eyed gaze of the older one going over him from head to foot without comment. The younger one was more simpatico—but he hadn't gone running after the escapees like a kid playing cops and robbers.
It took him almost an hour to trail back to Via Maggio. When he reached number fifty-eight, someone was coming out and closing the main door. Carabiniere Bacci quickened his last few steps. Then he heard the radio buzzing on and off. The private guard.
'Is the Captain still here?' he asked the guard, with as much of his crushed dignity as he could muster.
'What Captain?'
'The Carabiniere Captain who was here with two English detectives, in the ground-floor flat!'
'Not that I know of. Brigadier there outside the door, as usual, that's all. Nobody inside.'
'Have they made an arrest?'
'Arrest?'
'Yes, an arrest! Don't you know there's been an important operation on here tonight?'
'No. I don't know anything of the sort. Quiet as the grave last time I came round and quiet as the grave now. Do you want to go in? I've got to be on my way.'
'No,' said Carabiniere Bacci, 'there's no point if—'
'I'm off then.' He slammed the door and went on his way, radio crackling, and let himself into the next building.
Carabiniere Bacci noticed then that there was a light on in the bank, a light that was always on, he remembered now, so it hadn't been his fault that he didn't notice the bank cleaners that first morning. He couldn't have known without actually seeing them. So that, at least, hadn't really been his fault. Slowly he crossed the Piazza with its metal shutters closed over the shops, and made his way back to Pitti. His weary footsteps plodded up the sloping forecourt and echoed under the stone archway. He let himself into the office and sank on to the Marshal's chair, still wearing his hat, coat and gloves.
Conscientious to the last, he pulled a piece of lined, government stamped paper towards him and began writing a report. At a quarter to four he found he couldn't go on without a rest and he flopped on to the camp bed. He remembered he was wearing his hat and gloves and took them off and flung them towards the chair. Someone had removed the blanket from the camp bed so he took off his greatcoat and covered himself with it. He fell asleep immediately and the report lay unfinished on the desk. A little later, one of his soiled white gloves slid to the floor.
CHAPTER 5
'What did you do with the gun?'
'What gun?' Cesarini was sneering. He had a slightly wizened look about him and, although he could not have been all that old, his hair and small moustaches were white. His clothes were from the most expensive and fashionable shops in Florence but you had to look at their discreet but visible labels to tell. There was a tinge of the fairground operator about him which hand-painted silk and supple, expensive leather did nothing to dispel. He was as calm as when they had first brought him to Headquarters just before two in the morning, and the sun was up now, coming in low at the windows of the Captain's office and warming the polished floor tiles. The Captain was exhausted, his eyes sore and his face dark with beard, but he would not give in, especially in front of the two Englishmen who were sitting slightly apart from the action, hunched in their chairs. Jeffreys, too, was pale and bleary-eyed.
The Captain repeated tonelessly: What did you do with the gun?' The man's flat had been searched as soon as it was light, his shops were being searched now.
'You haven't told me yet what gun.'
'Yours. I suppose you keep one?'
'Yes.'
'Where is it?'
'In the shop, the bigger one. Your men will find it if they know their job.'
'They do.'
'Well, then.'
'I take it you have a licence?'
'That's right.'
'What time did you visit the Englishman on Tuesday night?'
'I didn't.'
'All right, then, in the early hours of Wednesday morning.'
'I didn't.'
'What were you going to do there, last night?'
'I've told you. I was checking my property. I have every right to look over my own property. You'd taken your guard off and I'd heard the case was closed, so why shouldn't I? I rented him a flat and that doesn't make me a murderer.'
They all blamed themselves for not thinking of it, and nobody more than Inspector Jeffreys who had meant to pick Miss White up on that remark, 'Signor Cesarini, well, he's been a few times, naturally …' Naturally. It had struck him at once as odd, that 'naturally'. Why should he be interested in her little museum? But he had been anxious to get to Langley-Smythe, to stop Miss White from rambling so much in her story— should have taken a bit of his own medicine and been patient. Cesarini visited all the flats because he was the landlord—all except the Cipriani flat which had been in their family for generations. Cesarini had been buying them up over the years with their tenants in them. Of course, when the tenants were asked about Langley-Smythe's visitors, nobody bothered to mention Cesarini. He wasn't a visitor. The Captain had even telephoned Signor Cipriani as soon as the hour was reasonable and asked him if he had ever, by any chance, seen Cesarini go into Langley-Smythe's flat, or vice-versa.
'Yes, quite often, I suppose, but naturally, as he's—'
'Yes. Thank you, we know that now …'
Naturally.
The Captain was now as irritated as he was exhausted.
'What was your business relationship?'
'What makes you think we had one?'
'You deal in a lot of imported furniture.'
'So? Your men have seen my books, if I remember rightly.'
'And found nothing illegal. The Finance Police are looking at them now.'
'And will find the same, nothing illegal.'
'But a lot that is interesting. And the fingerprints of your two friends of last night are all over the furniture in the Englishman's room.'
'That's hardly my responsibility.'
'Why were they with you last night, if you were only checking over your property?'
Cesarini shrugged.
'You refuse to answer?'
'Why should I? Am I under arrest?'
'Not yet.'
There was that, at least. The Captain had waited for Cesarini last night with every intention of making an arrest in flagrante, and only the key had, fortunately, made him hesitate.
Cesarini shrugged again. 'They're friends of mine.'
'Really? Their fingerprints could mean that they'll be charged with murder.'
Another shrug.
'You don't seem to be too concerned for your "friends'".
Cesarini glanced out of the window as if he were bored.
The Chief Inspector had lit his pipe and was chewing on it, concentrating, sometimes looking to Jeffreys in the hope of a bit of translation, but mostly just concentrating. This battle was the same in any language, the rise and fall of tension, the gradual building up of a peculiar intimacy between questioner and questioned that, more often than not, ended in a confession if a guilty man were anything other than a professional killer. The Chief sensed that things weren't developing as they should.
'Mind if I have a smoke myself, seeing as this is just a social visit?' Cesarini asked cockily. Drifts of blue pipe
smoke from the Chief Inspector's corner were revolving in the sunbeam that was now striking the edge of the Captain's desk.
'By all means. If you have any cigarettes.'
'Well, well, I thought you were supposed to be the most civilized cops in Italy,' said the dealer, with his eye on the carved cigarette box on the desk.
'We are,' said the Captain quietly, but not moving. 'Otherwise you might be a great deal less comfortable and cocksure than you are just now.'
'Are you threatening me?' The dealer's face reddened. It was the first reaction they had had out of him.
'Not at all; merely pointing out a fact. How much did you pay him? A percentage of each deal?'
'What deal?' Cesarini scrabbled in his pocket for cigarettes and a lighter. Just as he was about to thrust a cigarette into his mouth, the Captain said:
'How much rent did he pay you?'
The dealer stopped; he took out the cigarette slowly, looking down at the floor, then put it back in and snapped the lighter.
'Who?' he asked eventually, inhaling deeply.
'You know who.'
'I have a lot of tenants.'
'The Englishman.'
'Not much.'
'How much?'
'I don't know how much, not off-hand. Why should I?'
Death of an Englishman Page 10