Property of Blood

by Magdalen Nabb

  ‘Me? Well I’ve been here twenty-nine years. The old Conte was alive in those days—father of the one who died ten years or so ago, a real good-for-nothing he was but his father was what they call a character. “The Professor”, they used to call him. He insisted on that because he had a doctorate in philosophy. “Conte” he wouldn’t stand for, “Doctor” he didn’t care for. “Professor” it had to be. Took one coffee on his morning walk and always wore a hat—trilby in winter, panama in summer …’

  For a long time the Marshal didn’t speak at all. People often began by asking him things but they were usually just as happy telling him things. Most people prefer talking to listening. The Marshal accepted questions and then waited quiedy as now, his dark glasses in his pocket, his hat with the gold flame on his knee, his gaze fixed at random on the walls covered in designs for the facade of the Brunelleschi church outside. At one point, misunderstanding the concentration of his gaze, Giorgio launched into the story of how the municipality had asked all the artists in the city to design a facade for the blank silhouette left by the architect and how, one hot summer night, these designs had been projected onto the church. What a night that had been! Of course, in those days, with a Communist mayor—

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘The Communist mayor? Gabbuggiani. Before your time, I suppose, but it was mostly the idea of…’

  ‘The late Conte Brunamonti. The one whose father called himself “the Professor”, the one who was no good.’

  Back on course, Giorgio told all. There was plenty of it, too. The way the Marshal saw it, if somebody went missing from the family photograph—whether kidnapped, murdered, or lost—the only way to give the missing person a clear oudine and a shape was to fill in the rest of the picture. The empty space remaining was as much as you could know about the victim. The Marshal very much wanted to know about this victim. To his Captain he would have said it would help the investigation. To himself he would say it was because people don’t recover from being kidnapped on the instant of their release and always need help. The real reason was a litde sandy mongrel. He couldn’t have explained that to anybody.

  So he listened to the story of the Conte Ugo Brunamonti, husband of an American model, son of the Conte Egidio Brunamonti, known as ‘the Professor’, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, died of starvation.

  He had been, by all accounts, a beautiful child, fair-haired and brown-eyed, but odd. Odd in precisely what way nobody was still alive to say. He had studied at a Jesuit college and been expelled for unspecified vice. He had taken up art, bought a gallery to show his work in, and invented the Brunamonti sculpture prize, which he first awarded to himself and then to his failed artist friends. This prize, like many others of its ilk, was still awarded annually. It was a heavy bas-relief medal in a blue velvet box, the cost of reproduction covered by the competition entrance fee. An elderly princess with a pretty villa, a decent income, and mild pretensions to an artistic salon gave a supper party in her garden each June after the award ceremony. A big party which people willingly attended, though often ignorant of the motive, because the garden was even prettier than the villa, and the terrace where supper was served on a velvety June night was perfumed by roses and lit by moonlight. However, the only member of the Brunamonti family who could work up enough sense of family duty to attend this party each year was the daughter. The son had never been seen there. Of course, this could be because the daughter had dabbled a bit in art herself at one time but that was some time ago and she’d gone on attending, so only family feeling would explain it. No, she’d never won the prize.

  He had been a very handsome man, Ugo, there was no denying that, and it was easy to understand how he’d dazzled that nice young American woman, what with his looks and his tide and his fine old property. She had once told Giorgio—oh yes, she came in the bar, too, now and again for a late-night snack when they were really busy just before a show, usually with Leonardo and perhaps a designer—that the oldest building where she came from was the gas station. Whether that was true or just a joke, Giorgio couldn’t say. Anyway, she married him, right there in the church of Santo Spirito. A passage still leads from beneath the palazzo to the sacristy of the church—they were Guelphs, the Brunamontis, and had to keep off the streets when the Ghibellines were on the ascent.

  After the wedding, it was trouble all the way. She brought a decent amount of money with her but you can imagine … The art dabbling had been harmless enough but it was followed by stock exchange dabbling and that ruined them. Good money after bad, hers after his. She always was an optimistic, enterprising type and deserved the success she achieved after what she had to fight against. She kept finding ways to keep them afloat, leasing out various parts of the palazzo and renovating a number of dilapidated Brunamonti properties and renting them to tourists.

  Unfortunately, the Conte never ran out of exciting new ventures to invest in and newly discovered talents to be expensively developed. One was Renaissance music, I remember. He set up a group and bought all the antique instruments. Funny thing is, I believe they’re still going—started doing rather well once they’d got rid of him. Couldn’t play, you see, thought he’d pick it up as he, went along, being a genius. And so it went on. When there was no other way to get money he began borrowing on the palazzo. And all the time there were other women—not that he was a cheery philanderer. It was always some complicated romantic affair that would have a business or artistic angle to it, or both, and would end tragically, leaving another loan on the palazzo for his unfortunate wife to pay off. That’s what made her go back to work as a model, and then he left her. A Contessa Brunamonti doesn’t go out to work. It disgraced him publicly.

  She must have got control of the Brunamonti finances at some point and stopped the bank from lending him any more money, which couldn’t have been easy because they must have liked the thought of getting their hands on the property at the end of the day. After that, the Conte went downhill very rapidly. A few friends lent him money but that didn’t last, and when he was destitute an ex-mistress took him in and looked after him until she became ill and left to go back to England, where she came from. He stayed on in her flat, and it was the landlord who, after a year of not being paid and getting no answer to letters, calls, or doorbell, broke in. They say he’d been dead for quite some time. His body was emaciated and had been gnawed at by rats as well as maggots and ants. There was no food at all in the flat. He didn’t die in his bed either, but at his desk, with notes and plans for yet another brilliant scheme in front of him.

  It never got into the papers but the woman who went in to clean up the place brought his few belongings to the Contessa and among them was an unopened box delivered from Pineider, the fanciest stationers in Florence. It contained headed letter paper and envelopes and elegantly engraved visiting cards announcing in English ‘Count Ugo Brunamonti, Exporter of Fine Italian Wines’ and gave the number of the little flat he died in and a U.S. number which turned out to be his mother-in-law’s. She knew nothing about it, of course, since no such business existed. The Contessa paid the stationer’s bill and the amounts outstanding to the landlord. That wasn’t the end of it. For months afterwards more bills kept arriving: tailor, shoemaker, wine merchant—he hadn’t drunk his imaginary wine—and even a year’s rent on an office he’d taken and long since abandoned. The Contessa not only paid the rent but sent her maid round there to make sure the place was clean before giving the keys back. No doubt ‘clean’ included clean of any other evidence of his folly. It was pathetic. A good enough room with a view of red rooftops and a slice of the cathedral dome. A desk and chair, a telephone, unconnected, a leather desk set that had been the Professor’s and which the maid brought home.

  What was really incredible was that there were a lot of offices in that building, and all their occupants had seen Brunamonti going in and out on a regular basis until about a year before, keeping real office hours in a real office and running an imaginary business. T
his was before the wine—an antiques business it was, that time. There was a brass plate on the door. That would have been the period when he was still living with his ex-mistress and no doubt she believed he was going out to work every day. He was always very plausible and kept his good looks until she left him to starve. After his death, relieved of the Brunamonti burden, the Contessa—who never used her tide again except on dress labels—soon made her fortune in the fashion world. She was talented and hardworking, and the banks, who for years had watched her rescue the family estate against all the odds, had absolute trust in her and backed her all the way. By now, the Contessa label was well known in Europe, America, and Japan.

  ‘So, are you going to tell me what’s happened?’

  ‘Oh yes. I’ll be back. I’ll just go up there and have a word if you’ll excuse me …’

  As he went out through the front part of the bar, a waiter was lining up carafes of red wine on the glass counter. The unmistakable smell of roasting pork with roast potatoes and aromatic herbs awoke the Marshal’s appetite with a sharp pang. He glanced at his watch and then, hat in hand, went next door and entered the Palazzo Brunamonti.

  Four

  He plodded slowly along the dark carriageway, past a boarded-up porter’s lodge, until he came out into a cloistered garden where a fountain played quiedy and winter jasmine flowered on the ochre walls. Sheltered from the mountain wind, yellow and purple crocuses made splashes of colour around the stone base of the fountain and sparrows hopped among them chirping cheerfully. An idyllic picture. The Marshal looked upwards. All but two of the tall brown shutters were closed on this inner facade, too. It seemed to him too quiet.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  He turned. Beyond the cloister to his left a plump, grey-haired woman stood holding open a glass door. He walked towards her.

  ‘Perhaps you could tell me which entrance to use … I’m looking for Leonardo Brunamonti—I should say Conte—’

  ‘No. He’s never used the title. He’s not well, I don’t…’ She looked back at the long room behind her. *You’d better come inside.’ He followed her. It was a very high-ceilinged room that had perhaps been built to house carriages rather than people. The spent light from the courtyard was ideal for the Marshal’s sun-allergic eyes but the many people at work there had individual spotlights on their sewing, cutting, and the draping of models. The atmosphere was that of a beehive in production, emphasized by the whirr of sewing machines. One by one these slowed and stopped as they saw the Marshal’s dark silhouette in the doorway. He didn’t know what their reaction to his presence was, only that it was unanimous. They stared as one person, breathed as one person, there was no mistaking that. A planner … someone who knew the family’s finances, their movements. The Marshal would have staked his life in that instant that this person wasn’t here. As to whether he should be in here himself, well, he’d had to ask directions, hadn’t he? It wasn’t his job to question these people. Somebody more important, of a higher rank—even the Prosecutor himself—would do that. The Marshal didn’t question them.

  ‘I’m Signora Verdi, Mariangela Verdi. I want to tell you right away that we don’t know what’s going on but whatever it is we’re here to help.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You needn’t thank me. It’s Leonardo we’re here to help, not you.’

  ‘Is there a difference?’

  ‘We don’t know because we don’t know what’s going on, do we? Or are you going to tell us?’

  She broke off to take delivery of a parcel. ‘Excuse me …’

  ‘Please …’ He watched as she undid the small package. It contained what he assumed were dress labels. They were white with Contessa embroidered in gold italics and Florence in the bottom left-hand corner.

  The Marshal couldn’t help a mental comparison with the engraved letterhead and visiting cards of the crazy husband, the Conte Ugo Brunamonti, exporter of imaginary fine Italian wines.

  ‘May I…?’ He picked up one of the labels.

  ‘Help yourself. It just shows how behind we are when these arrive before we’re ready for them instead of our having to kick up a fuss to get them delivered. They used to be silver on black but some cheap imitator copied them and our designs so we’ve had to change. It ought to have been Contessa Brunamonti in my opinion, instead of just Contessa—they could hardly have copied that—but her ladyship wouldn’t have it and that was that.’

  ‘A little long, perhaps,’ murmured the Marshal. He was surprised that she seemed to expect him to have an opinion on the subject and even more surprised at the tone of that ‘her ladyship,’ which was little less than venomous. A disagreement over labels would hardly warrant such a tone. Had his instinct been completely mistaken about these people? He made a mental note to talk to the Captain about it once they’d been questioned. Something was seriously wrong here.

  How many of them were there in the room? So many pairs of eyes fixed on him, a smell of new cloth and sewing-machine oil, a smell of his childhood and his mother’s rattly old treadle machine.

  Let me pedal for a bit, please…

  You’ll break the needle.

  ‘I’d be glad if you could direct me …’

  ‘I see. You’re not going to tell us anything.’ She led him back out.

  ‘An officer will be coming to talk to you all. I’m not in charge … These stairs?’

  ‘Take the lift. Second floor.’ She pressed the call button for him and went away.

  On the second-floor landing where the floor was of glossy white marble, he was faced with double doors and a brass bell push. A Filipino maid in blue and white answered his brief ring. She was crying already, and when she saw his uniform she broke into howls of dismay and ran off without showing him in.

  The tall, fair daughter was immediately before him—what the devil was her name? He’d forgotten to check. She appeared to be trying to block his way, and her face was white with apprehension. The legs and feet of a young man, wrapped in a plaid blanket, were just visible sticking out over the edge of a white sofa some way behind her. The Marshal made a negative sign to the girl, hoping to convey the idea that he wouldn’t give her away but she didn’t move from his line of vision and it crossed his mind that she was hiding her brother from him rather than vice versa.

  ‘Signorina …’ He was willing to pretend he didn’t know her but he stood his ground. ‘I beg your pardon for this intrusion but I’m looking for Brunamonti, Leonardo Brunamonti.’ She didn’t stand aside, even then, so it was by edging round her that he saw the young man on the white sofa untangle himself from the rug and sit up very slowly. At the floor by his feet lay an airman’s leather jacket. The Marshal felt sure it had been lying there since he came back on that fateful night. Yes, he was right. That was surely the handle of a dog lead sticking out of the pocket.

  Leonardo’s face was a shock. It was to be expected, of course, that he would not have slept, would be distraught, but his face had a greenish pallor, his skin was dry, and black rings circled his eyes, which he seemed barely able to keep open. In fact, after attempting to see the Marshal, he dropped his head into his hands and mumbled, ‘Shutter …’

  Only one inner shutter was open in the long room and the girl went then and closed it, leaving the thinnest possible crack of light by which they could see each other. Even that wouldn’t have been possible had not the room been almost entirely white. The Marshal found this whiteness odd but there was no time now to wonder why. He went and stood before the sofa. Leonardo was evidently as long and thin as his sister. He peered up between his fingers and murmured as though afraid of the slightest movement of his face. ‘Why are you here? Who … ?’

  This couldn’t be just stress. That woman below had said he wasn’t well, and the possibility that this was an abstinence crisis crossed the Marshal’s mind at once.

  ‘Have you been sitting by the phone for ten days?’

  No answer. He dropped his head further and pressed his fingers to hi
s temples as though to prevent it from bursting apart His voice seemed to come from another world.

  ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘An informer. There’s no point in your worrying about that now and you needn’t fear that anything we do will put your mother’s life at risk.’

  The phone rang and Leonardo almost screamed before he grabbed at it.

  ‘Patrick … I can’t…’

  His sister took the receiver from him.

  ‘Patrick? He can’t talk, he’s too ill. I know he should. I’ve told him. I can sit by the phone. Patrick, listen, the carabinieri have found out—I don’t know—an informer or something. There’s somebody here now. I think you should talk to that agency and cancel everything. She’s my mother, Patrick, and Leo’s in no condition … When? I’ll pick you up from the airport. I’ll pick you up!’ She replaced the receiver. Her brother was lying down again, holding, with splayed fingers, a corner of the rug over his face.

  The Marshal indicated an inner door. ‘Could we …?’ He almost tiptoed out behind her. Whatever the reason for it, the young man’s pain was a palpable presence that hung heavy in the shuttered white room where the air could not have been changed for days.

  ‘I’ll take you to my room. We can talk there.’

  This room, when they reached it, seemed amazingly large for a single young woman. It was probable, of course, that all the bedrooms in such a palazzo were as big as this. Even the massive carved bed was lost in such a space. Facing the door, two broad steps led up to a high window with pale shiny curtains looped back in front of the shutters.

  ‘We can sit here.’ A long oak desk with a round leather chair in front on which she sat, remaining bolt upright, her hands posed in her lap. This time, though, she seemed a little excited and began twisting the diamond ring round and round her long finger as she talked.

  ‘Please sit down. I don’t think he suspected me, do you?’

  ‘No, I’m sure not.’ The Marshal sat down on a high-backed carved armchair that felt like a throne. ‘He’s much too distressed to care, I’d say. He also seems to be ill.’