Death of a Dutchman

by Magdalen Nabb

  And he had tailed off lamely and sat looking down at his big hands.

  'He was a carabiniere,' the Adjutant said gently. 'He did his best. He's not the first to be killed on duty and he won't be the last.'

  It wasn't what the Marshal meant at all, but he had neither the intellect nor the words to explain what he felt was all wrong. It had nothing to do with dying on duty, nothing to do with 'Faithful through the centuries'. It was to do with the Ginos of this world always being the ones to pay, no matter what they were trying to do. But since he couldn't explain, he said: 'Yes, Major . . .'

  'There'll be a formal enquiry, of course, you realize that? There's no question but that they were in the wrong.'

  Agents of Digos, the secret police, had no right to operate in an area without informing the local forces. It had happened all too often that citizens in some public place had phoned for the police or the carabinieri on seeing some apparently respectable people removed at gunpoint from their meal or film. The resulting embarrassing situation left the local forces feeling foolish and enraged, quite apart from the danger involved.

  'They can't go on acting as though they were a law unto themselves,' the Adjutant want on. 'I also wanted to tell you that, although in this case it ended in tragedy, I do know that the control you keep over the hotels in your area is appreciated. It's often been so useful. . . well, we hope you won't abandon it because of this ..."

  The Marshal stared at him with feverish eyes.

  'You don't understand,' he said slowly, 'you don't understand that even though it might have been useful in other ways . . . you see, it was just to avoid this that I did

  Now it was eight o'clock in the evening. He couldn't make up his mind to eat anything. He hadn't showered or changed out of his sweaty uniform. He wouldn't go into the kitchen and turn on the television because he didn't want to see the eight o'clock news. So he went on sitting there, sunk in his chair, his mind rambling.

  It was the telephone that roused him from his stupor. He answered it in the office.

  'Is that you, Marshal?'

  'Who's speaking?'

  'It's me!'

  'And who's me?' He wasn't in the mood for this sort of thing.

  'Me! Signora Giusti!'

  'Signora! But I thought . . .'

  'I know! You thought I was always in bed by half past seven—well, I am, but not tonight. I've got things to do!'

  'I thought,' he said cautiously, 'that you'd hurt your hand . . .'

  'I have. I've got a bandage on it— if you'd seen me this morning . , . people don't understand what it means to fall at my age . . .'

  She interrupted herself for a little weep, then sniffed and carried on:

  'I've decided you were wrong.'

  'I was . . .'

  'You're fussing over nothing—of course it's your job, I realize that. Anyway, in spite of all you said I've decided to go. After all, I've gone every year up to now and nothing's ever happened. I can't see any point in my sitting here all summer while everybody else goes on holiday, on the off-chance that I might get robbed.'

  'No . . .'

  'Oh no. I'm not saying that caution isn't a good thing. I said as much to the woman from the Council, I said he's only doing his job, but he's exaggerating, and she agreed. I hope you won't take offence?'

  'No, Signora, no . . .'

  'That's all right, then. This is what I want you to do: they're collecting me on Monday morning some time after ten, so I want you to come round here between nine and ten and I'll give you my keys. That way I shan't have to worry because you'll be able to keep an eye on things, pop in and so on when you're passing.'

  'But I—'

  'Don't touch anything, mind!'

  'I—'

  'I'll be able to phone you now and again from up there. And I'll send you a postcard—there's a little shop and a bar. It's not a hospital, you know, more of a holiday home . It's very select. They can't take many people but I'm a special case.'

  'Yes, I realize that. Well . . . I'm sure you'll enjoy it.'

  'I will. You're sure you're not offended?'

  'No, no! Heavens above . . .'

  'Good. You see, it's wicked of me, I know, but I do like to have my own way.' She chuckled and rang off.

  Within seconds the phone rang again.

  'It's me again—I forgot to say—her ladyship from downstairs came up to tell me about your arresting that woman I heard in the flat next door. You can tell me all about it when you come round. Good night!'

  'Good night.'

  He sat down in his chair. It was very hot in the little office.

  Ten to nine. He should at least get changed. Goodness knew what garbled stories were going round the piazza, or who had started them. She hadn't even mentioned the Dutchman, as if she had forgotten him already. Her emotional reactions were as short-lived as those of a child. Was it just selfishness? Or was it just because she was ninety-one? Nothing seemed to touch her because nothing could affect her life, which was over. How could he blame her if her chief concern was her funeral. . .

  Again the phone broke his reverie.

  'Surely not a third time!'

  But it was Lieutenant Mori.

  'You've heard, of course. Whoever would have thought it? And we're officially having to start a completely new investigation because the Instructing Judge signed the Archiviazione as soon as he reached his office! I've been on the phone to Chiasso for almost an hour—I thought you'd want to be up to date, since you've been in on it from the st rt. It seems to me a good idea if you could—'

  'I'm sorry, sir,' the Marshal was obliged to interrupt him, 'but I don't understand what it is that's happened '

  'You don't.. . ? But. . . didn't you see the eight o'clock news?'

  'No . . . no, I didn't . . .'

  it was nothing more than a flash, of course, the full story isn't out yet. The main thing is that she attacked a Brigadier on the train!'

  'She what?'

  'Nobody knows why she did it. It's a complete mystery. There were other passengers in the carriage and they all say the same: no apparent reason for it at all. The man hadn't looked at her, spoken to her or even seen her. Of course, it all happened very quickly . . .

  it seems that when the train drew into Chiasso it was stationary rather more than the usual ten minutes or so. A carabiniere squad got into the train to do a spot check on passengers and luggage . . . ever since the Red Brigades kidnapped that train we've been doing it fairly frequently, especially in the north.

  'According to the witnesses, they hadn't even reached the Calais carriage, but one of them, this Brigadier, came ahead and was standing outside their compartment talking to the chef-du-train with his back to them. The woman seemed suddenly to lose her wits. She got up, wrenched the door open and set about the unfortunate Brigadier with her fists, beating him frantically on the back and screaming at him hysterically. You can imagine how astonished he was! At any rate, she didn't do him much harm; he's a biggish chap, apparently, something your build. Nevertheless, he took it rather badly, he said he'd never seen such virulent hatred on a face in all his life—on top of which she smashed a new pair of sunglasses that he happened to have been holding behind his back when she leaped on him. Nobody's managed to get to the bottom of what started it all . . .'

  The Marshal shuddered. Certainly the attack was meant for him. Did she think he'd got on the train? If she had relaxed, thinking it was all over, it wasn't surprising that her nerves gave way when she saw that broad expanse of khaki on the horizon once again.

  'I suppose she denied everything?'

  'Not a bit of it! The only trouble was getting an interpreter over to the station-master's office as fast as possible so that we could get it all down. She does speak some Italian but mostly she was giving vent to her feelings in English. Far from denying anything she kept on insisting that she was in the right. . . they all thought she was crazy—in fact they were pretty sure that she was inventing the whole story. She
may be crazy, anyway, of course, to do a thing like that. After all. . . she told her story expecting sympathy!

  'It happened, more or less, just as you thought. The sister died of a stroke ten years ago. The two of them were alone in the house at the time; the stepson was up in Amsterdam. It seems that, although the death occurred at seven in the evening, the ambulance wasn't called until late next morning. She claimed at the time that they had gone to bed early and slept late and that she had found her sister dead in bed. Since there was no doubt, after the post-mortem that the cause of death was a stroke, I suppose nobody thought anything of it. In fact, she must have sat alone with the body all night, thinking out her plan. Don't you think she might really be mad?'

  'She's mad that we've caught her,' murmured the Marshal. He had an old-fashioned belief in the human capacity for good and evil which no psychiatrist's report had ever managed to dislodge.

  'If you'd heard what they told me . . . the way she screeched at everyone present. / had the right to do what I did. I had the right to a bit of happiness in my life. Eleven years I nursed a sick husband who was no good, who left me penniless after all I'd done for him! Who cheated me out of his life insurance with an overdose of sleeping pills just to spite me. While she had everything.'

  She had even accused her sister of being responsible for old. Goossens's death.

  'It's her you ought to be investigating, not me. Ask her if her husband wouldn't be alive today if she hadn't insisted on their doing so much travelling about. His heart wouldn't stand it, I always said so, but her ladyship would have her holidays and he was fool enough to give her everything she asked for. I've been nowhere, do you know that?

  'Some of the time she talked about her sister as though she were still alive. You can imagine why they didn't believe her story at first. Nevertheless, she insisted on telling it, saying every so often, I had a right to something, after the years I suffered. She left everything to him, everything! And he was supposed to go on providing for me. As if he would bother. Men are all alike, I've learned my lesson. He was no better than the rest, too busy chasing some woman up there to bother about me.

  'This was the Dutchman, I suppose . . .'

  'Yes, poor man,' said the Marshal, 'and he would have provided for her even if he hadn't been asked . . .'

  He shuddered to think of that night when he must have embraced her, thinking she was his stepmother. It was surely one of her hairs they'd found on his jacket. How long would it have been before he realized? Not very long, according to Signora Giusti's account of when the row broke out. But by then he must have drunk the coffee. What had made him realize? No doubt he had noticed that she wasn't wearing the ring,' for one thing . . .

  'Are you still there, Marshal?'

  'Yes, I'm still here.'

  The Lieutenant sounded a little disappointed at his lack of enthusiasm, but it all seemed so far away after what had happened to Gino.

  'What isn't clear, up to now, is what went wrong. She left the country the following day and arrived back here on Tuesday. She could have seen to the re-burial on Wednesday and left again without taking the risk of appearing at the Dutchman's funeral. And that must have been her intention because we've checked with the cemetery and she had made an appointment for Wednesday arid was told to present herself with a copy of the death certificate from the Council, but it seems that she didn't turn up, and later she made a second appointment for after the funeral on Thursday. But nobody knows exactly why, much less why she came to see me . . .'

  It was more than likely, the Marshal thought, that she had been trying to get into the flat when he'd first spotted her because there was a copy of the death certificate there, but he had unknowingly blocked her way.

  Then he had unknowingly prevented her from getting to the Palazzo Vecchio before the Council offices closed so that she'd had to wait a day, and so she had been forced to turn up at the funeral.

  Then he had turned up at the re-burial and seen the ring.

  She had certainly seemed to have some bad luck. Nobody had explained to her what burial in the ground entailed, assuming that it was something everyone knew. And nobody had noticed that the letter from the Council to Goossens T. was for once marked Sig.ra instead of Sig., so that the postman had left it with Signor Beppe and Signor Beppe had sent it on to Amsterdam where the Dutchman had been hoping for just such an opportunity for a happy reunion. A lot of bad luck. Nevertheless, she'd had ten years of living her sister's life, of spending her sister's money.

  Sooner or later, he would have to explain everything to the Lieutenant, but not now ... he couldn't cope now . . .

  'Are you all right, Marshal?'

  'Yes ... I'm all right.'

  'I'm sorry ... I wasn't thinking ... It was one of your boys, wasn't it?'

  'One of my boys, yes, sir.'

  'I hadn't forgotten. I just thought that you'd like to know . . . well, that you were right.'

  'Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.'

  'I shall need you tomorrow. We're going on checking the hotels where we left off. We think she may have used her old passport in a not-too-fussy hotel—she must have stayed somewhere on Sunday night.'

  'Was her married name really Simmons?'

  'Yes. Maiden name Lewis, married name Simmons—why? Do you think you can help?'

  'She stayed at the Pensione Giulia. Her passport number was on the register but not the date of issue. I was going to check up on it this afternoon, but then . . .'

  When the Lieutenant rang off, the Marshal found he was feeling a little more in possession of himself. Probably it was just because he had talked to somebody, filled the silence for a while. It wasn't that he felt any better for having been right. He didn't feel any more 'right' now than he had before. He only felt lonelier.

  Even so, he persuaded himself that he must have a shower. Once in his pyjamas, he was convinced that he felt perfectly normal and was coping well.

  In fact, he had left the lights on in the office. He had quite forgotten that he had eaten nothing. He had also forgotten something else.

  The telephone started ringing again.

  , 'Whoever can it be this time?' He went back into the office in his pyjamas, and was surprised to find the lights on.

  'Yes?'

  'Salva! Whatever's happened? I've been waiting almost an hour!'

  It was Thursday. He hadn't telephoned his wife, who must have been waiting at the priest's house all this time.

  'Teresa . . . I'm sorry . . .' How could be begin to explain? 'Didn't you watch the news?'

  'No, of course not, I was on my way here. You haven't had an accident? Salva!'

  'No, no, I'm all right. It's one of my boys . . .'

  When he had told her, she said: 'You mustn't blame yourself.'

  'Of course not,' he lied. But he was thinking, If I'd only been here . . .

  To distract him, she said, 'The boys are getting so excited . . . they want to buy a new beach ball . . .'

  'I'll bring them one . . . Listen, about Mamma.' The holidays had brought Signora Giusti to mind. 'If you think this hospital idea is a good one . . . well, you're the one who does all the work, and you need a rest . . .'

  'Oh, but you made me forget! With this terrible business about the boy . . . Nunziata went to see the boss after I'd told her you were against the hospital idea—there was nothing he could do, of course, because everybody's holidays were fixed. Anyway, she got in a bit of a state and I think she was crying—well, after all, she'd been promised. Anyway, while she was there-a woman came into the office wanting time off straight away instead of in August. Just fancy! A woman whose child had to go into hospital. It's an ill wind . . . Well, with Nunziata being there what could he do but give her the August fortnight ... So, you see, you were right. It was best to wait like you said.'

  Why did being told that once again he was right serve to depress him even more? For some reason he was thinking of the newborn baby that must be lying in one of those painted metal cribs, i
n a hospital somewhere in Amsterdam. Would he inherit his father's talent? What difference could it possibly make to his tragic start in life that an obscure Italian policeman had been right about what happened to his father? The Marshal could feel that he was transmitting his depression to his wife. To distract her, he gave her as brief an account as he could of the Dutchman's story, the ring, the vicious sister. It sounded not only remote but outlandish when he summarized it. But it did the trick; his wife was intrigued.

  'You'll tell me all the details when you come home?'

  'Of course, if it interests you. You'll probably see it in the papers before then ..."

  'I think it's fascinating. Especially about the ring . . . and the way these people travel about. . . they must have money... and talent too, just imagine. What an interesting family!'

  'I suppose so.'

  But it all seemed so far away.

  'Didn't you find them fascinating? After all, it's not often that you have to deal with a business like that.'

  He thought again of the baby in its crib, of the Italo-Dutch boy in his black artisan's smock weeping at the kitchen table and his father standing over him, big and helpless, of Signora Goossens sitting among the blind man's flowers and reminiscing about her English garden, of a woman looking down into a coffin without flinching, a blonde girl with her dog in a Dutch garden . . . and her mother who was perhaps already travelling north on the Holland Express . . .

  'I suppose you're right,' he said at last. 'They are a fascinating family, it's just that, well,' he finished lamely, 'I never spoke to any of them ... I think we'd better say good night, now.'

  And because he could never manage to say anything endearing over the telephone, he said:

  'Sleep well.'