Death in Springtime (13 page)

The Captain looked at his watch.

'I've got ten minutes . . .'

'Do you want me to see them?'

'There may be something I need to know. I'll see them next door if you would prepare that warrant for me?'

'Of course.' The Substitute signed to his registrar to sit down again.

'If we can pick them all up at the same time we won't lose any of them.'

When he saw the state the girl was in he sat her in an armchair and sent his adjutant to get her something to drink.

'A brandy might be best . . . and a glass of water.'

'She insisted on coming straight here,' said Bacci, who was almost as pale as she was.

'In ten minutes I have to leave. Has she already talked to you?'

'In the taxi coming here.'

'Then you tell me everything in brief, and quickly. If you know who the contact was, then tell me that first.'

'There were any number of possibilities, though one in particular is most likely.'

'What do you mean by any number?'

'Miss Maxwell was perfectly normal in her behaviour at school—except that she was perhaps too much the model student—but every so often she would disappear, usually for about three days, once for a whole week. Nobody remarked on it because all the students are foreign and occasionally take trips home or go on sightseeing tours. A lot of them are studying other things besides Italian and so they take time off to prepare for exams. Nevertheless, when she disappeared for a week without saying anything to Katrine who was her closest friend, Katrine went round to the flat a number of times, thinking she must be ill. The third time she went she got Debbie to come to the door but not to let her in. She had to try another three times over two days before she succeeded in talking her way in. Twice there was a man in the background but not the same one each time, she's sure. She was obviously very unhappy and managed to conceal it most of the time.'

'What was she taking?'

'Cocaine.'

'Then it's easy to see where her money went . . .'

'Yes. When Katrine eventually got in she found her friend in a state of physical and mental collapse. But within two days she was back at school and behaving as if nothing had happened.'

'Where did she get the stuff?'

'The usual bar. She told Katrine everything but nobody else knew. It seems she dressed herself up in the most provocative way possible when she got into this state and behaved like a caricature of the rich foreigner. Out of some sort of desperation she seemed to want to degrade herself. She usually left with one of the men. Afterwards she would be full of remorse and would return to playing the clean-living model student. Katrine wanted to help her. That was why once or twice Debbie let her cash the money order for her. Then Katrine would look after the money for the month, but it didn't work. Debbie disappeared just the same and then rang to ask for the money. Katrine was afraid of what might happen if she didn't pay up.'

'Did she ever go with her to the bar?'

'Once, having failed to dissuade her from going. That's one of the main reasons why she's been so frightened. She knew that some of the men there were shepherds who came in from the country and that all this must be connected with the kidnapping. She hadn't recognised any of the people or even seen their faces but the thought that they must know her was enough.'

They glanced across at her. She was watching them over the rim of the glass, looking from one to the other of their faces, trying to follow their too rapid talk.

'And this is why she stayed the night with her?'

'Yes. The pattern was predictable. It always happened when her allowance arrived. The pushers knew exactly when to expect her and if she didn't turn up they would telephone her. There was one man in particular, as I said; he seemed to have her under his control.'

'Does she know his name?'

'No. She doesn't know any of their names, but she remembers that he had a long scar running right up his hand. It looked recent.'

'Who was selling her the stuff, this same man?'

'He was controlling her supply but it all came from someone else. Katrine never saw the pusher but they referred to him as "Baffetti". I suppose he had a moustache.'

'Garau '

'You know him?'

'Only too well . . . He's inside for having slit a man's throat. I wonder . . . Just a moment.'

He made a quick call to the hospital next door. When he got the staff nurse of the ward he wanted she said:

'I can tell you without going to look. The scar goes right up to his elbow and he got it in a fight just like the scar he's going to have round his throat.'

'He's going to be all right, then?'

'Only because he was lucky.'

Garau too had been lucky, to be charged with grievous bodily harm instead of murder. Maybe the scarred man had suspected something and wanted a cut of the ransom. It must have been he who telephoned the flat. The Captain didn't even know his name since the fight had happened in another part of the city a ad he had only read about it in the papers. Now Garau would be charged with kidnapping. The Captain had been right about their having lost a guard as well as a feeder. Garau was the missing link who sold drugs to both Debbie Maxwell and to the shepherds. And then he had jeopardized the whole job by landing himself inside. That was why Scano's boy had risked going back to the base-man. Had they found another guard? Somebody must be up there to take over when Rudolfo came down . . .

'The girl's allowance must have just arrived when this happened,' the Captain said. 'Somebody tried to phone her at the flat. We found hardly any money. Where is it?'

'Katrine has it in her account.' Each time she heard her name the girl stared at them more anxiously than ever, as if she wanted to speak, to excuse herself, but was too exhausted. 'They paid it in the day before. Debbie was determined that this time she would fight it off. There wasn't room for her to stay in the flat with the three other girls so they decided that Katrine should stay in Piazza Pitti in Debbie's flat. They turned the telephone down and spent most of the evening at the cinema. Both of them were frightened before this even happened.'

'Did she say anything more about the messages for Maxwell?'

'That she should have given him the letter a week after his arrival. They knew he would be at the Excelsior.'

'Did she know that Maxwell was buying a house here?'

'I don't know. She didn't say so.'

'Leave it for now . . .' The Captain went over to the girl and asked her gently in English: 'Are you feeling better?'

She didn't answer him but said: 'Her father's so rich. I thought he would just pay up and then take her home. It was the only way to put an end to it—I even thought it might help her.'

'Perhaps it will.' The Captain was thinking of her note.

'They might have killed me, mightn't they? They might have killed me, that's what I couldn't stop thinking about. I don't think I've thought about anything else since it happened. I thought they were afraid of me too.'

'Don't worry. It will soon be over now.'

'You will find Debbie?'

'I'll find her.'

'I want to telephone my father. I want to go home to Norway.'

He had her driven back to her flat and sent a guard with her. There was no reason why, once they had taken her statement, she shouldn't go home to Norway until the case came to trial. That could easily be in over a year's time.

She left the room without a backward glance.

'Bacci, come with me. You did a good job on that, now let's see you in action.'

'Maestrangelo!' They were in the corridor and the Substitute was coming towards them, but the Captain had caught a glimpse of the figure that turned to go down the stairs beyond him. It was the Prefect, and that could only mean one thing. In theory he had been prepared for it all along, but that it should happen now, right now . . .

'Maestrangelo.' The Substitute reached them. He had his briefcase in one hand, a cigar and a sheet of paper in the other. 'The Prefect has had a call from the Minister. The American Ambassador has been in touch with him.'

'I see.'

'They want the inquiry suspended for twenty-four hours. You'll know better than I do what that means.'

'That he's already got the ransom money here, that it was probably on its way already as payment for the house. And if they only want twenty-four hours then they've already made the appointment to hand it over. Did they say so?'

'No. They weren't saying anything.'

'If they pay up she'll be killed. From what the Nilsen girl has just told me Garau is our missing link, and with him in prison they're in too tight a corner. If she's released and lets out the story about "Baffetti" pushing cocaine. There's also the boyfriend with the scar who's a threat. He's still in hospital with a slit throat but he can talk and might know something. The job's so messed up . . . it's messy, it's amateur and it's personal. Unless I get to her before they pay up we might as well give up looking.'

'You weren't able to convince Maxwell?'

'I could only convince his wife, whose one concern is to save her stepdaughter. Maxwell still thinks he can run this himself, pay up and leave with his daughter rather than keep his money and have the case come to court so that his affairs might have to be examined—that could cost him more than the ransom. If he doesn't believe me it's because he doesn't want to, and if I save his daughter's life it will be in spite of him.'

There was nothing else the Captain could say. If he couldn't move now, then the girl's death would not be his responsibility, and frustration was something he had learned to live with. But his headache was worse and it was seven minutes past twelve. He had everything he needed to arrest the whole gang. The noise down in the courtyard was getting louder as the men began to wonder why they weren't leaving. He looked at the Substitute who stuck the cigar between his teeth and handed him the sheet of paper, saying:

'Thank you. Have to tell them something, you see. Make a good impression. That's the warrant for the Demontis brother. You'll ring me when you get back? Wait ... at this number. I'm already late and so are you—eight minutes late. Good luck.'

CHAPTER 11

Only by flying over it was it possible to see that what everyone called "the mountain", and what from below seemed to be a sudden flinty eruption among the smoothly-combed Tuscan hills, was really a plateau, a long arm sweeping west from the Appenines, disconnected from the backbone of mountains by the valley of the river Arno. Most of the plateau, with the exception of the topmost ridge and some patches of rock-strewn pasture, was covered by miles of thick, gloomy woodland. Bacci gazed down at the giant shadows passing across it as the wind drove huge clouds about the sky. It was cold in the helicopter and the mountain below looked as bleak and hostile as it always did, no matter what the weather. The Brigadier was expounding something or other to the Captain, beating time with his big, open hand and repeating himself interminably. Bacci had only spoken once during the journey, asking the Captain:

'Why did they let Katrine go?'

'Rudolfo would have backed out if they'd killed her. They needed their scapegoat. Now he can't, it's too late, whatever they do.'

The Captain had explained patiently, but his face was pale and annoyed-looking. Perhaps he had guessed something, but if he had he wouldn't say anything until the case was over. For Bacci it was over already. She had walked out without even saying goodbye, without so much as a glance at him. The pilot was talking into his radio and looking across at another helicopter which then dropped back out of sight. The pilots seemed to be worrying about the weather, either because it was so changeable or because of the wind, he wasn't sure which. He heard one of them say:

'This cloud'U come down on us if the wind drops.'

'We'll be away by then . . .'

They weren't going to land. It wasn't possible. Suddenly they had turned and were sweeping back in a wide circle. The Captain and the Brigadier were looking down intently at a white patch moving slowly down the lower slopes of the mountain. Bacci stared down without understanding what they were surprised about. A shepherd moving down with his sheep.

'Wait,' the Brigadier was saying. 'Come in lower ... I thought as much. It's not Rudolfo, it's his young brother. But why . . .?'

'If they're short of guards,' the Captain said, 'perhaps Rudolfo will be forced to stay up there. I don't see how else they can manage.'

'Neither can that little lad manage . . . milking and cheesemaking on his own . . . Something's not as it should be.'

'It's as well he's out of the way. We don't want anybody unnecessarily hurt.'

'That's true . . .' But the Brigadier continued to murmur to himself as they turned and took up their course again. The pilot was still talking into his radio. Bacci was finding it more and more difficult to keep in contact with what was going on around him, probably because of lack of sleep. He might have been watching everything through a thick glass partition, their voices seemed so far away. She had walked out without looking at him, as if nothing . . .

He saw the faint mark of a footpath below, and then they were flying over a scattering of grey houses with ramshackle red-tiled roofs, the low walls around them broken down and grassy. Rusted farm implements stuck out of the ground here and there. Some of the houses were half gutted by bombs or fire, but all the ones that had some sort of roof had smoke rising slowly from the chimneys. Sheep stood among the rubble and grass, huddled together against the cold wind. The Brigadier, who had been talking about partisans, began pointing and giving directions to the pilot, who relayed them to the helicopters behind. They flew over a lone farmhouse that had no smoke coming from it, and then they were rising and turning in a sickeningly tight circle. One by one the rest of the helicopters were dipping and slowing near the house, spilling their burden of green-clad men and leaping dogs without stopping, then whirring away to make the same tight circle. The Captain was talking into his radio below the noise of the rotor-blades, and the figures below had surrounded the house and moved in. Then they were spreading out again in a widening halo, looking up. They and the landscape began to spin slowly and loom closer as the Captain said, 'We're coming down.'

All Bacci could think of was that he didn't want to step out on to that cold, wind-whipped mountain and have this whole scene become real. But they were moving already and he was clinging to a rope-ladder that dangled above the rocky ground, with the wind whipping his head. When the hard, stony earth crashed up against his feet causing him to stumble sideways, he began to come to his senses, pulling in a sharp breath of cold air. The Captain overtook him and was running towards the dilapidated house where the only door was crashing repeatedly open and shut in the wind, shedding its peeling scraps of paint.

The room had no window. It must have once housed beasts. It was so dark inside that Bacci couldn't see anything at first, though he was aware of the room being full of people talking quietly and of the hot breath of the overexcited dogs. It was only gradually that the whites of the dogs' eyes became visible, then the paleness of the mens' faces. Last of all he made out the darker shape of the Captain at the far side of the room. Bacci pushed between the others to join him where he stood looking down at a mattress soaked through with blood and a thick chain dangling from the low metal bedstead.

When the Captain turned he seemed to look right through his Sub-lieutenant. His eyes were narrower and his face more strained than Bacci could ever remember.

'Brigadier,' the Captain said, and the Brigadier appeared in the gloom, a little out of breath. The Captain turned back to the bed and they looked at it together.

'Dear God '

Leave that door open!' the Captain ordered without looking round. 'We need the light!'

'Nobody could have lived through this,' the Brigadier said, 'Nobody . . . It's everywhere. Look at the walls even. Rudolfo couldn't have done it. Of course there'd be somebody else with him, like you said . . . of course there would. Because he couldn't have done this. Dear God . . . What do we do now?'

The Captain had taken a twig from near the dead wood fire in the makeshift fireplace and was lifting something stringy out of the mess. It could have been grass or even small plants. It was impossible to tell. He let them drop back carefully. There was a flat, greyish pillow on the bed. It was twisted and most of it was covered thickly with dark blood. A soaked exercise book lay underneath it. He tried to lift the pages open with the twig but they wouldn't separate. It was a job for the technicians. He straightened and stood back. Signalling the Brigadier and Bacci to get out of the way, he said:

'Let the dogs through.'

'Do you think there's much chance of finding the body?' one of the handlers asked him as the dogs sniffed around the bed, whining softly.

'There's a possibility. They're panicked enough to have made a mess of this, too.'

The dogs were taken outside.

You will find her?

I'll find her . . .

The Captain began pacing up and down the small room as though he were a prisoner there.

'Don't move! Any of you!'

The scene was almost identical in each house; the smoky gloom as they entered, the dark red glow of the wood fire where a basting stick of rosemary lay in a tray of liquid lamb's fat. Round the table, six or seven pairs of eyes glinting in the dark as the men moved in, one on guard with a machine-gun while the others searched. A cheese room, the best and airiest with a window, upstairs a big airless bedroom with nothing in it but a narrow bed and some old blankets, down to the dark room again with the bread and roast lamb lying half-eaten on the oilcloth-covered table, and their questions which met with an almost palpable silence. One house was empty, the hearth heaped with cold grey ash and charred logs, one chair standing beside it. On the table a round yellow cheese, a dirty straw wine flask, half a raw ham and some broken sheets of dark, unleavened bread. The shepherd had been nowhere in sight when they neared the house but he appeared while they were searching it to stand leaning his chin on his crook and watch them with narrow, dispassionate eyes as though the house were nothing to do with him. Still watching them, he took some food from the table, stood and ate some of it, put the rest in his pockets and walked slowly out.

In another house an enormously fat woman with a long pigtail had just put a batch of little yellow Palm Sunday cakes on the table.

It was the group that came out of there that saw the dogs running and pawing around a patch of scrub near a rocky hollow.

Inside Rudolfo's house the Captain was still pacing to and fro while Bacci and the Brigadier watched him in silence.

'He can't have paid. It's only an hour since they asked for a twenty-four-hour suspension. An hour ago! I don't believe he's paid! Why should they do it? Why? Nobody knew we were coming up here. Nobody.'

The other two stood still, watching him. The room had two chairs in it, one of formica and rust-pitted metal, the other of wood and straw. There wasn't even a real table, only an old door propped over a manger. Half a flask of wine stood on it with some cheese rinds and scraps of bread, fresh bread brought up from the city.

Two men with dogs appeared in the hard light of the doorway. The Captain stopped pacing.

'Well?'

'We haven't found her yet, but we've found something . . .'

He didn't stop to ask what but followed them out into the wind. The dogs had uncovered what they had found. Two men held back the bushes with thick-gloved hands to let the Captain through. The body was face down and there were a number of stab wounds in the back.

'Do you know who he is, sir?'

'Yes.' The Captain looked at the high-laced hunter's boots and the olive-green serge clothing. 'I don't know him but I know who he is. Turn him over, will you?'

One of the Brigadier's boys who was part of the group that came out of the nearest house came forward to look and exclaimed:

'But that's the gamekeeper from the villa!'

'Yes.'

'Who could have done that to his eyes?'

One eye was pushed right out of its socket.

The boy, a young National Service lad from the village, stepped back, the colour suddenly leaving his face. He ran off behind the bushes, clutching at his stomach.

The Captain climbed the side of the hollow, strode back to Rudolfo's house and sat down on one of the chairs, staring at the cold wood ash in the dark. The other two, who had been talking quietly when he came in, fell silent. The door was banging open and shut in the wind again. Bacci thought he should close it but the Captain had ordered that it be left open so he didn't move. Eventually the Brigadier found something to wedge it open. It was even colder in the room than outside, where at least the sun was quite strong when it came out.

The Captain was so tense in his chair that his head and back were buzzing with pain. The drone of the circling helicopters nagged at his nerves. He was wasting fuel and time. You can't surprise a mountain. He had said it himself. But he couldn't bring himself to go back down. When the helicopters were at their most distant it was possible to hear the moaning of the wind around the wooded slopes lower down the mountain, and the handlers calling orders to their dogs in German. The tenser his body became, the more loosely did his mind seem to ramble. He had done everything according to the rules, moved slowly and carefully, weighed every possibility, but the ground had slipped from under him. The Substitute must have talked to the Prefect and the Minister by now, convincing them of Maestrangelo's reasons, his experience, his proven efficiency. What would he say now? It was ironic; the one time he had a Substitute who backed him up . . . And he hadn't the least idea how or why it had happened. That was surely ridiculous. Years of experience might count for nothing in a case of this kind if you were simply unlucky. But even then the possibilities didn't vary. Things went wrong but they were the things you knew might go wrong. If Maxwell hadn't paid . . .

Guarnaccia had said, "
I can't help you. I don't know the
people.
" As if you could know all the people involved in every case you handled. It was true that if he had known more about them than just their criminal records he might have been able to work out why they had panicked and run, what might have happened, what they might have heard. '
"Ask the Brigadier
..." The Brigadier at least knew the people, and so did his men . . .

"That's the gamekeeper from the villa!"

'
'
Who could have done that to his eyes?''

A National Service recruit. A boy of eighteen or nineteen who probably couldn't cook spaghetti and who had run off to be sick at the sight of his first corpse.

'Who could have done that to his eyes?'

Practically a child. And his amazement was genuine. He didn't know.

The Captain let out a long breath.

'Brigadier?'

There was nobody there. He found them standing outside, the Brigadier expounding quietly but insistently, Bacci's eyes wandering over the bleak skyscape.

'Brigadier? Where could they hide that's not all that far away?'

'Nowhere except the other shepherds' houses.'

'Something empty.'

'Anything up here that has a roof on it is inhabited— how many of them do you think there are?'

'Two. And I want them alive. No shooting under any circumstances. Now tell me where they could hide. They're still up here, Brigadier, and I don't think they're that far away. They're hiding from everybody, not just from us. From the rest of the gang, from the other shepherds on the mountain, from everybody. They're frightened for their lives and they're hiding without intelligence, without plans, in any hole they can find, like animals. But they must have found some shelter because you can't survive up here without it, and only you know this mountain well enough to tell me where they've found it. Now tell me!'

'I don't know . . . There's La Selletta, that's the next village—or it used to be, but it's a good walk from here, best part of two hours, and it's completely bombed out except for the church.'