Mimi's Ghost (32 page)

Morris was concerned. ‘Could I see it?' he asked. It turned out she had a photocopy of the thing in her handbag. She leant down to the floor and rummaged. Morris spread the paper open on his sheets.

Immediately he started, his whole body stiffened, so complete a
déjà vu
it was.

DARK PRINCESS OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS!

The thing had obviously been cut out from some third-rate translation of an even worse novel. Gothic, for young teenagers.

Gnash thy teeth indeed! Morris thought. What miserable prose! But the exact same ruse as his own first ransom letter. The teasing horror of the absurd. Some stupid adventure for retarded adults turned into reality. It was signed: rodolfo il rosso, difensore BELLA FEDE, PROTETTORE DEI POVERI, FLAGELLO DI SATANA Etutte le sue opere. Beneath the cheap publication's caps a small piece cut from a local newspaper said: The authorities promised that technical details relative to the payment of the new tax will be released over the next few days.'

Morris let out a deep breath. Actually, it was pretty damn clever: a perfect imitation of his own earlier pastiche, at once daring the recipient not to take it seriously while allowing the sender to pretend, above all to himself perhaps, that for all its horror it was no more than a joke. Morris was just about to look up and comfort Antonella and insist that she absolutely must not pay - since, after all, nothing had been gained from paying all that money for Massimina, had it? - when a male voice asked:

‘Allora,
your opinion, Mr Duckvorse?'

It was the first, but by no means the last, time that Morris would appreciate the advantage of having had his face half chewed to pieces. For however keenly he sensed the blood draining from his cheeks, his eyes widening to a stare, surely no one could have read anything from the mess of stitches and bandages his once handsome features had now become. He shivered and, turning his eyes to the apparition of a Fendtsteig more Gestapo-like than ever in full uniform and rimless spectacles, told him truthfully: ‘Colonnello, I'm afraid it's a complete mystery to me.'

‘If you could leave us alone for just one moment?' Fendtsteig said to Antonella, rather coldly, Morris felt, given all that the poor woman was going through. However, the carabiniere's uniform was impressive with its white holster strap and red-striped trousers. Aesthetically a considerable improvement on the rather workaday uniform of the polizia.

Antonella slipped away, fumbling reading glasses into an open handbag. Morris appeared to gaze at the spot where she had disappeared.

‘Signor Duckvorse,' Fendtsteig began at once, ‘I'm afraid we must have yet another talk.'

The Englishman's face was a mask of resignation.

‘Signor Duckvorse, a man has disappeared, for more than a month now, apparently after a struggle.' He paused, bit at his lips, brought the tips of his fingers together. ‘In terms of opportunity to kill or abduct we have three suspects: you and two rather pathetic
extra-contunitari.'

‘Homosexuals,' Morris said.

Fendtsteig ignored this. Could the carabiniere be a homosexual? Morris wondered. He would not be surprised. The world seemed to be swarming with them and their sad diseases just at the moment.

Fendtsteig continued to consider his fingertips, as if deep in thought.

‘On the evening following the crime, you were absent from your house until two in the morning. I repeat, two in the morning. You refused to clarify your whereabouts. Because of this, firmly believing that you were the murderer or abductor, I had you imprisoned to prevent you establishing any alibi with anybody else, a provision available to me under
decreto legge
of the penal code 776/91.'

Tedium. Morris's eye strayed to the cobweb-caught crucifix above the door. It surely suggested something of a breakdown in ward hygiene, both practical and spiritual. And when was this obnoxious, nit-picking Tyrolese going to tell him whether or not they had found the letters in his coat? So that Morris could know whether he needed to keep fighting his corner or whether he mightn't do better just to relax and resign.

‘You then contrived,' Fendtsteig went on, using the same dull, machine-like tone he had used on their first meeting, ‘I repeat,
contrived,
and only after three weeks' hard thinking at that, to create the most bizarre alibi for your absence on that evening. In interviews with the prison psychiatrist you claimed that . . .'

‘Per favore, Colonnello,'
Morris interrupted. ‘It really is too painful. I know perfectly well what I said, please let's not talk about it.'

Fendtsteig hesitated, though without appearing to acknowledge Morris's interruption, then continued: ‘However, it was sufficient for me, under the terms of the above-mentioned
decreto legge,
to have a story, however unlikely, just so long as I could later, if necessary, prove it to be wrong. In fact the weaker and more ridiculous the story, the better.'

He paused, but again without exchanging glances with Morris, who muttered into the silence: ‘If I had known the man would tell people about what I'd said, I would never have told him. I imagined any discussion with a doctor was in confidence.'

Fendtsteig's thin, bespectacled face above the high military collar showed how little he was convinced of this. Which Morris genuinely felt was unreasonable. Especially since the description he had given of the point at which he had climbed over the cemetery wall, and the way the coffins were stacked and so on, had been extremely accurate and, presumably, verifiable. Let them think what they liked, quite clearly he
had
at some time or other in his life climbed over that cemetery wall. And for what other reason if not to moan over the coffin of his dead mistress, which, again,
had
been available for weeping over only on that one special evening?

Burying Bobo there would prove a winning card yet.

‘As you know,' Fendtsteig continued with that air of inexorability he clearly cultivated and which was leaving Morris steadily less impressed, ‘immediately before your release, the polizia arrested two extra-comunitari, charged them, I believe erroneously, with the murder of your colleague, and then proceeded to arrange for trial
per direttissima,
on the slimmest of circumstantial evidence.'

Mimicking the other man's official tone, Morris said: Two young men whom I had helped in every possible way and who repaid my kindness by engaging in lewd and perverse activities while under my employ. For which my colleague very rightly fired them. An excellent motive for their doing away with him.'

For a moment he couldn't remember whether he had taken this line with Fendtsteig before, or with Marangoni, or whether he hadn't taken some other line, or even the opposite line. He stared defiantly at Fendtsteig, who was apparently still engrossed in the tips of his fingers.

Morris said nervously: ‘Given their general behaviour, I myself wouldn't be at all surprised if they turned out to be the culprits.'

The carabiniere's long silence was becoming ominous.

Morris talked on: ‘The sort of people who will sell a man a video-recorder in a
stazione di servizio
that turns out to be nothing more than a brick or a block of wood. You know the kind of thing? You open it in your house and it falls on the floor and chips an expensive tile. A breach of faith towards the very people who have attempted to make their lives here less miserable.'

Saying this, he contrived to colour nervousness with a convincing flush of anger. For a moment he enjoyed imagining himself a sort of chameleon, constantly changing shape in Fendtsteig's bewildered and defeated grip.

‘Biting the very hand that wishes to feed them,' he concluded with genuine self-righteousness.

Fendtsteig at last looked up. He measured his words. ‘As to the exact character of the two unfortunates, Signor Duckvorse, I will not even hazard a guess. You may perfectly well be correct in your impression. However, it is not an important element. Far more interesting is the fact that no sooner was this development - the arrest and trial of these two persons -announced than we, or rather the family, received this most unpleasant note, which Signora Posenato has just shown you, a note, I might say, exactly similar in style and content to the first ransom note received by the Trevisan family when their daughter was abducted some two years ago. Now how do you explain that, Signor Duckvorse?'

Signor Duckvorse clearly did not explain that at all - he wished he could - and hence felt it wiser simply to stare. Glimpsing, through a gap in the screen, a small brown figure pushing his drugs trolley down the ward, he shouted:
‘Ciao,
Dionisio, how's life?'

‘Ciao,' Dionisio called. ‘Everything well!'

‘See you later,' Morris called, and as if it were an after-thought which it was, added: ‘I was thinking, there's a friend of mine has a hotel in Shepherd's Bush you might be interested in getting in contact with.'

‘Benissimo!'

Had his teeth been a little better looked after, Dionisio's smile, as he poked his face for a moment through the screen, might have been described as radiant. The carabiniere, on the other hand, frowned rather severely, with a sort of small child's pique,

‘Mi
scusi,
Colonnello, but you have to humour people in the hospital here if you want good service.'

Fendtsteig, however, would not be drawn. Very matter-of-factly he insisted: ‘Now, Signor Duckvorse, I would be grateful if you could explain that circumstance, the arrival of this letter, only three days after the other two are accused of murder. About the fastest our post office could possibly operate in my experience. And sent
espresso
too.'

Morris felt it only reasonable to show irritation at this point.

‘Colonello, if you cannot explain what has happened, I don't see how I can be expected to. Especially when you consider that I've been ill in hospital for upwards of a week.'

‘Oh, but I can explain it.' Fendtsteig had regained his composure. ‘I was merely hoping that you might save me the trouble.'

‘Well, then I'm sorry to have to disappoint you,' Morris said, but he was having to hold on to his nerve for dear life now. What did he mean, he could explain it?

Fendtsteig waited, then when he began to speak it was with the sort of sinister background tone a vacuum cleaner or electric razor makes. ‘My explanation, Signor Duckvorse, is as follows. Very simply, given the nature of this letter, we can say that the man responsible for the kidnap of Signorina Trevisan and the man responsible for the disappearance of Signor Posenato are, must be, one and the same person.'

There! Morris took a sharp breath. The game was up. They had finally seen the obvious. Already he could smell the mixture of cheap disinfectant and human staleness that had been his prison cell. Definitely a tang of urine. Yes. And vaguely he wondered whether he would be able to ask them to put him back in with the same cellmate, whom he had rather taken a liking to after a while. In the end a murderous schizophrenic had more to offer as an object of long-term study than your average embezzler or hitman.

‘However, upon seeing that two innocent people were to be tried for murder, this' - Fendtsteig hesitated and knit his Tyrolese brow - ‘this most curious maniac, Signor Duckvorse, as I think clearly transpires from the bizarre tone of these letters, has a fit of conscience and decides to use his knowledge of the ransom note he sent in the past to convince the police that they have made a mistake, and that this is a kidnap not a murder. In the end it was a provident move on the part of the polizia to charge these two. It drew the real culprit out into the open.'

Morris sighed deeply. One could only thank the Almighty God that these people weren't just a scintilla, a scantling, a soupgon more intelligent. He strived to look as humbly puzzled as he could.

‘Colonnello, I'm sorry, but it does seem somewhat unlikely to me that' - he hesitated - ‘yes, though of course I have far less experience than yourself in such matters.' He stopped, hesitated, wondered if his brow was registering knitted or just carelessly sewn back together. ‘As I was saying, it does seem unlikely that someone responsible for the callous murder of a beautiful young girl and a charming young man would worry immoderately about the fate of two miserable Third-World homosexuals. I can tell you for one that were I the murderer I most certainly would not.'

This was almost true. But not quite.

Fendtsteig said nothing. Absurdly, it occurred to Morris that if by any chance Antonella were listening behind the screen, she would be appalled by his racism. Though such considerations hardly seemed relevant at this point, like worrying if one was looking one's best for the firing-squad. Suddenly, irrationally, feeling the game must be up, he asked: ‘In any event, who would this heinous person be?'

For the first time Fendtsteig looked him straight in the eyes. It was not a pleasant experience. Behind their polished, rimless spectacles the carabiniere's watery orbs gave the impression of some rather unpleasant vegetable species inexpertly preserved under glass, one could only imagine in the interests of science.

‘Once again I was hoping,' Signor Duckvorse,' the carabiniere said, with the air of one who finally has his quarry cornered, ‘that you, with your rather morbid attraction to cemeteries and young girls' coffins, would be the person best qualified to tell me that.'