The Marshal Makes His Report Read Online Free PDF

television set on which a local channel was showing a recording of the medieval football tournament.
    ‘After all,’ Lorenzini went on, raising his voice as the crowd round the television set up a roar of protest over yet another bout of violence on the field, ‘if he did kill himself they won’t pay up, will they?’
    ‘No.’ He popped a slice of the crackling pizza into his mouth and when he’d dealt with it said, ‘His wife’s from Naples, that’s why.’
    ‘What? This Marchesa what’s she called . . . Ulderighi?’
    ‘Eh? No, no. The woman who makes this pizza. So her husband was telling me while I was waiting for you. That’s why it’s so good. The stuff they make in Florence as a rule, all that thick rubbery dough with tinned stuff slopped on it and what tastes like motor oil . . .’ He continued munching in silence, frowning a little as the television caught his eye. ‘I hope there wasn’t any trouble. My boys were there. Perhaps I should call home.’
    Lorenzini turned his head to look. Three Green players had fallen in a heap on top of one of the Whites. Their long slashed breeches were covered in sand and not one of them still had a T-shirt on his back. The group round the set stood up shouting and blocked their view. The Marshal got up from his chair.
    ‘I’ll just telephone . . .’ He went off to the back room, fishing for a token in his pocket. He wasn’t gone long. As he sat down again he sighed and said, ‘What a business . . .’
    Again Lorenzini wasn’t sure whether he meant the football or the dead man across the road, but he knew the Marshal well enough to be sure that this grumpy vagueness meant he’d got his teeth into something. He had the look of a bulldog about him and, like a bulldog, he was unlikely to let go. Young as he was, Lorenzini ventured on a word of warning.
    ‘With people like that, of course, it doesn’t do to stick your neck out, especially—’
    ‘Especially with the chief public prosecutor taking a personal interest?’
    ‘That, too. Even so, he’s given you a free hand, hasn’t he? I mean, checking on the tenants and what they might have heard. Establishing the time of death. From what you’ve said he’s not blocking you.’
    ‘No. And why? Why me?’
    Lorenzini was silenced. The Marshal wiped his mouth and took a sip of wine.
    ‘I’ll tell you why. Because I’m nobody. Anything I say, anything I find out, can be ignored. And if I don’t like it I can be transferred from Florence—’ he snapped his thick fingers—‘like that!’
    ‘Well, yes, that’s what I meant, but I’m sure if you tread carefully, stay clear of the press and so on—’
    ‘I don’t like being made a fool of,’ the Marshal said quietly. ‘And if I were to tell the truth I don’t like this being made a fool of much either.’ As he said it he placed his large hand on the hat with its gold flame above the peak which lay on the empty chair beside him. After which he finished his meal in silence, gazing in bleak disapproval at the television screen.
    They were half way through their coffee when he suddenly took up where he left off: ‘And bear in mind, when you say he’s not blocking me, that we’re to question the tenants but we’re not to disturb the Signora Marchesa—that wouldn’t do at all—and not her son either, who’s too delicate, they say, so nobody ever sees him.’ He unbuttoned his top pocket and fished a black notebook out from behind his sunglasses.
    ‘This lot,’ he said, flipping the book open beside his coffee cup, ‘are the ones we’re allowed to waste our time on, starting with this Filippo Brunetti—that’s the one they call Grillo, I told you about him.’
    ‘The dwarf?’
    ‘That’s right. I suppose I ought to feel sorry for him but he’s a nasty little beggar, sharp as needles, too, and if anybody knows everything that goes on over there, he does. But . . .’
    ‘You don’t think he’ll talk?’
    ‘He’ll talk all right.