“And what I’m wondering is …” It was always difficult explaining things to Ferrini. Explaining wasn’t the Marshal’s strong point, and then you never knew what mood he would be in. “I mean, it’s difficult enough being an adolescent … I don’t know if you remember.”
“Oh yes. I thought about sex all the time, day and night.”
The Marshal, full to bursting from dinner out in the country where they had “not lingered” until after eleven, seemed to remember thinking more about eating. He’d spent half his adolescent life in search of food and the other half worrying about being fat. He decided against admitting to this.
“Well then, how would you have felt if you’d known—known, not suspected, that your father was homosexual?”
“I’d have been terrified.”
“Exactly.” They looked at the three photographs in the open files on the Marshal’s desk between them.
“They used to take Nicolino with them down to the Cascine for their orgies,” the Marshal said. “He’ll have known, or realized later when he grew up. Amelio, from all accounts, saw it going on in the house.”
“And Salvatore Angius? We know less about him, but we do know Silvano picked him up from the gutter and ‘adopted him.’ It’s a different situation, but who’s to say he really was homosexual? That might have been the price of Silvano’s help.”
“That’s what Di Maira wondered. And a good reason to detest him, too. Well, these three lads start out even, then:
“Previous convictions for Amelio and Salvatore. Theft mostly, possessing flick knifes, both, illegal detention of arms … and … this!”
Ferrini pulled out a photocopy of a newspaper article recounting the arrest of Salvatore Angius for armed robbery together with two other men.
“No,” he said, seeing the Marshal scan the small column once and then twice. “It doesn’t specify the type of gun and I thought I’d be sticking my neck out if I asked for the file.”
“You were right …”
“But look at the date.”
“Only three months after the sixty-eight murder.”
“You still think he was there?”
“I can’t prove it. But if he took the child away to protect Silvano, he may have taken the gun, too.”
“He’d have been pretty stupid to use it in a robbery when it had been used to kill,” Ferrini pointed out.
“He may not have fired it, or even intended to fire it. Besides, he doesn’t look or sound too bright to me. He got caught.”
“Yes, he did. And he got put away. And he tipped up in the next cell to Sergio Muscas who was waiting trial for the sixty-eight murder. Now, listen to this: his lawyer contacted Muscas’s lawyer to tell him his client had made a statement of sorts about Muscas. He said, ‘That poor goop didn’t do it. I know who did. It was Flavio Vargius.’ Here we go round in circles again.”
“Not really.” The Marshal was unperturbed. “Not now that we understand the relationship between these men. All that means is that he was still dependent on Silvano and putting his oar in to protect him when he saw the chance.”
“Even so, you have to admit that Silvano had a lot of the right symptoms. I mean what you’ve been telling me about how he murdered his first wife when she tried to leave him, and this business Di Maira was telling you about. His second wife taking off in seventy-four and then in nineteen eighty …”
“So why didn’t he kill her?”
“He started off on the same track, going to the carabinieri and reporting her for desertion. He killed his first wife when she betrayed him. He killed Belinda Muscas when she betrayed him. So why didn’t he kill his second wife if he was feeling murderous? You honestly believe that, at his age, he suddenly changed character and, instead of attacking the person who’d offended him, he went out and murdered a bunch of total strangers? And he didn’t change. You can see the pattern. His first wife and her brother, Belinda and her husband. The second wife and the men he brought home. To the last, before he was arrested, he had a live-in woman and a regular man friend, apart from his usual extra orgies and pick-ups. He never changed. Besides, he was too clever to use that Beretta twenty-two again and risk incriminating himself for the sixty-eight job. Nobody would do that unless they wanted to get caught.”
“But they do, don’t they?” Ferrini insisted. “We’ve learned that much from Bacci’s stuff. A lot of them do want to get caught.”
“Some of them. But Silvano didn’t confess when Romola accused him of being the Monster and tore his house apart looking for proof. Far from confessing, he left the country.”
“All right. I was just provoking you. Here.” Ferrini grinned and handed over whatever remained in the large envelope.
The Marshal slid the contents out, wondering as he did so how it could be that he had spent the last two or three days in a state of total deflation, suspecting Silvano, but that the minute Ferrini put that suspicion into words …
“What’s this?” He stared at the sheaf of papers, then at Ferrini.
“Just a few notes of mine. I thought I’d surprise you. Well, go on. Read.”
“But—”
“Read.”
The Marshal read the first few lines but his glance at the first line had been enough, though there was nothing to indicate the source.
“Ferrini, how in God’s name did you—?”
“A few notes of mine, as I said. By the way, our little chirruping friend Noferini was feeling a bit down last time I saw him. It seems that, in his enthusiasm, he took it upon himself to get in touch with the council for confirmation of the roadworks that caused one of our prize witnesses to take a certain detour one Sunday night and see the Suspect near the scene of the crime.”
“And I suppose there weren’t any roadworks?”
“How did you guess? He made out a report for Simonetti and got a rocket in return.”
“I thought as much. But it’s ridiculous,” the Marshal pointed out. “The defence will check.”
Ferrini shrugged. “That’s what Noferini tried to say and all he got for that was, ‘The council is no doubt mistaken.’ Anyway, we should worry. It was pretty convenient for us that he was feeling disillusioned—oh, he still thinks the Suspect’s guilty, he just doesn’t think the end justifies the means. I promised I’d look into it and into one or two other things. Relieved his conscience for him. That”—he indicated the notes—“was the price. He doesn’t know what he’s given me. It was in English. He typed it on to the computer without understanding more than two words. I got on to Bacci, who read it to me, translating as he went and I wrote my notes. Now”—he sat back and lit a fresh cigarette—“read them.”
The Marshal read.
FBI BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE UNIT
NCAVC, QUANTICO Va.
Profile based on information received related to 16 murders committed between 1968 and 1985 in Florence, Italy.
Scene of Crime
The scene of all these murders, an isolated country lane among vines and olives, could be said in all cases to have been “chosen” by the victims who parked there. Nevertheless, it tells us a lot about the offender. It suggests previous activity as a Peeping Tom, as does the fact that most of the victims had just finished sexual intercourse when attacked. Couples who habitually have sexual intercourse in parked cars tend to frequent the same place regularly. The offender probably stalked couples on a Saturday night until he found one parking habitually in a spot which suited his purpose—this meant having somewhere discreet to leave his own vehicle for fast removal from the scene, a sheltered spot where he could operate on the female without his activities being visible to a passing car, and perhaps water available if he needed to wash himself.
The point of his departure for this stalking phase could well be a disco or other locale where young couples collect. To frequent such a place without attracting undue notice the offender would necessarily be of a similar age to his victims. This preparatory period of stalking, choosing and watching the couple until the darkest night of the month made an attack viable, would be an important part of the gratification of killing which would be further prolonged by the enjoyment of the body parts taken away with him and the resulting newspaper articles, TV coverage and investigation.
Modus operandi—The offender brings his weapons to the scene of the crime and removes them afterwards (see note 1). It is probable, though not provable, that he shoots the male first and the female second. The female victim is removed a little way from the car and mutilated. The male is also attacked with the knife and piercing instrument.
The ’68 murder shows no hallmarks of a serial killer type crime and it may be that its relation to the murders which followed is that of a catalyst or model for someone connected with this group of people.
The ’74 murder bears the hallmarks of a teenage—or at least beginner—lust murder of the organized type. The site has been chosen and the weapons brought, but the offender has failed to shoot to kill. His intention, based on long-nursed fantasy, might have been to rape the female victim whether before or after the stabbing but, finding himself impotent, he was obliged to use a vine branch on her instead. The offender is likely to have worked himself up to this realization of his fantasies by the use of drugs. A person in a normal state would be unlikely, however frenzied, to have inflicted as many as 96 stab wounds. The attack made on the dead man with the knife and puncturing instrument suggests his anger is directed equally against the male, but the blows being confined to the trunk and neck suggests a fear of contact with the male sexual zones (see note 2).
The murders from ’81 onwards suggest a more clearly established rite. The problem of impotence on the scene of the crime is resolved by the removal of body parts which can be “enjoyed” in safety and leisure. The cooling-off period between ’74 and ’81 could be caused by fear, especially if the offender is very young or has been approached by the police for some reason. However, this is mere hypothesis since the offender may have been absent or confined for other reasons or have temporarily fled the area for fear of arrest.
The sending of a cube of flesh to one of the investigators after the last crime could be due to the fact that the victims were foreign holidaymakers camping in a secluded spot and might not be missed. It could also be that he hid the bodies to give himself time to announce his crime in this sensational way. In either case, the time of death should be double-checked in view of the condition of the female victim’s body. It appears that the German victims of ’83 were murdered at the exact same period of the year in the same area and left in the enclosed metal container of their camper without any such deterioration in the cadavers.
Absence of clues at the scene of the crimes indicates that the offender worked with care and forethought and was not courting arrest. On two occasions, ’82 and ’83 when the plan went awry, the killer abandoned the scene without mutilation of the bodies. It was essential for him to be in total control of the situation and he could not deal with any reaction (’82) on the part of his victims, who must be defenceless and die without being aware of the attack. The reaction of the ’82 victim caused him to flee without checking that the man was dead. In fact, had he been found sooner he might well have been able to identify his attacker. The offender had, by then, consumed the bullets loaded into the pistol but could quickly have dispatched his victim with the knife. He was clearly panicked by loss of control and by human contact, probably eye and voice, with the victim. This would have destroyed his fantasy image of himself as all-powerful, his victims succumbing in silence.
The attempted flight of his last victim does not appear to have had this effect. It is probable that there was no eye or voice contact and a fleeing, naked, wounded victim fitted in well enough with the fantasy not to destroy it.
Although his last crime was followed up by direct contact with the investigators (other communications received cannot be proved genuine), the addressing of the package to an investigator by name—the only woman to have worked on the case—indicates that the killer took an active interest in the investigation and is highly likely to have made personal contact with the police and/or returned to the scene of the crime on occasions to observe police activity. This behaviour is so common with this sub-group of serial killers as to render the strategic placing of telecameras at the scene during investigation routine.
Diagnosis—Non-social organized lust murderer.
Background—Economically and culturally poor, probably rural–the excision of the body parts shows signs of the flesh being lifted from the body before cutting, in the way that animals are skinned. Background of domestic violence and of excessive physical punishment in infancy and childhood.
Probable childhood offences: stealing, truancy, cruelty to babies or infants, torture of animals, persistent lying. Lack of mother or mother substitute to establish affectionate behaviour patterns. Negative rapport with father or father figure.
Adult profile—Extremely low self-esteem. Deep-rooted feelings of impotence caused by ill-treatment in childhood and adolescence. Lying and conciliatory behaviour in the face of stronger characters or authority caused by fear of aggression. Accumulated anger and resentment well masked by superficial friendliness. He will have to develop a keen sense of what anyone stronger than himself and/or in authority requires of him and to appear to provide it, through lying if necessary.
Enjoys appearing innocuous whilst nursing his hidden fantasy made real in which he is all-powerful. His lust killings are about power rather than sex. His own sex life need not be particularly abnormal, but long-lasting affectionate relationships are difficult for him. He will prefer sex with prostitutes whom he can consider his inferiors because they are social outcasts and in his pay. He appears to have a fear and hatred of homosexual tendencies in himself which may or may not have a basis in reality. He is likely to seek companionship among people even weaker and less successful than himself, such as drug addicts, prostitutes, vagrants, who will alleviate his sufferings caused by low self-esteem. Normal intelligence but underachiever. Constant use of awl or screwdriver as a weapon indicates that he is almost certainly an unskilled manual worker. He will be inconstant in work and often unemployed. He probably has a criminal record and will have spent brief periods in prison for theft, arson, drugs, detention of arms, even armed robbery—probably unsuccessful. He will be interested in his physical appearance, in clothes and cars in an effort to boost his self-image.
The offender will undoubtedly have followed the enquiry closely through the newspapers and television and may have tried to insert himself into the investigation as a witness or informer. The preparatory stalking and the following of the investigation prolong the gratification of his desire for power and revenge which inspires the crimes.
Whilst the serious trauma causing the original damage to the offender is most likely to have occurred in infancy and may be buried too deep for conscious memory, it is likely that it was reawakened or reinforced at some point during adolescence. There will probably have been some negative exposure to sex at an early age, causing anger and resentment.
The lack of connection between killer and victim makes proof in these cases hard to find and is limited to the physical. However, when a killer of this type is pinpointed, the invasion of the real world into his fantasy world is likely to break down his defence system and a confession usually results. It should also be noted that, despite the time lapse, physical proof in the form of body parts should still be sought. They are taken so as to help the killer relive his crime and are often photographed. Cf. John Christie in whose home four sets of pubic hair, neatly waxed, were found stored in a tobacco tin. They did not match the bodies of any of his known victims. These proofs are more likely to be found than the gun because the offender will like to keep them near him. However, if he does not live alone he must necessarily have access to some private location where he can store and enjoy his trophies. In this case the gun will probably be stored in the same place.
1. The use of the firearm in this type of murder is highly unusual. However, Ed Kemper did use a gun since he always attacked two girls at a time; he then removed their bodies for mutilation.
2. The targeting of the couple is unique. This and the weapon suggest a reenactment of the ’68 precipitating crime. Otherwise the subject should be checked for possession of pornographic material which might have inspired this anomalous choice.
“Digested all that, have you?” Ferrini asked.
“Yes … But then, all three of them …”
“I know. All three of them hated their father or father figure, all three of them lost their mother, all three of them did some thieving and were inconstant at work. What’s more, they all at some point collaborated with the investigators. And the only thing we can do now is to start all over again reading Romola’s report and pick out every single reference to each one of them until one of them emerges clearly and the others fade out because something doesn’t add up—and added to this description are some plain facts which are more up our street. We have to show that he could have got hold of Silvano’s gun, we have to explain the gaps between sixty-eight and seventy-four and between seventy-four and eighty-one and, what’s even more difficult, understand why he stopped—I remember a case I was on once …”
The Marshal didn’t try to interrupt him. He didn’t get annoyed at his smoke-filled office. Now that Ferrini was back he could function again. He felt calm and sure. As Ferrini chattered on he divided up the Romola report between them and prepared three sheets of paper each with a name at the top. He wasn’t consciously thinking about it but somewhere inside himself he knew they were going to find the answer, however long it took.
They talked a lot as they worked that first evening, exchanging questions mostly.
“Why do you think Silvano suddenly lost his grip and put himself in a psychiatric ward?”
“Had the killer told him he’d used the sixty-eight gun to murder?”
“Could he just have been terrified of exposure as a homosexual, an exposure he’d gone to enormous lengths to avoid?”
“Did he screw up on the German murder just to get Flavio out of prison?”
By the second evening they were exchanging answers.
“There, look! He botched the shooting in seventy-four but then he worked on it—and he was smart enough not to practise with the famous Beretta or we’d have had him years ago.”
“No, we wouldn’t. Things would have gone just the way they did.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“There could have been more episodes of arson; we only know about the one that was reported.”
“And there you have his obsession. How we missed that the first time round I don’t know.”
“I do. I’m no hand at jigsaws and in this one you have to work out whether the piece belongs at all before you start looking for where.”
“Every case is like that.”
“There are gaps, though,” Ferrini pointed out. “Things we don’t know.”
“But nothing that we do know that eliminates him. We’ll fill in the gaps … if we’re allowed to.”
“The thing that convinces me most,” the Marshal said, “is perhaps the only thing we can’t prove. That it was his car on the scene that night. Nobody will ever be able to prove it but I know it. The car of his fantasy world. By day he was an out-of-work labourer chugging around in a little utility car like the rest of us. But by night …”
“Clever, these FBI birds. They don’t explain the famous bloodstained rag, though.”
“I don’t think,” the Marshal said, “that anybody ever told them about it. Silvano was off the scene by then. In any case, we do know the most baffling thing: why Silvano didn’t turn a hair when they found it and why he said, ‘There might be bloodstains but there can’t be gunpowder.’ Do you remember how that left Romola perplexed? The gun had been stolen years before and that bag presumably wasn’t where he kept it when he still had it. The killer must have hidden it there after the seventy-four job and then taken it away with him. The bag obviously carried no message to Silvano in eighty-five. We’ll never get further with it than that.”
“Will we get further than that with any of it? I mean, have you thought what in God’s name we’re supposed to do next?”
The task they had just completed was the easy part. What they should do next was much more difficult to decide.
“Maestrangelo’s our best bet,” Ferrini said.
How could the Marshal tell him what he had overheard? He couldn’t. And because of that he lied.
“You may be right. As a matter of fact, he wants me to go over and see him this week. I’ll go tomorrow, drop a hint, see how he reacts.”
He had no intention of dropping any hints but he was playing for time. He’d think of some other way.
Ferrini yawned and looked at his watch. “Twenty to three … The things you get me into! My wife’ll divorce me …”
When he’d gone the Marshal gathered up the papers on his desk and locked them into a drawer. After that, he sat still a moment staring at the map, wondering at the strangeness of things.
Their checking of the document had been scrupulous, slow and precise. On the point that “If you check, you check everything” the Marshal was immovable. But somehow or other he must have registered all those tiny things the first time round because, however dark and tortuous the road, he’d known where it was going to come out.
“Guarnaccia! Come in, come in, take a seat.”
The Marshal, hat in hand, sat down. It wasn’t his way to let his feelings show on his face, but the Captain at once looked at him hard and asked, “Are you all right?”
“Oh, yes. Yes, thank you. Perhaps a little bit tired.”
“I was told you came to see me the other day—”
“Yes. Yes. You were busy with someone and I had to leave … Simonetti and so on … I’m sorry. I imagine you were wanting some information on that letter about the painting?”
“No.” The Captain seemed more embarrassed than annoyed. “It wasn’t that. I was just wondering … I heard you found some evidence yesterday …?”
“So it seems.”
The Captain’s eyes were more than usually watchful. “Another anonymous letter, I gather.”
“Another one, yes.”
It wasn’t the Marshal, but the Captain who seemed to want to test which way the wind was blowing, but what did he want? Was he trying to find out where the Marshal stood, what he believed? Was the expected reprimand to come from him, not Di Maira?
“Ferrini and I were both at the scene of the crime in Galluzzo,” the Captain said, the grey eyes still watchful.
So was he afraid the Marshal would blow the whistle? How could it be that this man he’d trusted for so many years could suddenly be so … dishonourable. Because that was the only word for it. And hadn’t he said himself yesterday that people don’t change to that extent, not at his age?
“I shouldn’t have got you into this.” The Captain got up abruptly and went to stand at the window. With his back to the Marshal, he repeated, “Both Ferrini and I … Didn’t he say anything to you about it?”
Ferrini had said plenty, that very morning when it was announced that both the soapdish, whose contents had proved so useless, and the sketch book, whose notes had led nowhere, were in fact vital clues. According to an anonymous communication just received, these two objects had been stolen from the camper of the two young German victims at Galluzzo.
“He never set foot in the blasted camper!” raged Ferrini. “Never set foot! Simonetti’ll never get away with this—there are photographs! That van was only an improvised camper. When they had the bed down every piece of junk they had in there was under it. If he’d wanted to get at any of it, he’d have had to climb over the bodies, move them and lift the blasted bed up. For a soapdish! Like as if—and if he’d wanted a silly souvenir there was a suitcase full. The suitcase they’d propped the door open with to get some fresh air while they slept. It was on the ground where it fell when the killer opened the door to shoot. Not even open—and another thing: there’s the search report; I wrote it. They didn’t have so much as a pencil, a rubber, a crayon, inks, colours, sketches, nothing! So why should they have had, Jesus Christ, a sketch book? He’s got a nerve!”
“Yes,” murmured the Marshal now, “he did seem to think it a bit unlikely.”
“I’d hoped … I’d hoped that you and he might have—Listen, Guarnaccia, I shouldn’t say this but I’m going to …”
Which remark coming from the man known to all journalists as “the Tomb” was pretty startling.
“When we had to make a choice of men for this job, the Colonel had no intention of giving up his best investigators, given what I imagine you by now have understood to be the circumstances. He was right, of course, but still, I didn’t like it. I still don’t like it. We’ll be tarred with the same brush, you know, if all this blows up in their faces.”
“So I came up with what you might well think was a foolish idea. The Colonel hadn’t been here long, you see.”
“No.”
“He knew all our important investigators but there was a lot he didn’t know, people he didn’t know or even notice. People who had a certain experience but whose careers didn’t really indicate it. You and Ferrini, you see, appeared to fit the Colonel’s requirements. Ferrini was pushing paper about in an office. You were over at Pitti. I’d no business to do it, of course.”
“Perhaps you should have told us.”
“No, that was out of the question. That would have meant involving you in a move that wasn’t strictly correct. I thought that, if you came round to my way of thinking on your own account, you’d have come here to see me. I hoped, when I heard you were on your way over the other day … Well, it was an unreasonable expectation. It’s just that, somehow or other, I felt sure that you were the one person who had the tenacity to get to the bottom of all this, to cut through all the hysteria and exaggerated fantasy that had built up around the case. And with Ferrini to help you and the literature I lent Bacci …”
“You did?”
“It’s all in English. I found it hard going when I was struggling with it myself in eighty-three, but Bacci’s English is excellent. Well, I was asking too much, I suppose.”
“No, no …” The Marshal stood up. “No, that’s not the problem. With your permission, I’d like to go back to my office.”
“Of course.” The Captain turned and faced him, his voice cold. “You must have a great deal to do.”
“I’ll be back, if you have time for me, in about half an hour or so. You see, we’ve found out who killed these youngsters, but now we don’t know what to do, so, if you could decide … With your permission …”
He left quietly, leaving the Captain staring after him.
He was as good as his word and returned within the half-hour to deposit with relief his burden of papers and worries on the Captain’s desk. Then he sat in silence, gaze fixed on his big hands planted squarely on his knees, until Maestrangelo had finished reading.
“You did all this, you three?”
“No, sir. Judge Romola had already done all the work but he never had the chance or the peace to understand all its implications.”
“Even so, I don’t begin to understand how you found the time.”
“No.” And yet, thinking back on it, he could only remember Ferrini’s dinners and stories … that and all the tiring reading in the night … “Anyway, we don’t know what to do now.”
“I’ll tell you. What we shall do immediately is to send a report to the Chief Public Prosecutor with a copy to Simonetti and the Preliminary Enquiry Judge. I hope that for the moment they’ll simply ignore it as they have all other information that’s come in. I think the very connection with the Vargius family should ensure that. Then we’ll have to sit on it until your Suspect goes to trial and hope he gets off. Even so, there’s an element of risk. So, who will sign it? Do you want to?”
“I’ll do whatever you think is right.”
“You’ll be safe from risk if I sign it, but on the other hand, if we could ever get it into court …”
“Glory’s not really in my line, Captain.”
“No, I know it’s not. Still, there’s Ferrini to consider—and Bacci. I think you should talk it over and then come back to me. And whatever you decide, Guarnaccia, my compliments. I’m glad to know my trust in you was warranted.”
“Yes … So am I.” The Marshal took up his hat, correcting himself, “I mean, thank you, sir.”
“Well done. Marshal! You succeeded where I failed. Couldn’t get anywhere near.”
“I’m not surprised,” the Marshal said, offering Dr. Biondini his hand, “but I didn’t even try.” He indicated the glass of red wine he was holding. “Somebody going round with a tray gave it to me. I’m not much good in crowds.”
“And there’s certainly a crowd this evening. I’m delighted you managed to get here this time. Have you had a look at the paintings?”
“No, no … Perhaps another day my wife and I will walk up again. I was just admiring the view.”
“Isn’t it wonderful? And such a perfect evening.”
It was September and the evening sun was dissolving over the city into a lake of pink and green and misty purple.
The stone parapets of the star-shaped fort were still warm to the touch and people were pouring out across the lawns from the exhibition to sit there and marvel at the magical beauty of the city they spent most of their days complaining about. The Marshal, after losing Teresa in the crush, had been standing there for some time, listening to snatches of their gossip: the notorious stinginess of a certain marquis, the scandalous behaviour of a countess, the failure of the municipal authorities, the inaccuracy of that article in the paper …
“They say it was the daughter, ingenuous soul, who called the carabinieri, thinking the mother had been kidnapped, so what could he do when he got there but play the part. Imagine his embarrassment when she swanned in at dawn in her evening gown, rather smudged, to find them all sitting round the telephone waiting for the ransom demand. My dear, I ask you!”
“So she’s trying to sell the villa before he’s actually declared bankrupt …”
“No, no, the marriage is to be annulled. It’s a tedious business but his uncle’s a member of the Holy Roman Rota so it won’t take as long as some …”
But in the end, they all fell silent before the daily miracle of the sunset over red tiles and white marble below.
“We don’t come up here nearly as often as we should,” the Marshal said, “and each time we do I ask myself why not.”
“The answer’s all too simple, my dear Marshal,” said Biondini with a rueful smile, “we don’t get the time. But you really must come up and have a look at the exhibition on a quiet day. I’ll send you round some free tickets.”
“No, no … There’s no call … we’ll come anyway.”
“I insist. There’s a painting by a friend of yours, you know.”
“A friend …?”
“Antonio Franchi! A portrait of Ferdinando de’ Medici, from the Uffizi. Genuine, I believe.”
“Ah, I should like to see that.” It occurred to him that Biondini was one of the people Benozzetti referred to as genuine studious lovers of art. “What did you think? You saw the two photographs.”
“I couldn’t fault them. Of course we never got a chance to see the third.”
The story of the third version in an American museum had come out in the papers without mention of its provenance. The museum still refused to comment, much less produce a photograph for comparison.
“You don’t think,” suggested the Marshal, “that when the fuss has died down they will try and check whether it’s genuine?” He explained, as best he could, Benozzetti’s version of how things would go.
“He’s quite right,” Biondini laughed. “Think of the money they spent on it. They’ll never get it back. Not to mention how ridiculous they’d look. They’d lose their reputation entirely. No, once a painting’s that far along the line it has to remain genuine. The world’s galleries are full of Corots and De Chiricos, like the churches are full of pieces of the true cross, a veritable forest full! Your friend Benozzetti was cleverer than most. He took on much more difficult artists and with a lot more success.”
“What about Titian?”
“That would be much more difficult indeed—at least, his later work. The photographic style is easier, that or the very modern. Titian’s late work would be impossible to imitate, I think.”
“That’s why he retired, then,” the Marshal said. “That’s what he was trying to do when I met him and he failed. Landini’s presence was essential to him. Well, I’m glad I can’t afford to buy paintings, I’d be sure to be made a fool of by someone as clever as that.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You’d buy something you enjoyed looking at and if someone came along and said it was painted by artist B instead of artist A you’d still go on enjoying it. It’s people who buy paintings as investments who are in danger. I don’t think you or I need worry. At any rate, you can be sure that you’ll not hear another word against the three Antonio Franchi portraits of Anna Caterina Luisa dei Gherardini. Think of the auctioneers, the museum’s buyer of whoever made the attribution. No one will react because there’s too much at stake.”
The Marshal sipped his wine for a moment, frowning, then his face cleared. “At least, it’s the best thing for young Marco, who was used as an unknowing accomplice.”
“You see? Nobody wants to hear the truth, so Benozzetti might as well have kept it to himself. He had his brief moment of glory and his private satisfaction, but there’s no possibility of his being acknowledged. Anyway, I promise you the Franchi portrait in my exhibition is impeccable, so come up again. I take it your life has quietened down now that you’ve found your famous Monster?”
“Yes, except that I can’t … Ah, you mean the arrest of the Suspect …”
“Didn’t I see it on the news?”
“Yes, yes, of course … I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”
“You’re not going to tell me that, after all the fuss and publicity, he’s a forgery, too?”
“There’s no such thing as a forgery. Isn’t that what you told me? Though I didn’t understand it at the time. Benozzetti said the same.”
“You give me too much credit, as usual, Marshal! ‘There is no such thing as a forgery. There are only false attributions.’ It was said—or rather written—by a very great art historian.”
“Ah. Well, like the painting, it went too far for anyone to retract, and since he’s such a dreadful character anyway …”
“I see. Depressing for you. I mean you worked so hard for such an unsatisfying conclusion. What a world! I’d better get back inside, I suppose. I’ll send you those tickets.”
Most of the brilliant colour had drained from the sky by now, leaving only a silvery yellow light, reflecting from the smooth chilly water of the river. The surrounding hills topped with pines and cypresses had merged into one black silhouette.
He had his private satisfaction but there’s no possibility …
Did he, too, stop because his whole plan failed? Silvano had come near to being arrested as the Monster but, then, as always he slid away. On the other hand, perhaps he felt he’d succeeded. As long as he had that pistol he had power. He’d rid himself of Silvano’s presence and should he ever dare to set foot in Italy again he’d shoot somebody with it. In the meantime, in Silvano’s absence, he would never again strike at a courting couple, of course. On the other hand, he might not have lost his acquired taste for killing and mutilating. If he hadn’t, and he killed again, he might well be caught and then confess the lot the way they all did …
What was he thinking of? He could hardly wish death on some other innocent soul just for the satisfaction …
He had to let go. Like Romola. He felt sure that, in the long run, he would only remember that dead girl’s parents waiting in their separate loneliness for the final release from pain. And a woman living out her joyless life, the loneliness only punctuated by devastating headaches. And Romola who had cared, and fought, and lost. And yet he had been right. He had been on the right road and he had uncovered everything. But to see your way clearly you had to walk the road the other way like the road Nicolino had taken, running at the last, towards the big light.
Silvano as the protagonist. And Silvano as the victim, hunted and destroyed without ever really understanding why and by someone so innocuous—not only—but who ought, if anything, to be grateful to him. It was outside the range of his comprehension that he had destroyed someone’s world not once but twice. Silvano was guilty of murder and he couldn’t point the finger at the one who had brought down this terrible punishment on him without admitting his own guilt. The seventeen innocent people who had died at their hands were forgotten by both of them, a matter of indifference, battle casualties. And the battle was presumably over. Unless Silvano came back.
The huge autumnal sun dropped out of sight behind the dark silhouette of hills, and lights sparkled softly all over the city.
“It’s so beautiful.” Teresa came and slid her arm through his, looking down with him at the floodlit marble towers and the sparkling reflections in the dusky river. “We should come up here more often.”
“Yes. I was saying the same. But it’s going dark …” For some reason the falling darkness made him feel an ache of sadness and anxiety. He realized why when she answered him.
“We should be thinking of going home. The boys will be waiting.”
He thought to himself, “We’re so lucky. Please God let it stay that way.” But aloud he only said, “They’ll be hungry. Let’s go now,” and he held her arm close to him as they steered their way through the crowd.