Free Death in Autumn by Magdalen Nabb Page A

from Milan. The manager here will be livid but I can't help that. I'll wait here until it's been done so there can be no more funny business. But I hope they won't be long, I want to get back to Pitti.'
    When he did get back the two boys on duty were waiting for him anxiously.
    'You're wanted up at the Forte di Belvedere, Marshal. Lorenzini's already gone up there. There's been a body found and he thinks it's probably another drug death.'
    The Marshal, who had begun to unstrap his holster, buckled it up again and went out without a word.
    Lorenzini broke away from the group of people standing by some tangled bushes on the steep narrow lane running up beside the city wall towards the fort.
    'I'll go back down if you can take over here.' He was looking a little green.
    'Is it a drug death?'
    'Probably. This is a popular spot for a fix. The doctor's taking a look now.'
    'All right, you can go.'
    The doctor was coming out from behind the bushes when the Marshal joined the group. People were looking out of their windows in the houses on the left side of the lane. The photographer must have already left but the vigile was still there with a magistrate whom the Marshal didn't know. The vigile was only young and he looked as green as Lorenzini had looked. The smell coming from the bushes was very strong and undoubtedly cheesy. An ambulance was waiting a little higher up the lane. The Marshal waited, impassive behind his dark glasses, while the doctor talked to the magistrate.
    'It's a pity the whole body wasn't immersed in the ditch. With the head being out of the water the rats have left you nothing to identify. As you can judge by the smell, the corpse is saponified so it's been in that wet, warm spot for at least forty days or so, probably more like two months. I'd say it was a youngster but I'm going by the clothes more than anything. If you want to remove him . . .'
    The magistrate nodded to the two porters who were waiting at a distance, smoking. The Marshal, still silent, followed them behind the bushes and looked down into the ditch where the soles of a pair of gym shoes were the first thing he saw in the water. The spring was bubbling gently past the body, carrying dead leaves and scraps of rubbish with it.
    For all the care they took in moving the corpse which was heavy with absorbed water, the light, skeletal head broke away and had to be taken separately. One of the yellow, waxy hands had a sort of bracelet on it made of plaited leather.
    The vigile switched on his radio and began talking into it. The ambulance moved off. Some of the watching neighbours closed their windows.
    And still the Marshal hadn't said a word.

CHAPTER 7
    'We think he suspects he's being followed!'
    'We're sure he does ...'
    'Even so, we kept on his tail and when he met up with the other two—'
    'Wait! Before that, he went in a bar and that's where I managed to get close up—'
    'One at a time,' the Captain suggested. His four plainclothes boys had erupted into his office at six in the evening and piled their radios on to his desk, all of them breathless and wanting to speak at once so that he constantly had to interrupt them.
    'Where did he meet up with the other two?'
    'On the other side of the Ponte Vecchio, under the tunnel.'
    'You could recognize them again?'
    'Easily! Especially the girl, she had a pair of. . . excuse me, sir—but she had a really low-cut sweater on.'
    These boys had only been with the Captain a few months. They were bursting with enthusiasm and had the energy and stamina that this sort of work required. But they were so young and had no experience. It was always the same problem. Men with the amount of experience desirable didn't have that tireless energy and couldn't blend in with gangs of drug addicts the way these could.
    'Why do you think he suspects he's being followed?'
    'Because when the three of them met up and set off towards the station they walked in Indian file a long distance apart.'
    He knew all right, in that