Free The Marshal at the Villa Torrini by Magdalen Nabb Page B

to talk to Lorenzini.
    'Can you prepare a package for me for the Prosecutor's office while I get the paperwork done?'
    'What size?'
    'It's only a couple of capsules—oh, and put in this complete pack of them the chemist gave me. Save them a bit of time at the lab if they check against those—By the way, what's the matter with Fara? Not getting himself in any trouble, is he?'
    'No, he just wanted a bit of advice . . . ' Lorenzini's eyes searched the Marshal's face and, finding it blank, felt free to add, 'Just feeling a bit homesick, really.'
    'Well, he'll soon get over that—though I must say these boys these days don't look old enough to be here. That must be me getting old, mustn't it?'
    'I'm afraid so.' Lorenzini smiled. 'It's happening to me, too, now, ever since we had our little boy. Must be paternal feeling at the root of it. The photos and house plan for the Torrini case have come, by the way, so if you can get through the reports we can have it all ready to go off by the time we shut shop.'
    'If I can get through them . . .'
    He just about made it. He did the search report and the receipts for the passport and capsules first, and then opened the packet of photographs in the hope of seeing something he hadn't seen, noticing some detail he'd overlooked. There was nothing. The perfumed suds on the cold pink water, the sightless eye turned towards him just above the surface. His own hand was still in the first picture after they'd turned her. The broken glass embedded in her buttock: it hadn't killed her. Whatever it had contained, she hadn't drunk from it. Why was it underneath her, though? He tried to imagine dropping a glass into the bath and the glass breaking. Well, you'd get out, wouldn't you? You wouldn't sit there fishing for the pieces, you'd get up . . . and slip perhaps and cut yourself—and wouldn't you scream? Or faint . . . whichever you did you'd make some commotion and Forbes—Forbes wasn't drunk, not yet he wasn't. They'd just come in and Signora Torrini saw them. She'd have said—or would that come under the heading of speaking ill of the as good as dead? He'd have to ask her. One thing he could check in the meantime. He called the Medico-Legal Institute.
    'No, I'm sorry, he's not. Can I be of any help? I'm his assistant . . . yes . . . yes, I did—no, there's no need, I remember quite well that the cuts were post-mortem— there was a fair bit of seepage, the cuts being on the underside and immersed in water, but nothing like the bleeding such deep wounds would have caused had she been alive. Anything else? Not at all.'
    A dead end. The diet, then. The only person he could think of to ask about that was the Signora Torrini, but she didn't answer her phone though he let it ring and ring, knowing that it might take her a long time to get to it. Odd. He'd been under the impression that she didn't go out, though of course the famous Giorgio must occasionally show up and perhaps take her somewhere. Well, if that was the way it was he would ask Forbes himself at some point. The idea didn't please him. He was still of the opinion that he would rather anyone but himself asked Forbes anything. He allowed the Signorina Müller to cross his mind briefly and dismissed her from it. It would almost certainly be one of the things she did not think about. He could imagine her reaction: 'Diets!' and the instant removal of the conversation on to a higher plane.
    There was nothing for it. He began to type.
    On arrival at the scene the presence of a cadaver in the bathroom of the habitation described in the enclosed plans was established . . .
    The thing was to cover yourself for all eventualities. Tongue between his teeth, two plump fingers picking out the letters, he wrote:
    From the on the spot evidence obtained, at the present time, no hypotheses of any specific crime emerge.
Reserving the right to communicate the results of my further inquiries I enclose:
— Death certificate.
— Search report.
—