Free Some Bitter Taste by Magdalen Nabb Page A

Lorenzini, and started down the narrow stairs, already feeling for his sunglasses. The sky was almost colourless, the glare enough to have his eyes streaming in seconds. He went down the side of the palace forecourt in the shade offered by a high wall. It didn’t help. The heat was all-suffusing, the air was stagnant. Sometimes, when it was like this, car tyres made the wet sound of a rainy day but it didn’t rain, except sometimes for a minute or two, a few fat drops that rose as steam on the instant to increase the Turkish bath effect. The marshal walked slowly. He didn’t want his shirt sticking to him. He didn’t want to get so distressed by the suffocating heat that he would start forgetting things and lose his patience. If you lose your patience in July you’re not likely to get it back again until after your evening shower. And to think that people paid good money to suffer not only all this but the stress of an unknown city and a language they couldn’t speak.
    “You’re holding the map upside down!’
    ‘I’ve told you I’ll go in no more shops!’
    ‘Mum, I’m thirsty!’
    ‘A very important collection of paintings and I don’t want to hear another word out of either of you until—’
    ‘Did you have to let it melt all down your front?’
    Without understanding a word, the marshal recognized these complaints as they drifted around him in a dozen languages. He stood waiting to cross the road, muttering as he did every year, T don’t know what they come here for, they’d do better to stop at home.’
    There was a traffic pileup and the marshal gave up waiting and wandered across the narrow road between the cars and the inevitable chorus of horns.
    Sdrucciolo de’ Pitti was a haven of peace in comparison. It was cluttered with parked mopeds and bikes and it was occasionally necessary to flatten yourself against the wall to let a white Mercedes taxi by, but otherwise you could walk in the middle of the paved alley and you were away from the worst of the noise. Rinaldi, the antique dealer, was at his door, looking down the street as though expecting someone. He turned and spotted the marshal coming down, though.
    ‘Ah. I heard about the Hirsch woman. Come in if you think I can help you. You’ll excuse me if I keep an eye on the street? I’m waiting for a delivery. Very good men, the best there are, but with things of great value, you understand …’
    ‘Of course. Why don’t you see to that. I’ll go in and wait, then we’ll talk.’ Once inside, the marshal almost regretted having suggested this. He liked looking round places unobserved, not to mention observing people from behind. But ‘things of great value’ was an understatement in this case, as would be ‘bull in a china shop’. So he removed his sunglasses and kept very still. Only his huge all-seeing eyes scanned the long, dark room with its deep red polished floor, gilded frames, and weathered statuary. Rinaldi’s broad back excluded most of the spent light from the alley. A fancy lamp with a silk shade made a golden pool on a tiny inlaid desk where Rinaldi must habitually sit. There was no clutter, only an elegant desk set and a silver box of visiting cards. The rasping engine of a three-wheel truck at the door announced the expected delivery. Rinaldi came inside. He looked as anxious as a mother cat, and his hands clenched and unclenched as two huge men struggled with a crate that was almost as tall as a human being and clearly a great deal heavier. The men’s faces were red with strain and they gasped for breath.
    ‘Down! Put her down! I can’t make it…’ They stood the crate on its end in the centre of the small room and bent double, heaving, clutching their chests. One of them, whose greasy blond hair was tied back in a ponytail, was sweating so much that big drops rolled down his nose and splattered onto the polished floor. The dark head of the other was shaven but it gleamed with wetness even so. ‘I thought we’d