Free The Marshal and the Madwoman by Magdalen Nabb Page A

was the same in every family. And yet in Clementina's flat he hadn't seen a single photograph. She'd been married but there wasn't a wedding picture. And even if she'd had no children, she'd been a child herself. She had a past, a family like everybody else. How was it possible that there wasn't so much as a single snapshot in her home? He closed the shoe box carefully and the drawer with difficulty.
    'Salva! What on earth . . .?'
    'I'm coming.'
    She was sitting up in bed with the bedside light on. The air was heavily perfumed with mosquito-killer and a fan was whirring in one corner, though it seemed to be doing little except redistribute the hot air.
    'Did I wake you?' He began unbuttoning his shirt.
    'I wasn't asleep or you would have done, banging about. Whatever were you doing?'
    'Looking at old photographs.'
    'Ours? What for? Which photographs?'
    'The snaps in that box in the drawer.'
    'At this time of night? They're none of them any good, anyway. They want throwing out.'
    'But they never do get thrown out, that's the point.'
    'I don't know what you mean. I'll go through them one of these days, but they do keep on accumulating, year after year.'
    'Exactly.'
    'I wish I knew what you were talking about.'
    'About Clementina, I suppose.'
    'That madwoman?'
    'That's right. She's dead.'
    'No!'
    'Yes. And there wasn't a single photograph in her flat, not one snapshot.'
    'But—is that why you were called out?'
    'Yes. I think I'll get a glass of water, do you want anything?'
    'No, but have you eaten?'
    He'd forgotten about that. 'No ... I might have a sandwich.'
    'I'll make it for you.'
    'No, no. Stay where you are.'
    Sitting alone in pyjamas at the kitchen table with a sandwich in front of him gave him an odd feeling which he didn't identify at once because he was distracted. He was trying to think whether he'd ever in his life been in a house without a photograph or two in it, but he couldn't. He'd known peasant families down at home when he was small who hadn't enough to eat and certainly never owned a camera, but even they had pictures of First Communions and weddings. Clementina might have been crazy, but in his book that didn't account for it. The trouble was that once a person was labelled as crazy, everything they did or said was put down to that. How many times had it been said up to now? 'Of course, she was crazy.' 'Everything about her was odd.' 'You have to remember she wasn't in her right mind.' Well, he wasn't convinced. He wasn't convinced because somebody had killed her. You don't kill a woman because she's a bit funny in the head and goes cleaning the streets after dark. You kill her for a good reason which probably had nothing to do with her being mad.
    The clock on the shelf ticked softly against the sawing rhythm of the cicadas in the Boboli Gardens behind the Palace, and it struck him, at last, that sitting here alone with his sandwich reminded him of his grass widower days. It wasn't an unpleasant memory since it made him feel all the more satisfied with the present. It would be even better when the boys came back. How babyish and fat they'd looked in that photograph . . . He got up and rinsed his plate. He was wakeful, despite the late hour, and he wanted to chat to Teresa for a minute if she wasn't already asleep. He switched off the kitchen light and was pleased to find the lamp still on in the bedroom, though his wife's eyes were closed. He switched the fan off.
    'Are you asleep?'
    'Almost. . . What time is it?'
    'Late, but you can always sleep in tomorrow.'
    'I never sleep in. You know very well that once I'm awake . . .'
    He got into bed and picked up the alarm clock.
    'I've already set it. What happened to that poor old woman?' Her eyes were wide open now. 'Or don't you want to tell me?
    'I'll tell you . . . but you mustn't say a word outside these four walls because I don't want it to get about yet. It was set up to look like suicide but somebody killed her.'
    'Killed her? That harmless old thing?