The Marshal's Own Case Read Online Free Page A

Gardens. He wondered about Bruno. You’d have thought a boy of his age—he was only just nineteen—would have stayed on the sidelines, or even gone off to hide himself and been sick, but not Bruno. He was climbing up towards the Marshal now, a little breathless from his exertions, his eyes bright with excitement.
    ‘They’re beginning to think there can’t be any more of it here or else the dogs would have traced it by now.’
    ‘Hmph.’
    ‘You don’t agree?’
    ‘Maybe.’
    Bruno, too, looked down at the plastic bags but his face registered nothing more than puzzled disappointment.
    Lorenzini had called the Marshal at eleven-fifty but he was on the line to Headquarters at Borgo Ognissanti and so he was kept waiting while the Marshal waited in his turn.
    ‘Got anything?’
    ‘Nothing yet.’ The man at the other end of the line had fed the name of the missing boy from Syracuse into the computer terminal and was awaiting the response. ‘Here it comes . . .’ The Marshal could hear the computer spurt out a brief reply and then stop.
    ‘Well?’
    ‘Nothing. No convictions. Anything else I can do for you?’
    ‘No. Thanks, anyway. I’d better check the hospitals but I can do that myself. I’ve nothing much on this morning.’
    But then Lorenzini’s call came through.
    ‘I wish I could talk to the doctor,’ Bruno said. ‘Do you think—’
    ‘No,’ the Marshal said, for once not at a loss for a reply to the boy.
    ‘I suppose not.’ He was still staring down at the transparent bags. ‘I heard what he said, though, to the Prosecutor, about the breasts. It’s a very young woman.’
    ‘Yes.’
    Bruno crouched down suddenly, peering at the other bag.
    ‘Did you notice? Her nail varnish is freshly done, not cracked or anything. Do you think that’s important?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘If only we could find the head. Do you think it was done by a maniac?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘But the doctor said he thought it had probably been done with a saw! It could be a maniac.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘What will we do next?’
    ‘Nothing.’
    ‘Nothing?’
    ‘Unless we’re asked to do some auxiliary work on the case. It’ll be taken over by Headquarters once I’ve given in my report.’
    Bruno looked crestfallen. ‘It would be really something, to work on a case like this. Good experience for me. If only I could be the one to find the head.’
    And in the event he was. The dogs were moving in a line down the slope and the handlers didn’t want Bruno in the way, so he joined the municipal workers who were up on the road on their way to the next blue and white skip. When they started to empty it, he was the one to spot the strands of long dark hair flowing out of a split in a rubbish bag.
    The upper part of the trunk, a forearm and hand, now the head. They never found the rest. It was doubtful whether they would have found anything at all if the residents of the houses along the road facing hadn’t been complaining for weeks about the illegal dumping of rubbish over that wall. The municipal workers had finally turned up that morning to clear the field and Bruno, who’d been driving the patrol car, insisted on stopping to see what they were doing because their truck was causing an obstruction. A battered suitcase had burst as they threw it in the back along with some mattress springs and a broken chair and Bruno had seen the hand poking out with its red-varnished nails.
    It was already dark when they got back. Bruno was still chattering excitedly with no thought in his head of two missed meals. The Marshal’s stomach was rumbling, but he switched the light on in his office and telephoned his commanding officer whom he disturbed at supper in his quarters at Borgo Ognissanti across the river.
    ‘Captain . . . Ah, you’ve heard. Yes, a young woman. No clothing, no identity papers. Can you wait until tomorrow morning for a written report or . . . Thank you, sir. No, nobody missing in my district that I know