“The magistrate? Branconi, I think.”
“Oh, that’s all right then. Yes. Get the dealer and bung him in the bin too. Then when all the interest has died out, let him go. Besides, there’s no harm in giving him a good scare. Maybe a severe interrogation or two. Frighten the wits out of him.”
“I’ll send Paolo. He could do with a day out.”
“Ah, no. I was going to send him to Palermo for a couple of days. Could you do this yourself?”
She nodded. “Sure. I can go tomorrow if you like. Does this mean I can check out Maria Fancelli’s statement? As I’m going to be there anyway?”
Bottando smiled at her persistence. “Oh, very well. But remember…”
“Don’t waste any time on it. I know. Oh, by the way,” she fumbled in her handbag and took out an envelope.
“What’s this?”
“Copies of Argan’s computer disks. I took the liberty of popping in when he was out for lunch yesterday. I thought you might want them. In the interests of departmental coordination.”
“Flavia, you’re wonderful.”
“I know.”
She went off to Florence the next day with a full shopping list of little tasks to accomplish to make the trip worthwhile and fit in with Bottando’s strictures about efficiency. While she could have done most by phone, there was undoubtedly a lot to be said for taking care of many of them in person and in one day. She had to collect reports on thefts, inspect a few sites of robberies, have a brief chat with the local police, interview the Leonardo man, talk to the magistrate about what should be done with him, interview someone Bottando thought might be suitable for a job, and so on.
But the first stop was the establishment of Signora della Quercia, whose continued existence had been ascertained by that most sophisticated tool of police enquiry, the telephone directory. Had she not been in Florence anyway, she would probably not have bothered. But she had half an hour to kill before her first appointment, and it was a cheaper way of spending the time than sitting in a cafe. At first sight she appeared to live in one of the very grand places occupied by the well-heeled Florentine establishment, a few hundred metres away from the Piazza della Repubblica down a dark but nonetheless imposing side street. At second sight, however, it was clearly an old town palazzo that had been sold, rehabilitated and turned into a set of offices for some vast and anonymous company selling who knew what. Flavia hesitated, then went in and asked the secretary guarding the gate. She assumed the signora had moved; did she know where she had gone?
The secretary was surprisingly talkative and, having nothing better to do, gave her the whole story; more, in fact, than she really wanted to hear. The signora had sold up about twelve years previously, but all the money had gone to her son, who’d effectively stolen it. He now lived in considerable splendour in Milan while the signora was left virtually penniless. The new owners, partly out of charity and partly because of the legal costs and bad publicity that would have gone with evicting her, allowed her to live in the attic, in what were the old servants’ quarters. They had assumed it would be a temporary measure, but the old lady had lived on, and on, and still showed no signs of dying. It must be the exercise she got from climbing up and down six flights of stairs every day. She was at least ninety, the woman said, and as mad as a hatter. She was the last of the old inhabitants: even the Palazzo Straga was now the headquarters of a firm importing computers. If Flavia wanted to see her, she should go up. But it would probably be a waste of time.
Flavia walked to the back of the courtyard where the dark stairs to the servants’ floor began and paused. Six flights of stairs? Was anything worth climbing up six flights of stairs?
It was pitch black, chilly despite the weather, and very unwelcoming in the stairwell, and Flavia had to pause periodically to make sure she didn’t arrive at the top too breathless to introduce herself. The trip took some time, but eventually she stood outside a thin wooden door and knocked loudly on it.
She stood quietly, listening for signs of life, and eventually heard the sound of creaking floorboards and someone coming towards her. A tiny woman, bent over with age, opened the door, and peered at her quizzically. Flavia announced herself.
“Eh?” she said, cupping her hand to her ear.
Flavia bellowed that she was a policewoman and wanted to talk to her.
The old woman didn’t believe it, and stood there, shaking her walking stick, as if to indicate that if Flavia put one foot wrong, she’d beat her to within an inch of her life. Flavia admired her spirit, but not her realism; she could have picked her up with one hand.
“Can I come in?” she yelled.
“Come in, then,” said Signora della Quercia in a thin, high-pitched voice, as if it had been her idea.
The room in which the old lady lived was about four metres by three, and one of the most crowded places Flavia had ever seen. There was a bed, a wash basin, a sofa, an armchair, two dining chairs, three tables, a wooden bookcase, half a dozen carpets, pot-plants, a small cooker, three lights, one of which glowed dimly, and such wall space as wasn’t covered with furniture was crammed with photographs, crucifixes, framed letters and other mementoes of an exceptionally long life. It wasn’t possible to take more than one step without tripping, and Flavia, without bothering to be asked, weaved her way carefully through the obstacles and sat down to avoid breaking something.
Signora della Quercia hobbled behind, and fluttered down to perch on a chair opposite.
“I need to ask you about one of your old employees,” Flavia screamed in her direction.
“I am a Medici, you know,” she said.
“I believe you used to run a school. For foreigners. Is that right?”
“I ran a school. For foreigners. One of the finest. Only the very best young ladies came here. The cream of Europe, they were. Such charming girls.”
I want to know about a woman called Maria Fancelli,” Flavia shouted hopefully.
“They were always so grateful to me. They used to regard me as their second mother. Of course, I didn’t encourage such intimacy. Girls like that needed to maintain a proper sense of position, don’t you think?”
“I understand you fired her. Is that correct?” Flavia bellowed, despite the strong feeling that the room was witnessing two conversations simultaneously.
“The English,” della Quercia twittered, blithely ignoring the question. “The English, now. They always had a strong sense of themselves. Very formal and dignified, most of them. Admirable. Of course, I do believe they have degenerated in recent years.”
“Fancelli?” Flavia called hopefully.
“And very respectful of Italian civilization, of course. Quite unlike the French. Just the sort of girls my school was designed for. The best. The cream of Europe. And married the cream as well.”
“Maid-servants?”
“None of that vulgarity that so disfigures modern womanhood, even though they could be so kind. A gentler age, it was, in those days. But then my young ladies began to get ideas. No chaperones any more, and some were even drinking at parties and dancing with people to whom they’d not been formally introduced. Can you imagine that?”
Flavia shook her head sadly.
“I’m so glad you agree. Shortly after that I began to think of retirement. Just as well, the things you read in the papers these days. Can you imagine it? Well brought up ladies, of good families, having ideas below their station?” She snorted derisively. “I used to tell them, if God had wanted you to work he would have made you working class. If he had wanted you to bring up your own children, he would have made you a bourgeois. They always listened to me. They respected me, you know. As a Medici, you understand.”