Death in Autumn by Magdalen Nabb

thoughts rambled over the various young people he had dealt with in one way and another that day. First the ones out at the villa, one of whom might well have been the lover of the forty-eight-year-old Hilde Vogel; the boy who had died of drugs at age eighteen and whose bereaved parents he had visited briefly that evening; the young man who had to run the family business while trying to study for his degree in architecture at night. Lastly, his own lads cooking their supper upstairs, all of them hundreds of miles from their own homes and families. It was as if all these youngsters lived in completely different worlds. Especially the ones at the villa whose world the Marshal couldn't comprehend at all.
    Well, he had done his best that day, tomorrow was his day off, and with any luck the Captain would have no further use for him on the Vogel case which left a dirty taste in his mouth. He would be glad not to be involved in it any further. He wasn't to know that very soon something was to happen which would involve him even more deeply and cause him about as much distress as any case had ever done before.

CHAPTER 6
    The trouble with Guarnaccia, Captain Maestrangelo was thinking as his driver struggled through the lunch-time traffic taking him out to a new industrial suburb, was that he never actually said anything much. He just seemed to breathe unease or suspicion. It was true that once he started like that he would pursue his quarry doggedly until he had tracked him down, if it took him years. But they hadn't got years. What they had got was a rather snappish young Substitute Prosecutor called Bandini in charge of the case and who had made it clear that he wanted some fast action. The Captain had never liked him and he certainly wasn't the sort to appreciate the ponderous Marshal. The car stopped at a busy crossing to let a horde of youngsters in black tunics pour across the street on their way home from some nearby school.
    He had been tempted to ring the Marshal that morning as soon as he had finished reading the report he had sent over but he had put the receiver down again without asking for the number. After all, it was his day off. The Captain was pushing all his men too hard, he knew. In the end, after comparing Guarnaccia's report with the statements made by the hotel staff, he had decided to go out by himself.
    The car moved off again and joined the queue at the next traffic lights.
    The trouble was that they had a lot of odd facts, none of which seemed to link up. According to the hotel receptionist, Hilde Vogel had taken periodic trips abroad. Paris, Vienna and Brussels were some of the ones he remembered. All the tenants at the villa were young foreigners, which suggested that she might have picked them up on these trips, and that the newspaper adverts, if they existed at all, were a blind. The agent at Greve had been able to tell the local Marshal nothing other than that he received and answered the inquiries that came in and prepared the contracts.
    But if she had indeed picked them up like that, would they be paying the high rent? That wasn't fictional, at any rate, the agent had been able to assure them of that.
    The car was now travelling along a broad road with new factories on each side interspersed with petrol stations and high rise apartment blocks.
    Only two of the facts that had emerged appeared to have something in common. About a month before her death, Hilde Vogel had been seen in a restaurant with a tall young man, and at about that period a tall man had visited her at the Riverside Hotel. These facts didn't coincide with the murder but at least they seemed to coincide with each other.
    'Left here, I think,' the driver said suddenly, interrupting the Captain's thoughts. 'Ugly area, this.'
    The car pulled up outside a block of flats identical to all the other blocks. It was bright and sunny but a cool wind was blowing scraps of paper along the wide street.
    'Wait for me here,' the Captain said,