Vita Nuova by Magdalen Nabb Page B

over lunch because I’m starving and I haven’t a bean.’
    ‘You shouldn’t spend it all on clothes.’
    ‘You’re right. And now I’m going to have to buy another pair of these shoes. We’ll eat at Paszkowski. I need cigarettes and, besides, everything else decent is closed in August.’
    ‘You’ve given up giving up smoking, then?’
    ‘Not at all. I never give up giving up. Just giving it a rest for a bit.’
    ‘Well, we’re not going anywhere for lunch—I haven’t time to stop for lunch.’
    Not for more than a couple of sandwiches, anyway. But in the end he agreed to have supper with Nesti. He might really have something useful to say, but the truth was that the marshal would have supped with the devil himself to avoid eating alone at home.
    It had been like that when he was a lad. They never went on holiday, but his school friends did, and he’d hang around the house, not knowing what to do, morose and lonely. His mother was too busy to have any patience with him.
    ‘Don’t stand in the middle of the kitchen, I’ve the floor to mop. Go and play with Nunziata or else help your father with the hens.’
    But his sister was two years older and didn’t want him around. His father was quiet and patient, but it was easy to see that he got on better on his own.
    Before long, he’d be back in the kitchen.
    ‘I’m hungry.’
    ‘Here. Have a slice of bread.’
    She’d cut a thick crust and put a slice from a big tomato on it with salt and a drop of oil.
    ‘Here. Now, get out from under my feet. Why don’t you go and call for little Beppe. He’ll play with you.’
    ‘He’s only eight!’
    But he would go, in the end, and an instant friendship would be improvised and last through the long, lonely month of August until everybody was back.
    He dropped Nesti further down the road where his car was parked.
    ‘Eight o’clock at Paszkowski, then. In the meantime, I think I’ll go and take the waters. Good for my liver.’
    ‘What . . . ?’
    At five in the afternoon, the marshal was in his office. He’d looked in on the two lads in the duty room, one of whom was at the console talking to the motorbike patrol.
    ‘Everything all right?’
    ‘All quiet, Marshal.’
    ‘All right. Look up this name, will you? See if there’s anything on our records.’
    ‘Right . . . isn’t this the name—’
    ‘Yes. Bring me anything you find right away—and if there are any reports of incidents involving gypsies, tell me. The captain wants to avoid whipping up hysteria— especially in the press.’
    ‘Right. You know another child died?’
    ‘No. What happened?’
    ‘It’s just come through. The little brother of the girl who died in the fire. He was badly burned. Died about an hour ago, poor kid. Let’s hope that’ll shame the anti-gypsy campaigners into shutting up.’
    The marshal doubted it. Two gypsies less would be their only thought. He sat down behind his desk and sighed. It was an intractable problem around which emotions ran high, interest in facts low. Each time a small incident occurred, trouble would flare up— literally this time—and now it was a political football.
    As a child, he had never really believed his parents’ warnings about the gypsies, even though they made him shiver under the bedclothes on windy nights. Why should they steal children? It was just one of those fairy stories they tell to keep you frightened into not wandering off or staying out in the dark. But gypsies do steal children, though not usually in Italy, and teach them to beg and steal. And even to stab people in the leg if they don’t cough up, apparently. . . .
    He took out his notebook and opened it. Talk about intractable problems.
    Costanza Donati, a good sort of woman you’d be glad to have as a neighbour, hadn’t been able to help much as far as Daniela Paoletti’s death, or even life, was concerned. She had been more than helpful, though, on another problem. Her husband was a doctor, a consultant, and