The Death of an Irish Consul by Bartholomew Gill

Author:Bartholomew Gill [Gill, Bartholomew]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9780140085808
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 1977-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

SIX

CARLO FALCHI was wroth. The carabinieri commandant was sitting behind his desk, taking successive quick sips from a large cup of espresso.

In McGarr’s cup the pungent, black liquid was far too hot for him to drink.

The aroma of hot caffè nero, into which sugar had been stirred, pervaded the office, as did the delicate odor of hot brioche, a half-dozen of which lay on a caddy to McGarr’s right. He broke one open. Its light brown crust yielded moist dough, butter-rich. McGarr wondered briefly how Sienese pastry compared with Parisian. The latter city prepared more complicated sweets, that much was certain, but the Sienese did some things incomparably well. Their dolces, like this brioche, were sublime. McGarr reached for another.

“To think of their attitude, that’s what galls me most,” said Falchi. “What do they think we do up here all the time, sleep? Romans!” Falchi had finished his espresso. He set the cup down on his desk with a crack and pressed a button several times.

McGarr could hear it ringing in an outer office.

Hours after Cummings’s death, some big shots in the carabinieri, accompanied by the Minister for Justice, had arrived and relieved Falchi of the investigation.

“They ought to draw an international border at Arezzo and demand passports to be shown so that we can monitor this invasion of cretini from the south.” Falchi could see out into the parking lot of the Duomo. The cathedral was crowded with tourists.

A large bus began off-loading some sightseers, many of whom were blond. The back of the bus had a white, circular disk on which had been painted the letters D K. Falchi got out of his seat and stared at the young blond girls who were shielding their eyes with their hands to see the facade of the church. A few of them were snapping pictures. All were very pale.

“Ah—biondine! Not your common Roman bottle blonds, mind you, but real Nordic fair women. Right now, I could leave all my cares with such a woman.” Falchi was a thickset man with gruff good looks. None of his features was regular, but taken together his aspect was pleasing. And he was an inveterate womanizer. When they were both working in Rome for Interpol, he had once told McGarr that he was a big man who had so much love in him that it was his duty to spread it around, that the moment he believed he was stinting his wife of her just share of his love, he would stop his philandering immediately.

A carabiniere entered the room, picked up Falchi’s empty saucer and cup, and reached for the tray of brioches as though he would remove that too.

McGarr showed him his palm. “Con vostro permesso, per favore.”

Falchi spun around. His moustache looked like a straight black bar across his upper lip. The chest of his white summer uniform was a mélange of ribbons and medals. McGarr had heard they were handed out yearly to officers of a certain rank regardless of their performance.

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