by Mark McCrum
‘All right, everyone,’ she called, ‘I’m just getting a little something for Duncan. I’ll be down in a minute with an update.’
FIVE
When Stephanie returned, half an hour later, most of them had finished their lunch and were sitting around with coffees, waiting. She floated towards them across the courtyard in her big red dress and pinged a glass with a spoon as if nothing had changed. Gerry followed behind her and stood to one side. There was no need for anyone to be alarmed, Stephanie told them all, by the strange men in spaceman suits; the police were just being very thorough, as Italian police liked to be.
‘But those are forensics people,’ said Roz. ‘Surely?’
‘They are. They’re having a thorough look at the sauna, which for the time being, I’m afraid, remains out of bounds.’
‘As if anyone would want to go there,’ said Zoe.
‘And who were the other couple?’ Roz asked.
‘The doctor and his assistant,’ said Gerry. ‘Out here, if he deals with a death, they call him the necroscopo.’
‘The necr-o-scopo,’ intoned Liam, in a husky Hollywood trailer voice. ‘Wasn’t that a film?’ A fillum. ‘About a person that can talk to the dead.’
‘Thanks, Liam,’ Stephanie said, skating over this intervention in her usual bright manner. ‘The necroscopo has asked for a post-mortem, so once forensics have finished, the body will be taken off to the hospital in Perugia and hopefully that will be that.’ Then she and Gerry, she went on, could get to work helping poor Duncan get Poppy repatriated and the rest of them could get back to what they were here for, after all, which was an enjoyable and relaxing time for creative endeavour. ‘As you know, Poppy was a very keen writer, with a published book to her name, and I’m sure she would have wanted everyone to enjoy the rest of their stay, as best they can.’
‘As best they can,’ Liam repeated, Irish irony trickling from his words like treacle. ‘So if any of us don’t want to stick around, will there be some sort of refund?’
‘Now this is rather difficult,’ Stephanie said. ‘I’m afraid the police are keen that everyone stay. At least for the time being.’
‘Can they make us?’
‘I’m afraid I think they can. In the circumstances. But hopefully, obviously, it really won’t be for very long. And Gerry is hoping to get our trip to Gubbio reorganized for Friday.’
‘Oh good,’ said Diana.
‘That’s all right then,’ said Liam, sarcastically.
After the general briefing, Stephanie called Francis aside. He followed her beckoning finger into the privacy of the library.
‘I was just wondering about teaching,’ she said. ‘I know you and Gerry agreed it would be inappropriate today, but what about tomorrow? I’m a bit concerned we’re all going to get bored and restless, stuck here as we are. The police are not only coming back but they want to take statements.’
‘That sounds rather serious.’
‘I’m sure it’s a formality. Hopefully, once they’ve got the post-mortem done, they won’t need them. Between you and me, the necroscopo has some crazy idea that Poppy might have been … poisoned.’ Stephanie dropped her voice to a whisper.
‘Christ.’
‘Gerry and I are hoping that it’s just typical Italian dramatics. I mean we’re hardly the Borgias here, are we?’
‘What on earth made him think that?’
‘Something about the expression of the mouth. And her pupils being so wide. And some smell his assistant detected. Almondy, apparently. It all sounds a bit far-fetched to me. But you know what these things are like, especially over here. Once they start to think something then everybody else has to jump on board. I haven’t broken it to the group yet, but we’ve had to hand over everyone’s passports.’
‘To the police?’
‘Yes.’
‘So nobody really is going anywhere?’
‘Not beyond the border, anyway.’
‘They won’t like that. Quite a few of them are flying back on Saturday, aren’t they?’
‘Five of them. And another six are supposed to be arriving for the second week. To stay in the rooms the five are vacating.’
‘Problems.’
Stephanie sighed. ‘We always have them with our groups. Just not this bad. As I said, we’re praying the autopsy will clear all this up. I hope I’m not being a ridiculously naif person, but the very idea! That one of our lovely guests would want to poison another. I mean, unless Poppy and Duncan have been off in the woods eating some of those dodgy funghi Sasha’s been finding, how else would such a thing come about? Let alone why. The worst thing that’s ever happened here, in over twenty-five years of us running these courses, was Zoe’s asthma attack last year.’
‘It does sound most unlikely,’ Francis agreed. But it was not what he thought. His previous experience had made him realize that murderous intentions could pop up in the most unlikely places. Money and sex, Donna Leon’s Commissario Brunetti had once opined, were the only real motives for murder, but Francis begged to differ. He had seen both revenge and twisted altruism as a motive, quite apart from the follow-up killings that always had to do with being found out and desperately trying to cover up the original crime. With which in mind, he was certainly going to take nothing for granted here. For his own safety he was going to have to pretend to be completely uninterested in whatever events unfolded, even though this talk of poison had quickened his curiosity, for yes, there had been something about Poppy’s wide pupils that had worried him too, quite apart from that smell of marzipan. Almondy. Having written seven murder mysteries and read many more he knew what that meant. Cyanide. Which spoke, if it were true, of a planned killing. ‘As to the teaching,’ he went on, picking up on her original question, ‘no, I don’t mind doing a few exercises, to keep their minds off things.’
‘Thank you, Francis. It would certainly make it easier for us. Gerry’s going to do his best to keep the art group busy. If we can somehow maintain some semblance of normality that would be great.’
‘People want their money’s worth, whatever’s happened.’
‘Exactly.’
‘When are you going to tell them about the passports?’
‘Drinky-time, I think. Best temper the shock with a sharpener.’
Francis could feel his internal eyebrows rising, but the face he gave Stephanie was deadpan. She was in shock too, he realized.
He decided to escape to the pool, which was a hundred and fifty yards or so away from the house, on its own little terrace to one side of the sloping green lawn. It had been built too long ago to be an infinity pool, but it had a quality of that later fashion in that the view was spectacular, out down the valley to the Tuscan ridges and hilltops, the half-hidden rooftops of distant towns and villages, the occasional grand villas with their curving driveways of cypress, and behind it all the magnificently brooding backdrop of mountains and clouds.
For a while he was the only one there, flat out on a lounger with a parasol flapping above him in the light breeze. He was happy to be away from the deliberations that were continuing on the deckchairs in the courtyard, within sight of the police arrivals and departures. Meanwhile, he was cracking on with Zoe’s memoir, finding it more interesting than he’d anticipated. Often, on courses like this, his pupils’ work was not as worthy of publication as they hoped, and there wasn’t an awful lot the teacher could do to right that except point out the most egregious errors or suggest, perhaps, employing a ghost writer or at the very least a saintly editor. But Zoe definitely had something. A crisp, clear style and, more to the point, a story: of the grandparents who had come over from Poland after the pogroms of 1905–6, when sixty had been killed in their home town, where the population was three-quarters Jewish; of rackety immigrant life in Leeds and London; of early memories of front rooms in Hackney, crowded with family and friends, speaking Yiddish; of crusty black rye bread, chopped liver, hardboiled eggs and onions, smoked salmon, cream cheese, black olives straight from the barr
el; of kosher and trayfe, of challah and chometz, of shaygets and shiksas …
‘Sorry to disturb your quiet idyll.’
He looked up. It was Roz, coming down the steps from the little gate in a navy-blue, one-piece swimsuit.
He smiled. He was glad it was her, rather than one of the scrawny oldies. With her clothes off, she had a surprisingly nice figure, which stirred a frisson of desire in him, even though he knew that nothing would ever happen. While she, foolish woman, pined for her married man.
‘No worries,’ he replied. ‘Just thought I’d get away from the action for a bit.’
‘I don’t blame you.’ She sat sideways on the lounger next to him. Then she rested her hand lightly on his arm. ‘Though I’d have thought you’d have wanted to be there. In the thick of it. Being a professional crime writer and all.’
‘This is time off for me.’
‘Do real writers ever take time off?’
‘Ha ha, touché. No, I’m working, even as we speak.’ He pointed down at the stack of pages beside him. ‘Zoe’s memoir. That’s the joy of these residential courses: you’re a sitting duck for the magnum opuses. Or should that be opi? So tell me. What are they all saying up there?’
‘Well, the forensics people are still there. So that’s got some of them thinking that it wasn’t just an accident; that something must be going on. What do you think?’
‘What I think is I have no idea. Really.’
‘Apparently they’ve confiscated our passports.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘So they have. You’d never make a murderer, Francis. You’re far too transparent.’
‘You think I did it. Driven crazy by the name-dropping of his most snobbish pupil, the tutor resorted to violent means.’
As they laughed, a tad hysterically, they were joined by Tony in a pair of brightly coloured swimming shorts.
‘Nice trunks, Tony,’ Roz called.
‘What are you two giggling about?’ he asked. ‘All the conspiracy theorists, up in the courtyard.’
‘You’ve escaped too.’
‘Had to. Couldn’t concentrate on my book with all those spacemen coming and going. And the speculation. Those old dears are going quietly off the scale. Or noisily off the scale, I should say.’
One by one, they clearly all felt the same. One by one they appeared, clutching books and towels and bathing costumes, till everyone bar Angela, Diana and Duncan was sitting or lounging by the pool. Sasha sighed as she tapped away noisily on her laptop, getting up at frequent intervals to pace up and down the terrace. Then with a splash she was in, breaststroke giving way to crawl and an extravagant backstroke. When she’d finished, Mel and Belle climbed slowly down the metal stepladder, protesting noisily about the temperature, though it was quite warm enough, Francis thought, in the high sixties. Once in, they swam up and down, side by side, gossiping quite unselfconsciously about their life and work in Yorkshire, almost as if there had been no death at all.
Up at the villa, Diana and Angela stayed in the courtyard, reading in deckchairs in a dwindling triangle of sunshine. A second ambulanza arrived, with more operatives in fluorescent orange, one male this time and one female. Poppy, now stiff as a giant grissino, was carried out in a body bag.
Diana shuddered at the sight. ‘Poor dear girl,’ she muttered.
‘Did she really deserve that?’ Angela replied, and went back to her book, Diana Athill’s Somewhere Towards the End.
The forensics team followed shortly after that. Finally, the local sovrintendente and agente appeared, climbed silently into their Squadra Volante car, and then they too had swept away up the drive. For the moment, the villa had returned to normal, though Sir Duncan, the new widower, remained firmly upstairs in his room.
Stephanie’s announcement about the passports created a ripple of shock, as Francis had known it would. How Roz had found out earlier, he didn’t know, but it clearly wasn’t general knowledge that they were now properly trapped; in Italy, at any rate, even if not (yet) within the confines of the villa. The pre-dinner drinks session became more animated as people topped up their glasses with wine, and in Liam’s case a Martini, made with cold vodka from the American fridge. ‘Might as well,’ he said, taking a gulp of the clear liquid, ‘since we’re not going anywhere.’ At Roz’s request he mixed her the same, then Tony wanted one too.
At dinner there was a special starter, prepared by Benedetta: a risotto made with the wild mushrooms that Sasha had found earlier.
‘Hopefully your judgement is sound and we’re all going to be OK,’ Liam said, as he tucked in greedily, in due course helping himself to seconds.
‘It’s OK,’ said Sasha. ‘Benedetta only used the porcini ones. She thought the others were fine too but didn’t want to risk it.’
‘I thought they were supposed to be “good eggs” or something,’ Liam said.
‘Ovolo buono, yes. But the Caesars do look very much like the Death Cap, which they call ovolo malefico out here.’
‘You’re very well informed,’ Liam said.
‘Benedetta told me the Italian names. But we have all the same mushrooms in Oregon. I love to go foraging at this time of year.’
Angela had discreetly pushed her plate away and laid down her fork.
‘Are you not eating your delicious risotto, Angela?’ Liam asked.
‘On balance, I think not,’ the old lady replied. ‘But please don’t let me put the rest of you off.’ She flashed her toothy smile.
‘No, please don’t be put off,’ Sasha reiterated. ‘Benedetta’s only used porcini, which are one hundred per cent harmless and look like no other kind of dangerous mushroom. Really, they’re, like, ceps.’
Angela shrugged, but didn’t pick up her fork.
‘Benedetta knows exactly what she’s doing,’ Diana told them. ‘Doesn’t she, Gerry?’
‘She does,’ he replied.
‘In Italian,’ Diana went on, ‘they say Benedetta has le mani d’oro – hands of gold.’
‘She certainly has,’ Stephanie said, and something in her tone, as well as the way she looked sternly back down at her food, made Francis wonder whether all was entirely well between the villa’s owner and her remarkable cook.
Over the secondo, an uncontroversial dish involving pork medallions, they found themselves returning inexorably to the subject of the Italian police.
‘It is rather unsettling,’ Zoe said, ‘to feel that we’re in their power like that.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ asked Roz.
‘It makes me feel anxious, frankly. I mean, we’re abroad. They don’t speak our language, they don’t share our values, anything could happen …’
Liam was laughing. ‘I don’t think they’re about to toss you into a rat-infested cell, Zoe.’
‘You never know. I wouldn’t know how to speak to one and be understood. You know, taken seriously.’
‘Whereas in England, your nice middle-class voice would cow them into submission.’
‘Don’t be impertinent, Liam,’ Diana cut in. ‘Being a man, you can’t possibly understand the anxiety of a woman in a situation like this. Particularly an older woman with limited mobility. They carry guns.’
This sequence of thought made the Irishman bark with laughter.
‘It’s really not funny,’ Diana said.
‘I hate to disillusion you, Diana. But those fine British officers you admire also carry guns.’
‘Not by and large.’
‘Pretty routinely, these days.’
‘Our local police in Aldeburgh most certainly do not carry guns.’
At this point Gerry intervened. ‘Diana’s right,’ he said. ‘British police are not generally armed, while Italians are. Both the State Police and the Carabinieri.’
‘Thank you, Gerry. You may well call me a silly old woman, Liam, but I happen to think there’s something rather marvellous about that. It’s called policing by consent.’
She glared at him, ful
l of steely righteousness.
‘Now come on, Diana. I would never call you a silly old woman. A wonderful old woman, more like.’ It was a masterpiece of Irish charm, amusing the others while surprisingly placating Diana, who softened visibly, the thin line of her mouth wavering into an uncertain smile. ‘By the way,’ he went on. ‘D’you know the one part of Britain where the police do routinely carry guns?’
‘I thought Gerry had just made it clear—’
‘Northern Ireland,’ said Liam. ‘But I guess that’s a different story.’
‘So tell me, Gerry,’ Belle cut in tactfully. ‘What exactly is the difference between the State Police and the Carabinieri?’
Fortunately Gerry was able to explain: how the Carabinieri were a paramilitary organization, with historical roots dating back to before the formation of Italy in the nineteenth century. They were a duplicate police force to the State Police – the Polizia di Stato – complete with a different emergency number. They wore different uniforms and often competed for cases. As if two separate police forces weren’t enough, Italy had several others, including the Guardia di Finanza, responsible for crime in the financial sector, and the Polizia Penitenzaria, who managed policing in jails. Then there were other autonomous divisions of the Polizia di Stato: the Polizia Postale, who dealt with the postal service and now also cybercrime; the Polizia Scientifica, who handled forensics; and the Polizia Stradale, the traffic cops. ‘Uncouth vindictive bastards; I speak from experience.’ This educational analysis had the desired effect of calming the argument down completely.
Up her end of the table, Stephanie was doing her best to keep things on an even keel too. When the time came for the traditional end of dinner ping, it was to announce that: ‘In the circumstances, we’ve decided not to show a film tonight. It’s been a long day and I think people would rather just retire to their beds. Although do please notice the lovely moon, which is almost full tonight and unusually large and golden. The Italians call it una luna del raccolto – a harvest moon.’
Most of them did just stumble away to their rooms, casting long, spooky shadows across the courtyard as they went. But Liam, Roz, Francis and Tony decamped to the battered sofa by the fire in the library and worked their way through another throat-stinging bottle of local grappa.