by Mark McCrum
‘D’you think?’
‘Don’t you? As Liam keeps saying, it’s like the Big Brother house. No cameras, but everyone surreptitiously checking you out twenty-four-seven. There’s at least three who think I’ve done it.’
‘Who?’
‘I couldn’t possibly say.’
‘Oh, go on.’
‘Maybe the doyenne of the group herself.’
‘Diana?’
‘She doesn’t like me much anyway, after I got down to breakfast before her on the first morning. Yes. And those two Yorkshire ladies.’
‘Why?’
‘No idea. Because I’m a bit younger. Don’t quite fit in. First timer. Why am I here? The same stuff they mutter about Liam.’
‘Do they?’
‘Yes. Why is he here? Which is a good question. Why is he here? Is he some rogue IRA man exacting a horrible revenge on the general’s daughter?’
‘That thought had crossed my mind.’
‘But d’you think he’d have read out his poetry if that was the case? He’s hardly keeping quiet about his sympathies in that area. Then again, he is a Northern Irish Catholic.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Francis asked.
‘You ever been there? Belfast. And environs.’
‘No.’
‘They’re all like that. The Catholics. Fervent nationalists. If they’re not actually Republicans, they sympathize.’
‘So when were you there?’
‘A few years ago. In my twenties. One of my disastrous love affairs. With an Irish hardman. He was proper IRA, as it happens. Some of his stories would put a serious chill up your spine. The only trouble was he was very sexy with it. Oh my God.’
‘How long did that last?’
‘A couple of years. On and off. He was never going to settle down with me, though, was he? I was the enemy. That’s why he liked me. Nice little privately educated English girl. He absolutely adored the idea that I’d spent two years at Cheltenham Ladies’ College. Fucking the enemy. That’s what he used to say, even as he was doing it.’ She let out a wild cackle.
‘I don’t suppose Liam knew him.’
‘No, apparently not. Liam’s from Derry. Colum was from Belle-farst.’ She did the accent, and as she did, Francis got a powerful whiff of the place, and of her in the place.
Now he looked at her. ‘May I ask you a question?’
‘Of course. Not too personal, I hope.’
‘It is a bit personal. When we went to Gubbio …’ he began, then paused and watched her.
‘When we went to Gubbio what?’
‘Why were you snogging Tony in one of those baskets in the cable car?’
She didn’t even blink. ‘Was I?’ she said.
‘You were. You were coming down from St Ubaldo’s, just before noon, and you and he were in a fervent embrace.’
She looked at him in disbelief. ‘So where were you, may I ask? To see this?’
‘Just below. On the ground. I decided to walk up the track.’
‘That’s nowhere near the cable car.’
‘Yes, but I then made the foolish mistake of leaving it and taking a footpath up through the woods. I thought it was going to be a shortcut, but it wasn’t, it took me out to a steep, shaley slope which I nearly tumbled down all the way to the town.’
‘Christ. We might have had a third body.’
‘Luckily I managed to spread-eagle myself and slow down on a rocky outcrop and crawl back.’
‘Lucky you.’
‘Lucky me, indeed. And the answer to my question …?’
Roz looked at him for what felt like a long couple of minutes but was probably five seconds. ‘Tony’s my married man,’ she said, and she was, to give her credit, blushing.
She told him everything then. Or so it seemed. That they had come out here to be together for a few days away from his wife. That that’s why she hadn’t been at Francis’s exercise on dialogue, because they had gone for a sneaky day out together. To Castiglione dell’Umbria. She hadn’t cycled there. Fifteen miles, you’ve got to be joking. She laughed. She’d walked down the hill and he’d picked her up in his hire car. And no, of course he wasn’t a counter-intelligence operative, that was just a joke. He was an antiques dealer. That’s why he kept shooting off, looking at stuff in the local towns.
But why hadn’t they come out as a couple? Francis asked. Because it would get back, she replied. Really, far away in Umbria, would news of a private arrangement such as this travel to wherever Tony lived in England? Steyning, Roz replied. Little place on the edge of the South Downs. Between Brighton and Worthing. Maybe yes, she said. Sheila was a maniac. The wife. She tracked down everything Tony did. Sorry, but with all due respect, actually without all due respect, since she didn’t deserve any, she was a crazy bitch. Unfortunately, Tony didn’t do the kind of work where he could make up a foreign conference that he had to attend. Or something of that kind. They had real problems even sneaking a full night away back at home.
So why a writing course? Francis then asked. Where you have, if you’ve come as individuals, to be apart? Why not a hotel, where you could be together? He’d never swing it, she replied. Why would he be in Italy in a hotel for a week?
‘To look at antiques?’
‘Nah. She’d insist on coming with him.’
But the clever thing was, the writing course was his birthday present. From her. His fiftieth. He had always wanted to write and now she was trying to help him make it happen.
Francis gave her a considered look. ‘That doesn’t exactly sound like a crazy bitch,’ he said. ‘A wife who would arrange a thoughtful present like that.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong. That’s exactly the kind of manipulative thing she does. All the time. To get him where she wants him.’
There was clearly not going to be any arguing with Roz about that. He let it go. So how had she managed to get Tony’s wife to give him a present that would allow her, Roz, to be there with him? She hadn’t, she replied. Tony had been given the present, five months ago, and then they’d had this mad idea that it might be fun if she came along too. ‘It was like an idea we had in bed,’ she said, giggling.
Francis nodded. He could imagine the scenario, perhaps a bit too well. ‘So now you’re both stuck here,’ he replied. ‘For who knows how long? Hopefully there’s no danger that wifey – Sheila – will find out.’
‘God knows. It depends on how soon the story gets out. To the press. With half the cooks living in the village up the road it’s surely only a matter of time.’
‘I’m sure they’re all very loyal to Gerry and Stephanie.’
‘Let’s hope so. I’m surprised the police have kept it quiet.’
‘They must have their reasons.’
‘But it won’t stay local, will it, with all of us here. Murder at the villa. Once it gets out, it’ll be Mail Online, complete with a Cluedo-like list of suspects. That’s what I’m dreading. Once Sheila sees that she’ll dump the kids with neighbours and be out here. She’s one of those people. Terribly controlling.’
‘So they have kids?’
‘Yes. Two teenagers. That’s why he won’t leave her. Yet.’
‘I see. And when they’re a bit older he will leave her, is that his story?’
‘I can’t wait until then. He knows that. I’m not going to be one of those mistresses that hangs around until it’s too late. I want a baby. I’m forty-two. I don’t have much time. This is what this week was supposed to be about. Him making a final fucking decision.’
Francis looked at her, wondered whether it was worth tackling her on her inconsistency; decided that on balance it was. Inconsistencies were, by their very nature, suspicious. ‘I thought you didn’t like children,’ he said.
‘Other people’s,’ she replied. ‘For a long time, I thought I didn’t want one, that it would slow me down, that I wouldn’t be able to travel, all that stuff. But then, suddenly, I do. It’s crept up on me. With Tony. Sorry a
bout that.’
‘No need to apologize to me,’ Francis said. Then: ‘So has he? Made a decision?’
‘He said he had. On that day. That we went to Castiglione. And then went on, after lunch, to see Piero della Francesca’s pregnant Madonna in the museum in the pretty little town …’
‘That Gerry talked about?’
‘That one, yes. Monterchi. You know, if you’re pregnant they let you in for free. We were in there, alone, and he kissed me and said that when I was …’
‘Pregnant?’
‘Yes … we’d come back. That’s why I was so happy that evening.’
‘I see.’ It all began to fit now. The glowing woman, returning to the group discussion. And that’s why Tony had looked so worried that evening, Francis thought.
‘Thanks for telling me,’ he said.
‘You won’t tell anyone else, will you?’
‘Not if you don’t want me to.’
‘Please don’t. It’ll get back. Somehow. Sheila will turn out to know Zoe or something. It’s a nightmare. Everything always gets back.’
‘One other question,’ Francis said. ‘Why did you say, that evening before you went to Castiglione, “I’m not in the longevity business”?’
She laughed.
‘It worried me,’ he said.
‘Did it? Good. It was supposed to. Oh, I don’t know. I fancied leaving you with a cryptic remark. I thought you might think I’d gone off and topped myself or something. I wanted to get your writer’s imagination racing.’
‘Well, you did.’
‘You need to watch out for me. I quite like winding people up like that.’
‘Even when there’s a double murder?’
‘Give me a break. It was before all that. I wouldn’t do it now. Now all I want is for this to end, so I can get back home.’
‘What have you and Tony decided?’
‘I don’t know. I thought it was all in the bag and then this happened and now he’s in touch with Sheila again and anything could happen. She might even turn up. Who knows? Perhaps that’s what we need. A showdown. Her and me.’
Twenty minutes later they drained the last of their second glass of grappa, got up and put the light out in the side room. There was just one light left on in the hall. The railings of the stairs cast big shadows on the whitewashed wall. At the top, the long, tiled corridor was dark. Roz made a mock-scared face and put her hands around her neck. Francis laughed, though it was hardly a laughing matter. He reached for his mobile phone and clicked on the torch app, lit them round the corner and along.
‘Good night,’ she said, as she came to Fra Angelico and paused.
‘But …’ Francis began, and then, as Roz put her finger to her lips, realized his mistake. Of course. Tony’s room. So they weren’t disagreeing that much then.
‘Good night,’ he replied, and put his own finger to his lips in acknowledgment of her secret.
He walked to the end and let himself into his lonely room. Once inside, he clicked on the dim overhead light and turned the key behind him.
THIRTEEN
Tuesday 2 October
In the morning the sun continued to shine from a clear blue sky. Mockingly, even, Francis thought. They’d never had such a run of good weather, Diana said, in all the years she’d been coming. Usually there would be rain or a storm at some point. After Francis had finished his ham roll and coffee he paced gently up the drive to see if the young policeman was still there. He wasn’t. There was a new one. An older man who looked as if he hadn’t allowed himself to become a stranger to pasta.
The last breakfasters were still sitting round the long table when there was a familiar sound of squealing brakes and crunching – or rather, flying – gravel, and two police cars appeared down the drive, one marked, the other not. The doors opened and disgorged Moretti, Ceccarelli and prosecutor Sabatini, together with Lorenzo Ricci and two burly agenti in uniform whom Francis hadn’t seen before. Without greeting any of the guests they headed straight in through the front door in a posse.
‘Hey ho!’ said Belle, who was slicing a pear into four neat quarters with a steak knife.
‘Something’s up,’ Mel agreed.
‘I would say so,’ said Angela, nodding excitedly.
‘More interviews?’ asked Zoe. ‘I blinking well hope not. I’ve told them everything I know, at least twice.’
The chit-chat continued and then abruptly stopped. For five minutes later the police reappeared with Duncan and Fiona. Neither of them were in handcuffs, but there was something almost caricatured about the way the two agenti were shadowing them. Duncan was then escorted into the back of the marked Squadra Volante car, with an agente on one side and Sabatini on the other. Moretti got into the front passenger seat and Ricci took the wheel. In the other car were Ceccarelli, in front, Fiona in the back, and the other uniform at the wheel.
‘What the feck!’ said Liam, voicing the group’s thoughts.
The cars sped off and Gerry, who had accompanied them out, was left standing on the gravel.
‘Gerry!’ called Mel. ‘What’s going on?’
He turned towards his guests and paused. For a moment it looked as if he might ignore them and go back inside, but then he came over.
‘They’ve arrested Duncan,’ he said.
‘What on earth are they thinking?’ said Belle.
‘I have no idea. They came up, found me, took me along to the room he’s sharing with Fiona and then made a formal arrest.’
‘In Italian?’ asked Belle.
‘In Italian, first, and then with an English translation.’
‘Crikey!’ said Mel, looking round. Roz and Francis, who had been reading in separate deckchairs in the sun, had now joined the little group around the table.
‘Does this mean we can go back home now?’ asked Belle.
‘I’m afraid not,’ said Gerry. ‘You’re all staying here at the villa for the time being, and the policeman will remain at the top of the drive. They need to question Duncan thoroughly, they said.’
‘Surely they’ve questioned him thoroughly already,’ said Zoe. ‘We’ve all been grilled like kippers. What are they going to do? Put him in a cell and force a confession?’
‘How very alarming,’ said Angela. ‘I do hope the poor man’s going to be OK.’
‘What have they got on him?’ said Liam. ‘That’s what I’d like to know. They must have something. Because they can only hold him for so long until they charge him. I imagine that’s the same out here, isn’t it, Francis?’
Francis, too, was wondering what on earth Moretti and Sabatini were playing at. Did they know something he didn’t? Had Sabatini managed to get privileged judicial access to the general’s will and found out that he hadn’t, after all, left Framley to the sister? Or had they some other concrete evidence that was driving this – a fingerprint on the sauna handle or some such?
He didn’t know the answer to Liam’s question. What did they need to hold someone in Italy? In the UK it was ‘reasonable grounds’, but arresting someone at home meant the police thought they were guilty of something, because they had to charge them within twenty-four hours or else let them go. He had no idea how it worked in Italy, except that the public prosecutor, in this case Sabatini, had a key role. He decided to play it straight. ‘I honestly don’t know, Liam,’ he said. ‘Presumably it must be much the same. This is Europe, after all. I don’t imagine the rules allow them to hold him for any longer than they do at home.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that,’ said Diana. She had been unusually quiet for a change. She looked, frankly, shocked. Perhaps it wasn’t in her lexicon that you could arrest a titled ambassador.
Liam was laughing. ‘This isn’t fecken’ Saudi Arabia or somewhere, Diana,’ he said.
‘I appreciate that, Liam. But it’s not home either.’
‘Have they arrested the daughter too?’ asked Angela. ‘Duncan’s daughter, I mean.’
‘Fiona,’ Francis said.
‘I don’t think so. She wasn’t here, after all, when Poppy died.’
‘Maybe they’re in it together,’ said Angela. Her skinny white eyebrows shot up as she broke into that mischievous, childlike smile. It was interesting, Francis thought, that this arrest, even if it turned out to be spurious, had allowed the elephant that had been lurking around the villa for days to be finally openly acknowledged. Murder most foul.
The answer to Angela’s supposition came after lunch, when a taxi arrived in the drive with Fiona on board. She paid off the driver, then marched purposefully through the front door and up the stairs to her room. When she reappeared, half an hour later, changed out of her smart jacket and skirt combo into more relaxed shorts and top, the inquisitive prisoners of the villa gathered around her like desperate bees round a particularly sweet pot of Home Counties honey. One moment she had taken a deckchair on her own up by the table below the vine; the next, they all seemed to be hovering nearby. Not that she seemed to mind. She was, she said, as baffled as they were. The police had not explained to her, in any coherent way at all, why they were holding her father. He was being questioned, Moretti had told her. She was not allowed to sit in. She would either have to wait outside, in a dreary corridor in the questura, or return to the villa. And yes, unless they decided to release him, he would be spending the night in custody.
‘They’re contacting the British Embassy in Rome,’ she went on, ‘which is a bit embarrassing with him being ex-Diplomatic Service. The absurd thing is, Dad knows all the protocol anyway. Anyway, we’ve got him a lawyer and stuff. There’s no bail in Italy, apparently.’
‘There you are, Liam,’ said Diana. ‘It’s an entirely different system. Even if they are, notionally, in Europe.’
A young man had appeared by the tall wrought-iron gates at the top of the drive, with a camera with a very long lens. He had been seen remonstrating with the uniform on duty, but hadn’t been allowed in.