“However, I must say, he was very nice with Pia today.”
“Pia. What’s she got to do with it?”
“Oh, damn, I’ve got the feeling I shouldn’t have said anything about that. No, sorry I can’t tell you. It’s nothing earth shattering, but until I am told I can, I won’t speak about it. Forget what I said please.”
“I already have, don’t worry.”
“Sorry. Well, to continue the story, at the beginning we all thought that German had done it, but they don’t seem to have arrested him, so I suppose it’s not him. The burglar theory seems the most popular and as far as I can gather it’s the official version. The newspapers have dropped the whole thing, and everybody seems to think it will be one of those unsolved crimes. Of course, they have to keep trying for a bit, but I expect they’ll never know who did it.”
“It can’t be very nice for Nigel and Robin. Didn’t Nigel get on very well with him at one time?”
“Yes, they fell out over money, well you know what a cheat Ettore was, and it took Nigel quite a while to realise, and then when he did, he cut Ettore out of his life.”
“Well, better late than never. Ettore wasn’t at all a nice person. Money was the ruling factor in his life I think. Money and what he could do with it. He wasn’t a good influence on that boy Marco either.”
“Poor kid, he seems in a bad way since his hero died. He’d had nothing more to do with the kids of his own age while Ettore was alive, so he’s pretty much alone now. He looks dreadful.”
“Yes I saw him yesterday evening. I had to go out to get cigarettes. It was rather strange actually. It was in the old town and as I turned the corner just before Palazzo Guelfi, I saw him praying, or at any rate crossing himself, in front of that little Madonna.”
“Sounds unlikely. But religion is so ingrained that some people do that sort of thing automatically even if they’re not religious, don’t go to church I mean. It’s almost a conditioned reflex, or maybe a good luck thing.”
“Maybe.” They drove on in silence and as they neared the restaurant Bruno said, “Did you miss me?”
“Yes, I did. Did you miss me?”
“Yes.”
He stopped the car in the restaurant parking space. “Come on let’s go and eat, I’m starving.”
As they walked into the restaurant Bruno took her hand. For some inexplicable reason, she didn’t really want him to.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Di Girolamo sat in his office. A folder was open on his desk. He riffled through it. There were photographs, lab reports, statements, and fingerprints. All the usual stuff. What did it amount to? Fagiolo had been killed. There was a thumbprint on the spade, which had been used to hit Ettore, a spade which had otherwise been wiped clean. The print didn’t belong to anyone he had interviewed, which was why the official version was still that a burglar had been disturbed by Ettore, and had subsequently killed him. No doubt this would be one of the many unsolved murders that were committed by delinquents every year, although a large number of these involved firearms. What was surprising about this murder, was that this felon, having hit Ettore a hefty blow, should then drag the semi-conscious victim to the pool edge and throw him in. The blow to the head had been enough to stun the man, but not kill him. It would cause concussion, immobilise the man and allow a getaway. Therefore, why stop and throw him in and, by so doing, saddle yourself with an unnecessary murder charge?
Now this old lady, what was her name, ah yes, he looked at her statement again, Pia Pieri, had come forward, albeit rather late in the day, to tell him that the Proctors had come back that night, right at the possible time of the murder.
Could this just be a coincidence? Why hadn’t they told him themselves that they had returned? He knew that reticence was not always a sign of guilt. People would omit to tell you things; either because they thought they had no relevance, or because they were afraid it would make things look bad for them. He had no idea which it was in this case. They’d seemed very straightforward at the interview, so it could well be that they were so certain the murder happened after their departure, that they’d seen no reason to mention it. On the other hand they may have calculated that as it was of no importance, but would look bad, it would be better to stay silent. Of course, they could have come back, found him there and done it themselves. Again, why? You don’t kill a man for overcharging you. You might be very angry if you found that he was using your house in your absence and, as the ensuing argument degenerated and became a fight, you might even kill him accidentally, but would you throw an injured man into a pool? A man that you had injured in the heat of the moment? He felt not. It was far more likely you would be shocked at having hurt him so badly, and try to remedy it. In his experience the aggressor, on such occasions, was usually horrified. No, Ettore’s death could not have been an accident.
There were no fingerprints on the spade other than the one thumbprint, which did not belong to either of the Proctors. Of course it was quite possible that this print belonged to someone unconnected with the murder. Also, if Nigel had hit Ettore with the spade, would he then clean it? What would be the point? It would be normal for all the garden implements to have his prints on them, or had he decided to clean it for that reason, thinking, ‘if it has been cleaned they’ll think it wasn’t me?’ Well, he’d have them in again the next day and see what they had to say about it.
He examined other possible solutions. What about the Englishwoman? Hilary Wright was a cool customer, and would undoubtedly have the nerve to throw the man in, but why should she? He’d asked the local police about her and they’d given her an impeccable character reference. He let himself think about her for a moment. She attracted him, and he wasn’t easily attracted. She intrigued him, maybe that was it. Strange the spark that sometimes one felt, that he hadn’t felt for so long. Perhaps he would find a pretext to see her again. He pulled his thoughts back to the case.
He considered the German, Herman Ganz. He hadn’t totally given up on that one, but he felt it improbable. Apart from the fact that he had been the first suspect after an anonymous phone call had alerted them to his threats towards Ettore that evening, there was no proof that he had been at the Villa at all. The fingerprint was not his. Also, according to eyewitnesses, the man had been so drunk that he was falling about. He would never have had the strength, or the co-ordination to do it. At that stage of drunkenness he would have been feeble, and uncoordinated. It was impossible to imagine him coolly wiping his fingerprints off the spade and replacing it, let alone dragging that dead weight to the pool. He had a motive of sorts, though often those who yelled their intention to do so would be totally incapable of killing. No, the German might look good on paper, but Ruggero thought him innocent. His behaviour over the last few days had been exactly as requested. He had faithfully reported to police stations on the various stages of his journey and had always given the name of the hotels he stayed in, correctly.
Ruggero had asked that all reports arriving at the police station from the day of the murder should be passed onto him, no matter how seemingly irrelevant. In a place this size he knew there would be few, but something interesting might turn up. He looked at one that had arrived on his desk a few days earlier. Some rubbish disposal men had been manually emptying out one of the smaller containers, in the Vicolo Buio, when one of the large rubbish bags had burst, scattering pornographic videos all over the pavement. They had investigated and found another bag-load. All this material had been brought to the police station. There was quite a selection. Something for everyone; straight, gay, paedophile, or S.M. He had had two men sent up from Lucca to view them and decide if they were the sort legally available, or if there was anything that would involve a criminal offence, especially with regard to the possibly paedophile ones. They might not actually involve minors. Anyway, they were checking on the suppliers, where they were named. It was possible that the videocassettes had something to do with the murdered man. They had been found in a rubbish con
tainer on the corner of the street where he had his office. That might mean nothing, but pursuing that line of thought, perhaps someone had decided it would be better to throw them out, because they didn’t want them found on the premises.
Who? They would have to interrogate the employees. Fagiolo had little family, only his parents. The father had Alzheimer’s, and the mother a God-fearing old lady looked after him. She attended every mass, held in every church in town, according to the local police. Would a woman like that want anyone to find pornographic material in her son’s office? Well the answer had to be, no, not at any cost, even that of getting rid of it herself. He tried to imagine this tired old, woman struggling along, probably after dark, with a huge sack of porn videos, and then back again for another. If it weren’t so tragic, it would be amusing. He sighed, how could he ask her? What would be the point anyway? She was bound to deny it. Also he was very angry with himself, as he had fallen down on that one. He should have been quicker off the mark and had a look in Ettore’s office immediately. Of course, he’d only been called in the day after the murder, but the trouble was that his time here had been limited. What with tying up another case near Prato, and court appearances, plus extra work covering for those more fortunate than himself, who were sunning themselves in Sardinia, he hadn’t been able to give this case his full attention. Obviously the old girl hadn’t got round to cleaning out her son’s office, until after the funeral.
The ‘burglar theory’ really was looking like the only solution, once the German had been cleared. It hadn’t seemed possible that Ettore had been killed because he was who he was. It had seemed to him, then, more probable that Ettore’s death had been a random killing, so he hadn’t looked at the office, until it was too late. He hadn’t thought to give it priority. The thing that worried him was, that if Ettore’s mother had found videos in the office, there might well have been other important material, letters, photos, phone numbers and addresses. All gone. There may have been some clue as to how this man had lived his life, and met his death. Of course this was all purely hypothetical, as he couldn’t know for sure that the videos had come from the office. There were no detectable fingerprints on any of them. The old lady must have worn gloves and cleaned off everything. He supposed there could be other explanations for their presence in the rubbish bins. It could have been an outraged wife, who had discovered her husband’s secret vice, hidden in a wine cellar perhaps, and thrown the lot of them out. Or a deserted wife, or even, improbably, a redeemed porn addict! But intuition told him that the videos had belonged to Fagiolo, and that he had messed it up. He banged his fist on the table. He knew this was a more complex murder than it seemed, and he needed a break.
He closed the folder, placed it in a locked drawer, and left his office. He would eat alone in one of the restaurants, then he would walk through the old town, maybe have a coffee in the bar in the old town centre, and maybe bump into someone he knew. Maybe someone foreign. There were an awful lot of foreigners involved in this case. If he had to choose someone to meet, it would have been someone English, but although he walked around for quite a while, he did not see her.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Marco, with his friends Andrea, and Riccardo drove down the same road that Robin, and earlier, Hilary and Bruno, had taken. Their car was an old Renault with ten euros’ worth of petrol in it. They were not going to the concert. All three were smoking. They talked a little about money, and then fell silent. They arrived at eleven thirty p.m. and had concluded their business by mid-night. Then they walked out onto the beach, and sat there for a while listening to the sea and swigging the beer they had just bought, in a bar on the beach. Their cigarettes glowed in the darkness. Finally, they lethargically pulled themselves to their feet and scrunched back across the sand to their car.
Hilary put her hand on Bruno’s arm. “Isn’t that Robin, over there, with those two men, but I don’t see Nigel. Oh they’ve disappeared.”
“I didn’t see anyone. Let’s go and have a drink. I don’t want to go home yet, do you?”
“Alright. Let’s go to the bar on the beach.”
They sat outside the bar, looking at the sea. There was a light breeze, and the sound of the sea was soothing. They stayed for more than an hour. It had been a fantastic evening, and they were almost loath to get back into the car, but they had an hour and a half’s drive ahead of them and they were both tired.
Robin had met up with John and Sebastian, and after the concert they decided to have a light seafood meal. She had phoned Nigel who had said “Buon appetito!” and not to worry as he felt better already. John knew a marvellous place that would serve them, even though it was nearly midnight. Robin had promised to invite them to Villa Rosa, soon, possibly to a party, and feeling much more relaxed she got into the car. She didn’t like driving alone at night, and drove very carefully and fairly slowly, letting the car ahead disappear.
She had seen Hilary and Bruno at the concert but had pretended not to, had, in fact, quickly drawn John and Sebastian out of sight under a pretext. Somehow she couldn’t face talking to them, because she knew they would talk about the murder. They couldn’t not. She frowned into the night. Everything was ruined really, as she couldn’t even behave normally. She had not set foot in the garden, since they got back, let alone looked at the pool. The idea of a party to exorcise the house and pool seemed a good one to her. She would discuss it with Nigel the next morning.
Marco slammed the car door and watched as it left. He’d been right to get out just before going into town. Automatically his hand tightened on the little plastic bag he was carrying. He would cut through the fields, go along the mule track and be home in a few minutes.
The road was dark, but with sufficient moon to enable him to see where he was going, and his eyes had quickly adjusted to the light. He was about to cross the road, and take the mule track when he saw a car’s headlights sweep round the curve behind him. As the car came into view, he quickly stepped to the side of the road and half turned away; there was no cover and he was hoping not to be recognised.
There was a roar behind him as the car accelerated, and surprised, he began to turn his body to look at it. The lights blinded him and immediately afterwards he felt a blow as the car hit his thighs hard, knocking him upwards and backwards, then with a thud, he hit the ground, his head bursting into a thousand fragments. He tried to turn his head, to lift it, to call, but plunged painfully into darkness. Blood trickled from his wounded head down to the collar of his white shirt, the stain slowly spreading. The little plastic bag flew from his fingers and pirouetted into the thick undergrowth.
Pietro Artusi drove carefully round the bends. He yawned and glanced at the dashboard clock. It was nearly three o’clock, and he had to get up at seven-thirty, so he wasn’t going to get much sleep. Still it was worth it. He’d had a great evening with Elisabetta. He was thinking about her as he rounded the last big curve in the road before town. As he straightened the car his headlights lit up a white form on the ground. It was a body! He screeched to a halt and almost immediately catapulted from the car, leaving the door open. A young boy lay on the ground, his white shirt stained with blood which came from a very ugly looking wound at the side of his head. He could actually see shattered bone among the matted bloody dark hair. He felt sick. The body was immobile, and he couldn’t even see if the boy was breathing. He grabbed the boy’s wrist to feel for a pulse, but inexpertly could only feel the pulse of his own racing blood. He seemed to remember that the blood vessels in the neck were more reliable and searching tentatively with his fingertips, he located one, and felt a weak throbbing. Ah, he was alive! He rushed back to his car, picked up his mobile and excitedly gabbled into it. Then, as he could do nothing for the boy, and had been told not to touch him, he decided to move his car as anyone coming round the bend might run into it. He took out his car’s triangle from the puncture kit in the boot, and walked back round the bend where he set it up as a warning. He could already hear th
e siren in the distance. Lighting a cigarette he glanced down at the boy. He had long, black, curly hair, a pale, too pale face and long, black eyelashes. Pietro peered at him, bending down closer to see if he recognised him.
Yes, it was Gino’s boy, what was his name? He couldn’t remember, but he did remember seeing the boy on a motor scooter. He looked around for it, but there was no sign of one. How on earth did he come to be walking here at this time of night, obviously alone, and where was the bastard who had mown him down? The sound of the ambulance became imperative and as it braked beside him, he became aware that there was a police car behind it. He groaned. He had forgotten that one of the rewards for calling an ambulance to an accident scene was that you were grilled by the police for ages and then had to sign a formal statement. That was when he knew that he wouldn’t be going to work next day. He sighed, resigned. Well, he’d spend part of the day catching up on his sleep. He ran up to the young doctor who had jumped out of the ambulance.
“It’s Gino’s boy, he’s got a bad head wound, but I haven’t touched him,” he babbled.
The doctor said, “OK, go and sit in your car. I’ll see to him now.” He knelt beside the boy and lifted his eyelids, shining a light into his eyes. He felt the pulse, listened to the heart and gave a cursory examination of the rest of the boy’s body. Then at a signal, two attendants helped him lift the boy onto a stretcher, with infinite care, as he said “I’ll set up a drip on the way down, Paolo, you phone the hospital at Lucca, we’ll take him straight down there, and don’t take no for an answer. I don’t want to hear any crap about there being no room.” Seconds later the ambulance, siren wailing, set off fast. It would take maybe twenty minutes at that time of night to do what was a thirty-five minute daytime journey.
Pietro sat sideways on the driver’s seat, the car door open and his legs outside, feet on the ground. He had lit another cigarette and pulled himself to his feet as the two policemen approached, but then realised that standing wasn’t a good idea, so he sat down again. His hands were shaky and he felt queasy. It must be delayed shock, as he’d felt alright before. He put his head down and took a deep breath. The policemen stopped in front of him. A voice asked, “Are you the person that phoned for the ambulance?”
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