“Yes, sir.”
The Maresciallo leaned back and tapped his pencil on his notebook. The boy, Cosimo, was looking good for the murder. If the stains on his cuff were his mother's blood, then he would bet on it. The boy was obviously lying about something, and he was on edge; seemed almost frightened. It was often the way, some young kid would do something terrible in a moment of madness, then find out that it’s too late to turn back. They change the whole course of their lives in a moment, and they can’t believe they’ve done it. Sometimes they don't even remember doing it.
Most of the murders that took place in the province were domestic, often camouflaged to make it look as though some one from outside the family was responsible. This one was very unpleasant. He had known Signora Guerrazzi, very well, and it was sad to think that she should have ended her life like this, especially if it had been at the hands of her son. If it was him, then the whole thing would be wrapped up in a very short time. He yawned. He could have done with a coffee, but there hadn’t been time earlier. He’d been up at dawn for a domestic problem, called out by neighbours to prevent a man from trying to kill his wife. It had taken a while to calm him down, after which the woman had said that there had been no need of their intervention. She and her husband had just been having a discussion, and she didn’t need anyone’s help. The fact that she had a back eye and a bleeding nose was none of their business. He sighed. He doubted he would get an early night, tonight, and he would have to be up early again.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Cosimo reached his room and slammed the door. He was shaking with rage and fear, and humiliation. ‘Oh God, why hadn’t he been more careful when he touched her? No one would ever believe he hadn’t done it when they knew about the bloodstain. He hadn’t noticed it nor, come to that, anything else. The shock had been so appalling. How could it have happened? It must have been the frenzy of a moment.’
The sight kept returning to his mind, in a series of repetitive flashes. He had lain on the bed ramming his fist into the bedclothes at each flashback, closing his eyes and murmuring, “No, no.” He had come back to make some kind of peace with her, hoping to find her alone and explain things to her. He had crept round to the pergola, but she was asleep. He had called quietly, “Madre.” Then he had… He stifled the anguished noise that rose in his throat, ramming his fist into his mouth and biting hard on his knuckles.
It must have been the work of a madman. The violence necessary to ram something through bone and almost detach the top part of her head was not the work of a sane person. Horrified by the carnage, he had reached out to touch her; as though there could be even the remotest chance of her still being alive after that!
Who would believe he hadn’t done this? Perhaps he had, in a moment of madness. Perhaps he had seen her lying there looking so vulnerable for once, that he had seized the chance to get her out of his life, once and for all. He shivered, forbidding himself to even think like that.
When the results came through they would know he had been there, and that he had touched her. They would accuse him of killing her. Everything was against him. The fact that they had argued so bitterly, that he had left the house and stayed away. Tears sprang to his eyes. A mixture of self pity, sorrow and fear caused him to weep as he hadn’t done since he was a child. He went through the communicating door to the bathroom, and turned on the shower. Stepping under it he turned his face up to the water, letting it mingle with the salt tears, and wash them away.
Riccardo and Ambra sat close to each other; Orlando was standing at the window, drink in hand, while Francesca paced up and down.
“When the hell are they coming to take these damn fingerprints? I told them I wanted to go to Zoë as soon as possible. Bloody, fascist bastards. They don’t give a shit about people; they’re all knotted up in their red tape. They could easily have done this first and let me go to her. They’re treating us like criminals.”
“Shut up Francesca. You’re being ridiculous. You know they have to do these things. Someone killed our mother; they have to eliminate us first, before they start looking elsewhere,” said Ambra.
“Where’s Cosimo got to? And Chiara? And that little weed Arturo, where’s he?”
“I don’t know. The police are looking for Chiara.”
“I must say, Arturo is conspicuous by his absence. Why isn’t he upstairs coddling his beloved wife?”
“I expect he’s gone to his mother’s. Do the police know? I mean did they ask about him?”
“Not to me. Perhaps they’ve forgotten him, after all he’s pretty forgettable.” She laughed harshly. “Perhaps he did it, so that Emily could come into some money.”
“Francesca!”
“Well, some one did it. It wasn’t me. Was it you? Or you Olly? Did you kill our belovèd Madre?”
“No. And I think you should keep a guard on your tongue. I hope you haven’t made snide comments about us to the police.”
“Not bloody likely. This is strictly ‘entre nous’.”
“Well Riccardo, what about you? I see you’re very pally with one of the daughters of the house. I bet that would have delighted my mother. She was such a snob, and you are only the hired help aren’t you. Did you do it?”
“Don’t answer her, Riccardo,” said Ambra tersely.
The door opened and a uniformed policeman came in.
“I have come to take your fingerprints, ladies and gentlemen. Who’s first?”
“Me. I’m in a hurry. I want to get to my daughter. Come on, let’s get it over with.”
As soon as she had had her fingerprints taken, Francesca rushed out.
Riccardo, cleaning his fingers off, asked Ambra, "Do you want to come back to my house with me?”
“No, thanks. I want to see Chiara, when they find her. I’ll see you tomorrow. Goodnight.” He squeezed her shoulders and left the room.
Olly said, “What shall we do about eating, Ambra?”
“Oh, Olly. How can you? Go and get yourself something if you’re hungry. I’m not.”
“Well I am. Are you sure you don’t want anything?”
“Go away Olly. Just leave me alone.”
Arturo reached the drive and was immediately aware of an unusual amount of activity near the house. As he approached, a police car drove past him, screeched to a halt and backed up to him. A policeman got out of the car.
“Excuse me sir, who are you, and where do you think you’re going?”
“What do you mean, where am I going? I’m going home. I live here. I’m Arturo Esposito, Emily Guerrazzi’s husband. What’s happened? Why are the police here? Has there been an accident? Is it one of the girls? Quick, tell me what’s happened?”
“It’s your mother-in-law, sir. I’m afraid she’s had an accident.”
“Diana?”
“Yes, get into your car, follow me, and we’ll take you to the Maresciallo. He’ll explain what’s happened.” Before Arturo could say anything else, he got back into his car and turned it. Arturo followed the police car up the drive and parked. He got out, nervously passing a hand over his hair.
“Is she in hospital?” he asked
“The Maresciallo will tell you everything.”
He was accompanied to the house and taken straight to Diana’s study. He burst into the room.
“Maresciallo, what’s happened to Diana? They said she’s had an accident.”
“Yes. I’m afraid so.”
“Is she hurt badly? Why are the police here?”
“I’m sorry to have to tell you that she has died as a result of her injuries.”
“Oh my God! Poor Diana! Where’s Emily, my wife? I must go to her, she’ll be distraught.” He moved towards the door.
“No!” he said sharply. “Do not leave the room.”
“What!”
“Your mother-in-law was murdered.”
“Murdered! But who would want to murder Diana? Was it a burglar?”
“We are making inquiries, sir, and you will hav
e to answer some questions yourself, regarding your movements this afternoon.”
“My movements this aft… Are you mad? You can’t think that I did it.”
“This is routine. We have asked everyone the same questions.”
“I see.” He thought for a moment. “Alright, I was at the pool with Emily. We don’t see much of one another, because I’m away three or four days a week. This afternoon the girls were at a birthday party at a friend’s pool, so we decided to have a couple of hours alone. Emily came up to make tea for her mother, at about four, I suppose. I got dressed and went to my mother’s house. That’s all.”
“You didn’t come up to the house yourself.”
“No. I went straight from the pool to my mother’s house. She was expecting me for tea.”
“Thank-you very much, sir. You’ll have to have your fingerprints taken like everyone else and then you are free to go to your wife. The doctor has already seen her, and given her a sedative, so you’ll probably find she’s sleeping.”
“A sedative! Poor Emily. She was very close to her mother. It will be very hard for her.”
“Your relatives are in the drawing room, so if you would join them there, I think you’ll find they are having their prints taken now.”
“The girls!” He struck his head with the palm of his hand. “What have I been thinking of? Where are they? They adored their grandmother, they’ll be terribly upset.”
“Your daughters are at the house of Signora Dora Bianchi. She very kindly offered to take them, and we thought it better that way, as their mother was in need of medical care, so it was best for them not to see her.”
“Thank God! Yes, yes, that was a good idea. I must go to Emily” he sounded a little distraught. “She was devoted to her mother, you know, absolutely devoted. I can’t quite seem to take it all in, you know.” He sat down abruptly. “Diana, dead! Impossible, impossible. How did she die? Was she shot?”
“No, she wasn’t shot. She died of head injuries, but we are not yet certain how these were caused.”
Maresciallo Biagioni was beginning to wonder if the husband might not need to see a doctor as well, and he certainly didn’t feel capable of saying that someone had taken half the woman’s head off with an axe.
“Could it have been an accident? Perhaps she fell?” He looked hopefully at the Maresciallo, who replied gently, “No, it couldn’t possibly have been an accident. Let me accompany you to the drawing room. Your brother in law is there having a brandy, and I think that perhaps you should have one too.”
He pulled encouragingly at Arturo’s arm and led him from the room.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Maresciallo! Sir. The girl, Chiara, they’ve found her!” The young conscript burst into the drawing room just after they had entered.
“Calm down, man. Act a little more professionally.” He turned to the others in the room, and said. “I think I can safely leave your brother-in-law in your hands. Give him a brandy, Orlando.”
He left the room almost pushing the chastened conscript before him. “Now, what’s the rush? Why did you come bursting in like that?”
The boy, with a reddened face looked uncertainly at him, “I’m sorry sir, but it’s important, really. The girl, Chiara, they’ve found her. She’d gone off on her horse, but it came back to the stables alone, so they went out looking for her and it’s taken them till now to find her. She fell off the horse and injured herself. She’s got concussion, the doctor said.”
“Where is she?”
“They’ve taken her to hospital.”
“Alright. Next time, you knock on the door, and call me out. Got it?”
“Yes sir.”
“I’ll be at the hospital if you need me, after that, I’ll get a bite to eat and then come back here. You’ve got my cell phone number, but don’t phone me unless it’s important.”
Arturo sat in an armchair, looking bewildered. A policeman approached to ask him to let them take his finger prints, and he passively let them squash each bony finger into the ink-pad, and then onto the paper.
“Thank- you, ladies and gentlemen. Buona sera.” He closed his kit with a click, and walked out.
Arturo slowly finished wiping his fingers looking at his in-laws incredulously.
“Why are they doing this?” he asked Orlando.
“Don’t ask me, perhaps they’ve found a murder weapon with prints on it.”
“They said she had head injuries.”
“Well, that’s one way of putting it. Yes, she did.”
Ambra looked uncomfortable. Orlando said cheerfully, “I’m off to rustle up some food; that’s where I was going when you turned up, Arturo. What about you, are you hungry?”
“Hungry? Good God, no. I must go and see Emily.” He got up.
“Do you want me to come with you?” asked Ambra.
“No, no thank you.”
They both went out, and Ambra sat and thought about her mother, and her mother’s murderer. They said it was either, hatred, love of money, or sex that lay behind most crimes of this sort. Had anyone hated Diana enough?
Cosimo had said he did, and so had she, but it had been a transient thing. The others? No, she felt it impossible for one of her brothers, or sisters, to be guilty of such a crime. There was no one else, apart from that awful little man, Giorgio Paconi, but he was hardly the sort who would kill. His revenge would be via the press. His evil little tongue would clatter away, poison dripping from it, and the journalists would be ready to lap it up and regurgitate it, to be consumed by their readers. He had probably already given a press conference, and tomorrow’s papers would no doubt carry the news of his resignation. Now, of course, the bigger articles would be about Diana. There would be interviews with so-called friends, hundreds of people would express their sorrow and horror and so forth. There would be a condensed biography, and her famous husband would be named continuously. Her less famous children would also be named and, Ambra thought, the police need not worry about them wanting to leave the house, they would probably be barricading themselves in.
She put a hand down to her abdomen, the palm resting flat against it, as though to protect her child. She had to eat. Olly was right, they still needed to do normal things in this abnormal situation, and she had eaten little all day and thrown up most of it anyway. That was not the way to nourish her child. She left the room and joined her brother in the kitchen.
“I see the primitive instinct for survival has won over your moral objections to eating.”
“Yes, I have to eat. Olly, I might as well tell you. I’m expecting a baby.”
“Good God. Who’s the lucky man? No, don’t tell me, I’d have to be blind not to have noticed you two together, earlier. I thought it was a question of an old friend comforting you, but now I see it was nothing so noble, just sex after all.”
“Really, Olly. How can you be so jolly when we’re in this situation?”
“I think it’s a form of hysteria, I shall start laughing any minute now.” He looked very sadly at her. “I can’t help it; it’s the way I am.”
“Oh Olly. It’s all so awful. What will our lives be like now?”
“I don’t know but, I would think, very different. We’ve none of us had to stand on our own two feet; we were always propped up with the crutches of Madre’s generosity, and kicked in the balls by her restrictions, if you know what I mean. Now we’ll have to go it alone.”
“You can’t even be serious, when you’re being serious, can you?”
“I am being serious.”
“Let’s leave it. Pass me the prosciutto will you, and that bowl of tomatoes, I’m just having a couple of sandwiches. I think I’ll take them up to my room, and stay there this evening. I’m not up to conversation, and anyway I’m tired.”
“Did you tell Madre about the baby?”
“Yes.”
“And about it’s father?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“
Mind your own business, Olly. I mean it.” She picked up her plate of food, a bottle of mineral water, and a glass, and left the room abruptly.
Chiara looked up as the Maresciallo entered her room. He came to stand beside her bed and was asking her how she felt.
“Not too bad. My head isn’t broken, even if my arm is, luckily not too badly.”
“Do you remember what happened?”
“Oh, I was upset and you really shouldn’t ride when you’re in that sort of a state, and I wasn’t paying attention. There was this dog, it just appeared from nowhere and barked at Emperor, and he bolted, jerking the reins out of my hands and my feet out the stirrups. It’s my own fault, I’m very lucky I didn’t do myself anymore damage than this. Thank God, Emperor is alright, or so they told me.”
“I spoke to the doctor earlier, on the phone. He says you have to stay here forty eight hours for the concussion, and your arm, well that’s a very simple fracture, so they’re doing that themselves later, when the orthopaedic surgeon arrives. I need to ask you a couple of questions, when you feel up to it.”
“Now?”
“No. We’ll leave it tomorrow. I expect you’ve got quite a headache?”
“Terrible. If I lie still, it’s not too bad, but I feel a bit sick.”
“Don’t you worry. Rest and I’ll see you tomorrow or the day after, depending on your condition.”
He walked along the corridor to the doctors' room and knocked on the door. A young doctor opened the door, and said, “Ah, Maresciallo, I’m glad to see you didn’t stay too long. What can I do for you?”
“Nothing really. I just wondered if you think her memory will be affected, only she seems to remember the accident alright.”
“Yes, she remembers that, but she doesn’t remember anything afterwards and she was incoherent, when she was found. There is no fracture as I told you, but we don’t exclude the possibility of a haemorrhage, so I can’t really tell you until the forty eight hours have passed. Of course there will be clinical manifestations, if there is a haemorrhage, and our neurologist will check her tomorrow. If necessary we will do a CAT scan. However, I would think, if all goes well, that her memory will not be affected, except possibly for the period immediately after the accident.”
The Tuscan Mystery Trilogy Page 35