The Tuscan Mystery Trilogy

by Margaret Moore

  “Does she know her mother is dead?"

  “Yes. She was talking about it when they brought her in.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Nothing much. Nothing that would interest you.”

  “Why didn't she say anything to me? I told her I would have to ask some questions when she felt better, but she said nothing. The only thing that seemed to concern her was her horse.”

  “She does have concussion. She is still a little confused”

  “I see. Well, thank you for your time. Please keep me informed of any developments.”

  “Certainly.”

  He left the hospital and went to grab a sandwich, a 'tramezzino', made of three triangular slices of factory bread, filled with one lettuce leaf, one transparent slice of Parma ham, an almost invisible slice of tomato, and a dash of mayonnaise. He glanced at the newspaper, while he ate it quickly, then signalled to the waitress for another two. He felt they would barely coat the bottom of his empty stomach. He washed the dry bread down with a pear juice, as he never drank any alcohol at all when on duty. As he drank it, he became aware of a conversation going on behind his shoulders. A low wall, with plants on it, separated him from the next table, so he was almost invisible to those seated there, as they were to him.

  “Well, he brought me the five thousand euros soon enough.”

  “Yeah, but I heard you weren’t the only one he owes money to. He paid you, because he was too frightened not to, but I’m telling you, he’s up to his neck.”

  “Well they’ll all be alright, now that Mummy’s kicked the bucket.”

  “Yeah, I hear his sister’s starting up a riding school with that little jerk, Piero. They make a lovely couple, they’d both be happy to live on hay and oats, but a riding school’ll cost a bit to set up.”

  “I wouldn’t mind sowing a few wild oats on the hay with her; she’s not a bad bit of crumpet.” He swallowed some beer noisily. “Anyway, who told you that then?”

  “Oh, my mum does a bit of cleaning up at the big house, and she overheard the girl and her sister arguing about it. My mum’s in a terrible state, she thought the Signora was a real lady, and at least she paid on the dot, never made any problem about that.”

  “Well, I should hope not, the money they’ve got.”

  “I know what I’d do with the money, and it wouldn’t be wasted on music schools, I can tell you”

  “Yeah, I reckon that didn’t make any money. Dead loss.”

  “My mum reckoned they lost money every year on it, what with Government cuts and face it, they don’t exactly sell out for the concerts do they? I mean, there’s not many as would pay to go there; most had free seats to make the audience look bigger. I mean, take me, I wouldn’t have gone, if you’d paid me,” he guffawed.

  “No fear of that, they wouldn’t have let you near the place, you’re not posh enough.”

  They scraped their chairs back, preparing to leave.

  “You can pay for this, now that you’re so rich.”

  The Maresciallo could see him now, a skinny lanky man in his middle thirties. His stringy, black hair was tied in a pony tail and he obviously hadn’t shaved for some days. His companion came into view, a tall, almost huge man, with a moon face and a shaved head. He wore several earrings and had tattoos on both forearms. He was wearing jeans and a black waistcoat, open, with nothing under it but his bare chest, and gross belly. The belt on his jeans was partially hidden as it was set well below normal waist level, and appeared to have given up any attempt at holding back the swelling that was relentlessly pushing it downwards. He paused by the Maresciallo’s table, glanced down at him, decided to stop and heave his belt upwards a few centimetres, spat on the floor, and moved on.

  He heard their laughter as they left, and could well imagine the comments on his person, or more probably on his profession, that had provoked it. In Italy the police, i carabinieri, are the butt of numerous cruel jokes. The jokes usually portray them as illiterate and unintelligent.

  News travels fast in small communities, but the details are often sketchy. These men obviously knew Diana was dead but, he felt sure, were ignorant of the manner of her death. Still it had been an interesting conversation.

  He sighed and heaved himself out of his chair. He still had a fair amount of work to do before he could finally crawl into bed. The next morning he would hand the case over and he wanted it to be perfect. He intensely disliked sniggers from the city policemen about incompetent village plods and prided himself on his precision.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The next morning started early for Maresciallo Biagioni. He tumbled bleary eyed from his bed at five thirty and reviewed the evening’s events whilst taking a cool shower. The bloodstains on the boy's shirt were a positive match with his mother’s blood group. The D.N.A test would take a while longer, but meanwhile he had decided to double the guard on the house. He had not informed Cosimo of this result. The Guerrazzi clan had stayed at home, as he had requested, apart from Orlando who had made a quick sortie to buy cigarettes. Francesca and her daughter Zoë had remained in their flat downstairs, the others in the house. The two young girls had been taken to their paternal grandparent’s home by their father, and the family was complete with the exception of the youngest son, whose disappearance a few days ago had caused his mother such concern. They had to put out a nation-wide search for the boy, although if he was anywhere near a television, he would know of his mother’s death by now, and might come home, or at least get in contact with the family.

  The press had arrived in town, like a horde of ravening locusts, hungry for news. They were questioning the locals in the bars, but getting little of any interest, scavenging from passers by, and desperately trying to get near to the servants. The morning papers would be full of this death. Pier Francesco Guerrazzi had been a figure of some stature in Italy, and the murder of his wife would be big news. He, himself, as local Chief of Police, had given a brief statement which had gone out on the late night news, stating the bare facts, and as few of those as possible, merely asking the public to inform them if they felt they had anything of interest to tell the police, or that could possibly assist their inquiries. He knew that would guarantee them a host of anonymous letters, vile phone calls, and a couple of nuts who would come along and confess, as they did to every crime that was committed in the province.

  He stepped out of the shower, dried himself and dressed. He was a portly figure, not very tall but had a certain bearing, as he always stood with his shoulders back... He wore a carefully trimmed moustache and had thick grey hair that needed frequent cutting and stood up on his head like a thick bush. His light brown eyes were showing signs of aging; a thin white ring circled the irises and he now needed glasses for reading. When he smiled he looked incredibly benign, but he wasn’t smiling today. He face was serious as he thought through what he had done the day before, mentally checking for errors.

  When he was fully dressed he checked himself in a full length mirror. His shirt had been ironed impeccably by his wife, whose first concern was that her husband should be perfectly dressed, his uniform freshly pressed everyday, and clean shirts ready at any time day or night. He believed that if you worse a uniform, it should look smart and be a credit to the force.

  His wife, Flora, was in the kitchen making him fresh coffee, warming the milk to add to it, and cutting him a slice of home-made cake, a simple cake without decoration, which she considered a suitable breakfast for her husband. The perfume of the freshly made coffee greeted him as he left the bathroom, and he came to sit at the kitchen table with pleasure. The French windows which led out into their small garden were open and fresh, cool morning air filled the room. He looked out and saw small birds breakfasting on the breadcrumbs that she put out faithfully, each morning.

  “You shouldn’t have got up; it’s too early for you.” he said.

  “You know I like to see you get a good breakfast, and anyway, I don’t mind it being so early, I can work bett
er when it’s cool. I’ll have a rest after lunch, which is more than you will do.”

  “Yes, it’s going to be a hell of a day.”

  “I don't know what we're coming to. It’s not often we have a murder here, now we've had two within a month. I thought you came back home because it was quiet, and no sooner did you get here and there was that Ettore Fagiolo* case. Now this. It's terrible. I hope this one won’t take so long to solve, do you have any ideas?”

  “You know I can’t talk about it, and anyway they’ll send someone up from Lucca, or even Florence, for this. This case will be of interest to the whole country. She was a very well-known woman, or rather her husband was famous, and she was his wife, so…”

  “Well, that’s how it always is. Look at me; they call me the Maresciallo’s wife, not Signora Biagioni.”

  He finished eating, drank the last of his milky coffee and heaved himself out of his chair with reluctance. His wife handed him his cap and asked, “I don’t suppose you’ll make it for lunch, but do you think it possible that you’ll make it for dinner, only we have guests, if you remember?”

  “Oh God! You’d better put them off. I don’t think I’ll be free this evening, No, no, it’s really most unlikely. Maybe next week.”

  She accompanied him into the hall, opened the front door, and he bent to give her a quick kiss as he left.

  He reached his office at 6.30 a.m and found Dottor Ruggero di Girolamo waiting for him. As though greeting an old friend, he stepped forward and shook hands with him. They had recently worked on a murder case together.

  “I’m glad it was you they sent. What time did you get up to be here so early?”

  “Not all that early, I was in town yesterday, and spent the night here. Your faxes were sent back up here again, to me, when they phoned and told me I was on the case.”

  “I see.” said the Maresciallo. ‘So that was still going on,’ he thought. Di Girolamo had come to Borgo San Cristoforo a month earlier for the Ettore Fagiolo case, and had started a relationship with a widow in the town, an English woman, who had lived here for twenty-five years. She had been widowed when her husband died in a car crash over ten years earlier. Maresciallo Biagioni did not know if he approved, but he did know that he felt extremely uncomfortable to hear the man saying so casually that he had spent the night in town. He obviously meant that he spent it with the widow, and Maresciallo Biagioni was prudish. According to him, certain things were never to be alluded to, let alone be spoken about openly.

  “I see the blood stains on Cosimo Guerrazzi’s shirt were the same group as his mother’s blood. Hmm. What was your impression of him?” asked Ruggero.

  “He could have done it. We haven’t checked his time of arrival yet. Let’s see. Yes, the doctor reckons she died about two hours before he examined the body at a quarter past five, but the autopsy should confirm that, or not, as the case may be, because we know at what time she ate her last meal. He said that rigor mortis had not yet set in, and that the body temperature was consistent with not more than two hours, possibly an hour and a half.”

  “It was very hot yesterday.”

  “Yes, but the body was in a cool place, very cool actually. It’s a pergola that is heavily covered with foliage, and is very dark and cool inside; anyway you’ll see for yourself. It’s at the side of the house and gets a breeze even in summer.”

  “So that puts the time of death at between 3.15, and 3.45.”

  “Well, she was seen alive at two o'clock by her daughter Francesca, and the body was found at four thirty by another daughter, so those would be the extreme time limits. But, as I said, we will know more after he has examined the stomach contents. Also there was no bleeding at all when they found her, the blood had congealed , and the ants had already got to work; there was great activity there, flies as well.”

  “I see. If the times work out, do you think he’s guilty?”

  “Well, he’s a funny lad, only nineteen and, as I understand it, a career as a concert pianist well under way, so he hardly seems the type, and I don’t know what the motive could be. He was his mother’s pride and joy, you know, a carbon copy of his father, but he has a guilty look about him, and then there is the bloodstain. He looks good for it.”

  “Do we know what his blood group is? The blood could even be his, if it's the same group.”

  “I'll find out.”

  “What about the others, what was your impression?”

  “Emily, she’s the eldest, went off her head, we had to get the doctor to her, she just wasn’t there. Anyway, she’s been sedated and I haven’t seen her. Orlando is very much the rich boy about town, drives a sports car, has the best looking girls, you know the type. He gambles and gets heavily into debt. I overheard a very interesting conversation last night and they were talking about his mother shelling out five thousand euros to pay for his debts, and saying that that wasn’t the only debt he had. By the way, he was the one who rang for the police and for the doctor for his sister, and he kept his head and behaved efficiently. I don’t know what to think about him. His sort often surprise you, don’t they.”

  “They do indeed. Spoilt young men, who have great charm, can become quite vicious, if thwarted.”

  “Yes. Right, well, then there’s Francesca, she’s divorced, got a child of eleven, and lives in the flat downstairs. She’s very aggressive, and by the way, is going to report me to my superiors for keeping her waiting. She didn’t seem too upset by her mother’s death. She was not in the house at the time of the murder, but of course her alibi has to be checked.

  Then there are the twins, they’re nearly nineteen. They are Ambra and Chiara. Ambra was apparently very upset. After seeing her mother’s body, she vomited all over the place. She says she was in her room resting all afternoon until she came down for tea. However, there is no one to verify that. Then there is Chiara, who abandoned her elder sister Emily, who, as I said, was completely hysterical, ran off to the stables, jumped on her horse, and rode away. She managed to fall off and now she's in hospital with concussion and a broken arm; I haven’t interviewed her either, but as you may remember, for part of the afternoon she was at the stables, so Riccardo tells us. He's the estate manager, a fine young man. I know his family well.

  That leaves the youngest son, Angelo. Now he disappeared a few days ago, and I had already started a search for him, because his mother was very worried. I have now made that a nation-wide search. It is possible that he never left the area, and is hiding around here. He too could have killed his mother.”

  “I agree. We can’t eliminate him until we find him. The estate manager, Riccardo, was interviewed I see?”

  “Yes, he was alone for the latter part of the afternoon, so he doesn’t have a sound alibi, but I’ve known his family for years. I can’t see him doing it, or think of a reason why he should do it but I shouldn't say that, I suppose, as we all know that these quiet ones can often surprise us.

  There’s also Arturo, the husband of the eldest daughter, who was away the latter part of the afternoon at his mother’s, and he and his wife will give each other an alibi until four o’clock. He is very much his wife’s husband, and only tolerated as such, I think. He’s a nonentity, sinks into the background, you know what I mean.”

  “Well even a worm can turn.”

  “Oh, he’s definitely a worm, but I don’t see how he could have done it, unless it was in collusion with his wife, and she would hardly kill her mother.”

  “I think that, from what you say, a lot of work has to be done on the relationship between the mother and her offspring and, at the same time, we keep looking out for evidence of outside agents.”

  “By the way, I have made a brief statement, asking for the public's help. I expect we’ll get the usual load of useless rubbish in response, still, we have to do it.”

  “Yes, I agree with you, and I think you’ve done a very good job. About the press; brief, concise statements issued at intervals will do, which I suppose I’ll have to
do myself, and I want the media kept away from the house, and from the family. I wish to God, I could ban them from entering the town.”

  “I will get onto the search for the boy then, and find out when they’re doing the autopsy, which I think will be pretty soon, probably today, seeing the importance of this case and the victim. I'll get a check on Cosimo's blood group. There are some other people who need to be interviewed, here’s a list. These are the cleaning women, the cook, the gardener’s lads, and of course there’s still Emily, and Chiara, who won’t be fit yet. Apart from that, we’re waiting for fingerprints to tell us if the print found on the presumed murder weapon belongs to one of the family, and whether we are right in thinking it is the murder weapon, though I don’t think there’s much doubt about that.”

  “Well, that’s quite enough to be getting on with. I’ll start interviews today, but first I want your men to check those alibis, that can be checked. Arturo’s mother, times and so forth; Orlando’s chum, Antonio; the time Francesca went to the estate agent, and if anyone saw her at the house, or more important, leaving the house during the afternoon. Then get someone down to Torre to interview this David D’Orso, and find out at what time Cosimo left there. I think we can send some men to the houses on the road that leads to the Villa. I want to know what cars they saw, and so on. Did anyone notice anything unusual etc? I’ve got a few extra men to help with this sort of thing. They’ll be here at eight, for briefing and can get started about nine, I don’t want them waking people up; it makes them less cooperative.”

  “Right. You want to listen to the tapes, I suppose?”

  “Yes, and let me know as soon as we have an identity on that fingerprint. I want all information as soon as it has been obtained. Get the men to call in frequently. I don’t want everyone arriving at one o'clock with a long boring list. I’ll be here till about nine thirty, so please have some coffee and brioche sent in. After that I shall be at the Villa, what’s it called, ah yes, the Villa dei Fiori. And I shall want a good man with me, who can use the tape recorder, preferably not a conscript.”