The Tuscan Mystery Trilogy

by Margaret Moore

  "I told you I don't know. Anyway on the second 'night in question', I was here, so what about that?" he sneered.

  "Your accomplice. You did the first one with him, and he did the second one on his own to get you off the hook."

  "You can't be serious."

  "I am deadly serious. This crime fits you like a glove. You have already mutilated a young man, this time you went too far. You don't know where you were that evening, and neither does anyone else. So, we have a reasonable case here, and sooner or later, we'll have the evidence to support the accusation. "

  "No you won't, because I didn't do it, I wasn't there, see."

  "I want to believe you, but all you tell me are lies, like the lies about this photo. You took it, and if you tell me where and when, I might start to believe you."

  Balducci sat in silence while he digested this then asked for a cigarette. Maresciallo Biagioni handed him a crumpled soft pack of M.S. He took one and lit it then, squinting through a haze of smoke, said, "Alright, I took it."

  "Where and when?"

  "Out the back of the disco. I'm not sure when. The kids were having a birthday party there, there were hundreds of them. The whole school I shouldn’t wonder."

  "What school?"

  "How should I know."

  "Roughly when, recently?"

  "Naw, ages ago."

  "Which disco?"

  "The one here in town. It was out the back where they park the cars, this girl come out with a boy, smoked a joint, and then two or three more boys come out, and as she wasn't very willing, they helped their mate out a bit. Then they had a go too."

  "Rape?"

  "Naw, she was high as a kite, giggling. They all were, just messing around, you know what kids are like. She was willing enough at first then she changed her mind, so they changed it back for her."

  "And you took a photo. Just the one?"

  "Yeah. Well, I was frightened in case they saw me. "

  "Where were you?"

  "In the bushes, but I had to come forward a bit, and they heard a noise, so I hooked it."

  "Why were you there?"

  "Just passing."

  "Just waiting to see if you could catch some kids having it off on the back seat, and take some juicy photos, right?"

  "No comment."

  "Who develops them for you?"

  "Come on, I'm not telling you that."

  Di Girolamo turned the photo around in his hands, "Do you know who they were?"

  "Just kids. They're all the same aren't they. The boys all with long hair, and the girls all look like tarts, with skirts up to their armpits I don't know what we're coming to."

  "I'm sure you don't. Neither do I. Take him away"

  "Here, aren't you going to let me go? I've told you what I remember about the photo. I haven't done anything else."

  "When I'm certain you are innocent, I'll let you go, not before."

  Balducci, swiped the cigarette packet from the table, thrust it in his pocket, glared at Di Girolamo, and then left the room quite quietly, escorted by two young policeman.

  "We're going to have to let him go, you know. We have nothing to tie him in with this, and no news of him having a partner in crime. His pleasures are solitary. There was nothing in his Ape truck that ties in with the dust found on the boys. There wasn't a hair, or a drop of blood, so…"

  "So, that lets him off," said the Maresciallo in a gloomy tone of voice, "and we don't have a clue yet, nothing to offer the press and the public."

  "That's right. He's a monster, but he probably isn't our monster."

  "No. Oh, here's the report on the broomsticks, the lads handed it to me when they brought Balducci up. I nearly forgot."

  Di Girolamo read intently for a few minutes, and then said, "Well, as you know there were no fingerprints, and the broomsticks were brand new, of the most common kind around. They sell them in every supermarket, and hardware store in Italy. They are made of metal, and the part that has a plastic cap on, the top that is, is unfinished, and jagged, very sharp metal. Even so the pathologist said it would take quite a bit of strength to push a broomstick into the resilient body of a young man. Examination of the other end, which normally screws into the broom head, shows that it had been hit with something, obviously to push it further into the body of the victim."

  "God, what an animal."

  "I rather think animals do not kill or torture those of their own species."

  "No, I suppose not. It was just a figure of speech."

  He went home, to Hilary's home, soon to become most definitely his home with his own family. A child. His son, Cosimo. He reached into his wallet and took out the photograph of Cosimo, that he hadn't even shown Hilary. It showed a beautiful child lying on a bed holding a toy with both hands raised above his head. He was smiling, and looking at his mother with the love that babies reserve for their parents. Cosimo would lose all that, and have to adapt to new parents. His whole world would be full of new sights and smells, and sounds. Ruggero was very worried. He knew nothing about children, and had literally had no contact with them. An only child, whose parents were both the only surviving members of their families, he had grown up in an adult world. Friends had been important, but Sylvia, his wife, had been the centre of his life, until her death. She had wanted to wait until her career as a doctor was well established, and would have children, she said, when she was forty. She had died when she was thirty eight, so that had never happened. He had found himself strangely alone afterwards, because married couples had withheld invitations, and he had no single friends. His elderly parents lived in a time warp, from which he was excluded. Theirs was an exclusive world that had moved further away from his own with the passing years.

  Hilary would know what to do; how to do it. Her life would change too, and he felt immensely grateful that she wanted to take part in this, with him, despite the enormous sacrifices she would have to make.

  They would have to legalise their situation. Until now they had been living together, but not all the time. They had shared expenses, and both had maintained a freedom within their union that he was sure would have to be changed, curtailed in some way. He thought about marriage, and knew he wanted to be married to Hilary, but wasn't so sure that she wanted to be married. She seemed to associate the word ‘wife’ with negative qualities, like lack of freedom, obligation, and subservience. That wasn't what he wanted. If only they had more time to talk things over. He had been so busy, and tired at the end of the day, that they hadn't broached the subject, yet, obviously, it had to be foremost in both their minds. He realised, that he hadn't spoken, because he had been putting it off, and that she was waiting for him to speak, had even encouraged him by giving him the signal, "What about the twenty-second?" that he had chosen to ignore. When she came back, tomorrow evening, no matter what, they would discuss the future.

  Hilary, after a rather good meal, spent the evening watching television in her bedroom, and then reading a high tech American detective novel. She turned out the light at midnight, and then tossed and turned unable to sleep, as she thought about the future, with Ruggero and his child. Starting all over again, the physical and mental stress, the worries, and the fact that this would not be her child that she had knowledge of from birth, but a child wrenched from its home and mother, and set into new and unfamiliar surroundings. How would he react to such a terrible trauma? Would she be able to cope? Would Ruggero be supportive, or expect the child raising to be her province? Did she know him well enough to embark on this hazardous journey? Did she want to be a mother again? Did she want to do it? He didn't even seem to want to discuss it. Well, tomorrow evening, come what may, they had to. That was certain.

  Then she slept.

  Krishna Hope was turning things over in his mind. Something had occurred to him which, the more he thought about it, the more it became plausible, only to suddenly become ridiculously implausible. When the name Antonio Valdese had cropped up in what was an obviously intentionally casual way
, it had somehow started a train of thought. He could see where the magistrate was leading, and had flippantly brought that train of questioning to a halt. But the seed had been sown. Vendetta, an old fashioned word associated with Sicilians or the Mafia, sprang into his mind. Not all Tuscans were as civilised as they thought, and vendetta was archaic. It was obvious to Krishna that if the crimes hadn't committed by a psychopathic serial killer ‘all' Americana’, then vendetta had to be a possible motive. Yes, that Di Girolamo was on the ball, and he felt sorry that he had talked like an oaf, because it wasn't really part of his make-up. It had been a provocation, and the other man had risen to it, and put an end to the interview.

  However, it was one thing for him to think vendetta a possible motive, and quite another to be sure. He would have to sound out the boys, subtly of course, because, if he was right, they would clam up, but he thought he remembered hearing something, some reference to something. If only he could remember the details! He racked his brains, but to no avail. The trouble was he was never here, so they probably all knew things he didn't, and took it for granted that he knew too. His only tactic was to behave as though he did know them too, and that way someone might let it out. Just before he went to sleep, he thought again, "I must be wrong, because if I'm right, then why don't they do something about it. At least some of them, the ones with rich daddies would be frightened enough to blab. After all is it worth dying for? No one could be that stupid."

  Jeremy Plunkett-Smith came through the doors that had opened to reveal him resplendent in his dark blue suit, overcoat folded neatly over one arm, longish blonde hair swept back from his sensitive artist's face, wheeling his splendid suitcase, a flamboyant red scarf denoting artistic verve, no doubt, thought Hilary. She waved tentatively, recognising him. She had only ever seen him once well over a year ago but he looked exactly as he had then. He bee-lined over to her, grasped her shoulders and kissed her on both cheeks, saying in his loud Brit. voice, "Darling, how wonderful that you're here for Belle. What would she have done without you? Now tell me, how is she?"

  "Stable. No change from last night, when I called you."

  "Stable." He bent his head, looking serious and sighed dramatically, then raised it again, sweeping his hair back with one hand, and declaimed, "I want to be positive. I am positive. I know that she will be alright. She's tough."

  Several fellow travellers glanced at him with impassive faces, before moving towards the exit. Hilary feeling that Jeremy had taken the stage long enough, said hurriedly, "My car's in the car park, do you want to go straight to the hospital, or drop your bags at the ‘pensione’ first."

  Jeremy looked at his suitcase almost with surprise as though he was on a plane far above suitcases, and then replied, "Oh, er, drop the suitcase I think. It'll only be in the way at the hospital." His flight had been over an hour and a half late, and Hilary paid the hefty airport parking ticket, while Jeremy looked at the sky, obviously unconcerned, and certainly uninterested, as though it had nothing to do with him.

  In the car Jeremy gave her a brief account of all his engagements for the next month, explaining at length how appallingly difficult it had been for him to just drop everything and rush over here though, of course, he could do no less and, of course, the important thing was that Belle should be alright. That was the only thing that mattered. He then went on at length about how distraught he was and, of course, poor Elizabeth felt so impotent, and had already been so concerned about this ghastly business of the murders on their land, well Belle's land, and they were almost tempted to think that perhaps this whole Italian thing had been a ghastly mistake. Hilary parked the car, and heaved a sigh of relief when he disappeared into his room to freshen up, while she had a coffee at the little bar, and leafed through the newspaper. She was fed up with Isabelle and her problems and her family, and although she wished as fervently as Jeremy that Isabelle should recover, she couldn't help thinking, that her petrol, meals, and night in the ‘pensione’ would take a large bite out of the money she would get for her translation, which was due very soon. The methane gas bill was due anytime now, and straight after Christmas there would be a flood of bills; electricity, telephone, car insurance, road tax, and television licence. The translation! She had thrown two days away at Pisa, so would have to work long hours to make up the time. Christmas was looming nearer, and her own children would be arriving soon, so there were things to prepare, and she was angry with herself for feeling as she did about something which, after all, was not really Isabelle's fault. Except that Isabelle was such a fool, a romantic, irritating idiot, wanting to live alone in an isolated house, when she was obviously ill equipped to do so, and would always lean on others, and take them for granted.

  Jeremy appeared wafting on a cloud of expensive after-shave, and they walked to the hospital. Hilary explained that as soon as they had spoken to the doctor, she must leave, and was sure he would be able to handle things himself, without her help, after that. He looked disconcerted, and felt unable to protest, other than to say, "You have been more than generous with your time and I, of all people, do understand what it means to have a full life interrupted."

  She almost apologised, but managed to stop herself. "I was sure you would understand," she said, which reduced him to silence, and he did not speak again until they reached the ward.

  "Will I be allowed to see her?"

  "I don't know, but we'll ask."

  The doctor, far busier than either Jeremy or Hilary, was terse, almost curt, and explained that, until the next day when he hoped to be able to give a more favourable prognosis, Isabelle would remain in intensive care, but Jeremy would be allowed to sit beside her bed and talk quietly to her. Actually, he added, that might be a good thing even at this early date, as they would welcome signs of comprehension on the part of the patient, and a familiar voice was often the catalyst.

  Hilary thanked him, and turned to shake hands with Jeremy, who was looking a little bewildered. "You'll be better doing something, Jeremy, it will help to reinforce your positive approach."

  "Yes, of course. Thank you, Hilary. Will I see you again?"

  "I don't know. That depends doesn't it, on how things go here, and what you decide to do. You have my phone number, if you need help, but I'm sure you won't."

  She almost skipped out of the building, shaking off the depressing atmosphere with joy, and found herself singing in the car on the way home.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Pietro Lagonda, aged eighteen, two years behind with his school curriculum, despair of his parents, lay on his bed, reading a Diabolik comic, and listening to Radiohead. He appeared to be relaxed and untroubled, but the words he was reading were not being taken in, because his thoughts kept circling round and round, "Why them? Will it be my turn next?" He sat up rummaged in a drawer and pulled out a bar of chocolate. He unwrapped the external paper and carefully removed a small packet of silver paper. He scraped some of the black resin off the little block, pulled out some loose tobacco from his packet of Golden Virginia and rolled himself a joint, opening the window despite the cold and the fact that he was alone in the house, because his mother always seemed to sniff the air when she came into his room.

  His cell phone trembled and rang. "Yes?"

  "Pietro, how goes it?"

  "Great, man, come on over." He gave a whoop.

  "Not today. Listen I wanted to ask you if your thoughts had been moving in the same direction as mine?"

  "Depends. Yours always seem to move in the direction of sex, so yes, maybe I follow you"

  "I'm serious. Do you think it is just a coincidence, Walter, and Giovanni, or what?"

  "How the fuck should I know, and who cares anyway?"

  "I do, and you should, because if it isn't a coincidence, then you're next, and so am I"

  "They won't catch me man, that's for sure. I'm not moving out alone, and don't you either. Watch yourself, Italo. Believe me, man. This is a fucking crazy man, I mean, a really sick man."

  "I a
gree, but could it be a sick man we know?"

  "I don't know him, and neither do you."

  "You know what I mean.

  "Yeah, well, only time will tell." He giggled. "Dead men tell no lies."

  "Very funny, but I'm not laughing, I'm worried sick."

  "Do like me, man. Stay put."

  "Yeah, but I have to go to work and you to school, so how do we stay put."

  "In the daylight, are you kidding! This creep likes the night, and from now on, till they get him, I'm watching telly every night with my dear old mum. She's going nuts anyway, so it's easier all round this way. Do like me. Stay put." The telephone clicked into silence. Pietro got up, fixed a stick of incense in a little burner, and set light to it, filling the room with the pungent scent of roses.

  Italo put his cell phone back in his pocket, and continued walking home. It was already dark, at five-fifteen. He couldn't afford a car and his father, who could have bought him one easily, had told him, "Either you go back to school, or you get nothing from me. You can stay here, but you pay your way, or out, and I doubt you will find such comfortable lodgings elsewhere."

  At the moment he was working on a Villa just outside the centre of town, painting vast echoing rooms, but not alone, he was part of a group. The others all from outside Borgo, went home in the opposite direction, and he was left to leg it. His motor scooter was broken, again, and he was strapped for cash, so for the moment it wasn't going to be repaired. Also it was so cold, that it was hardly a pleasure to drive it in the winter. He always took the short cut through the lane that skirted the walls of the old town, and did so now, but it was eerie, dark, and silent. He felt frightened, and told himself, he must be going nuts, like the creep. His torch shone on the stony path, and lit up things that became unrecognisable. God, he was jumpy! It was cold, but he was sweating and shaking. He heard some kind of noise and nearly leapt out of his skin, swinging wildly round with his torch, but there was nothing. He resolutely walked forward, and was taken totally by surprise a few minutes later by the blow that crashed on the back of his skull.