“I’ll see your husband.”
He went downstairs to the kitchen.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dragonetti had gone to bed very late, after a good meal, a delightful concert and a long drive home. Vanessa had enjoyed it so much he was considering doing the same again in a few days’ time. He was studying the Opera Barga programme when the phone rang. He picked it up immediately, “Dragonetti speaking.”
He listened carefully and a smile broke over his face. He suppressed it and assured the Chief Prosecutor that he understood the need for absolute discretion. This was a VIP murder. He wanted the family handled with kid gloves, they were aristocrats and that still counted for something in this country which had put the royal family into exile in 1947 when Italy became a republic. Although they had been allowed back into the country in 2002, their titles were no longer valid. Jacopo sighed. Kid gloves indeed! It seemed he had been chosen for the job because he was an aristocrat himself. Also the Chief Prosecutor, officially on holiday, was already embroiled in a huge corruption case. He named a senator, member of the present majority, who was related to the von Bachmann family. Drago smiled at the words, ‘you know what these people are like’. Yes he did, but it made no difference to him whatsoever. He’d be careful, but he would do exactly what the job required, senators and aristocrats notwithstanding. He put the phone down and left the room with an almost jaunty step.
Marta and Tebaldo sat quietly in the hall waiting for what seemed an interminable length of time. Most of the time Teo kept his eyes closed while Marta found that hers constantly filled with tears. Neither had the slightest inclination to move or communicate with anyone in any way. Both had sunk into a state of shock and were trying to cope with the flashbacks that were tormenting them. Occasionally, a soft moan would escape from Teo and Marta would raise her red-rimmed eyes to his face. The police surgeon had arrived with a team of men who came bustling in, ignoring them. Now it would begin. Teo tried not to think about what was happening upstairs. The Maresciallo who had already seen the body, after accompanying the crime scene officers to Ursula’s room, had opted to go downstairs to the kitchen.
They heard another car draw up, the car doors slam and approaching steps, and mentally braced themselves. They both stood up as a handsome dark-haired man wearing a white linen shirt under a navy linen suit, and an air of authority, entered the dark hall. He was accompanied by a uniformed police officer. He stood for moment glancing around him before taking off his sunglasses to reveal very large green eyes. He dropped his briefcase on a chair, slotted his glasses in his shirt and looked sharply at the two immobile figures: a tall handsome man with a pale face, very blue eyes and medium-length well-cut light brown hair and a very neat, middle-aged woman who looked as though she had been crying. He’d already been briefed on their identity.
“I am the Prosecutor in charge of the investigation. My name is Dragonetti. I understand you found the body.”
“I did,” said Marta. “Then Teo came in and… I locked the door and called the police.”
“Excellent. You did well. I’ll speak to you both later. Please stay here for now.” He turned and said, “I’ll see the crime scene now.”
“But the Maresciallo…” objected the policeman.
“Later.”
He followed the uniformed policeman up the stairs and entered the room of death. His brief stay in this chamber of horrors was marked by an increasing sense of uneasiness. He felt physically quite ill and was glad when, duty done, he finally felt he could leave and get on with the job. His hair was plastered to his neck from the heat and he took a deep breath of fresh air as soon as he left the room. He closed the door behind him and went back downstairs, walking past Tebaldo and Marta, who avoided looking at him, as he followed the young policeman down more stairs. Brushing past the man he entered the kitchen quietly, his eyes carefully taking in the scene. He observed every detail: the thin, pale, rather effeminate young man with tousled, dyed, blond hair; an older woman wearing an apron and a white cap over her hair; another woman, also wearing an apron; and a middle-aged man who was sitting beside the Maresciallo. A police officer was also at the table; a coffee pot and three cups told him the rest of the story. The senior policeman shot to his feet, knocked over a coffee cup and advanced smartly towards him. “Maresciallo Spadaccia, at your service, sir,” he said crisply.
“Dottor Jacopo Dragonetti.” His eyes raked the other occupants of this overcrowded kitchen. “I’m heading the preliminary investigation into the murder of Ursula von Bachmann. Please remain where you are. An officer will stay with you.” He turned round sharply and left the room. The Maresciallo hastened after him.
As soon as he’d gone, Piero got up and mopped up the spilt coffee, taking the coffee cups to the work surface. Jean Pierre looked at his watch and pursed his lips. “I think I’ll have to go and explain that I only got here this morning. They can’t want to make me stay here. I’ve got another appointment before lunch and then I’m in the salon all afternoon.”
“He said to stay here.” Piero looked sternly at him.
The young policeman coughed and said, “I’m afraid you’ll have to stay for now, sir.”
“Yes, but he doesn’t know who I am.”
“Well, they’ll be back to get your names and you can tell them all about it then.”
Paola, the cook, clamped her lips together and silently continued her work. Her deft fingers floured lumps of chicken and threw them into boiling fat. The other woman, Franca, her helper, grabbed a mop and bucket and went through to the scullery. When she came back Piero indicated the coffee cups and she rinsed them and put them in the dishwasher. Jean Pierre leant back in his chair and closed his eyes. Piero sat down again, grabbed the newspaper and began to read it. The policeman leant against the wall keeping an eye on them all.
There was total silence in the room apart from the sounds of frying chicken. Franca went out again and when she came back brought with her a large bag of lettuce and began to fill one of the sinks to wash it. Work for lunch was under way, police or no police, was what their actions proclaimed. This artificially quiet scene was suddenly broken into by the harsh shouting of Lapo who had obviously just got up and stumbled upon policemen as he came downstairs.
Marta started up from her chair in the hall and rushed forward towards them before the policeman could stop her. Lapo was standing in front of Dragonetti and the Maresciallo and yelling, “What do you mean you can’t tell me why you’re here? What rubbish! I demand to know why the police have apparently taken over the house.”
“What’s your name?” asked Dragonetti mildly.
“No, you tell me yours first. Who are you? What are you doing here?”
Marta burst in on them, “Lapo, something terrible has happened.”
Dragonetti whipped round and silenced her. “Please go back to the hall. I want to speak to this man alone.” He nodded at the Maresciallo who took her arm and began to escort her back. “Why don’t you let me tell him,” she wailed.
“Tell me what?” asked Lapo.
Dragonetti stepped forward and took the young man’s arm. “Come with me.” He gently guided him past the indignant Marta and after a glance at Maresciallo Spadaccia, who imperceptibly nodded, ushered him into the drawing room.
“Sit down.”
Lapo obeyed as though mesmerised.
“I’m afraid I have some bad news for you or do you perhaps already know?”
“Know what? I don’t know anything. Tell me what’s going on, for God’s sake.”
“It’s your mother.”
“Has she had an accident?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“Can’t you speak normally? Tell me what’s happened.”
“I think you understand what I’m trying to tell you.”
“You don’t mean… she’s dead.” He paled and began breathing very fast. A wheezing sound started in his lungs and became louder. Then his face became red as he breathe
d with evident difficulty. His hand reached convulsively into his pocket. He pulled out the bronchodilator spray and puffed twice into his open mouth. His chest heaved with the effort of breathing and speech was impossible.
“Do you need a doctor?” Dragonetti asked kindly.
Lapo shook his head, took another puff from the spray and sat back waiting for his lungs to allow enough air in for normal breathing.
“What happened? Was it a car accident?” he finally asked, breathlessly.
“I’m afraid she was murdered.”
“Murdered!”
Dragonetti reflected how often people repeated this communication in the same incredulous tone. “Yes.”
“Where, when? Now, this morning?” Lapo sounded bewildered.
“No, probably at some time during the night. The pathologist is with her now.”
“The pathologist? Oh God, but where? She didn’t go out, did she? I mean Jean Pierre’s coming today.”
“No. She didn’t go out.”
“What! You’re saying she was killed in the house?”
“Yes.”
“For God’s sake, just tell me.”
“She was murdered in her bedroom.”
“Murdered how? I don’t understand.”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that for the moment. Were you in the house last night?”
“Well, not all night. I came in at about four.”
“Did you hear any noise, see anyone?”
“No, of course not.”
“Did you see any member of your family?”
“No.”
“Alright. I’d like you to stay in this room for now. I’m leaving a man here to make sure that you do.”
“My sister will be down shortly.”
“Your sister?”
“Marianna. She’s up. I heard her taking a shower.”
“How old is she?”
“Nearly eighteen.”
“Alright. Do you want some coffee sent in?”
“Please.”
“Are you alright?” Jacopo still felt quite concerned about his breathing.
“My wheezing, you mean. Yes, but no, I’m not at all alright. How do think I feel? You’ve just told me my mother has been murdered in her bed. I actually feel as though I’ve been kicked in the chest.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You still haven’t told me your name.”
“Dottor Jacopo Dragonetti.”
“Any relation to the judge?” Lapo eyed Dragonetti in a totally different and interested way. Everyone knew that Judge Dragonetti had been the victim of a car bomb many years earlier. It had been an event of national importance and relevance, a warning to other judges.
“He was my father.” Jacopo replied shortly and swiftly left the room. Any mention of his father always reopened the wound left by his tragic death which had had such an enormous impact on his own life and that of his family. He was an only child who had adored his father. After his father’s death, he and his family had lived a cloistered life, guarded at all times. His mother had been devastated and Jacopo had always believed that the cancer that killed her ten years later had been caused by this irreparable loss. He shook the memory off and concentrated on the job at hand.
The crime scene officers were working on the room now and before long the body would be moved. After viewing the body Jacopo felt certain this was a crime of hatred, or vendetta, probably committed by someone who knew her, possibly one of the members of her own family. Crimes that took place in the victim’s home were often committed by a relative or someone very close to the victim. There was sometimes a cover up attempt to make it look as though someone from outside had done it, but with modern forensics these pathetic efforts were usually quite quickly uncovered.
He went into the hall and told Marta and Teo to go down to the kitchen. “A policeman will be with you. I know you’ve seen the body. You’re not to talk about the manner of her death with anyone.”
Teo shook his head and closed his eyes briefly. They got up from their chairs and Marta tottered for a moment. Teo took her arm and held onto it as they went down the stairs. As soon as they reached the kitchen, Marta threw herself at Piero and sobbed against his chest, “She’s dead, she’s dead. They’ve murdered her!”
Dragonetti was waiting for Marianna to come down. She would be his next ‘victim’. He wanted to see everyone who lived in the house before starting formal interviews. The others could wait until he was ready. He was trying to get a picture of this family as a whole for now. Later he would try to work out the dynamics within the group. He was willing to bet that one of them had killed Ursula von Bachmann. Everything about this crime told him that the motive was very personal.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Outside the villa, crime scene officers investigated access to the balcony at the side of the house that led into Ursula’s bedroom. Entry to the house would have been relatively simple. The huge gnarled trunk of an ancient and massive wisteria wound its contorted way up the wall before deviating and covering an ample pergola with the fragrant, heavy, lilac blossoms. It would have been child’s play to climb up the trunk and swing onto the balcony. With the shutters open, the bedroom was immediately accessible. The ground beneath was hard and dry, and no footprints were discernible. Nothing could be found on the trunk, a gnarled, irregular and peeling surface which gave no chance of fingerprints. There were no tell-tale threads of clothing, nothing to show that anyone had in fact entered the bedroom that way. However, it could have been the means of both entry and exit. Perhaps the victim had opened the shutters herself, either for air, or to allow someone to enter. Maresciallo Spadaccia puzzled over this. He had a clear memory of Piero telling him about the threatening anonymous letters and had been expecting Signora Ursula von Bachmann to come to the police station in person today. Could she have been killed by the writer of the letters who’d decided to make good his threat, gained access to the house, and left via the balcony?
He jotted down a few notes for the magistrate heading the investigation. He didn’t know him personally, but he knew of him. Everyone did. He was a Florentine, with a famous father, whose death had shocked the whole of Italy. Spadaccia knew he had recently been temporarily transferred from an industrial town near Florence, to the Procura at Lucca. He looked to be in his late forties and Spadaccia personally thought his hair was too long, but then he preferred a very military haircut and had a great aversion to hair that touched the collar. He knew the man famously wore a black leather jacket in the winter which caused many comments among his colleagues who tended to favour camel hair coats. Also, unlike most of his colleagues who preferred to keep a distant and authoritative control over an investigation, Dragonetti was known for his hands-on approach. Despite these eccentricities the thing that was quite evident was the man’s standing, social and through birth. Spadaccia, who hailed from a small town in Calabria, recognised an aristocrat when he saw one and automatically gave his respect to them.
He walked round from the back of the house and as he rounded the corner saw a plump blonde woman getting out of a car. He guessed this was Isabella, Tebaldo’s wife, with their two children who were still strapped into their car seats in the back of the car. He hurried up to greet her. She was staring with evident surprise at all the police vehicles in the drive and the uniformed officer on duty outside the front door.
“Has something happened?” she asked in a shaky voice.
“I’m afraid an investigation is taking place.”
“In our house?”
“Yes.”
“Why? Is it Teo? Is he alright?”
“Yes. If you’ll come inside Dottor Dragonetti will explain things to you.”
“Who?”
“He’s heading the investigation.”
“I see, well that is, actually I don’t. What investigation?”
“He’ll explain everything, if you’ll come with me.”
“What about the children?”
�
�I’ll have one of my men take care of them for now. If you’ll just come this way, madam.” He said to officer Tardelli, “Keep an eye on the kids. They mustn’t come into the house.” Tardelli, a big comfortable man, father of two, nodded and moved towards the car.
Isabella went into the house and, as instructed, sat on a chair in the hall. She felt very apprehensive. What kind of investigation was going on? The house was silent. Where was Teo? Then she was called up to the study, which Dragonetti, after a quick look at the house, had decided was the perfect room for interviewing family members. It was strange for her to see him at her mother-in-law’s desk. He rose as she came in, introduced himself and asked her to be seated. It all felt as though it was the wrong way round. Surely, he was the guest here.
“What’s happened?” She asked with a terrible feeling of dread. “Is it my husband? Has something happened to him?”
“No, your husband is quite well. I’m afraid it’s your mother-in-law.” He observed her closely.
“Ursula!” Images flitted through her mind, a car crash? “But her car’s in the drive.”
“I’m sorry?” He couldn’t follow her train of thought.
“She can’t have had an accident. Her car’s still in the drive.” Her logic seemed quite reasonable to her.
“No, she hasn’t had a car accident.”
“Then what’s happened to her?”
“I’m afraid she’s dead.”
“Dead! Ursula! But why are you here?”
“Because she was murdered.” He stared keenly at her.
She digested this in silence for a moment, her face quite devoid of expression before saying firmly, “If she was murdered then Guido did it.”
“Guido? Is he a family member?”
“In a manner of speaking. Guido was her toy boy. She was going to marry him.”
“Does he live in the house?”
“Well, he did until yesterday. They had a colossal row and she threw him out.”
“When was this exactly?”
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