Isabella paled. “You’re not saying, you can’t be saying, it was…” she couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.
“No, Isabella, it wasn’t Tebaldo. It was Marianna.”
“Oh my God! Why? Just because Ursula wouldn’t let her see that boy, what’s his name?”
“Roberto. Roberto was the victim of a hit and run accident. Ursula was out that night and the car was damaged.”
“Are you saying Ursula tried to kill him!” she was shocked.
“Yes, and Marianna must have worked it out. That’s why she killed her mother.”
“I can’t believe she mutilated her like that.”
“She didn’t. That was Lapo. He saw what she’d done and went in to clear up after her. He got rid of the knife and opened the shutters, but before that I think he decided to mutilate his mother’s corpse to make it look like the work of a psychopath, someone outside the family.”
“And you think Marianna killed Lapo, too?”
“Yes. There were things between them that you don’t want to know.”
“Teo knows all this?”
“Yes. I met him as arranged at the Procura before I came here. I told him she’d confessed, if confession is the word. Legally what she has said is worthless. She’s completely out of touch with reality. She now believes that Roberto is alive.”
“Oh God! It’s unbearable. Thank you for coming to tell me.”
Dragonetti bowed rather formally and they left the room. Bruno had remained silent the whole time. Now he said, “My God, what a legacy.”
“Come on let’s get back to the real world.”
He opened the car door, got in and took a last look at the villa. It was quite beautiful, plants softly clothed it and the sun shone on the gleaming door. It emanated a sense of timeless peace.
He drove away. Images from Strauss’s opera Elektra flashed into his mind. The horror of murder so well represented by the dissonant music and the stage covered in earth, the bodies falling into the open grave, and rising up from it, the madness of Elektra which results in her own death. He felt sick and couldn’t wait to get home, back to sanity, back to Vanessa. He wouldn’t feel right again until he had seen her and she had in some way helped him return to the real world, not this sick warped one. Ursula von Bachmann was a monster, an egocentric, powerful woman, who took what she wanted from life, no matter what the cost, and gave back nothing. She generated monsters, who struggled to survive in an artificial world which gave them everything, except what they most needed. Love. And that was why she’d died the way she’d died.
He was hardly aware of the drive home. He turned the car into the garage and parked it. A few steps and he was in his peaceful courtyard, the noise of the outer world faded and a small ginger kitten ran to greet him. He could have crushed it with his foot, but it didn’t know that. It trusted him. He bent and picked it up. “Rossini, I do believe you’re finally putting on weight, “he remarked. He ran up the stairs and called out, “Vanessa, it’s me. I’m home.”
EPILOGUE
Piero and Marta took a last look at the villa and then got into their car. It was loaded up with their belongings. Tebaldo, Isabella and the children stood outside the door and waved goodbye to them. As the car disappeared down the drive, Teo put his arm around the heavily pregnant Isabella. “It was time for them to go,” he said.
“They’ll be alright. The photos of their farmhouse look charming.”
“It’s not far away. We could go and see them.”
“Yes, but you know we won’t. It’s over and done with. I’m glad we’re going back to Florence. I can’t stand this house.”
“Well, the American who’s bought it thinks it great. He even likes the Rossi family. He told me they’re picturesque.”
She laughed. “Perhaps they’ll get on well with him. After all he was on the right side during the war and Americans are so friendly”
“Primo Rossi is a terrible old racist. I don’t think I’d want him as a friend.”
“Yes, but the Americans might. They’ll probably have him look after the garden and invite him into the kitchen for a glass of wine.”
“My God! I’m glad I won’t be around to see that.”
“I didn’t tell you but the other day I saw Guido in Lucca. He looked as he always did and he had a gorgeous young man on his arm.”
“Really. Perhaps it was a cousin.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Neither do I.”
She smiled at him. “It wouldn’t have lasted long you know.”
“No, but it’s good that it never happened.”
“Ursula was fond of him.”
“I know. She was fond of us all. That was the problem. She didn’t love any of us.”
“I don’t think she knew how to.”
Marta looked back once and then turned her head forward, looking towards the future. “I can’t believe we’re out of there at last. What took us so long?”
“You. Every house we looked at had something wrong with it.”
“I know. It’s hard to downsize. I mean it’s hard mentally.”
Piero smiled at her affectionately. She was her old self again. If anything she looked younger than the previous year and she was enthusiastic too. The farm they’d bought was large enough for them to become self-sufficient, not that they needed to. Their years with Ursula had provided them with a very comfortable nest egg. Piero knew a lot about gardening but Marta had been reading books on the subject and reckoned she knew almost as much as he did.
“I think we made a good choice. It’s not just the local yokels. There’s quite a few foreigners in the village,” he said.
“Yes. They seem very nice.”
“We’ll have a house-warming party and invite them all along. That’s the way to get to know people.”
“Piero, don’t ever tell anyone who we worked for. I wouldn’t like to be associated with the von Bachmanns.”
“No.”
“After all, what were they to us, just our employers, nothing more.”
“They were barbarians, well maybe not Tebaldo, but the rest of them were flesh-eating barbarians. The sort that tear your heart out and leave you to bleed to death.”
“Piero! That’s a terrible thing to say.”
“Is it?”
The car drove on through the sunny day heading towards the north, climbing now towards the hills and a new life.
Copyright
Published by McNidder & Grace
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©Margaret Moore
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
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A catalogue record for this work is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9780857160829
Broken Chord Page 33