The way he looked at me then, the way that he spoke, was almost enough for me to believe he was a true innocent. For one brief moment, I bought into the myth of Marco Romanelli and I needed to pause before I could guide them on through the final pieces of evidence.
“So who did, Marco?” I gave him the chance to answer. I wanted him to prove me wrong. “Who else stood to gain from this string of deaths other than you? Is your wife responsible, even though she was in the same room as me when Álvaro was shot and has an alibi for the time of Ian’s death? Or did your mistress do the deed for you?” Another pause, another silence. “I can just see talk radio’s own Cruella de Vil lending a blood-stained hand. Is that what you saw in her in the first place? Did she offer to snuff out your enemies in return for your love?”
I didn’t need the gun to create tension. I could see how nervous he was becoming and it was time to deliver the final blow. Rather disappointingly, Delilah had other ideas.
“Gianna!” She clicked her fingers triumphantly as she said it. “Gianna must be behind all this. I know I didn’t kill anyone and, though you may not believe it, neither did Marco.”
She’s skipping ahead. How is that fair? No one butts in when Poirot is laying out his conclusions.
Yeah, but to be honest, I always found that a bit unrealistic.
Delilah’s stab in the dark was missing something so I set her straight. “Weren’t you listening? Gianna has an alibi for two of the murders. How could she have been with me in the dining room at the same time as the shots were fired?”
A wind kicked up over the cliff and pulled at my long, white summer skirt, but it was the only answer I got. Delilah couldn’t come up with an explanation and I bet some part of her was wondering if Marco really had found a way to get rid of Maribel and Álvaro.
“Tell them, Gianna.” Without really meaning to, I pointed the gun at her and my gentle prompt was transformed into a deadly ultimatum. Whoops. “It’s just like Marco said, there’s no way you could have been in two places at once.”
She hadn’t spoken since I’d revealed her husband’s guilty secret. Even for Gianna, who was cold and controlled at the best of times, she was oddly distant.
“That’s right,” she finally conceded.
I turned back to Delilah. “There were at least ten witnesses to say where she was when we heard the shots. Gianna had come down for lunch and was looking for her family. The only way she could be the killer is if she’d made it seem as if Álvaro was murdered at that moment when, in actual fact, he was already dead. But that would have been rather difficult to achieve.” From the look on Marco’s face he was struggling to keep up. Perhaps I should have spoken more slowly. “Gianna, tell them how difficult it was to achieve.”
I turned back to her and she still wore that faraway look, like she was only half listening to what was being said. Her skirt flapped noisily like a flag on a pole and she was so slight and petite that I thought the wind might carry her off at any moment.
“Go on, Gianna. Tell them how you would’ve had to set up your kids’ Bluetooth speaker and a cheap phone with a gunshot ringtone in an empty room next to Álvaro’s. Tell them how you shot him with the silencer on and took your time looking through his possessions before you came downstairs for lunch. And, in case they haven’t quite figured it out, you should probably explain how you called the phone connected to the speaker at full volume so that we heard the shots at a time when there was no way you could have been involved.”
The wind was really howling now. It was whipping around us like we were in the eye of a tornado. Gianna was swaying as it rippled past her but she remained as silent as the three people she’d murdered.
“Marco never knew about Maribel because he doesn’t involve himself with the business you created. He just likes getting up on stage and being adored. When his daughter reached out to meet him, it was you she spoke to. But you couldn’t have your husband’s dirty little secret destroying your hard work.”
Normally people scoff and get angry when I accuse them of murder but not Gianna.
“Did you set out to kill her or did you think you could just pay her off the way you paid Heike to be your alibi this morning? Perhaps Maribel wasn’t satisfied with money. She wanted to meet her real father so, when she turned you down, you pulled the gun. You couldn’t bring yourself to shoot her so you smashed the handle into her skull then buried her in the sand to watch her die. Have you cleaned it with bleach or will the police find traces of her blood on the weapon which was in your possession at the time Maribel was murdered? That in itself is enough to send you to prison.”
Marco had the major advantage from the beginning of knowing he and Delilah weren’t the killers. If he’d had more than stuffing in his head, he would have worked this out long before I did. Clearly, Gianna was the brains behind his whole organisation.
He took a step towards his wife before speaking. “This isn’t true, Giovanna. Please tell me it can’t be true.”
She replied in Italian and the words hit her husband like a spray of bullets.
“What about Ian?” I wouldn’t let her off so easily. She deserved to face up to the agony she’d caused. “You killed him to cover your trail and now two kids don’t have a father. Imagine I shot Marco right here and now, think about how your daughters would feel. Think how they’ll feel when they find out what you did.”
Her eyes locked onto mine. “That ridiculous man heard the shots from Álvaro’s bedroom and saw me leave. He was trying to blackmail me so I had to deal with him too.” It was hard to believe how little emotion she showed as she confessed these things. “The saddest part about it was that all he wanted was a meeting with Marco for his pathetic car company. But I couldn’t risk any loose ends so I arranged the meeting here this morning and, when I pulled the gun, he slipped over the edge without me having to do anything. It was perfect.”
Delilah clucked like a surprised hen, Marco was still struggling with this new reality and a thought came to my head.
I trained my gun on Gianna once more. “Why are you telling us this?”
She sighed like she was glad it was over. “You’re very clever, Izzy Palmer. I’m so happy I got to see you at work. But my father was in the army and, unlike my husband, I can tell the difference between a real gun and a toy.”
That was when she ran for the edge. The pistol in my hand was suddenly useless. I screamed for Marco to grab her but he was too slow. She slipped right past him and the wind pushed her towards the cliff like a bad spirit. I launched myself forward to stop her. I willed myself on. My gangly legs and lolloping arms did what they were told to for once and I got to the edge just as she went over.
How I caught her is beyond my comprehension. She must have thought she’d made it. Her mind had embraced death but I snatched her legs up in an awkward bear hug and held onto her by the feet. The rest of her body dangled down the cliff face as Marco arrived to help pull her up.
“Stuff me, Izzy!” That awful woman Delilah was finally impressed by something. “You were like Keanu Reeves in the Matrix.”
Chapter Thirty
My previous murder enquiries had all ended on a sombre note, but this one was oddly celebratory. The Spanish police officers wanted to shake my hand. Kabir and lovely Jaime both gave me hugs. Sharon was still in tears, but managed to find her voice to thank me for clearing her husband, Danny was all smiles and Ramesh looked happy as he had slept through the whole thing.
The only person who was less than ecstatic was my dear old mum. “What were you doing with that gun, you silly girl?”
With a villainous glare, Gianna had been carted off to the local station and we were sitting on the terrace with lemonades all round.
“Well, there was always the risk she would jump over the cliff to escape imprisonment so I thought I’d get her away from danger.”
Mum was quick with her a
nswer. “Clearly not far enough away. And why didn’t you just wait for them to come in off the cliffs instead of charging over there with a fake gun?”
“Well… urmmm… that’s a good point actually. I didn’t think about that.” Just because I’m good at detective work, it doesn’t mean I have any common sense. “I suppose I got caught up in the moment. And besides, I needed Delilah to go with me and there was no way she’d have agreed to a quiet stroll otherwise.”
People normally had a bunch of questions when I solved a murder. I must have got better at summing up the case as they were oddly content with my explanation. It was a bit disappointing to be honest. I was hoping to show off just a little.
Inevitably, it was my faithful friend Danny who came to the rescue. “But it could still have been Marco and Delilah working together. What told you it was really Gianna?”
Hurray! A chance to really milk it.
I sipped my sweet and delicious lemonade and made them wait. “It took me a while to realise that it wasn’t just Marco who benefitted from the killings, it was Next Phase. Gianna was the one who cared about the movement the most. It’ll all come out in the trial but I’m certain that Marco was supposed to be with his daughters on the tennis court when Álvaro was killed. She wouldn’t have done it then if she thought her husband could be blamed. Unluckily for her, he was off with Delilah instead of attending to his parental duties.”
“Interesting!” Kabir intoned and the others looked suitably impressed so I continued.
“Gianna’s trick with the gunshots that we all heard was almost too clever. It provided her with an alibi but, when I saw the gun again and remembered it had a silencer, it didn’t make sense that the killer had removed it to kill Álvaro. I knew that Marco wouldn’t have gone to such lengths for something that couldn’t provide him with an alibi and that was when I finally accepted he wasn’t to blame.”
“That’s brilliant, Izzy.” Jaime beamed across the table at me. Danny clearly wasn’t happy to have him there and had been sitting in poses that best showed off his muscly arms since we sat down together. “Bielza must be jealous.”
I wasn’t so confident. “I still feel bad for the Dennisons. If I hadn’t got so hung up on Marco being the killer, I might have been able to stop Gianna before Ian was killed. If I’d realised earlier that the Spaniards were the likely thieves it might have crossed my mind that the gun was never really stolen.”
“They got away before we could arrest them,” Jaime explained. “But they won’t be able to run that scam now they’ve been found out.”
I wasn’t sure how I felt about this. I don’t approve of criminals, but they were just so cute, I didn’t want to see them go to jail. “Their scam, and the fact Delilah was all over Ramesh whenever Marco was around, were two obvious things I should have picked up on. I thought that Marco’s reaction to the news of Maribel’s death was a sign that he was involved, but he was just worried about the affair coming out. I’m so angry at myself for being short-sighted.”
Agente Caliente frowned a little. “You can’t think like this. You have to remember the good you’ve done. Think of Maribel’s family. It might be a small thing but they won’t have to question themselves anymore about why she died.” I have to admit his odd phrasing and Castilian accent were still pretty sexy.
“Yeah, Izzy,” Danny added, reaching his hand across the table to stroke my arm. “Think how happy you’ve made everybody.” He smiled his lovely smile then shot Jaime a hostile look.
“A word please, Miss Palmer.” I hadn’t heard Inspector Bielza approaching and she did not sound happy. “Torres, your break’s over. Back to work.”
Jaime jumped off and ran into the hotel and I rose to accompany the inspector to wherever she wanted to take me.
“Obviously I’m happy that the case is adequately closed,” she told me as she led us through the restaurant and into the lift. “Obviously I wouldn’t say this in front of my officers, but I was wrong and you were…” she paused to find the right words. “…less wrong.”
“Urmmm… Thank you, Inspector.”
“Quiet now, I haven’t finished.” She poked the button for the third floor and the antique lift jerked into life. “The right person is in custody and you should be proud of yourself for that. There’s no doubt about it. I jumped to conclusions thinking that Ian Dennison was the killer and, I admit, I was happy to believe the case was closed when it certainly wasn’t.”
When we arrived at my floor, she motioned for me to open my suite and then confidently walked inside and over to the balcony as if she’d been there a hundred times before. Once we were both outside again, she continued.
“You might think that I was protecting Marco Romanelli but that’s not quite true.” She paused to look along the coast towards the city and I could tell how difficult it was for her to say this. “He had confided his secret to me and, I might not like the man, but I wasn’t going to let unnecessary gossip come out of my station.”
“You don’t like him?” I’d had a number of surprises since she started her explanation but this was the biggest. “Then why go to his conference? Why didn’t you even consider that he was involved?”
She was the one who looked shocked now. “He had a solid alibi. There were photos on Delilah’s phone of the two of them together in the marina at the time of Maribel’s death. And I went to the conference because I wanted to know what we were dealing with.”
She fell quiet and gazed across the cloudy horizon. I thought I’d have to prod her along but she soon started up again. “Santander was the last stand of the northern Republican army in the Spanish civil war. My grandfather was captured and immediately executed by the fascists.” She breathed in deep like this fact still stung to think about.
“Terrible things happen on both sides in any war but this was the story I grew up with. It left me with a great fear that history could repeat itself, that my country could be ripped apart once more. And so, whenever a new movement like Next Phase appears, I feel I owe it to my grandfather to find out what they want. A smooth-tongued, handsome leader like Marco Romanelli is even more frightening to me than some military thug.”
The English civil war happened in the seventeenth century so it was impossible for me to imagine how such an event had shaped her country. Whatever hangover had been felt from our revolution had dissipated over three and a half centuries of British history.
Her usual, serious tone was even graver than before. “I hope that, with Gianna’s arrest, their organisation will die, but that might be wishful thinking.”
“If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,” I replied and, when she clearly didn’t understand what I was talking about, I explained. “It’s an English proverb. It means that wishing doesn’t generally do us much good.”
“I see. Well we have a similar expression in Spanish, but my family gave up wishing long ago.”
Inspector Bielza was not the kind of person I could imagine going out drinking with on a Friday night. Everything she did was coated with weight and seriousness. It felt bad to end our relationship on discussions of death, war and massacres so I changed the topic.
“Why did you choose to bring me up here?”
“I’d heard the view was pretty.” She finally smiled and it made me feel a bit lighter. “And it is… it really is.”
We stood there for a while longer to make the most of it. I could hear my mother entertaining everyone on the terrace beneath us. Ramesh was fully awake and was thrilled by every fake celebrity anecdote she dished up, even though he knew they weren’t true.
The vista before us stretched all the way to the Basque Country in the east and Asturias in the west. The sea was fierce and broke in high, white peaks as it entered the cove. Each wave seemed to pause in the air before the sound crashed over to us. Far out at sea there was a beam of sunlight penetrating the cloud – like a tiny spotlight sh
ining on no one – and the wind sang a howling song.
Chapter Thirty-One
We stayed one more day to enjoy the beach and have the hotel to ourselves. Delilah was the only guest who was scheduled to still be there but she went off with Marco when the police were done with them. He had a lot of explaining to do to his kids and I can’t say he looked overjoyed to be leaving with the woman who had previously been his secret lover. He surprised me by waving across the foyer when they finally departed. I couldn’t decide whether it was a sign of thanks, or just his ingrained charm that was hard to let go of.
That day was rather sad and beautiful. We couldn’t be happy after everything that had gone on and Kabir occasionally looked heartbroken that his retirement project was tainted with death.
Still, it was good to spend the time together without odious guests around. Mum and my old next door neighbour, my best friend and his uncle; a weirdo family unit with three luxury suites, two swimming pools, a tennis court and our own private beach.
Kabir invited the remaining police officers to lunch and we all sat down together as Cook knocked up a paella in a huge black pan on a stove on the terrace.
I love paella!
I know you do.
My Jaime obsession had waned a little. I was getting used to being around gorgeous men by now and had found two who were just perfect for me. What did I need a third for?
I’ve got some ideas!
SHHHH!
In the afternoon, Ramesh and I took the cleaning trolleys outside and raced Mum and Danny across the patio. We lost every time. After that we played a highly unprofessional game of doubles on the tennis court and I discovered that Ramesh had no concept of the rules.
“You know I’m allergic to sport, Izzy,” he tried as a defence. “It’s like TV for stupid people.”
Dinner was a more intimate affair. Cook had gone home early and so it was just the five of us in the dining room and Kabir told us all about his plans for the place. “I hope you come back in the spring when we re-open, Izzy. You did a wonderful job making up the rooms.”
A Corpse on the Beach Page 21