Murder at the Castle

by M. B. Shaw

  No wonder so many masterpieces had been created here, so many geniuses inspired. From an artist’s perspective, even a humble portraitist like Iris, coming to Venice was the equivalent of plugging oneself into the mains. The entire city was a jump-start for the soul.

  Hopping gratefully off the boat at the San Angelo stop, right on the Grand Canal, Iris walked the few hundred yards to the Airbnb apartment Kathy had rented for them, dragging her carry-on suitcase behind her. For once, everything worked smoothly. The key was in the lock box, the code to open it worked, and no alarm went off as Iris entered a crumbling but delightful former schoolhouse and took an old-fashioned lift with metal pull-doors up to her top-floor rooms.

  Inside were two simple, whitewashed bedrooms, each almost completely filled by a vast four-poster bed, and both with views over the Grand Canal. There was a small but comfortable sitting room, overlooking an exquisite medieval church; a rather basic bathroom; and a kitchenette cheerfully decked out in red and chrome, with the sink conveniently placed beneath the only window, so that you looked out across a sea of red-tiled rooftops towards St Mark’s when you did your washing-up. Best of all, though, was the tiny sun-trap of a roof terrace, accessed via a spiral staircase in the corner of the living room, which led up to a small study area, a second small bathroom and a door out to the terrace where there was a table and chairs. I’ll have my coffee up there tomorrow morning, thought Iris excitedly. Just me and the seagulls. Who needed extortionate hotels when, for half the price, you could live like a real Venetian?

  Tossing her bag onto one of the beds, Iris took a lightning-quick shower and changed out of her travel clothes into jeans and a baggy T-shirt with palm trees printed on it. Tomorrow she would start enjoying the city, exploring some of the churches and galleries while Kathy hit the upscale boutiques on the Calle Larga. This afternoon, though, Iris had only one appointment on her agenda, and that was her meeting with Father Antonio. Washing down the last of the bread rolls she’d bought at the airport with a glass of water from the tap, she grabbed her handbag and headed straight back out of the door.

  * * *

  San Cassiano was one of a handful of really famous Venetian churches that Iris hadn’t visited before. By Venice standards, it didn’t stand out architecturally, at least not from the outside. Vast, monolithic walls in a warm, honey-coloured stone that reminded Iris of Oxford, supported enormous but simple arched windows, and the main entrance was a relatively plain set of wooden doors, the frames of which were painted in a dark green paint that was peeling at the edges.

  Inside, however, faded grandeur soon gave way to the real thing, most notably in the form of the Tintoretto masterpiece behind the altar. The painting depicted the Resurrection in colours so vivid and mesmerising they could have been brushed on yesterday. And the faces. Of the risen Jesus, and the awestruck women; those took Iris’s breath away.

  She wasn’t alone. A group of art students were gathered with a guide in front of the altar, admiring the work, as well as a steady stream of tourists, milling around the church, some of them stopping here and there to refer to their guidebooks or to the 2 euro print-outs being sold at the front desk.

  ‘Entry is free, but if you’d like to make a donation towards the upkeep of the church and our treasures, you can do so in the box to your left,’ the woman at the desk informed Iris in perfect English.

  ‘I’m actually here to meet someone,’ said Iris. ‘Father Corromeo?’

  ‘Ah!’ The woman leaped to her feet, shaking Iris’s hand enthusiastically and turning her back on the other tourists standing behind her, waiting to come in. ‘Yes, yes, of course. I know all about you. Please, follow me.’

  Iris did as she was asked, feeling simultaneously embarrassed and self-important as people turned to look while she was led towards the sacristy.

  ‘Father Corromeo will meet with you here,’ the front desk woman said, gesturing towards a sitting area that adjoined the priest’s robing room. A wine-red velvet sofa was pushed back against the wall and Iris noticed the deep hollows worn into the sofa cushions, no doubt from years of being sat on by parishioners’ bottoms. ‘Please, take a seat.’

  Iris did, and found herself looking around at a room that was an odd mix of grandeur and tatters. The sofa had seen better days and there were chips on all the furniture and ringed watermarks on the coffee table, a testament to decades of carelessly placed, still-damp mugs. Yet on the peeling walls hung sketches of the last supper that Iris would have bet good money were the work of a Renaissance master, perhaps even Tintoretto himself. Or ‘Tintin Cornetto’, as Angus’s girlfriend Hannah would have called him. Iris was still smiling to herself at the memory of this when Father Corromeo walked in.

  ‘Mrs Grey.’ Advancing towards her in full-length black cassock, and with his arms spread wide, he was not at all what Iris had been expecting. For one thing he was young. Or at least, not old. He had dark, curly hair, a smooth olive complexion, and green eyes that turned down slightly at the corners, lending him a permanently sad look. But despite this he was clearly an attractive man and couldn’t have been older than forty, tops. ‘I am so happy that you came to Venice. You flew in from Milano, you said?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Iris. ‘My friend had some appointments there, and she wanted to visit Venice, too, so we flew out from Scotland together.’

  ‘Very good.’ The priest nodded. ‘Can I offer you any refreshment? Some tea?’

  ‘Tea would be great, actually,’ said Iris, suddenly feeling exhausted from the day’s travels and in need of a pick-me-up. ‘If it’s not too much trouble.’

  ‘Not at all.’ He picked up a little gold bell from one of the side tables and rang it, prompting the instant arrival of a minuscule woman dressed all in black, whom Iris assumed must be a nun. After a few exchanged words of Italian the woman scuttled off, nodding and bowing in Iris’s general direction like an obsequious beetle.

  ‘I love having an excuse to come to Venice,’ said Iris, watching him carefully hitch up and smooth out his robe as he took a seat beside her. ‘It’s one of my favourite cities in the world. But I must say, I was surprised you didn’t feel able to talk to me about the beads and what you remembered over the phone.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said awkwardly. ‘Perhaps you think me overdramatic?’

  ‘It’s not that,’ Iris assured him. ‘It’s just, as I said, I was surprised. You didn’t even tell me the young woman’s name.’

  ‘No,’ his face fell, ‘perhaps that was an abundance of caution on my part.’

  ‘Are you afraid of someone?’ Iris asked.

  ‘Not for myself,’ the young priest replied. ‘But perhaps for others. Perhaps for you.’

  ‘For me?’ It didn’t seem to have occurred to Iris that she might be the one in danger.

  ‘The girl I gave that necklace to, the necklace in your Facebook photographs’ – Father Corromeo explained, ‘she was a wonder-ful girl. But she had enemies. The last time I saw her, here in this church, I could tell she was frightened. And, you know,’ he looked away sadly, ‘it seems things did not end well for her.’

  The tea arrived, in delicate bone china cups with thin gold rims. Iris waited for the tiny woman to leave them again before turning back to Father Corromeo.

  ‘Who was she?’ she asked him.

  ‘Her name was Beatrice. Beatrice Contorini.’

  As Iris watched, his eyes glazed, caught up in memory. She tried to read his expression but it was difficult.

  ‘Her mother was a parishioner here. She brought Beatrice to Mass from when she was very young. A baby, although that was before my time.’

  ‘And you gave Beatrice these?’ Reaching into her string handbag, Iris pulled out the plastic bag of broken beads and passed it to him.

  ‘My goodness, you have them with you?’ The priest took the bag with trembling hands, visibly moved. ‘Yes. Yes, I gave them to her. It was a necklace.’

  ‘When was that?’ asked Iris.

  ‘It was on
St Theodore’s Day. Two years almost to the day before the last time I saw her. She was fifteen. She used to come and help out in the church, arranging flowers and setting everything up for the festival. St Theodore of Amasea was Venice’s original patron saint, you see, before San Marco. St Mark the Evangelist,’ he explained to a blank-looking Iris. ‘Bea wasn’t especially religious but she loved this city, its history and traditions. She belonged here.’

  ‘It sounds as if the two of you were close,’ Iris prompted cautiously. This was a priest she was talking to, after all. But to her surprise, he answered honestly.

  ‘I adored her.’ He stared down at the bag of broken beads. ‘These were from Murano. They weren’t expensive, but they were unusual, like her. She loved them.’

  ‘Did she feel the same way about you?’ Iris asked.

  He shook his head. ‘No, no. I don’t think she even knew how I felt. I was her family priest, I was ten years older than her. We were friends, though. Beatrice confided in me.’ He twisted the bag miserably between his fingers, while Iris waited for him to go on, but he didn’t. The silence grew between them, heavier and heavier, until Iris finally broke it.

  ‘You said she had enemies?’

  He sighed deeply.

  ‘Yes. Beatrice was brave. Too brave. She confronted some powerful people. Including her father, or at least the man she believed to be her father. It’s a long story.’

  ‘It’s why I’m here,’ said Iris, leaning back against the sofa cushion. ‘Please, Father. Tell me what you know.’

  Closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose, Father Corromeo began.

  ‘Beatrice’s mother Paola was a chambermaid. She was unmarried, uneducated and from a poor, working-class family. Just a stunningly beautiful girl, but – what would you say? – unsophisticated. She had Beatrice when she was very young and their life together was difficult.’

  ‘Difficult how?’

  ‘Well, there was no money, but that was the least of it. Paola drank, and she and Beatrice fell out frequently. And then there was the whole drama about Beatrice’s father.’

  ‘What drama?’ Iris asked.

  ‘Well.’ Father Corromeo spread his fingers wide and looked away, as if embarrassed. ‘Paola always maintained that Beatrice’s father was Massimo Giannotti.’

  He said it as if the name was supposed to mean something.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Iris. ‘Is he… well known?’

  ‘In Italy, yes,’ said the priest. ‘Very. He’s a member of the nobility, from Rome. His family is extremely old, extremely wealthy, extremely powerful. Anyway Paola claimed that Massimo was staying in Venice at the Danieli, where she was working at the time, and that – well, there’s no easy way to say it – that he raped her. She said that Beatrice was the result.’

  Iris frowned. ‘You sound as if you don’t believe her?’

  Father Corromeo rubbed his eyes wearily. ‘It’s so difficult, Mrs Grey. I’ve always been very fond of Paola. She did her best. But coming from a religious family as she did, falling pregnant, unmarried, at eighteen years old? It was a scandal. Worse than that, it was a sin, a terrible stain.’

  ‘You make it sound like the Middle Ages,’ said Iris. ‘Surely there are plenty of young single mums in Italy?’

  ‘Of course, yes, but this is not “Italy”, Mrs Grey. This is Venice. For Paola Contorini, I can assure you, falling pregnant was a catastrophe. Saying she was raped meant that it was not her fault. It would have given her some room to breathe. With her own parents. With friends.’

  Iris digested this. ‘So you’re saying she made the rape story up?’

  ‘I don’t know. I am saying it’s a possibility. Certainly she never went to the police at the time. Never reported it to her employers. Nothing.’

  Hardly surprising, thought Iris, if Venetian society is as sexist and moralistic as you make out. But she waited for him to continue. It was Beatrice she really wanted to hear about, not Paola.

  ‘As I say, all of this happened long before my time here,’ he went on. ‘But I know from my predecessor, Monsignor Fratelli, that the rape story came first and that Massimo Giannotti’s name was only added in years later, as a sort of salacious detail. By then Paola’s life was increasingly chaotic. She was drinking heavily and struggling to control Beatrice, who was hitting her own teenage years and starting to push back against her mother. Please, don’t misunderstand me, Mrs Grey.’ He looked across at Iris urgently. ‘Paola was a decent, kind woman. But I do believe that there was at least a chance that she made up the Giannotti story to try to win her daughter back. She wanted Beatrice to believe that she was special. To have, at least, the fantasy that she was a princess, with a noble birthright. Also, you know, that it was a man who had let her down, and had made their lives so hard, and not Paola herself.’

  ‘Well, wasn’t it?’ said Iris indignantly. ‘I mean, whoever Beatrice’s father was, he disappeared and left a teenage girl holding the baby. Right?’

  The young priest cocked his head to one side, as if this thought had never occurred to him before.

  ‘I suppose that’s true,’ he said. ‘In any event, Beatrice absolutely believed that Massimo Giannotti was her father. And perhaps I should mention here that Bea was considerably sharper and more sophisticated than her mother. She studied at school and she did well. Anyway, she wrote to Giannotti, many times, angry letters demanding to meet and threatening to go to the police – and to his wife – if he refused to see her.’

  ‘And did he? See her, I mean.’

  ‘Of course not.’ The very suggestion seemed to make Father Corromeo smile. ‘He reported Beatrice to the police and sent an aggressive lawyer’s letter to Paola, threatening to sue her for libel if she ever repeated the rape story again. Beatrice wanted to fight back but Paola was in a terrible state, understandably. Families like the Giannottis still wield tremendous power in our society. Massimo could have had both of them on the streets or in jail with a click of his finger.’

  ‘So this Massimo, he was the powerful enemy you were talking about?’ Iris clarified.

  But to her surprise, Father Corromeo shook his head. ‘Unfortunately, no. Or at least, he was not the only one. Beatrice was an irritant to him, but I suspect no more than that. She was not a real threat. But there were other dramas in her life that summer, before she disappeared. I know she had met someone, a tourist, and that she was in love. There were rumours that she had fallen pregnant by this man.’

  ‘I see,’ said Iris.

  ‘I don’t know whether that was true or not. But I do know she had also fallen in with a really bad crowd here. And I mean, really bad.’

  ‘What sort of bad crowd?’ Pulling out a small leather-bound pad, Iris began taking notes. The priest’s story was far more detailed than she’d expected.

  ‘Romanians and Bulgarians, mostly. Some of the boys came to church, but these people had fingers in every criminal pie in Venice you could imagine, from pickpocketing to drugs, prostitution, even people trafficking. I know that Beatrice became afraid, and I know she wanted to leave. But I don’t know the specifics, or where her new boyfriend fit into any of it. By then she had stopped confiding in me or her mother. She was really lost.’

  He handed the bag back to Iris.

  ‘After she left Venice, I was afraid for her. But when she didn’t come back, and Paola reported her missing, I knew something had happened. Despite all the battles between them, there was no way Bea would have simply abandoned her mother without so much as a phone call or a postcard. No way. She knew Paola needed her. She would not have been that cruel.’

  ‘What happened to Paola?’ Iris asked, curious.

  Father Corromeo’s frown deepened. ‘She died. In Rome, I believe. After Beatrice disappeared, everything spiralled away from Paola. She left Venice. It was too painful for her to stay, I think. Supposedly, there was a job in Rome, although I can’t imagine who would have employed her then, the state she was in. I heard she had died a few
years ago, through another parishioner here. I don’t know exactly how, but I assume it was alcohol-related.’

  He glanced up at the clock on the sacristy wall. ‘I have to prepare for the next Mass in a few minutes. Perhaps you would like to stay for the service?’

  ‘Oh, thank you, but I can’t, I’m afraid,’ Iris said awkwardly. Going to church always made her feel guilty for no reason, like when you see a police car approaching in your rear-view mirror. ‘I’d like to talk more, though, if you have time, while I’m in Venice.’ She jotted down the address of her Airbnb along with her mobile number and tore off the sheet, handing it to him.

  ‘Of course.’ He stood up, pocketing the paper somewhere deep in the folds of his robes. ‘Anything I can do to help. Do you think it really was Beatrice whom you found buried there?’ he asked Iris, a painful hope still lingering in his voice.

  She shrugged. ‘If you’re sure about the necklace…’

  ‘I’m sure,’ he said grimly.

  ‘Well, the timings fit,’ said Iris. ‘I’d say it was reasonably likely, but the police will have to look into it. Until we have her records and information, we won’t know for sure. Can you think of any connection Beatrice might have had with Scotland? Any reason that she would have wound up in a remote, rural spot like Pitfeldy?’

  ‘None.’ He shook his head. ‘I have thought of little else, since I stumbled upon your Facebook page, believe me. But it makes no sense to me.’

  ‘How did you come across my page, if you don’t mind me asking?’ said Iris.

  He blushed sweetly. ‘I’m a bit of a true-crime fan. My guilty pleasure. Not that it brought me any pleasure in this case,’ he added, sadly.

  ‘There were two bodies buried at Pitfeldy, as you know,’ said Iris. ‘Do you know if Beatrice left Venice with a friend?’

  ‘I don’t think so. But as I say, she left in a hurry and she left in fear. She had crossed the wrong people and she was out of her depth. Someone here was trying to hurt her.’