by M. B. Shaw
‘Of course I’m not.’
‘Because the impression Father Antonio gave me was that no one here is going to give any kind of a shit about what happened to the runaway daughter of a poor, alcoholic, chanbermaid single mother,’ Iris ranted on. ‘A single mother who’s now dead herself. So there’s literally nobody left on earth who actually cares about what happened to poor Beatrice.’
‘I care,’ Stuart Haley said softly.
‘I didn’t mean you,’ said Iris, chastened.
‘And you care. Right? We wouldn’t be having this conversation if we didn’t,’ he reminded her.
Iris responded with a grudging ‘Hmmmph.’
‘I suspect the readers of your Facebook page care, too,’ said Haley. ‘Don’t forget, we wouldn’t even have got this far if it weren’t for your posts. As for the Italian police, let’s not damn them before they’ve even started, eh?’
‘I suppose so.’ Iris knew that his calm, patient, rational approach was much more likely to help move things forward than her own, outraged ranting. But still, some things were worth getting outraged about. ‘Is the investigation into Kathy’s letters still open?’
‘Oh yes,’ Haley said wryly. ‘Jock MacKinnon’s perfectly happy for that one to go ahead. Just as long as I’m not involved.’
‘I get the strong feeling from Kathy that he’d rather I weren’t involved either,’ said Iris.
‘He can’t have everything his own way though, can he?’ said Haley smugly.
‘No. He can’t,’ Iris chuckled.
‘We’ll talk about everything properly when you’re back,’ said Haley. ‘When’s your flight?’
‘Saturday,’ said Iris. ‘Unless we extend our trip.’
‘Why would you do that?’ For the first time, a note of anxiety crept into Haley’s voice.
‘Well, Kathy still has a lot of shopping to do,’ said Iris, only half-jokingly. ‘And I’d like to talk to Father Antonio again. Maybe try and find some other people who knew Beatrice. Apparently, her biological father was some big-shot nobleman from Rome. Someone-or-other Giannotti, I think the name was. Or at least, he may have been her father…’
‘Be careful, Iris,’ said Haley. ‘You and I know each other. But in my experience, foreign police forces don’t take kindly to visiting amateurs telling them how to do their job. Or to running around their cities, tampering with potential witnesses.’
‘I’m not a visiting amateur,’ said Iris. ‘I’m a helpful member of the public. Who just happens to be the person who both found Beatrice’s body and identified it.’
She expected Haley to laugh, but he didn’t. ‘I mean it, Iris. You should come home. You’ll do more harm than good, if you stay out there longer.’
Iris made a crackling sound in the back of her throat. ‘Sorry, you’re breaking up.’
‘I am NOT breaking up,’ snapped Haley. ‘Don’t be an arse.’
But Iris had already hung up.
* * *
By the time Iris reached their apartment, she had burned off the worst of her anger. But the simmering stew of emotions that remained stuck to the inside of her ribcage like burned toffee to the base of a saucepan, making it hard to breathe and impossible to relax. And then there were the questions. So many questions.
How had Beatrice Contorini wound up in a Pitfeldy bothy? Who had killed her, and why? If her ‘dangerous’ Bulgarian associates really had pursued her all the way to Scotland, she must have known something that they considered to be very important indeed. But what could that have been? Was it coincidence that she wound up buried on the MacKinnon estate? Or was Jock, or Edwin Brae, or someone else at the castle involved in what had happened to her? Kathy might be convinced by her fiancé’s protestations of innocence, and ignorance, but Iris was by no means so sure.
Finally, there was the question of the other woman, the second victim whose bones were found with Beatrice’s and who had suffered the same grisly fate.
Tonight, Iris would fill Kathy in on all today’s developments. If nothing else, she might provide a window into Jock’s state of mind, and whether it was indeed pressure from him that had prompted the chief constable to close the case, just as they were finally making progress.
And then, tomorrow, she would pay a second visit to Father Antonio Corromeo, despite Haley’s objections, confirming the sad news about Beatrice and pressing him for more information about her friends, and enemies, here in Venice. Perhaps, after that, she would go to the police, introduce herself, and put whatever pressure she could on them to take the investigation seriously. Stuart Haley might be right about the risk of putting the Italians’ backs up. But if Iris didn’t advocate for Beatrice Contorini, she was sure nobody else would.
Sliding her key into the lock, she was surprised to find the front door of the apartment building already open. One of the other residents must have left in a hurry, as there were signs up everywhere reminding people to close the door firmly behind them. Sliding the concertina doors of the elevator open, Iris stepped inside and pressed the button for the top floor.
Stepping out of the elevator, she saw that the door to the apartment was not just unlocked but also wide open, swinging on its hinges in the breeze. Kathy must have returned early from shopping and been too weighed down to shut it.
‘Kathy!’ Iris called out crossly. ‘Listen, love, you must be more careful. You left the door wide open. Anyone could walk in here and –’
She stopped, the words catching in her throat. Whoever had broken in had opened every window in the place, sending any loose papers or brochures fluttering around the various rooms. Drawers were open, and clothes from Iris’s and Kathy’s suitcases were scattered everywhere, across the floor and furniture.
‘Kathy?’ Iris ran from room to room, her anxiety building. ‘Kathy?’
‘In here.’
The voice came from the upper-floor study area. Iris bounded up the spiral staircase, past various broken objets d’art, including a lovely, delicate Venetian glass vase that now lay shattered on the Persian carpet below. But all Iris could see was Kathy, slumped down in the corner of the room beside the desk. Blood covered the whole right side of her face and was matted into her long blonde hair. Her face was ashen-white and she was shaking violently.
‘Oh my God!’ Horrified, Iris crouched beside her. ‘Are you OK? I’ll call an ambulance.’
‘No. Don’t.’ Kathy’s hand shot out and grabbed hers, squeezing Iris’s fingers tightly. ‘I’m OK.’
‘What happened?’ Iris asked, gently pushing back the bloodied hair to look at Kathy’s face. Apart from a small gash just above her right eyebrow, where most of the blood seemed to have come from, there were no visible injuries beyond some bruising around the cheekbone.
‘I honestly don’t know.’ Kathy shivered. ‘It was so quick. I walked in on them up here. Two men, rifling through the desk. I think I screamed, and then one of them hit me across the face and I fell. I must have passed out, because when I came to they were gone.’
‘How long ago?’ said Iris.
‘I don’t know,’ Kathy trembled. ‘An hour maybe?’
‘Would you recognise the men, if you saw them again?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. It was too quick. I’m sorry.’
‘There’s nothing for you to be sorry about,’ said Iris, attempting to extricate her hand. ‘Let me call the police.’
‘No!’ Kathy said loudly, almost hysterically.
‘Why not?’ Iris looked puzzled.
‘I just – don’t want you to.’
Standing up, Iris scanned the desk. Her laptop was gone.
‘Are you all right here for a moment?’ she asked Kathy. ‘While I check downstairs.’
Kathy gave a small, frightened nod. ‘Just promise you won’t call the police. Or an ambulance.’
‘I promise,’ said Iris. ‘Not if you don’t want me to.’
In Kathy’s bedroom, the thieves had taken all the diamond jeweller
y – quite a haul – and designer-label handbags. Iris’s room had fared slightly better. Thank God they hadn’t destroyed or taken Kathy’s portrait, which was still by the window where Iris had left it. The intruders had also left her passport sitting on the nightstand, much to her relief. But they’d taken everything else of value, including the travellers’ cheques in her bedside drawer. Worst of all, Iris realised with a heavy heart, her notebook was missing, a battered, leather-bound volume containing everything from personal diary entries, to jottings about the Girls in the Wood, to ideas for sketches.
Iris groaned aloud.
Why? Why would anybody but me want that worthless old book?
Losing the laptop was bad, but at least it was mostly backed up. Losing her notebook was a tragedy. And the irony was it had no value to anybody else. Not like her passport, for example, which a thief could easily have sold.
Unless…
Father Corromeo’s words drifted back to her, about ‘being careful’. Stuart Haley’s, too.
What if this was more than just an opportunistic robbery? What if somebody knew Iris was here asking questions about Beatrice Contorini? Somebody who didn’t like it one little bit.
‘Iris…?’ Kathy’s voice drifted plaintively downstairs.
‘I’m coming,’ Iris said guiltily. She shouldn’t have left her alone for so long.
Upstairs, she helped Kathy to her feet and into the bathroom. ‘Let’s clean you up,’ she said kindly, running a bath. ‘And then I really think we need to call a doctor. And the police.’
‘I don’t want to,’ said Kathy stubbornly, allowing Iris to help her out of her bloodied clothes and into the water.
‘Why on earth not?’
‘Because.’ Kathy flinched, dabbing a flannel to the wound above her eye. Once the blood was rinsed away, it didn’t look that bad. But if she’d been knocked unconscious, then she might have concussion, or, God forbid, a brain bleed. ‘Because I want this trip to be a success. I don’t want Jock to know. I want things to be happy for us.’ She started to cry. ‘I need that, Iris. Can’t you understand?’
Iris couldn’t. Not in the least. But she nodded sympathetically anyway, assuming Kathy was still in shock.
‘Jock doesn’t have to know if you don’t want him to,’ she reassured her. ‘But I have to call the police, Kathy. For one thing, they’ve taken my laptop. And some other personal things of mine. And it looks like a lot of your jewellery’s gone as well.’
Kathy shrugged. ‘It’s all insured.’
‘Maybe, but without a police report, you won’t be able to claim,’ Iris pointed out. ‘And in any case, Kathy, these men attacked you. They’re dangerous. We can’t just pretend it didn’t happen.’
‘OK,’ Kathy said reluctantly. Clearly pretending it didn’t happen was exactly what she wanted to do. ‘Call the police, if you must. But I won’t see a doctor. And you can tell the police, I don’t remember anything.’
* * *
Much later that night, after the polizia had been and gone and Kathy was sleeping soundly in bed, wiped out from the trauma of the afternoon’s events, Iris lay in her own four-poster, thinking.
There was something very odd about Kathy’s reactions earlier. Something more than just shock. Not wanting Jock to know about the attack was one thing – a bit weird, perhaps, but then their whole relationship was weird. But not wanting to involve the police, or even to go to a hospital for a check-up? That smacked of something more.
Kathy Miller was hiding something. Or afraid of something. Or both.
Another thought struck Iris then, one that she couldn’t back up with any firm evidence, but that, nevertheless, felt disconcertingly possible: what if Kathy was the one the intruders were after – not Iris?
Iris had automatically assumed that she was the one who’d put Kathy in danger, with all her awkward questions about Beatrice Contorini. But perhaps it was the other way around? After all, from the very beginning, Kathy had sought Iris out because she needed protection. First, from the writer of the anonymous notes. But perhaps now from someone else, too?
Could Kathy have had an ulterior motive for wanting the two of them to come to Italy together? Iris didn’t know, and a part of her felt bad about suspecting her friend. But increasingly, she was coming to believe that there had been more to this trip all along than wedding-dress fittings and organza veils.
One thing was for sure. Whatever had happened today while Iris was out had shaken Kathy badly. She’d already come up with a cover story for Jock about her injuries, some nonsense about falling down a flight of steps, which Iris had agreed to back up, somewhat against her better judgment. Kathy told her that she’d decided to leave earlier than originally planned. She was going to take the next available flight to Paris for a short stopover. She would look at some jewellery, perhaps find herself a going-away outfit, recover her nerves before returning home. But Iris wasn’t coming. Not yet.
With Stuart Haley officially off the case, and the Italian police still barely on it, it would be up to Iris to keep the flame of truth burning for poor Beatrice Contorini and whoever had died with her. Perhaps she was being superstitious, but she was starting to feel that she’d found those bones for a reason. Almost as if the ghosts of the dead women had come to her – to Kathy and her – on purpose, crying out for help, compassion and justice, three things they were not afforded in life.
Here in Italy, the pieces of the puzzle were slowly beginning to come together. I have promises to keep, thought Iris, and miles to go before I sleep.
She was far from finished in Italy.
Chapter Twenty-two
‘It sounds terrifying,’ said Father Antonio, his face a picture of concern as Iris told him about the break-in at her apartment and the attack on Kathy. ‘Are you sure I can’t offer you any tea? Or something stronger. Brandy, maybe?’
Iris shook her head. ‘I’m fine. It was a lot more terrifying for my friend than it was for me.’
Father Antonio Corromeo nodded kindly. Iris had stopped by the church that morning to let him know the news about Beatrice. Or rather, to confirm what he’d known in his heart ever since he’d first seen the picture of the beads on Iris’s Facebook page. He’d had weeks to grieve since that moment, and a decade or so of loss before it, so it was hard to feel anything now beyond a lingering poignancy, and perhaps a certain sense of closure. To be frank, he was more gripped by Iris’s account of intruders at the Airbnb she’d been sharing with Kathy Miller, the subject of her latest portrait.
‘I’m glad you reported it to the police,’ he told her, ‘and I’m relieved that your friend has decided to leave on the next available flight. But you didn’t want to go with her?’
‘Not really,’ said Iris. ‘Not yet. I needed to see you.’
‘And I appreciate that,’ said the priest, spreading his hands wide and bowing his head in a gesture of gratitude.
‘But my visit isn’t purely altruistic,’ Iris clarified. ‘There’s still so much I don’t know about Beatrice, and I want to learn everything I possibly can about her while I’m here.’
She explained about the UK police dropping the case and the Italians taking it over.
‘I see,’ Father Antonio frowned, ‘that’s a shame.’
‘It means that Italy’s at the centre of this mystery now,’ said Iris. ‘At least until I find out how Beatrice ended up in Scotland and what brought her there.’
‘I understand all that. But I’m worried about your safety here in Venice,’ the priest said bluntly. ‘And I think you should be, too. It doesn’t sound to me like this break-in was an opportunistic robbery.’
‘I agree,’ said Iris.
‘They were targeting you specifically.’
‘Me or my friend,’ corrected Iris. ‘Trust me, Kathy Miller has her share of enemies.’ She told him about the threatening letters Kathy had been receiving, and how she sensed there might have been more behind this trip to Italy on Kathy’s part than she’d been lettin
g on. ‘I don’t know that, obviously,’ she added, noticing his sceptical expression. ‘It’s just a feeling I get.’
‘You said you had some more questions. About Beatrice?’ said Father Antonio. He was still far from convinced about the wisdom of Iris staying on in Venice, but he let it go for now.
‘Yes.’ Iris leaned forward eagerly. ‘I wondered if there was anything else you could tell me about these Eastern Europeans Beatrice fell in with before she ran off.’
The priest frowned again. ‘I don’t think so. It was so long ago. Why, do you think that might be important?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Iris. ‘But I do know that plenty of migrants make their way to Scotland every year. Some have come of their own free will, to work the fields or on construction sites. But plenty of young girls also find themselves trafficked. For sex, or domestic slavery, in some cases.’
Father Antonio glanced over at Iris. ‘And you think that’s what happened to Beatrice?’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Iris. ‘But if these Romanians, or whoever they were, were involved in that sort of thing, then it’s not impossible that she might have been caught up in the net. Are there any names you remember?’
He closed his eyes tight and pinched the bridge of his nose, as if physically reaching for a memory.
‘Barbu,’ he blurted at last. ‘Andrei Barbu. He was one of them. There were a lot of Barbu brothers and cousins, a big, feral clan, but Andrei was the one I used to see with Beatrice. I’m ninety-nine per cent sure that was his name.’
‘Amazing,’ said Iris. ‘Any idea what happened to him?’
‘None, I’m afraid.’
‘With these gangs, the young women are often trafficked in pairs,’ said Iris, moving on. ‘We still don’t know who the second victim was. I wondered if Beatrice had a close friend you can recall? Someone she might have run away with?’
‘There were a couple of girls…’ He cast his mind back, but with less success this time. ‘Most of her friends were older, but I can’t think of anyone specific, I’m afraid. I’ll let you know, if something comes back to me.’