“So what’s going on?”
“Maybe you should tell me?” was the dry reply.
“Tell you what?”
He shook his head. “Leave it.”
Was he angry? She couldn’t remember ever having seen Paolo look so serious, and she had known him well for a few months now. Sleuthing when the crime is murder is enough to create a strong connection between anyone. There’s nothing like surviving danger to bond people together.
Having said that, there wasn’t much camaraderie between the two of them just now.
Paolo stopped in front of the restaurant. Strazio, the carabiniere who had been left to oversee things at the hotel, opened the door for them, greeting Giò shyly. Paolo sat down at one of the tables and invited her to do the same.
“So, what’s going on?” she repeated, more alarmed by his silence than anything else.
“I have the first, if unofficial, results from the post-mortem and the forensic team.”
“And?”
“And the post-mortem didn’t find any particles of suspected allergens in Margherita’s stomach and gastric juices, which confirms the food analysis: none of the food used in the preparation of her dishes was contaminated.”
“You mean she died of natural causes?” she said, unable to make the connection between his sombre expression and what looked like good news at face value.
“Maybe,” he said.
Another long, unnerving pause.
“Aren’t you happy? I mean, the hotel, the owner and the chef will be cleared after all.”
“Yes.”
“But you’re not convinced, are you?”
“Your group didn’t have a good relationship with the woman, did they?”
“They all loathed her,” Giò spat, immediately regretting the harshness of her tone.
“I suspected that,” Paolo replied. “Even though your friends were not so open about their feelings when I questioned them, with the exception of Mrs Spilimbergo, I still got the sense that there was something unpleasant in the air.”
“Margherita Durante wasn’t exactly a lovely soul, from what I’ve gathered,” Giò admitted. “So what are you thinking?”
“Frankly, Giò… maybe it’s just a cop’s hunch, but Mrs Durante comes all the way down to Maratea. By chance, she stumbles on her former writers’ group, all of whom seemed to hate her, and then she dies of an allergic reaction without even trying to open her bag and get her EpiPen out.”
“Maybe she fell asleep and didn’t realise the crisis was coming.”
“Dr Siringa mentioned that possibility.”
“And from what you’ve just told me, maybe it wasn’t an allergic reaction at all.”
“Something like a heart attack is a possibility we cannot rule out. But we spoke to Mrs Durante’s doctor; she’d had her yearly check-ups a couple of months ago. No problems with her heart, nor anything that might explain her sudden death. As for her allergy, the attacks she’d had were severe – I mean life threatening.”
“So we circle back to anaphylactic shock?” Giò enquired.
“Yes, anaphylactic shock and no evidence of her having eaten fish or crustaceans.”
“Well, what if the kitchen staff stirred Margherita’s food with a contaminated spoon? That might be difficult to prove.”
“Then we will never know. Everything in the kitchen had been thoroughly cleaned before the restaurant closed for the night.”
It was easy to tell something was bothering him. Giò pondered his words, then looked him in the eyes.
“And you came over here just to share your doubts with me?”
“Is that so strange?”
“Indeed it is. You usually go to great lengths to keep me out of your investigations.”
He smiled for the first time since they had met that day. “You’re right. Let’s just say this time I have no choice. Mangiaboschi is far too happy that there’s no proof against the hotel – you know, bad publicity for tourism, the usual pressures from superiors and politicians not to shed a bad light on the area as a whole, and all that stuff. This woman had no close family members who will demand to know what happened. I can already see the results of the inquest: sudden death from natural causes and peace for everybody.”
“So you called me in,” Giò said with a proud smile. But his reaction wasn’t what she had expected. A shadow obscured his face.
“The thing is, I didn’t realise how involved you were with the group…”
“I’m not that involved!” she snapped, realising that by ‘group’, Paolo meant a certain person.
He raised his hands. “I would have said a kiss was a dead giveaway to a certain amount of involvement.”
For a moment, Giò wondered if Paolo had been present at Christ the Redeemer’s statue, then she realised he was referring to the much more innocent kiss she and Guido had shared in the hotel lounge not long ago. This fired her courage.
“That was a reaction to a successful bit of work we’d done together.”
“If that’s how you celebrate a bit of work, I don’t want to be present when you accomplish something major!” Sarcasm wasn’t generally a trait of Paolo’s personality, but Giò was angry to see it raise its head now.
“Are you checking out my personal life?”
“It would seem you’re getting far too close to the very person who last spoke to the dead woman, so it’s pointless to ask for your help.”
“The last person who spoke to Margherita? Are you really thinking that Guido had something to do with her death? How silly!”
“How do you know?”
“How do I know what?”
“That it’s silly? That the guy had nothing to do with her death? How well do you know him, and for how long?”
“Is that a carabiniere’s question or a personal one?” Giò growled. Why was it that every time something good happened in her life, people had to question it and stir up trouble?
“It’s an official question,” Paolo replied after a short, uncertain pause that did not escape Giò.
“Unless I’ve got a short memory, you’re the one who arrested Andrea Aiello, only to find out a few days later he was as innocent as a lamb,” she snapped, reminding him of a previous case where she had been… well, sort of involved with one of the suspects.
“Look here, Giò, as you said, I always try to keep you away from danger. You cannot deny that.”
“Yes, you’re always complaining I’m too nosy.”
“I spoke to your fellow authors, but only got generic answers. They are not telling the whole truth, and I wondered if you, as an insider, could discover more. Maybe one of them knows the real reason why Margherita came all the way from Rome to Maratea. Was she planning to meet someone? I thought you might be unbiased as you’d only just met them, but then I see one of them hugging and kissing you…”
“That was just a friendly kiss!” Giò protested, even as her thoughts went back to the not-just-a-friendly kiss of that morning. She felt a frisson of excitement run down her spine, causing goosebumps to appear on her arms and neck.
“Yes, brotherly love, whatever, but I’m inclined to think you’re not as impartial as I’d hoped.”
“Let us not argue, Paolo.” Giò was more intrigued than angry now. “It was only yesterday that Granny asked me exactly the same question: was Margherita here to meet someone, and the fact is she did have a business meeting in Maratea. So, has anybody come forward to let the carabinieri know they were meant to meet with her?”
“No, no one has said they were expecting her. I wonder if the news of her death made them reluctant to come forward.”
“Hmm,” Giò said. “As Granny said, that’d be a strange way for a Maratea local to behave.”
“I’ll check on that, then. But what I want you to do…”
“Yes?” Giò interrupted eagerly.
“Is some digging within your group. Encourage them to speak about Margherita and see what they say about their relation
ship with her. I still find it weird she decided to come when you were here, even if she was to meet with someone in Maratea. Could her appointment actually have been with one of the group?”
Giò nodded, but in her heart of hearts she didn’t find it all that strange that Margherita had simply turned up to annoy the writers who had snubbed her. Then all of a sudden, a memory came back to her – the memory she had been trying and failing to grasp since the previous day.
“The manuscript!”
“What manuscript?” Paolo asked.
“Was there a manuscript at the crime scene?”
“A printed one, you mean?”
“I think so,” Giò said.
“No, nothing of the sort. Whose manuscript was it?”
“I assume Margherita’s. When we were at Granny’s, there were three things that struck me.” She told Paolo about Valentina and how her demeanour had changed during her stay, about Alberto’s concerned face. “And I had the feeling that there was a third thing that had passed unnoticed under my nose. I couldn’t figure it out, until now. Guido had said that when he left Margherita in the restaurant, she had a manuscript on the table in front of her. But when I found Margherita the next morning, I’m sure there was no manuscript anywhere near her, and you just confirmed that.”
“So a manuscript has disappeared from a writers’ retreat,” Paolo thought aloud. “What’s the meaning of that? I wonder. I’ve asked Strazio to look at all the files Margherita had been working on recently. We’ll see if there’s anything interesting there.”
When Paolo left, his demeanour was definitely less friendly than usual, and he exited using the outer door of the restaurant instead of the inner one. Was that so he didn’t have to pass where Guido had been sitting? Or was that just her imagination?
Before they joined the others for dinner, Giò asked Guido about the absent manuscript. He insisted it had been there when he left, on the table in front of Margherita.
“Quite a substantial pile of paper it was too, it’s strange it should have disappeared.”
But when Giò mentioned that the carabinieri were investigating the possibility that Margherita might have had an appointment with one of the writers in the retreat group, Guido didn’t burst into his trademark contagious laughter, nor did he deny the possibility. Was he intrigued by the hypothesis or concerned that the carabinieri were still investigating Margherita’s death?
16
Was It Blackmail?
After dinner, Giò asked Annika if they could have a short talk before going to sleep.
“Is it something confidential?” Annika asked.
“Let’s say rather delicate.”
“Then we’d better go to my room.” Annika winked at her. “I get the impression the hotel hall is the worst place to try and keep things private.”
As they entered her room, Annika added, “Now let me guess, does this have something to do with a certain red-haired man?”
Giò looked at her, pretending not to understand.
“Come on, Giò, it stands out a mile. Are you and Guido falling for each other?”
Giò gasped and went crimson. Just as many people had done before her, she had thought she and Guido were being perfectly discreet about their budding feelings for each other.
“Who told you that?” Giò blabbered.
“Come on, Giò, it’s obvious. You’re always sitting next to one another, always chatting and sharing private jokes, and when you’re not close, you keep looking at each other. And today when you came back from your trip to the statue of Christ the Redeemer, you looked like a different woman.”
“Oh my goodness, I never thought it’d be that obvious!”
“I’m so happy for you. You’re two kindred spirits, two free souls that dream of travelling the world. And I’m sure you could mitigate that certain hardness of his.”
“Hardness?”
“Maybe that’s not the right word. But I’ve known Guido for quite a long while. I don’t know if it’s ambition or just perfectionism, but I’ve found there comes a point, especially when he needs to conclude a project, where he becomes as stubborn as a mule. He’s completely blinkered, and it seems he would do anything to achieve his objectives.”
“You mean he’s a man without scruples?” Giò asked her in surprise.
“I’m not saying he’d do anything illegal, but yes, he can get carried away and be quite unpleasant. I mean, in a way that’s good – he’s an achiever, but at times… He should know when to put the brakes on in life, when to stop no matter what. And I believe you might just teach him there are other things in life than results.”
“I’m not sure I understand, but yes, I do get a feeling he launches himself headlong into everything he starts, if that’s what you mean.”
Annika laughed and shook her head. “Please, I don’t want to preach. Now you look so worried; it wasn’t a warning. I believe these things just happen spontaneously, you’ll naturally complement each other. At times I feel you should be more confident in your own skills and he might be a good boost for you to believe in yourself.”
“I’ve got plenty of confidence,” lied Giò shamelessly.
“Sure!”
“You’re wicked! Now tell me about you and Simone – I think you complement each other. That poor guy really does need a confidence boost and you’re the right woman for the job.”
Annika turned towards the small fridge in her room, took out a bottle of prosecco and filled two tulip glasses on her desk.
“Friends can never hide anything from each other,” she chuckled, raising her glass. “You’re right – salute!”
They clinked their glasses in a toast, laughing and teasing each other for a while.
“But you know the funniest thing of all?” Giò asked.
“Funnier than what we’ve just confessed?”
“Indeed it is – I came to speak to you about something completely different. Nothing to do with my messy love life.”
Annika didn’t try to hide her surprise. “I thought you had come to confess your feelings to your Scandinavian friend. So, what’s the matter?”
“The carabinieri, and my granny, wonder if Margherita had some business to discuss with someone in our group, other than her business in Maratea.”
Annika looked alarmed by what Giò had just said.
“Could it be true? But they all seemed surprised and definitely not pleased to see her. To me, her arrival came as a real shock. She had given me such a hard time on the previous retreat.”
“And you don’t think she kept in touch with any of them afterwards?”
“If she did, none of them has ever mentioned it. Did you ask Guido? After all, he spoke to her more than the rest of us on the night of her death. They were the only ones who seemed to have anything to discuss.”
“I asked him briefly, but maybe I need to dig deeper with him. And what about you? Did you notice anything strange going on?”
“After Margherita arrived, everything seemed strange. But that feeling didn’t last long as the next day, she was dead. Do you have anything specific in mind?”
“No, I just wondered if you’d noticed anything unusual, even if it doesn’t seem to be related to Margherita’s death.”
Annika shook her head. “I wouldn’t say so. It’s just a retreat, not too dissimilar to all the others I’ve run. Mind you, each one has its idiosyncrasies, but there’s a set pattern to them, if you see what I mean.”
“I think so: some personal matters, some love interests, some creative crises, some creative genius, a new determination and loads of good resolutions. Does that sound like a typical retreat?”
Annika nodded.
“I see.” Giò looked at her empty glass. “As tempted as I am to share a second prosecco with you, I’d say it’s time for bed now.”
“Yes, especially as I’ve got a rather intense writing sprint planned for tomorrow.” Annika rose up from the bed where they’d been sitting and accompanied Giò
to the door, then stopped abruptly. “Oh, there was something. I’m not sure if it’s of any interest to you, but Vittoria mentioned something about Mrs Galli.”
“Huh?”
“You remember the day Margherita died, we invited her to join our table. Vittoria said something like, ‘Oh, the thrill of having a blackmailer amongst us’.”
“I didn’t hear that.”
“She whispered it in my ear. We couldn’t speak further with her sitting at our table, so I resolved to ask her for an explanation later, but then I totally forgot about it.”
“That might be worth following up,” murmured Giò, leaving her friend’s room to go back to her own. But instead of turning right, she headed left, stopping in front of the sisters’ room.
There was a considerable amount of noise coming from inside, despite the lateness of the hour. It sounded as if two people were arguing, hissing at each other in a vain attempt to keep their voices low. Giò was wondering whether to get closer to the door to eavesdrop when a turn of the knob made her jump. A second later, a woman exited and bumped straight into her.
“I’m sorry!” Vittoria cried in surprise.
“Ouch,” said Giò, massaging the point at which her nose had been hit by Vittoria’s head. The door slammed behind Vittoria and she peered more closely at Giò.
“Did I hurt you awfully?” she asked.
“I think I’ll survive.”
“What were you doing out here?” asked Vittoria, then her gaze travelled across the corridor to where Guido’s room was. Clearly imagining Giò had just left him to return to her own room, she added, “Oh, I see.”
Giò flushed a bit, but thought better than to put her right.
“And you, where are you going?”
“My sister’s driving me mad,” Vittoria said with a sigh. Giò looked at her quizzically. “How about a drink at the bar?” Vittoria added. “It might do me good to talk to someone.”
Giò wondered if alcoholism wasn’t opening its doors to her, but wasn’t Vittoria the very person she wanted to speak to? Some things require sacrifices, so she followed Vittoria down the stairs. The bar was actually closed, but the night concierge was kind enough to serve them a couple of gin and tonics in the hall.
Peril at the Pellicano Hotel Page 11