Peril at the Pellicano Hotel

by Adriana Licio

  “So, what happened? You look worried.”

  “Valentina is a dear, but at times she’s just too sensitive, almost like a child. Since this thing happened here – Margherita’s death, I mean – she’s been so… disconcerted. We paid a lot for this retreat, but she isn’t really into it. What I mean is we joined the writers’ group because she was so enthusiastic about it. She’s always looked up to Annika as a role model, so when she found out about this group led by Annika, she insisted we had to join…”

  “And was she as eager to come on this second retreat?”

  “Yes! She hadn’t liked Margherita at all, but we were all happy we’d got rid of her… possibly that’s the wrong expression to use in the present circumstances.” As usual, Vittoria was doing both the questioning and the answering, making Giò’s job easy. “What I mean is we felt relieved she was no longer part of the group. And then when Valentina saw her walk through the door, it came as a huge shock to her, but hers was a childish reaction. Life is never easy – the very thing you dread the most has a tendency to turn up. It’s a pattern that repeats again and again throughout life; you can’t hide away from it.”

  “But why did she in particular dread meeting Margherita so much? I mean, I know how unpleasant Margherita was, I saw it for myself, but she seemed harmless.”

  This time, Vittoria didn’t seem too keen to answer the question. “You see, our mother died when we were children, and I became a surrogate mother for my younger sister.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Giò. “It’s exactly the same with my sister and me, though we were adults when we lost both our parents in a car accident.” She shook her head to dispel any melancholy thoughts. “But yes, from that moment onwards, Agnese became a mother to me to a certain extent, besides being my sister. At times, we argue about it, but overall I’m grateful for what she does for me. And though I’ve never acknowledged it to her, I love to know she’s there.”

  “You younger siblings never giving us any credit.” Vittoria grinned, grasping Giò’s hand as if to thank her.

  “We’re not always that aware of our own feelings.” Then Giò remembered her original quest. “And what do you think of Mrs Galli? I think she’s an odd character.”

  “She is odd. There’s something I don’t like about her. The evening we arrived, during dinner, just before they started to serve food, I left the restaurant to fetch the photos of the previous retreat from our room upstairs for Annika. On the way back, I caught Mrs Galli talking to someone in the hall. They were sitting in a dark corner, and I couldn’t see the other person, but I heard Mrs Galli say, ‘You don’t want me to spread that around, do you? Then you’d better do as I say.’ There was something so hard in that voice that the words struck me, even though I was in a hurry. Since then, I’ve wondered what it was about.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “I don’t know. She sounded menacing, evil.” Vittoria paused as if looking for the right words. “I think it was blackmail.”

  Giò was startled at the frank admission. “And who do you think she was talking to?”

  “I wouldn’t be able to say.”

  “A woman? A man?”

  “I couldn’t make out the other figure, but from the way the voice sounded, I’d say another woman. And the likelihood is that a woman would only be that threatening and merciless towards another woman.”

  “But there was only our group at the hotel at that moment,” Giò whispered, “apart from Dr Siringa and Dr Gimondi sitting at the other table, and they never left the restaurant until they’d finished their dinner.”

  “That’s what we thought at the time – that no one else was there. But a few minutes later, Margherita made her appearance.”

  “Do you think it might have been her?”

  “I couldn’t say for sure, but when I returned to the restaurant, no one from our table was missing.”

  17

  A Confidential Information Clause

  The aroma of orange flower water and pastry baking filled the air in her kitchen as Granny religiously watched the golden pastiera in the oven with one eye and the timer on the marble kitchen top with the other. As the alarm rang, she opened the oven slightly, tested the cake with a long toothpick and sniffed.

  I’d say from the smell the pastiera is ready. It was her own mother who had taught her to tell whether the cooking was perfect by scent alone. Nonetheless, closing the oven quickly, she passed her fingers along the toothpick. There were a few traces of ricotta, but none of the dough. The pastiera was ready.

  She switched off the oven, opened it slightly again and waited for the vapours to clear, the temperature to drop and the cake to settle. Only when five minutes had passed by did she take out the cake and put it on a rack so it could cool down.

  Looking at the lattice pie crust she had patiently woven, Gran nodded in approval. It had lived up to her expectations.

  She looked at the clock: 10.30am, the best time of day to go to Maria Lucia, the hairdresser. The shop was closed on Mondays, as are most hairdressers in Italy, so on Tuesdays it would fill up with customers with a backlog of gossip from the weekend. Most women would do their cooking and chores at home early in the morning, so by now the shop would be crowded – something Granny tended to avoid, except on special occasions. And this was a special occasion, she decided as she buttoned up her bright yellow duffle coat.

  “Good morning, Mrs Brando,” Maria Lucia said, her chirpy voice hardly audible over the hubbub and chatter coming from the sofa in the salon. Five women were sitting there, happy to have to wait while Maria Lucia and her young assistant Clelia did their job.

  “Weren’t you happy with your haircut last time?” Maria Lucia added.

  Granny liked to go to the hairdresser four times a year, once each season, and she had only been there the previous week.

  “I was delighted, but we might have Emmegra down here for Easter and I want to be ready.” Emmegra, her posh granddaughter-in-law who lived in Rome, was as stylish and refined as she was empty-headed, but she was useful at times like this.

  “Then we will have to do something special,” Maria Lucia said, scrutinising Gran’s profile as if seeing her for the first time. Emmegra had once gone to the salon and complained about how classic and old-fashioned the hairdresser’s style was, and Maria Lucia was not someone who’d forget, nor forgive.

  Granny, as respectful as a schoolchild, took her seat on the sofa to wait for her turn.

  “Have you heard,” the blonde woman sitting next to her asked, “about this woman dying at the Pellicano Hotel?”

  “Of course.” Trying not to show her pride, she added in a whisper, “My granddaughter is staying there.”

  “So I was right!” The blonde looked at the other women with her best I-told-you-so nod, then turned her attention back to Gran. “You must know all the details, then.”

  And Gran was only too happy to launch into a description of what had happened, taking the attention from Mrs Pecoriello who’d just sat down on the hairdresser’s chair. With her head inclined backwards as Clelia shampooed her, Mrs Pecoriello could only listen, but as soon as she got back to a sitting position and noticed Granny had no more to say, she spoke up triumphantly.

  “What you don’t know is why this woman came to Maratea.”

  “Indeed, that’s what I’ve been wondering.”

  “I heard,” said the brunette sitting on the other side of Gran, her voice sheepish, “that she already knew the writing retreat organiser, that Swedish woman. She came on purpose to create trouble.”

  “And God in his righteousness decided to punish her for having such a wicked heart.” Another of the gossips had her own peculiar views on religion.

  “If God were to punish every wicked heart in this world,” Maria Lucia said, “there would be very few of us left… if any!”

  The hairdresser switched off her hairdryer and Mrs Pecoriello could finally speak again.

  “The thing is tha
t Mrs Durante was meant to meet my husband on Sunday.”

  Silence. A long, long silence.

  All five women on the sofa looked up at her, acknowledging the power of first-hand information. Mrs Pecoriello enjoyed the sight of the open mouths, and only when they started breathing again did she decide it was time to tell them the rest.

  “That woman is – was – well connected in the publishing industry. And my Mimì is going to write a book – you know we’ve had quite an adventurous life. He moved to Venezuela when he was a young boy and there he made his fortune, starting as a dishwasher in a restaurant.”

  The women looked at each other in dismay. They had heard the story of Mimì Pecoriello at least a million times, how he’d progressed from dishwasher to owning a huge chain of restaurants in Venezuela before deciding to retire to Maratea for no better reason than to show his fellow citizens, who had always taken him for stupid, how disgustingly rich he had become.

  Maria Lucia sighed, switched on her hairdryer again and was as violent as she could reasonably be with the hot air and brush strokes in a desperate attempt to speed up the woman’s tale. She switched off the hairdryer only when the story was over and Granny could finally fire her questions.

  “So you’re saying that Mimì not only knew Margherita Durante, he had actually invited her here?”

  “Well, he didn’t know her in person, but a friend of a friend told him she was the right person to speak to. Mimì was to send our driver to pick her up from the hotel at lunchtime – her and someone else who’d help by creating a book trailer, or something to that effect, but then we heard what had happened.”

  “You mean your husband didn’t meet Mrs Durante at all in the end?”

  “No, not at all,” and they could all see how desolate she was. She would have been the star of the gossips if only that stupid woman had had the good sense to die after the meeting with Mimì.

  “And you said your husband has written his autobiography?”

  “I’m not sure he’s finished, but Mimì has good business sense. I think he wanted to make sure he already had a publisher to support him with marketing and all those things I don’t understand, and that woman was an expert in the field.”

  “They must have spoken to each other, though,” Granny insisted.

  “Of course they did, many times before she came to Maratea. And when she arrived, they agreed that the driver would pick them up at 1pm on Sunday, and I had everything organised for lunch.”

  “Did you say ‘them’ – was there someone else coming?”

  “Yes, the man making the trailer.”

  “You don’t know his name?”

  “I’m not sure Mimì mentioned him, but I guess he’d be staying at the hotel too.”

  More gossip followed about whether the hotel chef was at fault for Margherita’s death, but even this group of harridans could find no fault with her.

  “We don’t ever really know what we’re eating,” said the shy brunette sadly.

  Mrs Pecoriello’s hair was finished. She paid Maria Lucia and said farewell, put on her elegant blue jacket and left, only to return in fewer than two minutes.

  “Ladies, I forgot to say something. Please understand that Mimì doesn’t want to make the book public yet; it’s a secret. So everything we discussed in here is strictly confidential.”

  They all nodded solemnly and Mrs Pecoriello left with a lighter heart. But as she walked away, two sisters came in, and within 30 seconds they had been updated on the fact that Mrs Margherita Durante had come to Maratea to meet Mr Pecoriello. By the time Granny left, half the women of Maratea knew of Mr Pecoriello’s plans to write an autobiography, but to be fair to Maria Lucia and her clients, they never forgot to add that the news was strictly confidential.

  Once back home, Gran looked at her hair, horrified. Her white bangs, normally framing her face nicely, had been pulled back into a crest pointing upwards. She tried to comb it down again, but there was no doubt that Maria Lucia could comb hair for lasting effect. Far from being traditional, the hairdresser had gone all out for modernity.

  Sighing, Gran gave up. In any case, she had something more important to do. She picked up her phone and called Giò.

  “I know how busy you are, but we need to act fast before the rumours reach the carabinieri, then the man won’t speak to us at all.”

  “Are you sure I’m the person you wanted to call? It’s Giò here, not one of your gossipy friends. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Mr Pecoriello – we need to speak to him as soon as we can.”

  “Why would I need to speak to a man I didn’t even know existed until two minutes ago?”

  Gran sighed heavily. How slow this young generation is.

  “Because he was meant to have lunch with that Margherita woman on Sunday to talk about his book. And I have reason to believe someone else from the hotel, very likely that Guido of yours, was invited too.”

  “I think… I’m on my way…”

  Giò was too flabbergasted to ask any more questions. Her heart was pounding violently as she ended the phone call. From experience, she knew Granny was hardly ever wrong when gossip was involved.

  “What’s up?” asked Annika, who was sitting beside her in the hall, waiting for the others so they could all go to Il Veliero for lunch together.

  “Something weird. I can’t tell you more until I know more, but I’m not coming for lunch.”

  “You look as pale as you did when you lived in Scotland.”

  “I promise I’ll tell you later. Let me go before the others come down.”

  She marched towards the main door of the hotel just as Guido came down the stairs.

  “Hello,” he said, all smiles.

  She muttered a greeting, but avoided looking him in the eyes.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’ll tell you later, I need to go now. Bye.”

  Guido, looking confused, turned around to see Annika with an equally puzzled expression on her face.

  “What happened?” he asked her.

  “Her grandma invited her for lunch.”

  “But she looked so shocked, I hope it’s not bad news.”

  “Hmm, I hope so too.”

  18

  The Mexican Villa

  “Aargh!” Giò cried when Granny opened the door to let her in.

  “What’s the matter?” Granny asked in alarm.

  “Whatever happened to your hair?”

  Granny shrugged. “Maria Lucia vs Emmegra.”

  “Eh? Are you feeling quite well today, Granny?” Giò asked, hoping that everything the old lady had said on the phone was as exaggerated as the punky crest standing up on her head.

  “But I said no to having my hair dyed fuchsia.”

  “Oh my goodness.”

  Granny tried again to comb the crest flat against her head, but only succeeded in making it stick out all over the place like thorns on a rose stem.

  “Leave your hair, you’re only making it worse. What were you telling me about Margherita Durante earlier on?”

  Granny told her all she had learned at the hairdresser’s. Giò wasn’t too bothered that Margherita had been due to meet Mr Pecoriello, but she objected to the notion that Guido might be involved.

  “We’ve discussed Margherita’s death at length and he’s never mentioned having an appointment with her in Maratea.”

  “Well, you’re grown up enough to know the truth: people lie all the time.”

  “Why would he lie to me, though?”

  “Maybe he didn’t. Filomena Pecoriello never mentioned his name, but she did say that someone in your group was putting together a book trailer, so I naturally assumed it was him.”

  Giò thought it over. “I’d assume the same, I’m afraid. I’m going to have to confront him.”

  “How about finding out a little more before you roast him alive?”

  “How?”

  “I phoned Filomena, told her she had been a little
naive in sharing her husband’s business in a hairdresser’s salon, that by this evening the whole village would know about his book. She was terrified, the poor dear. Mr Pecoriello would do anything for her, but when it comes to business, he can be single minded.”

  “What have her marital problems got to do with me?” said Giò, pretending an indifference she didn’t feel.

  “I suggested that if you and I were to visit him, we could pretend that the news of their lunchtime meeting had already spread around the hotel before Margherita passed away. He will appreciate having a chance to talk to you so that he knows what to expect from the carabinieri. They will be the last to know, of course, but in the end they will hear about the meeting and might not appreciate the fact that the man didn’t come forward.”

  “I’m not sure the carabinieri will appreciate us being informants either.”

  “We won’t be informants,” Granny said firmly. “Mr Pecoriello would have found out sooner or later that everyone already knew about his planned meeting with Margherita, we’re just using time to our advantage. After he’s spoken to the carabinieri, he won’t be willing to speak to us, but as things are now, he and Filomena are waiting for us to join them for coffee.”

  Villa Chiara was also called the Mexican Villa, for no reason other than the fact that Mr Pecoriello had made his fortune in Venezuela, and Maratea people had little idea of the geography of South and Central America. It was situated on the outskirts of the village and could only be reached by a serious hike, or by car.

  Giò drove through the tiny rural streets of Maratea, realising how unfamiliar she was with some of the peripheral parts of the town. The satnav directed her up a street that climbed steeply, passing through such a narrow space that she could only hope nobody would be driving down. Most of the view was hidden between unkempt walls made from chipped stone, beyond which she could spot treetops revealing the presence of gardens. They finally found number 224 and, stopping in front of an imposing iron gate, Giò announced her presence into the intercom.