by C. A. Larmer
She breathed deeply again but didn’t have the energy to answer him.
“Candace loved this part of the walk best. They call it the Via dell'Amore, you know?” The Way of Love.
“Yes,” Roxy managed. “I read that.”
He looked down at the sea. “All she wanted was for me to accompany her on this walk. So many times she asked, so many times I said no.” He turned to face her. “It was her thing, you see, I wasn’t really into hiking ...” He emitted a small groan and she wondered if he was crying. “If only I’d walked with her ... instead ...”
“What do you want, Donald?” Roxy interrupted, her confidence returning.
He turned to face her full on then and his eyes were red and wet. “I didn’t kill my wife, or your friend. I didn’t do it, you have to believe me.”
Roxy glanced around him, hoping to see someone, anyone, come along the path. There was not a soul about. “So why do the police think you did?”
His shoulders drooped. After several minutes he said, “They think I’ve been having an affair.”
“With Maria, yes, I know.”
“But it’s not true! It’s just not!”
“So why would they say it?”
He sniffed loudly and his eyes filled with something akin to embarrassment. “Because ... while my poor wife was here, walking with some other man, I ... I was in Maria’s bed.”
“What?”
Donald leaned his back against the fence and dropped his head into his hands, his voice muffled now as he spoke. “I’m so confused. I ... I drink and I black out. I woke up in her bed that day ... In Maria’s bed. We must have ...”
He didn’t say any more, his face still hidden by his hands and Roxy knew she had to act. She needed to get away from this precarious part of the cliff walk. She glanced around and spotted a grassy ledge a few metres back towards town. It was flat and it was safer than the rock face she was now wedged against.
She took another deep breath and said, “Do you mind?” He looked up and she pointed towards the grass. “I just need to sit down, over there. My back is killing me.”
Her back was fine, but he didn’t need to know that. Donald looked around and then nodded, so she slowly edged her way past him, trying hard not to touch him as she stepped along the path to the grassy patch. She dropped down onto it with a flood of relief, and after a moment he joined her, sitting within spitting distance of where she was now perched.
He was squatting and there were tears in his eyes. “You have to help me. The police ...” He glanced back down the pathway nervously. “They’re gonna come, they’re gonna arrest me, but I didn’t do this. You have to believe me!”
Roxy held a hand up to calm him down. “I do believe you, Donald.”
He stared hard at her. “Really?” He did not look convinced.
“Yes, but you need to back up a little. Let’s start at the beginning, that Friday your wife disappeared. Can you tell me what happened?”
He swallowed hard. “We had breakfast together.”
“At Ted’s?”
“Yes! We always have breaky there. Maria and my wife are business partners. We eat there to support her. We always do. Did.”
“Okay, so you had breakfast at Ted’s. What time was this?”
“I don’t know, 9:30ish.”
“Okay, did you see my friend Max there? We know he was also eating there that morning.”
“No! I swear to God I did not see him.” He looked at her, his eyes fluttering wildly. “I know you don’t believe me, but I never met your mate. Candy mentioned him but I never met him, not here, not at Mt Pilatus. I promise!”
“Okay, forget him for now. So what happened, after breakfast?”
“I ... I don’t remember.”
“Think!”
“Okay, um, Candy told me she was going on a walk. I told her to be careful.” He looked around. “You can see the path. It’s not as safe as people make out.” She nodded, urging him on. “She just laughed at me, said she’d be safer here than with me.” He looked stung now, could barely meet Roxy’s eyes. “I didn’t know what she meant. She’d been saying crazy things like that for days. Anyway, that’s when she told me she had an escort so she’d be perfectly fine. She always used that word, escort. She rarely named these blokes, but she was a bloody flirt, my Candy. She always found one willing guy or another.” He met Roxy’s eyes then. “You have to understand, she was perfectly harmless, she just flirted with whoever she needed to flirt with to get them to accompany her on her walks. It never went anywhere, I can assure you.”
That did assure Roxy, but she wondered if Max knew; if he had been led up the garden path by Candy, both literally and figuratively. Still, it wasn’t really the point now.
“Did your wife say who was escorting her on the walk that day? The day she disappeared?”
“No! I assumed later that it must have been your friend, the one that also went missing.”
“Max.”
“Yeah, well, that makes sense, right? You said he had walked with my wife at Mt Pilatus and then came here, so I assumed that must be the man. I told the police this but they won’t believe me.”
“But why didn’t Candy tell you his name?”
“I don’t know! I wish she had, God I wish she had. She just said she was heading off and then she laughed and said, ‘If I’m not back by four, send out the search party.’” His eyes filled with tears. “I thought she was joking.”
Roxy shivered a little at the woman’s prophetic words but she knew she didn’t have much time so she had to hurry him along. He was right, the police were no doubt searching the town for him now and she needed to find out everything she could before he was locked away and out of her reach. “So what happened then? Candy left the café to go for a walk. When was that? Exactly?”
“I told Rossi, Candy left Ted’s to get ready for her hike some time before ten, at least that’s what I remember. I stayed around to finish breakfast and it’s all a blur after that.” He offered a remorseful smile. “I’d been drinking mimosas at brunch, Candy didn’t, she wanted to keep a clear head for her hike, but I was relaxed, you know, I was chilling out. I was on holiday.” He sighed. “Anyway, I must have drunk more than I realised because the next few hours are ... well, they’re a wipeout.”
“That’s a lot of champagne.”
He nodded his head sadly. “I woke up around three-ish.”
“That Friday afternoon?”
“Yes. Oh God, this is the bit I don’t understand ... I woke up in Maria’s bed, I was shocked.”
“How did you end up in her bed?”
“I don’t know! That’s the crazy bit. I just don’t know. I’d never been there before, I swear to you! I have never slept with her before. Ever, in my life. We’ve been coming to Rio’ for years now and I never so much as looked twice at Maria. Why ... now?”
“Was Maria there? In bed beside you?”
“Of course not!”
“So how did you know it was her bed?”
He looked confused for a second, said impatiently, “Because her things were in there, of course, and because it was upstairs, in the back of her café. I know she has a room back there. She stays there, sometimes, when she’s fighting with the hubby. Which is, like, always.”
“Maria’s married?” That was the first anyone had mentioned that.
“Yes,” he said and went to say something else when an Asian man suddenly appeared from around the bend in the path, followed quickly by a petite woman and a young boy. They were clearly tourists and the man was holding a large iPad out, snapping away furiously.
“The path is closed!” Roxy called out to them, eager to get them out of the way. She didn’t believe Donald was a threat, but she didn’t want to risk it either. “You have to go!”
They looked at her, uncertain for a few minutes then said something to each other, bowed their heads and turned back the way they had come. When they disappeared behind the bend again, Roxy exhal
ed then glanced at Donald who didn’t seem to have even noticed them.
She was running out of time. “Okay, so when you woke up around three on Friday, you were still at Ted’s, in Maria’s room? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes! I stepped out of the room and down the stairs and found myself in the corridor, just outside the kitchen. I had a throbbing headache and I just needed to get out of there. I used the back exit and took off.”
“Why the back exit?”
He held his head to one side. “I’m not an idiot. I knew how it’d look. Doesn’t matter, anyway, I got busted.”
“Someone saw you? Who? Valentino?”
“No, thank God! Jesus, he would’ve punched me out. Nah, it was Sofia. She was just knocking off for the day.” He groaned. “Oh the look in her eyes! It was mortifying.”
“Sofia saw you? The waitress?” He nodded. “Okay, then what happened?”
“Then I took off! I went back to our apartment and had a shower and a lie down. I was confused, I didn’t understand what had happened. I woke up quite a bit later and Candy still hadn’t returned from her walk. I waited another hour and then, remembering what she’d said, I went out to look for her. I went back to Ted’s and spoke to Maria but she hadn’t seen her either, so I searched her favourite haunts. Nothing. That’s when I saw the two officers, walking down the main road. You rarely see police in Riomaggiore, at least not at this time of year. So I reported Candy missing.”
He took a small step towards Roxy then settled back into his squat. “I might have woken up in Maria’s bed, but I did not sleep with her, I know I didn’t. I haven’t been having an affair, I never have.”
“So how did you end up in her bed?”
“I don’t know! As I said, I must have had too much to drink and I must have stumbled back there to sleep it off. I didn’t go there with Maria, I promise!”
“Okay, okay, calm down.” His skin was glowing crimson again. “So what does Maria say about all of this? Surely they can just check with her and she can set the record straight.”
“She denies it, of course! But the police don’t believe her, that’s the problem. Someone seems to have given them the impression that we’d been having it off for ages. Someone ...” he swallowed hard, “someone has been telling them lies, telling them that I threatened my wife. That I wanted her dead.”
“So you could be with Maria?”
“Yes, but it’s not true! None of it. I loved my wife, I would never hurt her, I would never betray her, never!”
Roxy sighed with exasperation. “But who would do this to you, Donald? Why?”
He looked up, defeated, and whispered, “I wish to God I knew.”
Roxy didn’t know whether Donald Marlow was spinning her a lie or whether he really was speaking the truth, but her instincts told her the latter. He seemed too distraught and strung out, but perhaps he was just a very good actor.
Then it occurred to her. “That’s your alibi.”
He blinked rapidly. “What?”
“Whether you were sleeping with Maria or not, you woke up in Maria’s bed so you couldn’t have killed Candy. Don’t you see? You have an alibi.”
He was shaking his head again. “You don’t get it. I woke up alone.”
“Yes, but Sofia saw you come out around 3:00 p.m. She can vouch for you.”
“No, no, the police are saying I snuck in the back door of the restaurant after killing my wife and pretended I’d been in Maria’s room all that day. I most certainly do not have an alibi.” He began shaking his head like a crazy man again. “Don’t you see! Someone’s doing this to me! Someone’s lying about me, they’re trying to pin this on me!”
“But why would they do that, Donald? Why?” When he didn’t answer, she said, “Could it be Maria?”
“Noooo,” he said, shaking his head. “She wouldn’t do that to me.”
“Are you sure? Did Candy leave Maria anything in her will? Her share of the apartment they co-owned?”
“No, that comes to me ...” His head stopped shaking. “Unless of course something happens to me, then it reverts to her. Oh bloody hell! Do you think ... But no, she wouldn’t. Would she?”
His eyes were fluttering madly again and the splotches on his skin had formed a giant red blush.
“How much is this apartment worth?”
“A seaside apartment on the Italian Riviera? A shitload!” He was coming back to life now as the realisation dawned on him. “Candy never let Maria rent it out to tourists, always wanted it available should she drop in without notice. She also didn’t like the idea of strangers sleeping in her bed. But Maria tried to change her mind a few times. Candy always refused. I thought ... I thought Maria was happy, I thought she was fine with the arrangement.”
“So she and Maria never used it as a holiday rental?”
“No, well occasionally when Maria made a real fuss, but most of the time, no. Which is crazy, really. They could rent it out for a bomb.”
“So how did they make their money back?”
“They didn’t. Candy had more than enough, she just didn’t care about that.”
Ah yes, thought Roxy. But perhaps Maria did.
Before Roxy could say another word, a loud voice came out of nowhere, making them both jump.
“Police! Stay where you are!”
Roxy looked up to find Officer Giuseppe standing at the very edge of the path where it dipped around and disappeared back towards town. She snuck a glance at Donald but it was as though he hadn’t heard him, his head back in his hands again.
How would he react? she wondered, not daring to look to her left where the cliff edge dropped away. Sure, there was a fence there, but she still didn’t like her chances.
She looked back at Giuseppe who was motioning for her to come towards him with one hand as the other held a gun, pointed straight towards Donald. A second officer appeared behind him.
Roxy took a deep breath and edged her way on her bum, a few paces away from Donald, towards the police.
“I should just end it now,” Donald said then, so softly Roxy could barely hear him.
She stopped moving. “What?”
He rested his chin on his hands and stared out at the view. “Maybe it’s time I joined my wife.”
Roxy held a hand up to Giuseppe who had been creeping forward, hoping to stall him. She said to Donald, “But you didn’t kill her, right?”
He shifted his eyes to look at her. There was hurt there now, and something else. Was it relief? “You really believe me?”
“And they will, too.” She indicated the police. “But not if you throw yourself over. Then whoever’s doing this to you will get away with it, and you’ll go down in history as a murderer.”
She shuffled her bum back towards him. “It’s time to stop this, Donald. You need to hand yourself in.”
“I didn’t do it,” he said softly again. “I didn’t kill my wife and I didn’t hurt your friend either.”
He dropped his head back down and began to cry then, loud, gut-wrenching sobs, and Roxy stayed exactly where she was as the officers closed in. Giuseppe grabbed her right arm and dragged her out of the way as the second officer pounced on Donald, pushing him to the ground and pulling both his hands behind his back, cuffing them into place.
“Are you okay?” Giuseppe asked and Roxy nodded.
“He hasn’t hurt me. I’m fine.”
She stepped aside as he took Donald into custody, reading him his rights in Italian, whatever good that would do.
“I’m innocent,” were the last words Donald said, his eyes beseeching hers as he was led back down the path.
Chapter 29
Back on the main read, just next to Ted’s, Roxy, Caroline and Sofia were watching the police load Donald in the back of their patrol car, his head bowed low, his skin oddly pasty now.
Giuseppe said something to the officer and then stepped across to Roxy. “Can you come up to the station later, for a statement?”
> She nodded. “Of course. But please, you need to understand, he never harmed me. He just needed to talk.”
“Terrifying place to have a conversation!” Caroline spat, still convinced the man was a lunatic.
“Be sure to be there by midday,” Giuseppe added, “because we will be closing up the police station this afternoon. Commanders Rossi and Constantini will be returning full time to La Spezia now.”
“And you?”
“I will be back tomorrow afternoon.” He turned to look at Caroline. “We will resume searching for your brother then. I am sorry we can not do it any sooner. We have a major emergency back in La Spezia, we just do not have the manpower.”
Caroline looked outraged but before she could object, Roxy quickly asked, “How did you find me?”
“You can thank Sofia for that,” Caroline snapped. “She alerted the police who had no idea where Donald had disappeared to.” She glowered at Giuseppe. “You guys had been chasing your tails for the past hour. If it wasn’t for Sofia, well ...” She mock shuddered, not daring to think.
Sofia smiled sheepishly. “I see Mr Marlow take-eh the path, just like you. I worry for you.”
“And thank God you did!” gushed Caroline.
But Roxy was not so worried. She turned to Giuseppe. “So what will happen to Donald now?”
“I will take him back to La Spezia where he will be detained until his bail hearing.”
“Oh God, he won’t get bail, will he?” said Caroline.
Giuseppe ignored this and said, “You will be safe now, Miss Parker. I can assure you.”
Roxy thought about this. She had never felt unsafe in Donald’s presence. At no point had he threatened her and she couldn’t see him threatening his wife or Max, for that matter. She couldn’t imagine that small, fearful man overcoming either of them and throwing them to their deaths. None of it made sense.
She considered Maria’s part in all of this. If Donald was telling the truth, was Maria the guilty party? She had no alibi, after all, and she had a lot to gain from the removal of the Marlows. She shook her head. If Donald couldn’t throw two adults over the cliff, there was even less chance that Maria could.