A Murder in Tuscany

by Christobel Kent

  ‘I’ve already spoken to Bellagamba,’ he’d said briefly, to get her disappointment out of the way. ‘I told him you would be quite happy to come and report to him on our progress so far with his daughter, but there was in fact little of consequence to say. He seems happier already, to be honest, just to have us – involved. We agreed, if she goes out again over the weekend, he’ll be in touch. With you.’

  Bellagamba, a man of few words, had indeed grunted his assent; relieved more than anything else, thought Sandro, that his daughter was safely back home in Galluzzo and getting on with her homework. Sandro had presented Giuli to him as his equal in surveillance as boldly as he could, and it seemed she had been accepted. Giuli had appeared happy enough with that, at least.

  ‘And you,’ she’d said. ‘You’re not really going away?’

  He’d shrugged uncomfortably. ‘Let’s wait and see. What Gallo says; he did ask, though. If I’d be able to leave town.’

  ‘But what about the office?’ she’d persisted.

  ‘There’s the laptop,’ he’d said, absurdly pleased at that moment that he had complied with Giuli’s pleading and invested in the blasted thing. Not to mention all kinds of accessories – expanded battery capacity, mobile broadband – he’d felt completely duped into buying at the time. ‘I can take it with me.’ Giuli had looked at him sceptically. ‘And I’ll divert calls to your mobile. It’ll only be a couple of days, and anyway, tomorrow’s Sunday. Bellagamba’s hardly likely to ask you to follow the girl tomorrow.’ A sigh. ‘Really, Giuli. You said yourself, you’d be better at trailing the girl than me. And I want this job. This – this is a real job.’

  And that was it; leaving town was a matter of a call or two, a single technical adjustment. If Luisa could do it, so could Sandro; up sticks, was how she’d described it, wasn’t it? Some women just up sticks.

  For some reason the image of his own mother came to him, sleeves rolled up and frowning as she knelt among her rows of beans and artichokes searching for slugs, reaching out a hand to pull him, her only child, down next to her. Rooted to the earth as Luisa was not. He had not married Luisa because she was like his mother, though, had he? Even if in some respects they were alike. He had married her for her temper, quick to anger, quick to soften, her sharp wits and the soft skin of her lovely pale neck.

  ‘You’ve told Luisa?’ Giuli had said, giving him a look of deep and justifiable suspicion.

  Sandro had blinked. ‘Well, I will do, obviously,’ he’d said defensively. ‘Give me a break. I’ve only just found out myself.’

  ‘You had an idea last night,’ she’d said. ‘When’s she going away?’

  ‘Monday,’ he’d muttered, not wanting to think about it, ‘returning late on Wednesday. I’ll be back by then. Probably.’

  ‘And if you’re not? It could be almost a week before you see her again.’

  Sandro really hadn’t wanted to think about it. ‘She said we could maybe do with some time apart.’ He could hear himself, a spoilt child. Cleared his throat.

  ‘And actually, it’s the job. They want me down there. There are questions need asking. Apparently.’

  Giuli had hunched her shoulders, staring down into her empty coffee cup. He’d offered her a pastry but she didn’t want one; she was washed-out and withdrawn. This business with Luisa; you’d think Giuli was still an adolescent, their adolescent. They’d dealt with her rage – the fury of a forty-year-old child and the shivering bouts that had followed rehab and prison. She’d grown to depend on them. To love them? And now she was frightened they were going to leave her; Sandro had wanted to say, don’t be daft. But the truth was, he didn’t know. He’d felt sick.

  ‘Don’t they have police to investigate car accidents?’ she’d said.

  He’d grunted at that. ‘Not as simple as that,’ was all he’d say. And he didn’t know the detail himself, that was the truth.

  ‘You’d better talk to her,’ was all Giuli had said, truculently, before she’d sloped off. Out of the bar and back to bed, was his guess. It had been a late night, hadn’t it? Sandro didn’t want to think about it.

  He’d call her. When he had time; he just hadn’t had a minute. Reluctantly he got out his phone in the club’s lobby, and was staring at it when Luca Gallo arrived.

  They’d not done more than exchange emails last summer, but Sandro still retained a vivid impression of efficiency, a polite but economical writing style and the voice, distinctive, soft, deep, persuasive. In person, Gallo was a solid, somewhat scruffy bearded man who looked uncomfortable in his suit. And nervous, to boot. He was carrying a briefcase and an armful of files.

  The manageress reappeared behind Gallo and ushered them through the curtained door and to a corner table. The place was, as Sandro had thought, completely deserted; from an adjoining room there was the muffled clatter of tables being laid. Sandro told the man straight away that he’d read the paper.

  Gallo ran his hands across a near-bald head, then sighed. ‘So you know.’

  ‘It’s about her, then? Dottoressa Meadows.’ Sandro spoke cautiously; he didn’t want to jump the gun.

  Gallo made a tent with his fingers on the polished table. ‘It’s about her. Yes. Her – death.’

  Sandro scrutinized him. ‘In the newspaper – it seems it was an accident. You’ve spoken to the police?’

  Gallo nodded. ‘They say it’s straightforward, as far as they can tell. She lost control, going too fast on an icy road. They’re doing the full post-mortem this morning. They say it’s a dangerous road; there are warning signs but – ’ and he spread his hands. ‘But what can you do? That’s the police line. People are people, that’s what they say; they don’t always pay attention.’

  ‘OK,’ said Sandro. ‘Are you saying you think they’re wrong?’

  Gallo sighed. ‘I’m not saying anything,’ he said wearily. ‘The police say it’s an accident, as far as they’re concerned. There are certain elements to it that – ’ He broke off. ‘There are certain questions. The chief problem is – well. You will meet the problem, very shortly.’ He put both hands to his face, rubbed his eyes. The man needed sleep. He dropped his hands and looked at Sandro with resignation. ‘That was wrong of me. I shouldn’t have called him a problem. The man’s grieving. Of course he is.’

  ‘You’re talking about Loni Meadows’s husband?’ said Sandro.

  Gallo shot a glance over his shoulder and Sandro half-turned to see the woman who’d shown them to their table approaching with a tray of coffee.

  Had Sandro registered last summer, carrying out this routine employee check, that his subject was married to one of Florence’s best-known avvocati? Of course he had. Mascarello was nothing like as high profile as he had been two decades ago, but he was a name; to be truthful, it had been one of the little troubling question marks over the job that Sandro had chosen to ignore, in the name of a quiet life and some easy money.

  Why would you run a check on a woman who must already be well known in high cultural circles, that gossipy, prying mafia of artists and writers and bullshitters from whom nothing could be hidden? A woman who, in addition, was very well connected? That was a question he would have to ask. At the right time.

  The smiling woman took her time setting the coffee things on the table, leaning between them. She smelled of gardenia; nice, thought Sandro, who had never in his life been tempted by a woman other than Luisa. Nice, though. He waited until she had left the room again. ‘So?’ he said, quietly.

  ‘Yes,’ Gallo said. ‘I’m talking about Giuliano Mascarello. He thinks she was – he refuses to believe it was an accident.’

  Sandro exhaled. ‘Why would that be?’ he asked cautiously. ‘In your opinion? Grief? Denial? Or something more concrete?’

  Gallo picked up the briefcase and set it on his knee. ‘I have the preliminary police reports here. But you’ll forgive me if I don’t show them to you now. They are private, obviously. I need to be sure that – this investigation will go ahead. As for Mr Mascarel
lo – he’ll give you his reasons.’ Then he sighed again. ‘He’s used to getting his own way; perhaps there is something like guilt too.’

  ‘Guilt?’ Sandro leaned forward, picked up his cup of coffee. It was weak and tasteless – the humblest bar in the city would have served something better. Even if the girl did smell of gardenia.

  ‘They were – estranged is not exactly the word. They had led separate lives for some years. More than a decade.’ Gallo looked uncomfortable. ‘Or so I understand. They were – at least, she was – quite open about it.’

  ‘And he?’

  ‘Perhaps him also; I have never discussed this with him. We are not – I don’t know him well.’ Gallo made an impatient sound. ‘Anyway, this is not the point. I suppose I meant he may feel guilt because he assumed she would always be there – and now – ’ Again Gallo’s shoulders were up, uneasy. ‘We should get to the point. He wishes her death investigated.’

  Sandro had stopped short a sentence earlier. He assumed she would always be there. It was how one had to live, wasn’t it? One could not live expecting the worst.

  He became aware of Gallo’s eyes on him, and caught up. ‘He wants her death investigated. Yes.’

  Gallo held his gaze. ‘He has talked of engaging a private detective. I told him you had come highly recommended and we had already used you. For routine work.’

  ‘He knows you had his wife checked on?’ Sandro was startled.

  ‘Of course,’ said Gallo shortly. ‘It’s normal, from time to time. Routine.’

  Sandro began shaking his head because he was quite sure that it had not been routine at all. But he stopped; he said nothing.

  There was something about Luca Gallo that bothered him; he could not get the measure of the man. Did he think Loni Meadows’s death had been an accident, or not? There was something he wasn’t telling Sandro. Sandro said so.

  There was a long silence. Beneath the beard Gallo’s round face looked pale and exhausted.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I suppose – well, I didn’t think this was the right place.’ He lifted the briefcase he’d arrived with on to his knee and peered inside. He pulled out a folder and set it on the table.

  ‘There was an email,’ he said, and slowly, reluctantly, he pulled out a sheet of paper, looked at it a long moment, set it on the table and turned it towards Sandro. ‘Anonymous. Ah – unusual.’

  Chapter Ten

  ON THE SOFT RED stone of the the top-floor landing Cate hesitated, a tray of coffee in one hand. On one side was Alec Fairhead; on the other, Per Hansen. Both doors were firmly closed.

  On the floor below, Dottoressa Meadows’s door had now not only been shut, but locked. Cate had tried it. Obviously. She realized that she was becoming bolder, although the rattle the handle made in the great quiet building gave her a guilty qualm. Who was there to ask her what she thought she was doing, with Luca away? Although Ginevra, she supposed, would not think twice about it.

  Cate had been up here plenty of times. She and Nicki shared the delivery of lunches and breakfast supplies; sometimes, out of the goodness of their hearts, they’d return forgotten washing to the men from the laundry room. The guests were supposed to be responsible for their own laundry, but these two – and Michelle – remembered only erratically. Tiziano and Tina were scrupulous, never left a trace of themselves, Tiziano bending supple from his wheelchair and scooping stuff off the floor into his lap. And neither Nicky nor Cate would do it for Michelle, since she screeched at them to leave her stuff alone. She didn’t need her ass wiped, she wasn’t a mental patient, that was what she said.

  Not much you aren’t, thought Cate. The woman was angry, right enough, just like Tiziano had said.

  She’d been up here plenty of times, but everything was different now; the castle was not somewhere she would be leaving in a few hours, to speed down the hills on her motorino, to find Vincenzo waiting on her doorstep in the dark, wanting to take her to a movie and chatter about his day. On the landing, in the warm gloom scented by wax and wood, it suddenly felt very much as though she was trapped.

  Alec Fairhead’s door almost always used to be open; that was how she knew he spent each day sitting at his window, staring out, the screen of his computer blank. She would set the lunch hamper down in the corner of his room and he would turn and give her that faded, sad smile. This place was his last chance, Tiziano had said.

  Per Hansen’s door would always be closed; the further north you went in the world, Cate speculated, the more you liked to shut yourself in. He wrote plays, she knew that, but also screenplays, for films, to make money.

  Were they in there, either of them? She hesitated, tray in hand, on it two cups of rapidly cooling coffee. In front of her on the landing was a beautiful old chair, like something Egyptian, a curved X-shape of polished wooden struts. She sat on it.

  When would this be over, she wondered? When there was a new Director, when the Dottoressa’s husband had come to take her things away and the piano nobile had a new occupant? Perhaps they would give it to one of the guests; there had been some trouble over it going to Dottoressa Meadows, Ginevra had said. The wide, beautiful room with its two sets of windows, its old heavy furniture, the inlaid dressing table and the gilded bed – worth a bomb, Ginevra had said that too, half of it listed in the Catalogo delle Belle Arti, and Loni Meadows had spilled nail varnish on the dressing table.

  Beth had spent a lot of time in there with her, hadn’t she? Gossiping at the dressing table. Cate wondered if anyone had Beth’s phone number, in America? Luca would. Would he have called her, to break the news?

  From downstairs Cate heard a brief but loud cackle reverberate up the stairwell. Michelle; Tiziano would have made her laugh. She couldn’t imagine what he might have said, what things he shared with Michelle.

  As the silence settled back she heard other things. From behind Alec Fairhead’s room a soft sound, like water running over pebbles; she listened harder. A sound she almost knew, and then it came to her; the chatter of a computer keyboard, not tentative, one finger at a time, but hurried. He was writing. She hesitated; better not to interrupt him then.

  From behind Per Hansen’s door, nothing. Cate got to her feet, moved closer to the door, so her cheek was almost against the wood. Silence. She knocked.

  Complete silence. Cate took a cautious step back, her tray in front of her.

  ‘Mr Hansen?’ she said. And then – though she wondered if it was her imagination – after a sound like a low growl, a sound of frustration, the door was opened abruptly in front of her and there he stood, barefoot, in a sweater, red-eyed. Beyond him on a chaotically overloaded table she could see a half-full bottle of red wine. It was eleven o’clock.

  For a moment they stood there, him glaring, Cate shocked into silence. He made an effort. ‘Miss Giottone,’ he said, looking at the tray in her hand as if he didn’t know what it was.

  ‘Caterina,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t disturb you?’

  He laughed bitterly. ‘You mean, was I working?’ She shrugged, smiling. ‘No, I wasn’t working,’ he said, and the bitterness had gone; his voice dead.

  She glanced past him into the room, which looked as though a tornado had swept through it.

  He followed her gaze, then said, ‘You want to come in?’ He stared around the wreckage of his room as if he didn’t recognize any of it. ‘Are you checking up on me? Caterina?’

  ‘I brought you some coffee.’ She stepped past him, still holding her tray.

  There was nowhere to put it down. Every centimetre of the long table’s surface was covered, the half-full wine bottle and an empty one on its side, papers, books, spines split, face down, others stacked in an unstable tower; two wine glasses with tidemarks of dried red in them, circular stains on the papers. A coat lay on the floor; a chest stood with every drawer open, and clothes spilling out or stuffed in. The wardrobe, its doors yawning open, was empty save for one dark suit, hanging. The bed was not made.

  T
his man had a wife; surely this wasn’t how he lived?

  Gently Cate set the tray on the floor. Handed him a cup. She looked backwards at the open door and decided that Alec Fairhead would have to do without his. She sipped at the other cup herself.

  ‘You were – upset,’ she said, thinking of the sound she’d heard him make. Looking around at the room. It was more a statement than a question.

  He stared into the cup. Then nodded.

  ‘Yes,’ he said eventually. ‘I was upset. I am upset.’

  When Cate said nothing, just looked at him encouragingly, he went on. ‘I’m not sure how I would say it even in English, let alone Italian. I was fond of her. I had – a strong feeling for her.’

  A picture came into Cate’s head of the dinner table at which she’d served these guests six days a week for as many weeks, of Per Hansen gazing across the table at Loni Meadows, distracted halfway through a conversation with some visitor or other.

  ‘We were, all of us,’ said Cate. It was what you said. Per Hansen stared back at her. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not all.’

  Cate didn’t know what to say, because of course he was right.

  He was looking at her in a different way now. ‘You like our Tiziano, don’t you?’ he said. Cate stared at him.

  ‘Of course,’ she said quietly.

  He made a sad, impatient sound. ‘I don’t mean simply, like, though.’ He spread his hands. ‘Life is too short, that’s what they say? A very good phrase in English. Too short not to say what you mean. Fond of? Like? Soft little words.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ said Cate. ‘Tiziano is a very special person.’

  ‘He is the opposite of me,’ said Per abruptly. ‘My life has been – quiet. Uneventful. I have had everything I wanted, but I have not been ambitious.’ Cate nodded, waiting. Per took a deep breath. ‘I am a little crude, perhaps, reserved, a little thoughtless? I do not know my own emotions.’ He frowned and she could see he didn’t require a response. ‘Tiziano is open and outgoing and generous, full of energy, everything outward, I am everything inward.’ He sat at the heaped desk, thrust papers aside and set his elbows on the leather. Put his head in his hands.