A Murder in Tuscany

by Christobel Kent

  Passing behind the Audi, Sandro glanced through the driver window with an instinct honed over three decades for registering detail. The laminated green card of a Florentine parking permit, Zone E, leaned against the windscreen. A sign at the main entrance to the squat, ugly one-storey police building indicated that the entrance to the morgue and coroner’s office was around the back. Sandro went inside.

  The man kept him waiting for twenty minutes; reasonable enough, as Sandro was himself five minutes early. Not a matter for offence; and in any case Sandro spent the time examining the preliminary material the police had seen fit to share with Luca Gallo and Giuliano Mascarello. Mascarello, he noted, had identified the body; he must have come down yesterday. Had he given them hell? Or had he held back, waiting for evidence?

  There were photographs of the rear end of a big SUV, nose down in a river, though not submerged. A wide shot, taking in the steep, frosted hillside in the grey dawn, a few scrubby trees, the sharp bend and the patch of black ice. Flytipped detritus on the roadside, even in that lovely spot; a tangle of reeds and brambles at the edge of the river. And in that shot the body hardly visible, just a gleam of white that was the woman’s bare leg.

  She had died at around midnight, and it was clear that she was heading in the direction of the town, away from the castle; she had never got to Pozzo Basso, or wherever she was going. For some reason Sandro thought of that hotel, with its art deco frontage.

  He was still absorbed when Grasso’s door opened. He caught the whiff of expensive aftershave but by the time he looked up whoever had been in with Commissario Grasso before him was disappearing through the door, broad shoulders in a dark cashmere overcoat.

  If he was impressed or intimidated by Giuliano Mascarello’s name, the senior policeman, a small, stocky man with black, close-set and unintelligent eyes, was determined not to show it. He was also, Sandro grasped in under a minute, not going to change the position he had taken on Loni Meadows’s death.

  Grasso had dismissed the anonymous email with a contemptuous wave. ‘Conspiracy theory nonsense. Everyone has enemies; even people with enemies drive dangerously.’ His small hooded eyes drooped lazily, as if he could barely be bothered to keep awake.

  Sandro kept his temper; just gave the man a courteously inquiring glance. Grasso clicked his tongue impatiently and went on. ‘Preliminary toxicology reports indicate that she had drunk a moderate amount of alcohol.’

  ‘She was over the limit?’ said Sandro, knowing that she had not been.

  The man looked at him levelly, and went on as though he hadn’t spoken. ‘She was not wearing her seatbelt; on the evidence of the skid marks she had been driving very fast, on a dangerous stretch of road. Two weeks ago, the last time there was such a hard frost, there was a similar incident. There were also traces of cocaine in her blood sample.’ He shrugged. ‘If Avvocato Mascarello wishes to waste his money ona – a – ’ words seemed to fail him briefly ‘– on a private investigator, then it is his right.’

  Sandro pulled out the photographs. ‘And the car? It has been examined for – any defects, anything that might have contributed to the incident?’

  Grasso inclined his head slowly. ‘So far it seems only that the tread on the front tyres was very close to being illegally worn. She drove that car hard.’

  ‘But not actually illegal. And the brakes?’

  The policeman smiled sardonically. ‘No one had cut her brakes,’ he said. ‘If you drive too fast on a narrow, icy road late at night, seatbelt or no seatbelt, then the brakes hardly come into it. You read too many cheap paperbacks, Mr Cellini.’

  Sandro ignored the insult; wild horses would not have dragged from him at that moment the information that, not so long ago, he would have been Grasso’s superior in the Polizia di Stato. ‘Do you know where she was going?’ he asked quietly.

  Grasso was taken aback, as if the question had not occurred to him. ‘There is some suggestion,’ he said, eyeing Sandro with hostility, ‘that she may have been going to meet someone with whom she was having a – relationship. A casual relationship. In Pozzo Basso.’ Sandro got the picture: Grasso and his locals, his gossips and cronies, had this sewn up between them. A nudge and a wink.

  ‘Have you managed to trace this person? This – casual relationship?’ Sandro didn’t see any reason to pull his punches.

  ‘No,’ said Grasso shortly, his jaw set. ‘We haven’t.’

  ‘And that doesn’t bother you?’

  The small, dark, animal eyes hardened. ‘I have no doubt that that aspect of the incident will be resolved,’ he said. ‘To pursue it actively at this stage would be a waste of public funds: it is my duty to consider that. The woman died because she was driving at dangerous speeds under the influence of drugs; we should – Avvocato Mascarello certainly should – consider it a stroke of fortune that she only managed to kill herself. Otherwise he would not simply be wasting money on a private detective, but on a rather expensive lawsuit.’

  The two men stared at each other a moment, and the queer thing was, the more obdurate Grasso became, the more certain Sandro was that there was something to investigate. Why? Stubbornness? The fact that he felt an implacable dislike for the man? Not only that, nor the missing lover, nor even the email, no. It was to do with Loni Meadows. It was something to do with the picture Sandro now had of her last moments, something to do with the fact that the woman with the light blue eyes that had gazed at him so directly out of that photograph, had regained consciousness for long enough to climb out of the car, and die there, where she lay, in the cold.

  Perhaps waiting for help, perhaps knowing no help would come. It wouldn’t have taken long, but those were the minutes that drew him in, those cracks between which her life had fallen, those unfathomable, precious last minutes between life and death, when help might have come, and her life might have been saved.

  Sandro got to his feet. ‘I will need to collect her personal effects,’ he said.

  ‘Ask at the front desk,’ said Grasso. ‘Close the door on your way out.’

  At the front desk Sandro was given directions to the morgue: a simple matter of telling him to go round the back. No one offered to accompany him. He handed over the release form Mascarello had signed and authorized to a young woman in an overall manning a reception desk so cheap-looking it might once have belonged to a fly-by-night tyre shop. She had a tattoo up one side of her neck, a lip-piercing and her hair was dyed jet black. Sandro wondered what kind of careers advice she had received at school.

  The girl led him through some double doors fitted with wired glass, and into an office lined with filing cabinets. Another set of doors led to the morgue itself; through more wired glass he could see the familiar sets of long drawers, and the cashmere-coated back of the man who’d emerged from Grasso’s office and was now in conversation with a technician. He weighed the plastic bag she handed him in his hand, not looking at it.

  ‘Clothes in here?’ he inquired mildly. She shook her head. Destroyed already, then; Sandro sighed. Would it have killed them to hang on to the stuff for a day or two?

  ‘The car?’

  ‘In the pound. There’s a backlog for the crusher. D’you want to see the body?’ she asked indifferently, following his gaze.

  Sandro studied her; was she even interested in who he was, before letting him in there? He shook his head: he had the photographs; he would have the post-mortem details. They’d taken plenty of photos. But really – he’d seen enough dead bodies.

  The man in the cashmere coat behind the glass had half-turned, presenting his profile to them: high, thick hair swept off his forehead, strong Roman nose, luxuriant moustache. It was the man Sandro had seen yesterday morning saying goodbye to his son outside the Liceo Classico Marzocco, which happened to be in Florence’s Parking Zone E, before driving a silver Audi away down the hill. It also happened to be the man whose photograph he’d seen in the brochure for the Castello Orfeo, and half-recognized: Niccolò Orfeo, heir to the Orfeo estates,
landlord and servant to the Trust.

  His phone bleeped; a message. Under the indifferent gaze of the lip-pierced orderly, he got it out and looked at it.

  It was from Giuli: Bellagamba called, Carlotta announces she’s going out, won’t be back till morning. I’m to follow. He snapped the phone shut.

  And something clicked into place.

  ‘Maybe I will view the body,’ he said.

  The pots sat in a row on a high shelf in the airy, white studio, and they freaked Cate out.

  ‘I’ll make some coffee,’ said Michelle, unscrewing the little Moka machine, filling it from a tap.

  In six weeks Michelle had only ever been wound up and angry; but as she moved between patting Tina’s shoulder and the small electric ring in the corner of the studio, talking half to herself, even her harsh accent sounded mellow, likeable.

  The pots were still freaking Cate out: it was as though they were looking down at her. Each one was slightly misshapen, and yet they were ranked so lovingly, so carefully, as though they were on display in the therapy unit of some hospital ward, testament to distress or breakdown. The wisps and scraps of things stuck to them made her think of bodily growths, hair coming out of a nostril, bulges, scar tissue. The more she stared, the more they seemed to assume features, looking back at her, grimacing or scowling. They were – good, Cate had to admit. She didn’t know what they stood for – or maybe she didn’t want to know – but they got to her.

  Just tell me, she had wanted to shout, when first they’d come into the room. Tell me what you meant. She made herself wait; she looked at the pots to begin with, to give herself patience.

  ‘Do you like them?’ asked Michelle, arms folded across her solid front.

  ‘Don’t ask her that,’ said Tina quickly.

  ‘I – I don’t like them, exactly,’ said Cate, knowing there was no way to say the right thing. ‘They’re frightening me.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Tina. ‘That’s what I want them to do.’

  And she sounded suddenly at ease. It came to Cate that this was their space, these two. This was where they were happy. Outside – in the library, the dining room, the castle’s spaces – that was a different matter.

  ‘That was what she didn’t understand,’ said Michelle to Tina. ‘All that stuff about it being crude psychodrama – she didn’t understand.’

  ‘Who didn’t understand?’ asked Cate, although she knew the answer.

  ‘Loni didn’t understand,’ said Tina, and her voice had deadened.

  ‘Baby,’ said Michelle warningly.

  ‘I thought she liked your work,’ said Cate. She paused. ‘I remember her coming to see your stuff. Was it the first week?’

  The atmosphere changed subtly; the bright room seemed suddenly cooler.

  ‘That was before she knew. Knew I knew what she’d said about me. Liked my work?’ Testing the words. She shook her head. ‘No. She hated my work. She pretended to like me, so I wouldn’t guess.’

  ‘Little Loni,’ said Michelle in a nasty, baby voice. ‘Everyone had to love her. Never around to take the fall, if she did something bad.’

  ‘Wouldn’t guess what?’ Cate asked, holding Tina’s gaze.

  Tina just shook her head, frozen suddenly.

  ‘You can say it,’ said Michelle softly. ‘She’s gone now.’

  When Tina remained silent Michelle turned to Cate patiently. ‘There was an anonymous hatchet job, of Tina’s last show, in New York. A blogger. Rubbished it. Said Tina was – what was it?’ Tina shook her head, her mouth set and bloodless. ‘A suburban Goth.’

  Cate had no idea what that meant. ‘Anonymous?’

  ‘It was Loni: the blogger was called Lonestar. Plenty of people knew it was her, and one of ‘em told Tina.’ She shrugged. ‘People are like that. They like to pass that kind of stuff along.’

  ‘I shouldn’t’ve read it,’ said Tina, her face in her hands, sounding like a kid. Michelle nudged a cup of green tea into her hands; gave Cate a tiny cup of coffee. Reached up to a small cupboard and took down a bottle of brandy and a shot glass.

  Cate realized she had no idea what time it was. She hoped Ginevra and Nicky had got the lunch hampers out; she couldn’t hurry this.

  ‘But she did read it,’ said Michelle.

  Tina stared into her tea. ‘It was really stupid.’ And looked up.

  For what felt like the first time since her arrival in the castle, Tina’s pale, washed-out face under the hoodie seemed to come sharply into focus. A scattering of light brown freckles all over her white skin, her eyes not indeterminate at all but hazel, green and gold and black together. Her stiff, unbrushed hair like hay. A kid.

  She looked back down. ‘Should never read critics. Never; just get on with your work, get back in the studio. I guess I thought it would make me feel better about it. Mine wasn’t the only life she trashed.’

  Michelle put out a calming hand. ‘Come on,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Don’t beat yourself up about it. I know it feels bad – but she didn’t wreck your life, baby. It’s nothing.’

  Cate found herself wondering whose idea it had been to light the fire, to destroy the stuff? Tina’s? She doubted it.

  ‘And then?’ she prompted gently. And Tina raised her blotchy, unhappy face to hers. ‘So I did it,’ she said.

  ‘Did what?’ Tina’s head went down again and she mumbled.

  ‘I made her. Made a – made a Loni doll.’ And lifting her head to Cate’s mystified face, she said, ‘You know what obeah is? Vudou? I made a poppet. A voodoo doll.’

  ‘Voodoo,’ repeated Cate, and her eyes went to the row of pots ranked above her, with their malignant little misplaced features. On the Caribbean cruises, the kindly, overweight American women came back with those rag-dolls, of sticks and cloth, and fake scrolls. Disney witchcraft.

  ‘I didn’t think it would work,’ said Tina tonelessly.

  ‘It didn’t work,’ said Michelle roughly, interrupting her. ‘Just stop it, kid. Now.’

  Cate’s mother believed in exorcism, and evil spirits, and faith healing; Cate had always groaned and held her head at the mention of this or that creepy priest, and now it seemed downright dangerous lunacy.

  ‘She’s right,’ she said, taking hold of Tina’s arms at the elbow and looking into her face. ‘You mustn’t talk about this. Are you crazy?’ No one should know about this: they’d lock the girl up.

  It was this place. If Cate was anywhere else, down in Pozzo, hanging out with Vincenzo, at home with her mother or eating ice-cream in her home town with the girls she’d grown up with – this would just be laughable. Stupid. Kids’ stuff; a girl with a grudge makes a voodoo doll of a mean teacher. In this place, with the high grey walls of the castle always at her back, the cold, dark corridors, the wide, empty, frozen countryside that stretched for miles, with only taciturn farmers between her and civilization – here, Cate was frightened. And Cate was not easily frightened.

  She took a deep breath. ‘You did something stupid, but you didn’t kill her.’ She turned to Michelle. ‘What did she put on that – thing? The doll?’

  ‘I made it out of clay,’ said Tina. ‘I – got hold of some of her hair.’ She looked to Michelle, as if asking permission, but Michelle’s face was just set grimly. ‘From out of her hairbrush. And that cloth – it was a headscarf of hers.’

  Cate looked from one of them to the other, barely able to believe the madness of it.

  ‘The scarf got mixed up in my laundry,’ said Michelle defiantly. ‘It’s what gave Tina the idea.’

  The pots stared down at her, Tina and Michelle’s faces each distinctly and separately crazy, in the open door the smell of burnt hair and cloth still hung, and all at once Cate found she couldn’t stay in there any more.

  Outside the sky seemed lower than ever, and darker; the wind had whipped up and it felt bitterly cold, and damp with impending snow. Far off in the woods came the crack of hunters’ guns, followed by the dogs’ baying.

  Cate lo
oked inside the oil drum: the blackened and incinerated mess looked disgusting. Tina and Michelle came up behind her. Cate leaned in, extended an arm, hesitated.

  ‘What should we do with it?’ said Tina.

  From above them, where the cypresses ended and the grey bulk of the castle rose dark in the feeble afternoon light, came a shout. Cate turned at the sound: it was Tiziano, muffled up in his wheelchair. He raised a hand, and Cate waved back. He shouldn’t try to come down; the gravel path was tricky. Unwillingly she looked back into the drum, and saw a longish piece of crumbling, blackened clay that might have been a bone.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, averting her eyes.

  She looked back up; Nicki was up there now, a hamper in her arms, walking awkwardly down towards them on the uneven path, tottering as she turned back to wave to Tiziano. Ridiculously, Cate didn’t want Nicki to look inside the drum; Nicki was just a kid.

  ‘I’ll get rid of it for you,’ she said quickly. ‘Just put it round the back.’ Tina smiled, with timid gratitude.

  And Cate almost ran, up over the stones, towards Tiziano, in time to see his wide smile turn wary. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked with concern as she reached him. Kneeling next to him, getting her breath back, Cate managed a smile. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. Over Tiziano’s shoulder she saw someone else emerge from around the side of the castle, walking fast under the trees.

  ‘I thought you might take me for a walk,’ said Tiziano, and Cate smiled more broadly, because Tiziano didn’t need someone to push his chair. She stopped herself, not wanting him to think she was laughing at him.

  She sat back on her haunches. ‘Sure,’ she said, her eyes on the thin, tense figure skirting the walls in a long overcoat. It was Alec Fairhead. Seeing them, he came to a halt. Getting to her feet, Cate waved, then looked back down at Tiziano. He caught her hand. ‘So you will?’