The Prosecco Fortune

by Stella Whitelaw

  ‘So you are not for dessert?’ he said, amused at the distance she had put between them. ‘Even wearing the so fetching pink-striped socks?’

  He was looking at her socks and grinning. He took her feet into his hands, and stroked them gently.

  ‘The Countess Benedetti called to see me while you were away. She said you had asked her to keep an eye on me,’ said Emma, plunging straight in at the deep end.

  Marco sipped his coffee, dismissing the remark. ‘The woman has a bird’s nest for a brain. Did you tell her to go take a deep swim in the canal?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know if it was true.’

  ‘You are too trusting, my povero Emma. Raquel would say anything to come to my palazzo, to cause trouble between us, to make life difficult for me. Forget it. She is of no worth.’

  Emma’s voice went down in her throat. ‘And she said that you were engaged, secretly engaged, that you had not told anyone. That there would be a big wedding in the spring. In that big white church across the Grand Canal.’

  Marco threw back his head with a great laugh. ‘Engaged to Raquel? Dio Mio! I would rather be hung and thrown into the canal for the fish to feed on. Surely you did not believe her?’

  ‘I didn’t know what to believe.’

  Marco moved swiftly over the sofa and gathered her into his arms. He burrowed into her eager warmth and kissed her breathlessly. The strength of his hunger fired waves of tenderness in Emma and she cried out softly, to ease the frustration. She wanted him so much. His palm was flat against her stomach but she pushed him away.

  ‘Why, why, my sweet Emma?’ he groaned, words in scattered clusters. ‘Why do you always says no, reject me? When you know that this is what we both want.’ He eased back, giving her space to breathe.

  The silence spread and grew into a balloon of stillness. Even the beautiful room had a forlorn, lost look. The air cooled. Emma wanted to disappear.

  ‘You have to tell me,’ he went on, his dark eyes pained. ‘It is not fair. I have to know. Am I ugly? Do I smell? Why is my touch abhorrent?’

  ‘No, no, no,’ Emma rushed in to ease his hurt. ‘You aren’t ugly! You are the most handsome man on God’s earth and you smell as sweet as mountain water. No, no, it’s nothing like that.’

  ‘Then what is it? You have to tell me, Emma. Per favore.’

  Emma shrank back into the past, remembering a wet night in London, the pavements glistening and slippery with rain. Taxis were non-existent. Walking home through the dark was lonely. Memories swam up through the years.

  ‘I had been to a party,’ she said, her voice very low. ‘But I left early because I was tired and anyway it wasn’t my sort of party. A lot of cheap drink and not much food. Very loud rock music. It was making my head ache. But there was an Underground strike so I couldn’t get my usual train home. I had to wait for a bus and then it dropped me quite a way from my digs. There were no taxis around.’

  ‘So you began to walk? In the dark?’

  ‘The rain was relentless. I could barely see where I was going though I had an umbrella. Then I bumped into someone because I couldn’t see where I was going. Then … then … before I could say I was sorry …’

  ‘He attacked you.’ Marco knew instantly. He knew from her voice, from the anguish in her eyes.

  Emma nodded slowly. She could not find the words. She began slowly, trembling as the memory came back.

  ‘Yes, he d-dragged me into a doorway. I hit him with my umbrella, broke it. But he was very strong. I could smell the drink and the sweat and he had a kn-knife. He left me there. I was cut and bleeding. My clothes were torn.’

  Emma began to cry, quite softly, as if she had no more tears to shed.

  Marco muttered in Italian, a string of oaths, hiding his anger with difficulty.

  ‘Somehow I tried to get myself home. I could just about walk. I tried to pull myself together, saying it could have been worse. He could have killed me.’

  Emma was shivering but Marco did not touch her. She was moist, pale, frightened again. ‘Some passer-by called an ambulance and I was taken to hospital. There were several cuts to my face, my neck and my arms … and my legs. I have many scars.’

  Marco felt a long, thin stick of rage grow inside him. He could have killed this man, this stranger.

  ‘The hospital and the police were wonderful but …’ Emma could not say much more. The disturbing memories were too vivid. ‘The nursing staff were caring and kind but the other women in the ward were cruel and heartless. They thought I was on drugs or something and had been self-harming.’

  ‘Did they ever catch him? The police?’

  ‘No, but I think it was someone from the party. Someone who had been there, drinking, and followed me when I left. It was a gut reaction. I had that feeling it was someone I had been introduced to, some stranger. He was never traced.’

  Marco could resist her no longer. His anger embittered the air. He felt the tension in his muscles knotting. He gathered her shivering body into his own, warming her with his closeness, in a sea of sensation, awash with love. The scalding heat of his body fed her with a new emotional ease. She relaxed into his arms, the burden of telling him over. Now he knew that she was shabby goods.

  ‘So this is why you cannot bear a man to touch you. I understand. But the feeling will go in time and I will wait for you,’ he said with infinite slowness. ‘I will wait for you to recover from this terrible thing, even if it is forever.’

  ‘How can you say that?’ Emma trembled. ‘How can you know?’

  Emma could only hear the rain, beating against the windows. They were in a closed world. She had lived so long without this pleasure, without loving anyone. She did not tell him that the police had been unhelpful, that they thought she had been drinking.

  ‘Because I am no stranger to this bad situation for women. You think sexual violence only happens in London? It happens in Italy, even in Venice. Here in this beautiful city.’

  Emma said nothing. She wondered what was coming. This was Marco’s story. She curled in his arms, waiting for him to begin. His face was full of emotion as if it was too painful to recall.

  ‘I do not know how to tell you,’ he began.

  ‘Begin at the beginning,’ she said.

  He nodded. ‘I will begin at the beginning. In February, before Lent, we have the most extravagant Carnevale of all in Venice, a ten-day festival which means farewell to meat. It is celebrated throughout Veneto. The streets are filled with revellers and party-goers. It is famous. Mostly, today, it is an excuse to wear fancy dress and cover your face with a mask, and parade around the city, drinking and eating. The masks are amazing and the costumes so extravagant.’

  ‘I’ve seen photographs in magazines,’ said Emma quietly.

  ‘Grandfather left most of his fortune to my young sister, Francesca, and the vineyard and plant to me. It was fair. He had made money, saved it. For the Carnevale, Francesca always had the most sumptuous costume made by a dressmaker. That year it was a gold silk brocade dress after a painting of an eighteenth-century Empress of Italy, with a powdered wig and a golden mask of feathers and diamonds. She looked regal and magnificent. She was dark and very beautiful anyway. Francesca, my beautiful sister.’

  His voice broke and Emma waited for him to go on. She did not tell him that Maria had told her a little about Francesca. He seemed to recover.

  ‘I also went to the Carnevale, in black, cloaked, as a toreador. There were many toreadors. I meant to take care of Francesca but somehow the time went and I lost sight of her. She did not come home but I was not worried. She could have gone on to a party anywhere in Venice. She had so many friends.’

  He took a few sips of his cold coffee. ‘But then it became very late and I went out to look for her. She could have tripped in the crowds, was limping home. All I saw at first was the sheen of her golden dress. It looked like a heap of crumpled material. But it was Francesca, in a dark alleyway, bruised and bleeding. Her dres
s torn, the mask wrenched from her face, the wig thrown into the canal.’

  Emma went cold with shock. She could see it all, feel it all again. ‘Not more,’ she whispered.

  ‘All her jewellery had gone, rings torn from her fingers, an emerald necklace wrenched from her throat. There is more. I have to tell you everything.’ Marco’s face was dark and grim. ‘I got her home with the help of some friends and Maria tended her. A doctor came to see her and gave her medication so that she would rest for a long time while her body and her mind healed.’

  A gust of rain splattered the window like gunshot, breaking the silence. It was turning into a very wet night.

  ‘Francesca seemed to recover her spirits slowly, but she was never the same. She took no interest in anything. She barely ate, became as thin as a scarecrow. Her lovely hair fell out. They gave her medication for the sadness. They never caught the man. How could they? Everyone had been wearing masks.’

  ‘Poor Francesca,’ said Emma. ‘I know how she must have felt. I had to go back to college. I was studying for an accountancy degree. I had no choice.’

  ‘You were stronger than Francesca. She had lived a sheltered life, a rich girl’s life. She became secluded, isolated herself.’

  ‘Perhaps she knew her attacker and was afraid.’

  ‘We don’t know. She never said. She hardly spoke. Then one day, she disappeared. She took a vaporetto to the station and caught a train to Rome, that much we have traced. We think she went to the airport but we could not discover if she had flown to some other country. I was out of my mind with worry, had detectives searching for her all over Europe.’

  Marco was staring into the distance, reliving every moment. ‘Then we had a letter from her, postmarked from France. But there was no address, no date, only a handwritten letter on cheap notepaper. Francesca wrote that she had had enough and that she could not bring more shame on the family. That she had a bottle of brandy and many of the doctor’s pills that she had saved. That we should not look for her as there was no point and it would be too late. She even joked that it was supermarket brandy, not her beloved Prosecco.’

  Emma shuddered, felt more tears brimming in her eyes. What a waste of a lovely young life. ‘But surely, she hadn’t brought shame on the family?’

  ‘In those days, people were not so tolerant, especially in Italy. Francesca took the only way out she knew.’

  ‘But you would have looked after her, Marco. She could have gone to live at the vineyard, to find peace and quiet. Paola was there to look after her. No one would know about her illness.’

  ‘So we decide now, but it was too late to tell her. We did not know where she was.’

  ‘I can’t say how sorry I am,’ said Emma. ‘How dreadfully sorry for all that you have gone through, for what you have suffered.’

  ‘Now you know why I never let my feelings run away from me. Why sometimes I am cold and distant. I cannot be hurt again.’ Then a smile touched his lips, a genuine smile. ‘There was a postscript to her letter. Francesca wrote: Give all my clothes to a special lady who will love them and love you. And now I have found you. Emma, you are my special lady and I love you. Ti amo.’

  ‘And I love you,’ said Emma.

  Their lips met with a swooning sweetness that held the promise of so much more. The rain stopped and a watery moon peered between wisps of clouds, bringing a little light to a dark evening.

  fourteen

  Emma was barely awake or washed when she heard the front

  doorbell ringing. It was such a strident noise, it could be heard all over the house. She heard Maria open the heavy door and voices in the hall. Maria came up the stairs, hurriedly knocking on the bedroom door.

  ‘Scusi, signorina. It is the Commissario di Polizia. He wishes to see you. Urgente.’

  ‘Me? Can’t he speak to Marco?’

  ‘Signor Marco has already gone to the office. He said not to wake you. He said you needed your sleep.’

  ‘Please give the detective some hot coffee and rolls and I will be down as soon as I can.’

  ‘Si, signorina.’

  Emma threw on some casual clothes. The only warm room in the palazzo was the kitchen and she could hardly talk to Claudio Morelli in the kitchen. No make-up, a quick brush through her hair. It would have to do.

  ‘Buongiorno, Commissario,’ she said as she went into the sitting room. The detective was standing by the window, drinking coffee as if he was a drowning man. No breakfast probably. He still had that gaunt look. She wondered if he had been ill.

  ‘Buongiorno, signorina. Come sta?’

  ‘Buono, grazie.’

  ‘C’è stato un incidente,’ he said, then translated. ‘There has been an accident.’

  Emma caught her breath. Blood drained from her face. ‘Not Marco?’

  ‘No, it is not the signor. It is a young man that you know. The student who acted as a professor – what is the word? I do not know it.’

  ‘Impersonated the professor. The so-called computer expert.’

  ‘Yes, that young man. We have found him. It is not good news, signorina. He was found hanging under one of the bridges this morning. Morto.’

  ‘Oh, how dreadful. It was a harmless prank, very silly, but he didn’t need to kill himself. Perhaps he had no money to get home.’

  ‘I gave him the money to go home by train,’ said Claudio Morelli.

  ‘How kind of you.’ She was beginning to think that the detective had a soft spot, a kind heart. ‘Perhaps he thought he would be in disgrace in his workplace.’

  ‘It was not a suicide. He was bound, hands and feet with wire, then hung over the bridge. If he did not die from the hanging, he would have drowned in the high tide.’

  ‘How awful.’ Emma shuddered. ‘Do we know who did this?’

  ‘Not yet, signorina. But we are treating it as murder.’ He did not add that another murder was not good for the tourist trade. The Vice-Questore had made it clear to Claudio that the case must be solved, quickly and quietly.

  ‘Is there anything that I can do? Write to the professor?’

  ‘I need you to come to the medical room and identify the young man. There is no one else.’

  ‘But I don’t even know his name.’

  ‘We have his name from his passport. It was Brad Phillips. He was twenty-five. Ver’ young. Ver’ stupid. But someone did not like him or perhaps he had discovered something. We shall have to question the people in your office.’

  ‘Of course. Shall I tell them you are coming?’

  ‘No, grazie. It is better that my visit is a surprise. Put on a warm coat, signorina. We will take a water taxi.’ Claudio could order a police launch but preferred not. He used very little of his allowed expenses, preferring to walk if he had time. He could think while he was walking and often it was quicker.

  ‘I’ll ask Maria to bring you some more coffee while I get a coat,’ said Emma. ‘You look as if you have not had any breakfast.’

  ‘Grazie. No prima colazione, many times. It is my failure.’

  Emma spoke to Maria then hurried upstairs. Maria began making the hungry detective a panini with a filling of cheese, wrapping it in clean paper.

  It was still early and the morning air was chilled, hung with frozen dew. Commuters were already crowding onto the vaporetto. Work often started early. Emma shivered into the coat, another borrowed garment. Francesca did not buy anything really suitable for visiting a morgue. But it was dark and warm with big sleeves, the cashmere scarf wrapped round her head.

  ‘So you thought Venice was always warm?’ said Claudio, munching on his panini.

  Emma nodded. ‘Si, very hot. It’s the Mediterranean.’

  ‘In the summer it is unbearable. The heat rises off the pavements. People faint in the heat, some die. You must drink molto water all day.’

  ‘I shall be back in London by then.’

  Claudio Morelli looked at her, without saying anything. Then he said: ‘Maybe, maybe not.’

  �
��There is no reason for me to stay longer.’

  The Questura was an imposing building, bigger than Emma expected. She followed Claudio through the front door. Her bag was put through a monitor. It was cleared of guns or knives.

  She followed Claudio down into the basement. It became colder as they reached the rooms of the medico. The young man lay shrouded in a refrigerator. He was slid out by a white-coated attendant. Emma had seen the scenario so many times on television, but never for real.

  They took away the face covering. No grey beard, just the blond spiky hair. His face was distorted by the hanging and the drowning, hardly recognizable. Emma could not bear to look. But she had to. He must have a family who needed to be informed.

  ‘Yes, it is the young man who came to Venice pretending to be the professor. I saw him at a café, late at night, without a beard. Then I saw him at the office the next morning.’

  ‘Thank you, signorina. That is enough.’

  Claudio escorted her through the building. There were forms to fill in. Emma signed things she did not understand but trusted the detective. He arranged for a poliziotto to escort her to the dell’Orto offices.

  ‘You are not safe,’ he said. ‘You may be next on their list.’

  Emma felt a shiver. ‘Grazie. I will be careful.’

  ‘Careful is not enough. Venice is dangerous for you.’

  Marco was not at the office. He had driven to the plant, where there was a problem. This came before the embezzling of his fortune. Top priority.

  Emma sat uncomfortably in the office, acutely aware that she was not dressed in an immaculate suit today. But no one seemed to mind or notice. She did not mention the death of Brad Phillips nor Enrico’s sudden departure. This was becoming a drama way beyond anything that ever happened in the sober offices of Irving Stone, London. She could not believe that such a sane operation as growing grapes could harbour violent feelings that resulted in the death of two young people.

  ‘You are feeling the cold?’ asked Rocco, switching on an electric fire.

  Emma had the shivers but it was not merely the temperature. She was still seeing Brad Phillips in the morgue, stiff and cold, his face distorted by death. She hoped he had not slowly drowned. She hoped it had been quick. The post-mortem would reveal how he had died.