The Prosecco Fortune

by Stella Whitelaw

  ‘I shall lose my job if I am late at the airport. If you don’t want my information then I shall go. Mia madre says I must give it to you. It is my duty. I don’t care if it is my duty. I care more if I lose my good job.’

  ‘Benvenuto, Signorina Boccetta. Please do sit down. You will not lose your job. I will make sure that a car is available to take you to the airport,’ said Claudio, pulling up a chair for her. ‘You have some information from your mother?’

  Vikki Boccetta sat down, crossing one silk-clad leg over the other. She was mollified, now that they were taking her seriously.

  ‘Can I offer you a drink?’

  ‘No, grazie, your coffee is terrible.’

  ‘Si, I agree. There is nothing I can do about it. Please continue.’

  ‘It is not from my mother. I am giving the information. Some years ago, my mother was in danger of losing her apartment. We were behind with the rent and I was not yet earning good money with the airline. This man offered to pay me for a day’s work. It was nothing, really. I had to present this passport and answer a few questions. I signed nothing. The signing was already done and witnessed, they said.’

  ‘What passport?’

  ‘This passport. I kept it because it is a good photograph of me.’ She fished in her capacious bag and produced a maroon-covered British passport. She handed it to Claudio. ‘I had forgotten all about it.’

  Claudio opened the passport. It was indeed an excellent portrait of Vikki Boccetta. But the printed details were for Emma Chandler, address, date of birth, occupation, passport issue and expiry and her signature. Everything was correct, except the photograph.

  ‘And where did you go with this passport?’ Claudio asked. But he already knew.

  ‘I flew to the Cayman Islands, to some office, a bank, I think. I didn’t take much notice of the arrangement. It was nothing. I fly everywhere. Then I flew back the same evening.’

  ‘What was the date of this transaction?’

  ‘It’s the date stamped in the passport.’

  Claudio looked at the dates. ‘Of course. Four years ago, I see.’

  Marco drew in his breath. He looked at the passport details. ‘So you impersonated Emma Chandler, said that you were she.’

  Vikki shrugged her shoulders. ‘How was I to know? I didn’t know her. The name meant nothing to me. But mia madre, she remembers everything. She said this Emma Chandler was now lost and the police were searching for her. She said I must come and tell you. She said it was my duty.’

  ‘How did your mother learn that the police were searching for Emma?’

  ‘She had lent Maria some buckets when the palazzo was flooded. She called by to get them back and Maria told her. Mia madre does a lot of washing and needs her buckets.’

  ‘Grazie, signorina. We are most grateful. I have to keep the passport but I will have a copy made of the photograph for you because it is, indeed, most beautiful. Your statement will be printed and I will ask you to sign it, then you may leave. A car will take you to Marco Polo Airport so you will not miss your flight.’

  Vikki looked at Emma. Emma’s hair was tied back with a ribbon. She wore no make-up. Her dark suit was severe. ‘You don’t look a bit like me,’ said Vikki with some satisfaction as she turned to leave.

  Marco took Emma’s hand and raised her fingers to his lips. ‘Forgive me, caro. I have been a fool, thinking more of my fortune and not enough about you. How can you ever trust me again?’

  ‘It will be easy,’ said Emma. ‘Because I’ve never stopped loving you.’

  ‘I am mortified. I should be flogged. Commissario Morelli, thank you. I cannot thank you enough. You and the professor. You have given me back my life and given me back Emma.’

  ‘But not your money.’

  ‘I don’t care about the money. Emma is more important.’

  ‘Will you have to charge Vikki Boccetta?’ Emma asked anxiously. ‘What she did is against the law, isn’t it? Using a false passport? But her mother sounds quite poor and she would be devastated.’

  ‘I may forget to charge Vikki. I have such a poor memory,’ said Claudio vaguely. ‘Instead, I will send her mother some flowers. Maybe she will have to stand them in a bucket.’

  The laughter lifted the atmosphere. It was a moment for everyone to remember. Claudio opened the passport. He would scan it immediately and send details to Scotland Yard. The professor could catch his plane back to London. As for Emma and Marco, they had the rest of their lives.

  ‘What would you like to do?’ Marco asked, wondering how he was ever going to make amends to Emma.

  ‘I would like to go home.’

  ‘To London, with the professor?’

  ‘No, home with you.’

  ‘To the palazzo?’

  ‘Wherever you are is home,’ said Emma.

  epilogue

  Marco and Emma were married in the dell’Orto vineyard. It was a glorious May day with spring flowers everywhere around the house and up the outside stairs, and already the blossom was heavy on the vines.

  ‘It is going to be a good harvest,’ said Marco, taking Emma for an early-morning walk among the vines.

  No superstition here about not seeing the bride on the wedding morning. Emma had woken with Marco’s dear dark head on the pillow beside her, his breathing sweet and even. It was what she wanted. It was what they both wanted. They had waited long enough. It had been an intense pleasure with waves of ecstasy. They floated down to earth, equally spent.

  ‘Yes,’ said Emma, quietly. ‘It’s going to be a very good harvest.’

  It had started off being a small, private wedding, but it had grown.

  The accounts staff, Rocco and Luka and the secretaries, were being driven over from Venice, along with Maria and Professor Windsor, who was delighted to return to Venice. Many of the plant staff were also coming, in their own cars, as it was not far. Marco also had some business friends he wanted to invite.

  ‘What about you, mia caro?’ he asked tenderly. ‘Have you no one you want to invite?’

  ‘No one,’ said Emma. ‘I’ve never had anyone. No family. Even my little cat died. My foster parents put him to sleep. I would like a cat.’

  ‘You will have a small kitten, but promise it will not go on a lead and collar like a slave. A cat should always have his freedom.’

  Marco took her in his arms in the vineyard, amongst the vines, his lips warm and passionate on her mouth. ‘Soon this will be legal. Today you will be Signora dell’Orto, my wife.’

  ‘Your wife,’ breathed Emma. ‘It’s like a dream.’

  ‘A dream coming true.’

  There was nothing remotely suitable in Francesca’s wardrobe for a wedding. Emma also thought it would be tactless to remind everyone of what had happened to that poor, hapless young woman.

  So Emma shopped in London, on her trip back to vacate her flat and put some of her possessions into storage. She visited the London office and handed in her resignation to the new partners.

  The names of Irving Stone and his son Harry had been removed from the office doors, from the stationery. The firm would have a new name.

  ‘Now you can promote someone else,’ she told the new partners. ‘I am going to work for my husband. Signor Bragora is about to retire and I shall take over his workload. But now that Professor Windsor and the Japanese expert have traced the hacking back to the installation system, and black-walled it, all will be well. The system is going to be modernized and there will be no more problems. All that is lost is two years’ income.’

  She did not say that this amounted to many millions of euros. Marco said he could absorb the loss. She believed him.

  ‘You’re already starting to sound like an Italian,’ said one of her colleagues, noting the elegant navy and red trouser suit, the flamboyant red blouse. ‘And to look like one.’

  ‘I feel Italian,’ said Emma. She grinned. ‘It’s all the good wine I have been drinking. And the pasta I have been eating.’

  Her coutur
e London wedding dress was gossamer cream silk, low cut but with long medieval sleeves, tiny pearls sewn along every seam. It was ankle length so that it would not get dirty walking outside in the vineyard. Her cream shoes had kitten heels so that she could walk over the rough ground.

  Paola had said that there was grandmother’s lace veil stored away and by tradition it should be worn. Emma did not argue. It was easier not to argue. She would have worn a tea cosy on her head, if that was what Marco wanted.

  But the lace veil was beautiful, almost falling apart with age. It might last the ceremony. Then it could be put away, carefully folded into tissue paper for another generation.

  ‘I suppose we should return to the house. I think our guests are beginning to arrive,’ said Marco, curving his arm around her slender waist.

  ‘Do we have to?’

  ‘A wedding is a family duty.’

  The yard was being decorated by the vineyard workers’ children with flowers and garlands and streamers everywhere. Another group were enthusiastically blowing up silver balloons and hanging them from trees.

  ‘Very … rural,’ said Emma, laughing, unable to find the right word.

  ‘Not your posh wedding in the palazzo in Venice,’ said Marco.

  ‘I didn’t want a posh wedding.’

  ‘Neither did I. But when we return to Venice, we will have a grand party in the palazzo and a blessing in a church. You can choose the church. So many to choose from.’

  He left her, as he always would, to greet his business friends and offer them refreshments. Emma did not mind. Marco would never change. But he would always be hers, in body and soul. They were soulmates. Nothing could change that.

  Emma went to greet Claudio Morelli. He had had an emergency operation for an ulcer in Milan but was recovering well. His skin had a good colour and he did not look tired any more.

  ‘It was a very small growth,’ he said. ‘But it was benign so all is well.’

  ‘I’m so glad,’ Emma said. ‘We were all worried about you. I don’t think I have ever thanked you properly for saving me from the island.’

  He shrugged his shoulders, smiled. ‘It was my job.’

  Maria and Paola began fussing over her. She must shower, she must change, the hairdresser had arrived to do her hair. Emma let them fuss around her. In a way this was their day too. They had waited a long time for a bride to fuss over and would talk about it for months.

  ‘But first a glass of Prosecco,’ they said, bringing in a tray of the crystal flutes already brimming with the sparkling liquid. ‘We must have Prosecco.’

  ‘To the bride,’ they laughed, toasting her and each other. It was going to be a very merry wedding. They were both smiling. ‘To Signor Marco’s bride.’

  The ceremony was in both Italian and English so that Emma could understand what she was saying. Marco stood, tall and solemn at her side, unbelievably handsome in a pale grey suit, white shirt and white satin tie. Emma had managed to pin his grandmother’s lace onto her piled-up hair and somehow felt that the old couple were here, beside them, nodding approvingly and happy.

  Professor Windsor gave the bride away. It was an honour that almost brought tears to his eyes, but of course, highly professional computer experts don’t cry.

  Marco slipped the gold ring on her finger.

  ‘Ti amo,’ he whispered.

  ‘Ti amo,’ she promised.

  The wedding feast was of gigantic proportions. There was so much food on long tables laid in the courtyard. Wedding guests sat everywhere, out in the yard, in the garden, in the formal dining room. All the doors were open so guests could wander where they pleased, glass in hand, food on a plate.

  Professor Windsor was getting on very well with one of the young secretaries from the Venice office, enjoying her admiration. Enrico was helping to serve the feast, like a butler. His job was secure. He could also think about marriage to his girlfriend.

  ‘So soon we shall leave for our honeymoon,’ said Marco in her ear. ‘Shall we slip away while everyone is enjoying themselves?’

  ‘Where are we going?’ Emma asked. It had been a closely guarded secret. So close Marco had refused to tell her.

  ‘To Lake Garda. I have a villa there but I have rarely used it. What is the point of going alone? I am worried that you will not like it. It is ver’ secluded.’

  ‘Lake Garda?’ Emma could not believe her ears. ‘It’ll be perfect. Of course I will like it. You will be there.’

  ‘Then let us slip away like mouses in the dark. My car is at the back where no one can see it. Shall we say, in half an hour?’

  ‘Twenty minutes.’

  But suddenly Marco’s attention was diverted. He was looking at a solitary figure standing alone at the edge of the crowd like a statue, holding no glass, no plate. It was a thin, gaunt, dark-haired young woman, in a grey dress, swaying as if the spring breeze would knock her over. She looked lonely and forlorn.

  Marco left Emma swiftly, but she followed him. She had already recognized the lone beauty, recognized the desolation on her face.

  It was Francesca. She had not died, alone with painkillers and a bottle of cheap brandy in some lonely French hotel. She was here at her brother’s wedding, still beautiful but pale and desolate. She smiled, hesitantly, as Marco came over to her.

  ‘Francesca? Is it you?’ Marco swept her into his arms. ‘We thought you were dead. Oh my dearest sister, we have grieved for you so.’

  ‘Marco, my beloved brother. I had to come to your wedding. I could not miss it.’

  ‘Where have you been? We searched for you everywhere.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Marco. Am I forgiven? I did not know what to do. I wanted to die but I did not have the courage. I was a coward. At the last minute, I could not do it. I threw the pills away, but I drank the brandy and slept for many days.’

  ‘No, no, you were very brave. But you are here now. You are here at my wedding and we are never going to let you go away again. This is your family and this is my wife, Emma. We will always look after you, both of us.’

  Emma came forward, smiling, still in her wedding dress, veil thrown back, hoping her eyes were saying that she knew how much Francesca had suffered.

  ‘Francesca, my new sister,’ she said. ‘Please stay with us. I want you, I need you. We could be such friends.’ Emma did not say why. Then she added, because it seemed right, ‘I have been wearing some of your lovely clothes, thank you for letting me. Such beautiful clothes, thank you.’

  Francesca smiled. ‘Nothing would fit me now. I am so thin.’

  ‘Please don’t vanish, away into the night,’ Marco was saying, urgently. ‘Stay here at the vineyard with Paola. She will look after you. There is plenty of room. We will be back soon. I have to work, of course. Emma and I must go because this is our honeymoon. We have waited so long.’

  Francesca looked between them but there was something that she recognized in Emma, who was smiling and nodding. Emma did not know the right words to say in Italian, but she was desperate to make Francesca stay, not to disappear again.

  ‘I need someone to teach me to speak Italian,’ she said. ‘Will you teach me? Per favore. Be my sister, help me to become Italian. For Marco’s sake. Because I love him so.’

  Francesca reached out for Emma’s hand. Her hand was thin and cold, like a bird. ‘I will teach you. I will be your sister.’

  Emma was ready in thirty minutes, in blue jeans and a white T-shirt, a travel bag of essentials, nothing else. The pale-green convertible was waiting, Marco at the wheel. He drove away slowly. It picked up speed without a sound. Behind they could hear music, the local band having arrived to add to the festivities.

  Paola and Maria had been told of Francesca’s sudden appearance. Already they were taking care of her, making her feel at home and safe. Francesca hugged Emma before they left. She was smiling and some of the forlorn look had left her.

  ‘You will be my student,’ she said, her eyes already glowing. ‘And we will have coffee
and go shopping? We will be friends?’

  ‘I promise,’ said Emma. ‘Good friends.’

  Some way from the farmhouse, Marco slowed down. ‘I have a special wedding present for you, Emma,’ said Marco, his hands firm on the wheel. ‘Look on the back seat.’

  There was a basket carrier on the back seat. Emma lifted it forwards carefully because Marco was still driving quite fast, the countryside receding in lines of green.

  She opened the end hatch. Inside was a tiny crouching kitten, very pale fur, looking bewildered. Emma lifted him out and cradled him under her chin. He was so small, so lost but longing for comfort.

  ‘He’s a darling,’ she said, loving him immediately. ‘Thank you, Marco. I’ll love him forever, sweet baby.’

  ‘He is a farm kitten from the vineyard. The mother cat, she has many kittens to look after. I know how you like to rescue small things. So will you rescue him?’

  ‘He’s the perfect wedding present, thank you,’ said Emma. ‘And I have a present for you, Marco. Something special. But I will give it to you tonight.’

  Then she would tell him that she was already pregnant and the illustrious dell’Orto line would continue. She was so happy with the news. Marco would be pleased. Maybe more than very pleased. Maybe elated, always very Italian.

  The fluffy grey kitten fell asleep in her arms, half curled up on her lap. She would call him Miracolo. Mira for short, because Emma’s life had now become a miracle.

  By the same author

  Midsummer Madness

  Portrait of a Murder

  Money Never Sleeps

  Promise to Obey

  acknowledgements

  My gratitude

  To

  The Venice Tourist Office

  for their kind help

  To

  Dr D. C. Thomas

  for medical details

  To

  Donna Leon

  who lives in Venice, for her friendly guidance

  To

  Oxted and Worthing Library staff