The Tuscan Mystery Trilogy Read online

  The Tuscan Mystery Trilogy

  Margaret Moore

  © Margaret Moore 2020

  Margaret Moore has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2020 by Lume Books

  Table of Contents

  Tuscan Termination

  Tuscan Temper

  Tuscan Terror

  TUSCAN TERMINATION

  Margaret Moore

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY TWO

  PROLOGUE

  He struggled into consciousness, and with it came terror. He was being dragged along by his legs, those useless weighty things that refused to rebel. He was helpless. He opened his eyes and saw the bent figure, a dark silhouette in the moonlight, intent on moving him.

  “No, please,” he whimpered.

  His legs were dropped quite suddenly, and for a moment he hoped. He tried to raise his head, but the terrible throbbing there increased, and a wave of nausea made him drop back, dizzy and weak.

  The dark figure knelt beside him and hissed, “You asked for it.”

  “No, no.” He cursed as he felt the strong hands turn him and push his back hard. Then came the shocked realisation that he was in the water. It was cold, so cold. He tried desperately to struggle again, as he felt the water close over his head, but it had entered his mouth, forcing out the air, and squashing his lungs, which burst painfully. There was a loud roaring in his ears as his head exploded.

  Then nothing.

  CHAPTER ONE

  When Hilary Wright woke up, she had no idea that within a very short time she would find herself in the middle of a murder investigation. Birds were singing and Hilary felt a surge of well-being. There had been a storm the evening before and this morning the air was crystal clear. Sunlight streamed through the curtains and had woken her early. Actually it had rained for most of June but now, at last, after a sad start, July seemed to be reverting to what was normal summer weather for Tuscany. She had been offered the use of her neighbours’ pool, and decided to take a day off, go swimming this morning, and perhaps have a sandwich lunch at the poolside. She felt guiltily glad that her neighbours, Nigel and Robin Proctor, were away.

  Leaping out of bed, she went to stand naked in front of the mirror, running her hands through her short blonde hair. Thoughtful blue eyes stared back at her. Hilary Wright, at forty-seven had a fine, lithe body, and long slim legs. She pulled in her belly and patted it. “Not bad for an old lady,” she murmured.

  After a quick shower she dressed, in shorts and a tee shirt, before opening the window, and gazing down at the pool. As she lived at the top of a hill, her neighbours’ land lay directly below her house. Actually she thought the pool was pretty hideous. A kidney-shaped, pink, Hollywood pool, it was a blot on the lush landscape, surrounded by pink tiles, pink chairs and dreadful pink raffia sun umbrellas. Cast iron tables with pink marble tops gave it a certain air of opulence, and the huge terracotta urns of cascading pink geraniums were beautiful, but even so, she wrinkled her nose with distaste. How twee it was, how precious and ugly. Then she looked more carefully. There was something different about it today. Something large and dark floated idly in the pool. Without her glasses Hilary couldn’t see clearly from that distance, but it seemed to her that someone was swimming, or floating there. She fetched her glasses from her bedside table, put them on, and returned to the window, bringing into focus a body, floating face downwards. She strained forwards, leaning out of the window, to confirm what she thought she had seen. She concentrated hard, desperate to see movement, but there was none.

  “Oh God, who can it be? What can have happened?” she muttered.

  At that moment the sound of a key turning, and the front door opening, made her jump.

  “It’s me Signora, Pia. Shall I feed the cat, only he’s asking?” It was Pia, her comfortable, rather elderly cleaner.

  “Yes. Please do. You’re rather early aren’t you?” she hoped her voice sounded normal, as she felt rather shaky.

  “Yes,” bellowed the voice, anxious to be heard upstairs, “I’ve come early, as I need to get away early. It’s because of my poor old uncle what’s in hospital. He needs spoon-feeding at lunchtime and I’ve got to go and do it. Maria can’t go because her baby’s ill, and Anna can’t because her it’s her day for helping her mother-in- law, the one with funny legs, and Monica’s starting her three month stint cleaning at the Town Hall, this morning, so it’s up to me. That’s alright isn’t it?”

  Hilary cleared her throat and replied firmly, “Fine.” She heard Pia open the kitchen door and start talking to the cat, promising him food, which meant she would be going into the larder. Swiftly she put on a pair of espadrilles, ran silently downstairs, and slipped out of the back door. She needed to be sure about what she had seen. She had to be wrong. It must be some kid taking advantage of the owners’ absence to swim there. At top speed she crossed the garden and slipped under the wire that temporarily denoted the boundary between their land and entered the Proctor’s garden. Then she slowed down as she became aware that her breathing was quite rapid and she could feel her heart thudding in her chest. She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and went down the steps that led to the pool area.

  “How grotesque,” she said out loud.

  It really was a body. Long black hair waved lazily in the water like some exotic plant, while the swifts and swallows swooped and dived around it, brushing the surface of the water as they caught insects and carried them away. Here was something quite tremendous, yet they were completely unconcerned, going about their daily business unafraid. Hilary felt absurdly shaken. She had no thought to go to the body, to turn it, or see it, or desperately try and reverse what nature had accomplished. It seemed so still and surely dead, that she recoiled physically, stepping back. As she breathed out slowly, she became aware that she had been holding her breath. Ah, this horrible pink pool with this surreal obscenity in it. How revolting it all was, she thought. The body, unconcerned by her presence continued its almost imperceptible movements. The trousers billowed, swollen with air, and the hair lay gently along the surface of the water. She suddenly felt quite sick.

  After that, the phone calls, the busily rushing police cars and the ambulance, made the whole thing easier to cope
with. The ‘carabinieri’, in their uniforms, booted and with guns in holsters, redolent of the fascist era, held no fears for her. She was well known here, a respectable English Signora, widow of a man from this town, Borgo San Cristoforo . While the police rushed about, in response to barked orders, overwhelmed by the importance of this case, for a death of this sort was rare in this small town, Hilary felt herself becoming more and more removed from the whole thing, as though this farcical death in a pink pool had nothing to do with her at all. And it was true. After all, she was only a spectator. It was only chance that had involved her here, and she bitterly regretted that she had agreed to water the Proctor’s plants, while they were away. This had made her the recipient of their favours and thus afforded her the use of the wretched pool. It seemed too, that it put their relationship on a false plane. They were nothing to her, not even friends. She knew nothing about them, other than what they had told her. As an English woman living in Italy, she was often thrown into intimate contact with people whom she would otherwise never have met and with whom she had little in common; people about whom she knew nothing, other than what they had chosen to tell her of themselves. Nationality was the only bond, and she knew it to be insufficient. The Proctors were a prime example of this. They were not her type at all. Nigel, in his early sixties, a six-foot, blustering presence with an anachronistic way of interspersing his conversation with, “Jolly good” or Righty ho” and Robin, his wife, who like many very tall women, was ultra feminine, always coated in make-up, and jangling with bracelets. She was at least fifteen years his junior, with a passion for gardening, which she would work at wearing all her jewellery, much to Hilary’s amusement. She, herself, always wore rags while gardening as she got into such a mess, but Robin sailed forth dressed to the nines and returned after an afternoon’s work looking absolutely pristine. Nigel who was some kind of a computer consultant, would often be called away to distant parts, for work, while Robin usually kept the home fires burning. She had chosen to accompany him this time, as she loved Hong Kong.

  Actually Hilary was quite angry with herself for not facing the Proctor problem in some final and resolute way. In a cowardly manner, she went to their house under false pretences, in the guise of a friendly neighbour, when she was not inclined to be friendly and heartily wished not to be their neighbour. As it was she seemed doomed to a life of plant watering, whilst in return she was to enjoy the dubious benefits of the pink swimming pool. The trouble was that while Nigel and Robin were so kind, thrusting their riches on her, she felt only an increasing irritation with herself for being so feeble as to not withstand these friendly advances. The alternative, of course, was something so unpleasant that she had been loath to have recourse to it. To refuse their advances would have been churlish, and they would have been offended. Adjoining gardens would have made this even more unpleasant. So she was doing a balancing act, walking the tightrope of pleasant, uncommitted neighbourliness.

  She shrugged away thoughts of the Proctors. It wasn’t their fault that someone had died in their pool, and she even felt a momentary pang for them. It would be awful for them to come home to this, to know that someone had died in the pool, which was intended to be the fulcrum of their life in Italy.

  Maresciallo Biagioni, the local head of police, commented to his wife as he got into bed that night, at the end of what had been a very unusual and exciting day for him, “She’s cool as a cucumber, that English woman. No, not cool, cold. I’m sure she would have behaved just like that if she’d killed the man herself.”

  “It’s the English temperament. They hold it all in, even at funerals.” She sounded slightly disapproving.

  “Mmm,” replied Maresciallo Biagioni who was tired and longing to sleep.

  “Was he killed?”

  “Well, there is a head wound, but it’s hard to tell till after the autopsy. Anyway, I doubt it. I reckon he was drunk and hit his head on the side of the pool as he fell into it.”

  “What on earth was he doing there?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps he wanted a quick swim in private.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. There was a storm early in the evening and it was cold. He’d never have gone swimming then and you know it.”

  “I know nothing of the sort. Now let me sleep woman. I’m worn out and I’ve got to get up early as they’re sending someone up from Lucca to take charge of the case. I’ve had my moment of glory.” He sighed and turned on his side. Tomorrow, the case would be out of his hands, but today he had been in charge and he felt that he had acquitted himself well. With another sigh of contentment, he plunged into sleep.

  Despite what the Maresciallo thought, Hilary was very disturbed and had a dreadful night filled with unpleasant nightmares. The one that she remembered, the one that woke her at first light, trembling and bathed in sweat, was of birds pecking mercilessly at a body in the pool, while she helplessly watched the water turn as pink as the tiles that lined it.

  Unable to rid herself of these images, she decided not to try and sleep again. At six she was sitting in her kitchen, gloomily drinking black coffee, while Cassius, her belligerent Siamese tomcat nibbled at her ankles. Thinking about the probably unpleasant day ahead, she unreasonably cursed the Proctors for having built the pool in the first place, as though that in itself had been sufficient to cause a man’s death.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Pia padded about the kitchen, her soft heel-less slippers slapping the tiled floor. She was moaning to herself, “Who would have thought it? So young as well. Merely a boy. What a tragedy!”

  Hilary, who now knew who it was that had drowned, found herself wondering if, instead of being a tragedy, this were not a rather heavy-handed case of divine justice, for he was the person in town that she was least likely to mourn. Apart from a general dislike of the man, and what he stood for, she also had more personal reasons for disliking him intensely, so she took no part in the litany of regret that Pia felt necessary as a comment for any death.

  The dead man was Ettore Fagiolo, a slim-hipped, flashily dressed young man with over-long black hair. He had favoured black silk shirts, heavy gold chains (worn round his wrist and neck, a medallion nestling in the black hair on his chest) and had driven a red Porsche at somewhat reckless speed, given the narrow winding roads in the area. Improbably he had been a real estate agent, who dealt mainly with foreigners, usually British and German nationals who were either seeking to buy a summer house, or sometimes looking for a permanent residence.

  He had sold the Proctors their house, the now neat and trim, re-baptised, Villa Rosa, which had once been Casa Balduini, named after the 19th century owners. The origins of the house were much earlier than that of course, but the Balduini family had been responsible for the complete renovation and enlargement of the house, which had given it its present day aspect. By the time the Proctors bought it, it was in urgent need of repair. The roof had leaked for at least ten years, the period for which it had remained uninhabited, and successive storms, heat and cold, had taken their toll, wreaking havoc, especially to the north-facing wall, which had been severely damaged. Despite the rather daunting amount of work needed, the Proctors had fallen in love with the house, and had set about restoring it without counting the cost. Ettore Fagiolo had overseen all the work on the house, as well as the construction of the pool, which he adored, giving total approval to Nigel’s design. What he had also done, was to overcharge on everything, and gossip had been rife as to the comprehensive cost of the work. Fabulous sums had been bandied about, by the town gossips, as certain knowledge. Nigel, who appeared to have absolute trust in the man, had even given him power of attorney to buy the house for him as he was abroad when the time came for the final contract to be signed. Ettore had also rented out the house for him the whole of the previous summer, for agreeably high rents, even after he had taken a hefty whack for himself. “A perfect partnership,” said Nigel, calling him a “jolly good chap”, inviting him to dinner and generally proclaimin
g him as a friend, until later. Later being, when he began to realise just how much he had been overcharged and, at the same time, found out that planning permission had not been obtained for work that was now completed, and for which, after numerous protests, he had been forced to pay a heavy fine. At one point there had even been the possibility of the council coming to bulldoze the changing hut at the swimming pool. According to Ettore, there had never been the slightest risk of anything of the sort. He hadn’t asked for permission, which he knew would be refused, and had just built the thing, knowing that the worst that could happen would be a fine, known as a ‘condono’ (this fine meant that although what you had done was illegal, the payment of a suitable sum of money would condone

  illegal action, making it legal, a process which often took some years to achieve.). Ettore explained that he had never bothered to tell Nigel about it as it was part and parcel of normal practice in protected areas. Build and be damned, or in this case, pay the ‘condono’. He assured Nigel, over and over again, that everyone did it, but Nigel became very wary and at the same time heard some of the horror stories about Ettore, that were circulating among the ex-pats. There was the one about the German who had bought a house without an access road, but had been promised that he could build one. He was now being sued by his neighbour for attempting to do so (the case was still laboriously going through the courts and the German still had access to his house, only on foot, via a steep mule track.). Then there was the story of the family that had bought a barn for conversion in an area where such a conversion was impossible, as the area was strictly agricultural.

  So it was a gradual awakening that brought Nigel to a consciousness of the truth about Ettore. Once it happened though, that was it. He held forth frequently about Ettore, and his dishonesty. The friendship was over, the perks were over, and Ettore was parading himself as the injured party, especially as Nigel was refusing to pay the last instalment for the work on the pool. Nigel had been served with an injunction to pay. The next step would be to take Nigel to court. Others had already followed that route. Ettore often lost his cases, but he carried on bringing them as a matter of course, fattening the lawyer’s pockets, convinced, that if he held out long enough, people would pay up, no matter what the sum, rather than have the expense of going through the courts for years.