The Tuscan Mystery Trilogy Page 6

  “True, I agree with you,” said John. “But I like the idea of a tryst with a woman, a midnight dip in the pool and love-making on the sun-loungers.”

  “Bit cool for that John,” said Terry. “You forget the storm finished at about ten o’clock, and it was a chilly night.”

  “OK, maybe he did plan to bed a woman in Nigel’s bed, as Ben says, but he hadn’t actually got her into the house when,” he paused, “when he was surprised by someone with whom he had a violent argument and got his head bashed in, maybe even intruders as the police put it.”

  “Or a peeping Tom,” suggested Anne.

  “Or,” said Giulietta, “some one who thought he was an intruder and went to investigate, but I don’t see why they would kill him.”

  “I’ve got it!” cried Terry. “He had the midnight tryst as you said Ben, with a woman, but a jealous lover or husband followed them, and called him down to the pool to talk and killed him.”

  “Perhaps it was a woman. ‘Hell hath no fury’ etc. He met up with her at the Villa Rosa, for one last time, to break off the relationship. When he told her, she threw something at him, which hit him on the head, and he fell into the pool. A crime of passion,” Giulietta said triumphantly.

  “Could an Ettore Fagiolo really inspire all this passion,” asked Ben. “I can’t see it myself. He seemed a pathetic thing to me. I’ll give you my second hypothesis now, a more sinister one. Fagiolo deals in drugs and decides to use the Villa Rosa garden as a hiding place for the stuff, as he knows the Proctors are away. He’s there hiding it, when someone kills him for it.”

  “A bit far-fetched Ben,” said Sue. “Why would he risk dealing in drugs. He made a lot of legitimate money selling houses.”

  “That shows how little you understand. Drugs are big money, houses are peanuts,” replied John. “That’s a good one Ben, I like it better than the German.”

  “Really you two, I think that’s ridiculous. Who would he sell drugs to around here. Grass maybe, but heroin or coke, which are the money makers, I think not,” said Terry “I don’t think there are too many heroin addicts round here.”

  “How could you possibly know that Terry.?They don’t wear placards round their necks,” said Anne.

  “Yeah, I know that, but surely he would need to have a big outlet for drugs. No Ben, I vote your first theory impossible, and your second, improbable.”

  “Well I still like my German theory best,” said Ben. “I am the only one here with a little imagination, and a profound knowledge of human nature based on thirty-five years of medical practice. My credentials are good, my mind nimble, and while all of you are younger than I, I see no signs of the mental agility one would expect from such a mixed bunch. All I can say is, that if the German didn’t do it, he certainly wanted to, but perhaps someone else got there first!” They all laughed.

  “OK, OK. Ben wins, but I shall be very interested to see what Nigel ‘the computer’ has to say when he gets back next week. I bet he puts it all in a computer and comes up with the answer.”

  “My dear John,” said Ben. “A computer can only compute the facts with which it has been supplied. It is inferior to the human brain in cases where intuition or imagination is called for. What facts could Nigel feed it with? Very few I’m sure.

  Ettore was murdered. His death was caused by a blow to the head (and the police haven’t made public the manner in which that was achieved) and subsequently by drowning

  His murder took place at the Villa Rosa, at some time between 12.30 am and 3.0 am (according to the newspaper reports).

  He had many enemies (I suppose one could add a list of names here)

  One of his enemies was threatening to kill him, that very evening.

  This enemy, the German, was seen to leave a bar, very drunk, in apparent pursuit of Ettore, though how successful he was at following a car, on foot, in that condition, we can only imagine. At all events, the car only went 300 metres or so, so it is possible that he could have managed it.

  The owners of Villa Rosa were away. Having left at midnight for Rome. (Did the German know this?)”

  “You bet he did,” said Terry

  “I said facts, Terry,” said Ben. “Not what you are willing to bet on. Well, if you give a computer these facts, it will no doubt come up with the same answer I did.”

  “Well if it’s so simple, how come they haven’t arrested Fritzy? He’s even been allowed to leave town,” said John.

  “Proof. There is no proof, and without proof, a finger print, a footprint, a hair, there can be no arrest,” replied Ben.

  “You mean it’s possible that he did it, and is free to kill again?” asked Monica, sounding worried.

  “If there’s no proof, then he probably didn’t do it. I wouldn’t worry too much about it, Monica,” said Giulietta. “Anyway, even if he did do it, he’d never kill again. This was a once in a lifetime murder. One could almost forgive him for it.”

  “I know you think I worry too much, but the thought of a murderer at large in the community is awful.”

  “At large! Just the right term for old Fritzy,” laughed Terry.

  “Well, I think that we probably don’t have all the facts. There must be some things that the police know and don’t tell the general public,” said Hilary.

  “Like the murder weapon. The papers haven’t said what it was, but I bet they have it, perhaps they’re waiting for Nigel and Robin to return to get their finger-prints for elimination purposes,” said Pietro.

  “Yeah, and they were combing the grounds, and the house. Maybe they found something there. Until we know the facts, all of them, I’m afraid we’ll have to give up trying, I mean, we’re all talking about the German, but suppose they found a long blonde hair or a woman’s shoe print, or a lip-stick or something,” said Terry.

  “Maybe the German is a cross-dresser,” said Ben.

  They all laughed. “You’re determined to make it the German,” said Hilary “Forget him, and Terry, could I have some more coffee?”

  Most of them were drinking coffee and some were ‘correcting’ it with the local dark rum. Others were drinking home–distilled grappa, as an aid to digestion. They moved on to talk of other topics. The Duomo bells tolled out every fifteen minutes, cicalas rhythmically crrr crrr–ed, and a crazed hornet did a death dance round the light set high over the kitchen door. Food, wine, good friends, voices raised excitably, or laughing companionably.

  This was summer.

  It was late when they all got up to go. They had caught up on news, told funny stories, and discussed the St. Christopher Music Festival, mutual friends, and of course, their children. Now they all called their good-byes, at the end of a relaxing evening. The night air was warm. Moths battered themselves against the light bulbs in the kitchen, and bats were patrolling the area near the hay barn as always. The sky was filled with stars and the moon was nearly full and almost orange. Hilary, the last to leave, thanked John and Terry, saying, “When I’ve finished this wretched translation I’ll invite you two, it really is my turn. Bruno should be back next week, so it will probably be for the week after that. Anyway I’ll call you.” As she walked down the garden path she passed Franny and Jake, John and Terry’s children, coming home.

  She felt really relaxed, back to normal. She resolved that the next day she was going to get through a lot of work. She had let the Ettore Fagiolo case upset her whole rhythm.

  The air was scented and filled with the sounds of cicalas. As the moon was almost full, she didn’t even need to use her torch on the country lane that would bring her to the church and her house by the little used back road. Her house was the last on a road that led from the main gate of the town into the country. How I love walking at night here, she thought. The sky was velvet black, with too many stars, as she had once exclaimed, newly arrived from London, where the sky was a dull vermilion and stars were hard to see. That had been over twenty-five years ago, and she still felt the same way about it.

  She turned th
e corner briskly and walked along between the wall of her garden and the church, where there was the first street light. The bats seemed insanely driven to excesses by the light, and swooped very low and fast, grazing the garden wall, but she even felt benevolent towards them this evening.

  She found herself thinking about Di Girolamo. She felt that he didn’t really think she had anything to do with the murder, so she couldn’t explain to herself what he wanted from her. Why had he stood there in silence looking at her? Was that police tactics, and if so should she be worried? It had certainly been unnerving. Once again she berated herself for truthfully saying what she thought of Ettore. That had been a mistake, but surely he couldn’t possibly think that she had killed a man because she disliked him? Then she remembered what Miriam had said, but shrugged it off. He’d never find out about that. Impossible, and even if he did, what did it matter. It was history.

  Her house was the first on her road from this end, and next to it was Villa Rosa, with all the lights on. “It can’t be the police again at this time of night,” she thought. Could it be Nigel and Robin back early?

  She walked a little further down the road, and saw that their garage was open, their car was parked in it with two doors open, and the door from the garage into the house was also open. So, she thought, they are back. I’ll leave them to it. I suppose they know about what happened. As the owners of the house they must have been told. Maybe that’s why they’re back early. She hesitated, uncertain whether or not to call out to them, but then she heard Nigel’s voice, raised belligerently. “For God’s sake Robin,” followed by a lengthy mumble, and she moved decisively towards her own front door, inserted the key into the lock and went in.

  At the other end of town, Augusta Fagiolo stared at a photograph and asked herself for the hundredth time what she should do. She felt sure that this boy was involved, might even be the killer of her son, but to make her son’s perversion public was impossible for her. She had ripped all the other photos, with one exception, into tiny pieces and burned them in the garden that night with the rubbish from the garden. The next morning she had dug the ashes into the earth. If it hadn’t been for this photograph, the secret would be safe. Should she send it to the police anonymously, and write a note saying ‘This boy killed Ettore Fagiolo?’ If she did that, it might still put her son in a bad light. Perhaps this boy was a pervert who had pestered her son. Would they think that? Could she put them on the right track? She put the photo back in the bottom drawer of the credenza, under the electricity bills. She was certain this boy was responsible for her son’s death. Ettore must not die un-avenged. She would pray to God for guidance.

  ‘Deliver us from evil,’ she prayed mentally.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The next morning Hilary went shopping early. She passed Villa Rosa but there were no signs of life. She did not call on the Proctors, feeling it would be best to wait until they contacted her. Not that she was looking forward to seeing them anyway, as they would have to talk about the whole thing, and she knew it must be awful for them. In fact she hoped they would leave her alone for a bit, at least until they’d seen the police, as she felt sure they would. Besides, she had some strange uneasy feeling that she should not discuss anything with them at all and she felt almost decided to say something that would halt any discussion, like, “I know it’s awful for you and it was for me, and I would prefer not to talk about it,” or something of the sort.

  She paused outside the greengrocer’s to admire crates of fresh vegetables, but only bought two melons, as she had a good vegetable garden, and was hard put to eat all her produce. Ettore Fagiolo was still a topic of conversation there, but there was little speculation about his death now. Things were sliding towards a more mundane treatment of the subject, as though the wild speculation of the first few days had exhausted the collective imagination, and the intruder theory was taken as correct. The discussion over the vegetables was mainly about burglaries.

  In the grocer’s shop however, the die-hard gossips were still at it.

  “To think I only saw him that evening buying cigarettes,” commented one woman, as though that would have been sufficient to ward off death, and there seemed to be some sort of resentment in her voice. Perhaps she thought he should have given notice of his intended demise. Signora Pastore held forth from behind the high counter. She stood on a raised dais, which invested her with an air of authority. Like a public speaker, she praised and condemned, always with an eye to commerce. Obviously the Fagiolo family were not among her customers, as she felt quite safe in saying, “Well he was a wild one, that Ettore, and I always knew he’d come to a bad end.” Then as a sop to convention, “Of course, it’s a terrible thing for his mother, all the same. He was an only son.”

  She finished parcelling up some ‘prosciutto crudo’ and handed it with a flourish, bending down slightly, to a wizened old lady. She banged on her till and pronounced triumphantly “Two euros and fifty cents,” brandishing the fiscal receipt that it had immediately disgorged, and without which no one would dare to leave the shop for fear of being fined. She began energetically cutting into a huge piece of Parmesan for her next customer, her eyes raised at intervals to assess the worth of her clients.

  “What do you say, Signora,” she threw at Hilary. “Of course you found the body and spoke with the police.”

  Her knife smashed through the last inch of cheese with a tremendous thud and she began hacking it into smaller pieces. All the other customers now turned towards her, and Hilary felt coerced into saying something “I think the police feel sure that he’d gone to investigate a noise in the garden, um - burglars or something,” she mumbled, annoyed to have been forced to answer.

  “Hmph.” came the reply. Signora Pastore gave a triumphant glance around her clientele. “Well, I see it this way. If you mind your own business you don’t get into any trouble and you don’t get yourself killed.” She brandished her knife and continued, “You wouldn’t catch me going into someone else’s garden and that’s a fact, no matter what I heard, or saw. Besides, whoever heard of the police getting it right; it would be a miracle if they did,” she paused to allow her admiring customers to consent with a smile. “And if they did get it wrong, then I’d like to know what he was doing there.”

  The Parmesan was weighed and wrapped, and joined by a packet of pasta and a jar of cherry jam. The till disgorged another piece of paper, and it was Hilary’s turn, as the two women who had been there when she came in, were only there to gossip. While her ‘prosciutto crudo’ was being cut, the monologue continued, “It wouldn’t be the first time he was in someone’s house while they are away,” she added cryptically. “These foreigners are too trusting. They leave him their keys and he does what he likes.”

  Luckily a customer, who had just come in went off at a tangent with a story about the gullibility of some foreigners, and how one particular couple had learned the hard way to be more cautious so, under the cover of that, Hilary paid and left the shop. She bumped into Sue Browne as she came out and exclaimed, “Really that woman is monstrous,” and told her what had been said.

  Sue laughed and said “Come on, you know you usually enjoy her, she’s just playing the Fagiolo story for all it’s worth. Besides she’s right actually, I know he was using that house up in Altamura because I saw him there, with someone, of course.”

  “Well he couldn’t have been using Nigel’s house surely, he didn’t have the keys.”

  “He might have you know. Don’t forget that last year he rented the house out for them, and I bet he had duplicates made.”

  “I can’t believe it. Nigel had only just left, he would have been mad to go there, Nigel would have killed him if he….oh no, I didn’t mean that, but he would have been furious.”

  “So would anyone.”

  “I wonder if he was there with someone then, and perhaps heard a noise in the garden and so on. I mean the burglar theory would still fit. What am I saying? Of course if he was there, then there
had to be somebody with him.”

  “Well I would think so, I can’t see him sitting in there on his own, listening to music, or watching the telly. I mean what would be the point?”

  “Yes, of course, but don’t you see, that if somebody was with him, then perhaps she saw the murderer or, as no one has said anything, perhaps that person was the murderer,” said Hilary following through her train of thought.

  “Should we tell the police, I mean, do you think they know that he used peoples’ houses while they were away?”

  “I don’t know, perhaps they do know, otherwise why did they go through the house like that, dusting for fingerprints. I didn’t tell you but they took mine too, for purposes of elimination.”

  “Did they? How unpleasant. Anyway I expect they do know then, don’t you? I don’t really want to go and tell them something they probably already know; besides I don’t think it’s vital information. I mean, I didn’t see who was with him, I just saw that there was another person. Also, I don’t really feel like spending half the morning in the police station giving them information that they already have, which will be laboriously typed, by a barely literate junior officer, with one finger on an ancient typewriter

  “It’s not like that anymore. They have computers now,” said Hilary laughing. “And I think, you’re right. They must know already. I haven’t much time to waste either, though I am going to have a cappuccino before I go back home, to start work, are you coming?”

  “No, I’m off to the dentist, in fact I’m lready late. Ciao.” She rushed off, narrowly avoiding a motor scooter, driven expertly by a beautiful youth with long golden curls, and no crash helmet.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  She stepped through the bead curtain and into the cool, dark, silent bar. The only sound was the quiet hum of machinery.