Broken Chord (12 page)

“Unfortunately, that applies to all of us, Marianna. We’ll just have to trust in forensic science to find some microscopic trace evidence.”

Lapo smiled grimly. “This is real life, not an American crime series and we’re not in America. I wonder how good the police are.”

Isabella looked up as Teo entered the room. The children had been asleep in their room for the last two hours and would be waking up soon. Isabella was lying on her bed resting, but sleep would have been impossible. Apart from anything else she had a disturbing, worrying piece of information and she’d been turning it over in mind wondering whether or not to talk to Teo about it not. When he came in, she saw that he looked dreadful and made her decision.

“You poor thing,” she said sympathetically.

He sat down heavily on a chair. She thought he looked somehow immeasurably aged. She got off the bed and went over to him.

“Are you alright?”

“Of course I’m not alright. I’ve had the shock of my life. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more terrible.”

“Was she disfigured?”

“Disfigured? She didn’t even look like a human being!”

“Oh my God, I had no idea!,” she cried in horror.

The memory of his mother’s eye suddenly struck him yet again. He got up and lurched into the bathroom where she heard him vomiting copiously.

“Tell me about Madam.” Dragonetti carefully used the name by which Piero and Marta always referred to her.

“She was… it seems strange to use the past tense… she wasn’t a bad person, a little foolish sometimes, especially over men, but not a wicked person.”

“Are you referring to Guido?”

“Guido and the others.”

“There have been other Guidos?”

“Yes, and her husbands weren’t wonderful either except for Romeo Ghiberti, and he died.”

“You’ve been with her, how long now?”

“My wife and I joined the staff twenty-five years ago. Tebaldo was only a child then.”

“Tell me how you came to be here.”

“Well, she’d been married about eight years I suppose. She was still young and von Bachmann had bought a palazzo in Venice. That’s where we came in. Madam had relatives in Italy on her mother’s side, so she spoke Italian and knew the country. She far preferred it to Germany, although of course they spent a lot of time there even after they’d bought the Palazzo. Her father, as I’m sure you know, was Krapenfeld, who owned the famous armaments factory, which of course nowadays also makes electrical appliances, that was after the merger with the von Bachmanns. Anyway, she was looking for a couple who would take over the running of the house and we were found to be suitable. We’ve stayed ever since. Of course we’ve moved around from Italy to Germany, a period in France, Venice and then mainly the Palazzo in Florence and now here.”

“She divorced her first husband, didn’t she?”

“Yes. Quite frankly von Bachmann was an absolute monster. I say was, but of course, he’s still alive. I suppose he must be about eighty now and of course mentally he’s deteriorated. He was much older than Madam and to tell you the truth it was an arranged marriage. It facilitated the merger. He led Madam a merry dance, chorus girls and so on, well that’s what they called them in those days, and the thing ended in divorce. After that she had a couple of… relationships… before marrying David Rama the Italian pasta king, that’s Lapo’s father. Unfortunately, he messed around a lot too, especially after Lapo was born, and Madam was left alone too much. She consoled herself with another man, rather like Guido, and when Rama found out he divorced her. Then there were… others, but her third husband Romeo Ghiberti, was undoubtedly
the best of the bunch. That’s Marianna’s father, though she never knew him. He was only interested in cars, probably to the exclusion of everything else. He died in a car crash before Marianna was born, but it probably wouldn’t have lasted anyway. He was never at home.”

“I see. And Guido?”

“Guido della Rocca claims to be of noble birth, but I have my doubts. He may be from a distant branch of the della Rocca family but he’s a self-made man. He deals in antiques and antiquities, some of it really old archaeological stuff, I suppose. The sort of thing that should be in a museum, I’d think, but then I don’t know a lot about it. Anyway, Madam had decided to marry him.”

“How did the family, her children, feel about that?”

“It’s not really my place to say. Let’s just say they didn’t get on with him.”

“What did you think about it?”

“Quite frankly, I was surprised. There had been other men, after Ghiberti died, but none she wanted to marry. I didn’t really understand why she wanted to get married again. No one did.”

“Did you hear the argument between Guido and Ursula yesterday?”

“Yes.”

“Did you hear anything they said?”

“No. It’s not my habit to eavesdrop.”

“Quite, but nothing reached your ears by chance?”

“Nothing. I just know that she must have thrown him out because he left in a hurry and didn’t come back.”

“But he sent roses this morning?”

“I presume they came from him. I didn’t read the card.”

“I did, and it was affectionate, so couldn’t it be that in fact they had a tiff and nothing more?”

“Of course, but they never have before and it wasn’t a tiff, it was a terrible row. We could hear them shouting from downstairs.”

“Alright. Is there anything else that you think I should know?”

“Yes. Madam received two threatening anonymous letters. I did go to the local Maresciallo about them.”

“I know about that. Have you any idea who sent them?”

“If I had, I wouldn’t have gone to the police.”

“Really? What would you have done?”

“I would have confronted him. I know how to deal with people like that.”

“How?”

“Well, it would rather depend on who it was. I mean some doddery old man, lost in the past, is hardly a threat, whereas a young racist is quite something else.”

“Racist?”

“The letters referred to Madam’s nationality and to the war.”

“So you were worried?”

“Well, yes. That’s why I went to the police.”

“And you have no idea at all who could have written the letters.”

“None.”

“Alright, did you see any strangers near the villa earlier that evening?”

“No.”

“Did you or your wife leave your bedroom at any time during the night?”

“No.”

“Your bedroom is on the lower ground floor, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Did you hear any noises during the night, anyone trying to break in?”

“I slept all night like a baby, apart from one visit to the bathroom, and as far as I know, so did my wife.”

“Alright, you can go. I know your wife is very tired and she’s had a terrible shock. We’ve already briefly questioned her and I won’t need to see her again until tomorrow.”

“Thank you.”

“One last thing. Have you formed any opinion about who could have committed this crime?”

“Yes, I am quite convinced in my mind that it was someone from outside. There is no way that a member of this family could
have done it and, when I say family, I have to include Signor della Rocca in that group. People of their sort don’t commit murder.”

Dragonetti repressed a smile. Generalisations were always ridiculous, and in this case, appallingly so.

When Piero finally got down to the kitchen to speak to his wife, Marta, she was in a state of near collapse. The two kitchen staff had been sent away and told not to return the next day, in fact not to return until further notice. Marta had remained alone after their departure, apart from the policeman to whom she’d served coffee in the late morning, and later a small lunch. She herself had eaten nothing. Piero had come down for the lunch tray and then returned for the coffee tray to take up to the dining room but at that time the others had been present and they had not said a word to each other. Now, when at last they could, Marta was surprisingly loath to actually tell him what she had seen. She’d thought she would want to express all her outrage and her sense of horror that someone could actually do something like that to another human being, but now that he was here, she couldn’t find the words. In fact, as soon as she saw him, she burst into tears.

By late afternoon, Drago had accumulated a vast amount of information on the victim’s family. Maresciallo Spadaccia had proved to be efficient, pulling up files through his computer and feeding him information as he requested it. His personal observation had also given him a little. Isabella had no love for Ursula, nor did Marianna. He considered them briefly. It hadn’t seemed to him to be the sort of crime a woman would commit, but he knew he shouldn’t generalise. Two teenage girls had knifed a nun a few years back and another adolescent girl had done the same to her mother and younger brother. It had been a blood bath. Matricide. Was this also a case of matricide? Had the vestal virgin taken a knife and wielded it to kill and mutilate her mother? What about Lapo, whom he hadn’t liked from the moment he saw him. This had nothing to do with his size or deformity. The boy was actually quite beautiful, but Drago had had a gut reaction which he
couldn’t ignore. There was something about Lapo’s eyes… yes, he felt there was definitely something not right about him. But Lapo had had a severe asthmatic reaction and that couldn’t be faked, or could it? And the pale delicate Tebaldo whose sickness could be remorse. He, too, could have killed his mother.

If he accepted that this murder could have been committed by a woman, that also brought Isabella into the picture. Isabella hadn’t loved Ursula and had expressed her feelings quite openly. However, as things stood at the moment, he thought that Guido seemed to be the most likely suspect. The unprecedented row that afternoon, his banishment, and the loss of all his dreams and desires might have tipped the balance of his mind. He remembered Guido’s tears and dismissed them as quickly. Tears could be produced on tap by even the most hardened criminals, or on occasion they were actually tears of remorse. So, Guido della Rocca, antique dealer, toy boy and who knew what else, had been so close to achieving what he wanted, but something had happened to demolish everything in an instant. One monumental row had shattered his dreams. It was quite understandable that he should want to take his revenge. If he couldn’t have her, no one else would. Drago had seen it happen before.

He thought about the others in the house. Piero, the impeccable man-servant, too good to be true? And the faithful Marta, whose reactions had most certainly not been faked. Unless further evidence came up, he felt he could safely eliminate them as suspects. The next day he would have the results of the forensic analysis of their clothing. Anyone who had wielded a knife like that would have been contaminated by the victim’s blood, probably quite heavily. Of course they’d all had time to get rid of any bloody clothing, so the results might yield nothing. The weapon had also been got rid of somewhere and at some time during the night. Lapo had been heard coming in at four. Had he just come back from throwing away anything that had been in contact with the victim, clothing, shoes and knife?

He had a strong feeling this was not going to be an easy case to solve.

Lapo sat in his sister’s bedroom watching her rummage through her wardrobe.

“What do you think they’ve taken, Lapo?”

“How should I know? They’re your clothes. Don’t you know what’s missing?”

“Have you been up to your room?”

“Yes. They’ve taken the clothes from my dirty clothes basket and what I was wearing yesterday evening. Didn’t they ask you?”

“Of course. I didn’t go out so I wasn’t wearing anything last night, just an old T-shirt. I told them about that.” She went over to her own clothes basket which was in her bathroom. “Look it’s empty. Good God, they’ve even taken my knickers!”

Lapo laughed. “When the police come to your house, you have no privacy and no rights.”

“How disgusting.”

“It’s a good thing this didn’t happen a few days ago or they might have found something much more interesting.”

“That’s true.” She laughed hysterically, “So it’s all for the best, right?”

“You do see that it’s for your own good that you don’t see that boy anymore.”

“Roberto, his name’s Roberto and I went to see him in hospital yesterday afternoon.”

“Did you? How is he?”

“Bad. It’s terrible. He’s so ill. He’s got to have God knows how many operations and they can’t even guarantee he’ll walk again.”

“Well, that puts him out of the picture for a while. Face it sweetheart, it was never on.”

“That’s what you think. I’m eighteen next month and I’ll do what the hell I like.”

“What are you going to do, marry a cripple and wipe his bum for him?”

“Maybe. Better a cripple than a freak.”

He stood up and suddenly punched her hard in the belly. “Don’t be such a bitch. You know I won’t stand for it.”

She gasped and doubled over, feeling tears spring to her eyes. “You bastard.”

“No, sweetheart, remember you’re the bastard.”

She wiped the tears away with the back of her hand and said angrily, “Next month I’m out of here and I hope I never see you again. The only good thing about all this is that I’m free.”

“Are you sure you didn’t take your freedom? Come on, you can tell me, did you kill the old bitch?”

“Lapo, are you mad? Of course I didn’t. Did you?”

“Why should I?”

“How should I know? I expect your inheritance will come in handy.”

“Money always comes in handy, but I’m doing alright as it is, thank you, so no, it wasn’t me.”

“Well, it can’t have been Teo. He does nothing but throw up, so it was either his charming little wife or that creep Guido. Which do you fancy, Lapo?”

“I go for Guido. Hell hath no fury like a toy boy scorned or something.”

“I can’t really see Isabella doing it, but then I can’t see Guido doing it either. Don’t you remember how he fainted when Mamma cut herself? He faints whenever he sees blood.”

“Well, someone did it and I’ll bet you anything you like, it was him. Perhaps his rage allowed him to overcome his phobia,” said Lapo.

“Of course it could have been someone from outside but if it was, then it wasn’t a burglar. I haven’t seen that anything was missing, have you?” Marianna massaged her abdomen but she seemed to have forgotten the pain as she thought things through.

“No, so maybe there’s someone else who had it in for her. She wasn’t awfully nice to people you know. Perhaps it was a member of the Rossi family. She’d been to see them that afternoon.”

“Do the police know that?” asked Marianna.

“No. We’ll tell them tomorrow. It should be quite amusing for everyone to have the Rossi family investigated.”

“Oh for God’s sake, Lapo. You’re sick in the head. Piss off out of my bedroom and keep your hands off me. For all you know I might be dangerous. Watch out, Lapo. You don’t really know what I’m capable of.”

He looked into her cold blue eyes. “I expect I do, but remember, anything I do to you, you deserve. Keep a guard on your tongue and it won’t happen again.”

“Make sure that it doesn’t.”

The children were awake and clamouring, “We want to go swimming.”

Isabella thought Teo looked incapable of doing anything. She said, “OK, I’ll take you down to the pool. Papa needs a rest.”

“Thank you,” said Teo.

“I wish we hadn’t let the au pair go on holiday.”

“It was logical. We were here and didn’t think we’d need her.”

“But we do need her. You’re distraught and incapable and I feel more or less the same way as you do.”

“No, Isabella, I don’t think you do. This thing doesn’t really touch you.”

“Let’s just say I have other things on my mind as well.”

They stared at each other, neither willing for the conversation to develop. It wasn’t the right time. ‘When was?’ Isabella asked herself bitterly. ‘When is ever the right time to ask your husband if he’s going to leave you.’ Teo dropped his gaze. He couldn’t meet her eyes. The last thing he was capable of doing was discussing
their situation, not now, not today and probably not in the near future.

“I’ll have a little rest and then I’ll join you.”

As soon as she’d left with the girls, he picked up his mobile, “Marisa, it’s me. I can’t see you tonight; something’s happened…”

Marianna had changed her clothes and now presented herself to Officer Tardelli who was standing in the hall on guard.

“I need to go to the hospital. My fiancé is ill. If you give me the go ahead I’ll phone for a taxi.”

Tardelli said, “Wait a minute,” pulled a mobile out of his pocket and went outside into the still very hot late afternoon sun to make his call. When he came back in he nodded. “It’s OK, but come straight back.”

“Oh, I will. I expect the news has broken and we’ll be hounded by the press.”

“I’m afraid so. There are some journalists at the gate now.”

“Damn.”

“Is there a back entrance?”

“No, only the old tractor track.”

“Well, you can always duck down when your taxi goes through the gate.”

“Perhaps I should wear a burka.”

“Or just a cloth over your head.”

“There’s no point, they’ll only follow the taxi to the hospital and see me when I get out. Well, whatever. I’ll just have to risk it.”

She phoned for a taxi and waited impatiently, standing under one of the huge palms that heralded the entrance to the courtyard. Roberto was all that mattered. Lapo might think she didn’t really love him, but she did, very much, more than she’d imagined possible. His accident had made it quite clear to her that she wanted to be with him under any conditions whatsoever, no matter how damaged he might be. This amazing discovery had given her an incredible sense of purpose and now, with freedom only a month away, she was ready to fight any battles that were necessary. Only another month to go and economic self-sufficiency would mean
that her destiny was under her control. No more Mamma sending her off to New Zealand, no more Lapo telling her Roberto was a pauper. No more anyone telling her anything she didn’t want to hear.

The taxi drew up and she got in, giving a little wave to Tardelli, who quite sincerely thought she was one of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen, not sexy, in fact almost remote, like a Madonna, but beautiful. She looked chaste and unattainable. She took your breath away.

It was late afternoon when Jacopo Dragonetti turned his car onto the motorway and settled down for the stressful drive in heavy traffic that had been his lot every evening since his transfer to Lucca. His assistant, Bruno, who had been on holiday for two weeks in Sardinia, would be joining him the next day, something for which he was heartily grateful. Vanessa was still at home but he knew she was going to a concert that evening. He briefly considered joining her, but he was so hyped up about the murder that he wanted to go over things in his mind. Or perhaps it would be better to stop thinking about it and go out with Vanessa? Every moment he spent with her was important. She’d brought about such a remarkable change in his life. After his divorce from Diana, who had married her rich businessman with whom she was much happier, he had been very lonely. Diana had never been able to take his erratic timetable or the fact the he’d sometimes be called away in the middle of a dinner party, but of course that was not the only reason. A far more profound problem lay at the root of the dissolution of their marriage. The divorce had been the official end of something that had finished some years earlier, for reasons he preferred not to think about. He managed to stifle the wave of sadness that always accompanied thoughts of the past. Fate would drop a catastrophe into your life and somehow you had to carry on living. They had, but at an enormous cost to both of them. They had done what was necessary to guarantee a normal life for Veronica and Melissa, who had been too young to fully understand what had happened to their brother. Diana was overprotective and became hysterical
every time one of them got even the mildest of childhood illnesses. He and Diana had remained on good terms and the girls had settled down in their new home, with an adoring stepfather, in a villa with a swimming pool, and a pony each. He was sure they preferred it to his ancient family home in the centre of Florence. In a few weeks’ time, he would be taking the girls to the south of France for two weeks of sun and sea, and for himself a blessed holiday from work.

He was tired. He hated this drive every morning and back home again in the evening. The motorway was a mass of unrelieved heavy traffic and as he drew nearer to Florence, it got worse. Once he was off it, he would have to cross Florence and that could take anything from fifteen to thirty minutes. The city was thronged with foreigners, tourists who left their empty coke cans and beer bottles in the gutters, who sat on the Duomo steps to eat their greasy sandwiches and who, he thought, must be quite mad to traipse about in the city’s summer heat. Late July in Florence was always a nightmare. All the Florentines, who could, had left the city and were either in the mountains where it was cool or at the sea where the sea breeze made the heat far more bearable. But even there the overcrowding was horrific. Beach umbrellas were set close to each other, allowing only the minimum space for two deck chairs and a sun-bed. The best beach umbrellas, ‘the
ombrelloni
’, nearest the water, where there was a chance of a breeze, had all been booked since time immemorial by season ticket holders who seemed to pass down the privilege of paying exorbitant sums of money for their four months use, to their children and grandchildren. Jacopo was lucky. A friend in the south of France was letting him use his house on the sea. It was set on the rocks near San Raphael and one could plunge from the terrace into the sea. He loved it there. Sitting under the loggia as evening drew near, or eating his breakfast early before the others had got up, listening to the sea, were amongst his favourite things to do.

A car behind him hooted violently and he became aware that the standstill queue at the turnpike had finally moved on while he had been daydreaming and it was his turn. He kept meaning to get a Telepass but never seemed to have the time to actually get there
and do it. Having one would at least mean he didn’t have to queue to get on and off the motorway. He watched with envy as cars sailed through the barrier which automatically raised its striped bar for them. He would make it a priority.

He drove across the steaming city and knew that as soon as he left the air-conditioned car he would be drenched in sweat. The humidity was appalling. The last bit of road was the most difficult. The street he lived on had been taken over by street vendors of various nationalities, generally known as ‘vu comprà’ because of the way they mispronounced the question, ‘
Vuoi
comprare?
’; ‘do you want to buy something?’ in Italian. Their goods were laid neatly out along the pavement so that passers-by were forced to slow down and run the gauntlet of verbal aggression, or step into the road. He skilfully manoeuvred past them receiving smiles and the odd wave of the hand. It was impossible to dislike these men who had probably braved a dangerous sea voyage to get here and were doubtless maintaining large families back home. They were a colourful addition to the streets of Florence, and many other towns, and tolerated by most. In fact many Italian women, especially the young ones who were pretty strapped for cash themselves, bought the imitation designer bags, the colourful scarves and cheap jewellery from them.

He turned the car into the dark tunnel which was the old entrance to his crumbling family Palazzo, once used by carriages. It was now his garage. The low, vaulted ceilings never failed to please him and at the end of the tunnel the gloom was relieved by light that came through the iron gate and that beckoned him towards the small enclosed courtyard garden. He got out of the car and was aware of the heat even in this shady space. He stretched his legs and walked towards the light. As he opened the gate he felt a familiar sense of peace envelop him. Coming home was the best part of every day. Perhaps it was even worth all the rest just to achieve this moment. A small shadow detached itself from the cool shelter of a large plant and came to greet him. “You’re like a little dog, Rossini,” he told it and they went in together.