Broken Chord (20 page)

“Good, then I’m sure the police will soon arrest him and we can stop worrying about ourselves.”

“I’m not worried.”

“Yes you are and I bet I know why.”

Teo said nothing.

“Because you weren’t in bed like you said you were, or rather you were probably in bed but not here.”

“If that’s true then I wasn’t knifing our mother.”

“Are you having an affair, Teo?” Marianna looked at him in surprise.

“We’re not here to talk about me. We’re talking about mother’s murderer.”

“Quite. Listen, Teo. I heard you come in at about five. Tell me I’m a liar!” said Lapo triumphantly.

“How do you know it was me, Lapo?”

“Because I got up and looked over the stair well.”

“I went out for a breath of fresh air.”

“After murdering Mamma?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Every time I think about it I throw up. Why do we always have to talk about this at meal times?”

“Because we never see each other at other times. Perhaps you’re vomiting because you remember what you did and feel sick about it.”

“Shut up!” Teo leapt from his chair and ran out of the room.

Marianna put down her knife and fork and gave up any pretence of eating. “Perhaps that’s what I’m trying to remember. There’s something important that I know about that night but I can’t remember what.”

“Perhaps you saw me coming out of Mamma’s room with a knife dripping blood.”

She looked at him seriously. “No Lapo, it wasn’t that.” She got up, pushed her chair under the table. “I’m sorry I can’t stay here on my own with you.”

Left alone, Lapo, who, despite his advice to Teo and Marianna, had actually eaten very little, poured himself a generous glass of whisky and downed it in one gulp. Marianna might be having trouble with her memory, and all things considered perhaps it was better that way, but he had too many things that he longed to forget.

“Vanessa, do you know the von Bachmanns, I mean Ursula von Bachmann?” asked Jacopo.

“Of course! Who doesn’t?”

“Tell me what you know about her.”

“Poor Ursula, what an unfortunate woman. She had quite a difficult life despite all her money. She always seemed to marry the wrong men.”

“And she was about to do it again.”

“That really doesn’t surprise me.”

“How far up the social scale was she, would you say?”

“You mean you don’t know! Jacopo, you’re a Florentine and she lived in Florence for years.”

“Yes, but as you know I’m not into parties with the upper echelons of the Florentine and foreign nobility.”

“Oh, and what am I?”

“Sorry, with one exception. I do know that your mother was a Visdomini. How could I ever forget?” He was sending her up and she knew it.

“You’d better not forget it. Now about Ursula von Bachmann, she would have had to give precedence to my mother had they lived a hundred years ago, and to yours, come to that.”

“That’s very interesting, but nowadays?”

“The von Bachmann’s were minor German nobility. They made a lot of money during the Second World War, arms. Anyway,
the von Bachmann family merged their business with Ursula’s family’s factory after the war, in the seventies I think, and greatly increased both their fortunes. Von Bachmann is a household name now, though of course they still make guns. Actually, Ursula didn’t have blue blood, but her first husband did, or rather does, he’s still alive you know, and so did her third, Ghiberti, most definitely, but of course they are somewhat impoverished now.”

“Surely, only relatively.”

“Well, let’s say compared to the von Bachmann’s definitely, compared to you, they’re well off.”

“I get the message. She used the name von Bachmann, don’t you find that strange?”

“Yes I do, a little, but obviously the money counts more for her as a status symbol, than the blood line, because as you must surely know, Ghiberti comes from much better stock.”

“Oh God!, Vanessa we’re not talking about racehorses here.”

“Well, we’re not far off. I suppose you realise that I would never have even looked at you if you hadn’t been a Dragonetti.”

“Are you sure about that? I mean you didn’t know my surname when you made advances to me at the theatre.”

“I made advances to you!”

“Of course, or I would never have asked you out.”

“You crazy man. Now do you want to know about Ursula or not?”

“Please do carry on.”

“Ursula was a Krapenfeld, they’re nobodies, on her father’s side. Her mother was Italian, from a well-to-do bourgeois family from Lucca. Ursula was very Germanic. She was brought up in Germany and she never got rid of her German accent. People always thought of her as German.”

“She inherited a villa from her aunt, in a small town near Lucca. That’s where she was killed.”

“I’d heard she’d moved to Lucca and I know why she did; she couldn’t compete here. It’s not just the money that counts. In the circles that she moved in they look at your blood line too. She’s
nouveau riche
and the money is blood money – arms. Besides I
have to tell you, she had cultural pretensions and drove everybody mad. If you got invited to a party at that wretched Palazzo that von Bachmann bought her, she always played the cello.”

“Ah.”

“Anyway, I expect she thought she’d do better in a smaller arena. She painted as well and had little shows of her work for charity and she wrote too, poems.”

“A Renaissance woman.”

“Yes, indeed.”

“How remarkably interesting.”

“That’s not all. She had quite a reputation for snubbing those she thought weren’t worthy of her.”

“Charming. I’m getting the picture now.”

“She was surrounded by all the
nouveau riche
and the
arrivistes,
you know what I mean.”

“Do you know any of her children?”

“Only Teo. He was heavily into drugs when he was a teenager. They sent him off for rehab in Switzerland. It was all hushed up of course, but everybody knew. I was at school with him.”

“Were you?”

“Yes, for two years. It was when my father was the American Consul in Florence and I went to the International School. That was before he got transferred to London.”

“Just think, I could have met you then.”

“I doubt it. I was at school and although I hate to remind you, you are a little older than me.”

“I’m sorry I always forget that I could have changed your nappies.”

“Well, you’d have had to be quite an unusual twelve-year-old to do that, but yes, you’re quite right.”

“So you don’t know the other children at all?”

“Well, of course, I’ve heard that one of them is, well, what do they say these days, vertically challenged.”

“A dwarf, you mean.”

“It isn’t PC to say that word.”

“He’s extraordinarily beautiful, but rather strange.”

“It can’t be easy for him.”

“I’m quite sure it isn’t. He’s got a deformed spine as well. There’s a terrible bitterness inside him. You can feel it, and rage, I would say.”

“Enough for him to kill his own mother?” Vanessa asked as though she couldn’t possibly believe it.

“Maybe. Yes, it’s possible, but if he hated her, I don’t understand why he’s waited so long to do it. You see, what interests me about this case is this, if one of the family members killed her, and quite honestly it looks probable, then there had to be a trigger, something must have happened to set him or her off.”

“Did anything happen that could have been a trigger?”

“Yes, Ursula had her first and last row with her gigolo husband-to-be and threw him out.”

“So you’re thinking he killed her out of disappointment.”

“He says he never left his hotel room but I’ve got men going through the hotel camera tapes and if he did leave the hotel that night, then it looks like it was him.”

“So what’s your problem?”

“No evidence. There’s no blood on his clothes, no murder weapon, no one saw him near the house, let alone in it, and everyone tells me he faints at the sight of blood.”

“Is there any evidence against any of the others?”

“No. All their fingerprints are in the room, except the daughter-in-law’s, but no one had any blood on their clothing.”

“You’re stuck then.”

“Unless someone confesses.”

“Is that likely?”

“Guido might, if I put enough pressure on him.”

“Sounds like you’ll have to.”

“You know my Elektra dream keeps coming to mind. I keep thinking this is matricide, but I don’t know which of her kids had sufficient reason to kill her.”

“But Elektra didn’t kill her mother did she?”

“No, it was Oreste, her brother, but it was at her instigation.”

“Which von Bachmann brother are you thinking of?”

“Lapo. He’s the only one I can imagine wielding a knife like that.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say about someone.”

“Well someone did it. You know, I look at them all; Marianna who looks like a vestal virgin dressed in white and seems detached from everyone and, well, it’s impossible even to think of her killing her mother. There was some friction over her choice of a boyfriend, but she comes into her inheritance next month when she comes of age, so there’s no motive there. Then there’s Lapo, who’s a very unpleasant character and he could have done it, but he doesn’t seem to have a motive. Tebaldo has even less reason. No one has a motive really, except Guido, the future husband. I can’t dismiss the fact that he’d just been thrown out on his ear, but he’s such a fop. He’s the last person you would think could do it.”

“You’re just going round in circles, Jacopo. Can we get off the subject now. I hardly see you and I don’t really want to talk about work with you. We never do, which is one of the things I like about you. There’s a concert on tonight, shall we go?”

“That sounds like a very good idea. Did I ever tell you I think you’re amazingly clever?”

“I know I am, and you’re not bad yourself.”

“We could stay in and do something very interesting.”

“Really, like what?

He grabbed her hand and pulled her towards him, pressing his body against hers. He kissed her and then said, “Something of this sort?” and still holding her hand moved towards the bedroom.

The next morning Dragonetti looked through the reports on his desk while Bruno observed him. Bruno noted with approval that Drago was chewing gum again. He smiled and Drago, immediately understanding why, said, “Twenty-four hours, well actually, twenty-five and a quarter, not bad eh?”

“Amazing!”

“Oh ye of little faith!”

“Not at all, I’m very pleased for you.”

Drago returned to the reports. One thing in particular caught his attention. He smiled and said to Bruno, “Guido did leave the hotel shortly after one and returned at just after two.”

“He didn’t stay out long then.”

“Looking at the distance he’d have had to cover, I’d guess if he went to the villa he only stayed about ten minutes. Just long enough to kill Ursula.”

“We still have to prove it.”

“We have motive, means and opportunity but that’s not enough. We need one small piece of evidence. If we can prove he was in, or even at the house, that would probably be enough.”

“Their nearest neighbours are the Rossi family but you can’t see the big house from theirs. I checked,” said Bruno.

“And they don’t use the same access road.”

“But they do use the same main provincial road to get to the house.”

“OK, so we need to know if one of them saw Guido driving either towards or away from the house at the appropriate times. I should think the old folk were in bed but you never know, the grandson might have seen something. And we’ll have house-to-house along the whole road, as well. Organise all that with Maresciallo Spadaccia. The road is a small one, not much used, especially at that time of night. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“It would be nice to have the murder weapon with a finger print,” remarked Bruno wistfully.

“Dream on. The
carabinieri
looked in all the rubbish bins in the area the same morning but no blood-stained clothes and no knife turned up.”

“He’d have got rid of the knife along the road back to the hotel, or maybe he threw it in the river.”

“Yes, but what about the clothes? When he went back to the hotel he was wearing the same clothes he went out in, the same clothes we examined, by the way.” Jacopo sounded a little defeated.

“Maybe he wore protective clothing to do it? Would there have been a lot of blood?”

“Not necessarily. The first thrust killed her and it was a deeply penetrating wound. The rest was done after death and blood loss would have been minimal, according to the pathologist, so no blood spurts from those wounds for a start off.”

“If we can place him there then we can put pressure on him. I know his sort, he’ll crack.”

“Maybe.” Dragonetti sounded dubious. “OK, we’ll leave him in peace for now and see if house-to-house yields anything. Tell Maresciallo Spadaccia to get a photo of Guido and of his rather noticeable car, and I want them shown to everyone who habitually uses that road. If we have a sighting we can start in on him. Until then, it’s pointless.”

“Right, boss.”

“But we must also consider the family members. They were the ones with access to Ursula. They were in the house that night and might well have had some reason for killing her that we don’t
yet know about. Lapo is a very disturbed young man, Marianna might be fragile but she also appears to be cold and unemotional and Tebaldo is a complete mess. He’s fallen apart.”

“With grief?”

“Maybe, or perhaps with the realisation of what he’s done. Suppose he killed her, leaving aside the motive for now. He might have done it in a dreamlike state which was why he reacted so violently when he saw her body. It was at that moment he fully realised what he’d done and now he can’t live with himself. How does that sound?” Jacopo asked Bruno hopefully.

“Feasible, I suppose, but there’s still no motive that we know of and no evidence to connect him except a little blood under his shoe which he got from going into the bedroom. Marta stepped in it too. Where would he have got rid of the murder weapon and his blood-stained clothes?”

“Perhaps he went in naked and had a shower afterwards, or went out and disposed of the knife and his clothes. I want to pressure him on that because I think he did go out and I think his wife knew about it. Also, we need to find out if he had a shower, or if anyone else did, come to that.”

“No one mentioned hearing anyone having a shower during the night.”

“We’ll make a point of asking. Now what about Lapo? He went out but there’s no saying he didn’t come back, kill his mother and then go out again to get rid of the murder weapon and blood-stained clothing. Everyone heard him come in at four but maybe he wanted them to. Don’t forget he was very noisy, probably exceptionally so if the noise penetrated Marianna’s chemically induced sleep,” Jacopo pointed out.

“And the girl?”

“Marianna was in the house all night and could have killed her mother and of course she could have slipped out and got rid of anything incriminating.”

“I can’t see a girl doing that to her mother.”

“Come on, Bruno, we both know that a girl could do this as easily as a man. Since when have women been immune to violent
crime? Remember Erika and Omar. That was done with a knife too and Erica was about the same age as Marianna. She didn’t just kill her mother either but her little brother, too. Don’t you remember, it was a bloodbath. So if it was Marianna, what was her motive? The only thing we know is that she disagreed with her mother about the boyfriend.”

“True, and how big a deal was that?”

“It wasn’t. She’ll be eighteen next month and comes into her inheritance. Moving on, there’s always the faithful servants. What do you think about them?”

Bruno sighed. “No, I don’t fancy them for it. They’re too faithful and Marta certainly could never have done it. It’s possible that Piero did – and his motive?”

“Perhaps Ursula had something on him. Perhaps he wanted to leave but was forced to stay.”

“Is that a motive?”

“Who knows? I want to see him again, dig a bit deeper into his relationship with ‘Madam’.”

“Talking about motives, I think I’ve identified the author of the anonymous letters.”

“Who?”

“A member of the Rossi family. Either the old man, though I doubt he can write, far less use a computer. No, a more likely candidate is the grandson, Claudio Osvaldo Rossi. He calls himself Ozzie.”

“Go on,” said Drago

“When I went there it came out that the old man hates Germans. His brother was killed by a German during the war and he was quite rabid about it, resented Germans coming here and ‘lording it over us’. Now that was the same phrase used in the letter. Plus, he knew that Ursula’s first husband manufactured arms. Also, he still hasn’t got over Ursula ‘exterminating’ the cats, as he puts it. Perhaps he got his grandson to write the letters.”

“Could the old man have climbed up the wisteria trunk and got in through the balcony?”

“I suppose so. He’s pretty ancient but he looks quite fit.”

“How would he have known that the shutters were open?” asked Drago.

“Maybe he took a stroll there every evening on the off chance but Claudio Rossi looks more the sort to me. He could have gone there to steal something but Ursula woke up and saw him so he killed her and, because of the way he felt about her, he mutilated her too.”

“So, let’s have the Rossi grandfather and his grandson in for a chat and I think I’ll call Guido della Rocca back in too.” Jacopo finally felt a faint spark of hope. The amount of evidence was so small and the motives they had unearthed so far were so irrelevant that anything solid was extremely welcome.

The Rossi grandfather: full name, Primo Alfredo Rossi, aged eighty-one, had changed into what looked like his Sunday best for the occasion. The smell of mothballs was very powerful, but Bruno thought it infinitely preferable to the smells that had tormented him at the farmyard. Away from his territory, the old man appeared to have lost his sense of security and also seemed somehow to have shrunk. He looked older and even a little fragile. Dragonetti observed him carefully, noting that as he walked he favoured one leg over the other, possibly a sign of hip joint problems. Could this man really have climbed the vine to the balcony?

He put out his hand. “Dottor Jacopo Dragonetti.”

The old man shook it saying, “Primo Rossi.”

“Please sit down. Is your leg troubling you?”

“What kind of a doctor are you?”

“I have a doctorate in law but I couldn’t help noticing your leg seemed to be giving you some pain.”

“Ah, gives me gyp. It’s me hip, but I’m not going to let them butcher me.” He sat down carefully and stared straight at Dragonetti. “Fire away.”

“I expect you remember my colleague, Dottor Faro, who interviewed you yesterday.”

“Oh, the pretty boy.” He shot him a disdainful glance. “Waste of time.”

“Well, I’m going to waste some more of your time.” He thrust a piece of paper under the man’s nose, “Read this.”

The old man shook his head. “I can’t. Never had the time for learning. Don’t hold with it. I’ve worked all my life.”

“Tell me about your brother who was killed during the war.”

The old man looked startled, “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“That depends on what you mean by anything. Let’s just say I’m interested.”

Rossi looked at him warily, “The war was a long time ago.”

“I know, but some things stay with us all our lives. There are things we can’t forget.”

The old man looked up at him with suddenly tearful eyes, “That’s true. You never said a truer word.” He shook his head sadly. “I’ll never forget. My brother was only a kid, the youngest in the family. They shot him for no reason, just for fun, and they laughed. It was a couple of German soldiers, the bastards. They’d had too much to drink and didn’t care who they fired at. I couldn’t do anything. I ran away to save myself and left his body there. We came back and got him when they’d gone.” He bowed his head.

“So you don’t have any affection for the Germans.”

“No, I don’t. They got off too lightly. I can’t bear to see them come back with all their money and have people fawn over them. It’s disgusting. They should stay away.”

“And does your grandson feel the same way?”

“He does and proud of it. I told him the whole story.”

“So you weren’t too pleased when Ursula von Bachmann came to live at the villa.”

“That German cow. You know her first husband makes guns. That’s how his family made their money. They supplied the German army during the war. What I don’t understand is how come all these Germans have pots of money when they lost the war.”

“As you yourself said, the war was a long time ago.”

“True, true. But she was a wicked woman. Only a German could have done what she did.”

“I’m sorry?”

“She exterminated all those cats what never did her no harm. Germans are good at extermination.”

Dragonetti decided to change the subject and moved on, “What did Signora von Bachmann come to say to you?”

“She wanted me out, offered me stacks of her German blood money and expected me to be delighted.”

“But you weren’t. In fact you threatened to run her through with a pitchfork.”

“She made me that mad, but I wouldn’t have done it really. I just wanted to see her frightened.”

“And was she?”

“Yes.” He smiled at the memory. “She was.”

At the villa, only Tebaldo, Isabella and the children were at the breakfast table. Marta served them. Her hands shook as she carefully placed the coffee pot on the table. Her general appearance was that of a tired old woman. Ursula’s death had aged her immensely.

Isabella asked, “Marta are you alright?”

“Yes, thank you, Signora.”

“You don’t look well.”

“Well, no, I don’t suppose I do.”

Teo said, “I do understand that things must be very difficult for you at the moment, but I’m not sure what we can do about it.”

“Cook will be back tomorrow and the other staff.”

“I can help you today if you like,” said Isabella. “I don’t see why you should have to soldier on alone.”

Marta looked quite shocked. “I don’t think that will be necessary, thank you. Piero and I can manage quite well.” She left the room with dignity.

“My God, I’d have thought she’d be pleased.” Isabella was quite affronted.

“Isabella, that’s not how it works here, but it was kind of you.”

“She didn’t think so. She’s never liked me.”

“I’m sorry. It’s not your fault.”

“I always get it wrong.”

“No, that’s not true. You’re doing a good job with the kids.”

“Thank you.” Suddenly she felt tears rush to her eyes. It was the first nice thing Teo had said for such a long time. “Thank you for that.”

Teo looked at her carefully. For the first time in months, he appeared to be seeing her as a person, who could be hurt, and realised from the way she was so grateful for such small praise, how little he had given her.

“Signor Rossi. Your full name is Claudio Osvaldo Rossi, is that correct?”

He nodded. “Ozzie. That’s me.”

Drago looked at him. He had quite a few earrings, a ring through his lip and one at his eyebrow. When he spoke, another was visible on his tongue. His black hair was long and curly, his eyes, too, were dark. He looked like a Spanish pirate or perhaps a gypsy.

“What do think about Ursula von Bachmann’s death?”

“I don’t think about it.” He guffawed.

“Very funny. Come on, you must have had some thoughts on the subject.”

“Not really.” He lolled back in the chair, completely at ease.

“Who do you think could have killed her?”

“How should I know? It’s your job to find out.”

“Did you like her?”

“I didn’t have anything to do with her. I didn’t even know her. The day she came to the house was the first time I spoke to her.”

“And the last.”

“Yeah.”

“I was talking to your grandfather about the war.”

“So?” His way of speaking was what Drago would have termed insolent and provocative. He ignored it.

“And he doesn’t like the Germans very much.”