Property of Blood (15 page)

‘You think I should speak to Hines again?’

‘He doesn’t say much. I see him as a wealthy man. Compared to me … The Contessa Cavicchioli Zelli said he hasn’t a bean.’

‘As I said, she’s a very rich woman.’

‘Yes. As I told you, they don’t want me going round there anymore and I can’t force them … I need to talk to the sister alone.’

‘She came to your office once. Wouldn’t she—’

‘No. In the house. I want to talk to her in the house. I’ve lost them … I think the planner… I must talk to her in the house …’

The Captain was there now. ‘All right, Guarnaccia. Let’s assume that Prosecutor Fusarri is going to need to speak to Leonardo Brunamonti and Mister Patrick Hines in his office tomorrow—shall we say at four p.m.?’

‘And that detective. Will you excuse me?’ And at the Captain’s nod of release he was gone.

ITALO-AMERICAN CHIC

The
Contessa
label is the brain-child of Olivia Birkett, top model of the sixties, top de-signer of the eighties and nineties. After years of solid success in Europe, Olivia Birkett is now branching out. This year Tokyo, next year New York, and in the wake of that, she hopes, Los Angeles in her home state of California. What is her style secret?

‘History, I suppose. I married into a six-centuries-old family and found inspiration in the clothes of my predecessors—adapted to our modern way of life, naturally.’

And her success secret?

‘I’m good at clothes, yes, but what makes our clothes different is the input of my son, Leonardo, whose historical and art historical knowledge are the basis of each year’s collection. This is what defines the detail of our collection and its presentation, architectural setting, music, lighting, and so on.’

Olivia’s beautiful aristocratic daughter is also to be seen in the
Contessa
workshop.

‘Caterina has an elegance all her own, a fourteenth-century beauty, a twentieth century style, ideally suited to our clothes. I love to have her model for me but her interest in the firm at the moment is more on the managerial side.’

Facing page:
Pearls on a gold lace web form the collar of a
Contessa
evening gown from the winter collection.

Above:
Olivia Birkett and Tessie in the white drawing room of the Palazzo Brunamonti.

Photo by Gianni Taccola, Florence.

The Marshal let the copy of
Style
fall into his lap.

‘Dad? Can we stay up to watch the match?’

‘Ask your mother.’

‘We have and she said to ask you.’

‘All right’

And the two boys dashed back to the kitchen, suppressing their giggles.

‘Mum! Dad said we can stay up and watch the match with him if it’s all right with you. Can we? Go on!’

They settled one on each side of him and he hugged them close, pleased. The players rushed about on the green background to the rise and fall of the crowd’s noise, a comfortable background to the slow untangling of the more vivid images in his head.

‘Batistuta won’t really be transferred, will he, Dad? Giovanni says he will but I don’t believe it. Dad? What are you reading
that
for?’

‘Reading what? If you want to watch the match, watch it. If you start making a racket, your mother …’

It must have been a couple of hours later when he remarked aloud, ‘I’ve seen that name and I think I know where…’

‘What name? Salva?’

He stared at her. ‘Have the boys gone to bed?’

‘I should think they have. What were you thinking of, letting them stay up when it’s school tomorrow?’

‘Is it?’

‘Salva, what’s the matter?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You look exhausted. Let’s get to bed.’

He fell at once into a deep sleep and imagined he’d been asleep for many hours when he heard himself say loudly, ‘Dogs and photographs.’

‘Dogs are what?’

He opened his eyes. Teresa’s lamp was still on and she was reading the
Style
magazine so it wasn’t so late. ‘Photographs …,’ he repeated, reminded as he saw it. ‘It’s all a question …’

‘A question of what? Salva?’

He was asleep again.

He fell asleep convinced that in the morning the mists would have cleared, allowing him to see clearly what was in front of his nose. He awoke refreshed. The mists had indeed cleared but what he was to see clearly had yet to present itself. He started his day with quiet deliberation, sitting in his office and calling Headquarters on the internal line.

‘Certainly, Marshal. Can you give me his place and date of birth? It will help me to find the file if it’s here.’

‘No, I can’t, but I’m betting he has a record, and since he lives and operates in this area his file must be there in the archives. Urgent, yes. The Olivia Birkett—yes. I’ll be here.’

Dogs and photographs. He must sit still and wait. Dogs and photographs. He sat still. Inertia at the centre of the web…pearls on a gold lace web…

The phone rang.

‘Marshal Guarnaccia.’

‘Maestrangelo. I have the address and phone number of Contessa Elettra Cavicchioli Zelli. Will you take it down?’

He took it down. Then he sat still.

The phone rang again.

‘Marshal Guarnaccia.’

‘I have that file for you. Do you want me to send it over there?’

‘No, just give me the gist and when he served his last sentence. He is out?’

‘Oh, yes, he’s out. Didn’t serve that long. Art thefts, villas around Florence—well, you knew that already, I imagine … released a year and a half ago, more or less. Anything else in particular that you want?’

‘His address.’

‘Current address Via Santo Spirito, number seventeen. Anything else?’

‘No, but don’t send the file back down to the archives, give it to Captain Maestrangelo, as from me. I’ll be in touch with him later. Thanks.’

To be truthful, his recollection of the case was more than a little vague but it hardly mattered now. There would be plenty of time to look into that, and better people than him to do it. Besides, where was the proof?

‘There is no proof,’ he agreed when Maestrangelo called him. ‘I’m just trying to understand.’

‘And you have understood. A dangerous character, that one. I arrested him myself.’

So he, unlike the Marshal, did remember the case clearly. A freelance photographer whose speciality was photographing fashionable people in their own homes. He chose the settings, examined all the suitable rooms, chatted to his subjects, putting them at their ease. The thefts were carried out after a discreet passage of time by professional housebreakers who were instructed in detail about what to take and even provided with photographs. Between the photo shoot and the theft, commissions were taken, using the photographs, from the discreet clients of equally discreet antique and art dealers. Until the photographer’s cover was blown on his arrest.

So, why not steal the householder? One big job and set for life.

‘But,’ the Captain added, ‘according to the information I’m getting on the family, it wasn’t a good choice. Oh, there’s the property, of course, and the business, but the business is expanding and temporarily overstretched, and property’s hardly ideal. Kidnappers want quickly available cash, discreetly invested hidden cash that leaves no traceable hole. His information about antiques might have been expert but his information on these people must have been wide of the mark. What do you think?’

‘I think somebody lied to him,’ the Marshal said.

‘I don’t follow you. Why tell him anything, in that case?’

‘People say things…for other reasons. Even the Contessa herself might have wanted to seem richer than she was. Perhaps photographers, like hairdressers…get women chatting.’

‘Didn’t you say there was just the one photo session?’

‘Just the one, yes. As far as I know.’

Arrangements were made for Leonardo Brunamonti, the detective, Charles Bendy, and Patrick Hines to be summoned to the Prosecutor’s office at four in the afternoon. It was made clear to them that there was no idea of attempting to press them for information about their actions, that instead they were to be informed of the state of the enquiry and any action planned on the part of the carabinieri in the interests of the victim’s safety.

‘Not quite true, of course,’ Fusarri confessed to the Captain, ‘but it should produce them.’

Unfortunately, it produced only two of them. Hines cried off with the excuse of a headache and the reasonable assumption that the other two would update him.

Fusarri phoned Maestrangelo.

‘Blasted man’s keeping the daughter under control. I don’t see what we can do about it short of arresting him!’

Maestrangelo phoned the Marshal.

‘I’ll go anyway,’ the Marshal said. ‘He doesn’t say much, as I told you. I’d be glad to see him without that detective chap, and I imagine I can organize a minute or two alone with each of them.’

‘Well, if you think it could be useful.’

‘I’ll try. I’ve lost the son, you see. That’s very bad. I’m sorry… I’ll go round there and try …’

He set out, on foot as usual, at a quarter to four. As he came out under the stone archway he fished for his dark glasses but the sunlight was intermittent today as fluffy white, grey, and black clouds gathered in the windless sky.

‘We’re in for rain, Marshal.’ It was Biondini, the curator of the art gallery, ready for the downpour with raincoat and umbrella on his arm. ‘I suppose you’ve heard the news?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘The Corot stolen from the Louvre. I worry myself sick about our inadequate security arrangements but, you see, other museums have problems, too—and, of course, we have you on our doorstep and your Art Heritage Group down at the other end of the gardens to recover stolen paintings for us, so I shouldn’t complain. You’re looking blank—didn’t you see it on the lunchtime news?’

‘I wasn’t paying much attention, to tell you the truth…Where did you say, the Louvre?’

‘That’s right. The new part, you know. A lovely Corot landscape.’

‘A stolen landscape…Good. Something like that a bit nearer home would be just… good. Good…’

‘Marshal?’

‘Good afternoon. Thank you. Good afternoon. You’re very kind…’

Biondini always was very kind but if he got started he’d tell the Marshal more than he could manage to ingest about the stolen picture, and all the Marshal wanted was to know it was stolen. Very kind of him, that. Something nearer home, though. Still, that was for later. Piazza Santo Spirito first.

It was a shock to find the great studded doors of the Palazzo Brunamonti shut fast. There was a porter’s bell but he remembered the porter’s lodge as being disused. ‘Puzzled, he rang the porter’s bell.

Yes?’

‘Marshal Guarnaccia, carabinieri.’

The doors clicked open and he began pushing. Little wonder they had been habitually left open. They were a terrific weight, and there must be a lot of to-ing and fro-ing all day with the workshop being in there.

‘Who was it you wanted?’ So, there really was a porter now, and in uniform, too.

‘Ah, the Signorina Caterina Brunamonti. She’s expecting me.’

A lie but this man could have been employed by the son or Hines. He didn’t want the fellow calling up to announce him. T come by every day at this time. There’s no need to announce me and I know my way.’

‘Suit yourself, Marshal.’ Thank goodness, he went back to his newspaper. The Marshal took the lift.

As he stepped out on the second-floor landing, the apartment door was flung open and Patrick Hines rushed out, slamming it behind him. He stopped dead when he saw the Marshal, speechless, white-faced, his eyes horrified.

‘Oh God!’ He fled down the stairs as if pursued by devils.

The Marshal stayed still, staring after him, then approached the door. Hines could be found easily enough. If no one answered the bell, he would call for help and break in. He rang and waited. He heard no approaching footsteps but an almost imperceptible rustle made him go on waiting.

The door opened very slowly and before he saw anything the voice began, equally slow and cold as death, ‘I
knew
you’d change your mind.’

And then he could see her, barefoot, her long thin body naked where the frothy white transparent gown hung open.

When she saw who it was, her glossy red lips tightened and she slammed the door in his face.

Nine

T
he Marshal went down the stairs in the wake of Patrick Hines. He avoided the lift, preferring to go slowly. This was not because he wanted time to think. There was nothing to think. Apart from the physical shock of the young woman’s nakedness, it was only a question of recognition, of looking straight at what he had not felt up to seeing, much less naming. Her still, upright stance, her long pale neck turned as she fixed him with one bright eye. The poise of a snake fixing its victim.

But what did she want with him? What use could she make of him? And for that matter, what did she want from Hines? Not affection, not sex for its own sake. The chill that he had felt emanating from her thin white body made him shiver even down in the sheltered warmth of the courtyard.

The fountain was playing and the spring flowers smelled fresh in the warm air. Signora Verdi came out from the glass-fronted workshops. She must have spotted his arrival and had been watching for him to come down. He walked towards her. He needed to talk to her but not now.

‘Have you heard? Little Tessie’s had to be put down.’ She was crying, the tears rolling unchecked down her cheeks and under her collar. ‘It seems like such a bad omen. It gave us such a lift when she came home alive, and now—’

‘I understand how you feel. It’s a shame after the little creature had struggled so hard to get home. But it isn’t an omen. You mustn’t torment yourself like that. The Contessa—’

‘Is there some news of her? Is there?’

‘No—that is—there is news, information. Try to be patient. These things go on a long time. Concentrate on looking after things for when she gets back. You must have a lot of work.’ The woman’s face hardened. ‘You needn’t worry about that. Olivia will find everything as it should be as far as
we’re
concerned.’ She shot a black look at the porter’s lodge.

Yes, I believe you. I’d like to come and talk to you tomorrow—you didn’t see which way Mister Hines went as he left, did you?’

‘He mumbled something about getting a drink. He looked very upset. I suppose he felt the loss of Tessie as a bad omen, too. I needed to talk to him but he said he’d be back in a minute. He’ll only be next door at Giorgio’s …’

And who could blame him? The Marshal found him at the far end of the back room where all the other white tables and grey plush chairs were empty except for a couple of elderly lady tourists taking tea just inside the door.

Hines had what looked to be a large glass of brandy in front of him, but he wasn’t drinking it. Cigarette smoke eddied around him and he was lighting up again with trembling hands. His face was still ghastly.

‘May I…?’ The Marshal sat facing him. The two men stared at each other for a moment and then Hines’s face suddenly flushed dark red.

You surely couldn’t imagine—’

‘No, no … Not for a moment.’

Hines tried a sip of the brandy. ‘I feel sick, to tell you the truth…That she should have tried it at all I can understand. You hear of these things, and she’s strange—a lot stranger than Olivia wants to admit. But now … to do such a thing now, when…it’s inhuman! I suppose, in your job, you see weird things all the time…’

‘Yes. I do. But I can’t say I’ve altogether understood. What do you think she wants?’

‘She wants me in her bed, surely that’s obvious—in her mother’s bed, to be precise, which made it even worse. Marshal, she’s cleared out her mother’s room, been through all her private papers, thrown out some of her clothes, sold her jewelry with the excuse of—my God, I even found a rubbish bag ready to go out with her favourite records in it! She’s burying Olivia alive! She’s a monster! You saw that she’d sacked the maid?’

‘Yes…it’s an enormous house to run, too …’

‘Good Lord, Silvia didn’t run the house. She’s an affectionate little thing but all she was up to was looking after Olivia, especially when I was away. Cared for her clothes, made her coffee in the morning, a hot drink at night, looked after her when she had flu, massaged her neck when she was tense and overworked. There are cleaners to look after the house and also a non-resident cook, a local woman who’s been with the family forever. Silvia used to like to wait at table because she liked seeing the company but she wasn’t much good at it, poor thing. Olivia’s always treated her like a daughter, and on more than one occasion I’ve heard Silvia call Olivia “Mamma” by mistake. No doubt Caterina hated her for that. So now she’s been kicked out, and the Palazzo Brunamonti has a porter instead, the way a Palazzo Brunamonti should have.’

‘And the doors are kept closed. I see, yes.’ How many times had she said, ‘She might be dead already…’ and he had muttered something he thought would be comforting. ‘That’s why, then. Having you would be another nail in her mother’s coffin, another way of attracting to herself all the attention her mother got. I wish it were as simple to understand why she wants me around.’

‘That’s a good point. Why does she? She’s working out some plan of her own and nobody’s taking any notice. According to Caterina, nobody ever does take any notice of her. Poor Olivia’s always fallen over herself trying to give her attention.’

‘And her son?’

‘There’s never any need for her to worry about that sort of thing with Leo. They’re alike, they’re close, they’re both very talented. There’s an understanding there that doesn’t require any special attention and Caterina hates it. She’d do anything to make them quarrel. I used to try and tell Olivia, you can’t pretend these things. It doesn’t work and it can make things worse. All his life she’s insisted on Leo’s treading around his sister as though she were a land mine ready to blow.’

‘It seems to me she was right.’

‘Well, she was, but I still think Caterina should have been made to face reality, that all this protectiveness has only encouraged self-delusion.’ He sipped at his brandy. ‘I’ve never needed a drink so badly in my life. I’m sorry, can I offer you—’

‘No, no…’ The Marshal was glad to have arrived at such a moment. Under the influence of his private detective it was unlikely that Hines would ever have talked to him if he hadn’t had such a bad shock. He thought now of those unconvincing words of Leonardo’s about the little dog.
'That’s just me being sentimental. She needs constant care and attention, which we can’t give her.
‘They weren’t his words but his sister’s. Hines, asked for his opinion, agreed.

‘Word for word, you’re right. And what worries me is that after years of never contradicting her just to keep the peace, he’s now so distressed by what’s happened, so disorientated by the absence of Olivia, the rock on which everything was built, that he’s in a weakened state and, seeing her opportunity, the wretched girl is taking advantage of that to manipulate him. Her story is that Olivia is guilty of potentially causing their financial ruin. She omits to mention that they’d have been ruined years ago but for Olivia. She’s using this catastrophe to try and drive a wedge between them and persuade Leo not to part with what she calls Brunamonti money. I’m glad you saw what you did today because she’s our biggest problem as regards saving Olivia. I can’t imagine what she might do, other than not helping, but I don’t mind telling you I’m afraid.’

He drank off the brandy in one gulp and breathed deeply.

‘God, she frightened me today.’

‘I’m not surprised. But surely her brother will react, surely he’ll understand what Caterina’s doing.’

‘He’s an intelligent, sensitive person. He’ll understand, but he saw what happened to his father, saw him reduced to a starving, crazy tramp. He won’t dare turn on his sister because she’s weak like her father. He loves his mother but sees her as strong, indestructible.’

‘Does he have any idea of what she’ll be suffering, of the conditions she’s probably being kept in? People don’t, in my experience, ever recover completely after a kidnapping. And besides,’ the Marshal reminded him, ‘nobody is indestructible, and jealousy is very, very destructive.’

‘You’re right, and Caterina’s eaten up by it. Let me tell you something, Marshal: I often took us all out to dinner at a little restaurant we’re fond of, quite near here. Always the same place, almost always the same waiter, and every time the same thing would happen: He’d address Leo, myself, and Olivia by name—Olivia never used her tide—and ask if we wanted our usual choices, then he would turn to Caterina: “And the signorina?”

‘She would be white with fury. “They remember your names and never mine—and they should know by now that I don’t eat pasta!”

‘It was extraordinary, really, because they did try to remember and were always embarrassed, and, of course, the angrier and nastier she got, the more they failed to remember her, except as in impending embarrassment.’

‘I must confess,’ the Marshal said, ‘that I had great difficulty remembering her name and eventually had to write it in my notebook.’

‘Olivia has always suffered because of it. Her children are too old for me to play at being a father figure to them. I love her very much—I hope to persuade her to marry me—and I have a very relaxed, friendly working relationship with Leo. But Olivia is protective of Caterina, and though I don’t really have the right to interfere—I
don’t
interfere—I have tried to convince her that it doesn’t help.’

‘If it’s jealousy,’ the Marshal said, ‘nothing helps. I’ve seen murder committed for it.’

‘You don’t think—you’re not saying—’

‘No, no…She’s not involved in this, not deliberately. No. But given her… weakness…she might have been an unwitting source of information. Not very accurate information, if you understand me.’

‘Making herself out to be richer and grander than she is, you mean?’

‘Yes. It may be, you see, that she takes after her father, who had, they say, not much grip on reality. And if she’s also greedy for attention…’

‘Marshal—what is your name?’

‘Guarnaccia.’

‘Oh dear—after what we’ve just been saying. I’m sorry.’

‘That’s all right. People aren’t expected to notice me.’

‘Hm. Very clever.’

‘No, no … I’m not clever at all.’

However, he was not so stupid as to ask any questions about the communication they had received and how they intended to respond to it, or to let on that he knew where Leonardo Brunamonti and the detective were. He took this opportunity to try and explain something of the business logic of today’s kidnappings, of how a professional kidnapper was only too glad to deal with other professionals, whether private mediators like their detective or the State, instead of emotional, unreliable relatives. If their detective acted as drop man, he would deliver unmarked money and have no interest in capturing the criminals. He was being paid to save Olivia so his job was simple. He facilitated the success of the kidnapping. That of the carabinieri was to cause the kidnapping to fail, capture the kidnappers, and save the victim’s life.

‘In that order?’

‘Officially in that order, yes. But…’

‘I’m grateful for the “but.” I’ll take the rest of the sentence as read. I realize there are things you shouldn’t say.’ They were nearing the river. Before them was the rising span of the Santa Trinita Bridge, flanked at this end by the marble figures of autumn and winter. Huge fluffy clouds, some a menacing dark grey, some pure white, touched with pink and gold highlights, drifted on an uncertain wind to brighten and darken the stucco and stone of the great houses on the opposite bank.

‘I’ve always loved this city,’ Hines said, stopping to gaze at this scene, ‘but when I get Olivia back I’m taking her home to America, away from anything to do with the Brunamontis, their city, and their “accursed ditch,” as Dante called this river. We can work out of New York and Leo can hold the fort here.’

He didn’t mention Caterina, and the Marshal kept his doubts to himself. He also kept to himself where he was intending to go next after walking part of the way to Hines’s hotel with him. Clearly, Hines would not return to the house without the protection of the others. Caterina was well on the way to making people remember her name. She had become what potentially she had always been: manipulative and dangerous. She wasn’t clever enough to be very successful at it but, without achieving anything for herself, she was likely, in the present tragic situation, to cause terrible grief.

‘Up there? We should have brought the jeep.’ The Marshal’s driver paused where the steep drive led up from the avenue. ‘Oh well, we’ll give it a try…’

It couldn’t have done the small car any good but the Marshal didn’t seem interested. He was staring out the window at the vineyards and olive groves dotted here and there with• MAGDALEN NABB blossoming almond trees. The house at the top was big but not imposing. Ochre stucco, a dovecote, a generous central arch with a flagged floor. A real country house, looking down a green slope to the dome of the cathedral and a tapestry of red tiled roofs. When they stopped in front of it, the Contessa Cavicchioli Zelli appeared, escorted by a massive brown dog and with a sea of smaller dogs flowing around her. And if the Marshal wasn’t mistaken, surely that little one there—he wasn’t mistaken. The tiny dog was round the back of the car in a flash but there was no mistaking the stitches on her upper lip, the limp…

He got out. ‘Good afternoon. I hope I’m not…’ The little sandy bitch was there again, right in front of him now and standing on her hind legs, applauding his arrival, a tiny scrap of cheerfulness.

‘Did you see her? Did you see my little Tessie? Sweetheart!’ The little dog leapt into the Contessa’s arms and licked her face madly. ‘She was a poorly girl but she wasn’t going to stay in that dreary place and die, was she? No, she wasn’t. No, she wasn’t! Good girl! Now you go and play with the others while I talk to the Marshal. Go on!’ Tessie went, limping and leaping, yapping with joy, up onto a low stone wall, through a bank of crocuses and away after the other dogs. They all raced up the green hillside where a grey pony looked up to see what the fuss was about, gave a token buck, and lowered his head to graze again. For the first time since this business began, the Marshal felt better. But how on earth …? He looked his question at the Contessa.