Page 66 of The Venice Murders

Jack grinned. ‘He was wavering! I’m really not sure whether it’s the team from Rome or the Venetian police who will do the charging, but Matteo Pretelli is a murderer whatever, though it seems he’d no wish to kill his friend. And the officer this evening acknowledged that.’

‘He’ll plead self-defence, won’t he, and probably escape a life sentence? But whoever takes on the case, it looks as though Fabbri will be charged as well.’

‘Which is justice,’ Jack said, stretching tired limbs towards the balcony rails. ‘He may not have planned the theft or been involved in the fighting, but he kept silent when he should have spoken. He let friendship triumph over doing what was right.’

‘So did Enrico Tasca, I’m pretty sure. The policeman tonight said nothing about him, so perhaps it will be the Asolo police who make the arrest.’

‘Whether or not he’s locked up will depend on how much involvement he actually had. At the very least they’ll want to talk to him. Did he know his son had stolen the painting? Was he the one who arranged for Fabbri to store it in his cellar and to imprison Filomena? Or was he completely ignorant?’

Flora shook her head furiously. ‘He knew. Filomena said so. And when wespoke to him in Asolo, I’m sure he knew the housekeeper was alive and, if he knew about her, he knew about the painting.’

‘Several juicy prison sentences on the way then.’ Jack swirled the last of his brandy around the glass and finished the drink with a sigh of satisfaction. ‘Feeling any better?’ he asked gently.

‘A little.’ Flora’s smile this time was steadier.

‘Then if you’re ready…we have another busy day ahead of us.’

Jack was right, she supposed. But though the evening’s tumultuous events had left her drained, she felt tense, not wanting to give up and go to bed but too tired to do anything sensible. And she didn’t want to think of tomorrow. She’d been trying to forget Bianca Benetti, she realised, though that was impossible. They had promised Sally they would visit the girl and offer any help they could, and it’s what they must do. But there were sure to be more tears and, at the moment, Flora had endured more than enough.

Before they fell asleep that night, she turned to him, snuggling her head against the pillow.

‘Do you realise that we never mentioned Franco tonight? Yet it was his death that started us asking questions.’

‘The truth might come out at the trial but, in any case, Franco’s murderer is now as dead as he is.’

‘You’re sure Luigi Tasca killed him?’

‘Who else? We know that Franco went to La Zucca and confronted Silvio Fabbri the first night we ate there. You were guessing when you said that something had happened in the time between Franco recommending the restaurant to us and the furious quarrel we witnessed, but I think you were right. I reckon his mother must have telephoned and told him what was being said in Asolo. That their old priest was in trouble again. That Father Renzi had lost a painting and a housekeeper.’

‘And Franco immediately suspected that both of them would be at the restaurant?’

‘He could have picked up stories, hints, of what was in the offing on one of his many trips home. Then his mother phones and his suspicions become real, so he steams round to La Zucca to have it out with them. Tasca takes fright. His plot has been uncovered and Franco is a danger to him – the man has to go. Luigi seems to have been particularly handy with a knife.’

‘But Franco was pushed into the canal, not stabbed.’

He yawned. ‘What difference? Tasca is a killer.’

‘But—’

‘No more thinking, Flora. Stop those wheels of yours turning and let’s go to sleep.’

25

Flora hadn’t expected to sleep well and so it proved. The large brandies Jack had insisted on made sure that for the first few hours of the night she slept heavily, but then she was awake and with a mind that wouldn’t quieten. Beside her, Jack slept peacefully, and she tried hard not to disturb him. In truth, she doubted she could. He had the ability to sleep anywhere or any time.

He was so much stronger than she, Flora recognised. She might have all the feistiness in the world but he had the fortitude. When she thought of the life he’d led, it seemed inevitable. A child of parents who’d fought incessantly, sent to boarding school at far too young an age, then passed between mother and father like an unwanted parcel. As an adolescent, he’d coped with his mother’s erratic care – smothered one minute, screamed at the next – or his father’s dubious lifestyle of gambling for a living, with a succession of ‘friends’ filling his mother’s place. When, finally, he’d freed himself of these histrionics and landed a much-prized job on a Fleet Street paper, a cruel war had snatched the moment away. His young life, like so many others’, had been taken from him. Instead of the journalism he loved, the company of colleagues he admired, he’d been forced to become a soldier. There had been years of fighting – in Italy, on the D-Day beaches, in a liberation march across France – before he’d known any kind of normality.

And herself? No wonder she lacked the fortitude Jack possessed. She had lost her parents as a small child, it was true, but her aunt had rescued her from an orphaned state, loved her as a mother, and brought her to live safely in a small Sussex village. It was a safety she had known all her life – and continued to know. Curling up against her husband’s warm body, she was lulled by the thought. While Jack was in her life, she was safe. Her eyelids grew heavy and slowly she surrendered, falling into a deep sleep and knowing no more until the room was lit by bright sunshine and she felt her hair being stroked from her face.

‘Eight o’clock,’ Jack murmured. ‘If we’re to seek out Bianca and leave some of the day for ourselves, we’d better get moving.’

If, last night, Flora had been disinclined to ‘seek out Bianca’, this morning she was even less enthusiastic. What they both needed, she was certain, was a peaceful day. One spent together, sauntering alleys and pottering in shops, followed by a visit to the pool maybe, and a fabulous last dinner – though not at La Zucca! She was still utterly wrung out and, turning to face Jack, saw that he was looking almost as tired.

‘The ferry to the Lido will wake us up,’ he muttered. ‘I think.’ And when she didn’t reply, added, ‘There’s always lunch – we mustn’t forget the Hotel La Perla!’

Even lunch at a fabulous hotel no longer looked so attractive, but duty called and she pushed back the covers and searched for her slippers.

‘I’ll feel better when I’m washed and dressed.’ It was said hopefully.

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