Page 44 of The Venice Murders

Expertly, Signor Gallo swung the car into the line of traffic making its way out of the city and onto a causeway that ran parallel to the railway bridge. In a short while, they were out on the road and the city had been left behind.

Through the window, clouds of filthy air began to drift towards them.

‘Porto Marghera?’ she asked and Jack nodded.

‘If Mestre is anything like it, no wonder Franco decided he couldn’t live there. Not after the Cipriani!’

Turning off the road that bypassed both Mestre and Marghera, Flora settled down to watch the passing landscape. The road, snaking its way towards Treviso, travelled between wooded hills, their lower slopes terraced for vines, and through numerous small villages, each with their square-topped church and war memorial. In the far distance, the sight of the snow-capped Dolomites caught her eye. The mountains were rarely visible from Venice, beleaguered as it was by waves of humidity rising from the lagoon.

As Jack had prophesied, they changed route on the outskirts of Treviso and after paying at a toll booth, Signor Gallo pulled into a rest area.

‘You want drink?’ he enquired from the front seat.

‘Good idea.’ Jack was enthusiastic. ‘We can stretch our legs at the same time.’ He helped his wife from the car. ‘I reckon we’ll be driving for another hour, at least.’

Flora didn’t mind – another hour, another two hours, or longer. Getting to Asolo was what mattered. The town, she was hopeful, would unlock the puzzle they’d been set.

17

Jack had been pessimistic, Flora decided, when some forty minutes later, the driver pulled into a parking area outside Asolo and consulted his watch.

‘You come back?’ he asked, tapping the dial of his timepiece.

‘Six o’clock,’ Jack suggested. Then to Flora, ‘That should give us time for lunch, as well as finding people willing to talk to us.’

‘Always food,’ she sighed.

‘We’re in Italy! Of course it’s always food.’

Looking around her as they walked the short distance into the town, Flora could see why such lavish praise had been heaped on this small settlement, nestled so neatly into the wooded hillside. Ahead of them lay a jumble of terracotta rooftops amid a cluster of cypress, with here and there the turrets of what looked to be old villas peeping between the trees. It was a town of cobbled lanes and small squares, of rose-filled gardens and frescoed walls and, towering over all, the Renaissance fortress – basking today in the golden light of a full sun.

Passing through an archway, they began a walk along one of the many arcaded streets, this one leading to the Piazza Garibaldi, the main square which, when they reached it, appeared remarkably quiet.

‘It’s so peaceful here and so beautiful. The pace of life must be very slow,’ she observed, as they took a seat at the square’s café.

‘Lemonade?’ he asked, as the waiter hovered at his shoulder.

‘Please.’

‘The town is certainly beautiful, but it was never going to be enough for Franco Massi, was it?’ Jack leant back in his chair, enjoying the view.

‘I can see why he might want a different life,’ Flora agreed. ‘Bright, ambitious, good with people – he was hardly a man to till the land.’

‘So, now we’re here, what do we do?’ He picked up the glass of cold lemonade the waiter had brought. ‘Have you made a plan? Of course, if you’ve changed your mind, we could simply picnic beneath the castle and drive back to Venice.’

‘We won’t be doing that and you know it! I do have a plan of sorts. I thought we’d find Franco’s parents first.’

‘And?’

‘And talk to them.’

‘Theyhavejust lost their son,’ he reminded her.

‘I know that, Jack, and if they don’t want to talk, that will be it. But it’s possible they might actually want to. They could be eager to speak of him.’

‘I have my doubts, but it’s worth an attempt, I suppose.’

When they asked their waiter for directions to the Massi house, they were told it was not, in fact, a house they needed but a smallholding on the outskirts of town. There was no taxi to take them, the man said apologetically, but it was a twenty-minute walk at most.

---