Page 50 of The Venice Murders

‘You know this? How you know this?E stato un errore. A mistake. Luigi is good person. I see him in prison, and now he makes no more mistake.’

‘He doesn’t work here with you?’

‘One day, two days.’

‘And the rest of the time?’ Flora was thinking, Jack knew, of how easy it would be for Luigi to spend time in Venice, time plotting the theft of a valuable painting.

Matteo shrugged, a gesture that suggested Luigi did little work or, when he did, it was on a casual basis. Plenty of time then to get into mischief.

A splutter of an engine behind them had Jack turn to see a large man in overalls jump from a muddy and much dented Land Rover.

‘Qual è il problema?’ he asked Matteo.

‘No problem.’

‘Poi torna al lavoro.’

Matteo scowled. It seemed he was being ordered to get back to work. The red-faced man turned to them. ‘Siete interessati nellamia fattoria?’

‘We like your farm,’ Jack confirmed in English. ‘We are visiting Asolo from Venice.’

‘Conoscono Don Stephano,’ Matteo added, pausing in his work.

The mention of Stephano Renzi had the man’s shoulders stiffen, but he held out his hand to them and introduced himself. ‘Enrico Tasca.’

Flora gave him her most dazzling smile. ‘It’s so good to meet you, Signor Tasca. We were hoping that we might. Hoping that perhaps you could help us.’

‘Help? What do you mean?’

‘Filomena Pretelli, Matteo’s aunt, is missing and Don Stephano is very worried. We wondered if she was here. She lived in Asolo for many years, we believe.’

‘She not here,’ he said curtly.

‘Don Stephano thinks that maybe she has had a breakdown,’ Flora pursued.

‘Un crollo,’ Jack added quickly, trying to follow Flora’s lead. ‘Items have been stolen from Santa Margherita and the signora has become very upset. Did you know this?’

The man jiggled the Land Rover’s keys in his hands, passing them from one to the other. At length, he said, ‘Silvio tell me when I go to Venice. From church! It is bad.’

He seemed shocked, Jack thought. Sincerely. If it had been his own son stealing from Santa Margherita, Enrico Tasca appeared ignorant of it.

‘Silvio?’ Flora queried. ‘Signor Fabbri? We went to his restaurant, La Zucca. The food is very good.’

The man nodded. ‘We grow.’ He pointed to the spread of fields in front of them. ‘Good vegetables. Good fruit.’

‘I’m sure. But Signor Fabbri – he has no farm of his own?’

A slight smile passed across the weather-beaten face as he pocketed the keys and held out a pair of grimy hands, a testament to years of rural labour.

‘Not for Silvio,’ he said, shaking his head.

That seemed to signal the end of the conversation. There was little more they could ask and prolonging the encounter would seem to solve nothing – they would be met by blank faces and a shrug of the shoulders. If either Matteo or Enrico Tasca were aware of Filomena’s whereabouts, neither of them were saying.

But neither of them, Jack realised suddenly, appeared unduly worried. Yet this was a woman that both Matteo and Enrico’s son had been close to, in this town and later in Venice.

Flimsy grounds for suspicion, he had to admit, but the connection between the Tasca farm and the Venice restaurant was more than simply a commercial arrangement, he was sure, yet no matter how many questions they’d asked, it had remained murky. Deliberately so?

19

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