Page 14 of Murder at the Ponte Vecchio

‘Three days ago? Surely, that’s a matter for the police.’ This was definitely sounding familiar and I had a feeling I knew what his answer to my next question was going to be, but I knew I had to ask it anyway. ‘Can you give me the name of the victim?’

‘Berg, David Berg. He’s… he was a jeweller on the Ponte Vecchio.’

For now, I didn’t repeat my comment about this being a matter for the police. I was far too interested to see if this unexpected visitor might be able to shed fresh light on Friday night’sevents on the Ponte Vecchio. ‘Can I ask what your connection with the victim was?’

‘Business. We did business together.’

‘So are you in the jewellery trade?’ He nodded and I went on. ‘Did you know him personally? Had you met before?’

It seemed to me that he hesitated just a fraction too long before shaking his head. ‘No, we’d just been doing business over the Internet.’

‘When did you find out that he’d been killed?’

Again, just a hint of hesitation. ‘This morning. I saw it on local TV.’

‘You speak Italian?’

‘Only a few words, but I recognised his photo and understood enough to gather that he’d hung himself.’

‘If it was suicide, what makes you think it was suspicious?’

‘He wasn’t the sort of man to take his own life.’

‘I’m sorry, but how can you say that if you’ve never met him?’

A nervous tic appeared at the side of his mouth and we both realised that he’d been caught out. After a longish pause, he looked up and nodded a couple of times. ‘All right, I knew him, quite well in fact. We worked together for three years a long time ago, but the reason I told you I didn’t know him was because I didn’t want to get involved.’

‘I can understand that, Mr Jacobs. But, by coming to me, surely youaregetting involved, aren’t you? Why not just let the police deal with it?’

‘It’s complicated. Listen, it’s like this: I had an appointment with him on Friday evening. We arranged to meet at a restaurant called il Fiume at eight-thirty, but he didn’t show. I called him several times but there was no reply, so I waited almost an hour, had a steak, and went back to my hotel.’

I asked him for his full name – Axel Jacobs – his phonenumber, and the name of his hotel, which I recognised as a pricey four-star hotel bang in the centre. The restaurant where he had been supposed to meet Berg was also in the higher price bracket. This wasn’t budget tourism. Then I asked him the obvious question.

‘Why come to me, not the police? I imagine they’d be very pleased to hear from you.’

A more cautious expression appeared on his face and, after a long pause, he owned up.

‘The fact is that Berg had something of mine and that’s not the police’s business. I paid him for it on Thursday and he was hanging onto the goods for me until Friday evening but, like I said, when I went to the restaurant on Friday night, there was no sign of him or of my property.’

‘Can I ask what this property consisted of?’

His face hardened. ‘No, you can’t. All I’m prepared to tell you is that it’s very valuable and, seeing as Berg and I are both in the jewellery trade, I’ll let you work it out for yourself.’

‘Can you at least tell me what it looks like?’

‘It’s inside a wooden cigar box – Cuban Montecristo No. 4. That’s all I’m prepared to tell you at this stage.’

I was tempted to press him for more detail but decided to leave it for now. A cigar box would easily be big enough to hold a small fortune in gold or precious stones. ‘I see. Would I be right in thinking that your interest in Mr Berg’s death is not so much with what happened to the man as with trying to recover your property?’

‘I’m sorry he’s dead, but you’re right, I want what’s mine.’

‘And you don’t want to go to the police?’

He shook his head decisively. ‘No, that’s why I came to you. I’m prepared to pay you handsomely for your time, but if you feel you don’t want to get involved then I’ll be on my way.’ He made tostand up, but I waved him back into his seat again. The fact that he didn’t want the police involved struck me as decidedly dodgy, and under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have touched a case like this with a bargepole, but for now, I had no intention of letting him get away. His evidence was potentially far too important.

‘It’s all right, Mr Jacobs, what you do is up to you. I just think that you might get your property back sooner if you got the police involved.’ He shook his head again so I moved on. ‘You mentioned that you used to work with Mr Berg. Where was that and what were you both doing?’

‘He was a diamond cutter and I worked alongside him in Amsterdam a long time ago. I’m Dutch.’

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