Page 18 of Murder at the Ponte Vecchio

I shared his frustration. Looking across at Virgilio, I changed to the other subject again. ‘As far as the mystery of the missing files is concerned, later on this afternoon, I’m going to go and check out the houses of the three police officer suspects and I’ll see if I can find anybody who can give me any information.’

He nodded but added a caveat. ‘Thanks, Dan, but do remember to keep it low-key. At the moment, these are just possibles,not real, solid suspects, and if word were to get back to them that they were under suspicion, there would be all hell to pay.’

‘Believe me, Virgilio, I’ll be careful. I just want to get an idea of what sort of people they are outside the work environment. Presumably, you guys will be doing your best to look for the missing files from inside the force and, even better, trying to find out who wiped them. Good luck with that.’ I turned my attention to Marco. ‘What about the Ponte Vecchio case? Have the Swiss told you when their technician will be arriving?’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Still waiting to hear. I have a feeling the contents of that safe are going to be crucial to cracking this case and it’s frustrating having to wait.’

‘What about Berg’s family? I imagine you’ve done background checks on them. Find anything?’

‘Nothing significant. None of them has a criminal record. I was rather hoping that we might uncover something suspicious about Guido, the daughter’s boyfriend, but he would appear to be squeaky clean – and loaded. He comes from a very wealthy family in Randstad, halfway between Amsterdam and The Hague, and, before you ask, they’re tulip farmers on a vast scale, nothing to do with jewellery.’

‘And Luuc? I thought he looked the least sympathetic.’

‘Not even a parking fine. He’s clean.’

‘Pity. And are they all still staying at the victim’s house?’

‘I’ve asked them to stay at least until the safe gets opened, and they seem quite willing – no doubt they’re hoping to find the old man’s will in there. To what extent it’s in their favour remains to be seen.’

I reflected that we didn’t appear to be getting anywhere fast in this case. It certainly wasn’t as if we had suspects piling up.

Once Virgilio and Marco had left, I set off with Oscar to check out the homes of the two more senior officers that were both within easy walking distance of my office. I started with Giuseppe Verdi, thevice questore. His apartment was situated in a three-storey building less than five minutes’ walk from my office, backing onto theGiardino della Gherardesca– yet another beautiful green space in the middle of Florence, which is off limits to the general public, unless they happen to be guests of the exclusive five-star Four Seasons Hotel that now owns it. The front door of Verdi’s three-or-four-hundred-year-old building was a historical treasure in itself, made of beautifully carved, highly polished wood and set in a sculpted stone surround. A surreptitious glance at the brass bell-pushes on the panel beside it told me that there were only four apartments in the building and thevicequestoreoccupied the top-floor flat.

I walked on along the road for fifty yards before crossing and stopping, ostensibly so that Oscar could sniff and mark one of the trees flanking the pavement. Taking care not to appear too obvious, I turned my head so that I was able to look back towards thevice questore’s building and it was immediately clear that his apartment enjoyed its own rooftop terrace. I had no doubt that the views from up there over the ornamental gardens and back across the city must be spectacular. He was a lucky man and, in order to be able to afford to live in a place like this, he also had to be a wealthy man. I wondered how much the salary of the second-in-command of the Florence police force might be. No doubt this was a generous amount, but would it be enough to support a lifestyle like this without some additional subsidy – like donations from a murderer keen to cover his back, for example?

There was nobody about, no nearby corner shop or bar where I could casually enquire about the man who owned the top-floor flat, so in the end, all I could do was to move on to the nextaddress. This was the home of Vincenzo Grande, the Sicilian superintendent, and it was about twenty minutes’ walk away, on the far side of the main station. Although just inside thecentrostorico, this building was situated on one of a number of roads running through the town centre for the exclusive use of public services, buses, taxis and so on as well as pedestrians. In consequence, it was far less peaceful than Giuseppe Verdi’s place, although still only a convenient ten-minute walk from the police station itself. This was a bigger building than Verdi’s and from the doorbells, I worked out that it housed a dozen or so apartments. It looked as though Grande lived on the first or second floor, certainly not the penthouse. A good address, but not overly opulent.

From an investigative point of view, this place was preferable because there was a bar at street level, and it was possible that this was frequented by the superintendent himself. I went in, ordered an espresso and struck up a conversation with the chatty barista. I remembered Grande’s hobby of hunting and used that as an intro, adding that one of my friends lived close by who was an avid hunter. The barman immediately guessed to whom I was referring. ‘You must mean Vincenzo. He lives in this building a couple of floors above us. He often comes in for a coffee and he’s always talking about hunting.’

I felt sure it had to be Grande, but I shook my head, distancing myself from the superintendent just in case the friendly barman were to inform him next time he saw him that a man with a black dog had claimed to know him.

‘No, my friend lives about a hundred metres further down that way.’ I pointed vaguely along the road. ‘Do you hunt?’

‘When I get the chance, but I spend most of my life here behind the counter. What about you? Do you hunt?’

‘Back home in Ireland.’ No harm in adding a bit moredisinformation. ‘I’m here on holiday for a couple of weeks.’ I pointed at Oscar. ‘I’m staying with friends on the other side of the river and I told them I’d give the dog a walk. What about your man who lives here? Where does he go for his hunting?’

‘Vincenzo? He was telling me he went hunting wild boar down in the hills of southern Tuscany last autumn, but I think he spends most of his free time nowadays at the lake.’ In answer to my enquiring look, he explained. ‘It’s not far from the airport, out to the west of Florence in the valley of the Arno. There are two or three lakes there surrounded by reeds and they regularly get ducks and geese coming in.’ He leant towards me and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Mind you, from what he tells me, that’s not all you get there.’

‘Such as?’

‘They have a clubhouse and a cook, but they also have bedrooms, if you know what I mean.’ He grinned at me and tapped the side of his nose with a finger. ‘You don’t so much rent the room as the company inside it, female company, and I’m not talking about other hunters.’

This didn’t come as a total surprise. As well as food, wine, cars, football and hunting, I’m sure many Italian men would also include women in their list of hobbies.I’m going hunting, dear, would be a convenient way of slipping out of the house for a bit of hanky-panky without fear of most wives wanting to tag along. Maybe Vincenzo Grande’s Achilles heel was a penchant for illicit sex. Given that he was a senior police officer, this could make him open to blackmail. Could it be that in return for silence as far as his extramarital activities were concerned, Grande had agreed to make some incriminating police files disappear?

From there, I returned to the office, checked with Lina that nothing new had come in, and picked up my van. I drove out of town in the direction of Virgilio’s house in the suburbs and foundInspector Roberto Faldo’s house in a new development about a kilometre or so from there. His was the end property on a small development of a dozen modern, two-storey houses and it looked stylish and well-constructed. There was a new Mini on the drive and the front garden was well maintained. I wondered if he was renting or if he had bought it. Within easy reach of central Florence, it wouldn’t have come cheap. I presumed his wife also worked because they were most probably faced with a hefty rental bill or mortgage repayment each month. This didn’t necessarily make him more suspicious, but I put a mental asterisk alongside his name in my head all the same.

Unfortunately, out here in the suburbs, there were no convenient local bars or shops and, apart from a lone woman walking her poodle, there was nobody to be seen. Presumably, most of the people who lived here were still working at their jobs in the city. I took one final look and then drove up to the end of the road to turn around. As far as I could see from this cursory look, Roberto Faldo was living within his means – but probably only just.

As I set off for home, I reviewed the three men in my head and provisionally rated their possible culpability, assigning first place to Vice Questore Verdi, while Superintendent Grande and Inspector Faldo shared second place, but that could all change so easily.

11

TUESDAY MORNING

I went into the office earlier than usual next morning and spent the time between eight and nine on the computer checking, among other things, to see if there was anything there about Axel Jacobs, dealer in precious stones and metals. There were a number of entries in Dutch, but I also found a couple in English that confirmed what he’d told me. By the look of it, he was a reputable trader, although what he’d said about his ‘gentleman’s agreement’ with David Berg rather threw that into question. There were a few photos of him at trade fairs and what looked like a diamond dealers’ conference, and they confirmed that he was who he said he was. As far as helping him get hold of his cigar box containing three hundred thousand euros’ worth of precious stones or metals – or both – was concerned, I had very few options. It was quite clear that until the safe at Berg’s villa could be opened, there was no way of knowing if Jacob’s property was there or not, and if it wasn’t, he would face an uphill struggle to get it back. At least the contents of the safe might help us work out who might have killed Berg and stolen the goods.

At nine o’clock, Lina arrived, looking more relaxed than theprevious day. The fact that Virgilio had decided to share his concerns with Marco and me must have had a beneficial effect on him and, by extension, on his wife. I made her a cup of coffee and Oscar gave her a warm welcome. By the time I went back into my office, she was looking more like her normal self. Remembering my other case, I spent half an hour trawling the Internet for anything that might shed light on Monica Gallo, the mayor’s daughter. She had various social media accounts with the usual birthday celebrations, holiday snaps, and pictures of her in a number of drama productions, but there was no sign of a boyfriend – at least not for several years. In case Anna might know Virginia, the other twin, in the history department, I gave her a call and a ray of hope appeared.

---