Page 26 of Murder at the Ponte Vecchio

‘Go for it. I’m keen to see for myself.’

I picked up the cigar box and brought it out. It was double thesize of the big gold ingots – almost as big as the T-bone steak we had eaten at the weekend – but it weighed far less than the ingots. I set it down on the desk and opened the lid, noting the wordingMontecristo No. 4on the top as I did so. Inside, there was a layer of cotton wool and when I delicately pulled this out of the way, I was almost dazzled by the blaze of reflected light that emanated from the box. There, in front of me, was a jumbled mass of diamonds in all shapes and sizes ranging from one as big as a broad bean to others little bigger than grains of rice. There must have been several hundred diamonds in there. Some were lighter, some darker, some so rough, they looked little more than random seaside pebbles, but most were crystal clear – literally. I was impressed to hear even the hitherto reserved Swiss technician gasp in amazement, and the uniformed officer at the door took a step nearer to admire the contents of the box. Only Oscar, happily snoozing by the window, failed to be impressed. Now, if it had been a T-bone steak…

‘So that’s what three hundred thousand euros looks like.’ There was awe in Virgilio’s voice. He picked up his phone and called thequestura, asking for Forensics to send a team as soon as possible. Putting his phone down again, he looked up. ‘I want fingerprints from everything, particularly the cigar box. If we find prints belonging to Jacobs, that might help his case in establishing his ownership of the diamonds – not that it’ll do him much good now, poor man.’

‘Then what happens to this stuff? Do you take it away? Does it go into a bank vault?’ I glanced at the Swiss technician. ‘What if we left it here? Can you give us the combination or can we set a new one?’

‘When I opened the safe, all settings automatically returned to default factory settings. That means that the combination is ABCD12345. It’s easy to set a new combination with the dooropen, using a combination of nine letters or numbers. I would suggest that if you change the combination, the contents of the safe will probably be more secure left where they are. This is one of our top-of-the-range models and I doubt if there’s anybody else in Europe who could open it.’ His tone wasn’t boastful; he was just stating a fact.

Virgilio nodded. ‘That sounds like an excellent idea. I very much doubt if thequestorewould have wanted the responsibility of transporting and looking after hundreds of thousands of euros’ worth of jewels and gold.’

A thought occurred to me. ‘What about the family? Are you planning on letting them take a look?’

Virgilio shook his head decisively. ‘No, I don’t want any more people than necessary poking around in here. We have to talk to them about their father’s will and we can give them a rough idea of what’s in the safe at that stage. How heavy do you reckon those big gold bars are?’

‘At least ten kilos. They weigh much more than you’d think.’

The Swiss technician cleared his throat. ‘If you don’t mind my butting in, gentlemen, I think you’ll find those are standard bullion bars, 400 troy ounces each, and they weigh just under twelve and a half kilos each.’ He paused to do some rapid mental arithmetic. ‘Three of those at today’s gold price add up to roughly two and a half million euros, Swiss francs or US dollars. The smaller one-kilo bars on the top shelf are worth about sixty thousand euros each.’

Virgilio and I exchanged looks. On that basis, the five smaller gold bars added up to three hundred thousand euros, presumably the payment that Jacobs had handed over in exchange for the diamonds in the box. Virgilio whistled in amazement. ‘So with Jacobs’s diamonds, plus the extra three hundred thousand in gold, plus however much all these other gemstones are worth,that makes a total of well over three million euros sitting here.’ Virgilio turned to the technician. ‘I’d be grateful if you’d show me how to set the new combination now. The sooner we get this door locked again, the happier I’ll be.’ He switched his attention to the young constable. ‘And Linetti, I want you to keep your lips firmly sealed about what you’ve just seen. Am I clear? Not even to your mother. The last thing we need is for a bunch of local villains to descend on this place looking for treasure.’

After the safe door had once again been locked, Virgilio picked up the envelope presumably containing David Berg’s will and turned to me. ‘Shall we take Oscar for a little walk in the garden?’

The magic word immediately had Oscar on his feet and heading for the door. Virgilio shook hands with the technician and thanked him, leaving Constable Linetti to drive him back to the airport as soon as the Swiss had finished collecting all his bits and pieces. Virgilio and I followed Oscar down the stairs and let ourselves out of the front door. David Berg’s garden was a large one, divided into different levels supported by dry stone walls, and we followed a path that wound its way up through the olive trees and aromatic rosemary shrubs. Once we were suitably far from curious ears, we sat down on one of the walls and Virgilio turned to me. The Swiss technician wasn’t the only one to have been doing some mental arithmetic.

‘At a rough guess, I reckon this house has to be worth at least two or three million euros, probably more. In the safe, there’s at least that amount or more, plus there’s the shop on the Ponte Vecchio and its contents. David Berg was a very wealthy man.’ He held up the envelope. ‘Let’s see who gets all his money.’

He slit the end of the envelope with a penknife, slid out the contents and confirmed to me that this was indeed the old man’s will, accompanied by a covering letter. The will was written inItalian and Virgilio read it out loud. It contained few surprises. There was a sum of ten thousand euros to be paid to Signora Ines Bianchi for her years as what Berg described as ‘a faithful servant’, and the rest of his considerable fortune was to be divided equally between his three children. When he had finished reading, Virgilio caught my eye.

‘With the villa, that means around two million euros each, even without Axel Jacobs’s cigar box. For most people, that could be ample grounds to consider committing murder, but maybe not in this case. Marco was in touch with the Dutch police on Monday, and I got a communication from them this morning indicating that the three shops in Amsterdam are doing well, and Berg’s children are already rich in their own right. On that basis, I fail to see what advantage there might have been in it for any of them to murder the old man, especially as the money was coming to them before long anyway. What do you think, Dan?’

‘I agree, although they didn’t know for sure the provisions of the old man’s will. But maybe money wasn’t the motive. Maybe Berg was killed for another reason, something that links him to the second victim.’ I thought it worth suggesting the other hypothesis. ‘And of course, it’s possible we’re looking for two different killers and the two murders aren’t related.’

Virgilio nodded. ‘Yes, I’m struggling to see how the two murders can be linked, although the fact that both men were Dutch and both in the jewellery trade makes it so much more likely. With such a large amount of money at stake, surely the motive for both murders has to be robbery. Maybe the killer knew that Jacobs had come to Florence to buy the diamonds from Berg. It’s possible that the murder at the Ponte Vecchio was the killer looking for the diamonds there and, when he drew a blank, he then tracked Jacobs down and killed him when it was clear he didn’t have either the diamonds or the payment for them.’

‘Whatever the motive, I find it suspicious that Luuc Berg has no alibi for the times of either of the two murders. And don’t let’s forget that he’s in the jewellery trade as well, so he might have been following Jacobs all the way from the Netherlands.’

Virgilio nodded. ‘You could be right, and it was a family affair. How about this? Maybe David Berg was killed by his son in revenge for going off and leaving the family. Before you say it, the problem with that scenario is why did it take his son thirty years to get round to doing it? I might have the answer to that. They said their mother died only four months ago. What if the mother’s death tipped Luuc over the edge, and he came here looking for revenge?’

I could see the logic behind this theory, but I wasn’t convinced. ‘When Luuc told us that they’d loved their mother, I could feel a lot of emotion in his voice, but I’m not sure I see him as a murderer. From what you’ve been hearing, he wasn’t short of money either, so the idea of him killing his father and then Jacobs for the diamonds seems unlikely, but the fact remains, however, that he doesn’t have an alibi for either night. What does the covering letter say?’

Virgilio looked at it briefly before shrugging his shoulders and passing it across to me. ‘How’s your Dutch?’

In fact, with the aid of my very rusty German and my phone, it was relatively easy to get the gist of the letter and for the first time, I sensed some genuine emotion from David Berg. The letter was, in effect, an apology to his children for abandoning them and their mother. He explained quite touchingly how he had fallen in love with Claudia Greco – describing her as the love of his life – and when she had chosen to return to Italy, he had had no option but to follow her. He told the children how much he had missed them and how he hoped that the provisions of his will would at least make them think slightly betterof him. He even signed it ‘veel liefs’,which I took to be ‘lots of love’.

I gave Virgilio a rough translation before handing the letter back to him. He took it from me, folded it together with the will and slipped the two sheets back into the envelope. He stood up and glanced in the direction of the villa. ‘Now I think it’s time to pass this on to Casper and the others. I want to see their reactions.’

‘It’ll be very interesting to see the looks on their faces when you tell them there’s over three million euros in the safe upstairs.’

The reactions of the three siblings to the provisions of the will were mixed. Casper looked surprised and pleased, his sister looked equally surprised, but studiously avoided showing any signs of pleasure. Luuc, on the other hand, just nodded a couple of times and demonstrated virtually no emotion whatsoever. The covering letter drew an expression of satisfaction from Casper, real tears from his sister and, again, absolutely no reaction whatsoever from Luuc.

When Virgilio informed them of the contents of the safe and the approximate value of what was in there, Casper and Emma looked pleased, while Luuc still remained expressionless. Virgilio asked them if they could delay leaving Florence for another twenty-four hours, ostensibly so that Forensics could study the contents of the safe before handing everything over to the family. While this was no doubt true, I felt pretty sure that this would also be so that Virgilio could question them individually – particularly Luuc – before they disappeared back to the Netherlands.

I took a final look at their faces before we left the room. Was one of them a murderer, maybe even a multiple murderer? By the sound of it, we had only twenty-four hours to find out.

16

WEDNESDAY LUNCHTIME

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