Obligingly, she spent five minutes checking the outside cameras until she finally managed to pick up Aldo and Teresa, heading back through the car park towards the main gate. We could only see them from behind, but his polo shirt and her long hair were unmistakable. The couple disappeared from sight at ten twenty-seven and the camera over the front door then showed the victim making his unsteady way along the path towards the clifftop and his death. I wondered why they had split up and so I asked Rita to go back through the footage of the terrace camera until we picked up the three of them at table again. As the time clock showed ten-fourteen, a furious argument appeared to erupt and both men were soon waving their arms about in considerable animation. At exactly ten twenty-five, Aldo and Teresa stood up and left Ignazio at the table, still waving his arms about. He finally subsided into silence, emptied the last of the bottle of wine into his glass and drank deeply. It was ten forty-six when he rose unsteadily to his feet and headed around to the front door and onto the path towards the cliffs.
A thought occurred to me. ‘You said that Aldo often comes here for dinner. Does he normally walk in and out through the main gates, or is there a shortcut?’
‘When he’s with Teresa, he usually uses the main gate through the car park and that’s covered by the camera. Apart from that, there’s only the pedestrian gate at the clifftop.’
‘But that’s limited to hotel guests and it needs a code to open it, doesn’t it? Do you think Aldo knows the code?’
‘I’m sure he does. It’s been the same for years, and I’ve seen him coming and going that way. To be honest, a lot of locals know the code as well. Signor Silvano doesn’t mind.’
It was potentially very interesting that the code appeared to be common knowledge around here, so the locked gate wasn’t in fact as much of a hurdle as we’d thought. Given that Aldo had left the hotel at ten twenty-seven, it was no more than a ten-minute walk to the campsite. He would have had time to leave Teresa at her accommodation, wherever that was, and make his way back to the clifftop through the trees, using the pedestrian gate and the not-so-secret code. Unless Teresa could come up with a convincing alibi for him, this meant that Aldo Graziani had, not only a convincing motive, but also the opportunity to kill his brother. Maybehehad been the figure lurking in the shadows when Virgilio had punched Ignazio. As for means, Ignazio had been so drunk, it would have been relatively easy for anyone to push him over the edge. As far as I was concerned, motive, means and opportunity added up to a pretty damning indictment of Aldo.
‘What about Teresa? Does she live in the villa with Aldo?’
‘Not officially, but who knows? As I understand it, she lives in one of the chalets, but whether she sleeps there or at the villa is another matter.’
So it would have been easy for Aldo to see Teresa back to her chalet and then slip off again and murder his brother. Another thought struck me. ‘Where did the other people go when they left the terrace? Did they go to the bar, did they go out, or did they go to their rooms?’
This time, Rita switched to Saturday night’s CCTV camera in Reception, and we could see that from nine-thirty onwards, a steady stream of people had left the terrace, walked through the dining room, crossed the hall, and climbed the stairs or taken the lift to the first and second floors. I counted them on my fingers and there could be no doubt about it: apart from the pair of lovers and the Graziani brothers still outside on the terrace, everybody else had disappeared upstairs to their rooms by ten at the very latest. I double-checked with Rita, but she confirmed my fear that there was no CCTV on the upper floors, so there was no record of anybody moving about and maybe climbing out of the big window on the first-floor landing. So, potentially, almost any of the guests could have sneaked out unseen but, even so, the idea that we could be looking at a case of fratricide wouldn’t go away.
* * *
Virgilio and I met up before dinner and I passed on what I had discovered before asking him how it had gone with the twoCarabinieriofficers. His answer was fascinating.
‘As we thought, they’re here on a mission, and Anna was right about the Etruscans. The TPC have been investigating the appearance on the world antiques market of a number of high-value Etruscan pieces – statues mostly, but also beautifully decorated plates and vases. They haven’t been flooding the market but have been turning up every now and then for the past four or five years. Their investigations have led theCarabinierito believe that the origin of these objects is here on the island.’
‘So why come to Santa Sabina in particular?’
‘They had to get the all-clear from their superiors before they could tell me. That took a while but it finally came through. It appears that they’ve been following the money all the way back from a dealer in Lugano, Switzerland, to a known trafficker in Bologna. They’ve arrested the trafficker, and the man has been singing like a canary. Apparently, he’s been buying from a handler in Tuscany who in turn has a contact on the island of Elba who supplies him with the goods. Although no names have been mentioned, the finger of suspicion has been pointing at this part of the island.’
This of course tied in even more precisely with what Anna’s windsurfing teacher had been saying about there possibly having been an Etruscan settlement close by.
‘Do they suspect Aldo Graziani?’
‘Not specifically, but they think it must have been somebody in this area, and Graziani’s one of the biggest landowners. Of course, just because it’s his land, doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s been doing the digging. Have you ever heard oftombaroli?’ I shook my head, and he explained. ‘Literally tomb robbers, they’re normally the bottom step of the pyramid. They dig up the artefacts and sell them to a local handler who in turn sells them on to a bigger trafficker, and so it continues all the way up to the top.’
‘And the top is…?’
‘Private collectors and bona fide museums. By faking provenance – swearing that the objects have been in the possession of individuals or families for decades – the artefacts can be sold to respectable institutions around the world. Apparently, everybody in the trade knows that it happens, and in spite of some recent legislation in some overseas countries, most notably the US, it still continues to this day.’
‘And presumably it’s a lucrative trade?’
‘As an example, theCarabinieritold me that a good Etruscan statue was sold only last year for seven million dollars. It’s certainly lucrative – especially if you’re up near the top of the pyramid.’
‘Wow, I had no idea they could be worth so much. And did the Bologna trafficker give them the name of the handler in Tuscany?’
There was scepticism written across Virgilio’s face as he shook his head. ‘He claims not to know it. He says everything was done online with fake names, and payment was made to a numbered account in the Cayman Islands. This sounds highly unlikely, so theCarabinieriare still pressurising him to come up with a name, but so far, no joy.’
This was fascinating. ‘The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that this trade could be the way that Aldo Graziani has managed to pay for the expansion of his holiday resort.’
The potential evidence against Aldo Graziani was mounting up, and I knew that I would pay him a visit early next morning. First of all, I had to decide how I would describe myself to him. If I told him I was a PI, he might clam up. Was there some way I could get him to speak to me without revealing my true identity? This also got me thinking about my book and I wondered if I could somehow bring the illegal antiques trade into it. One way or another, it could be that Ignazio Graziani was doing me a favour.
12
TUESDAY MORNING
Next morning dawned bright and sunny once again, but there was quite a bit more wind. As Oscar and I walked along the clifftop to the windsurfing beach, I could see waves breaking against the rocky headland and a fishing boat yawing from side to side. This didn’t bode well for today’s windsurfing session. Even worse, from what I could see, the wind had changed direction, and it looked as though there was every possibility that I could be washed out to sea when I inevitably fell off. Although I had been looking forward to today’s session, I had no desire to end up on a one-way ticket to the other side of the Mediterranean – or the bottom of it.
Before going down to the beach to give Oscar an early-morning swim, I walked up into the campsite, where people were just beginning to stir. What interested me was the building behind the bar. A wooden sign in the shape of a pointing finger indicated that this housed Reception. Hopefully, this would be where I would be able to find Aldo Graziani. It was a quarter past seven, but the glass door was locked, even though a sign on it indicated that it should have opened at seven. I was still standing there considering what to do next when a female voice made me turn.