Page 29 of Murder on an Italian Island
‘What about this suggestion? Let’s assume for the moment that Aldo managed to lay his hands on some valuable pieces of Etruscan art. It’s highly unlikely that he would have been able to identify and contact a major trafficker or potential buyers overseas, so he would almost certainly have looked for a handler here in Tuscany. Whoever that handler is, it’s probably safe to say that he or she is the one who dealt with the man currently in custody in Bologna. The Tuscan handler knows that it’s probably only a matter of time before the trafficker in Bologna gives him away and so he decides to take action to eliminate one of the only other people who knows his identity – and that person was Aldo.’
I was impressed. Fontana’s thought process was very similar to my own, but I thought I’d better mention the fly in the ointment that had already occurred to me. ‘It’s an interesting theory, and it’s something I’ve been turning over in my head, but there’s a problem and you’ve just said it yourself. You said that Aldo wasoneof the people who knew the identity of the handler, so there would have been others. This as yet unidentified person was a go-between, and his name would have been known to a number of localtombaroli. Unless you’re aware of reports of other suspicious deaths in this area in the last few days, there would have been little point in this guy murdering Aldo unless he was trying to kill off all his contacts, and I can’t see that as viable.’
I saw Piero Fontana nod in agreement. ‘Point taken. And that makes it less likely that his murder was tied up with the illegal antiquity trade.’
I had also been thinking about this. ‘Yes and no. Although I don’t think it’s very likely that Aldo was murdered by the local handler, he might well have been murdered by a competitor or even a partner here on the island. With big money to be made, it’s possible that somebody might have decided to kill him off so as to get a bigger share. Which brings us back to Teresa Franceschini. Was her connection with him a business rather than a romantic partnership? Might she have killed him so as to get her hands on everything?’
Piero Fontana exchanged glances with the sergeant. ‘Gallo, you and I definitely need to sit down and have a long, hard talk with Teresa Franceschini. Maybe her relationship with Aldo was both a businessanda romantic partnership and, like Dan says, she killed him either so as to get her hands on the buried treasure, or out of jealousy, or for other, more personal reasons. The problem is that I can’t see what motive she might have had to murder the brother, Ignazio. There’s surely no way she could have confused the two of them, even in the dark. If she killed Aldo, maybe somebody else killed Ignazio. Either way, I’m increasingly suspicious of her and we definitely need to lean on her hard.’
The last interview with which I was involved was with the Swiss couple. They told us that they had been coming back here every summer for four years because they loved the place. Heidi told us she worked for the Swiss post office while Martin, her fiancé, worked in a bank. They disclaimed any knowledge of either of the brothers and told us that they had been in their room when both deaths had occurred. The inspector thanked them and, after they had left, he pointed out that none of the hotel guests could provide alibis for the times of either killing apart from the word of their partner or spouse, which, of course, in a court of law meant little or nothing. Basically, we found ourselves with a lot of suspects without alibis, but without any appreciable motive.
I glanced down at Oscar, who was stretched out on the floor at my feet. Sensing that he was being observed, he opened one eye but then let his eyelid drop once again. Clearly, we weren’t going to get any suggestions out of him.
18
WEDNESDAY MORNING
Seeing that our windsurfing lessons had been cancelled, Anna and I decided to walk up to the overgrown field so that she could see the remains of the Etruscan mines that Stefano had mentioned. It was actually quite hard work walking inland into the face of the gusty wind, but I felt a whole lot safer than if I had been out on a surfboard. Here on dry land, the breeze made a very pleasant and refreshing change from the unrelenting heat of the previous days.
We crossed the road and walked up the track as far as Aldo Graziani’s shed. Close up, this was a relatively large building, and, as Stefano had said, it looked deserted. While Anna and Oscar fought their way into the undergrowth looking for signs of the Etruscan mines or smelting furnaces, I examined the wooden shed more closely. The first thing that struck me was that there were no recent tyre marks or footprints leading to it. Clearly, it had not been used for some considerable length of time. The other thing that struck me was that the front doors were secured by a high-security lock – one of those expensive ones that has a long, flat key, like the lock on the outside door of my office. If the shed was empty, this seemed excessive, and if there was something inside, it was clear it was something of value. My detective antennae started twitching and I walked around all four sides of the building, looking to see if there might be any other way in. But I looked in vain.
Unable to satisfy my curiosity, I waited in the shade for several minutes until Anna appeared, sweating profusely and looking disappointed. ‘Without a flamethrower, we don’t stand a chance of finding anything underneath all this greenery.’
To emphasise her point, Oscar appeared behind her with a long piece of vine that had somehow got tangled up in his collar and was now trailing behind him like a second tail. As I bent down and removed it, I pointed out the security lock.
‘I have a feeling there might be something valuable in here. I’ll report this to the inspector and hopefully, his people will be able to locate the key.’
She looked more animated. ‘What do you think’s in here? Wouldn’t it be amazing if we found a load of Etruscan artefacts?’
Secretly, this was what I was hoping as well, but I decided to temper my expectations and hers – at least for now – so I avoided speculating. I pulled out my phone and called Piero Fontana. He answered immediately and I told him where I was and voiced my suspicions. He told me he was still interviewing the hotel guests but promised to send somebody to the campsite reception desk to ask Teresa for the keys. I wished him luck, but I had a feeling the keys wouldn’t be there. Something was telling me that they wouldn’t be found hanging on a hook. If the contents of the shed were what I was hoping, the keys were most probably hidden away somewhere very secure – like in a safe. Unless, of course, they had already been taken from Aldo Graziani’s pockets after his death.
Anna and I walked into the centre of Santa Sabina and stopped at the café where the walls of the little church sheltered the tables from the wind. There were only two other people sitting outside and I recognised them as fellow guests at the hotel: the shopkeepers from Lucca. The man looked up and gave me a nod of the head while his wife had hers buried in her phone. As usual, they didn’t appear to be speaking to each other, but maybe after thirty or forty years of marriage, they had exhausted all topics of conversation. I found myself wondering if they were enjoying themselves. Even before the death of Ignazio, they had looked distinctly troubled, and my first impression of the man when I had seen him running up the path from the beach had been very different from what I would have expected of an average holidaymaker. What, I wondered, was bothering them?
We ordered coffees and chatted quietly as we drank. In spite of Anna’s declaration that she didn’t mind my unfortunate habit of getting involved with investigations at the most inconvenient times, I tried to keep my mind off the two recent deaths, and we talked about all sorts including, inevitably, the people who had inhabited the island two and a half thousand years ago.
My resolve didn’t last long. In spite of my best intentions, an idea struck me as we were talking. I had been wondering how Aldo Graziani had been able to force Ernesto Morso to sell him his vineyard for a song, what he could have used to blackmail him, and it occurred to me that Aldo might have discovered Morso doing something illegal.
Might the illegal activity have involved Etruscan antiquities? What if Aldo had caught old Signor Morso digging up and disposing of valuable antiquities? In return for not shopping him to the police, Aldo had been able to get the land for a bargain price and then, as a canny businessman, had carried on the very lucrative antiquities trade for his own purposes. Might that be it?
The more I thought about it, the more the old vineyard and the unexpectedly large shed struck me as being pivotal to the investigation, and I was interested to find that Anna had apparently been thinking along the same lines as she looked up from her drink with a pensive expression on her face. ‘I’m sure there’s something valuable inside that shed and I’m equally sure that it’s got something to do with the illicit antiquities trade. When do you think the inspector will be able to get hold of the key?’
‘Probably in the next hour or so, as soon as he finishes the interviews at the hotel.’
‘What if he can’t find the key?’
‘Very simple. His officers will force the doors open.’
Our conversation was interrupted by my phone. It was Virgilio. ‘Dan, Marco has just sent me some fascinating information. Where are you at the moment?’
‘I’m at the bar in the village.’
‘Can you spare the time to come back to the hotel? I’m on my way there now to speak to Piero Fontana.’
I glanced across at Anna. ‘It’s Virgilio. Sounds like he’s onto something. Do you feel like coming back to the hotel with me?’
After a brief pause, she gave me her answer. ‘If it’s all right with you, I think I’ll go back to that overgrown field and do a bit more searching in the undergrowth. Shall I take Oscar with me for another walk?’
Her use of the magic word ‘walk’ was enough to get him on his feet, tail wagging in anticipation, so we headed off in different directions.
