Midway through the morning, a doctor came out to reassure me that she had regained consciousness and was doing well, and around half-past twelve, a nurse emerged to tell me that she was being moved to a private room. Shortly afterwards, I was finally allowed to see her. The nurse who accompanied me to the room told me I could have only a couple of minutes with her but repeated what the doctor had said. Anna was going to be fine.
These words were still echoing in my head as I tiptoed into the room. I was greeted by the sight of a battered Anna, lying back against a pile of pillows. Her left arm was in a sling, she had a spectacular black eye, there were surgical dressings on her cheek and a bigger dressing across her forehead. Her eyes opened as she heard the door and a little smile appeared on her face as she saw me, although she looked as if she had just gone ten rounds in the ring with Tyson Fury. I hurried over to her bedside and, once again, felt tears stinging the corners of my eyes. I stood there and looked down at her, for once, totally lost for words. She reached out her good arm and caught hold of my hand.
‘It’s all right,carissimo, I’m all right, really. The doctor told me I have a hard head.’
I took her hand in both of mine and did my best to avoid blubbing like a baby as I finally managed to string a handful of words together. ‘The doctor says you’re going to be all right. Thank God.’
‘How did you find me?’ Her expression became more serious. ‘I’ve been lying here trying to remember, but it’s all so vague. Oscar and I were in the overgrown field, and I saw that the doors of the shed were open. I presume I must have walked over there but I can’t remember anything else until I woke up here in the hospital.’
I pulled up a chair and sat down beside her while I gave her a very quick summary of how we had managed to track her down. The smile returned to her face.
‘Oscar really is a very special dog, isn’t he?’
I didn’t bother answering. We both knew the answer to that one. ‘The nurse said I can only stay for a couple of minutes. You have to sleep now. Do you have any idea who might have done this to you?’
I saw her shake her head and then wince. ‘Like I said, the last thing I can remember is seeing the shed with the doors open. It could have been anybody.’ She gave my hand a little squeeze. ‘Don’t worry, Dan, I’m all right and I’m going to get better, properly better. They say they’re just keeping me here for a while to be sure there are no after-effects of the blow to the head.’ The smile returned to her lips. ‘You look terrible. Go off now and let me sleep. And grab yourself a cold beer and some food; you look as if you could use it. Oh yes, and make sure you give Oscar a hug from me, a really big hug.’
I kissed her and left her to rest. The nurse told me I could come back at the end of the afternoon and I wandered out of the hospital feeling drained. In the space of a few hours, I had experienced emotional highs and lows that had left me weary but, ultimately, heartened. If I had been harbouring any doubts about my relationship with Anna – and I hadn’t – the events of this morning had underscored the great affection I felt for her. Coming so close to losing her had finally managed to break through my ridiculous English reserve and made me realise how bleak life without her would be. I loved her dearly.
Cheered by this realisation, I headed down the hill until I reached the waterside and strolled along a stretch of quay where a swanky cruise ship with no fewer than nine decks was disgorging a seemingly never-ending stream of tourists. I hastily headed in the opposite direction until I found a suitably quiet backstreet bar where I obeyed the order Anna had given me. As I savoured a big glass of cold beer, I gradually relaxed and let my mind move on to exactly what we had discovered today – apart from Anna’s battered body.
Aldo Graziani’s shed had obviously been erected so as to conceal the entrance to the hole in the ground. What this was remained to be seen, but it might have been an ancient mine. It was very fortunate that this had been only a couple of metres deep or Anna wouldn’t have stood a chance. While waiting for the ambulance and the fire brigade, I had been able to make out a series of niches cut in the mine walls, and in the shadowy entrance to one of these, I had at first thought I’d spotted another person, standing silently watching me. I had been on the point of calling down one of the armed police officers when I had realised that what I was looking at was a statue. When the emergency services had arrived and set about the delicate task of strapping Anna to a stretcher and winching her up the mineshaft, I had investigated my surroundings more closely.
The first discovery I had made had been that behind this finely carved statue of a severe-looking man in a long robe with a remarkably modern hairstyle, there were no fewer than three other statues of varying sizes. It was clear that I had found a repository of ancient antiquities, no doubt worth millions of euros. Had they been stored here centuries ago or had they been unearthed elsewhere and then hidden here for safekeeping more recently? No doubt the experts would be able to establish this, but what was clear was that these statues had to be the source of Aldo Graziani’s newfound wealth.
The next question was who else had known about this stockpile? Of course, at least one person must have – and that was whoever had assaulted Anna. She had told me that she’d seen the doors of the shed wide open, while we had had to smash our way in. This indicated that her assailant had had a key. A thought occurred to me and I called Virgilio, who told me he’d been working closely with Piero Fontana all morning. After giving him the good news that Anna was conscious, compos mentis and making good progress, I asked him a question. ‘Have you any idea whether the police have been able to find the key to the shed?’
‘No, Piero says his people have searched the reception area at the campsite and they’re going back over every inch of Aldo’s villa, but so far without success.’
‘And there were no keys found in his pockets when the body was taken to the morgue?’
‘In his pocket there was a wallet, a phone, some coins and a ring holding the key to his villa and his car, but there was no trace of keys to any of the campsite buildings or to the shed.’
‘And that’s highly suspicious. At the very least, I would have expected him to be carrying keys to the campsite and I’m sure that he would have carried the shed key with him at all times, so I reckon the murderer took them after assaulting him. On that basis, it seems likely that the person who so nearly killed Anna also killed Aldo. Agreed?’
‘That’s the conclusion we’ve come to as well. Now we’ve got to work out who that might be. Piero’s instigated a search of the chalet where Teresa Franceschini lives as well as the home of Fabio Morso. Piero’s also been questioning the Japanese man and the shopkeepers from Lucca. His people have been searching their rooms as well and I’m waiting to hear from him if they’ve discovered anything. What about you? Where are you? You travelled over to Portoferraio in the ambulance, didn’t you? Can I come and give you a lift home?’
I protested that I could easily take a taxi but he insisted, and twenty-five minutes later, he arrived to pick me up. Sitting on the back seat of his car, looking like visiting royalty, was none other than Oscar, and when he saw me, he leapt forward onto the front seat, tail wagging furiously, and he was halfway out of the passenger window before I managed to stop him. I made a real fuss of him and then persuaded him to return to the back seat while I sat down alongside Virgilio with a cold canine nose breathing in my ear.
‘Ciao, Virgilio, thanks for picking me up.’ I produced a smile. ‘You do know it’s an offence to have a dog unsecured on the back seat of a vehicle, don’t you?’
He grinned at me. ‘I had no option. There was no way Oscar was going to let me come and pick you up on my own. Besides, he’s been very well behaved. Now, tell me all about Anna.’
As he threaded his way through the busy traffic of the town, I told him everything I had been told at the hospital and added that, in spite of her dislocated arm and her head wounds, she had been very lucky.
I saw his face grow more serious. ‘She wasextremelylucky. Whoever pushed her into that hole in the ground must have known that she could easily have been killed. By the way, Forensics say that the wound to her forehead was caused when her head struck the feet of one of the stone statues.’
I shivered yet again. ‘And as far as I’m concerned, the finger of suspicion surely points at either Teresa Franceschini or Fabio Morso. Have Piero’s people found anything in their accommodation – come to think of it, where does Fabio Morso live?’
‘He’s staying at his father’s old place, about a kilometre down the road from the campsite. There’s a team going through it as we speak.’ He glanced across at me as we headed along the remarkably narrow ‘main’ road towards Porto Azzurro, lined with umbrella pines and occasional farmsteads. Compared to the coast, the hinterland of the island was remarkably undeveloped. ‘You look terrible, fancy a drink?’
‘That’s what Anna said – the looking terrible thing and the drink thing. I’ve just had a beer, but I really need to eat something now. I feel empty.’ At my use of the word ‘eat,’ I heard movement at my ear and a wave of malodorous dog breath blew past me. ‘Did Oscar get his steak?’
‘Not yet. The kitchen staff were crazy busy, but we can remedy that right now.’ With that, he pulled off the road into the car park of a little restaurant bearing the auspicious name of The Grill – written in English. All around us were fields and hills, and the restaurant itself looked more like a decrepit barn than a glitzy McDonald’s. On the far side of the building, protected from the gusty wind, there was a line of tables sheltered beneath an even more decrepit-looking pergola whose timbers bowed alarmingly under the weight of a mass of vines. It was almost two o’clock and most of the other diners were already on their desserts or coffees by now, but a waiter assured us that we were still in time to eat. He showed us to a table at the far end of the terrace and provided us with a verbal menu. It didn’t take long. As far as I could tell, it was a choice of meat, meat or meat – all of it grilled.
We opted to split a mixed grill accompanied by roast potatoes and a fresh artichoke salad. The waiter disappeared for less than a minute before returning with a carafe of anonymous red wine, another of water, and a basket containing bread and grissini. With the aid of a glass of the remarkably drinkable wine and a couple of breadsticks shared with Oscar, I was soon feeling more like my old self again after what had been a traumatic morning. Virgilio chatted about all sorts, ranging from the beauty of the island to the quality of the wine, and I could tell that he was deliberately steering clear of the subject of the two murders and the assault on Anna. It was good of him, but, now that I was feeling more normal again, I brought up the subject myself.
‘If we assume for the moment that Aldo’s death is somehow connected with the illegal antiquities trade, that still doesn’t help us work out whether we’re looking for one murderer or two. What do you think?’