The Viper Read online

  ‘Half-sister, to be accurate,’ he said drily, ‘but yes, Benedetta.’

  Luisa had a vague memory of the old princess telling her Benedetta had gone to Switzerland. Years ago now, though. She realised it had been a long time since she’d had any contact with the old woman – she couldn’t even claim acquaintance, although it wasn’t a family you forgot.

  She felt him contemplate her, tapping his teeth with a fingernail, and straightened. ‘Do you know,’ something dawning in his eyes, ‘I think I remember you. In the big salotto, we men were kept away, weren’t we? But Benedetta wanted me for something. I forget what. But you –’

  Luisa moved away a little, feeling warmth at her neck. She didn’t know if he was flirting or if he really remembered her. She only remembered Benedetta asking for a glass of champagne and a man bringing it.

  ‘So you’re all related,’ she said. ‘It’s funny, I remembered the house – the entrance to the villa – differently.’

  He must, she supposed, have been at the wedding, although she didn’t remember seeing him. In the bridal dressing room, though, there had been only women fussing. And the father at the window. A strange cool atmosphere that she had put down to their nobility.

  ‘We passed the back gate,’ he said. ‘The main entrance is a mile further on. The estate is very large – it more or less wraps around La Vipera.’ And as if to illustrate the point he drew her closer, ‘Look,’ and set her in front of him. ‘You get the best view from here.’

  At first Luisa couldn’t see what he saw – of course, he was taller than her. She took a step uphill, unsteady already with the climb and the odd light, and above them that something flickered again, white between the trees, and she recoiled, reached for his arm and missed. She went down. As she went down she saw it, below them, the roof falling in and the pale scrawled flank of the house, half-covered in ivy. She saw something drawn there, and then she was sliding.

  And then Bartolini was grabbing for her, hauling her back from the brink, and that was when she felt the sudden sharp pain as it tore at her calf.

  Sitting back abruptly on the uneven hillside, she had felt a dizziness that refused for a moment to be dispelled, as Bartolini, a stranger, knelt in front of her examining the wound. Looking down, she saw rusty barbed wire caught on her tights, the long ladder in the nylon and black blood underneath. Queasy, she looked quickly away, raising her gaze: over his shoulder, the side elevation of La Vipera was no longer visible, but it sat in her memory like a projection on a screen.

  The gaping hole in the roof and the ivy, creeping black across the stucco, half-concealing the lineaments of a long-ago graffito that covered the whole side of the house. Had it been there all that time back? She’d never come here. The depiction of a gigantic spiral, spidery lines curling around on themselves like a snail, or something odder that from here she couldn’t properly see, a distorted figure beneath the ivy, half-crumbled to dust.

  ‘I want to go home now,’ she had said then, stubborn as a child herself, looking up into Bartolini’s face with its expression of mild concern. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘I want to go home.’

  In bed, she turned at the memory.

  Beside her, Sandro’s snoring had stopped, a hiatus that, as it prolonged, disturbed her more than the snoring. She waited – Was he? Would he? – and in a sudden uncharacteristic agony of fright she prodded him in the ribs. Don’t. Don’t.

  A sharp, hoarse intake of breath and he was there again – if not quite in the land of the living, in the twilight land of restless sleep. Luisa lay back on the pillows and made herself be quiet, but her heart would not stop its fluttering.

  Chapter Eight

  SANDRO LEANED DOWN TO KISS Luisa goodbye, absently.

  It wasn’t until he got to the street that he wondered if she had been a bit pale. He opened the door and the noise and bustle of the Via Ghibellina hurried him out and on.

  Pietro had been surprised by the request to meet in the Via del Leone rather than at the station, but agreeable. ‘Be nice to catch up with little Giuli,’ he’d said, sounding upbeat. ‘I can see being back in the station might be a bit – painful.’

  Pietro knew him better than he liked to admit. The highceilinged dusty corridors of the police station with their long windows, the old faces, the memories. Of cases past, thievery and abuse and squalor; of his own misery. Had he been unhappy all that time? Not all of it. There’d been a turning point, when his career as a police officer had gone abruptly to dust.

  He and Luisa didn’t speak of it, never had. The week that had changed their lives, a week in which Luisa had given birth to their daughter, their only child, and – unable even to hold hands in the awfulness of their pain – they had watched her die, two days later, of a syndrome for which there was still no cure. The difference now was that the syndrome could be detected in utero, and the baby could … well. There was still no cure.

  There had been a moment in that hospital bedroom, as he sat helpless in the armchair beside Luisa, when she had started out of bed with the tiny creature in her arms and run – run, hobbling with all the loose-jointed disorientation of having given birth – to the window and held the baby up to it to see the sky. ‘She’ll have seen it once, at least,’ she’d said, her face white in the pale light and, turning to Sandro, her eyes huge and black with it, the darkness too great for tears.

  Work had not been a comfort, but it had been a distraction. He had fought on, grimly. Until he’d made a stupid mistake and he was out, on his backside, and his career was over.

  Perhaps his going back to the station had stirred all that up for Luisa, too. Sandro stopped with the thought, got out his phone and sent her a text. Is everything okay, sweetheart? Meet for lunch? He walked on.

  The day was beautiful. One of those September mornings cool and clear as crystal but the sun still warm on the golden house-fronts. Sandro took his time walking the long diagonal through the city, and by the time the pretty dome of the Cestello appeared at the end of the Vigna Nuova, bathed in yellow morning light, it had all settled somewhat.

  When Sandro got to the Via del Leone Giuli was not there, but that suited him fine. Another moment or two of contemplation: suspects.

  The primary motives for murder, in his experience, were emotion – hatred, anger, jealousy – or money.

  Not Gorgone, then. Even if he hadn’t been on the other side of the world when Nielsson died, and clearly hadn’t known Lotti from Adam, he was wealthy already. And any passion or imagination he might once have had seemed to have long ago burned down to nothing. Sandro didn’t think him capable of murder, but that didn’t mean he liked him. He’d told Pietro as much on the phone already. Not him, in my opinion. But he knows something.

  Nielsson’s wrists had been bound. That told Sandro she had not been killed in haste, nor thoughtlessly. Lotti – well. That might have been a secondary murder, to hide evidence: he came upon the scene and found the murderer there and was killed. Possible – although coincidence played too much of a part in it for Sandro’s liking.

  The entryphone sounded. It was Pietro: Sandro buzzed him in and could hear him immediately cheery on the stairs, calling up. He believed Pietro was enjoying this reunion, and the thought heartened him. His old friend had two piping hot coffees in one hand and a briefcase in the other, and an overcoat concealing his uniform. He took off the coat and then the paleblue uniform jacket immediately, the maroon trim at the pocket and on the sleeve giving Sandro an odd flip of the heart. Handing his uniform in all those years ago.

  ‘So,’ Pietro said, setting down the little paper cups and swinging the briefcase flat on to the desk. A quick glance around. ‘You don’t think he went down there and killed her. But does he know anything?’

  ‘He’s too dumb to know anything,’ said Sandro, giving in to his dislike, reaching for the coffee, ‘about anything.’

  What had she seen in him? Just the body? He hadn’t been quite the same man back then, had he, Sandro thought: idle, a m
ain-chancer, wandering through the rooms of La Vipera in search of entertainment and no more.

  That was too glib, though. He sighed. ‘I’m not sure he’s told me everything,’ he said. ‘I think he’s scared of being involved and is just saying the bare minimum. But he did give me Kaufmann, at least. To get me off his back, no doubt. I’m seeing her this morning at eleven.’

  She’d been polite on the phone, yes, no, tomorrow morning. She’d been expecting his call, she said, a deep voice, with a trace of an accent. She’d hung up before he could ask any more.

  Pietro sat down next to Sandro, pushed one coffee towards him and, between the cups, Sandro laid the big dog-eared pad he preferred to any computer.

  ‘What did she say, “Means, motive, opportunity – and intuition”?’ he said. ‘So …’

  ‘So, there’s Martinelli, who found the body,’ said Pietro, taking a pen and beginning to write.

  ‘There’s whoever’s left of the La Vipera community,’ Sandro said. ‘So that’s Gorgone, Kaufmann, Grenzi – wherever she is – and Helen Mason. Who else is left in the village from back then?’

  ‘According to the questura,’ said Pietro, ‘almost no one. There’s one farmer, but he’s in a wheelchair, no dependants.’ Pietro hesitated. ‘There’s the Salieri clan, obviously. The princess and her son and daughter – the princess was here all summer, as was Martinelli, but the rest of them …’ He sighed and laid the pen down. ‘August people move around, don’t they?’

  ‘Okay,’ said Sandro, knocking back his coffee and squinting at the list. ‘That’s a start, anyway. I’ll see what I can get out of Martine Kaufmann.’

  ‘I still want to get up to Sant’Anna, too,’ said Sandro, the paper between his hands – the crime scene always told you something. But even as he said it he wasn’t sure if he did. He was frightened of La Vipera – he was daring himself to return – and he didn’t protest when Pietro held up his hand.

  ‘All in good time,’ he said.

  From downstairs came the sound of a key in the door, then slow steps on the stairs.

  ‘So,’ said Pietro. ‘Do you remember her from before? This Kaufmann?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sandro. ‘I mean, vaguely. Not much about her …’ Standing in the doorway watching. Bedrooms with mattresses on the floor and drawings on the walls, doodles everywhere. ‘Just the blonde hair, the German accent, Baratti interviewed her while I was – talking to Nielsson.’ He looked down at his list of names and birthdates: Kaufmann was his age, a little younger. There was Chantal Buisson, the oldest, the one who’d died: he ran a pencil through her name.

  ‘Nielsson was in charge, then?’

  Sandro thought about that. ‘There was a lot of stuff about it being a communal house, a co-operative living experiement. But she owned the place and she – well, she had a sort of natural authority.’ He could feel himself begin to flush.

  What would Pietro say if he knew that Sandro still thought of Nielsson, on and off, at odd moments in all the intervening years? He might have him up as a suspect. He shifted in the chair, uneasy.

  ‘I bet old Baratti liked that,’ said Pietro, not appearing to notice.

  ‘He hated it,’ said Sandro reflexively. Baratti had said she needed a good seeing to, in the car on the way back to the station that first time.

  Pietro glanced at him. ‘Just as well he’s wheelchair-bound these days, then,’ he said. ‘So who else have we got still alive?’

  ‘Grenzi,’ said Sandro. ‘I think she must be the one Gorgone thought was running a ski school up north. And Helen Mason, in Nova Scotia.’

  ‘Panayotis managed to leave a message for her at that convent or whatever it is, bless him,’ said Pietro, ‘asking if she might be prepared to talk to the Italian police. That boy’s the best of them, actually. He works away at things. I’ll get him on to Grenzi next.’

  ‘Mmm,’ said Sandro absently. On the desk his mobile buzzed and impatiently he turned it face down.

  The steps had paused on the landing and they both turned their heads: the door opened and there was Giuli. Exasperated, Sandro examined her. She was late but that wasn’t it. She was looking distinctly under the weather too. Dragging herself up the stairs like she was a hundred. He checked himself. ‘Giuli?’ he said.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, setting her bag down on her desk in the corner. Giuli was no longer his assistant but an investigator in her own right, and thus had her own workspace. ‘I’m not sleeping at the moment then the alarm didn’t go off. Don’t mind me.’ She began to take off her coat and, in the second or two before Sandro turned back to Pietro, he thought, she’s ill. Everything about her, the drooping shoulders, the odd – what? – shapelessness of her. But Pietro was leaning forward.

  ‘One thing I forgot to mention that could be important,’ he said. ‘That wasn’t Lotti’s usual dog walk, by no means. It would seem he positively avoided the path going up behind La Vipera.’

  ‘And who told you that?’

  Pietro sat back. ‘Well, I told you I went up to the Salieri place.’

  ‘One son, one daughter, both away,’ said Sandro. ‘Yes, I remember. You didn’t go into detail, though.’

  ‘Well, the old lady’s gaga,’ said Pietro. ‘I mean, she was sitting up in a chair, and she gave me one of those looks, as though I was a footman who’d been caught stealing from the pantry – but I’d say her short-term memory’s gone completely. She remembered La Vipera all right, but she seemed to think they were all still there. She told me to talk to her son, but then she seemed to be under the impression he was in hospital.’

  Sandro didn’t understand. ‘She told you about Lotti’s dog walk?’

  A faintly sheepish look came over Pietro’s face. ‘Not her.’ He cleared his throat. ‘It was the housekeeper – Gianna Marte, she’s called, from up north in the lakes or somewhere. Actually quite … chatty – so chatty I sort of tuned out.’

  ‘Like a man in uniform, did she?’

  It was Pietro’s turn to flush. ‘She was useful, as a matter of fact. I needed an interpreter, what with the old lady prone to digressing.’

  ‘The woman – Marte – was there while you were talking to the princess?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Pietro. ‘This was after the old lady got the hump and sent me out with a flea in my ear.’

  ‘Right,’ said Sandro drily. ‘Let me guess. She offered you a coffee in the kitchen.’

  ‘Not against the law, is it?’ said Pietro defensively. ‘Like I said, I wasn’t really listening. The old lady quite freaked me out and I was just decompressing. I wasn’t taking notes – yes, yes, I know – but it came back to me this morning. She was talking about how superstitious the locals were, that they didn’t walk up behind La Vipera. No one did, Lotti included. He always walked the dog over the other side.’

  ‘Which is perhaps why Nielsson was killed there,’ said Sandro thoughtfully.

  ‘Well,’ said Pietro, ‘it does lend credence to the theory that the killer was surprised by Lotti while returning to the body, for whatever reason. Might have expected not to be interrupted.’ He scratched his chin. ‘But that’s back to the coincidence theory.’

  ‘You know what interests me more?’ said Sandro. He didn’t trust coincidences. ‘Why he did walk his dog there. There must have been a reason. There’s always a reason.’

  Behind Sandro, Giuli sighed heavily and the chair creaked as she sat. He leaned back. ‘You okay?’ he said to her warily. ‘You called yesterday – what was that about?’

  ‘Something and nothing,’ said Giuli, waving him away. ‘I’m fine. Don’t fuss.’ He turned back to Pietro.

  ‘What about the original anonymous tip-off?’ Pietro said. ‘That interests me. You traced the call to the bar back then?’

  Sandro nodded. Only three houses in the village had had phones in 1976, he remembered. They’d gone into the bar to ask but of course no one knew anything, no one remembered anything. You had to pay after you used the phone booth – behind the
bar they had a little meter that showed how many scatti you’d used. It was inconceivable that the barman wouldn’t remember a call being made, but the blue-jawed type hadn’t.

  ‘No one remembered anything, no one saw anything,’ he said to Pietro, who nodded, his smile ironic. ‘The barman would have been – sixty?’ said Sandro. ‘He’d be long dead.’ He mused, thinking back to that little café, the long bar stretching into the gloom, the dusty bottles. He wondered if it was still the same and felt a pang of nostalgia. ‘But he wasn’t the only one working the bar. You know who I’d like to talk to?’ Pietro leaned forward eagerly at the tone of Sandro’s voice, and Sandro had to smile – it was nice, after all. ‘The woman of few words. Maria Clara Martinelli. She found the bodies. And she used to work in the bar as a teenager. Way back when.’

  ‘Right,’ said Pietro, sitting back, satisfied. ‘That’s where we’ll go this afternoon then.’

  A silence, of satisfaction this time. Surreptiously Sandro turned his phone over: the buzz had been a message from Luisa. I’m fine. At the homeless shelter at lunch, sorry. He put the phone in his pocket.

  ‘Pietro?’ They’d both momentarily forgotten Giuli’s presence. There was something diffident, timid, in her voice that Sandro didn’t associate with her.

  Pietro turned to her in surprise.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I mean, Commissario. Can I ask a favour?’

  He shook his head impatiently. ‘What is it, Giuli?’ he said, as she hesitated. ‘Anything.’

  ‘It’s just – if I gave you a telephone number,’ she said, ‘could you trace it for me?’

  *

  Is everything okay, sweetheart?

  So Sandro had seen something. She’d put on trousers to hide the dressing she’d applied to the scratch. White blouse: maybe that had made her look sallow. If not the trousers or the blouse, he would only have had to look at her face properly.

  It had felt as though he was never going to leave.

  She could have lied about the scratch. Or she could have just told him the truth. I hated that woman and I wanted to know what had happened. I wanted to see for myself. Vindictive – for more than forty years! – and a rubbernecker into the bargain. Sandro would have been shocked; he would have been disappointed.