by Mark McCrum
After five long turns, Francis came upon a small path heading away through the woods and up to the right. Was this the one Gerry had recommended as the ‘nifty short shortcut’, when he’d elaborated privately to Francis after his talk about the walk up to St Ubaldo’s? He decided to give it a go, left the track and followed the path up towards a creaking sound that was soon revealed as the chairlift. A swathe of trees had been felled here, to accommodate the stubby black pylons that held the cables. High above him, up the steep slope of yellowing long grass, he could see the pulley-wheel station at the top; while far below were the terracotta rooftops of the town. Tall cylindrical open baskets sailed up past him, with no one on board. Then a lone teenaged girl swung into view, coming down. Francis watched her, feeling almost embarrassed he was standing there alone on the hillside, like a voyeur.
‘Hi,’ he called.
She waved vaguely at him, as if a man standing beneath one of the black pylons was the most natural thing in the world.
He nearly turned back, but out of some odd desire to prove himself to his host, decided to carry on, under the high cables, across the open rocky ground, to find the continuing path on the far side. It was narrower here, less obviously used. Then it threatened to peter out entirely. Francis climbed over a fallen tree, then pushed with difficulty through a brush of vegetation. Was this the path, continuing here, or was that just a stony ledge under this row of trees? Below him, the grey-white scree fell away more steeply. As he stood there, not wanting to turn back now he had come this far, his lower foot started to slip. He toppled over and reached out in a panic, grabbing at loose stones with both hands, but holding nothing, as he slid down the slope with increasing speed. He tried to slow himself with his feet, then when that didn’t work, forced his chest and legs down hard into the ground. He was getting filthy, but yes, at last, he was losing momentum. He was slowing. He had come to a halt.
He lay there, spread-eagled, trembling, hardly daring to look down at the town far below. Tentatively, he reached out his right foot to gain purchase on the solid outcrop of rock that had stopped him. Then he followed with his left. He took long breaths, ordering himself to squash his vertigo and not panic. Slowly, he turned his head. Fifteen yards to his left he could see vegetation clinging to the slope quite satisfactorily. The band of rock he was on cut through the scree and reached over to that. He just needed to stay calm to get there.
Carefully, foot following foot, he inched his way across. How had he allowed this to happen? he wondered. There he’d been, worrying about some probably highly unlikely murderer in the group at Villa Giulia, who might – preposterous – have intentions in his direction. Meanwhile, a stupid misjudgement and he’d almost tumbled to his death himself. Or if not death, at the very least a broken leg. It was a long way down – and it only got steeper.
He made it. Got to a position where his arms were wrapped round a tree. He got his breath back and regained his equilibrium. From here, it was easier. The hillside was thick with undergrowth. And he could hear, not far off, the creaking of the funicular again.
He made his way back to the treeless strip. Was this where he’d crossed it before? No. He was further down. Wasn’t he? On the other side of the open ground the woods were denser. Who cared? At least that would stop him falling again.
He looked up at the baskets of the cable car, passing relentlessly up and down. A couple were sailing up: a chubby guy in a white baseball cap taking pictures of the view while the skinny woman in his life looked out the other way. Then, coming down, another couple. Good God, it was Tony and Roz, locked in an embrace. They were snogging. Though Tony, Francis saw, was also looking round at the other cars, perhaps nervous that he might be seen by someone from the Villa Giulia group on the way up.
Neither of them had seen Francis, standing underneath his little tree. He let them get completely out of view before he moved, then hurried across and dived into the woods on the far side. It was as it had looked, hard going, with several fallen trees to climb over. Finally he stumbled on to a narrow footpath. Was it the one he’d been on earlier? It wasn’t. But it led, quite quickly, out on to the main track. Inexplicably, he was higher up than he’d been before.
He was drenched with sweat, he realized; though now, in the heat, it made for a pleasant chill on his skin. He took several deep breaths and a swig of water from his bottle and kept going, on up the track, passing a young woman with headphones and a set expression striding purposefully down.
Tony and Roz, who would have thought it? That explained Tony’s odd bristling last night, when Liam was getting over-familiar with Roz. It also explained why Roz had scoffed when Tony had said he was in counter-intelligence. If he wasn’t, she would be the one to know, if not to mock. So was he also her married man? Or had she started something new to annoy the absent married man, make him jealous or get him to make his mind up? Perhaps Mel had been right, and Roz had been out with Tony on the day he was absent and she had vanished, the day before Poppy died. At any rate, the snog put paid to one idea Francis had been considering: that Sir Duncan might be Roz’s married man.
Or did it?
There was certainly plenty to think about as he paced on. Five more turns and there it was, ahead of him, the Basilica of Saint Ubaldo. Chunkier than he’d imagined for a hilltop church, with a fine square bell tower on the right and steep steps up to an imposing frontage in pale ochre stone.
Just before the steps, on the right, there was a café with a sunny terrace behind, from which there was a terrific view. Not just of the patchwork of terracotta squares of tiled rooftops far below, but out beyond the green parkland around the Roman amphitheatre to the flat brown plain stretching away to distant wooded hills.
‘Francis!’
It was a trio of ladies from the villa: Diana, Zoe and Mel. They were all looking a little guilty, holding double-scoop ice creams in waffle cones. ‘Caught us at it!’ said Mel with a laugh. ‘Belle’s still being dutiful in the church, if you’re going up there.’ They had done St Ubaldo and now they were having a little treat. Had they too seen Tony and Roz together? Francis wondered. Surely not in the compromising position he had.
Francis had arranged to meet Gerry and Stephanie for lunch at one o’clock, so after a nose round the Basilica, and a look at the dark-skinned St Ubaldo, in red skull cap and cream clerical robes, asleep in a huge glass case on top of a marble plinth, he made his way back down the baking stony track to the narrow streets of the little town and thence to the wide oblong of gleaming terracotta tiles that was the Piazza Grande.
Stephanie was at first her usual upbeat self, showing off the jacket she’d bought for peanuts in the market. ‘But what happened to you?’ she asked Francis, spotting the white dust on his T-shirt and jeans. He told them of his adventure on the hillside but didn’t mention what he’d seen on the cable car.
‘Sounds like you took the side path too early,’ said Gerry, looking concerned. ‘I’m so sorry. I should have drawn you a map. The shortcut’s about halfway up, pretty clear when you see it.’
Francis shrugged. ‘Oh well, I survived.’
As the bruschetta arrived, and their glasses of wine were refilled by the saturnine waiter, who looked, in his dark-brown waistcoat and purple shirt, as if he belonged to an Italian offshoot of the Addams family, Stephanie switched abruptly to confessional mode. She obviously didn’t want to involve Francis, but she had to admit that she and Gerry were worried by the antics of the police. What were they up to? And if they didn’t return the passports tonight, there would be serious inconvenience. For the four who were supposed to be travelling back tomorrow, quite apart from the scheduled new arrivals. What were she and Gerry supposed to do? Put them off? Or should they let them come, then accommodate them in one of the two pensioni in the village. It was an unprecedented and frankly impossible situation. But the commissario, Marta Moretti, she of the helmet of black hair and the long, painted fingernails, was very forceful. There was no getting around her.<
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‘We shouldn’t be here in Gubbio at all,’ Stephanie said. ‘But then again, it was all getting a bit stir crazy up at the villa. I do think everyone needed a day out. And some of them look forward to it so much. Diana, bless her, would die if she didn’t get at least one excursion. And I know Roz is looking for ideas for her blog.’
‘So you know about that?’
‘We haven’t said anything to her,’ Gerry said, with a sly smile, ‘but we’re hoping for a nice write-up.’
‘There is one other thing,’ Stephanie continued, ‘which I’d rather you kept under your hat until we get back. The police are searching the villa.’
‘While we’re out?’
‘Yes, I know, quite a thing, but they’ve promised not to disrupt anything. It will just be a cursory look.’
‘And nobody else knows this?’
‘The police didn’t want anyone to know. It would spoil the point of it, they said.’
‘That’ll put the cat among the pigeons.’
Stephanie shrugged. ‘The Moretti woman insisted it was routine. But what do you think, Francis?’ she asked, leaning forward, chin cupped in her palms.
‘About … the search?’
‘That too, but about the whole situation. Poor Poppy’s death possibly not being an accident. Can we believe that? Or is Commissario Marta just off on some mad track of her own?’
‘It was the necroscopo who wanted the post-mortem, wasn’t it? What do you think, Gerry?’
‘The necroscopo authorized by the prosecutor,’ he replied. ‘You wouldn’t imagine they’d want to waste their time if there was really nothing to go on.’
‘You don’t think it’s just because we’re expats?’ Stephanie said. ‘In the nice villa. And all that.’
‘I don’t,’ Gerry said. ‘There’s some novelty here, certainly. But you don’t pursue an investigation like this just for novelty. Once we have the post-mortem result things will be clearer.’
‘And when’s that?’ asked Francis.
‘We’ve been promised tonight,’ Stephanie said.
‘We shall just have to keep our fingers crossed,’ said Gerry, making the gesture.
‘Dear Gerry,’ said Stephanie, copying him. ‘Always so optimistic.’
Out of politeness, Francis joined in. The three of them sat with crossed fingers for five seconds.
‘You mentioned poison?’ Francis said.
‘Yes.’
‘What I don’t understand is this. If you went to the trouble of poisoning someone, why would you then bother to trap them in the sauna?’
‘To make doubly sure,’ said Gerry, with a grim smile.
‘But the use of poison, which is traceable, would rather negate the death-by-sauna plan, which isn’t.’
‘Unless our murderer thought the sauna would act as a cover. And nobody would be looking for anything else. Meanwhile making quite sure Poppy died.’
‘Good point,’ Francis said. ‘But if it really is foul play,’ he went on, dropping his voice as Signor Addams brought their plates of pasta, ‘it does make you wonder who might be responsible. I mean, who on earth would want to murder Poppy?’
This question brought nervous laughter.
‘Quite,’ Stephanie agreed. ‘But seriously …’
‘It’s terribly clichéd, I suppose,’ Francis said, ‘but there is that beautiful house. We know from his talk that Duncan loves it with a passion. And the garden.’
‘Which Poppy has also written about,’ said Stephanie.
‘The Garden that Led to Murder,’ said Gerry. ‘But if you’re really suggesting that Duncan was involved, you have to ask: why on earth would he come all the way out here to do it?’
‘It’s a good question,’ Francis agreed. ‘Maybe you think you’d be less of a suspect, away from home. Or perhaps there’s something about the Italian legal system which makes it less likely that you’d get caught.’
‘Really? Such as?’
‘I have no idea. But a diplomat might know about such things.’
‘Are you seriously suggesting,’ asked Stephanie, ‘that our lovely Sir Duncan is a murderer?’
‘I’m just throwing out ideas.’
‘As crime writers do,’ said Gerry.
‘As crime writers do,’ Francis repeated thoughtfully. ‘But if Poppy’s death is discovered to be unnatural, Stephanie, we have to face the fact that someone’s done it. And it’s hardly likely to be one of the folk in the village.’
They were a surprisingly merry party heading back in the bus that afternoon, laden down with purchases: clothes and shoes and leather goods from the market, the pretty little painted tiles of ‘typical occupations’ – ciabattino, medico, contadino, soldato, sacerdote – that people had all found in the same backstreet shop. Diana was delighted with a belt she had bought from a dear little man at the leather goods stall, in the Italian colours of red, white and green. Roz was thrilled with the photos she’d got, not just of tipico food, but of the porte dei morti, the ‘doors of the dead’, which were oval openings to the right of the main front doors in some of the central streets, where corpses had once, it was said, been carried out. Getting away and seeing the beautiful town and its artefacts, with the accompaniment of a couple of cappuccinos, a panini or a meal in a ristorante, had taken everyone’s mind off the situation at the villa. But as the coach grew closer to home, crossing the bridge over the dried-up river in Civitella, then making its way across the plain of vibrant green tobacco and sombre grey-brown sunflower fields to wind up the steep hill to Pianetto, the mood grew sombre.
As the party drew up by the fountain in the village square, Stephanie asked for their attention. The announcement she then made, about the police’s search of the villa, didn’t go down well.
‘Nothing personal, Stephanie, we’re all too fond of you for that,’ Diana said. ‘But I really do think you could have told us.’
‘You should have told us,’ Zoe agreed. ‘Heaven knows what they’ve done in there.’
They all piled out and marched at remarkable speed through the wrought-iron gates and down the gravel drive. To see … nothing. The cops had been and gone.
There was another shock at dinnertime. Doubly so, because whatever search of the villa the police had done had been surprisingly low key, and the initial anger had rapidly subsided. As far as Diana could see, they hadn’t even touched her lipsticks, which was one of the things she’d been worried about. ‘It just feels so personal,’ she said. ‘Strangers rooting through your washbag.’
Now, as the puddings were finished and the waitresses came round with orders for tea and coffee, Stephanie got to her feet and pinged a glass. She had a bit of bad news, she announced. ‘I’m afraid that the police are not, unfortunately, prepared to release any passports as yet. And tomorrow, Procuratore Sabatini has asked permission to reinterview everyone.’
For two seconds the room was silenced. Then the protests began. What? Why? What were they thinking? The five who had been planning to fly back the next day – Liam, Zoe, Roz, Tony, Angela – were now seriously inconvenienced. Liam was going to miss his connecting flight back to Derry and was just grateful he had decent travel insurance. ‘The whole thing is a mighty pain in the arse. I’ve got classes to teach next week. Do they not understand that some of us have proper jobs to go to?’
Roz also had important work to get back to. She was hoping this farce wouldn’t continue much longer, otherwise her team was going to be running around like a headless chicken.
Zoe was going to be missing a golden wedding. ‘It’s heartbreaking. I’ve known Gay and Ronnie since I was twenty-one. I was at the party where they first met. In Pimlico, in the Sixties. I really should be there.’
Angela been looking forward to a ninetieth birthday party. ‘On the other hand,’ she said, eyes twinkling, ‘I can hardly complain about being stuck out here. It’s ten degrees warmer than it is in London at the moment.’
Tony was the only one not complaining; if he h
ad something he should have been getting back to, he wasn’t – apparently – fussed. Perhaps he was a patient sort; perhaps he was happy to have more time with Roz; perhaps his work was here anyway.
‘And what about the people coming for the second week?’ asked Zoe.
‘We’ve had to put them off,’ Gerry said.
‘The thing I don’t understand,’ Diana said, ‘is why anyone would ever want to come here for less than two weeks. Once you’ve landed in paradise, why would you want to rush off?’
‘Because you’ve got other, slightly more important things to do, maybe,’ said Roz, barely concealing her irritation.
‘What could be more important than being out here, having a nice time, being creative, surrounded by lovely friends?’ said Diana. ‘I can tell you this, Roz: when you’re lying on your deathbed, you’re not going to be thinking about all the office meetings you missed.’
‘I’m not so sure about that.’
‘More fool you, if you are. You may be a very loyal employee, and good for you, but you can be jolly sure your company isn’t going to care two hoots about you when you’ve gone. They never do. Gold watch, possibly, if you’ve done a very long stint, but nothing more than that. If you’ve been given a legitimate chance to bunk off, I should enjoy it.’
Roz’s laughter was scornful. ‘I work for the Civil Service,’ she said. ‘I don’t think they’ve ever handed out gold watches.’
‘Well, there you are,’ said Diana. ‘The government. They could hardly be less grateful. Look how long they give the poor prime minister when they’ve finished with him. Or her. Bundled out the back in a furniture van that very afternoon.’
‘Civil Service pensions are very generous, Diana. Not that I’m doing it for the pension. But if you’re doing a reasonably responsible job, you do have a certain loyalty to your team.’
