Murder in Venice

by L. B. Hathaway

  People were waiting, nervous eyes flashing around. And then Salvarocca pulled the white rabbit from his hat. ‘Oh! I quite forgot!’

  He took from his pocket the silver flask from the crime scene and waved it in the air. The ‘AA’ inscription shone in the greenish light of the room, as if it wanted to spell out the truth for everyone. But what truth?

  He rounded on Lucy Christie. ‘I believe, Miss, that you were in possession of this very flask last night? A flask which belonged to your employer?’

  Lucy’s dark eyes were round with fear and something else – betrayal? – and she looked for a second at Posie, who felt like a prize rat. A rat who has told the truth, but a rat all the same.

  Lucy flicked her eyes back at the policeman and held his gaze, defiantly. She didn’t answer.

  Salvo continued: ‘We are almost one hundred per cent certain that the poison – prussic acid – was in this receptacle. What do you have to say about it, Miss Christie? Do you deny that you had this bottle with you late last night? You were seen with it. It is a highly unusual specimen, with this engraving. Do you deny it belonged to the Countess? They are her initials, after all.’

  Lucy said nothing. She looked down at the floor.

  Dickie was livid, dancing from foot to foot, right up next to the Chief of Police: ‘What are you implying, sir? Be jolly careful. Of course Lucy didn’t have Bella’s flask with her last night. Why would she? Nor did she have anything to do with the poisoning.’

  But then, for a fraction of a second, it was as if time stood still. Posie felt a flicker of something pass between Dickie and Lucy, and it buzzed in the air. An understanding? A reproach?

  ‘Hang on, sir. Did you say prussic acid? Good grief! I must be mistaken!’

  And then, like an echo, Roger Valentine was whispering, but just under his breath, and Posie wondered if she had heard him correctly: ‘Prussic acid? Again?’

  What was the fascination with the means of poisoning? Why was the type of poison so significant?

  Dickie quickly drew himself up. Shaking his head, throwing doubts to the wind.

  ‘Well, I’m sure you’re wrong. Miss Christie was, it is true, in charge of all of my sister’s medication, and I know she went out to the apothecary last night, but she was never in charge of Bella’s liqueur. Bella kept that flask with her constantly: it was given to her by someone she felt very strongly about, once, a long time ago. There’s no way she would have lent it out.’

  The Commissario turned to Lucy. ‘For the last time: do you deny, Miss, that you had this flask with you last night? You’d better speak, otherwise I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murder of your employer and I’ll take you back with me to the Questura.’

  But Lucy remained silent.

  Salvarocca went to the door, called someone’s name, and a tall, uniformed policeman entered, his blue, Slavic-looking eyes full of interest. He pulled out a pair of glimmering handcuffs and clipped them around Lucy’s slim wrists. Before anyone could protest, or Lucy could say anything to anyone, she had been whisked from the room.

  ‘I say!’ breathed Dickie Alladice, steadying himself against the drinks trolley. He appealed to Salvarocca. ‘You’ve got this wrong, sir. There’s no way…’

  Dickie’s voice tailed off, and the Commissario was now matching each of the room’s occupants with one of his police force. He smiled brightly all around.

  ‘Until six o’clock then! Off you go!’

  ****

  Sixteen

  ‘I need to speak to the Chief Inspector.’

  Alaric, the last of the group to leave, flashed anxious eyes at Inspector Lovelace. ‘I say, have you got it, Inspector?’

  Richard Lovelace nodded, and unzipped his attaché case. From it he drew a thick brown manila envelope, roughly the size of a business folio. It was marked ‘HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL – LEGAL DOCUMENTS’.

  ‘Here you go.’

  Posie was thrown. What on earth did Alaric want of the Inspector? It was almost as if he had asked the Inspector to bring him something especially, all the way out to Venice. But that was preposterous! And what legal documents did that brown envelope contain?

  Alaric turned to leave, tugging at his caramel-coloured hair, clutching at the envelope almost angrily, when Posie cut in. She had to ask:

  ‘Are you leaving me, Al? Leaving here? Why are you packed up ready to go?’

  Alaric almost dropped his papers. An angry scowl settled itself on his gorgeous features. The Commissario cast interested eyes upon Posie’s betrothed, watching his every move. When Alaric spoke, at last, he let the words fall carefully.

  ‘No. I’m not leaving you, but I was planning to leave here. I had started to think there was some nasty snoop around. Late last night I found someone had gone through my things, despite the fact I’d locked my door. So I did the “hair test”. I packed all my gear together this morning into my rucksack and placed one of my own hairs across the zip. I haven’t been up yet to check on it but it sounds as if I shouldn’t bother. The hair will have fallen away as you’ve obviously picked my lock and had a good old rootle around! By Gad! I never thought it was you! These are new depths, Posie. Don’t you trust me or something?’

  ‘Not really, no.’ She hardly felt bothered to mention that the nasty snoop hadn’t, in fact, been her. Let him believe it, if he must…

  Alaric glared at Posie and she felt her heart hardening towards him, unable and unwilling to reach a peace. They were both proud, that was their trouble, and neither felt able to back down. And she didn’t trust him: that was what it essentially boiled down to.

  ‘Children! Children!’ Inspector Lovelace looked embarrassed as Alaric turned on his heel and left sharply with his allocated policeman.

  Salvo Salvarocca, looking thoughtful, crossed his arms and addressed Posie and Lovelace.

  ‘What a welcome to Venice, eh, Richard? You both must be starving?’

  As if on cue Posie’s stomach rumbled audibly and both Police Inspectors laughed.

  ‘Cross the Accademia Bridge and get away from these festival crowds. Turn left and then go straight on. There’s an excellent trattoria on the Campo San Maurizio. Their speciality is boiled seagull. Tell Enzo, the owner, that I sent you. Be gone an hour, no more, and then come back and make a pretence of staying in your rooms. I trust you both to make sure nothing untoward happens here while I am away. Oh, and for goodness’ sake, don’t eat the trattoria’s home-grown oysters, or the mussels: I’ve already got one dead body on my hands. The water in these canals where they’re grown is pure filth. You’d be better off in an open sewer, not that there’s much difference, really.’

  The Commissario smiled ruefully. ‘My recommendation is the spaghetti vongole. The vongole are straight out of a tin, all the way from Sicily. Much the safest thing.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Posie nodded. She was warming ever so slightly to Salvarocca now. The tiniest sliver of a thawing, mind, not an all-out melt. ‘Can I just ask? The Corsetti boy – the one you arrested yesterday. Why are you letting him go when you are convinced he started the fire at the Palace?’

  The Commissario shrugged. ‘I need his “help”. It seems Pietro Corsetti only started the fire for money. Of course, eventually I’ll get him in as an accessory to a serious crime. But if I let him go free now, chances are he’ll lead us to whoever it was who paid him for starting that fire. Gamblers usually go back for more when they have located a good source of income.’

  ‘Good plan,’ assented Lovelace.

  After the Venetian Chief of Police had left, Posie and Inspector Lovelace fastened their hats and coats on in the hallway, ready to brave the cold Venice air.

  ‘So you’re staying here at Mrs Persimmon’s too? Lucky you.’

  ‘I am. Can I expect you to be picking my lock and spying on me?’

  ‘Very funny, sir. It’s a long story, and not a good one.’

  ‘You’d better tell me about it. But can I just say one thing?’

 
‘Go on.’

  ‘It’s a mare’s nest, Posie. Everything I’ve seen so far.’

  And she quite agreed.

  ****

  It was nice to get out. Lovelace and Posie stood for a minute in front of the Romagnoli Palace.

  ‘Was that Salvo going in there?’ muttered Lovelace, shading his eyes in the smoky light. Although it was only lunchtime, it could well have been evening.

  ‘No, I must have been wrong. What would he be messing around for in that burning mess? He’s got enough to do now.’

  The short walk through the dark little medieval streets and the rickety wooden bridges was calming, and somehow more authentic than Posie’s early-morning Venetian experience: less showy, less bruising on the senses. They walked quietly, the Inspector looking pensive, barely taking in his surroundings, and it was not until they were seated at a small, private table at the trattoria and had ordered their meal that Posie broke the silence.

  ‘Why are you here, sir? Really here, I mean? What was that you gave to Alaric?’

  Lovelace sighed. ‘I can’t tell you, Posie. I’m sorry.’

  The recommended spaghetti vongole arrived, smelling delicious.

  ‘Let’s get some wine,’ Posie said impetuously, and they ordered a carafe of strong, ruby-red wine, which Lovelace drank gratefully, perhaps a little too quickly. After a few minutes of eating, he looked at Posie thoughtfully.

  ‘I am here because of Alaric. He paid for me to come out. It was all quite last-minute; he asked me two weeks ago. It was a surprise. He asked me to be a witness at the wedding.’

  ‘My wedding, sir?’

  Lovelace smiled. ‘Who else’s?’

  Posie looked down miserably into her pasta. She suddenly found herself blurting out the whole sorry tale: the magazine cover; the strange, distant behaviour of Alaric since she had arrived; Alaric’s packed bag and his odd, nocturnal wanderings with a lantern over at the burnt Palace. She found herself confessing to Lovelace that she was frankly surprised a wedding was going ahead at all. That she had been on the cusp of leaving, but obviously, with the murder, she couldn’t go anywhere.

  Inspector Lovelace stared.

  He poured them both another glass of wine and then drained his own. He sat back and his lips twitched nervously. ‘I don’t know what to say, Posie, old girl. It sounds a very rum thing. All I can tell you is that when Alaric spoke to me two weeks ago he seemed fine about the wedding.’

  Lovelace was drumming his fingers on the table. ‘I suppose we could check at the church on the way back? Ask this Vicar chappie if tomorrow is all tickety-boo?’

  Posie nodded bitterly, remembering Max’s urging her to do the same.

  A waiter came and switched their plates, and beef and fried potatoes and delicious-looking deep-fried vegetables were brought. Posie found she still had no appetite and pushed the food around her plate numbly. Inspector Lovelace was wolfing his lunch down hungrily. He paused, as if something had just struck him:

  ‘I say, Posie! Did you really break into Alaric’s room? It doesn’t seem your usual style, somehow. Poor fella!’

  Posie swallowed nervously, and then decided to tell Lovelace all about the man they had both met before in different circumstances. Max, the spy. Posie described what Max was doing now, about how he had told her a good deal about Alaric’s doubtful behaviour. There was that rattish sense of betrayal again, like when she had confessed her findings about Lucy to the police, but she felt she might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb and carry on anyhow. Besides, it felt good not to have secrets anymore. For all these strange layers to be peeled back.

  But Inspector Lovelace was looking at Posie strangely. He whistled softly.

  ‘My days! This is really quite something you’ve jumped into here, isn’t it, Posie? It’s a little bit more than a busman’s holiday. Trust you! Talk about a top-level spy! This is above and beyond your usual secret-agent stuff. I wonder, what is this fella really up to? It must be quite some shin-dig. The German fella’s good, I’ll give him that. I was taken in hook, line and sinker by that story he gave us.’

  Lovelace seemed to focus suddenly, and frowned. ‘But Posie. You are a fool sometimes. Max might be a top agent, but he’s still a man, isn’t he?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well. I’ve seen it myself. He may only just know you, but maybe he’s formed some sort of attachment, shall we say? You have this effect on men.’ He groaned, and a shadow crossed his face. ‘Remember Caspian della Rosa, the lengths he went to for “love” of you.’

  Posie flushed red. ‘It’s not like that at all here, sir.’

  Lovelace shook his head, not to be put off his stride. ‘Has it occurred to you that it might not be a shame for Max if your engagement with Alaric is broken off, Posie? He might not be impartial. He might want you for himself. Do you trust this man? You don’t know him from Adam, do you? He sounds as if he barely knows himself.’

  Posie swallowed sourly and didn’t mention the pink glass necklace which Max had given her, which she wore at her throat, which she found herself clutching at now. Or the giving to him of the priceless sapphires. The Inspector might think she had quite lost her head. Perhaps she had.

  Her pink engagement ring sparkled merrily in the bright lights of the trattoria and she found herself hiding her left hand under the table. Guiltily. ‘It’s not like that at all, sir.’

  Lovelace shrugged and mussed his thick, rough hair. ‘As you like, old girl. I just had to point it out.’

  The subject of Alaric dealt with, they sat in silence again, until the coffee came, hot and strong and delicious. It was such a treat to eat proper Italian food, in a proper Italian restaurant, at last. Posie thought of Mrs Persimmon’s guesthouse and the non-descript blancmange from the night before and the gloomy cauliflower cheese, and she almost shuddered. She was pleased the Inspector had eaten a good meal, it might be his last for a while. Perhaps Dickie Alladice had been right about wanting to move everyone across to the Metropole Hotel. At least there they would have eaten well. But it was not to be.

  ‘I say! That information you were giving to old Salvo back there, about the family and friends of Bella Alladice? Was some of it gleaned from our friendly spy in the attic?’

  Posie explained about her synthesising Max’s information and the reports from Rainbird. The Inspector nodded approvingly.

  ‘Good girl. If Max is a spy of that quality, with no axe of his own to grind, it will all be good stuff. But this is really quite something, you know. Something big is going on here. Bigger than Bella Alladice’s death, I mean. But I don’t know if or how they are related. I don’t like it: it has a nasty flavour about it.’

  ‘Quite right, sir. It does. That’s what Max said, too.’ Posie looked at her little red wristwatch. ‘Shall we leave? We said we would only be an hour.’

  Outside, the air was frozen, not a good time to be hanging around. But Lovelace stopped suddenly, right in the centre of the shuttered Campo San Maurizio and gripped at Posie’s arm. ‘I’ve got it!’ he hissed triumphantly, excitement gleaming in his eyes.

  ‘You know who killed the Countess? That was quick, sir!’

  ‘No, not yet. But I know where I’ve seen that girl before: the girl who apparently poisoned her employer using Bella’s own hip-flask. It’s been gnawing at me ever since I clapped eyes on her.’

  ‘Lucy Christie?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes. Except that most definitely is not her real name.’

  ****

  Seventeen

  Excitement tore through Posie. ‘So come on! Who is she, sir?’

  They had stopped on a bleak, unsheltered corner. A group of four black-cloaked musicians, instruments shrouded, hurried past. A freezing wind was rustling the tree-tops of the walled garden opposite, and Posie and Lovelace found themselves subconsciously following the musicians, entering the great carved slab of fancy icing which was the Church of San Vidal.

  A small veneered visitor’s bench was jammed into the
tiny entrance. Posie moved a bouquet of heavily-scented dead lilies off the bench, the orange pollen staining the dank stone floor, and they sat down, nestled between a stack of printed music programmes and packages of greasy white candles. In the main church, over near the altar, the musicians were setting up on a small platform, putting out sheet music and adjusting stands. A few nuns were sitting expectantly in the front row.

  ‘She looked familiar to me, too, sir. But I couldn’t place her. Again and again I wondered if I’d met her before.’

  The Inspector shook his head. ‘I doubt you’ve ever met her in the flesh. But it probably feels like it. Who could forget those great, dark eyes? They stared out at us from newspapers for a whole summer long.’

  ‘She’s famous?’

  ‘I’ll say. Do you remember the Robert Gattling murder?’

  Posie frowned. It didn’t sound familiar. She didn’t like to appear ill-informed though and her annoyance obviously showed. The Inspector laughed grimly:

  ‘Don’t worry about the name. You would have been a mere whippersnapper of a thing at the time, probably not even twenty. I remember it clear as a bell. It was before the Great War broke out, must have been about 1912. I was a Sergeant in London, but I was doing my Inspector’s exams all that summer. I barely saw my Molly from one week to the next although we were courting. It was deadly dull and I often looked at the daily papers for a bit of light relief. The Robert Gattling murder, or ‘The Ice Cream Girl Murder’, as it became known, had everything to cause a sensation.’

  The Ice Cream Girl Murder. Posie gasped: of course she remembered it. The hazy details, at least.

  She had been at home in Norfolk then, keeping house for her father in the small, closed world of the Norfolk Rectory, missing her brother, Richard, away in the glitteringly remote world of Cambridge. The war which would obliterate life as they knew it was not even on the edge of their imaginings yet. Posie had read the daily papers with almost a religious fervour, feeling a need to connect with a world bigger than her own. She had started to step out with Harry Briskow, the kind, funny man she would later become engaged to; just another man who would die pointlessly in the Great War alongside most of his generation. Back then, Harry was newly-qualified as a solicitor, and he’d been looking around for a suitable wife. Although Posie had a feeling now that she certainly would not have made him a suitable wife…