“What about her boyfriend?”
“Roberto?” he sighed deeply. “Roberto’s just an ordinary boy from an ordinary family. We all knew there was no way that relationship was going anywhere.”
“Perhaps someone decided to make sure that it didn’t. It was certainly very fortunate that he was run over.”
“Yes.” There was a heavy silence.
“Come on, what do you know about that?”
“I don’t ‘know’ anything. The morning after his accident, I was asked to wash the car. A headlight was damaged.”
“Who asked you?”
“Madam.”
“When she asked you to do that, did you already know about the boy’s accident?”
“No. I thought Marianna had damaged the car. She’d used it despite the fact that she doesn’t have a driving license and she isn’t a very good driver. It was only later that I put two and two together.”
“You think Madam ran him over.” He found himself falling into Piero’s ways and calling Ursula, Madam.
“I heard her go out with the car just after the boy had left. She was only away ten minutes.”
“My God. You thought she’d tried to kill him and you said nothing!”
“I had no proof, but as you said it was very opportune.”
“What about your wife, did she think so too?”
“Yes, we discussed it, later.”
“So Madam was a monster.”
“I suppose so. I find it hard to think of her as one.”
“Surely you don’t condone what she did.”
“Perhaps she went after him to talk to him and didn’t see him until it was too late.”
“And perhaps she deliberately went out to kill him. Well, I’m glad she didn’t succeed,” Drago said.
“Maybe she did. He might never recover.”
“But Marianna’s talking about marrying him.”
“He’s seriously ill. Anyway, Tebaldo wants Marianna to go away with her aunt as planned, as soon as the investigation is over. I think he’s hoping distance will not make the heart grow fonder.”
“What do you think about that?”
“I think it would be disastrous for her to marry him. It’s never a good idea to marry outside one’s class, and as I said, he’s extremely ill so maybe it won’t happen.
“Let’s go back to the night of Ursula von Bachmann’s murder. You were in the study until what, one?”
“It must have been just before one. I’ve told you all this. How many more times do I have to go over it?”
“Tell me again. You said you saw Lapo.”
“I’d heard someone come in earlier, at about half-past twelve and I’d taken a peek through the door. It was Lapo. I was just leaving the study at about one when I became aware that someone was coming downstairs, so I partially reclosed the door and looked through a crack. I saw Lapo coming down the stairs. He was carrying a plastic bag full of something. I was puzzled at the time and of course I’ve no idea what could have been in it.”
“And everyone else was in bed. You didn’t hear anyone moving about apart from Lapo?”
“As far as I know they were all in bed. I did hear someone showering while I was in the study. The waste pipe flows past the study wall.”
“Who could that have been?”
“Anyone. Tebaldo, Isabella, Marianna or Lapo, of course.”
“Do you think Lapo killed his mother?”
“I don’t want to think that.”
“But you do.”
“I keep asking myself what was in the bag.”
Bruno, who had been lounging against the wall, stirred himself and asked, “OK, if Lapo killed his mother, then who killed Lapo?”
“I have no idea.”
“But of course it could have been you.”
Piero clamped his lips together and said nothing.
After he’d left, Drago lit a cigarette and opened the window. He blew the smoke out into the hot air and brooded. He had been given very important information and he was undecided what to do with it. Bruno interrupted his train of thought, “Shall I bring Claudio Rossi in?”
“Yes, just let me finish this.” He waved the cigarette at Bruno, but he wasn’t only referring to that. He wanted to follow a train of thought through to its conclusion.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“Signor Rossi, we have the results of the search that took place this afternoon in your bedroom.”
Claudio made no reply.
“You’ll be pleased to hear we found a large amount of cocaine and a bank roll of crisp new 50€ notes. Were they the result of your business transactions? Because the logical conclusion is that you sell drugs.”
“No, I don’t deal.”
“Well, if all that was for personal use, you must snort an awful lot of the stuff.”
“I do.” He shrugged as though to say, that’s the way I am.
“And how do you pay for your habit?”
“I work here and there.”
“And blackmail people here and there.”
“Oh no, only Guido, besides I was going to tell you about him anyway.”
“You were? After taking his money to keep quiet? Do you expect me to believe that?”
“I even told Lapo I would.” He threw this out with an air of defiance
“Lapo? You spoke to Lapo about this?”
“Yeah. He was very interested.”
“And he, too, paid for the information, no doubt?”
“Yeah, that’s where the money came from. Check with his bank if you don’t believe me. That’s not blackmail, it’s selling info. Is that illegal?”
“No, but withholding evidence in a murder case is.”
“But I was going to come and tell you as soon as…”
“You had pocketed the money from Guido.”
Claudio bowed his head.
“So, you knew Lapo?” Drago asked, returning to this interesting piece of information.
“Not really.”
“Well, you must have done to offer to sell him information.”
“No, he checked me out. He was waiting for me one evening.”
“Which evening?”
“The evening… the day before yesterday.”
“At what time was this?”
“About nine-thirty. I was just going out. He was waiting for me in the lane.”
“He was murdered only a few hours later. Is that more than a coincidence?”
“No way.”
“Perhaps you were waiting for him to come home and killed him.”
“Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know, Claudio, you tell me. Did he say he was going to tell us that you’d been withholding vital information?”
“Come on, you don’t kill people for stuff like that.”
“I’m always surprised by what people kill for. Sometimes it’s for really futile motives, sometimes we never even know what the motive was.”
“Look, he paid me for the info and I said I’d tell you afterwards.”
“Because if you didn’t, he would, is that it?”
“I said I was going to, only you arrested me before I could.”
“Well, we only have your word for it. You hated Ursula von Bachmann and her son because they had German blood. It was an obsession. You wrote them threatening letters, you said you would make her pay for it and you did.”
“No, you’ve got it all wrong. It wasn’t me. If I hated Germans that much I would’ve killed the other one. He’s the German, not Lapo.”
“Perhaps Tebaldo von Bachmann would have been your next victim.”
“You think you’ve got it all sorted out, well you haven’t. I didn’t kill no one. I wanted some money. I had some information and I sold it. That’s all.”
“Not quite, you’re forgetting that you blackmailed Guido della Rocca.”
“Guido della Rocca was an arsehole. I know all about Guido, more than you think. If you must know, I give him a few
blow jobs when he was overseeing the work on the villa.” Somehow Drago wasn’t surprised at this new revelation, casually thrown out. Things were slotting into place.
“And that gave you the right to blackmail him?”
“No, no. I was just sort of paying him back.”
“For what? I’m sure he paid you at the time for your services.” He said it scornfully, deliberately looking hard at the boy
Claudio turned crimson. “I aint a bloody rent boy.”
“No? Oh I’m sorry, of course, I was forgetting, you’re only a drugs dealer and a blackmailer. Well, if Guido didn’t give you money, I expect he gave you something else. Or were you expecting to have a long-term relationship with him.” The idea of a relationship between these two was laughable.
“It’s none of your fucking business.”
“How many times did you have these sexual… shall we call it, encounters?”
“A few.”
“Did you think it was something more than a brief relationship?”
“I thought he liked me.”
Dragonetti raised an eyebrow. He found it hard to imagine the fastidious Guido having anything to do with this creature. “So you killed Ursula von Bachmann to prevent his marriage?”
“No!”
“But you told her about it, about the two of you, didn’t you? That’s why she broke it off with him.” Looking at Claudio’s face, Drago suddenly realised that this boy had actually been fond of Guido.
“Alright, so I did. I told her and she went nuts and threw him out and I’m glad.”
“Perhaps you killed her to make quite sure she was off the scene, permanently, and then phoned Guido from her mobile phone to get him there, to place him at the crime scene. You even had the cheek to blackmail him for it afterwards. You’re a monster.”
“No, no, no! Please, you gotta believe me. I didn’t kill her.”
“Then you killed Lapo because he knew about Guido, because you’d sold Guido to him and regretted it and he was going to tell us that you were there. You see, you hadn’t taken into account the fact that you were incriminating yourself when you admitted being there, at the crime scene at the right time. But when the penny dropped, you had to silence him.”
“None of it’s true. I didn’t kill her, and I didn’t phone Guido and I didn’t kill Lapo, I didn’t.” Suddenly Claudio looked quite pathetic, his nose was running and his eyes filled with tears.
Dragonetti said contemptuously, “Your nose is running because you snort coke. Do you know what the inside of your nose will look like in a few years’ time? You’ll have a hole in it from one side to the other.” He turned to Bruno, “Get him out of here. I can’t stand the sight of him. We can hold him for the blackmail and the possession of drugs. I’ll see him again tomorrow. Do you hear me, Claudio? Tomorrow I want the truth.”
He turned away and lit up a cigarette, reflecting that his own lungs probably wouldn’t look too lovely in a few years’ time either.
Bruno came back in. “Are we arresting him?”
“I need a confession. He’s put himself in the right place at the right time, but we can’t prove he entered the house. Unless forensic come up with something on his clothes, we don’t really have a case. If we keep him for a while, without access to drugs, he’ll probably confess, if he did it.”
“You have doubts?”
“Some reservations.” Dragonetti pulled thoughtfully on his cigarette.
“He’ll go nuts without the drugs.”
“Good, then he’ll be far more malleable. I’m off. I want to call on the von Bachmanns on my way home.”
“Why?”
“I want to have a chat with Isabella.”
“Isabella!”
“Yes. Her husband went out after one that night and didn’t come back till five. I hardly think she slept all night.”
“So what are you saying?”
“Nothing, I just want to have a quick chat, that’s all.”
Bruno shrugged his shoulders. “Do you want me to come too?”
“No, I don’t. I rather want to go alone. You see, I might talk to Marta as well and the two of us would be too much for her to take.”
“Marta? Why?”
“There’s something she’s not telling me.”
“Well, the state she’s in now, I shouldn’t think you’ll get much out of her.”
“It won’t hurt to try.”
“Good luck. You can tell me all about it in the morning.”
“But of course, my dear Bruno, you’ll get a report in the compulsory three copies and they’ll be properly rubber-stamped. See you tomorrow.”
***
They looked up in surprise as Dragonetti drew near to the pool. Tebaldo leapt to his feet and asked anxiously, “What’s happened?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“Well, why are you here, then? I can’t bear all this coming and going. We’ve got the children to think of, unless… have you got him?”
“No, I haven’t got him yet. You see, I’ve got a problem. None of you are telling the whole truth. You, Signor von Bachmann, are a liar just like the others and you, Signora,” he said turning to Isabella who had got out of the pool and stood dripping beside her husband.
“How dare you!” she hissed.
“Oh I dare, Signora, because I know, and you know, that your husband was not in the house safely tucked up beside you on the night when your mother-in-law was murdered.”
She looked down unable to meet his eyes.
“Well, Signor von Bachmann?”
“Of course, you’re right. I admit I haven’t been completely honest with you and Isabella was lying to protect me, but there’s no need. I do have an alibi.”
“Perhaps you would like to tell me what it is.”
“I was with someone, a woman. I went out shortly after one and came back at five. Isabella knows.”
“Give me her name and address. We’ll make our enquiries to verify your alibi.” He proffered a notebook and pen.
“Please God, do it with discretion; she’s married.”
“The thing is, for all I know, you killed your mother before you left the house.”
“That’s absurd. Of course I didn’t.”
“I don’t like liars. If they lie about one thing, they can lie about another.”
“I only lied because of Isabella.”
“And I lied because of Teo.”
“And you, Signora, were alone most of the night and could have whiled away some of the time by killing your mother-in-law.”
Isabella took a deep breath and then said with absolute calm, “I didn’t and I really think that if you are going to come here and accuse us all of killing Ursula, then perhaps we should have a lawyer present. This isn’t the right place for an interrogation, anyway.”
“Quite right, so if you prefer it, you can get dressed and we can go somewhere more suitable. You can call your lawyer too. It’s up to you. As far as I’m concerned, we’re having an informal chat.”
“Chat!”
“Where’s your sister?”
“She’s just gone in to get showered and dressed. She’s going to visit her fiancé in hospital.”
“How is she coping with all this? I was worried when she fainted.”
“She needs to get away. There’s been too much horror. The planned trip to New Zealand is still on. As soon as you give the OK, I’ll send her to Rome to join her aunt, and they’ll leave from there. I want to get her away from all this,” said Teo.
“I see. Do you want to call her to look after the children while you get dressed and come with me, or do you prefer to talk to me here. Your choice.”
They looked at each other. Teo said, “We don’t have anything more to hide. Isabella knew that I had left the house and she knew where I was going. We didn’t think it was any business of yours. It was a private matter between us.”
“There I disagree with you. If you have an alibi then you’re in the clear but your wi
fe doesn’t have an alibi. She didn’t like her mother-in-law and she told me herself that she could quite happily have murdered her.”
“It was just a figure of speech,” Isabella protested.
“Which revealed the extent of your hatred.”
“Did you really say that, Isabella?” asked Teo.
“Yes, but it didn’t mean anything. You know how she was with me but I didn’t need to kill her. I didn’t live with her all year. I didn’t have to put up with her for the whole of my life, day after day. It’s just that it’s horrible when we’re here. You always became her son rather than my husband. And then I knew there was the other woman and I felt quite depressed, but killing Ursula wouldn’t have solved my problems. I mean I couldn’t even think about murdering anyone, let alone your mother. You do believe me, don’t you, Teo?”
“Yes, of course I do,” he said in a matter of fact way.
“Thank God for that, and as for you,” she turned to Dragonetti, “You have to have solid evidence to back up any accusations you make, and I really don’t think you have any, so…” She gave a half smile and turned away from him, then decisively walked to the edge of the pool and jumped in.
“I think my wife has just summed things up quite clearly. I’ll write down the name and address of the person I was with that night and then I would ask you to leave us in peace and get on with your job.”
“I wanted to ask you something about Piero Lotti.”
“What about him?”
“How would you describe his relationship with Guido della Rocca?”
“Strained. Guido was swaggering about, playing the master, and Piero was offended.”
“How did your mother react to the situation?”
“It wasn’t a situation. It was just something that needed to be smoothed over. My own relationship to Signor della Rocca was very similar, and he and I never minced words. Piero, however, never overstepped the mark. He knows his place. Does that answer your question?”
“Yes. I think I get the picture.”
“You don’t think Piero killed Mother, do you?”
Broken Chord Page 30
