During the phone conversation, the Baron had paled. Then he had been taken ill. Orsina found him on the floor, writhing and gasping for air. She called for Giorgio, who immediately phoned the family doctor, a friend of the Baron’s.
“His pulse is weak, and I’ve injected him with a stimulant,” the doctor told Orsina half an hour later. “He should be O.K., but I’ll check on him regularly for the next few days. Make sure he gets plenty of rest.”
After the doctor had left, the Baron, in a thread of a voice, told Giorgio to ask Orsina to his bedside. Holding her hand, he passed on the PM’s news, and saw the expression on her face grow from alarmed to distraught. At first, she could not believe it. It couldn’t possibly be a joke, could it? It would be in such terrible taste. But the tragic look in her uncle’s eyes spoke volumes. Soon the two of them were weeping in each other’s arms.
The tragedy was all the more appalling as it was utterly unexpected, and so horribly compounded by Nigel’s involvement. Could he really have anything to do with this? Could he have killed Angela? Killed her? No, no, no, he couldn’t have! Why? What on earth for? Orsina had tried to ask her uncle these questions, but her sobbing continued uncontrollably, and she only asked them in her mind.
She kept chewing over the questions as she drove straight to Bolzano. She had managed temporarily to swallow her own tears and concentrate on the driving. Ever since their coming to Italy, she had had a sneaking suspicion that Nigel might be having an affair with Angela. But she must be misjudging him; why would he do such a thing? And most of all, that wouldn’t prompt him to kill his lover. “Kill his lover”—as this vision materialized in her mind’s eye, she nearly lost control of the car, and started crying all over again. The tears in her eyes clouded her vision, and she barely managed to pull over in the emergency lane and stop the car before she gave in to her grief.
At 10 p.m. Orsina finally reached Bolzano, and soon afterwards the police station. Eventually, she was told that her husband was spending the night in prison, and that no visits were allowed. She then mustered her courage and asked about Angela. She was at the morgue and, as her sister, she was allowed to go see her. “In fact,” added the duty officer, “we would have called you or another relative to come and identify her. It’s routine procedure.”
Two policewomen drove her to the morgue, and made her wait in a neon-lit, white-tiled room. Overcome by grief, she shivered as she wept inconsolably.
Shortly after midnight, Orsina was able to see through her tears her sister, lying lifeless on an examination table, a lunar pallor eclipsing her rosy complexion. As she bent down to kiss and hug her, a policewoman was about to stop her, but the nurse said, “It’s all right; the autopsy has already been done.”
Orsina spent the night in a hotel in downtown Bolzano as Nigel went through all her anguish, and more, in his prison cell.
****
The next morning, Nigel was transferred from the prison to a room in the court. Awaiting him there was the criminal lawyer Mr. Rowes had been able to secure for him. “Thank God!” Nigel thought. Avvocato Alemanni was perfectly shaven and smiling in his close-fitting Caraceni dark grey suit. “Mr. MacPherson, a pleasure to meet you, although I wish it had been under better circumstances.” He shook hands and introduced himself. His English had a strong accent, but was grammatically perfect, and very precise, as Nigel listened to a long explanation of how he normally broke down his fees. They were exorbitant, but that was not one of Nigel’s worries.
“We have a little time before the interrogation. It’s your right to speak privately with your lawyer. Please, tell me all there is to know.”
Nigel began by protesting his innocence; related the events of the previous day; and ended by protesting his innocence once more, as well as by expressing his immense shock and sadness at Angela’s death, and last but not least his great concern for his wife.
The lawyer listened keenly as he fixed his gray eyes, expressionless as oysters, on Nigel’s face. An outstanding and celebrated defense attorney, unbeknownst to Nigel he was said to be able to judge whether or not a client of his was innocent on the first meeting, simply by listening to the client’s version of the facts.
“Now, Mr. MacPherson: Is this what you intend to tell the PM?” he asked after a pause.
“Yes—it’s the truth!”
“Is it?”
Nigel controlled himself, and repeated, gravely: “It is the absolute truth. I don’t know how Angela’s body ended up in my car’s boot, and I don’t know who put it there. I have no idea if she was dead when she was placed in the boot, or if she died in it. What I do know is that I’m innocent!”
“Because, you see,” continued the lawyer, as if he had not heard Nigel’s protestations, “it is fully within your rights not to answer a single question during the interrogation; and at present I would advise you not to do so.”
“Why? I have nothing to hide. I want to protest my innocence.”
“Very well, then. But stick to what you told me, exactly.”
“As if it were a fabrication? Avvocato, there’s nothing to stick to but the truth!”
“Of course. Just adhere to your first version, the one I heard.”
****
The PM had just received the autopsy report from the medical examiners. He read it twice, then called one of the doctors and asked a few questions. Before the interrogation with Nigel, he realized that he urgently needed to talk with the Inspector he himself had selected for the case. He had changed his choice of the day before, and picked one who might be more suitable for this particular investigation. The PM had been informed that Mr. MacPherson’s defense attorney would be Alemanni, arguably Italy’s most controversial criminal lawyer, a man who thrived on publicity and who, above all, won most of his cases. The afternoon of the previous day he had spoken to a “Barone.” A manservant had initially answered the phone. These people smelled like money. This was going to be a high-profile case. It appeared lurid enough even if Mr. MacPherson had not been driving a vintage Ferrari with the corpse of his wife’s underage sister in the trunk. In fact, the PM had gathered all the information his office could find on Nigel, and realized the extent of his wealth.
The new Inspector was the son of a skiing instructor from Cortina, one of Europe’s most exclusive skiing resorts. His father had taught the rich how to ski and he, as a child and then a boy and a young man, had made friends with many rich kids, from Rome, Venice, Milan. Now in his late thirties, tall and handsome, blonde, blue-eyed and elegantly suited to the limit of his budget, he almost looked like one of them. If nothing else, reasoned the PM, he had been around rich people enough not to harbor resentment against them or, even worse for the sake of the investigation, feel awed. Inspector Ghedina was summoned to court. Unusually, the PM wanted to tell him personally of the autopsy’s results.
“The cause of death was cardiac arrest.”
“At seventeen?”
“Exactly. Our medical examiners have already managed to get in touch with the family doctor: the victim had no congenital disease of the heart, rheumatic fever, nothing: she was healthy. No, we think she’s met with a violent death. That’s what the examiners have inferred, and put in their notes. They believe something must have caused her heart attack. What exactly, they’re not sure, and leave the conjecturing to us.”
“How helpful and how kind,” said the Inspector. “Very well: has anything been found on her body?”
“Only a small erythema on her neck. You’ll be inspecting the body yourself later. The examiners have noted that, in all likelihood, it is a … hickey.”
“A hickey? Last time I checked, that didn’t cause a heart attack.”
“I know, Inspector, I know.”
“That’s it? No traces of violence on her body?”
“None.”
“Then we must be dealing with a very economical murderer,” the Inspector remarked. “No fingerprints on her body, right?”
“Right, how did you
guess?”
“Again, it fits the profile of an economical murderer. They tend to be careful. Any hairs not her own?”
“No, neither on her, nor in the Ferrari’s trunk. Some hairs have been found inside the Ferrari; they will be analyzed and matched. We wouldn’t be surprised if they belonged to Mr. MacPherson, but as the car’s owner, that would mean nothing.”
“Traces of blood, semen, saliva?”
“No.”
“Mucus? Fragments of nails? Cuticles?”
“Nothing.”
“Anything underneath her nails?”
“No.”
“Then, have the medical examiners concluded that the victim has not engaged in sexual activity prior to, or during, her death?”
“They could find no indication of sexual intercourse. But we may presume that there was foreplay.”
“Foreplay? Oh yes, the hickey. Any other clue on her? Anything unusual?”
“Maybe, and maybe not: traces of soap have been found all over her body. But the doctors have pointed out that she merely might have taken a bubble bath shortly before her death.”
“The soap brand?”
“Not yet known.”
“Could you have them reexamine her? They may still be able to determine the brand.”
“All right, consider it done. In fact, let me ring them right now.” The PM had the cell phone number of one of the experts.
The medical examiner said that he would return to the morgue with a colleague and, together, do their best to determine the soap’s chemical composition, though it might be already too late. The traces were faint in the first place. They had only mentioned them because in their experience of post mortem examinations they had never come across a body with so many traces of soap on it. When the PM hung up, the Inspector asked:
“Has the time of death been established?”
“Between 1 and 3 a.m., yesterday.”
“Really?” This detail piqued the Inspector’s curiosity. “Are the examiners quite certain?”
“They are, and I deliberately chose very skilled experts. They’re not local police doctors; they teach at the University of Verona, and have assisted the police many times before. They’ve earned their reputation in the field.”
“In that case, the question arises of its own accord: where was the suspect you’re holding at the time of the victim’s death?”
“We’ll find out soon. Or at least, we’ll find out what he has to say about that. I’m due to interrogate him.” There was a pause, then the PM resumed. “I think you should drive down to the villa and interrogate relatives, staff, whoever was there yesterday.”
“I think that I should have been there already, Sir!” Inspector Ghedina got up.
“Maybe. Well, take your best men and go. I’ll call you later and let you know what comes out of the interrogation.”
As the PM was meeting with Inspector Ghedina, Orsina had been allowed to meet with Nigel, in the presence of two guards and defense attorney Alemanni.
Nigel was holding her hands; she could hardly hold back her tears, and he hated every atom of his own body: being there was so unjust, it was absurd. He protested his innocence with Orsina, and then tried to comfort her over the loss of her sister. But Orsina was divided in her mind. Something in her could not allow her to trust him completely. During her sleepless night in the hotel room she had been going over all the times Nigel had gone away with her sister; many times, perhaps too many. Why would he bother taking her along? And she, the flirtatious spoiled brat that she could be, very young and very beautiful, did she get a kick out of playing temptress? But even if that had been the case, why would Nigel kill her? Why? No, he couldn’t have. There was no motive, and her husband was not insane.
The PM did not allow Orsina in the interrogation room; only two guards, a clerk, an interpreter, a stenographer, and the defense attorney. At first, he explained to Nigel why he had been, and was being, held: circumstantial evidence pointed strongly at his involvement in the murder of Angela Riviera della Motta. Then he let Nigel relieve his feelings. He repeated to the PM what he had told everybody so far, protesting his innocence all along, and fervently. When he was done, a visibly satisfied Alemanni asked the PM if his client’s provisional detention was not too drastic a measure?
“The interrogation has not even begun, Attorney. Let us not be hasty. Now, Mr. MacPherson, Italian is not your mother tongue. If you don’t understand my questions, let me know, and we’ll ask the interpreter to step in. We have hired her just for you.
“You realize that this is a formal deposition. So, whatever you say, will be used as evidence.”
“I know, and there’s nothing left for me to add to what I just told you.”
“Is that so? I’ll be the judge of that. Where did you spend the night between the day before yesterday and yesterday?”
“At Villa Riviera.”
“Who was with you?”
“The members of the family.”
“Names, please.”
“My wife, Orsina; Angela; their uncle, Baron Emanuele.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes. Then there was the staff: Dumitru, the butler, and his wife Afina, the cook; Marianna, the old housekeeper; Samanta, the chambermaid. Oh, and Giorgio, the Baron’s secretary. And the gardener, Giuseppe. I think he lives in a house on the grounds.”
“How did you spend the evening?”
“Doing precious little at the villa; reading magazines, checking my wine guides for more explorations.” He explained what he meant.
“And where did you spend the night?”
“In the bedroom that’s been assigned to my wife and to me.”
“Doing what?”
“Sleeping.”
“Alone?”
“No, with my wife.”
“At what time did you fall asleep?”
“How would I know? I don’t normally look at my watch when that happens.”
“Oh really? And we may not look at our watches and let you rot in prison for years unless you answer my every question to the best of your abilities!” The PM had spoken quickly and in a raised tone of voice. Nigel asked if the interpreter could translate, and did not like what he heard.
“I can’t say exactly when I fell asleep, your honor, but this I can say: both my wife and I were in bed at around midnight.”
“Did she fall asleep first?”
“Yes, she did.”
“Do you sleep, in the villa I mean, in a double bed?”
“No, we sleep in two separate beds, one next to the other.”
The interrogation continued for a couple of hours. Then Nigel was escorted back to prison. The PM explained to the over-eager defense attorney that, as per Article 390 of the Code of Penal Procedure, he would be asking the GIP (the judge for the preliminary investigations, to whom he reported) to validate Mr. MacPherson’s provisional detention.
Alemanni objected eloquently, but he too had to await the GIP’s decision.
The next day, the GIP, having read the police and the PM’s statements, the post mortem report, as well as the transcript of the interrogation, validated the continued provisional detention of Mr. MacPherson.
Soon after the interrogation had ended, at the urging of the PM, Orsina had driven back to the villa, escorted by a police car. She was expected to put herself at the disposal of Inspector Ghedina.
SIXTEEN
“Please accept my condolences, Baron, on this tragedy in your family,” said Inspector Ghedina. “You understand that I have to ask you a number of questions.” He felt as welcome as a toothache, but years of professional practice had made him grow accustomed to the feeling, and then indifferent to it. The Baron was distraught. Sitting in an armchair in the drawing room, he looked dwarfed by the imposing surroundings, the image of helplessness. The Inspector cleared his voice and asked:
“Could you tell me where you were the night of the victim’s disappearance?”
The Baron crin
ged as he heard the word “victim.” Eventually, he said: “After dinner in the villa, I drove to my studio, about two kilometers south of here. I stayed up until some time past midnight, preparing my lecture for the following day. Once I was done, I left the studio; came back here, to the villa; and went to sleep.”
“At what time?”
“I couldn’t tell you exactly. Some time before one in the morning, I think.”
“Did anybody see you? A member of the family? Of the staff?”
“I don’t know; ask them.”
“These lectures you mentioned, Barone: to whom are they given, and what is their subject?”
Emanuele shot him a fierce glance. “Inspector, I’ve just spent one of the worst nights in my life. My doctor has ordered me to rest. Could we please speak about my hobbies some other time?”
“I won’t tire you out, Barone. As for what is relevant or irrelevant, at this stage nothing can be ruled out. So, please, explain, and—let’s try to make things a little snappier, shall we?”
Had the Baron been his usual self, he would have made the young man regret his impertinence. But in his present state, he just obeyed. “Over the years,” he said, “I have attracted a wide audience of young people. They appreciate my analyses of European history in the light of the philosophia perennis.”
“Sorry, what was that last word?”
For a moment, the Baron seemed to recover his poise. “Philosophia perennis: the ancient philosophy common to all cultures. I assume that it helps them to understand the difficult times in which we live”
“Do the students pay a fee? Are you connected to a university?”
“Nothing of the sort.” The answer was brusque.
“Do you have repeat students? Do you know any of them personally?”
“Must you really ask all these questions, at such a time, Inspector?”
“Baron, you must help the investigation all you can. Your niece demands justice. So, I ask you again: Do you know any of these young people personally?”
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