by Paul Adam
As we went over a level crossing, an illuminated electronic speed sign started flashing red at us, telling us we were going sixty-three kilometres an hour. Guastafeste applied the brakes and we dropped to below the legal limit. We were on the outskirts of Castenaso, driving past modern apartment blocks, which soon gave way to a few shops. We crossed a bridge over the River Idice, then kept going through a set of traffic lights and almost immediately found ourselves coming out on the other side of the town.
“Was that it?” Guastafeste said. “Or did we miss something?”
He pulled into the kerb, reversed into a farm track, and drove back the way we’d come.
We hadn’t missed anything. That was all there was to Castenaso—a nondescript linear settlement clinging to the main road, with no real centre and no older core that might have been there when Isabella Colbran and Rossini were alive. In their day, it must have been a small, self-sufficient farming community. Now it had become a soulless dormitory town for Bologna, only a few kilometres away.
We parked outside a hardware shop and got out to explore further on foot. A hunched, scruffy-looking fellow was passing by on the pavement. I stopped him and asked if he knew where Isabella Colbran’s villa was.
“Who?” he said.
“Isabella Colbran,” I repeated. “She was a singer. Married to Rossini.”
“Rossini? You mean the builder in Marano?”
“The composer. They had a house near Castenaso.”
“Who did?”
Guastafeste took my arm and led me away, muttering darkly about the limited gene pool and mental faculties of the local populace.
The second person we accosted was no help, either. He was obviously a municipal employee, for he was wearing a luminous yellow vest and was going about his work as if he were suffering from a bad case of somnambulism. He was wandering along the street picking up litter with a long-handled claw and depositing it in a black garbage bag he was carrying. A wirehaired terrier, which might have been his, or a stray with nothing better to do, scampered along beside him, yapping excitedly at the claw. He didn’t know who Isabella Colbran was, or Rossini.
“We should’ve asked the dog,” Guastafeste said sourly as we continued along the street in search of a local who could justify the epithet by actually demonstrating some knowledge of the area.
At the traffic lights, I noticed a small police station and suggested we go inside and ask for help. Guastafeste wasn’t keen on the idea. Professional pride, I think. There is a rigid pecking order in the police force, and a city detective like Antonio was reluctant to ask favours from colleagues he no doubt regarded as little more than country bumpkins. We crossed the road instead and approached a group of elderly men who were sitting on benches under the trees by the comune. They knew who Rossini was all right, and Isabella, too, but they had some bad news for us about the Villa Colbran.
“It’s gone,” one of the men said.
“Gone?” I said.
“You didn’t know? It was destroyed during the Second World War.”
“All of it?”
“Nearly all. I haven’t been there myself, but I believe there are only a few stones left.”
This was a blow. We’d come all this way for nothing.
“Where was it?” I asked.
The man gestured with a hand.
“A few kilometres away. Over the level crossing and right at the roundabout. Look for the Santuario della Beata Vergine del Pilar. The villa was right by it.”
We returned to our car in silence. Guastafeste stared out of the windscreen for a long moment, then said bitterly, “Another waste of time. Kousnetzoff can’t have come here.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was wrong.”
“It’s not your fault, Gianni. It’s just frustrating.” He started the engine. “Back to the autostrada?”
“I suppose so. Why don’t we go to the villa on our way? It’s not much of a detour.”
Guastafeste shrugged.
“Okay, why not.”
We headed out of Castenaso and into the surrounding farmland, driving along a dead-straight road between fields, drainage ditches on either side of the carriageway, green houses and lines of polytunnels gleaming in the sun. The urban sprawl of Bologna had not spread this far yet. It still felt isolated, sparsely populated. On the horizon ahead of us was the tower of a church. As we drew nearer, I could see from the architecture, the dusty red bricks, that it was an ancient building, four, maybe five hundred years old.
“That has to be it,” I said.
Guastafeste pulled into a lay-by just before the church and switched off the engine. We were at a minor crossroads in the middle of nowhere. Apart from a house on the corner across the road, which had obviously been erected fairly recently, the church was the only building in the vicinity. On the traffic island immediately in front of it—in a strange juxtaposition of old and new—was a garish plastic sign advertising a pizzeria.
We climbed out of the car and walked over to the church. It was a simple cubelike brick building with a pitched roof and a tall bell tower on one side, which had a small dome on the top. At the base of the tower was a white marble plaque in memory of Rossini. Guastafeste tried the front door. It was locked. I walked farther along the road. The land behind the church was open fields. I could see no sign of any remains of the Villa Colbran.
“Let’s go,” Guastafeste called to me. “There’s nothing for us here.”
I walked back towards him and saw a dark blue Fiat saloon turn off the main road onto the dirt forecourt outside the church. A man in a suit and tie, about my age, got out and looked at us both curiously. I explained why we were there.
“Isabella’s villa?” the man said. “I’m afraid there’s not much to see. Just the remains of the entrance and a few fallen stones, and the summer house in the woods, but that’s virtually derelict.”
He pulled a bunch of keys from his jacket pocket.
“This is the church where they were married, Isabella and Rossini. Would you like to see inside?”
I saw Guastafeste hesitate, about to refuse the offer, and stepped in before he could say anything.
“Thank you. You’re very kind,” I said.
“You’re lucky I came along,” the man said. “It’s closed up most of the time.”
He unlocked the door and we followed him inside. The interior was gloomy, weak sunlight filtering in through a couple of high windows, one above the door, the other on the right-hand side. It was more a chapel than a church. There were no transepts, just a short rectangular nave, with an altar at the far end. The walls were a dull grey colour and had one or two large cracks in them, which had been crudely filled with cement. There were a few rows of pews and wooden chairs, two confession boxes, displays of flowers that looked plastic, and a collection of those fake votive candles with electric bulbs at their tips that are appearing more frequently in religious buildings—presumably because real candles are deemed uneco nom ical or a fire risk. The place had that distinctive musty smell that you could bottle and market as Old Church.
“March 16, 1822. That’s when they were married,” the man said. “A small private ceremony with only the priest and two witnesses present. This was Isabella’s local church, built by the Spanish College in the sixteenth century—that’s its coat of arms next to the altar—in honour of Our Lady of the Pillar in Saragossa. You know the story, I assume? Saint James going to Saragossa, where the Virgin Mary appeared to him and gave him a column of jasper wood and a wooden statue of herself.”
“You’re very knowledgeable,” I said.
“I’ve written a pamphlet about it. This one here.”
He picked up a small booklet from the table next to the entrance and handed it to me.
“Umberto Boscolo, that’s me,” he said, tapping the name on the cover of the booklet. “I’ve written a lot about the history of the area. It’s a hobby of mine. That’s two euros—in the box, please. All proceeds go to the church.
As you can see, it’s in need of all the help it can get.”
“You said it’s closed up most of the time,” I said.
Boscolo nodded.
“It’s maintained by a few volunteers, like me, all of us retired. There’s a service every other Sunday, the occasional wedding, but that’s all. The rector covers several other churches in the area, and he holds regular Masses in a number of old people’s homes. That’s where all the faithful are. They’re growing old, dying out. It’s very sad.”
I put some money into the slot in the metal strongbox that was fastened to the wall, then leafed through the pamphlet.
“That’s the Villa Colbran there,” Boscolo said.
He reached out and slid a finger into the centre of the pamphlet, spreading open the page to reveal a photograph of an imposing three-storey white villa at the end of a long drive. In the foreground were two high stone pillars with wrought-iron gates in between, the gates swung back to give a clear view of the house.
“It’s an impressive building,” I said.
“That was taken in 1900. Isabella’s father, Juan, bought the villa from the Spanish College in 1812. You know the Colbrans were Spanish? Juan had friends at the Spanish court. He had powerful friends here in Italy, too—Eugène de Beauharnais, the Empress Josephine’s son by her first husband, and Joachim Murat, Napoléon’s brother-in-law. Isabella and Rossini lived in the villa after Juan Colbran died. It was their country estate.”
Boscolo pointed at another picture in his pamphlet.
“That’s Isabella. A handsome woman, don’t you think?”
“Yes indeed.”
Isabella was seated for the portrait, dressed in what appeared to be a stage costume—long classical robes and a headdress over her jet black hair. The backdrop was a painted woodland scene, like an operatic set. In her arms, she was cradling a small lyre. She was a tall, full-bodied woman with the kind of fleshy figure that has gone out of fashion in recent times. Her arms and throat were bare, her outfit revealing an expansive cleavage, which the artist had painted in loving detail. She was gazing down and to one side, an enigmatic, slightly melancholy expression on her face.
“The marriage didn’t last,” Boscolo said. “Rossini has always been blamed for that—running off with another woman, Olympe Pélissier—but there are always two sides to marital difficulties, aren’t there? Isabella wasn’t an easy woman to live with. She was temperamental, moody. She was accustomed to being a famous diva, people cheering and clapping her. She found retirement hard. She didn’t adapt well to a quiet country life, to living in Rossini’s shadow. He wanted a woman who would look after him, nurse him through his many illnesses. Olympe was better suited to that than Isabella.”
“The villa,” Guastafeste said. “Where exactly was it?” I could sense he was getting impatient with all this local history.
“I’ll show you.”
Boscolo led us back out of the church and a short distance along the side road. He pointed across the fields.
“It was over there. There is a farm track that roughly corresponds to the drive to the villa. And that copse in the distance, that’s where the remains of the summer house are.”
We thanked him for his help and walked back to the car. Then we drove along the side road and pulled onto the grass verge at the end of the track that Boscolo had pointed out to us. Two hundred years ago, there would have been a grand entrance and driveway just here. Rossini and Isabella would have come and gone through it in a horse-drawn carriage. Now there was just a patch of dried mud and a rutted farm track overgrown by grass and wildflowers.
“Is this really worth it?” Guastafeste said.
“We’re here now,” I replied. “We might as well take a look.”
I slid out of the car and walked up the farm track. A reluctant Guastafeste followed me. Sixty metres on, the track petered out by a tiny mound of old bricks and the stump of a marble pillar, which was all that remained of the Villa Colbran.
I looked round, imagining the building that had once stood there—the white stuccoed walls, the arched doorways, the elegant salons, the manicured gardens and parkland spreading out in every direction. I saw Isabella in the villa, the forlorn, neglected woman withering away within its walls, rattling round in its empty rooms with only a few servants and a gambling habit to comfort her.
I sat down on the marble stump and began to read Umberto Boscolo’s pamphlet about Rossini and Isabella. After Isabella’s death, in 1845, the villa was rented out and one of the outbuildings was used as a smithy by a local blacksmith who had built the summer house in the woods for Isabella. Apparently, the summer house was her favourite retreat. She liked to go there to be alone, to think and to sing where no one could hear her. She had lost her voice, and knew it, but still found solace in her music.
In 1848, there was an uprising against the Austrians, who ruled northern Italy. There was fighting in the streets of Bologna, and Isabella’s villa was occupied by the Austrian army, which vandalised and looted it, killing both the blacksmith and the estate manager, Lorenzo Costa.
I told Guastafeste this and he gave a shrug of resignation.
“So that’s it, then,” he said. “If the jewelled violin had still been here, if Rossini hadn’t taken it back to Paris with him, the Austrians would have stolen it. Either way, it’s gone.”
I put the pamphlet away in my pocket and wandered round the pile of bricks. Had Vladimir Kousnetzoff been here before us? If he had, he’d have found the same as we had: nothing.
It was only a short walk to the woods behind the villa. The summer-house was hidden deep in the trees, a ruin overgrown by vegetation. Its domed roof had partially collapsed and there was a mound of rubble in the centre of the building, weeds sprouting from its surface. The sides of the summer house were more intact, and I could see why they had been constructed by a blacksmith, not a stonemason. There was a low brick base, now chipped and coated with moss, but above that the sides were wrought-iron latticework, all rococo swirls and trefoils and leaf shapes, as if some rampant wild plant were climbing up the building.
I touched one of the metal leaves, then the curling wrought-iron tendrils looping their way up towards what was left of the tiled roof. The metal was in remarkably good condition for its age. It had been painted with bitumen or tar to protect it from the elements. Some sections were rusty and had broken away, leaving gaps, but I could still get an impression of what it must have been like when Isabella Colbran used to come here. There would have been a stone bench inside—I could see the crumbled remains in the shadowy interior, imagine Isabella sitting on it, lost in thought or quietly singing one of the arias that had made her famous.
“Come on, Gianni,” Guastafeste said. “This isn’t serving any useful purpose.”
I nodded. He was right. There was no point in lingering any longer. I followed him out of the woods and back along the track to the car. The road was too narrow for a U-turn, so we drove on, turning left at the next junction, then left again to head back towards the main road. We were on the other side of the old Colbran estate now, a ploughed field and the woods between us and the site of the villa. A car was parked at the side of the road, narrowing the carriageway. Guastafeste slowed to get past and I glanced out through the window.
“Pull in,” I said abruptly.
“What?”
“Pull in.”
Guastafeste brought the car to a stop.
“I saw something over by the woods,” I said. “Two men, I think, going into the trees.”
“Two men?”
Guastafeste twisted round in his seat and stared hard across the field.
“Are you sure? I can’t see anything.”
“They were there,” I said.
“Farmworkers?”
“I don’t know.”
We got out and stood by the car for a moment, looking across the field and listening. It was very quiet. I could hear nothing except the gust of the breeze in my ears and the intermittent
drone of traffic far away in the distance.
Then a sharp cry suddenly broke the silence—a cry of pain from the woods. I froze.
“What was that?” I said. “A bird? An animal?”
“That wasn’t a bird,” Guastafeste replied. “It was a man.”
He crossed the road and vaulted over the drainage ditch, then started running across the field. I went after him, struggling to keep up. I was only halfway across the field when I saw Guastafeste disappear into the woods. He was out of sight for a time; then he reappeared on the fringe of the trees. Drawing closer, I could see that he had his mobile phone pressed to his ear.
“Keep back, Gianni,” he said in a low voice.
“What is it?”
“The police are on their way. Just stay where you are. Leave this to me.”
He turned and plunged back into the woods. I moved forward and hesitated. Guastafeste had told me to keep back. He’d said almost the same thing to me in Paris when we’d found Alain Robillet’s body. I knew I should heed his instructions, but my curiosity was too strong. I wanted to find out what had happened. Pushing aside the undergrowth, I ventured into the edge of the woods. Then I stopped abruptly, letting out a gasp of shock. In a small clearing a few metres in front of me, a man’s body was sprawled on the ground, his arms thrown out to the sides, his eyes and mouth open in a horrific grimace. It was Vladimir Kousnetzoff. There was a bloody red gash on his neck where his throat had been cut.
I stepped back, feeling my legs give way. I averted my eyes, breathing deeply to stop the nausea from overwhelming me. Where was Guastafeste? He’d told me to leave this to him, but I couldn’t stand there and do nothing. There was a killer in the woods. I couldn’t let Guastafeste tackle him alone. I skirted round the body and kept going through the trees.
It was a dense patch of woodland that had been left untouched for years. There were no paths, few clearings. The trees were crammed close together, the space between them filled in with shrubs and bushes, some so high and thick that they were virtually impenetrable. I forced my way through the vegetation, branches and brambles clawing at my arms and legs. I’d gone maybe thirty or forty metres when I stopped and tilted my head to listen. I could hear a faint rasping sound, like a hacksaw cutting through metal. I squeezed round a thicket of tangled shrubs and saw the wall of the summer house five metres ahead of me; saw a man carving feverishly away at the wrought-iron latticework, trying to remove a small section of the ornate decoration. And I knew suddenly what it was. I could picture the section in my mind. I’d seen it but not noticed it.
