She finally felt like she had some time to herself, and it was a nice feeling. She had nothing to do until at least ten thirty. Almost three hours. An eternity, compared to her usual rhythms.
She ordered an apple sfogliatina and half closed her eyes like a cat, watching from a short distance away the hydroplane Voloire, which was engaged in docking maneuvers at the pier opposite the Hotel San Giorgio. Five people came out, a family, consisting of father, mother, and two small children—clearly foreigners, probably British—and a solitary passenger.
She was about to light her first Muratti of the day when she was overwhelmed by a gust of chill air that smelled of cologne. She looked up distractedly.
“Inspector, what are you doing here at this hour of the morning?” said a familiar voice.
“I could ask you the same thing. I’m practically at home here.”
If she hadn’t already seen him more than once, she would have had trouble recognizing him in his corduroy knee-length shorts, blue sweater, and checked shirt, with a camera slung across his chest.
But behind the rectangular lenses of his glasses his teasing, dark eyes were still the same, as was the elusive smile.
“What are you doing by the lake all dressed up like a scout, Valli?” Stefania asked with a smile.
“To tell you the truth, I’ve just escaped from boarding school.”
“Off the balcony down a rope made of bedsheets tied together, that sort of thing?”
“More or less. We had a rather eventful evening yesterday at the association’s headquarters.”
“I see. So your only option was to flee out the window.”
“Exactly. And my escape was a success, mostly because I turned off my cell phone. A true liberation. Nobody—except you—knows I’m here. And I don’t want to hear from anyone about anything, at least not until Tuesday. Nothing but hikes in the mountains until then.”
A pause. Then Stefania, with a spontaneity that almost surprised even her, pushed out the chair beside her.
“You can count on my discretion, unless there’s a big bounty on your head. Care for a coffee before you head up the mountain? The apple sfogliatine here are out of this world . . .”
She stopped, blushing slightly, and said no more. Luca Valli, on the other hand, didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed. He took off his backpack, set it down on one of the plastic chairs, and sat down. Then he looked at her and smiled.
“An apple sfogliatina is certainly not something to pass up lightly. How are you? You seem well, but if you hadn’t turned your head this way, I wouldn’t have recognized you. You’re a little different from last time.”
“Let me tell you something: even police inspectors go on vacation. But you’re right about one thing. When I come here my life and mood suddenly change.”
“Maybe it’s because everything around here is so beautiful. Normally we feel better when we see beautiful things.”
Another pause. This time it was Valli who smiled. They both looked out at the lakefront.
The sun was lightening the brown of the still-leafless woods on the other side of the bay, where Villa Balbianello stood.
“You’ll be here the whole weekend?” Stefania asked.
“Yes, today we’re going up the mountain, and tonight I’ll be sleeping at the house of some friends, in Plesio, which is above Menaggio. Tomorrow morning I’ll hop on a bus and go up to see my parents in Lanzo. Like a young student. My car is at the mechanic’s until Tuesday. And what will you be doing?”
“Oh, me? Nothing, really. I’m at my mother’s place with the children. We don’t have any precise plans.”
Stefania started wondering why, in the presence of this man—who in reality seemed like a boy next to her—she was unable to string together three proper sentences and keep her usual cool. She decided to take matters onto neutral ground. Professional ground.
“Listen, this afternoon I may be going to pay a call on Signora Cappelletti . . .”
“Really? Well done, Inspector. It’s not so easy for the rest of us to be received by someone in the family. You must have a saint in heaven looking after you.”
“I certainly do, and a very powerful one: my tata Lucia and her two sisters, who are almost a hundred years old.”
Valli laughed. Stefania thought he became handsome when he laughed. His face brightened and he looked like a little boy.
“But aside from the indubitable pleasure of speaking with Madame Cappelletti, hopefully in French, what do you expect to gain from the encounter? If I remember correctly, the last time we spoke you were concerned with a corpse that was found in a mountain cottage.”
“And you’re wondering what the connection is between the two things, is that right?”
“Yes. I was wondering that even when you came to talk to me at the association.”
“It’s just a feeling I have. A sense of smell. Feminine intuition, perhaps. At some point in this affair I started thinking that there had to be a connection between the family that owned the villa and the young man who was killed in that cottage. I don’t know why—I mean, I don’t know yet, but I can sense it. Bearing in mind of course that the family also owns the cottage in question, and therefore wanting to know what they know is . . .”
“All in the line of duty?”
“Exactly. Actually, I could have called them in for questioning, but I’m convinced that not only would they not have come but they would have sent me the usual insufferable lawyer to tell me the usual things—namely, that the family has no connection to the affair and so on. I would rather see them up close and hear them speak. And provoke them, if necessary. A little improvisation, in short, without too much advance planning.”
Valli looked at her, nodded, and said nothing.
They sat there gazing at the lake and the lakefront promenade, which was slowly coming to life. The first tourists. Families with children. Some elderly nuns, all hunched.
The blare of a horn interrupted that moment of pleasant absorption. An SUV had pulled up in front of the café.
“Here are my friends to pick me up, Inspector. I’m going to go say hello to them and then head up to take some pictures of a church at the top of the mountain, but I’ll probably go up there alone. They never want to walk anywhere.”
“Okay, have a good hike, Valli. See you around.”
“See you, Inspector. Have a good weekend.”
As the Jeep Cherokee was leaving, a hand waved good-bye out of one of the windows.
A butler in a white jacket and black trousers came to greet her at the front door.
“Madame is waiting for you, Inspector. Please come in and follow me.”
Coming down the majestic allée at the entrance to the property, Stefania had felt as though suspended in air. It was as if she’d been catapulted into a Visconti film or a nineteenth-century French novel. Armando had been faster and more efficient than all of her fellow policemen put together. He’d set up the appointment for five in the afternoon. Teatime.
Following the butler’s elegant caracoles, Stefania passed through silent rooms and anterooms on the ground floor, then ascended an imperious marble staircase to the second floor. She crossed a splendid veranda, then a sort of glass gallery open onto the lake, and finally came to a small sitting room hung with pale green floral silk.
“Please make yourself comfortable. Madame will be with you momentarily.”
Left alone, Stefania looked around. In contrast to the severity of the ground-floor rooms, which were monumental but a bit cold, the space she was in now was warm and welcoming, with a few small armchairs in soft colors, a low table covered with small silver-framed portraits, and generally lovely furnishings. A few white gardenias faced out from a cachepot on the side of the room closest to an enormous lighted fireplace.
She went over to the window, which gave onto an interior
courtyard, a sort of small, rectangular cloister with slender columns. Everything was centered around a fountain in the middle, half hidden behind some boxwood hedges.
That part of the villa seemed uninhabited: all the windows on the courtyard side were shuttered. And the hedges around the fountain looked like they hadn’t been pruned for ages. Only a trained eye could perceive, at various points, a complex geometric design of wedge shapes in sequence and intersecting—juxtaposed triangles, perhaps, or stars. She had a sense of déjà vu: the design was in some way familiar to her, as if it reminded her of something she’d seen before.
She went back to the fireplace and stood there warming her hands before a blazing log. Oak, no doubt. At that moment she noticed the painting hanging over the fireplace, in a splendid gilt frame. It so struck her that she had to put her glasses on to examine it better, from up close. She was so engrossed she didn’t notice that a door had opened behind her.
“Do you like it? It’s an old family memento,” said a voice at her back.
Germaine Durand must have been a rather attractive woman in her youth.
Slender, above average in height, and haughty, still today. Her eyes were a rather unusual shade of blue.
Okay, down to business, thought Stefania, absorbing without blinking the condescending gaze of those two eyes, which looked her up and down in an instant. The woman was leaning on a cane, but her character must have been the same as in her prime.
“Do you like Paris in autumn, my dear?”
“Yes, though sometimes it seems sad to me, or maybe just a little too black and white. Like Venice with its canals, really.”
“Not everyone who comes into this room sets his eyes on that painting.”
“Let’s just say it’s not every day that you get to see a Sisley from up close. Outside of a museum, I mean.”
Madame Durand fell silent and observed her some more, this time with interest, as though sizing her up. She seemed stunned, but wasn’t the type to let it show. Stefania turned again momentarily towards the painting, for the specific purpose of letting herself be observed. Then she said:
“Thank you for agreeing to see me today. I hope I haven’t disturbed you. I only wanted to ask you a few questions. Grant me ten minutes, and I’ll leave you to your family.”
Madame Durand proceeded as if Stefania hadn’t spoken.
“There are other such paintings in the house, but this one was my father’s favorite. He never wanted to resell it after buying it at auction in Berlin. He turned down every offer, even by our best clients. And so, in the end, it stayed here. In the family, so to speak.”
Stefania wondered what she’d meant by that last comment, since she knew that the family didn’t actually live at the villa. But she didn’t say anything. There was no point in pressing Madame, since, at any rate, she would say only what she had in mind to say.
Madame Cappelletti sat down in an armchair, adjusted the shawl over her shoulders, and gestured to Stefania to sit down in the chair facing her. Then, in a tone of polite detachment, she asked:
“What did you want to ask me, Inspector?”
The scorn she put into her utterance of the word “Inspector” was the first sign that a clash was imminent.
“I believe you were informed that about ten days ago, during the demolition of a ruined cottage on your property in the San Primo area, around the worksite for the construction of a tunnel through the mountain pass, some human remains were found that we haven’t identified yet.”
“Yes, the caretaker mentioned that to me. But he also said that it would all be properly taken care of.”
Properly, thought Stefania: an adverb that Carboni would have approved of.
“If you’re referring to the fact that the remains have been reassembled and taken to the ossuary of the Lanzo cemetery, then, yes, I think it’s been properly taken care of. Now we’re trying to give the lad a name.”
“Lad?”
“Yes, Madame. A young man, in all likelihood. Do you know the spot where we found him—that is, the cottage and its surroundings?”
“Not really. Actually, not at all. It’s been years since my legs allowed me to do what I would like to do. So you can imagine how often I go up the mountain. . . . My husband was always the one looking after that land and anything else to do with his family’s possessions. He, the family business manager, and our caretaker. I never got much involved with any of that, I must say.”
Stefania took note of the way she said “his family,” referring to the Cappellettis.
“Have you never seen those other properties?”
“Just a few. When the kids were small they used to spend part of the summer holidays here. During excursions to the Sighignola we would sometimes stop at one cottage or another for a glass of water.”
“But the cottage in question wasn’t on that road.”
“I repeat, I really don’t know those areas well. Cottages, huts, ruins—for me they’re all the same. I don’t think I can be of much use to you, I’m sorry. Perhaps Armando, our caretaker, is the best person for you to talk to. He knows these mountains well, he’s always lived here, and he’s been working for our family for more than thirty years. You should see what he has to say, if you wish. By this hour he should already be back at the villa.”
Her assertion had a tone of politeness and dismissal at once.
“Yes, that would be helpful, thank you.”
“Good. Then I’ll send for him. Would you like a coffee in the meanwhile?”
“With pleasure,” Stefania replied, not too certain whether she’d opened a breach in the woman’s defenses.
Madame rang the kitchen and ordered them to serve coffee. Then, with the pager, she called the caretaker.
“Armando, would you be so kind as to come up into the green sitting room? Yes, right now, thank you.”
Madame spoke somewhat softly, and in a gentle tone, and yet every word, every phrase, sounded like an order. Essentially her every gesture conveyed authority, a familiarity with power. Her tone was one that allowed no objections.
A few moments of silence passed.
Stefania turned back towards the painting.
“To return to things of beauty, I can understand how your father, having the good fortune to own something like this, might never want to part with it, preferring to keep it for himself and his loved ones.”
“All the same, he surprised everyone when he gave it to my husband’s sister. That’s why it’s here, in Margherita’s room, where it’s been ever since.”
A shudder ran up Stefania’s spine.
“So your sister-in-law also loved the French Impressionists?”
“Well, not really. Margherita didn’t know anything about the Impressionists when I first met her, but she had an innate sensitivity to beautiful things, and that helped her instinctively to understand art. She perceived beauty, if I can put it that way. She was attracted to it. My father was very strict with everyone. But there was something special about her, an innate grace. Something that made all of us fall in love with her the moment we first met her, right here in this room.”
Madame Durand fell silent for a moment and looked out the window. Leaning on her cane, she took one of the portrait frames and handed it to Stefania.
“This is Margherita, in a photo by Hoffmann. She and I were the same age.”
Stefania looked at the photograph: a pair of dark eyes looking into the distance, a luminous face framed by chestnut hair hanging loose to the shoulders.
“Her father,” continued Madame Durand, “my husband’s father, came only once to Geneva, and then, when my father opened his business in Lugano, he used to come into the shop every so often, always alone, and often after closing time. We knew nothing about the family until I came here with my father in the spring of 1943. That was when I met Margherita and Giovanni. This
house was very different then.”
A housemaid came in and set down a tray with coffee on the small table. Stefania stared at the portrait for a few moments. Margherita had been photographed in a light-colored summer dress and was wearing only one piece of jewelry, a sort of pendant hanging from a ribbon. She looked at it carefully, but the details weren’t very visible. It was oval, in all likelihood. Smooth and rather thick. So this elegant girl, portrayed by a famous photographer, was the same girl as in the photo that Raffaella had shown her in the editorial office. But in the photo Stefania was looking at now, she was slightly different, and even more beautiful.
Madame Durand sipped her coffee in silence. Stefania, who would have given anything to continue the conversation, said the first thing that came to mind.
“What a beautiful girl.”
“Enchanting.”
“With a kind expression.”
“Yes. Losing her was a terrible tragedy for all of us.”
No dice, thought Stefania, with a sense of disappointment. End of show. She couldn’t think of anything appropriate to keep the conversation going.
Madame Durand turned her gaze towards the window. Her eyes seemed to caress the lake.
“Armando,” Madame said to the caretaker, who’d just come in, “Inspector Valenti would like some information on the cottage where those mortal remains were found. I haven’t dealt with any of that property for many years. Do you know the place?”
“Yes, Madame. It’s in an isolated area, practically overhanging the torrent. There isn’t even a mule path leading there. Nobody ever passes that way anymore. It’s been years. Or maybe a hunter or two, every now and then. As far as I can remember, it’s always been like that—a ruin, a few crumbling walls here and there. The woods had covered it up so much that anyone who didn’t know about it would never have imagined there was anything there.”
Shadows on the Lake Page 8
