The Prosecco Fortune

by Stella Whitelaw

  ‘Exactly, there has to be someone who set it up. Do you remember, years ago, an American bank official siphoned off millions of dollars, just from his desk computer?’

  ‘Before my time,’ said Emma.

  The professor sighed heavily. ‘I forget how young you are, my dear. Now let’s get out the Scrabble board and see who gets the best score. Far more important. I have been looking up those useful printer’s words.’

  Emma did not stay late. The professor was planning to get back to his beloved computers in his study. He could not bear to leave them for long. She had to admire his relentless pursuit of knowledge. She had ordered a taxi to take her home. No more buses in the dark, lumbering through the streets of Brixton.

  It had been a good Christmas Day after all. Now that there was the prospect of returning to Venice with the professor in the New Year, it was even better.

  Venice was still shrouded in a grey fog. The weather all over Europe was dismal and Italy had not escaped it. Emma looked out of the cabin window as they began losing height over Marco Polo Airport. She heard the landing wheels come down with their usual noisy mechanism. No first-class seat this time. They were travelling economy. Professor Windsor had slept most of the flight.

  Irving Stone had not been too pleased that Emma was returning to Venice to finish out her contract.

  ‘But you have done all you can, Emma,’ he said. ‘There is nothing more for you there. Besides, we need you here.’

  ‘Marco dell’Orto is one of your most important clients. You can’t afford to lose him. He wants to see this business brought to a successful conclusion and the culprit caught and tried in court. He may never recover his money but at least he’ll know that justice has been done.’

  ‘And you think you can achieve this?’ Irving looked at her scathingly. ‘You are an accountant, Emma, not a detective. May I remind you that you are a junior accountant and have a long way to go yet. Your loyalty is to the company that employs you, not to some handsome Italian.’

  Emma tried not to bristle. It was such an uncomfortable word. ‘If you say so, sir,’ she said, leaving the room.

  She said nothing to Marco or the professor but it seemed that telephone wires began buzzing with a passionate Italian one end and an irate middle-aged senior accountant the other. Emma was told that she could return to Venice but that the time would be deducted from her annual holiday leave.

  Emma was not going to argue. Any time with Marco was definitely a holiday.

  Marco was waiting impatiently at the airport. Emma immediately saw the raw scar on his forehead and the fading bruise. She stood shocked.

  ‘You’re hurt,’ she said. ‘What happened? Have you been attacked?’

  ‘Emma, caro. Professor Gilbert Windsor. Come sta? I am delighted to see you both. At last, soon, this distasteful business will be over. Do not worry, my Emma. I had an argument with a piece of masonry. It was a piece from one of our oldest churches, the Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, or as we simply call it, Frati, the brothers.’

  ‘Did you walk into the brothers or did they walk into you?’ asked the professor.

  ‘It walked into me. Sadly, the building cannot afford to lose even a small piece of its history.’

  ‘Does Commissario Morelli know? Did you tell him?’

  ‘Si. And the piece of masonry is now in custody at the Questura, till it is returned to its rightful home. They are doing tests on it but I doubt if they will find anything except my skin and blood. But enough of this. I have my car waiting and a new launch, so no more standing in this crowded place.’

  Enrico was waiting outside Arrivals with the black limousine. Emma was glad to see him.

  ‘Do you have your job back?’ she asked as he loaded her case into the boot.

  ‘Si, signorina. I was not to blame for the bugging of the car. It was a new mechanic at the garage but he is saying nothing. He will not talk. I have been cleared and Bruno has gone back to his studies.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear that,’ she said.

  The professor chose to sit beside Enrico in the front so that he had a good view of the bridge, leaving Marco and Emma the privacy of the back seat. They were overwhelmed by their delight at seeing each other again. Marco held her hand, knowing that any further intimacy would embarrass Emma. They smiled and talked, Marco forgetting half of the time that Emma’s Italian was limited.

  He would not tell her how he got hit by a lump of masonry. Emma knew she would get the full story from Maria. She didn’t believe it had been an accident. It was part of this hacking, another warning to leave it alone.

  ‘We are going first to the office,’ said Marco. ‘Professor Windsor emailed that he wanted to start work immediately. No time to waste. Do you mind?’

  ‘No, I agree,’ said Emma.

  ‘Did you win the game of Scrabble?’

  Emma smiled that he remembered. ‘It was a draw.’

  ‘We have a board at the farmhouse. I will teach you to play in Italian. I will let you use a dictionary as non parlare Italian.’

  ‘I’m learning,’ said Emma.

  She laughed. It was all part of that heady dream that she could not believe would ever come true. Marco would tire of her once this hacking mystery was solved. He would move on to some glamorous and svelte woman from the Italian aristocracy, go back to his crazy crowded routine of work, parties, receptions and holidays at his villa at Lake Garda. And she would return to Brixton. Maybe she would get a cat. A cat would be company during lonely evenings. But it wouldn’t be fair on the cat. No garden.

  They were driving over the Ponte della Liberta, in a steady stream of traffic, when there was a violent thump against the rear of the limousine. Emma was thrown against Marco. He stared out of the back window. There was a black saloon close behind them.

  ‘Imbecile. He’s driving too fast. He cannot pass us.’

  But there was another sharp thud and crunch as the car behind drove into the boot of the limousine. Enrico held his course. If he swerved, they might go over the bridge and into the lagoon.

  Marco said something rapidly to Enrico. Emma could only guess what it was. Enrico spotted an opening and put his foot down, the faster car thundering past a dozen furious drivers, all shouting at him, till he found a safer niche between two laden white vans.

  ‘This has happened before,’ said Emma, letting out her breath slowly. ‘Another car hit us as we travelled over this bridge.’

  ‘He was trying to ram us,’ said Marco. ‘Do you want to go home, professor? This welcome is not kind. Not the Venetian way.’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said the professor. ‘I want to find out why someone is so anxious to get rid of me. This is like a James Bond film, maybe, although I have never seen one.’

  ‘Are you all right, Emma?’ Marco asked, gently moving strands of hair from her forehead. ‘You should not have come. It is not safe.’

  ‘I want to be here, with you,’ she said quietly. ‘No way am I leaving you now. The professor will get to the route and root of the malpractice and Commissario Morelli will charge the malefactor. He will throw the book at him. You may even get some of your money back.’

  Marco looked bemused by Emma’s use of the same word twice but did not question it. He was suddenly very tired. He wrapped his arms around Emma and held her close.

  ‘I do not care about the money,’ he said. ‘I only care about you. I would live in a turret with you.’

  ‘A garret,’ said Emma.

  eighteen

  The professor was adamant about staying on in the office and working into the night. All the staff had drifted off home. They had lives to live. He wanted to set this honeypot, a trap to track the malpractice to its source.

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ he said. ‘I can sleep anywhere. I can put my head on a desk and be sound asleep in moments. This needs to be done while the violators have been lulled into a sense of security. They think that no one can trace how they moved the funds.’

  But Mar
co would not let it rest at that. He gave the professor a mobile. It was preset to ring Enrico.

  ‘Ring this number and Enrico will come and take you to your hotel. A room is booked for you. Turn up at any time. There is always someone on the reception desk. It is a small hotel but extremely good. One of Venice’s best-kept secrets.’

  ‘I could stay,’ Emma offered. ‘Make coffee, be useful.’

  The professor looked up from the computer. He had made pages of calculations. He was in a different world.

  ‘Thank you, Emma,’ he said. ‘But I think at this stage that I work better alone. I have to analyze the target, looking for vulnerabilities.’

  ‘Grazie mille,’ said Marco. ‘Let’s leave the professor to his scanning tools.’

  Emma made sure there was plenty of coffee and some chocolate pasticceria. She knew he would not be able to resist the chocolate cakes.

  The launch was waiting for them at the quayside. Emma wondered where Marco found the money to buy a new one. She knew he was broke.

  ‘It is not mine,’ he said, as he helped her climb aboard. ‘I have borrowed it from a good friend who heard of the fire on my launch. He is really rich. He has several launches.’

  ‘But who would need several launches?’ said Emma, laughing, so pleased to be with Marco with the prospect of an evening ahead.

  Marco shook his head in mock disbelief. ‘It is someone who has several wives. A launch for each wife.’

  The launch reversed smoothly from the quayside, turned in mid-canal and began a steady passage along the Grand Canal. The driver was careful not to create a wake which would rock the smaller boats.

  ‘This is a very good driver,’ said Emma.

  ‘I think I am offering him a job,’ said Marco. ‘When I get my own launch.’

  As they went past the beautiful and elegant palazzos, still standing after hundreds of years on wooden piles, Emma felt sad that cyber-criminals had invaded this fine city. She could not feel completely safe, even among people she trusted.

  ‘Do you think the professor is safe in your office?’

  ‘It’s the safest place,’ said Marco. ‘They would not want to destroy a computer system that is at their service. But I have asked Enrico to wait outside. He will do it willingly now that I have cleared his name. Venetians are very proud of their family name.’

  ‘How did you do it?’

  ‘It was Commissario Morelli, not me. All the workers at the garage were checked, even temporary or part-time. It was a casual mechanic, maybe an immigrant, taken on in a rush period. He had a record of small crime and some experience in electronics. His room was searched and bugging equipment was found.’

  ‘So who told him to bug your car? That could be a lead.’

  ‘He said it was a phone call. Then money came in an envelope. He said he never saw anyone or heard any name.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘In prison. There are other charges, what you say? In the air. Do not worry, you are safe. I will not let anyone hurt you.’

  ‘Pending. In the air.’

  ‘Si, pending.’

  Emma did not remind him that it had not prevented him being hit with a piece of masonry from an old church. No one was safe until the whole gang was rounded up and put away. Pia, the poor street girl, had been murdered because of the Prosecco fortune. And her killer had never been found. He was still free to roam the city, drink beer in the cafés, steal from the tourists.

  Marco saw the sadness in her expressive face and pulled her close. ‘The evening is ours and we have so much to talk about. Maria will have a good supper for us and she will be so pleased to see you. She has talked of nothing else but the clever young Englishwoman who helped her mop up the flooding floor.’

  ‘That was some flood.’ Emma shivered.

  ‘There was a worse one in 1966, November 14. The city was flooded to nearly six feet in depth. We lost many city treasures.’

  ‘I saw a programme about it on television. It looked awful. Hundreds of old books all sodden and falling apart.’

  ‘But no more talk of disasters,’ said Marco. ‘We are here. Maria has put Prosecco on ice. We are to celebrate your return.’

  He turned and kissed her. ‘No more going away, per favore.’ He gathered in her sweetness, the aroma that was always Emma.

  It was an evening to remember although Emma did not remember what she ate. Some delicious dishes. Maria was delighted to see her, fussed around. They drank Prosecco, of course. Marco wanted to know all about her Christmas with the professor. He felt almost jealous of the older man. He had shared a special day with Emma. She was his Emma.

  ‘He is like a father, an uncle or a much older brother,’ said Emma, trying to reassure Marco. ‘I have no family. Neither has he, as far as I am able to find out. It is nothing more than that.’

  ‘I am glad it is nothing more,’ said Marco. ‘I am glad that he made it a happy day for you. I went to my vineyards and Paola put on a great meal. It would have fed the five thousand. All of my workers and more. Everyone came to eat. But I thought of you all the time, wanting you to be with me.’

  ‘And I wanted to be with you.’

  ‘Next time, perhaps. Is it too much to hope?’

  ‘No, it is not too much to hope. But first we have to solve this cyber-activity. I can’t give up my junior partnership in Irving Stone to become a washerwoman here in Venice.’

  Marco began to laugh, his dark eyes sparkling. ‘A washer-woman? But why? You mean washing up the flood?’

  ‘You will be broke. No money. You will be bankrupt. So I will have to work. And how will I get work as an accountant, here in Venice? Are there many openings for an accountant with limited Italian?’

  Marco gathered her into his arms. She could feel his warmth and solidness, yet the hardness of his chest.

  ‘No, but you will not be a washerwoman. You will be my woman. I will sell everything that I have except the vineyards and the farmhouse. I will sell the palazzo and my villa on the lake. We will live among the vines, live and work as my grandparents did. My grandfather and my grandmother had a long and happy marriage. They had a good life.’

  ‘I should like that,’ said Emma, forgetting all about her years of work at Irving Stone Accountants and her climb up the slippery career ladder.

  ‘We will be together. We will work together. I will be in the fields, you at your clever computer. No more problems. You will make sure that the money is paid to dell’Orto and we will live well.’

  ‘That’s true. I will make sure that this cyber-hacking never happens again.’

  ‘And I have every confidence in you. My clever Inglese accountant.’

  ‘Not so clever yet. But I am learning.’

  Commissario Claudio Morelli was scrolling through CCTV film taken at the Marco Polo Airport on the night when Emma and Marco dell’Orto arrived at Venice. He wanted to find the moment when Emma’s raincoat was lifted.

  He found pictures of them walking through the airport. Emma looked tired and bewildered. She was pulling a small wheelie suitcase, raincoat over her arm, carrying a briefcase in her other hand. Marco was striding ahead, only swinging a briefcase.

  The raincoat was slipping from its precarious hold. A slither of fawn Jaeger fell onto the floor. Emma did not seem to notice as she was trying to keep up with Marco.

  Then in a second, it had gone. Claudio scrolled back to find the exact moment that it was taken. Pia had worked like lightning. She had light fingers and fast feet.

  She fled with the raincoat, feeling in the pockets for money, credit cards. But the camera caught her and put a name. She was known. She was barely eighteen.

  ‘How many more murders?’ the man asked. His face was furious. ‘The wrong woman hit and then in the water. You only half drown another woman in the canal. Why burn a launch when there is no one on it? Then hang the wrong man from a bridge? He was no professor. A fake. You are imbeciles. Take your money and go. I have no time for you. Get out. I will
find men with more sense.’

  ‘We will go to the polizia.’ It was an empty threat.

  ‘If you dare. Who would believe scum like you? Get out before you are found in the canal with your throats cut.’

  ‘We have sharper knives, signor.’

  ‘Don’t threaten me. I have eyes everywhere. You will not escape. Go back to your ratholes. I never want to see any of you again.’

  The Countess Raquel was settling into her suite at the best hotel in Venice. It was perfect in every way. There were flowers and a bottle of champagne awaiting her arrival. She threw her mink coat over a chair and ordered the waiter to open the champagne. She needed the alcohol to ease the pain of Marco’s refusal to take her into his palazzo. His refusal had hurt.

  ‘I will have room service,’ she said, opening the menu. ‘But tomorrow I will eat downstairs. Reserve me the best table. In the centre. I will not sit at the back among the curtains.’

  ‘Si, Countess. The best table. I will see to it.’

  ‘And I want all my clothes dry-cleaned. They have been in a flood. I am in shock. But I want them back by tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Si, Countess. By tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Also send me up a guest list of everyone staying in the hotel.’

  ‘Ah, Countess, that may not be possible. Many of our guests are incognito. I shall have to ask the general manager.’

  ‘Then ask him, you fool. Ti aspetto? Vattene!’

  The waiter escaped, only too glad to be leaving the demanding Countess. They were used to guests who expected to be waited on hand and foot, who asked the impossible. Yet many were pleasant and tipped generously. They knew the Countess would not tip. She had greed in her eyes and nothing in her purse.

  She waited until everyone had left, then picked up the phone, dialling for an outside line. The number was written on a piece of paper. She dialled it carefully.

  ‘Signor?’ she asked. ‘This is the Countess. I shall not give you my name. You want to speak with me? Is this important? I am ver’ busy. I speak to no one else. Talk.’