It didn’t look like Paolo’s natural habitat either. And ‘la bella signora’ was there at her own insistence. A few adult idlers cast us leery glances as we climbed the winding steps, examining chipped and faded number-plaques on walls in search of 33.
We found it eventually, partially obscured by fencing round part of the steps that appeared to be under repair, though no repair work was taking place. There were five bell-pushes clinging to crumbling stucco beside a decrepit doorway. Four had names of varying legibility recorded next to them. None of the names was Verdelli. Vivien prodded the nameless fifth. There was no immediate response and no way of telling if a bell was ringing anywhere. She gave it several more prods.
We were still standing there a few minutes later, wondering what to do, when a barrel-shaped old lady dressed in black, her girth expanded by a bulging shopping-bag, bustled past us and slipped her key into the lock. Vivien at once engaged her in conversation and she seemed neither to notice nor object as we slipped into the gloomy entrance hall behind her. A lot of eye-rolling and head-tossing accompanied her replies to questions about Paolo Verdelli. I couldn’t follow much of what she said, but the phrase ‘ultimo piano’ was clear enough. Paolo lived on the top floor.
‘I don’t think she likes him,’ Vivien said, as we started up the stairs. ‘She said something about him having noisy visitors and there were other things I couldn’t understand. Do you know what mosconi means?’
‘Haven’t a clue. You can ask Paolo.’
The house, shabby enough at street level, deteriorated still further as we climbed. The plasterwork was crumbling, with fragments of it lying on the landings and stair-treads. The light was dim, the atmosphere musty. Salita Penitenza 33 was a far and dismal cry from the Villa Orchis, as Paolo must have been painfully aware.
‘Are you sure you want to go through with this?’ I asked, feeling I should give Vivien a chance to back out.
‘I’m sure.’
‘He may not be at home.’
‘Let’s find out.’
We reached the top floor, where it was marginally less gloomy thanks to a skylight somewhere above us. I made sure I was first to Paolo’s door. If there was to be an encounter with him, it would best be managed by me.
I realized something was wrong almost at once. The frame was splintered around the lock and, as I approached, the door swung ajar in response to the flexing of a loose board beneath my foot. There was a low buzzing noise from within that I couldn’t account for. I knocked on the door and pushed it open. ‘Paolo?’ I called.
The buzzing was much louder now. I noticed darting movements ahead of me. There were flies everywhere, swarms of them.
‘Mosconi,’ said Vivien from behind me. ‘I remember now what it means. The old lady was complaining … about bluebottles.’
‘Stay here,’ I said, advancing into the flat.
I didn’t have to go far to discover what was attracting the flies. The noise of them in the kitchen was like the drone of an engine. A naked man lay on his side on the floor, limbs splayed, head bent back. There were flies all over him. And a throat-catching stench of decay filled the air.
Paolo Verdelli was dead. That much was obvious to me as I covered my nose and gestured for Vivien to remain where she was. I took a few hesitant steps closer.
He was as slim as he’d always been, but there was a lot of grey now in his mane of hair. His handsome features were distorted in a grimace. A length of clothesline had been looped several times round his neck. It was resting loosely on the floor, but had clearly been used to strangle him. He wasn’t just dead. He’d been murdered.
Vivien hadn’t waited at the door. I was suddenly aware of her at my shoulder. ‘Oh God,’ she murmured. ‘Oh dear God.’
Truly, there was nothing else to say.
I telephoned the police from a nearby shop, then stood waiting for them outside number 33. Vivien had rejected my suggestion that she leave before they arrive, just as she’d shrugged off my attempts to shield her from the horror of Paolo’s death. She seemed determined to face it and all the questioning we were in for. I knew she was shocked, of course. So was I. She was breathing shallowly and her hands were trembling. But there was nothing I could do to comfort her. The way she held herself and the distance she kept from me made it clear she didn’t want me even to try.
‘How long do you think he’s been dead?’ she asked numbly, as we waited.
‘I don’t know. A couple of days, maybe. Or less, in this climate.’
‘They killed him because he sabotaged the exchange. You realize that, don’t you?’
‘It … could be.’
‘It must be. He’d made himself unreliable. He might have named names. He had to be silenced.’
‘Well, he was silenced all right.’
‘Yes.’ She bowed her head for a moment, then said quietly, ‘All those flies. And the smell. It was awful.’
‘I know. Try not to think about it.’
She looked at me strangely, as if the suggestion was absurd, as in its way it was, of course. ‘What I’m thinking about is how much to tell the police. We can’t name Thompson as Paolo’s accomplice without taking the chance they’ll discover you helped cover Uncle Francis’s tracks after he murdered Strake.’
‘Tell them what you like, Vivien. I’m not sure I care any more.’
‘Easy for you to say, when you know I care too much about my family to drag all that into the open.’
‘You’d prefer to keep it simple?’
‘What choice do I have?’
‘I don’t know. It’s your secret as much as it’s mine.’
She sighed. ‘We’ll say nothing about Thompson, then.’
‘Fine by me.’
The remark seemed to anger her. She glared at me for a moment, then moved suddenly past me, heading towards the shop from where I’d phoned the police. ‘I must let Roger know what’s happened,’ she said. ‘He’ll be worried about me. I won’t be long.’
As it turned out, the police arrived before she returned. Those exchanges were our last chance to make some kind of peace. And we hadn’t taken it.
The taking of statements, the answering of questions and the explaining of circumstances occupied most of the evening, even though, as Vivien and I had agreed beforehand, our account supplied no connection with Thompson and Strake. As far as the police knew from what we told them, we suspected Paolo’s motive to have been his exclusion from Luisa’s will, nothing more, nothing less. They were left to assume he – or an unidentified accomplice – had mentioned Strake’s murder in the anonymous phone call because it was unsolved and therefore likely to pique Gandolfi’s curiosity.
Lashley caught up with us at Police Headquarters. Roger was with him, exuding disdain and disgruntlement. He contrived to avoid addressing a single word to me. His concern for Vivien seemed synthetic. But maybe I was just prejudiced.
Soon, Cremonesi was on the scene as well, abandoning some social event at Lashley’s request. (He was still dressed in his dinner suit.) His intervention smoothed all the wheels and speeded our departure. ‘Informally, I gather they believe Verdelli was killed by the kidnappers for the reason you suggested, Signora Normington,’ he said to Vivien. ‘I am personally sorry you had to see such a terrible thing.’ His regrets were a nice touch. But then he was a man who dealt in nice touches.
Lashley booked back into the Excelsior for the night, along with Vivien and Roger. ‘I’m worried Vivien may suffer a delayed reaction to what’s happened,’ he confided to me after seeing them off in a taxi. I preferred to walk to the Vesuvio and he said he’d walk with me. ‘She thinks she’s tougher than she really is.’
‘I couldn’t stop her going to see Paolo,’ I said, accepting his offer of a cigarette as we headed away from the Questura. ‘Of course, I never anticipated what we’d find.’
‘How could you? Although, reflecting on the situation, I dare say we shouldn’t be unduly surprised. With Verdelli dead, there are no leads
for the police to follow. It’s even crossed my mind that this might be intended as a sop to me: some twisted form of apology from the Camorra. I feel cheated, even so. I intended to go after him, you know.’
‘I do know, yes. So, maybe it’s for the best.’
‘Maybe. But it’ll be a long time before I see it in that light. How did you find out where he was?’
‘Countess Covelli.’
‘Ah yes. The countess. Not a trusting soul. But she trusts you. Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask why. All of us should have a few secrets.’
We walked on in silence for a few minutes, his remark hanging in the air. Then I asked, ‘How are things … at the villa?’
‘Oh, as well as can be expected.’
‘And you? After everything that’s—’
‘I’ll survive.’ He clapped me gamely on the shoulder. ‘You can rely on that.’
And I felt sure I could.
After a restless night, I rose at dawn and went for a run along the promenade to Mergellina. The sea was a mirror of the sky. Naples basked as the sun climbed. I had no place there. Remaining served no purpose. But I couldn’t leave. I was a prisoner of procedure, a witness to crimes no one investigating them had any serious expectation of solving. Three people were dead. Yet life went on.
I was grateful when Harv Beaumont contacted me that morning. He wanted my opinion on some problems that had arisen at one of CCC’s processing plants. Applying my mind to them was a welcome distraction. But the distraction was short-lived. Vivien and I were due at the Procura later in the day to supply formal statements of evidence for the investigating magistrate. Our appointments were at different times, however. She’d gone, whisked back to Capri by Roger, before I arrived. I was shocked to realize I might well not see her again during my enforced sojourn in Naples. If so, the last thing she’d said to me would prove to be ‘I won’t be long’.
Next morning, I met Countess Covelli at the Caffè Gambrinus. She had an hour to spare before a meeting with her lawyer. ‘I have much money, Jonathan,’ she told me, with a self-deprecating smile. ‘And it causes me much trouble.’
Most of the customers were sitting outside. The countess preferred one of the cooler, quieter rooms towards the rear, away from the traffic fumes of the Piazza Trieste e Trento. She was curious to know what I could tell her about the death of Paolo Verdelli.
That was more than she could ever have anticipated. I related the entire story of Strake’s murder and Francis’s death – and his dying wish that she should have the letter Strake had been blackmailing him with. Lashley was right. The countess trusted me. And I trusted her. It was a relief to know I could confide in her with no fear as to the outcome.
‘I knew that if I waited long enough, everything would make sense,’ she said when I’d finished.
‘You’d already guessed it was me who sent you the letter?’
‘Si. I had. But I had not guessed all the … circumstances. What a surprisingly high-principled man Francis was.’
‘Yes. It surprised me too.’
‘And you believe Paolo persuaded the Camorra to kidnap Signora Lashley because she inherited what he thought should have been his … reward … for all the things he had done for Luisa?’
‘That’s what it comes down to.’
‘Dio Mio.’ She shook her head. ‘La vendetta. It is an Italian vice.’
‘Not one you suffer from though, Contessa. Luisa did you far more harm than she ever did Paolo. Yet all you did was … ignore her.’
‘But I am a woman. And I have seen too many … acts of revenge.’
‘Including the desecration of Mussolini’s corpse, according to Francis.’
‘Si. The Piazzale Loreto, in Milano, on the twenty-ninth of April 1945. I regretted going as soon as I arrived, though now I am glad I went – glad for the lesson it taught me. People were kicking the Duce’s body. I saw a woman beating him with a stick. And another trying to force a dead rat into his mouth. Many people think the partisans hung the Duce and his mistress from the roof of a filling station to show their contempt for them. But I was there. I know why they did it. It was to protect the bodies from any more punishment. They had seen enough. So had I. I remembered then something my dear Urbano had said to me when I visited him in prison before his execution and I understood at last what he meant. “La vendetta è il suicidio.” Revenge is suicide.’
‘Your husband was a wise man, Contessa.’
‘Si. He was.’
‘Why did Luisa betray him to the Nazis?’
‘Because she believed in Mussolini, as did many Italians. More than you will hear admit it now. To her, Urbano was a traitor.’
‘Then why did she want to remain your friend – the friend of a traitor’s widow?’
‘Because after the war she turned her back on her beliefs. She pretended she had never had them. You see? She betrayed herself. I think that was the most contemptible thing she ever did. She suffered for it in the end. I heard from Patrizia that she died a bad death.’
‘Something tells me you won’t, Contessa.’
‘I hope not.’ She took a sip of coffee and looked at me earnestly. ‘Promise me you’ll remember what Urbano said, Jonathan. Revenge is always … self-destructive.’
‘There’s nothing I have cause to avenge.’
‘But there may be. Before your life is over. When I am dead and you have forgotten me.’
‘I’ll never do that.’
‘Then …’
‘I promise.’ I looked her in the eye. ‘I solemnly promise.’
THIRTY-FOUR
THE WEEK ENDED. I remained in Naples, a prisoner of the Italian investigative process. On Saturday, Jacqueline came to see me. We had lunch at a seafront pizzeria near the Vesuvio. It was from her that I learnt the true scale of Lashley’s problems, which he’d played down in our telephone conversations. Adam’s reaction to his mother’s death was, as Jacqueline described it, an exhausting roller-coaster of weeping and drunken ranting. Harriet’s contempt for what she called Adam’s ‘emotional incontinence’ was no help. And Vivien was too absorbed in her own grief to share much of her stepfather’s burden. As for the aloof and indolent Roger, ‘All he’s absorbed in is himself.’ That left Lashley ‘exhausted, poor man’.
Jacqueline admitted to some envy of my exile from Capri. ‘You’re well out of it, Jonathan, let me tell you.’ I formed the impression that she’d be relieved to leave as soon after Muriel’s funeral – set for the following Wednesday – as the powers that be said she could.
That turned out to be sooner than we’d feared it might be. I received the news from Cremonesi late on Monday afternoon. The investigating magistrate had indicated there’d be no charges against any of us, partly, Cremonesi implied, to spare the police embarrassment in the light of Muriel’s death. There was consequently no purpose in detaining me or Jacqueline within the magistrate’s jurisdiction. We were free to go.
On Wednesday morning, while Muriel Lashley was being laid to rest in the Protestant section of Capri’s cemetery, I boarded a plane for Rome, with a connecting flight booked through to Atlanta. I was on my way.
There were things I thought I knew and things I thought I understood about what had happened during the two weeks I’d spent in Italy that summer – two weeks that had encompassed the deaths of Muriel Lashley, Paolo Verdelli and the luckless Commissioner Gandolfi. But, as time passed, I came to realize that what I knew and what I understood were far from clear. There was a sub-text to events I’d failed to see, let alone read. There was a meaning within the meaning I believed I’d grasped. There was an answer to a question I hadn’t had the wit to ask.
The merger between Cornish China Clays and North American Kaolins went ahead in October. Many in CCC doubted the wisdom of the move. But I didn’t. Not for a moment. Greville Lashley had told Harv Beaumont and me what it would lead to and I for one was confident it would. Bereavement was never likely to put a brake on Lashley’s ambition or impair his jud
gement. Intercontinental Kaolins, as the merged entity was to be called, would be the vehicle for his dominance of the industry worldwide. It would be his fiefdom – and no one else’s.
I spent Christmas with my parents in St Austell, wondering whether I shouldn’t have devised some excuse to be elsewhere. I was getting a little old for the role of wanderer returning. But it was the role I had to play, nonetheless.
The circumstances of Muriel Lashley’s death had excited quite a bit of attention in her home town, but details were elusive and Mum’s hopes that I’d be able or willing to supply some were to be dashed. ‘Your discretion’s a great disappointment to your mother,’ Dad jokingly remarked.
Mum had fared little better, it transpired, during her last chance meeting in Fore Street with Harriet Wren. The old lady had mentioned that her family would be gathering for Christmas in Lincolnshire and had made a few waspish remarks about the Honourable Roger, but her only reference to her deceased niece had been indirect, albeit tantalizing.
‘She said she didn’t think Mr Lashley would remain a widower for long,’ Mum revealed.
‘She did?’ I was surprised, though I did my best not to show it.
‘Yes. Then she tapped the side of her nose and pottered off.’
‘Any idea who she had in mind as the new Mrs Lashley?’
‘That’s what I was going to ask you.’
‘Well, I don’t know.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘Really?’
I nodded for emphasis. ‘Really.’
And I really didn’t. It struck me as wildly improbable that Lashley would remarry in the foreseeable future.
But the improbable, of course, as I should have borne in mind, isn’t impossible.
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