Tell Tale

by Jeffrey Archer

  “With what?”

  This time he did hesitate. “Does it matter?”

  “Not really,” said Antonio, “because I’m afraid Lombardi wasn’t strangled.”

  “But as he was cremated, how can you be so sure?”

  “Because I’ve read the autopsy report, and I can assure you, Signor Caraffini, he wasn’t strangled.”

  “Tell me how he was killed, and I feel sure the murderer will give himself up fairly quickly, and that will solve all our problems.”

  “It most certainly will not,” said Antonio. “So be sure to tell your friends, Signor Caraffini, I’m going to catch whoever did murder Lombardi—and put them behind bars,” he added, as he slammed his notebook closed.

  As Antonio got up to leave, he spotted a photograph on Caraffini’s desk. The olive oil manager smiled. “My daughter’s wedding,” he explained. “She married the son of my dear friend, Signor De Rosa. Oil and water may not mix, lieutenant, but olive oil and truffles certainly do.” He laughed at a joke Antonio presumed he’d made many times before.

  “And the chief bridesmaid?” said Antonio, pointing to a young woman who was standing behind the bride.

  “Francesca Farinelli, Signor Pellegrino’s niece, who I had rather hoped would marry my second son, Mario, but it was not to be.”

  “Why not?” said Antonio. “That sounds an ideal match.”

  “I agree. But modern Italian women seem to have minds of their own. I blame her father. He should never have let her go to university.” Antonio would have laughed, but he suspected the old man meant it. “Only sorry I couldn’t help you, Lieutenant.”

  “So am I,” said Antonio.

  The policeman decided to drop in to the pharmacy before he returned to his office to write up another abortive report. But he was disappointed to discover a middle-aged man standing behind the counter, chatting to a customer.

  “How can I help you, Signor Rossetti?” he asked when he entered the shop.

  “I need a tube of toothpaste.”

  “Top shelf, on the right.”

  He was just about to pay when Francesca appeared with a prescription.

  “That should do the trick, signora. But do let me know if it gets any worse.”

  “Thank you, my dear,” she said before leaving the shop.

  “Have you come to arrest my father?” asked Francesca.

  “No, at the moment I’m looking for someone who claims they didn’t murder Lombardi.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to say I didn’t do it,” said il Signor Farinelli. “I would happily have done so, but unfortunately I was in Rome attending a pharmaceutical conference that day.”

  “But I wasn’t,” said Francesca with a grin.

  “It can’t be much fun, holed up in a town where you don’t know anyone,” said Farinelli.

  “It could be worse,” said Antonio. “The natives are starting to be friendly, and I certainly couldn’t have better accommodation.”

  “It’s just that I wondered if you would care to join us for dinner one evening.”

  “That’s very kind of you.”

  “Shall we say Thursday, around eight?”

  “I’ll look forward to it,” said Antonio as he turned to leave.

  “Don’t forget your toothpaste, Signor Rossetti,” said Francesca.

  * * *

  When Antonio turned up at the police station the following morning, there was a large, overweight man wearing a long blue-and-white striped apron standing outside the front door.

  “Good morning, inspector.”

  “Lieutenant,” corrected Antonio.

  “I’m Umberto Cattaneo.”

  “The butcher,” said Antonio. “Your shop is in the town square?”

  He nodded and lowered his voice. “I think I may be able to help you with your inquiries.” At last, an informer, thought Antonio. He unlocked the door and led Cattaneo through to his little office. “First, I need to be sure,” said Cattaneo, “that if I tell you who killed Lombardi, it won’t be traced back to me.”

  “You have my word on that,” said Antonio, opening his notepad. “That’s assuming we won’t need you to act as a witness when it comes to trial.”

  “You won’t need a witness,” said Cattaneo, “because I can tell you where he’s hidden the gun.”

  Antonio snapped his notepad shut, and let out a deep sigh. “But I haven’t even told you who the murderer is,” said Cattaneo.

  “You needn’t bother, Signor Cattaneo, because Lombardi wasn’t shot.”

  “But Gian Lucio told me he’d shot him,” protested Cattaneo.

  “Before I throw you in the cell and lock you up for a couple of days, if for no other reason than to stop your friends wasting my time, why are you happy to finger Gian Lucio for a crime he didn’t commit?”

  “Gian Lucio Altana is my oldest and dearest friend.”

  “Then why are you trying to get him arrested?”

  “I wasn’t,” said Cattaneo. “We tossed for it, and I lost.”

  “You lost?”

  “Whoever won got to say they killed Lombardi.”

  “And how would you have killed Lombardi if you’d won the toss?”

  “I would have shot him as well, and as we only have one pistol between us, we’d already agreed I would plant the gun at his place.”

  “Just out of interest,” said Antonio, “why was your friend Signor Altana so keen to admit he killed Lombardi?”

  “While Lombardi was mayor, he’d eat at Lucio’s restaurant three times a day.”

  “That’s hardly a good enough reason to kill a man.”

  “It is when you lose all your regular customers, because the mayor’s always around.” Antonio nodded. “By the way,” said Cattaneo, “he wasn’t stabbed, by any chance?”

  “Get out of here, Signor Cattaneo, before I lock you and your friend up.”

  Not a totally wasted morning, considered Antonio, because he was now confident only he, the doctor, and the murderer had any idea how Lombardi had been killed.

  * * *

  Antonio knocked on the front door of Francesca’s home a few minutes after eight. The door was opened by a middle-aged woman who greeted him with a warm smile.

  “I’m Elena Farinelli, Francesca’s mother. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Signor Rossetti. Please come in.” She led her guest through to the drawing room, where her husband was opening a bottle of wine. There was no sign of Francesca. “She’ll be down in a moment,” said Elena, almost as if she’d read his mind.

  Mario Farinelli handed Antonio a glass, and asked, “How many people have you arrested today?”

  “It’s been a little disappointing,” said Antonio. “No one has admitted to killing Lombardi today,” he added as Francesca entered the room.

  Antonio immediately realized it was the first time he’d seen her not wearing a long white coat. She was dressed in a red silk blouse, a black skirt, and a pair of high-heeled shoes that certainly hadn’t been bought in Cortoglia. He tried not to stare at her. What else was different? Of course, she’d let her hair down. He hadn’t thought it possible that she could be even more beautiful.

  “As you’re a highly trained detective,” she said, “I assume you already know my name is Francesca, but I don’t know if you’re Antonio or Tony?”

  “My mother calls me Antonio, but my friends call me Tony.”

  “I know you work in Naples,” said Elena Farinelli, “but do your family also come from there?”

  “Yes,” said Antonio, “my parents are both schoolteachers, and I have two brothers. One’s a printer and the other a lawyer.”

  “Did you always want to be a policeman?” asked Francesca, as her father handed her a glass of wine.

  “Yes I did. But then in Naples you have to work for one side of the law or the other.”

  Everyone dutifully laughed, and Antonio was reminded how stilted conversations could be when you didn’t know each other, but wanted to.

 
Francesca’s mother turned out to be a traditional Italian housewife, whose cooking was so superb she could have opened her own restaurant. During dinner, her husband kept them all entertained with stories he’d overheard in the pharmacy. The biggest gossip shop in town, he admitted, and everyone had an opinion on who killed Lombardi.

  “I have a feeling that by the time I get back to Naples, I’ll be the only person who hasn’t confessed to murdering the mayor.”

  The Farinellis made it easy for Antonio to relax and feel at home, and he couldn’t remember how many bottles of wine Mario had opened during the evening. But he was glad when the time came for him to leave that he could walk back to the mayor’s house. If he’d driven, he would have had to arrest himself.

  “See you tomorrow,” said Francesca, smiling, as she accompanied him to the front door. He looked puzzled. “By then, it will surely be time for you to get another bar of soap. By the way, most of our customers buy them in boxes of three, even six.”

  “Can I take you to dinner?” he asked.

  “That would be nice.”

  * * *

  The day started badly for Antonio, when the postman felt it was his turn to confess to murdering the mayor.

  “And how did you kill him, signor?” he asked, not even picking up his pen.

  “I drowned him,” said the postman.

  “In the sea?” suggested Antonio, raising an eyebrow.

  “No, in his bath. I took him by surprise.”

  “You must have done,” said Antonio. “But before I write down the details of your confession, may I ask, how tall are you?”

  “I am five foot three and a half.”

  “And you weigh?”

  “Around one hundred forty, one hundred fifty pounds.”

  “And you want me to believe you drowned a man of six foot four who weighed over three hundred pounds, and who some suggested never took a bath. Tell me, signor, was he asleep at the time?”

  “No,” said the postman, “but he was drunk.”

  “Ah, that would explain it,” said Antonio. “But, frankly, if he’d been dead before you attempted to drown him, it would still have been a close-run thing.” The postman tried to look offended. “Anyway, there’s something else you’ve overlooked.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Lombardi wasn’t drowned. But good try, signor, and more important, have I got any post this morning?”

  “Yes, one from your mother, one from the chief of police in Naples, and another from your brother.”

  “The printer or the lawyer?” Antonio asked as the postman placed the three letters on his desk.

  “The lawyer.”

  “Are there any secrets in this town?”

  “Just one,” said the postman.

  * * *

  Dinner with Francesca at her favorite restaurant was about as public as an execution. If he’d even thought about holding her hand, it would have been front-page news in the Cortoglia Gazzetta.

  “Don’t you ever get bored living in a small town?” he asked her after a waiter had whisked away their plates.

  “No,” she replied. “I can read the same newspapers and the same books as you do, watch the same television programs, eat the same food, and drink the same wine. And if I want to buy some new clothes, visit an art gallery, or go to the opera, I can always spend the day in Naples.”

  “But the bustle, the excitement, the—”

  “The traffic, the pollution, and the graffiti, not to mention the manners of some of your fellow Neapolitans.”

  “I want to hold your hand,” he said, while the Beatles record played in the background.

  Francesca looked around the tables and smiled. “Then we’d better skip dessert and go for a walk.”

  “I’ll settle the bill,” said Antonio, taking out his wallet.

  “There won’t be a bill,” said Francesca. “Gian Lucio is telling everyone that although he confessed to killing the mayor, you refused to arrest him.”

  “Because he wasn’t guilty,” protested Antonio. When they stood up to leave, Gian Lucio bustled across to say he hoped he would see them both again before too long.

  As they walked together through a maze of cobbled streets, Francesca chatted as if they were old friends, another new experience for Antonio. And when they finally ended up outside her front door, they kissed for the first time.

  “See you tomorrow,” Francesca said as she put her key in the lock. “Will it be razor blades or shaving cream I wonder?”

  She had closed the door before he could reply.

  * * *

  The Naples chief of police called Antonio at the end of the month, and asked if he was making any progress.

  “Can’t pretend I am, chief,” admitted Antonio. “To date,” he said, opening a thick file, “thirty-three people have confessed to killing Lombardi, and what makes it worse, I think they all know who did.”

  “Someone will crack,” said the chief. “They always do.”

  “This isn’t Naples, chief,” he heard himself saying.

  “So who’s the latest one?”

  “Not one, eleven. The local football team are claiming they pushed Lombardi over a cliff.”

  “And what makes you so sure they didn’t?”

  “I interviewed all eleven of them separately, and they couldn’t even agree on which part of the cliff they pushed him over, or how they got him back to his house and tucked him up in bed. And in any case, I can tell you they’re just not murderers.”

  “How can you be so sure, Antonio?”

  “They haven’t won a match in the past fifteen years. In any case, that wasn’t how Lombardi was killed.”

  “He’s clearly not going to be missed by anyone,” said the chief, “because I’ve just received a report from my Head of Organized Crime, and it seems the Camorra expelled him because they thought he was too violent. So if you’re no nearer to solving the crime by the end of next month, I want you back in Naples where real murderers are still roaming the streets.”

  * * *

  Everyone took the day off, Antonio included, to celebrate the installation of the new mayor. Lorenzo Pellegrino was elected unopposed, which didn’t come as a surprise to anyone, and the council of six remained in place. Dancing and drinking in the town square went on until the early hours, right outside Antonio’s bedroom window, and that wasn’t the only reason he couldn’t get to sleep.

  The next morning he called his mother to tell her he’d met the woman he wanted to marry, and she would be captivated, and not just by her beauty.

  “I can’t wait to meet her,” said his mother. “Why don’t you bring her to Naples for the weekend?”

  “Why don’t you and Papa come to Cortoglia.”

  * * *

  During the next month, the number of citizens who confessed to killing Lombardi rose from thirty-three to forty-one, and when the chief called again from Naples, Antonio had to admit that the locals had defeated him, and he accepted that perhaps the time had come to close the case and head back to the real world.

  Indeed, Antonio might have done so if the new mayor hadn’t phoned and asked to see him on a private matter. As the young detective walked across the square to the town hall, he assumed that the number of murderers in the town was about to rise from forty-one to forty-two, as Pellegrino was now the only person on the council who hadn’t confessed to murdering Lombardi. But when the town clerk met him at the top, no longer on crutches, and accompanied him to the council chamber, he found the mayor and all six councilors sitting in their places, clearly waiting for him.

  Antonio sat down at the other end of the table and as every member of the council had already admitted to killing Lombardi, together or separately, he wasn’t sure why he’d been summoned.

  “Signor Rossetti,” began the mayor. “We’ve just held a meeting of the consiglio comunale, and have unanimously agreed to offer you the post of police chief.” But you only have one policeman, Antonio wanted to remind him. �
�We’ve checked how much the Naples chief of police is paid, and we’ve agreed to equal it, and we also feel, with so many murderers on the loose, you will need a deputy.”

  “That’s very generous, but—”

  “We also accept that the time has come to build a new police station, that’s worthy of the town.”

  “I agree that’s none too soon, but—”

  “And I’m quite happy for you to go on living in the mayor’s house,” said Pellegrino, “because I certainly don’t need two homes.”

  The third, “But…” wasn’t quite as insistent.

  “And,” continued the mayor, “although we didn’t put it to a vote, if you felt able to marry a local girl, I think that would go down well.”

  * * *

  Several guests arrived from Naples on the morning of the wedding, but Antonio assured the mayor they would all be going home the next day.

  The whole town turned out to witness the vows of eternal love sworn by Antonio Rossetti and Francesca Farinelli, including several who hadn’t been invited. When il Signor and la Signora Rossetti left the wedding celebrations to set off for Venice, Antonio suspected the festivities would still be going on when they returned in a fortnight’s time.

  The newlyweds spent their honeymoon eating too much spaghetti alle vongole, and drinking too much wine, while still finding a way of not putting on too much weight.

  On the last day of the honeymoon, they both confessed they were looking forward to getting back to Cortoglia. After a memorable meal at Harry’s Bar, they took a gondola back to the Cipriani, to spend their last night together in Venice.

  Antonio sat up in bed and watched his wife undress, and when she slipped under the covers to join him, he took her in his arms.

  “Thank you for the most wonderful fortnight,” said Francesca, “but most of all for not once mentioning Lombardi.”

  Antonio smiled. “You’re about the only person I haven’t asked who you think killed him.”

  “I did,” said Francesca, snuggling closer.

  Antonio laughed. “And how did you kill him, my darling?”

  “I poisoned him. Two drops of cyanide in his coffee just before he went to bed,” Francesca said as she turned out the bedside light.

  Antonio froze.