Overture in Venice

by Hester Rowan

  He sighed, as though I were being deliberately obstructive. ‘Well, put on your dark glasses and sit well back in the shade. I shan’t be a minute.’

  He took the steps up to the promenade in a leap and was back almost immediately with a silk scarf from one of the stalls. He tossed it at me unceremoniously and I tied it over my hair.

  ‘Hmm. Let’s hope that he doesn’t look at you too closely. Come on. Here, you’d better take my arm.’

  I found myself clinging to it without dignity in an effort to keep upright. ‘It’s no good, I can’t hurry,’ I protested.

  He had been tense and impatient but now I felt him make a conscious effort to relax and be helpful. ‘All right, don’t worry, we’ll take it very slowly. Anyway, we’d only look suspicious if we went rushing off. It’s better if we give the impression that we’re just a couple on holiday. And if I put my arm round you, you can lean on me as though I were your lover – I know I’m not exactly in favour with you, but you can always pretend that I’m Owen.’

  I held back weakly. ‘Owen is not my lover –’

  ‘Give him time, give him time … Now we’ll just saunter along as though we were enjoying a holiday. I’ll tell you an amusing Italian story – do you think you can raise a smile?’

  I managed to bare my teeth. He winced.

  ‘Don’t bother, it’s not that funny. Just concentrate on keeping going, then, and leave the acting to me.’

  He helped me to waver up the steps, gesturing expansively with his free hand and talking to me in reassuringly mellifluous Italian. We stepped on to the promenade in the full glare of the sun. The vendors stirred hopefully, offering lemons and oranges, straw hats, beach balls, more silk scarves.

  Cars were parked all the way along the promenade, under the stubby palm trees, but as far as I could see they were all empty. A man stood on the steps of my hotel, back to us, watching the doors; for a moment I checked, then felt a surge of relief. He was big, but not fat enough for Zecchini.

  And then he turned and looked straight at us. My feet seemed stuck fast to the pavement in the shock of fright. The heavy shoulders and the long face behind the dark glasses belonged without any doubt to the man who had been in St Mark’s Square with Zecchini, the man who had followed Alberto to his death.

  Chapter Six

  ‘That man!’ I whispered urgently. ‘He was the one in St Mark’s Square with Zecchini!’

  Guy tightened his arm round my waist. ‘You must keep going,’ he muttered. ‘He doesn’t know me, and with any luck he won’t recognize you.’

  I forced my feet into mechanical motion. We were almost past the front of the hotel, level with the man when a shout came from the entrance.

  ‘Belugi!’

  The man whirled round and hustled up to the hotel doors. I peered past Guy’s shoulders, heard a fragment of Italian, caught a glimpse of a prosperous bay-fronted suit and a flourishing moustache.

  Guy’s body was tense against mine. He too had turned to look, and now he tried to urge me on. But fear had achieved what willpower couldn’t; I was already out of his grasp and away down the promenade, adrenalin-powered, so that he had to catch my hand and haul me back to his car.

  It was an open sports car; ideal for a quick get-away except that it was now penned between two family saloons. I slipped into the passenger seat. It was an appallingly exposed position and I sat with my nails digging into my hands while Guy wrestled with the wheel and edged the car out into the road.

  I kept my head resolutely turned away from the hotel, praying that neither of the men would recognize me. The view spread in front of me was superb: the trunks of the nearest palm tree were wreathed in climbing roses, beyond them bright boats bobbed on the shimmering lake and the background mountains seemed to float on water. But I was too tense to be conscious of noticing the view let alone to appreciate its beauty. All I wanted was to get away from the men who had killed Alberto.

  ‘Did you hear what Zecchini said?’ I asked impatiently as Guy finally nosed the car out into the traffic. He was forced to brake almost immediately as a coach stopped and tourists came scattering out.

  His face was grim. ‘Not now, madam,’ he exploded as an ecstatic woman, overcome by the sun and the dazzling view, stopped in the middle of the road to raise her camera to eye-level. She stared at him disdainfully, retorting in a language that was probably Scandinavian and certainly uncomplimentary, but took the precaution of stepping smartly out of the way.

  ‘Fasten your seat belt,’ Guy commanded, accelerating. I did as he said but insisted on an answer. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Never mind – it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘I do mind! Please don’t treat me like an irresponsible idiot, I want to know.’

  ‘All right. He said. “She’s here.” But you’re not, so forget it. If he didn’t see you, he’ll never be able to find you now. Hold tight and for goodness’ sake stop nattering.’

  I felt suddenly queasy again, but it seemed an inappropriate time to mention it.

  We roared along the promenade, across a square, through a narrow shopping street and down a tree-lined residential road that nestled incongruously in the steep shadow of a mountain. Then, abruptly, the little town stopped. The road crossed a river, ice-green with glacier water, and then turned sharply among tumbled rocks at the head of the lake. I recognized it now as the corniche road, running south through tunnels along the lakeside, but instead of following it Guy struck off on a narrow local road that climbed at an alarming angle up the nearest mountain.

  It was obviously a road that Guy knew. He took it at a lick, whipping up and down the gears as he followed the hairpin bends that carried us higher and higher above the lake. I’d seen, from the balcony of my hotel room a curious scratch-mark snaking up the mountainside; now I was on it, half-way up, looking down on toy towns and villages and painted boats that left white wakes on the deep blue water.

  The sub-tropical lakeside vegetation had given way to scrubby bushes. Here and there, stone walls had been built to retain small terraces of earth which had been patiently cultivated, with grass scythed short as a lawn and arthritic olive trees offering a meagre crop.

  I looked back the way we had come. There were a few cars on the road, but whether we had been followed was impossible to tell. Guy drove on in concentrated silence, with a mutter of relief as the road flattened and straightened when we approached the mountain top. He flashed through a dusty village, all plain workaday stone with only the advertisements outside the single café-bar to brighten it, and then as the road forked again among the trees and green pastures of the plateau, he relaxed and slowed.

  ‘I think we’re clear,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sure no one was following us. Thank you, I really was worried when I saw that man again. It was just as well for me that you came when you did.’

  ‘Yes – I didn’t like the look of Belugi.’

  ‘I’m sure he’s the man who murdered Alberto. Positive. Guy, let’s go to the police.’

  He shrugged. ‘I went, in Venice. I was worried about Signor Crespi and I asked them to keep an eye on his shop. I also said that I suspected that Zecchini would know about Alberto’s death. They weren’t in the least surprised.’

  ‘But aren’t they going to do anything?’

  ‘They said that they’d already pulled in a number of likely men for questioning, including some of Zecchini’s heavyweights. Trouble is, they’ve no real evidence.’

  ‘Oh, but I saw him following Alberto –’

  ‘And sticking in the knife? Admit it, Clare, you’ve no real evidence either, have you?’

  ‘But the fact that they’ve followed me here …’

  ‘That isn’t a fact, it’s a supposition. A very uncomfortable one, I grant you, but they’ve a perfect right to come to Lake Garda if they want to. We don’t know that the she Zecchini referred to is you at all. Perhaps he has an erring wife.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad we didn’t stay long enough to
find out.’ I felt relieved then remembered something. ‘You didn’t happen to mention to the police your suspicions about me, did you? I mean, am I wanted for questioning? Because if so I’ll go, and gladly.’

  He chuckled, a wintry sound. ‘No – on consideration I hadn’t really enough to go on. I thought I’d better ask you a few questions myself first – and besides, there was Owen to think about. But don’t imagine that I’d have hesitated to put the police on to you if I’d had the evidence!’

  I didn’t doubt it for a moment; but neither did I let Guy Lombardi’s lack of chivalry worry me. As he’d suggested, there was always Owen to think about …

  We drove on through a land of green hills, the road dusty under the sun but shaded by trees at grateful intervals. The landscape was pastoral, punctuated by distinctive grey-green bushy olive trees and the frequent exclamation of dark cypresses. In the northern distance, the sky was serrated by the snow-streaked rocky peaks of the Dolomites.

  And then we came upon another lake, tiny in comparison with Garda, no more than half a mile across and a mile long, a pool cupped in a green hollow, reflecting orchard trees and poplars and the Alpine blue sky. At one end was a village, self-conscious with bright paintwork and flowering window-boxes, and a small lakeside hotel which tempted travellers with tables set out under blue and orange umbrellas. A few private villas were scattered by the water’s edge. Guy pointed one out at the far end, older than the rest, set high above the lake in a terraced garden.

  ‘That’s my brother’s place – my wholly Italian half-brother, that is. It was built by my great-grandfather – the family owned most of the land round here at one time, but now it’s only the villa and a few hectares. Just as well for Vincente, he’s no countryman – he prefers to spend his time at his printing works in Milan.’

  ‘I do hope he and his wife won’t mind my coming like this, without any warning.’

  ‘Not a bit. Caterina will be delighted to see you. Now that the children are old enough to go roaming off round Europe she’s here alone for most of the summer. Vincente comes at week-ends and when he can drag himself away from the works, but he hates to stay here too long.’

  ‘And Caterina doesn’t mind being here alone?’

  ‘No, she loves the villa. In summer, that is – in winter she hurries back to Milan to join Vincente in their modern apartment, and I certainly don’t blame her. Winters are bleak at this altitude. But the villa is beautiful in summer and Caterina has a passionate love-hate relationship with the garden which keeps her happily occupied. She loves to entertain, though, and she’s a magnificent cook. I don’t think she has any guests at the moment, but we’re expecting a couple from Brazil tomorrow. And Owen, of course, later in the week.’

  We had reached the far end of the lake, and Guy turned the car in between stuccoed pillars and wide-flung ornamental iron gates. The drive rose in a zig-zag up to the elegant doorway of the villa, and I felt at once that I could understand his sister-in-law’s uneasy relationship with the garden.

  It was a formal creation, designed to complement the formal architecture of the villa itself; an ornamental hillside garden of changing levels and stone staircases, balustrades and urns, the flowerbeds edged with box and bay, the horizontal lines broken by artfully-positioned cypress and ilex trees, the whole enclosed by curving stone walls.

  But formality was only in the design. The garden was alive, riotous with shaggy grass and clover, overblown scarlet poppies, gigantic geraniums, an Edwardian extravaganza of musk, moss and damask roses. Flowers and weeds sprawled and swarmed in tangled splendour, entwining the balustrades, smothering the lichened stonework, cascading from the urns and rampaging over the paths and the driveway itself. Guy had only to leave his car overnight in the drive, I felt, and he would wake to find it wreathed in wistaria.

  ‘You see what I mean about the garden,’ he said, his thoughts chiming agreeably with my own. ‘It doesn’t do to stand still here for longer than five minutes or you’re likely to find yourself being used as a climbing frame.’

  ‘Or find yourself turned into a shrub,’ I suggested, ‘like Daphne. It must be hideously uncomfortable to feel your toes taking root and your fingers turning to leaves.’

  He gave me an unflatteringly surprised and appreciative smile, as though it had never occurred to him that I might have the slightest acquaintance with classical mythology. ‘Terrifying, I should think … Ah, there’s my sister-in-law hacking her way through the jungle. Caterina dear, I’ve brought an English guest.’

  Caterina Lombardi pushed her way towards us round an exuberant camellia. She looked delighted by our intrusion, and not a whit disconcerted to be caught wearing an old, grass-stained shirt and jeans. Her figure was slim as a girl’s, her dark-eyed face effortlessly attractive. She was possibly nearing forty, but putting up a magnificent resistance.

  Her brother-in-law kissed her with evident affection. I had wondered as I followed him out of the car how much he would tell her of the reason for my precipitate arrival, and I was amused to hear him give her an edited version, such as I would have offered Jennifer.

  ‘Clare is a particular friend of Owen. She was staying down by Lake Garda while he finishes his business trip, but she succumbed to food-poisoning, poor girl. I was sure you would want me to bring her here to wait for Owen in comfort.’

  I began my apologies but Caterina cast them aside with her battered gardening gloves. Unlike Jennifer, she was completely incurious. It was enough that I was there, a friend of Owen and therefore a friend of the Lombardi family. She told me so in bold colloquial English, partly of her own invention.

  ‘I am very glad that Guido brought you. Such a shame that you have been ill, but restaurant food is often treasonable. You will be well-kept with us. My daughter Gina’s room is empty while she is in Paris, if you don’t mind using that. Would you take Clare’s case up, Guido?’

  I had not looked forward to explaining my lack of luggage, but Guy disposed of the matter airily.

  ‘Do you know, I completely forgot that she’d need any luggage. Stupid of me, of course, but when I saw how wretchedly ill Clare looked I simply carried her off, ignoring her protests. I’ll go back to the hotel tomorrow morning, but in the meantime I’m sure you won’t mind lending her a toothbrush and – er –’

  His voice wavered. I realized that he was looking at me as though it had only just occurred to him that I was a person in my own right: as though he suddenly saw me not simply as a philistine tourist, not as a silly girl who sat alone in the hope of picking up an escort, not as the possible accomplice of a criminal, nor even just as a friend’s friend, an inconvenient responsibility – but as myself, Clare Lambert, a woman. And then he realized that I had seen his look, and for a full thirty seconds he was disconcerted.

  ‘– and – er – whatever else she needs for tonight …’ he finished lamely, his face reddening as he turned to get his own bag from the boot of the car.

  Caterina was also sizing me up, but helpfully. ‘Of course, you shall borrow anything you need … Gina’s clothes will fit well.’ She led me towards the house. ‘Guido is often unconsiderate, I’m afraid, not like Owen who is a very nice man and would not forget a thing like luggage. Come, I’ll show you to your room, Clare, and then you can see round my garden and then I will cook you a splendid dinner.’

  She had clearly forgotten my food-poisoning, but I hadn’t; the thought of a conducted tour of the garden made me feel limp, the prospect of a splendid dinner was simply more than I could stomach. I threw Guy a look of appeal and was agreeably surprised that he understood it.

  ‘Clare isn’t really well yet,’ he interposed, ‘and she’s had rather a hectic day. I think that if my English uncle Robert were here he’d prescribe bed and a very light diet for her.’

  Caterina smote her brow remorsefully with her open palm, leaving a wide smudge of earth on it. ‘Now I am the unconsiderate one! Of course, Italy has made you ill and I must make repairs. Bed straightaway an
d I will bring you a small English supper and then you will be right as a clock in the morning.’

  The analogy baffled me, but I was too weary to try to sort it out.

  I slept wonderfully. Caterina brought me coffee and croissants for breakfast but insisted that I stayed in bed, only allowing me to get up and join her in a shady corner of the terrace for what she described as a small Italian lunch.

  I hoped never to see a larger. It seemed prudent for me to avoid the wine and the fruit and the salad, but the crisp mountain air and my enforced abstention had given me a healthy appetite for pasta and Parmesan followed by grilled trout. We had just finished our coffee when Guy’s car came nosing up the overgrown drive, a strand of reckless nasturtiums trailing from the front bumper.

  Caterina disappeared to prepare his trout. He carried my suitcase into the house and then joined me, his casual clothes giving him a more relaxed, English look.

  ‘Thank you for fetching my things, Guy. Was Jennifer in a terrible state? I was so tired last night that I completely forgot to telephone her to let her know where I was – she must have been worried sick.’

  He twirled spaghetti expertly round his fork. ‘Oh, I remembered to ring her myself, after you’d gone to bed. Fortunately she’d only just got back to the hotel, so she hadn’t started panicking. And she had your case packed and ready for me to collect this morning, though there was a certain amount of cross-examination before I was allowed to take it away. She was very – intrigued.’

  I laughed. ‘I’m sure she was. It was thoughtful of you to ring her, though – and just as well that you’d met her in Venice or she’d certainly have thought that I was being abducted.’

  ‘She wasn’t any too happy about my credentials as it was. I found myself mentioning not only Uncle Robert but my other English uncle, John. Jennifer finally seemed to think that a doctor and a naval captain in my family provided some guarantee of respectability – though if some of John’s naval stories are to be believed … Anyway, she let me have the suitcase and I promised faithfully that you would ring her yourself this afternoon, at two-thirty prompt. I’ll get you the number and then you can put her mind at rest.’