Chapter 9
As expected, I slept like a log, and I was only woken by the insistent prodding of Oscar’s nose against my shoulder at almost eight o’clock next morning.
I hastily got up, pulled on some warm clothes and headed out with him, leaving Anna to take her time getting dressed.
I was pleased to find Bartolomeo coming back in with Winston as I went out – so nothing had happened to him during the night.
Despite his frightening alcohol consumption the previous evening, he didn’t look too bad, and I had a feeling his body was well used to alcoholic overload – for whatever reason.
Had this all started with the death of his partner, or had he had an alcohol problem for some time?
I could hardly ask him this and, until I knew the people here better, it wasn’t really the sort of conversation starter one could come up with.
We exchanged greetings, and Winston immediately decided that he wanted to come with Oscar and me, so I set off with the two dogs.
This time, for a change, I located a path leading almost directly up the valley before curving to the right some way before it reached the waterfall and starting to zigzag up the hillside.
The sun at this time of year was low in the sky, and the area around the villa was still in shadow – and bitterly cold.
I had no idea what the air temperature might be, but it had to be well below freezing.
We crossed a couple of little streams that were solid ice and, initially, this rather threw Oscar, who wasn’t used to these extreme conditions, but not for long.
Maybe he had a flashback to some distant memory of his Canadian ancestors, but he wandered about on the ice without slipping or sliding at all.
I, on the other hand, was very careful where I put my feet.
Anybody who fell over out here certainly wouldn’t last long in these conditions.
Fortunately, after fifteen minutes or so, we started to climb until we emerged from the shadow into the sunlight, and the difference in temperature was immediately palpable.
I carried on climbing for another ten minutes and, as I did so, I thought back on what I had learnt yesterday.
I had promised Bartolomeo that I would try to investigate, but I found it hard to believe that his own son might be intending to kill him.
Orlando had looked and sounded pretty morose, but hardly homicidal.
As for Ingrid, she had looked the harder of the two but, again, there’s a big difference between looking tough and contemplating murder.
There was no doubt in my mind that Bartolomeo was worried, but alcohol abuse can often create illogical thoughts and unfounded suspicions.
Given that Vincenzo was dead – although the police had dismissed it as an accident – it seemed most probable that any threat to Bartolomeo must have something to do with their business and, if that was the case, it looked as though there were only three people who stood to benefit by their deaths – Orlando, Ingrid and possibly Valentina.
Might one of them have killed the first partner and now be planning on killing the second?
If so, all three would need to be closely watched.
Slipping seamlessly back into my DCI persona, I knew that I needed to find out as much as possible about the car accident, and luckily, I knew exactly who to ask.
Last year, I had met several police officers in the Aosta Valley, among them a Commissario Pierre Gressan, with whom I had developed a warm friendship.
He had given me his number and told me that if ever he could be of help, all I had to do was ask.
I decided to take him up on his offer and sent him a text message asking if he could possibly let me know details of a road traffic accident involving an Aston Martin driven by a Vincenzo Mazzini in the Cervinia valley less than a month ago.
I also asked him whether the victim’s wife might have been involved in some way, although any tampering with the car’s brake lines could have been done at any time, so knowing where Ingrid, Orlando or Valentina had been that day had little significance – but it was worth trying.
It was almost half-past eight by the time I reached a convenient stopping point. This was a rough outcrop of rock, weathered by millions of years of rain, snow and wind, and there was a little ledge conveniently close to the path, where I could sit down for a breather.
I had certainly warmed up by now, as had the two dogs, who slumped down happily in the shade of the outcrop, panting clouds of warm breath into the morning air.
As I watched them, I realised that I was doing the same thing and I pulled off my hat and gloves at least for a minute or two.
A look back the way we had come told me that we had climbed quite considerably in a short time, and I was now staring down on the villa.
From here, my eyes were able to follow the track as it snaked back towards the little hamlet of San Giorgio.
Looking further on, I was able to catch glimpses of a few solitary houses or farms dotted across the far side of the main valley a long way below.
Apart from them, and the vapour trails of aircraft passing over the Alps, there was little or no sign of civilisation.
Once again, it struck me that Bartolomeo had chosen his Alpine bolthole wisely.
My eyes were caught by a movement, and I saw a figure running up the track towards me.
Considering how steep it was, he must have been fit, particularly when he reached where I was sitting and hardly even seemed out of breath.
It was Calogero Naselli, the Head of Accounts.
I gave him a wave and a smile and he stopped alongside me.
He returned my greeting, but not the smile.
Like his wife, Cinzia, he didn’t look thrilled to be here, and I added him to my list of disgruntled guests.
It was almost as though Bartolomeo had gone out of his way to invite people who didn’t want to be here.
He grudgingly exchanged no more than a couple of sentences with me about the scenery and the weather, before turning and heading back down towards the villa.
I didn’t need to be a detective to see that Calogero Naselli wasn’t a happy man.
He had a pleasant, attractive wife and a good job, so what was his problem?
Surely he wasn’t thinking of murdering our host, was he?
As the dogs and I got our breath back, I thought back to the confrontation with Signor Gallo last night.
Might this have thrown up another potential avenue of inquiry?
Bartolomeo had said that Vincenzo had agreed with him that the Alpine resort project would have had a negative effect on the area so could Gallo have been behind the murder of Vincenzo Mazzini, knowing that if he could also eliminate Bartolomeo, his Alpine resort project would stand a good chance of being given the green light by Orlando?
This would mean entering serious psychopath territory, and Gallo hadn’t struck me as the type, but, as I knew full well, anything was possible.
Once my pulse had returned to something approaching normal, I called the dogs and set off down the path again, arriving back at the villa at just before nine.
While Winston trotted off in the direction of the kitchen, Oscar and I went back up to our room where I gave him his breakfast, took a shower, and went down for my own breakfast, now feeling distinctly hungry after my walk in the fresh air.
I found Anna sitting at a table alongside Selena and got smiles from both of them.
I went over to greet them and dissuaded Oscar from climbing onto Selena’s lap.
There was nobody else in the breakfast room, and Anna told me that most of the others had already come and gone.
Selena then repeated what I had already heard from Bartolomeo the previous night that the online conference with her agent and subsequent negotiations here would be taking up part of the morning – involving her and many of the assembled company.
Anna then passed on a very welcome message.
‘Fiona was here earlier – without Orlando – and when I mentioned that Bartolomeo had suggested we go and try the polenta in the restaurant at the end of the main valley, she very kindly offered to come with us and show us the way.’
I was particularly pleased to hear this because it would give me a few hours in which to find out as much as possible about the Viviani family and business, from somebody who knew it well, but was still to a certain extent an outsider. She was also, of course, the wife of one of the main suspects.
* * *
We set off at just after ten and, as we followed the dirt track back down the valley, I asked Fiona if she would point out the old mine to Anna and me.
This had sounded fascinating when Valentina had told me of it, and I resolved to try and visit it if I could over the next few days.
It turned out that access to the mine came at a corner in the track where a turn-off led to our left towards the steep cliffs that formed the far side of the valley.
I hadn’t noticed the turn-off on the way here as it was partially overgrown, although a quick glance as we went past seemed to indicate that at least one or two vehicles had been down that way in the not-too-distant past.
All the way down the lane from San Giorgio to the main valley floor, we met no other vehicles, and when we reached the main road – if you could call the narrow, tortuous road down there ‘main’ – it came as a shock to the system to see cars parked nose to tail along the roadside at the entrance to the village of Ponte di Mezzo.
Fiona told us with a smile that this was the main town in the valley, boasting a grand total of 356 inhabitants.