Chapter 11
TUESDAY EARLY AFTERNOON
Marina returned less than five minutes later with the news that she had spoken to everybody and checked all the rooms but had found no sign of Bartolomeo.
I was on the point of suggesting that we organise a search party when Paolo spoke up.
He sounded reassuringly organised, and I deferred to him and his local knowledge, pleased to see him step up to the plate.
‘Right, we need to go out and look for him. He’ll be wearing warm clothing, but it won’t keep him warm for long, especially if he has incapacitated himself somehow. Dan, are you up for it?’
‘Yes, of course. Tell me what you want me to do.’
I saw Paolo pause for thought. ‘What we don’t need is for everybody to rush outside into a white-out and, before we know it, we could lose somebody else.
I suggest you and I go with the two dogs, and I’ll ask Orlando if he’s prepared to come with us as well.
We’ll take the most probable routes he would have followed, and three of us should be enough for now.
The mobile signal outside isn’t always reliable, but we have a set of walkie-talkies that have a range of a couple of kilometres.
We’ll take one each. You have a mobile phone, don’t you? ’
‘Yes, but I thought you said there was poor reception.’
‘It’s patchy in some places, but check if you have a compass on your phone. Most of the modern ones have a compass app nowadays.’
‘Yes, I know I have a compass.’
‘Good, right, I’ll go and talk to Orlando. See you in the hall in five minutes.’
I didn’t need to feel Oscar’s nose nudging my knee to know that there was something I needed to do urgently, so he and I ran up the stairs to our room.
I found Anna up there and, while I gave Oscar his all-important lunch, I quickly told her about the disappearance of Bartolomeo and what Paolo and I were going to do.
A look of grave concern spread over her face, which wasn’t just for the missing man.
‘You be careful, Dan. No heroics, all right?’
I gave her what I hoped would look like a reassuring smile. ‘Me, heroics? I leave all that kind of thing to Oscar.’
I left her looking unconvinced and hurried back downstairs to the hall, where I found, not only Paolo and Orlando, but Valentina as well, putting on their cold weather gear. Paolo gave me an apologetic look. ‘I told Valentina there was no need, but she insisted on coming.’
‘He’s my father, Paolo. You can’t expect me to just sit here helplessly.’ She looked and sounded determined – and worried sick, in spite of her sour tone of yesterday when talking of her father. Hardly the attitude of somebody considering patricide.
Paolo gave a resigned nod and then distributed the little radios.
They were very simple to operate, and we checked that we were all on the same wavelength.
Tucking his walkie-talkie into his breast pocket, Paolo pulled on his gloves.
‘I’ve given Umberto one of the radios and he’s going to monitor things from here.
Right, are we all ready? I’ll take Winston, in the hope that he’ll lead me to Bartolomeo and, if not, Bartolomeo often walks north from here, along the track towards the wooden bridge over the stream, so I’ll go that way.
Orlando and Valentina, you know the path to the west, don’t you?
You take that one and, Dan, why don’t you and Oscar follow the main track back down the valley until the end of the plateau?
All of you, make sure you keep on the paths or tracks and, for God’s sake, mind where you put your feet.
Remember which direction you’re going in and, when you turn back, remember to check your compass and walk in the opposite direction to before.
It’s two-thirty now. Make sure you return here by three-thirty at the latest. We don’t want to lose anybody else. Let’s go.’
When we got outside, my first impression was that the wall of falling snow was impenetrable, but after a moment or two, my eyes and brain began to make sense of it.
I found that I could in fact make out the ground five or at most ten metres ahead of me, and I managed to spot the side of my van over to the left, already with almost a foot of snow on it.
I had to take off a glove in order to check the compass on my phone and, as I thought, the track headed off in an easterly direction.
Stuffing it back in my pocket and hastily pulling my glove back on again, I set off with Oscar, my boots now disappearing into the already deep covering of snow.
Having a black dog in a snowstorm turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as I was able to spot him quite easily as he led the way along the main track in the direction of the two rocky outcrops that marked the entrance to Pian delle Marmotte.
In spite of the seriousness of the situation, I had to smile at Oscar’s antics.
His tail was wagging furiously, and he kept stopping and looking down suspiciously to see where his paws had disappeared to, before bouncing about like a young puppy.
He certainly appeared to be having a wonderful time and, curiously, I found that I rather enjoyed being out in these extreme conditions as well, although my enjoyment was tempered by the thought of what might have happened to Bartolomeo.
I paused ten minutes later when we got to the rocky outcrops where the valley narrowed, and I leant against the rock face, considering what I should do next. As I did so, my radio crackled, and a message came through in what I recognised as Umberto’s voice.
‘Dan, please report your position.’
I pressed Transmit. ‘I’ve just reached the rocky outcrops where the track bends sharply and starts to head down the valley.
If you want me to continue, I will. If not, I’ve remembered that last night when I went for a walk with Bartolomeo, he took me down a different path that led off this one a hundred metres or so further back, and I reckon I can remember which one it is. Shall I try that?’
I had to wait a few seconds before he replied, his tone cautious. ‘Yes, Dan, go for it, but be careful and make sure you can find your way back.’
The snow continued to fall relentlessly, and our footprints in the snow were already being covered up by the time I got to the spot where the other path forked off.
I turned down it and immediately found it far trickier walking on a surface that wasn’t always as level as the track had been.
For his part, Oscar launched himself into the deeper snow with gay abandon, almost disappearing from sight at times except for a black tail sticking up in the air, still wagging excitedly.
A bulky shadow loomed ahead of me and I realised that we had reached the big boulder where the track began to curl back towards the villa once more.
I saw Oscar’s tail sticking up out of a deeper patch of snow and I was about to call him when he suddenly jumped back and started barking.
This in itself was most unusual. Oscar doesn’t woof a lot, and there’s normally a reason if he starts barking.
The other unusual thing was that he started excavating furiously, spraying snow out behind him.
I struggled through the snow to get to him and stopped dead when I reached him.
There could be no doubt about it. His desperate digging was an attempt to unearth something virtually invisible under the fresh snow.
It was a man’s body, lying face down, and he was wearing a red anorak.
As I cleared the snow around his head, a grim sensation of impending doom told me what I was going to find.
I reached down and rested my hand against the side of his throat.
His skin was cool, but not yet frozen. The trouble was that I could feel no pulse.
Bartolomeo Viviani was dead.
* * *
I called Umberto to report my find and my position, and he replied less than a minute later to tell me that Paolo was on his way.
By the time Paolo and Winston arrived, I had cleared almost all of the snow from Bartolomeo’s body.
Although I’m no pathologist, I have enough experience to know that he must have died quite recently – recently enough for the extreme cold to have cooled his exposed skin but not yet reached his core.
I also didn’t need to be a pathologist to see the awful wound to the back of his head that had crushed his skull and killed him.
I glanced up at the surface of the boulder above me, wondering if the wound might have been caused by a fall, and immediately found what looked like the culprit.
Directly in front of me, level with my chest, was a rough outcrop of rock and, even with a light covering of snow, there was enough staining around it for me to feel sure that this had caused the massive trauma to Bartolomeo’s head.
What had he been doing up on top of the boulder, and how had he managed to fall off it?
Had he fallen, had he jumped, or had he been pushed?
Winston arrived before Paolo and when he caught sight of his master’s body, he stopped in horror and began emitting plaintive little whines.
Oscar had positioned himself alongside me, and it was clear that both dogs were shocked.
I called Winston over to my other side and stroked his ears.
I have a bit more experience of violent death than most people – or dogs – but it had also come as a shock to me to see this man who had been alive and well only a few hours ago now lying here stone dead.
The crunch of footsteps in the snow roused me. ‘Is he dead?’
I looked up to see Paolo at my shoulder, looking grim, and I nodded. ‘I’m afraid so. The back of his skull has been crushed. He didn’t stand a chance.’
‘But how… do you think he fell?’ He sounded stunned.
I pointed at the bloodstained outcrop of rock alongside us. ‘That’s what it looks like, and he landed on this, but what on earth was he doing up on top of this huge boulder?’
Paolo’s face paled visibly and I thought for a moment that he was about to faint. I gave him a while to collect himself, and his answer, when it came, surprised me.
‘That’s what he called the Crows’ Nest, you know, the place at the top of the masts of the old ships where the lookout used to be stationed.
Archaeologists say this boulder was once used by primitive man, and there are strange bowl-shaped carvings or indentations in the rock up there that they think might have been used for ritual sacrifice – animal or human.
They’re called coppelle and that’s where the name of the villa came from.
Personally, I think the place is a bit creepy, but from up there, there’s a terrific view down the valley all the way as far as Ponte di Mezzo and beyond.
Bartolomeo loved it and even got me to fashion a bench up there for him to sit on.
It was very normal for him to climb up there, but I find it hard to believe that he could have fallen off. ’
‘Maybe it was slippery in the snow.’
Paolo nodded his head. ‘I suppose that was what happened. He must have walked down here and then climbed up onto the boulder for a few minutes to enjoy the view before the snow made it impossible. Maybe he didn’t realise how slippery it had got and somehow, he managed to fall off, leaving Winston down here on his own. ’
I nodded slowly in agreement. It seemed logical, although I still wasn’t totally convinced that it had been an accident.
‘When did he set off on his walk?’
‘He went out about half-past one, and it started snowing about three quarters of an hour ago, just after two, say two-fifteen. Instead of lunch, he’d told me to make a snack for him and Signor Naselli today at noon – he wanted to work through, you see – and once the meeting had finished, he took Winston out for a walk to clear his head. ’
‘So he might have come up here before the snow started?’
‘Yes, but how on earth did he fall off unless it was slippery with snow and ice? He knew it so well. All I can assume is that he climbed up before the snow started, sat down to admire the view, and by the time he decided to climb down, it had got treacherous and he fell.’
He had a point. I looked down at the big dog, who was pressed tightly against my legs, almost pushing me over with his considerable weight.
‘If only you could tell us what happened, Winston.’ I glanced back up at Paolo again.
‘I’m surprised Winston didn’t try to lead you back here.
He must have known that his owner was in a bad way, or even already dead. ’
Paolo cast an affectionate glance down at the big dog, who was still whining piteously.
‘For such a big animal, he’s really got a very little brain.
’ He reached over and stroked Winston’s snow-covered head.
‘I’m sure your Labrador is far smarter than he is.
When’s the last time you saw one of these working as a guide dog for the blind? ’
I reflected on what Paolo had just said about the timings.
I felt it most likely that Bartolomeo had come down here before the snow had started and, given that his body had still been vaguely warm to the touch, I reckoned he had probably been dead for only an hour or so.
I couldn’t help wondering where everybody else had been between one-thirty and two-thirty.
Might somebody have followed him from the villa, climbed up the rock after him and pushed him to his death?