Chapter 15 #2
I had to wait for him to reply. When it came, it sounded sincere but, as I say, I wasn’t taking anything at face value for now.
‘Umberto was trying to convince me that Father took his own life. That sounded even crazier to me than the thought that he might have slipped off the top of the place he goes to most days and knows intimately.’ He shook his head in disbelief.
‘And now you think he might have been murdered? But why?’
‘That’s what I was hoping you could tell me.
As I see it, there are a few people here for whom your father wasn’t flavour of the month.
’ One of whom of course was Orlando himself, but I didn’t dwell on the subject.
‘And there’s that man Gallo who came on Monday night, the property developer.
Your father threatened him, and he went off looking furious, so I’m certainly not ruling him out.
What about the Americans? Did your father or your sister tell you about them? ’
He looked puzzled. ‘You mean Selena and her agent? Why, what have they done?’
I shook my head. ‘No, the would-be miners.’ The puzzled expression on his face intensified, and I explained.
‘Valentina told me that two Americans turned up on Friday, asking your father if they could buy the mineral rights to reopen the old mine. You didn’t know about that? Your father didn’t mention it?’
His sour expression from the previous day returned.
‘He never told me anything. That was the main problem I had with him. He kept everything to himself and he was physically incapable of delegating. He would tell me to do stuff and then, when I reported back at the end of the day, nine times out of ten, it would turn out that he’d already done it himself.
No, he didn’t say a thing about American miners.
What were they looking for? As I understand it, the old iron mine was closed down because it was unprofitable.
How were they going to generate a profit from it? ’
‘That’s what Valentina said, too. So you really didn’t know anything about that?’
He shook his head. ‘It’s all news to me, but I bet I know what my father told them: the same thing he told Giorgio Gallo – no chance.’
‘Exactly. Apparently, he sent them packing, even though it would probably have brought him a lot of money, like the Alpine resort project. Presumably, he had so much money that he could afford to turn away this kind of thing.’ I was curious to see how Orlando would react to this after his comment to his father on Monday night that had seemed to indicate that the company might be in financial trouble.
The expression on his face now changed to one of frustration and annoyance.
‘Can I tell you something in confidence – and I mean strictly between the two of us, not to anybody, not even the Carabinieri?’ This was a strange request, but it sounded potentially fascinating, so I nodded, and he continued.
‘The company’s going through a rough patch, but it’s not because we’re facing a lot of competition.
It’s always been a competitive business, but we’ve been haemorrhaging money recently, and things are getting tricky as far as cash flow’s concerned. ’
‘When you say haemorrhaging money, in what way? Was your father overspending?’
Orlando nodded. ‘But that’s only part of it.
Yes, he’s been taking helicopter rides and private jets – and they don’t come cheap – but, more seriously, it looks as though we’ve been losing money by other means as well.
’ Seeing the inquisitive look on my face, he lowered his voice and continued.
‘It appears that somebody’s been syphoning money out of the company. ’
‘You mean embezzlement?’ He nodded again, and I went on. ‘How could that be possible? Surely that kind of thing would need authorisation at the highest level?’
‘You would think so, wouldn’t you? That’s why my father invited Calogero Naselli along this week.
He’s Head of Accounts and he lives and breathes figures.
I thought the plan was for us to sit down and go through the books line by line, checking to see how much has gone missing and who might have been involved.
’ His bitter expression returned. ‘The meeting was all set for yesterday morning after the Zoom call with Selena’s agent.
I was the one who alerted my father to a number of anomalies in the accounting over the past few months, and yet I wasn’t invited to attend.
I was excluded from the meeting.’ His expression became more belligerent.
‘What was I supposed to think? Did he believe I was somehow involved? Whatever he thought, it’s clear he didn’t trust me.
Maybe that’ll help you understand why relations between me and him haven’t been so great lately. ’
That certainly did – assuming Orlando was telling the truth.
If he was correct in his suspicions, this introduced another possible motive for murder.
Might somebody have murdered Bartolomeo to prevent him from finding out that they had been stealing from the company?
Might this have even been Calogero Naselli, the Head of Accounts, or Bartolomeo’s former partner, now represented here by his widow?
Or could it have been William? Orlando had said that money had been disappearing over the past few months, and William had joined the company three months ago.
The plot was thickening.