Chapter 19
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON
As we set off, we met Paolo coming back up the track in the snowcat with the snowplough attachment, and he stopped to speak to us.
‘I’ve just finished clearing – well, not completely clearing but compressing – the track down to San Giorgio and I’ve spoken to the Carabinieri.
They’re sending a forensic team now to examine Bartolomeo’s body and to take it away.
’ He gave Valentina a sympathetic look. ‘They’ll take good care of him until his body can be released to the undertakers. ’
She nodded her head in comprehension and dropped her eyes, apparently in the prey of powerful emotions.
My suspicions that she might have been involved in her father’s death had never been terribly serious, and I was increasingly convinced that she had had nothing to do with it.
The same couldn’t be said for her brother, however, and I knew that both of them would still have to remain on my list of possible suspects for now.
Paolo queried where we were going and, when I told him it was to the mine, he gave me a little smile.
‘When I was speaking to Luigi, he told me that they’ve located the two Americans and pulled them in for questioning.
They’re being grilled as we speak. It’ll be interesting to see what they have to say for themselves. ’
‘What about the property developer?’
‘The Carabinieri in Turin are speaking to him this afternoon. He lives down there.’
Paolo had done a good job of clearing the worst of the snow from the main track, and it was only a couple of inches deep and pretty well compacted as he had said.
I reckoned my van would just about have coped with it, but Ingrid’s Ferrari still wouldn’t have stood a chance.
On foot, it took us barely a quarter of an hour to walk down to the turn-off for the mine.
At first, Valentina and I walked in silence.
I could imagine the thoughts going through her head at the news that her father’s body was going to be taken away, so I gave her a few minutes before trying to engage her in conversation.
It took a bit of time, but I gradually managed to get her talking about her pet subject, and before long, she was sounding a bit more lively.
The mine was probably no more than a couple of hundred yards from the turn-off, but it took us almost as long to get there as it had taken to get all the way down from the villa.
The snow was at least a foot deep, considerably deeper in places where it had drifted, and it was hard to keep our footing.
We were right at the upper extremity of the treeline here, and the track led us through the last few rows of hardy pine trees, their branches bowed down beneath the weight of snow on them.
It was a beautiful Christmassy scene, but that didn’t make it any easier to walk through.
Oscar, on the other hand, was clearly in his element, plunging into the deep drifts until only the tip of his tail was visible – wagging furiously – having loads of fun.
As we approached the imposing grey cliffs of the valley wall, Valentina pointed out a dark shadow at their base.
‘That’s the mine entrance there. It’s actually inside a natural cave opening, and that’s why you’d hardly think there was a mine here at all, but a hundred years ago, this place would have been humming.
Contemporary records indicate that almost a hundred men worked here at the mine’s peak. ’
This was hard to believe today, but as we trudged up the slope towards the cave entrance, I began to see traces of its former glory.
Almost completely covered by a thick coating of snow was a squat stone building from which a rusty cable emerged, heading off down the valley, strung between equally rusty pylons.
Valentina told me that this had been used to transport the iron ore down to the floor of the main valley almost a thousand metres below us.
Over to the left were lines of pyramid-shaped, snow-covered mounds of waste rubble that had been formed as the mine shafts had been excavated, and I started to make out man-made walls inside the gaping cave entrance.
We were about to go inside when my phone started ringing. It was none other than Inspector Paul Wilson from Scotland Yard.
‘Hi, Paul. Good of you to get back to me so close to Christmas. I was wondering whether you would be on duty or not.’
‘Hi, Dan. Of course I’m on duty; it seems like I never stop being on duty.
’ I heard him groan. ‘Well, that’s not strictly true; I’m on duty all day today and tomorrow, but then I get four days off.
Anyway, the good news is that the villains all appear to be on holiday at the moment, so I’ve already had time to look into that man you contacted me about.
’ I heard a rustling sound and I could visualise him scanning his faithful notebook.
‘William Andrew Rogers, age thirty-one, born in Basingstoke, studied at Cambridge University before working for eight years for the member of parliament for the constituency of South Surrey until he left under something of a cloud in December of last year.’
Conscious that Valentina was standing close to me, I did my best to keep an even tone when I replied. ‘That’s interesting and potentially significant. Any idea why?’
‘I managed to track down the constituency manager, who was choosing his words very carefully, and all I could get out of him was that Rogers had behaved “unprofessionally” – and that could cover a multitude of sins. No formal charges were brought against him, but things must have got awkward for your man, and he took the hint and left.’
This was music to my ears. Might this unprofessional behaviour even have involved embezzlement of funds or some similar financial misdemeanour?
Either way, it would appear that William Rogers had a skeleton in his closet.
Could it be that I’d found a potential candidate for the Aquila embezzlement and maybe even Bartolomeo’s murder?
I knew I would try to take him to one side and question him closely as soon as I got back to the villa.
It was infuriating that I had been forbidden to pass on information of the missing million to the Carabinieri – although if it looked likely that William was our killer, I knew I would have a duty to report him to Maresciallo Croce.
So as not to excite my companion, I adopted a jolly, seasonal tone.
‘Thanks a lot, Paul, you’re a star. Have a great Christmas and don’t overdo the pigs in blankets.
’ He wished me a happy Christmas in return, and I rang off, glancing towards Valentina with a little smile.
‘That was a friend who’s been doing a bit of research for me. ’
‘Research into my father’s death?’ I couldn’t miss the curiosity in her voice.
‘That’s right.’
She was looking animated. ‘I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, I promise, but I heard you say that something might be “potentially significant”. Does that mean that it really was murder, and you know who killed my father?’
‘It’s too early to say, but every little helps. Now, let’s have a look inside this mine, shall we?’
I could see that she was still curious, but she must have accepted that I wasn’t going to say more for now, and she led me and Oscar into the wide cave mouth.
It was a relief to find myself walking on ordinary ground rather than struggling through deep snow but, ironically, it felt colder in here than it did outside.
It was absolutely bitter and, if I needed proof of the low temperature, all I had to do was to look at the rock wall to my left, which was completely covered in a lacework of ice.
It looked like a contemporary sculpture – a very cold one.
Ahead of me was an arched opening with huge, rusted iron gates hanging off it. Valentina pointed towards it and gave me a few words of caution. ‘The main shaft is through there but I think you should put Oscar on a lead because it goes down a long, long way, and I would hate him to fall.’
I was in full agreement about Oscar and I didn’t want to fall down a mineshaft either so, after clipping Oscar’s lead onto his collar, I reached into my pocket, pulled out the torch that Valentina had given me back at the villa and switched it on.
Slowly and cautiously, I followed her through the archway and stopped in amazement.
Leading down to my right, roughly in the direction of the bottom of the main valley, was a mineshaft, but it didn’t drop vertically; it was at a very acute angle of well over forty-five degrees.
Steel rails ran down the centre of it and disappeared into the darkness far, far below, and I instinctively shivered.
To the right of the rails was a wooden staircase that stretched on and on into the bowels of the earth.
As already established, I’m not a fan of heights, and I found even this sloping tunnel a challenge.
I wrapped the end of Oscar’s lead securely around my hand and vowed to be very careful indeed.
Oscar, on the other hand, didn’t appear in the least bit fazed, his tail wagging slowly as he sniffed the air.
‘The steps creak a bit, but they’re solid.
I’ve been down here before.’ Valentina set off down the steps, apparently without a care in the world.
I followed much more hesitantly, studiously avoiding letting my eyes stray down to the dark depths far below, and was extremely pleased to find that after exactly fifty-three steps – yes, I was counting them – she turned to the right and disappeared from sight.
Oscar and I followed her and I found myself in what had obviously once been a workshop.