Chapter 21
WEDNESDAY EVENING
After talking to Umberto, I went over to Orlando and Valentina and took them to one side.
‘You’ve heard what the Carabinieri have said but, with your blessing, I’d like to stay on tomorrow to complete the commitment that I made to your father – and for which I’ve already been paid.
Ultimately, it could be that the police are right, and it really was a tragic accident, but I would like to stay another twenty-four hours to be absolutely sure.
It’s your call. If you want me to drop it, Anna and I can be out of here in the morning, as soon as the track is clear enough.
As I say, you two are in control now. I’m happy to take my orders from you. ’
Brother and sister exchanged looks, and I was pleased to see Orlando answer for both of them.
‘Thank you, Dan, we would like that. Tell me something – all along, I’ve had the impression that you haven’t been happy with the idea of it being an accident.
Do you have any specific lines of inquiry that you want to follow up? ’
That was a good question. The simple fact was that there were probably half a dozen people here for whom I had been able to identify at least some kind of motive, and the two young people I was talking to were among them. I chose my words carefully.
‘My mother always says that I was born suspicious. That’s probably what got me into the police in the first place, and it’s certainly why I became a detective.
Over the years, various superior officers rammed it into me that I should never ever take anything at face value.
Appearances can be deceptive – or manipulated.
There are a couple of people here that I’d like to speak to and, ideally, I’d like to see if I can climb up onto that boulder to check out the scene of the accident or the crime for myself.
I promise I’ll report back to you the moment I find anything significant.
’ I gave a helpless shrug of the shoulders.
‘Whether I do find anything remains to be seen.’
I gave them both an encouraging smile, persuaded Oscar to stop nuzzling Valentina, and set off to look for William.
I searched all the rooms on the ground floor without success before heading upstairs.
I knocked on all the doors up there but again drew a blank.
When Oscar and I came back down to the lounge again, I suddenly realised that William wasn’t the only absentee.
The rug in front of the fireplace was empty.
I went through to the kitchen just in case, but there was no sign of Winston the dog there either.
I was standing in the kitchen, wondering if this might have something to do with William’s disappearance, when Marina appeared. I queried it with her, and she nodded.
‘Winston and William often go for walks together. To be honest, I think William got on better with the dog than he did with Signor Bartolomeo.’
‘Have you any idea what time he went out?’
She glanced at her watch and frowned. ‘That’s strange. It’s half-past six now, and I’m sure he went out just as it was getting dark. Are you sure he hasn’t come back?’
‘There’s no sign of him or the dog. That means he’s been out for an hour and a half. Is that normal for him? It seems like a long time for a walk, especially in the dark.’
Marina was looking seriously concerned now. ‘That certainly isn’t normal.’ She crossed herself superstitiously. ‘God forbid that something’s happened to him as well.’
‘You’d better go and tell Paolo or Orlando. I’ll take Oscar now and start looking for him. Any idea which direction he might have gone in?’
Marina shook her head helplessly, and I thought hard.
Valentina and I had been walking up the main track as night had fallen, and we hadn’t spotted William, so he must have gone off in another direction.
I made a quick decision. ‘Tell them I’ll head off towards the stream and the waterfall.
Could you let me have one of the walkie-talkies and give one to Paolo? ’
Armed with a little radio, I set off along the track that Valentina had shown me on Monday evening.
It was still snowing, but only lightly now and it was quite easy to make out the track even beneath a covering of snow.
There were several sets of footprints in the snow and what were unmistakably the paw prints of Winston.
I glanced down at Oscar, who was trotting happily at my side.
‘Can you find Winston? Where’s your friend Winston?’
He looked up, but I had a feeling he wasn’t yet familiar enough with his big friend’s name, so I didn’t hold my breath.
We carried on for another five minutes when suddenly, a very welcome sight loomed in the dark ahead of us.
It was Winston. He came over and nuzzled my leg before greeting Oscar.
I bent down and addressed him. ‘Where’s William? Take me to William.’
He glanced up, wagged his tail, and slumped down at my feet.
Seeing that no help appeared to be coming from Winston, I called Oscar to my side and repeated the same instructions, pointing roughly in the direction from which Winston had come.
He immediately headed off to the left of the track, into the deep snow.
I followed him, with Winston trotting happily behind us, apparently unmoved by the drama of the situation.
After a hundred yards or so, Oscar stopped.
I looked around but couldn’t see anything moving in the dark, so all I could do was to cup my hands around my mouth and shout as loudly as I could, ‘William, William, where are you?’
To my surprise and relief, I heard an answering shout – well, more of a croak really – coming from straight in front of me.
I set off in the direction of the voice as fast as I could and soon came upon a white lump lying in the snow.
It was William, and I could immediately see what must have happened.
We were beside the icy stream, and it looked as though William had slipped and fallen on the ice.
I crouched down beside him and started to clear the snow from his jacket and hat, while Oscar rolled in the deep snow with a satisfied expression on his face.
I pulled out my phone and turned on the torch.
William looked in a bad way. He was as white as a sheet and shivering.
I remembered an instructor on a survival course I had attended many years ago telling me that shivering was a good sign.
This was the body trying to combat the cold.
When the shivering stopped was when the real problems started.
‘Hi, William. It looks as if you’ve got yourself into a bit of a mess.’
He reached out with one hand and caught hold of my arm. ‘Dan, am I glad to see you! I think I’ve broken my ankle and my phone’s got no signal.’
His voice was weak but intelligible. I could see that he was fast approaching hypothermia, so I pulled out the walkie-talkie and called Paolo, who replied reassuringly quickly.
I told him where we were and what appeared to have happened, and he promised to be along as quickly as possible. It looked as though the timber sledge was going to be getting a lot of use this week.
While waiting for help to arrive, I managed to manoeuvre William into a sitting position.
I unzipped my jacket and squeezed myself behind him, wrapping my legs, my arms and my jacket around him as best I could, in order to offer him some much-needed warmth.
Something else I remembered from the survival course was to keep the victim talking, so I did my best, starting by asking how he had managed to fall.
At first, he answered weakly, telling me about slipping on the ice, but I was pleased to feel the shivering began to reduce, and by the time I heard the noise of Paolo and Orlando approaching with a sledge, William was sounding a bit stronger.
Along with the sledge, Paolo and Orlando brought a first-aid kit and two pieces of a broken ski pole.
They swiftly cleared the snow from William’s legs and strapped the two lengths of pole as tightly as they could either side of his damaged ankle so as to immobilise it.
I was impressed – presumably, this wasn’t the first time they had had to do this.
Between the three of us, we lifted William as gently as possible onto the sledge, but it must have hurt a lot all the same, and he was looking and sounding very frail by the time we got him back to the villa.
Slowly and carefully, we carried him inside and laid him on a sofa in the games room.
Paolo went off to phone the emergency services while Orlando went in search of warm blankets and a hot drink for the injured man.
I sat with William, warming up as well – ten minutes sitting in the snow had rapidly cooled my own core temperature – and was delighted to be presented with a steaming mug of mulled wine a few minutes later when Valentina came in.
She sat down beside William, and I couldn’t miss the affectionate look she gave him.
Maybe my initial suspicion that the two of them might be close had been correct all along.
As well as the drinks, she brought the news that an ambulance was on its way up to San Giorgio, and Paolo was already in the snowcat, on his way down there to pick up the paramedics.
I was pleased to see a first bit of colour appear on William’s cheeks as Valentina held the mug gently to his lips and ensured that he sipped the warm wine. I asked him if he was in a lot of pain and was pleased to see him shake his head.
‘It’s not too bad, as long as I don’t move it.’ He reached out and grasped my arm. ‘Thank you, Dan, you saved my life.’
I smiled down at him. ‘Don’t thank me, thank Oscar.’
Upstairs, I found Anna engrossed in one of her history books and blissfully unaware of the recent drama. I told her what had happened outside in the snow, and she gave me a beaming smile.
‘So you don’t just catch murderers, you save people’s lives as well.’ She reached up and gave me a kiss. ‘My hero.’
I told her regretfully that I hadn’t caught any murderers here so far and repeated that the real hero was my canine companion.
There was a movement beside us as Oscar acknowledged the not inconsiderable part he had played in locating and saving William by standing up on his hind legs and nuzzling Anna.
She rewarded him with a hug, after which I gave him his dinner, making him very happy.
To a Labrador, hugs are important, but food is what really counts.
* * *
My admiration for Paolo and Marina knew no bounds when dinner was served at exactly eight o’clock in spite of all the events of the evening and it was every bit as tasty as the previous night.
Paolo had collected the paramedics from San Giorgio, who had rapidly confirmed our belief that William had indeed broken his ankle.
After giving him some powerful painkillers, they transported him on a stretcher in the back of the snowcat to the waiting ambulance, from where he was taken to hospital.
I was pleased to see how efficiently the emergency services operated and I hoped that there would be no complications in fixing the broken bone.
My only regret was that I had been unable to speak to William about his background or to query why he had left his previous employment, hopefully putting him on the spot as far as the missing million euros was concerned.
Still, I told myself, he was unlikely to make a run for it now.
Tonight, as a starter, we were served fonduta.
When Marina had told me what we were getting, I had been expecting Swiss fondue in a pot, into which we would dip pieces of bread on long forks, but the Piedmontese version was different.
We each received a terracotta dish containing the fonduta.
Marina told me that the local version was made of grated Fontina cheese, egg yolks and milk, skilfully blended together into a smooth, creamy sauce the consistency of runny custard.
As a finishing touch, Paolo had grated slivers of truffles onto the surface, and we ate this by dipping thick slices of toasted polenta, rather than bread, into the fonduta.
It was excellent, as was the main course.
Paolo’s Brasato al Barolo was beef, marinaded for twenty-four hours in the prestigious red wine, mixed with carrots, onion, celery and herbs before being seared in a pan and then slow cooked for two to three hours in the wine.
This was served with mashed potato and roasted vegetables.
In the course of the meal, Anna and I chatted with our neighbours – well, some of them.
Ingrid, alongside me, said very little, apart from lamenting the fact that she wouldn’t be able to leave until the snow on the track had been fully cleared, so I concentrated on talking to Selena, who was beside Anna, and Umberto across the table from us.
Orlando and his sister were at the other end of the table, and I was pleased to see that Fiona was alongside her husband and the two of them were talking again.
The death of his father appeared to have had a liberating effect on Orlando.
I got the impression that most of my dinner companions were feeling relieved, now that the police had come up with a verdict of accidental death, and the atmosphere – while still a bit strained – was a lot cheerier than the previous night.
Selena told us that her helicopter ride to Geneva was booked for two o’clock tomorrow, where a private jet would be waiting to fly her back to LA.
She asked us if we would like to come with her, as casually as if she had been offering us a lift into town in her car, but Anna explained all about our rendezvous with Virginia and Guy in Courmayeur.
Umberto knew the resort well and he was soon giving us advice on the best times to take the main cable car to avoid the worst of the queues, the most exciting runs, and the best restaurants.
I sat back and listened with one ear, while still thinking about what might really have happened up on top of Bartolomeo’s Crows’ Nest.
Marina had just served us a wonderful fruit salad with Paolo’s home-made meringue ice cream when Selena said something that drew my attention.
‘When the news of Bartolomeo’s death gets out, I wonder how many people will mourn his passing.’ She looked across the table at Umberto. ‘I’m sorry, Umberto, I know he was your brother, but he wasn’t the nicest of men, was he?’
Umberto nodded slowly. ‘You’re right, I’m afraid. He was very bright, a successful businessman and he could be good company, but he could also behave abominably.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Even here, at his table, I’m struggling to count more than a couple of people who’ll genuinely mourn his death.’
Which had worked out very conveniently for several of the people around this table – including Umberto and his wife.