Chapter 24 #2
‘It’s all right, Cinzia, I just want a quick word with you.
You shouldn’t be exerting yourself like this in your condition.
Why not stop and let’s talk?’ I could hear her breath rasping, and she looked distraught.
She didn’t immediately turn away, so I tried again.
‘It’s going to be all right, I promise.’ As I spoke, I felt a movement at my side and saw Oscar appear through the deep snow from behind me like a black rocket.
How he managed to propel himself up the steep incline with little more than his nose and tail sticking out of the snow was a complete mystery, but he was a dog on a mission.
Ignoring me, he continued upwards far faster than I could manage, until I saw him reach the top and somehow emerge from the snow alongside Cinzia and start pawing her legs.
As a result, she overbalanced and fell sideways into a deep drift.
He plunged in after her and started licking her face.
This gave me time to struggle the last few metres until I got up to them.
I was panting like a steam train and I very nearly collapsed into the drift alongside them.
Instead, I held out my hand and pulled Cinzia into a sitting position, Oscar still glued to her side.
I sat down in the snow in front of them and did my best to catch my breath before speaking.
We were now on top of the boulder, at the edge of its remarkably flat surface.
I saw a rectangular shape blanketed with snow protruding from the centre and I assumed that to be the bench Paolo had installed.
Beyond it, the view was indeed breathtaking.
I could see all the way down this valley to San Giorgio and onwards from there over the snow-decked pine forest into the main valley.
In the far distance were colossal, glistening white mountains reaching high into the blue sky.
Under other circumstances, it would have been delightful but, for now, I had other things on my mind.
I waited until our breathing became less laboured before saying anything, and then I decided to cut to the chase, doing my best not to sound too intimidating.
‘Do you want to tell me what happened up here on Tuesday afternoon?’ I let the question hang in the air, and she took her time before responding.
Interestingly, when she did, she made no attempt to answer my question – at first.
‘What’s the point? My husband’s a thief, my baby won’t have a father; what reason is there to go on?’
‘Calogero’s told you about the money?’ She nodded forlornly and I kept my tone gentle. ‘But why did you say your baby won’t have a father?’ I felt pretty sure I already knew the answer to this, but I needed to hear it from her own lips.
This time, she replied straight away. ‘I told Bartolomeo the baby was his, and he laughed.’ I saw her take a couple of deep, calming breaths.
‘He laughed, Dan; can you imagine that?’ Her tone was as icy as the snow gradually soaking into my trousers.
‘Do you know what he said? He said, “I hope Calogero enjoys the present I’ve given him.” What sort of man could say something like that? ’
She had a point. Even by Bartolomeo’s standards, this was outrageous behaviour, but I still needed to know what had happened.
I kept my voice soft and encouraging. ‘And you broke your news to him up here? Why was that? Did he invite you up here?’
She nodded. ‘He knew Calogero was going for a run, so Bartolomeo asked me to come up here with him. I’d been waiting for the chance to get him on his own, so I said yes at once.’ Her expression became more bitter. ‘But not for the reason he thought.’
‘And you told him about the baby being his?’ She nodded and I went on. ‘After his appalling response, what did you do?’
This was it now. Was she about to tell me that she had pushed him to his death? She looked across at me, her hand on Oscar’s head, stroking his ears. It took her a few moments to assemble her thoughts, but then she started talking, and I listened intently.
‘I was so stunned at first, I couldn’t think straight, and then I felt an overwhelming surge of anger growing inside me.
’ I waited for her to say that she had launched herself at Bartolomeo, but it didn’t come.
‘I told him I was going back to the villa to tell everybody – including my husband – what we’d done, and to repeat what he had just said, so that they would know what sort of filthy rat he was.
I saw his face change. He wasn’t used to people standing up to him and he must have realised that this would reflect badly on him.
As I turned to go, he grabbed me. He caught hold of my arm and started dragging me towards the edge.
I knew at once that he was going to kill me and I did the only thing I could.
I swung around and kicked him as hard as I could between the legs.
He let go of my arm, and I pushed him away, sending him staggering backwards, clutching himself.
One of his feet went into one of the coppelle and he lost his balance.
As if in slow motion, his arms windmilled, and he cried out, but he was too near the edge.
One minute, he was there; the next, he was gone. ’
I sat there in silence and reflected on what I had just heard.
Everything she had said had sounded convincing.
Had she been telling the truth? Maybe, but there was no way of knowing.
Was she a talented actor who had committed murder, or was she a woman who had been dealt a very poor hand?
There was no way I would ever know for sure – and no way a court of law would be able to reach a definite conclusion.
She claimed to have been assaulted by him, and that her reaction had been in self-defence – but had it?
From what she had said initially, she had come up here now to end it all.
Whether this had been because of an overwhelming feeling of guilt after deliberately killing her lover, or because of a broken heart, was impossible to tell.
I looked at Oscar, who had now draped himself across her lap and was gazing adoringly into her eyes.
He had no doubts about her innocence, but had I?
I saw Oscar turn his head, and his tail started wagging, spraying snow into the air.
I heard sounds behind me and turned to see Anna, red in the face, emerge from the gully.
She took in the scene in a moment and went straight over to Cinzia, slumping down in the snow beside her.
I wondered how much of our conversation she had heard, and it was immediately clear that she had heard enough, and where her sympathies lay.
She laid a compassionate hand on Cinzia’s arm and addressed her in gentle tones.
‘It wasn’t your fault, Cinzia. The man was a monster.’
Anna is one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met, and I felt quite sure that she knew what had brought Cinzia back up here, even if she hadn’t heard everything that Cinzia had said from the beginning.
‘Let’s not hang about up here and get cold.
Give me a minute or two to catch my breath and then let’s go back to the villa together.
It’s almost lunchtime and you need to eat, to keep your strength up.
’ She then transferred her attention to me.
‘What do you think, Dan? Why don’t we leave this place before there’s another accident? ’
I remembered Umberto saying he believed that his brother would have had no compunction about pushing him to his death, and it made Cinzia’s story all the more believable.
The Carabinieri had already decided that Bartolomeo’s death had been an accident, so why stir up trouble for a woman who already had enough on her plate?
I was no longer DCI Armstrong, sworn to uphold the letter of the law, regardless of the circumstances.
Whatever had really taken place up here, there was only one sensible course of action now.
My mind cleared, and I nodded. ‘Yes, one accident up here is more than enough. Let’s make sure we take it easy on the way back down. ’
‘Dan?’ Cinzia raised her head and looked straight at me. ‘What are you going to do? I’ve told you what happened. I suppose you have to tell the Carabinieri now, don’t you?’
I could see Anna staring intently at me and I gave them both a reassuring smile. ‘I don’t think there’s any need for that. They’ve already written it off as an accident, and nothing you’ve told me changes that. I think lunch sounds like a really good idea.’
Oscar’s tail started beating faster.