Murder in Verona (An Armstrong and Oscar Cozy Mystery #9)

Chapter 7

7

WEDNESDAY LUNCHTIME

I’d been expecting a bedroom, no doubt a comfortable bedroom, probably with a private bathroom, but I hadn’t been prepared for what greeted Anna and me on the top floor of the villa. When we emerged from the lift, we found ourselves on a broad landing with a beautiful marble staircase curling down to the lower floors straight ahead of us and a single door in the wall on the right-hand side. Unlike the other floors, which had had long corridors leading off in both directions, there was just a single corridor to our left. Dolores pointed to the right first.

‘That’s the entrance to Rodolfo and Alessia’s apartment, and the corridor to our left leads to Signora Violetta’s apartment and, beyond that, to the two guest suites.’

I decided to do a little bit more sleuthing. ‘Is Alessia living here at the moment?’

Dolores shrugged her shoulders. ‘She is and she isn’t. Her official residence is still here and she was here last week, but she’s been away since Friday performing in southern Italy. From what she told me before she went off, she should be back any day now. ’

‘That’s good to hear. I’d be grateful if you’d let me know when she returns. I’ll be interested to speak to her.’

Dolores led us down the corridor past Violetta’s private apartment until we reached two more doors. She opened the first of these and ushered us inside. We followed the two Labradors into a large living area with a comfortable-looking sofa and armchairs and beyond that, a bedroom with a king-size bed and a luxurious bathroom. There were French windows in both of the main rooms, leading out onto the flat roof of the villa. Oscar and I wandered outside and I saw that these top-floor apartments were surrounded by a roof terrace that extended the full length of the building. Five metres in front of me, the terrace ended in a low wall with a fine statue of a scantily clad Roman maiden on it. I realised that this was the top of the facade and these apartments had been built onto the flat roof in such a way as to be hidden from the gardens below.

We had our own private piece of terrace, loosely divided from the other apartments by three large terracotta urns. Over the top of the facade, the views were magnificent. From here, we could see almost the full, deep-blue expanse of Lake Garda until it disappeared to the north of us into the distant Alps that rose steeply skywards, their peaks swathed in puffy, white clouds. Below us was the gravelled parking area surrounded by palm trees and rose beds. It was a delightful scene and Anna was obviously as impressed as I was because she turned to Dolores to thank her.

‘This is amazing, thank you so much. It’s absolutely gorgeous.’

Dolores smiled back at her. ‘These top-floor suites are a bit special, but all the residents’ rooms are really nice. For the students lucky enough to be chosen to come here, it’s a wonderful environment in which to learn and progress.’

I joined in the conversation. ‘Violetta told me you were running summer courses at the moment. How long do they last?’ And more importantly from my point of view, might any of the students or teachers be a potential murderer?

‘Multiples of one month. A few students come just for one month but the majority come for the full summer term: July, August and September. Some come back year after year.’

‘So would you say that most of the students here now have been here for at least a month?’

‘Yes, all bar a handful. It’s very competitive to get in here and students generally like to stay as long as possible.’

‘And what sort of age are they?’

‘Our youngest at the moment is Barbara from Munich – she’s just nineteen – and the oldest is Michelle from Paris. She’s almost my age, but the majority of them are in their twenties.’

‘And how are students selected? I imagine a lot of people would give their eye teeth to get in here.’

‘There’s an application process and there’s a panel who scrutinise all the applicants to select the most worthwhile. Clarissa, the principal, will be able to tell you more about the selection process, but what they’re looking for is potential that can be developed. Rodolfo used to joke that he would never have been accepted as a student because by the time he was in his twenties, he was already an international celebrity.’

I felt a little ripple of disapproval run through me. One thing was clear: Rodolfo Argento could never be accused of having undervalued himself. The more I was beginning to hear of him, the less he resembled his mother’s description of him as a wonderful human being. Of course, I reminded myself sharply, maybe this was just me being me. I’ve never liked what my old superintendent used to refer to as ‘flash gits’.

Dolores glanced at her watch and changed the subject. ‘I imagine Giorgio – the man in the Rigoletto costume – told you that we dress up on Wednesday lunchtimes. If you’d like to join in today, I can show you where the costume room is and you can pick something out.’

As Anna beamed, my heart sank. Still, I reminded myself, opera was Anna’s thing and the least I could do was try to enjoy what obviously appealed to her, and if it meant dressing up in silly clothes, then so be it. It could have been worse – I could have been wandering around in the buff. Anna agreed happily and we followed Dolores out, this time down the magnificent staircase. We went down to the first floor where she took us to a far bigger room than I’d been expecting, lined with rails on which a multitude of colourful costumes were hanging. Dolores glanced at her watch again.

‘I’ll leave you two to pick something out for yourselves and to settle in.’ She smiled. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t think we’ve got any dog costumes.’ I very nearly said, Lucky Oscar , but managed to stifle the instinct in time as she continued. ‘Now I’d better get back to my duties. The dining room’s on the ground floor, just past the bar. You can’t miss it. Lunch will be served at twelve-thirty. I look forward to seeing you again then. Elektra, are you coming?’

The Labrador glanced at Oscar and then at Dolores before deciding to follow her mistress. For a moment, it looked as though Oscar felt tempted to follow her. Whether this was because he’d been smitten by this good-looking lady Lab or just because he thought she might lead him to his lunch remained to be seen.

We thanked Dolores profusely and she went out, leaving us surrounded by all the different operatic costumes in the slightly musty, museum-like atmosphere. Anna knew me so well by now and she came over, grabbed hold of my arm with her hands and looked up at me.

‘You don’t really mind dressing up, do you, Dan? It will be fun, I promise.’

I told her that I was happy if it made her happy, and we set about looking for costumes while Oscar developed considerable interest in a basket on the floor containing wigs and false beards. I wondered idly whether he thought there might be a squirrel in there. Luckily, Anna decided to go with one of Verdi’s most popular operas, Il Trovatore , for our costumes. When I say luckily, this is because the opera is set in early-nineteenth-century Spain, which meant that I didn’t need to wear tights. On previous occasions when we’d dressed up, the costumes had belonged to the medieval period, and tights and pantaloons have never appealed to me – or suited me. As it was, I picked up a baggy peasant blouse thing and a red neckerchief, accompanied by a broad leather belt complete with scabbard and remarkably convincing-looking wooden dagger. On top of a pair of black jeans, the ensemble would probably look okay. Needless to say, Anna fully entered into the spirit of the thing and picked herself out a beautiful purple dress and a gilded necklace studded with jewels that, if real, would have been worth more than this villa.

I went out to the van and collected our bags along with Oscar’s basket and all-important food bowl and took them back up to our luxury suite. By the time I’d fed him and we’d changed into our operatic personae, it was almost half past twelve, so we headed downstairs for lunch. The dining room was enormous and I counted at least a dozen tables dotted about, most already full of people in colourful costumes. Clearly, everybody had entered into the spirit of Verdi Wednesday. Anna and I stopped at the door and looked around, and we were trying to work out where to sit when a woman wearing an extravagant, off-the-shoulder, blue gown waved to us to go across to her table. We did as requested and found her sitting with a man in Renaissance costume. As he turned towards us, I saw that he was a handsome black man and these were all the clues that Anna needed. She smiled at them both .

‘Lord Othello, Lady Desdemona, how wonderful to meet you.’

Desdemona beamed at her. ‘How charming you look, my dear.’ She glanced across at the Othello character beside her and gave him a wry smile. ‘That is the exact same dress that I wore at La Fenice almost twenty years ago.’ She sighed nostalgically. ‘The mayor of Venice said mine was the finest rendition of “Tacea la Notte Placida” he’d ever heard.’ It was pretty clear that this woman wasn’t the kind to hide her light under a bushel either. Maybe opera singers had boasting in their genes. After giving me and my costume an appraising look – I wasn’t sure how impressed she was – she returned her attention to Anna. ‘What’s your name, dear?’

Anna introduced the two of us and went up even further in my estimation when she correctly identified Desdemona by name as Valentina Russo. I wouldn’t have had a clue. It was clear that the lady was delighted to be recognised and she beamed back at us.

‘The dress fits you so perfectly, my dear. I’m afraid I wouldn’t stand a chance of getting into it now. I work here in the summer as a voice coach. Are you new arrivals? Would you two like to join us for lunch along with your lovely dog?’

Anna explained that we were friends of Rodolfo Argento’s mother and an expression of grief passed across the singer’s face. Close up, she was probably in her early sixties and the skin of her face was remarkably – maybe suspiciously – smooth and wrinkle free. No doubt she was still more than capable of wowing the opera-going public. The Othello character alongside her was probably ten years younger than she was and he appeared happy to stay in Valentina’s shadow. We accepted their kind invitation to join them and I discovered that Othello himself was in fact an American called Luther Green and he spoke excellent Italian as well as English with a strong, southern-states accent.

While Anna and Valentina chatted – mostly about Valentina’s operatic triumphs – I got to know Luther Green. He told me that he’d moved to Italy from Atlanta, Georgia, at the age of twenty and had lived and worked here ever since. He told me he rarely went back to the States nowadays and indicated our comfortable surroundings with a sweep of his hand.

‘Why would I wanna leave a place like this? These folks saved my life and I’d do anything for them.’ In response to my quizzical look, he explained. ‘A few years back at the age of forty-nine, I developed throat cancer. I was very lucky that it didn’t kill me, but at the time, I found myself wishing it had done. It robbed me of the most important thing in my life: my voice. In the space of a couple of months, I went from encores for my starring role in Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome to spitting blood and croaking like a frog.’ He looked up at me and I could read the anguish still inside him. ‘No, worse than a frog. I couldn’t make a sound.’

‘And Rodolfo helped you?’

His expression changed to one of considerable warmth. ‘Like I told you, Rodolfo saved me. He helped me through the worst time of my life and then two years ago, he and Clarissa offered me a teaching position here and it’s opened up a whole new career for me. Since then, I haven’t looked back.’

‘And your voice?’

I was pleased to see him smile. ‘I used to be a bass, a real deep, second F bass. I could set all the bottles in the bar shaking with my rendition of “Non più andrai”. They called me the new Boris Christoff.’ I thought it better not to tell him that I’d never heard that name before and had no idea what second F meant, but that definitely said more about me than about the opera singer. Unaware of my ignorance, he continued wistfully. ‘Now I sound like a weak tenor, at best.’

Which was still a heck of a lot better than me. I offered some consolation. ‘But at least you got your voice back. ’

‘Yeah, and I ended up here among some of the most wonderful folks in the world.’ For a moment, a shadow flitted across his face. ‘Not all of them, of course, but most of the kids who come here are amazing.’

I was filing away this little note of discord for future investigation when the conversation was interrupted by the arrival of a steaming tureen of vegetable soup and a basket of bread rolls. The waitress also put a litre carafe of red wine and a bottle of water on the table in front of us before wishing us ‘buon appetito’ and moving on to the next table. On a hot day like today, soup wouldn’t have been my first choice, but it tasted good and I spooned it up willingly while listening to Valentina Russo.

It soon became clear that we had found ourselves an excellent guide. Valentina knew everybody and, when I say she knew everybody, this extended far beyond their names. With only the slightest encouragement from me, she was soon giving us a detailed warts-and-all description of the people around us. Apart from four other tutors, it looked as though the majority of the diners were of student age or just a little older and they came in all shapes and sizes and from all ethnic groups. I felt sure that the atmosphere here must be exciting and stimulating for those chosen. As I looked around, I estimated that the students were roughly half male and half female, and a number of the women were remarkably good-looking. Whether this was just the luck of the draw or whether they had been selected on the basis of Rodolfo’s particular inclinations remained to be seen. As my ex-wife never ceased to tell me, I’ve always had a suspicious streak.

I listened closely, wishing I could record all the names and nationalities – they came from all over the world – in my notebook but preferring not to look too inquisitive for now. I couldn’t help noticing a look of disapproval on Valentina’s face when she mentioned one young man in particular. His name was Romeo and she told us he came from just down the road in Vicenza. As diplomatically as possible, I followed the direction of her eyes and tried to elicit a bit more information about him.

‘Is that Romeo over there, dressed as a shepherd?’

‘That’s him, charming the girls as always… living up to his name.’

I could see that the man in question had positioned himself at a table with three particularly pretty girls. From what I could see of him, he was a good-looking guy and certainly the three women with him looked happy in his company. This made me wonder whether maybe he might have struck up a relationship with one or more of the women here. If that were the case and if Rodolfo had subsequently directed his own attentions at that woman, might this have caused jealousy on Romeo’s part, leading to murder? Anything was possible.

Valentina also pointed out the two women Dolores had mentioned: Michelle from Paris, the oldest of the students at the ripe old age of thirty-seven, and the youngest, Barbara from Munich, who was a mere nineteen and outstandingly beautiful. Even from some distance, I could see that she was a stunner and I couldn’t help being suspicious of Rodolfo’s motives once again. Might he have granted her a place on the course so he could have an affair with her and might this have caused jealousy and a murderous reaction from somebody here – even his wife?

My musings were suddenly interrupted by a voice at the far end of the room. And what a voice! A big man had suddenly stood up from his table. He was probably not yet thirty, but with his height and considerable bulk, he could have been a rugby player. He was wearing a sober, dark waistcoat over a white shirt trimmed with lace and he began to sing, slowly at first and then speeding up. His voice echoed throughout the whole room as he sang for about three or four minutes before the aria came to what sounded like a tragic climax. As he fell silent, the room erupted into applause and Anna and I joined in. Thankfully, Oscar had resisted the temptation to join in and I was relieved but, as I say, it’s normally sopranos who do it for him. Beside me, Luther gave me a few words of explanation, his expression a mixture of pride and regret.

‘That’s Amadeo Gramsci. Give him time, but I believe he’s going to become one of the greatest bass voices of all time. He’s one of our star pupils. People say I used to sound like him…’ His voice tailed off into melancholy but I was quick to cheer him and keep him talking.

‘That was amazing. You must be so good if you sounded like that. Tell me, what’s the name of the piece he was singing?’

‘It’s Verdi, of course. It comes from his Don Carlos and it’s called “Ella giammai m’amò” . It’s a classic.’

I glanced across at Anna. ‘That was terrific. I’m really looking forward to my trip to the opera on Saturday night.’ And, to my considerable surprise, I realised I meant it.

The soup was followed by braised beef in a red wine sauce accompanied by roast fennel with parmesan. Both were excellent. According to Valentina, the wine was Valpolicella, produced from the villa’s own vineyards. Finally, we were served zuppa inglese – Italy’s take on trifle – followed by powerful espresso coffee. I couldn’t fault the food or the service and I could well see how the guests here could justifiably praise Rodolfo Argento for his incredible generosity. Inveterate womaniser and ‘flash git’ he might have been, but nobody could have doubted his charitable nature.

It was a very enjoyable meal but it ended rather abruptly for me. Just as I was finishing the last of my coffee and thinking about taking Oscar for a good walk, another future opera star suddenly stood up only a couple of tables away from us and launched into song. This was a delightful aria but there was just one problem: the woman singing had a very high-pitched voice and within a few seconds of her starting, I knew there was going to be trouble. There was a sudden movement at my feet and the next thing I knew, I had a pair of hairy Labrador paws resting on my thighs as Oscar raised his nose to the heavens – unfortunately only a few inches from my ear – and joined in. I hastily jumped to my feet, waved a quick farewell to our companions, and headed for the door, ears ringing, dragging my howling Labrador behind me.