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

Chapter 9

9

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON

When I got back to the track by the villa, I found that Beppe had finished mowing the extensive lawn and was taking a break in the shade of a big old chestnut tree. Elektra, still proudly carrying her branch, set off for the villa without a backward glance, while Oscar stood and watched her all the way until she disappeared from view. I definitely got the impression that love might be blooming here so close to Shakespeare’s most romantic city, and I glanced down at him.

‘Parting is such sweet sorrow, isn’t it, old buddy?’ I studied Romeo and Juliet at school and I still remember a few lines.

Oscar turned back towards me, wagged his tail slowly, and together we went over to Beppe where I asked if it would be convenient for him to show me the garage. He agreed immediately and led me around the side of the villa to a long, red brick building, at the end of which was a wide, modern, up-and-over double garage door. He produced a remote control from his pocket, pressed it and the door hummed up, revealing an Aladdin’s cave of precious old vehicles.

I was faced with an amazing selection of classic cars lined up in echelon formation, noses pointing towards the door, with a gaping empty space at the front, presumably where the Jaguar had lived before the accident. I walked down the central gangway, admiring each of them as I went past. Although I probably couldn’t name more than two or three of the individual models, I immediately recognised the legendary badges on the bonnets, ranging from the prancing horse of Ferrari to the Mercedes three-pointed star and the beautiful silver statue of a flying lady on the front of an immaculate, pure-white Rolls-Royce roadster. Along the rear of the huge room was a workbench equipped with tools of all description, in front of which was what looked like a fully functioning hoist, so cars could be raised in the air when access was needed from below. Certainly, it looked remarkably well equipped for an amateur workshop and I had little doubt that the cars had indeed had a terrific amount of care and attention lavished upon them. This of course made a faulty braking system even less likely and deliberate sabotage more probable. I turned to Beppe, who was absently wiping a speck of near invisible dust from the hood of a gleaming, ancient Maserati.

‘Who was allowed to drive these vehicles? Was it just Rodolfo or was there anybody else? Did you drive them?’

‘I’ve driven all of them, but only for short distances to check something we’d been working on. The only one I’ve had the use of for any length of time was the Rolls-Royce. When my daughter got married, Signor Rodolfo very kindly let me borrow it for the day to drive her to and from the church.’

‘Were you the only other one to drive them?’

He shook his head. ‘His wife used to love driving the Jaguar.’

‘She’s interested in classic cars?’ This was probably a very sexist thought on my part but somehow, I had always associated classic or vintage cars with men, rather than women drivers. Clearly, given that Violetta was also an enthusiast, this wasn’t the case.

‘She’s very interested. In fact, Rodolfo told me they met at a classic car rally. She owns the most beautiful 1964 Porsche 911, one of the first to be built, and they kept it in perfect condition.’

‘They?’

‘She and Signor Rodolfo together. It was a shared passion of theirs.’

‘She knows her way around cars?’

‘Not as well as he did, but yes, she was quite happy to get her hands dirty.’

This was potentially very interesting. If the brakes of the Jaguar really had been tampered with, it must have been done by somebody with a reasonable working knowledge of car mechanics. From the sound of it, Alessia fell into that category. I was certainly looking forward to questioning her.

‘Anybody else drive the cars?’

‘Signora Violetta from time to time, and Alfredo was occasionally allowed to drive one or two, but he’s a crazy fast driver. His father, Carlo, who died some years ago now, always felt that Alfredo didn’t show the appropriate respect for the classic vehicles. In fact, it was interesting that when Carlo died, he left the collection of cars to Rodolfo rather than to his own son. It was Carlo who first started the collection – it was a real obsession of his – and Rodolfo subsequently added the Ferrari and the Rolls-Royce. They were the only people to drive the cars and, otherwise, nobody had access to them.’

‘And you’re sure that nobody else had a key to this place apart from you, Violetta, Alessia and Rodolfo, and the one in Dolores’s safe?’ He nodded and I added the obvious corollary to this. ‘Is there any way the E-type might have been elsewhere on the day of the accident or the day before where somebody could have tampered with it?’

‘Certainly not the day before. It rained all that day and none of these cars have ever seen a drop of rain since they were brought here. Carlo and then Rodolfo only ever took them out when it was dry.’

‘And the morning of the accident?’

He had to stop and think. ‘I was weeding the rose beds outside the front of the villa that day and I remember Signor Rodolfo going off with his wife in her Porsche mid-morning. From the racket it was making, it was obvious there was a hole in the exhaust and they went off to buy a new part. They were only out for an hour or so, but while they were away, Alfredo turned up to show off his brand-new Lamborghini.’

‘Do you think he might have gone anywhere near the garage?’

‘He didn’t get out of the car. Besides, even if he had done, I bet he wouldn’t even have known how to open the bonnet. Alfredo isn’t the sort of person who likes getting his hands dirty. He called me over and asked me if Rodolfo was in, and when I told him he’d gone out, he just snorted and drove off. He’s like that, Alfredo.’

‘I don’t suppose you have any idea where he went, do you?’

He shook his head. ‘All I can tell you is that he headed towards the lake because I could hear his car screaming down the straight as he did so.’

‘When was the last time the E-type was driven before the day of the accident?’

‘I’ve been trying to work that out. It was unusually rainy at the beginning of July so it probably hadn’t been out for at least a couple of days.’ He caught my eye. ‘I know what you’re thinking – somebody might have got in here and tampered with the brakes, but how? There are very few keys and it wasn’t me, so who?’

Who indeed ?

I took a good look around, checking the two side doors and all the windows, which were firmly closed and bolted. Had one of these been left open a month ago, maybe because of the heat, allowing the murderer to get in to tamper with the Jaguar? Anything was possible but, after so much time had passed since the accident, there was no way of checking up now. Finally, I thanked Beppe, and Oscar and I went back to the villa and up to our room where we found Anna just finishing off her work. She looked up at me enquiringly.

‘Well, Sherlock, did you find out anything interesting?’

I told her what I’d learned from Beppe and the farmer and explained how I was ever more convinced that it hadn’t been an accident or suicide. I didn’t need to spell it out for her.

‘So you’re saying that you think it really was murder?’

‘I can see no reason on earth why he would have wanted to take his own life and, although there’s still the unlikely possibility of it having been some sort of temporary seizure, yes, I think his mother might be right and it was murder.’

‘What are you going to do about it – go to the police?’

I’d been thinking about this myself. ‘Yes, but not yet. All I have at the moment is conjecture. I need something more concrete. Violetta gave me contact details of the two cousins who run the family business so I’ll get in touch with them now and see if I can make appointments to speak to them tomorrow. I also want to visit the classic car garage, which apparently now has the remains of the Jaguar. I’d like to see what the mechanic there says about any possible mechanical fault. It sounds as though Rodolfo’s widow, Alessia, is a classic car enthusiast and she’s due back any day now, so I’ll wait until I’ve spoken to all of them before I consider going to the police. Do you have any particular plans for this evening?’

She shook her head. ‘No, I’ve done what I needed to do, so I’m in your hands completely. ’

‘Great. In that case, I’ll fix up the appointments and then I’d like to take a drive past the scene of the accident to the lakeside. Dolores told me there’s a café down there that the victim sometimes frequented. You never know, there might be people there who can shed some light on what happened or, more particularly, why it happened. After that, I need to check out the classic car garage and then, if you like, why don’t we head for the city centre for a quick look at the main historic sights before coming back here for dinner and a bit more sleuthing. Okay?’

I dialled the number Violetta had given me for the brother and sister who ran Agri Argento and spoke to their PA. It was immediately clear that Violetta had carried out her promise to forewarn them of my investigation and it was quickly arranged that I would meet Alfredo at ten o’clock and his sister, Rosina, at ten-thirty next morning, both at the company headquarters in Verona.

On the way out, we looked into the dining room to check what time dinner would be served and Dolores introduced me to Clarissa, the principal, who came as a considerable surprise to me. I had created a mental picture of a grey-haired woman in her sixties with the sort of forbidding facial expression that would have struck fear into the hearts of staff and students alike. Instead, I found myself being introduced to a woman the same sort of age as Dolores and extremely good-looking with it. She had long, dark hair, piled up on her head in a casual but most alluring way, big pendant earrings, and her clothes were unexpected. She had clearly just been playing tennis and her elegant, golden-brown legs reached up to a very short skirt. Instinctively, I stretched out my hand and caught hold of Oscar’s collar. His cold, wet nose is drawn to beautiful women in short skirts.

Clarissa gave Anna and me a warm welcome and offered any help she could. I asked if she would mind if I put a few questions to her the following morning and we arranged to meet in her office at nine. Somehow meeting this highly desirable woman who would have been almost exactly the same age as the victim struck me as unexpected and, in consequence, potentially significant. Might there have been something going on between them? Maybe something that had soured so badly that she had resorted to murder?

Still with a wary hand on Oscar’s collar, I decided to head off to Verona. Armed with the information that dinner tonight would be served at seven-thirty, we went out to the van.

As an experiment, I reversed out of the parking space slowly so as not to use the brakes and then drove back along the drive to the main gates, which opened automatically. Once again, because of the slight rise in the road, I didn’t need to touch the brake pedal and I was able to turn right and start heading downhill towards the scene of the accident still without any use of the brakes. I accelerated hard down the long straight and was doing ninety kilometres per hour before I reached the bend and, no doubt, the E-type would have easily managed to reach an even higher speed.

I slowed when we got to the scene of the accident and pointed out to Anna the scorched tree and the floral tributes. I also underlined to her what I’d just proved to myself. ‘It’s quite possible that the brakes developed a fault or were tampered with back at the villa and Rodolfo could have been blissfully unaware of the problem until he came down this road at breakneck speed. Certainly, it makes it even more likely that it was brake failure – either accidental or deliberate.’

We followed the road downhill for seven or eight kilometres more until we came to the busy main road that runs around the shores of Lake Garda. I crossed it and set off down a minor road to the lakeside, which was thronged with holidaymakers and their cars. Before setting off, I had checked the location of the café where Rodolfo might have been heading that day and located it without trouble, relieved to find that it had its own private parking, and I was able to pull in right outside the door. There were tables outside on a terrace close to the water, sheltered by parasols, and we chose one from where we had a fine view over the lake towards the Sirmione promontory with the spectacular Scaligero Castle. This, according to my very own history expert, was built in the thirteenth century and not only had massive defensive walls but also had its own unique fortified harbour surrounded by ramparts. Rising up from the blue waters of the lake, it was an impressive sight.

A few minutes later, a waiter appeared to see what we would like. Anna asked for an ice coffee, and I opted for a cold beer and a bowl of water for Oscar. When the man returned with our drinks, I mentioned Rodolfo’s death as casually as possible, and I was surprised to see a look of what might have been disapproval appear on the man’s face. Considering the famous singer had supposedly been a customer, I would have expected a degree of regret. I tried giving the waiter a gentle nudge.

‘I believe he used to come here for coffee.’

‘Every now and then.’ Still no friendly reaction from the waiter so I tried again.

‘People tell me he was a lovely man. It’s such a pity that he died.’

A decidedly sour expression appeared on the man’s face but he just mumbled something, picked up his tray and disappeared back through the fly curtain into the café again. I glanced across at Anna. ‘That was unexpected.’

She nodded her head and then added, ‘ Cherchez la femme? I wonder if the waiter has a wife. Leave it to me; I’ll see what I can do.’

With this, she took a small sip of her coffee before getting to her feet and going into the café. She emerged three or four minutes later with a smile on her face.

‘This detective business is easy! I got talking to the woman behind the bar and it turns out she’s married to Antonio, the waiter. They own the place together. She’s probably in her thirties, and when I mentioned the accident, she almost burst into tears. She confirmed that Rodolfo used to drop in from time to time for a coffee and I got the impression that she would have been happy if he’d spent a bit more time with her. Otherwise, she didn’t say much – not least because her husband kept coming and going – but it was clear to me that she liked Rodolfo a lot.’

Might this mean that Rodolfo had been involved with this woman as well? If so, might this have provoked the husband to take revenge? We sat and sipped our drinks, savouring the relative cool of the breeze coming off the water, while Oscar stretched out on the ground at our feet. I asked Anna which sights she particularly wanted to see in Verona and it came as no surprise to find that she’d been doing her homework.

‘Well, there’s the Arena, but we’ll actually be going in there on Saturday night so that can wait. Otherwise, seeing as Shakespeare set Romeo and Juliet in the city, most people go to see Juliet’s house and her tomb, but I’m not bothered. Apart from anything else, Juliet didn’t exist – and her “tomb” is empty. There was apparently a legend going back to the thirteenth century that hints at the story but that’s all it is: a legend.’

‘You aren’t a Shakespeare fan, then?’

‘Very much the opposite. I love Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet is great – if you like a tale of underage sex that ends in tragedy – but I’m a historian so I prefer facts, and Juliet isn’t a fact.’

‘Right, no Juliet memorabilia, then. So what do you want to see?’

‘As we probably won’t have much time this afternoon, let’s just have a little walk around the centro storico and then tomorrow, I can spend the day browsing the old churches, checking out the Castelvecchio , the famous bridges and so on.’ She glanced down at Oscar. ‘And I can take Oscar for company while you go and do your interviews.’

At the sound of his name, Oscar opened one eye but, seeing as nobody was offering him food, he gave a heartfelt sigh and relapsed into sleep again.