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

Chapter 17

17

THURSDAY EVENING

Anna and I went back to our room at just before seven-thirty so that I could feed Oscar, and while I did so, I revealed what Violetta had told me. Anna was as surprised as I had been to hear of Tosca, the daughter, and both of us were soon confronting the same problem. Violetta had told me nothing more about her daughter and I desperately wanted to find out as much as possible about her, mainly because, in the event of something happening to her mother, it now seemed clear that the mysterious Tosca was likely to inherit a massive fortune – the sort of incredible wealth that could easily provide a motive for murder. Could it be that the daughter had killed her brother, knowing that half his wealth would pass to his wife, but the other half would go to their mother and then to herself? If so, then the next step in Tosca’s plan would surely be to eliminate Violetta too.

I had been so surprised by this latest turn of events that I had held back from suggesting to Violetta that she might be in danger, but I knew that I urgently needed to speak to her daughter. Before going down for dinner, I phoned Inspector Ventura and gave him this latest piece of news. With the facilities of the police, he should be able to locate the woman far more easily than I could. As an afterthought, I dictated the name of Violetta’s Hungarian husband in case Tosca had decided to revert to that name after splitting from her mother. Ventura thanked me most warmly and promised to let me know if he managed to locate her. He agreed with me that she had now suddenly become a person of considerable interest in this case.

Anna and I arrived downstairs just as the gong was sounding for dinner and we joined the throng making their way into the dining room. As we did so, we bumped into Alessia, who invited us to sit with her. I was secretly delighted about this as it would hopefully give me the opportunity to quiz her about her husband’s sister.

After a starter of mixed salami, accompanied by sundried tomatoes and olives, we moved on to gnocchi. The potato dumplings were smothered with butter and melted cheese and I had no trouble at all in wolfing down my plateful under the baleful gaze of my dog, who clearly felt unreasonably excluded. Half a packet of breadsticks went some way towards pacifying him, but I had to admit that he missed a real treat. I felt understandably full after this feast and I was greatly relieved to find that we were then served a relatively light main course of cold salmon and a mixed salad, which was perfect.

Understandably, Alessia was keen to know how the investigation was progressing, and I told her as much as I felt I should, emphasising the fact that, unless the fingerprint evidence came up with something conclusive, we still had no firm suspects. When I felt the moment was right, I gently approached the subject of Rodolfo’s newly discovered sister.

‘I was talking to Violetta earlier and she mentioned that she has a daughter. Can you tell me anything about Tosca?’

She looked up from her plate with an expression of pity on her face. ‘Such a shame. I’m sure Tosca’s very bright but her mother didn’t give her a chance. All her life, she lived in the shadow of her big brother and what she needed the most – maternal love – never came her way. As far as I can work out, she was born around about the time her father died and I think his death probably tipped Violetta over the edge. From then on, Violetta only had eyes for her boy, the Wunderkind, and the new baby didn’t get a look-in. I’ve only seen Tosca twice – at my wedding and then at Rodolfo’s funeral, so you can imagine how brief our conversations were.’

‘Do you happen to know where she lives? Is she married?’

‘At the funeral, she told me she lives here in Verona. She was on her own then and at our wedding, but I don’t know if she has a partner.’

‘Any idea what she does for work?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know. Rodolfo would have known, but he didn’t talk about her very often.’

‘Did you like her? Did your husband like her?’

Alessia nodded. ‘Yes, I did, even though I hardly knew her, and I could see that Rodolfo liked her a lot, but at the wedding, every time he started to talk to her, he would see his mother glowering at him, so he would leave Tosca and scuttle back to his mamma . Needless to say, I didn’t see Tosca go near her mother, either at the wedding or the funeral. Rodolfo and I had a brief conversation with her at the wedding but all too soon, Violetta dragged him away. I actually spoke more to Tosca at the funeral, when she appeared devastated at what had happened, but it was a matter of a very few minutes. In fact, now that I’m back here for a while, contacting her is near the top of my to-do list.’

At that moment, my phone started ringing. It was the inspector.

‘Mr Armstrong, Ventura here. We’ve located her. You were right; she reverted to her father’s name. She lives here in Verona and I’m planning on interviewing her tomorrow morning. You’re very welcome to come along as well, if you like.’

This was excellent news. ‘I would be delighted. Also, have you any plans to interview Alfredo Argento’s wife, Ingrid? If so, and if it doesn’t bother you, I’d be fascinated to sit in.’

‘Certainly, I’ll try and arrange both interviews tomorrow morning. Could you come down to the station at, say, nine o’clock? I’m not sure at this stage whether the suspects will come to us or we go to them.’

As I knew Anna was keen to carry on ferreting about in Verona’s historic buildings the next day, I asked if he would mind if I brought Oscar with me. Ventura replied that he had no objection but then gave me the bad news. ‘I’ve had the results back from the lab and none of the prints taken this afternoon match with the prints on the oil can. I’m afraid unless somebody new pops up – like the daughter, for example – we’re back to zero on that one.’

The lack of a match came as no great surprise, but it was annoying all the same. I had been pinning my hopes on the can of brake fluid producing a breakthrough but maybe the appearance on the scene of Tosca would provide that for us.

When the call finished, I told Alessia about the oil can and our failure to find a match and received an unexpected explanation that should have occurred to me.

‘Rodolfo changed the brake fluid in all his vehicles every three years. He did the same to my car only a few months ago – he said it was best practice. He was a perfectionist as far as his cars were concerned. I imagine he must have done it.’

I suppressed a few expletives. It looked as though there might be a perfectly innocent explanation for the oil can I had found, so did this mean that nobody had tampered with the brakes after all? Of course, there was still the unidentified set of prints on the can, but they could have been nothing more sinister than those of the salesperson who had sold the oil to Rodolfo. If so, could it be that the opera singer really had taken his own life after all? Was this investigation a waste of time? I snorted into the remains of my salmon salad but then reminded myself that it had at least given me the chance to tick off another fine historic city from my bucket list.

After dinner, I took Oscar and Elektra for a walk as much for my benefit as for theirs. My head was spinning, trying desperately to think of a reason why this man who had apparently had it all – money, fame, love, happiness – might have decided to drive his Jaguar head first into a tree. His wife, his mother and his agent had all confirmed that he had had no money problems, others claimed that since marrying, he had been satisfied and contented with his love life and, of course, the Christmas concert in front of kings and queens was the proof that his career had been flying high. If so, what on earth could have made him want to end it all?

Even though I lacked evidence of any kind, yet again, I found myself discounting the suicide hypothesis and remaining steadfastly convinced that it had been murder. Exactly why I came to this conclusion was hard to justify and in the end, all I could do was put it down to some sort of ex-copper’s hunch. In fairness, I had followed enough of these in my time to know that more often than not, they had proved to be correct. Hopefully, the interview with Rodolfo’s sister, Tosca, would produce some results because, otherwise, we appeared to be heading towards a dead end with a distinct lack of evidence.

That night, for a change, I walked down across the open field to the tennis courts and I made a discovery – or rather it was made for me by Oscar and Elektra. Just on the other side of the two tennis courts was a meticulously trimmed hedge, and it was only when I heard the splashes that I realised what lay behind it. Sure enough, when I rounded the corner, I discovered that the villa boasted a fine swimming pool, with underwater lighting providing enough illumination for me to make out the two dogs in the water, paddling around most happily.

I let them cool down for a while and then, after a bit of a struggle, I managed to lure them out of the pool and back into the field. I was watching Oscar as he rolled around on his back on the grass, growling happily to himself and wagging his tail so hard that his whole body wagged with it, when I suddenly realised that I was looking at Elektra, not Oscar. He was a few feet further away in the shadows but, in the twilight, the two black Labs had looked the same. This had been a case of mistaken identity.

Mistaken identity suddenly set a bell ringing in my head and my mind returned to the case. What if Rodolfo Argento hadn’t been the target of the murderer after all? What if he’d been killed by mistake? Could the accident have been staged to kill somebody else?

And the most likely person to occupy that position had to be his wife.

I sat down on a dry patch of grass and watched the two dogs as they chased each other around excitedly, hopefully drying themselves out as they did so. Could it really be that the whole direction of the inquiry should be shifted? Beppe had told me that Alessia used to enjoy driving the Jaguar and that she had been just about the only person to do so apart from him. Maybe, knowing that her own car needed a new exhaust, the murderer had sabotaged the Jaguar in the hope of killing her, rather than her husband. I remembered that she had told me that she had been planning on using the Jaguar to drive down to Verona on the afternoon of the crash, and that her husband’s decision to head for the lake and a walk to clear his head had been a last-minute thing. This of course immediately threw up a host of new questions, starting with why ?

Not to mention, who?

I deliberately took my time over the rest of the walk so that the dogs could dry off as much as possible but, even so, they were both still emanating a powerful smell of wet Labrador when I got back to Dolores’s apartment. She greeted me with a tolerant smile as she surveyed her damp dog.

‘Don’t worry, Dan, Labs are Labs. They love the water.’ She glanced down at the two of them in the weak lights of the hallway. ‘Certainly, it’s hard to tell them apart, isn’t it? I’d better make sure I get the right dog. You wouldn’t want to end up with Elektra instead of Oscar, would you?’

Or Rodolfo instead of Alessia…