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

Chapter 18

18

FRIDAY MORNING

I dropped Anna off at the end of the Castelvecchio Bridge and drove on to the police station, luckily finding a free parking space quite close by. I was shown up to the inspector’s office where I found him, as before, almost submerged beneath a pile of paperwork. He gave me a welcoming smile as he stood up to shake my hand.

‘We’ve spoken to Ingrid Argento – whose aggressive attitude makes Violetta Argento sound like a pussycat – and she flatly refuses to come here to the station, so I’ve arranged for us to go to see her and then we can carry on to Tosca Nyisztor’s house afterwards. Anything new at the villa?’

‘Maybe: I just had a thought last night. Could it be that Rodolfo Argento wasn’t the target? Could he have been killed by mistake?’

The inspector slumped back into his chair and waved me into the seat across the desk from him as he explored this new hypothesis. ‘So you’re saying it could be the murderer wasn’t aiming for him but for somebody else… presumably his wife?’

‘She’s the only logical target apart from him. The groundsman told me that she often drove the Jaguar – but she was just about the only one – and her own car was going to need fixing so maybe the murderer took a chance.’ I went on to tell him how Rodolfo’s decision to take the car down to the lake after lunch had been unexpected, and the fact that Alessia had been planning on using it at two-thirty for her hair appointment.

He nodded sagely.

‘And that surely implies inside knowledge. Who else could have known that her car needed to be fixed and that she was going down to Verona that afternoon? It has to be somebody at the villa.’

‘That’s the conclusion I’ve come to. Of course, it might have been chance and, equally likely, I might be wrong, but it’s a thought.’

‘It certainly is. One thing’s for sure: we’re going to need to dig more deeply into her background to find out if she might have enemies. Thanks for passing that on. I have a feeling you might be right. We need to sit down and have a long talk to her. Shall we do that later this morning?’

‘Definitely. Thanks for including me.’

He grinned. ‘It seems to me it’s as much your investigation as mine. All help gratefully received.’ He picked up a couple of the numerous files from his desk and tucked them under his arm. ‘Anyway, let’s start with Ingrid Argento and see what she has to say for herself. In bocca al lupo. ’ This expression translates literally as ‘into the wolf’s mouth’ and I couldn’t help glancing down at Oscar. The inspector followed my eyes. ‘By the way, if she says anything about your dog, I’ll tell her he’s a sniffer dog, but I won’t tell her what it is he sniffs.’

‘Food mainly – and other dogs’ butts.’

With the blue light flashing, the police car cut through the morning traffic and we were soon away from the busy central part of town and climbing a series of narrow, winding lanes up the hillside above the city until we reached a high stone wall and a pair of massive wooden gates. The driver pressed the button by the intercom on the gatepost and, when asked what we wanted, just replied with a terse, ‘Polizia.’ The gates swung open and we drove along a short gravel drive to an unexpectedly modern house, quite possibly designed by the same architects who had built the new Agri Argento offices. The walls of the long, low, white building appeared to be made principally of plate glass and I found myself wondering how hot it was going to be inside and how much privacy the occupants might enjoy. However practical it might or might not be, it was clearly a very expensive architectural statement. But then, Alfredo Argento was not short of the necessary money to make such a statement.

We left the driver in the car and walked across to the front door, which opened before we got there – no doubt because the maid had been watching us from inside one of the plate-glass windows ever since our arrival. Without a word and with a dubious glance at Oscar, the maid – clad in a formal black dress and white apron – led us along a corridor to a magnificent living room looking out over a stunning view of the city. Although the temperature was in the thirties outside, the air con was doing a good job in here and I almost felt cold – but not as cold as the reception awaiting us. Sitting in the middle of the room on an ultramodern white sofa was a woman I immediately recognised from her sister-in-law’s description. Alessia had described Ingrid as very beautiful and she hadn’t been exaggerating. With her long, blonde hair, blue eyes, and trim figure, I could well imagine how she could have had her pick of Verona’s eligible bachelors before selecting Alfredo. Good-looking or not, this morning, the expression on her face was about as welcoming as a rabid dog with a headache. And talking of dogs …

‘Why have you brought that animal into my house?’ Her tone was glacial but the inspector was a match for her.

‘The dog is part of our team. It’s all right, he’s well trained and he won’t make a mess of your beautiful house.’

Ingrid Argento made no attempt to ask us to sit down so we stayed on our feet and Oscar, sensing the atmosphere in the room, sat down smartly at my side like a real police dog. I watched the woman’s face carefully as Ventura began his questions.

‘Your name is Ingrid Argento and you’re married to Alfredo Argento?’

In reply, she just gave the slightest hint of a nod and the inspector continued.

‘Please can you tell me how long you’ve been married?’

‘It will be ten years next month, but I fail to see why this is of any importance to you.’

Ventura ignored her comment. ‘Please can you describe your relationship with your brother-in-law, Rodolfo Argento?’

‘He was all right.’ Not exactly a gushing endorsement, but I had already got the message that getting information out of the beautiful Ingrid wasn’t going to be easy.

‘You got on well with him?’

‘Yes, on the rare occasions when I saw him.’

‘When you say “rare”, are we talking once a week, once a month or less often?’

‘Once or twice a year.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Even though you were living barely ten kilometres from each other?’ She gave no reply so he carried on. ‘And what about his wife? Did you get on well with her?’

Her already sour expression became positively acid. ‘I’ve always done my best to avoid meeting her, so I have no relationship with her to speak of. Now that Rodolfo has died and the funeral’s out of the way, I fully intend never to see her or speak to her again.’

‘Can you tell me why you don’t like her?’

There was a brief pause before she answered. ‘She was completely unsuited for him, and I’m sure that she was responsible for him deciding to take his own life.’

‘Unsuited how?’

‘She only married him for his money. That was clear to everybody. She was using him, that’s all.’

I caught the inspector’s eye and decided to take a chance. ‘So, from your point of view, it would have been better if she’d been killed rather than her husband?’

Ingrid turned her head towards me and I could almost feel the antagonism in her stare. ‘It would have been better if nobody had been killed, don’t you think?’ Her tone was thick with irony, but maybe I had caught a flash of something – surely not guilt?

The inspector took over the questioning again. ‘I’m afraid I have to inform you that it’s very likely that your brother-in-law didn’t take his own life, nor that he was involved in an accident, but that he was deliberately murdered.’

Now it was his turn to be subjected to a withering stare. ‘My husband told me last night that you believed that nonsense – and that’s what it is. I have absolutely no doubt that Rodolfo killed himself to get away from that awful woman.’ For a moment, I thought I saw a spark of animation in her eyes. ‘Have you any proof to justify your ridiculous supposition?’

Ventura shook his head and a gleam of triumph appeared on Ingrid’s face. ‘Why are you wasting your time, Inspector, and, more importantly, why are you wasting mine?’

He ignored the question. ‘Please can you confirm your movements on the day of his death? I’m asking everybody this.’

‘What day was it? You’ll have to remind me. ’

She was doing her best to sound blasé and uninterested but I, at least, wasn’t buying it. Given that she knew full well that there was a criminal investigation taking place, it was scarcely credible that she wouldn’t have that date engraved in her memory. The lady doth protest too much, methinks…?

The inspector humoured her. ‘Tuesday the twelfth of July.’

Ingrid made a show of looking for her phone and then scrolling through it before giving us her answer. ‘At ten o’clock in the morning, I had my yoga class, at twelve, I met up with Alfredo for lunch at the golf club, and in the afternoon, I had intended going to meet friends in town but by that time, the news of the accident had come through and Alfredo and I went up to the villa to see if we could be of help.’

‘And could you?’

She shook her head angrily. ‘Of course not. Rodolfo was dead and that was that. It was a waste of time, but Alfredo insisted we should be there.’ There certainly wasn’t much of the milk of human kindness about this woman and I noted that Oscar didn’t even try to go near her.

‘Did you speak to his wife or his mother?’

‘No, Rosina handled all that sort of thing.’

‘I note that you believe it to have been suicide but, if it had been murder, can you think of anybody who would have wanted Rodolfo dead?’

She gave an indifferent shrug of the shoulders. ‘How should I know? Like I told you, I didn’t see much of him, but I can’t think of anybody off the top of my head who would have wanted to kill him.’ Her voice filled with sarcasm. ‘Surely that’s your job – but I can tell you now that you’re wasting your time. There’s no doubt about it: he took his own life because of that awful woman.’

Ventura and I were pleased when we were able to get away and I noticed that Oscar didn’t waste any time either. We were shown out by the expressionless maid and we waited until we were back in the car before talking. The inspector swivelled around in his seat and looked back at me with my remarkably subdued Labrador sitting to attention alongside me.

‘She’s originally from Bolzano, so that’s probably where the icy welcome comes from.’

The very northernmost province of Italy, Alto Adige, high in the Dolomites, is an autonomous region. The area was under the control of the Austrian empire for over a hundred years until the end of the First World War. Although it is now a part of Italy, the native language of much of the population is still German. This provenance no doubt accounted for Ingrid’s name and her blonde hair and blue eyes, although not necessarily her acid temperament.

Ventura gave me an enquiring look. ‘What did you think of the ice princess?’

‘I think it’s safe to say that she’s confirmed what we’ve been told so far about her and Alessia: definitely no love lost there at all. As a performance, it wasn’t bad, but I got the feeling her guard occasionally slipped. When you told her you had no evidence, I’m sure the expression that flitted across her face was one of satisfaction. Why should she be pleased that we’ve found no evidence? Certainly, she did her best to ram home her point that it was suicide and it was clear that she’d be only too happy if you were to drop the investigation. The question is why? Might she have had something to do with Rodolfo’s death?’

The inspector nodded. ‘My feelings entirely. She’s certainly a tough character. Might she and her husband really have conspired to commit murder? Anything’s possible. I’m sure that maid could tell a few stories, but I can hardly call her in at this stage without my superiors coming down on me like a ton of bricks.’

‘It’s fair to say that either Ingrid or her husband could have had the opportunity – getting hold of a key to the garage wouldn’t have been too hard for them, especially if Alfredo occasionally drove the cars. They also had the motive of trying to get full control of the company, but do I really see either of them as murderers? I didn’t get that impression of Alfredo although I could believe his wife capable of anything. It might just be worth checking her background to see if she studied mechanical engineering or if she has a hidden love of classic cars, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.’

He nodded. ‘Definitely. Well, let’s go and see what the victim’s sister has to say for herself.’