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

Chapter 23

23

FRIDAY EARLY EVENING

At five forty-five, we tiptoed out of the room, leaving Oscar happily dreaming of squirrels – and maybe Elektra – and we headed down the stairs. I found Inspector Ventura waiting in the entrance lobby and I went over to see if he had any news. He shook his head gloomily.

‘My people have been checking our main suspects and so far, it looks as though they were all telling the truth. Tosca Nyisztor did indeed live in London until last autumn and her brother did buy her a very nice old house in Verona. Romeo Zanin’s family own the Renault main dealership in Vicenza, and Clarissa Delbosco spent eight years at La Scala in Milan before coming here. Interestingly, Ingrid Schwartz, now Ingrid Argento, was cautioned for abusive and violent behaviour twelve years ago. Clearly, she has a violent streak.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘But that’s not much to go on.’

He had just finished talking when the front door was opened by a member of the villa staff and Ingrid appeared, followed by Alfredo. She was looking predictably stunning in a cream robe while he was wearing an immaculately tailored evening suit. He mustered a cheerful smile as they swept past us, but all we got from her was haughty disdain. Keeping a discreet distance, we followed behind, heading into the ballroom, and found it packed. People were milling around in front of the stage enjoying background music provided by a string quartet.

Anna helped herself to a glass of fizz from a waiter while Ventura and I chose to drink orange juice. Whether anything significant would happen tonight or not, we both wanted to be ready for it. Once inside, we stopped, surveying the room. On the far side, beyond all the people, was the stage where I spotted Clarissa, now changed into a long, black gown but still looking zonked. Closer to us was the Argento family group, consisting of Rosina, Alfredo, Ingrid, Violetta and Alessia. Alessia was standing beside Rosina while the body language of the other two women towards the widow was decidedly strained. I saw Alfredo making a manful effort to engineer small talk but without much apparent success.

A few steps away from them, I spotted Paolo Ruggieri along with his secretary/wife – now dolled up to the nines. They were hovering about, clearly keen to be invited into the family group but not daring to approach.

‘Good evening.’

I turned to see Tosca, now with her hair up and wearing a charming, deep-blue evening gown. She looked very smart, every bit an Argento.

She held out her hand to the inspector and to me and I introduced Anna to her. I could see that she was looking very nervous and I didn’t blame her. Fortunately, Alessia was the first of the family group to spot her and she came hurrying across to greet her sister-in-law with a hug and kisses. Alessia then gave us a little wave and, gripping Tosca’s arm firmly in both her hands, led her across the room towards the family group. When they got there, Rosina greeted her with kisses on the cheeks while Alfredo, urbane as ever, produced a smile and a token handshake. At first, it looked as though the other two women were going to ignore her completely, then I saw her mother lean, reluctantly, towards her – but making no move to touch her – and utter a few words to which her daughter replied. Ingrid merely deigned to give Tosca a nod of the head and then a waitress appeared with a tray of drinks and they all helped themselves, no doubt pleased to have a diversion activity.

I felt Anna grasp my arm. ‘It looks as though people are taking their places. I think we’d better go and sit down while there are still free seats.’

Reluctantly, the inspector and I turned away from the stilted cameo on the other side of the room and found three seats for ourselves roughly halfway into the audience. The background music died away and everybody took the hint to sit down, the Argento family in the front row, their faces annoyingly now out of our sight. There was no sign of the agent and his secretary/wife, who were presumably lost somewhere in the crowd. Clarissa appeared on the stage and waited for silence to fall on the room. Although she looked very smart and very professional, her cheeks were chalky white and she looked drained. Presumably, her digestive problems had not improved.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the seventh annual Midsummer Concert given by students here at the Argento Opera Academy. Thank you all for coming. I’m particularly pleased to welcome members of the Argento family, without whom this inspiring project would never have happened.’ There was a ripple of uncertain applause, which strengthened as others joined in. ‘As you know, we all suffered a terrible loss last month. We lost our beloved Rodolfo and this evening’s concert is dedicated to his memory.’ The emotion in her voice was almost palpable. ‘We miss him terribly. God bless him.’ She stepped back and gave a little bow before turning hastily away as the tears in her eyes sparkled in the spotlights. I saw her leave the stage by steps at the far side and disappear towards the back of the room, presumably on her way back to her apartment to lie down.

Her place on stage was taken by the jovial figure of Giorgio, no longer wearing his Rigoletto costume, but now a smart dinner jacket and bow tie. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, it’s my great pleasure to present to you the performers who will be entertaining you this evening. Firstly, special thanks to our friends from the Verona string quartet, who will be providing accompaniment.’ There was another ripple of applause. ‘And now I’d like you to sit back and enjoy the talents of our students. I know you won’t be disappointed. First up, we have our youngest student, at the tender age of nineteen, please welcome Barbara Braunschweig as she sings “Caro Nome”, that immortal aria from Verdi’s Rigoletto .’

As the young German stepped forward and began to sing, I did indeed sit back and enjoy the performance – although part of me still couldn’t help thinking of the chaos Oscar could have caused if he had been here. Her voice was perfect, and even as a self-confessed opera virgin, I could tell that young Barbara had a glittering future ahead of her. I joined in the enthusiastic applause when the aria came to an end and found myself looking forward to the rest of the programme. The concert continued with a choral group, more individual singers, some men, some women, some baritones, some sopranos, and the echoing bass voice of Amadeo Gramsci, who had so impressed us on Verdi Wednesday. Finally, at the end of an hour that had passed remarkably quickly, three young tenors – among them none other than Romeo – performed their version of Puccini’s ‘Nessun Dorma’ that even I recognised from the World Cup back in the nineties. When the concert finished, all the students crowded onto the stage and enjoyed encore after encore from the appreciative audience – me included. As my first taste of live opera, it had been impressive, and I had a feeling I might be hooked.

After all the applause had died down, Violetta slowly climbed the stairs to the stage and walked gingerly across to the middle, eschewing the use of her walking stick. She congratulated the performers and then launched into an emotional eulogy for her son that drew tears from many onlookers. In particular, I could see Alessia’s shoulders shaking and I felt for her. At the end of the emotional tribute, there was spontaneous applause from all sides and I joined in, although by now, I knew full well that Rodolfo Argento had been far from the saintly figure depicted by his mother.

Once the stage had cleared, we in the audience gradually vacated our seats and the inspector and I did our best to keep the Argento family group under observation. A waiter brought drinks for them and they were joined by what were probably local notables. All of them except Alessia helped themselves to Champagne, and a cog that had been slowly and subliminally turning in my head suddenly clicked into place. Alessia wasn’t drinking alcohol, but I had seen a photo of her wedding where she and her husband had been toasting each other with glasses of Champagne. What did this mean – simply an attempt to reduce her alcohol intake or something else? And the something else that stops most women drinking is pregnancy. Could it be that Alessia was expecting her dead husband’s baby?

Leaving Anna chatting to her soprano friend, Valentina Russo, I grabbed Ventura’s arm and hurried him out of the room into the near-empty corridor where I wasted no time before telling him what had just occurred to me. He listened intently and I saw him digest the possible implications of this. I’d had a few seconds more to think about things so I said it first.

‘If we assume for a moment that the accident was arranged so as to kill Alessia, not her husband, the problem we’ve been facing so far is why a jealous woman would have waited almost a year after the marriage to take revenge. What if the murderer somehow discovered that Alessia was expecting Rodolfo’s baby? Could it be that Rodolfo had kept some poor woman hanging on while she desperately waited for his marriage to fall apart, only for her to learn that not only was it not about to fail but, if anything, the arrival of a child would only cement the relationship all the more?’

Ventura nodded a couple of times and looked up at me. ‘And one of our suspects here tonight fits that bill perfectly.’ He turned to the young constable who had come down to listen to the concert while keeping a close eye on Alessia and Violetta. ‘Get back upstairs to your post, Varese. Check that all doors up there are locked and don’t let anybody past you unless they’re on your list. Got that?’

The officer disappeared towards the stairs and I ducked back into the ballroom to tell Anna I had things to do. After whispering a few words into her ear, I was just heading for the door again when I almost bumped into Alessia on her way out. The tracks of the tears on her cheeks were plain to see and she looked emotionally spent. She gave me a weak smile.

‘I’m afraid I need to go and sit down somewhere quiet for a bit. Rodolfo’s death is still so raw, and tonight has really brought home to me that I’ve lost a wonderful man.’

I walked with her to the lift door and waited with her until it opened. ‘The constable is on duty up there and he’ll make sure nobody comes to bother you.’

She nodded gratefully and, as soon as she had disappeared into the lift, I hurried back to the inspector and saw that he had been able to locate Dolores. Together, we headed for the apartment belonging to the principal and knocked on the door repeatedly but there was no answer. Dolores had her master key with her and she unlocked the door for us. It was a nicely furnished little flat but it was empty. We went through to the bedroom and saw the bed untouched. Clearly Clarissa hadn’t come back here to sleep off her stomach problems – if, indeed, she had had any. As I turned back towards the bed, my eye was drawn to a little heart-shaped silver frame on the bedside table. It came as no surprise to see that it contained that same photo of Rodolfo and the words I love you . I wondered if he had bought a job lot of them.

Ventura had also spotted the photo and he made the logical deduction. ‘Our killer’s got to be Clarissa. She was still in love with Rodolfo and he almost certainly played her along. She managed to keep it together when he left her for Alessia and then married, and she hung on, desperately hoping that the marriage would fail, but when he told her the news that they were expecting a baby, she cracked. We need to find her as soon as possible but, first things first, we need to make sure that Alessia’s safe. You take the lift, I’ll take the stairs. See you up there.’

The lift seemed to take an age to return to the ground floor and by the time I emerged onto the top floor, the inspector was already knocking at Alessia’s door. He looked across at me, an expression of acute concern on his face. ‘No reply, but Varese tells me she went inside less than five minutes ago.’

The officer nodded. ‘And I checked all the doors when I got here. They’re all locked except for the spare bedroom at the end of the corridor there, but it’s empty. By the way, your dog has been barking.’

To reinforce his words, I heard Oscar making his presence felt in the distance. Interestingly, this wasn’t his usual forlorn ‘why have you gone off and deserted me?’ bark but his aggressive ‘something’s going on’ bark. I realised that he was alerting me to something that had happened and I set off down the corridor, shouting to Ventura to follow me, until I got to our room. As I opened it, Oscar came bounding out and headed straight for the door of the spare bedroom. He pushed it with his nose and it swung open. I followed him inside and saw immediately that the French windows were gaping wide. They had definitely been closed when I had looked in before, so this would appear to be the way a potential double murderer had gained access to the roof terrace and, from there, the way would have been clear as far as Alessia’s apartment. I had no doubt now that Clarissa’s stomach upset had been an attempt to establish an alibi while she had come up here intent on rectifying the awful mistake she had made the previous month when she had killed the love of her life instead of the woman she saw as the impediment to her happiness.

The inspector and I squeezed between the terracotta urns and raced after Oscar along the terrace towards the windows of Alessia’s apartment at full speed. These, too, were wide open and I suddenly saw a movement over to one side of the terrace. Part hidden behind a massive banana tree in a pot were two figures, instantly recognisable as Clarissa with an unresponsive Alessia in her arms. Illuminated by the setting sun, Clarissa was manoeuvring the inert body of Alessia onto the parapet over the main facade of the villa and it was clear that she was intending to throw her rival for Rodolfo’s affections off the roof.

There was no time to debate whether Alessia was already dead or just incapacitated, so Ventura and I threw ourselves towards the two of them. I managed to catch hold of Alessia’s ankle and hang onto it for grim death while the inspector caught hold of her arm. Together, we wrestled Alessia’s body away from Clarissa but, even as we did so, the principal jumped athletically onto the low wall and balanced there, the rays of the setting sun framing her body with a ghostly pinkish glow. She turned once towards us and the anguish on her face was all too clear before she turned back. Before either of us could get to her, she stepped into the void. One moment she was there; the next she was gone.