‘Isn’t it open yet? That’s a bit strange.’ Although I had never seen her close up, I immediately sensed that the trim little woman with the long hair standing in front of me was Teresa, Aldo’s dinner companion, employee and possibly more than that. I shook my head ruefully.
‘I was hoping I could have a word with Signor Graziani, but I seem to have come a bit too early.’
She gave me an apologetic shrug and pulled out a bunch of keys with which she unlocked the door. I followed her inside where she returned her attention to me. ‘Signor Graziani’s normally here by now. I wonder what’s keeping him. Can I help? My name’s Teresa; I’m his PA.’
Seeing her close up in the light of day, I realised she was probably a bit older than I had thought, maybe in her mid- or late thirties. She was an attractive woman with a glossy mane of black hair cascading down well below her shoulders. She was being polite, but there was a hard glint in her eyes. Somehow, I got the feeling she wouldn’t be easy to push around.
I had been debating what story to use but without a great deal of success, so in the end, I opted for the truth – or at least a version of it. ‘My name is Armstrong, I’m a private investigator from Florence and I’d like to speak to Signor Graziani on a personal matter.’
A wary look instantly appeared on her face. ‘What sort of personal matter?’
‘I’m sorry, but I’m not at liberty to mention that.’
‘It’s about Ignazio, his brother, isn’t it?’ The expression on her face changed to one of regret, but somehow, I had a feeling that she wasn’t really sorry about what had happened to her boss’s brother. I did my best to sound clueless.
‘Why should it be about him? After all, he’s dead, isn’t he?’
She gave a little hiss of frustration and leant back against the counter. ‘And I’m glad he’s dead.’ She looked up and caught my eye. ‘Really, I am. He was a horrible man.’
‘But he was your boss’s brother, wasn’t he? Surely he can’t have been that bad.’ I already knew the answer to this, but I was keen to see what kind of response I could provoke from her.
‘You know he’d just come out of prison, don’t you?’ She saw me nod and she continued. ‘Then I’m sure you know the awful things he did to those poor girls. Every time I saw him, I had a mental image of what I’d read in the papers back when I was a teenager. He was a monster and, I’ll tell you this, death was the best thing that could have happened to him before he did something like that again – and he would have done, I just know it. The way he looked at me was terrifying.’ She shook her head, presumably in an attempt to remove bitter memories of Ignazio Graziani, and took a deep breath. ‘Anyway, like I say, he’s gone and I’m glad, but that’s why you want to speak to Aldo, isn’t it?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t go into specifics, but it would be good to speak to him. Would it be possible to make an appointment to see him? I can come back any time.’
The wary look was back on her face again and when she spoke, she sounded doubtful. ‘I’m afraid I can’t make an appointment until I’ve spoken to him. He’s a very private person, you see.’
I did my best to produce a friendly smile. ‘So am I. Why don’t I come back again in an hour or so and see if he’s around?’
She still looked far from convinced but, reluctantly, she nodded. ‘You could try, but, like I say, he does tend to keep himself to himself.’
I thanked her and headed back down to the beach with Oscar, reflecting on the encounter with Teresa. It was clear that she had despised and disliked her boss’s brother intensely, and I found myself wondering whether this antipathy might have been sufficient for her to consider murder, although this seemed hardly credible considering that Ignazio had returned to the island only a month ago. There had, however, been that hard glint in her eye that made me think that she might indeed have been the type to take such drastic action. But why? Had Ignazio maybe tried it on with her? Anything was possible.
Oscar and I walked along the water’s edge and, as usual, I picked up bits of driftwood and threw them for him to swim out and retrieve. Remembering what Anna had told me about the Etruscans, I kept my eyes open for pieces of ancient pottery but found nothing of interest until we reached the very end of the beach, well beyond the last of the parasols and sunbeds. Here, the sand gave way to another rocky outcrop and the waves were splashing against the rocks. I was just about to turn around and head back to the hotel for some breakfast when my eye was drawn to something out in the white water. At first sight, it looked as though somebody had lost a surfboard but as the waves pushed it closer to the shore, I suddenly realised that this was no surfboard.
This was a body, floating face down in the water.
Pulling off my shoes and tucking my phone, keys and wallet inside them, I ran into the water and swam out through the waves accompanied by a joyful Oscar, who was obviously pleased to have company. The waves weren’t enormous but they were very confused and the swell risked smashing me into the rocks. By the time I reached the body, I felt as if I had been in a tumble dryer. I caught hold of a hand and started pulling. It was hard going, but I finally managed to get back close enough to the shore to be able to touch the seabed with my feet and walk the last few yards. I took hold of the other hand and dragged the body clear of the waves before subsiding on the sand for a breather. It had been hard work.
My moment of relaxation didn’t last long as Oscar came up to within a couple of feet of me and shook himself vigorously. The cold shower roused me and I got to my feet. I went over to kneel down alongside the body so as to take a closer look at it. It was a man with dark hair and there was a nasty bruise and a vicious wound to the back of his head. I gently rolled the head towards me and felt a shiver go through me as I was confronted by something quite unexpected. It was with a spooky feeling of déjà vu that I realised that the man I was looking at was Ignazio Graziani, rapist and jailbird.
No sooner had I made this discovery than I reminded myself that this was impossible. Only two mornings ago, I had seen Ignazio’s body lying on the rocks by the hotel beach, after which the pathologist had taken it to the morgue, so there were only two other logical explanations. Either I was going doolally, or this had to be Ignazio’s brother, Aldo. Although Anna might have views to the contrary, I decided on balance that the latter was more likely to be the case.
I sat back on my heels and took stock. This was the first time I’d seen Aldo Graziani’s face clearly, and the resemblance between the two brothers was uncanny. I knew that they hadn’t been twins but, even though there had been a couple of years between them, Aldo was a dead ringer for Ignazio. He was still wearing a polo shirt but, apart from his appearance, the other thing that struck me was the manner of his death, so similar to his brother’s. It was the same old conundrum – had it been an accident, suicide, or murder? The wound to the back of the head made suicide unlikely – it isn’t easy to hit yourself like that. An accident was a possibility if he had fallen and cracked his skull, but I had a strong suspicion that somebody had done that for him. My money was on this being a second murder. I reached for my shoes, pulled out my phone and called Virgilio. He answered almost immediately.
‘Ciao, Dan, what’s new?’
‘Ciao, Virgilio, there’s been another death and this time, it’s the brother.’
‘Aldo Graziani dead?’ He sounded surprised, but maybe not that surprised. ‘How did it happen?’
I told him where I was and how I’d had to swim out to recover the body. As I was speaking, it occurred to me that if I hadn’t spied the body and it had managed to get around the headland, there would probably have been nothing but open sea between it and Sicily or even North Africa. It might never have been found.
Virgilio listened in silence until I had finished and then he spoke.
‘Can you stay with the body? I’ll call the police now and I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes.’
In fact, Virgilio got to me in little more than ten minutes. He must have run all the way. Oscar trotted off to greet him when he spotted him coming along the beach, and I was touched to see that Virgilio had even thought to bring me a towel. As I did my best to dry myself off, he checked the body and came to the same conclusion that I had.
