‘Thank you, that would be very helpful.’
Stefano was looking at me closely. ‘When Teresa was down here yesterday, she told me she thought you were a detective. If you’re a private investigator, does this mean that somebody has employed you to look into these deaths?’
I launched into a cover story that wasn’t too far from the truth. ‘No, this was supposed to be my week off, but seeing as the police have instructed all the guests at the Augustus to stay put, I thought I’d do a bit of sniffing around of my own in the hope of speeding up the investigation.’
At that moment, I spotted Teresa by the entrance to the beach. She was chatting animatedly to a couple of holidaymakers, and from time to time, I heard peals of laughter from them. She was wearing short shorts and a bright primrose-yellow top and she looked as though she hadn’t got a care in the world. Certainly, if she and Aldo had been having an affair, she appeared to have got over his loss remarkably easily – suspiciously easily. I watched as the three of them disappeared back up the track to the campsite before resuming my questions to Stefano and Ingrid.
‘Could you tell me in confidence anything you know about Teresa that might be of interest to me? Where’s she from? Was she telling me the truth when she said she and Aldo didn’t have a romantic liaison? Anything that might help would be great.’
Ingrid was the first to reply. ‘I honestly can’t make her out. She’s very organised and she can be extremely smiley and helpful when she wants, but there’s something about her that unsettles me. Whether she had an affair with Aldo or not – and I tend to think that she did – I never sensed any kind of deep emotional attachment between the two of them. She started working here three years ago and she’s definitely made the place more efficient. I’m sure the campers like her but, like I say, deep down, she’s quite a tough character.’ She glanced across at Stefano. ‘You get on reasonably well with her, don’t you, Stefano?’
I saw him cast a wary look around before answering. ‘I suppose so but, like you say, Ingrid, she’s a difficult person to connect with. To be honest, the only thing Teresa and I have in common is ancient history. Since coming to the island, she’s become very interested in the Etruscans, so we sometimes sit down and talk about them. She doesn’t seem to have many friends – well, she doesn’t seem to haveanyfriends around here really. She keeps herself to herself and I think she has her own agenda, and she doesn’t share it with anyone.’
I sipped my coffee and mulled over in my head what I’d just heard. What might Teresa’s secret agenda be, and did her interest in the Etruscans point towards her possibly being involved with the illicit antiquities trade? I hoped the inspector had been able to dig up something interesting in her background. Might she have come here with a sinister purpose? The fact was, however, that she had arrived here three years ago, so why wait until now if she had been planning to murder her boss? Or had she been waiting until the brother was released from prison so that she could murder both of them? Frustratingly, yet again, the question was why.
* * *
I had the opportunity to mention Teresa to the inspector at nine o’clock that morning when I joined him and Sergeant Gallo in a downstairs room at the hotel for the interviews. I was pleased to see that Virgilio had decided to go off and spend some time with Lina. It’s tough enough being the wife of a police officer without work encroaching on holidays. It looked as though he had finally remembered that he was on holiday – although it occurred to me that I was a fine one to talk. In answer to my question about Aldo’s PA, Fontana checked the file on the desk in front of him and his reply was interesting, if inconclusive.
‘Here’s what we know about her so far: Teresa Franceschini, age thirty-seven, unmarried. Originally from Padua, where she went to school and attended university. Worked as a tourist guide for one of the big international tour companies until she took up the job here on the island three years ago. No criminal record, not even an outstanding parking ticket.’ He looked up. ‘Nothing suspicious there, but, like you two, I feel sure there’s more to her than meets the eye. We’ll see how this morning’s interviews go, but if we don’t get any joy out of the people here, I’m going to sit down and talk to Teresa Franceschini again later on. I might even take her to the station and let her sweat a bit.’
I turned to Sergeant Gallo. ‘Sergeant, did you get any joy from the husband of the woman who had the affair with Aldo?’
‘Veronica Piccolo – the husband had an address for her in Buenos Aires, so we contacted the Argentine police. They confirm that she’s still there, so no chance of her having sneaked back here to kill Aldo.’
I shrugged. ‘There goes another lead.’
* * *
The first interview didn’t take long. It was with Tatsuo Tanaka from Nagoya, Japan. He told us he was thirty-five years old and a graphic designer. Apart from his telling us that he enjoyed travelling and had visited over a dozen countries – as confirmed by the stamps in his passport – there appeared to be nothing even vaguely suspicious about him, so Fontana soon thanked him and sent him away.
The four Brits were next, and Piero Fontana interviewed the first couple together. These were a Mr and Mrs Downing, both in their late sixties, who gave an address in Chelsea. I recognised the name of the street as one of the poshest in an already very posh – and astronomically expensive – part of London. I mentioned this in Italian to the inspector and he asked me to ask them what they did for a living. Mr Downing – ‘call me Cyril’ – told us he was the owner of an art gallery not far from Harrods department store. As far as these two were concerned, it was evident that money wasn’t a problem, and we could find no connection between them and the Graziani brothers. As a result, that interview didn’t last long either.
The other couple were Professor Walter and Dr Marguerite Scott, and they also lived in London – in their case in Harrow, which is a little further out of town, but highly desirable. From the point of view of the investigation, I was fascinated when he told us what he did for a living.
‘I’m head of the department of pre-Roman studies at the University of London. My speciality is Etruscology – that’s the study of the Etruscans. I’m sure you know that they formerly populated Etruria, the area that now comprises parts of central Italy, in particular Tuscany and Lazio, including here on the island of Elba.’
As I translated for the inspector’s benefit, I caught his eye and saw him raise his eyebrows. Was this just coincidence or might the professor’s purpose here be more than just a holiday? Piero Fontana clearly thought this significant as his next question implied.
‘That’s very interesting, Professor. I wonder if you could tell me how much you know about the trade in illegal antiquities here in Italy.’
If Professor Scott was surprised by the question, he didn’t show it. ‘A very grubby business, as I know to my cost. Three years ago, I was involved in a major archaeological dig a little way south of here on the mainland near Vulci. Like all archaeology, it was painstaking work, uncovering two-thousand-year-old relics millimetre by millimetre, using paintbrushes and hand trowels. Then, in the course of one night, tomb robbers swooped in, and next morning, we were faced with trenches over a metre deep, exhibiting the imprints of where large relics had been uncovered and spirited away. To this day, I have no idea exactly what was there, but you can be sure that the robbers made a lot of money out of selling whatever it was they found.’
‘Are you aware of anything similar happening here? I believe Elba was an important island for the Etruscans.’
‘Indeed it was, principally for its deposits of iron ore, but I’m not aware of any significant finds or reported losses from this area. Why? Have you uncovered something?’
Fontana ignored the question. ‘So you’re saying that you don’t think it likely that this particular part of the island might have produced valuable Etruscan remains?’
‘As far as I’m aware, there would have been mining communities on the island, but I don’t think there would have been anything of any great artistic value to a collector.’
After he and his wife had been thanked and dismissed, Piero Fontana shook his head slowly. ‘Everything keeps coming back to the Etruscans. Could it really be that either or both of the murders have a connection with people who lived here over two thousand years ago?’
I had been thinking along the very same lines. ‘Did you have a chance to speak to the twoCarabinieriofficers last night? Did they have anything to add to what they already told you?’
‘A bit, yes. Although the trafficker in illegal antiquities that the TPC have under arrest in Bologna still claims never to have known the name of his contact in Tuscany, he apparently let slip at some point that the object had been found on the island of Elba, on land near a campsite not far from Porto Azzurro. The Graziani establishment isn’t the only one in this area but it’s one of the biggest, and these two officers confirmed that they had been keeping Aldo under observation. Now that he’s been killed, the trail here has gone cold, so that’s why they’re moving on.’
I digested what he’d told me and felt ever more convinced that Aldo’s recently found wealth stemmed from his discovery of Etruscan remains – possibly with the assistance of his PA with an interest in ancient history. I was about to voice a hypothesis that I’d been turning over in my head for a while, when he said it for me.
