‘Now, there’s an unhappy man if I ever saw one. What he needs is a holiday.’ He grinned at me and I nodded in agreement.
‘Either a holiday or an ambulance. I’m all in favour of physical exercise, but I have a feeling he might regret this.’
We carried on down to the beach and found that we were to be almost the only people on it. There was just one lone woman over at the far end by a rocky headland. She was sitting on a towel, lighting a cigarette. An unoccupied towel laid out beside her appeared to indicate that this had belonged to the running man. I wondered if they had had a major bust-up. In such an idyllic situation on such a beautiful summer’s day, I found myself wondering what might have caused his rapid departure. No sooner had I thought it than I gave myself a mental ticking-off. This was no business of mine, and for the next week, I was not a detective but a holidaymaker here for a bit of R & R with my partner, my close friends and, of course, my dog.
Anna had made it clear that I would do well to remember that I had promised to switch off any investigative instincts I might have from the moment I had arrived here on the island, and I intended to do my best to obey. Besides, as I told myself, maybe a few days away from being a private investigator might help me concentrate more on the conundrum facing my fictional inspector in San Gimignano in my whodunnit.
Oscar, clearly untroubled by any conjecture about the unhappy couple, shot me a brief glance and then made a beeline for the sea, splashing into the water where he was soon doggy-paddling about happily, snuffling and snorting to himself, with just his head and the tip of his tail visible.
I turned to Anna and pointed to him.
‘There’s definitely something about Labradors and water, isn’t there?’
She smiled in response. ‘He’s not silly, your dog, especially on a day like today. I’m going straight in to join him. You coming?’
Less than a minute later both of us were in the sea, basking in the refreshing – but by no means cold – water. I heard splashing alongside me as Oscar came paddling up to us and tried to climb onto my shoulders. This resulted in both of us disappearing underwater and I was spluttering by the time I came back up again.
‘Oscar, for crying out loud, would you leave me alone and go and play somewhere else?’
He didn’t look in the least bit repentant, and a thought occurred to me. I took a deep breath, duck-dived down to the steeply sloping seabed and picked up a nicely rounded stone a bit smaller than a tennis ball. Back in the open air, I attracted Oscar’s attention and threw it into the shallows for him to chase. He swam off happily and spent the next couple of minutes ferreting about, repeatedly dipping his nose underwater, until he emerged, triumphant, with the stone – or one that looked very much like it – in his mouth. While Anna and I floated idly about, enjoying the peace and quiet, Oscar repeatedly brought the stone for me to throw for him. I had a feeling he was going to sleep well tonight.
A little while later, a noise made me turn my head and I saw a boat appear around the headland. There were two people on board and the boat was heading for the beach. The driver killed the motor as the bow of the inflatable dinghy grounded, and the young woman at the front of the boat jumped over the side and started to pull it up the beach. Her companion joined her and together, they tugged the dinghy clear of the water, after which the man left her and hurried up the path towards the hotel. A plaintive yap revealed that there was a third passenger on board the dinghy. The woman reached in, lifted out a sausage dog and placed it on the sand beside the boat. As she did so, I saw Oscar start swimming over to investigate. Just in case he was to be too playful with this new canine friend a quarter of his size, I followed him in to the shore.
Oscar emerged from the water and shook himself vigorously before padding across to the new arrival and her dog. She was sorting out the things in the boat – among which I could see wetsuits and oxygen cylinders. They had evidently been diving. I had done a diving course some years back while on holiday in Tenerife and had enjoyed it immensely. To be honest, I would really have preferred to be doing that tomorrow rather than a windsurfing course, but it hadn’t been my decision. I felt sure that poking around underwater in what I knew to be the protected waters of a marine national park was likely to be fascinating. Still, I told myself, maybe the windsurfing would work out okay…
As I approached the dinghy, I could see that the dachshund was no longer in the full flush of youth and it turned towards Oscar with an expression on its face that I recognised. It was the look to which my mother used to subject me if I had the audacity to disturb her while she was listening to her belovedArcherson the radio. I kept a close eye on Oscar, but he behaved like a real gentleman, slowing down and approaching cautiously and respectfully, his tail wagging slowly. The two dogs touched noses and I was relieved to see the little dog’s tail also begin to wag. It would appear that peace had broken out.
‘What a beautiful Labrador. What’s his name?’ The woman produced a little smile. She was probably in her early to mid-thirties and she looked fit, with a no-nonsense, short hairstyle. The detective in me noted that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring but, of course, that meant nothing and, besides, hadn’t I just taken a vow to stop noticing that sort of thing? She made no attempt to address me in Italian, and her English was very fluent with maybe a hint of a German accent. I smiled back and replied in English.
‘This is Oscar. What’s your dog’s name?’
‘Her name is Edith and she’s an old lady now.’ She shot an affectionate glance down at the dog, who was unsuccessfully trying to stretch high enough to sniff Oscar’s butt. ‘She’s fourteen.’
I indicated the gear in the boat. ‘Can I give you a hand?’
She shook her head. ‘Thanks, but it’ll be fine. We leave the diving gear in the boat. It’s a private beach and very secure.’ I saw her eyes flick up to the clifftop, but her companion had already disappeared from sight. ‘If Martin wants anything, he’ll come and get it.’
I left her to what she was doing and headed back to where Anna and the others were busy setting up camp. Virgilio, always well prepared, reached into a cool box and handed me a bottle of cold beer. ‘Fancy a drink?’
‘Definitely, thanks.’ I screwed off the top and took a long, satisfying draught before turning my attention to Oscar, who was waiting patiently at my feet. I pulled out his bowl from my backpack along with a bottle of water, filled it and handed it down to him. Sipping my beer, I sat down beside Anna on a towel looking out to sea while Oscar slurped happily on the other side of me. As we were on the east coast of the island, I could just make out the shape of the mainland of Tuscany through the heat haze across the water. The late-afternoon sun was coming from behind us and Lina and Virgilio had wisely chosen a spot in the shade of the cliff so that we didn’t overheat.
‘Dan, are you and Anna really going to do a windsurfing course?’ Lina sounded sceptical – and I knew how she felt. ‘Have you done it before?’
I was just starting to shake my head when I got a considerable surprise. Anna, it appeared, wasn’t a novice like me after all, but this was the first I was hearing of it. ‘When I lived in England, my ex-husband was keen on windsurfing and I used to do a bit. I haven’t touched a board since the divorce years ago, so I’ve probably forgotten everything.’
I gave her an accusing look. ‘And there I was thinking that we would both be beginners together. I’m sure you’ll run rings round me.’
She reached over and patted my arm. ‘You’ll pick it up in no time, I’m sure.’
I decided not to dignify that with a response and just gave Lina a helpless look. ‘What can I do? When Anna says jump, I jump. She’s a terrible bully, you know.’ I softened my words with a smile and a wink towards Anna and turned the question back on Lina. ‘And what are you two going to do while I’m trying not to drown?’
Virgilio answered for both of them. ‘As little as possible: swimming, sunbathing, a few gentle walks and a whole lot of eating. The restaurant here has a very good reputation and we can investigate some of the other restaurants in the area as well.’
I gave a resigned sigh. ‘That’s my kind of holiday…’
Footsteps behind us made me turn my head and I saw two men come down the path to the beach carrying towels. They dumped these on a handy rock and headed straight for the water. As they passed us, I gave them a smile and a nod of the head but received nothing in return. Neither even acknowledged my presence. I was struck by the similarity between them, but I don’t mean that they looked alike. Very much the opposite, in fact. One had deep-olive-coloured skin and a shaved head. The other had even paler skin than mine, and his close-cropped hair was a bright carrot colour. But the similarity was in their build and their uncommunicative expressions. Both were tall and muscular, but not with cosmetically sculpted muscles as a result of long hours in the gym. These two were just big, strong men, maybe in their thirties, and as well as looking fit, they looked decidedly dodgy.
‘Dodgy’ was a term the officers around me at the Met had often used to describe people who looked suspicious. I might have been doing these two a terrible injustice, but my initial impression of them wasn’t favourable. What, I wondered, were a couple of hard nuts like this doing here in a luxury boutique hotel? As I’d tried many times to explain to Anna, being a detective isn’t something I can just switch on and off. In spite of my vow to take a break from sleuthing, I couldn’t help wondering whether these two dodgy-looking guys and the worried man running up the path from the beach might be connected in some way – and, if so, whether this might impact our happy holiday. Anna has often reminded me that crime – and even murder – seems to follow me around wherever I go. Surely not here in this idyllic place.
