As they dived into the water and swam strongly out to sea, Virgilio and I exchanged glances and he commented first, his brain no doubt working along the same lines as my own.
‘Do you think there’s something in the air here? First, that guy comes charging up the path with a face like thunder, and now these two characters show up. I’ve seen happier-looking corpses.’
I nodded in agreement. ‘Mind you, I wouldn’t want to pick a fight with either of them, but you’re right, they don’t seem to have embraced the holiday spirit.’ I caught his eye and grinned. ‘Maybe the food here at the hotel isn’t as good as you think.’
He adopted a horrified expression. ‘Don’t say that. Please don’t let it be that.’
3
SATURDAY EVENING
Dinner that evening cleared the chef of any involvement in stirring up discord. It was excellent. We sat outside on a panoramic terrace with palm trees at either end and a glorious rambling rose on the wall behind us filling the air with its heady scent. From here, we could see the twinkling lights of the coast reaching for miles into the distance. The recent sunset was obscured from view by the rugged hillside behind us and the sky above was a deep claret colour, the tables on the terrace submerged in the shadows by now. The waiter had set a candle on our table to provide light and, as there wasn’t a breath of wind, the flame barely moved – apart from when one of us laughed. And we did a lot of laughing. Certainly, it would appear that our table at least hadn’t been afflicted by the moodiness affecting some of the other guests.
As this was our first night, Anna and I had insisted on treating Virgilio and Lina to themenu gastronomicoto thank them for making all the arrangements. As we were on an island, I had been expecting a seafood feast, but along with the fish were some Tuscan staples like pasta and grilled meats. While we were surveying the different dishes on the ‘gastronomic’ menu, I gradually came to terms with the fact that we were not expected to make a choice between them – we were going to be servedallof them, drinks included. The waiter brought us glasses of sparkling wine and a bowl of water for Oscar, who, although he had just had his dinner, was positioned between Anna and me, sitting to attention, his head to one side. He appeared to be listening with appreciation as Virgilio read out the list of delights awaiting us and I knew full well that, given the chance, he would have ordered a double helping of everything.
As I sipped my spumante – I’m not really a fan of sparkling wine but it came as part of themenu gastronomicopackage – I looked around at my fellow diners and spotted a few familiar figures. I counted fifteen tables, but only half a dozen were occupied. Rita at Reception had told us that this was their last quiet week before this summer season took off next weekend when school holidays started. From then on, the hotel was fully booked until mid-September.
A few tables from us, I could make out the woman with the dachshund with her companion, and beyond them, the man who had come stomping up the path. He was sitting at a table for two with his female companion, nursing a glass of red wine, while she enjoyed a pre-dinner cigarette. They weren’t doing a lot of talking, but at least this meant that his exertions in the hot sun hadn’t affected his health. There was no sign of the two hard nuts – as I had notionally labelled them – but at least some of the other diners sounded more cheerful.
In particular, there was a group of four people who were clearly enjoying themselves immensely. Waves of laughter came wafting across from time to time and, along with the merriment, there was the unmistakable sound of British voices. Even in the candlelight, it was clear to see that two of the guests at that table hadn’t been using enough suncream, and there was one man in particular whose bald forehead was positively glowing. I hoped for his sake that he wasn’t going to have any unpleasant repercussions as a result.
Alongside this group was a table set for three, but with only two people – a man and a woman – presumably sitting and waiting for their companion to put in an appearance. Apart from them, there was just a younger couple towards the far end, no doubt enjoying the romantic setting of the hotel and the warm summer’s evening, and beyond them, a table with just one lone diner. It was hard to tell in the candlelight, but I thought he looked East Asian in appearance.
Our antipasti arrived on a trolley laden with individual dishes, and we soon worked out that the waiter was intent on piling a bit of everything onto our plates. Although I enjoy my food – obviously not as much as Oscar, of course – I knew I had to pace myself, so, although I did my best to take a little of everything, I did try to limit the size of the servings. Even so, by the time the waiter moved off again, all four of us were staring at plates groaning with food. The waiter had respectfully murmured the names of the various dishes as he had served them, but I hadn’t been able to understand everything he said. As a result, I picked up my fork and embarked on a voyage of discovery.
Silence settled around the table as we all began to sample the delights on offer, the quiet only broken from time to time by mournful murmurs from Oscar, whose nose had no doubt already picked up exactly what was on our plates and even identified the ingredients of the accompanying sauces. I handed him down a couple of breadsticks and he settled on the floor with a sigh. I felt sorry for him being excluded from this feast, but I knew him well enough by now to recognise that I had to harden my heart. Oscar, like most Labradors, would happily eat until he explodes.
Among the amazingly tasty selection of antipasti was the chef’s take on bruschetta. In Florence, this tends to be slices of bread topped with chopped tomatoes or chicken liver pâté, but here on the island, the toppings were a wonderful smoked fish mousse, slices of grilled aubergine, and chopped squid in a cheesy sauce. Along with these were stuffed mussels in their shells, grilled anchovies, slices of cured ham and orange-fleshed melon, tiny little octopus in a spicy sauce and a whole lot more.
We drank white wine from mainland Tuscany. The waiter apologised for the lack of truly local wine, telling us that wine production here on the island had shrunk tenfold over the past fifty years as tourism had overtaken fishing, mining and agriculture as the main industry. Although the wine he served us was not from the island, he was able to point across the sea towards the lights of the Tuscan vineyards responsible for producing it, barely twenty kilometres away in the gathering dusk. Whatever its origin, it was a lovely, crisp, dry wine that went perfectly with the antipasti.
By the time we had finished our starters, I was seriously beginning to question whether I would be able to finish everything on the menu. In true Italian tradition, the antipasti were followed by the pasta course orprimi piatti– first dishes – as they call them. Once again. the trolley arrived, this time with a selection of different pasta dishes ranging fromfusilli ai frutti di mare– the pasta almost submerged beneath a rich, creamy sauce containing shellfish and crustaceans – to a local speciality of black risotto. This unusual-looking dish was made using squid ink to turn the white rice black and was dotted with pieces of fish and shellfish, giving it a questionable look, but a wonderful taste of the sea.
After theprimi piatti, we moved onto thesecondi piattiand this time, the waiter brought a massive T-boneBistecca alla Fiorentinawhich he sliced vertically and divided between us, along with a selection of grilled vegetables. This was accompanied by a fine, rich, red Chianti Classico, whose label told me it had in fact been produced less than twenty kilometres from my house.
It was as we were tasting this that things suddenly got weird.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the people on the table of three stand up and start walking in our direction. He was a big man and, from his unstable gait, it looked as though he’d been drinking heavily. Sensing something in the air, Oscar roused himself from dreams of Florentine steaks, squirrels and swims in the sea, and stood up, his nose pointing inquisitively at the newcomer as he approached our table. The man lurched to a halt behind Virgilio’s shoulder and, before any of us could do or say anything, he suddenly reached forward and tipped Virgilio’s glass of red wine into his lap. Virgilio looked up in surprise, pushed back his chair and was about to leap to his feet when the man’s right hand caught him by the shoulder and pushed him back down.
‘You need to be more careful, Sergeant. That was terribly clumsy. You’d better look out or something bad could happen to you… something really bad.’ He spoke Italian with a strong Tuscan accent and the menace in his voice was at odds with his summery blue and white shirt and shorts. He was probably about ten years younger than me, with tattoos on both forearms, and it was clear from his muscular build that he kept himself fit. Virgilio is a strong man, but I could see that the pressure of the man on his shoulder was preventing him from making a move.
So I did it for him.
I jumped to my feet and reached across to catch the big man by the arm, doing my best to make him release his grip on Virgilio. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ I must confess to using an Italian expression that was a whole lot ruder than that.
The man turned towards me and fixed me with a malevolent stare. ‘Take your hand off me or I’ll snap you in two.’ His tone was as aggressive as his alcohol-filled breath, but I’d been up against tougher men than him in my time.
In response, I let my hand slide down his arm to his right hand so that I could grip his fingers and squeeze while pressing my thumb hard down between his thumb and forefinger. This was a useful little trick that I’d learned from a gnarled old London copper called Sergeant Donnelly thirty years ago, and I could see that it hurt the man a lot, but he stubbornly refused to relinquish his hold on Virgilio. He snarled and I could see him pull his other arm back as a precursor to trying to punch me, but I kept the pressure on his hand and used my other hand to grasp the neck of the wine bottle on the table in front of us. To an accompaniment of ferocious growling from my normally pacific dog, I looked the man straight in the eye.
‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’ I tried to make my tone as threatening as possible. ‘I don’t know who you are, I don’t know what you’ve been drinking, smoking or injecting, but you’re going to go away now and leave us alone, otherwise things will not turn out well for you. I can do a lot of damage with this bottle. Do I make myself clear?’
There was a brief standoff for a couple of seconds before the man released his grip on Virgilio’s shoulder, spat out a stream of invective and turned away. I released his hand and watched as he made his unsteady way back across the terrace once more. As he did so, I had the satisfaction of seeing him massaging his left hand with his right.
I turned back and saw that Virgilio was now on his feet, an expression of deep loathing on his face. I felt a double movement at my side as Oscar pressed his nose against my right leg and Anna reached over to catch hold of my left hand and gently disentangle my fingers from the neck of the wine bottle. Lina was also on her feet, both hands on her husband’s arm, a look of deep concern on her face. I was conscious of my heart pounding in my chest as the realisation that I had come close to a potentially very nasty fight registered with me. Along with a feeling of satisfaction that my intervention had successfully defused the situation, there was relief that things hadn’t turned any uglier. As Anna never ceased reminding me, the older I got, the more vulnerable I was becoming. I glanced down and was mildly surprised to see the skin of my knuckles stretched white. The atmosphere was electric and the silence was finally broken by Virgilio himself.
‘Thanks, Dan. I’m sorry about that.’ I saw him give Lina a reassuring look. ‘It’s all right, it’s all over now.’
I gave them both a little smile and sat back down again, feeling the tension start to melt away while the adrenalin still coursed through my body. ‘You’re welcome. Feel like telling us what that was all about?’
