CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
JOANNA
June 1973
I tried not to let alarm show on my face. “But I made a statement,” I said. Actually, with my Italian being quite basic still, I said, “I told the man what I had seen.”
The inspector spread his hands. “A mere formality,” he said. “You will come with me to the police station.”
“I am watching this stall for Signora Rossini,” I said. “I cannot leave until she returns.”
“This man can watch for you,” he said, waving dismissively at Renzo.
“This man is an important customer. He was buying vegetables for the festival tomorrow,” I said, feeling my face turning bright red with embarrassment. “I could not ask him to spend more time.” I was stumbling over the Italian words now, flustered. “I do not know how to answer your questions,” I added. “I speak only a little Italian. I am a visitor from England.”
“But you were speaking with this man. I saw you.” The inspector wagged an accusing finger. He certainly used his hands a lot in his speech.
“That was because we were speaking in English,” I said. “This man worked in London.”
“Then he shall come with you to be your translator,” the inspector said.
“I have business that needs to be taken care of,” Renzo said coldly. “I don’t have time.”
“I am not requesting,” the inspector said. “This is a command from the police. It should not take long.” He looked up. “Ah, here comes the lady now, returning to her vegetables. Good. Come with me.”
Paola was rushing toward us, her face ready to do battle. “What is this? What is going on?” she demanded.
“The inspector from Lucca,” I said, nodding at him. “He wishes to ask me questions.”
“We have told the Carabinieri all that we know,” Paola said. “This young lady is a stranger here. She cannot help you and I do not wish her to be upset.”
“She will not be upset if she answers my questions and tells me the truth. Come, follow me now. It is Saturday, and I wish to get this matter sorted out as quickly as you do.”
With that he put a hand on my elbow and literally steered me across the piazza to the municipal building. I glanced back at Renzo. He was speaking with Paola, presumably reserving the items that he wanted. He was still giving her instructions as he followed us toward the dark doorway. The young Carabinieri agent was turned out of his desk with a mere wave of the hand. The inspector took his place.
“You will stay and take notes,” the inspector said to the agent who was about to sneak from the room. “Bring a chair for the young lady and you may sit at the desk beside me.”
The young man returned with a chair and then took his place beside the inspector, looking extremely uncomfortable. There was no chair for Renzo. He stood behind me. I was not only embarrassed now, I was scared. I had seen the contempt for me in Renzo’s face. What if he mistranslated my answers to make me seem guilty of Gianni’s murder? My heart was thudding in my chest.
“Now,” the inspector said. “Your name, your address, and your reason for your visit.”
I looked up at Renzo, wanting to give the impression that I didn’t even understand these simple commands. I slowly gave my name and address. “I came here because my father was a British pilot. His plane was shot down near here in the war and I wanted to see the spot for myself.”
Renzo translated this. The inspector nodded.
“You arrived in this town when?”
“Only two days ago.” It felt much longer.
“And you were the one who found the body of Gianni Martinelli?”
“Signora Rossini and I found the body together,” I said. “I sleep in the little house at the bottom of her garden. The water comes from the well behind my room. I wanted to take a shower but there was no water. I went to find the signora and told her. Together we lifted the heavy lid from the well and saw the body. We both screamed and were very upset.”
The inspector listened to the translation, then watched the young policeman writing down notes. He looked up at me. “What did you do then?”
“We sent the signora’s daughter to fetch the Carabinieri. They came and removed the body from the well. It wasn’t easy. Someone had stuffed him in head first so that his head was in the water. It was horrible.”
“Did you recognise the man when they brought him out?”
“I did,” I said. “I had seen him the night before.”
“Ah. So you knew him?”
“I didn’t know him. He was one of the men who were sitting around the table in the piazza. I asked them if they remembered my father, but none of them did.”
“That is all?”
“Yes,” I said. “That was the only time I ever saw this man.”
There was an unpleasant smirk on the inspector’s face now. “This is not what I hear,” he said. “I heard that Gianni was most interested in you. He flirted with you. He offered to show you his farm.”
Renzo’s face was now also showing embarrassment as he translated.
“He was only being friendly,” I said. “I told the men that I would like to see the neighbourhood and this man, Gianni, offered to show me how he made cheese.”
“How he made cheese? Is that what they call it now?” The inspector looked at the young agent and chuckled.
My uneasiness was displaying itself as anger now. “Inspector, I was sitting at a table with other men. They laughed and said that I should watch out for Gianni, so I was aware that he was perhaps not to be trusted. So when he offered to walk me home, I refused. And luckily another man called Alberto said he would escort me as he had to go past Paola’s farm on his way home.”
“So that was the last time you saw Gianni?”
“The only time.”
There was a long pause while the inspector stared at me. “So tell me, Signorina Langley. Is it normal in your country for a girl to approach a table full of men alone, to accept a glass of wine from them? This is accepted behaviour?”
“First, I am not a girl. I am a woman of twenty-five and I am about to take the exam to become a lawyer,” I said. I thought I detected a flicker of reaction at the word “lawyer.” “And second,” I went on, “I wanted to find out about my father and I felt quite safe approaching people in the town piazza. I accepted a glass of wine because it would have been rude to refuse.”
“And then?”
“Then I walked home. I already told you a man called Alberto offered to escort me since he had to pass the farmhouse where I am staying. I accepted his offer as it was getting dark. He escorted me to the front door. I thanked him and went in to have dinner with Signora Rossini and her daughter. Then I went to bed. That’s all I can tell you.”
“You heard nothing after that? A man was killed and pushed into a well and you heard nothing? I find this strange. Unbelievable almost.”
“I drank wine,” I said. “I am not used to it, and it must have made me sleep extra soundly.”
He made a sound half between a cough and a laugh. “You know what I think?” the inspector said. “I think that Gianni was attracted to you. A young lady from a distant city, maybe with different standards from our local girls. He has heard about London girls and their loose ways. He wanted to make a conquest. He came to your room to see you later that night. Maybe he tried to force himself on you. You resisted. You hit him with a rock and knocked him out, then, frightened by what you had done, you hid his body in the well.”
“That is absurd,” I said, looking up at Renzo to translate for me. “For one thing I would not have been strong enough to hit a man like Gianni over the head if he was already attacking me.”
“Very well, let us say that you pushed him away. A commendable action for an upright young woman. He tripped, fell backward, and struck his head against a rock. Not murder at all, but self-defence. Understandable. Any jury would see that you were defending your honour.” He paused again.
“But not true,” I said. “And how could I have put his body into the well? I told you I was not strong enough to lift the lid alone.”
“So you got the signora to help you.” He wagged his finger at me again. “Together you pushed this poor man into the well, where he drowned.”
I took a deep breath, fighting to remain calm and in control as Renzo translated. “If I had done as you say and stuffed his body into the well, would I have alerted the signora in the morning that I had no water for my shower? Would we have removed the cover, found the body, and then called the Carabinieri? No, I would have kept quiet about the body. I would have left the town, caught the first train back to England, and by the time anybody discovered the body I would have been gone.”
The inspector listened to this as it was translated into Italian. I realised I was waving my arms as I spoke, in true Italian fashion. I noticed a strange expression crossing Renzo’s face. Then he said, “I can waste no more time on this, Inspector. I have business to attend to. You will please excuse me. It is quite obvious that this young woman did not kill Gianni.”
“Then why,” the inspector said, “were her fingerprints on a big stone found beside the well? Answer me that one.”
“I can answer,” I said, not waiting for Renzo to translate. “That stone was on top of the lid. I lifted it down first when I attempted to open the lid.”
“Ah, so you do speak Italian,” the inspector said.
“Not well enough to say what I want to,” I answered. “And I don’t understand when people speak rapidly.”
“We will leave this matter until next week,” the inspector said. “I am not convinced that she is innocent. I will need to question this Signora Rossini as well. She may have been a partner in crime. But I will get a confession out of her if she is guilty. We need to do more tests, question more witnesses. The whole place will be searched for clues and fingerprints. But I will be kind to you, Signorina. I will not take you to the jail in Lucca. I will permit you to stay here in this town until we get to the bottom of this crime. You are not permitted to leave, do you understand?”
I nodded.
“Very well. You may go for now.” He waved us out of the room.
As I came out of the darkness into the bright daylight, my wrist was grabbed. I gasped, struggled, and looked up at my attacker. It was Renzo. He was glaring at me, a look of fury on his face.
“Where did you get that ring?” he demanded. “Have you robbed my house?”
I looked down at my hand. “It is my signet ring,” I said. “My family crest. My father gave it to me for my twenty-first birthday.”
“But no, you are wrong,” Renzo said. “It is my family crest. My family. Your father must have stolen it while he was here.”
“Absolute rubbish!” I shouted the words, fear and anger now combining. “See the crest on it. It is the griffin. The same crest is carved over the front entrance of Langley Hall. It has been in our family since 1600.”
I saw uncertainty on his face now. “But I have an identical ring at home,” he said. “It is a man’s ring and was found among my mother’s possessions. Cosimo told me that it came from my real father’s family. From the Bartolis. He said I should be proud that we were once nobility.”
“Then Cosimo was wrong,” I said, realising as I said it that Cosimo hadn’t known the truth. He had not known about my father. But I was feeling excited now. This was absolute proof that my father had been here—that he had known Sofia. I looked up at Renzo’s face, now frowning with confusion. “I think my father must have given this to your mother as a token of his love. Now we know he was here in this place and he did know your mother. Are you sure you do not remember him? An Englishman with light brown hair and blue eyes, slender in build like me?”
He shook his head. “I never saw him,” he said. “What makes you think that he knew my mother? What brought you here?”
“Well, the ring is proof, isn’t it? And I have a letter that he wrote to her,” I said. “A love letter. He told her that as soon as the war was over, he was coming back for her. He was going to marry her.” I paused, feeling the intense emotion in what I was saying. “But the letter was returned unopened. The stamp on it said, ‘Not known at this address.’ He kept it locked away in a little box all these years.”
“She had gone with the German,” he said. “She chose not to wait for your father.”
I nodded, feeling close to tears. We stood there in the bright sunlight, staring at each other.
“Then your father and I were both abandoned,” he said.