Property of Blood (9 page)

‘I hadn’t thought he was that old,’ was his next remark, ‘though I don’t know why really.’

It’s the wanted poster. That photo is from when he was arrested in the eighties. Went grey in prison. Hasn’t sat for the photographer since, if you see what I mean.’

‘No, of course not…’ Another source of unease welled up but before it could reach the surface, Bini had slammed on the brakes as a woman stepped into the road and flagged them down.

They were almost back up on the hill where Bini’s village began and there were a number of yellow-stuccoed farmhouses along the side of the road, each with its bit of land, a few chickens, a vegetable plot, a tiny red icon light, a dog running out on a long chain from a wine barrel to bark at the passing jeep.

The woman was small and she stood on tiptoe to talk to them through the window of the jeep. As Bini opened it, a waft of sweet wood smoke and a good smell of minestrone scented with rosemary drifted in. The woman was wearing a big apron and a thick woolly shawl over that but, despite the freezing cold and the fading light, she had come out in open-toed house shoes to give corn to her chickens and lock them up.

‘I heard you were looking for a dog.’

‘That’s right. Probably dead but we want to know if it’s found, just the same.’

‘I was at the market this morning when you were asking around here. I only heard on my way back. Anyway I saw it, over a week ago. It was alive then but it’ll be dead by now, I should think. It was all over blood and dragging itself along like it had some broken bones.’

‘What did it look like? You must be frozen—shall we go in to your kitchen?’

‘I’ve my hens to see to.’ The thick red hand clutching the jeep was turning bluish with cold, and the skin of the fingers was cracked and stained. ‘It was a little scrap of a dog, pale coloured. Not the sort of dog you see round here, not a hunter’s dog—those are the ones you usually find wandering about lost, especially the young ones. My husband tried to catch it and shoot it, put it out of its misery, but it wriggled away from him and made for the road towards the village. A car hit it and flung it in the air but it got up and scrambled off, yelping. If you look around I reckon you’ll find its body not too far from here. We thought it had been run over once already to be in that state but now they say it’s to do with this Salis business. What’s he done now?’

They thanked her and went on their way up to the village.

As the Marshal got back into his own car, Bini was looking worried.

‘I suppose every Sardinian household in the area’s going to be ransacked now. It’s a bad business and usually it’s badly done. Thing is, I have to live with these people when your case is over and done with. There are some good Sardinians round here, trying to lead a respectable life … They’re not all criminals, you know.’

‘What about the endless feuds that always end up with somebody getting knifed if not shot? You must be dealing with that sort of thing constantly.’

‘That’s as may be but it’s a far cry from kidnapping.’

‘True, but they’ll all know, Bini. Every one of them will know.’

‘I’m not saying they won’t. All I’m saying is there are ways and ways of going about things. A case as big as this one, that’s going to mean the police, not just us—and they don’t have to live here when it’s over. They won’t get anything for their trouble, either, if they behave badly.’

‘No. No, they won’t. There’s nothing I can do about it, Bini—unless … This Prosecutor, now, is not the usual type. He’d be the man to talk to.’

“You’re joking? A Public Prosecutor wouldn’t listen to a nobody like me.’

‘This one would. This one even listens to me.’

The following day, the Prosecutor listened to a great many people, including the Marshal and Captain Maestrangelo. He then decided to call a press conference. Naturally, word had already got about, and journalists had been hanging around outside Borgo Ognissanti Headquarters and the Public Prosecutor’s office. The local paper,
La Nazione,
had already carried an article by Nesti, one of its most seasoned crime reporters, of the sort that consists almost entirely of questions—Why is the Contessa Brunamonti missing just before the big fashion shows?—and statements of fact without comment—Missing car: The staff of the
Contessa
fashion house refuse to comment—and so on.

So Fusarri decided. ‘We need them on our side. Have you advised the family, Marshal?’

‘I had a talk with the daughter by telephone yesterday evening with the excuse, as you might say, of telling her the news about the dog.’

‘Excellent! I knew we could rely on you. That’s just the sort of thing she can toss the journalists to keep them happy without getting on to any touchy areas. If she lets them take the odd photo we’re home.’

‘I suggested that. They’re both very attractive.’

‘Splendid. You’re going there today?’

‘Every day, as long as they’ll let me.’

‘Make the suggestion about the dog story if she seems in difficulty. I’m leaving them to you until we know of a ransom demand or, if it should happen first, this American shows up with a detective.’

‘I’m afraid that is what’s going to happen first. Tonight.’

So the Marshal made a point of being there in the afternoon. With the two of them he discussed the formulation of the three questions which would demonstrate that their mother was alive.

‘Once there’s contact you’ll be agitated and anxious for action. You had better be ready too early than too late.’ He suggested that photograph albums of their childhood might jog their memories as regards odd little details that no one outside the family would know. They came up with a request for a description of the daughter’s first party frock, designed and hand-sewn by her mother, the title of the first English book which Leonardo had read alone and the period design planned for their New York show on which Leonardo was still working, the drawings having been seen by no one but her.

‘You’re sure about that? What about Signor Hines—is it Hines?’

‘Yes, but he doesn’t know. I wanted to finish the drawings first. But surely he—’

‘No one but your mother must be capable of answering. No exceptions.’

‘That’s all right.’

Before the Marshal had time to pass on the Prosecutor’s advice about the dog story, the journalists were at the door.

The ever-weeping Silvia went to answer, and Leonardo stood up and turned to his sister. ‘Will you? Marshal, if you’d come into the studio for a moment…’

The Marshal followed him. The studio was untidy. The walls were covered in plans and inked sketches, none of which appeared to have anything to do with dresses, as far as he could see. Not that he knew anything about these things …

Leonardo reassured him. He didn’t design clothes, he designed the shows, the themes, the lighting, the music. He chose the venues, which could be anywhere these days, from a private Roman villa to a warehouse on the London docks. He also did similar design work for other events requiring spectacular presentation.

What he wanted to discuss with the Marshal was their financial situation. He had likewise thought that he should be ready too soon rather than too late. From being the devastated, wordless sufferer who had been carted off in an ambulance the other day, he had become concentrated, intelligent, determined. He had obtained information about the law governing the freezing of the family assets and understood both its uses and its elasticity. He was well aware that no member of the family could be prosecuted for breaking this law, and that clause seven, paragraph four of the new law permitted the payment of ransom for investigative purposes. Rightly assuming that this could involve marking the notes or intervening during the consignment, he declared himself agreeable to the former and opposed to the latter as being too risky for his mother.

He had prepared figures. He had had a visit from their banker. He explained that he and his sister had inherited two-thirds of the Brunamonti estate on their father’s death. They each had a certain amount of money in long-term investments which, given the emergency, he could get access to quickly. A number of apartments which the contessa had renovated and rented to tourists in long-ago hard times could be sold to the bank and would produce a substantial sum which he hoped might meet the ransom demand. If the worst came to the worst, they would have to raise money on the Palazzo Brunamonti itself. He and his sister were in a position to do this, since they owned two-thirds and had power of attorney whilst their mother held one-third and the usufruct.

The Marshal, who had never had anything more than his pay and whose father had left him a sick mother, nevertheless knew enough not to ask what that substantial sum might be or in which country their money was invested. It was his information that the Contessa had bought out her husband and gained complete control of the estate well before her husband’s death but he made no comment on that either. Nor did he write anything down. Information like this was as elastic as the law governing its use.

‘This is certainly an emergency situation’ was all he said as they stood up to return to the white drawing room.

He had every reason to be satisfied with the timing of his visit. As they went back through the drawing room, the journalists, photographers, and Caterina were on their feet. She was very elegantly dressed in something longish and must, the Marshal thought, have given her face a bit of touching up because she looked much less pale. Under the circumstances, a compliment would be out of place so he contented himself with a kindly look and a murmured word of thanks for her cooperation under cover of the general move to the door.

‘You’re doing very well. You’re very patient.’ It hardly seemed necessary to make the point about the dog since she was evidently on top of the situation.

‘They still want to take some shots down in the workshop. I’ll follow them. I have to put something else on first.’

‘Of course. It’s very cold out. You’ll need something warmer.’

There were too many of them to fit in the lift so the Marshal walked down the stairs together with one of the journalists, Nesti, whom he had known for years.

‘How’s it going?’ Nesti asked.

‘We don’t know much yet…’

‘No.’ Nesti lit a cigarette, his fat face sullen. ‘We don’t even know whether this is supposed to be a kidnapping or a career opportunity.’

They had reached the bottom of the stairs and Nesti went back to his colleagues without another word. The Marshal didn’t understand him. They had known each other too long for Nesti to imagine his having any ambitions beyond his present rank. And this Prosecutor Fusarri, odd as he was, was known to have private means and to find his job a source of interest more than anything. The Captain, it was true, was ambitious. He had spoken at considerable length at the midday press conference about already having made considerable headway in the case and—this in very discreet terms—being determined that the carabinieri had the means at their disposal to deal with it. But, ambitious or not, the Marshal had a great respect for his seriousness and integrity. Nesti was pretty sound, as journalists go, but this time he was way off beam. If the Marshal had gone home vaguely uneasy yesterday evening, tonight he was thoroughly distressed.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ was his wife’s first remark, without even looking up from the cooker where she was tossing bread crumbs in olive oil.

‘Nothing.’

Teresa sighed. He always turned up in the kitchen when he would be most in her way, and in all the years they had been married she had never given up trying to throw him out. The kitchen wasn’t especially big and he took up a lot of room. However, the years had taught her that if he got out of uniform and showered before presenting himself, he was looking for a hug and a chance to sniff and taste whatever was for supper. The black, silent form she saw looming out of the corner of her eye meant trouble.

‘Is it this Brunamonti case?’

‘No. Yes. I don’t know.’

She slid the fried bread crumbs into a bowl and went to the cupboard for olives and pasta.

‘Do get out of my way, Salva.’

He shifted a few centimetres and stuck again.

‘Why don’t you go and watch the news?’

No answer.

‘We’re having
spaghetti alia mollica…
’

‘Where are the boys?’

‘In their room doing their homework, supposedly. You might as well call them. The water’s boiling. Salva, please! You fetch up here like a beached whale just when I’m trying to get supper on the table. You could open a flask of wine at least… Have I put glasses out? I have … Out of my way. I don’t know what gets into you. It’s like talking to a wall when you’re like this. Remind me to get spaghetti when we go to the supermarket. It’s three for the price of two this week. Are you opening that flask or not?’

He stood drinking in the comforting sound of her voice and felt better.

‘Now where are you going?’

‘I thought I’d watch the news. What’s for supper?’

By bedtime, as he checked that the shutters were secure against the wind, he was more himself. Spaghetti and red wine are great restorers of the soul. Even so, as he lay enjoying that most tranquil five minutes of all, stretched peacefully between the covers, as Teresa pottered back and forth, folding things and putting a litde cream on her face and reporting on the children, some nameless unease was still twitching inside him. It wasn’t anything big but something niggling. It wasn’t clearly defined but formless and prickly.

‘You know, Toto is really quite a lot cleverer than Giovanni, it’s his attitude that’s the trouble.’

He just couldn’t put his finger on it…

‘Pride has a lot to do with it as well, if you ask me. Giovanni knows he’s slow and doesn’t mind plodding along and asking for help when he needs it, whereas Toto likes to think he can get by without studying at all and it won’t do. He’s going to have to make an effort between now and June.’

‘It’s only February…’

‘For goodness’ sake, don’t say that to him! A bit less arrogance and a bit more hard work is what’s wanted. He’s got to get it into his head that he has to study the same as everybody else.’