Page 11 of Murder at the Ponte Vecchio (Armstrong and Oscar Cozy Mystery #11)
She had only just started to shake her head when there was a movement at her feet and Oscar leapt up ‘Walk’ is another trigger word for him, but he had to wait while I changed into shorts and trainers before we set off.
In the winter, Florence is as cold as London or colder, and in the summer, temperatures regularly soar into the mid- or high thirties.
Today was perfect. It was warm, probably in the low twenties, but the air was still fresh and the ground had dried out after Friday night’s rain.
It was an ideal afternoon for walking and chasing sticks – that’s Oscar who does the chasing. I just throw them for him.
We walked up past rows of vines that were just beginning to show distinct signs of awakening from their winter sleep, and through olive groves where the nets used by the farmers when harvesting the olives in late autumn were still lying about.
I buy oil and wine locally and both are excellent.
The oil here in particular is so very different from most extra virgin olive oil on sale in UK supermarkets.
This stuff is a deep-green colour and cloudy, not dissimilar in appearance to what comes out of an engine after twenty or thirty thousand miles.
The taste is strong and fruity and it catches your throat when it’s been freshly pressed.
One of my favourite snacks is simply a thick-cut slice of the wonderful unsalted Tuscan bread, rubbed with a clove of garlic, then liberally drizzled with freshly pressed oil and sprinkled with a pinch of salt.
With a glass of Chianti, it’s unbeatable .
My gastronomic musings were interrupted by my phone. It was Marco and he had news.
‘ Ciao , Dan, I haven’t been able to contact Berg’s lawyer yet, but listen to this: the housekeeper says the lawyer came for dinner on Wednesday, three days before the family get-together. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’
I certainly was. ‘Assuming that the lawyer didn’t just come to give advice, this could mean that Berg actually changed his will in advance of seeing his children.
Did he change it to benefit his kids as they anticipated?
Alternatively, now that his long-term girlfriend has died, did he disinherit the family and arrange to give the whole lot to the Italian equivalent of Battersea dogs’ home? ’
I heard him chuckle. ‘I’m sure the Ente Nazionale Protezione Animali would be only too happy to receive a hefty legacy, but could he really disinherit his kids?
It depends whether his affairs are going to be treated under Italian law or Dutch law.
I would imagine, seeing as he’s been resident here, that it will be Italian law and, as such, there’s a fixed percentage that has to go to each of his kids, irrespective of whether he liked them or not.
Besides, whatever the legalities of his will and the fact that he hasn’t contacted his children for thirty years, cutting them out of their inheritance would strike me as downright malicious. ’
‘Everything I’ve heard about him so far tells me that he was a strange and selfish man, so that might have been his plan.
Maybe he blamed them for not making the effort to try to contact him, and this would have been his idea of revenge.
Of course, until we get sight of the will, there’s no way of knowing. ’
‘Exactly, and most probably the will’s locked inside the safe at his villa – and things aren’t looking too good on that front.
The tech guys have just called me back to report that it’s a Zugtresor safe, made in Switzerland, and virtually uncrackable.
They’ve messaged the company to ask how to proceed, but it’ll take time.
Forensics are still combing the shop on the Ponte Vecchio and they report no sign of Berg’s laptop or his phone.
They’ve managed to open the safe there – like I told you, they described it as ancient and unsophisticated – but it only contained a few trays of fairly cheap rings and a collection of run-of-the-mill bracelets and necklaces.
No sign of the entry combination to the safe at the villa.
I’ll contact his bank and his lawyer first thing tomorrow in the hope that they hold a copy of the will, or even the safe combination, but I doubt it.
Clearly, the old man didn’t trust a soul.
We’ve released the victim’s name to the media with a plea for anybody with any information to come forward but, again, I’m not holding my breath. ’
‘Have the media been informed that it’s being treated as murder, not suicide?’
‘Yes, and I’ve already had local TV trying to interview me. I wish the commissario could deal with them. I’m useless in front of a camera. Have you had a chance to talk to him yet?’
I decided to dodge the question. ‘I’m waiting for the right opportunity. What about the late Claudia Greco, Berg’s lady friend? Any luck tracing her family?’
‘We’re still looking into it, but it turns out she was originally from Naples and it appears that she had no family living near here and possibly none down there either.
We’re still checking, but it’s not looking likely that there’s a relative with a grudge who might have taken the law into his own hands. ’
I could hear the frustration in his voice and it mirrored my own. ‘So it’s looking ever more likely that it was either a robbery that went wrong, or murder by person or persons unknown…’ A thought occurred to me. ‘What about CCTV? Surely the Ponte Vecchio must be bristling with cameras.’
‘That’s the other thing I wanted to tell you.
A number of the jewellery shops on the bridge have CCTV as part of their security systems. Tech have been examining the footage and we now know one thing: the murderer was there, lying in wait, when Berg returned to his shop at 20.
17 on Friday night, presumably straight after talking to you.
The bad news is that it was dark by then and the perpetrator was wearing a hoodie.
It looks like a man, taller than the victim, but that’s about it.
As Berg opens the door to the shop, the killer appears from the shadows, bustles him inside and closes the door behind them.
Then there’s no further sign of activity until 01.
46 when the man in the hoodie emerges from the shop, carrying a coil of rope.
There’s still a surprising number of people about, so he lurks in the shadows for a bit until he spots his chance.
He ties one end of the rope to a metal ring set in the wall, returns to the shop and reappears with one arm around the victim, supporting the body against his own as if the man’s the worse for drink.
He waits until a group of Fiorentina supporters go past and then he slips the noose around Berg’s neck, pushes him off the edge, and disappears in the direction of the Pitti Palace. ’
I did my best not to let my mind rest too much on the brutal way David Berg’s life had ended.
It wasn’t the most sadistic murder I’d come across in my time but, considering that the victim had been an old man, it had to be the work of somebody with a very different moral compass from most people.
He deserved to be caught and locked away for a very long time.
‘When you say “disappears”, weren’t you able to track him on the city video surveillance system?’ Florence has well over a thousand video cameras scattered about the city, making it theoretically feasible to track a person right across town – but not in this case.
Marco sounded puzzled and annoyed when he answered.
‘Tech have tracked him going around the back of the Uffizi but not emerging again. In spite of the weather and the late hour, there were still quite a few people milling about, and all Tech can imagine is that he did a quick change and mingled with one of the groups. I don’t know how he did it, but he just vanished. ’
‘That sounds very professional. The more I think about it, the more I reckon Berg’s death was the work of a pro. Did you see anything that might help to identify the killer?’
‘From the width of the shoulders and his way of walking, Tech are confident it was a man, not a woman, and they reckon he was between one metre eighty and one-eighty-five tall, but that’s that.
His clothes were dark and he was wearing gloves but nothing else of note – no wristwatch, no earring, no distinctive shoes, nothing. ’
I felt as frustrated as he did. I’m six foot one, which is about one metre eighty-five, and I know how many men there are in the world of my height, plus or minus an inch or two.
Looking for a needle in a haystack didn’t even begin to describe it.
‘He obviously came prepared and he carried out his plan to perfection.’ I did a quick bit of mental arithmetic.
‘The fact that he spent five or six hours in close proximity to a dead body makes me think that we have to be talking about a pro. Either it was a robber with a strong stomach or the victim was deliberately targeted by a professional hitman. The question, of course, is why? Robbery is self-explanatory, but murder? What could that old man have done for somebody to put out a contract on him?’