Page 3 of Murder at the Ponte Vecchio (Armstrong and Oscar Cozy Mystery #11)
SATURDAY MORNING
Although it had rained in the night, it was a pleasant, sunny morning when I took Oscar for his early walk.
There was still a bit of night-time chill in the air, but it looked like being another sparkling spring day.
I turned right outside Anna’s front door and headed back towards the Ponte Vecchio.
My intention was to turn right again when we reached the bridge and head up the hill past the beautiful Pitti Palace away from the town centre so as to give Oscar a chance to stretch his legs without encountering crowds of tourists.
However, when we got to the bridge, my attention was drawn to a couple of police cars parked across the entrance to it, with a pair of police officers in uniform effectively blocking access to this major tourist attraction.
Intrigued, I wandered over and was pleased to see a familiar face.
It was my old friend Inspector Marco Innocenti.
I had first met him when he’d been a sergeant and I’d always rated him as a very competent police officer.
‘ Ciao , Marco, what’s got you out of bed at seven-thirty on a Saturday morning?’ Oscar, spotting his old buddy, trotted over to greet him as the two of us shook hands.
‘Some guy’s decided to hang himself off the bridge. ’
After thirty years in the murder squad, I was no stranger to violent death, but it came as a shock all the same. ‘Here on the Ponte Vecchio? What a place to choose. Does it look suspicious?’
Marco shook his head. ‘Doesn’t appear so. No signs of a struggle.’
‘Is Virgilio there? I didn’t get a chance to talk to either of you last night. Thanks a lot for coming, by the way.’
He shook his head. ‘The commissario’s probably still in bed if he’s got any sense.
I saw no need to get him out for something as straightforward as this.
Sergeant Dino is not due back from sick leave for another few weeks so I came myself.
All right, the Ponte Vecchio isn’t most people’s first choice as a place to end it all but, when it’s all said and done, from a police perspective, it’s still pretty routine.
’ He gave me a cheeky grin and changed the subject.
‘I thought your speech last night was great. Did you get lots of your fans giving you their phone numbers and throwing their underwear at you?’
I grinned back at him. ‘No such luck, but I did get an invitation to lunch with the mayor.’ A nudge of Oscar’s nose against my leg reminded me of his priorities. ‘Anyway, I’d better take Oscar for his walk. If you see Virgilio, tell him I’ll give him a call later on.’
Florence is a frustrating city for dog owners.
If you look down on it from above, there are numerous parks and open areas of green space, but so many of them are private and locked up behind high iron railings.
The famous Boboli Gardens behind Palazzo Pitti are only five minutes from Anna’s house but because they are categorised as an open-air museum, dogs aren’t allowed in.
As a result, over the winter months, I’d come up with a route along a series of narrow lanes leading up the hill to the south of Florence and back again where we wouldn’t meet much traffic.
Today, this would give us both some exercise before we headed out to my home in the country for the weekend where Oscar could run to his heart’s content.
When we got back to the apartment, I found Anna already up and dressed, filling a basket with provisions for the next two days.
Decamping to the country at the weekends had become a regular habit over the winter and as the warmer weather approached, it would soon be time to move out to Montevolpone permanently until the autumn brought us back into the city again.
Not for the first time, I reflected on my good fortune.
Being able to spend my life in such beautiful surroundings – whether in the city or in the hills – made me a very lucky man.
Although I still loved much about England, I had to admit that Tuscany, with its historic beauty, its warm weather and, of course, its wonderful food and drink, took a lot of beating.
We set off in my VW minivan at just after nine and we were at my place by half past. The little house I’d bought over a year ago is situated partway up a hillside and access is up a fairly rough track dressed with chalky white gravel, one of Tuscany’s famous strade bianche – the white roads.
Anna told me she had stuff to do, so I put on a pair of shorts and took Oscar out for a proper walk.
As I followed him uphill past olive groves and vineyards, throwing sticks and pine cones for him to retrieve, I thought back to the previous night.
My forthcoming meeting with the mayor promised to be interesting.
I still couldn’t imagine what the ‘confidential’ matter that he wanted to discuss with a random English private eye might be.
I just hoped it wasn’t political. Politics in Italy can be very confusing and everybody seems to have a strong opinion about one party or another – and there are over a dozen to choose from, all with different acronyms – so I’ve always tried to steer clear of the subject.
Of course, it could well be a personal matter, and when we got to the top of the hill, I pulled out my phone and checked up on him.
Ugo Gallo was fifty-two years old – so almost six years younger than I was – and he had originally been an architect before becoming a politician.
He had been married for twenty-three years and had twin daughters, both studying at Florence university.
As far as I could see, his private life was unblemished, so it looked likely that the confidential matter would prove to be something else. I looked forward to finding out.
As for the elderly man with the jeweller’s shop who had accosted me last night, I hoped I wasn’t going to discover that he’d been the person who had chosen to take his own life on the Ponte Vecchio.
He had certainly looked and sounded worried about something, but why would he make an appointment to see a private investigator and then kill himself only a few hours after making the appointment?
This would make little sense and, besides, there had been that inner strength to the man that I had sensed.
This, more than anything, made me feel it highly unlikely he would ever have contemplated suicide.
Mind you, I told myself, whoever the victim was, he had chosen an iconic place to end it all.
It was a beautiful morning and Oscar and I walked for two solid hours, returning home shortly before midday feeling hot, sweaty and hungry.
In Oscar’s case, this was no surprise. He’s always hungry.
As for me, in spite of a plate of sandwiches the previous night followed by a quattro stagioni pizza, I had built up quite a hunger, and the first thing I did when I got home was to suggest to Anna that I would do a barbecue lunch.
In the fridge, I had some particularly good pork sausages made by our local butcher and a massive Florentine T-bone steak the size of a King James Bible that could have fed a family of four.
With this in mind, Anna made a sensible suggestion: ‘Why don’t I do pasta for lunch to keep you going, and we invite Virgilio and Lina for a barbecue tonight?’
I nodded in agreement and pulled out my phone.
When Virgilio answered, his voice sounded a bit weary, and it took a bit of persuading to get him to agree to come out to our place for dinner that evening.
Being a police officer is a full-on job and I knew from experience that Virgilio lived and breathed his work – just as I had done until my wife had left me and I’d taken early retirement in the vain hope of winning her back.
As I put the phone down again, I found myself reflecting on his lacklustre tone and hoping that things were all right between him and Lina.
While Anna made pasta alla carbonara, I switched on the TV to get the forecast for the rest of the weekend and found that the mysterious death on the Ponte Vecchio had already reached the local media.
The person who had been found hanging suspended from the middle of the bridge was described as being an elderly man, but the police had not yet revealed his name.
This set me thinking. There were tens of thousands of elderly men in Florence and, indeed, before too long I would find myself joining their ranks, but it did strike me as a coincidence – and I’ve never liked coincidences.
As I consumed my very good lunch, I couldn’t help thinking about the old man who had approached me last night and, when the meal ended, I couldn’t resist picking up my phone again and calling Inspector Marco Innocenti.
As usual, he answered almost immediately.
‘ Ciao , Dan.’
‘ Ciao , Marco. Can I ask you something, just to satisfy my curiosity? The body found this morning hanging from the Ponte Vecchio, it wasn’t by any chance a gentleman called David Berg, was it?’
‘Yes, it was.’ He sounded surprised. ‘But how do you know that? We’re still trying to contact his next of kin and his identity hasn’t been released yet.’
I felt a surge of surprise go through me at the thought that the old man I’d met only a few hours earlier had chosen to take his own life.
This was immediately followed by an equally strong wave of scepticism.
I did my best to explain to Marco the circumstances in which I’d met him, ending with the words, ‘So why did he make an appointment to see me on Monday and then kill himself only a few hours after fixing it up? It makes no sense.’