Page 34 of Murder at the Ponte Vecchio (Armstrong and Oscar Cozy Mystery #11)

I did my best to recall the video footage I’d seen of the vehicles passing near to the scene of Marco’s accident and I had a feeling that there might have been a Land Rover among them.

Virgilio would be able to check. The question was whether this had been one of the vehicles I’d seen outside the off-road centre and if the damage was still visible and, more importantly, whether there was still any DNA or other evidence to be seen.

With rain on the way, somebody needed to get out there fast to investigate.

As I called Virgilio, I checked the time and saw that it was almost half past two and the phone rang and rang before going to voicemail.

It suddenly occurred to me that he was having his tennis lesson at this very moment and he would be impossible to contact until three.

When I heard the beep, I made a quick decision and left a message.

‘Hi, Virgilio, it’s just occurred to me that Faldo might have used one of the off-road vehicles from the 4 x 4 club near the wildfowl lake to try to murder Marco.

Alternatively, maybe it was Superintendent Grande, whose shooting club is only about five hundred metres away from there.

Either way, I need to check the vehicles there for damage before the rain comes and washes any evidence away.

I’m going to go there now because I can’t think of anybody else at the questura I can trust to help me.

When you get this message, if I haven’t called you again, please could you come out to the 4 x 4 centre with some DNA swabs and some evidence bags? Thanks.’

I called Oscar and ran back down the track to my house. The sky was getting ever darker so, without stopping to change out of my shorts, I jumped into the van with him and set off downhill as fast as I could.

It was just after three when I skidded to a halt at the turn-off to the wildfowl lake and took a left fork down a dusty track signposted 4 x 4 Centre .

This track curled sharply downwards into what had clearly once been a fairly sizeable old quarry.

There was a muddy pond in the middle with vehicle tracks leading in and out of it, and those same tracks climbed and descended a series of obstacles ranging from heaps of earth and rocks to a near-vertical slope leading up and out of the quarry again.

Over to the right was the wooden construction I had spotted before.

This was obviously the clubhouse, but it was on a far smaller scale than the one for the hunters at the wildfowl lake.

I parked alongside it and went over to the door but found it locked.

A notice on the wall alongside the door indicated the opening hours and I saw that on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the centre was closed.

This actually suited me perfectly as it meant there would be nobody here to wonder why I was snooping around their vehicles.

I walked around the wooden hut but saw nobody.

What I did see, however, were half a dozen off-road vehicles parked behind the building.

While Oscar wandered around, investigating the quarry, I set about the task of investigating the collection of fairly battered vehicles.

Four of them were Land Rovers – clearly the vehicle of choice for the dedicated off-roader – and the other two were different makes.

All of them, apart from having various dents and scratches and a liberal coating of dust, were shod with chunky tyres to help them over uneven terrain.

I started with the Land Rovers. These all had a hefty steel front bumper running right across from side to side, and I could see that the front of this type of vehicle was effectively upright.

I remembered reading an article years ago describing Land Rovers as having ‘brick-like aerodynamics’ and what this also meant, of course, was that in the event of an accident, particularly involving a pedestrian, the victim’s body would take the full force of the vehicle rather than sliding up a sloping bonnet and avoiding the worst of the impact.

From the severity of Marco’s injuries, it could well be that he had been hit by one of these.

A cursory glance at the first one told me nothing.

Yes, there were clumps of dry grass stuck in corners and multiple scratches, dents and bumps, but nothing immediately to indicate that this had been involved in a collision with a pedestrian.

I knelt down and subjected the front of it to a close study but without seeing anything sinister.

I did the same with the next Land Rover but, again, without success.

When I transferred my attention to the third – by the look of it, at least twenty years old – my eye was drawn to the front of the vehicle on the driver’s side.

It was dented and there were two small, old-fashioned round lights, one orange – presumably, the indicator – and one a clear sidelight set into the aluminium bodywork.

Both were cracked and the clear one was missing a piece.

What was particularly interesting was the fact that on the remaining piece of plastic, I could see brown staining, which, on closer inspection, looked suspiciously like dried blood.

I pulled out my phone and took several photos of the vehicle with close-ups of the broken lights.

I then used one of Oscar’s useful poo bags to gradually work a piece of the stained plastic away from the broken light and drop it into the bag.

I rolled this up and tucked it into my pocket before carrying on my inspection of the vehicle, finding other traces of blood and, in particular, a tiny piece of torn, grey material.

From memory, the last few times I had seen Marco, he had been wearing grey trousers.

This, too, went into a bag and into my pocket.

As I completed my inspection, I felt a first heavy drop of rain on my head, immediately followed by more and more until, in a matter of seconds, it was absolutely bucketing down, and I was in imminent danger of getting soaked through.

Even Oscar, who loves water, was beginning to look bedraggled, so I straightened up and headed around to the front of the building and the shelter of my van.

The once dusty ground had already turned to viscous mud, and I slipped and slid about as I walked, wondering who the driver of the Land Rover had been: Faldo or Grande.

I was approaching my vehicle when I heard the sound of an engine and saw a dark-blue car coming gingerly down the bumpy track towards me, snaking from side to side in the slippery mud.

This was no 4 x 4. This was a very smart, shiny BMW saloon, and in the driving seat was none other than Inspector Roberto Faldo.