Page 5 of Murder at the Ponte Vecchio (Armstrong and Oscar Cozy Mystery #11)
SUNDAY MORNING
Next morning, I received a call while I was out with Oscar for our early-morning walk. It was Marco.
‘ Ciao , Dan, sorry to bother you on a Sunday. Are you busy this morning?’
‘Nothing special planned. Why, what’s the problem?’
‘It’s the family of the victim. They don’t speak Italian.’
‘The old man sounded fluent to me, although he had a bit of an accent. What language do the relatives speak?’
‘They’re Dutch, but they claim to speak English. The victim was originally from the Netherlands, but he moved here thirty years ago after his wife divorced him, but his children – two boys and a girl – stayed in Amsterdam with the mother.’
‘So do you want me to call them in Holland and explain what happened?’
‘No, all three kids are here in Florence. They arrived yesterday.’
Or were they already here on Friday night? Warning bells started ringing in my head. Might the murderer be one of Berg’s offspring, maybe keen to get hands on an inheritance? ‘Where are they staying?’
‘At the victim’s home in Signa, not that far from your house. I’ve arranged to go around there to speak to them at ten o’clock this morning. I could probably find an interpreter by then, but if you felt like coming along, I’d be happier. I’d be grateful to have another pair of eyes on them.’
‘Yes, of course, I’m only too pleased to help out, but what about Virgilio? Isn’t he involved?’
There was a pause before Marco answered. ‘I told the commissario about it, but he wasn’t interested. He just told me to get on with it myself…’ His voice tailed off uncertainly before he added, ‘To be honest, Dan, I’m worried about him. He doesn’t seem to be himself.’
This certainly wasn’t news to me, but I remained non-committal for now. ‘Maybe he’s had a hard week. I hope he hasn’t got a health problem.’
‘I really don’t know. I’ve been trying to get him to tell me what’s bothering him, but he just clams up.
’ Another pause. ‘You and he get along well. I don’t suppose you feel like sitting down with him one of these days, do you?
Maybe he might be prepared to tell you what’s bugging him.
I hope it’s not me. I don’t think I’ve made any serious blunders recently, but there’s no mistaking the fact that he’s uptight about something. ’
I promised him that I would see what I could do and he sounded relieved. He dictated the victim’s address to me and we agreed to meet there at ten. When I asked him whether he thought I should bring Oscar, he was all for it.
‘Yes, bring him, by all means. We’ve got to give these people some pretty grim news, so they might appreciate having a friendly dog around.’
‘Don’t they know their father’s dead? ’
‘Yes, but they don’t know that he was murdered yet.’
I couldn’t help adding, ‘Unless one of them did it.’
‘My thoughts entirely.’
Anna wasn’t exactly happy, but at least she looked resigned when I told her I had to go off and help Marco. As for Oscar, he’s always happy to go for a ride in the van – unless it’s to the vet.
Signa is situated to the west of Florence, just past the last of the industrialised suburbs surrounding the city.
The land there is predominantly flat, but there’s a single hill dominating the little town and this overlooks the River Arno below.
This hill is home to a number of wealthy Florentine families looking for some respite from the cloying heat that descends on the city when summer comes around.
David Berg’s house was a delightful Tuscan villa set in its own gardens, and access from the road was up a private drive that curled up the hill to the house through olive trees and immaculately pruned shrubs.
Close up, I could see that it wasn’t a genuine old building, but an authentic-looking, twentieth-century reproduction of a traditional-style villa, complete with a dovecot in the middle of the roof, no doubt no longer housing doves, but serving as a spectacular lounge with panoramic views back towards Florence as far as the Duomo itself.
Such a house in such a location was no doubt worth a lot of money and I wondered, not for the first time, who was going to inherit the old man’s wealth.
Marco’s squad car arrived thirty seconds after I did, just as I was opening the back door to let Oscar out of the van.
The parking area was pretty full by now.
Four cars were already parked outside the villa: an Italian-registered Fiat and three Dutch-registered cars – a big BMW saloon, a Japanese SUV, and a Jaguar sports car.
All these three vehicles looked nearly new, so clearly, the family had money.
Marco and I shook hands and headed up four stone steps to the front door. I couldn’t help noticing no fewer than three CCTV cameras located at strategic positions around the exterior. This was a man who had liked his privacy.
The hefty wooden door was opened for us by a stern-looking woman dressed in black.
In spite of the recent death of David Berg, I had the feeling that this was probably the way she normally dressed.
Only her apron was white. She could have been anything from forty to sixty years old and she had one of those expressionless faces that could tell a lot of stories – but probably wouldn’t say more than the bare minimum.
She ushered us in, shooting Oscar a suspicious look as she did so, and informed us that, ‘The family are in the lounge.’ Maybe I was reading too much into her tone, but I got the impression that her opinion of ‘the family’ wasn’t particularly high.
We found five people waiting for us in a large, high-ceilinged room with what looked like a genuine medieval stone fireplace – presumably sourced from an antiquarian – and a gleaming shield and two crossed swords mounted on the wall above the mantlepiece.
The furniture was sturdy and traditional in design, mostly polished wood and leather.
Oil paintings of Tuscan scenes lined the walls, and the floor was composed of pink marble tiles, strewn with fine-looking rugs.
Whoever had furnished the place had obviously been a traditionalist.
The family was seated on two large, leather sofas: two men and a woman to our right and a couple to our left.
They all looked as if they were in their thirties or forties.
A bearded man on the right-hand sofa rose to his feet to greet us as Marco held up his warrant card.
Like so many Dutch people, the man with the beard spoke fluent English with just a bit of an accent.
‘Good morning. My name is Casper Berg. David Berg was my father.’ He pointed to the woman beside him and the man seated alongside her.
‘This is my wife, Helga, and my brother, Luuc.’ He looked across towards the other sofa.
‘That’s my sister, Emma, and her partner, Guido.
’ Again, maybe it was just me, but I felt I could identify distaste in his voice when he mentioned the name of his sister’s man.
As agreed with Marco, I stepped forward and introduced the two of us to them. ‘This is Inspector Innocenti of the Florence police and my name is Dan Armstrong. I’m British, but I live here now and I’ll be helping with the language.’
Casper Berg nodded and indicated a pair of armchairs.
We sat down and I was pleased to see Oscar follow me over and take up station at my feet rather than try to jump onto anybody’s lap.
As Marco began to talk, I translated automatically and studied the family members more closely while I did so.
Casper Berg, with his bushy, black beard, was probably in his late forties and was presumably the eldest of the siblings.
He was tall and solidly built. His brother, Luuc, looked several years younger, and he had broad shoulders and strong forearms, while his sister, Emma, was quite a bit younger, maybe around thirty-five or -six.
Her partner, Guido, was of a similar age.
He had immaculately styled, dark hair, his clothes fitted him perfectly, and he had the superior expression of a man who knows he looks good.
Emma was also good-looking, but not as attractive as Casper’s wife, Helga, who appeared to be the youngest of the bunch, in spite of being married to the oldest sibling.
Marco broke the news to them that their father’s death was being treated as murder, and I kept a close eye on the faces around me, looking for any signs of guilt.
I saw none, but, interestingly, nobody in the room appeared to be particularly saddened by the death of the old man.
Marco must have picked up on this, as his next question was one that I would have asked myself.
‘Please can I ask how relations were between you all and Mr Berg?’
First, it looked as though Casper was going to answer, but his sister, Emma, spoke up before him.
‘I think “non-existent” sums that up.’ She spoke almost perfect English with a hint of an American accent.
Marco asked her to elaborate and she did.
‘He left us and divorced our mother when I was seven years old. That was almost thirty years ago and I hadn’t seen him or heard from him since then until I received the invitation a month ago to come here. ’
‘And how did you feel when your father left home?’
She looked him square in the eye. ‘How do you think it made me feel? He abandoned us. I was puzzled, unhappy and bitter.’
‘And was that the same for all of you? You’ve had no contact with your father for thirty years?
’ All three siblings nodded and Marco continued.
‘You all received invitations to come here?’ The heads around us nodded again.
‘And were you all equally estranged from him?’ Again, the nods. ‘Was this because of the divorce?’