Page 2 of Murder on an Italian Island (Armstrong and Oscar Cozy Mysteries #12)
The drive from Florence that Saturday was uneventful and we took the three o’clock ferry from the port of Piombino to Elba.
The island was clearly visible from the mainland as a dark-green, seriously hilly lump sticking up from the deep blue of the pleasantly calm sea.
It took barely an hour to get us and a boatload of other vehicles across to Portoferraio, the main town of the island.
As we pulled in, Anna the historian pointed out an elegant, cream-coloured villa on the promontory at the entrance to the harbour.
This charming, large building, with what looked like an equally lovely garden, had been where Napoleon had been sent in exile.
He had subsequently escaped and started up the war again, but, from what I could see, it struck me that settling down here to a peaceful life would have been far more sensible and enjoyable – but dictators do what dictators do.
Portoferraio was a bustling little place built around a horseshoe-shaped bay that formed a perfect natural harbour.
Yachts of all sizes, ranging from economy to luxury, including some larger cruise ships, were moored up all the way around the bay, and much of that was lined with three- and four-storey buildings in a delightful mixture of white, cream, ochre and pink colours.
Behind these, the ground sloped sharply upwards and the hills behind the town were dotted with red-roofed houses.
Close to the ferry port, I was delighted to see a number of fishing boats with people working on and near them.
Although tourism had taken over as the main business of the island, at least there appeared to be a healthy fishing fleet still here – and that boded well for some good meals.
It was barely a twenty-minute drive from there to our hotel on the coast not far from the chic resort of Porto Azzurro.
Although we were on a main road, in places, it was barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass, and I rapidly discovered that the drivers of the island’s buses felt that they had priority over everybody else.
Nevertheless, we got to our destination safely just after four-thirty and checked in.
Hotel Augustus was a charming boutique hotel only a stone’s throw from the sea.
It would normally have been far from cheap, but Virgilio’s cousin hadn’t been exaggerating when she had told him she could offer us a great deal.
The building itself was relatively modern and not of great architectural interest, but its location right on the coast overlooking the sea was delightful.
The hotel was on the outside edge of the picturesque village of Santa Sabina sull’Elba, where sun-bleached pink and ochre houses clustered around an ancient, white church that was almost dwarfed by a pair of magnificent umbrella pines that looked even older than the church.
Virgilio’s cousin, Rita, was behind the reception desk and she greeted him and the rest of us warmly.
She introduced us to the owner, an elderly gentleman called Signor Silvano, who came out of his office, shook our hands, patted Oscar on the head, and then immediately went outside for a smoke.
Rita was probably in her mid or late thirties, and she told us that she had been born in the nearby village and she loved the place.
By the sound of it, old Signor Silvano had more or less handed over management of the hotel to her, and she was clearly enjoying being almost her own boss.
The first thing we did after getting to our rooms was to change into our swimming things and head for the beach.
The grounds of the hotel ran right to the clifftop and included a tiny private cove with a strip of sand little more than the size of a tennis court.
Access to it was via a sloping path that zigzagged its way down the steep, rocky hillside between two vertical cliffs that looked as much as ten metres high or even more.
The water was crystal clear and I spotted flashes of silver as shoals of little fishes flitted about.
It looked as though the seabed shelved steeply until it disappeared into the deep blue of the Mediterranean, or, to be precise, the Tyrrhenian Sea.
The water by the shore was an amazing translucent aquamarine colour and we could clearly make out darker patches of weed or rocks on the bottom far below. It was a delightful sight.
We were making our way down the path when a man came running up it.
As he approached us, I could hear him panting with the exertion – and on a boiling-hot summer day like this, I wasn’t sure this was a sensible thing for him to be doing.
As he barged past, it was immediately clear that this was no jogger out for a run.
This guy was probably almost sixty like me and he was clearly out of condition.
He was wearing a pair of garish, red and orange, Hawaiian-style swimming shorts and his flabby stomach bounced about as he ran.
His face was even redder than his shorts and, from the expression on his face, he was either terrified or furious with somebody or something.
Whatever it was that had bugged him, I hoped it wasn’t going to give him a coronary.
Virgilio turned and surveyed the man’s retreating figure as he disappeared up the path, before catching my eye.
‘Now, there’s an unhappy man if I ever saw one. What he needs is a holiday.’ He grinned at me and I nodded in agreement.
‘Either a holiday or an ambulance. I’m all in favour of physical exercise, but I have a feeling he might regret this.’
We carried on down to the beach and found that we were to be almost the only people on it.
There was just one lone woman over at the far end by a rocky headland.
She was sitting on a towel, lighting a cigarette.
An unoccupied towel laid out beside her appeared to indicate that this had belonged to the running man.
I wondered if they had had a major bust-up.
In such an idyllic situation on such a beautiful summer’s day, I found myself wondering what might have caused his rapid departure.
No sooner had I thought it than I gave myself a mental ticking-off.
This was no business of mine, and for the next week, I was not a detective but a holidaymaker here for a bit of R & R with my partner, my close friends and, of course, my dog.
Anna had made it clear that I would do well to remember that I had promised to switch off any investigative instincts I might have from the moment I had arrived here on the island, and I intended to do my best to obey.
Besides, as I told myself, maybe a few days away from being a private investigator might help me concentrate more on the conundrum facing my fictional inspector in San Gimignano in my whodunnit.
Oscar, clearly untroubled by any conjecture about the unhappy couple, shot me a brief glance and then made a beeline for the sea, splashing into the water where he was soon doggy-paddling about happily, snuffling and snorting to himself, with just his head and the tip of his tail visible.
I turned to Anna and pointed to him.
‘There’s definitely something about Labradors and water, isn’t there?’
She smiled in response. ‘He’s not silly, your dog, especially on a day like today. I’m going straight in to join him. You coming?’
Less than a minute later both of us were in the sea, basking in the refreshing – but by no means cold – water.
I heard splashing alongside me as Oscar came paddling up to us and tried to climb onto my shoulders.
This resulted in both of us disappearing underwater and I was spluttering by the time I came back up again.
‘Oscar, for crying out loud, would you leave me alone and go and play somewhere else?’
He didn’t look in the least bit repentant, and a thought occurred to me.
I took a deep breath, duck-dived down to the steeply sloping seabed and picked up a nicely rounded stone a bit smaller than a tennis ball.
Back in the open air, I attracted Oscar’s attention and threw it into the shallows for him to chase.
He swam off happily and spent the next couple of minutes ferreting about, repeatedly dipping his nose underwater, until he emerged, triumphant, with the stone – or one that looked very much like it – in his mouth.
While Anna and I floated idly about, enjoying the peace and quiet, Oscar repeatedly brought the stone for me to throw for him.
I had a feeling he was going to sleep well tonight.
A little while later, a noise made me turn my head and I saw a boat appear around the headland.
There were two people on board and the boat was heading for the beach.
The driver killed the motor as the bow of the inflatable dinghy grounded, and the young woman at the front of the boat jumped over the side and started to pull it up the beach.
Her companion joined her and together, they tugged the dinghy clear of the water, after which the man left her and hurried up the path towards the hotel.
A plaintive yap revealed that there was a third passenger on board the dinghy.
The woman reached in, lifted out a sausage dog and placed it on the sand beside the boat.
As she did so, I saw Oscar start swimming over to investigate.
Just in case he was to be too playful with this new canine friend a quarter of his size, I followed him in to the shore.