Page 28 of Murder on an Italian Island (Armstrong and Oscar Cozy Mysteries #12)
‘Here’s what we know about her so far: Teresa Franceschini, age thirty-seven, unmarried.
Originally from Padua, where she went to school and attended university.
Worked as a tourist guide for one of the big international tour companies until she took up the job here on the island three years ago.
No criminal record, not even an outstanding parking ticket.
’ He looked up. ‘Nothing suspicious there, but, like you two, I feel sure there’s more to her than meets the eye.
We’ll see how this morning’s interviews go, but if we don’t get any joy out of the people here, I’m going to sit down and talk to Teresa Franceschini again later on.
I might even take her to the station and let her sweat a bit. ’
I turned to Sergeant Gallo. ‘Sergeant, did you get any joy from the husband of the woman who had the affair with Aldo?’
‘Veronica Piccolo – the husband had an address for her in Buenos Aires, so we contacted the Argentine police. They confirm that she’s still there, so no chance of her having sneaked back here to kill Aldo.’
I shrugged. ‘There goes another lead.’
* * *
The first interview didn’t take long. It was with Tatsuo Tanaka from Nagoya, Japan.
He told us he was thirty-five years old and a graphic designer.
Apart from his telling us that he enjoyed travelling and had visited over a dozen countries – as confirmed by the stamps in his passport – there appeared to be nothing even vaguely suspicious about him, so Fontana soon thanked him and sent him away.
The four Brits were next, and Piero Fontana interviewed the first couple together.
These were a Mr and Mrs Downing, both in their late sixties, who gave an address in Chelsea.
I recognised the name of the street as one of the poshest in an already very posh – and astronomically expensive – part of London.
I mentioned this in Italian to the inspector and he asked me to ask them what they did for a living.
Mr Downing – ‘call me Cyril’ – told us he was the owner of an art gallery not far from Harrods department store.
As far as these two were concerned, it was evident that money wasn’t a problem, and we could find no connection between them and the Graziani brothers.
As a result, that interview didn’t last long either.
The other couple were Professor Walter and Dr Marguerite Scott, and they also lived in London – in their case in Harrow, which is a little further out of town, but highly desirable. From the point of view of the investigation, I was fascinated when he told us what he did for a living.
‘I’m head of the department of pre-Roman studies at the University of London.
My speciality is Etruscology – that’s the study of the Etruscans.
I’m sure you know that they formerly populated Etruria, the area that now comprises parts of central Italy, in particular Tuscany and Lazio, including here on the island of Elba. ’
As I translated for the inspector’s benefit, I caught his eye and saw him raise his eyebrows. Was this just coincidence or might the professor’s purpose here be more than just a holiday? Piero Fontana clearly thought this significant as his next question implied.
‘That’s very interesting, Professor. I wonder if you could tell me how much you know about the trade in illegal antiquities here in Italy.’
If Professor Scott was surprised by the question, he didn’t show it.
‘A very grubby business, as I know to my cost. Three years ago, I was involved in a major archaeological dig a little way south of here on the mainland near Vulci. Like all archaeology, it was painstaking work, uncovering two-thousand-year-old relics millimetre by millimetre, using paintbrushes and hand trowels. Then, in the course of one night, tomb robbers swooped in, and next morning, we were faced with trenches over a metre deep, exhibiting the imprints of where large relics had been uncovered and spirited away. To this day, I have no idea exactly what was there, but you can be sure that the robbers made a lot of money out of selling whatever it was they found.’
‘Are you aware of anything similar happening here? I believe Elba was an important island for the Etruscans.’
‘Indeed it was, principally for its deposits of iron ore, but I’m not aware of any significant finds or reported losses from this area. Why? Have you uncovered something?’
Fontana ignored the question. ‘So you’re saying that you don’t think it likely that this particular part of the island might have produced valuable Etruscan remains?’
‘As far as I’m aware, there would have been mining communities on the island, but I don’t think there would have been anything of any great artistic value to a collector.’
After he and his wife had been thanked and dismissed, Piero Fontana shook his head slowly. ‘Everything keeps coming back to the Etruscans. Could it really be that either or both of the murders have a connection with people who lived here over two thousand years ago?’
I had been thinking along the very same lines. ‘Did you have a chance to speak to the two Carabinieri officers last night? Did they have anything to add to what they already told you?’
‘A bit, yes. Although the trafficker in illegal antiquities that the TPC have under arrest in Bologna still claims never to have known the name of his contact in Tuscany, he apparently let slip at some point that the object had been found on the island of Elba, on land near a campsite not far from Porto Azzurro. The Graziani establishment isn’t the only one in this area but it’s one of the biggest, and these two officers confirmed that they had been keeping Aldo under observation.
Now that he’s been killed, the trail here has gone cold, so that’s why they’re moving on. ’
I digested what he’d told me and felt ever more convinced that Aldo’s recently found wealth stemmed from his discovery of Etruscan remains – possibly with the assistance of his PA with an interest in ancient history.
I was about to voice a hypothesis that I’d been turning over in my head for a while, when he said it for me.
‘What about this suggestion? Let’s assume for the moment that Aldo managed to lay his hands on some valuable pieces of Etruscan art.
It’s highly unlikely that he would have been able to identify and contact a major trafficker or potential buyers overseas, so he would almost certainly have looked for a handler here in Tuscany.
Whoever that handler is, it’s probably safe to say that he or she is the one who dealt with the man currently in custody in Bologna.
The Tuscan handler knows that it’s probably only a matter of time before the trafficker in Bologna gives him away and so he decides to take action to eliminate one of the only other people who knows his identity – and that person was Aldo. ’
I was impressed. Fontana’s thought process was very similar to my own, but I thought I’d better mention the fly in the ointment that had already occurred to me.
‘It’s an interesting theory, and it’s something I’ve been turning over in my head, but there’s a problem and you’ve just said it yourself.
You said that Aldo was one of the people who knew the identity of the handler, so there would have been others.
This as yet unidentified person was a go-between, and his name would have been known to a number of local tombaroli .
Unless you’re aware of reports of other suspicious deaths in this area in the last few days, there would have been little point in this guy murdering Aldo unless he was trying to kill off all his contacts, and I can’t see that as viable. ’
I saw Piero Fontana nod in agreement. ‘Point taken. And that makes it less likely that his murder was tied up with the illegal antiquity trade.’
I had also been thinking about this. ‘Yes and no. Although I don’t think it’s very likely that Aldo was murdered by the local handler, he might well have been murdered by a competitor or even a partner here on the island.
With big money to be made, it’s possible that somebody might have decided to kill him off so as to get a bigger share.
Which brings us back to Teresa Franceschini.
Was her connection with him a business rather than a romantic partnership?
Might she have killed him so as to get her hands on everything? ’
Piero Fontana exchanged glances with the sergeant.
‘Gallo, you and I definitely need to sit down and have a long, hard talk with Teresa Franceschini. Maybe her relationship with Aldo was both a business and a romantic partnership and, like Dan says, she killed him either so as to get her hands on the buried treasure, or out of jealousy, or for other, more personal reasons. The problem is that I can’t see what motive she might have had to murder the brother, Ignazio.
There’s surely no way she could have confused the two of them, even in the dark.
If she killed Aldo, maybe somebody else killed Ignazio.
Either way, I’m increasingly suspicious of her and we definitely need to lean on her hard. ’
The last interview with which I was involved was with the Swiss couple.
They told us that they had been coming back here every summer for four years because they loved the place.
Heidi told us she worked for the Swiss post office while Martin, her fiancé, worked in a bank.
They disclaimed any knowledge of either of the brothers and told us that they had been in their room when both deaths had occurred.
The inspector thanked them and, after they had left, he pointed out that none of the hotel guests could provide alibis for the times of either killing apart from the word of their partner or spouse, which, of course, in a court of law meant little or nothing.
Basically, we found ourselves with a lot of suspects without alibis, but without any appreciable motive.
I glanced down at Oscar, who was stretched out on the floor at my feet. Sensing that he was being observed, he opened one eye but then let his eyelid drop once again. Clearly, we weren’t going to get any suggestions out of him.