Page 33 of Murder on an Italian Island (Armstrong and Oscar Cozy Mysteries #12)

I waited for another five minutes but saw no sign of Morso.

It was as if he had just disappeared into thin air.

A noise attracted my attention and I saw Virgilio sprinting up the track towards me.

He was red in the face and sweating profusely, but I was impressed.

For a man of fifty, he was a whole lot fitter than most senior police officers I’d met.

He was panting when he got to me, but he still managed to speak.

‘Where is he now? I spoke to Sergeant Gallo and he’s on his way, but it’ll be fifteen minutes before they get here from Portoferraio.’

I repeated what I’d seen and we exchanged glances while deciding what to do. He said it first. ‘Well, there are two of us and only one of him – three if you include Oscar. I think we should go and take a look at what he’s doing.’

I nodded in agreement. ‘You take the right side, I’ll take the left side, and I’ll see you around the back of the shed. Okay?’

I kept hold of Oscar’s collar while we approached the shed.

Slowly, and as silently as possible, I made my way along the side, scanning the nearby vines for any sign of Morso or his bike, until I reached the back and cautiously risked a surreptitious glance around the corner.

To my amazement, there was nobody there, nothing to be seen.

Morso and his bike had disappeared without trace.

Virgilio’s face appeared around the other corner and we both shrugged our shoulders helplessly.

Behind the shed was an impenetrable bank of vines, brambles and thorn bushes, and a pair of umbrella pines made it cool and dark back here.

There was no way Morso could have disappeared into the undergrowth so that only left us with the shed itself.

This was made of a series of wooden panels, bolted onto a modern-looking, metal frame, but there was no sign of a doorway.

I had almost given up on any chance of finding a back door when I noticed Oscar with his nose to the ground.

Although he has definitely inherited the retriever gene, he’s never displayed any great talents as a sniffer dog – unless it’s food or other dogs’ backsides – but there was clearly something here that interested him.

I crouched down and took a closer look at the earth by the back wall and suddenly noticed something.

On the hard, dry ground, I could just about make out the impressions made by the chunky tyres of a mountain bike.

What was strange was that after running parallel to the rear of the shed for several feet, they suddenly turned in a right angle and stopped right up against the back wall.

I let my hand run over the timber surface until I felt the faintest cut in the wood.

I pulled out my phone and, with the aid of the torch, I realised that what I was touching was a beautifully concealed doorway.

There was a rear entrance to the shed after all.

I looked up at Virgilio and held a finger to my lips while pointing out what I had found. I saw realisation dawn on his face so, slowly and quietly, we tiptoed away until we could whisper to each other without fear of being overheard. He glanced at his watch before speaking.

‘Gallo and his team should be here in ten minutes or so. What do you think? Shall we try and go in or do we just wait until the police get here?’

‘I think it’s pretty clear that he’s in there now, so if one of us guards the front gates – even if they are securely bolted – and the other stays here guarding the back, we should have him pretty well hemmed in.

If you take the front, you can fill the police in when they arrive.

If he tries to make his exit that way before they get here, just shout and I’ll come running.

And the same applies for me if he tries to make a run for it through the back door. All right?’

He nodded and tiptoed off, leaving Oscar and me to police the rear of the shed.

I positioned myself at one corner so that I could keep an eye on both the back and side walls and settled down to wait while Oscar sprawled in the shade alongside me.

While I stood there, I did my best to make sense of the situation so far.

It was clear that Morso knew his way around this building intimately and I wondered what had brought him here now.

He must have known from the police tape surrounding the shed, if not from the local bush telegraph, that the police had been here.

Had he come to check whether the pit with its hidden treasure trove had been found?

Whatever the reason, one thing was clear: if he knew about the hidden door, then he must surely have known about the concealed trapdoor in the floor giving access to the statues.

In consequence, there was every likelihood that he had been the person who had assaulted Anna and left her for dead.

I felt another wave of anger welling up inside me and I did my best to suppress it.

This wasn’t the moment for thought of retaliation, it was a time for a cool head.

I was still standing there thinking hard a few minutes later when I started to hear distant sirens as what sounded like a pair of police cars came charging along the road and turned up the track towards us.

The sound must have filtered through to the inside of the shed because I suddenly saw the hidden door swing open as the figure of Fabio Morso emerged with his bike.

He already had his foot on one pedal when I threw myself at him, knocking him and his bike to the ground while I ended up on top of him.

I shouted at the top of my voice and a few seconds later, Virgilio arrived and, between us, we pinned the man down while Oscar stood by and watched the antics of the three humans rolling around in the dirt with an expression of puzzled amusement on his hairy face.