Page 6 of Murder on an Italian Island (Armstrong and Oscar Cozy Mysteries #12)
SUNDAY MORNING
I woke up to another clear, blue sky without a single cloud and I had no doubt it was going to be a hot one.
Leaving Anna still asleep, Oscar and I crept out early for our morning walk and followed the clifftop path all the way around to the next bay, where Anna and I were scheduled to start our windsurfing course.
I had found it hard to get off to sleep the previous night – no doubt because of the testosterone and adrenalin still swirling around in my system – and Anna had been similarly afflicted.
As we lay in the dark, she had confessed to me that she’d been terrified that the confrontation might have spiralled out of control.
‘He had such awful eyes, that man. I could imagine him being capable of anything.’ I felt her shiver so I hugged her to me while she continued. ‘I’ve never seen you like that before, Dan. It was almost like you became a different person. You frightened him, you know. I could see that in his eyes.’
I nodded. ‘If it helps, it frightened me as well. It took me back to similar incidents in my past, and not all of them ended well.’ I felt her fingers reach for the scar on my left arm where a knife wielded by a man off his head on acid fifteen years earlier had come within a few inches of slicing open my brachial artery.
I had told her about that a year ago when she’d spotted it, although I’d done my best to play down the potential severity of the incident.
I caught hold of her fingers and gave them an encouraging squeeze – considerably gentler than the squeeze I had given Graziani’s – and did my best to cheer her up.
‘But this time, there were three of us against one: me, Virgilio and, of course, Oscar. He wouldn’t have let anything happen to me. ’
‘I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you, Dan.’
I did my best to comfort her by saying that I was far more frightened at the prospect of the windsurfing course than I was of an Italian villain, but it had still been quite a while before I heard her breathing relax into sleep.
It had taken me a good bit longer. Unless Virgilio took the sensible decision to distance himself from Graziani, I had a feeling that further confrontation would be unavoidable. One thing I knew for sure was that I would be only too happy if I never saw Graziani ever again.
It was a delightful morning for a walk in the fresh air – still relatively cool before the heat of the day.
Although it was barely half-past seven, I found that there was already activity at the Elba Windsurfing Academy – the name written in English on a sign by the track leading down to the beach.
It came as no surprise at all to see a battered old VW camper van – the vehicle of choice of the surfing community – come bumping down the track and pull up outside a wooden structure with the words Surfers Paradise on a wooden sign hanging above the door.
I smiled to myself at the lack of an apostrophe.
My editor would definitely not have approved.
One thing I had very quickly learned in my new career as a writer of murder mysteries was that thirty years of writing crime reports had failed to eliminate a depressing number of grammatical errors.
Oscar and I wandered down to the beach where we received a wave and a friendly greeting from a blonde woman wearing a T-shirt with the word Mistral across the front.
A rack full of boards with the same logo on them confirmed my suspicion that she was giving the manufacturer a bit of free advertising.
What was interesting was that she didn’t greet me in Italian, or even English, but in fluent German.
Virgilio had told me that the island was very popular with the Germans as a holiday destination, and many of them had also bought homes here on Elba.
I had done some German at school many years ago and so I was able to take a stab at an appropriate response, but she must have very quickly worked out that I wasn’t a native speaker and she switched to pretty good Italian, albeit with a German accent.
‘ Ciao , are you here on holiday?’
I answered in Italian. ‘Yes, we’re staying at the Augustus, and I’ve somehow managed to get myself signed up for a windsurfing course here later on today.’
Her smile broadened. ‘That’s great. I look forward to getting you out on the water.’ She bent down to stroke Oscar, who was rubbing up against her suntanned legs – he likes the ladies – and she glanced up at me. ‘I’m Ingrid. I’m one of the instructors. Who’s this guy?’
‘He’s Oscar and I’m Dan. I’ve never windsurfed before, so you’ll have to promise to be gentle with me.’
She straightened up and grinned. ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll have you windsurfing like a pro in a very short time.’
‘I think there’s more likelihood of Oscar learning than me. There’s an old English expression about not trying to teach old dogs new tricks, and I’m an old dog nowadays.’
Her eyes opened a bit wider. ‘You’re English? Wow, you speak great Italian.’ She gave me a wink. ‘The English don’t normally do foreign languages very well.’ She had switched seamlessly to excellent English.
I nodded in agreement. ‘I’m afraid that’s the problem when you come from a country that speaks the world’s chosen language of international communication.
We get lazy. As for me, I live here now, so it’s obvious that I was going to learn the language.
By the way, congratulations on your English. Very impressive.’
She smiled at the compliment. ‘What do you do, if you don’t mind me asking?’
Seeing as I was on holiday and definitely trying to ensure that this week kept Anna and me as far away from work as possible, I omitted to mention my day job. ‘I’m a writer. I live near Florence and I write murder mysteries set here in Tuscany.’
‘How exciting. You’ll have to tell me how to get hold of them. I love murder mysteries.’
A tall man with long, blond dreadlocks emerged from the bar and gave Ingrid a little wave. She nodded in his direction before holding out her hand to me. ‘Looks like I have to go. Ciao , Dan, see you later.’
As Oscar and I walked back along the clifftop path, my thoughts returned reluctantly to Ignazio Graziani.
Lovely as it was here, I sincerely hoped that Virgilio would have made the sensible decision to change to a different hotel.
It had been patently obvious last night that there was no love lost between the two men, and a stand-up fight between them could have done irreparable damage to Virgilio’s career.
Better to put as much distance between Virgilio and Graziani as possible.
It occurred to me that my new friend at the windsurfing school might have some ideas about suitable hotels, but I knew I’d better wait for Virgilio to make his decision before getting anybody else involved.
Back at the hotel, I found Anna and Lina sitting out on the terrace having breakfast. Lina looked as though she still hadn’t fully recovered from last night’s scene at the dinner table, and I felt for her.
Instinctively, I looked across at the other tables to see if there was any sign of Graziani, but his table was empty, and I had a feeling it would probably be some time before he surfaced, almost certainly with a thumping hangover.
There was no sign of Virgilio, and Lina told me he’d slept badly and had got up even earlier than I had, telling her he wanted to go for a walk to try to clear his head.
I sympathised but, as the stay-or-go decision wasn’t mine to make, I went into the dining room and helped myself to fruit salad and a couple of croissants from the buffet.
I asked for a cappuccino, picked up a glass of orange juice, and returned to the terrace.
A minute later, a waitress brought me out my coffee and very kindly went off to get a bowl of water for Oscar.
When she returned with it, she was also carrying a biscuit and she gave me an enquiring look.
‘Do you think your dog might like one of these?’
I swear Oscar nodded his head before I did. I thanked the waitress and she handed the biscuit down to him. He took it very gently but by the time she had turned away and returned to the dining room, he had already swallowed it. He really doesn’t take his time and savour his food.
I took a sip of the scalding coffee before asking Lina the all-important question. ‘What do you think Virgilio’s going to decide to do? Going off and leaving isn’t going to feel very good, but I’m convinced it’s the sensible course of action.’
She nodded. ‘That’s what I was telling him last night. By the way, you two had a long walk last night, didn’t you?’
‘Did we? I seem to remember I was back in our room shortly after ten.’
Lina looked puzzled. ‘That’s strange. Virgilio didn’t come back until past eleven. He must have carried on walking around, trying to get his head straight.’
At that moment, I spotted the man himself.
By this time, Oscar had licked up every single crumb – and a few imaginary ones – from the floor at my feet and he jumped up to greet Virgilio.
The rest of us looked up with the same unspoken question on our lips, but Virgilio saved us the trouble of asking.
‘I finally made up my mind that life’s too short, just like Dan told me, and the sensible thing to do is to put as much distance as possible between me and Graziani.
I thought I would check first of all to see how long he’s planning on staying and I’ve been to speak to Rita at Reception.
’ A hint of a smile appeared on his face.
‘The very good news is that he isn’t staying here at all.
He only came here for dinner last night. ’
I felt a surge of relief and satisfaction that was obviously shared by Lina.
She caught hold of her husband’s hand and gave him a beaming smile.
‘That’s excellent news; we can all relax.
Why don’t we go with Dan and Anna to watch them windsurfing this morning?
We all need a change of scene, don’t we? ’
I thought it a good idea to get Virgilio away from the hotel, but I must confess that the thought of having an audience while I did my best to balance on a piece of plastic on the ocean wave wasn’t very appealing.
Still, I told myself, it was a major relief that Virgilio wasn’t going to be meeting his nemesis again.
As it turned out, however, we were to see Ignazio Graziani much sooner than we’d thought.