Page 10 of The Venice Murders (Flora Steele Mystery #11)

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When, the next morning, Jack took himself to the pool for an early swim, Flora was relieved. The injury couldn’t be as serious as she’d feared and, as long as they took the day quietly, all should be well. Did talking to Father Renzi qualify as a quiet day? she wondered. If so, she might persuade Jack to return to Santa Margherita before they continued their sightseeing.

‘The arm’s still working,’ he said cheerfully, clumping through the bedroom door. ‘A little stiff, and I had to swim sidestroke. But fifteen lengths! And why are you still in bed? That’s definitely not allowed!’

He strode across the room, pulling back the top sheet and tugging at her legs, causing Flora to yell a protest. ‘Stop it! And you’re dripping on me again.’ Tangled in the sheet, she landed with a bump on the floor.

‘You’re being exhausting, Jack. Go away! Or rather go and stand under the shower and then I can bag the bathroom for myself.’

By the time Flora emerged, washed and dressed, it was touch and go whether they would make breakfast; somehow, though, they arrived on the terrace in time to grab a seat by the lagoon. Her mood was brighter and made a good deal sunnier by the primrose yellow sundress she’d decided to wear. It had been a last-minute purchase, one of several for sale in the Steyning dress shop she sometimes visited. Against the faint tan she’d acquired, it looked better in Venice than it ever had in Sussex.

‘Love the dress.’ Jack’s grey eyes were gleaming silver this morning, she noticed. No doubt puffed by his success at pulling her from the bed – for which she hadn’t yet forgiven him.

‘If that’s by way of an apology…’

He shook his head. ‘The real apology will be our visit to San Polo, to the manse – is a priest’s house called a manse? Those peaches look good, don’t they? After that swim, I could eat a bowlful.’

‘We’re going to see Father Renzi?’

‘It’s what you suggested, isn’t it? And maybe it’s not a bad idea,’ he conceded, helping himself to two of the largest peaches.

Whatever the priest’s house was called, they arrived outside it before the Santa Margherita clock had struck eleven.

‘Before we knock at his door, I’d like to take a wander around the church,’ Flora said. ‘Do you mind?’

‘Fine, though there was nothing much about it in my guidebook. I had a read last night, once you started snoring.’

She gave him a poke in the ribs which had him cling to his left side. ‘My arm, my arm,’ he moaned theatrically.

‘You’re clutching the wrong one,’ she said over her shoulder, making for the church entrance.

The interior of Santa Margherita was surprisingly light, belying its dour outer appearance. White marble pillars, a white and ochre marble floor, and a row of plain glass windows down one entire side of the church, lifted any gloom that the grey-washed ceiling might have engendered. A huge illuminated cross hung from the ceiling and at a prie-dieu beneath it, Father Renzi was kneeling.

Jack looked at her, his eyebrows raised. What to do? They could hardly interrupt the man’s prayers but how long did a priest pray? They could be waiting for the rest of the morning.

They were lucky, however. As they stood silently in the aisle, unsure what best to do, Renzi rose to his feet, his knees cracking loudly in the still atmosphere. Smoothing out his cassock, he genuflected before the altar, then backed away and almost collided with them.

A broad smile filled his face when he saw who his visitors were. ‘You have come to my church?’

A little embarrassed that the church had been an afterthought, Flora was quick to say, ‘To Santa Margherita and you, Father Renzi.’

‘Then you must have merenda with me. Come, my house is a few steps away.’

‘ Merenda? ’ she whispered.

‘A mid-morning snack,’ Jack whispered back.

The priest’s abode was a stone’s throw from the church he served and, guiding them through the back door of what looked to be a sprawling building, he took them directly into the kitchen, unabashed, it seemed, by the disorder: a sink full of crockery, a cooking pan apparently mislaid on the window sill, a large basket of groceries left unpacked and the cloth that covered the table crumpled and stained.

‘Coffee,’ the priest muttered. ‘We must have coffee. And pane zucchero .’

It took time for him to remember where the coffee was stored, then to find the percolator and finally to heat the water. As the minutes ticked by, Flora was itching to help but felt it too awkward to offer. The coffee, when it finally appeared on a battered tray, proved incredibly weak. And there was no sign of the pane zucchero .

‘We will go to the sitting room,’ he announced, gesturing to them to follow him into what proved an equally disordered room. Newspapers and magazines – parish magazines, Flora guessed – were piled high on a spindly-legged table, cushions had found spaces on the floor rather than the chairs, and the curtains at the room’s one window had only been half pulled, as though midway through the operation someone had thought of something else to do.

Father Renzi glanced abstractedly around, seeming dazed and hardly knowing the place. Turning to them, he apologised. ‘I am sorry,’ he said sadly. ‘Things are not running well. Without Filomena, I am a little lost.’

Flora waited until they had swallowed half a cup of the weak coffee before she posed the question they’d come to ask.

‘We’ve been talking over your story, Father,’ she began. ‘The burglary in Asolo and the prison sentence Luigi Tasca was given, and we were wondering if you might have photographs of him when he was younger. Photographs of Luigi and his friend. I imagine both boys would have come to any social events the church ran, and someone might have taken a picture or two.’

The priest thought for a moment. ‘I have no photograph albums. It is not something a priest would keep. But there is an old parish scrapbook somewhere – I’m sure I brought it with me, or Filomena did. And you are right, Signora Carrington, the church in Asolo hosted some wonderful events: a summer fair each year, a Christmas meal, an outing in the New Year for the older people. If you have a few minutes, I can look for it.’

They would have more than a few minutes, Flora thought, if the scrapbook could take them closer to what might be going on at La Zucca.

On the mantelpiece, the wood-framed clock loudly ticked the time away, and it was a good quarter of an hour later that the priest returned. His cheeks were flushed and his beard sported tangled strands of what looked like cotton wool.

Flora had to restrain herself from picking them off, one by one.

‘I have it,’ he said, buoyantly. ‘It was in the attic! Sometimes Filomena is too tidy.’

The same could certainly not be said of Father Renzi, and his housekeeper, Flora imagined, must have a full-time job keeping at least the semblance of order in this ramshackle house.

He opened the scrapbook and immediately a shower of paper poured forth, covering the faded rug: photographs, concert programmes, leaflets with details of church services, the summer fair, the cake competition.

‘I meant to finish the scrapbook when we moved here. Glue all of it into place and in the right order, but there never seems to have been the time.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Flora took up a handful of paper.

And it didn’t. On the rug was spread an entire record of the priest’s time in Asolo. Unerringly, she picked out a small, square photograph from the pile on her lap, the faces very slightly familiar.

‘Who are these two? Would you know them?’

The priest leaned forward and nodded, pointing at the curly-headed boy on the left of the picture.

‘That is Matteo Pretelli. He always helped me put up stalls for the fair.’

Flora felt a tremor of excitement. She’d been right. The man who had frogmarched her out of the basement had indeed been Pretelli. And his companion? she wondered.

‘The other boy?’ she asked, hopefully. It was a face she knew but not quite.

‘That is Franco. Franco Massi. Poor lad.’ It was a while before the priest spoke again. ‘The boys must have been more or less the same age there, around eleven years old. Franco always helped, too.’

So that was why the face had again seemed slightly familiar. Flora felt a little disappointed but also very sad. Looking at the young boy, his whole life yet to be lived, and unknowing how soon it would end.

‘And this is Matteo Pretelli with his aunt.’ Father Renzi passed another small photograph to her.

Filomena looked exactly as Flora had imagined. A little dowdy, wearing a dull grey frock almost to her ankles and carrying a faded leather handbag. But the face above the dress’s simple Peter Pan collar was one that shone. Beautiful skin, she thought, and shining brown curls. Was that where Matteo got his?

‘And Luigi Tasca? Is there a photograph of him?’ Jack had been silently studying the pictures she’d passed to him.

‘I don’t think so,’ the priest said. ‘I remember…the boy didn’t much like photographs. Let me see.’

For some time, Renzi burrowed through the mound of loose paper and Flora was about to suggest that they forget the search and leave the priest in peace, when he pounced on a badly creased sheet of newsprint.

‘Here.’ He waved his trophy at them. ‘It’s from a local paper. I thought I’d cut the item out. It was when Luigi went to trial. I read all the accounts and wanted to keep some kind of record.’

He handed the article to Flora while Jack jumped up to look over her shoulder. A blurred image of a young man took pride of place, climbing out of a police van with the entrance to the law court clearly visible in the background. Even blurred, she knew immediately that the man was the same as the scowling individual she’d met the previous evening. It was Luigi Tasca who had been at La Zucca last night and Luigi Tasca, Flora would swear, who had followed them down that alleyway with a knife in his hand.

The priest gathered together the heap of paper and tucked it back into the scrapbook where Flora was sure it would stay for the next fifty years and maybe the fifty after that.

‘Was there a reason you wished to know about these boys?’ he asked.

‘We’re just asking questions at the moment,’ Flora said vaguely.

‘There is nothing wrong, I hope. You have met no problems?’

‘None at all.’ Jack’s denial was perhaps a little too hearty.

‘I remember saying to you that you must be careful. You will be careful?’

‘We will,’ he assured the man, this time sounding a little more convincing.

‘I have been worried since you were last here,’ Father Renzi confessed. ‘I should never have gone to the count. And he should never have asked you for help. It is not fair on a young couple celebrating their marriage.’

Neither of them made a response but when they’d left the house and were walking towards the San Tomà vaporetto stop, Jack said, ‘No, it isn’t fair. But we’re well and truly in the middle of it now.’

‘And we go on?’ she asked, tucking her hand into the crook of his good arm.

‘And we go on.’