Page 13 of The Venice Murders (Flora Steele Mystery #11)

13

The Hotel Minerva boasted only one bar but it was already crowded when Flora and Jack arrived a few minutes after seven. It was a cosy space with a terrace overlooking the Giudecca Canal and was already filled with chattering customers.

Sally, dressed in a glamorous black sheath, was at the bar and, hearing her name called, swivelled round on her stool to greet them.

She jumped up to hug first Flora and then Jack. ‘It’s so good to see you both – and isn’t Venice heavenly?’

They could only nod in agreement, both of them slightly stunned by Sally’s transformation. A black sheath? A bright red chunky necklace with lipstick to match? And shoes with three-inch heels! Flora was admiring of this new Sally, envious even, but she did wonder what Alice would have to say. If Sally wanted a quiet life, and she probably did, she would lose the lipstick and the heels before she reappeared in Abbeymead.

‘I’m not sure we’ll manage to find seats,’ she was saying, ‘but we could go somewhere else?—’

‘No need.’ Jack had spotted a table that had just become free. ‘If we’re nifty, we can grab the one on the terrace.’

Flora was the niftiest and took possession before another group of friends could stake a claim.

‘Italian wine is delicious, don’t you think?’ Slipping into a seat, Sally held up her half-filled glass.

‘Three glasses then?’ Jack turned back to the bar to join a queue that had grown since they’d arrived.

‘Jack’s a sweetie,’ Sally said, ‘but I’m glad to have the chance to speak to you alone, Flora. I wanted to say I’m really sorry about what seems like my intruding. I would never have come to Venice only…Bianca phoned, asking me for help, and she sounded terrible. I really did wonder what I was coming to, but actually I think all she really wanted was to talk – she doesn’t seem to have many friends. And to be honest, I was desperate for a break, and the thought of a week in Venice was so tempting. But I knew you and Jack were here and on your honeymoon. And it was…awkward.’

Flora reached out to clasp her hand. ‘It doesn’t have to be and you have a perfect right to visit. We’re doing our own thing and I’m sure you are, too. There’s masses to see and we’re unlikely to be bumping into each other every five minutes. But?—’

She broke off. The picture of Bianca that Sally had just painted hardly matched the girl Flora had met a few days ago at this very hotel. It could be that Bianca had been determined not to show her feelings, despite being deeply troubled over the loss of her fiancé, but on the other hand…sounding terrible on a telephone call to a friend she hardly ever spoke to? Begging that friend to come to Venice immediately? Something didn’t chime right.

Sally’s gaze had become fixed on her, her friend’s eyes full of worry. ‘I really am sorry, Flora,’ she stammered out another apology. ‘About my being here.’

‘No, no,’ she hastened to say, realising how Sally must be interpreting her silence. She should stop thinking and start talking. ‘It’s not a problem, Sally. Honestly. And it’s nice to catch up with what’s been happening in Abbeymead. Not that I’ve missed the village, which is strange. It must be the first time ever.’

‘Not strange to me. This city is magical – how could you want to be anywhere else? And the brilliant thing is that I’ve still a few more days to enjoy it.’

‘So…Bianca telephoned you, you say?’ It somehow mattered for Flora to be sure of the girl’s true feelings.

‘Out of the blue. We’ve sent the occasional card since she moved back to Italy: birthdays and Christmas and a postcard when I went to the Lake District with Dominic. And we’ve spoken from time to time on the phone, but getting her call was a huge surprise.’

‘What did she say, exactly?’

‘That her father had been very unwell. She was desperately upset about him, worried that he’d fall sick again even though the doctors seemed happy. I tried to reassure her, say all the right things, but then suddenly she announced that her engagement had fallen through. She actually began crying down the phone. It seemed to me that she didn’t have anyone here she could talk to, but I was dumbfounded when she asked me to come.’

‘When you say her father had been unwell, how unwell?’ Flora swooped on the information she hadn’t known before. Piero Benetti had appeared perfectly fit on their trip to Burano.

‘He’d had a heart attack. He’s OK now, back to work, I believe, but it was uncertain for a while and hugely worrying for her. She’s his only child.’

‘No other family?’

‘His wife was too sickly to have more children and died when Bianca was a small girl. She seems very close to her father though they don’t always get on. Bianca has her own ideas and they’re not always his. He planned for her to work in an office when she left school – actually found her a job in a local boatbuilder’s, she told me. But she hated it from the first day and begged him to let her leave and travel. What she most wanted was to improve her English. She reckoned that would mean she could move to a better job. In the end, after a lot of nagging, it seems he agreed she could go for a short holiday as long as she lived with people he knew. She stayed in Worthing – his late wife had distant relatives there.’

Sally took a long drink of her remaining wine. ‘Her father was delighted when she came back to Venice, she said, but now this fiancé business seems to have really stirred him up. From what I can gather, he was impressed by Franco Massi, at least to begin with. Probably believed the chap genuinely loved Bianca, but then Franco walked out on her. Dumped her just like that. No real reason. I can see why her father is so angry – and anger’s not good for a heart.’

A final sip and Sally had emptied her glass. ‘Oh, Jack’s been successful!’ She smiled broadly. ‘Reinforcements, Flora!’

Flora looked across the crowded terrace. Somehow her husband was finding a way through the scatter of tables and drinkers, balancing three full wine glasses between his hands.

‘So how was Abbeymead when you left?’ he asked, handing the women their drinks and purloining a spare seat from a neighbouring table.

‘Much the same.’ Sally gave a smile that could only be called weary. ‘Kate and Tony are battling to manage the café while looking after a baby who has colic, poor darling. Auntie seems happier, now that I’ve managed to recruit more staff for the kitchen. Oh, and Hector and Rose have named the day.’

This last snippet of information was given as airily as Sally could manage, but neither Jack nor Flora were deceived. Hector Lansdale was always going to be a prickly subject. For a time, the Priory’s sous chef had been Sally’s conquest until he set eyes on Rose, Flora’s assistant at the bookshop, and set the Abbeymead tongues wagging. Rose Lawson was a woman who had already had one husband, and that for the village was deemed quite sufficient.

‘I’m glad the Priory is doing so well,’ Flora said, trying to bridge the uneasy silence that had fallen. ‘And glad that Alice is feeling more cheerful.’ As head chef, Sally’s aunt was a kingpin of the hotel.

‘She’s amazingly cheerful, in fact.’ Sally leaned across the table. ‘She suspects a plot!’ This was said in a stage whisper. ‘You’d better get back to the village quickly with your sleuthing hats on or she’ll steal your thunder!’

‘The new tenant?’ Flora hazarded a guess.

‘The very same.’ Sally burst out laughing. ‘Auntie thinks he may be some kind of spy. Why, she asked me, has he moved to Abbeymead? Why doesn’t he work? He’s no more than fifty, apparently. And if he’s got money, why choose to rent Overlay of all places? I know you loved it, Jack, but these days the house has become quite run-down.’

‘Do you think there’s anything to suspect?’ Flora was inclined to take Alice’s qualms more seriously.

‘No, of course not, but I’m not saying so. If it keeps Auntie happy, it’s worth having fun with. It’s quite comical after all the times she’s scolded the pair of you for poking around, and here she is setting up as her own detective.’

‘Let’s hope not,’ Jack said lazily. ‘We don’t want any competition!’

‘About Bianca…’ Flora was eager to return to the subject. ‘What reason did Franco give for ending the engagement?’

‘Like I said, no real reason. A pathetic excuse at best. Bianca certainly thought so and so did her father. Franco said his parents were elderly and increasingly needed his help, particularly now that his younger brother’s disability had become worse. If he was married with his own family, he said, he couldn’t give his parents the time or the care they should have. And living in Mestre – he and Bianca were buying a flat there – while he still worked on the Giudecca meant long days and even less spare time. It is pathetic, don’t you think?’

Flora nodded. ‘His parents haven’t suddenly grown old. He must have considered the problems he’d face before he asked Bianca to marry him.’

‘It’s more likely that Mestre put him off.’

They stared at Jack. ‘It’s not exactly a smart place,’ he said, ‘but presumably it was what they could afford.’

‘Why would that put him off?’ Flora was puzzled.

‘Think about it. The man worked in a luxury hotel, the best in Venice. The disjunction between that and living in a semi-industrial area would be jarring.’

‘But he would never expect to live in Cipriani-style,’ Flora objected.

‘No,’ Sally said thoughtfully, ‘but he probably wanted better than Mestre. Bianca took me there yesterday and showed me the flat they were going to buy. It looked OK, reasonable, I suppose, but from what she said of Franco, I really couldn’t see him living there.’

‘What did she say of Franco?’

‘That he was extremely smart. It was the first thing she noticed about him. How well-groomed he was, how his clothes fitted perfectly, what beautiful manners he had.’

Remembering Franco’s suave greeting when they’d arrived at the Cipriani and what she’d seen of his room there, Flora inwardly agreed.

‘How did they meet?’ she asked.

‘He’d come to the Minerva to deliver a personal letter,’ Sally said, ‘to the hotel manager from the manager of the Cipriani, and he bumped into Bianca – literally – in the foyer. She was carrying a pile of linen at the time, she said, and tea towels and pillowcases flew all over the place. When Franco helped pick them up and apologised, she answered him in English?—’

‘Really?’

‘Perhaps trying to impress,’ Jack put in.

‘Perhaps,’ Sally agreed. ‘But it led them to realise they’d both been in England and they talked about it a little. He asked her out for a drink when she came off duty that day – and the rest followed. Bianca’s a pretty girl and there seems to have been plenty of men interested, but Franco was the one who impressed her. And I guess he was flattered by her attention.’

‘I can see she’d be impressed,’ Flora mused. ‘He was a good deal older than her and like you say, good-looking and confident.’

Sally rubbed her chin. ‘She did confess to me that she’d thought him a boyfriend to make other girls jealous. And I’ve a feeling she was thinking of her future, too. After all, Franco worked in the most expensive hotel in Venice and Bianca might have hoped he would help her up the ladder. She has her eye on becoming a receptionist herself – she doesn’t want to clean toilets for the rest of her life. But, having said that, I’m quite sure she was genuinely heartbroken when he walked out on her.’

Jack lifted his glass. ‘Great wine, Sally. Great choice. I suppose it might have worked between them,’ he said quietly. ‘Franco was a man on the up and she was evidently keen to join him.’

‘Not in Mestre, from what I’ve seen of it,’ Sally said. ‘Living there wouldn’t have helped them move up.’

There was a moment’s silence, before Jack said, ‘Even Mestre prices are relatively high, I believe. How were they going to afford the flat you saw?’

The money that Benetti mentioned, was Flora’s immediate thought. Had that been for a flat for his daughter?

‘Her father lent it to them,’ Sally said, confirming the hunch. ‘That’s what Bianca told me. It was money Signor Benetti had saved for years and earmarked for the new boat he’d ordered. Quite a sacrifice.’

‘We met Piero Benetti yesterday,’ Flora confessed. ‘Bianca gave us his card and we asked him to take us to Burano. He has the new boat – we travelled in it and it’s beautiful – so he must have had his money returned. We thought it a wonderful trip, although Benetti didn’t appear too happy. He seems to blame Bianca’s time in England for most of her troubles.’

‘It’s because when she went to England, she wasn’t supposed to stay. Her father expected her back in Venice and was very upset when she told him she’d found a job in Sussex. Even more upset when he learned she was working as a chambermaid. He wanted more for her, I think, but he loves her hugely and eventually went along with it.’

‘How did she fetch up at the Priory?’ Jack asked.

‘She saw one of my advertisements in the Worthing Echo . The usual thing, I needed more staff, and on the spur of the moment Bianca decided to apply. Of course it was Dominic who interviewed her and gave her the job, even though she had no experience. But that was Dominic.’

There was a pause while they all silently agreed that that was indeed Dominic.

‘She lasted six months in Abbeymead but found the village too isolated, too lonely, particularly in winter, even though by then the pair of us had become friends. But I was always busy and couldn’t see a lot of her, and I wasn’t surprised when she decamped to Brighton, which is a great deal livelier.’

‘Do you know why she left Brighton to go back to Italy?’

‘Not really. She called one morning to say she was going – it seemed very sudden – but she left me her Venice address and telephone number. We’ve kept in touch on and off, but I’ve never asked her why she decided to go home. I’ve always assumed that maybe she was homesick.’

Sally took a last sip of the second glass. ‘Another round?’ she asked gaily. ‘I’ll do the honours this time.’

When their friend was out of earshot, Flora said very quietly, ‘It might be that Inspector Ridley will know.’

‘Know why Bianca left suddenly? No complications, Flora – it will be homesickness, as Sally said.’

But Flora wasn’t satisfied. There was something more to it, she was certain – something that had caused Bianca to up sticks and whisk herself back to her homeland. And she had every intention of discovering what that might be.