Page 2 of The Venice Murders (Flora Steele Mystery #11)

2

It was quite late in the afternoon before they strolled back along the Riva to St Mark’s Square and found the small telephone cubicle at the corner of the piazza from which they could call for the Cipriani boat. Ten minutes later, the now familiar launch arrived at its berth and soon was skimming them across the Giudecca Canal, heading for the pale pink walls of the hotel. A breeze blowing off the lagoon brought welcome relief from the heat, but sent Flora into a flurry, trying unsuccessfully to prevent a mass of long waves falling into the kind of tangle that would take for ever to brush smooth.

At the steps to the hotel’s front garden, a uniformed porter was waiting to greet them, offering his hand and helping her climb gracefully from the boat. So civilised! Such a perfect arrival! Except, for the picture to be complete, she should be wearing silk rather than cotton – even a cotton patterned with the brilliant red poppies she loved. And dark sunglasses, she thought. And a wide-brimmed floppy hat, of course. She mustn’t forget the hat.

Once Jack had joined her on dry land, they walked together along the crazy-paved path that ran through the garden to the hotel entrance and into a foyer where whirring ceiling fans and marble tiles underfoot washed them cool.

‘I’ll get the key,’ Jack murmured, making for the reception desk. A solitary clerk was on duty, Flora noticed, the fate of the girl’s colleague once more intruding into her thoughts.

Jack had walked only a few yards before he was brought to a halt by a voice he knew. A voice Flora knew, too.

‘Jack?’ The accent was foreign, the tone agitated. ‘And Mrs Carrington, as I must call you now.’ Flora had walked quickly to her husband’s side.

‘Count Falconi, how nice,’ she said uncertainly. ‘But…’

The count, a wealthy Italian with estates in both Italy and France, had married Jack’s mother the previous year after a somewhat tempestuous courtship.

‘I am sorry, signora, that I interrupt your holiday.’

‘Our honeymoon,’ Jack corrected.

The count nodded sadly. ‘I would not do this but Sybil, she insists.’

‘That sounds like my mother.’ Jack said it laughingly, but his tongue held a sharp edge.

‘You see…’

They waited.

‘I am in trouble,’ Massimo Falconi announced.

The count had lost weight, Flora noticed. His silver hair seemed thinner and his face a little more lined. He was still a handsome man, but a less substantial figure than the one she’d known in France.

‘I am in trouble,’ he repeated, and made a sudden grab at Jack’s arm as though to stop him escaping, but then half turned to Flora with the suggestion of a smile.

‘And Sybil, she thinks you can help. Both of you.’ The count cast a glance around the foyer. ‘Please, I need to talk. Is there somewhere…?’

‘The garden, maybe,’ Jack suggested. ‘It’s a quiet enough place.’

Except for the ducklings, Flora thought, as they walked from the hotel’s rear doors and into the Casanova gardens. A mother duck and her three babies had spluttered their way out of the pond and come quacking towards them but, after a few desultory pecks at their shoelaces, lost interest and waddled away.

Jack shepherded their visitor towards a bench that sat in the shade of one of the cypress trees and that, along with roses, chrysanthemums and thousands of aromatic plants, made the gardens such a delight. Flora had woken early that morning and already explored a little, knowing that beyond the immediate lawn lay a vineyard and a large fruit and vegetable garden which she’d assumed must provide most of the daily produce used by the hotel’s restaurants. She remembered reading in her favourite guidebook that years ago the Giudecca had been the market garden for Venice, so maybe the Cipriani’s three-acre oasis was what was left of those far-off days.

The count plumped himself squarely down on the bench, but it was a while before he spoke. ‘It is the priest,’ he began heavily.

Two pairs of eyes looked enquiringly at him, and he started again. ‘The priest at Santa Margherita. It is a church in the San Polo district of Venice. You know the area?’

‘I don’t know Venice very well,’ Jack confessed.

‘And I don’t know it all,’ Flora chipped in.

‘If you take the vaporetto , the number one line, up the Grand Canal, San Polo is just below the Santa Lucia railway station. It is the smallest and oldest of the six sestieri. It has always been a working-class district, though now it is changing. But then all of Venice is changing.’

‘And the priest?’

‘Father Stephano Renzi. He was our local priest for many years until he made the move to the city. He is a good man, a very good man.’ It was said with emphasis.

Flora had assumed that being a good man would surely be a given for a priest but said nothing, hoping they might get to the bottom of this mystery very soon and allow her the time to take a leisurely shower and change for dinner.

‘He has lost a painting,’ Falconi continued, but then amended, ‘The church has lost a painting. It hung in a small side chapel and was attributed to Rastello, I believe, or at least his studio, though there has been some disagreement. But it was valuable, and valuable to Santa Margherita since people would pay a small fee to view. Many made a special journey to the church, art lovers, of course, but also believers, pilgrims, sometimes a journalist from a newspaper or the radio. Without the painting, the church will suffer a large drop in income and it is not a rich area.’

‘But…how can you lose a painting?’ Flora asked for them both. ‘Was it very small?’

‘No, no. A large painting. Stolen from its fixings on the wall.’

‘It sounds like a professional job,’ Jack said quietly. ‘It would have needed careful planning. But surely its disappearance is a matter for the Venice police? And isn’t there a squad in Rome who deal specifically with art theft?’

‘This is not all,’ the count said mournfully. ‘Father Renzi’s housekeeper is also missing.’

‘You think she took the painting?’ Flora’s eyebrows rose sharply.

Falconi gave a small laugh. ‘Not at all. Filomena Pretelli is a pious woman, a devoted woman, who has looked after the priest for many years. She is also very small,’ he added.

‘Are you saying the painting and the housekeeper disappeared together?’ Jack stretched his legs which, bunched against the bench, had begun to cramp.

The count nodded. ‘It would seem so.’

‘Then it’s even more a case for the police.’

‘Stephano Renzi has reported the matter, but the police have said that there is no investigation to be had. The housekeeper must have left of her own free will. There is no sign of a struggle, her overnight bag is missing with some of her clothes – the lady has very few – and they insist it must be that she has gone on a trip somewhere.’

‘Would she leave without telling the priest?’ If the housekeeper was such a loyal and devoted employee, it seemed the obvious question.

‘Of course she would not!’ In frustration, the count gave a small tug to his otherwise smooth hair. ‘And Stephano is beside himself with worry. But it is easier for the police to think so. As for the painting, they have passed the matter to Rome, as you suggested, Jack.’

‘It’s distressing, I can see, but how can we be of any help?’ Jack was echoing Flora’s own conclusions.

‘Sybil thought, I thought, that maybe if you asked a few of those questions you are so good at, you might discover a clue, maybe more, to who is behind this bad business. Clues we can pass to the police.’

‘We’re foreigners here, Count. If we start asking questions, I don’t think we’ll be too well received. And I’ve no idea, even, who we would speak to.’

Jack was trying to let down his new stepfather gently, Flora could see, but his refusal should have been more definite.

‘I know I know.’ Count Falconi was agitated. ‘It is a desperate request, I realise, but Father Renzi has come to me for help and I must do something. I am the big landowner in the district – people look to me when they are in trouble. Stephano was a good priest, a dedicated man, and does not deserve this in his older years. Not after all the problems he has suffered.’

‘What were they?’ Flora was alert. Maybe there was more to this mystery than a stolen painting and a missing housekeeper.

Fidgeting in his seat, Massimo crossed his legs. Then uncrossed them. ‘Two, three years ago,’ he began, ‘Stephano was forced to move to Venice from the church he had served for most of his priesthood.’

‘In what way forced?’ Now, Jack was alert.

Falconi sighed. ‘I know only a small part of the story.’

‘Then you must tell us what you know. But can we stroll through the garden as we talk? My legs have gradually fallen asleep.’

The count rose to his feet and with Flora on one side and Jack on the other began a slow saunter around the grassed space, circling the duck pond, the rabbit hutches, and onto the paths that criss-crossed the vegetable garden.

‘There is a family in his old parish,’ the count began again, ‘who made trouble for Stephano. It had to do with a son that the priest had in some way harmed. Or, at least, they believed he had.’

‘What type of trouble?’ Jack asked.

‘Vicious gossip, wicked lies. That kind of thing. It made Stephano’s life unbearable, so bad that he had no option but to ask the church authorities for a change of post. And they were happy to agree. Over the months, they had become alarmed at the bad feeling in the village and they found him a position as priest at the church in San Polo. His housekeeper, Filomena, went with him.’

Jack stopped walking. ‘This trouble, do you think it has anything to do with the painting that’s missing from the Venice church?’

The count spread his hands. ‘It seems unlikely, but really I have no idea.’

‘The village that you mention,’ Flora intervened. ‘Where is it actually?’

‘It is more like a small town than a village, but beautiful. Quite beautiful. My estate is only a few miles distant. It takes me no more than ten minutes to drive there. Asolo, that’s the name.’

Back in their room, Jack strode to the long windows and opened them wide to the warmth of the lagoon. After their conversation in the garden, the count had drunk a glass of wine with them, asked them again for any help they could give, then taken the hotel launch to the Piazzale Roma where his saloon car and chauffeur were waiting to drive him to Casa Elena, his estate in the Veneto.

Joining her husband on the balcony, Flora looked across the water at the Renaissance magnificence of San Giorgio Maggiore, the angel atop the campanile a tiny figure against a sky of deepest blue. Below them, a constant stream of every kind of vessel: several small boats – sandalos they were called, Jack had told her; a single gondola, its oarsman facing forwards, on the lookout for a passenger; a motoscafo powering past fruit barges loaded high with oranges and bananas.

They turned to look at each other, their faces mirror images, both nonplussed by the count’s request.

‘What do we do?’ Jack asked.

‘What can we do? It’s impossible.’

Putting his arm around her, he hugged her tightly. ‘You’re right. It is impossible and my mother had no right to involve us. But that’s Sybil all over, impervious to anyone’s comfort but her own.’

‘The count is very worried, you can see. I imagine she was hoping to take some of the worry off his shoulders.’

‘And put it on ours! She’s not going to do that.’

Flora pulled away slightly. ‘Your last words to the count were that we’d see what we could do.’

‘Which is precisely nothing. They were words, Flora, just words. We have to forget it. Hopefully, the housekeeper will turn up safe and well, and the art theft chaps from Rome will soon be on the hunt for the painting, if they aren’t already. In a few weeks, there’ll be no problem, but in a few days our honeymoon will be over.’

Flora had to agree. They had so little time to enjoy this amazing city and, though she could understand Sybil’s concern, it seemed too big an imposition. She would do as Jack suggested and put it out of her mind.

That wasn’t too difficult. She had a new frock to wear that evening – they were eating in the hotel’s wonderful floating restaurant – a black cocktail dress, the first she’d ever owned, with an hour-glass shape and a ruffled peplum draped from the waist. Its pencil skirt showed a daring three inches of leg and Flora had never felt more grown up.

Dinner was memorable, not so much for the dress or the food, fabulous though they were, but for the sheer beauty of the evening: below them, the gentle sound of lapping waves, while above a moon sliding in and out of small puffs of cloud dusted the lagoon with splashes of light. And across the water, the basilica of St Mark’s, now a blaze of illumination, shone from the darkness.

Such a backdrop demanded notice and it was difficult to give their complete attention to what they were eating, but somehow the linguine rustiche , followed by the fillet of turbot, disappeared and they were once more perusing the menu.

‘I think I can squeeze in a dessert,’ Flora said, lowering the leather-bound volume, her eyes sparkling. ‘We are so lucky, Jack! To be here, at this table, in this city! Just look at that view – I can’t get enough of it.’

Jack looked but pulled a face. ‘Tell me, why did I forget to bring a camera? I could have bought a cheap one. It would have done the job and we could have bored everyone to death with the photographs. Now, when we get back, you’ll be asked to describe in detail everything you’ve seen. Sally, for one, will be hanging on your words.’

Out of all their friends, Sally Jenner, Alice’s niece and the owner of the Priory Hotel, had shown the greatest enthusiasm for their trip.

‘It’s a journey she could make herself.’ Flora took up the menu again. ‘I think I’ll settle for a panna cotta – I had one once when Alice was feeling particularly daring. Or there’s a Sicilian lemon tart. I wonder how that’s different from the usual lemon tart? How about you?’

‘I shouldn’t have either. I’m too full already, except I’m tempted by the panna cotta .’

‘The Priory is doing so well,’ Flora continued her earlier thought, ‘Sally could easily afford a decent holiday, and she definitely needs a break, managing the hotel alone as she’s done for months. It could help her get over the Hector thing, as well.’

‘Really?’ He looked sceptical. ‘Hector’s engagement is a bit more than a “thing”.’

‘I don’t think Sally’s heart was truly broken. It was more her pride that was battered. The fact that Hector preferred my assistant – but it was always going to be Rose.’

‘I can sympathise.’ Some years ago, Jack had also suffered a battering to his pride when, three weeks before his first wedding, his bride-to-be had left him for his best friend. ‘I’m not sure that a trip to Venice will be the cure, though.’

‘It might be,’ Flora said blithely. ‘And she could bring Alice! Her aunt could do with a break from the Priory kitchen.’

‘That would be a recipe for disaster! Come on, what’s it to be? Panna cotta or Sicilian lemon tart?’

Some time later, they walked from the restaurant along the path that skirted the garden and through the rear door of the hotel into the foyer. A single receptionist was on duty, the same young woman who had staffed the desk for the entire day. This evening, she was not behind her desk, however, but had her arm around an older woman and seemed to be trying to lead her to one of the large armchairs at one side of the foyer.

Flora quickly took in the situation and, out of respect, looked away: the older woman was crying, sobbing quietly but continuously into a handkerchief. A door opened along the polished corridor that ran to the right and the receptionist, Flora saw, looked relieved. It was the hotel manager, smooth and purposeful, walking swiftly over to them.

‘Signora Massi,’ he murmured, cupping his hand beneath the woman’s elbow, ‘ per favore, vieni con me .’

‘Did he say Massi?’ Flora whispered to Jack, as the manager gently ushered the weeping woman down the corridor and into his office. Then, without waiting for an answer, she walked over to the reception desk. ‘The signora?’ she asked. ‘Was that lady the mother of Signor Massi?’

The girl looked shaken, but nodded her head. ‘The poor lady. She has come to Venice for her son. She must identify him. Her husband is too unwell at the moment to travel from Asolo and this business with the police, it has to be done.’

‘Asolo? Did you say Asolo?’

‘It is Franco’s home town, signora. A small town but very beautiful.’

Flora spun round to face her husband, her eyes alight with a new enthusiasm.