Page 21 of The Venice Murders (Flora Steele Mystery #11)

21

‘Why did you make that promise to my mother?’ he demanded, when they were once more alone and driving back to Venice.

‘I didn’t promise,’ Flora pointed out. ‘I only said that we’d try to help. And what else could we have said?’

‘That there was nothing we could do. That Renzi would be well advised to contact the police and tell them he’s being blackmailed. It’s a hopeless situation, Flora. We haven’t the remotest chance of finding out who sent that note. And it is the role of the Venice police, not ours.’

‘But the priest won’t go to them, and I can see why. They won’t even investigate Filomena’s disappearance. The woman is kidnapped, or worse, and all they’ll say is that she’s trotted off for a holiday.’

‘Which could be true. What kidnapper packs a bag for his victim?’

‘That alone should have given them pause,’ she argued. ‘Where would she have gone? She doesn’t have the money to travel far and she has no relatives where she might stay. But the police have made absolutely no enquiries.’

Jack was silent. He knew she was right, Flora thought, but wouldn’t admit it. ‘In any case,’ she continued to argue, ‘I don’t think the situation is hopeless – not entirely. When we were at the farm in Asolo and spoke to Matteo Pretelli, and to Enrico Tasca, asking them if they had any idea where Matteo’s aunt might be?—’

‘They said they hadn’t,’ he interrupted, snappish in a way Flora had rarely experienced. It seemed that today’s meeting with his mother had affected him badly, getting beneath his skin when normally he refused to let her bother him.

‘They said they hadn’t, but they weren’t worried, were they? Didn’t you find that strange? I would have expected that at least Matteo, a close relative and a boy who must have spent many happy hours with his aunt, would have been extremely concerned at her disappearance. But he wasn’t.’

‘He also used the present tense,’ Jack recalled, his testiness fading.

‘How…?’

‘When Matteo spoke of his aunt, he used the present tense. I remember noticing. It might simply have been a language issue – or, it might be that, for him, she is still alive. It’s not a breakthrough as such. It takes time for people to accept their nearest and dearest might be dead, but it is a hint that he might know more.’

‘If he does, then Luigi Tasca knows as well. And he’s the one Father Renzi suspects of blackmail.’

‘I’m not convinced it is Tasca. Don’t you think he would have demanded more? He’s a convicted thief – maybe still a thief if he’s been stealing from Santa Margherita – and he must be used to “earning” much larger sums of money.’

‘I was surprised. The note mentioned a very modest figure. On the other hand, Tasca would know the priest’s circumstances. He’d know that Renzi couldn’t pay a great deal and decided it was sensible to settle for less, maybe pitching the demand just above what he thought he could get.’

‘Renzi hasn’t the money, but the Catholic church does.’ Jack’s scepticism hadn’t gone away. ‘It’s a very wealthy institution. Filomena has worked for the church most of her life, and the blackmailer could legitimately expect the authorities to dip their hands into what are very capacious pockets.’

‘But not if the priest was the target rather than the church,’ Flora said musingly. ‘Which means that whoever sent the note knows how close Filomena is to her employer, how many years they have been together, and how desperate Father Renzi would be to see the woman back safe and sound. Even if it’s not Tasca, it has to be someone close to the priest and his housekeeper. Someone who packed her bag before she disappeared!’

For a mile or two, there was silence in the car until Flora picked up the conversation as though it had never dropped. ‘If it was Luigi Tasca who sent that ransom note, he would probably have told his best friend. Which would account for Matteo using the present tense when talking of his aunt.’

‘If that’s the case, why hasn’t the boy rescued her? Why hasn’t he called the police himself?’

‘He’s scared? Luigi has something he can threaten him with? Or…’ She paused. ‘Matteo is part of the plot.’

‘To kidnap his aunt?’

‘That might have been accidental.’

‘Really?’ Jack shifted in his seat to look at her. ‘How can kidnapping an old lady be accidental?’

‘If she somehow found about the theft. She already knew that items had gone missing from the church and probably had a suspect in mind. Tasca. She could have been a danger to him.’

‘But this was an enormous painting,’ he protested. ‘Not small valuables. Luigi Tasca is a petty criminal, not an art thief.’

‘Luigi Tasca is a thief, full stop. He also had a grudge against the priest. Why not steal the painting that provided Renzi’s church with the money that keeps it going?’

Jack’s shoulders slumped. ‘And you think the situation isn’t hopeless! It strikes me as so confused, there’s no way of untangling it. If you’re right and Matteo knows what’s going on, knows that Luigi is the villain, there are others who might, too. Tasca senior, for example. They’re a solid little group, aren’t they? Is Enrico Tasca involved in the thefts – has he set up as a fence as well as a farmer? Or like Matteo might be, is he scared to speak out? Scared of his son? Does Luigi have something he can threaten him with?’

Flora settled back against the leather seat and allowed the breeze filtering through the half-open window to cool her cheeks. She felt overfull from the gigantic lunch, but frustrated, too. Jack was right to point out all the anomalies, all the annoying things that didn’t make sense. But that didn’t mean they should sigh and turn away. It didn’t mean they should give up.

‘We need to go back to the restaurant,’ she said purposefully. ‘Back to La Zucca. That’s where the final answer lies.’

‘This was not a good idea,’ Jack said, several hours later, as the waiter brought aperitifs to their table on the terrace of La Zucca. ‘But then I never thought it was.’

‘It’s not the best I’ve ever had,’ she admitted, ‘but coming here is the only thing that makes the slightest sense. In any case, we won’t be eating – after that lunch, I don’t think I’ll eat for a week – and we don’t need to stay for long.’

‘Just long enough to land ourselves in major trouble. I’m feeling uncomfortable already.’

As always, it was a beautiful evening, the air soft and warm and richly perfumed by the wooden troughs of freesias that bordered the terrace. In the distance, the shouts of gondoliers, hard at their evening’s work, and closer by, the gentle swishing of the canal against the quayside.

‘Uncomfortable? Really?’

‘I feel there are eyes everywhere and all of them trained on us,’ he explained.

‘I don’t see why.’

Flora was feeling chirpy. The evening was beguiling in itself, but it was the dress she’d chosen to wear that was the real boost. A daring red satin – an off-the-shoulder style, too! – that she’d bought on impulse a few days before leaving Abbeymead. She had kept it for their last evening in Venice, except that this was their last but one, but it made her heart sing and she would wear it tomorrow as well. Admiring glances had followed her, she’d noticed, as they’d walked to the restaurant from St Mark’s and Jack had been especially complimentary. That was something to hold close.

‘I don’t see why you think we’re being watched,’ she repeated. ‘All the customers are busy with their food or with each other and the owner is nowhere to be seen. There’s a manageress in charge of the restaurant tonight – I glimpsed her as we were shown to the table.’

‘And the deadly duo?’

Flora shook her head. ‘Neither of them are here. They’re probably back in Asolo, skulking. You see – we have a clear run.’

‘I’m not sure what that means exactly but I have a premonition that it’s bad news.’

‘Jack, we came here to discover the truth and that’s what we should do.’

‘By visiting the ladies’ washroom? I’d much rather you didn’t. Unless you’re fixated on it, I should go instead – not to the Ladies but the Gents.’

‘That wouldn’t help. The men’s washroom is at the rear of the restaurant. It’s the women’s section that’s just above the cellar – along with all those doors.’

‘Locked doors,’ he reminded her.

‘I wasn’t able to try every one of them,’ she said defensively. ‘Not before Matteo and the horrible Luigi appeared. Some of them might have been open.’

‘And revealed a stolen artwork worth millions of lire!’

‘You can mock, but I could be right.’

She took a sip of the drink Jack had ordered, a negroni, he’d told her, though she wasn’t sure she enjoyed it. Looking across the table, she saw how set his face had become and reached out for his hand.

‘This isn’t like you, Jack. You’ve been half-hearted about this case from the outset and now you’re sounding positively negative.’

‘Probably because I am.’ His clasp on her hand tightened. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t want to be a naysayer, but I’m worried for you. These people, if they’re the criminals you believe, won’t play gently, and I don’t want you hurt for the sake of a painting.’

‘It’s not just a painting, is it? It’s a woman, too. And don’t say that we don’t know Filomena, that we’ve never even met her, and we should let it go. She’s in danger and she needs our help.’

‘The trouble with you, Flora, is that you want to help the whole world. Bring you an injustice and you’re storming the barricades, no matter how perilous or hopeless. I love you for it, but it scares me.’

‘Think of an elderly lady somewhere who’s even more scared than you,’ she said quietly.

He let go of her hand, resigned, it seemed, to what she’d planned. Flora took a second sip of her negroni, hoping she’d soon like it better, and waited for what seemed the right moment, when her fellow customers were taken up with their drinks and their food, and the waiters busy clearing and setting tables.

Quietly, she got to her feet, kissed Jack lightly on the cheek, and slipped into the restaurant. Checking the manageress was as occupied as her waiters, she walked to the rear of the room and took the stairs she remembered to the basement.

Halfway down the staircase, a customer was emerging from the women’s washroom and held the door open for Flora. Thanking her, she pretended to walk through but, as soon as the woman had disappeared up the stairs, allowed the door to slowly close. Down the last few stairs and here they were – six closed doors.

Checking that no one else was about to descend the staircase, she moved swiftly to the first room, trying the handle and finding the door locked. It was, as Jack had predicted. And the same was true of the next door and the one after that.

At the last but one, she thought she heard a noise inside and put her ear to the lock. Surely, she must be mistaken. But no! There was a definite movement of some kind. She could still hear it. A mouse? A rat even? The noise had sounded louder than a small creature would make. Someone or something was in there! She turned the handle as gently as she could, trying not to alarm whoever, or whatever, was there, but was again unlucky. Still…she had a nail file in the handbag she’d left on her seat – maybe that would work. It would certainly be worth risking a return.

Turning to go, Flora felt a hand. Two hands, heavy, and bearing down on her. Then her arms were grabbed from behind and twisted back so fiercely that her shoulders were wrenched almost from their sockets. She was propelled to the end of the passage, a knee in her back, and the final door kicked open. At last, an unlocked room, she thought bitterly. Shoved roughly through the doorway, she lost her balance and fell, hitting the hard earthenware floor with a thud.

The door slammed behind her assailant but not before she’d managed painfully to twist her head to one side and glimpse a face. The face of Luigi Tasca. She’d been right! But what use was knowing for sure that it was Tasca behind these crimes if she was imprisoned? And it was a prison she found herself in.

Even spreadeagled on the floor, she could see the plaster peeling from the walls, the floor dirty and unswept, and the ceiling cracked and flaking. A single light bulb hung from its centre but what illumination there was came from a small slit of a window low down in the wall. It was barred and, when she’d scrambled to her knees, bending her head to peer through the iron railings, it was water she could see, eddying inches below the window. The canal! No escape there.

She pulled herself to her feet, feeling decidedly shaky. Two rickety chairs were the room’s sole furniture and she shuffled over to one before collapsing onto the seat. Her arms and shoulders were screaming with pain and her knees stung where she’d landed on the hard floor. But at least her brain was still working and she must use it. Think, Flora, think what best to do.

If she didn’t return to their table soon, Jack would be worried. He was already twitchy and her absence would send danger messages flashing in his mind. He’d think her in trouble and come looking for her. That would be the worst thing he could do – he’d be walking into the enemy’s hands.

Please don’t come, she prayed. Please leave and find help. But do it quickly.