A thought occurred to me. ‘I tell you what, Billy, if Virgilio agrees, I wonder if you could get your people to do an in-depth check on a few suspects for us.’ I caught his eye. ‘We’ve asked the Met, but I imagine that you have contacts who might be able to give us a bit more than we can get through official channels.’
Billy gave a little nod. ‘I’ll see what I can dig up.’ Clearly, if he really was a pen-pusher, he was a pen-pusher with contacts.
Virgilio and I quickly filled him in on the investigation so far. We gave him the names of the people here at the villa, along with Angel’s ex-wife and her boyfriend, and Billy made copious notes before promising to get onto it as soon as he had finished with Archer. I felt sure that he would. He had always been a very thorough and meticulous officer, and I was confident his people – and I was increasingly convinced that he was now involved with the security services – would be able to dig up more than the average police record check could provide. We exchanged business cards and I wished him well.
A constable then escorted him off to see Archer, and Virgilio and I sat down in a couple of magnificent armchairs, every bit as grand as those at the Four Seasons. I studied the tapestry on the end wall more closely. It was about my height and roughly square, hanging on the wall like a large and complex painting. There were riders on horseback, hounds racing among the horses, peasants with sticks acting as beaters, and an unfortunate stag visible not far ahead of the hunt, looking back anxiously. If it was an authentic medieval or Renaissance piece, it was probably worth an absolute bomb, and if it was a reproduction, it had been impeccably done and had no doubt cost a considerable sum. Everything about the room smacked of opulence. Not forthe first time, I found myself wondering how much human misery had funded Tristan Angel’s lavish lifestyle.
There was a tap at the door, and Marco Innocenti came in, accompanied by Sergeant Dini.
‘Some good news for a change.’ Marco was beaming. ‘We’ve been able to track down Tristan Angel’s personal lawyers, and they’ve sent us over a copy of his will.’ He handed his iPad across to me. ‘Here, Dan, what does it say?’
I glanced down the page. It was an unexpectedly simple will and, to an old cynic like me, it came as quite a surprise. I read through to the end and then gave the two officers a summary.
‘As far as his personal fortune is concerned – and he mentions eleven different accounts in five different banks spread around the world – he’s leaving almost everything to his Victims of Conflict charity. There are a number of smaller bequests, ranging from ten to twenty thousand pounds each, to what are probably distant relatives or old friends, and one larger bequest of a million pounds to the Grenadier Guards Benevolent Fund.’ I looked up. ‘Seems like he had no close relatives or, if he did, he didn’t like them enough to leave them anything, and he certainly didn’t leave anything to his ex-wife. This probably removes financial gain as a motive for murder as far as she’s concerned.’
I studied the names of the beneficiaries of the smaller bequests, in case one or more might look familiar, but nothing caught my eye. ‘Certainly no question of leaving anything to anybody here at the villa.’
‘What about his shares in the company?’ Virgilio was looking pensive.
‘If I understand the legal terminology correctly, he has donated his shares to the company, and he says this is “so that the company I founded can continue to go from strength tostrength”. It’ll be interesting to see if Donald Hicks’s will is similarly generous.’
Virgilio then demonstrated that he knew more about company finance than I did. ‘If, as I imagine, the company is worth hundreds of millions or even billions, I would think the remaining shareholders will be in for a healthy dividend.’ He looked across at Marco. ‘Any progress on finding out any more about the company? Who stands to benefit from these deaths?’
Marco’s smile disappeared, and he didn’t look particularly hopeful. ‘The company’s registered in Panama, but there’s been no reply to our request for information. We’ve been in touch with the Panama authorities, but they either can’t or don’t want to help. We’ll keep trying.’
Virgilio grunted, and I queried with Marco how his interviews with the residents of the villa had gone this morning. With Dini’s assistance, he gave us a quick summary.
‘The main thing I wanted to do was to establish where everybody was last night, and if anybody had heard anything. Donald Hicks took dinner with the others and then retired to his room at just before ten-thirty. Nobody admits to having seen him after that. No strange noises, no new faces, and nobody could think of a possible motive for his death – or, if they did, they weren’t prepared to tell us. As for the AISE agents, they were fed in the kitchen and, as we thought, Rosina the cook confirms that they ate and drank liberally – make that excessively. They’ve now disappeared back to Rome with their tails between their legs and, as far as we could establish, one spent the night sleeping on a sofa in the small lounge while the other – who was supposed to be keeping an eye on the bedrooms – was found next morning fast asleep in a spare bedroom. The only one who seems to have been at his post was the one outside, patrolling the grounds. The CCTVcameras pick him up on numerous occasions throughout the night.’
Sergeant Dini added a comment. ‘And that guy was the one who suggested where we might find the source of the arsenic that caused Hicks’s death.’ She looked up with a wry smile. ‘It’s good to know that at least one of them was on the case. Anyway, following the suggestion from the AISE man, we checked out the greenhouse at the side of the villa and, sure enough, we found an ancient half-empty jar of arsenic rat poison. Forensics have taken a sample, and we should get confirmation later this morning as to whether or not that was the source.’
Virgilio’s phone started ringing and he listened intently for a minute or more before ending the call and giving us the gist. ‘That was Gianni at the path lab. Although Hicks’s killer took the trouble to try to make it look like suicide, the forensics team have checked the pill jar and the glass found alongside the body, and they’ve come to the conclusion that he was murdered. There was no label on the jar, but they’ve found traces of normal paracetamol inside. No doubt the killer wanted us to believe he had taken his own life by overdosing on a common medication. Both the glass and the jar had onlyhisfingerprints on them, but they found the plastic top of the jar under the bed and it had been wiped clean. No prints. How did he open it without leaving his prints? The murderer must have wiped everything clean and then pressed the jar and the glass against Hicks’s hand, but they forgot the top. Presumably, the killer wanted us to think that Hicks had murdered Angel and then killed himself. I definitely think this makes it more likely that we’re looking for a single killer, and he or she is definitely at the villa, don’t you?’
We all nodded in agreement and he went on. ‘We still need to find the weapon that killed Tristan Angel, but the odds are that it’s long gone. Anyway, the next thing on the agenda for us is tosit down and have a long talk to Vincent Archer to check out these reported arguments involving him, and to see whether he stands to gain from either or both deaths. I wonder if it really will be Archer who’ll take over now that Donald Hicks is no longer with us. However, seeing as your British friend is still talking to him, Dan, why don’t we have a coffee first?’
Oscar was the first one on his feet. He doesn’t drink coffee, but he knows that coffee very often comes accompanied by biscuits.
13
WEDNESDAY LATE MORNING
Rosina the housekeeper kindly made four little cups of strong black coffee, and we took them back to the lounge. While we sipped these, trying not to scald our tongues, Virgilio ran through the list of suspects.
‘As far as the first murder is concerned, there’s the ex-wife who would have us believe that it was sheer chance that she happened to be here in Florence on the exact same day that he was murdered. Along with her is her boyfriend with a military background who would have known all about firearms and who is in the same regiment as Angel. There’s Donald Hicks, the second in command, who stood to take over the company, although his murder makes it less likely – but not impossible – that he was Angel’s killer.’
We all nodded in agreement and he went on. ‘Penelope Green may or may not have had a relationship with Angel, but there’s no evidence of any kind suggesting Angel’s death was a crime of passion. Eddie Smith, the odd-job man, certainly looks tough enough to commit murder, but I got the feeling that his shock at hearing of Angel’s death was genuine. I’m not writinghim off, but I’m not considering him as a principal suspect for now. That leaves us with Carl Sinclair, the American PR man, Liam O’Connell, the technical director, Alexander Murray, the head of sales, Vincent Archer, the financial director, and Peter Schneider, the big bodyguard – not forgetting Emilia Cortez.’ Virgilio glanced at the other two officers. ‘When you interviewed these people earlier today, did you get the feeling that any of them might be our killer? Also, although I’ve tended to discount them, there’s the housekeeper and her husband. Did any of those people strike you as suspicious?’
Marco and the sergeant looked at each other before he answered first. ‘Not really. The American is the only man without a military background, which could mean that he’s less familiar with weapons, but, of course, he’s American, and we all know how many guns there are over there. Penelope Green and Emilia Cortez have no military background either, but firing a little pistol wouldn’t be that hard. Of the others, Liam O’Connell struck me as the toughest of the bunch. There was a hard edge to him, and I got the feeling he maybe hadn’t been particularly fond of Angel. In fact, to be honest, I didn’t get the impression that any of them had particularly liked their boss – certainly, none of them, apart from Eddie Smith, looked genuinely sorry that he’s dead. However, we couldn’t come up with any kind of motive for any of them to have murdered Angel.’
I nodded in agreement. ‘And the others?’
‘We couldn’t pin down any kind of motive for any of the others, and neither of us felt that the couple who look after this place, Amedeo Rospo or his wife, Rosina, could have been involved, not least as neither of them went down to Florence yesterday morning. They live in an apartment in what used to be the old stable block at the side of the villa, and the security cameras show them going over there at about ten-thirty lastnight and not emerging until early this morning, so they would appear not to have had the opportunity to murder the second victim either.’
Virgilio looked across at the three of us. ‘Is there anybody we haven’t considered – apart, of course, from a possible hitman sent by some foreign organisation? And what about the Hicks murder? Assuming it was an inside job, who might have had a motive for murdering him?’
Sergeant Dini took a stab at it. ‘How’s this for a possible scenario? Vincent Archer dreams up a way of skimming money from the company’s accounts – as overall financial director, he would have had the best opportunity – but Angel finds out. Penelope Green told Dan that she heard Angel shouting at Archer something along the lines of, “How could you do such a thing?” Maybe that was a reference to the embezzlement. Archer murders Angel to keep him quiet, and then realises that if he kills Hicks, he will become head of the company, so he poisons him and tries to make it look like suicide.’
I queried what Emilia Cortez had told us. ‘Did anybody manage to get through to the law firm where Cortez works to check how often she and Angel met up?’
