We sat in the lounge and interviewed everybody again to double-check where they had all been when the attempt had been made on Archer’s life. As Virgilio had told me, the only person with a decent alibi was Carl Sinclair, while all the others had been distributed around the villa and its grounds individually, and nobody appeared able to vouch for anybody else. It was almost as if they had decided to make the investigation as difficult as possible. I even found myself toying with the idea that they might have all got together to commit the murders but, if that really had been the case, then surely they would have made sure they provided alibis for each other. If it hadn’t been a combined effort, Archer himself struck me as genuine, and I had mentally discounted him, but any of the others could have done it and, as Virgilio had said, we had no proof against any of them.
It was almost six by the time this latest round of interviews finished, and we went out into the gardens for some fresh air. Out of idle curiosity, I asked Amedeo to point out the route used by Liam O’Connell for his morning and evening runs, and Oscar and I followed it all the way around the perimeter of the estate.The grounds of the villa extended a fair way and I calculated that each of O’Connell’s runs probably amounted to as much as two or three hundred metres, so four circuits would add up to a kilometre or so. As Oscar and I followed in his tracks, my mind was still firmly on the case, and I shared Virgilio’s frustration. There was no firm evidence against any of them.
As we passed the end of the swimming pool, Penelope emerged from the water wearing yet another bikini, and I had to agree with Amedeo that it really was very skimpy, and she was a very good-looking woman. I could well imagine that an inveterate womaniser like Angel would have found it hard to keep his hands off his latest recruit and, cynically, I wondered whether her looks might have contributed to her getting the job in the first place. Despite what she had told us, had they in fact been having an affair? I was desperately searching for clues, but without success until we reached the very top corner of the gardens.
It was here that Officer Oscar proved his worth yet again.
We had just reached a luxuriant clump of rosemary bushes, some even taller than me, the sound of bees industriously harvesting pollen from the light-blue flowers almost deafening, when Oscar disappeared behind the bushes. I hastily followed him, in case he was to decide to uproot some priceless plant or pee on something particularly delicate, and I spotted him with his nose to the ground, scratching at the earth with his front paws. Even before he started getting going, it was immediately clear to me that the earth here had been disturbed. Had somebody been weeding? Had something been uprooted, or – and I felt a sudden shot of excitement – had something been buried?
I squeezed between the bushes and made my way on all fours to where Oscar had started vigorous excavation – so vigorous, in fact, that as I came up behind him, I found myself sprayed withfreshly dug earth, thrown up by his energetic digging. Spitting out a mouthful of dead leaves and dirt, I got right up to where Oscar was still working and looked on in fascination as he unearthed something. At first sight, the corner of a white plastic shopping bag might have looked uninspiring, but I had a feeling that I knew what to expect next. Sure enough, as more of the bag emerged, I was able to reach in and pull it out. Inside it, as I had hoped, was the unmistakable weight and shape of a small handgun.
Oscar turned towards me and beamed, his tail wagging, no doubt expecting me to throw his latest find for him to retrieve, but that wasn’t going to happen. I patted him on the head and congratulated him on yet another investigative success before shuffling around until I could turn to squeeze out through the bushes again. As I crawled back, I ran through in my head the most likely suspects. According to Amedeo, Eddie liked pottering about in the flower beds, Penelope spent a lot of time either at the pool or in the garden, O’Connell regularly ran right past these bushes, and Emilia Cortez was often seen at the rose arbour only twenty or thirty yards from here. It seemed likely that the weapon might have been buried by one of these four. As for how they had dug the hole, I remembered that the greenhouse housing the poison also housed garden tools and, without a lock on the door, anybody could have helped themselves to a little fork or trowel.
I was just about to emerge onto the grass when an idea struck me. Instead of jumping to my feet and hurrying down to the rose arbour where the three officers were taking a break, I shook the worst of the dirt off the plastic bag and tucked it into the back of my waistband, so that it would be invisible to anybody looking on from the rear windows of the villa or the swimming pool. Making sure I kept my back away from the house, I walked downthe garden to the rose arbour. Virgilio looked up as I approached and demonstrated not for the first time that he really does know me well.
‘Ciao, Dan, you’ve got that look on your face. Have you had one of your brilliant ideas?’
I deliberately walked past the benches where they were sitting before I stopped, still facing the villa, and spoke to them without turning back. ‘See what I’ve got tucked into my waistband? My four-legged friend has just dug it up. I haven’t looked inside the bag, but it feels like a handgun, and I would bet my life savings that it’s the murder weapon. The reason I’m talking to you without turning around is so that nobody further down the hill or in the villa can see that I’m holding anything. It occurs to me that this could be the perfect lump of cheese to bait a trap to catch the killer.’
I heard the breath whistle out of Virgilio’s lips. ‘Bravo, Dan, and well done, Oscar. This could be it.’ He sounded similarly excited. ‘You never know, we might finally get lucky and be able to lift some prints, or some DNA, off the weapon or the bag, but you’re right, this could be how we catch our killer. Any ideas who it is?’
I ran through the list of four possibles I had just been considering and added a suggestion. ‘The ground isn’t terribly hard, but whoever dug the hole would probably have needed an implement of some kind. There’s no lock on the greenhouse door, so anybody could have helped themselves to a little trowel or similar. It’s probably worth getting Forensics to check any they find in there, in case there are prints not belonging to Amedeo.’ As I spoke, I was doing a bit of thinking. ‘Sergeant, do you have your briefcase with you?’
‘Yes, it’s right here.’
‘Then probably the best thing is if you open your case as ifyou’re looking for a document or a handkerchief or something, and I’ll back towards you until you can surreptitiously grab the bag with the murder weapon from me and slip it into your briefcase. Okay?’
It was the work of barely a few seconds for me to sidle backwards until I felt Dini lift the bag from me. I took a couple of paces back towards the villa again and turned around. As I did so, I looked down at my shirt and trousers. Officer Oscar’s enthusiastic excavation had turned my white shirt a blotchy brown in places, my hair was full of twigs and earth, and the knees of my trousers were a different colour from the rest of them. I thought quickly.
‘I can’t go back into the villa looking like this, or it’ll be all too obvious that I’ve been digging in the garden, and the killer will almost certainly be warned off. My van’s at the side of the villa, so I should be able to slip back to it unobserved. I’ll head home and get changed while you three decide on a suitable plan of action. Somehow or other, you’ve got to hit on a way of getting the murderer to go back and retrieve the weapon, and you can be lying in wait.’ I looked at my watch. ‘If the traffic isn’t too bad, I should be home by seven, but I’m happy to come back if you need me.’
Virgilio beamed at me. ‘You go on home, Dan. You’ve done more than enough. If you pass a butcher’s shop on the way home, buy Oscar the biggest steak you can find and let me have the receipt. That one is on the Florence Police Department. Come to think of it, buy two steaks and have one yourself.’
I found Anna on her own when I got back home. After a quizzical look at my muddied appearance, she informed me thatShaun and Tricia had gone for a walk up the hill. I gave her a quick summary of the afternoon’s events after I had left them, and she gave a resigned nod.
‘You know they say, “love me, love my dog”? I wonder if they also say, “love me, love my cop” – well, sort of cop.’ She grinned at me. ‘My mother warned me about men like you – here one minute and gone the next. In fairness, you did warn me yourself, so I suppose I’ve only got myself to blame.’ She gave a theatrical sigh. ‘So, does this mean you’re close to catching your killer?’
‘I hope so. That’s down to Virgilio and Marco now. I imagine they’ll try to invent some sort of scenario where the murderer will feel obliged to recover the weapon and try again. If we’re lucky, this will flush the killer out, and they can be waiting in the bushes, ready to pounce when he or she comes to retrieve the gun.’
She gave me a sceptical look. ‘Do you think it’ll work – not the gun, the plan?’
I shrugged my shoulders. ‘We can only hope. The fact is that, considering there have been two murders and one attempted murder, it’s highly unusual that there’s barely a shred of evidence – make that no evidence at all – to help identify the perpetrator. If this plan doesn’t work, then I really don’t know what else is left. Virgilio can hardly keep them all locked up much longer. Sooner or later, he’s going to have to let them go, and I’m afraid that might be that.’
‘How many suspects do you have?’
‘Serious suspects, probably only four now.’ As far as I was concerned, the discovery of the murder weapon at the villa completely cleared Shaun of any involvement, and I came close to telling Anna that, but common sense kicked in at the last minute and I decided to keep the suspicions I’d been harbouring about him to myself – forever.
‘And do you suspect any one of them in particular?’
‘I honestly don’t know. The fact is that any of them could have done it.’
I must have looked a bit downhearted, because Anna came over and kissed me, before taking a step back and letting her eyes run over my body. ‘Take your clothes off.’
Even Oscar looked up in surprise at this. I caught her eye and saw the grin reappear on her face. ‘No, Casanova, it’s not your body I’m after; I just want you to get out of those dirty clothes.’
Obediently, I stripped off my shirt and trousers and headed upstairs for a shower. After a change into shorts and trainers, I decided to reward Oscar with a walk. I hadn’t stopped to buy him – or me – a steak on the way home, but I told him I would ensure that he got his reward before too long. I asked Anna if she felt like coming on the walk with me and I was delighted to find that she did.
As we walked – and Oscar ran after sticks and pine cones as usual – we chatted, and Anna gave me the welcome news that her daughter, Virginia, was coming to spend the weekend with us. It would make the house pretty crowded, but I now got on really well with Virginia – after a shaky start – and I was looking forward to introducing her to Tricia. I asked Anna if she and Tricia had had any further thoughts about wedding locations. It turned out that they had. In spite of Tricia’s stated desire to go somewhere off the beaten track, it appeared that she had been very favourably struck by Fiesole. Half an hour on the Internet earlier had revealed several hotels and villas in and around Fiesole advertising weddings and wedding receptions. One in particular, close to the main piazza, had caught Tricia’s eye and she had made an appointment to view it at ten-thirty tomorrow morning.
