Eddie scratched his head meditatively. ‘Not off the top of me head, guvnor. We meet all sorts in this business. Back in the winter, we did a South American tour and there were some right villains there, the sort who would slit your throat as soon as look at you.’ He gave Virgilio a hint of a grin. ‘I’ll put my thinking head on and see what I can come up with.’ He glanced over at me and shook his head sarcastically. ‘Look at me, would you? Helping the Old Bill. I don’t know what my mates would say if they found out.’
Virgilio thanked him. ‘Now I’m going to need to speak to the people here at the villa that you’ve mentioned. Are they all here?’
Eddie paused for thought. ‘Yes, I reckon so, now.’
‘When you say “now” – have they been out?’
‘I dropped most of them down into town this morning at just after nine. The boss wanted dropping off outside a posh hotel somewhere close to the centre, and as far as I know, the rest just went sightseeing and shopping. I picked them up again at twelve, and we’re just finishing having lunch together now.’ His expressiondarkened. ‘Apart from the boss. We were wondering where he’d got to.’
‘Were you worried?’
He shook his head. ‘Not worried. Like I said, he sometimes took off on his own.’
‘What did you do between dropping them off in town and picking them up again?’
‘I found a parking space quite a way out, walked back and did a bit of shopping of my own.’ He grinned at me. ‘A selection of beauty products to keep me looking young and lovely.’
I smiled back at him. Both of us knew that that particular ship had definitely sailed. Had he really just been shopping or was he hiding something? I listened as he went on.
‘After that, I picked up the van again, came back here and did a few bits and pieces around the place.’
Virgilio closed his notebook with a snap. ‘Thank you, Mr Smith. Now I’d like to talk to everybody in the villa – apart from the housekeeper and her husband. I’ll talk to them later. Did you say people were having lunch?’
‘Most of them are still in the dining room, but I’ll go and round up any stragglers. Give me a couple of minutes.’ He pointed across to a trolley against the wall, laden with bottles. ‘If you gents want to help yourselves to a snifter while I spread the word, be my guest.’
He turned and left the room. Virgilio waited until the door had closed behind him before speaking.
‘If Angel’s death was the work of one of the people here, it sounds as though most of them could have had the opportunity to do it. From what Eddie Smith says, the lot of them were wandering around the centre of town this morning.’
I nodded in agreement. The same thought had been going through my head. The other thing that had been going around inmy head had been the thought that my daughter and her fiancé had most probably been in the duomo at almost exactly the same time as Tristan Angel, arms dealer, had been murdered. Hopefully, they hadn’t been caught up in it. It looked as though the duomo was an unexpectedly dangerous place.
5
TUESDAY AFTERNOON
Eddie returned as promised, and we followed him down a wide corridor lined with paintings to a sculpted wooden door. He opened it without knocking and ushered us in, raising his voice to announce us in formal tones, heavy with irony.
‘My lords, ladies and gentlemen, please be upstanding for the Italian fuzz.’ With that, he gave an exaggerated bow and withdrew, closing the door silently behind him.
Needless to say, nobody stood up. For our part, we stopped by the door and took a good look around. The dining table was absolutely huge, and I counted eight people sitting around it, although there would have been room for twice that number. It still bore the remains of the meal, some people drinking coffees and others eating dessert. The room itself was even bigger than the lounge from which we had just come and it had two big French windows leading out to the terrace, beyond which I could see olive trees, palm trees and three ancient cypresses.
The first figure to make an impression on me was a man mountain at the far end of the long table, who towered a head above most of the others, and whose shoulders were half as wideagain as any of them. He had a shaved head and was wearing sunglasses, even though he was indoors. He was positively bulging with muscles, honed to perfection, and he would have frightened the life out of the average nightclub bouncer. I had little doubt that, like Eddie Smith, he had been engaged to protect Tristan Angel – but, of course, as it had turned out, he hadn’t been able to prevent his murder. Had this giant of a man been negligent, or could it be that he was the murderer? What, I wondered, would happen to him now? Would he be out of a job?
As my eyes roamed around the room, I immediately identified the woman described by Eddie as Penelope, Angel’s latest ‘bit of stuff’. She was a young woman with long, blonde hair hanging down around her shoulders, and a classic almond-shaped face. She was a stunner. Oscar clearly felt the same way and his tail started wagging, but I kept him close to my side for now in case he should decide to go over and climb onto her lap.
‘Good afternoon, gentlemen. What brings you here to the Villa Botticelli?’
The voice came from a slim, fit-looking man, maybe in his late forties, wearing a light-blue designer polo shirt. He sounded courteous, but there was something about him that didn’t sit well with me. There was a certain arrogance to him and, in spite of his polite words, I got the impression that he had little time for the police, particularly Virgilio and me. I felt my hackles rise but studiously avoided showing any reaction. He was sitting at the head of the table with another good-looking woman alongside him. She looked a bit older than Penelope and she had glossy, black hair tied back in a businesslike ponytail. The man in the polo shirt had an authoritative air and I had a feeling I was looking at Tristan Angel’s successor – or at least the man who aspired to that position. From what Eddie had told me, this had to be Donald Hicks, Angel’s second in command.
I introduced Virgilio – referring to him as Chief Inspector Pisano rather than Commissario Pisano for the sake of simplicity – adding that I was here to act as interpreter. At this point, I let Oscar wander over and do a circuit of the table introducing himself, and I was mildly surprised to see the huge bodyguard make a real fuss of him and pass him down a handful of grissini that disappeared in an instant. The big man definitely knew his way to my dog’s heart.
Virgilio took two paces towards the table and I followed, ready to translate if necessary. He addressed the diners in English, and they all appeared to understand him well without my help. ‘Good afternoon, I’m sorry to disturb your lunch, but I’m afraid that I have to inform you of the death of Mr Tristan Angel.’ As all the heads looked up in unison, he specified, ‘He was murdered this morning.’
Like Virgilio, I was interested to see what reaction this announcement would provoke. I tried to keep a very close eye on all the people around the dining table as he spoke, noting that he added a little bit of extra emphasis to the word ‘murdered’. The man at the head of the table didn’t bat an eyelid. The blonde woman dropped her eyes to her plate, and the bodyguard remained impassive, while an expression of surprise and maybe fear flitted across the face of the dark-haired woman. The reactions of the remaining four men were more interesting.
One of these was maybe in his mid-sixties, one probably in his mid-fifties, around my age or a little younger. The older man was completely bald, while the other still had a fine head of hair. Neither of them showed much emotion, although I felt sure I spotted a momentary look of what might have been fear on the face of the older man. The other two were a good bit younger, maybe in their early forties. The reaction of one of these two was the most noticeable. He was a strongly built black man and, like Eddie, he lookedwell able to handle himself, but his head jerked up at the word ‘murdered’ and he stared across the table at Virgilio in disbelief.
‘The boss has been murdered?’ His American accent was unmistakable. ‘What the hell? Who…? How?’ He looked genuinely stunned – although over the years, I had come across quite a number of talented actors and I didn’t immediately discount him as a potential murderer.
