Page 31 of Murder in Verona

‘My daughter.’

This was so unexpected that I probably sounded quite gormless. ‘You have a daughter? I didn’t know.’ I very nearly snapped at her that it would have been nice to have known about this before but I controlled myself and waited for her to respond. What was going through my head was that a very strong new suspect had appeared out of the blue. Had one sibling killed the other, either out of jealousy or so as to get hands on the family fortune when their mother died?

There was another long pause before Violetta spoke. ‘Tosca and I don’t have a close relationship. In fact, apart from a glimpse of her at Rodolfo’s wedding and then again at his funeral, I haven’t seen her for seven years, not since my brother’s funeral.’

‘You aren’t in touch with each other?’

She shook her head, but I couldn’t work out whether this was with regret or just acknowledging the status quo. ‘She left home when she was eighteen and I’ve probably seen her no more than four or five times in the intervening eighteen years and spoken to her two or three times at most. And that was fine by me.’

There was a stubborn edge to her voice and I realised, not for the first time, that Violetta had a tough, unforgiving streak.

17

THURSDAY EVENING

Anna and I went back to our room at just before seven-thirty so that I could feed Oscar, and while I did so, I revealed what Violetta had told me. Anna was as surprised as I had been to hear of Tosca, the daughter, and both of us were soon confronting the same problem. Violetta had told me nothing more about her daughter and I desperately wanted to find out as much as possible about her, mainly because, in the event of something happening to her mother, it now seemed clear that the mysterious Tosca was likely to inherit a massive fortune – the sort of incredible wealth that could easily provide a motive for murder. Could it be that the daughter had killed her brother, knowing that half his wealth would pass to his wife, but the other half would go to their mother and then to herself? If so, then the next step in Tosca’s plan would surely be to eliminate Violetta too.

I had been so surprised by this latest turn of events that I had held back from suggesting to Violetta that she might be in danger, but I knew that I urgently needed to speak to her daughter. Before going down for dinner, I phoned Inspector Ventura and gave him this latest piece of news. With the facilities of the police, he shouldbe able to locate the woman far more easily than I could. As an afterthought, I dictated the name of Violetta’s Hungarian husband in case Tosca had decided to revert to that name after splitting from her mother. Ventura thanked me most warmly and promised to let me know if he managed to locate her. He agreed with me that she had now suddenly become a person of considerable interest in this case.

Anna and I arrived downstairs just as the gong was sounding for dinner and we joined the throng making their way into the dining room. As we did so, we bumped into Alessia, who invited us to sit with her. I was secretly delighted about this as it would hopefully give me the opportunity to quiz her about her husband’s sister.

After a starter of mixed salami, accompanied by sundried tomatoes and olives, we moved on to gnocchi. The potato dumplings were smothered with butter and melted cheese and I had no trouble at all in wolfing down my plateful under the baleful gaze of my dog, who clearly felt unreasonably excluded. Half a packet of breadsticks went some way towards pacifying him, but I had to admit that he missed a real treat. I felt understandably full after this feast and I was greatly relieved to find that we were then served a relatively light main course of cold salmon and a mixed salad, which was perfect.

Understandably, Alessia was keen to know how the investigation was progressing, and I told her as much as I felt I should, emphasising the fact that, unless the fingerprint evidence came up with something conclusive, we still had no firm suspects. When I felt the moment was right, I gently approached the subject of Rodolfo’s newly discovered sister.

‘I was talking to Violetta earlier and she mentioned that she has a daughter. Can you tell me anything about Tosca?’

She looked up from her plate with an expression of pity on herface. ‘Such a shame. I’m sure Tosca’s very bright but her mother didn’t give her a chance. All her life, she lived in the shadow of her big brother and what she needed the most – maternal love – never came her way. As far as I can work out, she was born around about the time her father died and I think his death probably tipped Violetta over the edge. From then on, Violetta only had eyes for her boy, the Wunderkind, and the new baby didn’t get a look-in. I’ve only seen Tosca twice – at my wedding and then at Rodolfo’s funeral, so you can imagine how brief our conversations were.’

‘Do you happen to know where she lives? Is she married?’

‘At the funeral, she told me she lives here in Verona. She was on her own then and at our wedding, but I don’t know if she has a partner.’

‘Any idea what she does for work?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know. Rodolfo would have known, but he didn’t talk about her very often.’

‘Did you like her? Did your husband like her?’

Alessia nodded. ‘Yes, I did, even though I hardly knew her, and I could see that Rodolfo liked her a lot, but at the wedding, every time he started to talk to her, he would see his mother glowering at him, so he would leave Tosca and scuttle back to hismamma. Needless to say, I didn’t see Tosca go near her mother, either at the wedding or the funeral. Rodolfo and I had a brief conversation with her at the wedding but all too soon, Violetta dragged him away. I actually spoke more to Tosca at the funeral, when she appeared devastated at what had happened, but it was a matter of a very few minutes. In fact, now that I’m back here for a while, contacting her is near the top of my to-do list.’

At that moment, my phone started ringing. It was the inspector.

‘Mr Armstrong, Ventura here. We’ve located her. You were right; she reverted to her father’s name. She lives here in Veronaand I’m planning on interviewing her tomorrow morning. You’re very welcome to come along as well, if you like.’

This was excellent news. ‘I would be delighted. Also, have you any plans to interview Alfredo Argento’s wife, Ingrid? If so, and if it doesn’t bother you, I’d be fascinated to sit in.’

‘Certainly, I’ll try and arrange both interviews tomorrow morning. Could you come down to the station at, say, nine o’clock? I’m not sure at this stage whether the suspects will come to us or we go to them.’

As I knew Anna was keen to carry on ferreting about in Verona’s historic buildings the next day, I asked if he would mind if I brought Oscar with me. Ventura replied that he had no objection but then gave me the bad news. ‘I’ve had the results back from the lab and none of the prints taken this afternoon match with the prints on the oil can. I’m afraid unless somebody new pops up – like the daughter, for example – we’re back to zero on that one.’

The lack of a match came as no great surprise, but it was annoying all the same. I had been pinning my hopes on the can of brake fluid producing a breakthrough but maybe the appearance on the scene of Tosca would provide that for us.

When the call finished, I told Alessia about the oil can and our failure to find a match and received an unexpected explanation that should have occurred to me.

‘Rodolfo changed the brake fluid in all his vehicles every three years. He did the same to my car only a few months ago – he said it was best practice. He was a perfectionist as far as his cars were concerned. I imaginehemust have done it.’

I suppressed a few expletives. It looked as though there might be a perfectly innocent explanation for the oil can I had found, so did this mean that nobody had tampered with the brakes after all? Of course, there was still the unidentified set of prints on the can, but they could have been nothing more sinister than those of thesalesperson who had sold the oil to Rodolfo. If so, could it be that the opera singer really had taken his own life after all? Was this investigation a waste of time? I snorted into the remains of my salmon salad but then reminded myself that it had at least given me the chance to tick off another fine historic city from my bucket list.

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