Page 37 of The Tuscan Child
“We askla Madonnafor that,” she answered. “She lost her own son. She saw him die. She knows how we feel.”
“Do you wear a medal ofla Madonna?”
“I gave mine to Guido when he went away,” she said. “I only pray that it kept him safe and that he is still alive. But I fear it is not so. My heart tells me that he is dead.”
Hugo took her hand. She gripped his fiercely, and they sat close together in the small circle of flickering light, sharing their worry.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
JOANNA
June 1973
Angelina was woken up and sent to fetch the Carabinieri. Two men in impressive military-style uniforms arrived, red-faced from running down the hill. It took them some time to extract the body, so firmly was it jammed into the well. When they laid it out on the gravel path, I gave a little gasp of horror. It was Gianni, the man who had offered to escort me home last night, only to be pushed aside in favour of the more reliable Alberto.
The two Carabinieri agents recognised him instantly. “But surely this is Gianni,” one said. And they exchanged a look I couldn’t quite understand. A doctor was summoned and pronounced that Gianni had been struck on the back of the head with a blunt object. He had then been pushed into the well with his head under the water. The cause of death was drowning.
I found I couldn’t stop shivering. It was too horrible to contemplate. Paola took one look at me and put an arm around my shoulder. “The poor young lady is in shock. And she has not even had her breakfast yet. Come, my dear, let me pour you some coffee and you will feel better.”
“And who is this young lady?” one of the policemen asked.
“She is a visitor from England,” Paola said. “She is newly arrived here and stays at my guest house.”
“This is the guest house?” the officer asked, pointing at my open door.
“It is,” Paola confirmed.
“So close to the well,” said the officer, a rather unpleasant-looking, pudgy individual with little piggy eyes, staring at me. “You sleep there, Signorina? And yet you heard nothing when this man was murdered?”
“I heard nothing,” I said.
He asked another question. This time the Italian was beyond me. “I’m sorry. I only speak a little of your language,” I said. “I will understand if you speak slowly.”
“I asked who found the body,” he repeated.
My brain was refusing to function properly. I couldn’t think clearly in English, let alone form sentences in Italian. “The signora and I found it,” I stammered, waving my arms as one does when speaking a foreign language and lacking the vocabulary. “I wanted to take a shower. There was no water. I went to the well, but...” It took me long enough to say these words, then my Italian failed me.
“She was not strong enough to remove the cover alone, so she came for me and together we lifted the cover,” Paola said. “We both saw the body at the same time, and I think we both screamed. We were certainly both alarmed.”
“Do you know this man?” the other officer asked.
“I know him,” Paola said, “as well as you do. He has lived in San Salvatore all his life. But this young lady does not. I told you, she is newly arrived here.”
“And do you have any idea why Gianni may have chosen to hang around your house at night?” There was a sneer to the voice of the unpleasant Carabinieri.
“Certainly not to court me,” Paola said hotly. “Of course we know no reason. Signorina Langley and my daughter Angelina and I were enjoying our dinner together and then we went to bed. That is the story of our evening. As to how this man wound up in my well, I would say it is likely that he was knocked out on the path on his way out of town and that my well appealed to his attackers as a good place to hide his body because my house was closest to the path.”
“We can make no assumptions yet,” one of them said. “You will both be required to come up to our headquarters in the town and make an official statement. Later there will be further enquiries. It may be that the inspector from the municipal decides to come from Lucca, since this is clearly a murder investigation. You are not to leave this place without permission, is that clear?”
I hadn’t managed to follow this, but I understood more when Paola said, “I have no intention of going anywhere, but this young lady, she may have to return to her homeland quite soon. She is not to be held up by a murder investigation about which she knows nothing.”
“As for that, we shall see when we have made further enquiries,” the fat one said. “For the time being she is to remain here. Understood?”
I nodded. The full implications of this were just sinking in. The men at that table would undoubtedly be questioned. They would say that Gianni wanted to walk me home but I refused. They might say that Gianni flirted with me. I could see that a warped imagination might read several scenarios into that. Perhaps they would all like to be able to pin a murder on an outsider. I felt sick.
Paola didn’t seem at all perturbed. “I’ll leave you men to go about your business and have this man’s body removed from my premises,” she said. “As for my well, I suppose my water is now contaminated. Poor Signorina Langley certainly won’t want to take her shower until it has been treated. Come, my dear, you shall use the bathroom at the farmhouse and have a good long soak in my tub. Our water comes from the mains.”
With that she put an arm firmly around my shoulder and led me away from the crime scene.
