“In a world where beauty matters, she has none. In a world where fidelity is dismissed with a shrug, she fell in love and was betrayed. Again, and again, and again. If anyone wanted to see Toni Albarosa dead, it was me. I’m glad he is dead, but I didn’t kill him.”
It was a passionate speech, delivered cold and hard, in the marchese’s sandpaper rasp. Moretti felt chilled.
“I presume you have read Rastrellamento, Marchese?” he asked.
“Yes. It is not my kind of literature, but Mario told me there would be many changes.”
“What do you dislike about it, sir?”
“I am not one for harking back to the past, Detective Inspector. Life goes on. And now, speaking of life going on, I must go.”
“Thank you for getting in touch with us, sir. Of course we will let the family know as soon as we have any solid information.”
“Grazie.”
Before the word was completely out of Paolo Vannoni’s mouth and he had a chance to hang up, Moretti broke in.
“One thing, Marchese. About the manor — it is yours, I believe?”
“Yes.”
“And you live in Florence all year round?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Is there another property in the family? Besides the Albarosa villa, I mean. Another house?”
For a moment, Moretti thought the marchese had hung up on him.
“No. No.”
Then the line went dead.
“There’s a turn-up for the books, Guv. Fancy him calling all the way from Florence. Now why would he do that?”
“Did you pick any of that up?” Moretti asked, scribbling furiously. “I want to get it down before I forget.”
“I caught the word ‘drugs,’ and I think I heard him say something about the director and his son, didn’t I?”
“You did, Falla. You did indeed. One brings an unsavoury element with him and the other has no backbone.”
“Then he hung up on you when you asked him about a house. I don’t get it.”
“Hold on and I’ll tell you what Dan Mahy said.”
Moretti finished writing and filled Liz Falla in on his rambling interview with Dan Mahy, leaving out the comments about his own father and mother.
“I might have thought it was all the ravings of someone gone soft in the head, if the marchese hadn’t reacted to my inquiry as if I’d accused him of murdering his son-in-law himself. Not that he’d have minded, because for that he’s off the hook.”
“Why would he take a powder about another house?”
“Whatever the reason, Paolo Vannoni is prepared to throw the reputation of not only Mario Bianchi, but also his own son, to the wolves. He handed us two suspects on a plate: Gianfranco and Mario. That’s why he phoned, Falla — to divert our attention from the internal affairs of the family itself. But I think we should double-check the two statements, anyway.”
“I’ll pull them, Guv.”
“It’s getting late, but I want to return to the manor and ask the marchesa why she said nothing about the prowler. Perhaps she will be a little more forthcoming — and I want to see her reaction to her husband’s comments.”
This time Donatella Vannoni was graciousness itself. She offered coffee, tea — even a beer — and made sympathetic noises about the length of their day. Gone was the defensive, hostile woman of the morning. As soon as Moretti saw her face, he knew the marchese had phoned her, and that any element of surprise he might have hoped for was gone. The enmity between husband and wife was not going to play into his hands, as he had hoped. The marchesa was even prepared to agree that her encouragement of the relationship between Toni Albarosa and her daughter had been “a terrible mistake.”
“And as to the prowler, Detective Inspector, why would I tell you? The housemaid in question is unreliable, given to hysterics — she probably imagined the whole thing.”
“And Dan Mahy?”
“Who? Oh, that poor man — senile, I’m told. Lives in squalor, I believe, on the coast somewhere — his wife was on staff here. You knew that? He still hangs around the place, and we do what we can for him.”
Outside the door of the marchesa’s private sitting room, Moretti and Liz Falla stood and looked at each other.
“Nothing like a threat to the dysfunctional family to make all its members suddenly remember they are in complete accord about everything,” observed Moretti. There was a faint smell of expensive cigar in the passage, and he was longing for a cigarette.
“That was the most frustrating —” began Liz Falla.
“Signor! Signorina! A moment of your time?”
A figure was approaching them down the long stretch of corridor with the bravura and élan of a luxury ocean liner, the floating skirt of her gown creating an ivory wake around her.
“Wow! Adriana Ferrini!” breathed Liz Falla, star-struck.
“Yes! That’s me!”
Ferrini’s rich laugh preceded her. She was dressed as if for a garden party in a floor-length chiffon and satin creation, her sumptuous mouth, flashing eyes, and almond skin perfectly made-up, her bronze-tinted hair arranged in carefully casual disarray around her internationally celebrated face. Where the marchesa wore gold so heavy it still bore the appearance of the nugget from which it came, Adriana Ferrini’s choice of ornamentation was diamonds, sparkling imposingly in her ears and against the luminous satin of her gown.
The door of the marchesa’s sitting room opened.
“Adriana. I was just about to ring for —”
“Donatella darling, I must speak to these two officers. Later.”
Moretti’s sixth sense, numbed by the previous half-hour’s stonewalling, sprang to life. Standing between the two women, he could almost feel the animosity vibrating in the air as they exchanged their apparently innocuous banalities.
“My suite is on the next floor, officers — we could talk there.”
Adriana Ferrini occupied a splendid set of rooms that faced the front and one side of the villa. The windows of her sitting room overlooked the far end of the long terrace, well away from the scene of Toni Albarosa’s murder, and the noise, bustle, and lights of the film set. Motioning them toward two brocade-covered gilt chairs by a low marble table, she sat down on a matching sofa opposite.
“Would you prefer to speak in Italian?” Moretti asked.
“Of course, I heard you were fluent. No, no. I’ve spent much time in America. It would be better for the signorina, I think?”
The marchesa and the actress were built on the same scale — imposing women, with strong bones, long legs, and generous breasts. But there the resemblance ended. Where the marchesa’s dark eyes suggested banked fires kept rigidly under control, only to erupt in anger when she felt threatened, Adriana Ferrini’s emotions constantly bubbled to the surface during the course of the interview, her body moving to the rhythm of her mood, her hands constantly in motion. If ever, thought Moretti, one wanted to show Chief Officer Hanley the difference between a Neopolitan and a Florentine, one would only have to place the two women side by side.
“So,” she began, “is it a compliment or an insult that neither of you have interviewed me yourselves?”
Before either Moretti or Liz Falla could respond, she threw her head back and roared with laughter, tossing