The Tuscan Child Read online

  “We sent the signora’s daughter to fetch the Carabinieri. They came and removed the body from the well. It wasn’t easy. Someone had stuffed him in head first so that his head was in the water. It was horrible.”

  “Did you recognise the man when they brought him out?”

  “I did,” I said. “I had seen him the night before.”

  “Ah. So you knew him?”

  “I didn’t know him. He was one of the men who were sitting around the table in the piazza. I asked them if they remembered my father, but none of them did.”

  “That is all?”

  “Yes,” I said. “That was the only time I ever saw this man.”

  There was an unpleasant smirk on the inspector’s face now. “This is not what I hear,” he said. “I heard that Gianni was most interested in you. He flirted with you. He offered to show you his farm.”

  Renzo’s face was now also showing embarrassment as he translated.

  “He was only being friendly,” I said. “I told the men that I would like to see the neighbourhood and this man, Gianni, offered to show me how he made cheese.”

  “How he made cheese? Is that what they call it now?” The inspector looked at the young agent and chuckled.

  My uneasiness was displaying itself as anger now. “Inspector, I was sitting at a table with other men. They laughed and said that I should watch out for Gianni, so I was aware that he was perhaps not to be trusted. So when he offered to walk me home, I refused. And luckily another man called Alberto said he would escort me as he had to go past Paola’s farm on his way home.”

  “So that was the last time you saw Gianni?”

  “The only time.”

  There was a long pause while the inspector stared at me. “So tell me, Signorina Langley. Is it normal in your country for a girl to approach a table full of men alone, to accept a glass of wine from them? This is accepted behaviour?”

  “First, I am not a girl. I am a woman of twenty-five and I am about to take the exam to become a lawyer,” I said. I thought I detected a flicker of reaction at the word “lawyer.” “And second,” I went on, “I wanted to find out about my father and I felt quite safe approaching people in the town piazza. I accepted a glass of wine because it would have been rude to refuse.”

  “And then?”

  “Then I walked home. I already told you a man called Alberto offered to escort me since he had to pass the farmhouse where I am staying. I accepted his offer as it was getting dark. He escorted me to the front door. I thanked him and went in to have dinner with Signora Rossini and her daughter. Then I went to bed. That’s all I can tell you.”

  “You heard nothing after that? A man was killed and pushed into a well and you heard nothing? I find this strange. Unbelievable almost.”

  “I drank wine,” I said. “I am not used to it, and it must have made me sleep extra soundly.”

  He made a sound half between a cough and a laugh. “You know what I think?” the inspector said. “I think that Gianni was attracted to you. A young lady from a distant city, maybe with different standards from our local girls. He has heard about London girls and their loose ways. He wanted to make a conquest. He came to your room to see you later that night. Maybe he tried to force himself on you. You resisted. You hit him with a rock and knocked him out, then, frightened by what you had done, you hid his body in the well.”

  “That is absurd,” I said, looking up at Renzo to translate for me. “For one thing I would not have been strong enough to hit a man like Gianni over the head if he was already attacking me.”

  “Very well, let us say that you pushed him away. A commendable action for an upright young woman. He tripped, fell backward, and struck his head against a rock. Not murder at all, but self-defence. Understandable. Any jury would see that you were defending your honour.” He paused again.

  “But not true,” I said. “And how could I have put his body into the well? I told you I was not strong enough to lift the lid alone.”

  “So you got the signora to help you.” He wagged his finger at me again. “Together you pushed this poor man into the well, where he drowned.”

  I took a deep breath, fighting to remain calm and in control as Renzo translated. “If I had done as you say and stuffed his body into the well, would I have alerted the signora in the morning that I had no water for my shower? Would we have removed the cover, found the body, and then called the Carabinieri? No, I would have kept quiet about the body. I would have left the town, caught the first train back to England, and by the time anybody discovered the body I would have been gone.”

  The inspector listened to this as it was translated into Italian. I realised I was waving my arms as I spoke, in true Italian fashion. I noticed a strange expression crossing Renzo’s face. Then he said, “I can waste no more time on this, Inspector. I have business to attend to. You will please excuse me. It is quite obvious that this young woman did not kill Gianni.”

  “Then why,” the inspector said, “were her fingerprints on a big stone found beside the well? Answer me that one.”

  “I can answer,” I said, not waiting for Renzo to translate. “That stone was on top of the lid. I lifted it down first when I attempted to open the lid.”

  “Ah, so you do speak Italian,” the inspector said.

  “Not well enough to say what I want to,” I answered. “And I don’t understand when people speak rapidly.”

  “We will leave this matter until next week,” the inspector said. “I am not convinced that she is innocent. I will need to question this Signora Rossini as well. She may have been a partner in crime. But I will get a confession out of her if she is guilty. We need to do more tests, question more witnesses. The whole place will be searched for clues and fingerprints. But I will be kind to you, Signorina. I will not take you to the jail in Lucca. I will permit you to stay here in this town until we get to the bottom of this crime. You are not permitted to leave, do you understand?”

  I nodded.

  “Very well. You may go for now.” He waved us out of the room.

  As I came out of the darkness into the bright daylight, my wrist was grabbed. I gasped, struggled, and looked up at my attacker. It was Renzo. He was glaring at me, a look of fury on his face.

  “Where did you get that ring?” he demanded. “Have you robbed my house?”

  I looked down at my hand. “It is my signet ring,” I said. “My family crest. My father gave it to me for my twenty-first birthday.”

  “But no, you are wrong,” Renzo said. “It is my family crest. My family. Your father must have stolen it while he was here.”

  “Absolute rubbish!” I shouted the words, fear and anger now combining. “See the crest on it. It is the griffin. The same crest is carved over the front entrance of Langley Hall. It has been in our family since 1600.”

  I saw uncertainty on his face now. “But I have an identical ring at home,” he said. “It is a man’s ring and was found among my mother’s possessions. Cosimo told me that it came from my real father’s family. From the Bartolis. He said I should be proud that we were once nobility.”

  “Then Cosimo was wrong,” I said, realising as I said it that Cosimo hadn’t known the truth. He had not known about my father. But I was feeling excited now. This was absolute proof that my father had been here—that he had known Sofia. I looked up at Renzo’s face, now frowning with confusion. “I think my father must have given this to your mother as a token of his love. Now we know he was here in this place and he did know your mother. Are you sure you do not remember him? An Englishman with light brown hair and blue eyes, slender in build like me?”

  He shook his head. “I never saw him,” he said. “What makes you think that he knew my mother? What brought you here?”

  “Well, the ring is proof, isn’t it? And I have a letter that he wrote to her,” I said. “A love letter. He told her that as soon as the war was over, he was coming back for her. He was going to marry her.” I paused, feeling the intense emotion in
what I was saying. “But the letter was returned unopened. The stamp on it said, ‘Not known at this address.’ He kept it locked away in a little box all these years.”

  “She had gone with the German,” he said. “She chose not to wait for your father.”

  I nodded, feeling close to tears. We stood there in the bright sunlight, staring at each other.

  “Then your father and I were both abandoned,” he said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  JOANNA

  June 1973

  We looked up as we heard Paola calling.

  “Your tomatoes, Signor Bartoli. Do you have a cart to transport them?”

  “I will send one of the men up later on,” Renzo said. “But I will pay you now. Keep them out of the sun, please.”

  He took out a wallet and handed over several notes. Paola beamed. “You are most generous.”

  I turned to Renzo. “Thank you for translating for me. I could not have got through that interview without you.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I am sure the inspector realises that you are completely innocent of this crime. Sometimes these men enjoy wielding their power. Or maybe he is just lazy. He goes for the most obvious suspect. But I will speak with Cosimo and he will make sure that you are released. My father has great influence in these parts.”

  “Why do you think this man was killed?” I couldn’t resist asking.

  Renzo shrugged. “I can think of several reasons. He mixed with the wrong type of people. He poked his nose where it wasn’t wanted. Maybe he overheard things he should not have heard. Maybe he even resorted to blackmail. I wouldn’t have put it past him.”

  I told myself to shut up, but I went on. “I understand he also wanted to build his own olive press. Might someone have wanted to stop him from doing that?”

  Renzo shook his head. “Just one of Gianni’s big ideas. It would never have happened. Everyone knows that Cosimo’s olive press is the most modern and efficient in this area. Why should anyone build another one? Especially a man like Gianni who would undoubtedly have cut corners and constructed a shoddy product. It would constantly have broken down, even if anyone would have lent him the capital in the first place.” He gave me a curt little bow. “I must get back to my business. I’m already late. Maybe I will see you at the festival tomorrow? You should come. I think you would enjoy it. Very un-British!” And he smiled as he turned away.

  I watched him go. Such an attractive man, I thought. Then I reminded myself that he was Cosimo’s adopted son. It was quite possible that he knew who killed Gianni. If Cosimo wanted to stop the olive press from being constructed, he had plenty of men to do his bidding . . . including a son. I must not forget that Renzo might have had a hand in the murder, I thought.

  I went to join Paola at her stall as Renzo stopped to talk with some men on the far side of the piazza. Gianni’s death probably had nothing to do with the olive press, I reasoned to myself. He had tried to speak with me alone. He wanted to tell me the truth about the war, about Sofia. He had put the envelope through my window. And someone had followed him and killed him. Something had happened in the wartime here. Something to do with blood and German money.

  I manned the stall with Paola all day, then helped her pack up the crates and few remaining vegetables. She looked pleased. “Almost everything sold, thanks to Cosimo and Renzo. Now we will not have to eat vegetable soup for a week!”

  We walked home together. It was strange, but it actually did feel like walking home.

  “That stupid man, that inspector,” she said. “But that is how the police are in these parts sometimes. They don’t want to delve into anything that might be too dark and complicated, so they try to pin a crime on the most innocent of people. He probably has a good idea that Gianni was mixed up in criminal activities, but doubtless he wants to steer clear of any gangs. But don’t worry,” she added. “Nothing will come of this. You will soon be allowed to leave, I promise you. And in the meantime I shall teach you to cook good Italian food so that when you have a husband you keep him satisfied.”

  In spite of everything, this made me laugh.

  “Tell me about the war,” I said carefully. “Were there any scandals around here? Any people who worked with the Germans?”

  “I told you, I was not here,” she said. “I only returned after the Germans had left. One heard plenty of tales of horror, of course. Of young girls violated. Of whole villages massacred because the Germans believed they had aided the partisans.”

  “Who were the partisans exactly?” I asked.

  “Brave groups of men who worked against the occupiers,” she said. “It was no true organisation, just small independent groups acting in the areas where they lived. Some were fascist, some were communist, some were ex-soldiers, some were just good men who wanted to help win the war. They destroyed trucks and blew up rail lines. They did many courageous things, and many paid with their lives.”

  “There was a group in this area, then?”

  “There was. Until someone betrayed them. The Germans mowed them down. Cosimo was only a young man then. He was one of them. He was fortunate. The German bullet only grazed him. But he had to lie among the bodies, pretending to be dead, as the Germans went among them with bayonets. He was half-mad with grief and covered in blood when he managed to stumble home the next day. The people of San Salvatore were lucky that they were not all executed in reprisal as happened with other towns.”

  “Would the people of San Salvatore have known who the partisans were?” I asked. “Wouldn’t the men have kept their identities secret?”

  “Of course. But people always knew. They relied on the farmers to hide them when they were being pursued. They relied on others to feed them when they were away from their homes. And they sometimes wore a little star so that people knew they were who they claimed to be. So yes, people knew.”

  People knew, I thought. And one of those people had betrayed the local boys to the Germans. Why? Who had prospered from it? Or maybe it was a case of who had been released from German custody by giving this information. I thought of those men sitting around the table and wondered how I could ever find out what they might know.

  We reached the farmhouse and stacked the crates, and Paola went for her afternoon snooze. I, too, would have liked a sleep, but I was too tense. So I sat with Angelina as she took care of the baby.

  “Would you like to hold her?” she asked suddenly. “Here.”

  And the child was in my arms. I felt the tiny, warm body, surprisingly heavy for its size. So perfect, I thought. A perfect little person. Little dark eyes looked up at me, staring at me with interest.

  “Hello,” I said. “You don’t know me, do you?”

  And I thought I detected the glimmer of a smile.

  “She is beautiful,” I said.

  “Yes, isn’t she? The most perfect baby ever,” Angelina said. “When she was born early, they said she might not live. But I prayed. I prayed to Saint Anne and to the Blessed Mother, and they heard me. And now look at her. Getting fatter every day thanks to my good milk. When Mario comes home he will be so delighted to see her.”

  I looked down at the tiny mite in my arms, her eyes already fluttering back into sleep. I couldn’t have done this alone, I thought. To rear a child one needs a Mario who will come home and be delighted. And a grandma who takes care of mother and baby.

  That evening, Paola said she was tired and we would have a simple meal. She whipped up eggs and made a frittata with the few vegetables we had brought home: onions and zucchini and beans. It was surprisingly good.

  “An early night, I think,” she said after we had finished our meal with cheese and fruit. “Tomorrow is a big day. First the Mass at eight o’clock, then the procession and then the feast. Will you come?”

  “Oh yes. Of course. I’d like to see it.”

  “You are not of our faith, I think,” she said.

  I didn’t like to say I wasn’t really of any faith. “I was raised in the Churc
h of England,” I said. “It is similar, I think.”

  “I hear that in England there is no devotion to religion. You do not honour the saints, is that right? You do not pray to them.”

  “That’s true,” I said.

  She made a dismissive noise. “Then how can prayers be answered if you do not call upon the saints to help? God is obviously too busy to do everything alone.”

  I thought how sweet and simple this was. But then I remembered the little medal on a ribbon that had been in my father’s box. Someone had given that to him, probably Sofia. I wondered which saint was represented on it. It seemed so unlikely for my cold and typically English father to have worn a medal on a ribbon. He must have loved her very much, I thought. I remembered the paintings done before the war, so bright and full of life. And it came to me as a shock that his life essentially ended when that letter was returned to him unopened. I wondered how many further attempts he made to trace her until he gave up and married my solid and dependable mother.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  HUGO

  December 1944

  The weather turned freezing wet and miserable. Hugo huddled in his shelter for several days while rain and sleet splashed around him. Sofia came at night, her hair plastered to her forehead and her clothing sodden.

  “Don’t come when it’s raining like this. I can survive, I assure you, and you’ll catch pneumonia if you get so cold and wet,” he begged.

  “I am strong, Ugo. I am used to a hard life. Don’t worry about me,” she said.

  “But how will you explain your wet clothes? Your grandmother will be suspicious.”

  “Nonna can no longer climb the stairs. I dry my things in the linen closet.” She gave him a mischievous smile. “Don’t worry.”

  But he couldn’t help worrying. One night the storm was so bad that Sofia didn’t come. Thunder crashed overhead. Lightning lit up the sky above. Hugo sat up, relatively dry under the part of the parachute he had kept, worrying about her. What if she had tried to come and was struck by lightning? What if a tree branch had fallen on her? He also felt the gnawing of hunger. As he was growing stronger, so his need for food had increased. He faced the sobering reality that if something happened to Sofia he would starve unless he managed to trap more birds. But the thought of eating a bird raw was so repugnant that he brushed it aside.