The Waterfall, page 23
‘Are you and Gabriel stepping out?’ I asked.
‘Hardly.’
‘Are you stepping out with anyone?’
She cocked her head to one side. ‘You know how it is, love, men are always around, aren’t they? You just have to be choosy. And don’t throw all your lot in with one, because when you do, they’re straight out on the street again without a second look at you.’
‘Dr Wetherby’s book, The Waterfall,’ said Honora, changing tack.
‘What about it?’
‘Have you read it?’
‘Not much else to do around here, most nights, other than read books.’
‘I shall take that as a yes.’
‘Take it any way you like, madam.’
‘I have been told that the characters in it were based on members of this community.’
‘First I’ve heard of it.’
‘Is that true? Or was one based on you?’
I caught my breath. In the story set in the creepy old monastery or what-have-you, one of the characters was a little schemer who looked like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth but had all the men twisted around her little finger. Could that have been Deliah Grieves?
‘That would have been hard to pull off, given that I never even met Dr Wetherby until after the book was published. Never even set foot in this country, while we’re at it.’
‘I see.’ Well, that was a bit of a disappointment. For a second, I’d thought we’d caught our fox – and a wily one at that. No such luck.
Miss Grieves stubbed her cigarette out and crossed her arms defiantly. ‘And now that you’ve asked your questions, will there be anything else?’
‘Yes, there will,’ Honora said.
‘No, there will not!’ called out a man’s voice behind us. I spun around to see Commissario Ricci striding in from the hall. ‘Miss Grieves, I have some questions for you.’
‘I’ve just answered hers.’
‘She is not the police. I am. Now, do you know who wanted to kill Fred Glenn?’
‘No.’
‘Are you telling me the truth?’
‘She’s hardly going to admit she’s lying, is she?’ Honora huffed.
‘Mrs Feldman. Do not—’
‘How well did you know Fred?’
‘Well enough. Or are you suggesting something improper?’
‘I’m sure you have your own ideas about propriety.’
‘Mrs Feldman!’ Ricci blurted out. ‘I have had enough of you putting your nose in. This stops now. Give me that telephone.’ Miss Grieves, looking at first surprised, then pleased at the intervention, handed him the phone. Ricci picked up the receiver and asked the operator for the police station. ‘I’m going to have you removed from here.’
‘You can try.’
His call connected. ‘Sono Ricci. Voglio che— Che cosa?’ He stopped and listened. ‘Capisco.’ He hung up. ‘Well, you have got another chance. I must go.’ He clocked the glance that passed between us. ‘Do not follow me.’
We followed him. He and the constable tore off in a motor launch, but we were able to stay behind them in our water taxi, which was still waiting for us. We pulled in to shore a bit up the coastline and could instantly see what we had come for.
There, in a ditch, was a man’s body. A couple of police who had come on bikes were standing beside it and guiding in a white ambulance.
Ricci shot us daggers as we jumped out. And as we scrambled closer, I saw whose the body was: Dr Wetherby. He wasn’t moving, and there was a huge patch of blood on his shirt.
‘Stand back!’ Ricci barked, as two ambulance men hopped out with a stretcher. I did as I was told. One of the medics checked his pulse and said something to Ricci. While Honora poked about in the bushes nearby I asked Ricci what the man had said. He grumbled but answered me. ‘He says he is alive, but only just. His pulse is very slow. He has lost blood.’
‘Will he live?’
Ricci asked the ambulance man, who shrugged.
‘Here,’ Honora said. ‘The weapon.’
Ricci’s constable went over and used a handkerchief to pull a large knife out of the undergrowth, while the Commissario tried to rouse Dr Wetherby.
‘Dr Wetherby?’ he said. There was no response. ‘Wake up!’ He waited. ‘Dr Wetherby, you have been attacked.’ He beckoned to the ambulance men, who brought over the stretcher. ‘We are going to take you to hospital.’ They gingerly lifted him and laid him on the stretcher. His eyelids remained closed. The men scampered with him up to the ambulance just as Honora tramped back with the constable in tow.
‘Well, that puts a new hat on matters,’ she said.
* * *
‘Dr Wetherby knew there were no drugs missing, because there had never been any in the safe in the first place. They were all locked away in the dispensary, according to Miss Grieves,’ Honora said as we strode up to the hospital reception.
‘So why did he claim they were?’
‘I presume it was because he knew what was really missing, and who had been desperate enough to break in and take it.’
‘Why would he do that? Protecting someone?’
‘No doubt,’ she said. ‘The question is who.’
‘So what was really taken from the safe?’
‘That is what we are here to discover.’ She addressed a nurse in a white booth, who was wearing a uniform that looked a good deal more like a nun’s than a nurse’s. ‘My client was just admitted after an accident. His name is Dr Matthew Wetherby. Where is he?’
‘Your name, please?’ She was a local.
‘Honora Feldman. Mrs.’
The nurse consulted a clipboard. ‘I cannot find—’
‘I will,’ Honora replied, striding off. I ran along in her wake. An ancient nurse tried to stall us, but Honora simply batted the old girl out the way. The sister stared open-mouthed as we marched along, double-time.
The stone walls had been scored with hundreds of years of graffiti and what looked like musket-ball holes. It had seen some action, that clinic. ‘You might think they would take a bit more pride in their interior decor,’ Honora said. ‘Come on, this way.’ And she shoved apart a pair of double doors. It was the emergency ward, with a dozen or so curtained cubicles and a few sisters buzzing about like grey flies. ‘There!’ she said, pointing to a cubicle in the far corner.
‘How do you know?’
‘Do use your eyes, Pips. The shoes.’ And I looked down to where the curtain didn’t quite reach the floor, allowing us a peep at two pairs of black shoes. ‘Formal but cheap, Pips, the mark of the policeman, whether he’s in Italy or Inverness. Ricci!’ And I swear I saw the legs in those shoes stiffen. ‘Out you come.’
The curtain pulled back a little, and the face of the Commissario glared out, looking like absolute thunder. ‘Mrs Feldman,’ he growled. ‘Do not presume to—’
‘I presume nothing. I work on facts,’ she returned, taking hold of the other end of the curtain and whipping it back so we could enter.
Ricci maintained his unfriendly look at us. ‘I did not give you permission.’
‘Not your hospital, is it? Now.’ She examined the patient. Dr Wetherby appeared to be asleep. ‘Has he been like this since you brought him in?’
‘Yes,’ the Commissario replied, exasperated.
‘Is it life-threatening?’
‘The doctors said not. The wounds are in his side and did not penetrate any organs. But we have to let him rest.’
‘Well, he’s no good to us like that.’ She bent down to his ear. ‘Dr Wetherby!’ she called. ‘Dr Wetherby!’
A young nurse poked her nose into the cubicle. ‘Please keep the noise down.’ She spoke with an American accent.
Honora ignored her. ‘Dr Wetherby!’ She poked his arm. Hard.
‘Please don’t do that!’ the nurse said, coming fully in.
‘Dr Wetherby. Ah.’ His eyelids were fluttering, attempting to lift. With some effort, they made it all the way up. She spoke more softly now. ‘Dr Wetherby. You are in hospital.’
The nurse prepared a syringe. ‘Morphine, Dr Wetherby,’ she said, pulling up his sleeve to administer it.
‘No!’ he said forcefully. ‘No morphine!’
She looked taken aback. ‘But the pain…’
‘No morphine. Not now or when I’m asleep.’
The nurse was flustered but put the syringe away and bustled out. We glanced at each other. Well, if the chap preferred to be in pain, it was his decision. Honora spoke again. ‘Do you remember what happened?’
‘Stabbed me,’ he said hoarsely.
‘That’s right. Can you tell us anything about it?’
‘A woman. I… don’t remember.’
‘A woman? Who?’ she asked urgently. ‘What did she look like?’
‘I don’t know.’ He breathed deeply but slowly. It looked like it hurt him.
‘You lied to us about what was missing from your safe.’ I saw Ricci start at this. ‘Who are you protecting?’
He opened his lips and licked them. ‘Fred,’ he groaned, as sleep took him once more.
Chapter 11
‘Fred?’ I said. ‘Golly.’
‘Not so surprising when you think about it.’ The ward sister had put her foot down and harried us out with threats in Italian that sounded quite deadly. ‘But it’s not entirely straightforward. Does he mean that Fred broke into the safe or that someone else did and the truth would somehow expose Fred?’ We were walking through the Rialto, where there were shops offering all sorts of pretty traditional goods such as the most beautifully blown glass and thick paper like ivory.
‘Fred’s past caring, surely.’
‘The dead care about their memory, Pips. That’s why we have so many churches,’ she said, pointing to one where we could see inside to a huge ceiling fresco of the Heavens.
We happened to spot Penelope on a café terrace across the street, wearing a wide-brimmed sun hat and dark glasses. She was with Erwan. She waved at us, and he stood up politely when he saw who she was waving at. He really was a dreamboat.
‘Hullo,’ I said to him when we got close.
‘Bonjour.’
I saw Penelope fight back a grin. Honora made a point of ignoring us and ordered a lemon tea, while Penelope’s glass was full of fruit and bright red liquid. I asked if it was fruit juice.
‘Hardly, darling. Campari spritz. And just a hint of vodka to give it some wallop.’
‘We could go for another drive tomorrow morning,’ Erwan suggested to me.
‘That would be lovely,’ I said.
‘No. You have an errand to run,’ Honora said.
‘Have I?’
‘I take it there are English-language bookshops in town?’ Honora asked Penelope.
‘Oh yes,’ she replied. ‘Four or five at least.’
‘Good. Pips, you’re off to buy two copies of Dr Wetherby’s book. Buy them from different shops.’
‘I can just go and get them now.’
‘No, the shops are shutting,’ she told me.
‘They are not!’ She pointed to one that was just closing up. ‘Oh, all right, tomorrow morning. But why do you want them from different shops?’ She just looked at me with a raised eyebrow. I sighed. It was one of those dratted times that Honora just wanted it done without having to explain.
‘Now, Penelope, you claimed that some of the characters in Dr Wetherby’s book were based on real people. How did you come to that conclusion?’
‘Well, it was just said, really. People just said it.’
‘Idle gossip and tittle-tattle, was it?’
‘Well, when you put it like that…’
‘That is how I put it. Would you like to put it another way?’
‘N-no. I suppose that’s what it was. But wouldn’t it be so thrilling if it were true?’ Her eyes got so big that I thought they might have popped off her face.
‘Then I think we can discount that theory. The book, Pips – your mission tomorrow will be vital to unlocking this little mystery. You mark my words.’
Well, at least I got to chat to Erwan a little before Honora dragged me away.
‘There’s somewhere I want to visit,’ she said after we’d marched through the streets, past the fish market, across two little bridges and into a little square at the north of the island. Honora pointed to a plain-looking three-storey building with tall windows and columns around the doorway. ‘In there.’
‘In there? What is it?’
‘Family history.’
She went to the door and pulled a little chain. A bell tinkled, and a little man with thick glasses and thicker white eyebrows looked out. ‘Buona sera,’ he said. Honora beamed at him and pointed inside as a sort of dumb request to come in. He looked a little confused but stood back and let her enter. We were in a tiny, very plain vestibule and could hear men singing quietly on the other side of a pair of white-painted doors. The little man watched as Honora gently pushed them apart. She didn’t enter but stood still and watched as two dozen men and a few ladies sat at pews in a large rectangular room. A pulpit at the far end was occupied by a big fellow singing louder and more beautifully than the others.
‘Hebrew with an Italian accent,’ Honora said fondly. ‘It adds a certain flavour, doesn’t it?’
‘Oh,’ I said.
‘This was my grandparents’ synagogue. Just a little one.’
She sighed with what I think was contentment. The little chap with the white hair smiled at us. I think he understood.
Chapter 12
The next morning, instead of going for a lovely drive with Erwan, I was nipping back over to Venice in the steam vaporetto. Even though it wasn’t my first choice for the morning, I couldn’t tire of entering that town by St Mark’s Square. I imagined myself back in the sixteenth century, and I swear I would have been one of those girls who cut their hair short, grabbed a sword and pretended to be a man to join the navy and get into sea battles. It would have been wizard thrills manning the cannons and sinking a few galleons. Well, you can’t blame a girl for having a heart from an earlier age, can you?
The thing is, I think Honora thought it would be tricky to find that book of Dr Wetherby’s, The Waterfall. But it was easy as pie. The first English-language bookshop I went into, a little place with a wonky door, had it in stock, and I snapped it up for ten lire. Admittedly, the next couple of shops didn’t, but then the next one did.
Sad to say, I couldn’t idle in the town all day, though, because Honora would want the results, and pronto. So back I hopped to Villa Batley. ‘Oh, she’s down on the beach,’ Penelope told me through about a pint of gin and tonic. ‘But don’t go yet. All work and no play makes Pips a dull girl!’ She just about held me down and poured two mint juleps down my throat. Crikey, they were strong, too. I got to my feet, staggered a bit, shook myself like a dog coming out of a lake and tried to focus on one of the three doors that were swimming about in my vision. ‘Go for the middle one,’ Penelope said, guessing my condition. ‘It’s usually that one. Pip-pip, Pips!’
I managed to step outside, trip over a rock, pick myself up fully anaesthetized so that I didn’t feel a thing, giggle and make it down to the beach, where Honora was swimming lengths – if you can do that in the sea.
‘Hon… ora,’ I called out. She was about fifteen yards from the shore.
‘Are you tight?’ she asked.
‘Mint julep.’
‘Penelope.’
‘That’s the gal.’
She powered back to the shore and looked disapprovingly down on me. I realized I had sat down without noticing it. ‘There’s a time and a place, Pips. This is not it. Come on.’ And she frogmarched me back to the house.
‘Come for another mint julep?’ Penelope asked.
‘She’s had quite enough,’ Honora told her. ‘Probably enough for a regiment of dragoon guards. Now, sit down, Pips, before you fall down.’ I did as she said. ‘Tell me if you found the book on sale.’
‘Eas’ly,’ I said, suppressing a bit of a hiccough that wouldn’t have helped the situation. ‘I’ve bought copies from two shups.’
‘Shups?’
‘Shops.’
‘Good. That demonstrates that there was little reason for Fred to break in here for a copy. There was something special about that one. Now, our next task is to read the book thoroughly to see if there’s anything in the text that can lead us to why he did it.’
‘Is it all right if I go for a bit of a lie-down first?’ The floor seemed to be rocking under my feet.
‘No, it is not all right. Take a cold shower-bath and then read it standing up. At least if you drop off, the fall will wake you. I will commence with my copy.’
I wasn’t too keen, but I did as she said, taking the other copy of the book up with me. The cold shower did perk me up a bit. But I couldn’t find anything in the book that would make anyone desperate enough to steal it. And murder? Not a bit.
‘Apparently Dr Wetherby’s awake,’ Honora told me when I came down the stairs. ‘But that halfwit sergeant has said that if I go near him, I’ll be clapped in irons and sent back to Blighty in an air mail package. So I’m going to take this little novel,’ she slapped the back of it, ‘and finish reading it on the beach.’
Top luck! As I saw her stride down to the waterline, I ran back upstairs, dolled myself up and dashed out the front, over to Erwan’s house, jumping into his little runabout while his coffee cup was half-way to his lips.
‘I just broke out of gaol,’ I said. ‘Drive!’
He laughed his head off, got in and hit the accelerator. We powered forward and were topping forty in seconds. We were going far too fast, really, but we didn’t care as the wind flipped my hat off and carried it away down to the sea.
‘Where are we going?’ I shouted over the sound of the engine.
‘There is a place that is beautiful. San Nicolò beach. It is very quiet. Sand dunes and trees. No people.’
‘Spiffing!’
