A Murder in Tuscany by Christobel Kent Read Free Book Online Page A

year Giulietta had saved enough to pick herself up a battered brown motorino . It looked pre-war.
    ‘Wouldn’t you want something a bit brighter?’ he’d asked, eyeing the ancient machine doubtfully, and Giuli had tapped the side of her nose. ‘If I had something in metallic pink with Barbie decals,’ she’d said, ‘it wouldn’t be so handy, would it? For surveillance.’

    Sandro hadn’t known if she was joking or not, and the sharp, conspiratorial nudge she’d given him with her bony shoulder had not enlightened him. He’d said nothing, mulling the idea over. He didn’t want to disappoint her. But why not? Giuli was clever, and she was good at making herself invisible, a thin, watchful forty year old in market-stall clothes. She was even taking English classes, two evenings a week; she thought he didn’t know that was where his money went, but Luisa had let it slip.
    He’d think about it; or at least, if they ever got another proper client, he would.
    In the meantime they had an arrangement: if he was on a job and she needed to talk to him, she’d text. If she rang him, she might interrupt something; she might draw attention to him precisely when he wanted to stay invisible. The faceless bystander no one ever noticed or remembered.
    Sandro mumbled. ‘What did you call about?’ He was sitting in the car, in the cold, outside the Liceo Marzocco.
    His mobile had bleeped at him as he stood on the cold pavement grinding his teeth with impotent fury. Call in? The message had been sent when he’d been at that signal-free zone at the foot of the Monte Alle Croci; in the nice stuffy bar, filling up on brioche and caffè latte , reading the paper and congratulating himself on how well the day was going.
    He had been able to see the gap where the pink Vespa had been as he walked up the hill. He’d planted himself on the pavement, no longer caring if he was seen, and waited for them to come out, watching for Carlotta, waiting for the long-haired boy. No show.
    He’d climbed into the car to look at his phone, and dialled Giuli.
    The crowd of kids had more or less dispersed now; just one or two stragglers around a lamp-post. He watched them, the phone to his ear, mouth turned down. ‘So?’
    Giuli wasn’t going to let him off that easily. ‘You’re getting old, Sandro,’ she crowed, ‘I tell you, I know all the tricks in the book, where high-school students are concerned. I should be following the girl.’
    And then what would I be? The redundant detective, out to grass.

    ‘Well, if you behaved yourself,’ he said mildly, ‘maybe I’d let you do some tailing. But for now, just tell me what you called about.’
    ‘Right,’ said Giuli, remembering herself. ‘OK. A call from a guy called something – um – ’ she fumbled, the sound of papers rustling took over and Sandro had to restrain a sigh. Bright, but disorganized; give her a chance.
    ‘Here it is.’ She resurfaced. ‘Luca Gallo.’
    Sandro leaned back into the driving seat. ‘Uh huh,’ he said vaguely. For a moment the name meant nothing to him, then it did. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘The guy from the whatsit Trust.’
    Across the road the kids at the lamp-post had turned to look at him; he shifted his position a bit to obscure his face from them, shoulder against the window.
    ‘Um – Trust, yeah. Wants you to call him.’
    ‘Orfeo,’ repeated Sandro automatically, his brain re-engaging. ‘The background check.’ He sighed at the thought of all those other employee checks awaiting him, and the bodyguard work. Nightclub bouncer, that’s where he’d end up. Employed as a charity case by one of Luisa’s admirers.
    ‘He sounded – funny,’ said Giuli hesitantly.
    ‘Funny?’
    At that moment someone came out through the school’s gate, and a cheer went up from the boys at the lamp-post. Sandro turned to look and saw that it was the lanky boy into whose eyes Carlotta had been gazing. Alberto the rich kid.
    ‘Call you back,’ said