Джеффри Арчер - The Short, the Long and the Tall [С иллюстрациями]

‘Would you care for a glass of wine, Lieutenant?’ said De Rosa, before the policeman had even sat down. ‘The Cortoglia White is favoured by connoisseurs and 1947 was considered a vintage year.’

‘No, thank you, sir. Not while I’m on duty.’

‘Quite right,’ said De Rosa. ‘But forgive me if I do, as it may be my last for some time.’ Rossetti looked surprised but didn’t comment. De Rosa took a sip. ‘So how can I help you?’

The policeman opened his notepad, and looked down at his prepared questions. ‘As your family have lived in Cortoglia for over two hundred years—’

‘Over three hundred years,’ corrected the truffle master with a smile.

‘I was rather hoping you might be able to shed some light on who killed Dino Lombardi?’ continued Antonio.

De Rosa emptied his glass with a large gulp before saying, ‘I most certainly can. You need look no further, Lieutenant, because I killed Lombardi.’

Antonio was taken by surprise but delighted to have a confession on his first day. He was already thinking about returning to Naples in triumph, and getting back to locking up some serious criminals.

‘Are you willing to accompany me to the station and sign a written statement to that effect, Signor De Rosa?’

De Rosa nodded. ‘Whenever it suits you.’

‘You do realize, Signor De Rosa, that if you confess to the murder, I will have no choice but to arrest you, and take you to Naples, where you will stand trial, and could spend the rest of your life in the prison at Poggioreale?’

‘I have thought of little else since the day I murdered the bastard. But I can’t complain, I’ve had a good life.’

‘Why did you kill Lombardi?’ asked Antonio, who accepted that motive invariably accounted for any crime.

De Rosa filled his glass a second time. ‘Dino Lombardi was an evil and ruthless man, Lieutenant, who preyed on everyone he came into contact with.’ He paused and took a sip of his wine, before adding, ‘He made their lives unbearable, mine included.’

‘What do you mean by evil and ruthless, signor?’

‘He intimidated the shopkeepers and the local tradesmen, and even brought Gian Lucio, our local restaurateur, to his knees.’

Antonio kept on writing. ‘How did he manage that?’

‘He demanded protection money, even though he never made it clear who he was protecting us from as there hasn’t been a serious crime in Cortoglia in living memory. And when he became mayor – a mystery in itself – he introduced a sales tax on all of our goods. If he had been allowed to continue for much longer, he would have put us all out of business. Last year my little company made a loss for the first time in three hundred years. So I took it upon myself to rid my fellow citizens of the fiend.’ He put down his wine glass and smiled. ‘I hear the council are planning to build a statue of me in the town square.’

‘I only have one more question,’ the detective said, looking up from his notebook. ‘How did you kill Lombardi?’

‘I stabbed him with my truffle knife,’ said De Rosa without hesitation. ‘It seemed appropriate at the time.’

‘How many times did you stab him?’

‘Six or seven,’ he said, picking up a knife from his desk and giving a demonstration.

Antonio stopped writing and closed his notebook. ‘I feel sure you know, Signor De Rosa, that it’s a serious crime to waste police time.’

‘Of course I do, Lieutenant,’ said De Rosa, ‘but now I have confessed, you can arrest me, drag me off to Naples and throw me in jail.’

‘Which I would be only too happy to do, signor,’ said Antonio, ‘if only Lombardi had been stabbed.’

The truffle master shrugged his shoulders. ‘But how can you possibly know how he died when he has been cremated?’

‘Because I have read the autopsy report,’ said Antonio, ‘so I know exactly how he was killed. What I don’t know is who murdered him, but it certainly wasn’t you.’

‘Does it really matter?’ said De Rosa. ‘Just tell me how Lombardi was killed and I’ll confess to the crime.’

This was the first time Antonio had ever known someone admit to a crime they hadn’t committed.

‘I’m going to leave, signor, before you get yourself into even more trouble.’

The truffle master looked disappointed.

Antonio closed his notepad, stood up, walked out of De Rosa’s shop and back into the square without another word.

He tried not to laugh as he passed a pen full of the most contented pigs he’d ever seen, almost as if they knew they would never be slaughtered. He was on his way back to the police station when he spotted a pharmacy on the other side of the square, and remembered he needed a bar of soap and some toothpaste. A little bell above the door rang as he stepped inside. He stood by the counter for a few moments, before a young woman came through from the dispensary and said, ‘Good morning, Signor Rossetti, how can I help you?’

Hardened criminals from the back streets of Naples couldn’t silence Antonio Rossetti, but a chemist from Cortoglia managed it with one sentence. She waited patiently for her customer to respond.

‘I need a bar of soap,’ he eventually managed.

‘You’ll find a good selection behind you on the third shelf down, Lieutenant.’

‘Is it that obvious that I’m a policeman?’ said Antonio.

‘When you’re the only person in town that nobody knows, everyone knows you,’ she said.

Antonio selected a bar of soap but ignored the toothpaste, because he wanted an excuse to return as soon as possible. He placed the soap on the counter and tried not to stare at her.

‘Will there be anything else, signor?’

‘No, thank you.’ Antonio picked up the bar of soap and headed for the door.

‘Were you considering paying or don’t the police in Naples bother with anything quite so mundane?’ she asked, suppressing a smile.

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Antonio, quickly placing a note on the counter.

‘Do call again if there is anything else I can help you with,’ she said, passing him a small bag and his change.

‘There is just one thing. You don’t, by any chance, happen to know who killed the mayor?’

‘I thought Signor De Rosa had already confessed to murdering Lombardi? I assumed by now you would have arrested him and locked him up.’

Antonio frowned, left the shop without another word and made his way back to the police station. He sat at his desk and began to write a report on his abortive meeting with De Rosa, but found it hard to concentrate. Once he’d completed it, he returned to the photographs on the board and put a large black cross through De Rosa.

Antonio decided he would have to pay a visit to Mario Pellegrino, the owner of the olive oil shop, next, but this time he wouldn’t call to warn him.

Rossetti left the police station just after breakfast the following morning, and set out for the olive oil shop in the square, pleased he would have to pass the pharmacy on his way. He slowed down as he approached the shop and glanced through the window. She was standing by the door, turning the closed sign to open, and looked up as he passed by. They exchanged a glance before he hurried on.

When Antonio arrived at the olive oil shop, Mario Pellegrino was waiting for him at the door.

‘Good morning, Lieutenant,’ he said, ‘have you come to purchase a bottle of the finest olive oil on earth or is this a police raid?’