Page 3 of Murder at Christmas

MONDAY AFTERNOON, 20 DECEMBER

It took us five hours to drive up from Florence to our Christmas rendezvous with Selena, and Oscar managed to sleep for most of the time. He loves coming in the van with me – except for trips to the vet. It was motorway all the way for the first four hours and then it was all change. We had gradually been beginning to make out the outline of the Alps ahead of us against the sky and, from a distance, we could see the mountains curving around to the west towards the Mediterranean coast and disappearing into the distance to the east in the direction of Venice and beyond. We weren’t far from the frontier by now, and I knew that France lay over to the left of us while Switzerland was straight ahead.

Once we had come off the motorway, we headed north, directly towards the mountains until we found ourselves at the entrance to the three valleys. Valle di Mezzo – literal translation, the Middle Valley – started off relatively wide, but very quickly the steep sides began to draw in. The tops of the mountains were white, but down at the valley floor, there was no sign of snow yet – and this suited me fine, seeing as I was driving. The road became progressively narrower as it wound its way upwards following the twists and turns of a rocky river, passing throughlittle villages where driving got even more difficult. Several times, I had to stop and reverse to allow larger vehicles to come past as they made their tortuous way downhill towards us.

Fortunately, it had been a fine day and the sky was still clear. It was just past four when we reached the turn-off for Pian delle Marmotte. The only signpost was for the Vecchia Miniera restaurant, but I knew from my online research that that would be where the metalled road ended and the dirt track towards our final destination started. I counted the hairpin bends as we began to climb the ever-steeper slope. The higher we rose, the steeper and narrower the road became, and I was thankful that we met only two vehicles on our way up.

The first was a battered old three-wheeled utilitarian vehicle called anApe– or bee, no doubt because of the whining, buzzing noise they make. These were originally developed from a motor scooter and they can be spotted in the streets and fields all over Italy, often grossly overloaded, but still soldiering on. Some of them must be forty or fifty years old, if not older, but they still seem to keep going in spite of everything. The old gentleman driving this one obligingly pulled off the road to allow us to go past and even produced a smile as I waved my thanks to him.

I glanced across at Anna in the passenger seat. ‘It looks as though the natives are friendly.’

She grinned back at me. ‘We’re a novelty. I imagine they don’t see too many people up here.’ She looked out of the side window back down to the main valley, already a long way below us. ‘I wouldn’t like to drive this road in the snow and ice.’

I nodded in agreement. I have no head for heights and I could see that there were few barriers at the side of the road to prevent a vehicle from sliding off and tumbling down the increasingly steep slope towards the river far below. I shuddered at the thought. ‘I borrowed some snow chains from Virgilio, but I hope I don’t have to use them.’

The second vehicle we encountered contained two less friendly natives – assuming they were natives. It was one of those huge American pickup trucks with two men inside. Both sported bushy beards, broad shoulders, and sour expressions on what I could see of their faces beneath all the hair. We encountered them on the last of the hairpins. I was on my side of the road, obeying the rules, when the massive red vehicle with a black stripe on its side appeared, coming straight for me. We both screeched to a halt and the driver of the pickup hooted imperiously, waving at me with unambiguous gestures to get out of his way. I felt my hackles rise at the rudeness but, as I had Anna with me, I obediently reversed back twenty or thirty yards until I could squeeze off the road – on the uphill side, not the edge overlooking the drop. The pickup came past without so much as a wave, so close that his wing mirror smacked against mine, bending it back but thankfully not smashing it. The driver didn’t even slow down, and I watched him in my other mirror as he accelerated away and disappeared around the corner. Anna knew me well enough by now and she laid a calming hand on my thigh.

‘If looks could kill, he would be dead, but you did the right thing,carissimo. There’s nothing to be gained from picking a fight with a couple of thugs like that.’

She was, of course, right, but I was still fuming when we got to San Giorgio, where we found that the gradient levelled out. Doing my best to banish thoughts of the two characters in the pickup, I slowed down and counted a total of just eight buildings up here, all built of grey stone and all with piles of logs stacked up against the walls, protected by the overhanging roofs. The largest of the buildings bore a sign advertising it as the bar/restaurant, and I turned to Anna.

‘How about stopping for a quick drink and a comfort break – for us and for Oscar? He’s been cooped up ever since I gavehim his lunch over three hours ago and he needs to let off a bit of steam before we reach the villa. A Labrador doing a wall of death around the living room probably wouldn’t endear him to our hosts.’

Stepping out of the van was like opening the fridge door and climbing inside. The difference in temperature after the warm interior of the van hit me like a physical slap, and the first thing I did was to reach into the back seat and pick up my newly purchased down-filled jacket. As I pulled it on, I went around to the back door and let Oscar jump out. While Anna went inside to order coffees for the two of us, I repeatedly threw an old tennis ball for him to run after and retrieve on the parking area before I pulled out his water bowl and gave him a drink. After that, he and I joined Anna in the bar. An open fire was burning in a stone-framed fireplace, and the temperature in the low-ceilinged room was decidedly cosy – so cosy, in fact, that I knew that if I stayed here for more than a few minutes, I would need to take my jacket off again.

Anna was standing at the bar and appeared to be the only customer – not that this came as a great surprise in such an isolated spot. She was sipping her coffee and chatting to the woman behind the bar, who turned out to be the proprietor. I went across, picked up my cup and listened in to their conversation.

‘We do most of our business in the summer. This whole area’s very popular with walkers and climbers. Winter for us is definitely quieter, but we have a good reputation in the area and we have a fairly regular clientele who’re prepared to come up here to eat. I’m afraid the kitchen’s closed at the moment and we won’t be serving food until seven o’clock, but I could make you some sandwiches if you’re hungry.’ She was a friendly-looking woman, probably about the same age as Anna and me – I’m fifty-eight – but Anna was quick to decline the offer.

‘That’s very kind, but we’re on our way up to Pian delle Marmotte. We just stopped off to freshen up a bit first.’

‘Are you staying at Villa Delle Coppelle? You’ll get good food there. My son, Paolo, and his wife, Marina, live there and look after the place and the family. Although he has a fancy college diploma for his cooking, I’m the one who taught him to cook, so if you don’t like the food, it’s my fault, not his.’

This was just about the first piece of concrete information I had received about our destination so far. Despite her promise to send me more details of what awaited us, Selena – via her PA – had been back in touch with instructions on how to get to Villa Delle Coppelle, nothing more. As a result, we were going into Christmas week with our eyes shut. I would have liked to ask the friendly barista more about the owners of the villa but I decided against it, not wanting to sound too nosey. Instead, I found myself being very English, talking about the weather – what else?

‘Do you think we’re going to have a white Christmas? I was half-expecting to see snow on the ground up here already.’

She nodded. ‘From what they’ve been saying on the television, we’ve got a big dump of snow coming over the next few days, but I reckon it might come as soon as tomorrow. You’re right, though, it is unusual for us not to have snow at this time of the year. The fact is that it’s been snowing less and less over the past years. If you want proof of global warming, ask one of the marmots. Normally, they hibernate from October until Easter, but Paolo saw a couple of them out in the open only a day or two ago.’ She peered out of the small window in the side wall and scrutinised the darkening sky. ‘Yes, it might even snow tomorrow.’

I deferred to her local knowledge and was relieved that we had at least managed to get here without encountering snow. I love skiing on it, but definitely not driving on it.

Suitably refreshed, we thanked her and went back out to complete our journey. A sign in the shape of an arrow, carved from a huge plank of wood, indicated a turn-off just beyond where I had parked, labelled Pian delle Marmotte. There was an old Jeep with some very chunky tyres parked outside one of the houses, and smoke coming out of the chimneys of three or four other little cottages, but no signs of life. A glance at the temperature gauge on the dashboard told me that it was two degrees below zero outside, so I couldn’t blame the inhabitants for barricading themselves indoors.

I turned right in the direction of the arrow and almost immediately came to a pair of metal gates. These were open, but the sign beside them was unequivocal. This read:

Pian delle Marmotte

Proprietà Privata

Vietato l’Accesso

Divieto di Caccia

Clearly this little valley was private property with no access and no hunting permitted. I wondered who owned it and could see why Selena had accepted the invitation to come and stay. I could certainly see the attraction for somebody looking to get away from it all.

The emailed instructions I had received a few weeks back had been quite clear that we should follow the track up the valley for roughly one kilometre, and this would take us to the villa. I drove in through the gates and found that the track was actually quite a bit wider than I had expected, and I could imagine vehicles as large as trucks having no great difficulty in navigating it – as long as they didn’t encounter a red pickup driven by a couple of Neanderthals coming the other way.

Although the valley floor sloped down towards us, it was a relatively gentle climb, and the track was in better condition than I had feared. By this time, we had risen above the treeline, and all around us was little more than a bleak landscape of rocks and scrub. After almost ten minutes of bumping cautiously along the uneven surface, the sides of the valley narrowed until it looked as though we were coming to the end of the road and would be halted by a series of rocky outcrops and massive boulders. Just as I was wondering if we had inadvertently taken a wrong turning, the track suddenly made a sharp S-bend between two rocky outcrops, and beyond this, the valley opened out again. I stopped to take in the view.