Authors: Grace Brophy
Alex nodded. He’d heard it many times before.
“Are you suggesting that this letter may have a connection to Operation Bernhard?” He drew in his breath at the possibility of a murder tied to the most infamous counterfeiting scheme of the last century.
“Yes, and I’m not at all surprised. Who else would the Germans turn to but the neutral nations, Sweden and Switzerland in particular? Laundering hundreds of millions of counterfeit British pounds is not easy. They had to find legitimate avenues for distribution. There’s just so much money you can launder by using it to pay off your spies. You know the story, I suppose, of the German spy whose codename was Cicero?”
“No, tell me.”
“Elyesa Bazna was valet to the British ambassador in Ankara. He leaked important information to the Germans, for which they paid him £300,000, but in counterfeit pounds. After the war he sued the German government for outstanding pay and won. Those delightful Turks!” she said laughing. “And some Italians don’t want Turkey in the European Community. Brothers under the skin, I’d say. Think of it, Alex; it’s believed that the Germans printed the equivalent in today’s currency of $4.5 billion in British pounds.”
“But they found the money in the early sixties at the bottom of an Austrian lake,” Alex replied. “So even if it’s true that Jacob Lagerskjöld laundered money for the Germans, or was attempting to launder money through a Venetian bank, what does it matter today, and how could it justify murder? Jacob Lagerskjöld’s dead, isn’t he? And so, probably, is Count Molin. And if I remember correctly, the Bank of England made changes to its currency some time after the war to ensure that none of the counterfeit pounds could be used as legal tender.”
“Don’t be naïve, Alex,” Hanna said, more sharply than she’d intended. She was aware immediately that she had offended her grandson, and reached out and patted his knee. “Sorry, love, but you know me on this subject. Consider the countries that don’t want this scandal dragged back out into the sunlight: Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, England, and that’s just for starters. Anything that reminds the Germans of their history is uncomfortable, and if this letter is just surfacing now and in a murder case, it has some relevance. Perhaps the money never reached its destination, and the Germans used it for petty cash after the war, maybe in Italy. It would have come in handy. They wouldn’t want that publicized. And the Swedes, you’ve heard me often enough on their pathetic war. They collaborated with the Germans and everyone else for money, but don’t remind them. They’ve been in denial for sixty years. And Italy! Two minutes after its citizens hanged Mussolini upside down by his toes, they buried their Fascist past. It never happened! Is there any family in this country who lost someone during the war that doesn’t claim he was a partisan fighting with the resistance? Nobody wants reminders.”
“The English?
“As much as the others. This was a huge embarrassment to the British. The pound in those days was what the dollar is today, the world’s prime currency. Even the Bank of England couldn’t tell the difference between the counterfeit bank notes and the real ones. It was only when a bank clerk found herself holding two bank notes with the same serial number that the Bank of England realized it had a problem. Believe me, they all have a stake in keeping this quiet.”
“Does it say in the letter that the money was actually shipped to Venice?”
“I’ll read it to you.” It took her a minute to find her glasses, which had slipped down between the chair and the cushion, and while Cenni was waiting, he reflected on the implications of what his grandmother had just told him. Italy’s left-leaning government was working on a number of projects with Germany’s right-leaning government. Neither would welcome revelations about their Fascist pasts. But his instincts told him that whatever game Baudler had been playing, it was on an individual level. He doubted that her murderer was a state-hired executioner. Hired hands killed with cold efficiency, and they generally disliked messes. He wouldn’t put it past any of the governments his grandmother had mentioned, Italy included, to get rid of Baudler if it was expedient, but not in this particular manner.
“Here they are. I was sitting on them,” Hanna said. “I’ll read you the sentence:
Please let our agent know if the boxes
were received in good order.
You can decide what that means, but it says to me that the money had already been shipped and he’s trying to find out where it is. And since the agent’s name is not mentioned, it seems likely that Count Molin knew who the agent was and had worked with him before. Possibly the money was diverted by some interested parties. Maybe Count Molin received the money and stored it for safekeeping and then the war ended. He would have had ten million British pounds, undetectable as counterfeits. There’s a whole lot one can do with money like that at the end of a war with the country in turmoil. Is this count any relation to Marcella Molin, the one who owns all those vineyards?”
“I don’t know. Elena is researching it, probably at this very moment, so I won’t know anything until tomorrow.”
“
Caro,
you’ve picked my brain long enough. No more politics tonight. I’m rusty from watching all this reality TV. Where’s Lucia with our champagne?” She lowered her voice. “Make sure you invite her to join us. Your mother snubbed her the other day and hurt her feelings. Lucia, by the way, was the best birthday present you’ve ever given me. Renato is still trying to top it.” She smiled sweetly. “Sven wrote and told me about the birthday celebration, but please don’t tell Renato that I know.”
11
HIS GRANDMOTHER FED him on French country pâté, spinach ravioli with a butter and, sage sauce, and afterward, Belgian chocolates. Alex accused her, very gently, of being a traitor. Cenni Chocolates is the second largest manufacturer of chocolate in Perugia, and Hanna was one of its founders. “But Belgian chocolates are better,” she’d responded, while searching through the assortment for a champagne truffle. For all her talk of carousing to all hours of the night, he noticed that she hadn’t finished half her glass of champagne before she nodded off in her chair.
After Hanna had gone off to bed, Alex had stayed talking to Lucia, while finishing up the champagne, until after ten. Lucia had been working as a maid in Assisi for a family involved in one of his more notorious cases and had been fired for spreading lies—or, as Lucia described her offense, “Telling it like it is.” He’d felt somewhat responsible, having encouraged her to reveal family secrets, and he liked her, despite her disposition to gossip. He had introduced her to his grandmother, who also loved to gossip, as a possible companion two years ago, and they had been together ever since. Hanna’s previous companions, all of them chosen by his mother, had been prissy women in their fifties who thought his grandmother outrageous. Lucia accompanied Hanna everywhere, and they had frequently been seen dining in Perugia’s better restaurants, until a few months ago when Hanna had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s.
Cenni skirted around what was bothering him by first offering up compliments.
“That was a delicious, Lucia. I had two helpings of ravioli. But I noticed Hanna barely touched hers, although she finished her pâté and had five chocolates afterward. I was wondering if she perhaps she should be getting more protein and vegetables in her diet.”
“Pâté is protein,” Lucia responded defensively.
“It is, but I was thinking more in the line of a piece of fish or a lamb chop with a vegetable, and a nice salad: lettuce, tomatoes, onions, maybe some zucchini. They’re all excellent this time of year. And perhaps fruit to finish.” Even to himself, he sounded lame, and he had to suppress a smile.
Tears welled in Lucia’s eyes. “Oh, dottore, I’m sorry, really I am. I love Hanna; she’s been so good to me. She’s my friend, and she’s also like a mother to me. I can tell her anything. I really do love her, but she won’t touch any of those foods you mentioned. Every night, except when we go out to eat, which is not often any more, she wants exactly the same things. She lives on that awful French pâté. In the morning she has it on a croissant, and it has to be a croissant from the French bakery on Corso Vannucci, and for lunch it’s pâté on a baguette. And it has to be with only one type of pickle and one type of mustard.”
“Have you mentioned this to my mother?”
“Oh, no. I would never do that. Hanna would consider that squealing. Your mother is very bossy and Hanna hates it. But I did talk to her doctor, twice now.”
“What did he say?”
“That old people often have peculiar tastes in food. He said it’s more important that she’s eating and staying strong, and that the French are a healthy people and they eat pâté all the time. I’m really sorry, dottore
,
I’ll do whatever you think best.”
Cenni thought for a minute before acknowledging that the doctor was probably right. He was also a little horrified at himself; he’d almost involved his mother in his grandmother’s affairs. Hanna would go back to Sweden before she’d let anyone tell her what to do, particularly his mother.
“You know, dottore
,
I have an idea. If you could come by a few nights a week for dinner and insist on a vegetable with fish or lamb, Hanna will order what you like. She loves it when you visit.”
Cenni squirmed inwardly at this reminder that he’d been derelict in his duty for more than a month, but he had to admire Lucia for the clever way in which she’d turned his lecture to her into a reminder that it was he who was neglecting his grandmother.
HALF AN HOUR after climbing into bed, he was still wide awake. His conscience was clean, so that wasn’t the problem. He’d promised Lucia he’d come for dinner twice a week, more often if he could manage it. A clean conscience is usually a guarantee of a good night’s sleep; but it wasn’t his own conscience that was keeping him awake, it was Piero’s. He had pushed Piero’s promotion to
com-missario
using what leverage he could muster, which had been sadly depleted after the Casati case. Had he made a mistake? Was Piero too inexperienced? Even experienced officers find it difficult not to succumb to political pressure. Piero was a good policeman but a novice in politics; without someone at hand to guide him, he would have found it difficult to stand firm against pressure from his superiors. In the past, Alex had been Piero’s mentor, but that was before he’d been sent down to Foligno. The que-store was no help; he might even be the one applying the pressure. Perhaps the questore had brought him back from Foligno strictly for show. Alex hated to acknowledge it, but he was now the elder statesman in the Perugia Questura. To the Germans, he would have been the obvious choice to lead this investigation. Alex never knew what the questore was up to.
After a few more turns of his pillow, he reached a conclusion. There were two possible reasons for Piero not to have told him about the threatening letters: he’d been told not to by the questore for reasons as yet unknown, or he was protecting someone for personal reasons. There was nothing for it; tomorrow he’d have to visit Piero in Assisi, and that decision put quit to the wonderful day he had planned for himself. So turns the world, he thought, and promptly fell asleep.
12
EVERY EVENING ALEX set his alarm for seven; and every morning exactly at six, his cat, Rachel, would jump on his chest and lick his chin until she woke him. In the beginning, when he’d first rescued her from a murder scene, he’d tried closing the bedroom door, but she’d scratch all night until he had to let her in. He’d tried ignoring the licks, but she was insistent. He’d tried scolding, but that was equally ineffective. Every cat lover is positive that his cat has human qualities, and Alessandro Cenni was no exception. The expression of wounded sensibility that Rachel affected when he gently chided her was surely an act, but it worked. So at ten minutes after six each day, he got out of bed to fill her bowl with food, and at six fifteen he was wide awake. So, as on every other morning since he’d adopted Rachel, Commissario Cenni was the first to arrive at the Perugia Questura.
He began his second day of the Baudler investigation by reviewing the file on the 1978 murders in Paradiso. He’d read the file a few years earlier but was still surprised at the enormous changes in police practices between then and now. The police had collected very little crime scene evidence in 1978, and what they had collected had been discarded ten years ago during a cleanup of storage facilities. But he doubted that what had been discarded would be of any help. The ax handle had been checked for fingerprints, with the conclusion that it had been cleaned while it was still embedded in the mother’s skull, or else that the killer had worn gloves. The house had been dusted for prints, but no comparisons were made against suspects’ prints, as none had been collected. As soon as the police realized that the father and the brother had been in Switzerland at the time of the killings, they jumped, rather absurdly, Cenni thought, to the conclusion that a passing vagrant was the killer. The house was located outside the town wall with no immediate neighbors, and the mother was known to have usually left the door unlocked. The husband and brother, who returned home for the funeral, looked through the contents of the house, and both said nothing was missing. They also said they’d kept the ax in a shed behind the house, and that the shed was never locked. The assumption by the officer in charge that the killer was unhinged seemed reasonable. What was not reasonable to Cenni’s thinking was the accompanying assumption that the killer was a vagrant.
The chief investigating officer, now retired, hadn’t kept the file updated, and there were no records of either the father or brother’s later addresses, although there was a lone magazine clipping dated six months after the murders stapled to the front of the folder. It was an interview of the father, obviously paid for, in which he claimed that his wife and daughter had been raped. The coroner had been explicit in that regard: “No evidence of sexual molestation of mother or child.” He looked through the file trying to find any indication as to which of them had been murdered first, the mother or the child, but could find nothing. The time of death was listed as between nine and noon. The bodies were found by the dead child’s playmate shortly after midday
.