Blood Will Tell: a short Milo Peretti mystery

By David Bastiani

MILO PERETTI is back in Rome to take over the running of his late uncle’s detective agency. When the body of a businessman is found at an office nearby in Trastevere, the grieving mother refuses to believe her son took his own life. But with the Polizia di Stato preparing to close the case as suicide, will Peretti ever really uncover the truth? And will justice ever be done?

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Bastiani
• Release date: Jun 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301062300

David Bastiani

David Bastiani writes crime fiction. He is the creator of Milo Peretti - Rome’s newest private investigator - and is currently working on The Colour of Weeping - the first full novel in the Peretti series. He lives with his wife and their young family in Cheshire.

Book preview

Blood Will Tell

David Bastiani

Copyright David Bastiani 2013

Published by David Bastiani at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Cover design by Ben Hughes

Cover photo © germainphotos

Chapter One

Emilio Peretti had seen dead bodies before. His grandfather. Uncle Fabio. The dead always seemed to look so peaceful lying there all dressed up in their Sunday clothes, as if they had fallen asleep in church. But this messy business was a whole world away from paying your last respects beside an open coffin. Based on the evidence in front of him, being shot in the head was anything but a peaceful way to go.

The body was slumped in a corner behind the desk. A once white shirt had been dyed a rusty red by the blood. That was the first thing he noticed as he stepped into the office: the amount of blood. He wrinkled his nose at the pungent coppery smell that had all but overpowered the more regular musk of old paper and neglected books.

There was splatter on the wall at head height and then a long smear below it where the body appeared to have slid down the whitewashed plaster. The pool on the floor around the victim was large enough to make Peretti wonder what had seen him off him first: the internal damage done by the bullet or the loss of blood.

It was the sight of the blood that brought back memories of heading out of Rome for the school holidays to help slaughter the pigs on his grandparents’ farm. The very first winter he was allowed to join in, he had wanted desperately to cover his ears and block out the sound of the frantic squealing. But, determined to prove his manliness, he gritted his teeth and kept his hands firmly in his pockets. One bolt from the gun and the squealing stopped. A deep slash of the knife and it was over.

The animal was hung up then to let gravity do its work and blood ran in angry red rivers through the snow. Violent crimson against purest white. Like flowers at a funeral. But it wasn’t the blood that bothered him. It was the eyes. Staring sightlessly down at him from the meat hook in silent accusation.

In a strange sort of way, the dead man reminded him of Nonno’s pigs. Eyes wide open in that distant stare. A look of surprise, perhaps, on his face. But surprise at what? Pain? The fact that his nerve had held long enough for him to pull the trigger? Or the grieving mother’s theory: surprise at having a gun pulled on him in his own office.

Peretti took a step back and tried to get the scene straight in his head. There seemed a stark contrast between the almost obsessive tidiness of the place and the gory mess behind the desk. It was a typical accountant’s office – everything just so. Books arranged by size marched along the shelf with regimented precision. The telephone was set perfectly square on the desk. Pens lined up ready for use. Peretti blew out his cheeks and whistled softly. If the office was anything to go by, the deceased probably had a sock drawer with the contents organised by colour.

Taking his cellphone out of his pocket, he began snapping photos: the body, the desk, the wall. Everything had to be captured. He’d commit it all to memory anyway but it was better to have the pictures to study later.

‘Hey, Signore! Who let you in here?’

Peretti slipped the phone back into his pocket and spun around. The policeman’s shoulders filled the doorway. The round-faced little officer peering from behind him was the same man who had been on guard at the front door and Peretti pointed in his direction.

‘That would be your colleague. He’s been very helpful.’

The policeman turned and raised an eyebrow.

‘Is that so?’

The little man spread his hands and opened his mouth ready to make his defence but his outranking officer cut him off with a shake of the head.

‘No. On second thought, I don’t want to hear it, Contadino. For now you can go back to the job you were supposed to be doing when our friend