The Road to Montepulciano

By Garrick Jones

Two years after finishing his tour of duty in the Occupational Forces in Japan, Damson O'Reilly arrives in Siena, Italy. Sight-unseen at a local auction, he buys an abandoned Tuscan farmhouse in which he aims to write, paint, and start a new life.

The house, passed over at auction, becomes an impulse buy when it's put up for a final time. He's prepared for a semi-ruin, happy to turn his hand to renovating the house - however, what he's totally unprepared for are three dead bodies, one of which he stumbles over when he arrives at La Mensola, the name of his isolated farmhouse on the road between Siena and Montepulciano.

Against the backdrop of a series of grisly murders, The Road to Montepulciano is the story of a young man, still suffering the scars of war, who, despite betrayal of trust and surrounded by a complex web of lies, finds friendship, love and the warmth of community.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Sep 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9781923065468

Garrick Jones

Garrick JonesFrom the outback to the opera. After a thirty year career as a professional opera singer, performing in opera houses and in concert halls all over the world, Garrick Jones took up a position as lecturer in music at the Central Queensland Conservatorium of Music in Australia.Brought up between the bush and the beaches of the Eastern suburbs, he now lives in the tropics in peaceful retirement.

Book preview

Sunday 2 April, 1950

Ehi! Inglese!

I was looking out of the window on the left-hand side of the bus, watching the fields go by. It was the first time we’d stopped since leaving the town.

Me? I called out, my Italian inadequate to ask whether this was where I was meant to alight. I held up the map I’d shown the driver when I’d paid my fare. He nodded and beckoned me to the front of the bus.

I’d been sitting on the long bench seat at the back, my head leaning against the window, my rifle between my knees, and my haversack stowed in the netting above that served as a luggage rack. I checked my watch. Had I really only left Pienza ten minutes ago?

Stumbling past a string bag of live chickens and a few boxes people had stowed in the aisle, I reached the front of the bus. Stop. Here. I? I asked with a cheeky grin, trying to cover up my truly dreadful knowledge of the language of the country in which I intended to live.

"Vai! " the bus driver said, batting the air with the back of his hand, laughing at my fractured Italian. Once on the road, I turned to thank him, but the pneumatic door hissed shut in my face. I said it anyway, giving the driver a mock bow. I could see his broad grin through one of the glass panes of the door.

My rifle slung over my shoulder and my haversack between my feet, I took out my pipe, tamped and lit it, then leaned against the signpost at the T-junction where I’d asked to be let off. Well, I hadn’t asked—I’d thrust the map in the driver’s face and stabbed my finger at the place where I needed to alight. The bus driver honked the horn and drove off. I waved, watching it kick up dust on the dirt road as it headed to the east.

Three indicator signs sprouted from the top of the post. To the west, Pienza, from where I’d just come: 6.5 kilometres away. Monte­follonico to the north: 5.1km. And to the east, along the road I was to follow, Montepulciano: 8.6km.

The three towns were relatively nearby. The house, although I’d only seen a photograph of it, had been described as being ‘in a good position’. At the time, I’d convinced myself that it was a good buy. The grainy postcard-sized photograph the auctioneer in Siena had given me showed it to be neglected, but not a total ruin. I hoped that was true; I’d spent almost the last of the money I’d kept in the bank for emergencies on a hasty bid for a farmhouse that no one else seemed keen to buy. One hundred and thirty thousand lire had seemed a lot until I’d converted it—first to American dollars then to Australian pounds. A hundred quid or thereabouts was a pittance for a house on five hectares of land. The only proviso to the sale was that I had two years to clean up the house and the garden, otherwise I’d forfeit it, be kicked out, and it would be re-auctioned by the Province of Siena—that much I’d understood from the notary who’d witnessed my signature and who spoke basic English. I’d also been given a list of things to be done as part of the deal, almost a page long, but hadn’t bothered to try to translate it yet. All in good time.

The scenery on the left-hand side of the road had been beautiful, just as I’d imagined Tuscany to be: broad fields dotted with copses of trees, sweeping vistas, and blueish-hazed low hills to the east. Lining both sides of the road were sparse clusters of ash, poplar and hazelnut, interspersed every so often by flowering trees. I recognised the white blossoms of almond and the pale pink of peach and cherry. It was far too early for apples or pears, and no doubt, just as in Vence, in France, where I’d been living for the past year and a half, they’d been seeded by pips and stones thrown from bus windows.

I moved away from the signpost, settling my bum on the low stone wall next to it, cool against the backs of my legs and my arse, the sun warm on my chest, arms and face, and checked the map again. According to the directions I’d been given by the auctioneer, the house was on the right-hand side of the road to Montepulciano, two hundred and fifty metres from the T-junction. My cold backside eventually told me that it was time to move, so I picked up my haversack and my rifle and headed in that direction. A man rode past on a donkey, staring at me oddly, not replying to my "Ciao! ". I shrugged and kept walking.

The wooden gate held fast. It was one of those wide affairs: planks fastened to a Z-shaped frame. I shoved and heaved at it, frustrated, until I leaned over and saw that short blocks of wood had been nailed from the gatepost to the gate frame. I threw my haversack over, placed my rifle next to it, then climbed over and made my way towards the house, the chimneys of which I could see over the cluster of olive trees that hid it from the road.

It was just as the written description had said it would be, and how I’d imagined it for the past ten days: stone walls, two storeys high, with a terracotta tiled roof—a few tiles missing at the front on the western side—the windows shuttered and the chimneys capped. A large area of golden dry grass and a tall pine, branchless up to about twelve feet from its base, stood at its front. It was quiet—very quiet—just the sort of place that would suit me down to the ground. A month in bustling, crowded Siena had made me feel restless. I’d got nothing done; here I could write and draw and hopefully start a new life.

The front door was immovable, so I made my way around to the back of the house. The kitchen was a lean-to, possibly a later addition to the main house, although sturdily constructed from the same building materials. Its door wouldn’t budge either. As I ran my hand down the edge my finger caught on something sharp—the point of a nail. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the door had been nailed shut with wooden blocks, just like the front gate. But why?

Well, if the doors had been nailed from the inside, the person who’d done it had to have been able to get out of the house, so I started working my way around, trying the shutters of the ground-floor windows.

One, at the northeastern side of the house, next to the kitchen addition, abruptly gave way and flew open, smacking me in the face and knocking my pipe from my mouth. The windows behind the shutters were timber-framed, each with three large glass panes, similar to those of the small house in France in which I’d been living until a month ago. They opened inwards. I hoisted myself onto the sill, then dropped into a small room. It was bare except for a table with four chairs and a sideboard, everything covered in a thick coating of dust. A door opened into the kitchen, which proved to be a wreck, the brick stove completely smashed, its iron cooktop leaning perilously against the wall. The pump over the stone sink looked rusted; I gave it a few quick strokes but heard nothing but hollow sounds. Perhaps it needed priming.

Opening the window above the sink, I unlatched the shutters and threw them back. Light flooded into the kitchen. Looking around, I smiled, rather pleased with what I’d found so far. Having spent most of my life on a farm, I could turn my hand to anything; nothing I’d seen so far looked beyond repair. I relit my pipe and leaned against the edge of the sink, surveying the tangle that had once been a garden.

Something scuttled in a room at the front of the house. Rats? I snorted. Nothing a cat wouldn’t sort out—I liked cats, they made good company. Undemanding, except for food, just like me. I wasn’t sure how I turned out to be so laid-back, especially in view of my life so far, but nothing much disconcerted me these days.

Following the sounds, I passed an empty larder—its shelves bare and its floor caved in—then moved a heavy curtain to one side, leaving it to fall closed behind me. It felt rather more like a rug than something made from fabric. I stood in the pitch dark for a moment, then shuffled carefully with one outstretched arm towards the far wall of the room in order to see whether I could open one of the windows and push back the shutters to let in some light.

My foot hit something. The sensation was not entirely unfamiliar to me. The slight resilience of the object as I prodded it with the toe of my shoe told me exactly what I’d stumbled across. Instinctively, I cursed and jumped back a step.

My Zippo, lit and held aloft, revealed a body. A man, perhaps in his late thirties, lying on his side, his hands tied behind his back, gagged, and shot in the back of the head. In the dim light I saw a fan of blood and brain matter sprayed out over the dust in front of his face. I was also standing in a dark patch—presumably more blood.

I clucked my tongue. I’d seen my fair share of death during the war, but now, five years after it was over, I’d become unused to the sight.

I crouched, holding the lighter closer to the body. Using the back of my hand, I lifted the side of the man’s head: the right eye and cheekbone were missing. The gun must have been held very close to the back of his head.

Ah, Jesus! I whispered, then crossed myself when I moved in for a closer look. The lighter revealed the glimmer of wetness in and around the wounds and there was blood on my hand. Carefully, I grabbed the man’s calf, bending his leg at the knee to test for rigidity. It wasn’t stiff; rigor mortis had yet to set in. He couldn’t have been dead for more than a few hours.

CHAPTER 1

I sat on the bench of the police station, my hat on top of my haversack, my rifle leaning against the wall, listening to the carabiniere who’d introduced himself as Lorenzo Donati and who was talking rapidly on the telephone.

Under the circumstances, he’d been very calm when I’d arrived covered in dust, my shirt stained with sweat after an hour’s walk from the house. I’d tried to make myself understood. House. My. Man. Dead, I’d said, but the carabiniere had held up his hands, indicating he had no idea what I’d been trying to say.

Name? he’d asked, after he’d introduced himself.

I’d handed him my passport. Damson O’Reilly, I’d replied, shaking his unexpectedly proffered hand. He’d smiled while trying to repeat it, turning my surname into a charming word, each vowel pronounced as if it had been written phonetically in Italian: Oh-rah-ee-lee.

My Christian name was unusual. My mother had loved plums, and damsons had been her favourite variety. There’d been a tree in our back yard when I’d still lived at home, before they’d sent me and my brother away to be looked after by the Jesuits.

Eventually, frustrated by an awkward back-and-forth conversation, mainly consisting of utterances of one or two words in each other’s languages, I’d retrieved my Wessely’s Italian-English dictionary from my haversack, finding the word I’d been trying to remember—Francese. I. Talk. English. Latin. French, I announced.

Ah! Donati said. Understand. Me.

I wondered if my Italian had made him smile inside as much as his attempt to speak English had made me. However, he hadn’t shown a sign of it. In fact, he was the most polite and friendly copper I’d ever met in my life. He obviously understood that there was something very wrong, and asked me to take a seat while he tried to find an interpreter.

He made a few phone calls, talking while he made notes and flipped through the pages of my passport. I’d been in Italy for barely a month and my attempts to speak the language had been seriously thwarted by my brain’s insistence on taking a French word and putting a vowel at the end—sometimes it worked well enough for people to understand; at other times I was rewarded by blank stares.

Australia. Good? the carabiniere asked, hanging up the phone and returning my passport.

Big. Hot … I didn’t know the Italian word for far away, so I shaded my eyes with the flat of my hand, pretending to peer into the distance.

Oh! It’s very distant, he said, in Italian, then smiled when I nodded. A man. French speaks. Comes, he announced, in English.

A minute or two later, the door of the police station opened and a tall, well-dressed man in his early forties entered. Are you the young man who doesn’t speak any Italian? he asked me, in barely accented French.

Thank heavens you’re here; I’ve been—‍

My name is Andrea Gagliardi and I teach French and geography at the local high school. Now what seems to be the problem?

I held out my hand for the man to shake. Damson O’Reilly, I said. Can you please tell the police officer that I’ve just found a body in my house?

There followed a quick exchange of rather excited Italian, Donati rising from his seat behind the desk, his voice raised while talking to the schoolteacher.

He wants to know how long ago you found it.

Tell him it took me about an hour to walk here and that I’d say the man has been executed—it was no accident, that’s for sure. He looks to be in his early thirties, he was gagged, his hands tied behind his back, and he’s been shot in the back of the head. Tell him he can’t have been dead for more than two or three hours when I found him.

How do you know how long he’d been dead? Are you a doctor? Gagliardi asked after another rapid-fire exchange with the carabiniere.

Two years of fighting the Japanese during the war, then another two years after that in the occupying forces in Japan. I’ve seen plenty of dead men. You don’t need to be a doctor to know how long it is since someone was killed.

How is this possible? the teacher asked. You don’t look old enough.

I’ll turn twenty-six on the first of next month.

Donati interrupted us, obviously anxious to know what had been said. They spoke rapidly for quite a while, at one point the policeman raising an eyebrow as he looked at me—I guessed that was the war business. I was used to it by now.

He wants to know where you found the body, Gagliardi asked, after they’d finished speaking.

In the front room of my house. I took the title deed from my haversack and showed it to him. I bought it at auction in Siena ten days ago. It’s along the road to Montepulciano, near the T-junction where the road to the north leads to Montefollonico.

The teacher peered at the title deed, then said to Donati in Italian, This boy has bought La Mensola. That’s where the body is.

I hadn’t understood a word, other than the name of my house, but it was I who raised an eyebrow when both men crossed themselves.

*****

Twenty minutes later, we arrived at the front gate in Donati’s khaki-coloured police car.

The Fiat was one of the latest models, all shiny chrome and leather-upholstered bench seats both back and front. I’d slid onto the back seat, and the teacher had sat up front, talking to Donati. I’d understood the odd word, but nothing more, so after a few minutes I’d turned my attention to watching the scenery, as I had done on the bus journey.

Getting to the house, which had taken me an hour to walk, was quicker by car than the bus, the carabiniere driving with his foot to the floor and sounding the horn at intermittent intervals. I only realised after we passed them that there were small lanes leading off the main road, or farm gates; because he was driving so fast, Donati had sounded the horn as a warning in case anyone was about to drive out onto the road.

Both the front door and the back have been nailed shut, I explained, then clambered over the gate. The other two followed me.

How did you get inside? Donati asked.

Through one of the windows at the back, I replied, after Gagliardi’s translation. It’s the only downstairs window whose shutters weren’t latched on the inside.

Wait here, the carabiniere said, before climbing inside, so Gagliardi and I leaned against the wall. I lit my pipe and the teacher a cigarette.

Tell, me, Signor Gagliardi—‍

Andrea, please. There’s no need to be so formal.

Very well—Andrea. Why did you two react the way you did when you realised this house is where I’d found the dead man?

They didn’t tell you at the auction?

I shook my head. "I didn’t know what was going on at first, until an Englishwoman standing next to me, who lives in Siena, explained that it had to do with some sort of agrarian land reform and that they were auctioning off houses that had either been abandoned, or seized by the comune for some reason or other. This house looked very reasonable, but was passed in three times; there was a lot of chatter about it each time, but by the last time it came up for bids my English lady had gone and I didn’t understand what was being said. When I put my hand up and bid in American dollars, everyone turned to look at me, and the hammer came down so quickly I almost didn’t know what had happened."

And the auctioneer said nothing?

No, not a word. When I got back from the bank with the money in my hand I signed the sale documents—a notary witnessed my signature—and the auctioneer gave me the title deed, a photograph of the house, and how to find it.

But you didn’t know anything about it before you put your hand up to bid for it?

No real idea—I knew it was between Pienza and Montepulciano, and it was rural and isolated, and in reasonable condition. That’s all. Now, are you going to tell me what I should know?

You haven’t looked around the land yet?

As I said, I got into the house, found the body, then went straight to the police station. What is it you’re not telling me?

It’s a little awkward …

Please, nothing you will tell me will shock me, I promise.

Gagliardi sighed, then shrugged. As you wish. In early 1945, just before the Germans left Pienza, they came to this house, lined up the entire family in the stable down beyond the grape trellis and shot them all. The man and woman who lived here, his elderly parents, their grown-up son, his wife and their three children, one of whom was only four years old. They were all machine-gunned, just because a German soldier had stolen one of their chickens and the husband had had the temerity to report it.

And the stable is still here?

"Yes, there was talk of pulling it down. But the family’s been dead for five years now and the land reverted to the comune. No one’s really been able to do anything. So we left it as it was: a reminder of what we all went through during the war. Although you might be horrified by the stains on the back wall and the bullet holes, I rather hope that now the house is yours you’ll leave it as it is. It’s a shrine for the locals; a memorial to all those who became martyrs during the occupation. Such terrible, terrible times. Every so often, you’ll find flowers down there. The family was much loved by the community."

I had no idea …

What will you do?

About the stable?

No, about the house, now you know what went on here.

Nothing. I’ll just live here as I intended, and, if you say that the stable is a shrine to the memory of those who were killed, there’s no need for me to do anything except leave it as it is.

It doesn’t worry you, living with the dead?

No. I don’t know what you did in your war, but death has lived with me ever since mine started. There’s no escaping it—it is what it is. What happened to the family is tragic, but they must have laboured and loved while they lived here. They made it their home. I’ll try to do the same as best I can.

I admire you, Signor O’Reilly. We are a superstitious lot in my country and—‍

Donati interrupted, appearing in the open window behind us, speaking so rapidly to the teacher that to me it was just gabble.

He says we must stay here, Gagliardi said, helping the policeman back out over the windowsill; he turned and waved as he headed back to the car.

What’s going on? Where’s he going and why do we have to stay here?

He’ll be back in half an hour. He needs to go back to the police station and phone his superior in Siena.

Why? Did he recognise the dead man?

No, my young friend. It seems there are two more bodies upstairs inside your house.

*****

As we finally left La Mensola, Gagliardi apologised for not inviting me to lunch at his house, but explained that his wife was very nervous around strangers. He left me with Donati, who, on being told by the teacher that I was basically broke, invited me to lunch with him at the Trattoria del Mercato, where he ate most days.

I’d been living on a tight budget for the last month since leaving France and it was the first restaurant meal I’d had in over a week—my mouth watered at the delicious smells coming from the kitchen, and I had to stop myself from emptying the bread basket on the table before the food arrived. Donati merely smiled and gestured for me to go ahead. The menu, written in chalk on a blackboard, listed two plates of food that I couldn’t translate, then, at the bottom: insalata—a word that I did know.

An enormous serving of hand-cut tagliatelle with shredded fish, anchovies and capers, and fragrant with lemon, arrived. I was too hungry to talk, and coloured slightly at the policeman’s broad grin as he watched me scoff my food. After I’d finished, I sat back and thanked him, thinking that was all we were going to eat. He took off his badge, pointed to himself, and said, Renzo. He pinned the badge back on and said, Signor Lorenzo Donati, carabiniere.

I got it. First name, but only when off the clock. I pointed to myself and said, Damson, then put on my sunglasses and said, Mr Damson O’Reilly. He laughed very loudly, slapping his knee. I grinned.

As I’d noticed in the police station, he was quite unlike any other policeman I’d ever met: calm and affable, very similar to my brother, David. And, like most Italian men that I’d run across since arriving in the country, quite tactile. I’d seen them kissing each other’s cheeks while shaking hands; they were unafraid to hug each other and walk arm in arm in public, and a few times I’d even witnessed a quick kiss to the lips when they said goodbye—even with their wives or girlfriends present. I felt very comfort­able in Lorenzo Donati’s presence, and readily accepted the offer of his spare room for the night, rather than dig out the last of the notes in my wallet, which would barely have covered one night in a hotel back in Siena.

The dictionary came in handy while we waited for more food to arrive—apparently there was to be a second course. We passed the book back and forth while trying to explain things to each other in simple terms, until the policeman, who’d turned to look into the square at the sound of dozens of pigeons taking off into the air, whistled loudly. A young priest arrived at the table, chatted briefly with the policeman, then sat, tucking a napkin into the collar of his soutane.

My Latin is not often used, he said, but my friend tells me you speak it?

Yes, that’s right, I replied in the same language, then introduced myself.

My name is Father Ignazio. How is it you speak Latin? Did you study medicine or law? Perhaps you trained for the church?

No, my brother and I were sent to a Jesuit home for boys. I was six, he was eight. There were four French brothers who taught farm skills. We all had to learn both French and Latin, which we spoke most of the day, only using English at night after Vespers.

Ah, I see—‍

Father Ignazio was interrupted by the owner of the trattoria, who arrived with our second course: a large slab of beef—a cut that I didn’t recognise, but similar to an American T-bone steak—which appeared to have been cooked on the grill. It was accompanied by half a lemon on the plate and an undressed salad in a bowl—oil and vinegar were in small bottles on the table. His wife appeared immediately after him with a serving for the priest. Both the owners and the food blessed, Father Ignazio said grace—a few people at neighbouring tables joined in, even though they were already halfway through their meals.

It was a relief now that communication was less of a problem. In between mouthfuls of food, Father Ignazio translated. Explaining that my monthly stipend wouldn’t be available until the fifteenth of the month, I told him that I was looking for work for a few weeks—it didn’t matter what it was; I’d do anything to tide me over, as long as it paid for my food and enough for somewhere for me to stay until I could go back to my house. Donati had already told me it could be a few days yet.

Father Ignazio’s pasta finished, he spoke to a few men at the table next to us, then asked me what I could do—whether I had a trade or a skill that might be useful. I explained that I was a writer, and that was why I’d bought the house—to have somewhere quiet I could concentrate on my writing—but that I was able to do anything that required manual labour. I’d been trained to work on a farm and could manage anything to do with animals or crops—sowing, ploughing, you name it, I’d done it. Besides that, I’d been apprenticed in the monastery and had qualified as a carpenter, so could build and renovate if needed.

The priest relayed what I’d said to the men at the table, who’d passed the information around the room. Donati patted my knee and whispered a soft, Bravo! There was a minute or two of chatter and a lot of shrugging of shoulders, until one man called out to the owner of the trattoria, who came over to the table and spoke with Father Ignazio and Donati, glancing at me constantly.

This man’s mother is gravely ill and he needs to go to Chianciano Terme for a week—the sooner the better, the priest explained. Would you be willing to help in the kitchen? Prepare vegetables, scrub pots, help his wife serve food at table, collect plates when customers have finished eating, and clean up the kitchen at the end of lunch? The trattoria isn’t open in the evening, so you’d be finished for the day by two in the afternoon.

Of course I would. All us boys at the monastery had to do kitchen duty. We were rostered to help prepare food, cook, and serve in the refectory. No one was excused. I’d be happy to help out.

There was another bit of back and forth, then the owner held out his hand to me, introducing himself as Umberto Marino.

Signor Marino’s wife has two nephews who are builders, Father Ignazio explained after more conversation with the owner of the trattoria. They also may need someone to work for them next week. Your skills would come in very handy—they need to demolish a house not far from La Mensola. One of them will call in here during the week to talk to you about what they want you to do, and to discuss your wages.

That’s going to make it difficult, unless you or Signor Gagliardi can be here to translate.

Ah, we have an American lay worker who helps around the parish. He’s away for a few days but will be back tomorrow or the day after. One of Signor Marino’s nephews will ask him to come along to translate.

Details of what I’d be required to do in the kitchen were discussed, and how much I’d be paid per day for working in the trattoria. I wrote down my duties as Father Ignazio translated them—my notebook was always at hand. I was told to arrive the next morning at seven ready to get started. I thanked Signor Marino and was taken to the kitchen to see his wife, who seemed very happy to meet me. When I returned to the table, Father Ignazio explained that Donati had offered me his spare room not only for tonight but also for the rest of the week while I was working at the trattoria, and had begged me to accept his offer to stay until I’d made La Mensola fit enough to live in, even if it took a month or more. He was at work most days and I wouldn’t be in the way.

Tell him I can’t poss—‍

He’ll be offended if you don’t, young man. Lorenzo Donati is the kindest and most pleasant man you’re likely to meet. It’s very fortunate that he was at the police station today and not his colleagues, who are nice enough men but not quite as affable as he is. It’s a quiet town, our Pienza; nothing much happens here. Take my advice: thank him for his generosity and accept the offer of his spare room.

Please tell him that until I go to Florence to collect my money, I won’t be able to—

He’s already said that you can help him with his English as payment. Now, please, let’s have a glass of wine and celebrate your arrival in our beautiful town.

*****

The room was dark when I woke. Not completely dark: slivers of sunlight filtered through the slats of the shutters, creating stripes of light and shadow across the sheet that covered me to the waist. I couldn’t help thinking how warm it was for this time of the year compared to Vence at the same time last year. I checked my watch: half past three.

I still hadn’t settled into the ritual of the Italian afternoon siesta. In Siena, at around midday, the town used to grind to a halt. Shops closed, banks, the post office—everything. Italians either went home or to a restaurant for lunch, ate an enormous meal, then slept for a few hours in the afternoon. On a Sunday, like today, only a few businesses in Siena had been open in the morning; silence fell on the town at midday and one scarcely saw another human being—unless it was one of the infrequent tourists who’d started to return to Italy after the war.

Donati had brought me to his apartment straight after lunch. That was where I was now, stretched out on the bed in his spare room, thinking about the bodies in my house and desperate for my pipe. I decided that I’d have a cigarette instead; pipe smoke wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea.

I threw back the sheet then pushed open the shutters. Light flooded into the room. The windows faced west and there were wonderful views over the countryside. Donati’s flat was on the top floor, the building nestled right up against one of the town’s ancient walls.

I stood naked at the window, leaning on its sill, exhaling luxuriously after the first lungful of smoke. Cigarettes were ultimately more satisfying and gave more instant pleasure than pipe tobacco. I smoked a pipe out of vanity, starting when I’d arrived in France, thinking it lent an air of gravitas now that I was going to be a full-time writer.

I always slept naked. My brother and I had done so all our lives. I couldn’t bear to wear anything while I slept. Even at the monastery, as soon as the lights were out I’d strip off my regulation blue-striped pyjamas. I was given the strap more than once when one of the brothers had discovered me, but I didn’t care. It wasn’t often that I slept through the ringing of the six o’clock Angelus bell, and it was only then that I’d got caught.

Halfway through my cigarette, I reached into my haversack and found my sketchpad and box of pencils. The countryside looked too beautiful to ignore. I began to sketch, using a very soft pencil, smudging some of the harsher lines with my thumb. I’d always been able to draw; Father Benedict at the monastery had encouraged me to become an artist, but words and sport had pulled at me more. Perhaps, one day, I’d write a book and illustrate it; I wondered whether my London publisher would go for it. Photographs or drawings made for expensive production costs, and as I’d only written one book so far …

The scene grew on the page easily. It was a drawing I’d keep for a day when I could afford to buy another set of watercolours—mine had been left behind in Vence. Then, gradually, I became aware of Donati’s soft breathing. I sensed he’d been standing behind me for more than a minute or two watching me draw, but it hadn’t caused me to stop.

Oh, hello, I said without turning, continuing to draw.

Hello. His voice sounded curious, as if he wanted to know something, not as if he found what I was doing odd. The rising inflection at the end of the word made me smile. I snorted softly.

What’s funny? he asked.

Clothes. Me. None. I said, glancing over my shoulder. The carabiniere seemed transfixed by my sketch.

"Fa niente."

I understood that common phrase: it doesn’t matter. I turned side on, resting my elbow on the windowsill. He was wearing a pair of khaki boxer shorts, his hair a tangle, unlike the neat, perfectly combed style he’d worn this morning. A golden crucifix on a chain nestled in his chest hair and, as it caught my eye, I realised for the first time that he was no more than a few years older than me, and that we were more or less the same height.

Mine is silver, I said, returning to my sketch.

"Italiano? "

I touched my own ornate crucifix, which bore a miniature Christ on the cross, given to me by Father Justin, the sports teacher at the monastery, when I’d left to join up for war. Silver, I said again, in English, because I didn’t know what the Italian word was.

Beautiful, he said, coming to stand next to me, taking the cross, then rubbing it between his finger and thumb. I was instantly aware of the knuckle of his little finger touching my skin.

Cigarette? I asked. I put my sketchpad on the bed and offered him my packet of Gitanes. He took two, leaned across me and picked up my lighter from the bedside table. He lit them both, then handed one to me.

Michelangelo, he said, then nodded approvingly at me. I reddened a little while shaking my head. May I have it?

Yes. Wait. No. Hmm … I bent over and rifled through my haversack, finding the dictionary. Then circling the air with a finger over my watch to indicate later. No. Have … I found the word … watercolours. The word in Italian was very similar to that in French.

Donati cocked his head to one side—the universal gesture of puzzlement. I rubbed my thumb against the index and middle finger of his hand, another universal gesture.

Ah! I understand. But later?

Yes. Later. Weeks. Two. Money I have.

He laughed and rubbed my shoulder, then pointed at his watch. We must go now … Damson.

It was the first time he’d called me by my name. I come. Two minutes … Renzo, I replied.

His hand on my shoulder turned into a squeeze and he grinned at my use of his name.

I watched him leave the room, observing the muscles in his legs and the small of his back as he moved. I’d do a sketch—I didn’t know why I hadn’t noticed it before, but he was very good-looking. I wouldn’t say a great beauty, but certainly very handsome. Funny that I’d only just realised it. It was his grin that made his face come alive.

However, before attempting the type of sketch I wanted to make of him, I’d need more time to study him. It was his face that would be the hardest thing to capture. He was wiry and muscled; I hadn’t noticed a spare bit of flesh anywhere on his body in the brief time I’d watched him leave the room. I had one of those memories—I could capture nearly anything in my mind, hold it there, and reproduce it at a later time with a pencil in my hand. It went for colours too. My brother had the same gift but thought it unmanly to draw—it was the only major difference between us.

Donati’s face, his eyes, all of them were shades of the same thing, just like any other human being, but his expressions vacillated from very serious to light-hearted and good-natured, even joyful, and then to something I could only describe as brooding. There’d been something behind his eyes at the trattoria when he was watching me squatting down looking for my dictionary; I’d glanced up in time to see it fly away quickly, replaced by a smile.

*****

Later that afternoon, having returned to La Mensola, I managed to open all the windows on the ground floor and throw back the shutters while the three policemen went about their work. It gave me a much better understanding of the condition of the house. Someone must have cleaned out the belongings of the family who’d lived here, for, apart from the table, chairs and sideboard in the room I’d first climbed into, the place was empty.

One of Donati’s colleagues who’d come from Siena spoke flawless English with an American accent, no hint of Italian vowels—I guessed he might have worked for the Yanks during the war, and perhaps, like a few other people I’d met, had an ear for languages. He’d told me I could wander around the house while they inspected the corpses but I wasn’t to touch anything until they’d given me the go-ahead. That was fine by me; I had my notepad and the tape measure I always kept in my pocket, and wanted to make a detailed list of things that needed fixing and which of those would need to be a priority.

The upper floor was divided in two by a corridor, off which rooms opened either side: three on the left and two on the right. The corridor terminated at the front façade of La Mensola in a pair of glass-paned doors, which were also shuttered. These opened onto a small platform about three metres square, supported by brick columns at the front. Signor Gagliardi, who’d come with us, explained that it was because of this structure that the house had its name: La Mensola meant The Shelf. He told me that in the early part of the century the elderly grandmother who lived here with her family could no longer manage the stairs, so she stayed in her bedroom, and every morning was carried out onto ‘the shelf’, a structure her son had built for her so she could sit on a chair for an hour to look out over the olive trees in the front garden and feed the birds that lived in the pine. It explained why the lower branches had been trimmed off, leaving the first of them just above the level of the shelf.

The rooms upstairs, apart from a few missing floor tiles—they were the broad type that sat on joists strung from wall to wall—were in good condition. I measured them, writing the dimensions in my notepad. All the internal walls, both upstairs and downstairs, were grubby, in need of whitewash, but that was easily fixed. There was no damp at the bottom of the walls downstairs—that in itself was a godsend. Upstairs, the two larger rooms on the right-hand side of the corridor both had impressive wide fireplaces, although the room at the front of the house had tiles missing from the roof. I’d noticed those earlier from outside when I’d first arrived. Three or four lay smashed on the floor, but one of the tiles was almost completely intact so I was able to take fairly good measurements and work out the size. The other room on the same side of the corridor, which I intended to be my bedroom, had an easterly aspect and very nice views over what had been the garden at the back of the house and glimpses of hills in the distance.

Not long after we’d arrived back here, Donati had gone to his car and given me a tyre lever, which I’d used to dislodge the blocks of wood that had been nailed into the architraves of the back and front doors. I’d noted that the heads of the nails were shiny. The doors had been nailed shut fairly recently. I went upstairs to relay the information to the policemen, then waited nearby while they talked.

The other two bodies were discovered in the rooms