Count Valieri's Prisoner

‘He’ll have you met at the airport in Genoa and taken to the Hotel Puccini in Trimontano, where the festival will take place later in the year. And he’ll contact you there and set up a meeting with the mystery lady.’ He grinned. ‘Maybe you should pack a posh frock if you’re going to be hobnobbing with Italian aristocracy.’

‘I’m more likely to be palmed off on some private secretary,’ Maddie returned unruffled. ‘But I’d better find out a bit about him, to be on the safe side.’

‘I’ve already had a quick look online, and there isn’t much.’ Todd frowned. ‘Just that the Valieri family actually started the festival over fifty years ago, so he’s probably quite elderly, although there’s no picture. And the family money now comes mainly from olive oil and ceramics. Apart from that—zilch.’

‘Then it’s fortunate we’re not planning to tell his story.’ She hesitated. ‘Did he drop any hints about Signorina Bartrando?’

‘Not one. Here, you’d better have it.’ He handed her the sheet of elegant cream notepaper and she read the two short paragraphs.

The Count used black ink, she saw, and his handwriting was crisp and incisive.

Back in her office, she checked the hotel he’d booked for her on the internet and saw it had an impressive number of stars, and its food and comfort were highly praised by recent guests.

So far, so good, she thought, wondering if Puccini’s name was significant. After all, Floria Bartrando’s first important role had been Musetta in ‘La Boheme’. She’d received rave notices, completely eclipsing the woman playing Mimi. In fact, several critics thought she’d been miscast, and that her voice was more suited to the dramatic coloratura range of the leading part.

And her short but starry career had fully justified their opinion.

So maybe she simply disappeared because of death threats from other sopranos, thought Maddie, faintly amused.

But there’d been little to smile about since then. Jeremy had reacted badly to the news that her trip was definitely going ahead, and there’d been a definite coolness between them ever since. But that, she told herself, was probably due to his father giving him a hard time.

She had really hoped he would relent sufficiently to see her off at the airport, but there was no sign of him.

In the departure lounge she’d sent him a text—‘You’d better be pleased to see me when I get back’, adding a row of kisses, but there’d been no response to that either and she’d boarded the plane, edgy and with the beginnings of a headache as she fought her disappointment.

When the trolley came round, she bought some orange juice and took a couple of painkillers, then settled back in her seat, deciding to close her eyes for a few moments.

But when the next sound she heard was the captain’s voice announcing they had begun their descent to Cristoforo Columbo Airport, she realised, startled, just how tired she must have been.

As the plane turned inland, she caught her breath as she saw ahead of her, in fold after jagged fold, the peaks of the Apennines, some of them still streaked with snow.

She knew, of course, that in Italy, the mountains were never too far away, but these seemed almost too near. In some strange way—almost alien.

But she would begin an even closer acquaintance with them when she reached Trimontano, she reminded herself as the aircraft touched down.

While visualising them as threatening in some way was being over-imaginative, and showed the kind of stress she’d been under lately.

And which she’d come here to escape.

As she emerged from Arrivals, she was approached by a uniformed official.

‘Signorina Lang?’ His smile reassured her. ‘I have been asked to escort you to the Count’s car. Camillo, his driver, speaks no English.’

‘Oh,’ said Maddie. ‘Well—that’s very kind.’

This Count must be a real force to be reckoned with, she decided, as she was conducted through the terminal and out into the warm May sunlight to what appeared to be a private parking area, where a grizzled man in a chauffeur’s uniform was waiting beside a limousine.

Well even if this turns out to be a journey to nowhere, Maddie thought with slight hysteria, as he inclined his head unsmilingly and opened the rear passenger door for her, at least I’ll have travelled in style.

She’d been right, she told herself, leaning back against the cushions, to opt for a trim navy skirt rather than her usual jeans, although her jacket, which had received a faintly disparaging glance from Camillo, was denim. But she was glad of it once the car moved off, and the air conditioning came into play.

In front of her was a square leather case, which on investigation proved to be a cold box, containing bottled mineral water and fruit juice.

Every comfort, in fact, she thought. However, it would all have been rather more pleasant if Camillo had only spoken some English and she could have questioned him about their route and Trimontano itself.

He might even have been able to tell her something about Floria Bartrando’s connection with this area, especially as the singer had been living and working far away in Rome just before her disappearance, and winning plaudits for her interpretation of Gilda in ‘Rigoletto’.

But perhaps this should be left to the Count.

The port and its environs were soon left behind, the car powering its way through heavy traffic on a broad, busy road. Then, after about fifteen minutes, they turned on to another much narrower road, and, as if someone had flicked a switch, the landscape changed. No more urban sprawl or industrial development, but chestnut trees, olive groves and scrubby pastureland covering the foothills of the mountains, and the occasional scattered hamlet, clinging to the slopes.

The traffic they encountered now consisted mainly of farm wagons, groups of hikers sweating under large rucksacks, and packs of red-faced cyclists pounding up the increasingly steep ascent.

Maddie, drinking some water from the silver cup provided for the purpose, was ignobly glad not to be of their number.

At the same time, she became aware that the brightness of the day had faded, and that heavy clouds were massing round the peaks in a frankly ominous way.

Bad weather would be disappointing, she thought with an inward shrug as the vision of sun-kissed villas and cypresses silhouetted against an azure sky began to fade, but, after all, she wasn’t here as a holidaymaker.

Nor had she expected Trimontano to be quite so remote—not when it was the centre of an annual opera festival. The audiences would need to be serious music lovers to make this kind of journey.

And what had possessed Floria Bartrando to forsake the world stage and bury herself among these mountains?

There had to be a real story here if only she could unravel it, she thought, impatient to get to her destination and make a start.

A few minutes later, the car reached a fork in the road, and Camillo turned off to the right and began to descend into a valley, shadowed by a group of three tall peaks.

And there, suddenly, was Trimontano, like a toy town cupped in the hand of a stone giant.

Maddie leaned forward, eagerly scanning the clustering red roofs below her, noticing how a tall bell tower rose out of the midst of them, startlingly white and pointing towards the darkening sky like an accusing finger.

And at the same moment, like a warning voice reverberating between the mountains, came the first long, low rumble of thunder.

Heavens, thought Maddie, sinking back in her seat. That’s a hell of an introduction. Good job I’m not superstitious, or I might just be having second thoughts.

It had already begun to rain when the car finally came to a stop in front of the massive portico of the Hotel Puccini in the main square.

A uniformed man, holding an umbrella, came down the steps to open the car door and shelter Maddie on her way into the hotel, while Camillo followed with her solitary bag.

Which should, of course, have been a matched set of Louis Vuitton, Maddie realised as she looked around at the expanse of marble, mirrors and gilded pillars which made up the hotel foyer. She turned to thank Camillo and found herself watching his retreating back.

He’s clearly used to a better class of passenger, she told herself ruefully as she walked to the reception desk.

But the receptionist’s greeting passed no judgement, and the formalities were dealt with swiftly and efficiently.

‘And there is also this, signorina.’ He handed her an envelope along with her key card.

‘From Count Valieri?’ she asked.