The Third Shadow

Forty-three

With that he laboured himself back his feet, a slowly rising bundle of groans and winces

"Come, ispettore," he gestured once upright," let's walk a little more. There are matters we must discuss."

*

Circumstantial.

As a former law enforcement officer, it ranks amongst my least favourite words in the whole of the English language. The closest analogy I can think of is that it's like the congealed fat which blocks the drain of your kitchen sink, keeps all those scraps of food floating in a dark, malodorous pool around the plug hole. No matter how overwhelming - no matter how utterly convinced a chief investigating officer is of a person's guilt - if evidence is deemed circumstantial the criminal simply will not disappear down the plug hole. Like those floating scraps of food, will remain stubbornly in circulation.

Despite the revelations which had been gleaned that case-changing Sunday afternoon and the chilling conclusions they had led to, all that Nuzzo and I had to offer an Italian criminal prosecuter was the intangible and subjective. All we had, in short, was the circumstantial.

"A body," murmured Nuzzo beside me as we stepped pensively back along the promenade. "We need to find the body."

It was now four o'clock, the town fully reanimated after the post-lunch still. To our left, one of the lidos had begun pumping out disco music; just ahead a group of bare-chested teenage boys were kicking a ball around. As we veered around them, Nuzzo paused his step for a moment, turned towards me.

"The beach you think? Like his brother."

Shaking my head, I shuffled us back into motion. "No, I don't think so. Too much risk that some family dog would sniff him out, just like Sean."

Nuzzo nodded, the narrative becoming clearer. "He, they wanted to be found. It fitted their story. But with Lee they needed to be more careful."

I tried to drown out the disco beats, the shouts of the boys behind us. Tried to picture it, the stomach-turning dynamics of that night.

"Those three figures signor Quaranta saw---"

"Kids, ispettore! How many times must I say to you it was just kids?"

But his objection was somehow less forceful than before, reduced in decibel-level, the accompanying hand gesture not quite so dismissive. Oh yes, I'd got him now. Even he was starting to believe.

"Just for argument's sake, let's say it wasn't kids. That it was them - the Bracewells, the two sisters-in-law. Only, there were three figures, not four. One of them was missing. Who?"

Nuzzo smiled indulgently. "You want me to play your little game, ispettore, then I will play your little game. My answer is Lee."

I nodded; yes, that was what I was thinking too. "So the two figures in front were probably Sean and Sarah. The one following along behind Olivia." Yes, it was starting to emerge now - a blurred kind of film reel projected against the canvas of my mind...

The sene is washed various shades of blue in the moonlight - the inkiness of the night sky, the much lighter hue of the sand; beyond, the soft ripples of the sea as it laps against shore are licked a stark gleaming white. There at the back garden gate emerge Sarah and Sean, the latter with beer bottle in hand, his step a little unsteady. As they head out onto the beach, a third shadow emerges behind, the swing of the gate hinges buried beneath the rustle of the waves A few metres ahead, the two figures have paused, heads tilted upwards, admiring the vast dome of stars above. Olivia reaches down, hands searching for a pebble. A large one. Just heavy enough...

"I think it was Olivia. For all her rage, Sarah didn't trust herself enough to go through with it."

Now it was Nuzzo's turn to nod. "Just buried him where they killed him. Right there in the sand."

"Too heavy for them to carry."

The film reel flickered momentarily back into life: the quick swish of signor Caputo's garden spade through the sand, Olivia's urgent hissed whispers in the darkness: Hurry Sarah, hurry.

The comandante paused his step once more. "And Lee. Where was he at this moment?"

My answer was immediate, the only obvious conclusion which could be drawn. "In bed. Some kind of sleeping pill slipped into one of his glasses of wine earlier in the night. Maybe some ricin too. Might have already been dead. Either that or they finished off the job with a pillow over face."

Nuzzo nodded again. "You think he was too heavy for them to carry also?"

Lee Bracewell had been trimmer than his brother, yes, but couldn't exactly have been described as skinny. He'd been reasonably tall too. Fourteen stone perhaps or thereabouts. Whilst Sarah may have been able to muster a certain level of physical power, the waiflike figure of Sarah would have had great fdifficulty holding her end of things.

"Not very far perhaps," I concluded.

"They could have got him to the car you think?"

I reflected a moment. "Maybe, but I don't think they did. There were the dunes to one side of the bungalow remember, the olive grove to the other. Wherever they tried to manouevre the car it would have remained in sight of the coast road. Even at that time of night, far too risky."

There we were, the comandante and I, a still point amidst the blur of that hot June Sunday afternoon. Oblivious to the passers by, the scampering children. Deaf to the disco beats, the calls and shouts, the passing conversations.

Lee Bracewell. Finally, after all those months, we knew where he was.