Chapter Forty-one

IT WAS A high-end barbecue joint on the beach: a polished deck overhanging the sand, sails of white canvas filtering the sun, designer furniture and – not surprisingly, given my host – a front-line view of groups of tourist chicks sunbathing topless.

As soon as we sat down I asked him if he knew about the house’s Nazi past and he looked at me as if I had forgotten to take my medication.

‘You’re kidding, right? ’ he said. He looked at my face and saw that I wasn’t.

‘Who owns it? ’ was my next question.

‘I don’t know, not exactly, ’ he replied, sort of shaken. ‘I got a letter – this would be about seven years ago – from a lawyer in Liechtenstein saying he represented a charitable trust which owned the property. He said the trustees had decided they wanted it to produce an income. ’

‘Did you ask him who was behind the trust, who the real owner was? ’ I inquired.

‘Sure. I even got my own lawyer to try to find out, but it led through a series of nominee companies into a dead end. ’

I didn’t say anything, but I knew most Liechtenstein trusts were designed to be impenetrable. That was the reason why the tiny principality – sixty square miles, sandwiched between Switzerland and Austria – was the first port of call for Europeans, primarily Germans, wanting to hide assets from their tax authorities.

‘So the lawyer acting for the trustees said he wanted you to rent it out. This was after the renovations? ’

‘That’s right – and it was good money for not much work. I collected the rent, deducted the maintenance expenses and my commission and forwarded the balance to a bank in Liechtenstein. That was it. ’

‘Who had a key to the estate? ’ I asked. ‘Apart from you? ’

‘Nobody has a key. Just codes. There are four gates, they’re all on electronic keypads linked to a computer – you can’t tamper with them. ’

‘Okay – so how does it work? A new tenant arrives for their stay, then what? ’

‘I meet their estate manager at the house – all these people have estate managers and personal assistants, ’ he said. ‘I enter my six-digit code into the keypad and hit hash. The screen asks me if I want to change the code and I say yes. I then have to enter my code again, wait twenty seconds, and it tells me to put in the new code.

‘I take a walk and the estate manager or the tenant enters their own six numbers – that way I have no idea what it is. We do the same thing at the other three gates. ’

‘Then they decide who to give the code to? ’ I asked.

‘Exactly. They bring their staff with them – all security-checked, so it’s not as if they give it out to strangers. ’

‘What about gardeners, the pool guy – people like that? ’

‘It’s up to the tenant, but I’ve never heard of anyone giving the code to any locals. They make them ring the intercom on the tradesmen’s entrance, the security chief checks them out and opens the gates personally. ’

‘And at the end of the lease, it’s the reverse, right? They enter their code and you replace it with yours? ’

‘You got it. ’

I paused, thinking. ‘And in winter, when there are no tenants? ’

‘There’s no need for that level of security, ’ he replied.

‘So – you give the gardeners and the pool guy your code? ’

‘Not exactly – there’s a caretaker who stays on the property for part of the year. He lets them in and does some maintenance. He uses two rooms in the attic over the boathouse, but he has to move out when summer starts. Rich people don’t like strangers on the property. ’

‘But he lives there eight months of the year? ’

‘Pretty much, ’ he replied.

‘He’d know the house better than anyone? ’

‘I guess. ’

‘What’s his name? ’

‘Gianfranco Luca. ’

‘Where can I find him? ’

‘He’s got a summer job here on the beach – runs a little team that gives massages to tourists. ’

The waiter was hovering nearby, and I signalled to him to bring the bill. Kaya offered to give me a ride back into the Old Town, but I said it was a beautiful day and I preferred to walk. He got to his feet, we shook hands and he gave me a business card – made to look like a gold ingot – and told me to call him if I needed any more information.

It wasn’t until he had left, and I was waiting for my change, that I glanced down at the card and solved another one of life’s mysteries. In the bottom right-hand corner was his office phone number.

The first seven digits were 9. 0. 2. 5. 2. 3. 4. – the numbers that someone had written down at the Eastside Inn and flushed down the toilet. I figured that whoever was living there had been making inquiries about renting an expensive mansion in the area. Something like the French House.