Produktdetails
- Verlag
- hansanord Verlag
- Erschienen
- 2021
- Sprache
- English
- Seiten
- 300
- Infos
- 300 Seiten
- ISBN
- 978-3-940873-85-9
Kurztext / Annotation
Peter Carl - Death in the Olive Grove
What is supposed to be a straightforward property deal turns into a nightmare for the English lawyer David and his partner Thomas. Precisely in the unspoilt countryside of northern Umbria, where the couple live, a group of international speculators want to invest in a grand-scale project to build a country club for millionaires. When shortly before the related contracts are to be signed the neighbouring sheep farmer is found murdered and soon after him the pet dog of the project developer, David and Thomas fear they, too, could be on the criminals' death list. Then they own the house and land that the speculators desperately need for the project to go ahead ...
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Chapter 2
As James Martin put down the phone he looked across sceptically to his visitor on the sofa, who'd been following the conversation with David und Thomas.
"James, this is going to be more difficult for us than you said it would be," came the response from Steven Miller, a project management expert with the property development company Masters Developers Ltd. in London. "We'll have to work that much harder on stimulating a decision in our favour from the two gentlemen,"
James Martin frowned darkly and emphasised that violence was not something he could go along with, if that was what Stephen Miller was thinking of. "I still haven't got over poor old Efisio biting the dust."
"That had nothing to do with us," replied Miller. "I'm not talking here about physical violence. There are more subtle ways of getting adversaries to come on side. We have people at Masters who know exactly how to deal with such problems through gentle persuasion.
For James Martin, the words "gentle persuasion" from the mouth of Miller had a particularly sinister ring about them.
Steven Miller had arrived in Italy from London three days earlier but declined James Martin's invitation to stay in one of the guest houses on his estate. He preferred to reside in the country hotel Stella on the outskirts of the hillside town Panicale. That way, he could keep a certain distance between himself and James Martin and act independently. Panicale, a few miles south of Lake Trasimeno, seemed the ideal location under the circumstances.
Shortly before leaving London Miller had received a mail from an unknown American by very Italian name of Rocco della Rosa, who was the chief backer of the golf project. In his mail he complained about the project's lack of progress and urged Miller to speed things up. "The money is there and needs to be moved as soon as possible to avoid unwelcome attention. However, the transfer can't go ahead until all the contracts have been signed and sealed and the subsidies from Brussels released. Some of the investors are desperate to shift their money and put it in a serious undertaking that won't arouse suspicion. For them, EU participation in measures to promote rural areas is the ideal seal of approval," della Rosa had written. And he should know.
On reading this, Steven Miller lost no time in contacting Marcello Rosselini, State Secretary in the Finance Ministry in Rome. From him he learnt that the Guardia di Finanza was showing increasing interest in the project in Umbria and would soon be launching a thorough investigation. Members of the 'honoured society' keen to take a stake in a country club were also getting nervous. If the obstacles to investment couldn't be removed very soon then, in their view, it was time to resort to other means...
Steven Miller recognised instantly the time had indeed for resorting to "other means."
Luca Marinescu stirred the sugar into his coffee as he looked out rather absent-mindedly on to the little pia zza of Lama Niccone. He'd come to the area for the first time the previous summer when the village was holding its Sagra dei Bringoli , a festa it celebrated every year. He soon got to know the locals - through frequent glasses of wine at Enzo's bar, playing rounds of cards with the village elders and dancing away the evenings at the festa.
And so it didn't take long for Luca to work out who had the say in the village and who was more than happy to indulge in gossip. His plentiful supplies of black afghan hash a nd snow proved to be a great asset in this respect, as he could use them to establish dependencies. You never knew when someone might need an alibi or important information...
Nor did it take long for his expressive dancing at the Sagra dei Bringoli to
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Über den AutorIn
Peter Carl, geboren 1943, arbeitete als Wirtschaftsjournalist bei namhaften Magazinen während der letzten zehn Jahre seines Angestelltendaseins als Chefredakteur bevor er als freiberuflicher Journalist und Herausgeber eines Newsletters in die Selbstständigkeit wechselte. Nach dem Abitur in Bamberg studierte er einiges Semester Volkswirtschaftslehre in Würzburg und Münster, begann während des Studiums ein Volontariat bei der Münsterschen Zeitung in Münster, bei der er dann auch als Redakteur tätig wurde. Von 1971 bis 1975 arbeitete er bei deutschen Auslandshandelskammern in den Niederlanden (Den Haag) und Großbritannien (London) bis er schließlich in Hamburg für das manager magazin und neun Jahre später in München für das Industrie Magazin schrieb. 1995 gründete er seine Firma Presse Service & Consulting GmbH, die den wöchentlichen Newsletter dossierB herausgibt und für führende deutsche und amerikanische Unternehmen im Bereich Corporate Publishing tätig ist. Seit 30 Jahren verbringt Peter Carl seine freie Zeit (und mehr) an seinem Zweitwohnsitz in einem Dorf in Umbrien, wo er sich gern auch als Nebenerwerbslandwirt beschäftigt.