There was no reply, but Maxine caught the sound of gentle sobbing coming from the salon. She and Carla exchanged worried glances then headed for the door. As she opened it, Maxine gasped in disbelief.
‘Dear God,’ she whispered, numb with shock as she took in the carnage before her.
Elsa brushed at her tears to stem the flow and rose to her feet shakily. ‘She won’t speak. Stands there trembling and whimpering and clutching the gun. I can’t get it away from her.’
Maxine shuddered but forced herself to edge closer to Kaufmann’s body. ‘Jesus, the blood.’
Elsa glanced across at the body. ‘I already checked. He’s definitely dead.’
Maxine looked at Carla, saw the panic in her eyes.
For a moment they froze in indecision, then Carla blinked rapidly, recovered, and went straight to Sofia. Maxine watched as she put an arm round her mistress and led her to a sofa, gently helped her to sit and then silently peeled away Sofia’s fingers, safely removing the gun from her grasp. Elsa went to sit beside her daughter.
‘Do you think he attacked her?’ Carla asked, her face a picture of anguish. ‘I’ll never forgive myself. I should have been here.’
Elsa shook her head. ‘I don’t know. See the painting on the floor? He may have come for that.’
Carla looked baffled. ‘She wouldn’t have killed him over a painting.’
‘Right,’ Maxine said, suddenly focusing and taking charge. ‘Never mind what happened. We need to get rid of his body and fast. The vehicle I saw was empty so it’s possible he may have come alone, but I wouldn’t bank on it.’
Carla glanced at her. ‘They don’t usually.’
‘Have you seen any others?’
Carla shook her head.
Maxine shrugged. ‘Either way, we need to be quick.’
Despite Maxine’s insistence, Carla was still staring in Kaufmann’s direction. ‘But why is that painting on the floor? His blood is all over it.’
‘Never mind that now. Come on,’ Maxine insisted. ‘Help me roll him up in this rug.’
After they had twisted and tugged at the rug to fully envelop him, the two of them tried to lift his rolled-up body, one at the shoulders, one at the ankles, but it instantly drooped in the middle and dragged on the floor.
‘Put him down,’ Maxine hissed, practical as ever despite the shockwaves still ricocheting through her. ‘We need more help. We’ll trail blood through the whole house like this. It’ll take three of us to carry him.’
‘I’ll help,’ Elsa said, beginning to rise from the sofa.
‘No,’ Carla said. ‘I’ll fetch Anna. You need to stay with the mistress.’
‘Hurry then.’
While Carla was gone Maxine asked Elsa if Sofia had said anything at all about what had happened.
‘All she said was they had hanged him.’
‘Who? You don’t think she meant Lorenzo?’
Elsa slowly let out her breath. ‘Maybe.’
‘I’m not surprised she shot him then.’
‘She has blood on her blouse.’
‘Maybe she checked to see if he was dead. She’ll need to change.’ Maxine glanced down at herself. ‘We’ll all need to change.’
A few minutes later Carla was back with Anna, who stared, dumbstruck, first at the blood on the wall and the floor, then at the sight of Kaufmann’s booted feet hanging out of the rolled-up rug, and finally at Sofia. She crossed herself and whispered over and over, ‘Madonna santa.’
‘All right?’ Maxine asked after a moment.
Anna blinked rapidly and shook herself out of it. ‘To the tunnels then?’ she said. ‘I can’t be long. I’ve left Alberto on his own.’
Carla patted her daughter’s hand. ‘He’ll be fine, but we need to hurry anyway. Once the bombing starts the whole village will be sheltering down there.’
‘The village have been taking refuge there?’ Maxine asked as they began to lift the rolled-up form. ‘God, but he’s heavier than you’d think.’
‘A dead weight,’ Anna said, and guffawed at her own joke.
‘Shush,’ Carla scolded and shook her head at her daughter.
Maxine glanced across at Elsa, who was gently stroking Sofia’s hand. ‘Will they be all right?’
‘For now,’ said Carla. ‘I’ll clean this mess up when we get back and you hide the gun, Anna.’
‘Let’s hope the Allies get here before the Germans realize Kaufmann is missing. I’ll need to move his car, dump it somewhere,’ Maxine said.
‘What about the keys?’
They all realized the same thing at the same time and Maxine rolled her eyes. ‘Jesus! We can’t keep picking him up and putting him down again. He’s not a damn handbag.’
‘Have you got a better idea?’ Anna muttered back.
‘Put him down then.’ Maxine grimaced as she unrolled the rug and recoiled at the sight of Kaufmann’s lifeless eyes. Then she forced herself to hunt for the key in his pockets.
‘Aren’t you scared? You’re getting covered in blood.’
‘I’ll burn my clothes, after.’
‘Before or after you move the car?’ Anna said.
‘All right. You burn the clothes. I’ll put on clean clothes and then move the car. Now come on! I’ve got the keys. Roll this bastard up again.’ She smirked, her black humour rising at the insanity of it all. ‘I’d love to have seen his face when she pulled the trigger.’
There was a sudden noise. Was it someone knocking at the door or a branch brushing against a window in the wind? Wide-eyed, they exchanged glances, their shock and distress still uppermost, and fear making them imagine the worst. Could it be the Germans? Already?
‘Did I lock the door?’ Carla winced at the possibility that she might not have locked up after she fetched Anna.
‘Too late. Ignore it,’ Maxine ordered.
‘You did lock it,’ Anna said. ‘Don’t worry.’
Carla pulled a face and hesitated before she spoke. ‘Sorry, but there’s something else. We’re going to need a lamp.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, why don’t we bake a cake while we’re at it?’ Maxine looked over to Elsa in frustration. ‘Would you mind coming with us, after all? We need someone to carry a lamp.’
‘There’s one in the kitchen, matches on the shelf,’ Carla added.
Elsa ran to the kitchen and came back carrying the lit lamp. After that, they made their way across the room.
‘He’s dripping,’ Maxine muttered, glancing at the floor. ‘The rug’s not thick enough.’
Carla groaned. ‘Too late to worry about that now.’
Finally, they made their way to the cellars and then into the tunnels. Carla knew exactly where to go, and they carried him, rather awkwardly, thumping and bumping him along the tunnel as far from the house as they could manage.
‘We only need to hide him until the Allies come. They can deal with the body then,’ Maxine said. ‘They’re already in Montepulciano, so it won’t be long.’
Carla gave a little cheer.
‘Wonder if the little boy is still down here?’ Anna said. ‘Should we look?’
‘His mother’s in an awful state but his brother insists he’s in the woods. Anyway, we can’t look now. There’s too much to do.’
They traipsed back to the house, ready to go their separate ways: Anna to hide the gun, Carla to clean up the mess, Maxine to dump Kaufmann’s car and Elsa to comfort her daughter. Except, when they returned to the salon, Sofia was gone.
60.
While Carla fetched a bucket of water, a mop, some old rags and a scrubbing brush, she worried about her mistress. Before leaving, Anna had searched the house but had found no sign of her. Sofia’s studio door was locked so they assumed she had to be in there. Carla wanted to check again, but they all had urgent tasks to complete before the bombing began, so Elsa began the search on her own, in case Sofia wasn’t in the studio. As Carla entered the little salon, she glanced back over her shoulder, fearful a German of
ficer might walk in and discover her about to mop up Kaufmann’s blood. The Allies had not yet arrived, and the Germans were definitely still there, so it was possible. What’s more, if Maxine didn’t get the car away quickly enough, she might get caught in machine-gun fire.
Carla started at the sound of a distant explosion, crossed herself and began to scrub. Had to get it done before the villagers came to shelter in the cellars. But, my Lord, she had never seen so much blood. The sweet, sickly animal stink of it filled her nostrils as she worked. It had saturated the rug and seeped through on to the floor, so she mopped there first, running to fetch clean water every few minutes, but still a faint stain of pink coloured the patterned tiles. She got rid of the mop then ran to find a rug from another room to cover the stain. Next, she dealt with the wall where the blood was most extensive. She kept wiping and wiping but needed to pick out the pieces of flesh with her fingers. She’d never get the blood out of her fingernails. When it was done, she fetched a clean cloth and clean water to wipe the painting, dabbing at it gingerly so as not to damage the gold by rubbing too hard. Her beloved San Sebastiano. She found Kaufmann’s horn-rimmed spectacles and pocketed them to dispose of later. Then she checked and wiped clean the bloody trail they’d made when they carried him through the house. Maxine was right, the rug hadn’t been thick enough and blood had dripped all the way. Finally, she scrubbed her hands until they were raw, took off her stained apron and rushed to the boiler house where Maxine’s clothing was already burning. She stood motionless, hearing the aeroplanes flying over and the first bombs exploding, though not yet too close, thank goodness. The villagers would be knocking at the door at any minute.
The night that came was the worst yet. Still nobody could be sure where Sofia was, and they had to force Elsa to stop searching and come down to the cellars. She had repeatedly knocked on the studio door to no avail and had gone into the garden to look through the windows but found the shutters closed. Anna caught up with her wandering about outside, calling her daughter’s name and weeping.
The bombing was intense but seemed to be moving a little north of them. The Allies must be doing everything they could to halt the German retreat. There was no singing, only prayers. No one slept. The mother of the missing boy wanted to search the tunnels for him, but Carla told her there was no oil left in any lamp and without one she wouldn’t be able to see a thing. She felt bad, because it wasn’t quite true, but they couldn’t risk her stumbling across Kaufmann’s body. She would look for the child herself in the morning, take the dogs with her and go through all the tunnels once the villagers had left. She’d check the woods too. She’d grown up here and knew every nook and cranny of those woods, every hollow tree, all the best places for a young, frightened child to hide.
61.
29 June 1944
In the morning a pink glow cast its light over the land but there was still no reply when Carla knocked on the studio door. On a hunch she headed for the tower and, finding it unlocked, went up. She hadn’t thought of it before; after all, who would choose to go to the top of a tower during an air raid? The room at the top was empty but she climbed the narrow steps and there she found Sofia on the roof, curled up on the hard flagstones. Carla froze. Her tension was only slightly relieved at finding her mistress, because of Sofia’s unnatural stillness. Fearing the worst, Carla held her breath and reached out to gently shake her. Sofia murmured and waved her away, so she went back down to the house to fetch a blanket and a pillow and then returned with a glass and a jug of fresh water too. She helped Sofia to drink a little then wrapped the blanket around her shoulders.
‘Once the sun climbs higher it will be too hot up here. Won’t you come down to your studio?’
Sofia allowed Carla to take her by the hand and lead her down the steps.
‘Did you stay up there all night?’
‘I wanted them to hit the tower.’
‘Oh, my dearest Contessa, you mustn’t think like that.’
‘They hanged him,’ Sofia said in a broken voice. ‘They hanged my Lorenzo.’
Carla’s heart plummeted. So, it was true. She had to stay strong if she was to help Sofia, though this was enough to destroy the strongest, let alone their gentle mistress. ‘Come now,’ she said, helping a stumbling Sofia to a chair. ‘Sit here and I’ll wrap you up. Do you think you might be able to eat something?’
Sofia shook her head. ‘Just leave me here.’
‘On your own? You shouldn’t be on your own.’
‘Please. Don’t let anyone come up. Don’t tell them I’m here. Tell them I’m fine and say I’m resting.’
‘What about your mother and Maxine?’
‘Tell them I’m all right.’ She paused. ‘I killed a man, Carla. In cold blood I killed him. I need to be alone.’
‘You did the right thing.’
‘He wanted the painting.’
‘San Sebastiano?’
‘It didn’t really matter. I’d have let him take it. In fact, he could have just taken anything he wanted, but … it was when he told me they had hanged Lorenzo.’
Carla stood in horrified silence, but Sofia didn’t speak again.
‘Well, you come down later when you’re ready,’ Carla finally said, speaking softly as if to a child. ‘I’ll leave the water and make you a nice supper this evening, a special one. Now sleep, sleep for as long as you can.’
Sofia nodded.
And Carla held the horrible wrenching pain inside herself, hurried down the stairs and ran to her kitchen. She wanted to be somewhere else. Be someone else. Someone who wasn’t on the verge of panic. She took a long, slow breath to calm herself, then sat down, laid her head on her folded arms and wept hard and long. She hated to see her beloved mistress like this, but Lorenzo … she had known him since he was a baby. If she had been the one standing before Kaufmann with a gun in her hand, she’d have shot him too. In fact, shooting was too good for him. She pictured Sofia, all alone up there, hollow-eyed and broken. It didn’t feel right.
Later she crept up the stairs to the tower and found Sofia fast asleep. She wouldn’t risk interrupting her slumber again but would do exactly what she’d said. Try to find something tempting to cook for her and hope she’d come down by the evening. Grief took people in different ways. Some needed to be with people. Others need to be alone. She would reassure Elsa. She’d say her daughter would be all right and then she’d spend some time looking for the missing child.
But by the early evening, with no luck at finding the boy, Carla alerted Maxine; not only was she worried about the child, but about the Contessa too, because Sofia still hadn’t come down. Maxine had been asleep much of the day but, hearing this from Carla, she grabbed a robe and threw it on.
62.
Even at the end of the day the smell of smoke still lingered in the air. It crept into their hair, clothes, even their skin, so most of the villagers had stayed inside, either sleeping or resting after their wakeful night in the cellars. The evening grew heavy and still. In the distance, the sound of gunfire continued but, in the piazza, the only voices you could hear were those of the tiny swallows. Yet when a large black-winged crow took flight from the top of the tower, an ear-splitting screeching began. Another crow followed. Then another. ‘Three crows,’ Maria whispered. Three. Hadn’t they had enough death? She stifled a yawn and, despite the warmth of the evening, wrapped her frayed woollen shawl around her shoulders.
In the azure sky, the sun, at present still a huge yellow ball, would soon be sinking. Despite the bombs that had fallen so close by, the ancient stone buildings surrounding the square were still intact, gleaming as if transformed into pure gold by the sunlight. It had been such a beautiful, peaceful place to live until the war.
A sudden shout echoed around the square. After a moment a dark shutter flew open and Anna’s startled face appeared in the window, her sleepy eyes turned towards the sound. What now? Surely there could be no more. Weren’t the Allies almost there? Maria glanced up as if she mi
ght already know what now but there was nothing save for a few pigeons fluttering to the cistern in the centre.
A fresh breeze rustled the flat leaves of a fig tree and you could hear the air beginning to sing.
There was another shout as young Alberto raced through the main archway chasing after Gabriella’s three-legged dog, the child’s crust of bread clamped between its jaws. As he circled the cistern and slipped on an unripe fig, Anna called to her boy and the dog escaped.
Maxine, wearing a navy-blue robe Sofia had lent her, left the house and went into the square where she spoke to Carla. ‘She has been alone too long. Go. Be gentle with her.’ She pointed to her right, knowing Carla would take the hidden passage. ‘I’ve got the spare tower key in case she’s locked it. Either way, she really needs to come back to the house now.’ After Carla had slipped through a doorway into the darkness, Maxine strode towards the tower. At the noise of an engine, some distance away, she paused. Surely not the Germans, not now? She took a moment to cross her fingers and then hurried on.
But at that very moment, a moment that might go on forever in her memory, she heard a strangled cry coming from the top of the tower. She stared up, shading her eyes with her hand, disbelief flooding her whole being. There, on the crenellated battlement at the top of the tower, Sofia was sitting right on the edge with her back to the square. She was just sitting, not moving, not looking round, her head bowed as if in prayer. Maxine’s throat dried as she called to Sofia to be careful then she squinted into the light in puzzlement. A few seconds passed, although for Maxine time had now completely stopped. It looked as if someone else was up there with Sofia, but then the light changed, and she could see her friend was alone. It had been just a shadow, a trick of the light. And then something fell, billowing, drifting, floating in the breeze. She saw it was a scarf and as Sofia moved slightly and then tipped back a little further, Maxine began to run.
The Tuscan Contessa Page 31