The Drowning River

by Christobel Kent

  ‘It happens,’ said Massi curtly. ‘We make every effort to keep attendance good.’ There was a silence during which Sandro heard the rain pattering on the glass roof of the studio’s extension. He hoped Luisa and Giulietta were under cover somewhere, whatever Luisa was up to. Then he thought, what am I doing here? Trying to work out if this man’s defrauding the state? Not my job.

  His job was to ask about Ronnie.

  ‘Where were you, then?’ he asked, ‘the day she was last seen?’ He didn’t even know why he asked the question, except that he didn’t like Massi, he wanted to provoke some reaction. ‘You were here, I suppose? Didn’t you ask where she was?’

  ‘No, I wasn’t here,’ said Massi, frowning ominously.

  ‘You were away?’

  ‘I was hanging a show,’ he said. ‘I’ve been there most of this week. Taking down an exhibit of installations we had for the beginning of term, so that we could begin to hang the students’ work.’

  Sandro brushed the information aside, refusing to show that he had no idea what an installation was, and got to the point.

  ‘Were you alone, on that particular day?’

  Massi stared at him, then laughed. ‘Are you asking me for an alibi, Mr Cellini? I mean, isn’t that a matter for the police?’

  ‘I asked if you were alone,’ said Sandro calmly. ‘I was a police officer myself until fairly recently, if that makes any difference.’

  Paolo Massi swivelled on his chair and looked down through the glass wall into the studio space. Following his gaze, Sandro could see Antonella Scarpa looking back up at them, hands in the pockets of her long white coat. Was it just that he’d seen her before, in the gallery, or was it something else about her that bothered him? And without any conscious decision on Sandro’s part, in his head the old machinery of professional suspicion began to turn. He couldn’t hurry it, it would tick down in its own time until it decided: was this little itch of doubt something, or nothing?

  ‘Early retirement?’ Massi asked coolly, interrupting his thoughts. ‘From the force?’

  Sandro ignored him. ‘So you were alone? All day?’

  ‘As a matter of fact I was not,’ said Massi through gritted teeth. ‘Not all day, anyway.’ He drew himself up in the chair, fine-boned, aristocratic; Luisa should be here, thought Sandro, to give her verdict on this man, as he was no longer able to control his prejudice.

  ‘Dottoressa Scarpa came over to see me, in the morning,’ he said. ‘To give a hand; there was a lot of work to do. The students were visiting a potter’s studio at that time, so she was able to come away.’

  Sandro nodded just slightly. ‘She was with you from what time until what time?’ he asked.

  ‘An hour and a half? I really can’t remember the exact timing,’ said Massi, frowning. ‘My wife arrived. She brought me lunch.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ said Sandro. The wife arrives, the other one leaves. ‘Does she do that often?’

  ‘Whenever she can,’ said Massi. ‘We like to eat together.’

  ‘And you were in the gallery the whole day?’

  Massi nodded. ‘Yes.’ He smiled politely, patiently, as if he could spend all day having this kind of conversation. A man used to dealing with clients.

  Suddenly Sandro was itching to get out of this place; what was the point of winding the man up when they didn’t even know what time the girl went missing? When the lead he should be following was the possibility that Veronica Hutton might have set off that morning to meet Claudio Gentileschi? He hadn’t the shadow of a doubt that this Paolo Massi was capable of defrauding the taxman – he was clever enough, and arrogant enough. As for dishonest enough, well, who wouldn’t cheat if they could get away with it?

  As Massi led him out Sandro slowed his pace, to have one last look around. It was beautiful, certainly, very tasteful, the dark wooden work tables, the creamy plastered vaulting, the displays of old etching equipment and even an antique printing press; perhaps the very one Massi’s father had kept running through the war. An old family, a good family; but perhaps family didn’t count for everything.

  ‘I hope you find her,’ said Massi at the door. ‘This is all very difficult.’

  There seemed to be nothing but bland sorrow in the man’s voice, and Sandro felt frustrated and tetchy. He waited until they were at the door before casually putting in his request to visit the gallery. That afternoon.

  He wanted to cause maximum trouble, he had to admit it, out of bloody-mindedness. But the gallery was bang next to the Boboli, wasn’t it? And Massi was a smooth operator: if he gave him any room for manoeuvre, Sandro would end up seeing nothing more than he’d seen already.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Massi. ‘Really, on a Sunday afternoon? Why?’

  The man’s disdainful tone meant that it was now impossible for Sandro to back down.

  ‘We need to cover every angle,’ he said mildly. ‘Actually, I really must insist. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that I am the appointed representative of the girl’s mother.’ He didn’t add, Who pays your wages, too. ‘And she would want to know you were offering every co-operation.’ He saw Massi’s jaw tighten, and felt a tiny flare of satisfaction that he’d managed to get the man’s back up.

  ‘Five o’clock,’ said Massi shortly. ‘You know where it is?’

  I do, thought Sandro, and Massi held the door open for him without ceremony, and he was on the street again.

  And for a moment Sandro just stood there, breathing in the clean, wet air. For the moment the rain had stopped, but the sky was low and black overhead, and in the Sunday quiet Sandro could hear the great thunderous rush of the river, the other side of the crumbling ochre bulk of the Palazzo Serristori. About six or seven metres up on the palazzo’s great flank Sandro’s eyes rested on the familiar small rectangle of stone; a commemorative plaque common so close to the Arno. Engraved in it was a horizontal line, and above and below the line ran the words: On 4th November 1966 the Waters of the Arno Arrived at this Point. And forty years later, thought Sandro as the din of the water drummed in his ears, Lucia Gentileschi walked into my office.

  As he came out of the Serristori’s massive, dilapidated shadow and into mobile range Sandro’s phone bleeped. Impatiently he patted himself down, with no idea where he’d put the damned thing. He located it in his back pocket. Message waiting, it said; he jabbed at it, managing to press the wrong button and send the message back to the inbox. It would be Luisa, asking him where they were going to have lunch.

  He weighed the phone in his hand thoughtfully; the image of the old printing press came to him. Claudio would have liked that, he’d thought. The beautiful old machine, with its partisan pedigree. There was a connection here somewhere, though he was doing no more than groping in the dark for it. With the phone in his hand, instead of checking the message he dialled Lucia Gentileschi.

  Her voice had lost the crispness it had when she first came into his office, and Sandro imagined that she had slept badly. He was brisk, because he knew she didn’t want sympathy.

  ‘Did you – did you and Claudio know someone called Paolo Massi?’ he asked without preamble. ‘Runs an art school?’

  ‘Ha.’ She made an odd sound, a kind of surprised laugh. ‘No, actually,’ she said. ‘We didn’t know them. Not personally.’

  ‘You know of them, though? The family?’

  ‘They were among those who came around to pay their respects,’ said Lucia. ‘Well, his wife did, on Friday evening; I was just about to start going through Claudio’s desk. We hardly knew them but, then, death brings funny people out of the woodwork, doesn’t it? Ghouls.’

  ‘There was some connection?’ Sandro didn’t quite get it.

  ‘Everyone knows about Massi Editore,’ said Lucia, and there was a note of scepticism in her voice that interested him.

  ‘Go on,’ he said.

  Lucia sighed, ‘Well, the old man, Matteo, he ran that press through the war, printing propaganda for the partisans. That was the
myth, anyway.’

  ‘You don’t believe it?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure,’ she said, ‘the old man was decent, I’m sure he was. But the younger – well, let’s say Claudio and I disagreed over the son.’

  ‘You knew him?’

  ‘No,’ she said patiently, ‘not really, not at all.’ She hesitated. ‘Well, we did meet him once, ten years ago and more, at a reception at the synagogue.’ She sighed. ‘We were bullied into it, in a nice way; a reception for the friends of Israel, the righteous gentiles, you know the kind of thing. We steered clear of it, as a rule. Anyway, he was there. The young Massi.’

  ‘You didn’t like him?’ Sandro tried to sound neutral.

  ‘I did not. I thought he was a fraud, a self-righteous young man, using his father’s name to get on. Ambitious.’

  ‘But Claudio saw things differently?’

  ‘Well,’ said Lucia, sadly, ‘it was the kind of thing we disagreed on. I was tiny during the war, you see; I couldn’t understand, as he understood, the value of partisanship.’ She sighed. ‘And I couldn’t call him a sentimental old fool. At least, not too often.’

  Things shifted in Sandro’s head, but did not quite take shape; a good sign, though, the shift. It meant something; there was a connection.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he enquired gruffly.

  ‘I’m all right,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Sandro. I’m not sleeping so well, that’s all.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He hesitated. ‘Lucia,’ he said, ‘I don’t think it’ll be long. I think – I’m getting close. To the truth.’ And it was true; what he did not say was that the truth might not bring her any peace at all.

  ‘Yes,’ she said with weary gentleness. ‘Just come to me with an answer next time, Sandro. Instead of a question.’ And, softly, she hung up.

  If it was a rebuke, it was of the mildest sort, but it stung. Chewing his lip, Sandro scrolled back to his inbox with impatience. But what he saw stopped him in his tracks.

  We’ve found Claudio, the message read. Piazza Tasso.

  It had come in close to an hour earlier, at about the time he had entered the Scuola Massi.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Bells Were Ringing all across town as the taxi took Iris over to Hiroko’s. As they skirted the huge, alien, green and white bulk of the Duomo, its belltower was clanging as well, a deep, ominous sound. Italian bells were different, always more of a funeral toll than a peal. A queue of tourists had already gathered, waiting for the faithful to come out so that the unbelievers could go in and stare. Nothing more awful than a rainy Sunday; Iris knew how pissed off Ronnie would be.

  Even as she thought it, though, Iris understood that Ronnie was beginning to lose shape, in her mind; forcing herself to wonder, what would Ronnie think, now, was just a last-ditch effort to stop her disappearing altogether.

  They were waiting for her at the door; Hiroko held her lightly by the shoulders for a minute, then let her go, while Sophia hopped excitedly from one foot to another in the warm, dark, jasmine-scented apartment. It seemed to Iris as if she’d last been here drinking Hiroko’s tea a hundred years ago, but the place welcomed her back in. She collapsed on the low sofa and took off her shoes. Her feet were wet from waiting on the pavement for the taxi because she hadn’t wanted to stay inside the flat a moment longer. She hadn’t even wanted to wait in the courtyard, in case the Contessa Badigliani might run back out and grab her with her ringed claws, but the ground-floor apartment had been dark behind the linen-hung door; perhaps the old snoop had gone to Mass.

  ‘So?’ said Sophia. ‘Is there any news? Anything?’ Iris’s heart sank.

  ‘Not exactly,’ she said. She needed to gather her thoughts.

  Quietly Hiroko opened the French windows into the patch of soaked courtyard garden, and the sound of the rain came in, with the fresh air. At least it wasn’t bitterly cold; Iris couldn’t help thinking that mattered. Although it would get cold soon enough, wouldn’t it? It was November.

  ‘I couldn’t stay at home,’ said Sophia, ‘I mean, with my host family, sitting around the table for hours and hours eating lunch.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Sundays go on forever.’ Iris just looked at her, wondering what Sophia’s Italian family thought of her and her friends: free-range foreign children roaming the planet, too jaded for Sunday lunch.

  As her eyes adjusted, Iris saw that all around the room were hung charcoal sketches that must be by Hiroko, they were so unmistakably Japanese in influence; long bodies made up of a few fine lines. They made her think of someone – Matisse? She thought of her pencil drawing that Antonella Scarpa had put up, and for a moment she longed to be in a studio somewhere, on her own, trying to do something as good as this.

  Sophia was going on. ‘I wanted to come over last night, but Hiroko said you weren’t around.’

  ‘No,’ said Iris, hesitating. ‘I was – um – I was with – I was talking to Jackson, yesterday.’

  Sophia’s eyes were wide, but for once she didn’t say anything.

  ‘He’s got this theory,’ she said reluctantly, ‘that Ronnie went off to find some painter. Some guy Jackson met in a bar.’ She pulled out her phone, in case there was a message from Jackson, a reprieve. No signal, it said. She put the phone away.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ blurted Sophia, ‘Jackson told me about him, too.’

  ‘Really?’ said Iris, taken aback. Sophia flushed, perhaps, thought Iris, at her sceptical tone. ‘Sorry,’ she said. Sophia looked like she might be about to cry; Iris hadn’t realized she was so wound up by all this.

  ‘You didn’t believe him?’ interjected Hiroko mildly.

  ‘I didn’t know what to believe,’ said Iris. ‘Though it looks like it’s true, after all, doesn’t it?’ She shot a glance at Sophia. ‘It’s – it’s just – well, it was him I wasn’t sure about. Jackson.’ She shook her head, all the doubts returning. Think, Sandro Cellini had said, hadn’t he? You have the eye for detail.

  She bit her lip and went on, their eyes on her. ‘Jackson’s not what I expected; I always thought he was so laid-back, you know, in school. He – he seemed very strange yesterday. Angry.’ She hesitated, trying not to think of the time when he had stopped being angry. She went on, blurting it out, all the stuff that had been sitting there at the back of her mind, because even if this Claudio existed, it didn’t let Jackson off the hook, did it? Not completely.

  ‘And he told me he saw Ronnie on Tuesday morning. He admitted that; only he wouldn’t tell me what he was doing for the rest of the day.’ She looked from Sophia to Hiroko, and back, pleading. ‘He wasn’t at the potter’s place, was he? Did he turn up in the afternoon?’

  ‘I don’t think he did,’ said Hiroko, troubled, turning to Sophia.

  ‘I left after the pottery thing,’ said Sophia in a small voice. Guilty; Sophia was always a fair-weather student. ‘Before lunch.’

  ‘I think he wasn’t there in the afternoon,’ said Iris, dully.

  ‘But why?’ asked Hiroko, puzzling over it. ‘What motive would he have, to – to do anything to Ronnie?’

  Iris felt a burning in her eyes. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Sex? I don’t know anything about – all that.’ Meaning, sex, or jealousy, or passion, or rage. All she knew about was the sick sensation in her stomach at the thought of last night, and how out of her depth she was.

  ‘Did you sleep with him?’ asked Hiroko, and the question in her soft singsong voice didn’t seem intrusive. It was almost welcome.

  ‘Yes,’ said Iris, feeling cold, suddenly, as if she didn’t have enough clothes on. How could she have done it? She felt Hiroko’s hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Come on,’ said Hiroko. ‘It is not the end of the world, that’s what you say, isn’t it?’ She hesitated. ‘It’s something people do. We all do.’

  In the muffled dark of her hands Iris heard Sophia make a stifled sound. She looked up.

  ‘But I don’t even know if I can trust him,’ said Iris, hating herself for the whining note in her voice. ‘
He wouldn’t tell me where he’d been, would he?’

  ‘On Tuesday afternoon?’ It was Sophia. Iris nodded, bewildered at her new tone, which was defiant, almost truculent.

  ‘Well, you can’t trust him,’ said Sophia, and her face was red. ‘But he wasn’t with Ronnie.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Hiroko.

  ‘He was with me,’ said Sophia, and burst into tears.

  Iris stayed very still, and said nothing. She became aware that Hiroko was watching her. ‘I will make some of my tea,’ said Hiroko, and when no one said anything she left the room on silent feet.

  Sophia’s crying petered out eventually, while Iris concentrated on the sounds of Hiroko in the kitchen. Reluctantly she put out a hand. ‘Sorry, Sophia,’ she said cautiously. ‘I didn’t know.’

  Sophia sniffed and shook her head. ‘Jackson said there was no need to make a thing about it.’ She rubbed at her eyes with the back of a hand. ‘I wish I was at home,’ she said miserably. ‘Don’t you? I want to talk to Mummy.’

  Iris felt ancient. ‘Come on,’ she said, edging closer to Sophia, nudging her arm.

  ‘Don’t you miss your mother?’ said Sophia, still sniffing. Iris sighed.

  ‘She’s got enough on her plate,’ she said. Of course I miss her.

  She pulled her bag onto her knee; there was a pack of tissues in there somewhere. She pulled one out and handed it to Sophia, who blew her nose loudly.

  ‘You haven’t called her at all?’ Sophia said curiously when she was done, the tissue a crumpled rag in her fist. ‘Not even with all this?’ Her pretty nose was very red, and her big, puppy-lashed eyes had almost disappeared with crying. All the same Iris found herself thinking, she could understand, really, why Jackson would want to sleep with Sophia.

  ‘No,’ said Iris.

  It would worry her, wouldn’t it? And she’d said, don’t phone.

  Hiroko came back in with a tray, and set it down on the table.

  Sophia swallowed, and nodded, taking the tea. In silence, each took a sip; Iris was the first one to speak. ‘So,’ she said cautiously, ‘um, when – on Tuesday, when did you and Jackson – what – where were you? How long was he – um, with you?’