by Val McDermid
She’d been coming on holiday with the same group of five friends since they’d shared a house in their final year at Durham. That first time, they’d all been cramming for their finals. One set of parents had a cottage in Cornwall that they’d colonized for a week. They’d called it a study break, but in truth, it had been more of a holiday that had refreshed and relaxed them, leaving them better placed to sit exams than if they’d huddled over books and articles. And although they were modern young women not given to superstition, they’d all felt that their week together had somehow been responsible for their good degrees. Since then, they’d gathered together every June for a reunion, committed to pleasure.
Over the years, their drinking had grown more discerning, their eating more epicurean and their conversation more outrageous. The locations had become progressively more luxurious. Lovers were never invited to share the girls’ week. Occasionally, one of their number had a little wobble, claiming pressure of work or family obligations, but they were generally whipped back into line without too much effort.
For Bel, it was a significant component of her life. These women were all successful, all private sources she could count on to smooth her path from time to time. But still, that wasn’t the main reason this holiday was so important to her. Partners had come and gone, but these friends had been constant. In a world where you were measured by your last headline, it felt good to have a bolthole where none of that mattered. Where she was appreciated simply because the group enjoyed themselves more with her than without her. They’d all known each other long enough to forgive each other’s faults, to accept each other’s politics and to say what would be unsayable in any other company. This holiday formed part of the bulwark she constantly shored up against her own insecurities. Besides, it was the only holiday she took these days that was about what she wanted. For the past half dozen years, she’d been bound to her widowed sister Vivianne and her son Harry. The sudden death of Vivianne’s husband from a heart attack had left her stranded emotionally and struggling practically. Bel had barely hesitated before throwing her lot in with her sister and her nephew. On balance it had been a good decision, but even so she still treasured this annual work-free break from a family life she hadn’t expected to be living. Especially now that Harry was teetering on the edge of teenage existential angst. So this year, even more than in the past, the holiday had to be special, to outdo what had gone before.
It was hard to imagine how they could improve on this, she thought as she emerged from the trees and turned into a field of sunflowers preparing to burst into bloom. She speeded up a little as she made her way along the margin, her nose twitching at the aromatic perfume of the greenery. There was nothing she’d change about the villa, no fault she could find with the informal gardens and fruit trees that surrounded the loggia and the pool. The view across the Val d’Elsa was stunning, with Volterra and San Gimignano on the distant skyline.
And there was the added bonus of Grazia’s cooking. When they’d discovered that the ‘local chef’ trumpeted on the website was the wife of the pig farmer down the hill, they’d been wary of taking up the option of having her come to the villa and prepare a typically Tuscan meal. But on the third afternoon, they’d all been too stunned by the heat to be bothered with cooking so they’d summoned Grazia. Her husband Maurizio had delivered her to the villa in a battered Fiat Panda that appeared to be held together with string and faith. He’d also unloaded boxes of food covered in muslin cloths. In fractured English, Grazia had thrown them out of the kitchen and told them to relax with a drink on the loggia.
The meal had been a revelation - nutty salamis and prosciutto from the rare-breed Cinta di Siena pigs Maurizio bred, coupled with fragrant black figs from their own tree; spaghetti with pesto made from tarragon and basil; quails roasted with Maurizio’s vegetables, and long fingers of potatoes flavoured with rosemary and garlic; cheeses from local farms, and finally, a rich cake heavy with limoncello and almonds.
The women never cooked dinner again.
Grazia’s cooking made Bel’s morning runs all the more necessary. As forty approached, she struggled harder to maintain what she thought of as her fighting weight. This morning, her stomach still felt like a tight round ball after the meltingly delicious melanzane alla parmigiana that had provoked her into an excessive second helping. She’d go a little further than usual, she decided. Instead of making a circuit of the sunflower field and climbing back up to their villa, she would take a track that ran from the far corner through the overgrown grounds of a ruined casa colonica she’d noticed from the car. Ever since she’d spotted it on their first morning, she’d indulged a fantasy of buying the ruin and transforming it into the ultimate Tuscan retreat, complete with swimming pool and olive grove. And of course, Grazia on hand to cook. Bel had few qualms about poaching, neither in fantasy nor reality.
But she knew herself well enough to understand it would never be more than a pipe dream. Having a retreat implied a willingness to step away from the world of work that was alien to her. Maybe when she was ready to retire she could contemplate devoting herself to such a restoration project. Except that she recognized that as another daydream. Journalists never really retired. There was always another story on the horizon, another target to pursue. Not to mention the terror of being forgotten. All reasons why past relationships had failed to stay the course, all reasons why the future probably held the same imperfections. Still, it would be fun to take a closer look at the old house, to see just how bad a state it was in. When she’d mentioned it to Grazia, she’d pulled a face and called it rovina. Bel, whose Italian was fluent, had translated it for the others; ‘ruin’. Time to find out whether Grazia was telling the truth or just trying to divert the interest of the rich English women.
The path through the long grass was still surprisingly clear, bare soil packed hard by years of foot traffic. Bel took the opportunity to pick up speed, then slowed as she reached the edge of the gated courtyard in front of the old farmhouse. The gates were dilapidated, hanging drunkenly from hinges that were barely attached to the tall stone posts. A heavy chain and padlock held them fastened. Beyond, the courtyard’s broken paving was demarcated with tufts of creeping thyme, camomile and coarse weeds. Bel shook the gates without much expectation. But that was enough to reveal that the bottom corner of the right-hand gate had parted company completely with its support. It could readily be pulled clear enough to allow an adult through the gap. Bel slipped through and let go. The gate creaked faintly as it settled back into place, returning to apparent closure.
Close up, she could understand Grazia’s description. Anyone taking this project on would be in thrall to the builders for a very long time. The house surrounded the courtyard on three sides, a central wing flanked by a matching pair of arms. There were two storeys, with a loggia running round the whole of the upper floor, doors and windows giving on to it, providing the bedrooms with easy access to fresh air and common space. But the loggia floor sagged, what doors remained were skewed, and the lintels above the windows were cracked and oddly angled. The window panes on both floors were filthy, cracked or missing. But still the solid lines of the attractive vernacular architecture were obvious and the rough stones glowed warm in the morning sun.
Bel couldn’t have explained why, but the house drew her closer. It had the raddled charm of a former beauty sufficiently self-assured to let herself go without a fight. Unpruned bougainvillea straggled up the peeling ochre stucco and over the low wall of the loggia. If nobody chose to fall in love with this place soon, it was going to be overwhelmed by vegetation. In a couple of generations, it would be nothing more than an inexplicable mound on the hillside. But for now, it still had the power to bewitch.
She picked her way across the crumbling courtyard, passing cracked terracotta pots lying askew, the herbs they’d contained sprawling and springing free, spicing the air with their fragrances. She pushed against a heavy door made of wooden planks hanging from a single hinge. The woo
d screeched against an uneven floor of herringbone brick, but it opened wide enough for Bel to enter a large room without squeezing. Her first impression was of grime and neglect. Cobwebs were strung in a maze from wall to wall. The windows were mottled with dirt. A distant scurrying had Bel peering around in panic. She had no fear of news editors, but four-legged rats filled her with revulsion.
As she grew accustomed to the gloom, Bel realized the room wasn’t completely empty. A long table stood against one wall. Opposite was a sagging sofa. Judging by the rest of the place, it should have been rotten and filthy, but the dark red upholstery was still relatively clean. She filed the oddity for further consideration.
Bel hesitated for a moment. None of her friends, she was sure, would be urging her to penetrate deeper into this strange deserted house. But she had built her career on a reputation for fearlessness. Only she knew how often the image had concealed levels of anxiety and uncertainty that had reduced her to throwing up in gutters and strange toilets. Given what she’d faced down in her determination to secure a story, how scary could a deserted ruin be?
A doorway in the far corner led to a cramped hallway with a worn stone staircase climbing up to the loggia. Beyond, she could see another dark and grubby room. She peered in, surprised to see a thin cord strung across one corner from which half a dozen metal coat hangers dangled. A knitted scarf was slung round the neck of one of the hangers. Beneath it, she could see a crumpled pile of camouflage material. It looked like one of the shooting jackets on sale at the van that occupied the lay-by opposite the café on the main Colle Val d’Elsa road. The women had been laughing about it just the other day, wondering when exactly it had become fashionable for Italian men of all ages to look as if they’d just walked in from a tour of duty in the Balkans. Weird, she thought. Bel cautiously climbed the stairs to the loggia, expecting the same sense of long-abandoned habitation.
But as soon as she emerged from the stairwell, she realized she’d stepped into something very different. When she turned to her left and glanced in the first door, she understood this house was not what it seemed. The rancid mustiness of the lower floor was only a faint note here, the air almost as fresh as it was outside. The room had obviously been a bedroom, and fairly recently at that. A mattress lay on the floor, a bedspread flung back casually across the bottom third. It was dusty, but had none of the ingrained grime the lower floor had led Bel to expect. Again, a cord was strung across the corner. There were a dozen empty hangers, but the final three held slightly crumpled shirts. Even from a distance, she could see they were past their best, fade lines across the sleeves and collars.
A pair of tomato crates acted as bedside tables. One held a stump of candle in a saucer. A yellowed copy of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung lay on the floor next to the bed. Bel picked it up, noting that the date was less than four months ago. So that gave her an idea of when this place had been last abandoned. She lifted one of the shirtsleeves and pressed it to her nose. Rosemary and marijuana. Faint but unmistakable.
She went back to the loggia and checked out the other rooms. The pattern was similar. Three more bedrooms containing a handful of leftovers - a couple of T-shirts, paperbacks and magazines in English, Italian and German, half a bottle of wine, the stub of a lipstick, a leather sandal whose sole had parted company with its upper - the sort of things you would leave behind if you were moving out with no thought of who might come after. In one, a bunch of flowers stuck in an olive jar had dried to fragility.
The final room on the west side was the biggest so far. Its windows had been cleaned more recently than any of the others, its shutters renovated and its walls whitewashed. Standing in the middle of the floor was a silk-screen printing frame. Trestle tables set against one wall contained plastic cups stained inside with dried pigments, and brushes stiff with neglect. A scatter of spots and blots marked the floor. Bel was intrigued, her curiosity overcoming any lingering nervousness at being alone in this peculiar place. Whoever had been here must have cleared out in a hurry. Leaving a substantial silk-screen frame behind wasn’t what you would do if your departure was planned.
She backed out of the studio and made her way along the loggia to the wing opposite. She was careful to stay close to the wall, not trusting the undulating brick floor with her weight. She passed the bedroom doors, feeling like a trespasser on the Mary Celeste. A silence unbroken even by bird-song accentuated the impression. The last room before the corner was a bathroom whose nauseating mix of odours still hung in the air. A coil of hosepipe lay on the floor, its tail end disappearing through a hole in the masonry near the window. So they had improvised some sort of running water, though not enough to make the toilet anything less than disgusting. She wrinkled her nose and backed away.
Bel rounded the corner just as the sun cleared the corner of the woods, flooding her in sudden warmth. It made her entry into the final room all the more chilling. Shivering at the dank air, she ventured inside. The shutters were pulled tight, making the interior almost too dim to discern anything. But as her eyes adjusted, she gained a sense of the room. It was the twin of the studio in scale, but its function was quite different. She crossed to the nearest window and struggled with the shutter, finally managing to haul it halfway open. It was enough to confirm her first impression. This had been the heart of the occupation of the casa rovina. A battered old cooking range connected to a gas cylinder stood by a stone sink. The dining table was scarred and stripped to the bare wood, but it was solid and had beautifully carved legs. Seven unmatched chairs sat around it, an eighth overturned a few feet away. A rocking chair and a couple of sofas lined the walls. Odd bits of crockery and cutlery lay scattered around, as if the inhabitants couldn’t be bothered collecting them when they’d left.
As Bel walked back from the window, a rickety table caught her eye. Standing behind the door, it was easy to miss. An untidy scatter of what appeared to be posters lay across it. Fascinated, she moved towards it. Two strides and she stopped short, her sharp gasp echoing in the dusty air.
Before her on the limestone flags was an irregular stain, perhaps three feet by eighteen inches. Rusty brown, its edges were rounded and smooth, as if it had flowed and pooled rather than spilled. It was thick enough to obscure the flags beneath. One section on the farthest edge looked smudged and thinned, as if someone had tried to scrub it clean and soon given up. Bel had covered enough stories of domestic violence and sexual homicide to recognize a serious bloodstain when she saw it.
Startled, she stepped back, head swivelling from side to side, heart thudding so hard she thought it might choke her. What the hell had happened here? She looked around wildly, noticing other dark stains marking the floor beyond the table. Time to get out of here, the sensible part of her mind was screaming. But the devil of curiosity muttered in her ear. There’s been nobody here for months. Look at the dust. They’re long gone. They’re not going to be back any time soon. Whatever happened here was good reason for them to clear out. Check out the posters…
Bel skirted the stain, giving it as wide a berth as she could without touching any of the furniture. All at once, she felt a taint in the air. Knew it was imagination, but still it seemed real. Back to the room, face to the door, she crab-walked to the table and looked down at the posters strewn across it.
The second shock was almost more powerful than the first.
Bel knew she was pushing too hard up the hill, but she couldn’t pace herself. She could feel the sweat from her hand coating the good quality paper of the rolled-up poster. At last the track emerged from the trees and became less treacherous as it approached their holiday villa. The road sloped down almost imperceptibly, but gravity was enough to give her tired legs an extra boost and she was still moving fast when she rounded the corner of the house to find Lisa Martyn stretched out on the shady terrace in a pool chair with Friday’s Guardian for company. Bel felt relief. She needed to talk to someone and, of all her companions, Lisa was least likely to turn her revelations into d
inner party gossip. A human rights lawyer whose compassion and feminism seemed as ineluctable as every breath she took, Lisa would understand the potential of the discovery Bel thought she had made. And her right to handle it as she saw fit.
Lisa dragged her eyes away from the newspaper, distracted by the unfamiliar heave of Bel’s breath. ‘My God,’ she said. ‘You look like you’re about to stroke out.’
Bel put the poster down on a chair and leaned over, hands on knees, dragging breath into her lungs, regretting those secret, stolen cigarettes. ‘I’ll be - OK in - a minute.’
Lisa struggled ungainly out of the chair and hurried into the kitchen, returning with a towel and bottle of water. Bel stood straight, took the water and poured half over her head, snorting as she breathed it in by accident. Then she rubbed her head with the towel and slumped into a chair. She swallowed a long draught of water while Lisa returned to her pool chair. ‘What was all that about?’ Lisa said. ‘You’re the most dignified jogger I know. Never seen an out-of-breath Bel before. What’s got you into such a state?’
‘I found something,’ Bel said. Her chest was still struggling but she could manage short bursts of speech. ‘At least, I think I found something. And if I’m right, it’s the story of my career.’ She reached for the poster. ‘I was kind of hoping you might be able to tell me whether I’ve completely lost the plot.’
Intrigued, Lisa tossed the paper to the ground and sat up. ‘So, what is it, this thing that might be something?’
Bel unrolled the heavy paper, weighing it down at the corners with a pepper grinder, a coffee mug and a couple of dirty ashtrays. The image on the A3 sheet was striking. It had been designed to look like a stark black-and-white woodcut in the German Expressionist style. At the top of the page, a bearded man with an angular shock of hair leaned over a screen, his hands holding wooden crosses from which three marionettes dangled. But these were no ordinary marionettes. One was a skeleton, the second a goat and the third a representation of Death with his hooded robe and scythe. There was something indisputably sinister about the image. Across the bottom, enclosed by a funereal black border, was a blank area about three inches deep. It was the sort of space where a small bill might be posted announcing a performance.