Domina

by L. S. Hilton

  ‘Mum,’ I said, over and over. ‘Mum?’

  I think she knew before she opened her eyes. There was a long moment when her face woke up, but she wouldn’t look at what she’d done. When she sat, she was already reaching out her arms for her baby, drawing back the towel, because she knew.

  ‘I found her,’ I whispered.

  Mum wrapped the towel back where it was, getting up and fetching her coat, her boots.

  ‘I’ll get help,’ she said, and she was gone. Her phone was in the pocket of her coat. I thought she must be going out to call the ambulance, but she didn’t come back. Not for hours. I thought it was important that I didn’t move. I held Katherine against me, stroking the bottom of her back through the towel. I thought it was very important that I kept her head up, so I sat so still that I got pins and needles over and over again. I needed the loo but I knew I mustn’t move. I could see the lights going on in the top flats across the way, the flicker of televisions, people drawing the curtains. I held Katherine’s head very still, and in a while, I think, I convinced myself that the beating of my own heart was shared.

  Mum was sober when she came back. She must have made herself sick, washed her face. She had shopping, which confused me, a bag from the spa with Peperami and orange juice and a tin of beans threatening to split the plastic. I could see it against her jeans in the hall. She was talking to someone – ‘I’ll get the kettle on’ – and I heard the voice of Mandy from down the close who did my mum’s hair sometimes, dancing round to Radio 1 with the plastic gloves and the Clairol and a bottle of wine.

  ‘Why are you sitting in the dark, Judy? Are you all right?’ My mum was all breezy and surprised-sounding. I couldn’t move. I tried but my legs were still asleep, and when I tried to get up, holding Katherine steady, I stumbled. My mum was looking in the bathroom, all concerned. The water must have been cold by then but you could still smell the almonds.

  ‘Judy? Where are you?’

  She put the light on in the living room and I held out the towel.

  ‘Mum?’

  My mum screamed then. But in the moment before she did, she looked at me and I saw her eyes. I’m a lot like her, I think. Quick. She hadn’t brought Mandy to help. She’d brought a witness.

  Then Mandy was in the room, and she was screaming too, and suddenly the grey dimness that had disguised my sister’s dead face was sharded with light and noise, the siren and the men in their hard jackets, someone was making tea and somewhere Mandy was still crying.

  ‘Let’s get her up.’

  ‘Come on, love.’

  ‘She’s wet herself.’

  ‘Come on now. Slowly, like.’

  ‘It’s the shock,’ Mandy’s voice was repeating, ‘the shock.’ But my mum’s arms were round me, and when I started choking and fighting as they took Katherine from me to put her body on the trolley she held me tighter than she ever had, her own body shaking but her arms corded around my back so I couldn’t speak, my face jammed tight into her belly that had held my sister and she was saying, ‘It’s not your fault, Judith. It’s not your fault.’

  *

  I said I couldn’t really remember what had happened. The social worker and the police lady and the counsellor all asked me if my mum had gone out when I came in from school, and I said yes. I was twelve, it wasn’t even illegal. And I had bathed my sister? I said yes. I had put too much oil in the water, maybe I had slipped. I said I couldn’t remember anything after that. I’d watched enough of my mum’s soaps to know about trauma. Your brain blocks out things that would kill you if you remembered them. I knew why my mum had done it. She’d have gone to prison and I would have ended up in a home. And between all the questions and the tests and the neighbours standing outside on the day of the funeral, the cards and the bouquets, I thought sometimes maybe it was me after all. I hadn’t gone into the bathroom, I had been too scared.

  ‘It’s not her fault,’ my mum kept repeating, and everyone said how brave she was and asked how she was coping. The council moved us to a different flat on another estate. They said we didn’t need the extra bedroom any more, and I had to change schools. But it had been in the Echo and someone’s cousin went to my old school and it was all over the place after I’d been there a week. The boys started making the sign of the cross as I went past in the corridor, like I was a vampire.

  The counsellor asked me if I was jealous of her. Of my sister, with her wet eyes like flowers.

  27

  ‘The oil?’ Da Silva was looking at me, patient, curious. I realised I hadn’t spoken for some time.

  ‘Please help me,’ I whispered. ‘I don’t know what you want.’

  ‘Two years ago, in Rome, you killed a man known to you as Cameron Fitzpatrick. Do you admit this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You then took a painting that man was selling and sold it to another man, known to you as Moncada. Do you admit this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Moncada was murdered some time later in Paris. I believe you were present.’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘You have since been living here, under an – forgive me, my English – an alias?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Why did you kill Alvin Spencer?’

  I had been responding dumbly, in a fugue state, but this question roused me a little. Surely this was wrong. Shouldn’t there be someone else here? Why hadn’t he asked me about Renaud, his colleague, his comrade in arms? He had a perfect murder scene, a confession, a culprit effectively in custody. Why hadn’t he brought out the cuffs yet?

  ‘Do I need a lawyer?’ Idiocy, learned from cop shows.

  ‘Not at present, unless you prefer me to charge you. Please continue. Why did you kill Alvin Spencer?’

  ‘Alvin knew someone. Someone from the past. I thought he was a threat. But I couldn’t, I wasn’t able . . .’ I trailed off. I hadn’t been able to get rid of the body. I hadn’t been able to get rid of the body because I knew that if I tried, at that moment, then I would splinter. Couldn’t have that. So I thought I’d wait, just a week or so, just until I had the strength. But then Elena appeared, and Masha was killed, and I didn’t have the strength for it then either. I’d just – left him there.

  Da Silva reached into his pocket. I imagined he was producing a formal charge sheet, was about to read me my rights, the scene we all know so well, but he produced a tissue and handed it to me.

  ‘Here.’ My face was soaked, and the collar of my jacket. I hadn’t felt the tears. I blew my nose explosively.

  ‘There are a great many questions I need to ask you. We can talk in the car.’

  ‘The car?’ I supposed we must be going to Rome. Da Silva was part of the Roman division of the Guardia – perhaps he couldn’t charge me here. ‘Do I have to come?’

  ‘You can accompany me, or I can arrest you now. You can choose.’

  The way I felt right then I could have happily lain down on the floor and woken up in an orange playsuit, but it wasn’t like I had anywhere else to be.

  ‘I’ll come.’

  He stepped around the table and pulled my chair back for me politely, as though we were dining in a smart restaurant. As he bent, his jacket swung back. He was carrying a gun. A Caracal F, to be precise. Standard issue for the Guardia di Finanza. There had been a demonstration by the police of its capacities at the Futura shooting club in Rome some years ago. Also the preferred weapon of Italian Mafiosi, as evinced by the fact that, to the embarrassment of the Guardia and the outrage of the Corriere della Sera, the entire supply of demonstration guns had been diverted in its police van on the way back to the city, never to be seen again. Moncada’s gun. I knew the fit of it in my hand, the weight. The gun I had dismantled in Paris, unused. I twitched as a jolt of adrenalin surged through me so sharply that I staggered.

  ‘Are you unwell?’

  ‘No. Fine. A little dizzy. We can go.’

  I sank my head into the collar of the coat as I shuffled into the corridor. Don’t let
him see. The question I had buried in St Moritz was unspooling in my mind. How did Kazbich know? I had thought that Kazbich and Moncada had been involved together in the art-for-arms gig, that Kazbich must have heard da Silva’s name from Moncada. But what if Moncada and da Silva were on the same side, what if da Silva was a double agent, a cop who worked for the Mafia? What if he’d been involved all along? Brilliant, Judith. Wrong again.

  *

  All the time da Silva was handing me into the boat, back through the journey to San Basilio, where the only road from Venice to the mainland begins, I dissected it, laying out the pieces.

  Who knew Moncada was going to be in the Place de l’Odéon that night? Me and Moncada himself. Renaud. Guiche. Balensky. Kazbich. Da Silva. Da Silva had helped out Kazbich with the ‘ghosts’. Da Silva had hung the Caravaggio. He knew.

  Art for arms. Da Silva had been part of the same investigation squad as Renaud, charged with recovering stolen artworks in the south of Italy. One operation had ended in the deaths of several of their colleagues in a bomb ambush. I had assumed, had believed, that Moncada’s death had been revenge on Renaud’s part, acting for the honour of his workmates. I’d led him to Moncada and then he was going to turn me in. But I’d vanished for a while, until I opened Gentileschi in Venice and they’d found me.

  I’d sent that stupid text:

  Does the name Gentileschi mean anything to you?

  That’s how Kazbich had tracked down my gallery. Because only da Silva knew its significance. The sight of the gun, the same gun, had made it clear. The reason I hadn’t returned the Caravaggio, the person, the witness I had searched for so fruitlessly, was da Silva.

  *

  At the docks we were shown to a car, a dark sedan with a driver. Floodlights between the cranes lit it harshly. I saw that the number-plate was Roman. Da Silva indicated that I should ride in the back next to him, pressing a button to divide the vehicle with a Plexiglas screen, like a London taxi. We pulled away towards the bridge to Mestre and da Silva sat back.

  ‘How’s your wife?’ I asked him suddenly.

  ‘My wife?’

  ‘You told me about her, when we met in Como. Francesca.’

  It was Francesca – Franci – who had led me to Renaud’s real identity. I had stalked her on Facebook, friended her, and found pictures of Renaud at her child’s christening. To be fair, da Silva didn’t show any surprise.

  ‘She’s – very well. But now, I think you need to talk to me.’

  The problem with the brave choice is it’s never the fun choice. I sat up too, and slowly unfastened my hair, spread it out over my shoulders, brushed a fingertip over my mouth. I switched to Italian.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. I think you need to talk to me.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Does the name Gentileschi mean anything to you?’

  ‘I believe it is the name of your gallery, Miss Teerlinc.’

  ‘I asked that question once before. In a text message, sent from the phone of a man I knew as Renaud Cleret. You know that. I want to know how Ivan Kazbich knew. I want to know how you knew what was in my flat. I want to know why you haven’t arrested me for murder. Because I think I know the answers.’

  The way I figured it, if this little joy-ride was on the straight, he would think I was mad and arrest me when we got wherever the hell we were going. And if he was bent, he could have the goon pull over and murder me right on the autoroute. At present, that did feel like the relaxing option. But I knew that he would do neither.

  Da Silva stared straight ahead.

  ‘And your mate? My friend in Paris? Why haven’t you asked me about him?

  Da Silva pushed a button and the window slid down to a rush of icy Veneto night. He took out a cigarette and lit up. I declined when he held out the pack; I really hate smoking in cars. He took a long drag, a ribbon of mist unfurling from his throat.

  ‘Let’s just say you did me a favour there.’

  I sat with that one for a while.

  ‘So where are we going?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  *

  From the mainland, the autostrada unpeeled through the night. Once we stopped at an Autogrill, where da Silva asked for my phone before I used the bathroom. We stretched and smoked and drove again, and as I began to doze I saw that we had crossed the invisible line that squiggles across Italy, where the olive trees begin. After that I rolled my jacket into a pillow, hunched my body away from da Silva’s and slept, waking to the warmth of daylight against my eyelids, but I kept them shut, sensing the movements of the car, feeling it pausing more frequently through an occasional rumble of traffic. I twisted stiffly and buried my face in the pillow until we slowed, stopped. Da Silva touched my shoulder.

  ‘We’re here.’

  Unfolded, we stood on a small concrete dock, gusts of engine oil and remembered fish lapping our faces, the thick damp of Venice replaced by a bright sea breeze. Behind the dock, a concrete promenade, two sorrowful desiccated palm trees, a row of scruffy concrete apartment blocks encrusted with junkyard balconies and peeling paint crowded a locked white stucco church. The driver was taking our bags from the boot, I hovered uselessly next to him.

  ‘This way.’

  Turning towards the little town, I saw that it was banked in by high arid hills, from one of which what looked like an unfinished motorway protruded like a rotten tooth.

  ‘Where are we?’ Alice in effing Wonderland, that was me.

  ‘Calabria. I’ll explain. We’ll get some coffee first.’

  Da Silva gave some directions to the driver, who set off with our stuff. I followed da Silva along the promenade. An old man stared at us indifferently from a balcony. Away from the front, the town abandoned its efforts at seaside gaiety: most of the shops were empty except for a supermarket, a slot-machine parlour and a place selling electronic cigarettes. Cerise tinsel bunting was strung between the lamp posts. We turned into a deserted bar, TV blaring a game show, smell of fresh coffee and brioche and lemons and drains, and took a table at the back. Da Silva nodded at the bartender; he seemed to know him.

  ‘Are you hungry?’

  ‘No,’ I answered rudely. But the bartender was hovering, so I ordered a cappuccino. When we were alone I scraped my spoon across the froth, back and forth.

  ‘You knew then, all along? You knew it was me, in Rome?’

  ‘I was uncertain. Your performance was pretty good. But then you turned up in Paris and – let’s just say there was a great deal else going on. Which you had walked in on.’

  I had believed that I was playing one game, whose rules were of my own making. Yet I had wandered into another, a game begun long before, the rules of which I could not even see.,

  Da Silva and Moncada. Art for arms. All along.

  ‘So yes,’ he was continuing calmly, ‘I know some things. I imagine you have many more to tell me. We have time.’

  Suddenly I felt breathless, choking. I took a gulp of the coffee but it spluttered over the tabletop. The bartender looked around in irritated concern.

  ‘I’m sorry, I need to get some air.’

  ‘Of course. As I say, there’s time.’

  I stood in the doorway, looking down the street. A group of children came past, thickly bundled, though it wasn’t cold. They were carrying packages from a bakery. Some of them had already torn off the thin wrappers to cram the treats into their overfed faces. Marzipan. Tiny vegetables, carrots and aubergines, bundles of grapes, a miniature panettone studded with drops of dye. They make them for Christmas, in the south. I wandered down to the front and looked at the sea for a while, but the water had nothing to tell me. There was nowhere else to go.

  Da Silva was waiting for me outside the bar. He took my arm. ‘We’ll go this way.’

  *

  For a while we walked along the main road, leaving the little town behind us. A few cars passed. Perhaps their occupants thought we were a couple, out for a festive stroll. After about twenty minutes da Silva direc
ted me along a dirt track which sloped down towards the sea. Plastic bags and drinks cans snagged in the thorn-bushes on either side. Then we came out into a shingled cove, more rubbish marooned where the waves touched the shore, though their swell was muffled by the churning of machinery. A concrete platform was built into the water, housing what I took to be a water purification plant, as from the squat breeze-block structure on the platform a red pipe thicker than my body stretched into the swell to a tanker moored about a hundred metres off the beach. It swayed in the sea like the tentacle of a monstrous squid. I scanned the decks of the ship, but they were as empty as the beach. Da Silva guided me to the land-side of the plant, out of sight of anyone on board, and where the sound of the turbines was loudest. I smelled oil and piss and somewhere, as the breeze shifted, the faint scent of almonds.

  I’d got the idea before he produced the Caracal.

  ‘So, I’m offering you a choice,’ he began.

  ‘Yeah, yeah. I’ve worked out you’re bent, so now you’ll kill me. Nice spot you’ve picked. Close to your mates, Calabria.’

  ‘Exactly. Or –’

  I’d believed I was playing one game, which turned out to be entirely another. The thing is, I don’t like rigged odds. Twisted loner that I am, I do have this idea about things being fair. Until I’d seen how things were, I had been feeling a certain sort of bewildered indifference, an echo of the lassitude that had seeped into me when I drowned Alvin. Meek little Judith, paralysed by trauma. Except now I felt angry. Really fucking angry.

  ‘So what do I get to choose?’

  I took a tiny crab-step towards the edge of the platform, then another. He followed the move with the gun.

  ‘Don’t think you’re going swimming,’ he muttered. ‘The current out there will wash you up in Gallipoli by tomorrow morning. Why do you think we’re here?’

  ‘Because you lack imagination?’

  ‘Either we stop here or you come back to town with me and we see if we can work together for a while.’ His hand was as perfectly steady as his voice. Odd, that I’d spent months thinking someone was trying to kill me, and now someone actually was trying to kill me it felt like a let-down.