by M. B. Shaw
‘Thanks,’ said Iris. ‘And then, finally, I wanted to ask you about the boyfriend, this man you think she was seeing. As often as not in murder cases involving young women, a significant other ends up being involved somewhere.’
‘I’m sure that’s true,’ said Father Antonio. ‘But I never met Beatrice’s love interest.’
‘She talked about him, though?’
‘Yes. But not by name. She was cagey about him, at least with me.’
‘Is there anything she might have said?’ Iris pressed. ‘Any detail you can remember, however small, might help.’
He opened his mouth to say something, but then seemed to think better of it.
‘I’m sorry. I wish I could be of more help.’
‘Never mind,’ said Iris, hiding her disappointment. ‘Believe me, if it weren’t for you, we’d be nowhere. And as you say, something might come back to you later.’
‘Yes.’ He looked away, his expression unreadable.
‘In the meantime, I wondered if by any chance you have any photographs of Beatrice?’ asked Iris. ‘I’d like to post one on my page, just in case it jogs anyone’s memory, here or back in Scotland.’
‘Ah.’ The priest brightened. ‘Now there I might be able to help you.’
Standing up, he walked slowly to the back of the sacristy. Opening a drawer in one of the dressers, he pulled a large, brown envelope out from beneath a pile of folded altar cloths.
‘I keep a few personal things in here,’ he told Iris, stroking the faded paper, smoothing out its creases and folds. ‘Pictures, letters, you know.’
He seemed almost embarrassed about it. Iris wondered if it was against the rules for priests to hold onto personal effects, mementos of their private lives?
‘This was Beatrice when I first met her.’
He handed Iris a colour photograph showing a young girl, not much more than twelve, laughing on a riverbank, at what looked like some sort of church picnic. She was wearing an old-fashioned, crocheted dress and had her long hair loose in a riot of untameable curls. It was heartbreaking.
‘That’s her mother behind her,’ he added.
Paola Contorini’s face was harder to make out than her daughter’s, fading somewhat into the background. Iris thought she looked thin and drawn, not unattractive but careworn and with none of the free-spirited joy that Beatrice seemed to radiate like a lit firework.
‘And that’s you?’ She pointed to a handsome young man in a rolled-up white shirt and black trousers, looking sheepishly at the camera.
‘That’s me.’ Father Antonio grinned. ‘I’d only just arrived at the parish. Monsignor Fratelli must have taken the picture.’
Iris looked at the shot for a long time, her portrait painter’s eye searching unconsciously for what each individual’s expression and body language revealed about them. After a few minutes she pulled out her phone and took three separate images, before handing the original back to its owner.
‘I don’t suppose you have anything more recent, do you? Something of her as she was around the time she disappeared?’
Some more rummaging, and Father Antonio retrieved a second print, smaller this time and visibly peeling at the edges.
‘I took this after Beatrice’s confirmation.’ His awkwardness intensified. ‘I shouldn’t have kept it, but – anyway. Here you are.’
The laughing girl from the riverbank had lost her puppy fat, but the wild mane of hair was unchanged. Some traces of the mother’s seriousness had worked their way into Beatrice’s countenance by this time, but Iris was pleased to see that the joy from the childhood picture was still very much alive and present in the teenager’s merry, dark brown eyes.
‘This is perfect,’ she told him, snapping another three shots on her phone.
‘She was perfect,’ Father Antonio said wistfully, placing both photographs back in the envelope, which he replaced carefully in the drawer.
He really loved her, thought Iris. Poor man.
Perhaps reading her thoughts, he added quickly, ‘Of course, in God’s eyes, we are all perfect.’ He was the dutiful priest again. ‘Or, at least, we all have the potential to be.’
Snapping his fingers, he suddenly sat bolt upright. ‘I do remember someone!’ He looked excitedly at Iris.
‘Oh?’
‘Not a boyfriend, but someone close to Beatrice who may know more than I do. There was a woman named Julia Mantovani, a teacher. Beatrice was very close to her, I believe.’
‘That’s brilliant. Thank you,’ said Iris, making a note of the name.
‘She used to teach art at the Istituto Venezia. Perhaps someone at the school has an address? I still think you should leave Venice,’ Father Antonio said, as he led Iris back out through the main body of the church. ‘At least until the police find out who broke into your apartment and attacked your friend.’
‘That might be a long wait,’ said Iris wryly. ‘Although, as it happens, I am leaving Venice, this afternoon.’
He stopped, perplexed. ‘But I thought –’
‘I’m not going to England,’ she explained. ‘I’m catching the three o’clock train to Rome.’
‘Rome?’ Iris couldn’t quite tell if he was surprised, or worried, or disapproving, or some combination of all three. ‘Is there anyone in particular you’re going to see?’
‘A few people,’ Iris replied cryptically. ‘Although it may well turn out to be a wild goose chase. We’ll see. Also, if I can find it, I’d like to stop at Beatrice’s mother’s grave. Lay some flowers, you know. Pay my respects.’
Father Antonio put a hand on her shoulder, visibly moved.
‘God bless you.’
Opening the door, he watched Iris go, then turned and walked back into the dark church, his footsteps echoing off the ancient walls.
* * *
The train to Rome was packed. Families shared picnics, the parents reading while the kids played cards or passed around iPads. A few commuters attempted to work, their laptops balanced precariously on the tiny fold-out tables, while all around them tourists chatted loudly, mostly in English, about things they’d seen in Venice and their various plans for Rome. The American voices always carried the furthest, Iris noticed, and somehow managed to be more grating than anybody else’s, like a loud carriage full of quacking ducks. But the general vibe on the train was friendly, and it was clean and fast with edible food and properly good coffee, all of which made it a vast improvement from English rail travel. Better yet, it left on time.
Settling into her seat by the window – she was facing backwards, which was annoying, but at least she got the view – Iris pulled out her phone and began uploading the photos of Beatrice onto Facebook. It was much easier to write on the computer, but her replacement laptop wouldn’t arrive at her Rome hotel until tomorrow morning. It was bound to take forever to set up and she wanted the images live as soon as possible.
No sooner had she started to type than the texts began rolling in, their irritating ding, dings ruining her concentration.
The first was from Stuart Haley, urging her again to come ‘home’ and reminding her about their plans for dinner.
I know nothing I can say is going to convince you to stop pissing off the Italian police, he wrote, but surely you wouldn’t be so cruel as to leave a poor widower sitting at Pizza Hut by himself, would you?
Poor widower, my arse, Iris texted back, wondering what she might be getting herself into.
For the next twenty minutes she edited her Facebook page, posting updates on all the latest developments from Venice and interrupted only occasionally by the intermittent wails of an Italian toddler whose box of apple juice had tragically been finished. After that she caught up on admin. There were five emails from Greta Brun, her agent, reminding Iris in ever more strident terms that she wouldn’t be getting Jock MacKinnon’s cheque until the Kathy Miller portrait was finished, and wondering whether that was likely to happen in this life or the next.
Your Facebook updates a
re not encouraging, Greta observed caustically. Gallivanting around Europe’s all very well, but it won’t pay your tax bill.
Unkindly, Greta had then attached a demand from Iris’s accountant, the aptly name Mr Grimm. Iris opened it, then immediately closed it again, wishing that she hadn’t splurged quite so wantonly on a fancy, five-star hotel room in Rome. After the break in Venice, she decided she was over Airbnbs, but the place she’d booked on the Piazza Navona, overlooking the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi and Sant’Agnese in Agone was definitely on the pricey side. My accountant’s going to be in agony if I don’t bring in a pay cheque soon, she thought as the train rumbled on, wondering if she still stood a chance of finishing Kathy’s portrait by Christmas.
* * *
On the plus side, Iris’s hotel room turned out to be every bit as stunning as it had been billed, with an enormous bed, Frette linens and a marble en suite bathroom bigger than Iris’s old flat in Clapham. She could happily have spent an hour in the shower, lathering herself with fancy Elemis products and allowing the powerful jets of water to massage every knot out of her aching shoulders. But instead she forced herself to get dry and changed into the closest thing she owned to a formal evening dress, a ruinously expensive red shift from Amanda Wakeley that Greta had talked her into buying years ago (presumably when she’d been in a less parsimonious mood).
‘You must have at least one outfit you can wear to exhibitions that doesn’t look like you bought it at Oxfam, or stole from some child’s dressing-up box,’ Greta had insisted, with her usual blunt candour. Iris liked to think of her dress sense as eclectic, but others (notably her ex-husband Ian) had been known to favour adjectives such as ‘deranged’ or the more standard ‘appalling’. The red dress was one of the few items in Iris’s wardrobe that other people liked and that she felt good in. Not that tonight was about feeling good. Tonight was about one thing and one thing only: getting justice for Beatrice Contorini.
* * *
Massimo Giannotti leaned back in his usual seat, not by a flicker betraying his profound irritation. Despite being up on the evening, as the neatly stacked piles of chips in front of him attested, he’d made some foolish mistakes tonight. These slips in strategy and concentration had cost him money, but more importantly, they’d wounded his pride. Being a successful gambler was as important to Massimo’s self-image as being a good lover, and despite his advancing years, he still considered himself to be both. Perceived lapses in either area could sour his mood for hours or even days. In Roman high society, a man in Massimo’s position and with his lineage could never stoop so low as to work for a living. As a result, he’d had to develop other outlets for his talents, and other means by which to benchmark his success. He was a good shot, well read, a polyglot, a celebrated art collector and a shrewd political operator. But women and gambling were his passions.
With a signal to the dealer, he withdrew from the table, taking his usual seat at the bar, where a whisky and soda appeared in front of him as if by magic. Almost immediately an attractive woman in a red dress sat down on the nearest empty stool, and ordered a gin and tonic in the sort of cut-glass English accent that instantly attracted attention.
‘Please add the lady’s drink to my tab,’ Massimo told the barman, his spirits lifting as he turned to face the woman. ‘Good evening, Signora. You are on holiday in Rome?’
‘Sort of.’ The woman smiled. ‘A working holiday.’
Slowly, it began to dawn on him that her face was vaguely familiar, although he couldn’t place it. He looked at her more closely.
‘Forgive me. We haven’t met before, have we?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Massimo Giannotti.’ He extended his hand and she shook it.
‘I know who you are, Signor Giannotti. As a matter of fact, I’ve been trying to get in touch with you all week. Iris Grey.’
It took a second or two for the name to register. When it did, he frowned, first with anger but then with confusion. Iris Grey, the busybody artist who’d been poking her nose into things that did not concern her in Venice? Iris Grey, the frump? Well, well, well. Ms Grey was certainly far better-looking in person than she was in her photographs. Almost unrecognisable, in fact. The dowdy, middle-aged mouse had somehow transformed into this emboldened, red-sheathed siren.
‘You followed me here?’ he asked her, no longer sure whether he felt annoyed or intrigued.
‘Not followed,’ said Iris, taking a sip of her drink which had just arrived and which turned out to be considerably stronger than she’d expected. ‘I did a little research on your movements, that’s all, hoping to run into you. You’re a creature of habit, Signor Giannotti.’
‘Massimo, please.’ He smiled, deciding to allow intrigue to win out, for now. ‘I must say, I’m curious, Ms Grey.’
‘Iris.’
‘Iris.’ He nodded graciously. ‘Why on earth would you go to so much trouble simply to try to speak with me?’
‘Don’t you know?’ Iris looked at him archly.
‘Well, you mentioned in your emails something about a murder case in the UK,’ he replied, a touch defensively. ‘And that one of the victims came from Venice.’
‘You read my emails, then?’ said Iris.
‘I did,’ he admitted.
‘But you didn’t reply.’
He shrugged. ‘I had nothing to say on the matter. The young lady you mentioned –’
‘Beatrice Contorini.’
‘If you say so. I didn’t know her. Not at all.’
‘Perhaps not. But you knew her mother, Paola?’ Iris pressed him, scanning his face for any signs of guilt or deception but finding neither. Either Massimo Giannotti was not as black as he’d been painted or he was an excellent poker player. Iris suspected the latter.
‘I have no recollection of either of them,’ Massimo replied coolly, sipping his own drink.
Iris raised a disbelieving eyebrow. Massimo could have stuck to his guns, but for whatever reason he decided to allow that his bluff had been called.
‘All right,’ he admitted. ‘The daughter did write to me, many years ago now, making wild accusations.’
‘Paola Contorini told Beatrice that you were her father,’ Iris said bluntly.
‘So I was given to understand.’
‘Were you?’
Massimo smirked. ‘The woman was a chambermaid,’ he replied, as if this statement alone answered Iris’s question.
‘Paola claimed that you raped her,’ said Iris, her heart pounding. ‘At the Danieli Hotel, about thirty years ago.’
Lifting his glass, Massimo swirled the amber liquid slowly around, gazing into it thoughtfully like a seer staring at a crystal ball. When he spoke he did so slowly, with a measured tone that wasn’t threatening, and yet, nonetheless, warned Iris to take care.
‘As you continue your research, Iris, and talk to people who know me, as I have no doubt you will, you will soon discover’ – he took a long, slow sip of his drink – ‘that despite my many faults, I am not the sort of man who has ever needed to force himself on a chambermaid.’
‘You deny it, then?’ said Iris.
Looking up, he smiled at her in an open, utterly disarming manner. ‘Naturally, I deny it. It never happened. I have no connection whatsoever with either of these women, and anyone who tells you differently is misleading you. To what end, I can’t say.’
He’s very convincing, thought Iris, suddenly feeling unsure of her own ground. It was Father Antonio who’d given her Giannotti’s name, and told her about the rape, and Massimo’s connection to Beatrice. Was it possible that the priest was mistaken? Or that he had lied to her? But if so, as Massimo himself said, to what end? No. It made no sense.
‘You’re an artist, I understand?’ said Massimo, changing the subject.
‘That’s right.’
‘Portraits, isn’t it?’
Iris nodded, happy to keep the conversation going until she got a better handle on this arrogant but intriguing m
an.
‘Perhaps I could commission you to paint my portrait? Once you’ve tired of solving cold cases. Is that how you say it in English? “Cold case”?’
‘It is,’ said Iris. ‘Your English is flawless. Have you spent much time in England?’
‘Some.’ He finished his drink, gestured for another. ‘I enjoyed London as a young man. So what do you say? Would you be interested in painting me?’
I would love to paint you, thought Iris. All that hauteur and intelligence and (perhaps) cruelty; the handsome features betrayed by the papery, ageing skin, each line and liver spot an affront to the vain, arrogant man still inside, his rage burning fire bright behind his ice-blue eyes.
‘Perhaps,’ she said aloud. ‘Once I’ve finished my current commission.’
‘Who is your subject at present, if I might I ask?’
‘Her name is Kathy Miller,’ said Iris. ‘She’s a young American woman, planning to marry a wealthy Scottish baron: Jock MacKinnon. I’ve been painting Kathy up at Pitfeldy Castle in Scotland, which is how I got drawn into this case. Beatrice Contorini’s body was found buried in the castle grounds, you see.’
All the colour drained from Massimo’s face and he gripped his glass so tightly that the veins on the back of his hand popped up like thick blue cords.
Aha! Thought Iris. I’ve struck a nerve. But which one?
‘Do you know Pitfeldy?’ she asked, as casually as she could.
‘No.’
‘Perhaps you’ve heard of Kathy, then?’ Iris tried another tack. ‘She was quite a famous socialite, I believe, before she hooked up with Jock. Lived in New York for a while, and London. Very beautiful.’
‘Then we may have met,’ said Massimo, recovering some of his composure, although the unshakeable confidence of earlier had evaporated, apparently for good. ‘Very beautiful socialites are rather my milieu, as you can imagine.’
Draining his drink, he stood up.
‘Time for me to call it a night, I think.’