It didn’t make any sense. She would have been alone, revving the engine, in the dark, swearing to herself. Yes.
Carefully Sandro slid the photographs back into their envelope and replaced them in the car’s crowded glove compartment.
Stockinged leg. She dressed the part; she didn’t think she was going out into the dark, the cold, she wasn’t dressed for a winter expedition, she wasn’t prepared for this. She was going to meet her lover, in a warm hotel room. Sandro picked up the little plastic pouch containing Loni Meadows’s personal effects, and studied them. Not prepared, careless, focused only on her destination; a bit like Sandro, who was now reproaching himself for not taking a closer look at the bag’s contents earlier in the day. And if he was going to find for certain what was missing from the pouch, he had to get on with it.
It was possible that the police had missed it, yes. Sandro began at the river, working back, fingertip-searching, checking possible trajectories. When after twenty-five minutes it was simply too dark to go on, and he still hadn’t found anything, Sandro began to persuade himself out of it, another wild goose chase. It could be in her car, it could be in her room at the Castello Orfeo; odds were, surely, that even Grasso and his boneheads would have found it, if it was there to be found.
Surely.
He crossed the road, walked back a hundred metres, then a little way forwards up the hill from whose crest the threesome had watched him, then back down. A sheep track led off to the left, circumventing the hill the way to wherever the three had come from – as if he didn’t know – a track that might also have been a shortcut, only they would not have taken it with a wheelchair.
The light had almost completely leached from the lonely valley, the ridge of distant hills was black against a rapidly darkening sky, and now, whether he wanted to or not, Sandro had to go and meet the residents of the Castello Orfeo.
The little digital clock in the corner of the old computer told Giuli that it was 17.10 as she carefully attached the document to an email addressed to Sandro, pressed send, then closed the computer down. The document contained the dates and places and times she’d managed to glean from the internet and the sheaf of papers Sandro had filed, under Orfeo/Meadows, in the old filing cabinet. Giuli had tried to set up a kind of grid, cross-referencing the current guests at the Castello Orfeo as painstakingly as the time available and the limitations of her English would allow. The classes Giuli was taking were only for holidaying and conversation purposes, and weren’t much help in deciphering the migrations and stop-overs of artists. Visiting Fellowship in Installation Art in Uppsala, Sweden? Poet in Residence at a prison in Holland? The lives of the residents of the Castello Orfeo didn’t seem entirely enviable to Giuli, who had secret dreams of settling down in a more modest version of the Bellagamba villa in Galluzzo.
Teaching English at the Sorbonne in Paris sounded all right. But didn’t any of this lot want to settle down? Perhaps they didn’t have the choice.
Sandro’s instructions had been very clear. ‘I want you to find out which of them has crossed paths with Loni Meadows in the past, say over the last fifteen years. I know they will have, Mascarello and Gallo already intimated as much, it’s a small world, if you’re a struggling artistic type. Obviously I don’t expect you to find out everything. But the public stuff: festivals, lectures, exhibitions, sabbaticals, book tours. As much as you can.’
Giuli had only had a couple of hours, and she didn’t think she’d made a comprehensive job of it. It had been uphill work; she wasn’t sure what a sabbatical was in Italian, let alone the English word for it, but she used her initiative, and an online dictionary. She was fairly satisfied; it meant nothing much to her, but it would mean something to Sandro.
She hadn’t asked him if he’d called Luisa, yet. There came a point, when you just had to take a back seat, she could see that. And surely they were rock solid; nothing could derail Sandro and Luisa, certainly not a little misunderstanding like this. Giuli remembered when Luisa had told her about the cancer, and how she’d had to swallow hard and pretend not to be scared out of her wits; this was a bit like that. But no one was dying, here. She had to remind herself of that.
As if as an afterthought, before he hung up Sandro had said, ‘Carlotta Bellagamba will be going to Alberto’s house tonight, I’d bet on it. I have a feeling Alberto’s father’s out of town, and it’s going to be party time.’
‘How d’you know that?’ she’d asked curiously.
‘Because I’ve just seen his father coming out of the police station in Pozzo Basso; because his father’s Niccolò Orfeo and I’m betting Alberto’s having a party tonight because he’s told Alberto he’s not coming home. He’s staying over, at the family castle, and who knows, I might even be having dinner with him myself.’
And before Giuli had even begun to digest this new information, he’d continued, ‘D’you know what would be really useful, Giuli, would be, if you could get in there? Into the party; into the house. Get talking to those kids. Think of it as part of the surveillance of Carlotta, if you like. But what I want to know is, when the old guy usually plays away. Dates, if possible; in particular, if he was playing away, the night Loni Meadows died.’ There’d been a pause. ‘Oh, and if he did cocaine.’
After a stunned silence Giuli had said, ‘All right.’
‘You can do it, kid,’ Sandro had said, and she’d softened. What the hell. She could try.
And if she wanted to get to Galluzzo by 5.30, she was going to have to get going.
On the way Giuli picked up about fifty grammes of dope from the dealer on the corner of the Piazza Santo Spirito, sitting on the wide stone bench that was spattered with pigeonshit, holding court looking like some Native American wise man. She’d known him since she was thirteen; he looked at her without surprise as he handed over the little foil package, even though she’d been clean for three years now.
‘It’s all right,’ said Giuli uncomfortably. ‘It’s not for me.’
‘Sure,’ he said, ‘whatever.’
Not even going back to her room to take off her coat, once she was inside the castle’s bounds Cate went straight to the office.
Tiziano and Alec Fairhead had gone their separate ways without much more than a muttered farewell; the three of them had hurried back under the darkening sky, an element of shame, of anxiety in their shared silence. Had it been the sight of the man climbing out of his car? A ghoul, like them, a sightseer? Cate wasn’t so sure about that; the slow, considered way he looked up at them made her think the bareheaded man in his shabby coat had an agenda that was more serious.
As Fairhead raised his hand to say goodbye under the great arch Cate suddenly felt rather anxious for him; he actually looked ill. And frightened. But he caught her eye and hurried away, before she could ask him if he was all right.
Outside the office door Cate hesitated at the sound of voices. Luca’s, and another, deeper – lower, angrier – voice she recognized as Niccolò Orfeo’s. ‘Impossible,’ he was saying. ‘Out of the question.’
She knocked. There was an abrupt silence, then Luca said warily, ‘Who is it?’
He sounded tired, and when she tentatively pushed the door in response to his reluctant, ‘Quickly, then,’ she saw that he looked it too. He was at his desk, shirtsleeves pushed up, jacket crumpled over the back of his chair. He seemed to have grown a week’s stubble since this morning. Niccolò Orfeo was standing by the window, his broad shoulders blocking what remained of the light; he looked at Cate over his shoulder, eyeing her up and down, then looked back outside. There was a strong smell of cigar smoke, in defiance of every rule of the castle.
Cate remained standing, in her coat, as she hadn’t been invited to sit.
‘Count Orfeo – will be staying,’ said Sandro wearily. ‘For dinner, at least.’
‘I see,’ said Cate, waiting for further instruction, but none came. Orfeo would be keeping them all dangling, she saw; it was his house, and if he decided a bed needed making u
p at two minutes’ notice, in whichever room he chose, then they’d have to jump.
‘I wondered if you’d called Beth yet,’ she said hurriedly.
‘Beth?’ Luca looked blank for a moment. ‘Oh, Beth. Right, yes. I mean, no. No, I haven’t called her.’
‘Well, she should know,’ said Cate. ‘Before she reads it in a newspaper. Don’t you think? I mean, they were close.’ From the window Orfeo looked back at her a moment down his aristocratic nose, but this time it wasn’t with quite the same casual lecherousness.
‘Yes, yes, I suppose so,’ said Luca distractedly.
Cate looked at her watch. ‘If it isn’t done tonight,’ she said, ‘the time difference and everything – it won’t be for another whole day.’
‘What is your suggestion?’ said Luca impatiently. She saw him glance back over at Orfeo; did the man have power over Luca’s job? Cate had always assumed that the Trust was a quite separate entity, but she supposed the castle was still his. She thought about what Ginevra had said about Loni Meadows causing trouble for everyone who worked under her: Mauro, Nicki, Luca.
‘I’ll call her,’ said Cate. ‘You give me the number and I’ll explain it to her. Gently, you know.’
‘All right,’ said Luca, sounding uncharacteristically uncertain. He began poking through the chaos on his desk in search of something, then stopped, seemed to forget what he was looking for. Was it the presence of Niccolò Orfeo that was throwing him, or was he playing for time? Why would he be worried about Beth?
‘The number?’ she prompted. He resumed his poking, found his mobile, scrolled down a list of numbers, read the number out to her. Beth lived on the East Coast: Westport, Connecticut. It would be late morning there. Cate looked up from entering the number in her own telefonino and found them both looking at her, their meaning quite plain.
‘I’ll call her, then. I’ll do that now.’ And she left hurriedly, her coat still on, not having relaxed for one second of the exchange.
Outside the door Cate hesitated a full minute, listening, but she heard nothing. Perhaps they were listening, too, for the sound of her departing footsteps, before they resumed their conversation. She went.
Stopping off in the kitchen, Cate meant to promise Ginevra she’d be there in a moment, once she’d made that call to Beth, only another row was brewing. Of course it was: it was Ginevra’s night off, she remembered belatedly, the cook was supposed to go home at five on Saturdays. Cate had simply lost track of time, of her usual routines. And there was no escaping the row.
‘What does he think I am?’ Ginevra was fulminating. Mauro was standing in a corner, a coffee cup in his hand and an unpleasant gleam in his eye. He never drank coffee without a little something in it; Cate found herself wanting to ask him, what happens if you come off that tractor, break your neck?
The kitchen’s surfaces were already spread with the dishes for the evening’s buffet, each covered with its separate clean ironed cloth. ‘He thinks I’m housekeeper, maid, cleaner? He sends Anna-Maria home, he takes you off kitchen duties – ’ at which the full force of her glare turned on Cate ‘– then he decides we need beds making up, and I’m supposed to send Nicki off to clean the intern’s bathroom.’
‘Intern?’
‘The little bedroom,’ said Ginevra impatiently. She tugged off her apron. ‘Well, you can do it. Nicki’s done enough. You can do it, and you can help her clear after their dinners, too. Saturday night and Sunday morning, my time off. I hope someone remembers that.’
‘The intern’s room needs making up? I thought – ’ and Cate broke off, confused.
‘Two extras for dinner,’ Ginevra grumbled on. ‘And no warning. Well, they’ll have to make do with rice.’
‘Two? Who’s the other one?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ snapped Ginevra.
‘A snooper,’ said Mauro, speaking for the first time from the corner. ‘Someone coming to ask us questions.’ His voice was dangerously ragged; he was properly drunk, Cate realized. ‘That husband of hers is behind it, if you ask me.’ His laugh was phlegmy and slurred. ‘And then there’s Orfeo too, that’s a bit of a turn-up. Overcome with grief, no doubt.’
Cate wanted to get out of there; she didn’t like this.
‘Where’s Nicki?’
‘She’ll be up on the piano nobile,’ Ginevra said, relenting. ‘Doing the intern’s room.’ Then she scowled. ‘You’ll have to walk her back to the farm, you know.’
‘I’ll sort things with her,’ said Cate. ‘You get off home.’
Ginevra stared at her, then pulled off her apron without a word. Passed her hand over the gas taps on the stove, straightened a tea towel on the rail. ‘You coming?’ she said to Mauro brusquely. He shrugged, his eyes red-rimmed. He was definitely worse, Cate thought, since the Dottoressa had died: drunker, angrier; perhaps that was why Ginevra was protecting him. Protecting him from himself.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Watch a bit of television.’
‘And a bite to eat.’ Ginevra had her coat on, and wearily she steered Mauro ahead of her out of the door. An icy wind swirled in out of the darkness. ‘Bite to eat,’ he repeated, as if unsure what the words meant, as the door closed behind them. Cate hoped Ginevra was driving.
At the kitchen door she paused and listened; heard the dogs begin to bay on the other side of the hill as the cook’s Punto hove into view. Ginevra knew something was wrong, that was why she was keeping Mauro on a tight rein. Cate looked down the hill the other way, towards the villino. There was a light at one of the squat building’s upper windows, and as she stood there more light blazed out, closer, off to the right from beyond the laundry. The modern apartment with its glass wall: Michelle must be turning on every light in the place. Soon the guests would be turning up one by one like kept beasts sniffing around for the next meal, no matter what.
As she crossed the courtyard towards the stone steps and the great door, two things happened more or less at once. Snowflakes started gusting down from the black sky and inside the castle someone – it could only be one person – began to play the piano. Though that seemed too tame a description for the sound that reached Cate, stopping her where she stood. Like liquid, the music flowed out through every crack in the shutters, between door and doorframe, climbing and spilling, soft and melancholy, into the courtyard, filling the space enclosed by the grey walls and the black sky overhead as if Cate was in her own private concert hall. For just a moment, as she stood there and forgot what was fretting at her or where she was going, she understood the point of it all. The big, forbidding castle with its metre-thick walls, the closeted rooms, the seclusion, the feeding and watering of the unhappy guests, the torment. For this.
She saw him as she tiptoed past in the hall, like a minotaur, his big head between those great shoulders bent over the gleaming black piano, oblivious, and climbing the wide curve of the stone stairs she held her breath.
Nicki was in the doorway of the intern’s little room, leaning against the cut stone of its corner, damp cloth in one hand. She was transfixed, listening. Cate put a finger to her lips, and Nicki nodded. Her eyes were round; they’d heard Tiziano play before, but he had never sounded like this. The music swelled and rolled, now flooding every corner of the ancient building; her eye caught by a movement higher on the stairs, Cate looked up and saw Alec Fairhead on the upper landing, his eyes glittering in the light from below. It seemed to her that the music was calling them all out of their hiding places – a celebration and a warning and a funeral march, all rolled into one.
Fairhead’s focus shifted and he looked at her and then, quite unexpectedly, she saw an expression she’d never seen before, a smile of pure happiness and release spread across his face, as if he had been taken by surprise by something that delighted him. Cate bobbed her head back down and at that moment she felt Nicki take her hand and hold it tight.
Turning, she smiled into the girl’s face. ‘It’s OK,’ she mouthed, because Nicki’s look of dazzlement had turned into c
onsternation as the notes thundered, and she smiled reassuringly. As if Tiziano realized, below them, that the music was passing beyond his control, it changed, or he tamed it, and beside Cate, Nicki let out a long breath. Feeling the tension ebb, Cate looked over her shoulder into the small, neat room that had been Beth’s: one long, shuttered window, a narrow bed with faded, soft red velvet cover, a corner turned back in the circle of light shed by the bedside lamp. A desk had been set out, with paper and a telephone. Seeing her questioning look, Nicki just shrugged.
‘It’s you and me,’ Cate whispered. ‘I’ve sent Ginevra home.’ Nicki nodded obediently.
Still looking into the room Cate saw no trace of Beth’s occupancy, not a discarded paperback on the shelves, not a mark on the walls. ‘Do you miss her?’ she said softly, and Nicki moved her head, see-sawing, ambivalent. Then nodded.
‘She didn’t like it here,’ she whispered. ‘She told me, it scared her. Something scared her.’ Cate examined her expression a moment. Remembered that Nicki believed in ghosts too; gently took the damp cloth from her hand and pulled the door of the intern’s room to behind them.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘They’ll all be turning up soon, and there’s no booze out.’ The music seemed to bear them down the stairs, measuring their steps as though they couldn’t help but walk in time to it, as though they were dancing. When Cate reached the bottom, she stopped.
On the doorstep stood a middle-aged man with a broad, tired face, in his hand a small holdall, his head tilted as he listened. He wore a hat, with a light dusting of snow just melting on its brim. As if on cue, the music lifted to a perfect point, and came to rest.
‘Sandro Cellini,’ said the man in the new silence, and he held out his hand.
Chapter Fifteen
THE TWO GIRLS – WOMEN, he should say, he knew – stared back at him, one small and mousy and sharp-nosed, one tall and strong-shouldered and black-haired and clever. He’d seen the tall girl already, with the two men on the rise looking down at him, and he hadn’t been wrong to think her beautiful. She had the full, downturned mouth of a Piero della Francesca: the face of the Queen of Sheba and the strong shoulders of a girl soldier. Sandro could imagine her striding into battle without a second thought.
A Murder in Tuscany Page 18