In the far corner a kitchenette was heaped with dishes. Per and his wife were standing over there, pressed into the quietest corner and entwined against a work surface. His wife was leaning back, a hand up and touching his cheek, and Cate had seen his face, pale and stunned and grateful, like a man climbing out of the ruins of his house after an earthquake.
Per and Alec had been for a walk together in the early afternoon. It had come to Cate, just like that; he’d said she would remember, and she had. She’d wished Sandro Cellini had told her why he wanted to know.
‘Look who I’ve found,’ Alec Fairhead had said in the end, lifting her hand in his. She’d wanted to ask him about Loni; if it was true what Loni had said to Beth, that he hadn’t forgotten her. But now wasn’t the moment.
They had all looked at her, Per nodding while wrapping his arms tighter around his wife, Tiziano smiling faintly through a blue spiral of smoke, Tina twisting her slight body on the space they had cleared for a dancefloor and lowering a hand to wave limply. Michelle, still filling a glass of water from a bottle, watched her. Cate had seen that she had make-up on too; the hostess. Quickly Cate had crossed the room to stand beside her, feeling Alec Fairhead’s eyes on her as she went.
‘Is this all right?’ she’d said to Michelle quickly.
Michelle had taken a long drink of the water, eyeing her over the glass. They must all have known where she’d been, Alec Fairhead would have told them. Seen climbing out of the enemy’s car: she had to explain to them that whoever the enemy was, it wasn’t Sandro Cellini.
‘All right with me, baby,’ she’d said drily. Not drunk, thought Cate; interesting. The rest of them get wasted by way of celebration, but Michelle sobers up. Her face under the make-up – not much of it, red on her lips, her eyes outlined – was transformed; not younger so much, her skin still weathered, fine lines around the eyes, but more alert, defined, cared for. There was something faintly challenging about the look she’d given Cate, bright as a bird’s, defying her to ask her questions. She’d poured a tumbler full of wine and handed it to Cate, who wondered where it had all come from, all this booze. Bottles of wine and vodka on the long table, at Tiziano’s feet; pinched from the castle’s cellars? She hadn’t recognized the label.
‘Our little act of subversion,’ Michelle had said, seeing where she was looking. ‘Those market trips? Turns out we were all stashing a private supply. It’s not always nice, to be dependent, like a little kid. To have to ask for everything. And it turned out kind of useful, huh?’
Saying nothing – because to agree out loud would have been to betray the Trust – Cate had just raised the glass and taken a drink. Nice enough.
Michelle had shifted slightly and looked away, across at Tina on the dancefloor.
‘Poor kid,’ she’d said after a while. Then abruptly, ‘That was kind of you. To tell her it wasn’t her, with all that voodoo shit. She needed someone to tell her, and she didn’t believe it when I said it.’
‘No, well, maybe she wouldn’t,’ Cate had said. ‘You’re so close.’
‘You think?’ Michelle had taken Cate’s wrist in her rough dry hand, holding it tight. ‘She wouldn’t hurt a fly, you know that? I mean, really.’ Looking into Cate’s eyes.
Cate had looked across at Tina twirling and singing to herself; seen Alec Fairhead look at her too. Realized Michelle wanted to know what she’d said to Sandro Cellini. ‘I know,’ she’d said. ‘But he’s a good guy, you know. Sandro Cellini; he’s not one to misjudge her.’ And she’d realized that she believed it. ‘You don’t need to worry.’
Michelle had looked at Cate a moment longer, then let go of her wrist abruptly. The music stopped and Tina let her arms drop, looking across at them.
‘You never had kids,’ Cate had said, without thinking, the wine making her careless. There was no answer and then she’d realized, and said, ‘Oh, God. I’m sorry. I – Tiziano told me. You lost your husband.’
‘Lost him?’ Michelle had said wonderingly. ‘Huh.’ There was a long pause, in which Cate had wished she could be swallowed up. Then, with bitterness. ‘Lost him. It didn’t feel quite like that. It felt like – he was stolen. Hijacked, run over, thrown off a cliff, dismembered by gangsters. Murdered.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Yeah, I lost him. He’s gone.’
‘Murdered?’ The word had seemed hard to ignore.
Michelle had looked at her a moment, weighing something up. When she spoke again her voice was level. ‘I found him. Early in the morning on our bathroom floor in Queens, last August. It was so hot. He’d taken an overdose, after I went to bed; I slept through it, then I got up to go to the bathroom at around five and I found him.’ She’d taken a breath, then let it out. ‘He was on the floor, and his eyes were open.’
Cate had nodded, staring at her. ‘Why did he – did you – ’
Michelle had shaken her head violently, as if to stop Cate talking. ‘Dying’s a violent thing, always, however. That’s all I meant.’ She had folded her arms tight across herself, pulling the red dress around her, her face pale and her made-up eyes smudged dark.
Cate had nodded, saying nothing. How could you go on living in a place where someone had died? It was no wonder Michelle didn’t want to talk about the next gig; maybe she was wondering if she’d ever go home again. Even in this place, which was no one’s home, Loni’s death was everywhere.
Tina had sidled up, nudging in next to Michelle. Wearily Michelle had dropped an arm on her shoulders, and setting her cheek on the older woman’s forearm Tina gave Cate a timid look from under her colourless fringe, out of her faded eyes.
Cate had smiled at her, wanting to reassure her, feeling Michelle’s watchful gaze on her.
And remembered that Michelle had gone for a run, as the light began to go, on the day Loni Meadows died. Mid-afternoon, perhaps two o’clock.
That was what had started it, the row over the minibus and the museum trip being cancelled; Michelle didn’t want to go, she said, because she needed a run, really needed one. Then Tina said she wouldn’t go, then there’d been no point hiring the minibus and Loni had gone all thin-lipped, in her coat with the fur trim. Per had been hovering around saying awkwardly that he’d like to go, though, and maybe Loni and he could go in the Monster, then Luca had made the mistake of arriving and Loni had grabbed him by the arm and stalked off with him. Frogmarched him up to his office.
Tiziano had appeared, and together they’d tried not to listen to Loni shouting at Luca. They’d seen Michelle emerge from the studio in her running kit, jogging up across the stones and looking around almost as if she wished Loni was still there to see her. All the gear: trainers, shorts, water pouch on her back.
Now Michelle was watching Cate. ‘Have another drink,’ she’d said, and Cate had let her fill the tumbler again. Across in the kitchenette Per was looking down into his wife’s face, one hand on her shoulder, the other stroking her hair, while she spoke intently up at him.
Had Cellini believed her, when she’d said Per couldn’t have done it? He’d reserved judgement; she supposed he had to do that. She knew, though. And she wasn’t as green as Cellini thought.
Something had nudged against Cate’s hip, and setting down the glass of wine she looked down and saw Tiziano.
‘Dance?’ he’d said, and as he said it she’d heard the music, an old plaintive Neapolitan song that everyone knew, that brought tears to the eyes of every old man in every village the length of the country, thinking of his first kiss.
Reaching up in a swift movement Tiziano had caught her arm and pulled her down so quickly she’d gasped, landing on his lap in the chair. He’d smelled of dope smoke; he’d whirled the chair away and Tina had clapped wildly. Cate’s head had spun, with the wine and the movement and the dope smoke and the proximity of Tiziano’s face to hers; she’d scrabbled for the wheelchair’s arms. ‘Stop,’ she’d said, and he’d stopped. In the background the old ballad was still playing.
‘Sorry,’ Tiziano had said. ‘Got carried away.
’ Cate had extricated herself, knelt beside the wheelchair until her head stopped spinning, while he’d watched her.
‘It’s all right, you know,’ he’d said. ‘Nothing below the waist.’ Cate had blushed furiously; he’d waited till the colour subsided.
‘I wasn’t worried,’ she’d said. He was looking at her with perfect equanimity and she’d thought of Per saying Tiziano can’t be what he seems. The bomb killed his father, on their way to a football match.
‘So what’s he like?’ Tiziano had asked. ‘Our friend from Florence?’
‘He’s nice,’ Cate had said without thinking. ‘He’s like my dad. I mean my stepdad. He’s just doing a job.’
‘Not just here to stir up trouble?’ He’d looked at her. ‘The police don’t think there’s anything to investigate.’ He’d looked around the room. ‘He could ruin someone’s life, you know.’
‘You think, if someone – if it wasn’t an accident, whoever did it shouldn’t be punished?’
Tiziano had put his head on one side, as if considering it. ‘She caused a lot of trouble herself,’ he’d said eventually. ‘A lot of pain.’ He was looking at Alec Fairhead, then at Per in the corner with his wife. ‘I talked to the wife. Per’s wife. They’ve been married twenty-five years and not one moment’s doubt, she said. Neither of them, until Loni Meadows came along. Is any of us as bad as she was?’
‘So she deserved to die?’ Cate had looked fiercely into Tiziano’s face, making him look back. ‘There’s something bad here,’ she’d said, meaning the castle. Their high prison, with its labyrinth of corridors and rooms, and all around the trees clustered close, penning them in, and the lonely, echoing hills.
She’d persisted. ‘Can’t you feel it? The way she died.’ And as he looked back at her coolly she had blinked so as not to think about it, the dark and the cold, tried not to wonder how long it would have taken for Loni Meadows to die.
‘I don’t know,’ he’d said. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’ He’d passed a hand over his stubbled head. ‘Well. Has he got any ideas?’
Cate had shrugged unwillingly. ‘Come on, kid,’ he’d said. ‘You don’t think it was me, do you?’ And smiled sadly.
‘He wants to know who went out that afternoon,’ she had blurted.
Slowly Tiziano had nodded, frowning. ‘That’s interesting. Does he think someone – went and put something there? Like some kind of obstacle? Some kind of tripwire, some kind of trap?’
It had sounded crazy. Cate shrugged uncomfortably. ‘I don’t know. He just asked, did I see anyone go out?’ She had looked at him. ‘Did you?’
‘See anyone?’ She’d waited. ‘Oh,’ he’d said. ‘Did I go out? Well, you know I did, Caterina. I went over to the farm to see the dogs, late afternoon.’
Cate had nodded. ‘Yes, I did know that.’
‘Do you think I need an alibi?’ he’d added cheerfully. ‘Someone to say that’s where I went? Well, you saw me go, but I guess I could have turned and gone the other way out of the back gate. I could have gone towards the river instead of the farm.’ Cate said nothing. ‘Only actually, Mauro saw me. He was there when I arrived. Pissed, though, so he might not remember.’ He’d set his elbows on the arms of his chair and watched her.
‘He was at the farm, and he was drunk?’ Cate had frowned. ‘I thought he was – over on the other side of the valley.’
‘That’s where he was supposed to be?’ Tiziano had shrugged. ‘Well, I wouldn’t want to get Mauro into trouble, but when I saw him, he looked like he hadn’t been anywhere but the bottom of a glass for a good few hours.’
Cate had straightened, thinking furiously, and Tiziano had looked up at her. ‘Are you going to tell him all this, then, our friend from Florence?’ And she’d looked back down at him, unseeing. ‘Whose side are you on, Cate?’ he’d said softly. ‘You’ve got to decide, haven’t you? You’ve got to take a stand.’
And then she had looked into his face, wanting him to tell her what to do, as across the room Alec Fairhead had stepped up to Tina, on the dance floor, and held out his hand to her.
The water in Cate’s shower was running cold. The paracetamol had dulled her headache. She turned off the water and heard voices from outside her window. Michelle and Tiziano were there on the snow; she was in her running gear again, and from the flush in her face Cate guessed she’d already been out. She hadn’t been drinking last night, Cate remembered. In the wheelchair Tiziano was muffled up for once in a padded jacket as he talked to Michelle. From above, his legs looked as thin as sticks under the jogging pants. Cate pulled on her jeans and a sweater and opened the window.
They both looked up at the sound. ‘Good morning, sleeping beauty.’ Tiziano’s good cheer sounded just a bit forced. Embarrassed: about last night. ‘How’s your head?’
‘Hi,’ she said, uncertainly; three days without Loni Meadows, and everything was different. It was as if the roles had all been reversed, the guests looking after her. And an eerie silence had descended with the snow; even Mauro’s dogs were quiet. Sleeping beauty. ‘I’m fine.’
But there was still a nagging ache, behind the buffer of painkillers; it was just waiting, compounded by guilt. Vincenzo. She hadn’t given him a thought last night. Cate looked at the sky; to the east, it had cleared, and the sun was uncomfortably dazzling. But a new bank of cloud was building to the north.
‘More snow coming, they say,’ said Tiziano. Nodding towards Michelle. ‘She had to get her run in before it kicked off again.’ Michelle smiled down at him, serene, but the look she directed up at Cate was warier.
Since when, thought Cate with a trace of sullen childishness, did Michelle get so full of beans? ‘Where is everyone?’ she asked.
Michelle set her hands on her broad hips, head on one side. Her breath clouding in the cold air. ‘Packing, I guess,’ she said in her harsh accent. Watching Cate for a response.
‘Packing?’ Cate felt herself gawp.
‘Well, we reached a joint decision.’ After she’d gone, no doubt. ‘We figured, we don’t have to stay. We’ll talk to your guy – ’
‘Not my guy,’ said Cate uncomfortably.
‘Whatever.’ She eyed Cate warily. ‘It’s too much, Caterina. We decided, we’ll talk to him, sure we will. But then, that’s it, we’re out of here. Per’s already booked himself on a flight out with Yolanda tomorrow night.’
Cate stared back at her. Shit, she thought, Luca will be in meltdown. And stupidly, what about lunch? Maybe no one cared any more.
‘Does he know?’ she said falteringly. ‘Does Luca know yet?’
‘You want to tell him?’ Michelle smiled. ‘Go ahead, baby. Feel free.’ She gestured at Luca’s window, further down the façade, his shutters open.
Cate stuffed her feet into socks and the boots she’d dug out of the kitchen cupboard. Hair still damp, at least she was clean; but she didn’t feel ready for whatever was coming. And something was coming, as sure as the snow.
Banging out of the door she was surprised to see that Michelle and Tiziano were still there, looking down the hill. Close up, Tiziano looked pale.
Cate stopped. ‘Where is he?’ she asked. ‘Has he started yet? Cellini? Has he started talking to people?’
Michelle stamped her feet. ‘He got Alec this morning,’ she said, eyes narrowed. ‘Poor guy.’
‘Mr Fairhead?’ said Cate stupidly. As if she hadn’t watched him dancing with Tina last night, watched him whisper and cry on her shoulder. Watching while he tried not to look at Per and his wife, kissing in the dark, and poured out his heart to her.
‘What do you mean, poor guy? What did he say?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ said Michelle toughly. ‘None of my business. He was white as a sheet, though. I was just getting ready for my run and I heard him. Wandering about in the trees; I came out to see if he was OK, only he walked on down. Going to see Tina, he said.’
Tina. Cate tried to get her head around that one.
‘Where is he?’ she said. ‘Where is
he now?’ She looked up at Luca’s window. Shit, she thought; she had a job to do.
‘Alec? He’s with Tina. I just said.’ Michelle frowned.
‘Not him,’ said Cate. ‘I meant, where’s Cellini?’
‘Ah,’ said Michelle. ‘Him. Right. I saw him, on my run.’
‘Your friend from Florence,’ said Tiziano, and his teasing grated on her for the first time.
‘He’s a good man,’ she said fiercely. ‘You’d do well to remember that.’
‘All right,’ said Tiziano, surprised by her vehemence, holding up his hands in surrender. ‘All right, whatever you say. Your good man – he’s down at the river, throwing stones.’
Chapter Twenty-One
THE COLD AND WET seeped up through Sandro’s boots and as far as his ankles, but he didn’t care. He was out of the Castello Orfeo, at least for the moment, standing in what he might before this weekend have avoided like the plague: open countryside, not a roof in sight, not a chimney.
He was at the foot of the hill where Loni Meadows had died. Around him the wide hills lay soft and white and silent and alien, merging with the pale sky at the horizon, the snow-laden trees on a nearby ridge motionless. After the deep damp chill and dark corridors of the Castello Orfeo, Sandro felt as though his lungs were expanding properly for the first time since his arrival, and even though he knew that the purple cloud was massing again at his back, overhead the sun shone out of a band of electric blue sky. The temperature must have risen just fractionally, because on the road down the tarmac had been beginning to show black through snow, and the noise of the chains had echoed round the hills until he thought they must all be at the windows of the castle, watching him. But where Sandro stood now, in the lee of the slope where the sun didn’t reach, the cold was shocking.
The sound of the running woman had taken him by surprise. At first, it had even alarmed him; he had thought it must be an animal. Deer? Wild boar? In the crusted snow beside the road there had been tracks, delicate splayed bird feet, and the rounded depressions of a small cloven hoof. A tiny cluster of droppings, black on the pristine verge. Sandro’s understanding of wild animals was restricted to the manner in which they might be cooked, and he didn’t relish the prospect of coming face to face with one.
A Murder in Tuscany Page 27