‘No,’ says Ruth, surprised. ‘Wasn’t he with you? I saw him at the church.’
‘He left the reception early. I thought he might be here. He’s not answering phone.’ Elsa holds out her own mobile – an iPhone in a sparkly case – as if to prove that she has been calling her son.
From the sitting room come the strains of ‘Some Day My Prince Will Come’.
‘Ah, Snow White,’ says Elsa. ‘One of my favourites.’
‘My daughter loves it,’ says Ruth, ‘even though it’s so old.’ And a feminist nightmare, she adds in her head. ‘Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?’ she says, when Elsa shows no sign of leaving.
‘Tea, please. If it’s not too much trouble.’
‘Not at all,’ says Ruth. ‘We’re going out for dinner, but not for an hour yet.’
In the kitchen, Ruth puts on the kettle and Elsa sits at the chrome and glass table. ‘This kitchen is so beautiful. Angelo does it very well. He gets rid of all my parents’ old furniture.’
‘Did he?’ Ruth has often wondered about this.
‘Yes, so we can rent place out. It’s comfortable, yes?’
‘Very,’ says Ruth, though this is not exactly the word she would have chosen to describe the apartment.
‘It’s easier,’ says Elsa. ‘I can hardly imagine my father here. He had a very old-fashioned . . . what’s the word? Cook stove. But he did all his own cooking and cleaning, right to the end.’
‘Angelo said that he lived to . . . to a good age,’ says Ruth. She hates this phrase, but she can’t think of another. Her mother had died at the age of seventy-seven, which some people would describe as a ‘good innings’. It didn’t feel like that to Ruth. It felt far too soon.
‘Yes, ninety-six. Angelo was very close to him. This death – Don Tomaso – it brought it all back. It’s so terrible. You were there, Ruth. You know.’ Tears fill her eyes.
‘Yes,’ says Ruth. ‘It was terrible. I know you were close to Don Tomaso.’
Elsa wipes her eyes on a tiny lace handkerchief. What sort of woman uses actual hankies any more? ‘We were brought up together,’ she says. ‘We had the same nanny. The same English nanny.’
‘But you’re so much younger,’ says Ruth, without thinking.
Elsa smiles. ‘Thank you. I am seventy-nine, Tomaso was eighty-three. There’s not much difference. He was like big brother. His family were rich, and I think they felt sorry for my parents because they were young and poor. So they let us share Elizabeth, the nanny.’
Seventy-nine. Ruth had taken Elsa for at least a decade younger. The English nanny explains the oddly dated phrases used by both Elsa and the priest. Tea for two. A penny for them.
‘Don Tomaso must have known Pompeo, your father, then,’ says Ruth.
‘Yes, Papa was a hero to all the younger boys,’ says Elsa. ‘Papa and Giorgio. It was a dangerous time, but to boys like Tomaso and my brother, Franco, it all was all a big adventure, skulking around, hiding in the hills, carrying messages. They didn’t realise it was life or death.’
Ruth makes tea, thinking how strange it is that they are sitting in Pompeo Morelli’s kitchen, talking about a time when a casual word in the wrong place could mean death. What did it say on the posters they had in England? Ruth has seen it on tea towels. Careless talk costs lives.
There’s a sudden howl from the sitting room – Kate, mid-yell: ‘Give that back! I hate you!’
‘Excuse me.’ Ruth hurries out. Louis has taken the remote control and is in the process of hitting Kate with it. Ruth takes the device and puts it on a high shelf. She feels furious with Louis for hitting Kate, but there’s no doubt that Kate can be very bossy and was probably enjoying her despotic command of their viewing.
‘Just watch the film quietly,’ she tells them. ‘I’ll get the remote down when we have to leave.’
When she gets back to the kitchen, Elsa is kneeling down, looking into a cupboard.
‘I don’t know where anything is any more,’ she says. ‘I was looking for sugar.’
It’s not until much later that Ruth remembers what Elsa told her, the day the TV people filmed at her apartment: I never take sugar. I have to watch my figure.
Chapter 25
After the emotion of the funeral and the strangeness of the visit from Elsa (not to mention Marta’s mother breaking into the apartment), it’s a relief to be at Linda’s. They sit on the terrace as the sky darkens over the valley. There are lights in the trees and the cicadas are singing. For Ruth, it feels almost magical to be sitting at a long candlelit table with Kate on one side and Nelson on the other. She can’t think of another time when they’ve all eaten like this together. Linda’s husband, Paolo, a darkly handsome doctor, pours wine and speaks Italian to Cathbad. Linda and Shona talk about art and Louis is asleep across three chairs. Kate sits very upright, proud that she’s still awake at ten o’clock at night. For Ruth it’s as if the horrors of the last few months have never happened: her mother dying, Michelle’s pregnancy, this strange holiday and Don Tomaso’s death. If she shuts her eyes she can only smell the lemon-scented evening and the hear the clink of glasses and the sound of mingled Italian and English.
Pero . . . sempre . . . Michelangelo . . . the Sistine Chapel . . . allora . . . Valpolicella . . .
‘What are you thinking, Ruth?’ says Nelson.
‘I was thinking how surreal this all is,’ says Ruth. ‘You wouldn’t know that there had been a murder a few days ago.’
‘I know,’ says Nelson. ‘I kept thinking about it today. It feels odd not being part of the investigation.’
‘They’ve released Samir,’ says Ruth. ‘He came to see me today.’
‘Did he? Why?’
‘He wanted to thank me. Valenti told him that the English people thought he was innocent.’
‘Do you think he’s innocent?’
‘Yes. He told me his story. It’s so tragic. He doesn’t know if his wife and children are alive or dead. Don Tomaso had been kind to him. I can’t imagine Samir hurting him. His religion is almost all he has left.’
‘But if he didn’t kill him,’ says Nelson, his face dark in the candlelight. ‘Who did?’
‘Ruth,’ Shona calls across the table, ‘are you talking about the murder?’
The word has its usual effect. In the silence that follows, Ruth can hear Louis breathing and a dog barking in the valley. Is it the same dog that she hears at night?
‘It’s so terrible,’ says Linda. ‘Why would anyone kill an old man like Don Tomaso?’
‘The old are not always innocent,’ says Cathbad, holding a peach up to the light and admiring its sheeny glow.
‘Jesus, Cathbad,’ says Nelson. ‘Is that from your book of a hundred meaningless phrases?’
‘It’s not meaningless,’ says Cathbad, ‘just because you don’t understand it.’
Ruth wonders why Cathbad seems to be needling Nelson. She knows that, in the past, Cathbad held a deep grudge against the police, resulting from what he felt was the death of an innocent man. But she had thought that his subsequent friendship with Nelson, and his belief in his integrity, had softened the edges of this. Maybe, but some of the resentment is clearly still there.
Paolo says something in Italian. He talks for a long time and sounds very serious. Ruth wonders if he’s telling them about some event involving his own work with children, perhaps a case where the police got things terribly, tragically wrong.
But, when Linda translates, it transpires that Paolo is simply offering them some limoncello.
*
Linda offers to drive Ruth and Shona home. ‘I don’t drink much,’ she says. ‘I’m always expecting to have to collect one of the boys.’
‘You’re very kind,’ says Ruth. And she suddenly feels an affection towards this woman who has, so readily and happily, taken them under her wing. And they will probably never see her again. To her horror, she feels as if she’s about to cry. It must be the wine.
‘Bye, Nelson,’ sh
e says, her arm round a sleepy Kate. ‘Safe journey home.’
‘Oh, I’m not going back until Friday,’ says Nelson. ‘I couldn’t get a flight tomorrow.’
So he won’t be back for Michelle’s scan, thinks Ruth. Trying for a light tone, she says, ‘Well, I’m sure we’ll see you around then.’
Nelson stoops to kiss Kate. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
Ruth does not want to cry any more. She helps Shona carry the still-sleeping Louis into Linda’s car and then puts Kate’s seatbelt on. There are no child seats but it’s a short drive and the roads will surely be clear. Ruth gets into the front passenger seat, leaving Shona between the two children in the back.
The roads are pitch black, the moon appearing fitfully from behind clouds, but Linda drives confidently and competently, her headlights sweeping this way and that as they climb up the mountain. She stops once because a porcupine, like a small armoured car, is crossing the road.
‘Hills everywhere in Italy,’ says Linda, starting up again. ‘It’s hell on the clutch.’
Everyone in the back is asleep. Ruth tries to stay awake to keep Linda company, but finds her head nodding. Her remarks are starting to feel a bit random. ‘Do you like it here?’ she asks, for what seems the tenth time.
‘I love it,’ says Linda, ‘it’s so . . .’
But they never find out what it is because a car suddenly appears round a bend and comes hurtling towards them on the wrong side of the road. At first it seems that there must be a head-on collision but Linda swerves to the left and the car bumps along the grass verge, narrowly missing a tree and coming to the rest on what feels like the very edge of a precipice. Linda and Ruth stare at each other and, in the back, the children wake and start to cry.
Chapter 26
Nelson and Cathbad have a final limoncello with Paolo on the terrace and then repair to their rooms. Nelson is getting quite fond of the pictures of Juventus, but when he gets under the black and white striped duvet he finds he can’t sleep. It’s too hot under the covers so he throws them off. Then he gets up and goes to the window and opens the heavy wooden shutters. He leans out of the open window, breathing in the night, which has a particularly foreign smell, he thinks, herbs and lemons and something else, something dark and peaty, like Paolo’s home-made wine. He’s pretty sure that he’s getting bitten to death by mosquitos, but it’s worth it for the air.
Something’s worrying him and it’s not the usual worries, although they don’t exactly help: Michelle, Ruth, his daughters, what’s happening back at the station. It’s something about this case, the death of the priest. Was it something Ruth said or was it something that happened at the police station? Nelson tries to cast his mind back. He remembers bloody Tim talking about something he called a memory house. Apparently you have to go in and search through the rooms until you find the hidden memory. Can Nelson find the key to his memory house? House. That’s it. Pompeo, Angelo’s grandfather, he live in that house like a recluse. He tells its secrets to no one. There must be some mystery about the house where Ruth and Katie are staying. He wishes they weren’t staying there; he wishes they were coming home with him tomorrow. But he can just hear Ruth’s voice if he were to suggest this. I’m here to work, Nelson, it’s not a holiday. Except today, at Monte Cassino and in Arpino, it had felt like a holiday. Though the murder of Don Tomaso has somewhat soured the atmosphere. He is roused out of his slight reverie by a voice calling from the hall. It’s Paolo, but he’s never heard the genial doctor sounding so urgent and upset.
‘Harry! Cathbad! Quickly! Linda has had an accident’.
*
Ruth and Linda stare at each other for a full minute. Then Linda reaches out a shaking hand and turns the ignition off. Ruth twists round in her seat. ‘It’s OK,’ she says to the children, ‘we just came off the road. Everything’s fine.’
‘Jesus,’ says Shona. ‘What happened? That car was driving straight at us.’
‘Let’s see if we can get out,’ says Linda. ‘No one move until I say.’ She opens the car door and swings her legs round.
‘Turn the car headlights on,’ says Ruth. ‘Then you can see how close we are to the edge.’
‘Good idea.’ Linda turns the key and the headlights shine out into the darkness. There seems to be nothing in front of them. Ruth can hear the wind rustling through the trees and the sharp cry of a night bird. ‘Be careful,’ she says.
When Linda gets out, the car rocks and Shona suppresses a scream.
‘It’s OK,’ says Ruth, though she doesn’t know why anyone would believe her.
Linda looks in through the open door. ‘We’re quite close to the edge on this side, but I think it’s OK. Everyone get out Ruth’s side and I’ll ring Paolo to come and get us.’
Ruth gets out and opens the back door. She undoes Kate’s seatbelt and scoops her up, feeling, for a moment, that selfish mother’s love that doesn’t care if the rest of them plunge to their deaths on the rocks below. Linda comes round and takes Kate’s hand.
‘Come on, Kate. Let’s go and stand by the side of the road.’
Ruth reaches in and takes Louis, who now seems dumb with fear. Linda and the two children climb up the bank that leads to the road. Shona scrambles out of the car and briefly collapses into Ruth’s arms. ‘God,’ she says, half laughing and half crying. ‘First the earthquake, then a funeral and now this. What a holiday.’
‘Don’t say I never take you anywhere,’ says Ruth.
They leave the car and climb the bank to stand next to Linda and the children. Linda goes back to the car to collect the warning triangle which is apparently mandatory in Italy. She puts it in the road. ‘That should stop people driving into us.’ She has also collected blankets. Ruth and Kate wrap themselves in one, Shona and Louis in the other. They smell of wood smoke and security.
‘What about you?’ says Ruth to Linda.
‘I’m all right. I’ve got my pashmina.’ Linda cuts an incongruously glamorous sight, standing by the roadside in her hot pink pashmina. Next to her, Ruth feels like a tramp. Kate, her equilibrium restored, is humming to herself inside the folds of the blanket.
‘Was that driver drunk, do you think?’ says Ruth.
‘Maybe,’ says Linda. ‘Did you see what sort of car it was?’
‘Small,’ says Ruth. ‘A little Fiat or a Renault. Black or grey. It looked dark anyway.’
‘It looked dark because its headlights were off,’ says Linda.
Ruth hardly has time to digest this before they hear cars approaching. A few seconds later Paolo’s Alfa and Nelson’s rented Fiat are pulling up beside them.
‘Ruth.’ Nelson bounds over to her and briefly puts his arms round her. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine,’ says Ruth. ‘A car pushed us off the road.’
‘We nearly went over the cliff,’ says Kate brightly from under the blanket.
Nelson picks her up. ‘You’re fine now, love. Daddy’s here.’
That’s not why they’re fine, thinks Ruth, but she’s willing to let it pass for now. She sees Cathbad getting out of the car, his hair gleaming white in the moonlight. He waves to Ruth and the three men go down to look at Linda’s car. When they emerge, Nelson is looking grim and Paolo worried. Only Cathbad seems serene and untroubled, as if a trip to a lonely country road in the middle of the night is just what the nature spirits ordered.
‘Needs a tow truck,’ says Nelson.
‘Sì,’ says Paolo, dusting his hands on his cream chinos. ‘I call in the morning.’
‘What happened?’ says Nelson, coming to stand beside Ruth.
‘A car forced us off the road,’ says Ruth. ‘I think it was deliberate.’
Linda is speaking in Italian to Paolo while Cathbad plays hopscotch with the children to distract them. It’s a surreal sight: Cathbad, his grey ponytail bouncing up and down, skipping along the deserted country road, followed by two children, laughing hysterically, excited now by the night-time adventure.
‘Surely you can’t think they meant to push us off the road,’ says Linda.
‘I always think the worst,’ says Nelson. ‘It’s being a policeman. But driving in the dark without headlights looks pretty suspicious to me.’
Cathbad skips up to them. ‘I think we should get Ruth and Shona and the children home,’ he says, ‘and worry about the rest in the morning.’
‘You’re right,’ says Nelson. ‘You’re quite sensible for a nutter. Come on, Ruth. I’ll drive you home.’
As Ruth gets into the car, she reflects that she never thought she’d be in a situation where being driven by Nelson proved to be the safer option. But, as Cathbad gets in the front and she and Shona squeeze into the back with the children, there’s no doubt that Nelson’s bulky silhouette in the driving seat is very comforting indeed.
Chapter 27
Morning finds Ruth and Nelson back in Valenti’s office. Linda is with them, acting as an interpreter, although Valenti again seems prepared to speak in English.
‘You say this car push you off the road?’
‘Yes,’ says Nelson. ‘And it had its headlights off. Seems deliberate to me.’
‘Did you recognise the car, Dottore Galloway?’ Valenti turns to Ruth.
‘No,’ she says, ‘but it was small and dark, maybe a Fiat or a little Citroën.’
‘I will find out if any cars were stolen last night,’ says Valenti, ‘and double-check with the carabinieri. But that road is dark, there are no cameras. It seems unlikely we will find the driver.’
‘Someone tried to kill Ruth and the children,’ says Nelson – rather aggressively, Ruth thinks.
‘And me,’ says Linda.
‘I am taking it seriously, Commissario Nelson,’ says Valenti, ‘but in the absence of any evidence . . .’
‘This must be linked to the murder of the priest,’ says Nelson. ‘Ruth finds a dead body and then someone tries to kill her. That’s a coincidence, and as a policeman, I don’t like coincidences.’
The Dark Angel Page 20