A Florentine Revenge

by Christobel Kent

  Gently Celia lifted Paola’s hands from her stomach; they were limp and white. She couldn’t see where it was coming from, all this blood. She groped for a napkin, a cushion, from the debris on the floor and came up with a hank of tablecloth, and she held it across the woman’s stomach, heard a dry sob and felt Paola lean heavily on her. From somewhere in the building came the sound of hoarse shouting and footsteps that came and went in the labyrinthine corridors.

  ‘Where’s my wife?’ Lucas was beside her now, and he wasn’t talking to her but to Paola, his voice savage and urgent. ‘Where’s Emma?’

  ‘She’s gone,’ said Paola through dry lips, her voice barely audible. ‘He took her.’ And her head swayed and her eyes grew strange and distant. Celia tightened her grip on the cloth between her hands and looked away in desperation. She stared at the walls, the windows, the painted ceiling; she looked up at the Madonna of the Lilies hanging above her and before she could stop herself she begged for Paola Caprese not to die. She thought of Emma Marsh, and her unborn child, and blindly she asked this inanimate confection of oil and wood and canvas for mercy. The painting had not even been disturbed from its position on the wall, and as she held Paola up as though her own life depended on it Celia saw that whoever had come here had not come for the Madonna. There she still sat among the lilies and the myrtle with her lips against her doomed child’s hair, and she gazed over the bloody, ruined room with knowing eyes.

  *

  Sandro turned the key again, and again; the car whined once, coughed, and died again. He hit the steering wheel and swore, and Luisa could see that he was almost crying. He wrenched the door of the car open and got out; Luisa followed him. He kicked the wheel. The moon came out from behind a cloud and gleamed off the smashed windows of the Olympia, and as she remembered looking in through that window something fell into place in Luisa’s mind, a connection sparked.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ she said. ‘Just a minute. The girl. The anorexic girl who took the tickets and gave out the baskets, the one who thought she’d seen Bartolo then changed her mind? Where is she now?’

  ‘Her?’ said Sandro, brought up short, still raging with frustration. ‘God, I don’t know. I can’t even remember her name, Sardo, Sarto, something like that. She’ll be dead; she looked close to it even then. Starved herself to death, or overdosed, that’s what happens.’

  But Luisa was shaking her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t think she’s dead. I think I saw her this afternoon, outside the Regale.’

  Sandro stared at her, disbelieving, shaking his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘How could you possibly have recognized her? She’d have been dead within a year, that girl. Half dead then.’

  ‘I might not have recognized her,’ said Luisa slowly, ‘a year ago. But when all this got stirred up, seeing him, Marsh, in the shop – I’d been going over it, these past two days, over and over. She was on the news, wasn’t she, all that time ago? I remember her all right. Some faces don’t go away.’

  Sandro was shaking his head, staring at her.

  ‘And you don’t know she’s dead, do you?’ said Luisa. She trod carefully, trying not to sound accusatory. ‘Did you have to follow her up? She was a witness, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sandro uneasily. ‘But – there were twenty, twenty-five witnesses, people who saw the little girl leave her parents, saw her earlier getting an ice-cream, saw her going inside the building. And she – Sarto – even if she hadn’t changed her story a couple of times she was out of it, she would have been rubbish in the witness box. Sometimes she was out of it completely, vacant. And then she’d turn into a stubborn child. No, I don’t remember, no, you can’t make me.’

  He looked away and Luisa saw a streetlight reflected in his eyes. She thought he was searching his memory for something, trying to be a good policeman, searching for accuracy. He spoke slowly. ‘I thought – it was some kind of sick way of getting attention. She said she’d seen him inside the fence, inside the swimming-pool compound.’ He nodded into the darkness, and Luisa wondered if he knew the place by heart. ‘Over there, leaning against the fence by the changing rooms. I said to her, you know how important this is, don’t you, think of her parents, they’re out of their minds. And she just stared back at me and clammed up. She was like a little kid, sticking her lip out, you know, shifting from one foot to another like a kid does when you pin them down with a story. Then she said, no. I was wrong. That was yesterday, I saw him. It was useless.’

  He stopped then, his voice full of fifteen-year-old anger. ‘She made my flesh creep, she was all bones, great big eyes, she’d stare at you but there was no one home, if you see what I mean. Useless.’ He looked down at his hands, and Luisa saw him chew his lip. ‘And then, when we were doing some routine follow-up a year later, we found out she’d gone. Her mother – she was a prostitute who worked the Via Senese – said she thought she might have gone off with some travellers headed up north, in one of those camper vans painted up, dreadlocks with a dog and an accordion and a couple of gallons of cheap wine.’

  ‘Didn’t she care? Where her daughter had gone?’ Luisa couldn’t subdue her indignation, and behind it was the guilty memory of that look the starved woman had given her at the door of the Regale. Do I know her? And she’d just walked past.

  Luisa could feel Sandro’s eyes on her in the dark, then he reached up a hand and touched her on the cheek. ‘They’re everywhere,’ he said. ‘The ones no one cares about. They just keep moving, they sit outside the misericordia, they take drugs, they sleep on benches or in hospital emergency rooms or in the gutter, they shit in the street. And pretty soon they die and there’s nothing you or I can do about it.’

  There was a long moment of silence and they stood there in the strange half-light, a luminescence that rose off the snow, with at Sandro’s back the great dark shape of the ruined Olympia. It seemed to harbour a deeper cold even than the snow-covered wasteland around it. The traffic sounds had been reduced to no more than a low rumble by the snow, the impatient hiss of air brakes as the trucks inched forward on the ring road. Behind it all Luisa could hear the wind rustling in the dark beds of rushes and bamboo down where the silent river ran, and she shivered.

  ‘That little girl,’ said Sandro to her out of the darkness as though he knew what she was thinking, ‘the one Bartolo took, and killed. At least someone cared about her, someone saw she was gone. She was loved.’

  ‘She was loved,’ repeated Luisa, and the bitter irony of it was like a pain; the terrible, immovable fact of the beloved child’s death gripped her. She thought of the price of love, the mother who would not survive the loss, the father wandering among the sunbathers where now the snow lay, softening the outlines, concealing the past, calling his daughter’s name in the scalding August heat. She felt the scene take hold of her, paralysing, immobilizing: I’m too old, it’s too long ago, too sad, too hopeless. Let’s go home. But something tugged at her, refusing to let go: Sarto might not have been loved but she wasn’t dead; by some miracle she was still alive.

  ‘All the same,’ she said stubbornly, ‘it could have been her outside the Regale, why not? Sarto. She was arguing with the doorman because…’ Luisa frowned, trying to remember. ‘There was someone inside she had to talk to. She said it was urgent.’

  Sandro took hold of her shoulders and turned her so that what there was of the light fell on her face; his was in darkness. ‘The Regale? Where Marsh is staying?’

  Slowly Luisa nodded, waiting. Sandro stood very still, his hands warm and heavy on her shoulders, thinking. Beyond the silent car park she could see the lit-up windows of the neat new housing project, tiny figures moving across them to pull shutters closed, some of the windows bright with Christmas lights. Despite the snow, Christmas, like the vision of home comfort the apartment block offered, seemed a long way off. At street level a big dark car cruised into its allotted space and a man climbed out and entered the bright foyer, a dark silhouette, going home.

  ‘Out by th
e airport where they were sleeping,’ Sandro said, thinking hard. ‘There was a thin woman, the Romanian said, hanging around with the Russians like a starving dog. They couldn’t shake her off.’ He paused.

  Luisa said nothing, but she thought of the emaciated figure she’d seen. She couldn’t be more than forty; she should have been a woman in her prime, not a starving stray ready to lick the first hand that throws it a bone.

  Sandro went on. ‘They could have used her to find out about Bartolo,’ he said slowly. ‘God knows where they found her.’ He sounded uncomfortable; after all, he hadn’t been able to find her. He went on angrily, ‘And when they finally managed to dump her – she went to find Lucas Marsh.’ He was talking to himself now, thought Luisa; she might as well not be there any more. ‘What was she going to tell him? How much did she know?’ He dropped her shoulders abruptly and spun away from her in the dark.

  ‘It’s time to call Pietro,’ he said, and Luisa thought, at last. But when Pietro answered, it seemed that they were too late.

  25

  They all seemed to arrive in the room at once. Two paramedics in fluorescent tabards, unshaven and red-eyed after a long shift, perhaps, but they moved fast across the room and took Paola gently and lowered her into a chair. Celia stayed there with her hands on the hank of tablecloth, doggedly unwilling to let go. The administrator was still conscious, at least, and with the paramedics’ arrival her eyes had come back into focus but she wasn’t talking. Three policemen in their blue-grey uniform were half-way through the doorway, one of them talking in fast and animated Italian she couldn’t follow to the concierge who had accompanied them upstairs. The man’s eyes were flicking nervously around the room as he answered their questions; he seemed submissive, and beneath his five o’clock shadow he looked pale and uneasy. And so he should, thought Celia, anger rising at the memory of him sitting there with his feet up. She could hear someone shouting far off in the building, a door slamming, and outside more sirens, one after another. The building vibrated with heavy footsteps, but no one came to tell them Emma was safe.

  The policeman’s mobile went off and she thought, For Christ’s sake. Don’t answer your phone, find her. ‘What?’ the policeman shouted into it. He said a name, Sandro. Luisa’s Sandro? ‘Where are you?’ He saw her looking at him, and he left the room.

  ‘Here, Signora,’ said one of the paramedics, reaching across her; for a moment as she stared at him Celia thought he could hear the pounding in her chest. ‘Let me,’ said the man, and deftly he took over. The floor was tacky with blood and she recoiled from it, stepping back with awkward haste. Stumbling, she reached behind her for support, a chair, a wall, anything, and then she found herself held up by a warm, steady hand under her elbow and turned to face her rescuer. It was Dan, and at the sight of his familiar face, pale with concern, she felt her knees buckle. She held on tight to his arm with both her hands.

  ‘I thought it was you,’ he said, staring. ‘I saw – I thought…’ And he faltered.

  ‘Where is she?’ she said. ‘Where’s Emma? Have you found her? Where is she?’ In the doorway she saw the policeman’s head turn at the insistent note of panic in her voice, and in the abrupt silence that followed they all heard a soft exhalation, almost like a sigh. All of them, Celia, Dan, the policemen, even the paramedics on the floor, turned towards the sound and saw that it had been made by Lucas Marsh, standing against the back wall of the dining room and facing the little Madonna.

  ‘He’s taken her,’ said Lucas. He seemed to be having difficulty speaking, and Celia took a step towards him. ‘He’s taken my wife.’ His face sagged with disbelief. ‘His name is Jonas.’

  ‘Who’s taken her?’ said Celia, and then Dan spoke.

  ‘I saw him,’ he said. ‘On the CCTV in the gatehouse, a man carrying something along the landing. Carrying someone. He had a shaven head, I didn’t see much. Big hands on her back. I thought it was you – I thought he had you.’

  Celia remembered the big shaven-headed workman in his brown coat, smelling of cigarettes, and felt sick; she should have insisted, she should have sounded the alarm. She put her hands to her head. ‘How long ago?’ she said. ‘He can’t have got far, he must be still here, still inside.’

  Dan shook his head, distracted. ‘They’ve sealed the place off,’ he said. ‘The road, too, and the Lungarno. There’s twenty, twenty-five of them in the building carrying out a search, they’re looking right now. They’ll find her.’

  ‘I’m going to look, too,’ said Celia, ‘I can’t stay here. She’s pregnant, for God’s sake, do they know that? Come on.’ She looked from Lucas to Dan, and back again, listening for the sound of Emma’s voice somewhere in the great echoing building, praying for it.

  ‘I should have paid,’ said Lucas. ‘It’s my fault. My Emma. I should have paid.’ And as they turned to see him standing in the corner of the room they saw his shoulders contract in some awful spasm and he canted to one side and slid, a sickening deadweight, to the floor. All Celia saw were lips turned grey-blue in a face blank and upturned as he went down without even putting out a hand to save himself, and then he was on the ground, and he wasn’t moving.

  In his car Jonas was king. He felt as though he was gliding, weightless, through the dark streets in his chariot, and outside the faces seemed to turn towards him in slow motion, nodding approval. He breathed in the familiar smell of old cigarette smoke and plastic upholstery, the faint burning odour of the defective heating. Air-freshener from the cardboard pine tree that dangled from the rear-view mirror. He kept it clean, this car; paid a scrap dealer up on the Brenner Pass near the Austrian border twenty-five euros for it because he liked the colour, but he wouldn’t let the others even use the ashtrays. One of them – Piotr? – had spilled coke on the carpet and Jonas had had to show him it wasn’t acceptable. He had his standards. He’d cracked Piotr’s cheekbone without even turning around. He did like the colour. Bronze. A warrior’s chariot.

  Only now of course there was a woman in it, that did spoil it. Jonas shifted in his seat; the funny thing was, he’d been so high, not just the drugs but the thrill of it, walking straight into a fortress like that to claim his prize, that he’d almost forgotten he still had her. Had to do something with her. At the lights he drew carefully to a stop – it wouldn’t do to attract attention – and lightly tapped his fingernails on the worn rubber of the steering wheel, listening to the imaginary music. The boot had stuck, of course, when he tried to open it one-handed with her body slung over his shoulder, but he hadn’t freaked. Patiently, easy does it, he’d tried again and it had sprung open and he’d just dropped her in. Of course, she could be dead already. He thought the shock of seeing the knife might have done the job for him, she’d gone so pale when he brought it out, let alone seen what he could do with it. He hadn’t hit her too hard, a little rabbit punch to the back of the head when she opened her mouth to scream, but she’d gone down like a sack of potatoes and pulled the table over after her. He’d had to be quick then, with the noise.

  Had he meant to kill her, the other one? Jonas couldn’t remember now. It didn’t matter, anyway, he could see now that he didn’t need a plan, he could play it by ear, light as a dancer on his feet and as quick. It had been the look on her face when he walked through the door as though he owned it, she’d raised herself off the floor, fat little feet in high heels, and opened her mouth to order him out, What do you think you’re doing here? and he’d just thought, I don’t need this. Slash, slash, across one way and back, hoped he’d got that big artery in the pelvis.

  There was no sound from the boot. Even if she is dead, thought Jonas, I’ve taught him a lesson, haven’t I? Dispose of the body somewhere and off out. But the thought of meeting the others up on the Brenner without the money nagged at him, infuriated him. A bloody liberty, not paying up. They’d think he was losing his touch. But then, that power, life and death, that’s not nothing, is it? That’s not losing your touch. He weighed it up: dead, alive, what’s the diff
erence? Keep her alive, negotiate for the money, you have to organize a dropoff, it’s a hassle, but you’ve got the cash to hand out, a wad of warm, dirty banknotes. Kill her, dump her, on the other hand, no hassle at all, home free. It’s a win-win situation.

  There was a police car behind them, edging forward in the gridlock with its lights flashing. The siren began to whoop and reluctantly the cars behind Jonas turned into the kerb to open up a space. The police car was right on his tail now, and Jonas turned the wheel, felt the resistance of the kerbstone under his front wheels. He gazed incuriously ahead as the light blue saloon drew alongside; on his side a slab-faced man, heavy moustache, peaked cap, turned towards him, talking into a radio. Jonas made another inch or two up on to the kerb and they were past. I walk on water, thought Jonas, triumph bubbling up in his chest, but he kept his face straight. Need to get off the road, though, and he nodded to himself, thinking. I know where.

  ‘He’s taken Marsh’s wife,’ said Sandro, and Luisa saw that his hand was trembling as he tried to put the phone away, his face wiped clean of anger and now blank with shock. ‘The Russian. Pietro wouldn’t tell me any more, said leave it to them. Said, hadn’t I done enough harm?’ He turned to her.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Luisa, clinging to the only shred of guilty comfort, that it wasn’t Sandro’s responsibility any more. But what about the girl? She closed her eyes to blot out the image she had of that pale, determined, heart-shaped face, the little foot in a red shoe, and felt the world spin around her.

  They got back into the car and sat there in the dark, Sandro with his head in his hands, and ridiculously, Luisa found herself wondering how long it was since they’d been in here together. She remembered, distantly, a visit out to Vinci, a walk through the olive terraces to the house of Leonardo. Had they been happy then? How long ago had they last been happy? Beside her Sandro let his hands fall, and turned towards her.