‘Bitch,’ he said in English, and at his feet she scrabbled upright, a pair of shoulders set small and square against the moonlight, a thick head of hair that shone blue-black. She turned her head to look around, the girl Luisa had last seen in the honeymoon suite of the Regale contemplating red and silver shoes; now she looked up at the man who’d dragged her here and her face was blank with fear. For a moment they stared at each other, the girl and the bull-necked man, and Luisa thought how bravely she held his gaze. But don’t make him angry, she prayed silently; she knew the rich, knew how carelessly they could act because they were used to silent obedience, their arrogance never corrected. This one wouldn’t say, Yes ma’am, would he, and smile to hide the fact that he’d been insulted, as Luisa had to do day in, day out. He’d cut her throat as easily as if she was an animal.
‘Don’t hurt me,’ said Emma, her voice like a bell after his obscenities. ‘Please.’ Luisa could see that her arms were bound to her sides and there had been something covering her mouth that had slipped down around her neck. Trussed, she was tense with the effort of staying upright. ‘I—’ She hesitated, and Luisa knew she was struggling with whether or not she should tell him she was pregnant. Don’t, she thought, closing her eyes as she imagined what the man might do with the information, and as though Emma had heard her, she stopped. Luisa felt a hand on her arm and stiffened; she turned her head and saw that it was Sandro, of course. She pointed to the crack and mouthed in his ear, hoping that he would hear. ‘The wife,’ she said. ‘He’s got Lucas Marsh’s wife.’
Sandro looked down at the gun and Luisa seized him by the wrist, shaking her head violently in the dark. She held up a hand to tell him, At least wait. He stared at her but he didn’t move, the gun weighed in his hands.
‘I’ll hurt you if I want,’ said the man, and he took something from his pocket and looked at it. ‘He thinks he can treat me like this.’
‘He – he lost his daughter,’ said Emma, her voice trembling. ‘He doesn’t know what he’s doing.’
‘Fifteen years ago,’ said the minotaur with deep scorn. ‘That’s weakness. He should have killed the man himself and then, forget it. Start again. That’s how you do it.’
‘He’s not weak,’ said Emma, and Luisa saw her chin rise, her voice choked. ‘You don’t know him.’
‘Don’t I?’ said the man. ‘We find out, eh?’ And he took something from his pocket, jabbing at it, then raised it to his ear. ‘We find out.’
‘I saw someone,’ said Dan. ‘In the street. Someone I recognized from all that time ago, when I was hanging around the Olympia watching the police, seeing who they were talking to. They brought her in for questioning five or six times, so they must have thought she knew something.’ He was frowning. ‘I couldn’t believe it when I saw her this afternoon, really, looking just the same; not that she looked young, more that she looked ancient when she was twenty-five. I suppose anorexia does that.’
Anorexia? Something chimed in Celia’s head and she thought, Where have I seen a girl like that? Dan was still talking. ‘She was in a bad way,’ he said. ‘She’d been beaten up.’ And Celia remembered. Beate’s sketchbook. And she saw the man Lucas had spoken to, with his earring and his big-knuckled hands; as she’d turned the page there he’d been again, towering over a girl so thin she might have been made out of paper herself.
‘She didn’t want to talk to me at first,’ said Dan, staring into the distance. ‘But when I mentioned the Olympia all the fight seemed to go out of her. She said she’d got involved with a Ukrainian called Jonas who turned up in Galluzzo one day, looking for Bartolo, and found her first.’
Celia nodded dumbly. ‘Lucas sent him,’ she whispered, and Dan turned to look at her.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘She said she’d help him get Bartolo, because he talked nicely to her. But something went wrong, she said, and Lucas wasn’t paying up. Stop him, she said. Jonas. He’s down at the Palazzo Ferrigno, and he’s going to kill someone.’
‘Luisa warned me,’ said Celia, her voice shaking. ‘She told me Lucas was in trouble. But I didn’t really understand. I thought, all we’ve got to do is get through that dinner, I thought we’d be safe while we were inside, in the Ferrigno. Only one last evening, and they’d be going home. Just get through the evening.’ She put her face in her hands. ‘Is he going to kill Emma?’ Then she stopped. ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘Wait. Where is she now? The anorexic.’
‘Giulietta Sarto,’ said Dan quietly.
‘You brought her here, didn’t you?’ Celia got to her feet, desperate to go. ‘She’s here. She can find them, she must know where they are. Have the police spoken to her?’
But Dan was staying where he was, and slowly he was shaking his head. ‘No,’ he said.
‘What?’ said Celia. ‘Why not?’
‘Because she’s gone,’ said Dan. ‘I—’ He looked shamefaced. ‘I went to the ward where I left her, on my way up here, and they told me she’d done a runner just after I left.’ He passed a hand over his head. ‘I should have known she wouldn’t wait around for the police, shouldn’t I?’
Celia felt the hope ebb, and almost gave in, almost sat down and cried at the disappointment of it. But she stayed on her feet. No, she thought. There must be something. ‘Think,’ she said to Dan. ‘What did she say to you? Did she tell you anything, I don’t know, about where they’d been living? We can find Sarto. We’ve got to find her.’
Dan shook his head with maddening slowness, trying to remember, to shake things into order. ‘I did ask her if she had somewhere to stay,’ he said slowly. ‘Somewhere to go back to. “I’m back in Galluzzo,” she said. She said something odd, what was it? I thought she was in shock, you know, not making sense. “It’s cold there,” she said,’ Dan repeated slowly as though trying to remember it verbatim. ‘ “He doesn’t like the damp but it’s quite safe now. No one goes there any more.’ ”
Celia stared down at the bag on the table, but she wasn’t seeing it because she was trying to think. Then suddenly she couldn’t stand it any more, the waiting, the inaction. She grabbed the bag and scooped the contents out, spreading them across the table. For a moment they both looked in silence at the small, innocuous assortment, then Dan spoke, frowning.
‘That’s odd,’ he said, and put out a hand. Two mobile phones, one sleek and tiny and silver, the other scratched and battered. Dan picked it up, the odd one out. ‘This isn’t his phone, is it?’ he said, but it wasn’t really a question.
Celia shook her head. Dan flipped it open and the tiny screen lit green. Celia picked up the wallet; it was very soft black leather, and felt light, not stuffed, as hers was, with receipts and crumpled notes. Perhaps if you were very rich you didn’t need cash. She opened it. A credit card, black; she’d never seen one of those before. A five-hundred euro note; she hadn’t seen one of those, either, and she couldn’t imagine how much use it would be; you could hardly use it to buy a bus ticket. There was no picture of a small girl, smiling against a blue background, one front tooth chipped. But as Celia dug deeper she did find something printed on photographic paper, hardly bigger than a credit card. The image on it was blurred, and she turned it this way and that, and then she saw emerging from the black and white pixels the unmistakable, tiny jointed curve of a spine at their centre like a fossil, a curled ammonite in the desert. A scan picture, dated 1 December, a week ago. Emma must have given it to him.
Beside her Dan was very still, staring at the phone.
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Hold on.’ He pressed a button, then another. Celia, barely used to the simplest functions of her phone, had no idea what he was doing; he scrolled down, gallery, video clips. A picture, fuzzier even than the scan photograph, appeared, and a huge hand almost filled the screen, then was withdrawn. Then there was just a face in the dark, unshaven, blunt features, small eyes, thin, wet hair plastered across a broad forehead. ‘I am Cesare Bartolo,’ it repeated clumsily, stupid with fear. ‘I am the killer of the girl.’
They stared at the thick lips that moved for ten, perhaps fifteen seconds. I touched her. She made a noise. I didn’t mean to do it. It was crude, a forced confession, but it sounded like the truth. And yet the words were so few, it was over so quickly, that Celia thought, Is that it? Is that what all this was for? She looked at Dan.
The phone rang.
*
The bull-necked Russian’s face was turned to the light, the phone pressed to his ear as he waited for an answer, and Luisa could see the broad, flat planes of his cheekbones, the irregularities in his skull under the fuzz of stubble. He seemed to her more like an animal than a human being, savage and unpredictable. Her neck ached with the effort of pressing her face against the crack, and her legs were cramped underneath her, but she couldn’t look away.
‘Where is Lucas Marsh?’ He spoke quickly, turning as he did so, and his face was in shadow again. ‘No,’ he said evenly. ‘You’re lying.’ Even from where she was sitting Luisa could hear the urgent crackle of a woman’s voice, pleading down the line. ‘What a shame,’ he said, and his voice grew dangerously quiet. ‘That’s too bad for his poor little wife, then. Perhaps he doesn’t give a shit about her, though.’ The voice on the other end was higher now, with a note of desperation. ‘Ten minutes,’ said the Russian, and hung up.
Shit, thought Jonas. And who was she, answering the phone? A policewoman, or a nurse? He’s in intensive care, he’s unconscious. Below him the woman stared up at him, trying to understand.
‘What is it?’ she said, and he could hear she was close to breaking now. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Your big strong husband’s in the hospital,’ he said. ‘Unconscious. So where am I going to get my fucking money now, eh? What am I going to do with you now?’
The woman’s mouth trembled, open; a pretty mouth, he thought without warmth. She was crying quietly, and she turned her head a bit so that he wouldn’t see. It didn’t move him, maybe she could tell; some women might have worked it, begged and screamed; perhaps she wasn’t like that. For all she looked dainty and delicate, there was something harder underneath; he thought of the solid weight of her over his shoulder, bucking and twisting. Or perhaps she was clever. She turned back to look at him and her eyes glittered.
‘What did he ask you to do for him?’ she said. He narrowed his eyes.
‘Didn’t he tell you?’ he spat, surly; did she have the right to talk to him like that? ‘He didn’t tell you much, did he?’
‘He was protecting me,’ she said. She was defying him; Jonas felt anger stir in his gut, like a sickness. He’d had enough of her, answer for everything. She didn’t see it, though, couldn’t tell that it was coiling inside him, getting ready. He stared at her.
‘Lucas isn’t a murderer,’ she said, and she struggled to get upright but her hands tied behind her kept tipping her over. Jonas looked at the gag that had fallen down to her collarbone. He’d just have to reach behind her and twist, two turns with his strong hands and it would be over. He’d quite likely killed one woman already, what was another one, after all? He thought of the trailer park out by the airport a week ago, those freezing nights when they’d lit a fire of old fence posts and watched it burn down, the cold, fresh air, the smell of gasoline, the men’s faces around him. They’d never have believed it was his first time, sticking the knife into the little woman on her high heels; they thought he was a warrior, a fighter. He felt the sickness burn in his stomach; he was queasy at the thought of the painting on the wall, the woman’s face looking down as he pulled the knife across. Jonas could feel the damp on his skin and it was like being buried alive in here. The money felt like an obstacle now, something in the way of freedom. Just kill her, and run.
She couldn’t hear it though, that voice of warning; she kept on. ‘He wouldn’t pay to kill someone,’ she said, her face white; she seemed to have run out of breath. ‘He won’t – he won’t – you won’t get any money. You’ll never—’ Jonas leaned down and thrust his face in hers, so close to losing it.
‘I told him, your hus-band.’ He spat the word, contemptuous. ‘How many times?’ he said. ‘How many times? I don’t kill Bartolo. Did not kill him.’
For a moment it was quiet, so quiet he could hear the building around him, almost as though it was breathing. Or was that him? He turned his head; was there someone else here? But then she spoke again. Too far, he thought, you’ve pushed it too far, and in a small voice Emma Marsh said, ‘So who did? Who did kill him?’
He was ready then, his hands were on the gag and twisting, but then he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He turned and she came at him out of the dark, from where they’d slept the night before, a skeleton from the ghost train, and her bruised lips moved to answer the question but he didn’t hear, because at that moment all hell broke loose.
‘Ten minutes?’ said Celia, numb with disbelief as she stared down at the phone. She turned to Dan. ‘He’s got Emma,’ she said. ‘What did he mean, ten minutes?’ But she could see in Dan’s eyes what he had meant. ‘We call the police,’ said Dan, getting to his feet. ‘Now.’
Celia nodded, yes, of course, yes, and put her hands to her mouth as the panic rose; she could see Dan glance at her as he took out his own phone. She thought of the thick foreign accent, echoing in a deserted space, and the sound of water, dripping. She felt sick; it had sounded cold, somehow, poor Emma in the cold.
Where are they? Then something came back to her, something insisted she remember. What was it Sarto had said to Dan? Somewhere cold, and damp. She repeated the words to herself in despair and Dan turned to hear what she was saying, paused even as he dialled.
‘What?’ he said, and they looked at each other. ‘Sarto had gone back to Galluzzo with him,’ she said. ‘Galluzzo’s where it all started,’ and she hardly dared to trust herself. ‘Isn’t it? And somewhere cold and damp—’
‘The Olympia,’ said Dan, and in his face she could see aversion to the very name, but even as he shook his head she knew they’d got it. The Olympia. ‘Now we call the police,’ he said, and he handed her the phone.
They put her through to Pietro in the end. That’s all I need, he thought as he climbed into the patrol car out on the wasteland beside the airport, but the Russian hadn’t gone back there, he’d thought it was too good to be true. And now this, some crazy Englishwoman thinks she’s Sherlock Holmes. But as the woman spoke, keeping calm, setting out the theory, an uneasy feeling persisted that she could be right there, she could have a point. And when she came to it, said, Look, I know it sounds crazy but couldn’t it be? The Olympia Club in Galluzzo, it’s abandoned now, isn’t it worth a look? Please, the man said ten minutes and it’s been that already and more, please. Pietro thought of the place, the dirty wasteland next to Bartolo’s place where he’d been with Sandro only yesterday, the ugly, boarded-up buildings and he thought, Maybe. Maybe. If there’s even a chance we track Sarto down out there, that’s something, and let’s face it, it’s all we’ve got and if the worst comes to the worst, we’ve wasted half an hour. He tried not to think of what might happen in half an hour. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’m on my way.’
Luisa heard it; she wondered if she was the only one. She saw the big man with his hands around Emma’s neck turn his head as Sarto came out of the dark and Luisa had thought for a second of the little mermaid walking on knives. She said those three words and Luisa heard, and then Sandro’s radio went off beside them and everything happened at once.
After Sarto’s whisper the harsh crackle of the radio sounded deafening, the sound of a voice distorted with static shouting down the line, Location, give your location. Jesus, thought Louisa, who never swore, and found herself bracing herself behind the bar, head in hands, as though for a plane crash. We’re dead, she thought, we’re all dead. But Sandro must have switched it on deliberately, it must have been thought out in advance because he was ready; she felt a movement from her side and looked up and he had gone. She came around from behind the bar on her knees on the sticky
, filthy floor and there he stood, legs braced, shoulders square, his gun pointing at the big man.
‘Let her go,’ Sandro said, and the Russian, whose face was white and blank as a sheet, turned to look at him. Then he took his hands away from Emma’s neck and held them out to Sandro as though they didn’t belong to him. Luisa scrambled to her feet, made it to the plastic seating and pulled Emma against her, away from the big man, feeling her tremble. Then they were all looking at Giulietta Sarto.
‘What did you say?’ said Sandro very quietly, and Luisa saw his hands tremble so you could barely see it.
‘I said, I killed him,’ she said, and her voice was light and cool as though it was trying to float free from her body, where the bones pressed painfully against her paper skin. Outside a siren screamed in close, and another, and the flashing blue of a light swept around the bar.
28
By the time Celia and Dan got there they’d taken him away, that was what they gathered from the small crowd that had materialized in the car lot. A drooping strip of police tape stretched across the road. ‘Big as a house,’ an old woman had said, a crumpled handkerchief held to her mouth. ‘A monster.’ An ambulance stood with its rear doors open, empty inside, and three police cars, their blue lights still idly rotating, were parked on the kerb outside the Olympia. A burly police officer gave them a glance from where he stood leaning against one of them and talking into a radio at his shoulder. Dan nodded, and Celia recognized him then; he must have been one of the officers who’d turned up at the Ferrigno, what seemed like a lifetime ago. They pushed through to the tape, and the policeman jerked his head up, giving them grudging permission to approach.
A Florentine Revenge Page 31