by Karen Swan
Cesca suppressed a groan of annoyance that her landlady had yet again just opened up her home to seemingly casual passers-by. First Elena, now him?
‘He is a handsome man.’
‘Uh, is he? I hadn’t really—’
‘Should smile more, though.’ Signora Dutti pulled a stern face. ‘He is always so serious.’
Cesca, determined not to envisage him smiling, or glowering, or naked, tried to pull the conversation back to the reason she’d come here. ‘Yes, well, anyway . . . he, uh, he said one of the tunnels from the palazzo leads to this room.’
‘That is correct.’
‘Did you know about it, before?’
‘Of course!’
She blinked. So Freda Accardo had been familiar with them, and now Maria Dutti too. Had Elena been the only person who hadn’t known about them? ‘Had you been down there?’
‘Once, but not for a long time. They’re cold and dark. They went only into the palazzo, and what did I want to go in there for?’ She pulled a face, her mouth in a down-turned U.
‘Signora Dutti – did you ever work at the palazzo?’
The old lady stopped grinding the coffee beans. ‘Why do you ask that?’
‘Because—’ She swallowed, deciding to show her hand. ‘Because I think something terrible may have happened there. And I thought you might know something about it?’
There was a long silence as Signora Dutti turned away and bustled about the worktops, making the coffee and fishing out biscotti from a tin on a high shelf, which she could access only by standing on a footstool. But eventually she came back to the table. The coffees were short, dark and so thick Cesca thought she could probably stand a spoon in hers.
‘You were the housekeeper, weren’t you?’ Cesca prompted, wrapping her hand around the cup, even though it was another hot night. A minute ago, it had only been a hunch but she knew from the way the old lady was behaving that she had hit upon the truth. ‘I already know you were.’
Signora Dutti stared at her and then out through the door, towards the ice-blue facade of the building that had come to dominate all their lives. ‘It was all a long time ago now.’
What was? ‘Can I ask why you hate the Principessa so much?’
Signora Dutti’s eyes slid over to her. ‘Does she know you are here?’
‘No. She’s in Florence.’ She mentioned it casually, but in fact Elena’s flight to the renaissance city had come as a complete surprise; Elena had said nothing of her trip in their conversation on Monday and Alberto had told Cesca she wasn’t expected back until Friday evening.
‘But does she know you are talking to me?’
‘No. And I don’t want her to.’ Cesca bit her lip. ‘But I’ve read some things which don’t make sense and I already know she’s been lying to me. It’s about her brother-in—’
‘Aurelio!’ Signora Dutti’s lips flattened into a grim line. ‘She is a wicked woman!’ she said forcefully. ‘She is the very devil!’
‘That’s exactly what Signora Accardo said. Why do you think that?’ Cesca pushed.
‘What other word is there for a woman who destroys a family, especially one as noble as the Damianis?’
‘How did she destroy them?’ Cesca probed – but even as she asked the question, the answer suddenly came to her. They were identical twins. He had a dangerous glamour. How could Elena – the former party girl trying to reinvent herself as a princess of the Nobiltà nera – have resisted him? ‘Oh God.’ Her hands flew to her mouth as she realized; it was so obvious. ‘Elena had an affair with Vito’s brother.’
‘She turned them against one another, brothers who shared one blood, one shadow. They could never be separated until she came along.’ Signora Dutti’s voice was almost a rasp, such was her anger.
‘Do you know this for certain?’
Signora Dutti straightened up, her back ramrod straight. ‘I saw it with my own eyes.’
Cesca felt every fibre in her body tense. A witness? ‘Please. Tell me what happened. It’s really important.’
Signora Dutti’s fingers drummed the table in consideration and there was a long silence before she finally spoke. ‘This building still belonged to the family back then,’ she said eventually. ‘Many in the square still do. Originally, this used to be a stable and the bedroom upstairs – in what is now your apartment – was for visitors’ grooms. There was a staircase in that corner there,’ she said, pointing to where a small, red-painted housekeeper’s cupboard now sat. ‘But it had not been used as a stable for many years. Instead, after the war, it was well known that the old Visconte would use the tunnels to meet his mistresses here.’
‘Okay.’ Cesca tried to keep the shock from her expression. ‘Go on.’
‘As children, the twins would play in them all the time. They knew them inside out. They would always be disappearing down them when it was time for their bath or their schoolwork. So perhaps it was no surprise they chose to meet up here.’
Cesca was half a beat behind. ‘Elena and Aurelio, you mean?’
A look of disgust deepened the lines on the old lady’s face. ‘Aurelio would have known they would be safe here. No one would see them coming or going – they did not need to worry about the staff walking in on them; nor the Visconte.’
‘But you saw them?’
Signora Dutti’s expression hardened. ‘I would like to come here to sit sometimes during my time off. I lived in the palazzo, of course, but it can be – how you say?’ She made a compressing action around her head.
‘Claustrophobic?’
Signora Dutti shrugged. ‘You might be wondering how such a big building can feel so little. But it did. Sometimes I felt the walls had eyes.’ She gave a shudder.
Cesca could imagine it only too well. She felt exactly the same herself.
‘So I would come here to do the reading, or if I was very tired, some sleeping. I could be sure that no one would disturb me here.’
‘So that’s what you were doing, when . . . ?’ Cesca prompted, hardly able to hold back. She had a sense now of how this was all going to hang together.
‘I was reading when suddenly the door there opened.’ She smacked the access hole in the ground with her foot, clapping a hand over her chest, remembering the fright. ‘It was the Visconte. He was . . . he was wild! I had never seen him in such a state before. He was frantic. A crazy man.’
‘Why? What had happened?’
‘It was what he thought was happening. No – what he knew! He kept asking, “Where are they? Where are they?” I did not know of who he was talking. Then he ran straight for the stairs.’ She pointed to the corner where they no longer stood, her eyes no longer seeing the present but sunk back into the past. Into that night. ‘He broke open the door. And then I heard a scream. Shouts.’ Her fingers worried at the edge of the lace cloth. ‘I ran up after him. I did not even know there was anyone up there.’
‘Maybe they had heard you?’
She shrugged. ‘Perhaps. They were standing there, together. And Aurelio, he—’ She shook her head. ‘It was terrible. They began to fight, Vito swinging at his brother, Aurelio pleading with him. The Viscontessa could not stop screaming. I tried to stop them and Vito catched me with his fist. It was an accident – he did not mean to.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘He was such a good man, he cried. Then he apologized to me and left. Aurelio ran after him – and I never saw him again.’
‘What happened?’
‘Vito drove away. Aurelio tried to catch up with him, but there was a car crash.’
Cesca swallowed, disappointed that her witness had bowed out at this point in the story. She already knew the rest – that the crash hadn’t been what had killed Aurelio, in spite of what the headlines had said. Something more must have happened – Signora Dutti’s account proved it was no mere accident but a crime of passion; there was a motive now, but still no witnesses at the crucial moment . . . Had they continued the fight outside, after the crash . . . ?
‘A
urelio was killed.’ Signora Dutti sighed, the sound so heavy and weary, it was as though her life force itself was leaving her body. ‘And it was all her fault. She is responsible and she knows it. Why else would she do what she did? It was the behaviour of a guilty woman.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Immediately afterwards, she had the tunnel bricked up. She gave me money and this—’ Signora Dutti held her hands up in the air, indicating the little building ‘—if I would not speak of what I saw that night.’
‘So she bribed you.’
‘I suppose that is the word. What else could I do but accept? If I spoke of what I had seen, it would have brought disgrace on the family – they would have been ruined – and I could not do that to the Visconte. I took the money, but I would not step foot in that building again; I would not work for her. She disgusted me.’
‘Does anyone else know about this?’
Signora Dutti crossed her arms and pursed her lips together.
‘Signora Accardo, I’m guessing?’ Cesca pressed.
‘Of course. She is my oldest friend. It was no surprise to her. She knew about the tunnels too. She knew what used to go on.’
Cesca nodded. The twins had been cleaved apart, destroyed by their love for the same woman. What their mother always said about them had been wrong: they had been one face, one heart, after all.
Chapter Forty
Rome, November 1989
Elena stood by the window, watching him pace through his private rooms on the far side of the courtyard. He was on the phone, the coiled line stretching and contracting as he gesticulated angrily. She knew who he was speaking to, but what were they saying? Was he telling her he couldn’t go through with it? Was she crying, begging him, just as she herself had done, only this morning?
This poor girl didn’t stand a chance. She was just another Milana.
She turned away and sank back onto her bed, unfolding and rereading the note, which had been slipped under her door: ‘Palombella stable in one hour. I need to see you.’
Her stomach fluttered again as she checked her appearance – she had changed into a silky wrap dress by her friend Diane (it was easy to get out of and, crucially, to get back into before dinner) and she was wearing the divine new champagne satin Janet Reger bra and cami knickers she hadn’t had the heart to wear for Vito. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright. She looked almost as if she was coming down with a fever.
Her pulse was certainly high, she thought, placing two fingers over her wrist.
Her eyes fell to the dazzling ring on her left hand – the one Vito had given to her the day Gio had been born. An eternity ring of the highest order, he’d had it made especially – the white diamond for their love, the blue one for Gio – as a commemoration of the day they had ‘become a family’, Vito had said. She hadn’t taken it off in six and a half years, but every day she felt its weight on her hand, a physical emblem of the secret she must carry.
But not tonight. Tonight she was free to tell the truth, to live it. She slipped it off and left it on the dressing table, hiding the note beneath the grey Baccarat crystal ring dish.
She checked across the courtyard. Aurelio was still on the phone, still shouting.
She smiled and stole from the room anyway. It wouldn’t hurt to be a few minutes early. She wanted to be ready for him. They had both waited long enough.
Restless, she paced the room, before sitting on the bed, before getting up and pacing again. The place was primitive to say the least – the mattress was lumpen and the building still smelled of horses. It wasn’t what she was used to, but then what she was used to didn’t thrill her like this and she would take him any way she could get him. In a dark tunnel, in an old stable . . . She would give up everything for him: she knew that now. She would choose poverty and disgrace over living another day without him. She had lost enough love in this life to know it was the only thing that made life worth living.
She heard his footsteps coming up the wooden treads and she stood, scarcely able to wait for the extra moments before the door opened and she could rest her eyes upon him again.
When the door did open, he didn’t move – as though he’d almost convinced himself she wouldn’t come. He was holding something.
‘Won’t you come in?’ she asked.
He closed the door behind him.
‘What’s that?’ she asked, her eyes on the forest-green box.
‘It’s for you.’
Her eyes sparkled as he walked towards her, opening the box for her to see inside. A simple string of pale-pink beads nestled on a velvet cushion. She gasped. As a woman used to fine jewellery of the very highest order, she could see that, though striking, it was modest to the point of neglect. But it came from him and that made it the most precious necklace she had ever seen in her very privileged life.
‘Oh, Reli,’ she whispered. ‘It’s so beautiful.’
‘They are opals.’
‘Opals?’
‘Here, let me put it on for you.’
She turned, lifting her hair up, feeling how her skin flickered at the brush of his hands against her skin.
He turned her back to face him, his eyes focused on the way the necklace nestled at her throat. ‘According to tradition, they represent second sight.’
‘Second sight?’
‘Love at second sight,’ he murmured, his eyes lifting to hers, and a black hole opened up between them, swallowing time. ‘If you had only met me first . . .’ His voice broke.
‘Oh, I know, darling,’ she cried, throwing her arms around him, feeling the warmth of his body against hers as she kissed his neck. ‘I know.’
He pulled her back and kissed her then. It was the kiss of her life, touching the very soul of her, claiming her and making her his even more than that night in the tunnel.
But when he pulled away, there was a shadow in his eyes. ‘I hope that when you wear this, you will remember me, and what you are to me. And how I wish things could have been different.’
‘Different?’ she echoed, feeling confused. ‘But Reli—’
He walked away, crossing the room, his hands on his hips, his shoulders up by his ears. ‘I brought you here to tell you I’m leaving tomorrow. I’m booked on the first flight out.’
‘What? No!’ He’d only just got here. Seven years he’d been gone and he was back for only one day? No. It didn’t make sense. ‘You’ve got to stop doing this! You can’t keep running away! It’s killing me!’
He stared back at her, desperate, defeated. Resolute. ‘I thought it would work this time. I thought it had been long enough. God knows I’ve tried everything I could think of to stay away from you. But I have to face the truth – if I can’t have you, then I can’t see you.’
‘Reli, no—’ she protested, feeling panic begin to flood her limbs. ‘You don’t mean that. You’ll come back. You always do.’
‘I know – which is why I’m telling you this face to face. I’m not running out this time. You need to know not to wait for me, because when I leave here tomorrow, I’m never coming back.’
‘No!’ The word was a bark, short and furious, the shock like a bullet ricocheting through her bones.
‘Yes. Yes, Elena.’ He winced at the sight of her pain.
‘But I love you. And you love me.’
‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘I do. But I love Vito more.’
‘No.’ Her face crumpled as the fight left her, enormous sobs surging up through her body with volcanic force. She fell to the bed, feeling the pain might rip her in two.
He rushed over to her. ‘Elena—’
She kissed him, grabbing his face, his arms, feeling like an animal. Feral. He kissed her back, just as desperate, just as—
A sudden sound downstairs made them both stop. Aurelio froze. ‘What was that?’ he whispered, their bodies still gripping one another. It had sounded like a chair leg on the floor. Someone was down there. He looked back at her, their noses almost touching, his eyes soak
ing her up.
She kissed him again, pressing herself to him so that she almost couldn’t tell where she ended and he began. She could change his mind. She could stop this.
She put his hands on her body, and he groaned at the touch of her, his defences crumbling.
Yes, she—
There was another sound now. More of a . . . more of a crash. They both froze again.
Voices.
Aurelio looked at her in horror as Vito’s shouts burst through the draughty floorboards like grenades. ‘Where are they? Where are they?’ he roared.
Maria’s cries sounded weak and frightened as in the very next moment his footsteps were on the staircase and they could only look on in frozen horror as the door burst open.
Vito stared back at them, anguish on his face, fury in his eyes, as the secret they had kept for the best part of ten years fell into the world and stopped at his feet.
Chapter Forty-One
Rome, September 2017
‘Her Grace is indisposed,’ Alberto said, standing in the middle of the doorway to the white apartment as though he was a bodyguard and not a middle-aged, rather portly butler.
‘But you said she was getting back from Florence last night.’
‘Yes.’
‘And that I could see her today.’ Aware that she was sounding almost whiny, she drew herself up to her full height. ‘It really is very important I speak to her before I hand this over.’ She held up the weighty ream of papers in her hands. ‘There are some matters which I do need to discuss with her as a matter of urgency.’ Cesca stared beyond him into the large, empty space. The door leading to the private sitting room was ajar. Was Elena in there? Could she hear her?
She had spent the past five days and nights at Alessandra’s kitchen table, writing around the clock and putting down what she knew, the best way she knew how: in the round. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It was all in there – the gritty lows as well as the pink-tinted gloss that made the headlines of Elena’s life. The publishers wanted the woman behind the enigma? Well, she’d given them that. Hell, yes she had! She had researched and fact-checked every last movement of Elena’s life, bringing to bear all her barristerial knowledge, experience and instinct, compiling the narrative of Elena’s history as though it was a case about to go to trial. She had pulled no punches. She wasn’t interested – any longer – in painting a pretty picture. This had become about the truth; when she was confronted with lies, she simply couldn’t help herself.