Vittoria wore an old pink silk ball-gown from her mother’s first year of married life. Anna remade it, with puff sleeves, a plain round neckline, long skirt, and the dress was a dream. Vittoria loved it. She had never had anything like it before. She felt beautiful.
The wedding breakfast was crowded with people, many of whom Vittoria had known before she went to Venice. They all looked older and shabbier than she remembered, and there were many noticeable gaps in families: sons, brothers, fathers, uncles gone. Nobody talked about that.
Everyone was determined to enjoy themselves and forget what they had suffered, forget what they had lost. Anna and Vittoria wanted to forget, too, but Vittoria was haunted by the ghosts of Alfredo, Filippo and Niccolo. For her they would always be children; it was hard to believe they were gone for ever.
She caught sight of Frederick Canfield moving among the guests, talking, laughing, tanned and slim in his British uniform, his brown leather belt tight around his waist, his buttons highly polished, his brown hair slicked down. Some people were polite, some openly hostile, more to his uniform than to him, but after a few minutes that charm of his softened most of them, especially as his Italian was fluent. From time to time he looked towards her mother with that intimate, secret glance Vittoria had seen them exchange often before; and each time her mother’s eyes met his in the same way, completing a magic circle of love, which was almost visible.
Vittoria hated Canfield so much that she could barely eat any of the wedding breakfast. Every time she saw him with her mother she felt their love betray her, shut her out.
The war might be over, but Canfield was still her enemy.
After the wedding, life sank back into the exhausted depression of that bitter, post-war time. Going around Milan on the old bicycle Carlo had managed to buy for her, Vittoria hated everything she saw – the blitzed city was a desert of gutted houses, broken stones, shattered glass and tiles, gardens thick with weeds.
The once magnificent centre was a wreck: the Piazza del Duomo, linked by the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele to Milan’s pride, the great opera house La Scala, had been reduced to mountains of rubble after the bombing raids. Even the cathedral had been hit, although by a miracle most of it still stood, some parts shored up with great wooden piles. The streets had been cleared now, traffic flowed again, horses and carts, a few vans and cars, most workers riding battered bicycles like hers – but when would the old beauty of Milan be restored?
Vittoria couldn’t believe what had happened to the great glass-vaulted arcade where her mother had so often taken her. She remembered the beautiful, chic women in elegant hats, wandering in and out of the expensive boutiques, drinking coffee and eating rich cakes in the famous Milan coffee-houses. The Galleria, once the envy of Europe, was now roofless, shattered. Everywhere in Milan you saw the price Italy had paid for entering the war, and the more she realised what had happened to her beloved city the more she hated Frederick Canfield.
Over the next few months Canfield came and went all the time, but Vittoria was back at school in Milan and able to stay out of his way. It meant she did not have to pretend to be polite to him.
One day when she came in from school she found her mother in the kitchen preparing a simple evening meal of pasta with basil, garlic and pine kernels.
‘Mmm, that smells good! Is it just us tonight, or are Carlo and Rachele eating with us?’ The newly-weds had their own suite of rooms on the second floor: Rachele cooked their meals in a tiny, makeshift kitchen that had once been a maid’s bedroom.
Without looking round Anna said, ‘Freddy is coming to dinner.’
Flushing angrily, Vittoria said, ‘Well, I’m not eating with him! I’d rather have dry bread in my room than eat with the Englishman. I wish to God he would go back to his own country.’
‘Oh, don’t worry, Vittoria. You can be happy now – he goes tomorrow.’
Vittoria felt as if a bird sang inside her. He was going. Going.
But her mother sounded so miserable that she flung her arms round her, hugged her. ‘Don’t cry, Mamma! I’m sorry. I hate you to be unhappy.’
She couldn’t keep the triumph out of her voice, though. Her brain raced. He would have to stay in England with his wife and his child. Please, God, keep him there, never let him come back to Italy, she prayed, as she went upstairs to her room, taking a sandwich of bread and honey with her. This would be their last evening together. She would stay out of their way. Now she could afford to be generous.
The following day, Frederick Canfield left, and six months later Anna Serrati gave birth to his son. Mother and child died within forty-eight hours.
Venice, 1998
In the police station Sebastian sat with two officers in a chilly, cream-painted room, wrapped in a blue blanket since everything he had been wearing had been taken away for forensic testing. He stared across the table at the policeman who had been interrogating him for what seemed days. Captain Bertelli. Big, sallow, with a waxy black moustache above a full, red mouth. He kept taking a small carton of thin cheroots out of his pocket, looking at them, then sliding them back out of sight.
‘Do you smoke, Signore?’
‘No, but go ahead if you want to.’
‘I’m trying to give up. It isn’t easy, especially when you’re working on a case. Habit. Smoking when you’re questioning a suspect.’
‘How can I still be a suspect?’ Sebastian erupted. ‘Have you talked to the people in Florian’s? They must have told you I was there for half an hour before my camera man ran there to tell me Laura had just been attacked. I had nothing to do with the attack on her. I was never anywhere near where it happened,’
Bertelli regarded him stolidly. ‘You say she has been receiving anonymous letters, death threats. Why didn’t she take them to the police in England?’
‘I told her to, but she said she had burned the letters. She wouldn’t even tell the police about the doll.’
The policeman looked down at his notes on the table. ‘Ah, yes, the doll that was sent back to her, broken …’ He sounded amused, as if he didn’t take it seriously,
‘Don’t laugh! It wasn’t just broken. The bastard had smashed it into smithereens,’ Sebastian growled. ‘I told her to talk to the police, show them.’
‘But she didn’t?’
‘She said it would sound stupid – after all, it was only a doll. But there was a note pinned to it saying, “You’re next!” I thought someone very nasty was behind it and Laura ought to take precautions.’ He ran a shaky hand over his face. ‘Obviously, I was right. It must be the same guy.’
‘Which guy?’
‘I don’t know. Someone she knows, obviously. Someone who had access to information about her, where she lives in London, how much she loved that doll – she’d had it from childhood, she never parted from it, took it everywhere with her. He must have known that or he wouldn’t realise how upset she’d be to see it smashed like that. And how did he get into her hotel room to steal it before she left?’
The policemen listened in brooding silence. Then Bertelli took out his packet of cheroots again, opened the lid, delicately slid one out, rolled it between finger and thumb, lifted it to his nostrils and inhaled with a sigh of need.
‘For God’s sake, smoke one of the damned things!’ Sebastian snapped, and Bertelli gave him a smile, which was somehow triumphant, as if by provoking Sebastian into rage he had won some battle against him.
‘You know, I think I will,’ he purred, putting the cheroot between his tobacco-stained teeth. The other man produced a lighter, flicked the top with his thumb and a little flame appeared. He held it to Captain Bertelli’s cheroot and the policeman inhaled deeply, his eyes half closed in something like ecstasy.
I must remember that look, Sebastian thought, the half-closed eyes, the funny little sigh. It will focus attention on the actor lighting his cigar, whatever else is going on. Could be very useful in that scene where …
Then Bertelli asked sharply, ‘Are you su
re you don’t know who he was, this man you’re talking about? Did she have a lover? An ex-lover? She’s an actress – they have admirers, men hanging around them. Was it someone like that?’
‘If there was anyone like that around, she never told me. I don’t have a clue. I’ve seen very little of her over the past few years. I only met her again during the film festival here. We spent a couple of days together, I’ve called her a few times since, and then she arrived …’ He looked at the faded, blistered face of the old clock on the wall opposite him. ‘It was only today, around lunch-time, that she got here. It seems like weeks.’ Sweat stood out on his pale skin. ‘Look, can you ring the hospital again and find out how she is? How bad her injuries were. It’s hours since she was taken in. They must be able to tell us how she is. I need to know! I’m going crazy, not knowing whether she’s alive or dead.’
The policeman’s face betrayed no reaction. He didn’t respond by look or word, just blew smoke into a ring above his head, while he watched through those heavy-lidded, half-closed eyes every flicker of expression that passed over Sebastian’s face.
Stone-faced and hostile, thought Sebastian. Bastard. Doesn’t he have any feelings? He must know …
He drew a harsh, painful breath. Of course he must know. What wasn’t this bastard of a policeman telling him? Was Laura dead?
Chapter Eleven
Laura was running barefoot through winding corridors, through shadowy rooms, in a house like a museum, richly furnished with old, old things grown shabby with time. Tapestries, faded and mysterious, blew about as she ran past, a high, ornate cabinet’s doors flew open, spilling black lace, a white carnival mask, a string of pearls – and then a knife. She heard it clatter on the tiled floor and shuddered, ran faster. A clock chimed on a highly polished octagonal table.
What time is it? Where am I? she thought, but did not speak aloud because she was afraid that the sound of her voice would echo up and down the dark maze and someone might hear her – find her.
Kill her.
She couldn’t hear footsteps, but she knew he was somewhere, might at any second spring out.
He … Who? She tried to remember, and felt only the pain. It burned like a hot iron in her flesh. She ran faster, fighting not to groan. He mustn’t hear her! He would find her! Who? Who was she running from? She knew but couldn’t remember.
On and on the corridors wound, now upwards, now on a steep incline down. The walls on either side arched to meet overhead. They were different now, white, blindingly white. She began to think she would never get anywhere, never get out, and at that second she saw ahead an opening, a round window, from which light streamed.
A giant eye stared in at her.
Gasping, she shut her own eyes, but found she could still see. How was that possible?
Because the eye was hers! She was outside, looking in at herself, could see that the white corridors were the winding interior of a skull, the window at which she had halted was an eye socket, the walls and floors were bone, white bone.
Dreaming. She must be dreaming. This wasn’t … couldn’t be … real.
Terrified, she opened her eyes again and the eye was still there, shining at her.
‘Come sta?’
Laura didn’t understand what had been said – but the giant eye was a torch. A face loomed behind the beam of light. Hair, a cap, a pale circle of a face.
‘Come sta? Si sente meglio?’
‘What? Who are you? Where is this?’
‘You don’t speak Italian? Don’t worry, please. You are in hospital. But you will be okay. Water? You like?’
‘Yes, please.’ Her mouth was so dry. Thirstily, she watched the other girl pour water into a glass. The nurse bent over her, slid an arm under her shoulders, to lift her higher on her pillows, and Laura gave a thick, involuntary grunt of pain. ‘Oh … God, that hurt …’
‘Le chiedo scusa! Non volevo—’ The nurse broke off, sighing. ‘Sorry, sorry. My English, she is not so good, okay?’
‘Better than my Italian,’ Laura told her.
The nurse laughed and held the glass to Laura’s cracked lips.
Sipping carefully Laura winced at the flow of cold liquid into her mouth.
The nurse laid her back gently on the pillows.
‘What have I done to my shoulder?’ Laura trid to look down sideways but could see only white bandages under the loose gown she was wearing.
‘Is not serious, please, don’t worry,’ the other woman said soothingly.
But Laura’s memory flashed her the image of a knife. She began to shake. ‘He stabbed me. He tried to kill me!’
From the outer darkness of the shadowy room a shape emerged, another face, a different uniform.
‘Who stabbed you, Miss Erskine?’ the policeman asked urgently. ‘Who was it? Did you recognise him?’
She shrank back. ‘Where did you come from? I didn’t see you.’
‘I was sitting beside the door. Tell me what happened, Miss Erskine. Do you remember who it was who attacked you?’
‘I don’t know. He had a mask on his face. He was wearing a … sort of cloak … one of those black carnival cloaks … It came right down to his feet.’ She began to sob. ‘He tried to kill me. And he smiled! His mouth was so red. He smiled and then the knife came out and – and – he stabbed me!’
The nurse spoke urgently in Italian but the policeman gestured her away, answering in the same language, tersely, sharply.
Then he sat down beside the bed, produced a small tape-recorder. ‘Could you tell me everything you remember, Miss Erskine? From the moment you left Ca’ d’Angeli.’
‘Aspetta un momento!’ the nurse told him angrily, and ran out of the room.
‘What’s going on?’ Laura asked, turned her head painfully to look after the nurse.
‘She is a silly girl. She goes to find someone to stop me asking you questions, but they have to be asked, you know. We have a man at the station. We need to know if he is the man who attacked you.’
Laura stared at him, eyes stretched so wide the skin around them hurt. ‘Who?’
The policeman didn’t answer, but she saw his eyes. What he was thinking leapt across to her. She bit her lower lip.
‘Sebastian? Is it Sebastian?’
Eagerly, the man leant forward, holding out the tape recorder. ‘Are you saying it was Sebastian Ferrese? Was it him, Miss Erskine? Did you recognise him?’
Sebastian was lying on his back, an arm across his eyes to shut out the electric light that stopped him from sleeping, but he still didn’t sleep. How could he when he didn’t know if Laura was alive or dead? Why wouldn’t they tell him?
That was obvious, wasn’t it? They were trying to trip him up, catch him out. If they kept him in suspense long enough they hoped he might make a mistake. Policemen were creatures of habit and routine, liked the obvious, played the percentages. They fixed on a prime suspect, the obvious one, the most likely one. Then they went through their bag of tricks to get him to betray himself. Because often enough the obvious suspect turned out to be the murderer.
And this time it was him. He was the obvious suspect. With his past, who else would they pick? He had never been charged, but everyone still thought he had killed his wife.
‘Your wife died in mysterious circumstances, didn’t she, Signore?’ he had been asked. ‘Tell us about that.’
‘Nothing to tell. She jumped out of a window and was killed. Nothing mysterious about it.’
‘You were in the room with her, though, weren’t you?’
‘Yes.’ They must know all this. ‘Haven’t you had the files sent over from the States yet?’
Bertelli didn’t answer that, but Sebastian saw his eyes shift. Yes, they had been faxed a report. He was sure of that. Well, of course, that was the first thing they would do, ask for information from the American police.
These days the Internet made the transfer of information simple, almost immediate. At the touch of a switch the stuff went speeding
down the line. Instant evidence, your past open to inspection. No hiding place any more. Your whole life was on a computer somewhere and Interpol despatched it to any police force that wanted to scan it.
‘Where were you standing when she jumped?’
‘I wasn’t standing. I was sitting, at a table, writing.’
‘Writing what?’
‘Notes.’
‘Notes for what?’
‘The film I was planning.’
‘And your wife was by the window? Was it open?’
‘She opened it.’
‘You saw her open it?’
‘I heard her.’
‘And you didn’t get up to find out what she was doing?’
‘I knew what she was doing. She told me. “I’m going to jump,” she said, and opened the window.’
‘And you didn’t try to stop her?’ The policeman’s voice was cold, critical; he stared at Sebastian with that look he had seen in the eyes of the policemen who had interviewed him after Clea’s death.
‘You don’t understand,’ Sebastian said wearily.
‘Explain, then, tell me how it was.’
‘Have you ever lived with a hysteric? She threatened to kill herself all the time. Throw herself out of windows, out of trains, out of cars doing eighty miles an hour down a motorway.’
Bertelli’s heavy black brows twitched upwards. ‘Do you always drive that fast, Signore? If you do that here, you will find yourself in trouble.’
‘I haven’t even got a car at the moment. I don’t need one, in Venice, do I?’
Bertelli surveyed him. ‘You were telling me about your wife.’
‘She was always threatening to kill herself,’ Sebastian repeated. ‘She fought with me to grab the wheel of my car: “I’m going to kill us both,” she’d scream. “I’m going to jump out.” And then there was the gun. She kept a little handgun in her purse. Lots of women do in the States, for protection when they go out on the street. Clea was always waving it about. “I’m going to shoot myself,” she’d yell. Or she’d pick up kitchen knives and say, “I’m going to cut my throat!”’ He lifted his heavy head and looked at the policeman, his eyes lightless black. ‘That’s how she was. She threatened to kill herself all the time.’
Deep and Silent Waters Page 24