‘He’s sending his bill,’ Ma had said. ‘He said he’d bring it round in a day or so, actually. A nice young man.’
Roxana had subsided, waiting.
Ma had set her hands on the table. ‘He said, we should talk to the police because it was criminal damage, not wear and tear. He said, it looked like someone had been – almost camped out there. Recently.’
She had spoken complacently, without the terror that Roxana would have expected, that Ma had herself experienced looking at the damage. It had come to Roxana that she felt justified, happier in some way that the whole affair of the mysterious caller at the house had been a real threat rather than an imagined one.
‘Fancied himself as something of a detective, if you ask me,’ Ma had said confidentially. ‘Talking about footprints, showing me, “Look, there’s this set here, lots of those, then someone else, here.”’
Roxana had shifted uneasily in her chair. ‘Two sets of footprints?’ She had tried not to sound alarmed: did she want Ma too scared to leave the house all over again? No. She had got to her feet, and leaned on the balustrade, looking out into the garden. ‘I should have got back sooner,’ she had said.
But Ma had gone on blithely, ‘He put on a very good strong bolt, and a new lock, he pieced in some wood where it had been pulled away. Safe as houses now, he said. He was concerned, that was all. Thorough. Quite insistent, about the police, doing things properly.’
Roxana had tried to remember the man’s voice on the phone. Had he sounded young? He had sounded, to her, like a man such as her father, or perhaps she’d merely imposed that on him, poor guy, just as she’d done to Sandro Cellini.
It had come to her that Ma would like Sandro Cellini.
‘Well then, perhaps we should,’ she had ventured. ‘Contact the police. Or someone.’
‘Yes,’ Ma had said. A silence. ‘Tomorrow.’ Her face had looked completely serene in the soft light falling through the door. ‘He said we should talk to old Carlotta next door. She might have seen something, he said.’
Still leaning on the balustrade, Roxana had turned her head and found herself listening for the grey Persian, nodding absently. The police. Two sets of footprints.
‘I thought we might have a bite out, tonight,’ Ma had said, standing to brush down her shirtwaister fastidiously as if she hadn’t spent the last two years barely even bothering to look in a mirror. ‘When you’ve finished your drink? The place on the corner’s open.’
‘Leave the lights on,’ Roxana had said as they left. Ma had looked at her, enquiring. ‘So we’re not fumbling about when we get back.’ And it’ll look like there’s someone home. ‘We’ll only be out an hour.’
It had been a bit more than that, in the end: it had been close to eleven. The trattoria – a decent place, if basic – had been very busy as there were so few places open this time of year; the clientele a mixture of campsite tourists and locals, and no air-conditioning, a waitress with a sheen of sweat hurrying between tables. So it wasn’t till eleven that she had started to look for her mobile, to phone Sandro Cellini.
She should have realized earlier; what was wrong with her? The overheated trattoria, its doors open to the steamy dark and the sound of frogs in the trickling river, fireflies on the far bank, a good meal of the old-fashioned kind they used to go out for, when Dad was alive, when Luca was home. The thought of a handyman she’d picked at random out of the Yellow Pages who could be bothered to worry about Ma, and a glass or two of wine on top of the Martini; that was what had been wrong with her. Lulled into thinking, Life isn’t so bad. Things will get back to normal.
The phone hadn’t been in her bag. Fumbling at the restaurant, she hadn’t been able to find it, had told herself she’d check when she got home because she was beginning to attract attention as she flung the bag’s contents around: Cellini’s business card, then her keys landing on the table with a clatter that caused heads to turn.
Must have left it at home. Though she had known she hadn’t taken it out. Knew. And when it hadn’t been there – the house otherwise just as they’d left it, though in her rush to get back through the door Roxana had barely had time even to worry about footprints and all of that – and Ma had been standing over her in the hall and beginning to look anxious at last, Roxana had made herself stop. She was worse than Ma, panicking over nothing.
‘It’s only a phone,’ she had said, with forced breeziness. ‘Must have left it at Marisa’s.’
Ma’s mouth had pursed. Just as Roxana had been thinking she doesn’t like Marisa any more than Maria Grazia, Ma had said, ‘Oh!’ Startled, pleased with herself. ‘Maria Grazia phoned.’
‘My Maria Grazia?’ Like an idiot. ‘Phoned here?’
‘Yes,’ Ma had said with exaggerated patience. ‘Here. At about six. Because you weren’t answering your mobile. She was worried about you. She was on a train.’
I’m worried about me, Roxana had thought, feeling the stupid panic rise, pushing it down. What will I do without my mobile? It’s not safe. She had taken a deep breath, stop it. Twenty, thirty years ago, nobody had had mobiles. We coped. Not safe? Don’t be stupid. She had put her hands to her temples.
‘Six.’ She’d been on the pavement outside the bank at six, if Maria Grazia had called, she’d have heard it ring – oh. Oh. And she’d exhaled. ‘It’s all right,’ she had said. ‘I know where it is.’
Standing now, the morning after, at the window in her bare feet, Roxana pulled up the roller shutters with a rattle and looked out over the thick vegetation of the garden to the fence at the back, the path that led along behind the houses; had she always known you could see it from here? She left her shutters closed, as a rule, to keep the room cool. And most mornings she was at work, not gazing out of her bedroom window.
Ma had been right about the weather breaking. The sky was low and grey and the light glared, flat and scalding, turning the green foliage dull and lifeless. It was always the worst before the storm came, and it could take days to break. The air was so dense with humidity that Roxana could hardly breathe, and the light hurt her eyes. And when she remembered where the phone was, she felt a dull throb of dread. It was plugged in, in the bank’s little kitchen, tucked behind the toaster, and charging at the bank’s expense.
Stupid to feel dread: this was the place where she’d gone to work for the past two, three years. Was it suddenly a hellhole? But standing here, she suddenly felt the most tremendous unwillingness to go back in there, ever. She felt the weight of all those mornings, pulling on her helmet, parking up by the river, letting herself in, booting up the computer screen and settling at her workstation, and realized, she understood that she hated every minute of it. Every minute of it.
At the window, Roxana exhaled, wow. Where did that come from? Her face, she noticed putting a hand to it, was filmed with sweat. Stop it, she told herself. Stop it. Everyone has bad days, no one loves their job all of the time.
Somewhere far off under the low sky, somewhere to the south there was a rumble. Below Roxana and to the right, Carlotta came slowly out on to her rear balcony, which was identical to Violetta Delfino’s, and began to pull laundry off a wire rack. In her nightgown, with bare old arms, with that look of clammy exhaustion from too many sleepless nights in the heat.
Seen from above like this, they were so close, so similar, the lives of Ma and old Carlotta, that it was almost comical that they barely exchanged a word from one end of the year to the next. Roxana thought of the imagined slights and hostilities that might stem from a sidelong glance or an overheard word, from the behaviour of the cat, some piece of untamed vegetation or the hanging out of inappropriate garments in full view.
Carlotta looked up.
Roxana waved.
Carlotta hurried back into the house as if scalded, and Roxana had to laugh at the expression of sheer affront on the old lady’s face. She pulled the shutters back down, went inside and got in the shower.
As the water ran, lukewarm because it never got prope
rly cold once the summer was here, the heat settling everywhere, even into the stone-cold earth, Roxana pondered. She had already spent longer on the phone to Sandro Cellini than was strictly necessary, she knew that, but he hadn’t seemed to mind. Actually – and Roxana felt a little pulse of satisfaction as she remembered it – it seemed as though she had actually made a difference.
So all it had needed was the sound of Sandro Cellini’s voice – weary, attentive, kind – as he answered his phone late last night, and she had ended up telling him everything. Rambling on, Ma would have called it, and does he really need to know what you think about this man, this Josef? Does he really need to know that, in fact, you liked him, you’d been suspicious at first because he was a foreigner, and poor, but seeing him once a week, registering his patience and unassuming respectfulness, you had got a feeling about him? Just a sense that he was, in some central part of himself, a decent man, even though you barely exchanged a word. Roxana had told Cellini about her visit to the Carnevale, too.
‘They’ve boarded it up,’ she had said. ‘I think they’re starting work next week, properly, it’s been a long time in the pipeline, apparently. He said they’re getting dogs – the man who was putting up the boards. Said it was horrible inside.’
‘Horrible.’ She heard him turn the word over. ‘And no sign of him? The builders, or whoever this man was, had seen no sign of Josef, or anybody?’
‘Well, I did ask,’ Roxana had said. ‘That was why I went there, I had a feeling, about Josef.’
She’d sat down then, feeling in the dark for the uncomfortable little upholstered chair that sat by the phone table. Uneasy, because she had known it was going to sound mad.
‘I thought there was a connection, you see, I don’t know why. When – when Claudio died, and Josef hadn’t come in the day before, when he always came in. Stupid, I know.’
There’d been a silence, then Cellini had cleared his throat. ‘Not stupid, as it turns out,’ he had said. ‘Given that Josef was calling himself by Claudio Brunello’s name.’ He had paused, and he had heard women’s voices, soft, in the background. ‘So you asked?’
‘He said the place was empty.’ And she had frowned, trying to remember. There’d been something, though. ‘He said, it wasn’t pretty, or something like that. There was some kind of mess, left behind.’
‘Right.’ Cellini had sounded thoughtful. ‘When does the work start? Did you say, they were putting dogs in there?’
‘That’s what he said. Well, he was putting a sign up, too, warning, guard dogs.’
The sound Cellini made had been sceptical. ‘Might get down there, anyway,’ he had said. ‘Have a look around.’
‘Will you tell the police?’
‘I used to be a police officer,’ he had said, distant for a moment, and, in Roxana’s opinion, not answering the question at all. Then he had said, ‘I will tell them, yes. Of course. It’s just that I’d like a look myself first. It’s my client, you see. I have to think of her. I have to – act in her interests. The police barging in and digging things up and drawing their own conclusions – well, that might not be in her interest.’
Her. ‘Your client.’ Roxana couldn’t very well ask who she was. But he had told her anyway. ‘Josef’s – ah – his fiancée,’ he had said, and his sigh spoke volumes. ‘She’s looking for him, too.’
‘Fiancée.’
With a flush of obscure shame Roxana had realized that, of course, she knew nothing about him, that narrow-faced, polite man with his takings; she had never seen him in the street, he was one of those people who knew how to make themselves invisible. She only knew he was from the Carnevale because Val had told her, or maybe Claudio. So the bagman had had a girlfriend – more than that. A fiancée was more than a girlfriend. ‘Is she – they were going to get married. Is she pregnant?’
There had been a hint of reproof in Sandro Cellini’s reply. ‘I can’t say,’ he had said. ‘Obviously.’
‘I’m sorry.’ And Roxana had felt sorry, she had felt crass and nosy and thoughtless, almost tearful. ‘None of my business.’
She hadn’t known what to think then, either. She’d liked Josef, but he’d got a girl pregnant, lied to her, and disappeared. Open and shut case, if you weren’t being daft and sentimental.
‘You think he’s just – a bad guy.’ Roxana had heard the flatness in her voice.
‘You don’t?’
‘I told you,’ she had said. Hadn’t he been listening? ‘I told you what I thought, I liked him. There was – I don’t know. Mutual respect: he was respectful.’
‘He trusted you,’ said Cellini. And she could hear him pondering that. ‘Trusted Brunello.’ He cleared his throat at the end of the line.
‘Yes,’ said Roxana: it hadn’t occurred to her before. ‘I didn’t even know I liked him until he disappeared, but I did.’
There had been another thoughtful silence. ‘I don’t discount that, Miss Delfino,’ Sandro Cellini had said.
And with that dry, considered sentence, Roxana had known. She could trust him; he might only be a private detective as opposed to a police officer, but she knew she could trust him.
‘Roxana,’ she had said. ‘You can call me Roxana.’
‘If you like,’ he had said. ‘I’m Sandro.’
It hadn’t been in her mind to tell him about Marisa. He wasn’t investigating Claudio’s death, was he? He was looking for Josef.
‘I think there’s a connection, too,’ he had said abruptly, just as she was wondering what was the right thing to do. Did she really want to snitch on Marisa? ‘A connection between Josef disappearing and your boss’s murder.’
Murder. ‘That’s what they think it was? Not a – a suicide?’
‘They’re coming round to it.’
There’d been a pause, then she had spoken. ‘The thing is,’ she had said carefully, ‘it’s my boss. My other boss, Marisa.’
‘Miss Goldman.’ He had waited. Patient, courteous. Like – like someone else. Like Josef.
‘Yes. Miss Goldman. The thing is, she told the police – she told everyone, she was away, from Thursday afternoon, away at the seaside with her boyfriend Paolo, on his yacht. Only someone told me she wasn’t.’
‘Someone.’
‘Valentino,’ she had said. ‘My colleague. Saw her being let into the building where Claudio lives, early on Friday evening.’ Paused. ‘But it’s not just Valentino.’ And she had told him what Irene Brunello had said, about the maid at Marisa’s house.
‘So it looks like she was here in Florence all the time,’ he had said. ‘Why would she lie about that?’
‘I don’t know,’ Roxana had said uncomfortably. ‘She hasn’t told the police,’ she had added, belatedly. ‘Irene hasn’t. I don’t know why.’
And she had pondered that a moment. Had she been biding her time? Had Irene wanted to have something of her own over Marisa, some secret advantage to hold in reserve for future use?
‘Should I tell them that too? Only I don’t know – is it the Guardia? Or that Pietro Cavallaro, from the Polizia dello Stato?’
She’d felt sick, then. Telling the police would make it official. They’d arrest Marisa, or something. Call her in for questioning. And sitting there in the dark, she had pictured Marisa on her doorstep, whisky in hand, waiting for the axe to fall.
‘It’s all right,’ Sandro had said wearily. ‘I’ll tell them.’
And the burden had passed, from her to him. Then Roxana had heard Ma moving slowly upstairs in her bedroom, she had smelled the frangipani and tobacco plants and jasmine. ‘Thank you,’ she’d said.
Now she stepped out of the shower and stood a second, feeling the brief moment of cool already ebbing as the water dried. She hadn’t told him about the footprints. The stalker. Well, she thought, never mind. She wrapped herself in her towel and went to the window, hair still wet, and looked down, next door.
‘Carlotta,’ she said, and the old lady looked up, alert, suspicious, waiting to disapprove.
‘Can I have a word?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
‘EARLY,’ PIETRO HAD SAID on the phone. ‘I’m on at ten, it’ll have to be early.’
‘As early as you like,’ Sandro had said in an undertone, feeling a flood of gratitude as he sat on the edge of the bed in the dark and listened with half an ear for Luisa’s breathing behind him as it slowed and evened. It was late, but the exhaustion in his old friend’s voice spoke of more than just late nights.
‘Does it have to be about something?’ Pietro had said when Sandro had asked him. Of course it had to be about something: they both knew it was this damned case that had them entangled, conjoined twins fighting to be free. But Sandro had believed him when he had gone on, ‘I just thought I should see you. Face to face, like you said. Enough of this – this phone crap.’
Only now, slipping out of the house at six-thirty to walk across town to where he’d agreed to meet Pietro, did he wonder. Face to face: for breaking bad news? Listen, this is it, you’re pushing our friendship too far.
It was probably an hour on foot, but Sandro wouldn’t take the car. Climbing into their dusty little Fiat suffocated him, parking was a nightmare and he used the car so little that he had a tendency to forget where he’d left it, but it wasn’t just that. There was something about a walking pace that suited him, gave him time to think: that said it all, didn’t it? There were detectives who operated at the speed of a high-performance car, no doubt, but not Sandro.
Besides, he liked walking and, more than anything, walking in the early morning. He could nod to his surroundings, his city. He could register the gargoyles on a fourteenth-century palace, a fig tree in heavy fruit leaning over a garden wall; he could see where the junkies were sleeping these days, who’d shut up shop and who was clinging on, who was up early with a guilty conscience or something else. Old widows leaning out of their windows after another sleepless night in the heat, surprised by their loneliness after a lifetime of grumbling at their husbands. Too poor to get out of the city, their children grown and gone, just putting up with it.
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