Sam went up to the front door and brought the knocker down hard several times.
Porteus opened the door, startled to see Sam. He went from flustered to ebullient, and clapped Sam a little too hard on the shoulder. “Samuele, we didn't get a chance to talk at the funeral. How are you holding up? It must be very hard…This is my wife Ilaria. You won’t remember her. She’s a new acquisition.”
The dark, slender feline girl slid up to Porteus' side and stared, without smiling. She was very pretty, but had those villagers’ eyes, suspicious of anything new and unfamiliar. Her hackles rose visibly. After taking him in, one side of her mouth slid into a smile. “I know you. You’re that mineral water guy. A celebrity. Un grande honore.” She did a mock curtsey and Sam saw Porteus wince.
“We were just getting ready to go out. I think there's a sort of gathering for Walter going on at the other farmhouse,” said Porteus. “With the tenants.”
Sam nodded. “I'm headed down there now.”
“Good. Good,” said Porteus. “Well, then. We'll see you shortly then.”
Sam took the trail down the hill to the wake. A few of the Borgo people were clustered around the long outdoor table and Sam said hello to them all. Gang-pressed into coming, only there out of a sense of propriety or curiosity, they would leave as soon as it seemed decent to do so, because this was not the way to behave after a funeral in Italy.
Bacchus was at the table filling a plate, working his way through salamis, salads, cheeses, bread, wine. When he spotted Sam, he said, “Ah, the prodigal son steps down from Olympus to mingle with the peasants.” His mouth was full again but thankfully, he was wearing clothes. “Viens. Come with me and I will introduce you to the Two Graces.”
Sam followed him into the lower farmhouse, another building Sam hadn't entered in years. It was in good shape, better than he remembered, its crumbling plaster now repaired, its floors spotless, a strong odour of bleach everywhere.
Two young women were dancing in the centre of the kitchen to music from an iPod. They saw Sam and stopped. One was petite, with dyed white-blonde hair, a pretty oval shaped face, what Walter would have called fragile Marilyn Munro beauty. The other girl, black-eyed, “big-boned,” spiked purple hair, and tongue piercing, had an angel skeleton tattooed across her lower back. They both wore tiny shorts and tops that hid nearly nothing.
Just like Walter, Sam thought, to ensure that there were always comestible girls on the estate.
“Hello ladies,” he said.
The purple-haired girl planted herself in front of Sam. “Hullo. I’m Joan. Sorry about your old man.” Deep voice, slightly hostile curl to her lip. But she handed him the full glass of wine she was holding and said, “Go on then. Walter would have approved of a party. He wasn't stuffy at all, you know, your dad. Go on. We need to drink to his memory. It’s his ten-year-old red. His pride and joy.”
Sam took the glass and nodded.
Joan said, “This here is Emmie.” Joan looked over at the other girl with an expression that was something other than friendly.
“Uh huh? Are you two staying here together?”
“Cottage,” said Joan.
“Walter charge you rent?”
The girls looked surprised then shook their heads.
“Don't waste any bloody time, do you?” said Emmie. “Walter let us stay here free. As au pairs.”
“I'll bet he did,” said Sam.
Sam couldn't stop looking at Emmie's skin, so transparent you could see the veins in her face. She reminded him of Katia, could have been her younger sister. Now she was angry. “Are you telling us that you're going to toss us out? Walter would never have done that.”
“No?”
“No. He was too much of a gentleman. It wasn't a free ride you know. He let us work for him. In exchange for room and board.”
“What kind of work?”
Emmie glowered at Sam, then came close. “This and that. He liked to have company. I saw all those pictures of you on the piano, you know. Walter showed me the albums as well. Gave me the grand tour of your life. I feel like I know you. Intimately.”
He wondered what else Walter had shown her.
She went on, “Your dad talked about you all the time, you know. He showed us the lot. Your bedroom, your closet. It was funny, like he was so proud of you he couldn't stop himself.”
Sam nodded, wondering whether to believe a word she was saying.
“It was sweet. He was always saying how brave you were. How … uh... intrepid. That was the word he used. He said he thought it was amazing that you had been a soldier and climbed mountains and jumped out of planes, because he was such a... fif... fif..”
“Fifone?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“Pussy,” said Joan. “Told us he was a right pussy. Dead scared of everything. His words.”
“I miss Walter.” Emmie's voice was choked with rising tears.
Bacchus broke through the mistiness. “He had a fantastic wine cellar though.” He raised his glass. “Well I suppose I should say ‘has.’ The wine cellar is not dead, is it? So we shall not have to miss it.” He grinned and took a swig.
Emmie said, “Jacques, you know what I think? I think you are one bloody great huge froggy sponge.”
Idem, thought Sam.
Jacques was oblivious to the red liquid dribbling through his beard. Sam made a mental note to do an inventory of the cellar, find out how many, if any, of Walter’s better vintages were left.
Sam looked around him and said, “So who's renting this place?”
Joan said, “The Swiss bloke.”
“Right. He was at the funeral.”
Emmie said, “Fussy bugger. Psychiatrist from Geneva. Very weird wife. Has she spoken even one word to you yet?”
Joan shook her head.
“Because she hasn't said a word to me. I get it she doesn't speak any of the languages, but she's a bit of a nutter if you ask me. Where are they anyway?”
“Gone to the supermarket,” said Jacques, “in Walter's car.” He winked at Sam.
“The BMW?” asked Sam.
“Your father was very generous about lending us his car. And many other things.”
Sam wondered if they were talking about the same Walter, the Walter who liked to be in control of everything. “It's too hot in here,” he said. As he headed for the door he almost walked into the psychiatrist.
The huge grey-bearded man did a little dance with Sam to avoid dropping his grocery bags, then grinned. “Samuele. My condolences for your father. In all the hurry today, we were not properly introduced. I am Friedrich Baer. Dr. Friedrich Baer, though I would have to say that if anybody is sick, please do not call me. I am on sabbatical.”
“Thanks for your help today, Dr. Baer. I appreciate it.”
“Friedrich.”
“Friedrich. And you call me Sam.”
“Linda is very shy,” said Dr. Baer, indicating a petite Asian woman. Sam hadn't noticed her before because she'd been standing directly behind the Doctor, as if she were using him as a shield. Her expressionless doll’s face nodded at the sound of her name. “She doesn’t speak much English or Italian, I'm afraid,” said Baer.
The girls went outside, taking the iPod with them. Everyone else followed. Now it was Coldplay. Katy Perry. Rihanna. The girls started to dance, thrusting out their hips and moving their arms like apprentice belly dancers. They were drunk, with no inhibitions. Sam watched the two girls for a while and then picked up on something that he'd missed before, something that gave him a little stab of empathy. He wondered just how long Joan had been in love with Emmie. Emmie was oblivious to her, intent on showing off for all the men.
Jacques said, “Now we have a little routine. We are tasting the wines with the blindfold. Of course, there is no competition if we want to speak of French wines, which are, sans doute, the very best. But we have already drunk the marvellous French wine that I brought and so now we shall have to play with these vinegar you call
Chianti. You will join us? Your father liked to taste. We shall miss his palate.”
Friedrich Baer held up a bottle of red whose label had been covered and said, “You must stand in for your father. He would have wanted it. If you are anything like your father, you will have a fine palate.”
Sam still had a heavy head from the night before but he joined in anyway, tasting conservatively at first, following the etiquette, and spitting it back into the glass spittoon. Until he tasted one red that was so good, probably a Brunello, that he paused.
Baer said, “Aha, what do you taste?”
“Smooth and full-bodied, hints of oak, liquorice, chocolate, tobacco and blackberry, and loaded with magic. Probably a Brunello di Montalcino.”
“Bravo,” said Baer, filled Sam’s, Emmie’s and his own glass to the brim.
Emmie stood up and moved over to the place on the bench next to Sam. “Walter propositioned me, you know. He told me he wanted to show me Venice. I’ve already seen Venice but it would have been fantastic to see it with Walter. I would have taken that trip with him. I miss him a lot…” Sam stared at the girl and wondered just how far Walter had gone, could have gone.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Emmie said. “But Walter made me feel like a real person, made me feel good. We talked about so much stuff. He helped me.” Emmie’s lower lip trembled and tears baubled down her cheeks. Sam had seen this so often. People who loved Walter became too vulnerable. He put his arm around her. A hoot rose up from the others.
Emmie’s voice was harsh but there was a softness in her lips and body, a readiness. He thought, why the hell not, just for a second, but then quashed the idea. Katia was probably at home, wherever the hell that was, doing whatever the hell she did with her husband, whoever the hell he was.
Emmie, on the other hand, was here. It would be easy. All he had to do was steer her toward a bedroom, one of the fourteen assorted large and small bedrooms in the villa. Not Walter's most recent ground floor bedroom though. He couldn't take her there. That would be grotesque. Walter's old bedroom, the master bedroom on the second floor, would do. It hadn’t been occupied for a year. It was large enough to host a soccer match. There was an en-suite bathroom, cavernous, in malachite green tile and brass fixtures. A four-poster bed with canopy had been brought in to replace the bed Walter had moved downstairs.
The wine-tasters were tasting again, having a heated debate about it. Joan was dancing with one of the Borgo men, caught up in an aggressive tango, too busy exhibiting herself to notice anyone else. Sam slipped an arm around Emmie's waist and said, “Maybe you should slow down a bit. This isn’t grape juice. It’s not as tame as it seems.”
“Walter wanted to teach me about wine.”
“Uh hunh?”
“He offered me a proper job, d’ya know.”
“Did he now? And what was that?”
“He told me he wanted me to be his legs.”
“His legs? In what sense?”
Emmie's face was tight with concentration. “He wanted me to help him go round the estate, check up on things, go up to the tower. To the observatory. And the studiola...”
“Studiolo.”
“That's it. He said stairs were his enemy.”
“And did you take him?”
“Yeah. Took us bloody ages. He had to stop every three steps. It was lovely up there though. He showed me his collections of telescopes, astrolabes and the studiolo with the carved desk and panels. He said Galileo had been a guest at the villa and that one of the telescopes had been a gift from him.”
Sam was having trouble breathing. His heart was racing. The tower had been closed, locked and off limits since Sam could remember. He had a vague recollection of having played there as a boy, but then he sometimes questioned it, and wondered if it hadn’t just been described to him in great detail.
In the past, a moratorium had been placed on the tower because it contained some very nice antiques, some fragile and important pieces. Despite this, he had a mental image of wood inlay depicting astrological symbols, and frescoes of moon, sun and stars all around the two circular tower rooms, but he could not recall the details of time he had spent there. Walter had locked the tower and kept the key hidden, and as far as Sam knew, hadn’t gone into the tower himself in years.
“He actually took you up there? I’m impressed.”
“Why?”
“No one went up there. It's been a sort of museum closed to everybody for years. What did he want to see? The stars?”
“No, it was daytime, silly. He took a good look around the room, and all the things that were in there. All those old telescopes and things. Then he pointed the big telescope, the modern one, over in this direction towards the woods and those cliffs, that lookout place.”
“The belvedere.”
“Yeah, that's it. He had to lean on me when we walked. We went for a lot of walks together. He always said he could do all the steps if he had a pretty girl on his arm.” The tears started rolling again.
Sam squeezed her shoulder and hoped she would keep talking, but the wine was affecting her. She needed help. And he wasn’t doing so well either. The events of the last few days were finally hitting home, and he felt slammed.
He sighed, “You’ve had a lot to drink. Come on.” He wasn't sure himself what he was going to do. He helped her stand up, keeping his arm around her and leading her away from the farmhouse, back across the olive grove. She was having trouble walking and he had to prop her up and guide her along until they reached the villa. He led her through the back door and into the kitchen, where he sat her down on a chair.
“I'm going to pour you a glass of water and I want you to drink it, then I want you to drink another one when you finish the first.” He knocked back a couple of glasses himself, trying to get rid of the numbness that was rolling over him. She nodded and picked up the water glass.
“Stay there, Emmie. I'll be right back.”
He went through all the downstairs rooms locking doors and windows. When he returned to the kitchen, Emmie was waiting like an obedient child. He set out two cappuccino cups and saucers on the kitchen table for Donatella. It was an old signal Walter had used to let her know he wasn't alone, so she wouldn't barge in on him.
In Walter's day, Donatella always did the post-mortem on the conquests, letting Walter know that the thighs of his latest woman were too fat, or that she was obviously a bottle blonde, or that she wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box. And they would have a good laugh about it. The day any of them impressed Donatella was the day the world ended.
It took him almost five minutes to get her up the stairs. The bedroom was in good shape, dusted, immaculate, unlived-in. Emmie was too drunk to notice her surroundings. He led her over to the bed where he yanked back the cream damask bedspread and eased her to a sitting position. She slid down onto her back. Sam knelt down and took off her sandals. She pulled her feet up and a second later, was passed out.
His head was spinning. He sat down onto the other side of the bed and waited for the world to stop rotating around him, then lay down and stretched out.
Sam woke sometime around dawn with a poisonous hangover and a glacial fear stabbing at him, a panic he hadn't felt since boyhood and the military academy. For a half second he thought, Christ, the Sergeant's going to humiliate me in front of all the other boys again, make me wear the wet bed sheet round my neck all day until my whole uniform smells like piss.
The bed was definitely wet. He was quite awake now. He turned his head to look at the sleeping girl. His vision in the half-darkness was still blurry and he was having trouble focusing. It must have been cool in the night because the top sheet was pulled right up over Emmie's shoulders. She was facing the other direction and all he could see was a tangle of blond hair. He couldn’t remember covering her or himself. He remembered the first part of last night. Nothing had happened. He was sure of it. He had slept right through until now. He hadn't touched her.
He was relie
ved, almost out of the proverbial woods, and he wouldn’t have to lie to Katia. Not that she deserved any explanations. Now he had to get Emmie back to her friends before anybody got any ideas. He put his hand on her shoulder and shook her gently. When she didn't wake up, he shook her a little harder, but there was no reaction. He pulled himself up to have a better look and that was when he saw the side of her face, her lack of colour, her utter stillness. He yanked the sheet down and saw the thin red line across her neck, the carmine blot that seeped from the wound toward the centre of the bed.
Chapter Five
Marta La Stella was jolted awake by her Tribal Call ringtone. She looked at the time. Too early to be called a decent hour, but typical of the hot weather. Days and nights flowing into each other, seething streets, tourists, pickpockets, drunken students, illegal immigrants, piazza parties, gypsies, break-ins, volcanic domestics, and the occasional gang war or contract killing. No new crime under the sun. Everything straight out of the Greek and Roman classics.
The voice on the phone belonged to the new recruit, Fontana. “A homicide. I was told to say that it’s your neighbourhood,” he whispered.
“Speak up, Fontana. You don’t want people to think you’re a mumbling adolescent.”
“Yessir, I mean, ma’am. Commissaria. It’s at Villa Le Falde.”
Another homicide at the villa. No surprise there.
She dressed slowly, pulling on her summer uniform. Best to look official when dealing with murder. She recited her affirmations, New Age nonsense larded onto the Catholic nonsense of her upbringing. Like trying to win a game of volleyball with herself. It didn’t matter. It made her feel better. Gratitude was the one she liked the best, the one that got her ready for the day.
What was she grateful for? Unlikely things. A few words of solidarity from strangers who let her know that she was not alone in her job, that there were others who understood, who also had to make hard decisions. Olive oil dripping off the corner of fresh salted bread. And the view from her bedroom window, the Apennines painting the distance a heathery purple. Grateful for that view, number one. And the fact that she was here, not there. In Florence and not San Valentino. She often gave thanks for her and her parents’ lucky escape to Tuscany.
Galileo's Room (Noir Florentine Book 1) Page 6