Galileo's Room (Noir Florentine Book 1)

by Strozzi, Amadeus

  He veered suddenly off to the left and into an open field and kept riding as fast as the bike would let him go. Through the mustard and poppies and alfalfa the bike bumped along until he hit something that made a sound like lightning cracking the air. The impact shuddered through him and the bike bucked upward, sending him flying, bringing him down hard and slamming his head against the ground as if it were a gourd.

  He opened his eyes, and saw the tall grasses of the field. He stayed perfectly still for a very long time, feeling nothing. No pain at all. He turned his head slowly sideways. His bike had landed a couple of meters away, and his helmet was a few feet from that. He sat up slowly and looked down at the rest of his body. His jeans were shredded at the knee and there was a bleeding gash. It was when he tried to stand up that the pain radiated through him and crested in his brain. He sank to the ground, watched the world spin, veil over, and go black.

  The man working behind the bar at the convenience store next to the petrol pumps happened to see the lime green motorbike zig-zagging past. It hit him like a panic attack and he wondered if he ought to stop drinking so many of his own espressos so early in the morning. There was no one in the bar so he ran outside just to double-check, to catch the accident that was about to happen, to be sure that he wasn’t imagining it. And he wasn’t. He could see the biker careening into the distance, drunk maybe, not a care in the world, back and forth between both lanes right to the shoulder on each side, a smaller sideways version of the daredevil car racing game in that old movie with that American actor who’d died so young.

  He ran back into the bar, grabbed his keys and locked up. It took him ten minutes to drive to the spot where the guy had gone off the road, but the path was clear, crushed stems and flowers all the way into the field where the guy lay sprawled a few meters from his bike.

  He knelt down beside the body and put his hand near its nostrils. He didn’t have the nerve to touch it, to touch something that might be a corpse, so it was a relief to have that little waft of breath meet his hand.

  When Sam woke again, he was in a dim closed room, stretched out on a bed. Beyond the scent of ancient linen, there was an acrid odour of old wall plaster mixed in with disinfectant, garlic, mildew and urine. The room was rustic, the bed hard. His hands reached behind him and touched the cold metal of what was probably an old iron bedstead, and when he was able to lift his head and move his eyeballs, he saw hand-worked plain white curtains, and a rough terra-cotta floor devoid of any rug.

  It reminded him of Donatella’s house.

  The bedroom door was closed but he could hear rustling and clattering from the next room. He tried to open his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He was weak and nauseous and just lifting his head set the world spinning. He slumped back down deep into the pillow and was pulled into another dangerous sleep.

  When he woke again the room was still dim, a single finger of sunlight coming in through the curtains. He couldn’t tell if the day was dying or just being born but he could hear the seagulls and magpies cackling in the trees nearby. He remembered where he was, where he had intended to go, somewhere out past Livorno.

  He eased himself up slowly to have a look around the room and was startled by someone seated in the corner in a greasy old armchair with an antimacassar. It was an old… no, not old… an ancient woman, and at first he thought her head was bobbling up and down due to the onset of some disease, and then he realized he was wrong. It was a nod of recognition that he had finally woken up. A tiny knowing smile lifted the crumpled brown face.

  “So there you are, come back to us at last. I wondered how long you were going to keep us waiting. It’s just as well that you woke up because I don’t have forever, you know.”

  “Where am I?” Sam croaked.

  The woman hadn’t finished. “They’re looking for you, you know. My boy has the bar at the petrol pumps. When he saw it happen he ran straight down there. He already knew your face, it’s been all over the television and that’s where we’ve all seen it lately. But I told him. It’s not the first time I set eyes on that face. You were in that ad, my boy said. No, further back than that, I told him, years back.

  “He knew I’d want to know, doesn’t make a move without my say-so, so I told them to haul their asses down here, get the truck and bring you here to me. The doctor had a look at you. Don’t worry, he’s an old friend. We’re supposed to watch you for a while. You were lucky. That’s what he said. Then he said he wondered if somebody from your family, the Montefalcone family, deserved such luck, but then he’s just jealous, always was jealous of Walter.”

  There was a long still silence. “I’ll miss him. Walter,” she said. “My sons read me the articles from the newspapers. Oh yeah. Walter was just a boy first time I saw him, a scrawny pathetic kid. I was his first. But really it was your grandfather brought him down to that house where we were. That was in the days before the Merlino law. And it was your grandfather bought me this place here, after they closed the houses. Bet you didn’t know that. We working girls had nowhere to go. But Riccardo was a gentleman. Riccardo was so grateful that he set me up in this place. So I couldn’t let an Montefalcone fall into the hands of the cops.”

  Sam croaked. “You knew my father?”

  “Oh yeah. He used to come down here and visit me when your family was on holiday at the seaside. I’ll bet you didn’t know that’s what he was doing when the rest of you were flopping around at the beach. We had a few pleasant afternoons. Well, I was better looking in those days, wasn’t I? You can’t judge by the way I am now. But I was a beauty. And I knew how to give a man what he needed.

  “People like to say they’re not going to judge you. But what that really means is… they are going to judge you and how. They always do. Because people don’t know how not to do it. Not really. I couldn’t stay over there where I was, where I used to work. People talked too much. But your grandfather set it right, and then Walter after that. He never forgot me. As for the rest of them? I say fuck’em, fuck’em all. Take a lesson from your grandfather and don’t you judge me either.”

  “No…” Sam mumbled.

  The old woman took an eternity to rise to her feet.

  “You’ll be needing something to eat now.” She shuffled out of the bedroom and into the next room. Sam could hear her moving around, clattering pans. He lay still, a sense of urgency burning in him, but no strength to do anything about it. He knew he had to get moving, get up, but somehow the mention of Walter’s name had taken all the drive out of him.

  The old woman came back in carrying a tarnished silver tray with a dish of something and a kitchen glass full of red wine. She put a couple more pillows behind his back and made him prop himself up, then she dragged over a chair, sat down beside him, and slowly began to spoon-feed him soup. It was lentil and spelt, delicious, and he realized he was in good enough shape to appreciate it.

  He decided to believe what the woman had told him. There were too many things in his mind already to add another one to the pile, to the bonfire of his suspicions. He longed to set it alight.

  He could hear other people coming and going in the house, men’s voices, work boots stomping, the tap turning on and off, people washing at a sink. Chairs scraping along the floor.

  Just after he had finished eating, three men filed into the room and just looked at him, as if he were a zoo animal, or something on a television screen, then filed out. Sam was too weak to care. When the men had left the room, he pulled down the covers and examined his knee. It had been neatly bandaged, and he pressed around it trying to figure out how bad the damage was, making it hurt like hell.

  When the woman came back in, this time with a dish of stew, she said, “So what are your plans? I imagine you want to get back to running your marathon, or avoiding the cops, or whatever it is you need to be doing.”

  “Where am I?”

  “Just out of Castellaccio.”

  “Where’s my bike?”

  “It’s okay. The boys br
ought it back in the truck. They fixed it for you. You’ll be getting the bill. You don’t want to be riding though, not in your condition.”

  “Just show me where it is. And thank you for everything.”

  The woman nodded.

  Sam sat up and pulled his legs over the side of the bed. The world stayed still this time so he rose to his feet. His knee hurt like a bastard, but he figured he could manage the bike. His things were folded on a chair near the bed, and he pulled them on slowly, every part of his body aching.

  “You young people are always in such a hurry. You should come back and visit me soon. I’ll tell you a few more things about your family that you might want to know. Or that you might not.” She grinned, displaying a set of ill-fitting dentures.

  It was already dark when Sam began his ride toward the sea in the dark. Everything about that place now made him think of Katia. The scents. The sounds. He could already hear the waves crashing in the distance, smell the pines, the salt, the slightly curried pungency of Mediterranean scrub.

  He found a phone booth at the Autogrill. He parked his bike, plugged the slot with euro coins, then dialled the number he had written on a scrap of paper.

  Marta La Stella said, “Pronto?”

  “It’s not me, Marta.”

  “Just come in and talk, Samu. We can work things out.”

  “People close to me have died. What are you doing about it? What do your experts say?”

  “They’re still working on it. Just a statement, Samu, otherwise it looks like you’re guilty… You don’t have to be afraid. You know the Grand Duchy of Tuscany was the first place in the world to abolish the death penalty?”

  “Yes, and they conveniently reinstate it whenever necessary. I’m not coming in. Do your job, Marta.” He hung up.

  He rode directly to the house in Quercianella where the party had been hosted the year before. It was occupied when he parked his bike near the hedges outside, and he could hear voices, laughter and music from somewhere on the property.

  Walter was there with him again, gripping him too hard, tweaking his ear, pulling his hair. Old family friends, dear boy, people that you should go and say hello to, regardless of whether or not you are in or out of trouble with the law. We protect each other, figliolo.

  Sam wasn’t sure that he believed Walter’s ghost. But he did owe Santucci an update on Sofia, so he stabbed the buzzer at the main gate. An electronic click and the iron gate eased open. In Sam went, limping up the long pathway to the door, which was already being held open by the Sri Lankan butler. “The Signore said he will see you downstairs. You can follow me.”

  The summer parties were always smooth summer affairs, hosted in the gardens, around the pool, the pool houses and the terrace. It had been years since Sam had actually been inside the house, maybe even decades. The butler took him through vast blue and white rooms, all unfamiliar, with seaside themes, then down a staircase and along a corridor. At the end, he knocked on a double-door, and when the “Avanti” came, he stepped aside and ushered Sam in.

  Santucci was pacing, a rampant but caged lion, smoking a cigar, running his hands through his thick white hair. When he turned to look at Sam, there was a hunger in his eyes. “So. This is about Sofia, I hope.”

  Sam nodded.

  “Sit down.”

  “I prefer to stand.” All that up and down, hard on the knee, hard to pretend at perfect health, as Walter would have demanded when talking to a Santucci.

  “As you like. Let’s hear it.”

  “She was living in London for a while, but that was some years ago, as you might know. You didn’t? No? Working on her English, taking quite a few courses, judo, karate, kick-boxing. She was working as a personal trainer at a Virgin gym for a bit, then she disappeared. Didn’t pick up her last pay check.”

  “Ah.”

  “Somebody at the gym – I don’t name my sources, you know that, Santucci, right? – told me she’d been talking about moving to Canada.”

  “Your mother has a place there if I’m not mistaken?”

  “Yes. Sofia was very attached to my mother.”

  “Of course. Sofia’s own mother evaded us all, god help her.”

  Sam stopped himself from saying that ‘evaded’ was a poor euphemism for suicide.

  “My mother has always stayed in touch with her. From what I could gather, she helped her get settled in Vancouver. She told me as much, but it took me a long time to get it out of her.”

  “Why did nobody inform me of this?”

  “Because they didn’t want you to know, obviously. Nora kept in touch. Even after Sofia was arrested.”

  “Arrested.”

  Sam had expected more of a reaction at that point. A change of colour, mood. But it didn’t come. Rather, the Cavaliere seemed calm, and a little more cheerful. He went over to the drinks tray and held up a decanter of something amber-coloured. Sam nodded. Santucci poured and handed him the glass.

  Sam took a sip of the best Scotch he’d ever tasted and as Santucci started in on an old often-heard trope, Santucci’s “defence” over why his Sofia had turned out to be such a disaster, why he fell so short as a family man, parliamentary demands, bla bla, can’t be in two places at once, bla bla, someone has to help run this country, bla bla bla, Sam took in the room.

  Portraits.

  Sam had never seen so many portraits crammed onto four walls. Santucci stopped talking and smiled. “Ah, you’re looking at my gallery.”

  Not just portraits, but portraits of one type only. Similar in style to the one of Walter painted by the Frenchman.

  Santucci sighed. “My little prizes.”

  Sam realized that they were all girls. Young. Nubile. Fresh. Some kind of accomplishment displayed in each painting.

  “The combination of youth and talent,” said Santucci, “is like an elixir.”

  Sam’s gaze came to rest on one of the larger frames. His whole body tensed up, his heart racing. The likeness of a girl in a green dress standing in front of a grand piano. Carrot-red hair. Long legs. Intelligent face. A fifteen or sixteen-year-old Katia, right down to the dimple. Probably a coincidence, but the features were all there, that look in the eyes, that urgent sense of mission.

  Sam looked away quickly not wanting to be caught at it, promptly shifting his gaze to a little dancer in a red dress.

  “My Lolitas,” whispered Santucci.

  A phone chimed in the distance. Santucci pardoned himself and left the room. Sam got out his own mobile, stepped up close to the portrait and took a photo of Katia’s double.

  When Santucci reappeared, he started in again. “Tell me about Sofia’s arrest.”

  “From the court reports, which are concise to a fault, it looks as though Sofia was arrested for threatening several police officers with a deadly weapon. Her lawyer, completely inexperienced, told her that things were stacked so badly against her that she should plead insanity. She did, and they sent her to the psychiatric forensic unit somewhere out in the Fraser Valley. That’s as much as I was able to gather before I heard about Walter’s death and had to come home. And now I have to add that I’m not the ideal person for this case. Not right now. You need to get somebody else.”

  Santucci had the back of his hand against his mouth. His expression was unreadable. “Yes. I heard about the killings. Unfortunate. Anything I can do?”

  “Not unless you’re clairvoyant.”

  After he left the Santucci place, Sam found a bushy oleander, and hid and locked the bike at the centre of it, then limped along the road to the point where the next property line began, marked out by the stone wall. His knee ached and throbbed, but he managed to climb up and over the wall on the Santucci side, then make his way down through the brush until he came to the little gate. He pushed it open and went through.

  The property was deserted, the stone cottage locked up, no tenants. The sight of the place made him long for Katia again so strongly that his desire verged on rage. He had half a right to be angry
. Her silences, her absences, were maddening. He reached into his knapsack and rummaged around until he found his tools, then tinkered with the lock on the door until it opened, and went inside. Leaving the lights off, he moved toward the bedroom they’d shared a year ago. Easing his aching body down onto the bed, he wrapped the covers around himself, clutching them as if they were Katia herself.

  He stayed like that until the following morning, and when the first light crept in, it brought Sam a stabbing melancholy for the fact that he and Katia weren’t together in that moment. He grabbed his mobile and looked at the photo of the portrait, then emailed it to Katia with no message.

  He thought about the properties. The villa next door belonged to various members of the Santucci family, the Cavaliere, some brothers, and another woman, a sister-in-law of Santucci. Old family friends. Walter had always made it clear that as friendships went, it was mostly about business. Walter sold antiques, the Santuccis had too much money and a love of antiques. All quite simple.

  There had been some rivalry too, over women, all of those other generations, just before women’s lib, showing off to each other, one-upping each other. Walter had been known to go to extremes for a woman. Once, he had become a Hungarian national in order to be free to marry somebody in the church. In the end, the affair had fallen to pieces, the woman had gone back to whoever she had been with before, somebody richer, an Austrian prince or something similar. Walter’s sort of people.

  Sam opened the front door of the cottage and stepped outside. It was engulfed in dusty, glossy greens, yellows and purples, tamarisk, wild thyme, rosemary, juniper, helichrysum, all set off by a sea of bright turquoise in the distance, only a few light ripples marring its glassy morning surface. The sharp bitter-sweet scent was irresistible. He shut the door and climbed the stone stairway, one step at a time, down to the beach. After stripping off down to his briefs, he crept and hobbled his way over the warm pebbly beach and down to the water’s edge. He put his toe in, then in three huge strides was up to his hips. He slid the rest of the way into the water.