Two Women in Rome

by Elizabeth Buchan

  She shifted in the lime-green chair. ‘I’ve read the notes and diary entries, Tom. She was too powerful a personality to give up her baby unless she wished to.’

  Tom paced about the office. He seemed to be making up his mind about something.

  ‘What is it?’

  He grasped the edge of Lottie’s big, flashy desk and leaned over towards her. Their faces were on a level. ‘Lottie, you need to know something: Nina was almost certainly working in intelligence.’

  Lottie looked intoTom’s troubled countenance.

  ‘I realised that early on,’ she said impatiently. ‘It’s obvious she was gathering intelligence to give to Rex, whoever he was.’

  Tom was tight-lipped. ‘Why didn’t you say?’

  Her eyebrow lifted a fraction. ‘I thought you would have known.’

  There was a small but difficult silence.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  She tried to remember what she had, or had not, told Tom. ‘Only that I’ve talked to you often enough about her.’

  ‘You have. So what do you make of her being a spook?’

  ‘It’s interesting, slightly dubious and it complicates her life. But she obviously felt strongly about her country, otherwise she wouldn’t have run the risks.’

  ‘So you don’t condemn her?’

  She was astonished. ‘Why would I?’

  Tom straightened up. He seemed taller and rather remote. ‘The question is who for? The UK, the FBI, the Italians, the Soviets?’

  ‘The British. I don’t doubt it.’

  ‘Doubt is a professional tool,’ he said. ‘You must hover always on the edge of scepticism.’

  ‘Then what do you think?’

  Tom said, ‘I don’t know. Probably the Brits. But a pregnant agent isn’t a great idea. Gives headquarters headaches. Do they pull them back while they have the baby? If they do, all the contacts built up and the flow of information might be compromised.’

  He continued, ‘If you’re in deep and you change your mind about working in intelligence, it’s hard to get shot of it. Vested interests don’t like it. Very often there are vendettas. Scores to be paid off. It’s possible that was Nina’s fate.’ He was very dry. ‘It’s not only the Church that would be livid at one of its sons being mixed up in a sex and baby scandal.’

  The room had grown warm. Lottie poured two glasses of water and handed him one. ‘Are you saying that’s why she was murdered?’

  ‘Who knows? The possibilities exist.’

  ‘My God, I hope the baby was safe.’

  Tom moved over to the window and looked down into the Via Giulia. ‘If it lived.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ she said. ‘Don’t.’

  He turned around and sent her a long, thoughtful look.

  Lottie said: ‘It’s true Signor Livardo never mentioned a child, which suggests it was never in the Trastevere apartment. But her pregnancy would have been noticeable, unless she went away before it began to show.’

  Lottie retrieved the journal from the locked drawer and leafed through its pages. ‘Yes, I’m right. She says that she went away the late summer of nineteen seventy-seven and came back in the spring of ’seventy-eight. She could have concealed it.’

  Tom came and sat down opposite her. ‘Lottie, I’ve been thinking about this for some time. You, me, all this. What are we talking about here? This preoccupation with a dead woman.’ He placed his hands on the desk. ‘Don’t fly at me, but is it really about you? Are you searching for something that I don’t know about yet?’ It was not unknown for Tom to retreat into the ultra-logical when faced with these kinds of conversations. But here he was verging on the emotional. ‘Am I wrong?’

  Her laugh sounded brittle. ‘Cod psychology.’

  ‘Maybe. Doesn’t mean the point is invalid.’

  ‘What are you trying to get me to admit?’

  ‘That’s for you to say, not me.’

  She cupped her chin in her hands.

  Would Nina’s response to the world have altered? Would the blossom have been whiter, the bees louder, garden aromas drowsier and more seductive? Marking what was happening to her body, did she observe the tiny vulnerable shoots of new growth and think:

  This is me?

  The noise in the Via Giulia crescendoed. A street argument was in full train, reminding Lottie of where she was.

  Rome was built on seven hills and all roads led to it, but underneath ran catacombs and passages, cities of the dead and the covert.

  ‘Lottie …’ Tom was pressing. ‘Tell me what it is.’

  She remembered the moment when desolation drilled down into her, took up residence and never left.

  In a room with a broken bunk bed with grubby sheets into which she had been shown and told to make no noise. Nothing else was there. No pictures, no books. No curtains.

  No past.

  This was her future.

  She understood then that she belonged to no one, and never would. And if she ever had a child, she would never give it away so that it could be led into a room with a broken bunk bed …

  ‘Lottie …?’

  The moment had passed. ‘I want to know what happened to Nina.’ She looked up at him. ‘And I will find out, Tom.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  ABUNCH OF LILIES IN ONE HAND, LOTTIE RANG THE BELL OF the Livardos’ apartment.

  Amply tested over several phone calls and several cancellations of appointments, Lottie’s powers of persuasion had finally prevailed and this visit was happening. The flowers were to sweeten the pill.

  Marta Livardo was taller than her husband, with white hair and dark eyebrows. She was dressed in a flowered overall and brown lace-up shoes that had seen plenty of use. But for the fractious set to her mouth, she would have been handsome.

  She greeted Lottie without smiling, accepted the flowers, and led her inside. ‘My husband is out,’ she said, indicating where Lottie should sit.

  The room was sparsely furnished with a coffee table, a sofa, a single armchair and a cupboard. A small rug sat on the tiled floor. There were no pictures except for a framed reproduction poster of Piero della Francesca’s Resurrection with a palm cross slotted into one corner.

  There was not much discernible comfort. No colourful cushions or a table with knitting and glasses on it. No sense that this was a place of refuge. Rather it suggested a lifetime of hard work and limited savings of which the best was being made.

  Marta Livardo was nothing if not direct. ‘I don’t want to see you, but my husband has persuaded me that I should,’ she said. ‘Discussing the signorina is to rake up difficult times. She should rest in peace.’

  ‘Your husband told me how much you liked her.’

  A flash in the other woman’s eye alerted Lottie that old antagonisms had not faded. ‘She was a good tenant and always polite. Some tenants aren’t. They take liberties.’

  Lottie accepted a cup of tea with a lemon slice, sat down in the chair and opened her laptop. The signora perched on the sofa and pulled her skirt down over swollen knees.

  ‘Did you know Signorina Lawrence for long?’

  ‘She was already living in the building when my husband and I moved in. In nineteen sixty-eight, I think. I was responsible for the apartments. I cleaned for them and ran a laundry and repair service. It was a lot of work.’

  It did not take much imagination to agree that it would have been hard work. Hauling cleaning materials up and down floors, washing the communal stairs, carrying bags of laundry, listening to complaints about blocked drains, broken kettles, late delivery of laundry.

  ‘But if that’s your place,’ said the other woman, ‘that is your place.’ The fatalism was edged with bitterness. ‘I always ask God why some have to work so hard and others are granted leisure at no cost to themselves.’ She set down her cup in the saucer so hard that a crack sounded. ‘I have no answer.’

  The signora’s past, and its privations, wrapped her in grievances. Perhaps her present circum
stances did too? Lottie was sympathetic. She knew to the last degree how long fingers from the past could squeeze pleasure and meaning out of the present.

  ‘I agree. It’s not easy to justify.’ She opened her laptop. ‘Your husband will have told you that I’m an archivist and I’m supervising the archiving of Signorina Lawrence’s papers. We would like to clear up certain things before the report is written.’

  Marta Livardo sighed. ‘After she was … there were a lot of things we had to deal with and got no thanks.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I was asked to clean her rooms after the funeral. They were in a dreadful state. Having been left so long. Some of it was horrible.’

  ‘Horrible?’

  ‘Poetry. Written about women …’ Marta Livardo flushed. ‘You know. Women.’

  ‘Ah, I see. Did women come to the apartment?’

  ‘I can’t remember any.’

  ‘Did the police ask you about them?’

  ‘I couldn’t help them on that.’

  ‘Then perhaps the poetry was not significant?’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

  ‘Do you know what happened to her things?’

  ‘Such as?’ She was cautious and wary.

  ‘Her furniture?’

  Signora Livardo folded her hands into her lap. ‘A man arranged for it to be taken away. A table. An old chair, not worth much. A piece of carpet, which I threw out. I never knew his name but the telephone number he gave in case something was missed out was a Vatican number.’

  ‘Her papers?’

  Again, a noticeable caution. ‘The police asked me to collect them up and took them away.’

  ‘All of them?’

  The question triggered an aggressive response. ‘Why would I keep the papers?’

  A guilty conscience?

  Lottie glanced around the joyless room. ‘And did you? Find anything else.’

  ‘No, niente,’ she said. ‘I scrubbed those rooms from top to bottom. The next tenant would have no reminders of what had happened.’

  ‘Signora Livardo, we have found out some details about Signorina Lawrence and I don’t wish to pry too much but there is one that requires clearing up. Do you know … did she have a child? Or ever refer to having one?’

  The hands in the signora’s lap clenched so strongly that the knuckles whitened. ‘Is that any of your business? Matteo warned me.’ The hard mouth tightened. ‘You are wanting to make money.’

  Lottie explained, as she had done previously to the husband, that no money would be involved. Marta Livardo’s other accusation was more pertinent. Was Nina’s baby any of Lottie’s business?

  ‘My investigations are purely to put the records in place for the archive.’ Calculating that a short pause in the questioning would work in her favour, she put aside the laptop and took a mouthful of tea.

  The two women eyed up each other over their cups.

  ‘Let me tell you what we know,’ said Lottie. ‘The autopsy reports that she had had a child and we need to know if that child survived. If he or she is alive they are entitled to make decisions about the papers in the archive.’

  Marta Livardo observed the expensive laptop and a lifetime of resentment – and something else Lottie could not place – was kettled into her expression.

  ‘Your husband told me that you were friendly with the signorina and it occurred to me that, if you had been, she would have asked you for help if she was in trouble. The situation would have been difficult for her. She might have turned to another woman. She might have needed advice.’

  ‘How could I have given advice? It would not have been possible.’

  Lottie pressed on. ‘The signorina would have had to make some choices. What to do, where to go, how to present her condition. She would have needed good counsel.’ She allowed a small pause. ‘I thought maybe you would be the person to help.’

  Marta Livardo held up a gnarled finger, the result of years of cleaning and washing. ‘It was not my place to give advice. I was only a caretaker. The signorina was a professional woman. Why would she turn to me?’ For a while she was silent, and it was evident that an inner struggle was taking place. Eventually, she blurted out: ‘We didn’t like one another.’

  The admission seemed to drain her.

  Lottie put down her cup and decided that it would be politic to ask for a refill. ‘It’s such excellent tea,’ she said, with the result that there was a tiny diminution in the hostility.

  The older woman heaved herself to her feet. ‘I’ll make some more.’ She stood four-square in the shoes, which were too heavy for the warm weather. ‘It was a disgrace … Unmarried. With those men who visited.’ The malice, which, clearly, had been ripening over the years, burst forth. ‘I warned her. “Signorina,” I told her, “you’re getting a reputation. Your rich clients won’t like it.” She never listened. “It’s none of your business,” she would say. Or, “What if I tell people that you are snooping? What then?”’

  She sighed. The malice had petered out and, in its place, was obvious regret.

  ‘All the same, you worried about her,’ said Lottie, rather touched.

  ‘She called me “Signora Livvy”. “You have nothing to tell, Signora Livvy, because you don’t know the story,” she once said to me. I didn’t like that name. But I knew better. I recognised that look women have when they are first pregnant. The difference in how they walk and talk. I’ve studied it.’

  ‘Yet you must have talked from time to time?’

  ‘Yes, about her work. You know, doing the gardens. Once or twice, she told me stories about the people she worked for.’ She picked up the tray. ‘They were grand people who permitted themselves to take liberties but didn’t like other people doing so. “Beware,” I told her, “they will drop you.”’

  She disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a fresh pot of tea.

  Was the signora’s disapproval political or religious? Probably both. They could get mixed up with each other.

  ‘Did you know any of her visitors?’

  A shoulder lifted. ‘I grew to recognise them. There was the young one. He came a couple of times. He was nice but very anxious. Wouldn’t say anything but ran up the stairs fast.’ She lapsed into a reverie and gave a gusty sigh. ‘Ask my husband. He might know.’ She added, ‘A lot of men came and went.’

  ‘How many do you mean by “a lot”? Four? Fifteen?’

  There was a reluctant admission. ‘Two or three. Perhaps four.’

  ‘Were any of them priests?’

  Signora Livardo almost dropped the teapot. ‘A priest? Dio. No, never. Only after she died. Then a priest did come to counsel us. We prayed for the signorina’s soul.’

  In the background, a door opened and closed.

  ‘Anyone else who might be important?’

  Lottie was conscious of holding her breath.

  ‘No.’ It was a percussive denial, but as she handed over the tea, her hand shook slightly. The emphasis changed. ‘Yes. Perhaps. When the signorina went away, trying to hide from us that she was having a baby, a Signor Antonio came to see us. He said he was a friend and looking after her interests and could we let him into her apartment as she needed some books. I asked my husband and we agreed he could but he didn’t find them.

  ‘He came back once or twice, always bringing me a special salve for my hands because he said they looked bad from too much cleaning. He was a nice man, very well dressed, with a badge in his lapel. He asked that if the signorina returned we could let him know if anyone visited her and who they were.’

  ‘Did you tell him about the baby?’

  ‘No.’ Marta Livardo looked desperately around the room. ‘I may have.’

  ‘You may have?’

  ‘He said that if I helped him, he would help me.’ She looked away. ‘Apparently, there were funds available for people like me and he might be able to arrange something. He could also arrange for prayers to be said for us.’

  Lottie fitted together th
e fragments of information.

  ‘The child?’ There was a long, long pause. Lottie’s stomach tightened. ‘Do you know when it was born?’

  ‘She went before anyone could tell and was away for Christmas,’ her words drifted, ‘and didn’t come back until she had got her figure back.’ She frowned. ‘Yes, just before the kidnapping. You know… of Moro.’

  So … Nina had gone away to have her baby.

  ‘The child?’ Lottie repeated softly.

  ‘She never mentioned it. Then I got her in a corner and demanded to know. After a bit, she told me it had been born. I never saw it.’ Marta Livardo’s expression was bleak. ‘I would have liked to have done.’

  ‘Do you know what happened to it?’

  Her gaze now fixed on the Resurrection. ‘She said the baby had died.’ She made the sign of the cross. ‘Died, and she didn’t seem to mind. I couldn’t forgive her for that. Not caring. I didn’t see her cry once. Not even when her breasts were leaking. I could spot that detail, too, however hard she tried to hide it. If she had been a proper woman, she would …’ She reached for her tea. ‘To not mind about your child dying is monstrous. She was a monster.’

  There was the anguish of an old history hanging over the room. It was then Lottie understood. ‘Do you and your husband have children?’

  ‘No. God did not see fit.’ A history of blighted hopes was written all over her face. ‘We tried. We prayed. We spent our money on doctors. No good.’ She rubbed a swollen knee. ‘I begged God to tell me how I had sinned and what I could do for him to make my body work, but it didn’t happen.’

  ‘That’s why you wished to be prayed for …’

  Marta Livardo uttered a panicked cry. ‘Stop!’

  ‘Please leave.’ Signor Livardo stood in the doorway and cut into their exchange. ‘My wife is upset. You’ve no right to come here and ask these questions.’

  Lottie rose to her feet. ‘I understand. I’m much clearer about the signorina and I’m grateful. I will add the following to the records: the signorina went away to have a baby. A Signor Antonio checked on her apartment while she was away and, after she was murdered, helped you to arrange the disposal of furniture, etc.’