Orfeo was glaring at him with suspicion. ‘Alberto’s crowd? Who is this – girl?’
‘A girl from a nice family,’ said Sandro. ‘Her father has a chain of shops.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Orfeo, looking down his nose with something like amusement. ‘One of those. Well, Alberto’s a good-looking boy, he’s entitled to have his fun. At his age – well.’ He pushed his plate away. ‘Clearly she won’t be around for long, this shopkeeper’s daughter.’ Leaned forward. ‘You can set your employers’ minds at rest. Alberto might be putting it about a bit – ’ and his mouth twitched, unpleasantly ‘– but he’s no fool.’
The shy girl set down a plate of cheese between them and Orfeo peered at it critically, as if Sandro had left the room.
Sandro reached for his glass of wine when what he would have liked to do was punch the man; it slopped in the glass. Good wine; the same Morellino that he and Luisa had drunk last night. Was it only last night? He felt overcome suddenly with disgust and weariness.
‘Really,’ he said flatly. ‘Well, it would be nice to be able to reassure them.’
Nicki bobbed in between them, trying to clear. ‘Should I bring coffee?’ she asked Gallo nervously. Orfeo waved a hand at her, irritated, and she took fright, hurrying back into the kitchen.
Sandro turned to Luca Gallo, impatient suddenly with having to be discreet.
‘Dottoressa Meadows left – immediately after the meal, on Thursday night,’ he said, and Niccolò Orfeo made a grumbling sound of disdain. Sandro held Luca Gallo’s gaze.
‘She did,’ Gallo replied, pale.
‘Were you there – at that meal?’ Sandro persisted. ‘Did she say anything, to give a clue as to where she was going?’
‘I stayed only for the
antipasto
,’ said Luca Gallo, trying a smile. ‘I – ah, I had work to do.’ A grunt from Orfeo. ‘And to be honest,’ Gallo went on, ‘it’s not really my – ah – my area of expertise. Dinner party conversation. All a little too combative for me.’
‘Under Dottoressa Meadows, you mean?’ Nicki came back in with her tray of coffee and slid a cup and saucer in front of each of them before scurrying away.
Gallo looked alarmed, as though he’d given away more than he intended. ‘Well – I – ’
‘Didn’t suffer fools gladly,’ interjected Orfeo from under his thick grey brows. ‘That’s what you mean.’ Ruminatively, as if oblivious to how insulting it sounded, ‘And she didn’t understand the value of a good servant.’
Meaning Luca Gallo. Sandro had to look down at his plate, not wanting to see the humiliation in the man’s eyes.
‘She – well. She liked to engage in debate,’ said Gallo bravely. ‘She
enjoyed a strong opponent. Some of the guests find that kind of – engagement uncomfortable. We should respect that.’
It was the first time Sandro had heard anything like criticism from him. ‘Really,’ he said, unable to conceal his interest, but Niccolò Orfeo had also registered the comment and under the stare he was now directing across the table at the man he clearly considered to be not much more than a butler, Luca Gallo was already backing down.
The girl was back again. ‘
Digestivi?
’ she asked, and apparently grateful for the interruption, Luca turned to smile at her, shaking his head.
‘It’s all right, Nicki,’ he said. ‘We’ll manage. You need to get home, don’t you?’
‘Not for me, anyway,’ said Sandro abruptly, getting to his feet. ‘I’ve had enough.’ It sounded rude, and he made no effort to correct the impression.
Damn it, he thought, damn, damn; he was itching to challenge the man, but somehow, with Luca Gallo there, he couldn’t bring himself to.
You were her lover. Where were you when she was dying?
‘I need some fresh air,’ he said, as Luca half stood, politely.
And as Sandro looked at it, the door to the kitchen opened a few centimetres, then wider. Caterina was looking at him intently through the space. She moved her head a fraction to the side, and her eyes, but unfamiliar as he was with the geography of this great stone prison he could have no idea what she meant. Hesitantly he tried to indicate cautious assent. The door closed, just as Gallo seemed to register that he was looking towards it.
‘Tradesman’s entrance,’ said Orfeo, without looking at either of them. He reached for the Armagnac.
‘Don’t be too long,’ said Gallo as he opened the big studded front door for Sandro. And turned to hurry back to the dining room, an expression of weary patience on his face.
‘Hold on,’ said Sandro, putting out a hand to detain him. ‘About the phone?’
‘Phone?’ Gallo looked blank, then wary. ‘What phone?’
‘Orfeo said something about a phone,’ said Sandro. ‘Just after I left you in the – whatever that big cold room is. Library.’ He could almost feel its chill from here, through the dark music room, colder than the air outside the front door. ‘Whose phone? Loni’s phone?’
‘Look,’ said Gallo hurriedly, ‘please. Just drop it. Leave him – this is nothing to do with him.’ He seemed desperate. ‘You really don’t understand, do you? He’s a powerful man. For eight years the greater part of my job has been keeping Orfeo on an even keel, stopping him from upsetting the guests, dealing with his threats to raise the rent, his tantrums over the gallery extension, the studio. How could this be anything to do with him?’
Gallo looked anxiously towards the dining room, then back at Sandro. ‘Listen,’ he hissed. ‘Do you really think – the man lives in the eighteenth century, for heaven’s sake. I don’t think he even has a computer. You’re supposed to be looking for someone who sent an anonymous email, aren’t you?’
Sandro looked at him. Sighed.
‘All right,’ he said, but there was a warning in his voice. ‘We’ll talk about it in the morning. I’ve – there are things I could have said tonight, you understand. But I didn’t. But if you thought I’d be a tame detective, you and Mascarello – well. I believe in thoroughness. Even if people get upset.’
‘All right, all right,’ said Gallo, his face drained. He held the door open on the wintry night. ‘Fine. In the morning.’
As the door closed behind him and Sandro stood in the snow and felt the cold around his ankles and tried to work out which way to go around the intimidating grey flank of the castle, his phone rang. It was Giuliano Mascarello.
T
EN MINUTES PASSED, TWENTY, while Cate hovered between the sink and the back door, watching for Sandro Cellini. Had he understood? Nicki ferried the few plates from the dining room to the dishwasher, giving Cate increasingly wary looks.
‘Getting cold,’ she said pointedly, nodding at the door to the outside, standing a crack ajar. Cate had positioned herself in front of it.
‘Really?’ Fanning herself. ‘I think it’s stuffy.’
Vincenzo had called just as things seemed to be getting heated next door, just as she would have liked to listen. From the little she’d seen through the door, Sandro Cellini didn’t like Count Orfeo one bit; she was fairly sure, too, that he already suspected something. All Cate wanted was to get him alone and tell him what she knew; only the longer she had to wait, the more painful and complicated Beth’s little story became in her head.
Her first impulse had been to get rid of Vincenzo as hurriedly as possible: if Loni had been there the sound of a staff mobile ringing during dinner – and being answered – would have been grounds for a serious bawling out as soon as the guests disappeared.
‘Sorry, V’cenz, darling,’ she had begun, feeling sick at herself. ‘I can’t talk right now – ’
But he’d paid no attention; he’d been drinking, she’d quickly realized. His voice slurred; it seemed as though everyone was drunk tonight. Cellini wasn’t: just one glass, he’d had. Could she trust him?
‘Hi babe,’ Vincenzo had said, drawling cheerfully; in the background Cate could hear the sounds of the biker bar beneath her old place.
‘They told me you’d moved out,’ he’d said, and she’d heard that the cheerfulness was masking something else. ‘You never said. I thought it’d be a day or two. A week at most, then we could – ’Querulousness had crept in.
‘Not permanent,’ Cate had said, pleading. ‘Look, V’cenz, it’s all just a bit crazy here at the moment. When things settle down – ’
Coming back in at that point, Nicki had given her a curious glance, before setting down the half-cleared platter of
zucchini
.
‘They want to know if there’s cheese,’ she’d whispered.
Cate had put a hand over the receiver and pointed wordlessly at the larder door. Nicki disappeared, emerging with a red-skinned
pecorino
and a nub of
grana
. It would have to do.
Vincenzo had been talking over her, his voice coming and going tipsily, and she had imagined him looking around the bar as he spoke. ‘Yeah, you said that before. I bet it’s crazy. It’s big news in Pozzo, you know, your lady killing herself.’
‘She didn’t kill herself.’ Cate had heard the sharpness in her voice.
‘Well, whatever. You know what I mean, babe.’
Don’t call me that, Cate had thought. ‘Big news?’ she’d said tonelessly. Had they nothing better to gossip about?
‘Big Simone came in, full of it,’ Vincenzo had said. It came to Cate that he’d decided to blame her for not being able to do this more often, hang out with his gang of lads, the boys he’d grown up with. Even though he was the one who wanted to settle down.
‘Big Simone?’
‘Works at the Liberty,’ Vincenzo had said. ‘Ha, now you’re interested, aren’t you?’
‘V’cenz,’ Cate had said wearily.
He didn’t seem to have heard her. ‘He’s the night porter at the Liberty.’
‘The hotel,’ Cate had said slowly. The hotel where she’d seen the castle’s car, the Monster, parked at seven one morning, out at the front.
‘Yes, the hotel,’ Vincenzo had answered with exaggerated patience. ‘Where your lady – your dead lady – was a regular guest. She always came in late, on her own, her companion arriving a little later, in a car with Florence plates. Older guy, with a nice expensive tan and a moustache.’ He’d mused for a moment. ‘Funny thing is, he didn’t book any room that night, Simo says. The guy thought they didn’t know him, but they did.’
‘Or maybe he just didn’t care,’ Cate had said absently. ‘He’s not a man who cares about the little people, Mr Orfeo. I mean,
Count
Orfeo.’
There’d been a silence, only the din of raucous Saturday-night drinkers at the bar in the background. ‘You knew about this?’ and Vincenzo’s voice had been petulant.
‘Sort of,’ Cate had said carefully. ‘Well, we knew she – did you say, he didn’t book a room that night?’
‘Whatever,’ Vincenzo had replied angrily. She could see how it looked; perhaps he thought they were having orgies out here. Little do you know, she’d thought.
‘
Caro
,’ she’d said, with a last attempt at conciliation, ‘don’t – ’but he’d hung up.
The conversation seemed, all in all, like a nail in their coffin. Orfeo’s, or hers and Vincenzo’s.
In the dining room Nicki was dithering over the tray of
digestivi
. Looking from the door Cate tried to catch Sandro Cellini’s eye; she thought he’d understood. But there was no way of knowing. She went out to the bins: no sign of him. There was music drifting up from Michelle’s studio.
When she came back in, Nicki plonked herself in front of Cate, untying her apron.
‘Luca said I could go,’ she said, peering into Cate’s face. Behind the firmly closed door quiet voices came from the dining room, but the investigator’s wasn’t one of them.
Cate frowned. ‘Sure,’ she said distractedly. ‘Off you go.’
Nicki faltered. ‘You were going to walk me home.’
Cate exhaled. ‘Sure,’ she said, only this time with resignation.
It was only at the back door, the kitchen dark behind them, floor mopped and every appliance switched off and unplugged, that they remembered the snow and had to spend another five minutes searching through the assortment of boots and coats in the cupboard for something that would stand up to a one-and-a-half-kilometre walk in these conditions. And back again, for Cate.
That thought only just seemed to have occurred to Nicki as she watched Cate struggle into a pair of damp rubber boots a half size too small. ‘Is this OK?’ she asked fearfully. Cate straightened on the doorstep, about to reassure the girl, and then a sound came from behind her, under the trees and they both stopped still, a whimper dying on Nicki’s lips.
‘Ladies?’ The voice was gruff and apologetic, and even though she’d only heard it fleetingly before, Cate knew immediately it was Sandro Cellini. She grasped Nicki’s hand reassuringly, and turned. He stepped out from under the trees.
‘So this is where you were hiding,’ he said. ‘This place is a nightmare to find your way around. Or perhaps it’s the snow. Everything looks different in the snow.’
‘I was about to walk Nicki home,’ said Cate, willing him to understand. ‘I’d – um, I’d like a word, though.’
‘Walk her?’ He frowned incredulously. ‘In this? Is it far?’
Cate nodded down the hill. ‘One and a half kilometres, maybe.’
‘I’ll give you a lift,’ he said immediately.
Nicki’s hand still in hers, with impatience Cate felt her tense. Frightened of her own shadow; what could be wrong with getting a lift?
‘What about the snow?’ said Nicki. ‘Have you got chains?’
Sandro took a few steps away from them, looking down the slope with his hands in the pockets of his padded jacket. Old, worn, one cuff frayed, it reminded Cate of the one her stepfather wore. Why was she always so hard on her poor old stepfather, Cate found herself thinking, remorseful. A better dad than her biological one ever was.
‘We’ll be fine,’ Sandro pronounced. ‘It’s not as cold as it was; the snow won’t have settled. And it’s not far.’
Nicki said nothing, but Cate could feel her shivering a little. ‘Come on,’ she whispered. ‘He’s right.’ The girl shrugged, and Cate turned to Sandro and said, ‘Thanks.’
But when he walked away towards the little brown car Nicki said sullenly, ‘I wanted it to be just you and me.’
Cate looked at her. ‘It’s been you and me all evening,’ she said, not understanding.
‘Oh, never mind,’ said Nicki, and clamped her mouth shut. Cate still didn’t understand. Sandro drew up beside them and, without asking, Nicki climbed in the back, the kid in this set-up. ‘Cate’s coming too,’ she announced, without thinking to ask if she might.
Settling herself in the front seat, Cate realized that she’d never spent so little time in a car as she had these past six months. Suddenly the world was different, in the metal cage of the car, the cold white world reduced to what they could see through the windscreen. Insulated, safe, mobile. No wonder Loni Meadows had claimed the Monster as her own.
Sandro engaged the gears and the car crept forward on the snow-covered drive. The road began to slope and still the tyres held firm on the dark, unmade surface. Overhead the cloud shifted and separated and the slice of moon slid out, silver-bright, shedding its pale light on the smooth white hills. As they came to the foot of the hill, the dark shape of the farm’s roof appeared over the curve of the slope.
‘Someone’s still up,’ said Cate, turning to look at Nicki. She sat there, white-faced, like a rabbit frozen in the headlights. Nodded stiffly.
They reached the two squat pillars that marked the end of the drive and turned on to the snow-covered tarmac. Sandro Cellini was moving slowly but not quite slowly enough, and Cate felt the car’s rear end slew as he turned, a queasy, sickening motion; it slid further. And just at the moment of panic Cate felt something soothe her, some steady emanation of calm and certainty; she saw Cellini’s broad, weathered hands tighten on the wheel but he gave no other sign that there was any danger. With infinite slowness, infinite care, he changed down,
only one hand on the wheel now, and then, at last, the car seemed to straighten and steady and they crept forward.
‘Sorry about that,’ said Sandro, not turning his head. ‘Not far now, is it?’
And it wasn’t, perhaps eight minutes to cover just over a kilometre, because they crawled along at a snail’s pace, even if it felt like an hour. It wasn’t till they got to the broken-down gate across the farmyard entrance and Cate climbed out to open it that she wondered how they were going to get back up.
But it turned out that Sandro Cellini had chains in the back all along. ‘Should have put them on up there,’ he said apologetically as he opened the boot. Nicki had climbed out too and they were standing in front of him; Cate’s legs felt like jelly. ‘It’s just, I’m a city boy. And a lazy sod.’ He pulled a rusting, clanking mass out of a plastic case, and at the sound a dog began to bark somewhere on the other side of the building, then another, and another. They barked in tireless volleys, taking over from each other in a kind of round; Cate looked up at the house, expecting lights to come on, but the blind windows stayed dark.
‘They won’t shut up for hours now,’ said Nicki, with grim pride, shoulders hunched. Cate put an arm through hers.
‘Sorry,’ said Sandro. ‘Won’t take a minute.’ He knelt at a back wheel.
The farmyard was dark and untidy, nameless shapes under tarpaulins, a strong, ammoniac smell of cattle urine, and whatever light had been on upstairs was off. It was cold and wet, but Sandro had been right, not as cold as before, not much above freezing. Nothing like as cold as the night of Loni Meadows’s death. An unprecedented low, it had said on the news on Thursday morning; she only just remembered that. They’d been listening on the kitchen radio.
The dogs barked on. ‘They’d drive me crazy,’ said Cate.
‘Sometimes I think it’s just me and them,’ said Nicki. ‘They’re all right.’
Cate thought of something. ‘Tiziano comes to visit them, doesn’t he?’
‘Does he?’ said Nicki. ‘Must be a hell of a slog across the gravel.’
It must be; Cate had watched him negotiate it that afternoon, jaw set, biceps flexing. ‘He doesn’t let things stand in his way,’ she said. ‘And he likes animals. I suppose dogs don’t discriminate.’ Nicki was silent, and something Per had said came back to Cate, something he’d said up there in his room as they watched Yolanda Hansen’s red car approach the castle.
We don’t know Tiziano
.
At the door Cate said in a reluctant whisper, ‘Shall I come in with you?’ She’d been down here a handful of times by daylight, when the place was scruffy but ordinary; she found that in the dark, what with the formless obstacles littering the barnyard, the brainless hostility of the dogs, the sharp stink of muck, it was a scene she wanted to escape from as soon as possible. Nicki shook her head stiffly, then flung her arms around Cate.
‘Thanks,’ she said, and Cate could feel Nicki’s hot breath in her hair.
‘What for?’ said Cate, pulling back.
‘Dunno,’ said Nicki. ‘Everything. Seeing me home. Telling me I should get out of here. It made me realize – it seems impossible, you feel like you’re stuck forever. But there’s always a way.’
Cate looked at her white, earnest face, then back at the car. Sandro Cellini was still on his knees somewhere in the dark, out of sight.
‘How bad is it, Nicki?’ She looked up at the crumbling frontage of the old farm, thought of its inhabitants, Ginevra, her widowed sister, Mauro, cooped up in this place for generations. Damp and dark in the winter, baking in the long dry summers, but it was home. Unthinkable to leave. Dangerous to turn a man out of his home.