Authors: Christobel Kent
*
At the foot of the stairs Alessandra Cornell and Gastone Bottai were waiting when Sandro emerged.
‘A word,’ said Bottai, with a smile that went nowhere near his eyes.
Having been fired before, Sandro was surprised he hadn’t seen it coming. But then maybe Alessandra Cornell herself hadn’t known what she was going to say until it came out of her mouth. That was what her blank, startled expression said, although Bottai’s face – crafty, self-satisfied – told Sandro he at least had got what he came for. And it had been nothing like being fired from the state police after thirty-five years’ service, either; even though they hadn’t called that being fired – they’d called it early retirement.
The way they marched him through the bar as though escorting a prisoner should have told him something. But he’d been distracted by the sight of the women, back inside now, their heads bent over a newspaper at one of the library’s tables. Therese Van Vleet off to one side, distancing herself, looking much less empty-headed, it occurred to him, than he’d ever thought. Magda Scardino standing tense with her arms crossed. Marjorie Cameron seated in front of the paper, and the most
absorbed, with a finger moving along the newsprint, her lips moving. Juliet Fleming lifting her silver head to watch him go. They were reading about Giancarlo Vito’s death, in a gay bondage session.
‘Look here, Cellini,’ Bottai had started straight in, the door barely shut behind them, but Alessandra Cornell had silenced him with a hand raised.
‘Sandro,’ she said, in a tone he imagined was supposed to be softer, but sounded no less threatening.
And suddenly Sandro thought, damn this. Damn them. ‘You need to be very careful,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you even the slightest bit curious about the stories they’re putting out about Giancarlo Vito? And his gay sex sessions. There’s more to come, do you know that? A body in a suitcase, one of Vito’s lovers, or so they’re saying. With an envelope from this place in his pocket.’
He saw Cornell look towards Bottai.
‘What do you think, Alessandra?’ said Sandro, and at the use of her first name she turned to him. ‘Do you think he was gay? Do you, Gastone?’ Bottai puffed up with outrage at the familiarity. ‘What was he up to here?’
Cornell looked pleadingly at Bottai.
‘Yes,’ Sandro said, abandoning caution and taking Cornell by the wrist. ‘He knows, doesn’t he? He knows why Vito came, why he was employed here with such a skimpy CV – and the agency who recommended him so highly hardly knew him, it turns out. All
I
know is, he was involved in something pretty fishy in Bari last year. Did you know that, Mr Bottai? Perhaps you didn’t. Perhaps your father doesn’t tell you everything: if you were my son I certainly wouldn’t.’ Bottai’s face turned wooden
with rage in front of him. Watch it, Sandro told himself, but it was too late for that. ‘Nice picture, by the way, of you and Giancarlo and your father at the launch. Very cosy. A picture is worth a thousand words, isn’t that what they say?’
‘Bari?’ said Alessandra Cornell wonderingly. That hadn’t been on the CV, had it?
Bottai shifted his position slightly, stepping away. Sandro held Cornell’s bewildered gaze: could her innocence be fake? Only one way to find out.
‘A Greenpeace boat investigating a government research project was scuppered,’ he said. ‘It went down, two activists died. The project was top secret; the word was it was investigating wave power, but there was a Syrian connection, and rumours of pollutants being released into the sea.’
It was easy: all you did was type
Bari
and
security services
into a search engine; he might even have done it on his phone. It wasn’t magic. He’d called the detective agency and the girl behind reception had confirmed it, in a whisper. Vito had spent that holiday in Bari, last summer. Several months was a long holiday.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Cornell, looking from Sandro to Bottai’s turned back. ‘Why would Giancarlo . . . why would a private detective be investigating a government project? Employed by whom?’ Bottai didn’t turn, just stood looking out of the window at the livid sky.
Sandro used his advantage to change tack. He took a step towards Bottai’s sleekly jacketed back, a light mustard tweed, just that fraction small enough to be fashionable and at the same time . . . ridiculous. A hint of fat creeping in as middle age established
a foothold, despite the tennis and the rowing. Marvelling with a blink that it had been a while since he’d thought about his own waistline, Sandro addressed the man’s shoulders.
‘You must have been furious when Cameron got him fired. You took such trouble to get him the job, Cameron must have really been rubbed up the wrong way. Was it just the question of the prostitute? He must be very strait-laced – or his wife must be very sensitive.’
Bottai didn’t turn but Sandro detected something in the contraction of the shoulders, the carefully cultivated man becoming a sullen boy in a tweed jacket. At his side Cornell, aghast, cleared her throat, trying to work out how to break this up, and at the same time, what exactly was going on. Sandro took another step away from her and towards Bottai, his face only centimetres away from the man’s tanned chin.
‘What – what were you talking about, another body?’ said Cornell. ‘Connected with us?’
‘A body with Athene Morris’s bracelet in his pocket, in an envelope with the Palazzo’s crest on it.’ Sandro didn’t turn to face her, still addressing Bottai’s shoulders. ‘They’ve identified the dead man, now. It was John Carlsson.’ He heard her gasp. ‘A man who’d been entertained here, who wrote that nice little piece about the San Giorgio even though he had seen the things that were happening here. A man who’d recognised Vito, who knew what he was. Knew perhaps what he was doing here, because he’d seen him in Bari.’
‘What
was Vito doing here?’ said Alessandra Cornell, pleadingly. ‘And what was he doing in Bari?’
No, she doesn’t know, thought Sandro. And finally Bottai
turned to face them, haughty, defiant, pulling the Florentine aristocrat card over them both, over Alessandra Cornell and her mixed parentage, over Sandro and his peasant parents.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Gastone Bottai said sharply. Cornell’s hands flew to her mouth in protest, and Sandro tipped his head on one side, waiting.
‘That pompous old bore Cameron, that bullying small-minded Puritan from nowhere, with his dreary wife, no wonder he took against Vito. As if it were some great crime, to enjoy oneself with women.’ He was puffed up with outrage, maybe real, maybe feigned. Sandro suddenly felt stifled in the room, as if the heavy cloud beyond the window was pressing against the glass.
‘That wasn’t all,’ said Alessandra Cornell, interposing herself at last, facing Bottai, her chin high. ‘You know that.’
‘It wasn’t your place to fire him,’ said Bottai turning to her in fury, almost spitting it out. ‘You know that. I hired him. It should have been my – my judgement.’
Cornell held her ground. ‘Ian Cameron said Giancarlo had intercepted his mail. Legal documents, quite clearly confidential. He said Vito had opened the mail before giving it to him. He talked about blackmail. He was convinced Vito was planning to use the information he’d obtained.’ She was quite calm.
‘You talked to Vito about it?’
‘He laughed,’ Alessandra Cornell said, and her eyes, so pale and cool, turned dark. ‘He denied opening the envelope, and then he laughed when I suggested he might have been planning to blackmail Ian Cameron. He called me a stupid woman.’ Sandro saw her look flicker in Bottai’s direction, challenging
him, and saw Bottai’s lip lift and curl. ‘I had to fire him,’ she said, and her eyes flashed.
‘John Carlsson knew what Vito was doing here,’ said Sandro, looking at Bottai. ‘That’s why he died. Did Vito do it? Or did they wash their hands of him and get rid of Carlsson first, then Vito?’
‘But who is
they
?’ said Alessandra Cornell stubbornly.
‘Are you going to tell her, or am I?’ said Sandro, looking at Gastone Bottai.
The man gave him a look, a look cultivated since boyhood, Sandro deduced, to get himself out of trouble, a look of boredom and disgust . . . and said nothing.
Sandro turned back to Cornell. ‘Vito worked for the . . . ah, security services,’ he said. ‘Military intelligence.’ And Sandro turned to Bottai in mock appeal. ‘I don’t even know what their acronym is these days, it changes so often. It used to be SISMI and now it’s AISE. Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Esterna.’
‘He was a – a—’
‘He was a spy,’ said Bottai, sonorous and bored.
Alessandra Cornell’s eyes were wide.
Bottai regarded them both with heavy-lidded disdain. ‘He was an undercover agent. A floater. Professor Scardino is a big fish, you see, and they thought Vito was the man to reel him in.’ Alessandra Cornell made a small sound, of dismay, but Sandro could see Bottai was enjoying himself. Showing off, pretending he was a spy himself, rather than just a PR man. ‘But this place has other big fish, too. Everyone wants a piece of biofuels, there are huge sums involved.’ He smiled with lazy greed. ‘The Gulf states in particular, and the man’s an academic, he’s an intellectual, not worldly wise. It was just a matter of getting in first.’
Don’t know about that, thought Sandro – had Bottai seen Magda Scardino? But then he began to see. Where Vito’s skills might be useful: those strong shoulders, those good teeth. A very good-looking ex-soldier.
Bottai looked at Cornell and Sandro with equal contempt. ‘And don’t think there’s any point in getting worked up over it, it’s how the world works.’
Sandro was taken aback by the man’s sudden disregard for discretion; he could see Cornell’s growing alarm. Bottai was getting into his stride now, disdainful of Sandro’s ignorance, wanting to show him how much he knew, how naive they were.
‘Gastone,’ began Cornell, then turned to Sandro. ‘You’d better go,’ she said. ‘This is something I need to discuss with Gastone privately.’
‘It’s not as though he was the only one,’ Bottai went on, ignoring her. ‘It’s war, you know. Information is power. Admittedly, Vito turned out not to have been quite the man for the job.’ That lazy smile again. ‘And don’t think you can talk about it outside these four walls, either,’ he said. ‘National security is involved, they’ll have you banged up before you can open your mouth, ex-policeman or not.’
At that moment the great glaring masses of cloud beyond the window, moving all this time unnoticed, thickening and merging, split; light spilled through, flooding the earth below like God making his presence known, travelling across the far hills like the beam of a searchlight.
Sandro turned away from the sight, the image of glory still dancing behind his eyes. ‘Have you seen the picture from the launch, your father between you and Vito, his hand on the man’s
shoulder? I would get that taken down off the internet, if I were you. Your father asked – or did he instruct? – you to give Vito the job here. Barman would have done, but security man was a dream. How did you get it past Signorina Cornell here? Did he use his famous charms?’ Sandro was aware of something then, of an intake of breath from Alessandra Cornell that indicated he’d made an error, but it was too late.
Bottai, lordly still as he chose to ignore the implied slight, his father’s lackey, waved a hand. ‘Apparently it was a matter of urgency. There was competition.’
‘Competition?’ The word sparked something: Professor Scardino had said it about his wife, Luisa had told him so.
She liked an element of competition.
‘Another agency, moving in on Scardino.’
Sandro turned the phrase over in his mind. What did that mean? Another agency. It meant another country’s spy, in the Palazzo San Giorgio. And then something Giuli had said returned to him, a word she hadn’t understood.
The old spook
, Lludic had said.
He had been talking about Sir Martin Fleming, the man who’d visited Athene Morris’s room as Lludic went to sleep, the smooth-talking old spook. Spook meant spy. He thought of Dickens on the old woman’s bedside table, the calm Englishman who’d recommended Dickens to him before telling him poetry was good for policemen. The couple who’d made so many cosy foursomes with the Scardinos, who’d signed up on the same day for their tenancy at the Palazzo.
‘Fleming,’ Sandro said quietly. ‘The Brit. Fleming’s a . . . an undercover operative, too. He’s a spy too.’
And then, quite suddenly, Alessandra Cornell lost her cool. ‘Enough,’ she said, and they both turned at the sound of her voice. ‘That’s enough. Gastone . . .’ He looked at her, expressionless. ‘A moment alone, I think.’
‘Alessandra,’ said Bottai, his voice velvety, ‘I don’t think there’s anything we need to discuss. You have other priorities now, after all, and I’m sure we all hope you’ll be very happy.’
Her eyes flickered in panic as it dawned on her that she had renounced her authority.
Bottai turned to Sandro. ‘I am afraid I simply cannot permit you to discuss our residents in this way, Mr Cellini,’ he said calmly. ‘Under the circumstances,’ and as Alessandra Cornell looked away, Sandro knew his time was up, ‘I don’t think your employment here could be said to have worked out.’ He smiled. ‘Do you?’
*
‘Looks like the rats are leaving the sinking ship,’ said Danilo Lludic, walking into the bright little kitchen where Giuli and Elena sat, each warming their hands around a cup, saying nothing. Giuli felt weary, as if she’d climbed a mountain; she didn’t have the energy to ask him what he meant.
She hadn’t climbed a mountain: she’d told Elena Giovese that her boyfriend was dead. They’d left Lludic looking into the street. He’d seemed to know not to follow them into the kitchen, to know that Giuli needed to talk to Elena alone once she’d come back inside. She didn’t know if he’d been waiting for their voices behind the closed door to fall silent, but they were done.
‘Sinking ship?’ said Giuli. ‘Who’s leaving?’ She felt completely wiped out: a night of no sleep, and this. Elena.
‘The American and his lovely wife,’ said Lludic gruffly. He looked at Elena from under lowered brows; she seemed to be miles away, cup to her lips. ‘No stamina. Just saw them getting into a big car, private hire. With a lot of luggage. I hope no one’s got them down as suspects in all this: it would be embarrassing to be turned back at border control.’