'All the thefts happened over the same weekend, then they vanished abroad, leaving me to take the blame like a tethered goat. By the time I realised how Bruce was involved he'd vanished too.'
'But surely you told the police?' Piero asked. 'Of course, but even I could hear how hollow it sounded-clutching at straws to clear myself. My sentence was longer because I'd been "uncooperative". I couldn't tell them anything, because I didn't know.
'And all the time I knew he had my little girl somewhere. I didn't know where and I couldn't find out. She was two and a half when I last saw her. Where has she been all that time? What has she been told about me? Does she have nightmares about our last moments, as I do?'
Her voice faded into a despairing whisper. After a moment she began speaking again. 'Then a couple of the pictures turned up at an auction house. The police managed to trace the trail right back to the mastermind, and he told them everything. He hadn't long to live and he wanted to "clear his conscience", as he put it. He said Bruce used to laugh about how I trusted him, and how easy I was to delude.'
'Bastardo." Vincenzo said with soft venom.
'Yes,' she agreed, 'but I suppose I should be glad of it, because that story was what cleared me. It meant that. Bruce and I hadn't colluded. My conviction was quashed and I was released.'
She paced a little more before stopping by the window.
'My lawyer's fighting for compensation, but my only use for money is to pay for a proper search for Bruce, if I haven't found him by then.'
'Aren't the police looking for him?' Vincenzo suggested.
'Not as hard as I am. To them he's just another wanted man. To me he's an enemy.'
'Yes, I see,' Vincenzo said, almost to himself.
Her voice mounted in urgency.
'He wrecked my life, left me to rot in prison and took my child. I want my daughter back, and I don't care what else happens.'
'Have you no family to help you?' Piero asked
My mother died of a broken heart while I was in prison.She left me a very little money, just enough to come here and start searching for Bruce '
'So you came to Venice to find his relatives?' Piero asked.
'Yes. They are only distant,but they might know something that could help me. I had some good friends who visited me in prison, and they used to bring stories about how Bruce had been "seen". Some of them were wildly unlikely. He was,in Arizona, in China, in Australia.But two people said they'd spotted him in Italy, once in Rome, and more recently in Venice, crossing the Rialto Bridge.
'That's why I went straight to the Rialto that first night. Don't ask me what I thought I was going to do then, because I couldn't tell you. The inside of my head was a nightmare. Luckily the Rialto is near this place and Piero found me on his way home. If my friend really did see Brace it may mean nothing, or he may be living only a few minutes away. You might even have seen him.'
'It would help if you had some pictures of him,' Vincenzo observed.
'I know, but my pictures went to the bottom of the lagoon an hour ago.' She clutched her head. 'If only I'd shown them to you last week-'
'You were full of fever last week,' Piero said. 'You didn't know whether you were coming or going. It's just bad luck, but we probably wouldn't have recognised him anyway.'
She nodded. 'The Montressis are my best lead. They'll be back in January, and then I'll hunt him down and get my daughter back.'
'But will it be that simple?' Vincenzo asked. 'After six years she may want to stay where she is.'
She gave him a look that chilled his blood.
'I am her mother,' she said with slow, harsh emphasis. 'She belongs with me. If anyone tries to stop me, I'll-' She was breathing hard.
'Yes?' he asked uneasily.
She met his eyes. 'I'll do what I have to-whatever that might be-I don't know.'
But she did know. He could see it in her face and feel it in her determination to reveal no more. She wouldn't put her thoughts into words because they were too terrible to be spoken.
He didn't recognise this woman. She'd freely claimed to be 'as mad as a hatter', and there were times in her delirium and sleepwalking when she'd seemed to be treading some fine line between reality and delusion. But now he saw only grim purpose in her eyes, and he wondered which side of the line she had stepped.
And who could blame her, he wondered, if her tragedy had driven her to the wrong side?
CHAPTER SIX
'So,' Vincenzo said gently, 'when you find Bruce-'
'He's going to give her back to me. If he's reasonable I'll promise him twenty-four hours' start before I point the police in his direction.'
'But then he'll get away,' Piero pointed out.
Julia turned on him.
'You don't think I'm going to keep my word, do you?' she asked scornfully. 'As soon as I'm clear with Natalie I'll put them straight onto him. After what he did to me, I'll have no remorse about anything I do to him.
'I've had plenty of time to learn to be strong. I'm a different person now. Sophie was a fool. She thought feelings were wonderful because they made her happy.'
'She doesn't sound like a fool to me,' Vincenzo said quietly.
'Oh, she was worse than that,' Julia said with an edge of contempt for her old self. 'She needed people and she believed in them. She hadn't learned that that's the quickest way to hell. But Sophie's dead and good riddance to her. Julia knows it's better to use people than trust them. She's grown wise.'
'Too wise to love?' Vincenzo asked. 'Too wise to need?'
'Too wise to feel. The one thing she learned in prison was not to feel anything.'
'Not even for her child?'
She took a sharp breath. 'That's different. She's part of me, flesh of my flesh. It's as though someone had torn my heart out and wouldn't give it back.'
'So that's why you said you had nothing to give,' he reminded her in a low voice.
'Yes, and it was true, so believe it.'
There was a flash of anger in his eyes. 'And suppose I choose not to believe it?'
'That's your risk, but remember that I warned you.'
He was silent for a moment. Then he nodded.
'I'll be going now. Walk a little way with me.'
She followed him quietly, and as they neared the outer door he said, 'It's a long time between now and mid-January. How are you going to spend that time?'
'Sharpening my sword,' she said with grim humour.
'Don't talk like that,' he said harshly.
'Why? Because you've got some fairy-tale picture of me as sweetness and light? Maybe I was, then. Not now. Now I'm a monster who knows how to fight dirty. And I'll do it.'
He raised an eyebrow, dampening her agitation.
'I was only going to suggest a better way to pass the time. Come and work for me while Celia's away. Of course, for an artist, waitressing may seem like a comedown-'
'But for a gaolbird it's a step up,' she said lightly.
He refused to rise to the bait. 'Will you take the job?'
She hesitated. She had promised herself to beware of him. She made that promise often, and broke it constantly because he touched her heart, deny it as she might.
As if he could read her mind, Vincenzo said quietly, 'Never fear. I won't trouble you. In fact I ought to apologise.'
'For what?'
'Pressuring you. I guessed that something painful had happened, but I had no idea of anything like this.'
She smiled in mockery of herself. 'Now you know how I turned into an avenging witch. Not a pretty sight, am I?'
'I'm not judging you. What right do I have? But I can't believe that Sophie is dead. I think she's still there somewhere.'
'More fool you,' she sighed. 'You've been warned.'