‘What’s happened?’
‘I’ll tell you later. But the upshot is that I’m not going to be a grandmother after all.’
This was a much stiffer check, but once again Zen carried blithely on.
‘That’s a shame. Still, they’re young. There’s plenty of time.’
‘Not necessarily. It sounds as though this has put the relationship at risk. I get the feeling that Stefano’s relieved, quite frankly. Lidia, on the other hand, is naturally shattered. So a long evening, and I may be a bit weepy when we meet. It’s been a difficult day, one way and another.’
Zen took another hearty gulp of the effervescent wine and started toying with one of the pork ciccioli.
‘Yes, shame about lunch. You misunderstood me. I was talking to my stomach.’
‘I’d rather been looking forward to knitting little bootees and jackets.’
‘Well, I could use a new pullover.’
‘It wouldn’t be the same.’
He laughed again, by now quite impervious to anything she might throw at him.
‘I should hope not! It would never fit otherwise. I’ll tell the hotel to expect you. Just ask at the desk and they’ll give you a key if I’m not back.’
‘Thank you.’
‘All part of the service, signora. We know you have a choice. We work hard to be both your first choice and your last.’
He hung up, grinning widely, and grabbed a lump of Parmesan the size of an inoperable tumour.
31
‘But this is crazy!’ the barber protested. ‘You have a magnificent head of hair, a superb beard! All that’s required is a delicate and discreet trim, a snip here, a hint more shape there…’
‘Do what I say!’ snapped Romano Rinaldi.
For a moment the barber, reflected in the mirror facing the swivel chair in which Rinaldi was seated, looked as though he might be about to refuse. The man must have been in his sixties, with a moonlike face and the expression of a priest struggling to bring an unrepentant sinner to the foot of the cross, while his shop looked as though it had been furnished about the time of national unification and left untouched ever since. The proprietor clearly regarded himself as one of the city’s top professionals, and was more accustomed to advising his clients on which interventions needed to be undertaken than merely carrying out their orders, particularly when these were eccentric and wilful in the extreme. Nevertheless, he picked up his scissors with a heavy sigh of disapproval and set to work.
His eyes fixed on the antique sink in front of him, Rinaldi sat there impassively as his shorn locks fell on to the wrap that covered his upper torso. The police would be watching the hotel, the railway and bus stations, and the airport, as well as monitoring both his and Delia’s mobile phones. He had instructed the barber to shave his scalp bald, remove his eyebrows and trim his beard down to a very thin moustache. That should prevent any casual recognition on the street. His plan was to find a small, seedy hotel of the kind used by young backpackers on a tight budget, pass himself off as a foreigner and tell the proprietor that his passport had been stolen but he had informed the consulate and a replacement would arrive within the week. That and a hefty deposit should do the trick in the short term. After that it would be a matter of keeping an eye on the news and seeing how the affair played out.
The barber finished his job, scowling his disapproval, and whisked away the hair-covered wrap.
‘Fifty euros.’
Getting to his feet, Rinaldi stared speechlessly at his reflection in the mirror while the barber brushed him down like a horse. Even Delia wouldn’t recognise him like this, he thought. He reached for his wallet, but encountered only an alien object, smooth, cool and heavy. Pulling it out impatiently, he found to his amazement that he was holding what looked like an automatic pistol.
It took him only a moment to work out that the little rat at the Irish bar had ripped him off after all. He’d faked that collapse to give him the chance to grab hold of Rinaldi, then lifted his wallet and substituted this cheap replica gun to simulate its bulk and weight. A wave of sheer panic swept over him as the implications sunk in. All his cash and credit cards were gone, and since he was wanted by the police he could not report the incident and get replacements in the usual way.
He turned to the barber, flashing his radiant Lo Chef smile.
‘Look, I seem to have left my wallet at home.’
The man did not reply. He stood very still, gazing down at the pistol in his client’s hand. Rinaldi hastily replaced it.
‘I’ll leave my watch as surety while I go and fetch my wallet,’ he went on. ‘It’s a vintage Rolex, platinum band, worth at least a thousand. I’ll be back in about half an hour.’
‘I close in ten minutes,’ the barber stated in a voice like an automated recording.
‘Then tomorrow.’
He thrust the watch at him and walked out. As soon as he reached the corner, he turned left and ran until he was out of breath. The night air felt cruelly cold in his newly shorn state, but at least there was no one about. A few metres further on, lost in the overarching shadows cast by the portici, stood a municipal rubbish bin. Rinaldi rooted about in it until he found an empty plastic bag, and then stuffed his pigskin gloves, cashmere scarf and camelhair overcoat into it. Then he roughed up his blazer, pullover and trousers against the rough plaster on one of the pillars of the arcade, scuffed his immaculately polished brogues repeatedly against a neighbouring doorstep, and set off again looking rather more like a common vagrant, battered bag of belongings in hand.
But where to? The loss of his wallet changed everything. He was not only homeless and wanted by the police, but down to four euros and sixty-three centesimi in small change, most of which he promptly spent in the first bar he came to, just to warm up. He was staring at the drying stain in his coffee cup, as though hoping to read his fortune in the grounds, when a memory of something he had seen earlier that evening came back to him. He cringed with humiliation at the very idea. What a comedown! Talk about riches to rags. But there was no obvious alternative, and it might just prove to be what he needed to see him through the next few days, until things sorted themselves out. It was certainly worth a try.
32
Flavia looked up from her battered paperback at the clock above the alcove where the proprietor was busily crafting raw pizzas beside the maw of the oven. One of the two waiters reappeared, the skinny Stan Laurel lookalike. He regarded her quizzically.
‘Ready to order?’ he asked, when Flavia did not react.
‘I’m waiting for someone.’
And he was more than twenty minutes late, she thought, as the waiter sidled off. It had been absurdly naive to imagine that he would come at all. Her relationship with Rodolfo had been intense, diverting and instructive, but she had never allowed herself any illusions about the ultimate outcome, even before he started acting in this strange, angry, icily controlled way. But with his university career in ruins, there was no longer any reason for him to remain in Bologna, or with her. That was what he had been hinting at last night, taunting her with lying about her origins and then refusing to sleep with her. As for this evening, he simply wouldn’t show up, leaving her to get the message. But she already had.
She glanced up hopefully as the door opened, but it was a stranger, as tall and austere in appearance as her own dead father. Flavia finished the chapter she had been reading and then consulted the clock again. The thirty minutes grace she had allowed Rodolfo had passed. She put on her coat and headed for the door.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said to the fat waiter, who was serving two pasta dishes to a nearby table. ‘My boyfriend just phoned to say he can’t make it.’
Ollie inclined his head sideways in a way that could have meant anything or nothing.