‘Someone to see you,’ said Signora Fano into the phone.
Not Claudio Josef Brunello, then. There might be an explanation for that; he might be a recent appointment. They might not have got around to changing the sign. But Sandro didn’t think so.
‘Come,’ came a voice from behind the door.
The room he entered was shabby and under-decorated, and Giorgio Viola was not Claudio Josef Brunello; he was not Anna Niescu’s husband by another name, nor had he been recently appointed. He was a fat man of sixty-odd, with a heavy salt-and-pepper beard, and he was sweating under his suit. He sat behind the desk at an uncomfortable distance necessitated by the size of his stomach and, despite the initial Santa Claus impression given by his girth and beard, in his eyes there was a sort of helplessness. How did this happen? they seemed to be beseeching Sandro as he leaned across and shook his hand tentatively. How did I end up like this?
‘They’re closing this branch down,’ he volunteered apologetically.
‘That’s all right,’ said Sandro, acknowledging that this somehow explained everything — Signora Fano, the dirty floor, the chewing gum on the ATM.
Noting that Giorgio Viola seemed entirely unflustered by his presence, exuding no whiff of guilt or discomfort, he told the man why he’d come. Viola was voluble, eager. Perhaps, thought Sandro, if I only had old mother Fano out there to talk to from one end of the day to the other, I’d be pleased to see me, too.
No Claudio Brunello had ever worked there, to the current manager’s knowledge.
‘But I think,’ he said. ‘I think — hold on.’ He pulled the keyboard of his computer towards him, and looked at Sandro. ‘I’m taking early retirement,’ he said. ‘This branch has never been profitable, too far out of the way. I’ve got a good package.’
No, thought Sandro absently, I bet it hasn’t been profitable. Station branch, indeed: it’s close to a kilometre in the wrong direction from the station, whatever the bank’s brightly uninformative website said. Anna Niescu’s man might just have been guessing, mightn’t he? Every bank has an azienda near the station, doesn’t it? Except a miserable little outfit like this.
Giorgio Viola was leaning over his belly and tapping on the keyboard, absorbed now. His hands, Sandro noticed, were surprisingly elegant for a man so fat: long oval nails, well-shaped fingers.
‘How many branches are there, then?’ asked Sandro.
‘Oh, not many left,’ said Viola, vaguely. ‘They’ve closed Scandicci, and Bagno a Ripoli.’ Reluctantly his eyes flicked back to Sandro’s, and he smiled, apologetic again. ‘Old-fashioned values,’ he said. ‘Local loyalties. Not so important these days.’
He looked back at the screen, grew intent, then poised, clicked on the touchpad. He beamed, briefly triumphant, and for a moment Sandro could see he might have made a convincing Santa Claus after all, given the right incentives. On the desk was a little plastic holder for business cards: Giorgio Viola, Direttore. Sandro picked one up absently: they were dog-eared with age.
‘Ha,’ he said, and turned the screen a little so Sandro could see it. ‘Brunello. Via dei Saponai branch.’ He glanced from the screen to Sandro. ‘Down by the Via dei Neri.’
‘I know that,’ Sandro snapped. I know this city: how many times would that come back to haunt him? Maybe he should just get himself a magic phone and be done with it. He relented. ‘Sorry.’
The man gave him that small smile again that said, And you think I’m a sad case?
‘Sorry,’ said Sandro once more, and concentrated on the screen.
‘Shouldn’t really be showing you this,’ said Viola, cheerfully. ‘Staff records, you know. But actually — well, there’s hardly anything to see.’
Claudio Brunello — no sign of the Josef, but perhaps he’d kept that little ethnic detail quiet — born 1958, handsome in a dark, hollow-cheeked sort of way, although you couldn’t tell much from the faintly smiling photobooth shot, glasses, suit, smoothed hair. Joined the bank in 1982, straight out of university.
Could it be him? The dark, nervous man pulling slightly away from Anna Niescu on the fuzzy screen of her mobile phone? It could, just about.
Most people had never heard of the Banca di Toscana Provinciale. Anna’s boyfriend had to have some connection with it. But there was something not right.
Sandro continued to gaze, scanning the flat, dull details for something, anything.
Married, two children.
He could hear Giuli’s sigh. Same old story. Maybe he did love her, maybe it was some kind of midlife crisis, maybe Brunello saw that sweet little face and thought, why not start all over again?
The image of him and Luisa, going to ask the bank manager for a loan, jumped unbidden into Sandro’s head. What are we thinking of?
Maybe he really thought he’d leave his wife. When did the dream end? When did he wake up and smell the coffee and think, no, it’ll never work? Was it when she got to the eighth month, those eyes gazing trustfully up at him, that belly a daily reproach? And he thought he could just disappear; he stopped calling. Stopped answering his phone. How did he think he would get away with it?
‘Thank you,’ he said to Viola. And with an odd gracefulness the fat man inclined his head in acknowledgement as he tilted the screen out of Sandro’s line of vision once more, and Brunello was gone.
But he wasn’t going to get away with it.
*
‘Who was it, then, who called yesterday?’ said Roxana.
So far she and Val had been at work for three hours and had only served two customers, both foreigners wanting small amounts exchanged. An American man and a Swedish woman, they’d both had the same look, of helpless, exhausted dismay. Get us out of here, they seemed to plead.
Val had been out for a long coffee, on the understanding that he’d give her the same privilege in the steaming, dead hours of the afternoon, and now he was back, leaning against her desk. An hour till they closed for lunch.
‘Yesterday?’
God almighty, thought Roxana, searching the comical blank of Val’s handsome face. Give me strength. ‘You answered it. To Brunello’s office.’
He frowned in a parody of deep thought. ‘Oh,’ he said eventually, ‘a woman, I think.’
‘You think?’ At least Ma had an excuse for not being able to keep anything in her head.
Valentino nodded earnestly, apparently deaf to Roxana’s tone. ‘Yeah, definitely a woman.’ And looked up. ‘Why? Does it matter?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Roxana said, losing patience. ‘It just seemed — oh, I don’t know. Out of the ordinary. God knows, there’s little enough going on round here. Didn’t it seem funny to you? No one ever phones in August, not on that line. His private line.’
‘Would you go out with me, some time?’ said Val, without blinking.
Roxana stared at him, and to her fury felt a blush rise. ‘Have you even been listening to me?’ she asked.
He smiled. ‘You wear those glasses the whole time?’ he asked. ‘Like, if you go out dancing, or anything?’
The blush refused to subside: she thought of last night, at the bar. She’d worked with Val two years. Was he just bored, or what was it?
‘I don’t go out dancing,’ said Roxana bluntly. ‘Or anything.’
‘Not that I don’t like them,’ he said, holding her gaze steadily. ‘They’re nice glasses. Only I wondered what you’d look like without them.’
And in a split-second of weakness Roxana did wonder, what if, what if he means it, before she was saved by the sound of the mechanical voice at the security door.
Please remove metallic objects from your pockets. Please remove your headgear. Please exit and try again.