Taken aback, Pietro said nothing, but then again, he didn’t have to. His expression was enough. ‘Sandro-’ he began, aghast.
Sandro nodded slowly. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Suicide because of — the money. It’s always the money. Not wanting to let her down.’ He’d been stupid, hadn’t he? Instincts were sometimes the wrong things to pursue. He’d let Anna’s sweet, hopeful little face get between him and the facts. ‘Right,’ he said slowly.
Pietro was raising a hand to indicate their presence to the pathology van. ‘Monterosso, you said?’ Sandro gazed back blankly. ‘The wife?’ said Pietro patiently.
‘Yes,’ said Sandro. ‘Monterosso. He’s supposed to be on holiday.’ He thought of the weeping woman who would sooner or later emerge from the room in the police morgue that smelled of bleach and preserving agents and the sickly topnote of decay. ‘A house called Le Glicine, overlooking the sea. His in-laws.’
‘And we’ll need your girl, too,’ said Pietro. ‘The other woman. When the wife’s been. She’ll need to ID him too.’
‘My girl,’ said Sandro and for a moment he set his hand before his eyes, wanting darkness. ‘Yes.’
CHAPTER NINE
‘It was his wife,’ Ma said triumphantly.
‘What?’
Roxana was sitting in an expensive new wine bar this side of the Uffizi — ten euros for a plate of sliced meats and a single cold glass of Greco di Tufa — and trying to relax. She didn’t usually drink very much, let alone at lunchtime, but today was not like other days. This month, in fact, was not like other months. Today Roxana needed something to click the little worry switch off in her brain, and wine seemed like a reasonable start. She’d just taken the first sip or two, just felt the beginnings of an effect — felt the shoulders drop, started to look around at the other customers, appreciate the sophisticated air-conditioning, because clearly that ten euros had to be paying for something other than two slices of finocchiona and three of salt ham — when her phone went.
And it was Ma. ‘Hey, Mamma.’ She set the glass down. She’d stopped calling her mother by her first name; there’d been enough confusion of roles already.
But Ma sounded her old self, completely: bristling, sharp, certain. ‘I’ve remembered.’
‘Remembered what?’
‘It was the wife,’ she said. ‘Yesterday. His wife phoned.’
‘What?’ This was the old Ma, too, making no concessions to those trying to follow her train of thought. ‘Whose wife? You mean the woman who phoned yesterday?’
‘Ye-es,’ said Ma, exaggeratedly patient. ‘I told you I was just tired, you know. You were putting too much pressure on me. That was why I couldn’t remember.’ A pause. ‘And I found the paper I made a note of her name on.’
‘Whose wife, Ma?’
‘Well, your boss’s wife, of course. That was the confusion. I know she’s not exactly a friend of yours but she did ask for you by name.’
‘Signora Brunello?’
Roxana knew her, of course. Gracious, pretty, pampered, with the plump little children she tugged behind her impatiently. On holiday in Monterosso, her darling Claudio grilling fish on the barbecue, children splashing in the blue shallows: why on earth would she be calling Roxana at home?
‘You’re sure?’
‘I’ve told you.’ Ma spoke sharply, as though Roxana was seven years old, and the summer holidays stretched for two months ahead of them and her temper was fraying. ‘Irene Brunello, wife of your boss, left her number and said, please could you call back when you got home.’
‘Damn,’ said Roxana. The supercilious girl behind the cold counter looked across at her with vague interest, and Roxana shifted to half-turn her back, her mind working furiously.
Brunello’s wife calls. A private detective comes looking for Brunello. Had it been a mistake to talk to that man? Roxana’s stomach clenched. But she had trusted him; even now, she trusted him.
‘Give me the number, Ma,’ she said. Then, hearing the huffy silence, ‘Please.’
Violetta Delfino read out the number, in the cut-glass accent that had served her so well for fifteen years as a hospital secretary. Roxana took a gulp of the wine, too recklessly; it made her giddy. How had Irene Brunello got her number? From the book? She was surprised the woman even remembered her name.
‘Thanks, Ma,’ she said, apologetically. Meaning, Sorry I doubted you.
‘And there was someone in the garden,’ said Ma defiantly. As if she knew exactly the way Roxana was thinking. ‘I went out there this morning and I saw footprints. I didn’t fall asleep and dream it, as I know you were wondering. I’m not-’
‘Footprints?’ They could have been Roxana’s footprints. ‘You’re not stupid, Ma, I know that.’
‘Gaga, I was going to say. Senile. I’m just old, and — and, well. You wait, my girl. You wait. You think you’re in charge, you are the one that manages everything. And suddenly it’s all different. Suddenly you have to take care, to be afraid. Soon they’ll be talking to you like a baby, feeding you mush on a spoon.’
The food hadn’t tasted like ten euros’ worth, after that, though it had been fine. Roxana had cut her lunch break short by a good twenty minutes, paid up and headed for the door, the pretty girl’s eyes on her back. Didn’t she have a mother?
Once outside, within a millisecond she regretted leaving the air-conditioned wine bar. The heat was something else. It probably reached its daily maximum at three in the afternoon, especially in the Via dei Saponai. The street of the soapmakers, how illustrious was that, in the great city of the Renaissance? But it led south off the Via dei Neri and the sun shone straight down its length. Fine in the winter; in the summer, though, it was deserted, a scalding thoroughfare to nowhere. No wonder business was bad.
It was hard to marshal your thoughts in this temperature. Brunello’s wife was after him and Sandro Cellini, private investigator, was after Brunello. Roxana slowed as it dawned on her: this was something. Not just a rumour, not just a bit of something to be gossiped about — this was her boss. Her job. If Brunello was in trouble — then she stopped.
Even from the end of the street she could see that something was up. The light was on in the bank, but they didn’t open up again till four, didn’t have to get back inside till three-thirty. Could Val have come back early from his lunch hour, instead of his usual six minutes late, smiling amiably and knowing he’d be forgiven?
But August turned everything on its head; maybe Val had got too lazy to go out in the first place. And for a minute, her thoughts loosened by the wine, Roxana thought again of the man from the cinema with his bag of takings. As they came in with their cash and paying-in books, all those shop assistants and market boys, were they tempted just to do a runner? They must be. August would be the month to do it.
It wasn’t Valentino. Marisa Goldman met her at the security door.
Marisa Goldman, straight-nosed, arrogant and beautiful as an Egyptian cat — only not today. She was tanned, her black hair was looped up in the usual tight shiny French knot, but under the superficial effects of the sun she looked sallow and ugly with shock.
‘What is it?’ said Roxana immediately. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be on what’s his name’s yacht? What’s happened? Something’s happened.’
But Marisa was saying nothing; carefully she closed the door behind Roxana and as they passed from the sweltering street into the tepid gloom of the banking floor she felt a sweat breakout all down her back. Only when they were both in Marisa’s neat office, with the leather and steel chairs and the expensive lamp, did she speak.
‘It’s Claudio,’ she said, and her voice shook.
‘Claudio,’ repeated Roxana stupidly, wanting to ward off the terrible moment. ‘What’s happened?’
They were both standing. She saw that Marisa was wearing beach clothes, a turquoise silk shirt, no jewellery, sandals. Those little knotted cotton bracelets you could have tied round your wrist by some Chinese girl on the beach.