‘And later?’ Sandro had prompted. ‘When did he tell you — his full name?’
She had frowned effortfully. ‘The third time, I think. If the oranges was the first time. He came to find me at the hotel the second time, two days later, but I think perhaps he wasn’t made very welcome.’
Sandro had pursed his lips judiciously, thinking of the desiccated old lady at the reception desk. Had she been looking after Anna’s interests, or protecting her investment, her cheap labour supply? Both, perhaps; he had made a mental note, send Luisa back there. Get her to talk to the woman.
‘We went for a meal together.’ He had seen a fierce blush beginning, at the base of her neck. ‘And then he gave me a telephone, my telephone, so that we could — so that he didn’t have to call the hotel.’
‘And the third time you met?’ The blush had been building, and Sandro made his voice as soft as he could.
‘It wasn’t the third time, it was the fourth. We were walking in Fiesole, he told me. He told me he worked in a bank, his name was Claudio Josef Brunello, he had a good job.’
She had bobbed her head down, and Sandro had seen the glow of her cheek, her mouth set. Had it been the third meeting, or the fourth, or the fifth, when the child had been conceived? This was what she had been waiting for them to ask, and this, he could tell, was the first time it had occurred to Anna Niescu to feel shame.
Had her Josef been lying to impress her into bed — or had the deed been done, and he desperate not to lose her?
‘You’ve done nothing wrong, Anna,’ he had said in an undertone.
Behind him, Pietro had cleared his throat.
‘You’ve been through a terrible experience,’ Pietro had said, leaning forward, both of their heads close to hers now. ‘I’m so sorry that we had to bring you here.’ She had been stilled, head down and thinking. ‘But this man,’ and Sandro hadn’t known Pietro could speak so softly, ‘this dead man you just saw. He had a family. It seems, he was a good man, and at this moment there is no explanation for his death.’
Anna had raised her head to look at him suddenly, the flush already cooling on her cheeks. Pietro had gone on. ‘There may be a connection. That’s all. There may be — what you tell us may help us to find — to find out what happened.’
She had shifted her gaze to Sandro, then back, looking from one weary, anxious face to the other. ‘A connection?’ Then a hand had come up to her mouth. ‘You think this man-’ Her eyes flew to the door, then back. ‘You think it wasn’t an accident?’
They had just looked at her sorrowfully, and her eyes had widened.
‘Do you think my Josef — what do you mean, a connection?’ She’d sat forward, rigid, hands either side of her on the chair and the hard mound of her stomach in her lap like a boulder she couldn’t shift. ‘Is he in danger? You must tell me. Is Josef in danger?’
The extremity of her anguish had frightened Sandro; he could only think of the child crammed inside her, the panic transmitting itself, a flood of chemicals. ‘Shh,’ he had said, desperately searching for calm. ‘Please, don’t worry. We don’t know anything at the moment. There’s no reason to think that — your fiance is in danger. We’re just trying to understand. That’s all.’
He had turned to Pietro. ‘Not now,’ he’d said. ‘This isn’t helping. There may be no connection at all.’ And brusquely Pietro had nodded, knowing that the words were principally for Anna’s benefit.
‘Go with Sandro, now,’ Pietro had said, searching the girl’s face. ‘He’ll look after you.’
He hadn’t needed to say to Sandro, I’ll call you later. He’d known enough to say nothing more. But at the door they had exchanged a look over her head. There was plenty to talk about.
Pietro had called them a taxi. ‘Oh,’ he had said, almost an afterthought. ‘I — we were in the bank this morning. His bank. A chat — with the colleagues.’
‘Right,’ Sandro had said. ‘And?’
Pietro had shaken his head. ‘We took statements,’ he had said. ‘None of them thought he was suicidal. Terrible shock to all of them. All came up with stories as to what they were up to that weekend. Actually, they looked scared stiff, all three.’
‘I liked the girl,’ Sandro had said.
‘The girl,’ Pietro had said, pondering. ‘The younger woman, you mean?’
Sandro had allowed himself a smile. ‘They’re all girls to me. But yes. Roxana Delfino. I spoke to her — when I thought my guy was your guy.’
Pietro had nodded, distant. ‘What a set-up,’ he had said. ‘That place is on the way out.’ Sandro grunted agreement.
Pietro had gone on, ‘The Guardia di Finanza’s on the case. In there, in the bank this morning, I hear. Just after we left.’
‘Really? That was quick.’ And Sandro had felt a pang, for Signorina Roxana Delfino.
‘Yeah,’ Pietro had said, avoiding his gaze. And at his expression Sandro had felt a small pulse start in some distant part of what was once his policeman’s brain: the beginnings of a trail, like a porcupine quill in the woods. There was something Pietro hadn’t told him. Yet.
‘They closing the place down, or what? The Guardia, shutting the bank down, I mean?’
Pietro still wasn’t quite looking at him. ‘Who knows?’ he had said. ‘They said they’d have a look. Could mean anything, couldn’t it, with those guys? Tape across the door and frozen assets, or just a coffee and a chat, or something in between. They said they’d keep us — what did they say? In the loop. It’s a suspicious death, after all, that’s our territory.’
‘Suspicious death now? What happened to suicide?’
And Pietro had sighed. ‘Well. All right.’ Still sounding cagey. ‘So he didn’t get the girl pregnant, he isn’t her guy. We were kind of going down that road, as motive for suicide.’
‘I never went along with that,’ Sandro had pointed out.
‘No,’ Pietro had said. ‘OK. But he was a bank manager. If the Guardia see fit to talk to us about the state of that bank … He might have got himself into all sorts of trouble, and this seemed like the only way out.’
Sandro had grunted. That kind of information might take its time getting through, to say the least. ‘Anything new? Anything at all? The injuries: I don’t see how it could have been a hit and run. I just don’t see it. How about DNA?’
His old friend had shifted uneasily. ‘There are — difficulties, just now. It doesn’t quite add up.’ He had stopped, and Sandro had taken pity.
‘It’s OK,’ he had said. ‘I know, I’ve got no uniform, no right to know. Plus, this isn’t even my guy we’re talking about. It’s OK.’
And they had both looked away, anywhere but at each other, over at Anna sitting in the corner patiently, at the dust motes on the unwashed windows, the car park, the traffic moving snail-slow on the motorway a hundred metres away.
‘I’d give you a ride,’ Pietro had said, breaking the silence eventually, nodding down to the patrol car sitting in the laboratory’s car park. ‘But I’m pushing things as it is. Matteucci’s started grumbling. Who are you, to get all this attention? Abuse of privilege, blah, blah.’
‘Bastard,’ Sandro had said reflexively. He’d have to wait, then, for Pietro to decide to tell him whatever it was. Pietro had just grunted again.
In the cab home, though, Anna sitting beside him, clinging to the side of the car as they bumped over the flagstones of the city’s empty backstreets, Sandro had grown anxious. Was Pietro telling him to back off? Was he pushing his luck? The last thing he wanted was to get Pietro into trouble — serious trouble — just as he was thinking about taking early retirement. He had caught the driver eyeing them curiously in his rearview mirror, putting it all together: police call, pick-up from the pathology lab, pregnant girl, man old enough to be her father. What sense could it make to him?