‘The heat,’ she said wearily. ‘It’s just the heat.’ She’d barely set down her bag and the boy — ‘waiter’ was too dignified for him — was there at her elbow, with his insolent face.
‘Water,’ she said brusquely. ‘From the tap will do fine.’
The boy turned with contempt back to the stupid, flimsy, pine-built bar, and the moment he was out of earshot Giuli said, ‘He’s alive.’
For a moment Sandro found himself unable to process what she meant. ‘He — he-’
‘Anna’s fiance,’ she said calmly, refusing to acknowledge the idiocy of the title fidanzato. ‘Josef.’
Sandro sat back, and for a moment all the things he had to talk over with Giuli found themselves shoved into a heap at the back of his mind. ‘He’s alive,’ he said blankly. ‘How do you know?’
She told him: not much information, more guesswork.
‘Dasha. She said he was scared. That’s all, then she clammed up, wants Anna to think he’s dead and gone. It’s obvious to me he came looking for Anna at the Loggiata, and Dasha saw him off.’
‘Scared,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘She said he was scared. Dasha. She saw him all right.’
‘Maybe Dasha was right,’ said Giuli. ‘To send him packing. Anna — in her condition. Best out of it.’
Sandro pondered, studying his hands. ‘Maybe he just wanted — God. I don’t know. Not to talk to her. To know she was all right.’ Why did he persist in the belief that Josef had to be the good guy, with so much evidence mounting against him? But he did. ‘I would. If I was in trouble.’
And something stirred, a certainty. He looked up, met Giuli’s eye. ‘He’s in trouble. In danger.’
‘Yes,’ said Giuli, and the tough set of her mouth softened into something more uncertain. More frightened.
Sandro buried his face in his hands, thinking. Josef was alive. And all he felt was afraid.
‘I don’t know,’ he said uneasily, raising his eyes and glancing across the river. ‘I don’t know about all this.’
‘No,’ agreed Giuli, frowning. Then, ‘What? What else has happened?’
‘The Guardia’s in there, in the bank.’
‘The Guardia?’ Her expression was blank. ‘Investigating them? And that might be connected to our case — how? Brunello’s not our client, you know, nor his wife.’
Sandro shifted uneasily, wishing he had Luisa here. ‘Shall we get back to the apartment?’ he said.
Giuli compressed her lips, reading his mind. ‘I’m not good enough, now you’ve got me here?’ she said. Then relented. ‘Anna’s at the apartment,’ she said. ‘Tricky to talk to Luisa with her there.’
Sandro sighed. ‘Yes.’
Painful, too, having Anna under his roof: painful both to have to contemplate her big belly, and to see Luisa take on another lame duck. Not that Giuli had turned out too badly.
The waiter returned with a greasy glass of water, setting it down in front of Giuli without a word.
‘Thanks,’ said Sandro. ‘That’s kind.’ He held the boy’s gaze until, uneasily, he turned and hurried away.
‘I’ll take her back to the Loggiata this evening,’ said Giuli, ‘and then you can talk. She’s tougher than she looks.’ She watched him, waiting. ‘So?’ she said. ‘The connection? Between the Guardia and Anna’s missing guy?’
‘All right,’ said Sandro, ‘all right.’
Suddenly he felt impatient with himself, letting all this get to him, the heat, the guilt, the shame. It came to him that he couldn’t go on like this, apologizing for himself, telling himself how low he’d sunk. There had to be a way of being a private detective that he could live with. He set his hands flat on the table.
‘Josef didn’t choose Claudio Brunello’s name at random,’ Sandro said. ‘His real name — well. He has a connection with that bank, and I think if we find out how Brunello died we might be an awful lot closer to finding Josef.’
‘Fine,’ said Giuli warily. ‘Agreed. And if the bank’s being investigated — fine.’ She sat back with arms folded. She knew he hadn’t told her what he knew yet.
Sandro rubbed the back of his neck, his thoughts returning at last to Pietro. They were in it together now, like it or not. He should never have put his old partner in that situation.
It must have been a million to one, Sandro had thought when Pietro said it, what were the odds? ‘I think we’ve got a DNA sample that matches the blood,’ he’d said. Sandro had almost heard him shifting from foot to foot, his unease palpable. ‘Not admissible in court, not officially held — well, you know the deal. They were swabbing a gypsy encampment for DNA a few years ago, just north of Rome.’
They. Sandro could have asked which force they were talking about, but he knew Pietro might clam up. And Carabinieri or Polizia dello Stato, did it matter which? It could even have been some agency in between, some covert operation. The samples would certainly have been obtained under dubious circumstances and should have been destroyed.
They could have had a discussion about it, he and Pietro, if they weren’t both now implicated. The gypsy populations were a significant pain in the backside, but you couldn’t just take their prints for nothing. Because what would be next? Concentration camps and forced sterilization?
Sandro knew they were mostly good guys, Pietro and the rest. Sandro himself, when he’d been a serving officer.
‘Pietro called,’ he said. ‘It’s difficult for him, you know? To tell me stuff. There’s this new guy-’ He stopped.
Giuli just nodded, took a sip of her water. ‘I guess,’ she said, waiting for him to go on.
Sandro sighed. ‘He told me that some of the blood Brunello was soaked in wasn’t his own.’
‘Blood,’ repeated Giuli blankly.
She did look pale; Sandro leaned across to her and took her damp, warm hand. ‘And they’ve found a DNA match.’
‘He’s got a criminal record?’ She looked shaken. ‘Her fiance?’
‘The blood belonged to someone called Josef Cynaricz who was living in a gyspy camp north of Rome a couple of years ago,’ he said. ‘Eastern European, sounds like, somewhere along the line.’
‘Josef,’ she said slowly. ‘Doesn’t mean — doesn’t have to be him.’
Slowly Sandro shook his head. They both knew. ‘I think it’s him,’ said Sandro carefully.
‘But how did they have his — what did they have? Prints? DNA — how did they know then? If he isn’t a criminal?’ Giuli, straight to the point, looked down at Sandro’s hand holding hers. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, and he took his hand away.
‘Just the usual,’ Pietro had said evasively when Sandro had asked more or less the same question, ‘a bit of panhandling,’ and then, ‘No, nothing proven. No outcome, just some routine evidence-gathering.’ He hadn’t been able to say much more. ‘That’s it, honestly,’ he’d said, and Sandro had believed him. ‘There’s another case come in, I’ve got to get down south of the river.’
And Sandro hadn’t been able to help himself. ‘South?’
‘Beyond Bellosguardo, that hill. Fatal mugging, looks like, possible attempted carjack. Fancy car. Got to go.’ And had hung up hurriedly.
Now Giuli was still looking at him. ‘Well?’ she said. ‘Do the police have anything on him, this Josef?’
‘No,’ said Sandro sheepishly. ‘Not as far as I know. Just — a fluke they held on to the DNA.’
‘Mistaken identity.’ Giuli eyed him. ‘Coincidence.’ Her arms remained tightly folded across her body.
‘The DNA record will be destroyed,’ said Sandro. ‘Eventually. It can’t be used in court. And in the meantime, it’s helped us.’
‘How much, though?’ said Giuli, relaxing just a little, leaning forward. ‘Can it tell us where he is now?’
‘It’s a name,’ said Pietro. ‘There’s a family somewhere. There might be a mugshot, a decent photo somewhere on record; he might even be legal. An address.’
Giuli regarded him with deep scepticism. ‘Legal? A Roma? And what are the odds that family’s long-gone from whatever filthy camp your guys had them cooped up in?’