‘What?’ said Val. ‘Who?’
She turned and looked at Val. ‘Marisa. Did she — did she and Claudio have a — have something going on?’
He looked at her levelly. ‘Is that what you think?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Roxana and found herself suddenly overwhelmed by the desire to cry quietly somewhere. Poor Claudio. What did it matter, an affair? Poor Claudio, his poor wife. ‘Did she tell you what the private detective came back for?’
Val shook his head.
‘You didn’t ask?’ she said, hearing the unshed tears coming into her voice. ‘Aren’t you even curious?’
‘Roxi,’ said Val, his voice strained. He never called her that — it sounded strange. ‘Listen. Are you all right, really?’ Roxana felt herself stiffen at his concern. ‘I mean,’ he went on, ‘this thing with your mother. This stalker thing.’
‘It was just her imagination,’ Roxana said, a little too sharply. Feeling that tug: other people had someone to share their troubles with. All this worry, about getting old. Was that what Val was offering, a shoulder to cry on?
Then they heard her call, from beyond the door. Marisa: impatient, querulous, that You’d better not make me have to come and find you note in her voice.
‘You’re feeling sorry for her, aren’t you?’ Val said.
‘Am I?’
‘You’re too soft, Roxi.’
‘She’s a ballbreaker, I know,’ Roxana began.
‘Oh, yeah, and the rest,’ Val sounded almost bored. ‘Ball-breaker, marriage wrecker. You know she was supposed to have gone straight to the yacht with Paolo after work, Thursday? Well, let me tell you, she was still in the city on Friday evening. Still here because I saw her on the doorstep of Claudio’s building in Campo di Marte, talking into the intercom. I saw the door open, and she went in.’
‘Did she see you? You were on the bike?’ The shiny red Triumph: Val was hardly inconspicuous.
‘Not sure.’ He shrugged. ‘She might have done.’
‘Did you tell the police?’
Valentino looked uneasy. ‘Well — not exactly,’ he said. ‘I mean, it’s not like she-’ He stopped, looking genuinely puzzled. ‘I didn’t want to get her into trouble. I mean, that’s serious trouble, right? Lying to the police? Telling you — that’s not the same. Because’s she’s behaving like such a bitch.’
Roxana returned his uncertain smile. Who knew what was the right thing to do?
‘I guess they’ll find out, in the end,’ she said slowly.
‘Both of you,’ called Marisa, imperious, and Roxana practically ran out of the room. Val followed, sauntering.
They shuffled into Marisa’s office like schoolchildren. Erase it from your mind, Roxana told herself. It’s gossip. She didn’t even look at Val.
Marisa looked pale, but calm, setting things straight on her desk, sliding papers into her briefcase. Papers the Guardia might have wanted to see, wondered Roxana? Marisa’s expression challenged her to say anything.
She set the briefcase on the floor. ‘They’re — ah — the Guardia have asked that we should temporarily suspend business,’ she said, her voice steady. ‘They’ve been called to another case tomorrow and they think — they want things left as they are. It’s temporary. Perhaps only twenty-four, forty-eight hours.’
Val was pale under his tan, and staring. ‘What about the customers?’ he said.
‘The other branches will be unaffected.’ She fiddled with a pen.
No one said anything. It was hardly worth pointing out that the Banca di Toscana Provinciale had now, with the temporary closure of the Via dei Saponai branch, contracted by one-sixth.
There was a folded piece of paper on the desk and Marisa picked it up, more as a distraction than anything else, Roxana would have said, to avoid meeting their shocked looks. Marisa unfolded it and stared down at it, unfocused, and without thinking Roxana followed her gaze. From upside down, it seemed to be a photographic image of poor quality, a blow-up of the head and shoulders of two figures. Roxana tilted her head to get a better look and as she did so Marisa crumpled the page into a ball and swivelled on her chair to locate her wastepaper bin.
Out of the corner of her eye Roxana felt Val turn his head, questioning, towards her.
‘Hold on,’ she said to Marisa, putting out a hand to stop her. ‘Hold on. What’s that? Who was that?’
Marisa looked at the ball of paper as if it was nothing to do with her.
‘In the picture?’ Roxana persisted. ‘Who was it?’
‘That private detective,’ said Marisa, with an angry edge to her voice. ‘And his bloody questions. Why should we help him now?’
‘Can I see?’ Roxana held out her hand, palm open. Marisa glanced at it, and Roxana could see she was considering refusal. She placed the ball of paper in Roxana’s open palm and sighed.
‘The detective,’ she said with cold reluctance. ‘He was looking for this man. The man was passing himself off as Claudio, and now he has disappeared. He thinks — oh, heaven knows what he thinks. That perhaps he has something to do with Claudio’s — with his-’ And she stopped short, as if the word had escaped her. Death. Was that the word?
Careful not to tear the paper, Roxana prised it open, laying it on the desk, and smoothed it flat. The image had been distorted further now, but she could see enough. She went on smoothing, but there it was. She felt Val come close to look over her shoulder, she could smell his aftershave.
‘It’s him,’ she said and she realized that Val, like a child, was repeating it just fractionally late over her shoulder.
‘It’s him.’
She turned and looked at him, not feeling like laughing.
‘Who?’ said Marisa: she spoke sharply, like a teacher suspecting her pupils of insubordination. ‘It’s who?’
*
‘What?’ said Luisa to Anna Niescu, taking her arm. ‘What’s that expression mean?’
The girl was leaning against the fence outside the apartment block, the bougainvillea behind it tumbling over her small shoulder like a bridal wreath. She had one hand against the side of her belly and the other holding on to the railing.
Luisa hadn’t wanted her to come. It was half an hour on the bus, they ran erratically at the best of times, let alone in August. And she hadn’t even wanted to look at that ridiculous thermometer Sandro had installed on the bathroom windowsill. They said the weather was going to break tomorrow. Thunder, coming down from the Alps.
Anna’s face was intent, and she didn’t seem willing to move or speak.
‘Does it hurt?’ asked Luisa. The girl shook her head minutely, and slowly her expression cleared.
‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘They told me at the clinic, these are just normal, it all goes hard for a few moments, the muscles are squeezing. Not contractions, just — just something else. Preliminary.’
‘Preliminary?’ said Luisa, not liking the sound of the word. She glanced at the dark lobby of the apartment block and saw that the glass door had been propped open by a builder’s ladder. A builder’s van was parked on the street: August.
‘For the last few months. Look,’ said Anna, and gestured down as if Luisa would be able to see. ‘Not squeezing any more. Not tight.’
She reached for Luisa’s hand and, before she could protest, set it against her stomach. Firm and warm and strong, was how it felt, then against her hand something pushed, the knobbed protrusion of a joint, a heel or an elbow. Anna’s eyes met Luisa’s for just a second, then Luisa took her hand away.
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ she said.
‘It’s better already,’ said Anna. ‘Better than the last time. When I was alone, and no one would let me in.’ She looked up at the building’s facade. ‘It’s around there,’ she said. ‘The other side. With the view of the hills.’
They stood at the gate and looked, both suddenly hesitant. Then Luisa punched in the code Giovanna Baldini had given her, skirted the ladder and they were inside. Standing in the darkened hallway, they didn’t know what to do next.
They’d had to come: Anna had insisted. ‘I won’t know until I’m there,’ she had said. ‘I — there. Inside the apartment, then I’ll know what it was that bothered me.’