‘Signor Fallucci insisted on the very best guest room,’ Anna replied. ‘He says that every attention must be paid to you.’
‘That’s very kind of him,’ she murmured.
‘If you will follow me, signorina…’
Anna showed her through a door to a bathroom with walls also of exposed stone, an antique marble basin and hand-painted tiles. Thick ivory towels hung on the walls.
‘If the signorina is satisfied-’
‘Yes, it’s lovely,’ Holly said mechanically. She could feel a net closing about her.
‘If you would care to rest now, a meal will be sent to you here.’
When she was alone she sat down on the bed, feeling winded. On the face of it she’d fallen on her feet, but that wasn’t how it felt. The more she was welcomed and pampered, the more unnatural it all seemed, and the more nervous she became.
Everything made it clear to her that Judge Fallucci was a supremely powerful as well as a wealthy man. He was using both to prepare a niche for her, so comfortable that she wouldn’t want to leave.
But the fact was that she could not leave, even if she wanted to. He’d taken her passport; she had little money and no clothes. Now she had to depend on this stranger, who had seized control of her for his own purposes.
Despite the luxurious surface of her surroundings, she was a helpless prisoner.
CHAPTER TWO
SUPPER, when it arrived, was a feast for the gods. Soup made with ray fish and broccoli, lamb roasted in a sauce of garlic, rosemary, vinegar and anchovy, followed by tozzetti, sweet cookies made from sugar, almonds and aniseed.
With every course came the proper wine, rough red, crisp white or icy mineral water. Everything was perfect. Nothing had been left to chance.
When she had finished eating Holly went to the window and watched the last rays of the sun setting over the garden, which stretched out of sight, a maze of pines, Cyprus trees and flowers, threaded by paths, along which a tall man was strolling.
‘Signor Fallucci walks there every evening,’ Anna said, just behind her. She had come into the room to collect the tray. ‘Always he goes to visit his wife’s grave.’
‘She’s buried here?’
‘In a patch of ground that was specially consecrated.’
‘How long has he been a widower?’
‘Eight months. She died in a train crash, last December, and the little girl was badly hurt.’
‘Poor little mite.’
‘You can just see the monument, there-where the setting sun just touches the tip. Every evening he stands before it for a long time. When it’s dark he walks back to the house, but here there is only more darkness for him.’
‘I can imagine,’ she breathed.
‘He says he will see you in his study in twenty minutes,’ Anna added, departing with the tray.
Earlier, the high-handed message would have annoyed her. Now, watching him moving in the dusk, she realised that there had been a subtle change. He looked lonely, almost crushed. She began to feel a little more confident. Perhaps he wasn’t so fearsome after all.
At the exact time she knocked on the study door, and received a cool, ‘Avanti!’
Entering, she found herself in a room, dominated by a large oak desk, with a table lamp that provided the room’s only light. Outside its arc she was dimly aware of walls lined with leather-bound books.
He was standing by the window, looking out, and turned when she entered. But he didn’t move out of the shadows, and she couldn’t make out much more than his outline.
‘Good evening, signorina.’ His voice seemed to come from a distance. ‘You would prefer that we talk in English?’
‘Yes, thank you, Signor Fallucci.’
‘Your room is to your liking?’
‘Yes, and the meal was delicious.’
‘Of course.’ His tone suggested this was the natural order of things. ‘Otherwise my staff would have heard my displeasure. Would you care to sit down?’
He indicated the chair facing the desk. It was a command, not a request, and she sat.
‘I know something about you from my daughter,’ he said, seating himself opposite her. ‘Your name is Holly, you are English and you come from Portsmouth.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Didn’t you tell Liza that you lived in Portsmouth?’ he said sharply. ‘She thinks you did.’
‘That’s a mistake, and I’ll explain if you’ll let me finish.’ For all her resolution to tread carefully she couldn’t keep an annoyed edge out of her voice. She was damned if she’d let him cross-examine her as though they were in court.
He leaned back in his chair and made a gesture that meant, ‘Go on.’
‘I come from a little town in the English Midlands. Portsmouth is down on the south coast and I know it quite well because I’ve spent some holidays there. I tried to tell Liza that, but the place means a lot to her because of her mother. So I talked about it, as much as I could remember, and I think she seized on that, built on it and just blotted out the bit she didn’t need. She’s clinging on to something that can bring her a scrap of comfort. Children do it all the time.’
‘And not just children,’ he murmured.
There was a silence.
‘Please go on,’ he said at last.
‘I don’t know what else there is to say.’
He’d been half-turned away from her. Now he swung around and spoke in a hard voice.
‘We have a difficult situation. I’m a judge and you are on the run from the police.’
‘You don’t know that,’ she challenged. ‘They didn’t identify me in the compartment today.’
‘Very shrewd. Clearly they know little about the woman they are seeking, not even that she goes by the name of Holly-whatever her real name may be.’
He was silent, watching her. When she didn’t speak he shrugged and said, ‘You could, of course, give me any name you like.’
‘Not while you’re holding my passport,’ she replied.
He nodded and a glimmer of a smile flickered over his face.
‘You were trying to trip me up,’ she said furiously.
‘If I was, I didn’t succeed. Good.’
‘And if I had succeeded?’
‘Then I’d have been disappointed in you. As it is, you present me with a problem.’
‘You could have solved it in a moment this afternoon.’
‘That would have been impossible,’ he said heavily. ‘You know why.’
‘Liza. Yes, you couldn’t have done that to that poor little girl.’
‘And it’s left me in a very awkward position,’ he said, half angrily.
‘But you didn’t actually tell the police any lies.’
‘I can’t console myself with such nit-picking.’
‘So now you want to know all about me, and what I’m supposed to have done,’ she said, bracing herself.
His reply astonished her.
‘At this moment, the very last thing I want is to know all about you. I know that you are a decent person, incapable of evil.’
‘How can you know that?’
‘Because I’ve met a thousand criminals and I know the difference. You develop an instinct. My instinct tells me that at worst you involved yourself in some foolishness that you didn’t understand. And also,’ his voice slowed and he added reluctantly, ‘also because of the way Liza clung to you. That little girl’s instinct is even surer than mine. If you had a criminal heart she would never have turned to you and wept in your arms.’
Holly was silent, amazed. She would not have expected such insight from this man.
Suddenly he rounded on her. ‘Am I wrong?’ he asked sharply.
‘No,’ she said. ‘You’re not wrong.’
‘Good. Then I need to know a little about you, but let’s keep it to the minimum. Give me a rough idea, but no details and no names.’
‘It was as you said. I got caught up in something bad, not realising what was really happening. When I discovered the truth I ran, fast.’