Jack paused and wondered how he could break the news to Nancy. She would go ape. He decided to do it anyway. The prospect of being involved in an active criminal case was simply too hard to resist.
'Okay,' he said. 'You've got twenty-four hours of my time. I'll call you when I've booked in somewhere.'
Orsetta punched the air. 'Grazie,' she said.
As Jack said goodbye, she clicked the phone off and gave one rueful glance towards the house of the friend whom she hadn't seen for eighteen months, and now probably wouldn't see again for another year and a half. Still, Orsetta had got her man. As she walked carefully back down Montepulciano's steep and winding road, she spotted an old woman asleep on a hard-backed chair by an open front door, a red shawl around her neck. Orsetta gently placed the flowers and cherries at her feet and walked away. As she did so, she wondered whether Jack King looked anything near as sexy as he sounded.
15
Sofitel Hotel, Florence, Tuscany Jack always got Nancy three specific things on anniversaries – something to wear, something to eat and something to read. The three choices were designed to play on her senses of sight, touch and taste, and Jack liked to think he had the imagination to make some pretty interesting purchases. Something to wear was once a pink winter anorak, not too romantic until she put her hand in the pocket and discovered the plane tickets to Sweden and the booking at the Ice Palace where they were to spend the following week. This year Something to wear was red and lacy and he hoped it would awaken the magic of years gone by. Something to eat had traditionally been a visit to a new restaurant, except for the year when the local amateur players were putting on Romeo and Juliet. A flash of his gold shield in the right places had enabled him to hire the set for the afternoon, ship in violinists and pizza and have the two leading cast members perform extracts between the courses. True, it had been more comic than romantic, but it still rated as memorable. This year, well, he was leaving the food side up to Paolo, who had promised to do something gastronomically pornographic with white truffles and Italian brandy. Something to read had always been the easiest. Sometimes it had been a book that summed up their relationship. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus had started the trend and occasionally Nancy had been cheeky enough to put in her own specific orders, asking for works by foreign poets with names he'd never heard of, like Szymborska and Saint-John Perse. This year, Jack had just hurriedly completed his trinity of gifts and was heading into the Sofitel on Via de Cerratani with an English translation of Dante's Divine Comedy. He hadn't really looked inside, but knew Dante was Tuscan and a medieval poet, so he reckoned his lucky find was relevant enough to prove popular.
The Sofitel was located inside a converted seventeenth-century palace and, most importantly, close to the railway station from where Jack hoped to catch an early-morning train back to his wife. There was a chance that she would have calmed down by then.
He fought his way through a swarm of German tourists who were buzzing phrases of mangled Italian at the front-desk staff. Finally he managed to secure a second-floor room looking out towards Piazza del Duomo. Best of all though, it had the kind of deepfreeze air-conditioning that he was used to back home. He clicked the fan on high and raided the mini-bar to make Bloody Marys. The session with the shrink had unsettled him. It had not been the gibberish he had anticipated; it had made sense.
Fenella was right. He was frightened. He was anxious, and he had to do something about it.
And even though he'd promised himself he would go back and see the sessions out, right now he was going to banish all those awful home truths with a good dose of trusty Russian vodka.
The first drink didn't touch the sides.
He ran his finger along the inside of the glass and licked tomato juice off it. Minutes later he took the second to the bed, where he flopped down, kicked off his shoes and called Portinari to find out where she was and decide whether to hold off eating or not. Her phone tripped to a recorded message in Italian which he guessed meant he should leave his name and number. After sinking the second vodka and tomato juice he flicked on CNN and decided to kill time by checking out Nancy's new book. It contained both the original Italian, on the left side of the page, and a translation on the right. He ploughed past the blurb on Dante, stuff describing him as the founder of the Italian language for the common people, a brief story about his exile from a house not far from Jack's hotel, and some remarks about the two writers who'd carried out the translation. Eventually he got to the first Canto and read it out loud in an atrocious Italian accent: 'Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita, mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, che la diritta via era smarrita.' Jack couldn't understand a word of it, but that didn't stop him enjoying every syllable as the melody of the words swirled as richly around his mouth as a fine Italian brandy. He glanced over to the translation and found it had a personal resonance: 'Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.' Right now, he sure felt that way. He wondered just how his life in the FBI's elite psychological profiling unit had so quickly changed into a life in Italy helping run a small hotel. Was he here by choice, or because he had been unable to face up to the darkness that had overwhelmed him back in the US?
Another drink chased off his melancholia and the alcohol and the warmth of the room soon lured him into an unplanned doze. He dreamt something nice for once. He was somewhere with Nancy, far off on an undulating Tuscan hillside, the sun shining as brightly as it always did. Zack was running in front of them with a birthday balloon tied to his wrist. As Jack's eyes fixed on the balloon it exploded, with a bang so loud it made his blood race. He sat upright in bed and realized the noise was someone knocking on his door. He checked his watch and saw he'd been asleep for nearly three hours. 'Just a minute. Hang on!' he shouted, rubbing his eyes and giving himself a once-over in a wardrobe mirror, as he walked to the door. Instinctively, he slid back the spy hole cover and checked out the caller. Through his squinted view, he guessed someone from the front desk had a message for him. 'Signore King?' asked a dark-haired girl as he opened up. Sure enough, she was carrying an official-looking document case.
'Hi there,' he said sleepily, patting his pocket. 'Hold on one minute, I'll get a pen.' He left her hanging, the spring-loaded door virtually banging shut in her face, while he searched for a pen and a few loose euros for a tip.
'Sorry,' said Jack, opening up again, the coins clinking in his palm.
The girl seemed bewildered. He took a closer look at her. She reminded him of an Italian Keira Knight-ley, only larger and with maybe a little more muscle than the featherweight film star. 'You have something for me?' he said, nodding towards the case. 'Do I need to sign first?'
'Signore, I don't want you to sign anything,' she announced, holding out her hand. 'I am Detective Inspector Portinari.'
'Shit! I'm so sorry,' said Jack, deftly pocketing the euros he had been about to tip her and shaking her outstretched hand. 'Please come in. It's been a long day and I'd almost given up on you coming tonight.'
He held the door this time. As she squeezed past him, she decided that his looks did indeed match up to the strong voice she'd heard on the phone. He was certainly much taller and broader than she'd imagined.
'I'm sorry I'm so late,' she said. 'Italian traffic is always bad, and then I had some trouble booking in downstairs.'
'Too many guests and not enough staff,' said Jack. 'You want a drink?'
'Is that cold?' she asked, pointing towards an unopened bottle of Orvieto that Jack had taken out of the mini-bar in order to reach the vodka.