A quick splash at the bidet and he is on his feet, but his legs have gone numb after crouching too long. He staggers to the bed, stumbling across it as Yvonne turns round from the mirror to examine him, splayed out. That sonnet by Shelley, about Ozymandias, comes into his head. “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair,” he declaims, but Yvonne sniffs and goes back to her own work, mascara wand in hand, shoulders hunched in concentration, her bra straps lifting off the skin above her breasts. Good thing she doesn’t pick up the reference, he thinks, she could use it against me. Never mind, she’ll have ample opportunity for that before all this is over. Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck. As the blood flows back into his legs, he feels strangely invigorated by his morning’s reading. There’s nothing like a decent evacuation and an article dedicated entirely to one’s own sweet self to put one in the mood for breakfast. That and the first faint stirring of an erection. God, though, she’s thin. Half the size of Stefania. But wasn’t that the point?
“I don’t suppose you’d like to smudge your lipstick?” he says.
She doesn’t hear, or pretends not to. Giacomo lies sprawled across the bed, playing with himself in a desultory way, tempted to simply wank in front of her and have done with it. Helen would take him up on the offer, he thinks, and feels himself stiffen, though part of his brain knows full well that Helen was never as available as he would have liked, as though she’s always known that some small part of the fun – because it
has
been fun, even yesterday had been
fun
– has nothing to do with her and what she offers, but draws its sustenance from Giacomo’s cuckolding of his best friend and rival, now slotted into a grey steel cabinet for the dead a couple of miles from this hotel room. He looks around the walls, hand motionless, shell-like, on his groin. Decent room,
tutti i confort
, as they still say, provincial as ever. Funny place to pick though, Via Veneto, as if Rome hasn’t moved on since Tyrone Power punched paparazzi in the face. Now it’s nothing but lard-arsed tourists and glove shops and a particularly shabby Hard Rock Cafe.
These last few weeks he’s been getting messages of various kinds from Federico, emails, faxes, the occasional text on his mobile. He isn’t sure he’ll say this to Helen, nor anyone else, he hasn’t quite admitted it to himself, but the impression these messages have given him is of a man on the slipway to some state of, not madness exactly, exaltation. The tone of a man anointed by the Lord, or of one who thinks he is. Not like Federico at all. Messages filled with references Giacomo hasn’t bothered to look up, to tree huggers of various kinds, Taoists, heaven knows who else. Flat earth fundamentalists, intellectual-stroke-spiritual-stroke-stark raving bonkers Taliban. With trepidation and not entirely without that pleasure one derives from a friend’s misfortune he’s been looking forward to whatever Federico’s contribution to the conference might be and now that there will be no contribution, unless from beyond the grave, he feels both thwarted and relieved.
His erection has faded, so it is particularly galling that Yvonne should choose this moment to come and sit beside him on the unmade bed in her bra and panties and place one fine-boned, moisturised hand on his thigh. Flexing her fingers, drawing her varnished nails across the hair and flesh, still firm, still muscled enough, she glances at his penis, now retracted deep into the foreskin, looking like one of those twirls of sand you find on the beach. What makes them? he wonders. Worms? Lugworms? She purses her pale pink glistening lips, then stands up to dress, humming the same tuneless melody as before as she lifts down a skirt from the wardrobe and steps into it.
“Darling?”
“Yes?”
“Why can’t we go back to Paris today?” she says. Her back, naked but for the bra straps, is turned to him, her tone without urgency, as if making conversation. Giacomo, though, knows that she has been preparing this question all morning, perhaps all night. Yvonne is single-minded in the purest sense, he thinks, her mind possessing no more than one whole thought at a time, one thought that must be dealt with, concluded in some satisfactory way, for her to move on, to see what new thought might appear.
“Paris?” he says. Her head disappears, re-emerges from a pale silk top. Her tone becomes plaintive, kittenish. “We don’t have to stay here any longer, do we?” Her back is still turned, he imagines the set of her mouth and jaw, murderous; no wonder she doesn’t want to be seen.
“But I thought you had shopping to do?”
“Oh no, darling. I can do that so much better in Paris. To tell you the truth, I’m always
disappointed
by Rome. It’s lovely and historical and all that, I know, but there’s something rather provincial about it.” She pauses, her face turned away. “Something a teeny bit vulgar.” She slides her feet into her shoes, white strappy things, no tights, he likes that, that sense of her skin being within reach. “I don’t know how poor Helen can bear it.”
“Helen?” This surprises him. Yvonne enlisting Helen to achieve her own ends. He saw she was jealous yesterday, she even made a scene over dinner in the restaurant. Apparently he’d kissed her too long, too hard. And now it is
poor
Helen and he is expected to agree.
“What will she do now, do you think?”
“Do? I’ve got no idea.”
Yvonne darts over to him, across the thick beige carpet that could be anywhere, and stands beside the bed, looking down, her bottom lip pushed out in a pout. Swinging his legs off the bed, he sits up, wishing he was dressed as well. His stomach obscures the view of his penis. This is what eunuchs must be like: dickless, obese. You’re going to seed, he thinks. You’re gone.
“Please, let’s go back to Paris.”
He uses his most mollifying tone. “But Yvonne darling, we can’t. We have to stay for the conference. Besides, the police may need to speak to me again. They asked us not to leave. Don’t you remember? In any case, I can’t just abandon Helen. I promised we’d go round to see her this morning.”
“This is like some ridiculous film,” she says, indignant. “We are held here against our will.” She spins away from him, into the bathroom. “There won’t be any conference now, Giacomo. Your friend is dead.” He listens to the rustle of cloth against cloth, the hiss of cloth against skin, as she hikes up her skirt and slides her panties down, followed by the rustle of paper when she picks up the newspaper he’s been reading. He listens to her pee as she flips through the pages.
“I see now why you don’t want to leave Rome,” she shouts through when she’s finished, with a note of triumph. “All this excitement, this attention. Two whole pages devoted entirely to you. Photographs. Mitterrand! Giacomo Mura is
such
an important man.”
“A prodigal son.” But he can tell from her voice that she’s impressed. And so she should be.
“Is that what it says here? That you are a prodigal son?”
“Not exactly. It says I’m a bit of a shit, to be honest. If not worse. You know how bitter journalists can be.”
“And where are the photographs of your poor Helen?” She drags out
Helen
, a ridiculous lengthening of the vowels. But you can’t blame her for feeling jealous. Walking into the bathroom, he squats on the bidet beside her and takes her nearest hand, prising it off
Il Foglio
and lifting it to his face, covering the soft hot palm and fingers, which smell slightly of her urine, with a series of butterfly kisses. She drops the paper and strokes his head with her free hand, guiding it down towards her crotch. He reaches awkwardly behind to flush and feels the faintest sprinkle of water on his face. She sighs. “Poor Helen,” she says again, as the hotel phone begins to ring.
“That will be her,” she says, standing up and brushing him off so roughly he falls back onto his arse, banging his hip against the corner of the tub. He struggles to his feet to answer the call, wishing once again that he was dressed, aware of the ridiculous figure he cuts as he stands beside the bed, holding the receiver in his hand, stark naked.
He doesn’t recognise the voice at first, nor the man’s name. Not until the man reminds him who he is.
“I’m investigating the murder of Federico Di Stasi. You were with his widow yesterday when I spoke to her. At the hospital.”
“That’s right,” says Giacomo. “I was.” He looks around the room to see what Yvonne is doing and there he is, pasty and overweight in one of the mirrors the place is littered with, as though all people wanted to do in hotel rooms was admire themselves. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I didn’t catch your name.”
“Cotugno,” the man says. “Piero Cotugno.”
“Yes, of course,” says Giacomo, sucking his stomach in to see what difference it might make, letting it out with a grimace of disappointment.
“I wonder if you could come round to my office. I think you may be able to help me. There are one or two things I think you may be able to help me clarify.”
“Certainly,” says Giacomo, curious now, indifferent to his reflection. Yvonne is standing by the door, tapping her fingers against the plastic key in its slot. “Just tell me when.”
“A car will pick you up in fifteen minutes. I hope that gives you sufficient time.”
Giacomo looks at his watch, the only thing he’s wearing and the most expensive thing he owns, apart from cars and houses. Unless you count Yvonne. It’s just before 8 o’clock. “Yes,” he says. “That will be fine.”
Cotugno is dressed more smartly this morning, in a white shirt, grey tie and a pale blue suit, the jacket buttoned at the waist, that fits him a little too loosely; he must have lost weight recently. He doesn’t look well. He shakes Giacomo’s hand and calls for coffee, then gestures that he sit down.
“I’m sorry to have to bring you in so early,” he says. He glances up. “Pressure from above,” he says, and there’s an assumption that he’s talking to an equal that throws Giacomo off for a moment.
He crosses his legs and grasps his calf. He’s wearing shoes without socks, something he would never do in France; his ankle looks pale and unwholesome against the soft black leather of the moccasin.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” he says. Cotugno shakes his head and reaches to move an ashtray towards him. It’s a wide desk, cluttered with files. You can see the importance of the man from his surroundings, though; yesterday, in the hospital, he was harder to place. Giacomo offers Cotugno a cigarette, then lights his own. Cotugno is silent, observant. Caught off guard, Giacomo’s about to ask how he can help when the coffee arrives.
“You must miss this, living in Paris,” Cotugno says, handing him a cup.
3
Martin walks out of the agency and grabs a roll and glass of wine at the nearest bar because he has no time to go back to the flat for lunch. The last thing he did before leaving his desk was make a phone call to a friend of his, or, more precisely, to someone he has known so long, and had dealings with so often, not always pleasant, that familiarity has bred a sort of reluctant affection. The friend’s name is Corti. He has a first name, but Martin can never remember what it is. He learnt at school that first names were special, implied a difficult intimacy, and one of the reasons he has stayed in Italy so long, he tells himself, is that Italians agree with this. They also use surnames to mark out territory, just as they use handshakes to establish contact. He’s been here so long he’s uncomfortable in England, where people he’s barely met call him Martin and either refuse to touch him or cover him with kisses. It’s a funny old world, he says to himself, as he leaves the bar and heads off down the hill.
He’s about to do Helen a favour, although she doesn’t know it. At least, he hopes that it will be a favour. He’s still ill at ease about the way she seemed yesterday, stunned with grief, certainly, he’d have expected no less, but evasive as well. He’s convinced she has something to hide, and is irritated, and hurt, that she doesn’t trust him enough to share it with him. Hasn’t he proved he can be trusted in the past, both to her and to Federico?
And then there’s Giacomo Mura, turning up on the day his oldest friend is murdered, with all the bad blood that must have flowed between them, however often they’ve patched things up. He’s seen and even spoken to the man several times in the past, once in Rome at a reception organised, as far as he can remember, by Federico, once at a book presentation in Milan, when he was visiting friends there. And in Paris as well, but that was soon after he’d been released, when he was still fresh meat on the dinner circuit and someone had thought it would be fun to introduce Martin to the latest
enfant maudit
. There’s still affection in certain Parisian circles for terrorists who haven’t quite reneged and know how to behave in company. But Martin can’t forget the way he and Helen held each other, and the whispering that went on between them; and the sense, most galling of all, that he wasn’t needed any longer. When he read the piece about Mura in this morning’s
Foglio
he wondered how long it had been festering in some drawer, because surely not even a man with a grudge could turn out something that rich with vitriol so quickly. He knows the man who wrote it, not well, but well enough to give him a ring, share a drink for old time’s sake. Martin’s not much fonder of Mura than Adriano Testa is. He’ll have things to say that might be worth hearing. It set his teeth on edge to see Helen in that man’s arms.
It’s a warm day and Martin is sweating by the time he reaches Piazza della Rotonda. He takes off his panama and rolls it between his hands, then puts it back on again and crosses the square. If Corti isn’t here yet, he promises himself, he’ll nip into the Pantheon and refresh his spirit in the temple to all the gods, the only temple he could ever worship in. He’ll stand and look up at that hole, the mystery of it the product of human engineering and nothing more. But the usual table is occupied. He raises his hat and waves it. Corti struggles to his feet, moving his chair back into the tiny space left for it, awkwardly turning to offer his hand to Martin. He’s a short man, with too much sun-streaked hair and a pearl grey linen suit. His feet are set at ten to two.