‘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 façade. ‘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.’
But now that they were here, she seemed to have run out of steam.
‘I don’t like this place,’ she said, her face moon-pale in the gloom. ‘I would never have wanted to live here.’
‘No,’ agreed Luisa absently, glancing down the side hall to the concierge’s door. Then recovered herself, ‘I mean, it’s a perfectly good neighbourhood, good for children …’ She tailed off. She frowned at Anna. ‘You never said that before. That you didn’t like it.’
‘I didn’t think that before,’ said Anna, her mouth downturned. ‘When he showed it to me, he was so proud of it. So pleased – he was trying to see it in the best light. So I tried too. I could have told him, I have some money, we can find somewhere better.’
Luisa squeezed her hand, thinking of Anna’s tiny savings. ‘Did he – did you ever tell him you had money?’ The girl shook her head. Luisa nodded approvingly. ‘Good girl,’ she said, and Anna’s head jerked up, defiant.
‘He wouldn’t have taken my money,’ she said in a dear voice. ‘Everything was going well for him, he said. Soon everything would be done, everything would be ready, just another few days. He was so excited.’
‘Like he had a secret?’
‘Something like that,’ said Anna. ‘That’s why – well, when I didn’t hear from him at the weekend, but actually weekends are anyway his busy time – I just thought, Monday, he’s busy with – whatever it is.’ Her eyes were dark. ‘I just thought, he’s got everything ready for the baby.’ And she looked up the stairwell, towards the light. The walls were scuffed and dirty.
‘Yes,’ said Luisa, stroking her shoulder. ‘Wait here a minute.’
Reluctantly, she tiptoed down the dark side-corridor to the door. There was that sour smell of alcohol breath and unwashed linen. She knocked. Called. Cupped her hands against the door and shouted. Nothing. From upstairs, some banging.
Luisa’s heart sank: what next? She hadn’t thought this through. Why would either of them be any more likely to get into the place this time?
All right. ‘Let’s go up,’ she said, returning to Anna, trying to sound as though she knew what she was doing. ‘There’s – ah, someone I know lives upstairs.’
They pressed the button for the lift but nothing happened. Perhaps that was what the builders were here for. They took the stairs. Anna moved steadily, stopping for breath at the top of each flight. It had been relatively cool at the bottom but with every upward step it grew warmer.
On the third floor – her floor – Anna stopped again, but this time she looked as though she didn’t want to go on. There were four doors, of flimsy-looking veneer, each with a spyhole. Watching Anna, Luisa shifted from foot to foot: something was sticking to her leather soles. The floor was gritty underfoot.
Sounds were coming from behind the furthest door: scraping. A thump. Men’s voices, in a foreign language.
‘That one,’ said Anna, nodding towards the furthest door as if she didn’t want to get any closer to it.
‘It’s all right,’ said Luisa, glancing up towards the light filtering down from the top of the building. None of the stairway lights seemed to be working – another job for the builders. It was hard to see what the concierge was paid for. Perhaps they’d actually laid him off. ‘Giovanna’s on the next floor up. Let’s see if she’s in.’
Another flight of stairs was asking more than she’d anticipated, though: as Anna walked ahead of her with painful slowness, Luisa cursed herself for not calling Giovanna before they left, or buzzing her bell at the gate to confirm she would be in, after all this.
‘They said, take exercise,’ said Anna, out of breath, catching sight of Luisa’s expression. ‘Good exercise, climbing stairs. I can’t just lie in bed forever.’
‘When was your last check-up?’ said Luisa grimly, holding her under the arm as they took the last step together. Stupid, stupid, stupid: how could I have been
so stupid? Eight months pregnant and I’ve got her climbing stairs
. ‘Stop,’ she commanded, and examined the girl’s face. Pink, but better, actually, better in the light, better one floor higher.
‘Monday,’ said Anna, ‘at the Women’s Centre, it’s every week now. They say I’m doing well. They say the baby’s big.’
They both looked down and Luisa felt the coolness of fear, like a shadow falling across her. Anna was so small.
‘Do you have any children?’ asked Anna, frowning up at her. Then, ‘Oh, Giuli said – said something—’
‘My baby didn’t live,’ said Luisa, and with the words she felt breathless. She tried to smile, heard herself stammer. ‘There was something the matter with her – in those days, there wasn’t the … the information.’ Anna’s eyes were on her, intent. ‘It wasn’t anything to do with the birth.’ And Luisa found she could hardly think of another word to say. ‘You mustn’t worry,’ she managed, eventually. She paused, collected herself. ‘So your last appointment was on Monday.’
Anna searched her face, then looked down at her belly again. ‘That was when I asked Giuli.’ She bit her lip. ‘She saw me crying, because I hadn’t heard from Josef, because they’d said maybe a scan to see how big the baby was and I tried to call him to tell him and he wasn’t answering and I really got frightened then.’
‘All right,’ said Luisa, taking her hand, alarmed by her sudden distress. ‘It’s going to be OK.’
‘She’d told me what she did when she wasn’t working at the Centre, a while back. Told me about Sandro. What a nice man he is.’
‘Yes,’ said Luisa, looking away, turning to watch the stairwell.
‘I thought he’d be able to help.’ Anna’s breathing was better now; Luisa concentrated on that.
If only being a good man solved everything. There was a sound from upstairs, a door opening tentatively, and from somewhere else in the building a dog began to yap.
‘Come on,’ said Luisa quickly. ‘Can you make another flight?’
They saw her feet first, and Luisa knew it was Giovanna Baldini, in grubby slippers, standing behind a door open not much more than a crack. When she saw them, she opened it wider.
‘Thought it was you,’ she said. And leaned aside to get a better look at Anna, half hidden behind Luisa. ‘And you brought the girl.’
Anna came alongside Luisa on the landing and looked at Giovanna, serious under her dark brows.
‘Not much of a girl any more,’ she said with dignity.
Giovanna Baldini stood aside and let them in.
‘It’s the same,’ said Anna under her breath, stopping short in the hallway. ‘It’s the same as his.’
‘Right above it,’ said Giovanna straight away, ushering them on. The apartment was cluttered and warm, but it smelled clean. Luisa sometimes wondered if smell was the most developed of her senses, and she had a particular response to the way an old woman’s flat could smell – as she approached being an old woman herself, it was becoming a kind of paranoia. Food kept too long, that was the best of it. Giovanna was watching her with a half-smile.
‘You’re wondering, do we let ourselves go earlier, single women?’ Luisa smiled the same half-smile back. ‘I’m hanging on,’ said Giovanna comfortably.
They watched Anna, moving through the apartment, looking into one room then another, towards the lighter room they could both see ahead of them down the central hallway.
Coming into that room – a living room, by the look of a low sofa piled with mismatched cushions – Luisa saw Anna put up a hand to her left, feeling for something. A light switch.
Anna turned back to look down the corridor at them.
‘That was one thing,’ she said. ‘He didn’t know where the light switches were.’ She stood silhouetted in the doorway, almost all belly. ‘He didn’t know where anything was. It was – as if he’d never been there before.’
She turned away again, and Luisa and Giovanna followed her into the room. It was wide, with one glazed door opening on to a long balcony, one window further along. Both were shuttered against the setting sun, but light leaked through.
They watched as, alert, Anna walked around the space. ‘Bigger,’ she said. ‘This room is bigger. Than downstairs.’