The Drowning River (17 page)

Sandro nodded cautiously.

Falco went on. ‘And we conducted a full search of the immediate area.’ He paused. ‘Actually, that was when we found the card for the Scuola Massi.’ He allowed himself a smile. Great detective work, thought Sandro.

‘On Wednesday?’

‘Thursday. Wednesday the visibility was no good.’ Meaning, they had been hoping it would stop raining because they didn’t want to get their uniforms all wet. Lazy bastards.

Sandro wrote it down, laboriously, feeling the man’s eyes on his bowed head. ‘Look,’ Falco said impatiently, ‘perhaps you would allow us to do our job.’

‘Did anyone see Veronica Hutton in the gardens on Tuesday?’ Sandro asked. ‘Park employees?’

‘We have put her photograph out to every employee,’ said Falco, ‘in the nursery, the orangery, the postcard shop, the Kaffeehaus, at each entry point, the maintenance workers, the stonemason. . .’ He paused for effect; all right, thought Sandro, I get the message. ‘But bear in mind
that we only received a visual on her yesterday afternoon. And that Tuesday was sunny and the park was busy.’ He spread his hands. ‘So far, no one remembers seeing her.’

‘CCTV?’ asked Sandro quickly. ‘There didn’t seem to be anything in the report about CCTV. Have you got her on camera at all?’

‘We’re still processing the images,’ said the carabiniere stiffly.

‘But?’

Falco pursed his lips. When he spoke it was as though he was himself delivering an official statement to camera, in a monotone. ‘There are two cameras in operation at present, at Palazzo Pitti and the Annalena gate. The Forte di Belvedere exit is currently out of use, and the Porta Romana camera isn’t functioning.’

Sandro waited, and reluctantly Falco continued. ‘So far,’ he said, ‘we have what we believe to be an image of the girl entering the gardens via the Annalena gate, at twenty-five minutes past eleven on Tuesday morning. Carrying her bag.’

‘And?’

‘We haven’t managed to isolate an image of her leaving, as yet,’ said the carabiniere, tenting his long brown fingers on the desk and frowning at them. ‘But there could be various explanations for that.’

‘She could have left by the Porta Romana gate,’ Sandro said. ‘Or –’ Or she didn’t leave at all.

‘Or she might have been obscured by another departing visitor, or we might have missed her,’ said Falco. ‘As I said, we are still processing the images.’

‘Of course,’ said Sandro, knowing he was on borrowed time now, then casually, ‘but there’s been no sign of her in the gardens themselves? Since – since the bag was found?’

‘No,’ said Falco. He eyed Sandro with weary hostility. ‘We’ve conducted a full search.’

They both knew that ‘a full search’ could mean anything from a cursory glance with a torch to a dozen men combing the undergrowth; Sandro suspected the former.

As if Falco could hear his thoughts, the carabiniere fixed him with a look. ‘Of the immediate area and of the wider park. We have
checked every tool store and glasshouse in the place. I told the girl’s mother this.’ He did not drop his eyes. ‘She’s not there.’ He leaned forward, and Sandro saw genuine gravity in his eyes, for once. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘this is my patch; this is my back yard, believe me, if she was – if she was still here, I’d know about it.’

She wasn’t here, but she hadn’t gone.

‘You mean if she was dead?’ asked Sandro.

Falco shrugged as if to say, You know what I mean.

‘I’m sure the girl’s mother’s satisfied you’re making every effort,’ said Sandro with formality. ‘I am sorry.’ And indeed it did seem as though Falco had been doing his job; a ballbreaker like Serena Hutton could have that effect, he supposed.

Apparently mollified, Falco sat back in his chair, and when he spoke again he seemed almost conciliatory. ‘Look, we’ve got the girl’s computer,’ he said. ‘We’re looking at that, too, for emails, that kind of thing. Networking sites.’ Sandro nodded as though he knew what a networking site was. ‘Anything?’ he asked warily.

Falco frowned. ‘Not so far,’ he said. ‘No boasting about a new boyfriend or a trip away, no emails from boys, no nasty stuff.’ He shrugged. ‘The other girl had an idea someone might have tampered with it, but apart from the battery being dead as a dodo, our computer guy said it was clean. If anyone did try to wipe anything off it, they didn’t know what they were doing, was what he said.’

‘Hold on,’ said Sandro. ‘The other girl thinks someone’s wiped it? What other girl?’

‘The girl,’ said Falco impatiently, ‘the room-mate; I’ve just come from there. She thought somebody might have got into the flat, looking for something last night.’ He shrugged. ‘Personally I think she was a bit hysterical.’

Sandro cursed silently; why hadn’t the mother given him a single useful piece of information?

‘Right,’ he said, ‘you got a number for her?’ Eyeing him stonily, the carabiniere shook his head. Sandro’s heart sank; ask the mother.

‘One last thing,’ he said. ‘Could I see the bag?’

As he picked his way down through the iris beds in the rain, the towering bulk of the Carabiniere station above him, Sandro’s gut churned. It had been the sight of the bag that had done it, scuffed and manhandled; the contents in their plastic. And the tiny stones, sifted with dust, at the bottom.

He’d stared at them; powder-white.

‘I wonder, Maresciallo,’ he’d said quickly, fumbling in his pocket, ‘if I might make a request?’ Falco leaned forwards a fraction, suspicious already. Sandro kept his tone grave and respectful. He produced the crumpled photograph of Claudio Gentileschi. ‘If one of your men might have a quick look on that camera footage?’ Falco took the photograph and glanced at it with a frown, handed it back.

‘We’re very busy,’ he said. ‘Who is this man?’

‘It’s a long shot,’ said Sandro, finding himself unwilling to tell this man anything about Claudio. ‘There may be no connection.’

Falco looked at him a moment from under hooded eyes, making him wait. Then he seemed to tire of the game, smiling briefly and without warmth. ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘give it to Giacomini.’ He nodded towards the door. ‘On your way out.’

Giacomini was the pudgy-faced desk officer; he took the photograph with sublime indifference, photocopied it, returned it to Sandro, taking his time at every stage of the operation.

There’ll be no image of Gentileschi, Sandro told himself, and there’ll be an end to it. The tall blades of the iris leaves scattered more rainwater across his feet, and he shivered; Luisa’ll kill me, he thought, and then he thought some more, about Luisa herself. Which was why, when the little
telefonino
rang in his breast pocket he didn’t hear it for a while. Luisa, wet feet, fever. The weather was clearing, a patch of late afternoon blue through the clouds, and what was that noise? He pushed his way out through the side gate and he was on the street.

It was Lucia Gentileschi; as though she was already a friend, he knew her immediately.

‘Sandro?’ she said, and even though her voice was as soft and controlled as always there was something else in it. Confusion; fear.

Instinctively he stepped back from the street, into the shelter of a shop awning; it wasn’t the rain, which was easing now anyhow; Sandro hated talking into a
telefonino
out on the pavement. It always seemed wrong to him when he saw people standing in the street shouting their business – or someone else’s – into a little machine and oblivious of where they were.

‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘What’s happened?’

He turned his back on the street and found himself looking into the shop window; not a shop as it turned out but some kind of gallery – half the greengrocers in the city had been turned into galleries, it seemed to Sandro. He must have answered Lucia Gentileschi more sharply than he had intended because inside the shop a woman was staring curiously at him, a large canvas in her arms. Hurriedly he stepped away, crossed the street.

‘Can you come over to the house?’ Lucia asked. ‘I’ve found something.’

‘She’s nuts,’ said Jackson, with something like relief in his voice. ‘The wife? Yeah, totally, totally nuts.’

There was a pause; they both looked through the wrought-iron gates, up the sodden gravel, between the leafless limes to where a fine mist of rain hung over the Boboli’s avenue of cypresses. In the ticket booth a bad-tempered young woman in several layers of cardigan and a padded coat gave them a glance before returning to her magazine; the man who’d been standing bare-headed in the rain moved off, talking on his phone.

It seemed to be fine as long as they were talking about Massi and his crazy wife; Iris was suddenly in no hurry to ask Jackson what it was he was frightened of, or to mention Ronnie’s name, even. She was tired of it, that leaden feeling of apprehension, the permanent state of anxiety: the constant question, where is she? The long bus ride through town, the smell of wet wool and raincoats, umbrellas scattering rain on her stupid canvas shoes: all this and not much of a night’s sleep made her long only to forget about the whole thing. Made her wish she’d said
she’d go back to Hiroko’s, drink jasmine tea, wait for news. Not rush about in the rain, knowing she was going back to the Piazza d’Azeglio alone tonight.

Must call Hiroko, Iris thought. Say thank you. Monday morning, when they’d next all see each other, seemed a long way off. Would they really all be going back into the studio, sitting down to draw, as if nothing had happened?

‘You OK?’ said Jackson nervously. ‘Look, are we going in there? Seriously?’ He nodded towards the misted, dripping gardens. ‘You don’t want to?’ she said, watching him for a response. He looked at her quickly, shrugged. ‘Whatever,’ he said, ‘only, it’s, like, pouring with rain?’

What had she expected to find out, by arranging to meet him here? She looked into his face in search of guilt, or understanding, but he just looked wet, and tired. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Let’s find somewhere to sit down.’

‘So when did you meet her?’ she asked, as they squeezed behind a table in a narrow bar opposite the Pitti Palace. The place was full to steaming with disconsolate tourists; inside the door a tall stand was overflowing with umbrellas. Iris eased her shoulders out of her raincoat, and as she emerged from the wet nylon, shaking her head like a wet dog, Jackson suddenly smiled at her.

‘I’m sorry?’ he said, and Iris blushed. Again. When would she stop blushing, when she was forty or something? She knew if she dwelled on it one second longer it would go nuclear; it had happened to her once, on a bus in France when a nice-looking boy had tried to talk to her. Her face had felt like it had been scalded, the heat in her cheeks out of control, and eventually the boy had stopped talking and looked at her with concern instead. She squeezed her eyes shut; Ronnie, she thought, and the heat subsided. She opened her eyes.

‘Massi’s wife,’ she said calmly. Did he think by doing that laid-back charming thing she was going to lose the thread? By smiling at her? ‘When did you meet Massi’s wife?’

‘Duh,’ he said striking his forehead. ‘Oh, he invited me for dinner over there.’ He grimaced. ‘The food was kind of weird, too.’

Iris laughed, despite herself. ‘Yep,’ she said. She thought a minute. ‘Was it just you? They invited over?’

‘Yeah,’ said Jackson, shrugging. ‘I arrived early for the course, they thought I was all on my own.’

Iris remembered what Anna Massi had said about Americans having made their money for them; perhaps she’d told Paolo to invite Jackson over. It wasn’t a pretty thought, but perhaps it was just practical, everyone in Florence made their money out of foreigners. The memory of the lunch lingered, stale and dismal; the Massis’ big, gloomy, expensive apartment in an area perfect for families, even though they had no children. Perhaps Anna Massi was child enough all on her own, with her girlish laughter and her silly ornaments.

‘In loco parentis,’
she said, ‘looking after you,’ and Jackson eyed her with amusement.

‘I guess so,’ he said. ‘I do know what that means, you know. Americans aren’t all dumb.’

‘No,’ said Iris, smiling back, ‘I didn’t think you were dumb.’

‘Why were you early for the course?’ she asked on impulse, and his eyes shifted, opaque.

He shrugged. ‘Nothing much else to do,’ he said. ‘My folks are busy, busy, busy.’ He smiled briefly but she waited, wanting him to tell her more. ‘They run their own business, luxury car sales franchise.’ He smiled wryly. ‘Dull, huh? Twenty-four seven kind of stuff. Want me out of the way till Thanksgiving.’

‘OK,’ said Iris cautiously, feeling a little twinge of guilt. Ma was pretty much always there, wasn’t she? Change the subject.

She paused. ‘I guess they feel responsible,’ she said. ‘The Massis, I mean. They don’t have children of their own, so. . .’

Jackson gazed thoughtfully out of the window. ‘Weird, isn’t it,’ he said. ‘Who ends up with who? They’re kind of a crazy couple. She said they were high-school sweethearts.’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘D’you see that nun’s room of hers?’

‘Yes,’ said Iris.

‘Well,’ said Jackson. ‘You bet they don’t have kids.’

Iris said nothing; the thought made her uncomfortable.

The waiter came over; the crowd had thinned and she saw that the place was slightly more upmarket than she’d have liked, the tables battered antiques, the waiter wearing a long apron and black waistcoat.

‘Two glasses of champagne, please,’ said Jackson carelessly, without asking her. She stared. ‘I’ll have a coffee,’ she said,
‘un caffe, per favore,’
more out of defiance than anything else, and a gesture towards staying sober because it was three in the afternoon and she wasn’t used to drinking champagne then or at any other time.

The experimental architect used to produce champagne with a flourish in the Ventoux, if he came to dinner, which he did occasionally; perhaps Ma asked him for old times’ sake or, God knew, out of misplaced gratitude for the crumbling house. And even Ma was impatient with him, on occasion, with his assumption that she was still holding a candle for him, and that he was bringing balm to her soul by turning up to eat their week’s supply of food in one night. He would bring out the bottle, which even Iris knew was the cheapest stuff you could buy in the SuperU, as if it was Cristal, and press a glass first on Iris, with a knowing murmur. ‘Isn’t she growing up,’ he’d say. Arsehole; or jerk, as maybe Jackson would say.