A Florentine Revenge Read online

  As she read it the air of the gardens seemed to change. The tranquillity ebbed from the misty air to be replaced by something less benign, and the hedges seemed to draw in around her. The Boboli was fenced in, patrolled, practically an open-air museum she told herself, and Le Cascine was a different sort of park, admittedly, a place open at night for all sorts of transactions, but still. A body. It had been found in the drained pool at Le Pavoniere, and at present the police weren’t looking for anyone else – did that mean they thought it was suicide? Celia pulled her jacket around her, feeling the cold suddenly. She hadn’t been to Le Pavoniere in years, there’d been no need out in the suburbs where there were plenty of pretty pools, private clubs. She thought back to the last time she’d been there, staked out on a plastic lounger with Jo Starling, years ago; it had been a tacky sort of place, even then. American college girls would climb in around the back without paying, thinking it was a big joke; Celia remembered that scruffy link fence. How had he done it? They didn’t say, only that it hadn’t been a natural death. He hadn’t died of exposure, then.

  Celia wanted to get up from the cold bench, she knew she should go, but she read on. There was a picture of the pool from outside the fence, police tape around the gates. In the wintry morning light it looked a desolate place and Celia thought back to that night, the rain she’d listened to on her roof, and thought of a man climbing a fence to get inside an empty pool. Why would you do that? Why a swimming pool? She thought of blood, of mess, would you do it for that reason? She turned the page, still reading. The unnamed man had been a suspect in a murder investigation some fifteen years earlier; there was another, smaller picture on this page and Celia stopped reading the words and looked at it. An old photograph, dated, out of focus, but a picture she knew because it had been on the front pages when she had arrived in Florence all that time ago. A smiling child with straight, shiny hair and a chipped front tooth, in striped summer uniform, a school photograph with painted clouds as a backdrop. A different swimming pool.

  Suddenly Celia knew that she should go; she didn’t want to read this story any more. She stood up and folded the paper in a hurry, thrust it into her bag. She felt stiff and cold, and she didn’t feel safe.

  *

  Stefano walked between the rooms of his busy restaurant: the first room for locals, dark and cosy; the second, with its high ceilings and long window on the piazza, was where he tended to put the visitors. They’d done: very well today, it was a good time of year coming up to Christmas, couples on celebration weekends away, they liked to order champagne, a big Fiorentina steak between them, could anything be more romantic? There was one couple today that puzzled him, though; the older man, bloodless, anaemic, looked as though he could do with a steak, and his wife, quite the opposite. Like Biancaneve she looked, Snow White with red lips, black hair, a rosy blush on her cheeks. You’d have thought he’d look a lot happier, with a girl like that opposite him, a nice bottle of Brunello on the table and a weekend ahead of them. She was trying, too, you could tell, almost pleading with him, giving it everything she had to make him smile. Hand on his wrist, stroking him. Stefano thought of his own wife, beautiful, sensible, perched in her frivolous shoes at the front table trying to persuade their youngest to take a spoonful of pappa al pomodoro, and he counted his blessings. A happy family.

  They left the restaurant at two forty-five, the tall, narrow, dark-coated figure, leather-gloved and austere, with his wife taking quick small steps beside him to keep up. They walked along the Borgo San Jacopo, and she looked in at the dressmakers’ windows, pointing something out to him, but he barely responded. They came to the Ponte Vecchio and then he stopped, turned to her.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I can’t think about it now. I can’t. I didn’t plan this.’ And he turned and walked on without waiting for her. Emma Marsh stood in the street and looked after him, her face pale and stricken, and as the crowds parted around her on one of the busiest thoroughfares of the Western world she seemed entirely alone.

  Inside Frollini Luisa, stirred up by some secret turbulence she dared not define, was back at her station when they walked past on their way to the Uffizi. She was advising an American lady on the best colour to wear against her skin – not the baby pink, no, not over thirty, it wasn’t advisable, only white – and when she turned to accompany her customer to the changing room she saw only the back of Lucas Marsh’s head and a fleeting glimpse of Emma Marsh’s profile. Pretty, she noted involuntarily, lovely, easy to dress, that one, and approvingly she noted the colour in her tweed coat, the good cut, even recognized the designer. Plenty of money, too; they’ll be in here before too long.

  Her customer emerged from the changing room, an anxious expression on her face, and Luisa sighed inwardly. Automatically she began to soothe, to persuade, wondering why some women seemed to panic so when you suggested a change. Take off the dull things bought in some dull, expensive foreign department store that they had worn every day for ten years – dark trouser suits, long sweaters to disguise everything underneath, long wool coats – and the most businesslike of women emerge from the changing room like frightened children. Luisa paused, stood, considering the white shirt she had persuaded the woman to try, and thought of her own uniform, her navy moccasins, old coat, dark skirt, always white against the face, and wondered if she’d been doing the same herself.

  Luisa moved forward, tweaked the shirt’s collar to open it, to show the woman’s throat. She tugged at the waistband of the skirt, settling it on her customer’s hips. The woman obviously thought she was fat, but she wasn’t, only a little padding here and there, nothing to be ashamed of.

  ‘There,’ she said, motherly, firm. ‘You see?’ She watched as her customer looked nervously at herself, saw her realize it wasn’t so bad, after all. She saw the woman turn a little in front of the glass to get another angle.

  At the till again Luisa could see Gianna scrutinizing her as she smoothed, folded and wrapped with careful movements. She pulled a length of grosgrain ribbon, tied the shirt in its paper, her gift to the client. She looked up and met Gianna’s gaze; let her wonder if I am changed, she thought.

  Luisa couldn’t have said how she felt, exactly, it was such a sensation of turbulence, a mixture of dread and exhilaration. To be called out of the shop to see Sandro, to stand with him in a bar eating a sandwich like a proper happy couple, these things had filled her with – excitement. Even though they were talking about terrible things, even though there might be worse to come, at least they were – alive. It was an unfamiliar feeling, she’d spent a long time avoiding anything resembling agitation, upheaval. She could hardly remember what she’d said at all; she had only known that Sandro had needed her, and she hadn’t found a way of helping him.

  He had seemed to her both angry and afraid.

  ‘Will they find out?’ She tried to be gentle; she wasn’t used to talking to Sandro at all, let alone like this. ‘That you kept the result from him?’

  Sandro turned his face to her slowly, his expression unreadable. Eventually he shrugged, as though he didn’t care. ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘Perhaps.’

  Was he trying not to worry her, with this poker face of his? Or was it guilt? She had said something to try to soften it then, something daft about, perhaps Bartolo had spent years feeling guilty, perhaps it was a coincidence that the test result was about to come in. Sandro had looked at her incredulously and she’d felt stupid. ‘Not Bartolo,’ he said. ‘He didn’t feel guilty. Paedophiles don’t, whatever they say in court, whatever you might read in the papers.’

  Luisa had turned cold then, the thought of the child in the river chilling her to numbness, and she’d stared into her coffee. Why, then? The whole thing seemed suddenly obscure and frightening; what was Sandro afraid of? Was any of this in some way down to him? But then he’d put out a hand, a soft touch on her arm to comfort her, quickly withdrawn. ‘I—’ But then he’d stopped. He needs time, she thought, he’s not ready to tell me yet, and she didn’t
press him. Afterwards she thought perhaps she should have, should have done it long ago, should certainly have done it then. But that touch on her arm had thrown her; she didn’t want to scare him off.

  ‘I might be late tonight,’ he’d said then, and she thought he sounded sad. ‘Don’t worry.’ And the idea that he was thinking ahead to how she might feel, just those few ordinary words that probably passed between most couples every day, had made Luisa want to laugh and cry at the same time.

  She looked up into her customer’s face, handed her the bag and smiled. ‘I hope you are happy,’ she said. It must have sounded odd because the woman looked startled at first; then she returned Luisa’s smile. ‘Yes,’ she said, with growing confidence. ‘Yes.’

  Celia had it down to a fine art, getting into the Uffizi. Even on a December afternoon there were queues, pigeons, pavement artists and hawkers cluttering the lovely, pale grey arcades at its entrance, and it was a significant part of any visit to the museum that she should protect her clients from all of that. She always booked tickets in advance, and with a deftness born of long practice she would negotiate the enfilade of postcard shops, book stands and temporary exhibits on the ground floor. Before they knew where they were or where they’d been Celia’s clients would find themselves above all that on the third floor of the great gallery and their tour would have begun.

  So it was only once she had manoeuvred Lucas and Emma Marsh to the beginning of the long east corridor that Celia paused and had a good look at them. It dawned on her then that as she had led them upstairs, taking the opportunity as she always did to talk her clients through the building’s history, the Roman sculptures or. the ground floor, the rooms originally housing the mint, neither Lucas Marsh nor even Emma had said a word. She stopped talking, and the three of them stooc and looked.

  The corridor was pleasantly empty, and a pale, warm light flooded its length from the huge window at the far end, overlooking the Arno. There was a smell of wood and wax, and a combination of sounds that, it occurred to Celia, she would be happy to have as the last music she heard on earth: the sound of footsteps moving slowly over the polished stone, pausing every now and then before shuffling on, and the sound of voices hushed in contemplation. On the gallery walls the paintings gleamed like jewels. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Emma Marsh’s shoulders relax a little as she stood there and looked down the corridor, and even her husband seemed changed, softened in outline.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ she asked tentatively. Lucas Marsh frowned.

  ‘Yes,’ he said brusquely. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Good,’ said Celia quickly, feeling his defensiveness. ‘I thought your wife – I thought Emma seemed – tired, that’s all. If you don’t want to do the full tour…’ Lucas shook his head a fraction, thinking.

  ‘There is something…’ He hesitated. ‘Tomorrow morning, we were to go up to Fiesole?’ Celia nodded, waiting; she’d made an arrangement for a private visit to the monastery of San Francesco, and a walk in the green ruins of the Roman amphitheatre. She’d worked hard to think of a combination of atmosphere and seclusion.

  Lucas went on. ‘Something’s come up, work. And Emma wants to fit in some shopping instead, if you could show her around.’ Standing beside them, Emma said nothing, just smiled a little, the ghost of a smile.

  ‘It’s my birthday, tomorrow, you see,’ she said, as if this explained it all. Celia wondered if they had argued, if this was the pay-off.

  ‘Of course it is,’ she said, but she’d quite forgotten the reason behind the trip. It had not been mentioned since the Marshes’ arrival, and there was, she thought, nothing festive about their mood. She smiled encouragingly; the truth was it was a relief. She couldn’t work Lucas out – he seemed preoccupied, tense. ‘Shopping’s never a problem.’

  They moved through the rooms, Celia taking it slowly, not expecting much in the way of response and not getting it. Something had obviously subdued them over lunch, and as she led them past Giotto, Cimabue, Virgins and Infants in brilliant blue and gold, she wondered. Perhaps they had just had too much to drink; they didn’t seem the type, but it wasn’t unknown among even the most sophisticated of her clientele, and Emma Marsh did seem tired. She was pale, and gazed at the diptychs and triptychs, the saints and Madonnas quite blankly, as though she had no conception of their meaning. As though to cover for his wife’s sudden silence, Lucas Marsh spoke now and again, asking Celia about the building’s construction, the politics of patronage, but the questions came out stiffly, mechanically and Celia felt the prospect of the afternoon hang around her neck like a millstone. Could it be rescued? In Celia’s experience the Uffizi had a kind of magic, something would invariably seize the client’s imagination; it might be the smooth, monumental marble of the Medici Venus, a sinister Cranach, an incandescent risen Christ by Uccello or Piero della Francesca. And then she could relax, could know the whole thing had worked.

  But maybe not today. As they entered one room after another, Emma remained quiet, listless, barely glancing even at pretty Botticelli, which Celia had hoped might please her. She only seemed to brighten, and then just a fraction, when they emerged from each room into the broad corridor and the last rays of natural light that shone down its length from the great south window.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ asked Celia on the threshold of the Titian room, unable any longer to ignore her instinct that something was not all right at all. She caught a look from Lucas Marsh to his wife; at the same time he reached out a hand and set it on his wife’s waist as if to steady her.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, fine.’ She made an attempt to smile but it was half-hearted, and Celia frowned. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Look!’ said Emma Marsh suddenly and she turned sharply away as if to avoid Celia’s scrutiny. ‘Isn’t that pretty!’ And she hurried through the door towards the Venus of Urbino.

  Was this it? Celia watched as Emma stopped in front of the broad, glowing canvas and looked. This was, arguably, the most seductive Venus ever painted, her gaze outward, her long white body gleaming like pearl; her boudoir was rich with brocade and silk and bathed in a soft, dusky light. As Celia watched Emma Marsh she found herself wondering what it must be like to be the modern equivalent of this Venus, the object of a rich man’s adoration. She was surprised to realize that she felt no envy at all for Emma Marsh.

  As she stood there beside Lucas Celia automatically offered her knowledge of the painting, its significance, its patron, its symbolism. She threw in Mark Twain’s New World horror at its depravity; she had no idea whether Emma was listening and addressed herself to Lucas; he smiled absently and nodded but he wasn’t looking at her either. He was looking at Emma and the painting together. It might have been painted for her, this Venus; voluptuous, physical, direct. She tried to picture the face of the Madonna of the Lilies; something nagged at her, said, Remember me. And which painting, she wondered as they passed busts of Florentine noblemen and politicians, Medici, Pazzi and Machiavelli, might represent him? At the moment he more resembled some tortured saint, John the Baptist or a pale, pierced St Sebastian. But he’s not a saint, is he? He’s a lawyer. A powerful man.

  As though he knew what she was thinking, Lucas Marsh turned towards her then, cleared his throat a little and spoke in that voice of his, soft, deep, considered, but always tense, always guarded.

  ‘Is everything sorted out for tomorrow night? The dinner?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Celia cautiously. ‘I – I’m afraid there’ll only be one painting, though. Their Titians are all fragile, most of them in for restoration work.’ Plenty of her clients would have had a tantrum over less, and she stole a glance at Lucas Marsh apprehensively, but he just nodded slowly. She wondered what it took to make him angry.

  ‘One’s enough,’ he said consideringly, nodding at the Venus reclining front of them. ‘Wouldn’t you say? As long as it’s the right one.’ And for a moment, although the Madonna’s face still would not appear to her, she remember
ed that feeling she’d had when she’d been about to see it for the first time, the breathless excitement in anticipation of greatness. ‘Yes,’ she said with relief, smiling. At that moment Emma turned from the picture towards them, like a child towards its parents; Celia saw that her face was very pale. Emma opened her mouth.

  ‘I think,’ she said, faltering, ‘I think—’ and then, right in front of them and without warning, she swayed a little, her head went back and she crumpled to the floor.

  12

  A burly attendant leaped from his stool in the corner of the room, galvanized, and was just in time to catch Emma Marsh’s head before it struck the floor. Celia, who had moved more slowly, had found the small, vulnerable body unexpectedly heavy as she grappled with it and had not been able to hold on. But Lucas Marsh had her by then anyway, across his body, on the floor. Sitting back on her heels, Celia was startled by the change in him. His fair hair stood up, wild, and his tall, lean figure, which she realized she had seen until that moment as somehow ascetic, self-denying, was suddenly an electric presence beside her; strong, physical, alive with energy released. ‘Emma,’ he said hoarsely, and she could hear that he was afraid. He cradled his wife’s head, and leaning down he brushed his pale cheek against her dead-white one, up and down.