The Drowning River Read online

  Day two, just before lunch, Sandro found himself looking down into the street again; he saw the woman with her dog, and realized he was watching for the girl. Out of police habit, getting the lie of the land, or because she’d been pretty? He turned tail, unable to give himself the benefit of the doubt. She had been pretty.

  Safely at the back of the building Sandro had spread his copy of La Nazione out on his desk and went through it as though that was his job, reading every story in the paper. He stared at the big stories first, national news. Garbage collection in Naples, dioxins leaching into the food chain from toxic waste. A new book out on the Camorra, and a piece about Calabrian gangsters buying up property in Tuscany. His stomach felt sour and leaden; my country, he thought, staring at the page; there’d been a time when it had been his business. Out at Porta al Prato, buckling on his holster, slapping the peaked cap on his head, jostling out through the door with Pietro, they’d laughed bitterly at their dismal clean-up rate, at all the shit still out there waiting for them, but it hadn’t felt like this.

  He worked his way down to local stuff: illegals employed on building the extension to the Uffizi; a hit and run on the viale, involving a child. A doctor found to be a member of a satanic cult drowned in Lake Trasimeno. Sandro worked his way right through to the end before he closed the paper, impotent.

  In the afternoon Sandro went out into the street, so as to have something to tell Luisa when he got home. The food in the nearest bar was lousy; a stale roll and some dried-up ham, and the floor was dirty. It had turned chilly, too; after a brisk turn down to the Piazza Tasso and back – on the corner seven candles had been lit for the Virgin this afternoon; Sandro resolved to keep a proper eye out one day for the devout, his future informers – he hurried back to the flat, where the ancient radiators were clanking loudly to keep pace with the cold.

  Climbing the draughty stairs Sandro had tried to imagine the place in July, when San Frediano, built for the street sweepers and humbler artisans, the carpenters and stonemasons, had the reputation for being a sun-bleached desert, without high stone facades and deep eaves to protect its inhabitants from the heat of the sun. Did people need private detectives in July?

  And, as Sandro found himself reminded once again that that was what he was now, a private detective, he had to fight the urge to put his face in his hands, and groan.

  Chapter Two

  There Were Hoardings Along the motorway out by the airport, advertising the agencies. A picture of a young man in a peaked cap, toting a holster, or a Pinkerton’s-style badge. A Discreet and Thorough Service, Any Investigation Undertaken. Financial, Personal, Professional. Experts in Surveillance. They had laughed at them, when Sandro was in the force, though the laughter had been uneasy. Some private detectives were borderline criminals themselves, and smart with it; some of them were close to conmen, some were lazy, some were stupid. But it was others – the laureati with their degrees in IT and control engineering: modern, computer-literate, hardworking – that inspired the unease, a kind of envy, in those embedded in the creaking old machinery of the state police.

  Where was the room for someone like Sandro, a village idiot where computers were concerned, old school, a one-man band, among this lot? It was a shark tank, a snakepit. It had, of course, been Luisa’s idea.

  ‘You’re brilliant at your job,’ she said, to his silence. ‘You’ve got the basics on computers.’ True enough; he might be old school, but even the Polizia Statale had been computerized. ‘You speak a bit of English.’ Sandro grunted at this. His English had hardly been honed to perfection during twenty years of taking down notes from tourists on their stolen purses, struggling to interpret a dozen different accents, Louisiana, Liverpool, London. ‘I could help you with that, anyway,’ Luisa said, thoughtfully.

  Sandro had made an effort, asking mildly, ‘Do you really think there’s a – what d’you call it, a market? For a one-man operation?’

  Head on one side, Luisa said firmly, ‘Yes, I do.’ He waited. ‘Look,’ she said earnestly. ‘The old ladies.’ Them again. ‘The – I don’t know, the grannies, the individuals, I’m not talking about big corporations, caro, though I suppose there’s money in that and I don’t see why. . .’ But seeing his face at the thought of selling his services in some boardroom somewhere, she changed tack, frowning. ‘Real people, little people, who can’t get anywhere in the system.’ Despite himself, Sandro had nodded at that. There were such people.

  She leaned forward, encouraged. ‘And the foreigners. Not maybe tourists, they’re only here a couple of days, a week at most. But the ones who live here, the ones who would like to live here? The expats?’

  Sandro’s shoulders dipped again. ‘What would they need a private detective for?’ he said. ‘Don’t be daft.’ And almost immediately regretted it. Luisa was on her feet then, striding round the kitchen table, her little heels clicking on the pavimento. She had just come in from work, still wearing what he thought of as her uniform. Had she been thinking about this all day on the shop floor? She’d barely taken her coat off, she was so fired up.

  ‘You have no idea, Sandro,’ she said. ‘No idea at all.’ She had raised her voice without thinking; Sandro glanced at the window, open in the September heat, and that seemed to annoy her even more. ‘For example,’ she said, holding up a finger to get his attention, ‘a client came into the shop, a very nice old lady, English, has lived here for years. Fifteen years at least. Her landlord is saying things about her because he wants her out of the flat. He accuses her of subletting her rooms, he is tampering with her heating to freeze her out. He refuses to carry out renovations. She is helpless.’ Shamed, Sandro chewed his lip. Of course, these things happened. But a private detective?

  ‘Any number of divorce cases, infidelities,’ Luisa went on hurriedly, knowing this would not appeal to Sandro. ‘A couple who were sold a house in the Chianti with six hectares only to discover none of the land belonged to the seller, and it was too late to recover their deposit? Two hundred thousand euro?’ That was the deposit? Sandro’s eyes popped at the figure.

  ‘Don’t you see?’ she said, taking his hands in hers. ‘They get married, they buy property, they start a business, just like us. They need help more than us, they don’t know the system. You could advertise, in the free papers, the little magazines for foreigners. And for locals, in La Pulce, that kind of thing. You don’t even have to call yourself a private detective, if you don’t want.’

  Sandro studied their hands together on the table, Luisa’s pale and puckered with washing, clean, short nails, her plain gold wedding ring. He should have bought her an engagement ring, shouldn’t he? But they had never had the money. He thought about what she had said. A niche, that was what she was talking about, and he had to admit, he didn’t object to the word. And, as Luisa was too kind to say out loud, what else was he going to do?

  Taking a deep breath and without knowing if it was true, Sandro said, ‘I don’t mind that. It says what it means, doesn’t it? I don’t mind being a private detective.’

  First thing on day three, Giulietta Sarto turned up, like a bad penny, he thought with something like affection. ‘Oi,’ she shouted into the intercom. ‘Only me.’

  She was looking better these days, though Giulietta could hardly have looked worse than she had two years ago when, emaciated from living on the streets, she’d stabbed her abuser and so played her part in the story that had ended with Sandro losing his job. She’d been placed in custody, of course, and put through the mill, but they’d got her off on mental health grounds, then Luisa had taken an interest. Giulietta had put on some weight and was living in public housing, Sandro dimly remembered, not far from here. San Frediano, he thought gloomily as he heard her quick footsteps on the stairs, public housing and old ladies. It’s not going to pay for Luisa’s engagement ring.

  ‘Hi, Giulietta,’ he said warily. ‘What are you up to?’ Standing in the lobby, she didn’t look bad at all, as it happened. She was wearing a dark suit, ch
eap but it fitted her. Hair thin from malnutrition but brown instead of the rainbow of red and rust and greenish blonde. Wrists still as thin as chicken bones, but fuller in the face.

  ‘How did I track you down, you mean?’ she said with rough good cheer. She took out a pack of cigarettes, turned it over in her hands, put it away. ‘Have a guess.’

  He nodded. Luisa. ‘She think I need keeping an eye on, does she?’

  He saw Giulietta survey the room from the doorway without answering, lips pursed. ‘Bit quiet,’ she commented, and he shrugged, helpless.

  She eyed him. ‘Don’t need a receptionist yet, then?’ She must have seen the alarm in his eyes because she burst out laughing then, her rusty, smoker’s laugh. ‘Don’t worry, Commissario –’ And when he flinched, she looked apologetic, started again. ‘Don’t worry, Signore Cellini, I’m not offering. I don’t need a job, as it happens.’ She eyed him for signs of surprise and, seeing none, went on proudly, ‘I’m working at the Women’s Centre. On the Piazza Tasso.’

  Bit close to home, Sandro thought, guiltily. He wasn’t sure he needed to be worrying about Giulietta Sarto on top of everything else. ‘Sit down,’ he said, pulling out one of the plastic chairs.

  ‘Two mornings a week and all day Saturday to begin with,’ she said quickly, as if she knew what he was thinking. ‘Only, when I bumped into Luisa at the baker’s she told me you’d got yourself a little office here. Said I could pop my head around the door.’

  Sandro relaxed. What else was he doing, anyway?

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, smiling for the first time. ‘Maybe you could drum up some business for me, down at the Women’s Centre.’

  They both laughed reluctantly at that. The Centre provided emergency contraception, advice for battered wives, rape crisis telephone lines. Halfway house for women like Giulietta, not a centesimo to rub between the clientele.

  ‘You’ll be all right,’ she said, cautiously. Then, becoming more thoughtful, ‘Seriously, though. I will say. If anyone – not, like, liabilities, I can see you can do without that, but anyone serious, decent – wants a bit of help, I’ll recommend you.’ Sandro had been her arresting officer, two years ago. She looked puzzled at the turnabout in their relationship the offer entailed.

  Sandro sighed, the irony weighing a little heavier on him than on her. ‘Thanks,’ he said again. There was a silence during which she fiddled with her mobile phone and he wondered if he should offer to buy her a coffee. But before he could say anything she stuffed the phone into her bag and leapt up.

  ‘Oh, God,’ she said, panicky and apologetic all at once. ‘It’s ten o’clock. I can’t be late, it’s only my third day!’ And she was off, as abruptly as she’d arrived.

  Six hours and four coffees later, the desk drawers now stocked with stationery, La Pulce folded and unfolded a dozen times so he could stare uncomfortably at the ad he’d placed last week (‘Ex-officer from the Polizia dello Stato offers thirty years’ investigative experience and discreet and conscientious service. No job too small.’), Sandro wished he’d asked her to come back for a spot of lunch. Found himself feeling envious of her two mornings a week of being needed.

  That night, Luisa chattered on about the day at the shop. A marchesa had been caught shoplifting. Seventy if she was a day, she rattled around in a vast, freezing nineteenth-century pile on the hill up towards Fiesole and had given an Uccello to the Uffizi, but the Americans who used to rent her piano nobile for cash in hand must have got cold feet, what with all the terrorism, because she was clearly broke. Broke, but refusing to admit it. She’d swanned through the shop being gracious to all of them then put a handbag under her ancestral fur coat. The alarms had gone off when she’d tried to leave.

  ‘Are you listening?’ said Luisa. ‘I thought you’d be interested.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Sandro. He’d been wondering how long he should sit there in the Via del Leone, before calling it quits. ‘Shoplifting?’ He wondered if she was about to suggest he should look for some work as a store detective, or private security standing by the cashpoints or the jewellers’ shops on the Ponte Vecchio in a toytown uniform. He’d have to hide whenever a real uniform turned up.

  She looked at him. ‘You’re not going to give up, are you.’ It wasn’t a question.

  As it turned out, Sandro nearly missed his first client. He had advertised his hours of business on the plate he’d had made at the door as well as in the small ads, as eight-thirty until twelve, two until seven. On the doorstep at eight twenty-five on day four, Friday, his key in the lock, he thought, to hell with it. Who turns up at eight-thirty? Not in the crime stories, they didn’t, in the gialle of Rex Stout and Raymond Chandler, they turned up around whisky time, beautiful hard-boiled women with long legs. He should have known, after thirty years, that trouble gets people up early in the morning. People lie awake in the early hours, waiting for it to get light. And private detectives often found themselves drinking whisky by ten, even in the gialle.

  But, getting slack already, Sandro had put the key back in his pocket and turned away from the door, from the thought of all those hours to kill. He took a step towards the square, where on the way home yesterday he’d noticed a nicer-looking bar than the grubby one on the corner of the Via Santa Monaca. It was a big, bright place with a marble counter frequented by the market stallholders; he could almost see it from where he stood, full of real life. You could stand there and watch the little kids playing on the slides, the mothers with their bags full of vegetables. He’d had enough of his view of half an inch of Santa Maria dell’Carmine and eighty square metres of orange plastic tubing. He’d had enough of silence and solitude; he was going to the bar.

  But something made him turn around. An apologetic cough, a small sigh, ten metres behind him, at his own front door. He turned without thinking, and there she was, a copy of yesterday’s La Pulce in her hand.

  Chapter Three

  Iris March Burrowed Under the duvet and listened. She could hear the drone of morning traffic in the street the other side of the three-foot-thick walls, but the big, dark apartment was as quiet as a tomb, and as cold.

  Iris wanted a cup of tea. Her nose was cold; her feet were cold; the apartment was colder than anywhere she’d ever been in her life, and it was a long way across uncarpeted stone to the kitchen. It was colder than school in England, where the windows rattled and the radiators were never more than tepid, and you sat pressed hopelessly against them turning mottled under your uniform without ever getting warm. The apartment was also colder than home, the terrible mildewed glass house built in the only cold, damp, north-facing site in the whole of the Ventoux by an experimental architect Ma had been having an affair with when she’d dropped out to paint – well, mess about – in the South of France, at nineteen, which happened to be exactly Iris’s age.

  A pov, they called her at school, in her discreetly hand-me-down uniform. If you hadn’t sent me there, she used to say to Ma, we could have rebuilt the house. Or put in proper central heating. Iris remembered falls of snow that killed olive trees, and hunters going out on New Year’s Day in hard frosts, blasting away with guns on the hillside below them. Then, feeling herself getting all homesick, she forced herself to remember the days and days of rain, too, the water seeping under the cracked concrete floor of the terrible house. He was fairly famous, now, the architect, though Ma’s house was one of his projects that never got photographed for magazines. He had a shock of white hair and a wrecked red face, and he’d made a pass at Iris, once. She turned over in disgust at the memory, pulling the inadequate duvet over her head.

  Made a pass, that was one of Ma’s phrases, always delivered gaily, fondly. ‘Oh, lovey, David Bailey? Twenty years older than me and made a pass before he even knew my name.’ There would have been very little point in blowing the whistle on the architect, even if he had been something like forty-five years older than Iris.

  Ronnie’s mother had found the flat. Ronnie was short for Veronica. Being called Iris was bad
enough, but she couldn’t imagine how anyone could come up with a name like Veronica for a girl born in 1988; Iris supposed that under the circumstances Ronnie was all right. Ronnie’s mother had racing stables outside Newmarket and a new boyfriend, and wanted Ronnie, mooching around at home between school and whatever was going to be next, out of the way.

  ‘Bitch,’ Ronnie had said as they unpacked their bags. ‘Why does it have to be stinking, boring Florence?’

  Ronnie throwing silk underwear around, chucking expensive boots on the floor. And why, Iris had thought as she looked at her own favourite dress, dark red rayon with a ruffle that was suddenly looking cheap, do I have to come with you, Ronnie?

  They’d been default friends at school, and had exchanged emails since, Iris dutiful, nostalgic even, after coming home to France to do the International Baccalaureate because Ma had run out of money for school fees. Ronnie’s emails had been easy, boastful, condescending; Iris had the idea Ronnie’s mother, Serena, was telling her to write them. Serena had a thing about creative people and, Iris being from a creative family, she wanted Ronnie there for some screwy, snobbish reason to do with that. If you only knew, Iris wanted to say. The life of the artist. Ma illustrating children’s books for a pittance. Selling watercolours of Mont Ventoux in a crappy gallery in Aix, at the rate of one a month.