Текст книги "Alibi"

Автор книги: Joseph Kanon

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

CHAPTER TEN

Gianni’s funeral service was held at the Salute, so close to Mimi’s that it seemed a grimmer version of the ball, with the same crowding at the landing stage, people being helped up the broad steps, all in black this time, with hats and veils. The waiting gondolas stretched up the Grand Canal, as in a Canaletto, filling up the canvas, all of Mimi’s guests and more, enough for a state occasion. When the funeral boats arrived, a cortege of bobbing hearses, people lingered on the church steps to stare at the coffin, draped with flowers. We had become part of a news story: a violent death, an old family, the foreigners who drank at Harry’s. Across the campo, people watched from windows.

Claudia hadn’t wanted to go.

“I can’t. You go.

I’ll stay here,” she said, gesturing at the rumpled bed.

We were always together now, a kind of hiding, making love in her room, wanting each other even more because no one else was part of the secret, a new intimacy. Sometimes we went out for walks and talked about it, the only ones who knew, but mostly we stayed in, sex another way of talking, something else we could say only to each other. When she held me afterward, her fingers would move over my shoulder, making sure I was still there, and I would put my arm around her as if I were folding her up in a cape, making the world go away, both of us safe.

“No. We want them to see us.”

“How can I sit there? What will people think?”

“That you’re part of the family. Cavallini already thinks it. He thinks we’re Gianni’s family. Almost, anyway.”

“Ha.”

“He asked if his wife could call on my mother. Like something out of—”

“Yes,” she said impatiently, “very Venetian. The old manners. And you trust that?”

“You’re going for her sake. He’ll expect it. He’d notice if you didn’t.”

“My god. His family. Am I going crazy?”

I put my hands on her shoulders. “Just this, then we’ll go away.”

“Leave Venice?” She reached up, grabbing my arm. “You think they know something?”

I shook my head. “No, nothing.”

“Then why?”

“Because we’re the only ones who can give us away now—if we slip, say something. So the sooner we leave—”

She looked at me, silent for a minute. “Yes, the only ones,” she said finally. Then she turned away, out of my hands. “But first this. Am I supposed to cry too?”

“Just as long as Cavallini sees you with the family.”

But in fact there was some question about where to seat us. The ushers led my mother to the front, the widow’s pew, and then stopped short, placing us a few rows behind, on the right. My mother, dry-eyed behind her veil, seemed not to notice, still enveloped in that eerie calm that had settled in after Cavallini’s first visit. But someone must have told the ushers, decided on the protocol. It occurred to me then that I had no idea who had arranged the funeral, taken care of all the details that only seem to happen by themselves. A full mass at the Salute. A gondola banked in flowers. A reception at the Ca’ Maglione. All organized, down to where to seat the almost-widow.

I looked at the front pew. Just behind, Cavallini and his wife sat next to the priest from the ball, presumably a row of relatives. But in the front itself there was only an old woman leaning on a girl, who must be the daughter, finally arrived from Bologna. Or had she been here for days, ignoring us, going about her father’s business? I noticed then that the church was divided, the faces I recognized from Bertie’s on our side, Venetians on the other, my mother separated from the family by an aisle.

I stretched my neck, trying to see the daughter’s face, but she was looking straight ahead, to the high altar, where the priest had appeared with upraised hands. We stood, and the backs of the relatives now hid her from every angle. Music echoed through the vault under the dome as the pallbearers brought the casket forward. When we were sitting again, I felt Claudia rigid against me, staring at the coffin. I put my hand over hers and looked past the altar, hoping to draw her attention away. To the left was the sacristy with the Titian ceilings, but they were lost in the space, distant and dim, while the coffin sat right in front of us, inescapable. Down in the first row, the daughter had bowed her head.

The service took hours. I had never attended a mass in Venice—for me, the churches were poorly lit galleries—and the spectacle of it took me by surprise. Busy altar boys in white surplices, Latin chants and candlelight, hundreds of people answering in unison—the whole vast church seemed to be in movement, except the women on either side of me, Claudia still rigid, my mother simply quiet, looking vaguely at nothing in particular. At one point Cavallini turned his head slowly, as if he were counting the house, caught my eye and nodded, but otherwise we were left to ourselves. Nobody stared, more interested now in the theater of public grief. The eulogy, in Italian, was long enough to cover Gianni’s entire life. A choir sang. People streamed down the aisle for Communion.

Who were they all? Patients? Neighbors? There seemed, beyond the formalities, to be a genuine sadness in the room, or at least a somber reserve. What had he been to them? A friend? Or just someone with a doge in the family, respected out of long habit? Or maybe a dinner companion at Villa Raspelli, drinking the last of the good Soave. Don’t forget what he was. I looked down toward the daughter. Did she know? A law student, after all, not a child. But maybe he was still Papa, affectionate at home. People saw what they were supposed to see. Cavallini thought Gianni was rich, what any poor cousin would think, having even less. But the daughter’s grief was real enough. Her shoulders were moving now, shaking with discreet sobs, the only person in the great church actually crying. The old woman—an aunt? the nanny?—put an arm around her. I looked away.

Outside, there was confusion. People loitered on the steps, waiting for a cue. Were we supposed to follow out to San Michele? I remembered my father’s funeral, the long line of black cars, lights kept on, heading slowly toward Long Island. Here they would be gondolas, another ordinary ritual made fantastical by water. Or was the burial private, by invitation? Everyone looked at the daughter, climbing now into a gondola, away from the boat with the casket. Thin, her face still indistinct behind a veil, but perfectly erect, a girl from a good convent school. Her gondola headed up the canal toward Ca’ Maglione.

Cavallini came up to us and took my mother’s hand in a silent condolence, then nodded to Claudia, standing at her side—exactly what I’d wanted him to see.

“Is there a burial?” I asked, looking toward the hearse gondola.

“Yes, but not here. The country house. They’ll take him there, and then tomorrow the family—” He let the rest explain itself. “Today, it’s for Venice.”

“The country house?”

“Yes, on the Brenta. It’s very well known. For the Giorgiones.”

“Oh,” I said, surprised. “He never mentioned it.”

“Yes, he did, darling,” my mother said, her voice flat. “You just didn’t listen.” She had turned to Cavallini. “Thank you so much. You’ve been kind again.” About what?

“They were not, you know, evidence. And of course Giulia agreed.”

“After you asked.”

“No, no, she agreed. She has them for you.” He looked at me. “Photographs. Of sentimental value, for your mother.”

Not evidence. But something he’d looked over, going through Gianni’s things, already on the case.

“Grace.” A gloved hand appeared out of nowhere, along with Celia de Betancourt’s eager voice. “How awful for you.” She nodded toward the logjam of boats at the bottom of the stairs. “You’re not going back to the house?” she said, somehow making it ordinary, a dusty ranch, not a palazzo on the Grand Canal.

“Yes. His daughter’s there.”

“You don’t mind if I take a rain check, do you? All this.” She waved her hand to the church behind us. “I feel done in.” She paused, catching up. “His daughter. You’ve made up?”

“There’s nothing to make up. She’s been at school.”

“That’s not what Bertie says. He says she—”

I looked up, curious, but my mother was patting her hand, stopping her.

“Celia, I can’t. Not today.” She looked down. “Not today.”

“Oh, sugar,” Celia said, distressed. “This mouth. I don’t mean anything by it. You know I wouldn’t—”

“I know,” my mother said, patting her hand again.

“Not for the world.”

“You’re old friends,” Cavallini said, a polite intervention.

“Since the Bronze Age,” Celia said, herself again, glancing at him. She hugged my mother. “Don’t mind me. I just get funny in church. Everybody being so good. You know.”

“Signora Miller,” Cavallini said. “He’s waving to you. It’s your boat?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“So you took down the gondola,” Cavallini said to me.

“No, it’s hired. The marchesa doesn’t want us to use hers.”

“Just the other boat.”

“Maybe,” I said. “When the weather’s better.” Making a point of it, consistent, but Cavallini seemed not to have heard, busy now with Celia.

“May I offer you a ride somewhere?” he said, courtly, making Celia smile.

“God, would you? Just across. I’m going to swim to Harry’s if I don’t get a drink soon.”

“A long morning,” he said, his voice pleasant but his eyes, just for a second, flecked with disapproval. I looked around for his wife, but she seemed to have gone ahead on her own, leaving Cavallini to the foreigners. “You permit?” he said, taking Celia’s elbow, suggestive, but I saw that the point for him was the flirtation itself, nothing more, a game to distract. There hadn’t been a girl in Maestre either. And he’d already gone through Gianni’s papers.

“What did she mean about Giulia?” I said to my mother.

“Nothing. Just some idea of Bertie’s. About the engagement.”

“You mean she didn’t approve?”

“I didn’t say that. She just didn’t come to the party. A cardinal sin in Bertie’s book, of course. You can imagine.”

“But didn’t she?”

“Darling, ask her. Gianni never said so. You were the one he was worried about.” She stopped on the stairs, lifting her veil and staring for a minute across the water. “You know, children never like things to change. But they do.”

We joined the flotilla of boats heading up the canal to Gianni’s house, Claudia fidgeting beside me, restive, wanting it to be over. The sun had come out, the early Venetian spring that had eluded Mimi, making the buildings shine, scrubbed fresh by the rain. At Ca’ Maglione footmen lifted us onto a floating dock between striped mooring poles, like Mimi’s ball again, without the umbrellas. A long staircase lined with candelabra led up to the piano nobile, the usual Venetian layout. The ballroom was not as pretty as Mimi’s but just as large, done in red damask and heavy gilt chairs, like a version of La Fenice. Everything gleamed, spotless. How large a staff did it take to keep it going?

“I thought you said he had no money,” Claudia whispered to me, looking around.

“I didn’t say broke.” But in fact the room made me uneasy. It was not what I’d expected. No frayed upholstery, no chipped pieces. Nothing needed repair. The war might never have happened.

A long table had been set out with plates of biscotti, coffee cups, and thin glasses for vin santo—spare but appropriate, a reception, not a party. People spoke softly. Near one end Giulia was being kissed by an old man, just a movement to the cheek, hands placed over hers. When he moved back, she turned to the next in line, so that her face was toward us. I stopped. She had the kind of delicate features that went with the convent school posture, but her face, soft and composed, was slightly long, the one trace of her mother’s family. Otherwise, she looked exactly like Gianni, the same wavy hair, broad-set eyes. She was wearing a black dress with a small white bow at the neck, and for one awkward second I saw Gianni in his cutaway, arriving to take my mother to the ball, even the same quizzical look in his eyes. The look, at least, was real. I realized I must be staring and turned away.

“There’s Giulia,” my mother said. “Come and meet her.”

“Later,” I said. “I want some coffee. You go.”

“There’s nothing wrong, is there? You look all white.”

“No, I just need some coffee.” Eager now for her to leave.

“You’ll be nice,” she said, looking at me, a question. “You know you were almost brother and sister.”

“Yes, almost.”

“What’s wrong?” Claudia said to me when my mother left.

“She looks just like him.”

Claudia peered down the table at her. She was greeting my mother now, not with a kiss, but polite. “The eyes, a little.”

“All his features.”

“No, I don’t see that. The eyes, yes. His eyes were like that.” She looked away, then reached over and picked up a coffee cup. “What a pair we are. Standing here talking about his eyes, a man we—” She took a sip of coffee, still looking down.

“I’ll have to say something to her.”

She was leading my mother out of the room.

I looked around. “Who are they? Do you know any of these people?”

“From the newspapers. Il bel mondo.” Claudia said.

“What did the eulogy say?”

“A humanitarian. A savior of men.”

“Christ.”

My mother was back in the room, carrying a brown envelope. Of sentimental value.

“So, another meeting.” Father Luca was leaning over the table to pick up a biscotti. “A very different occasion,” he said sadly, looking at it as if he were referring to the food.

“Yes, very different. A beautiful service, though.”

He nodded. “Father Prato,” he said, “always excellent.” A professional appraisal. He bowed to Claudia, who acknowledged it, then glanced away, uncomfortable.

“He will be buried tomorrow?” I said, making conversation. “In the country, not at San Michele?”

“Yes, of course, the country. All the Magliones are buried there.”

“I didn’t realize he had a house there.”

He looked at me, stupefied, as if this were too absurd to answer. “Yes,” he said finally, “they always preferred it there. Not Gianni, he loved Venice, but the others.” He waved his hand. “Always this love of land. Well, you can see how lucky it was for them. Poor Venice. The trade declines, what do the families do? Buy more ships. But the Magliones? Land. And now the other families are gone. How many of these are left?” he said, indicating the palazzo. “In the family? Not a hotel. Not a museum. Still Ca’ Maglione. It’s because they bought land. It’s an irony, yes? A house in the water, still here, all because of land.”

“How much do they own?”

He looked at me again. “You mean exactly? I don’t know. These are private matters, family matters—”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. Just in general. It’s a farm?”

“A farm? But Signor Miller, the Magliones are the largest landowners in the Veneto. Surely you knew that.”

“No,” I said, disconcerted.

“Yes, from the Brenta—” He started spreading his arms, then stopped. “Well, considerable property. Of course, Giulia, the first wife, also had property. Near Ferrara.” He paused. “His first—his wife, I should say. Now she will be the only one.” He placed his hand on my arm. “I am so sorry for your loss.”

I looked at him, then nodded, a silent thank-you. “I wish I’d known him better.” Something to say.

Surprisingly, this seemed to move him. He gripped my arm tighter. “Your mother. She’s—?”

“It’s hard for her.”

Father Luca shook his head in sympathy. “To lose a man like that. And think of the family. Always taking care of everybody. Paolo, everybody. Even as a child you could see it—the head of the family.”

“But I thought Paolo was older.”

“Yes, but Gianni was the head. Even then. Boys. Well, we were all boys. And now? A tragedy, a tragedy. So much evil in the world now.”

“More than before?” Bertie said, coming up behind him. “I wonder. Luca, I have to drag you away. Hello, Claudia,” he said, his voice cooler. “What a surprise.” He met her eye for a second, then backed away, turning to me instead. “I promised Luca a proper lunch. You must be famished,” he said to him, glancing at the table. “She’s the mother’s daughter, isn’t she?” He sighed. “Be lovely to pay a little attention to the living.”

“But this is traditional.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s perfect. Just right. The mother was like that too. And you never had a decent meal in her house.”

“Signor Howard,” the priest said.

“Oh, I know. Very bad of me. Anyway, come to lunch. Adam, you ought to get Grace home. It’s a strain, a thing like this.”

“She seems all right.”

“Mm. It’s all this holding herself together I don’t like. Much better to collapse with a good weep and get it over with. Much better in the end.”

Father Luca took my hand. “If you ever want to talk, I knew him very well.”

Bertie threw me a “What are you up to” look, then turned to the room. “Aren’t people extraordinary?” I followed his gaze to the crowd in suits and black dresses, idly talking, sipping coffee. “You’d think he’d had a heart attack.”

It was Giulia finally who found us, smoking out on the balcony, pretending there was more sun than there was. “You’re Adam,” she said simply, extending a hand. I introduced Claudia, who moved back against the railing, suddenly skittish, but Giulia nodded graciously. There was no sign of recognition, the engagement party scene apparently not known to her. Another relief, something already fading, no longer gossiped about.

“I saw you looking at me before,” she said.

“I’m sorry. It’s just, you look so like your father.”

“You think so? Most people think my mother.”

“Well, I never knew her.”

“No,” she said, suddenly embarrassed. “Well, the eyes maybe. Everyone says that.”

But her eyes had none of Gianni’s sharpness. They were soft, almost hazy, as if she had just taken off glasses and were trying to focus. “You went to San Michele,” she said, her voice flat, so that for a second I wondered if she resented it, felt it was an intrusion.

“The police asked me.”

“Yes,” she said quickly. “I am so grateful. To see him like that—” She stopped herself. “I gave your mother some pictures. From his youth. They knew each other then, before—before the others.”

“Yes.”

“So it’s a romantic story. I didn’t know.”

“He never told you?”

She looked down. “We didn’t talk about it, no. Well, maybe he tried.” She lifted her head, clear-eyed, no longer soft or unfocused. “You know, it’s not easy to say this. I disagreed with him about this marriage. I thought he was bewitched.”

I smiled to myself. A word never used in conversation. Despite the perfect English, foreign after all.

“But now, I meet her and I see I was wrong. Not the fortune hunter. An affair of the heart.”

“Fortune hunter?” I said, thrown by the unexpectedness of it.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know how to say it. You know, with my father there was always that danger, so it was natural—” She paused. “A mistake. I apologize to you.”

“No, I just meant—” But what did I mean? That she would appreciate the irony? That it was the other way around? I put out my cigarette, stalling. “I wish we’d met earlier.”

“Yes, I apologize for that too. Of course I had examinations, but that was an excuse, really. Anyway, I didn’t come. So that was the last thing he said to me. ‘Good luck with the examinations.’ ” She looked out at the canal, where a vaporetto was passing, catching the faint sun on its white roof.

“You’re going to be a lawyer?” I said, bringing her back to somewhere neutral.

She smiled. “In Italy? A woman? No. They let me study—well, because of my father. But in the courtroom? They wouldn’t like that so much.” This to Claudia, who gave a thin smile back.

“So what will you do?”

“Oh, it was to work with my father. Like a son, you know? He used to say that to me, ‘You’re my son.’ So it’s a good thing to know, law, to run the businesses. My father used to trust everybody, and of course they cheated him. So now his son is there, a lawyer, they don’t cheat so easily.” Not soft. Gianni telling me exactly what would happen at the trial he’d never have. She stopped, smiling shyly. “I’m sorry, it’s boring to talk about this.”

“No,” I said automatically. Businesses, not just land.

“We should go in. It’s getting cold,” Claudia said, folding her arms across her chest and starting for the door.

Giulia glanced into the room, still filled with people. “Yes, they can’t go until they tell me how sorry they are. It’s the form. Over and over, how sorry.”

“Who was the woman with you in church?”

“My grandmother.”

“Gianni’s mother?” I said, a nervous twinge in my stomach. A child killed—nothing was worse. Not just killed.

“No, my mother’s. She’s the only one left now.”

I opened my hand to indicate “After you,” expecting her to follow Claudia through the door, but she hesitated.

“Wait,” she said. “A moment. I don’t know how to say it. I want to talk more. Will you come to see me?”

“Yes, if you’d like.”

“It’s strange, you know, but there’s no one else. I mean, we’re not family, but we might have been. So it happened to you too, this death. Death—murder,” she said. “Murder,” she said again. “They won’t even say it. No one else will care the way we do. You’re the only one I can ask.”

“Ask what?”

“For your help.”

“My help?”

“To find the murderer.”

I stared at her. “But the police—”

“Ouf, Cavallini. Filomena’s husband, that one.”

“He’s still the police.”

“They’ll never find out. They’ll look and then they’ll stop.”

“But you won’t,” I said quietly.

“Never,” she said, her voice Gianni’s again, sure. “I can’t. I’m the son.” She looked at me. “And you.”

“The way she looks at you,” Claudia said later, in bed.

“Like a sister.”

“Ha.”

“Jealous?” I said, smiling at her.

“No, careful. One slip, you say, but who’s talking? The priest, then the daughter. I thought I would scream. I thought we’d never leave.”

I smiled again, but my mind was elsewhere, in the polished high room with the gilt furniture. Not a fortune hunter.

“But we did,” she said, putting a finger on my chest, bringing me back. “So it’s over, yes?”

The largest landowners in the Veneto.

“Everyone saw us. That was the point,” I said.

“Everyone saw us at the ball.”

When I got home, my mother was looking through the photographs, the brown envelope next to her on the couch. I turned on a lamp and went over to the sideboard to make a drink.

“Want one?”

She pointed to her half-filled glass on the end table.

“You know, I don’t remember wearing my hair this short,” she said, peering at a snapshot, “but I suppose I must have.”

“What businesses did Gianni own?”

“Oh, darling, I don’t know, a little of this, a little of that. Wines. He was always talking about that. Why?”

“Giulia mentioned the family businesses. I was just wondering what they were.”

“They own part of a bank. I expect that’s what she meant. And bits of things. He said it was safer that way, spreading out your chips.” She looked up. “Not munitions, if that’s what you mean. He wasn’t that.”

“No, I didn’t mean that. Just curious.”

“Well, the wines he used to mention. He said there was no such thing as a bad year during the war. So much demand. But I think it was more a hobby, really. The rest was through the bank.”

“But he was rich?”

“Darling, what a question. What’s this all about?”

“Cavallini said he was one of the richest men in Italy.”

“Well, the family. They always had pots.”

“But he was the family.”

“After his brother, you mean. Yes, I suppose. But darling, you knew all this. Anyway, what does it matter now?”

“It doesn’t, I guess,” I said, sipping my drink. “But you knew?”

“Well, of course I knew. He always had money. I don’t know how much exactly. I didn’t ask to see his bank balance. I’m not Peggy Joyce yet.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You might as well.” She looked away. “I admit I thought about it. Well, who wouldn’t? But I was fond of him, you know. I really was. It wasn’t just the money.”

I hesitated, taking this in. “I didn’t know it was the money at all. I thought you were in love with him.”

“I never said that,” she snapped, annoyed. “I said I was fond of him. Though why any of this should matter to you now, I haven’t the foggiest.” She put the photographs aside, unfolding her legs, restless. “I must say, you pick your moments. I’ve just buried the last husband I’m likely to have and you want to talk about his finances. Accusing me of I don’t know what. All right. So we’re crystal clear. I was never in love with Gianni. I’ve told you this. I was in love with your father. But Gianni—well, after all these years, I never expected that. And then there it was, and yes, I thought, Well, this is lucky, everything will be all right now. But I was fond of him. I never deceived him about that,” she said, her voice finally breaking. She reached for a handkerchief. “Now look. I get through the whole funeral and now I start to puddle.”

I stared at her, my mind racing, connecting dots. “What do you mean, everything will be all right now?”

“What? Oh, the money. That’s what we were talking about, isn’t it? Anyway, that’s gone now. It really doesn’t matter how much he had, does it? I won’t see any of it.” She sniffed into the handkerchief.

“So what? You have your own. We’ll go back to New York.”

But she was shaking her head. “It’s not going to stretch there. I can do it here. Why do you think I came? You can still live here. You have no idea what New York is like now, just the simplest things.”

“Stretch?” I said, looking at her, trying to follow. “What about Dad’s money?”

“I’ve been living on it. I’m still living on it—I never said anybody was starving.” She moved away. “I don’t know how much you thought there was. Those last years, when he was sick, it just went through your fingers. All the nurses, everything. It goes. And every year there’s less. So you have to be careful. Look, I can do it. It’s just I can do it better here. And I thought, well, you have that little trust from your grandfather—and you were always so independent anyway. I’m not going to be a burden, you don’t have to worry about that. But New York just eats it away. You get worried. You just keep hoping something will turn up.”

“And something did.”

“Yes, something did.” She looked at me. “I didn’t plan it. I went to Paris, not here.”

“I know.”

“But the way you look. So I came and it was lucky, and shall I tell you something? We would have been happy. We would have taken care of each other. He wanted to marry me so much. Why? I don’t know, but he wanted it. We would have been happy. It wasn’t just the money. I was fond of him.” She fingered the brown envelope on the couch, then turned to me. “But you never saw that. Always so—” She cut herself off, then shook her head. “You made it difficult, Adam, you really did. We didn’t deserve that, either of us.” Her voice dropped, finally out of steam, and she moved toward the door. “What shall I tell Angelina? Are you in tonight?”

“Yes, all right.”

“Not for me, I hope,” she said. “I don’t want that, Adam. I don’t mind being alone.” Her shoulders moved, a small shrug. “Anyway, I’d better get used to it.” Almost casual, making peace.

“No,” I said, trying to reassure her with a look. “Something will turn up.”

She nodded, smiling weakly. “Twice.”

After she left I went over to the couch and picked up a few of the pictures. On the beach, with her short hair, in a group. Gianni as a teenager, grinning, then as a young man, sitting with people in cafés, posing in San Marco, in a racing car with his brother, in front of the hospital—all smiling. Giulia must have raided the family album to find Gianni as my mother would have known him, young, unattached. Even in the later pictures his wife was missing—at home, or maybe just outside the frame. Smiling, happy, exactly the man my mother described. Not the one I knew. But they must at some point have been the same. When had everything turned inside out? If it had.

My face felt warm, as if my mother’s words were stinging it. All I’d wanted to do, the start of everything, was to protect her. But he’d been rich, not after her money, not even thinking about it. I dropped the pictures, my hand shaking a little. What else had I been wrong about? I tried to think what his face had looked like when he hadn’t been smiling, when he had been reaching for me in the hall. Malevolent, or just angry, frustrated? Maybe Claudia’s landlady had wanted the rooms back. Maybe the Accademia was cutting staff. Maybe I’d killed the young man in the photograph, imagining he’d become someone else. Held his head underwater until the life went out of him because I had got everything wrong. Not just murder, murder for no reason at all. I sat for a few minutes more, my chest suddenly tight, taking in gulps of air, then went over to the phone and placed a trunk call to Rosa Soriano.