Right.
Right.
Right.
Right.
I want a date.
I salivate.
Stefan.
Cristian.
Mihai.
Nicolae.
Boy, you’ve got a lot of meat.
That’s someone I need to meet.
Male model?
Body double?
Batman.
He-Man.
Ripped like fucking Superman.
Sexy smackers.
He’s a cracker.
Nice chest.
He’s the best.
Trouser snake.
My heart breaks.
Hmm, I wonder if Nino’s on Tinder. Of course he is. He’s a Tinderbeast. Why is anyone ever on Tinder? To meet their future husband/wife? For a long and fulfilling relationship?
OH MY GOD.
I CAN USE TINDER TO FIND HIM.
I can use Swipebuster to track him down. Alvie, you’re a fucking genius. This has to work. It’s gold.
The only possible minor flaw is the fact that I have Nino’s phone. But I’m willing to bet on two probabilities:
He already has a new mobile.
He’s uploaded Tinder.
(With a libido like that the man needs sex at least two or three times every day. I bet he’s on there right this minute. There isn’t a second to waste.)
Now, where the hell would Nino go? I’d hazard a guess at Italy. Not Sicily, that’s far too risky. The cops and the mob are after him. So Naples? Didn’t he mention that when we were planning our escape?
I tell Swipebuster I’m looking for someone who is called ‘Nino Brusca’ and that the last time he showed up was somewhere in Naples. I set up a fake email address to get the results. A message pings into the inbox:
Nope. Nothing. They can’t find him. There’s no one in Naples with that name. Perhaps he’s used Giannino Brusca? Perhaps he’s used an alias?
Urgh. I can see this getting frustrating. There must be an easier way.
I google ‘How to find someone on Tinder’. Albion Services comes up. It uses facial-recognition technology. All I need is a photograph. Perhaps there’s one in Beth’s phone? I scroll through her gallery. Thousands of pictures of baby Ernie. Some selfies of Beth in a new dress. Some arty snaps of the amphitheatre in Taormina. And, ooh, what’s that? A birthday bash. It looks like it’s Ambrogio’s party. And there is Nino. Yes, that’s him without a doubt. He’s standing right next to Ambrogio as he blows the candles out. It’s a bit dark and his face is small but it might . . . it might just work. I crop the photo and zoom in on Nino’s criminally handsome face. I upload it to the tracking bot and take a guess at the town. I try Naples again just in case. I enter the email address and wait . . . Come on, come on, come on.
A message pings into the inbox.
No. He isn’t there.
Shit. Fuck. Damn. Bugger.
What about London? He could still be there?
I type it in. Upload his face. A face to shame the angels . . . Sigh. It’s such a shame I’m going to turn it into foie gras. I click go and bite my nails. This had better work.
Another message pings into the inbox.
Nothing. I’ll try again.
Rome? How about there? That’s Italian.
OH MY GOD IT’S HIM.
It looks like a brand-new picture of Nino without his hat (which is in my bag). ‘Nino Brusca, 39, Rome.’ This is beyond awesome. I’ve always wanted to go to Rome. It’s definitely top of my bucket list. (Rome, Havana, Las Vegas, Bangkok.) I’ve heard they have awesome sex clubs. This is all working out rather nicely.
* * *
*
The desks are open now at last. I buy myself a one-way ticket to Rome and wait at the gate. I am travelling as my sister, since Alvie’s officially dead. They might have put a block on my passport. It isn’t worth the risk. The plane is leaving in fifteen minutes and I cannot fucking wait. I sit and fidget and watch the news.
WTF is that?
I gawk at the TV screen.
That woman is my mother.
What the hell is she doing on telly? Is it The Antiques Roadshow? No, it’s not. The camera cuts to a close-up of my mother’s perma-tanned face: perfect make-up, voluminous blow-dry, three strings of pearls. I can’t hear what she’s saying. I try (and fail) to lip-read. She reminds me a bit of a blonde Margaret Thatcher; there’s an identical diabolical air . . . She’s cradling a sleeping baby Ernesto, looking straight at the camera, almost, it seems, looking straight at me. I stare right back, unblinking, unbreathing, as tense as a stalking cat. It’s the first time I’ve seen her in a couple of years. She hasn’t aged a bit, like one of those radioactive apples you get from the supermarket. Perhaps she’s been cryogenically frozen and only just thawed out? Behind her, the remains of Elizabeth’s villa, blackened and broken by the fire, smoulder and smoke like the scene of a plane crash. The palm trees, the flowers, the frangipani, all burnt to a crisp and crumbled to dust. The swimming pool sparkles beyond her right shoulder. I shiver in my chair.
A picture of Beth on her honeymoon in Kenya appears on the screen, with ‘ELIZABETH CARUSO’ in capital letters. My stomach sinks. Shit. Now it’s official. The cops are looking for my twin. I bet she’s wanted for questioning in my supposed murder. Which means, of course, that I am. My mother’s appealing for help to find her, hence the desperate look on her face. I bet the cops think I know something. They think I’m a witness or worse. Do they suspect it was me who killed my sister? No, no, no, this is all messed up. Now they’ll trace her fucking mobile. Why me? Oh what a mess.
Ping.
What now?
An email from my mother. I click into the text.
From: Mavis Knightly
[email protected]
To: Elizabeth Caruso
[email protected]
Date: 1 Sep 2015 at 08.56
Subject: RE: Where are you?
Elizabeth, angel, did you receive my last email? I’m getting really rather stressed. No one here has a clue where you’ve got to. My anxiety levels are through the roof. I have barely slept a wink, and it’s not the jet lag, I can assure you. Migraines. Dry mouth. Itchy skin. Eczema behind my knees. I’ve developed a stomach ulcer. It’s psychosomatic, of that I’m sure. A stabbing pain in the mid-abdomen, two inches above the navel. Very uncomfortable. I’m bent double with the pain. I manage to go about two or three feet before I need to sit down again. It’s an excess of stomach acid. I need to eat some chalk. Of course, my doctor is in Australia, and the man in the chemist here doesn’t speak English. I’m getting tired just writing this. Will you please call me back?
PS The police are looking for you. They want to ask you some questions about your sister.
I roll my eyes and delete the message, then switch off my sister’s phone and shove it in my bag.
If the police are looking for Beth, then I am going to have to be Alvie. I’ll need to use Alvina’s passport when I get to Rome. Beth’s ID got me through security, but that was before the news broke. Unless . . . unless . . . Oh God. The police are sure to block Alvie’s passport. But how long does it take to do the admin once someone has popped their clogs?
They call my flight and we board the plane. I stand in line and start to sweat. What will I do when we get to Italy? Who the hell am I? Alvie or Beth?
Chapter Six
Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport,
Rome, Italy
‘Passaporto,’ the official says, his voice muffled by glass.
I study the palm of his outstretched hand, the deep grooves of his heart line, his lifeline, his whatever-the-fuck line.
My fingers clutch the passports in the bottom of my bag. I should just turn round and
get back on the plane. Or live here for ever in the airport, like that guy at JFK. A lifetime of duty-free shopping and vitamin D deficiency. But no, I can’t. That’s ridiculous. Nino’s in Rome. That’s where I need to be. I try an unconvincing smile and take out my own passport. I hand it to the man. He’s chatting with his colleague in Italian. Be cool, Alvina. Be breezy. I hold my breath and watch him as he leafs through the burgundy book. I’ve got serious heart palpitations. My chest is tight. The fake smile cracks and I bet my forehead is shiny.
I study the picture in the passport and read the details upside down:
KNIGHTLY
ALVINA
BRITISH CITIZEN
10 OCT 89
CIRENCESTER
(Ooh, that’s a Roman town. He’ll like that.)
I eye the back of his computer. Is there something flashing on the screen? What’s taking him so long?
‘Benvenuto,’ he says with a grin. He hands me the passport and winks.
‘Oh. Right. Benvenuto,’ I say.
I snatch the book and leg it out to arrivals. I can’t believe he let me through. Perhaps the airport staff don’t know I’m dead? Or was he too busy laughing and joking to notice his monitor flashing red? Either way, thank fuck for that. I made it to Italy.
I run into the nearest loo and peer at the girl in the mirror. My sister’s face stares back at me. Those are her eyes and that is her mouth. That’s our nose with the sprinkling of freckles, slightly turned up at the end. I look like Beth, but hugely hungover. I am a wanted woman. That was my face up there on TV (Beth’s face, but you know what I mean). The cops are going to recognize me. What am I going to do? I need to get a nose job or something. I need a master disguise. I should cut my hair, but I really don’t want to. It took me an age to grow it out. (An ill-informed crop back in 2011 resulted in years of an ‘in-between’ length.) I could change the colour, but brown is too obvious. Blue, green, yellow, red, pink? They’d expect me to cut it, so I could get extensions. Wear a large, distracting hat. Buy some mirror sunglasses. Perhaps some piercings? A tattoo? But a nose job, yes, that’s just the ticket. It would totally transform my face. Jennifer Grey from Dirty Dancing never looked the same again. I need a teeny, tiny button nose that’s really nothing more than a pimple. I want the conk of a Manga star. The snout of a Disney princess.
I head out of the airport and hail a cab.
But first, I need a place to stay. I’ll find a flat on Airbnb. I prefer that to another hotel. No room-service maids. No prying receptionists. Windows that you can climb out of. I’ll book a month, but we shall see. If I like it here, who knows? I could stay indefinitely. (If I survive, that is.) But a month should be long enough for now. I’m here for one thing and one thing only: to exterminate that stronzo. And shopping, obviously. I’m sure they have great shops out here. I have €200,000. All I’ve bought so far are flights and champagne. I want to go to fucking Prada. I’m going to buy the whole shop.
Trastevere, Rome, Italy
I am so excited to be here I write a haiku in my head:
Rome. You sexy son
Of a bitch. Where have you been
All my life? Kiss, kiss.
This city is fucking spectacular. It’s even better than in the movies. I thought Angels and Demons was photoshopped, but no, this place is BOSS. Oh, eternal city. Caput Mundi. Capital of the whole damn world. City of Cicero, Virgil and Ovid. The streets are a Latin love elegy. The buildings are marble cum-shots. Rome. The home of Fendi, Bulgari and Valentino Garavani. The Colosseum. The Roman Forum. Frascati (that fizzy wine). Isabella Rossellini. Pizza. Pasta. Sex and fashion. Francesco Totti (fit).
I wind down the window in the taxi and stick my head out in the breeze, my hair streaming out in a banner behind me, the hot sun burning my skin. I can smell the sultry stench of sex and taste the summer heat. The thick, black, crack-cocaine-strong coffee wafting from the terrace bars. I watch the men in Ferragamo suits ride too fast on wasp-like Vespas, swerving in and out of the traffic and BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. They have black-out shades and fags in their mouths and tans to rival David Hasselhoff’s. Damn, I love Italian men. I’d sleep with any one of them.
‘Hey, have you got any other music?’ I say to the comatose cabbie.
His eyes flick up in the rear-view mirror. ‘Is Ligabue. Is great.’
‘I don’t know what he’s saying,’ I say. ‘Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.’
The cabbie sighs and presses some buttons on his retro digital radio. He finds a track in English.
‘Awesome. Can you turn that up?’
He cranks up the volume. It’s ‘Wrecking Ball’. I nod my head in time to the bass and dance a bit in my seat. I love Miley; she is badass. She has a tattoo of an avocado. I’m going to get a tattoo while I’m out here. I’m thinking ‘DIE NINO’ or perhaps just ‘FUCK YOU’. I’ll see how I feel when I get there.
I flick fag ash out of the window. The air is dusty and dry. The traffic seems to crawl along the choked-up city streets. The skyline is crowded with domes and columns, spires and towering pine trees. It’s beautiful. Man, I already love it. It’s fucking poetry. Is that St Peter’s Basilica? We must be near the Vatican City. Oh my God, I’ll have to go and visit John Keats’s grave. That’s one dead guy I actually like. Seriously, what a legend. ‘Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!’
There’s a statue of the Virgin Mary, her halo lit up with LEDs. Her painted dress is chipped and blue. She always reminds me of Beth.
‘Is Trastevere,’ calls the cabbie, shouting over the pounding bassline.
Miley’s on about starting wars. I think I know what she means.
The car pulls up next to the kerb and I pay him. I’m about to get out.
‘You go now, crazy English girl.’
My hand is on the door handle, but I don’t move. I stare at the street outside. Nino is somewhere here. Tinder said. It doesn’t lie. I remember the chainsaw. The bodies. The blood. I remember that hole in the ground in the wood. ‘IF YOU CAN CATCH ME, WE CAN WORK TOGETHER’. But what if he catches me? A single bullet between the eyeballs? A clean slit across the throat? The pavements are crowded with dark-haired men. Any one of them could be him . . .
‘Allora?’ the cabbie snaps. He swivels round in his seat and frowns.
I can’t stay in here all day.
I take another look up and down.
He wouldn’t do it here in broad daylight, not in front of all these shops.
I jump out of the cab and slam the door shut. ‘Vaffanculo,’ I say.
I’m about to call up Airbnb and find myself a new flat, when I remember the cops are looking for my sister. I can’t use her phone. They’ll be tracking that. I still have my old Samsung, but I can’t risk turning that on. No, there’s only one thing for it. I’ll buy myself a burner. There’s an Italian version of Carphone Warehouse over the road. I sprint across the busy street and head inside.
* * *
*
The flat is tucked down a winding side street. Pot plants. Ivy. Balconies. It’s quiet here. Private. Secluded. No one to hear you scream.
I meet my new landlord (a two out of ten. Not all Italian men are fit then. I take that comment back). He gives me some keys and I give him some money. Then he fucks off again.
You have got to be kidding me: five flights of stairs? It’s murder. No sign of a lift or an escalator. Now I am all hot and sweaty. I hope it was worth the effort. I guess it’s safer on the top floor, so that’s a plus, I suppose. I push through the door and OMG. It’s an actual palace. Screw the Ritz. This is all mine and it’s fit for royalty. I dump my bag in the entrance hall and float through the rooms and endless halls, my fingers trailing the dado rail and my feet barely touching the floor. I glide across the marble tiles and twirl around the rooms in awe. Prelapsarian landscapes are painted on the wooden walls: lush green grass and
sunny skies, cherubs and forests and flowers. The ceilings are high and painted gold. There are crystal chandeliers. It’s gorgeous, better than Beth’s old villa. Four-poster beds and French armoires. The scent of beeswax and jasmine. I love it. I am going to stay here for ever (or at least until I’m dead).
I fill the bath with steaming water and too many bubbles and sink in deep. I’m finally here. I deserve a treat. My hand slides down between my legs. I’m wet. I touch myself . . .
Nino. Nino.
But I can’t focus. I’m distracted. I turn on Beth’s mobile phone for half a minute. I doubt that’s long enough to track. I need to see if there’s any more news. I might have missed something important.
Ping.
A text from an unknown number.
‘WHAT THE FUCK? DID U KILL MY GUY?’
Ha. It’s Nino. He must have noticed his man’s disappeared and put two and two together. You know what? I’m not going to reply. Let him work it out himself. Let him worry about it . . .
I put down the phone and then pick it up again. Put it down. Then pick it up.
I can’t text Nino from Beth’s phone, the cops might trace the signal. My new burner is on the side. I type in Nino’s number.
‘YEAH I DID AND UR NEXT.’
Send.
That should freak him out.
‘IT’S ME BY THE WAY. I HAVE A NEW PHONE.’
I send that as well.
I delete his text and scowl, then turn off my sister’s phone. I’d better not turn it on again. That was already too long. I stub out my fag in the scalloped soap dish, then download Tinder on my new phone. I scrub off the blood from under my nails. My toes stick out from the mountain of bubbles. I emerge from the bath in a cloud of steam, perfumed and powdered and sparkly clean. No mud or blood on my face or legs. No leaves stuck in my hair. I check myself out. Divine as a goddess. Why hasn’t he texted back? Nino’s an imbecile.
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