The Drowning River

by Christobel Kent

  The hall table, the drawer, yes. She went into the hall with Falco close behind her, pulled open the drawer, and as she opened it and saw the NHS card she knew she’d been right; this was where she’d seen Ronnie stash the small maroon and gold booklet, saying she didn’t care, it was going to get nicked if she took it in her handbag everywhere she went. Yes.

  Only it wasn’t there this time.

  ‘Oh,’ said Iris. ‘This was where she kept it.’ She felt a glimmer of hope. ‘She must have it with her.’

  Massi nodded briskly, agreeing with her, and she was grateful.

  Falco just gave them both that impassive stare; Iris was getting used to it. Bored scepticism, to cover for the fact that he didn’t have any answers either. Saying nothing, he crossed over to the computer, bent to stare at the dark screen and clicked his tongue in exasperation, leaned around the back and before Iris could say ‘Don’t!’ he stuck the cable back in and stabbed a finger at the start button. Behind her in the doorway Paolo Massi’s sharp intake of breath echoed her disbelief and she turned.

  ‘But what if – ? There could have been fingerprints!’ she said, seeing the dismay in his face, knowing she was just guessing, that she knew nothing about it. ‘Couldn’t there?’ Massi shook his head helplessly, looking past her at the policeman, and the computer screen, which remained resolutely blank.

  The carabiniere looked back at them, unconcerned.

  ‘I’ll take it back to the office,’ he said in Italian. ‘We can get it working, we have computer guys who can rescue anything. Clearly we have to examine her emails, that kind of thing.’

  ‘MySpace,’ said Iris faintly. ‘She had a MySpace page.’

  ‘Of course,’ said the carabiniere, but his haughty look didn’t convince her he knew what she was talking about.

  ‘Will you examine the apartment?’ she said, and he made a gesture of ambivalence with his hands. ‘Eventually,’ he said. ‘But I think if there was anything of interest – you would have seen it, yes?’ She nodded uncertainly.

  ‘Can I stay here?’

  He looked at her curiously. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘If you want.’ He sighed. ‘Signorina March,’ he said, ‘perhaps we were hasty. We don’t know yet that anything wrong has happened, do we? There is nothing in the Boboli, no sign of – ah, violence. No-thing. The Signorina Hutton – ’ he pronounced it ’Utton ‘ – she is legally adult, yes? Adults disappear quite often, and then they reappear, she has her passport.’ He shrugged.

  Iris stood as obstinate as a child in front of him, her lips compressed. She knew when she was being told to stay out of something. She knew he’d looked around at the way they lived – slatternly, careless English tourists – and had made assumptions.

  ‘But she lost her bag,’ she said stubbornly. ‘Or her bag was stolen. She would need money.’ She saw the policeman’s expression darken, and felt Massi’s hand on her arm, touching her lightly.

  ‘Iris,’ he said, ‘you will not get anywhere like that.’ She opened her mouth to protest but between the two of them, outnumbered and alien, she suddenly felt like bursting into tears, or screaming. Find her.

  ‘OK,’ she said, squeezing her eyes shut so neither of them would see.

  Massi saw the policeman to the door, the computer under his arm in the same kind of zipped plastic evidence bag they’d had Ronnie’s handbag in when they’d come into the school. In the salotto Iris slumped onto the prickly horsehair sofa.

  ‘Do you think he’s right?’ she asked fiercely of Paolo Massi when he came back in. He looked pale; he turned his hands palms up, renouncing responsibility. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, shaking his head. Iris felt like stamping her foot, sick of this fatalism crap, all this what will be, will be stuff.

  ‘There is no point in assuming the worst, Iris,’ Massi said haltingly. ‘Try not to worry. We’ll find her. We will.’ He considered her for a moment, standing over her. ‘Are you hungry? Come back and meet my wife.’ She stared at him; she wasn’t hungry at all. She looked at her watch: twelve. His voice was gentle. Suddenly Iris didn’t want to be alone here, for all her acting tough, and she had two hours.

  ‘I’m seeing Jackson this afternoon,’ she said, and Paolo tilted his head back, looking at the ceiling.

  ‘I wonder,’ he said. ‘I wonder about that boy. Do you think he knows anything about this?’

  Iris stared at the floor. Jackson had sounded scared; what did that mean? That he did know something?

  ‘I doubt it,’ she said, not knowing why but wanting to do this on her own. Even if it wasn’t safe, she wanted to do it.

  ‘Come along,’ said Paolo, a hand on her shoulder. ‘My wife has made you some lunch.’

  In the palm-filled courtyard the Contessa Badigliani was lying in wait for them, hair stiff as auburn candyfloss. She greeted Paolo Massi with elaborate surprise, holding out a hand covered in ornate rings, started going on in hushed Italian, something about how well his wife was looking.

  They all know each other, thought Iris, not wanting to be so English and suspicious, but suspicious all the same. We’re their meal ticket, aren’t we? Do they like us at all? Now she was on the subject of Ronnie, and glaring at Iris as she spoke.

  ‘I’m very worried,’ the contessa said, wringing her hands rather theatrically, but she didn’t sound it; she sounded cross. ‘What has she done, this girl? Where has she gone?’

  Massi said something soothing, but the contessa was having none of it; she threw up her hands, muttering about the mother, the police, dreadful to have the police on one’s doorstep and she wouldn’t deal with them. She had clearly waited until the carabiniere was off the premises before emerging from her apartments. When Iris and Ronnie had arrived, she had explained to them that she liked the ground-floor rooms for their coolness in the summer, and their access to the garden for her little dog; behind her, through the door, Iris could see only deep gloom, and caught a whiff of damp. She felt a twinge of something like pity, an emotion she knew would enrage the contessa even further were she to express it.

  In a sentence full of the usual formalities and courtesies, Massi murmured again and she turned away from them then, their cue to escape.

  He had taken her to the car parked illegally on the piazza; it was at least fifteen years old, a dirty gold colour and surprisingly messy, piles of papers sliding off the back seat.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Massi, ‘my wife’s car.’ He smiled stiffly. ‘I don’t have one any more; bad for the nerves, in this city.’ It was months since she’d been in a car, Iris realized; it was weird. She’d forgotten what a confined space a car was. The rain was still coming down relentlessly, the elderly windscreen wipers flogging back and forwards as they drove through the big boulevards of the northern city, unfamiliar to Iris.

  The apartment was just beyond a railway line where the road went up, he said, to Fiesole, although the sodden cloud hung so low you could see nothing beyond the roof of the apartment block. It was a solid building, not ancient, not new; Iris settled on fin de siècle because it had solid stone detailing around the windows, and balustraded balconies, though what did it matter? She hoped no one judged her and Ma by the terrible architect’s terrible concrete house.

  ‘Why do you live here?’ she asked as they entered a tiny, flimsy-looking lift, hoping she didn’t sound rude; it was so anonymous, the wide and beautiful city all stretched out to the south of them, and Massi lived here. Massi looked at her, refusing to be offended, she thought; he smiled.

  ‘It’s a very popular area,’ he said. ‘Good for families.’ The lift shrieked as if prompted, and jerked them upwards. ‘Cool in the summer; we have to be practical, you see. Living here all year.’

  Unlike you foreigners, he meant; by the time the hot summer came, Iris would be long gone.

  The door opened before them; they must have been expected, thought Iris, but before she could think anything else, a dark-haired woman was on top of her on the threshold, long, thin, cool fingers stroking h
er cheek, amidst an outpouring of exclamations and endearments in Italian.

  ‘Anna, Anna,’ said Paolo behind her. And then they were inside and the door shut behind them.

  Massi’s wife stepped back at last and put a hand to Iris’s cheek. ‘Poor child,’ she said, in Italian. ‘Poor child,’ and Iris retreated in alarm.

  ‘Anna,’ said Paolo again, and then, to Iris, ‘My wife does speak very good English, actually. She’s just very – emotional. She can only be emotional in Italian.’ He said something in Italian to his wife then, something like, Don’t. You’ll worry her.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Iris, not knowing what else to say. Not surprising he kept his wife away from the school; she would certainly be a distraction. She looked around; the place was big and dark, like the Piazza d’Azeglio; it seemed wrong to her, she still couldn’t understand a country where there was so much sun you needed to shut it out. Not today, though; through a tall curtained window she could see the rain gusting. It was only early afternoon but there were several lamps lit inside.

  Anna Massi put a hand back to Iris’s cheek again, and smiled. There was something unusual about her that Iris couldn’t quite pin down; her hair was very black, but her skin was pale and she seemed delicate, in an old-fashioned sort of way. Even her clothes were old-fashioned, particularly for an Italian; she was wearing a woollen skirt that might have belonged to her mother.

  ‘Sit, sit,’ said Anna Massi, gesturing at the sofa before abruptly turning away to stare moodily out of the window. ‘O dio, this weather,’ she said, flinging her arms around herself. ‘The rain! Like the apocalypse, the global warming, don’t you think?’

  Iris kept quiet. ‘Even Sicily,’ Anna Massi went on, shooting a reproachful glance at her husband from the window. ‘They say it’s even cold down there.’

  Paolo Massi grunted; looking from him to his wife, Iris thought he seemed quite different in her presence. It was strange to think of her own sudden self-consciousness with him, all that time ago, a whole twenty-four hours. Yesterday morning, when all she’d worried about was being told off for Ronnie not being there.

  Anna Massi turned back to Iris, smiling. ‘One can sometimes swim in Sicily at this time of year, the sea still warm, you know.’ Iris nodded warily. ‘Of course, I have too much to keep me busy here. Last week I accompanied pilgrims to a shrine near Treviso; imagine! The study of religions is my passion, not only Christianity, you understand. Also the ancients, Thebes, Peru. . .’ She clasped her hands together at her breast. ‘My passion.’ Iris stared; she was a weird woman all right.

  ‘She’s lovely, isn’t she?’ Anna Massi went on to her husband in Italian, still smiling at Iris. ‘Like a Botticelli, don’t you think?’ Massi did a funny thing of tilting his head back and looking at the ceiling, while Iris pretended not to understand, but as the blush rose inexorably to her cheeks she thought, It’s OK. She’s being kind.

  The food had not been what she had expected, just like the apartment, just like Massi’s odd wife; some meat, roasted to dryness, stewed vegetables, a jug of water. It was elaborate without being organized, as if Anna Massi actually had no idea how to cook at all. Iris told herself off; had she really thought that all Italians lived in picturesque old buildings and made their own pasta? They talked about nothing much, chewing their way through the tasteless food; they avoided the subject of Ronnie completely, as if Iris were a small child that needed to be protected.

  ‘Are you enjoying the drawing course?’ Anna Massi asked. ‘Paolo tells me you’re very talented.’ Startled, Iris stared at him, fork in midair, then blushed, again. ‘I don’t think so,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Iris,’ said Paolo Massi wearily. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You must know you’re good.’

  Iris thought of the drawing of Ronnie that Antonella had put up on the wall of the studio. ‘Well, I am enjoying the course, yes,’ she said, cautiously.

  ‘You English are strange,’ said Paolo Massi. ‘So unlike the Americans. They never have a problem believing in themselves.’ He seemed tired, suddenly, forking the food into his mouth without enthusiasm. Iris looked from him to his wife, feeling inexplicably sorry for him.

  ‘Thank God for the Americans,’ said Anna Massi, blithely. ‘Look what a success the school has been, thanks to them. The gallery, the exhibitions – well. Aren’t they what really made the difference, these last ten years?’ She leaned across the table and took Iris’s hand, impulsively. ‘Oh, dear, you aren’t offended, are you? It’s just that the Americans have the money – and there are so many of them.’ And she laughed; Iris joined in, not very convincingly, and Paolo Massi remained uncomfortably silent.

  Would the Americans go on coming? wondered Iris. Was he worried, not just about Ronnie, but about the effect on the school? And immediately she felt ashamed; of course he was just worried about Ronnie. And, anyway, she thought stoutly, what’s she talking about? There were only a couple of Americans on the course, and the studio could hardly be that much of a moneyspinner; it couldn’t be down to Ronnie disappearing if the whole thing died a death. She thought Massi’s wife was rather peculiar and naïve, in fact, with her faith in the Americans, with her faith in the school.

  After they’d eaten – and none of them ate much – and drunk some tiny cups of bitter coffee, Anna Massi had leapt up. ‘Would you like to see the apartment?’ she asked Iris, recovering some of her English. Taken aback, Iris agreed, and found herself led through the place, shown every corner of the big dark sitting room, which turned out to be full of ornaments, candles and mobiles and pieces of pottery – ‘Anna likes to encourage artisans,’ Paolo Massi had said wryly, and Iris had just nodded, thinking, some of them maybe shouldn’t have been encouraged. Worse than some of the stuff Ma’s friends in Provence produced; far worse.

  A big double bedroom with dark, heavy, furniture – ‘From my family,’ Anna said haughtily – a completely ordinary bathroom with toothpaste stains in the sink and mismatched towels. Iris wondered if they thought all English people were obsessively interested in other people’s houses, or if they just didn’t know what to do with her. A small, white-painted room, with a single bed with a crucifix on the wall behind it and a big picture of Padre Pio or someone like him over a chest of drawers with more candles underneath it, like a little shrine. Iris had backed out of that room, but not before she had seen a nightdress folded neatly on the pillow and had understood that this was where Anna Massi slept. ‘My back,’ said Anna by way of explanation, before Iris could forestall her. She put a hand to the base of her spine and grimaced. ‘I need the hard bed.’

  Oh, God, thought Iris; what am I doing here?

  ‘I think I’d better get off, now,’ she said hastily, when they came back into the salotto where Paolo Massi looked up at them from his newspaper, tired and nervous. ‘Really?’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘When are you – I’ll take you, yes?’ He glanced at the window; it was grey and gloomy for early afternoon, but the rain seemed to have eased.

  ‘No,’ said Iris quickly. ‘I mean, thanks very much, but you’ve helped enough, the lunch, looking after me and everything. . .’ Massi and his wife both protested at once, arguing with her, arguing with each other, but Iris held firm. She shouldered her bag and moved towards the door.

  ‘Look, no, it’s absolutely fine,’ she said. ‘I have bus tickets, it’s stopped raining – well almost,’ reaching behind her for the door, suddenly desperate.

  She managed to confer a hurried kiss on Anna Massi’s outstretched cheek and to avoid actually being rude in her haste, but once the door was shut behind her Iris fairly flew down the dank stairwell, dodging the claustrophobic lift and not even really taking a breath until she was out on the street with the beautiful cool rain falling on her cheeks and the fresh air in her lungs.

  In less than a minute a bus lumbered towards her on the wide anonymous street, and climbing aboard it with ridiculous gratitude, like a child running out of a detention, Iris made her escape.

 
; Chapter Eleven

  Sandro Had Spoken To the mother.

  Serena Hutton; the woman was a ballbreaker from hell. Christ only knew how much it had cost when she called him from Dubai on his mobile, as he made his way across from the Lungarno Santa Rosa towards the Carabinieri station. The Via della Chiesa had been too narrow for the delivery van to avoid splashing him, and as Sandro jumped back with the phone clamped to his ear, just too late, pressing himself against the damp plaster of the nearest wall, he had felt the filthy gutter water seep into his trouser bottoms, his socks, his shoes. Not that it made any difference by that stage; Sandro’s morale was not high.

  It was the thing he’d dreaded when he went private, the way she’d talked to him, issuing instructions as though he was a dog she was training. Even as a police officer, of course, people sometimes seemed rude in their distress, but this was different; this didn’t look like anguish to Sandro. Serena Hutton had said she should be able to get to Florence some time the following week, Monday or Tuesday; he supposed that there was in fact nothing she could do, but still. Three more days, not knowing? Was it normal, in England, to shrug off your children this way?

  She had barked instructions at him, bits of information, telephone numbers; in his pocket Sandro had the newspaper report so he was able to respond, he knew where Veronica Hutton had been studying, her age, he had a photograph.

  ‘Has she done this sort of thing before?’ he asked, ‘Is this like her?’ and immediately regretted it. A torrent of recriminations followed in botched Italian concerning the girl’s school and their irresponsibility, from which he gathered that Veronica – Ronnie, the mother called her – had absconded from her boarding school for a weekend on one occasion. He further gathered that the mother had not actually lived with her daughter for more than a week since the girl was sixteen, what with school and holidays with wealthy friends here there and everywhere, and in fact she didn’t know if it was like her at all.