The Drowning River

by Christobel Kent

  When he had spoken the detective had sounded tired; he really should talk to her, face to face, he’d said. They had agreed on tomorrow, both of them reluctant but they didn’t really have any choice, did they? What could they have done in the dark, worn out? A whole, long night, wherever Ronnie was, whether she was inside or out in the rain – and Iris had to stop that train of thought. It wasn’t cold, Iris told herself, it was wet but not yet cold. Not winter yet.

  Although if she was dead, she wouldn’t feel the cold. Iris saw the rain falling on a cold cheek, streaking the brown and gold hair across Ronnie’s dead skin, in undergrowth. Perhaps it was too late; she had said goodnight and maybe the detective, Sandro Cellini, had heard the despair in her voice because he had said, ‘Don’t worry.’ Then he’d added, ‘We’ll find her.’

  She had held Jackson’s hand the rest of the way back in the taxi but it had been Sandro Cellini’s words that had stopped her feeling alone. Until they had arrived in the Piazza d’Azeglio, that was, and Jackson had paid the cab, and they were inside the deep dark of the apartment, alone together and both holding their breath for what would happen next. And then she had stopped thinking about Sandro Cellini, or Ronnie, or anything at all.

  Afterwards, of course, it had all come rushing back at her, in the darkness, and she began talking, quickly, out of guilt.

  They had been crushed against each other on the narrow bed as she talked into the darkness, Jackson silent beside her.

  ‘You wouldn’t have fixed up for Ronnie to meet this Claudio if you’d – well, if you thought there was anything funny about him. Would you?’ Her voice was small, pleading.

  There was a silence. ‘Look, Iris,’ he said, with resignation, ‘I don’t know, that’s the truth. I mean, sure, I wouldn’t have knowingly put her on to some old creep – I didn’t think he was a creep. I liked him a lot; I thought Ronnie’d be blown away by him.’ His voice was hollow.

  ‘But?’

  ‘But you never know about people, do you? Not really.’ He sounded low and tired and desperate.

  Iris took his hand, under the thin cover; she knew she should just leave it, they both needed the rest, but she couldn’t. ‘And what about the boyfriend?’ she said. ‘I don’t understand why we didn’t know anything about this boyfriend? Why didn’t she tell anyone about him?’

  There had been a silence; beside her Iris felt Jackson fighting sleep.

  ‘Maybe it’s just none of us would have known him,’ he had said eventually, ‘so no point bragging.’

  ‘And why didn’t he come to the party, then? She could have showed him off.’

  ‘Busy guy, maybe.’ His voice had been drifting by this point. ‘Some place else to be.’

  And he had rolled away a little, and was gone, holding her hand tucked under the dead weight of his arm. And Iris had stayed awake staring into the dark, while things made less and less sense. Until at three she had given in.

  And now she was alone, and there was something else to think about, she realized. How much time had it taken? Iris had no idea. Not long at all, then a long time lying awake. She couldn’t imagine ever doing it again.

  He’s gone, now stop thinking, Iris instructed herself. And fell instantly asleep.

  In the pre-dawn sky beyond the tall, shuttered windows, the cloud rolled down again, and softly the rain began to fall.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘You Sat Bolt Upright,’ said Luisa, setting the water glass down carefully on the bedside table, ‘and you said, that’s it. I’ve got it, you said.’

  Sandro groaned, and raised himself on an elbow to drink the water. He found he was very thirsty. ‘I don’t suppose I said what it was I’d got, did I?’

  It had seemed like a very long night; under the influence of the fever Sandro felt as though he’d travelled enormous distances in his sleep. He felt completely drained of energy, but the fever was gone.

  They’d got back to an empty apartment. Giulietta Sarto had done everything, paid the cab, fished in Sandro’s pocket for his key, got him upstairs and shoved him into the bathroom while she brewed some potion up for him of sticks and leaves and ginger. He had heard her rooting through the cupboards as he stood under the shower, trying to get warm. She told him Luisa had given her the recipe for it, good for fevers. Giulietta had had a lot of fevers after rehab and the halfway house, during the six months she practically lived with him and Luisa. Listening to the hiss of gas under the pan and the clatter of cups, Sandro had twice opened his mouth to tell her that Luisa had a hospital appointment on Monday, but the words would not come out.

  While he drank the disgusting concoction Giulietta had scolded him. He’d protested that he had two jobs on now, he couldn’t afford to stay at home just because of a bit of rain. He had fumbled with the words, and the more robust he tried to sound, the more defeated he had felt. He hadn’t thought it would be like this, he’d tried to tell her. It was a different kettle of fish being in a police force; he thought of Falco, delegating, a whole team to send off here there and everywhere, not to mention all the comforts of a police station. He was on his own, and on the outside.

  ‘It’ll look different in the morning,’ Giulietta had said. ‘Come on.’

  And there were things he had wanted to ask Giulietta, too, he knew that, only he couldn’t think of what they were right now, and as he’d tried Sandro had found himself falling silent at the table.

  By the time Luisa’s key had turned in the lock Sandro had been past worrying about what she would think, he had only wanted to see her. His teeth had chattered as she leaned down close to him and felt his forehead and his chest, clicking her tongue in exasperation. She had felt around his neck for swollen glands, interrogated him as to sore throats and chest pain but he had just shaken his head. ‘I’m fine,’ he’d croaked.

  ‘No, you’re not,’ Luisa had said, fishing for tachipirina in a drawer, pouring him a glass of water and then another, rubbing his arms with her strong hands to stop his shivering. Giulietta had stood in the corner, but Luisa hadn’t told her to go, and after he had climbed into bed and felt the paracetamol uncramp his aching body, he had heard their voices in the kitchen, talking too softly for him to hear. And then he had fallen asleep.

  ‘Did you tell her?’ he said now, upright in the bed and looking at Luisa in her Sunday morning outfit, white towel gown and big soft slippers, hair sticking straight up.

  ‘I showed her,’ said Luisa defiantly, folding her arms across her soft white front.

  ‘You showed her – it? The – the – ’ The word stuck in his throat. ‘How did she take it?’

  Luisa snorted, ‘Giulietta? She was fine.’ She shook her head at him.

  ‘People worry, you know,’ she said. ‘They think they don’t want to look directly at things, because they’re frightened. But the more you know, the less you worry. The more you know, the more you can just – get on.’

  Sandro leaned back on the pillows, exhausted by her logic.

  ‘That’s why it’s harder for you than it is for me,’ Luisa said, plumping herself down on the bed, a breath of her clean sweet smell reaching him. ‘It’s why you got ill. You can’t do anything, you start to just – burn up from the inside. I know you.

  ‘I thought this job would be good for you,’ she went on. ‘I’m sorry, it’s my fault, piling it on, that missing girl. . .’ She looked tired suddenly. ‘I didn’t think.’

  ‘No,’ said Sandro sharply. ‘Stop it. Of course it’s good for me. It’s work, isn’t it? It was just. . .’ And he paused, trying to pull his thoughts together. The night’s fever seemed to have churned everything up, all the possibilities he’d found himself considering yesterday, the names and connections and leads, and now they’d been left scattered at random in his head, like junk.

  He sighed. ‘It’s different, being on my own,’ he said wearily. ‘Without Pietro.’

  ‘So call Pietro,’ said Luisa, getting to her feet. ‘Get help. For heaven’s sake, we’ll help, Giu
lietta and me.’

  ‘I spoke to the room-mate last night,’ he said, and it came back to him with a dull impact, like being thumped in the chest. ‘The missing girl’s room-mate.’

  ‘And?’ Luisa looked at him warily.

  Sandro compressed his lips, let out an explosive sigh, and told her.

  ‘What?’ said Luisa incredulously, sitting back down. ‘She thinks the girl was meeting Claudio?’ She shook her head. ‘Ah. Not good.’

  ‘What’s your theory?’ he asked with dull resignation.

  Luisa set her hands on her hips and regarded him. ‘The worst-case scenario? Claudio Gentileschi met the girl, made a pass at her or worse, hurt her or worse, then walked into the river and killed himself out of remorse.’

  She brushed her hands against each other in a cleansing motion. ‘Don’t look like that, like a dog that’s been beaten. That’s the scenario you haven’t wanted to look too hard at, isn’t it? Because you like Claudio Gentileschi’s wife, number one, and by extension, you like him. You don’t want to believe he’s capable of such a thing.’

  Sandro gazed at her with something approaching awe. He swallowed. ‘I would have to be very sure of that scenario before I took it to the Carabinieri,’ he said. ‘Or to Lucia Gentileschi, or indeed to Veronica Hutton’s mother, even if she is a ballbreaker.’ He passed a hand over his head in despair. ‘But you’re right. From the minute I knew they both went missing on the same day, I thought, what if?’

  ‘It’s like cancer,’ said Luisa, and he didn’t blink at the word. ‘Being afraid of it doesn’t make it more or less likely to be real. It’s either true or it’s not; the thing to do is have a close look at the facts, then act accordingly.’

  She got to her feet. ‘Try to prove he did it,’ she said. ‘Don’t keep trying to prove he didn’t.’

  Obediently, Sandro swung his legs out of bed; they felt like jelly.

  Luisa set her hands on her hips. ‘Because I don’t like my theory any more than you do, and I think we have to find some holes in it, yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Giulietta’s coming over to check up on you in less than an hour,’ said Luisa as she turned her back on him. ‘So if I was you I’d get up and start looking better, or else.’

  They sat across the table from each other with a little stack of paperwork between them. The police photographs, statements and post-mortem report on Claudio’s death; the thin cardboard file Falco had given him on Veronica Hutton’s disappearance; the battered copy of La Nazione which included the report of the discovery of her bag.

  Luisa put some sweet cake from the bar on a plate, set a pot of coffee on the iron stand and poured a cup for Sandro. He sipped cautiously; in his newly purified state, it had a kick like a horse.

  ‘I wish we had it – more narrowed down,’ he said. ‘If only there was another sighting of her, if only we knew where she was supposed to be going. The room-mate said she’d planned something, had a cover story that she was going to the country to stay with friends, only it turns out the friends are in England. The room-mate thought maybe it was going to be a romantic couple of nights in a hotel, I don’t know – the lakes, somewhere –’

  ‘Wherever,’ said Luisa, impatiently. ‘So where’s this guy now? If she didn’t turn up? Why hasn’t he been asking questions?’ She wrote again. Boyfriend?

  ‘Of course,’ said Sandro slowly, ‘one reason he hasn’t been asking questions is that they’re together having their romantic break. She’s alive and well and drinking spumante on some hotel terrace somewhere.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Luisa drily. ‘That would be nice. Even if it did make us all look idiots, running around chasing our tails. No.’

  Sandro put his head in his hands. ‘We have to assume the worst.’

  Luisa sighed. ‘Yes, I suppose we do.’ She frowned. ‘So the boyfriend could be panicking. Keeping his head down.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ said Sandro, nodding.

  ‘Or it could be him. Isn’t it usually someone you know? Most women killed by their boyfriends? Or their husbands?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sandro, ‘only this relationship, if it ever existed, seems to have been so top secret no one has seen hide or hair of the guy.’ He puffed out his cheeks. ‘The Carabinieri have even been through her emails, all that stuff.’

  ‘So we’re back to poor old Claudio, suspect number one.’

  Luisa reached across the table for his hand. ‘Call the room-mate,’ she said. ‘Fix up to see her. Like you promised. Check out the place they live; you might find something about this boyfriend they’ve missed.’

  Reluctantly, Sandro dialled. It was strange; it might be Sunday morning but for the first time since he’d left the force, Sandro felt like he was getting to work. He wondered if it was always going to be like this, from now on. Irregular hours, and Luisa acting as his foreman, cracking the whip. He didn’t altogether hate the idea, but a part of him was relieved when the metallic voice told him Iris March’s number wasn’t available. It was the bastard thing about Florence, mobiles going in and out of signal, blocked behind stone palaces and towers. It would never be a modern city.

  Luisa looked frustrated. ‘Damn,’ she said. ‘Well, on to the next thing, let’s work without her, for the moment. Come on. Let’s say the girl was meeting Claudio Gentileschi; where?’

  ‘Boboli,’ said Sandro straight off. ‘Obviously. She was on camera coming in through the Annalena gate at 11.25; he’d come in five minutes earlier.’

  ‘Right,’ said Luisa thoughtfully. Public, but not public; not an entirely safe place for a girl to arrange to meet a man she didn’t know.

  ‘Her friend Jackson knew him,’ said Sandro, in mitigation. ‘And he was eighty-one, for heaven’s sake.’ Luisa pursed her lips judiciously.

  ‘Strong guy, though,’ she said. ‘Big guy. She wasn’t to know that.’

  He conceded defeat. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m playing devil’s advocate, caro,’ said Luisa, a hand across the table on his forearm. ‘On the plus side, he came out on his own. And there’s been no – body found in the Boboli.’

  ‘No,’ said Sandro, feeling a stirring of hope, almost immediately crushed. ‘But the Boboli is full of hiding places.’

  ‘And the Boboli’s heaving with state employees,’ said Luisa, ‘wardens, gardeners, school leavers, old men looking for a quiet place for a sit down. They’d have found her.’ She paused. ‘And your theory is a man with dementia, an ordinary guy, has managed to hide a girl’s body so well no one has found it?’

  Sandro stayed quiet, trying not to smile. She was so smart.

  Luisa went on, ‘What do I know? But they usually find dead bodies fairly quickly, don’t you? You, the police, I mean?’

  Sandro nodded. ‘If not premeditated. And you’re right, not many people have the right. . . temperament. To hide a body.’ The glimmer of hope kindled again; hope made things harder, in some ways. ‘She might have been alive when he left her. He – or someone else – might have put her somewhere. While they thought what to do.’

  Luisa nodded. ‘That happens, does it?’ She appealed to him. ‘You mean, by some random person?’

  ‘Or by the boyfriend,’ said Sandro, reluctantly; it seemed too much to hope. ‘It’s the cock-up theory, you know; things go wrong – the victim is a witness, perhaps, to wrongdoing, very often has been raped for example, and it’s a short-term measure, shut them up.’

  He considered. ‘In rape cases, there’s a motive for keeping them alive, but in fact most people have a strong resistance to killing. There are cases where victims are confined, held against their will for weeks, while their abductor tries to work out what to do. There was that old man in Abruzzo, last month, locked a child in his garden shed because he’d – exposed himself to her.’

  They both fell silent then, thinking of another old man. Luisa was the first to speak.

  ‘D’you think Claudio might have done that?’ she said reluctantly. ‘Gone a bit loopy, lock
ed her up somewhere, then, I don’t know, forgotten where he’d put her?’

  Spoken out loud, it stopped Sandro in his tracks; he put a hand out towards the keys on the table and closed them in his fist. ‘It’s possible,’ he said slowly. ‘But Lucia Gentileschi says there’s never been any trouble at all in the marriage, say, with other women. Nothing. They were everything to one another.’ The keys dug into his flesh.

  ‘And you believe her?’

  ‘She’s an exceptional woman,’ said Sandro. ‘She’s like you; she’s completely straight, not the kind to deceive herself. If there’d been trouble she’d have told me, and I’m pretty sure she’d have known.’

  ‘OK,’ said Luisa. ‘Let’s assume that he wasn’t a womanizer; to make a move on a girl young enough to be his granddaughter – great-granddaughter – would have been completely out of character.’

  ‘Alzheimer’s does funny things to people,’ said Sandro, reluctantly.

  ‘But he wasn’t at that stage yet, from what I understand. Just getting a bit vague. Not at the stage when he thinks – and I know this is what’s going through your head – he’s still nineteen himself, and Veronica Hutton’s in his league.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ said Sandro cautiously. ‘But – he had the means. He had the place. There was this other life.’

  ‘What?’ said Luisa. He told her, all about the keys, the payments for gas and electricity and water.

  ‘An apartment to – take women to? Or something?’

  Sandro tried to look at the facts; he thought of the barman telling him about Sandro’s regular habits, how he never talked to anyone as a rule, how he came in for his whisky sour on the dot, always alone. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said cautiously. ‘No money spent on heating the place.’

  The only sound audible was the rusty tick of the clock.

  ‘A – a bolthole, then.’