Disappeared

by Colin Falconer

  “I have lectures all morning,” she said.

  “Perhaps I could see you this afternoon.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  A good question. “Dinner. No strings attached, no complications.”

  She picked up her towel. “I have to dry my hair. I can drop you off at your hotel if you want.” She took her coffee back to the bathroom.

  “And dinner tonight?” he called to her.

  “I'm thinking about it.”

  The door closed.

  ***

  She dropped him off on the Via de Giubbonari. Like all Romans she knew only one way to drive; with the accelerator pedal jammed to the floor and one hand on the horn. When he got out his hands were shaking.

  He leaned in through the passenger window. “So now what?”

  “I'll pick you up at your hotel at seven o'clock.,” she said and drove away, the throaty roar of the Lancia's exhaust echoing from the ancient walls of the Palazzo Pia Righetti.

  Chapter 60

  THE RESTAURANT WAS off the Via Nazionale near Termini station in a badly lit sidestreet. No light escaped the heavy curtains and the two imposing wooden doors suggested an illegal gambling hall rather than a trattoria.

  But inside it was a bedlam of noise and cigarette smoke, scurrying waiters and shouted conversations. There were black and white framed photographs on the walls, from fifty or sixty years before, showed the same vaulted ceiling, bentwood chairs, timber panelled walls. The patrons were mostly Roman. At a table on one side of them were three wealthy, middle class Italian couples, all wearing expensive watches and with telefonini in their pockets, shouting at each other over their antipasto. On the other another was an old man in a threadbare brown suit, his cane hooked over the back of his chair, crumbling a piece of bread into his soup.

  The proprietor came over to welcome the Signorita Rivera personally, brought with him a complimentary bottle of rosso and asked her to pass his felicity to her father.

  Simone wore a short black cocktail dress, cut low at the back, as simple as it was effective. She wore no jewellery except for a small gold pendant in the shape of a broken heart. Her hair was tied back in a French braid.

  He thought about Diana, who rarely wore anything but jeans and loose, ill-fitting jumpers. Like Cinderella, in two separate incarnations.

  She sipped her rosso. “So tell me more about you,” she said. “You said you were born in Buenos Aires.”

  “My real name's Luca. My mother's part Spanish. I have her good looks, and my father's shy English reserve.”

  She smiled at that, at least.

  “When did you leave?”

  “When everyone left. I was six years old.”

  “Do you remember it?”

  “Not much. What about you?”

  “I remember being very happy there. We had a big house with servants. And a swimming pool.”

  “What's not to love? Did you ever go back?”

  “Perhaps one day. I am worried I will be disappointed. That in my memory I have painted a rosier picture than the way it really was.”

  “Yes, children can do that.”

  “And you? You never went back?”

  “Like I said, I don't remember that much. It doesn't have the same fascination.”

  “You're a shy Englishman now.”

  He smiled. “That's right. Reserved. Proper. Polite.”

  She gave him a certain look and he turned away and concentrated on the menu. You're a frighteningly good actor, Luke. How long can you keep up this charade?

  The resemblance to his sister was unnerving; at times he felt like he was flirting with his sister. And yet she was also so different in so many ways, the way she talked, the way she acted. She was confident and almost brash, while Diana was quiet and shy; Simone was elegant, while his sister was a tomboy. But the feelings he had when he was around her were the kind of feelings he had never had for Diana.

  What was his game here? Was he a journalist, an overprotective brother - or something else?

  ***

  He's very good-looking, Simone thought, but in an obvious way. Not the kind of man she was usually attracted to. Her other boyfriend had been much quieter and looked like a Latin. Was Luke really born in BA? She still wondered if it was just a line. Still he had charm, she had to admit. She was intrigued.

  “So, you are a journalist. You are writing about Rome?”

  “I'm doing a story about the Pope.”

  “Is it a scandal? He has been sleeping around again?”

  “I'm not that kind of journalist.”

  “So, what are you writing about Il Papa?”

  “Well really, it's an article on the next Pope.”

  She regarded him seriously. “But Gianpaolo is not dead.”

  “No, but he's getting old.”

  “Surely God will decide our next pope, not your newspaper?”

  “I wouldn't be sure. Our sales manager assures me he has a subscription.”

  As they ate he told her about himself, about the newspaper he worked for - he called it a 'broadsheet' - in London. This was his first major assignment, he said, and he was hoping eventually to work as a foreign correspondent, perhaps with one of the international news bureaus. She was impressed. He seemed to know an awful lot about Italian politics and about Rome.

  He asked her again about her early life in Buenos Aires. She told him about the house in Palermo and the estançion her father owned just outside Córdoba. He was one of the best listeners she had ever met. He was even interested in the novels she liked to read and the name she gave her pony when she was a child.

  “What do you do?”

  “I'm a student, at the university. I'm in my last year.”

  “What are you studying?”

  “I'm doing a science degree. I'm hoping to go into medical research. Perhaps genetics.” She saw the expression on his face. '“Why are you looking at me like that? You think that is too hard for a woman?”

  “No, of course not. My sister ... she's studying genetics, too. Co-incidence.”

  “You have a sister? I would have liked a sister. Sometimes I feel like ...”

  “Like what?”

  “Like I'm missing something, as if ... I don't know, forget it, it's just stupid.”

  “No, go on. Please.”

  She shrugged. “It's just a feeling I've always had. I can't explain it. I don't even know why I'm telling you this.”

  “You don't like being an only child?”

  She shook her head.

  “I think I would have quite liked it. Apparently I was very jealous of my sister, kept trying to run over her with my bike, push her out of her cot, that sort of thing.”

  “That doesn't surprise me.”

  “You can't say that. You hardly know me.”

  “You look like the kind of man who enjoys the limelight.”

  He grinned. “So your parents didn't want any more kids?”

  “My mother had some problem when I was born. She couldn't have any more children.” She could not decipher the expression on his face. “What?”

  He looked at her over the rim of his glass. “Nothing.”

  “You are thinking something.”

  “Indigestion.”

  “You cannot get indigestion here. This is the best pizzeria in Rome.”

  “On that subject, I cannot believe you suggested this place. I guess you think I can't afford the sort of places you're used to.”

  “I like places like this! The ristoranti my father used to take me, no one laughs and no one is allowed to talk above a whisper. '

  “What does your father do?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me. I'm sure you know better than I do?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because you understand so much about politics. It's never interested me. He tells me he's a business consultant, but I think he's some kind of lobbyist and I'm not even sure if it's all legal. He is always having lunch or dinn
er with some archbishop or politician.” She forced a laugh. “He seems to know his way around the Vatican better than most of the Curia.”

  “He looks like he's done all right.”

  “Come on, you're itching to say it. You saw the apartment in Trastevere, the BMW. A student can't afford things like that. I am a spoiled rich kid, I admit it.”

  He had let her to do all the talking. Perhaps it's the journalist in him, she thought. “Enough about me,” she said. “Tell me about you. “Where did you grow up?”

  “It's a place called Market Dene, just outside Oxford. My father inherited this big house. It's big and cold and draughty but it was the best place to play hide and seek when I was a kid.”

  “With the sister you hated?”

  “Oh, she kind of grew on me after a bit. We're pretty close these days.”

  “What is she like?”

  “Oh ... I don't know. She's a lot like you.”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “You just did that thing again.”

  “What thing?”

  “That thing with your eyebrow. How do you do that?”

  “It's a gift.” Her smile faded. “You keep looking at me so ... I don't know. I've never met anyone so ... intense.”

  “I'm sorry,” he said. “I don't mean to make you nervous.” They finished their pizza. “That was ... amazing,” he said.

  “You don't have pizza in England?”

  “Not like this. They are about three inches thick and covered with every kind of beef bacon prawns and these furry fish called anchovies. You buy them when you're drunk to soak up the beer.”

  “You are trying to impress me with your sophistication again, aren't you?”

  “I was just a poor student then. I see life a little differently now.”

  They talked about his work, he tried to explain to her about Vatican and European politics but she only half listened. She had never liked politics. That was her father's domain.

  The coffees arrived and there was a sudden and awkward silence between them. There was an undercurrent here, something she did not understand. This was more than a hesitant attempt at seduction. He intrigued and scared her, and she was not sure why. She looked at her watch. “I should be going now. I have to a lecture tomorrow.”

  “Can I see you again?”

  “Aren't you going back to England soon?”

  “The day after tomorrow.”

  “I'm not going to sleep with you. If that's what you're thinking, you're wasting your time.”

  “I don't want to sleep with you,” he said, and the way he said it, she didn't know what to think. Okay so she didn't want to sleep with him, but why didn't he want to sleep with her. She was a woman and she was beautiful. Wasn't she? She thought about that friend of his, Jeremy. Perhaps they were in a relationship.

  Only Luke wasn't gay, she was sure of that. So what was it he wanted?

  “You've got my number,” she said and left it at that. A part of her hoped he wouldn't call. Another part of her knew she would be very disappointed if she didn't hear from Luke Barrington again.

  Chapter 61

  LUKE SAT ON THE BALCONY, staring over the red tiled rooftops, the dome of Sant' Andrea della Valle, and the great white monument of Il Vitoriano in the distance, 'the typewriter' as the Romans called it.

  What the hell am I going to do about this?

  Finally he went inside, picked up the telephone beside the bed and placed a call to his editor in London. “Martin. It's Luke.” He imagined Martin in his office, in front of his VDU surrounded by a litter of discarded copy and polystyrene coffee cups, ashtray overflowing.

  “Luke. How's the dolchy veeta?”

  “They don't have that here anymore. Audrey Hepburn took it home with her.”

  “Good, you're supposed to be working.”

  “Martin, I need a few more days.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Martin, I'm serious. I've stumbled across a big story. Arms smuggling, right wing extremists, Italian businessmen with links to South American dictatorships.”

  Silence on the end of the line.

  “Martin.”

  “Who the fuck do you think you are, Jonathan Pilger?”

  “Another few days. It's a great story. I mean it.”

  “Jesus.” Luke held his breath. “On your money, son. If we like the story, we'll reimburse you. And be back Friday or your job's in the classifieds Saturday morning.”

  He hung up. The second time someone had done that to him in two days.

  Well, he still had his credit card.

  He hesitated before making his second call. He would have to tread cautiously here, for his parents' sake, and for Diana's. Was it possible that Stephen and Mercedes already knew about this? They had said her parents had died in the Dirty War; they didn't say she had a sister. Had they been holding something back?

  What if he was wrong?

  If he was right - would the truth be a good thing. Because it wasn't, not always.

  He replaced the receiver on its cradle. He went back to the window. He would find out a little more about Simone Rivera and her father's dirty past before he told anyone about this. He didn't want to hurt Simone either. He liked her and he was pretty sure she didn't know anything about her father's secrets either.

  He had until Friday. Then he would decide what to do.

  ***

  Rome's history was piled on top of itself in even the most mundane corners of the city, its time lines layered one on top of the other like sediment in a rock. The city was careless with its antiquities, like a millionaire leaving canvases by Reubens stacked in the garden shed next to the potting mix. The courtyard of Simone's apartment in Trastevere was a litter of jarring images; a two thousand year old Roman pilaster built into a doorway by a Renaissance architect; a medieval baronial crest above an archway, a motorcycle leaning against a faded butterscotch-coloured wall.

  Simone came out of the glass door carrying a bowl of warm milk. A small cat darted across the cobbles towards her. She put the milk on the step and the cat, one of Trastevere's countless population of strays, lapped it up.

  Simone stroked it, and it arched its back and purred. “What am I going to do?” she said. “He seems like a nice guy. Should I be worried? You know I don't go out with just any man, don't you, Gabby? So why do I waste all my time thinking about one crazy Englishman?”

  She had adopted the stray from a kitten, tamed it with affection and warm milk. In return she had an unwitting sounding board, a mute ear for her troubles and doubts.

  “I don't know why I am so interested in him. I must be as crazy as he is. What do you think? He wants me to go to lunch with him again today? Should I go?”

  Chapter 62

  THEY HAD LUNCH on the cobblestones in a small trattoria off the Piazza di San Cosimato. They ate risotto stuffed with clams, shrimp and squid, and drank a chilled bottle of white Frecciarossa, and watched the traders from the local market shout and bargain with the local matrons in their floral frocks

  “You know what Orson Welles said?” she said to him. “All Italians are natural actors. Except the ones working in the film industry.”

  He laughed.

  That afternoon they went to the Vatican Museum; she hurried him along the Gallery of Tapestries and the Gallery of Maps to the Sistine Chapel. The sombre and windowless building was stifling hot, crowded with tourists, most of them staring up at the west wall and Michelangelo's terrifying vision of the Last Judgment.

  They stood there a long time, in silence.

  She pointed to one of the figures in the bottom right hand corner. “See there - Minos, the infernal judge. Some people wonder why he has been painted with a pair of asses ears. It is actually a portrait of a man called Biagio da Cesena, one of the Pope's courtiers. He objected to the nudes in the fresco and tried to have them covered up. This was Michelangelo's revenge. As it was da Cesena had his way ten years later. He commissioned one of Michelangelo's rivals to
paint in those strategically positioned cloaks so that innocent young women like myself would not be corrupted by the sight of a naked martyr.”

  Luke smiled. “Well they say there is nothing as irresistible as a naked martyr.”

  “That's blasphemy. You're in the Vatican! You'll be struck down.” She pointed high up the wall. “There is Christ, and all around him are his saints, each bearing the instrument of their own martyrdom. That one there is Saint Bartholomew. He was flayed alive. The face on his flayed skin is actually a self portrait, the artist himself, tormented in death and mocked by his own god. Poor Michelangelo. He lived in mortal terror of his own faith.”

  “What man doesn't?”

  “And look at our Lord. He has no sympathy for anyone. He spares no tears at all for the damned as they fall towards the demons waiting for them in hell. And still they rise, an endless upwelling of dead souls, torn from their graves to face Him. How many of us could sleep again if Michelangelo's vision were true, if we must account for all our sins in front of such a judge at the end of their lives?”

  “Fortunately, I don't believe in it.”

  She smiled, breaking the tension. “No, I don't believe in it either.”

  ***

  That night they drove up the hairpin curves of the Via Garibaldi to the hill above Trastevere. The lookout was a favourite assignation for lovers, and there were half a dozen cars dotted already parked around the square, their lights off, windows misted.

  They got out of the car to admire the view. A fat moon hung over the city. Rome glittered in front of them, the appalling Vittorio Emmanuele monument bathed in phosphorescent halogen, overwhelming the lesser glow of the Duomo and the ruins of the Palatine.

  She turned her face to look up at him. He thought she wanted him to kiss her and for a moment he panicked. Instead, she whispered: “I've told papa all about you. He's dying to meet you.”

  Chapter 63

  ANGELI CHECKED HIS reflection in the Venetian mirror. Simone had had only one serious boyfriend, to his knowledge, and the advent of a new - supplicant, he thought with a wry smile - was not an event to be lightly dismissed. Paolo, the son of one of his friends, had escorted her for almost three years. Since that ended she had apparently lived an almost monastic life. He had been concerned that when she got her own apartment she might behave with less discretion, but she had not disappointed him. He was as confident as a father could be that his daughter was still a virgin.