The Rome Affair

by Karen Swan

  He shrugged and sighed. ‘Yes. Whatever.’

  ‘Why hadn’t they seen each other? If they were close, surely your mother would have run into her when she was visiting at the Palazzo Mirandola? She lives just across the square.’

  ‘Because after he – Vito – died, my mother was pretty much cut out of their lives. She continued to see Elena “socially”,’ he said, making speech marks in the air with his fingers. ‘But she almost never went back to Mirandola. I think she had lunch with Vito – I mean, Aurelio—’ He rolled his eyes, frustrated. ‘—Just once, immediately after the funeral. But after that, she practically never visited them at home again.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She said he was very distant with her – he had just buried his twin, after all – but she said it was more than grief. Something in him had changed. She was devastated. It was only when Giotto came to her and confided what he had heard that it all made sense.’

  ‘So she was pushed away because Aurelio knew she’d see straight through him and would realize that he wasn’t Vito?’ Cesca blinked, trying to absorb this new truth: Vito had died that night and Aurelio had assumed his identity; Elena had pretended he was her husband . . . But it didn’t matter how many times she repeated the facts, she couldn’t accept them. ‘No, it’s just monstrous!’ she cried, shaking her head and turning away, pacing the small room.

  Nico watched her. ‘Yes.’

  ‘How could they do it?’

  He shrugged. ‘Desperation? Maybe it really was true love.’

  True love. Cesca’s eyes narrowed to slits as she remembered something. ‘. . . You know, I asked Elena recently whether her marriage suffered after Aurelio died. She’d been married so many times by then, I kind of assumed marriage was like handbags for her – something to change with the seasons. I’d thought that Vito would surely have been broken by the loss of his twin, and I found it surprising they had managed to weather it. But she said a really odd thing. She said, if anything, they were strengthened by it. It brought them closer together.’

  ‘And now you know why – it meant she was able to be with the brother she really wanted.’

  ‘My God, that car crash turned out to be the perfect solution, didn’t it?’ she murmured. ‘They got to live as man and wife without any of the scandal that would have ensued if the world had caught scent of the fact that Aurelio was having an affair with his dead brother’s wife.’ She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. ‘And if that was the solution to their problem, then it’s also a cast-iron motive behind Vito’s death.’

  Nico frowned. ‘Motive? But it was an accident.’

  ‘No. I’ve got a copy of the death certificate. He died of heart failure.’

  ‘Heart failure,’ Nico repeated.

  ‘Exactly. Not from the crash. I’ve examined the photographs and there’s no way that’s what killed him. Something else must have happened.’ She slapped a palm to her forehead, frustrated. ‘Ugh, I’ve been looking at it all the wrong way round.’

  Nico frowned. ‘I am lost.’

  ‘When I thought it was Aurelio who had died, I assumed it was Vito who had killed him in a crime of passion – he’d just found his wife in bed with his brother; at most it was manslaughter.’ She drew a breath, trying to steady her thoughts. ‘But with Vito dead, it’s different again. If Aurelio killed Vito to be with his wife . . . then that’s murder.’

  Nico stared at her, watching the way her expression changed with every thought, her mind racing, her body tense. ‘Why did you stop, Cesca?’

  She blinked, looking over at him, but still deep in contemplation. ‘Huh?’

  ‘You are good, you know that? I can see it in you, how you must have been.’

  ‘Been where? Sorry, I wasn’t listening. What are you talking about?’

  ‘Your old job. Why did you stop?’

  Her expression folded down. ‘No. I’m not talking about that.’

  ‘Why? Why do you always shut it out?’

  ‘Because that’s my prerogative. It’s in the past. It was a mistake. I’ve moved on.’

  ‘Have you? Then what are we doing here?’ He held his arms out questioningly. ‘Is this writing? Or are you constructing a case?’

  Cesca felt the blood begin to rush to her cheeks. ‘It’s about getting to the truth. Something terrible has happened, Nico – can’t you see that? We have to talk about it.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, what about the fact you told me you killed someone, Cesca?’ he said, losing his temper suddenly. ‘When are we going to talk about that?’

  She felt as though the air had been punched from her lungs. Hot tears sprang to her eyes as she stared back at him, yet she refused to let them fall. ‘We’re not – this isn’t about me. Don’t twist this . . .’

  He turned away, taking a few deep breaths before he turned back again. ‘Listen, I don’t care what you said, okay? I don’t believe it. I know you – you are not capable of something like that.’ He walked over to her, taking her hands in his. ‘But you have to tell me what happened.’

  ‘No.’ She looked up at him, feeling the guilt, the shame, rushing through her blood again, her head shaking from side to side. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You can.’

  She shook her head harder. The tears were beginning to splash onto her cheeks, in spite of her best efforts.

  ‘Yes,’ he insisted. ‘And if we’re going to have any sort of future at all, you have to.’

  He let go of her then, stepping back, giving her space, giving her hope. She watched as he moved across to the window, looking out across the square. It was shrouded in darkness, everywhere shut up for the night. He leaned against the ledge of the open window and waited patiently, the ends of his bow tie hanging at his neck, the top button undone, moonlight catching on the satin stripe down his trouser leg. His silhouette, his stillness, his calm – everything about him was strong.

  And in that moment, she knew he was right. To do otherwise would be to live like Elena: dodging the truth, living a lie. She had to tell him. Somehow, she had to put a voice to the shadows that stalked like wolves in her heart. She could feel the secret straining to be let out, but to say those words, to admit to what she had done . . . After all, who was she to judge Elena for her weaknesses and indiscretions, when she herself had done something just as bad, if not worse?

  She held her breath, feeling the memories assault her from within as she put her mind back there, back in a past she had been determined to outrun. ‘I was legal counsel for a man charged with aggravated assault and battery against his wife,’ she began finally, her voice halting. ‘It was . . . it was a tough case; he had a rap sheet as long as this room. But I was known in my chambers for having an eye for detail. I was getting a reputation for being able to find the one anomaly that could make or break a case and I did it with him. I found a technicality and got him off; I had him returned to society a free man.’ She stared down at her own toes, knowing she once would have said these words with pride, not shame.

  ‘There’s a big difference between “not guilty” and “innocent”, you know,’ she said more quietly, as he stayed silent. ‘People think they’re one and the same, but they’re not. I had a friend who once asked me how I could defend people when I knew they were guilty and I told her it was because justice is a process that is based upon the assertion that a defendant is innocent until proven guilty. It was for the prosecution to prove guilt, not for me to prove innocence, and I believed in that system. No matter what I may have thought about someone privately, when I stood up in court and addressed the jury, I was defending a person who was considered innocent until the moment that verdict was delivered – and it was my responsibility to defend them to the fullest of my abilities.’

  ‘And that’s what you did.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, because if it’s a process, it’s also a game. Like anything, you learn to keep an eye on the stakes and if I wanted to progress in my career, I couldn’t afford to lose. It
stopped becoming about seeing that justice was served and instead became about getting the right result, getting the win.’

  She glanced up to see if he was still listening; still there, even. She wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d turned on his heel and left. ‘Ten days later, I had a call from a colleague at the CPS. The police had a man in custody, charged with murder.’

  A sob escaped her, bringing her hands flying to her mouth, tears streaming in an unstoppable torrent as the memories – the full horror – broke through in a rush. ‘H-his wife had moved with their daughter to a new part of town. They had changed their names, their hair, everything. They were starting over; they wanted a new life away from him. But he found them. He f-found them and broke in while they were sleeping. He—’ She covered her face, not wanting to see it, not wanting to say it. ‘—He s-s-stabbed the little girl in her bed. Then h-he tortured his wife for six hours before h-he killed her too.’

  Nico was across the room in a heartbeat, his arms around her. ‘Oh mia cara,’ he whispered as the tears choked her, making her shake. ‘Cesca, I am so sorry.’

  ‘I-I think about them every day. Every hour, every day. I see them when I close my eyes at night, w-when I wake up in the morning.’

  ‘Oh no. No. No.’

  ‘Yes,’ she argued, refusing to take comfort, to be consoled. ‘It’s only right. It’s something I have to live with, because I put him back out on the streets. I sent him straight back to them. I am as responsible for their deaths as if I’d had that knife in my hand myself.’

  He clasped her head between his hands, forcing her to look at him, though she couldn’t see a thing past her tears. ‘Cesca, no! You have to forgive yourself.’

  ‘No. It’s my fault. It’s on me. It is. I could have ignored the technicality. We would have lost the case without it and I could have let him go down. I should have done that. I knew what he was.’ Her mouth twisted into a sneer of repugnance. ‘But I wanted the win: it’s that simple. I wanted the win and to hell with the human cost.’

  He wiped her tears with his thumbs but they were no sooner gone than replaced. ‘You have more than paid the price, Cesca. Punishing yourself will not change the past. You have to let it go now.’

  ‘I c-can’t.’

  ‘You must. Right or wrong, you did your job. Maybe too well.’ He kissed her forehead gently, his lips lingering on her skin, making her eyes close and her soul relax. He pulled back and she looked up at him. He didn’t hate her? She didn’t disgust him?

  ‘But you’re doing it again now,’ he said. ‘You have to learn to step back.’

  ‘I tried. I thought I was stepping back,’ she protested, remembering how lightly she’d taken her duties in the first few weeks, sorting through photographs, sipping tea . . . ‘Well, initially.’

  ‘Initially?’

  ‘Until I realized Elena was lying to me,’ she sniffed. She rubbed her cheeks hard, dragging away the tears, knowing and not caring that she probably looked a state. ‘Oh God, what am I supposed to do this time? Going public with this would destroy the family.’

  ‘Yes. It would,’ he said sombrely.

  ‘But what about Vito – doesn’t he deserve justice? Doesn’t Giotto?’

  Nico looked at her. ‘You need to confront Elena. Tell her what you know.’

  Cesca shook her head. ‘I’ve already tried that. She just stonewalls me. And besides, I need proof. Actual evidence. An overheard conversation proves nothing.’

  He stepped towards her, his eyes on one of her shoulder straps that had become twisted. He lifted and corrected it, his fingers brushing against her bare skin. The action made her shiver, her body reacting automatically to his touch.

  He saw it.

  ‘Well, you have unlimited access in the palazzo. Alberto does not question where you go, what you do, does he?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘There must be something in that building that gives them away,’ he murmured. ‘They can’t have not made a single mistake in all those years,’ he said, combing his fingers under her hair and tipping her head back so that she looked up at him.

  The diaries? she wondered, as she felt that current of electricity dart through her stomach again, as it did every time their eyes met. ‘Okay. I’ll look into it,’ she murmured, knowing it was the blue letter she really needed. Christina had been right. Everything would be in there.

  ‘But not yet,’ he murmured, his other hand sweeping down her neck and, this time, brushing the strap off her shoulder.

  ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Not just yet.’

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Alberto’s expression as he had opened the door to her just after 6 a.m. had been priceless. It would have sent most people running. Her too, once. But not now, not today. She had to re-examine Elena’s life with forensic detail. She had a mission, an opportunity, to right a terrible wrong and nothing was going to put her off.

  She was sitting in the middle of the floor in the library – still her latest office, even though there was no hiding from Nico any more; there were only so many times she could move – boxes upturned and photographs scattered all around her. She had grabbed everything from 1980 – from when Elena had first met Vito – and separated it into two piles: photographs taken up until 1989, the year of the car crash; and those taken from then until 2002, when ‘Vito’, ergo Aurelio, had died.

  At first, she had just let her eyes drift over the images almost as in a stream of consciousness, getting a sense of the brothers’ and Elena’s body language over the years and hoping to find any glaring errors that might be lying in wait, now she knew what she was looking for. But, of course, there were none. By the time Nico’s team arrived outside at 8.30 a.m., and the cement mixers began to roll, filling in the sinkhole, she was working through the images more methodically. She was now picking the photos up one by one, checking the date that the archivist had written on the back, and then looking for something, anything, that would tell her Vito was really Aurelio.

  It was a nice thought, but so far – futile.

  She saw the photo she had liked so much of the four of them having ice creams. It was surely the quintessential dolce vita image – gelato and cigarettes, brooding boys and pouting girls, scooters and sunglasses . . . She bit her lip. Elena had been adamant they couldn’t use it – something about a fight.

  She picked up one beside it and checked the date on the back: Positano, 1990. Aurelio, then. Aurelio masquerading as Vito. He was sitting on an old stone wall, the sea behind him and the wind blowing his hair, a cigarette between his fingers, camel Tod’s on his feet. His mouth was curled in a half-smile but his eyes . . . she couldn’t decipher the expression in his eyes. It was guarded. No, more than that – haunted. No, she shook her head, wrong again – it was the very opposite of haunted: he was there in body, but not in spirit. Was that hollowness the price he had paid for what he had done?

  Good, she thought bitterly, letting the pictures drop and picking up another photograph. She hoped they had suf—

  The hairs on her arms rose up and she gasped as something suddenly occurred to her. She picked up the two pictures again, her eyes sliding quickly between one, then the other. Then back to the first one again. Her hackles were up, her senses on full alert as she checked and double-checked the images. But it was there in plain sight, the one detail that belied the outward pretence and unravelled the entire charade; it was obvious now that she knew what to look for.

  Her heart pounded at double time as she mentally worked through the ramifications, the facts beginning to shuffle into place like a deck of cards as threads of conversations, snippets of chat, rushed to the front of her mind, confirming the truth. ‘Bulgari Blue . . .’ ‘Truly mirror images . . .’ ‘Dangerous glamour . . .’ ‘A love so great you’d put a bomb . . .’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Grabbing her phone, she punched in Nico’s number and ran to the window. She could see him down there, talking with someone. She saw him reach for the phone in his pocke
t, see her name on the screen and make his apologies. He walked away towards the garden, wanting some privacy.

  ‘Cesca?’ There was a smile in his voice.

  ‘Nico, how did your mother know the ring was in the tunnels?’

  From her vantage point, she saw him frown. One hand went to his hip. ‘What?’

  ‘Your mother. Who told her about the ring?’

  ‘. . . I don’t know. I assume Vito.’

  ‘Vito?’

  He tutted. ‘I mean Aurelio. You know what I mean. Why?’

  ‘Turn around.’ She waved at him as he turned and looked back at the building, his gaze automatically rising up and scanning the windows. His face broke into a smile as he raised a hand. ‘Meet me by the top of the north wing stairs,’ she said, hanging up and picking up the two photos from the floor.

  She heard Nico’s boots on the marble treads as he ran up, dressed in his overalls again; last night’s hand-stitched dinner suit already a memory. He kissed her as he reached her, but his eyes were questioning. They were at work.

  ‘It couldn’t have been Aurelio who told your mother about the ring,’ she said, getting straight to the point. She had to say the words out loud, to hear how they sounded, to check she wasn’t going completely mad.

  ‘Huh . . . ?’

  ‘There’s no reason why he would have had the ring in his possession, for one thing, right? And the accident happened straight after Vito confronted Aurelio in the stable with Elena; they didn’t go back into the tunnels but out into the streets to the cars, so Aurelio could never have known the ring was down there. Agree?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said slowly.

  ‘And it was patently clear from Elena’s response when you showed it to her that she didn’t know it was down there, either; if she had lost it on her way over, she would surely have had those tunnels searched until the ring was found, not had them blocked up.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Which means the only person who could have lost the ring was Vito. He must have dropped it on his way to confront them. Signora Dutti said he came up through the tunnel, right?’