Frame-Up

by Gian Bordin

  As I lie in bed, I remember that I turned off my iPhone after we parked the car in the neighbor’s driveway. I switch it on. Two missed calls, both from Silvio. The first simply asks me to call back. He left a longer message for the second, explaining that he didn’t know his wife would show up in London, that it’s finished between them, and to please call back. It’s a half past midnight. Could I still call him now? I may still catch him before he goes to sleep. He answers promptly.

  "Ceci, I so hoped you would call back so that we can talk."

  "I had my cell phone off and just turned it on. That’s why I only called now."

  A woman is yelling in the background, the shrill voice rapidly coming closer. It sounds like "tell the bitch to get lost." Sounds of a scuffle, the cell phone banged against a hard surface, Silvio shouting: "Give it back. Let me talk." A loud crash and then the phone goes dead. Did she smash Silvio’s cell phone?

  Half a minute later the phone rings again. It can only be him. Before I manage to say a word, he speaks.

  "Ceci, I’m sorry, my wife is hysterical —"

  There is again shouting in the background. "Hysterical? You fucked her, I demand that you fuck me … now."

  "I’m sorry, Ceci. We’ll have to talk later. Please, call me in the morning."

  Renewed yelling. "You bastard, I’m your wife. Do your duty."

  "I’ll call you at the restaurant," I answer quickly, "around ten. Ciao."

  "Ciao." Some more shouting, cut off as he disconnects.

  My mind plays tricks on me. I see her voluptuous olive-skin body, naked on the bed, legs apart, trying to arouse his lust, beckoning him to top her. Would he do it? I shake my head to dispel the vision. How can I even think along those lines?

  Would I be jealous if he did have sex with her? Maybe simply to shut her up? I don’t think so. I’m not the jealous type, but I hope he won’t. Unprotected sex could result in a pregnancy, and that would spell the end for Silvio and me. It wouldn’t be beyond her to scheme along that line and, given her recent lifestyle, she could even be a carrier of a sexually transmitted disease. The thought crosses my mind to call back and warn him, but then I abandon the idea.

  I set the alarm for seven and turn off the bedside lamp, hoping that sleep will conquer me promptly. Something keeps nagging at the back of my mind, but I can’t put a finger to it. A question that calls for an answer. It eludes me. I have the sense of slipping into unconsciousness when I see it again. Why did Gary give Carlo Garland’s address? Hardly to do Carlo a favor. Surely he knew that Garland wouldn’t be pleased. What was his ulterior motive? I cannot think of a good reason, except that this was the easiest way to get rid of Carlo.

  Saturday, 8th November, 10:30 a.m.

  My father calls.

  "Are you making progress? Have you found out anything?"

  "Yes, I know who pulled that fraud, and it’s now a question of how to prove it, of how to get the right evidence to convince the police."

  "Good, but if you have no evidence, how can you be sure you have the right person?"

  "I have conclusive evidence, but I can’t use it."

  "Why?"

  "Oh, dad, I’d rather not tell you. It will only upset you." That’s definitely the wrong thing to say, but it’s already out.

  "Is Carlo involved? The signature on that document is C. Walker, Carlo’s signature. His signature is very much like yours. The scoundrel. Doing this to his own sister, and you have always stood up for him."

  "Please, dad, he had no idea what it was for. He simply put a signature on a document and got a thousand pounds for it. He didn’t know who Garland is, and he needed the money —"

  "— to get drugs, wasn’t it?"

  "I don’t know. But I don’t want to use his testimony to nail Garland." I want to bite my tongue of for letting slip that name. "So I’ll send Carlo to Montagnola."

  "Garland, your ex-boss did it and then accused you?"

  "Yes, dad, but please don’t do anything. I’m at a very critical stage and may have all the evidence I need by Monday."

  "All right, I trust you. It may though be better to confide in Crawford and let him sort things out."

  "If Garland even gets a whiff that I am after him, he will destroy the evidence."

  "How do you know he hasn’t done so yet?"

  "He is very meticulous about having everything properly documented, particular financial transactions. So I’m confident he has it safely stored somewhere."

  "Cecilia, just don’t do anything illegal, please."

  What can I answer? So I simply say: "Dad, I love you."

  Next I call Silvio. He first apologizes for the previous night, or was it early this morning?

  "Please, Ceci, don’t abandon me now."

  "Silvio, I won’t, but you have to be sure that it’s finished between you and your wife. She is the mother of your daughter."

  "She gave birth to her, but that’s all. She has never shown any interest in Teresa. Ceci, I know it’s over with her, has been over for the last four years."

  "So, what does she want from you then?"

  "I don’t know yet. She hinted that she wanted to give it a new start with me, but she has done that before. A month or so before she disappeared for good she left us for a week and then came back."

  "Have you considered that she may want to trap you by getting pregnant?"

  "I doubt that. She hated every minute while she was carrying Teresa."

  "Don’t be so sure. She may be willing to suffer another pregnancy just to trap you. Did you give in to her last night when she wanted you to fuck her?" There, it’s out. Why did I voice it? I feel cheap.

  "Oh, you heard that? Sorry. No, I didn’t."

  I’m glad, but something drives me on to probe further. "She’s a gorgeous woman."

  "I don’t think I could have. I was too disgusted. She looked so cheap."

  So, my image of her naked on the bed wasn’t that far fetched. Poor Silvio. "Does she want money? I mean, would she agree to a divorce if you gave her a sizable sum of money?"

  "Probably, but I don’t have a hundred thousand Euros to throw away. She might even want more than that."

  "Look, Silvio, she has little to nothing in terms of bargaining position. She abandoned you and her child for four years."

  "She threatened in one of her rages that she will take Teresa away from me."

  "No judge will award her custody." I try to sound convincing, although I’m far from certain about it. "You make it clear to her that either she takes a small sum, such as twenty thousand, and agrees to the divorce and you having sole custody of Teresa, or else you’re going to fight her in court. She probably can’t even afford a lawyer."

  "Oh, you don’t know her. She’ll get herself a decent lawyer and pay him in kind."

  "Silvio, you will have to find out what she is after, and then deal with it from there."

  "I know, but it’s not that easy. She’s slippery. Ceci, I want to see you. Can I come over now?"

  "No, my brother is here and I have to take him to Heathrow before lunch. Until then, I can’t let him out of my sight. I’ll be back at my place by four thirty."

  "May I come then?"

  "Yes, I’d like that."

  Saturday, 11:15 a.m.

  Carlo’s flight to Milan is scheduled to take off from Heathrow at 12:20. I park the van in the short-term parking area an hour before.

  Carlo woke up past nine. He was irritable for most of the morning — a clear sign that he was craving for drugs — pacing back and forth in the living room while the radio was blaring rap. Occasionally he stood at equal distance from both speakers, nodding his head and mouthing the words, before resuming his pacing like a caged animal.

  On the drive to the airport, he made several backhanded compliments about the van. I accompany him to the check-in counter. His sports bag is small and light enough to go as cabin baggage. We wait together outside security until the boarding call, both of us silent, and only t
hen do I give him a bit of pocket money, two fifty-euro notes and two fifty-Swiss frank notes. The less time he has to change his mind about going to mother, as he promised several times already, each time raising my suspicions that he may try to abscond before boarding the plane, the better. He hugs and kisses me and then passes through security. Before he disappears from sight, he waves once more. I return to the van with an uneasy mind. Deep down I have this niggling worry that he will play one of his tricks on me.

  On the way back, I make a detour to Croydon and drop by at Sally’s home, just in case she is in. I’ve not heard from her since the football match. Both Sally and her mother are at home. Sally is mixing the ingredients to bake a cake, closely supervised by her mother. I join them in the kitchen.

  "How are things at school?" I ask.

  "Sally got top marks for her English essay," replies her mother. "Your first time, isn’t it, Sally?"

  "Yes," the girl answers, blushing.

  "It’s a great feeling to get a good mark, isn’t it? It always was an incentive for me to do well again. What was the theme?"

  Sally lowers her gaze, her ears turning bright red. It is her mother who answers: "What makes a true friend? That was it, wasn’t it, Sally?"

  Again, she nods, but doesn’t answer my questioning look. Once more, her mother speaks: "I know Sally will be embarrassed, but I have to say it. She wrote about you, how she met you and how you helped her and what she learned from that."

  "Oh, Sally, I’m very touched that you did this and I’m glad you see me as a friend. Come, give me a hug."

  "But I’ll make you all floury," she replies, hopeful, yet hesitating.

  "Then people will think that my boyfriend is a baker."

  She grins and we hug. When she tries to brush the flour off my cardigan, she leaves more traces behind.

  "And how is it going with your father?"

  "Fine. I think he was proud that I got top marks."

  "Both of you are trying hard, aren’t you?" quips Mrs. Harper. "It’s not easy to break old ways."

  Again Sally only nods, casting a quick glance at me.

  "But it’s worth it, Sally. It will strengthen your character, and you will be proud and glad when you succeed. Do you discuss things you do at school with him, as I suggested, to engage him?"

  "Yes, I did a couple of times."

  "And was it good?"

  "Oh, his views are so different from what the teacher tells us."

  "But that’s instructive too. You see, there is rarely just one single correct view about something. Different people see things differently. And it opens your horizon to see different viewpoints and then think about them and form your own opinion."

  "But it’s confusing. The teacher says what she tells us is correct, and father claims to be right too. They can’t both be right, can they?"

  "Yes, both can be right from their own perspective. This may be confusing at first."

  "I don’t understand."

  "I’ll give you an example. A beggar walks along the street and sees a dirty five-pound note in the gutter. He will happily pick it up. For him a five-pound note is a small fortune. If a billionaire walks along that street and sees a dirty five-pound note in the gutter, he may simply walk past. It may not be worth his while to bend down and get his fingers dirty. For him, a five-pound note isn’t worth much; he may earn that much every time he takes a breath. So you see, the same thing is viewed differently because the beggar and the billionaire view the world differently. And both are right from their own perspective, both are acting in a consistent manner with their view of the world. The same is true for many other things. So both your father and the teacher can be right from their own perspective."

  "So how can I then know what’s right and what’s wrong?"

  "For many things, there’s no right or wrong; there are just different opinions or ways of seeing it. So, you’ll have to form your own opinion about them. That’s what’s exciting, what makes you a unique person, rather than just a follower of other people’s views. For other things, especially in the sciences, like mathematics and physics, there is widespread agreement on what is correct. And for still other things the question to ask is a bit different. You have to ask: Is it morally right or wrong? There are acts that are morally wrong and that cannot be justified no matter what the perspective. For example, hitting a child cannot be justified by claiming the bible says ‘do not spare the rod’ or something along that line, or by claiming it’s a parent’s right to discipline a child by hitting her, or ‘I lost my temper because the child provoked me’. The same as it’s morally wrong to kill somebody or steal what’s not yours."

  "But if it’s in self-defense, is it still morally wrong?"

  "Very good, Sally. Now you see that even things that involve moral judgment are not cast in concrete. If your only way to avoid being killed yourself or maimed is to kill the aggressor, then morally you have the right to do it. Even for stealing, the answer may not be straightforward. Is it morally wrong for a mother to steal a bread to feed her starving child if this is the only way to get food? The law says yes and in past centuries people were hung or transported to a penal colony overseas for stealing a loaf of bread, but many if not most law-abiding people may still think the mother did right."

  "Oh, I wish you were my teacher," Sally exclaims.

  "I want to get together with you again and then we can talk about many things. You can learn from me, and I can learn from you about how young people think nowadays."

  Sally’s mother protests: "How can you say that, Cecilia? You talk as if you were an old woman."

  "Twelve years is almost half your life when you’re 26, but hardly worth talking about when you are sixty. So you see again, the perspective makes the difference."

  Having made a promise, I know myself well enough to realize that I need to make a commitment, or else the promise may fall by the wayside. "Have you ever been to the National Gallery?"

  "Is it a museum?" Her face expresses her dislike of such places.

  "No, it exhibits paintings and drawings and other art works, some from English painters, like Constable, others from the famous Flemish painters, Rembrandt, the French impressionists, Renoir, Monet, and the Old Italian masters, such as Titian, Michelangelo. It’s fascinating how different painters depicted nature and people over the centuries."

  "Isn’t it boring to look at pictures?"

  "It won’t be if you go with me. We can talk about them; we’ll have fun." I’ve only plans for Sunday night. I almost offer to take her next day, Sunday, but something holds me back. My thoughts will never be completely free of the planned action for breaking into Garland’s house. It makes more sense to wait. Hopefully by the following weekend I’ll be in the clear. "How about next Saturday, or do you already have something planned? No? Then I’ll come and fetch you at ten."

  "Yes, Sally. Go. I’ve always regretted that I didn’t visit more galleries when I was younger. I will prepare a packed lunch for both of you."

  "No need for that, Mrs. Harper. Sally and I will have lunch in a café."

  Sally’s face suddenly shows excitement. I take my leave.

  Saturday, 4:05 p.m.

  Driving past my apartment building in search of a parking space for the van, I notice a black sedan illegally parked on the broken yellow lines in front of the entrance. The unpainted repair job of the luggage compartment door looks familiar, but I can’t place it at that moment. I turn into a side street and then I suddenly see it again — the Rover sedan Somes had when she came to arrest me Thursday a week ago. If she is paying me another visit, it can only mean one thing. She intends to take me into custody. The police must have uncovered something they consider sufficient to revoke my bail. What could it be? An insidious suspicion begins worming itself into my brain. Gary! He swore that he would pay me back. Carlo asked him for Garland’s address. Is he using this to remove the suspicion of being my accomplice? Shift it on Carlo? Somes would jump on anything that wo
uld justify taking me into custody. And that is the last thing I can afford at this critical point in my search. Even if Crawford manages to get me bailed again, it will be Monday at the earliest.

  I park the van two streets over, but remain sitting behind the steering wheel. What am I going to do now? Fausto and I have an appointment to search Garland’s office. I’m pretty convinced that this will uncover the evidence I need to clear myself. But not if I’m behind bars.

  Or am I mistaken about the car? Panicking needlessly? There is one way to find out — call the apartment, disguising my voice and ask to speak to myself. I call my land line. The phone rings three, four, five, six times. Answer, you bitch! After nine rings it will switch to the answering service. Seven, eight.

  "Walker residence," a voice I recognize as Somes’ answers.

  "This is Anne. Could I speak to Cecilia, please?"

  "Anne who?"

  "Anne Fields. Is Cecilia there?"

  "She is unavailable at this moment. What is your phone number?"

  "Oh, don’t bother. It is not that important. I’ll see her tomorrow. Thank you."

  "Wait, Miss Fields …’

  I cut the call. So I’m right. Somes is in my unit. The caretaker must have let her in.

  Should I do what my father suggested, talk to Crawford? Come clean with DI Willis and report Carlo’s confession? But would he believe me? Maybe if Carlo were still here and confessed in person. But to prevent that very thing was the reason for sending him to mother. Furthermore, if Garland hears about it, he might get rid of any evidence, evidence that I’m convinced is right now still in his safe. No, coming clean at this point is too risky. That really only leaves one option, namely go into hiding for a couple of days. There is little risk of being found. London is too big, nor am I considered a high enough risk to mount a full-scale search for me.