The Savage Garden

by Mark Mills

  Which was easier said than done.

  He felt numb, incapable of clear thought, after the discovery on the top floor. It was the closest thing to hard evidence against Maurizio—no, the only thing so far that approximated any kind of evidence. The rest was speculation rooted in hearsay and intuition.

  The bullet hole in the floorboards changed everything. Emilio had been executed while on the floor. This was completely at odds with Maurizio and Gaetano's account of what happened that night, and pointed to their collusion in the killing. As for Benedetto, it was clear now that he had indeed discovered the truth. Who other than Benedetto had gouged the bullets free from the floor and the gramophone player? Torn between bringing down his only remaining son and doing nothing, Benedetto had opted for a third way—sealing off the top floor and burying Emilio in the family chapel, stark and close reminders to Maurizio of his heinous crime.

  But Benedetto had not stopped there. His bizarre behavior in the immediate aftermath of Emilio's death hinted at another agenda. In closing the top floor, he had preserved the scene of the crime, with its telltale clues. Why had he done this? So that someone else might one day decipher the truth? And why had he then taken Emilio's gun and secreted it behind the plaque in the chapel, along with the bullets? Because those relics of the murder offered hard, ballistic proof that Emilio had been killed with his own weapon? It seemed quite likely. It seemed more than likely.

  This was all well and good, except for the fact that Adam now found himself caught on the horns of the biggest dilemma of his life. Should he act, or do as Benedetto had done: nothing? Why should he pursue the matter further, when the victim's own father had chosen not to do so? This was a serious business. This was murder. And it surprised him that the enormity of what he had embarked on hadn't occurred to him before.

  His instinct was to make for the memorial garden. It was where he usually went to gather his thoughts. Not this time, though. If he was going to face some plain and hard truths, he couldn't risk exposing himself to its influence.

  It was a preposterous notion, and not one he would have shared with any soul, but he still had the uneasy feeling that Flora Bonfadio, dead in 1548, was largely responsible for his current predicament. She had set him on his course, and she had been illuminating his path ever since. The flash of guilt in Maurizio's eyes, the revelation about Emilio's paternity—other insights too—all had come to him while passing through her kingdom.

  Nor could he rid himself of the sensation that she had also exercised a similar control over matters relating more directly to her. She had nudged, cajoled and teased him, revealing her own tragic story to him piecemeal, as if by will. How could he be expected to enjoy a dinner in his honor when he had discovered nothing that she hadn't already chosen to share with him? And now that she had finally broken her centuries-old silence, why did he have the unnerving sensation that she expected something from him in return?

  No, the memorial garden was not the place to head in search of clarity. He needed distance, and lots of it. Which was why he made for his bicycle and peddled off into the hills.

  The moment he saw the sign, he knew that's where he would go. Sant'Andrea in Percussina was not so much a village as a hamlet strung out along a country road, the sort of place you passed through without so much as a second glance or thought. But if Fausto was to be believed, it was here that Niccolo Machiavelli had written one of the world's most controversial and prophetic works of political science: II Principe.

  Fausto was right. The first person Adam collared directed him to the modest stone property that had once been Machiavelli's country residence. It lay dormant, the windows shuttered against more than the heat. He walked around to the overgrown garden at the back and tried to imagine Machiavelli strolling there, hatching his ideas, or hunched at a table, scratching away with a pen.

  He knew the book well. It was short, to the point, uncompromising in its opinions—a manual for rulers on how to obtain and maintain political power. Machiavelli didn't shy from the more unpleasant realities of the political world. Anything was acceptable just so long as it served the primary goal: the survival of the state. This took precedence over all else. Even religious and moral imperatives were to be ignored by a ruler if they vied with his own interests.

  Men of all political persuasions had bent Machiavelli's model of statecraft to their own ends over the intervening centuries, and Adam now found himself drawing guidance from The Prince, from the bald pragmatism that suffused the book.

  Whatever Maurizio might or might not have done on the top floor of the Villa Docci fourteen years before, what was he, Adam, now going to do about it? Confront Maurizio with a direct accusation based on a few scraps of evidence? Run to Signora Docci and lay out his case? Of course not. He had taken the matter as far as he possibly could. Maurizio would no more be brought to justice than Federico Docci had been. Why pretend otherwise?

  After this, his decision came easily.

  ADAM WAS AWAKENED BY THE SOUND OF RUNNING WATER coming from his bathroom.

  "Hello . . . ?" he called groggily.

  "Yours is brown too."

  He checked his watch. He'd slept for ten hours. He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept for ten hours. "What?"

  Harry appeared in the bathroom doorway. "The water—yours is brown too." He was unshaven and dressed in the same clothes he'd been wearing when he headed down into Florence.

  "You just got back?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "You stayed the night?"

  "Are you always this sharp first thing? Yes, I stayed the night. And now I'm back and I want a bath and the water's brown."

  Adam rolled away onto his side. "So complain to the management, demand a refund."

  Harry dumped himself on the mattress. "Good evening, was it?" "Hard to imagine, with you not there."

  "Want to hear about mine?"

  "Not especially."

  Harry pointed to his cheek. "The boyfriend came back early."

  Adam tried to focus. There was some discoloration at the side of Harry's mouth.

  "He hit you?"

  "I wish. He slapped me."

  "He slapped you?"

  "It's humiliating, believe me, worse than you think, being slapped by a very small and very angry Italian man."

  "Why did he slap you?"

  "Well, not because I polished off the milk in his fridge."

  "I thought she lived with two girls."

  "We went to his place."

  "Harry, why on earth would you go to his place?"

  "The view. It's got a great view, right along the river, the Ponte Vecchio, everything. He wasn't meant to come back till today."

  "I give up."

  "That's what he said."

  "Huh?"

  "When I had him by the throat: 'I give up.' He spoke good English."

  Harry's use of the past tense was more than a little worrying.

  "You didn't kill him? Tell me you didn't kill him."

  "Of course not, but after that we couldn't exactly stay there."

  "You don't say?"

  "We went back to her place. She was upset. She asked me to hang around, so I did. She just drove me back on her scooter. It's a Lambretta." "Harry, I don't care."

  "I think I'm going to get one for myself—a black Lambretta."

  "With what? You're broke. You're always broke."

  Harry turned on his side and grinned at Adam. "I'm glad you brought it up."

  "How much do you need?"

  "I don't know. Anything you can spare."

  "You can have it all."

  "Really?"

  "I'm leaving on Sunday, same as you. You can have whatever's left."

  Harry took in the news. "Why are you leaving?"

  "I want to go home, I want to see Mum. That sounds pathetic, doesn't it?"

  "No," said Harry. "Not if it means I get all the money."

  By midmorning a small army had descended on the villa. Trucks and vans jostled
for space in the courtyard, disgorging everything from flowers to food, crockery to Chinese lanterns. There were even two pigs skewered on spits, ready for roasting.

  The whole operation unfolded with military precision, coordinated by a handful of generals hired for the occasion, with Signora Docci and Maurizio acting as joint commanders-in-chief. She seemed much more inclined to involve him and allow him a say than she had the other day.

  Maria bustled about in her efficient and rather formidable fashion, keen to exercise her authority over the outsiders—a category to which Adam and Harry clearly belonged, in her view. They found themselves dispatched on numerous errands. It was on returning from one such menial mission that Adam found himself alone in the kitchen with Maria.

  "La signora wants to see you in the study."

  These were the first words of English he'd ever heard her speak. Her accent was thick, but the intonation perfect. He hoped that the slightly foreboding note in her voice was accidental.

  Signora Docci was indeed in the study. She was seated behind the desk where Adam had spent so much of his time. And sitting in the middle of the desk was a bird's nest. Dusty and dried out, it was also disheveled after its descent from the top-floor window. Adam cursed himself silently for the oversight.

  "Maria found it on the terrace yesterday. There is only one place it could have come from." There was no hostility in her voice, but there was a hard edge to her gaze, one he'd never seen before.

  No point in playing dumb. Their footprints were all over the top floor. She had probably checked already.

  "Did Antonella tell you where the key was? I hope she did. I don't like to think that you went through all my things looking for it."

  "It's not her fault. I kept pestering her."

  "Why?"

  Adam shrugged. "Morbid curiosity. An untouched murder scene. A frozen moment in time."

  All true, all things he had felt. He almost sounded convincing to himself.

  "And was it worth it?"

  "Worth it?"

  "Worth risking our friendship over?"

  Adam's mind shuddered to a halt. All he could think was: Christ, her English is good.

  "I'm sorry," he said feebly.

  "I don't mind that you've insulted me, but you have insulted Benedetto. You knew it was his wish."

  "Yes."

  After a long moment she brought her hands together. "Good. Well, let's not allow this to spoil your last week here."

  "I'm leaving on Sunday with Harry."

  "Oh." She seemed surprised, even disappointed.

  "I've finished my work on the garden."

  "I thought there were still questions."

  There were, not least of all: Did the garden hold a clue to the identity of Flora's lover? The library had yielded no more information on Tullia d'Aragona following her sudden disappearance from view the year of Flora's death. She was definitely emerging as a viable contender. The hunchback poet, Girolamo Amelonghi, seemed a less likely candidate, and many of the other names on the list were excluded by dint of the fact that they'd outlived Flora by many years. There were still a few individuals he needed to check up on, but that was something that required a far more extensive library than Villa Docci had to offer.

  "Nothing we'll ever know the answers to for sure."

  "No, probably not," Signora Docci conceded.

  The first thing Adam did was go in search of Harry. He found him in the courtyard, where two truckloads of water were replenishing the villa's depleted well. Antonella was also there—she had just arrived—which meant he only had to have the conversation once.

  "A bloody bird's nest?" said Harry.

  "Merda," said Antonella.

  "She didn't seem too annoyed."

  Antonella wasn't convinced. "We'll see."

  "I'm sorry, it was completely my fault."

  "I won't dispute that," said Harry.

  They all played their part in the transformation of the parterre into an alfresco dining area. Circular tables spread with white linen mushroomed around the fringes, and were soon adorned with bone china, silver cutlery and crystal. The party unfolded in the same fashion every year: drinks on the villa terrace, dinner on the parterre, then dancing on the lower terrace. A gradual descent into debauchery, Harry remarked. Apparently, he wasn't too far wrong. The event had acquired something of a reputation over the years.

  The big test for Adam came when he found himself thrown together with Maurizio, deciding on the placement of the flares around the terraces. They spent a good half hour in one another's company, and he was relieved to find that his resolve didn't falter once during that time. It wasn't even that he had to work at it. The matter of Maurizio's guilt or innocence had ceased to be a pressing concern, for the simple reason that all further speculation was ultimately futile. Besides, there was an innocent explanation for everything, even if you had to strain the laws of probabilities a little.

  They chatted easily as they went about their business with the flares. There was even an intimacy in the way they ribbed each other. He suspected that his own shift in thinking wasn't solely responsible for this new familiarity. Some of the tension had also gone out of Maurizio since his mother's announcement that she would soon be vacating the villa, making way for her son.

  The library and the study were designated as holding areas for the cohorts of waiters, waitresses and bar staff descending on the villa. Adam was asked to clear out all his books and papers. When he carried them upstairs to his room, he found Maria setting out a tuxedo on his bed, along with a dress shirt, bow tie, studs and cuff links. There was even a brand-new pair of patent-leather shoes. These he could keep, Maria explained; they were a gift from Signora Docci. A quick glance into Harry's room revealed the same kit laid out on his bed.

  Signora Docci brushed aside their thanks, then retired to her room for a rest before the festivities kicked off. Antonella announced that she was heading home. Her brother, Edoardo, and Grazia were staying with her that night, and she still had beds to make, things to arrange. Adam walked her to her car, which she had parked in the farmyard, well out of the way. They took the track that led down the slope from the lower terrace. He had strolled through the farmyard on a couple of occasions, but he had never registered the high wooden doors set in the sandstone knoll on which Villa Docci perched.

  "That is where the wine and the olive oil are made," said Antonella. When she proposed a quick tour, he didn't refuse. It was the first opportunity he'd had in a couple of days to be alone with her.

  First came the dramatic drop in temperature. Then came the smell. Over the centuries the soft stone walls had soaked up the odors like a sponge. The huge vats where the grapes were trod and left to ferment were stained from past harvests and scrubbed spotless in anticipation of the next one, already ripening out there on the slopes.

  They passed from the light heady scent of the tinaia to the thick musk of the frantoio. By the light of the bare overhead bulbs, Antonella explained how the olives were first crushed beneath a giant millstone turned by oxen, whose shod hooves had worn a circular furrow in the stone-paved floor over the centuries. The press resembled some medieval instrument of torture, with its giant turning screw and its beams clamped with iron. The whole operation was in need of modernization, Antonella explained, but Signora Docci was reluctant to throw out the ancient equipment as long as it still functioned.

  "You must come and see it when it's working."

  "Is that an invitation?"

  "You don't need an invitation."

  They made their way back through the underground labyrinth.

  "Nonna says you are leaving on Sunday."

  "That's the plan."

  "It has gone quickly, your time here."

  "Too quickly."

  Antonella stopped at the door. "I'm going to do this now because we can't later." She took a step toward him and kissed him, a fragile and lingering embrace. When she threw the light switch, plunging them into darkness, he assumed
it was a prelude to something a little more intimate. But she slipped outside, playfully dodging his lunge.

  He caught up with her as she was getting into her car. "Don't be late," she said.

  "Late?"

  "For Nonna's special drinks on the terrace."

  He wasn't late, even though he lost ten minutes battling with his bow tie. In the end, Harry tied it for him, which was unexpected. The first thing they noticed on heading downstairs was that

  Harry's sculpture had ousted the bronze of a striding tiger from its pride of place on the table in the entrance hall—an undoubted honor, but also a cause of some consternation for Harry.

  It was a small gathering, immediate family and their partners. Adam recognized Antonella's mother immediately: the same lustrous black hair, the same almond eyes, the proud lift of the chin. She was a beautiful woman with an attractive whiff of danger about her. She was also older than he'd imagined, or maybe it was just the aura of a life lived to the full and fast catching up with her. Riccardo, her boyfriend, was her signal to the world that she was still a step or two ahead. A dark, lantern-jawed man in his thirties, he was improbably handsome. Against all apparent odds, he was also very cultivated and amusing. He was a cellist with an orchestra in Rome, although he was reluctant to talk about it. This was the first Friday night he'd had away from his work in months, and the last thing he wanted to do was discuss music—he wanted to remember how sensible people spent their Friday nights.

  When Antonella and Edoardo arrived, they both greeted their mother warmly. Neither had met Riccardo before, and while Caterina made the introductions, Adam was able to admire the view.

  Antonella's dress was made of shimmering midnight blue silk, which hung from her slender, tawny frame like liquid. The halter neck left her shoulders, back and arms bare, while the deep V neckline flirted tantalizingly with disaster. Her hair flowed freely about her shoulders but was pinned back off her forehead, brazenly revealing her scars.

  He must have been staring at her like an idiot, because Harry leaned close and whispered in his ear, "It's great when you catch God at his work, isn't it?"