Dead Season

by Christobel Kent

  He kept his smile.

  ‘I know it’s an awful picture,’ he said patiently.

  She thrust it back at him. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It’s an awful picture,’ and he heard weariness in her voice. Perhaps he’d misjudged her. ‘And it’s a bad time,’ she said.

  ‘I am aware of that,’ said Sandro earnestly. ‘Please.’

  She’d only agreed to talk to him because he’d invoked Pietro and the investigation into Brunello’s death. With arms folded on the other side of the smoked glass, she’d glared at him stony-faced as he pleaded. ‘Call the Polizia dello Stato,’ he’d mouthed. ‘Ask for Pietro, Officer Cavallaro. He’ll tell you.’

  ‘So this man—’ She gestured at the paper now folded in Sandro’s hand. ‘He was passing himself off as Claudio.’ She shook her head tiredly. ‘I don’t understand. Why? Was it – fraud? Was he trying to – make money in some way?’

  Sandro was struck by the fact that he had not considered that possibility; he really hadn’t. It was only at this moment that he thought of what Anna Niescu had said about her adoptive parents leaving her their savings: a few hundred, maybe at a pinch a few thousand, in the bank. A sum, from which Sandro had no intention of taking a penny himself. She was going to need it. But there were plenty of people out there who mugged and murdered for less. Was Josef going to suggest he invest it for her? He cursed himself: it took a money person to ask the money question.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, aware how lame this sounded. Then sat upright. ‘At least, I believe he only passed himself off as Claudio Brunello to one person. A limited deception.’

  So far that was true, but then again he had not so far tracked down another human being who had been introduced formally to Anna Niescu’s fiancé. His spirits sagged further: so what if he was only thirty-six hours into this investigation? He’d got nowhere.

  The young – well, youngish – man put his head around the door. Sandro had glimpsed him on the way in. The male version of Miss Goldman, perhaps, glossy hair, crisp collar.

  They’d been in the middle of something when he’d knocked at the window, no doubt prompted by the Guardia di Finanza’s disappearance for lunch, and after reluctantly allowing him in, Marisa Goldman had concluded their talk without reference to Sandro, who was standing there like a fool. It had turned out to be nothing to do with officialdom, as far as he could tell – more like the usual office bitching.

  ‘It’s too much,’ Marisa Goldman had been saying. ‘If her mother needs – care, well, she should organize that. If she wants to be a professional. Calling her at work, God knows how many times a day, saying her mobile’s engaged and where is she? Rabbiting on to me about God knows what. Intruders? Delivery men?’

  This woman, this Marisa Goldman, obviously had no time for mothers. Had she not had one of her own? Sandro had stayed silent, trying not to think about what would happen to his country if old women, old mothers, were no longer given respect.

  The young man, retreating behind his cash desk, had looked pained, to his credit: had tried to defend whoever it was needed defending. Sandro saw a photograph of a motorbike pinned up behind the boy’s workstation. That was what they called them, workstations. The word made Sandro feel ill. He was beyond it now, wasn’t he? He’d never be able to knuckle down to office life again.

  ‘We’ve got ten minutes,’ the young man said now, looking earnestly at his boss. ‘Then I’ll open up, right? Do you – um – need me in here?’

  And the penny dropped: Sandro remembered. This was the guy he was going to talk to when he got back from his lunch break, the one Roxana Delfino said spoke to a woman calling for Claudio Brunello. What was his name?

  ‘No, Valentino,’ said Marisa Goldman impatiently. Val, Roxana Delfino had called him. That would be him. Sandro eyed him covertly. ‘We don’t need you.’

  ‘Well, I—’

  Sandro interrupted diffidently. ‘There was a phone call, wasn’t there? Miss, ah, Miss Delfino said you took a call.’

  ‘A call?’

  Slowly something dawned in Valentino’s eyes. Could this boy be as dozy as he looked? Sadly, Sandro suspected that he could. Pampered kid: if you rated witnesses on a scale of one to ten, well-bred young men would be about a one and a half. They could hardly see further than the shine on their own shoes. Mean old ladies: now, they’d be up in the nines.

  ‘A call,’ he repeated patiently. ‘On Monday? From a woman?’

  ‘Yeah, that was stupid,’ Valentino said, almost but not quite shamefaced. You could say that, thought Sandro. How come this guy has a job? It occurred to Sandro that there might be circumstances in which you would need your employees not to notice stuff.

  ‘I guess it was his wife, trying to track him down,’ Valentino faltered. ‘Poor lady.’ He grimaced.

  ‘You guess?’ Marisa Goldman looked at the limits of her patience, staring at Valentino.

  ‘Well, she was pretty over the top. Is Claudio there? Just tell me if Claudio’s there, she kept saying. She didn’t actually say who she was before she hung up. I suppose maybe she thought I knew.’

  Sandro looked at him. Trying to decide whether anyone could really be so dumb, or so uninterested. And found that the thing he didn’t want to think about was that calm and dignified woman, screaming down the phone.

  Marisa Goldman turned to Sandro. ‘It was his wife. Irene Brunello is staying with me, now. She told me that she was phoning all over the place to try to track him down.’ She spoke stiffly.

  ‘She’s staying with you?’ Sandro could not stop himself raising his eyebrows at that. But Marisa Goldman was frowning as if already regretting saying anything at all, turning away from Sandro to the door.

  ‘Valentino, go and find Roxana, will you? We can’t open like this. Where on earth has she got to?’

  The head withdrew, the door closing smartly behind him. And there was the poster again: Look ahead! Get in line! Sandro remembered with a sinking heart that he had still to ask his own bank manager about a mortgage.

  ‘Perhaps I could talk to him when he gets back,’ said Sandro, almost to himself.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Marisa Goldman. ‘But perhaps he will be otherwise engaged.’

  ‘Miss Delfino was exceptionally helpful,’ said Sandro and immediately regretted it when Marisa Goldman’s eyes narrowed. Was she wondering how many of the bank’s secrets her colleague might have given away? ‘Look,’ he heard himself pleading now. ‘I understand this is a difficult time. Of course I am acting in my client’s interests but –’ and he held up a hand as she opened her mouth to protest ‘–but it is possible there may be a connection. With your boss’s death. It may help the police if we can trace this man. Don’t you see?’

  ‘You think he has something to do with Claudio’s death?’ Marisa Goldman’s whole stance had changed, become stilled, intent. Arms on the desk, she leaned forwards, closer to him. ‘Who is your client?’

  ‘I-I don’t think—’

  ‘Look,’ said Marisa Goldman, speaking carefully. ‘If you want me to respond to your questions –’ and she darted a glance at the office next door ‘–now of all the moments to choose, you must at least answer mine.’

  Sandro regarded her, thinking furiously. ‘There is such a thing as client confidentiality,’ he said.

  ‘Like with doctors?’ Marisa Goldman replied, raising her eyebrows sardonically. This was better than her coldness, but Sandro still couldn’t bring himself to like her.

  ‘That kind of thing,’ he said. Then sighed. ‘Look, I can’t tell you her name. But I can tell you that it’s to do with a personal situation. She’s trying to find this man for private reasons. It is not a financial investigation.’

  Marisa Goldman sat back in her chair, and he didn’t like her expression at all. Something like satisfaction, something like disdain. ‘Oh, I see,’ she said.

  ‘Did your boss have affairs?’ he asked, before he could stop himself, ask himself where he was going with this. Just want
ed to wipe that look off her face, probably.

  ‘My boss has nothing to do with you,’ she said levelly.

  Yes, thought Sandro, and just from the look she gave him, a whole history unfolded. Yes: he improvised. You and Brunello had a small thing, a few years back, no doubt you engineered it while his wife was pregnant or something, and he regretted it, he wasn’t that kind of man, and you bullied him into giving you this job out of guilt. That’s how it was. Sandro couldn’t have said how he knew it just from the cold flash in her eye, but he did. Sometimes a small gesture told a big story.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’ And when she turned her gaze away he knew that she knew that he knew.

  And Irene Brunello probably had a pretty good idea too: that woman wasn’t a fool. Did Marisa Goldman offer to take her in after her husband’s body was found, or was she asked? When men died, wives and mistresses often got together, to mourn or to scream at each other, or both. Not these two, though; he could picture them circling, dropping hints, evading, coldly polite. Irene Brunello would get to the truth in the end, he was fairly sure of that; he was also sure he didn’t want to come between them.

  Marisa Goldman was watching him; she wasn’t telling him to get out. ‘Show me the piece of paper again,’ she said.

  The bank settled into silence around them as she gave the picture another, closer look. She even went so far as to switch on a small anglepoise on her desk and hold the paper under it. Sandro shifted on his chair: he didn’t like it in here. The air seemed thick and sluggish in the heat, the gloom was oppressive, and the outside world, dimly visible through the smoked glass and security doors, far off and inaccessible. It was like being locked in a cave. He pulled at his tie to loosen it.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Goldman slowly. ‘I don’t know.’ But there was something in her voice, more doubt than before. Sandro gave her time: his eye roving the room’s neat, minimal decor. Not like her boss’s, no family pictures, just those ones of her, polished and posing.

  He noticed that she had a small stack of papers to her left, on the desk. She’d been doing some work. He tilted his head just a degree to get a look. The top page was printed with two colour photographs, a shuttered façade, a garden with some white chairs. His eye travelled to the letterhead: something Immobiliare, it said. Not work then? Galeotti Immobiliare. His head jerked up and he caught her watching him. Galeotti was the name of the estate agent who had shown them the apartment in San Niccolo. Small world.

  He smiled.

  ‘How would I go about getting a loan?’ he asked, just idly, nodding towards the poster on the wall. ‘If it was me, I mean? What would I have to do to get, say, thirty thousand euros?’

  Marisa Goldman eyed him narrowly. ‘Proof of earnings, bank statements, credit history,’ she recited distractedly, her eyes once again on the paper, held between both hands now. ‘You’d have to have an interview with our – with. Well …’ She looked back at Sandro, as though he was finally coming into focus. ‘You would have had to talk to Claudio,’ she said. ‘Some banks wouldn’t require that, but he was very hands-on.’ Compressed her lips. ‘And with older customers – it’s more complicated.’

  ‘Thanks for that,’ said Sandro drily.

  She looked down again. ‘Do you think he might be a customer?’ she said. ‘This man you’re after? I really see customers only by appointment. Valentino and Roxana – Miss Delfino – they – ah – they have most of the routine customer interaction.’

  Hands-on. Routine customer interaction. Proof of earnings. How could Sandro even contemplate asking to borrow money, here or anywhere else? They didn’t speak his language. But Marisa Goldman was looking at him, calculating.

  ‘But I might have seen him.’ She spoke stiffly. Was she finally beginning to see the point of them: the human beings who came in and out of here asking for help, asking for money, asking for sympathy? People in trouble.

  The sheet of A4 paper was folded now, on her desk. ‘Yes,’ said Marisa Goldman. ‘I think I saw him in with Claudio, in his office. A month ago perhaps? Perhaps more.’

  ‘So he’s a customer.’

  ‘It would seem so,’ said Marisa Goldman. ‘I imagine he was asking for a loan. When you mentioned – well. That is generally what people want, here.’

  And he saw her eyes shift, professional, cool, to look past him, and she got to her feet. Turning his head, Sandro saw them standing there, just inside the door through which he’d been admitted, Roxana Delfino and the boy who’d been sent to find her. They seemed almost out of breath.

  ‘Did he appear – this man you saw? Did you notice anything about him? Anything at all?’

  ‘Notice anything? No,’ she said. ‘People asking for money all look the same. They want to please you, they are a little nervous perhaps. They don’t know: in the end it’s all down to the figures.’ She compressed her lips. ‘He wasn’t our sort of – well. Claudio let him down gently, told him, “here’s my card, let me know if anything changes.” You know the sort of thing.’ She flicked her hair back. She’d have shown no such civility. The smile she turned on him was chilly. ‘Look, if you’ll excuse me now. We’ve got to open up.’

  And she was brushing past him, out into the bank’s foyer. Feeling himself dismissed, Sandro followed her.

  ‘Roxana, your mother called.’ Marisa Goldman had already moved on, and as he edged around her to the door, she was talking to the Delfino girl in a tone that set Sandro’s teeth on edge. ‘Several times. I would like to remind you that this is your place of work.’

  ‘I—’ Roxana Delfino looked very pale. ‘My mother?’

  Sandro hesitated at the door. His phone bleeped in his pocket and surreptitiously he stole a look at it. Three missed calls, it said, one from Pietro, two from Luisa.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Valentino, darting a glance from Roxana to Sandro and back. ‘I’ll get opened up.’ And he hurried to a panel beside the security door.

  Sandro felt Roxana Delfino’s eyes on him. ‘Miss Delfino,’ he said.

  ‘You’re back,’ she said, distractedly. She didn’t look as though her lunch break had done her much good. ‘Maybe you’re what we need,’ she said, trying to smile. ‘Maybe my mother needs a private detective, not a carer.’ Her troubled expression intensified.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ he asked, feeling his hand curl around the mobile, wanting to look at it, but something about Roxana Delfino detaining him.

  ‘Roxana,’ said Marisa Goldman sharply.

  ‘Back to work,’ said Roxana, meeting his gaze directly. ‘I’m fine, thank you, Mr Cellini.’

  She remembered my name, he thought as he passed out through the security door, its strident mechanical voice lecturing him, unheeded. Please step back and remove all metallic objects. Well, that’s something. She remembered my name.

  Out on the street, Sandro had to walk quickly away from the bank’s window as it was in full sun, the suffocating heat of a long afternoon hitting him like a wall. This could go on another month – that would kill him.

  There was no sign of the returning Guardia di Finanza. Walking as far as the river, Sandro found some decent shade before he dialled the familiar number. As it rang, Sandro realized he’d left the picture of Anna Niescu and her Josef behind on Marisa Goldman’s desk. The only image of the man whose name they still didn’t know, a sheet of crumpled A4. Of course, it still existed, in theory. It was on the phone, they could print another off, it existed – digitally. But Sandro didn’t like digital, Sandro liked the real thing, even if the real thing was only a blurred image on cheap paper. He felt uneasy.

  Looking along the river with the phone to his ear, down to where the grassy terrace of the city’s prestigious rowing club glowed in the late-afternoon light, Sandro saw a man in a singlet, with the deep tan and air of ease of the very wealthy, lifting the long fibreglass hull of a boat into the green water.

  The voice answered, and not as wearily as the last time they’d spoke
n.

  ‘Pietro,’ said Sandro. ‘What’s new?’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  WALKING HAD SEEMED A good idea when Giuli left the apartment – no more than a kilometre; the Via dei Serragli was being dug up so she’d have had to make a long detour on the moped – but by the time she reached the vast and peeling front door of the Loggiata, she was exhausted. The heat thickened the air, somehow, so even moving through it seemed to use up extra energy. What was wrong with her? Getting old, old and heavy and slow, and her stomach bothering her to boot. Wouldn’t it be typical if she turned out to have some new type of hepatitis, or something, after all this time, after cleaning up? They’d had her tested for one or two things when she’d gone to prison and she’d been so surprised that she cared at all when she’d been clear. No HIV, no Hep C.

  This heat.

  And it wasn’t only her moving slowly today, it turned out. It took a good ten minutes before Giuli got an answer through the intercom, and another lengthy pause before the buzzer sounded and the latch clicked to allow her in.

  Behind the door, the entrance hall – wide, dark and cool – was so deliciously refreshing that for a moment Giuli was tempted to just stay there a while, leaning against the crumbling plaster. But she went on up.

  The grey ghost of a cat slunk noiselessly away at the opening of the hotel’s door, squeezing through the glass doors that stood ajar and gave on to the long loggia. At the reception desk Dasha hardly glanced up. She was reading a fat, cheap paperback, its spine cracked ruinously.

  ‘Ciao,’ said Giuli, cursing herself for sounding ingratiating. ‘How you doing?’

  ‘You again,’ said the girl, elbows on the desk, settling her chin in her cupped hands and looking at Giuli. ‘Kidnap, is it?’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ Giuli looked at her, expressionless.

  ‘You have our girl. Who do you think is doing the work, the chambermaid? Have you come for – for ransom?’ It was her idea of a joke, delivered without any more malice than usual, but it put an idea in Giuli’s head that she didn’t like.