Dead Season

by Christobel Kent

  ‘But he doesn’t have his phone,’ Sandro had said. ‘He asked Liliana – oh, never mind. He didn’t send that message.’

  ‘She’s not there, anyway,’ Giuli had said. ‘I banged and banged. No one’s there.’

  The sky was black now. From up the hill Sandro could hear a rushing, a pattering. He could have asked Marisa Goldman for a lift. Damn, why hadn’t he? Because he couldn’t stand another minute of her, that’s why. He could see the rain coming, a sheet of it moving down the hillside. And then the taxi was there, creeping under the rain, and he put out his hand.

  ‘You know the old Carnevale?’ he said. ‘Take me there.’

  *

  The old woman came back in, her currant eyes glittering with malice and satisfaction. She took off her coat: Dasha saw sweat patches under the arms. Took off her scarf and edged Dasha out from behind the reception desk. ‘You go and clean,’ she said with hostility. ‘What are you good for, anyway? Get to the rooms.’

  Dasha stood there a long moment, feeling her youth against the woman’s age, hating her long and hard. ‘In a bit,’ she said at last, and saw Serafina’s eyes narrow. ‘Breath of fresh air first.’ And shaking her cigarette packet in her employer’s face, she turned to saunter towards the lift.

  The wide, dim entrance hall was cool. Once down there, Dasha felt no urge to get outside, into the heat. She lit her cigarette, drew in the smoke. She wanted to escape; she wanted to kill Serafina Capponi. But Anna might need her. Anna.

  And besides, where could she go? Inhaling, she heard something, held her breath until it came again. A tiny scratching at the main door. She stepped towards it, right up to the wide arched door with its smaller door inset, turned her ear towards the sound. Someone was trying to get in. She pulled it open sharply, and he fell inwards.

  Stepping back, Dasha regarded him on the floor in the light that fell through the door before it swung shut again. Jesus.

  Josef scrambled to his feet, putting out his hands to her: she jumped back, arms up, cigarette still in one hand. ‘No,’ she said sharply. In the gloom the bruising was less visible, but she couldn’t ignore it. His throat dark and mottled, one side of his face turning yellow and scabbed. He stank.

  ‘Please.’ He was almost sobbing. ‘I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go any more. I need to see her. I need to know she’s all right.’ Then he flung himself at Dasha and wept, hauling at her while she stood stiff as a board. She pushed him off, took a drag, then threw the cigarette down.

  ‘You imbecile,’ she said, arms crossed. ‘You text her to get her to meet you, then you come here instead? You think in this heat, in her condition, she should be wandering all over town?’

  And he stared at her.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘What? No.’ Shook his head slowly. ‘He took it. My telefonino. He took it.’

  Then put both hands to the sides of his head as if to crush his own skull.

  ‘Where?’ he said. ‘Where has she gone?’

  *

  ‘The girl,’ Giuli had said. ‘I’m worried about Anna. I think she’s – she could be in trouble. That baby.’

  ‘Stay calm,’ Luisa had said. ‘As soon as I can come, I’ll be there. Stay calm. We’ll find her.’

  Leaning over the hot stone of the parapet and looking down into the river, staring, trying to get some air after the Carnevale’s fetid alley, trying to think straight, Giuli heard the rain come, sweeping down the length of the river. Below her, the creeper-covered awning of the rowing club shivered like an animal in the sudden wind, and the narrow boats moored along the bank clattered against each other. A few big drops, the wind that blinded her and pulled at her hair, flattening the ripples on the water’s surface, then suddenly it was roaring in her ears, a miniature tornado that swept along the embankment and continued past. She turned to watch it go, rubbing her eyes: it was real, she saw the twisting wind move up the side of a building, catch a satellite dish and gleefully wrench it from its moorings. The crash of shutters.

  It wasn’t him. That was what Sandro had said. It wasn’t Josef who’d texted her; it was whoever had Josef’s phone. Catch a rabbit to catch a fox: he’d got Anna. Anna the little rabbit, someone had her, the lure to catch Josef, a little rabbit panting in a snare. How could he be sure that Josef would find out? He must be nuts, whoever he was. Or perhaps he knew Josef better than the rest of them.

  Think.

  And then the rain came in earnest, rushing at her in the wake of the wind, hitting her side on, then it was overhead and coming straight down, and in a second Giuli was drenched. She ran, away from the river, back towards the Carnevale.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  IN THE DARK ROXANA thought she might be sick. Everything in her strained to keep it at bay. She tried not to breathe through her nose, but she couldn’t put her hand to her mouth for fear of alerting Valentino.

  He was holding her hand painfully tight and tugging her now, away from the door.

  ‘In here,’ he said.

  There was some kind of corridor ahead of them, dark as a cellar. She couldn’t stop herself resisting, looking back over her shoulder to the feeble grey light that filtered around the door. Left on the latch: she could just bolt, if his hand wasn’t so tight around hers. She felt choked, something big in her throat at the thought of where he might take her. Anything but further in; she could almost feel the labyrinth of rooms spread around her, a web that might catch her and hold her. She took a step, then another.

  They must be somewhere behind the auditorium, deep inside the building. There were no windows.

  ‘They’ll be here soon,’ said Val, taking something out of his pocket and looking down at it. Roxana realized he was talking to himself. ‘Give it an hour.’

  ‘Val,’ she said, hating the wheedling sound in her voice, trying to ingratiate herself. Pretend this was normal.

  ‘Pregnant, though,’ he said, talking to himself. She saw his mouth turn down in an expression of distaste. ‘Messy. We can just shut her in here, keep her quiet. Yes.’

  Roxana didn’t know what he meant: didn’t want to know. That chemical smell seemed to ooze from his pores as Valentino came closer to her in the confined space. His breathing was shallow. It must be drugs: why was she so naive? Why hadn’t she known? Because she’d allowed herself to think, Well, Val’s not so bad. He’s just a boy, he’s just a spoiled boy, he could be good at heart. Bantering with his friends in the bar, off rowing after work.

  He hadn’t gone rowing, though, had he? After work on Saturday, he hadn’t gone rowing. Waving to her in his singlet, heading this way. She had turned away but then turned back: she’d watched him go towards the river but never get there because he had turned down the alley beside the Carnevale instead. And on Friday night he said he’d passed Marisa outside Claudio’s house: on the way home? Or on the way back into the city?

  Overhead there was a strange rushing sound she couldn’t identify, a clatter far above them, and a wind that seemed to make its way inside, a cool swirl of air brushing Roxana’s ankles, a rustling ahead of them as it moved through the building.

  ‘Was it true?’ she said out loud. ‘About Marisa and Claudio?’

  ‘She shagged him a few years back,’ he said peremptorily. ‘Scheming bitch.’

  ‘But you saw her on his doorstep?’

  ‘I saw her. Wanting her dues. She’s been dumped, and while she’s looking around for the next meal ticket she thought she might touch him for a payment. I know women. Leeching bloody women. Bleed you dry.’

  ‘Where were you going?’ asked Roxana. ‘Last Friday night?’

  Why was she asking? Because she wanted to know? To keep him talking? It occurred to her she would probably never get to tell anyone. Ma. I’ve done something stupid.

  ‘Going?’ Again that look, as if he didn’t recognize her. Would that make it easier for him? Then he smiled, wide as a shark. ‘Friday night? I was coming here to meet Galeotti, give him his commission, tell him the
deal. Of course. I moved the money – no more than borrowing it, really, in Claudio’s name, then transfer it – via another account, of course, I’m not stupid – over to the Carnevale and the sale can go through. Easy enough to write the letter saying the property was no longer encumbered, copy it to them, just to speed it all up. Galeotti thought it was genius.’

  I bet he did, thought Roxana.

  ‘Last piece of the jigsaw, sale goes through Monday.’ Then his expression darkened. ‘Fucking Josef,’ he said, and as he tilted his head back she saw him muse, coldly. ‘Fucking thieving little gypsy scum. Hiding in his little hole, listening to every word.’

  ‘The money,’ whispered Roxana, knowing she should just keep quiet. Val turned his head and regarded her. ‘You stole that money. To pay off what had been borrowed against the business. You stole it in Claudio’s name.’

  Who had authorized that first loan, taken out a year ago? When old Mrs Martelli had had her heart attack?

  ‘The old cow,’ he said. ‘Nagging at me, where had the money gone, she’d let me take out the loan against the business and I’d been supposed to invest it for her, I’d told her I knew my stuff. Then when she had her heart attack I thought, well, it’ll be mine soon enough anyway, who’s going to know? I started spending. I don’t know how you can live on what they pay at the bank.’ His lip curled a little. ‘You don’t really have a life, though, do you?’

  ‘When they made the offer on the cinema you had to come up with the money, pay off the loan.’ Roxana’s voice came out in a whisper. ‘Thought about selling the bike back then but it wouldn’t have been enough. Three thousand, the thieving bastards paid me for it.’ He snorted contemptuously. ‘It would have been paid back, when the sale went through, Tyrrhenian Properties’ payment to me would’ve easily covered it. I thought my luck was in when he left early Friday, wrote the letter, made the preliminary transfer, all while you were staring out the window in the kitchen. We shut up shop and I went off to close the deal.’

  Only you left Claudio’s computer switched on, thought Roxana.

  He sighed, self-pityingly. ‘I’d have got all the money back where it should have been before Claudio was back from holiday – if only that little gyspy snitch had kept his mouth shut. Claudio thinks I’m so dumb: he’s the dumb one. Was. No grasp of technology, the older generation.’ Roxana just stared.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, almost pensive, ‘the way it turned out, I didn’t even need to pay it back. Guardia as thick as pig shit, they’ll never track it down. Just looks like Claudio needed it for the bitch.’ He wasn’t sure, though: Roxana heard a note of bravado. But the Guardia weren’t all stupid, and Sandro Cellini wasn’t stupid. She said nothing.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, and tugged hard, shoved her in front of him, into the dark.

  And then something cracked and burst overhead, a deafening bang as though a bomb had gone off and Roxana, who had always been afraid of thunder, stopped stock-still.

  ‘Move, bitch,’ said Val, and viciously he shoved her.

  The thunder died away and the rushing replaced it, then the hard patter of torrential rain. Things began to drip, far off in the building: Roxana couldn’t move, thinking of the building’s warren of rooms. Not pretty, was that what the builder had said?

  ‘You want to see, or don’t you?’

  I don’t, she said silently. I don’t, I don’t. But out of some instinct, she moved, his palm in the small of her back. Against her shoulder she felt her handbag, and pressed it tight against her, trying to make it invisible. Her mobile? He wouldn’t let her touch it.

  ‘Dumb little shit,’ said Val, almost conversational now. ‘Josef had Claudio’s card, had his numbers, but Josef dialled the bank first, didn’t he? I knew then. You remember, me taking that call Saturday? Thought I recognized the voice, and the way he hung up so fast gave it away: he’d dialled the wrong number. I did callback, and knew it was him. Now why would Josef be calling Claudio on a Saturday morning? Because he’d overheard us, Friday night? I thought he was out with his girl but he must have got back and been hiding there, listening. Blackmailing bastard, thought it had worked once with the flat and would work again this time, only with more information? Like, how I’d managed to shift the money around before the boss was even on the autostrada to the seaside, and it was hardly even illegal.’ He chewed his lip. ‘Or maybe he heard me say how we could just cut the little gypsy loose, now, stop all that pretence about the luxury apartment we’d move him and his girl into.’ He chewed his lip. ‘Of course, I didn’t know all that then. All I knew then was he was trying to get Claudio. So when I finished work Saturday, I got all dressed up in my rowing kit and off I went to find little Josef and set him straight. Only they were both there. Two birds, eh?’

  Roxana just concentrated on locating herself. Left, then on. It was not completely dark after all: there was light from somewhere, though she didn’t know where. A room with padded chairs around the side, like a waiting room. It disgusted her, she didn’t know why. A smell. What did people do here?

  Valentino chuckled at her shoulder, as if he knew what she was thinking. ‘Go on,’ he said urgently. ‘It’s here.’

  And she was on the threshold of another room, a room so small it was inhuman, with a tiny dirty window high in a corner. A lopsided cooker at the end of bed with a rail, and something spattered above it.

  A strap hung from the rail. The kind of thing you might use to attach luggage to a car, or a moped. Or a motorbike.

  And before she could even let the breath out that she’d been holding, he pushed her, those strong oarsman’s arms propelling her across the room, on to the stinking bed, her bag beneath her, her head striking the wall so she saw stars. And as she tried to steady the spinning behind her eyes, she felt his hands, as hard as iron, felt the strap tightening around her wrists as he yanked them over her head.

  ‘Honeymoon suite,’ said Valentino.

  *

  Luisa paced the square metre of floor in front of the door, Beppe watching her.

  ‘Jesus, she’s taking her time,’ she said again.

  Beppe raised his eyebrows; it wasn’t like Luisa to give in to anything like impatience, or profanity. She had her back to the door. ‘You can just go,’ he said. ‘If you need to go.’ She gazed at him: it would be breaking the habit of a lifetime.

  ‘You’re sure?’ she said, and Beppe nodded.

  ‘I’m going,’ she said.

  *

  Soaked to the skin, Giuli had just retraced her steps and reached the steel shutter of the lock-up when the hail started up, startlingly violent, white pellets hurtling from the sky. And then the taxi rounded the corner, creeping along the street, the hail bouncing from its roof with a deafening rattle. It stopped just short of where Giuli stood, hunched under the onslaught, and as she stared, Sandro climbed out.

  Then a sound behind her, an awful kind of low grunt, like an animal, made her turn. An animal? She remembered that mewling earlier: had it come from here? The shutter was raised by a metre, maybe a bit more. She kneeled and shoved it up further.

  ‘Oh, Jesus,’ she said. ‘Oh Jesus, God in heaven.’

  Anna Niescu was in there.

  Crouching among vegetable crates, like an animal who’d crawled inside somewhere to die. Her face was so white it was luminous, and her eyes were filmed, as though she was looking at them but couldn’t see them. She was leaning forward.

  ‘I couldn’t – I couldn’t—’ The girl turned her head and gazed at Giuli, pleading, the words came with difficulty. ‘I didn’t know it would be like this. He’s waiting for me, do you know? He’s come back for me, only I – I had to stop.’ Her voice lowered, to an urgent whisper. ‘The baby’s coming. It’s coming. I couldn’t – not in the street. The shutter was up and I – I’m sorry. Am I in trouble?’ And then her face changed, her eyes stared, focused on some terrible inner effort.

  Giuli felt Sandro come up beside her, heard him say something under his breath but she di
dn’t hear it. She couldn’t hear anything for the rushing in her own ears. As they watched, Anna made that terrible sound again, the sound that had brought them in here, a cow sound, a moan from low down in her throat. She shifted, and with the movement Giuli saw that there was blood on Anna’s skirt.

  Anna’s mouth moved, but she didn’t seem to be able to say words.

  ‘She’s having the baby,’ said Giuli through numb lips, looking into Sandro’s face for help.

  Sandro was staring at the blood. ‘I can’t –’ he said, ‘I don’t know if I can—’ And swayed just enough to galvanize Giuli into something like sense.

  ‘Get an ambulance,’ she said.

  He was still staring. ‘Josef,’ he said. ‘Did Josef come?’

  She shook her head. ‘A man and a girl,’ she said impatiently. ‘I saw a man and a girl. That’s all.’

  As if hypnotized, Sandro went on staring, then abruptly his eyes came into focus. ‘Ambulance,’ he said.

  On her knees, Anna turned her head and her eyes met Giuli’s.

  ‘All right,’ Giuli said. ‘I’m coming.’ And she took the two steps, three, four, towards the kneeling girl, and the blood. ‘It’s all right, Anna,’ she said. ‘It’s going to be all right.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  ‘I ALWAYS THOUGHT I could do it,’ said Valentino, reaching under the bed for something. She heard it scrape. His voice was musing, almost conversational.

  ‘Of course, with the two of them, I had to be fast. You have to be fast, take them by surprise. They were in here: I let myself in, and I heard them. Got Claudio on the back of the head, before he even turned around.’ He nodded to himself. ‘That little Roma Josef was trickier. I got his phone off him but he was like a pig, fast and slippery. I got him down though. Superior strength and all that. I train, you know?’

  She said nothing.

  ‘Getting Claudio out of here, that was the hard bit.’ He laughed briefly, in admiration of himself, and straightened up, holding what he had retrieved from under the bed in his lap.