by Tobias Jones
‘And you found it?’
He put down the watering can, looked at me and then sat down. He motioned to the cane armchair next to him. His head was thrown back and he was looking at the glass ceiling, talking quietly. ‘There was a girl there who had a house. Her parents were away, or dead, I can’t remember. She had the house to herself and had a few friends staying. We just drank, and played cards and guitars and partied. It was just a few days of fun.’
‘This was when? Back in the seventies?’
‘Right. Didn’t think anything more about it. I got a letter from the girl once saying she was pregnant. I thought it was a wind-up.’ He exhaled derisively at his own dishonesty. ‘Or maybe I didn’t, I don’t know. I got a lawyer friend to write a stiff letter and never heard from her again. That was that, as far as I was concerned.’
‘Until Mori showed up?’
He looked up at me. ‘How do you know all this?’
‘You hired me. It’s my job.’
He nodded regretfully, as if he would rather have lost Simona than face his dishonest past. ‘Mori rolled up here in ninety-one. He asked for an appointment with me in my office. I thought he was just another client, but as he sat there talking I could see my whole life slipping away. Until that moment I had almost forgotten that girl existed. I had never heard of her, never even knew her name. I had my own life here, my own wife and daughter and . . . I didn’t want all that disturbed by a complete stranger. Everything I had worked hard for was about to dissolve: respectability, social standing, marital status. Here was this disreputable rogue who knew he had something over me, who knew he could hold me to ransom.’
‘What was the ransom?’
‘He never called it that. He simply said Anna needed specialist medical care. He came out with some mystery illness and said she could be cured if she had the funds to fly to America. We both knew it was bull, but I went along with it. I wrote him out a large cheque there and then.’
‘And he came back for more?’
‘Sure. I remember the terror of those months. Every time I went into the office I dreaded the mention of his name. My secretary would say that Fabrizio Mori had made an appointment and I would want to hide under the desk. It wasn’t just that I knew I would be a few hundred thousand lire poorer at the end of the day. It was the constant fear that my family life would be ruined, that he could take away from me everything I held dear. And he did it all with a smile and fake charm. There were never any threats or raised voices. He had this veneer of friendliness, and that was worse. He made out he was my friend, doing me a favour. And yet, underneath it all, there was always menace. There was always the perceptible sense that, if I didn’t give him what he wanted, he would willingly stop being my friend.’
‘How long did it go on for?’
‘For months and months. He was coming in every week or so. Taking chunks of my life savings or my inheritance each time. He had a complete hold over me. I didn’t realise it at the time, but he was my master. He controlled my destiny. I felt I had to give him whatever he wanted. Every time there was another story: Anna was recovering but needed one more round of treatment. She was stranded in New York and needed the money for a flight home. She needed to buy certain medicines that were available only in London. It was all a charade.’ He was shaking his head, smiling ruefully at the mistakes of his youth. ‘I knew it was a charade. He knew it was. But we went along with it.’
‘What happened in the end?’
‘My secretary realised what was going on. She’s still with me, bless her. A loyal, loyal employee. She recognised him for what he was and had the courage to confront me. Told me that that man had no business in our office and that whatever power he had over me was imaginary. I’m embarrassed to say I broke down. Told her everything. It was as if a spell was broken.’
‘What about Mori?’
‘I took away his only hold over me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I decided to stop keeping Anna secret. I told him to bring her round to my office. He started saying she was having chemo in the States but by then the game was over. The next day she was ringing the doorbell to the flat we used to live in. I went down to see her and . . .’ He was looking at me with unfocused eyes like he was recalling a distant image. ‘I saw her and she was so beautiful and young, she was smiling at me as if the only thing she wanted in the entire world was to be loved. And I took her in my arms and held her. And we both cried a bit. I realised all at once the terrible, terrible mistake I had made. I had shunned her all her life and here she was, desperate just to be held by her own father.’
‘You invited Anna inside?’
‘I did. We walked in together, arm in arm. She was so happy, she was almost dancing up the drive.’
‘And you?’
‘I felt relieved in some way. When you’ve kept a secret for so long, you’re almost relieved when it’s over. I was shot of Mori who had been draining me of money. And I had met my daughter. It felt like I was finally being honest, like I was reconciled to everything in the past.’
‘And you thought your wife would be too?’
‘She wasn’t there that day. Anna and I were alone and just talked for hours. Talked about her life and mine. About everything, really. She was so young and pretty and she didn’t seem to have any recriminations about the fact that I had abandoned her mother. We were curled up together on the sofa, strangers who were immediately intimate.’ He was staring out of the window now, remembering it all. ‘She left that afternoon and I begged her to come round the next day, which of course she did. From then on she was always here, she spent most of her time here. It was her home.’
‘And your wife and daughter, how did they feel about it all?’
He moved the top of his head from side to side. ‘Giovanna was . . .’ he paused, ‘shocked. Shocked and angry. I had betrayed her. So . . . yes, it was a shock. She took a long time to adjust.’
‘And your daughter?’
‘She and Anna became good friends almost immediately. It was like they had a sibling bond from the start.’
‘She didn’t feel usurped?’
‘What do you mean, “usurped”?’ he asked angrily.
‘I mean, she was an only daughter, her daddy’s special girl. And suddenly, just as she’s at a vulnerable age, a rival rolls up for her daddy’s love.’
He shook his head. ‘They were great friends.’
Biondi looked to me like the sort of solipsist who wouldn’t even know if he had upset someone else. He was happy with his lot and wouldn’t have understood why some other people weren’t.
‘What’s any of this got to do with Simona’s disappearance?’
‘I told you before, she’s with Mori,’ I said impatiently. ‘I’m trying to work out who he is. And what he wants with her.’
‘And?’
‘If he’s successfully touched you for money in the past, it’s quite possible he sees you as his cash till in the future. He may be wanting a real ransom this time.’
I looked at Biondi. I wondered whether Mori had already contacted him for money to return Simona. It seemed unlikely – I thought it more likely Mori was heading to Di Angelo – but it wasn’t impossible.
‘Has he been in touch with you?’
Biondi shook his head. ‘Why would Mori be interested in Simona?’
I watched him closely again, trying to work out how deep he had buried another of his secrets. His face exuded a sort of arrogance that seemed to eclipse any self-knowledge.
‘I think,’ I said slowly, ‘that Mori’s interested in her parentage.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Simona’s existence proves something. Proves that Mario Di Angelo was making millions out of fiddling viewing figures.’
Biondi put his head backwards, like he thought I was talking rubbish. He looked at me down the length of his thin nose trying to figure out what I was saying.
‘It might have helped if you’d told me at the ou
tset that you weren’t her real parents.’
He shut his eyes, still trying to keep out the past. ‘I had no idea it was of any consequence. She was missing. It didn’t seem important who her real parents were.’ As he was talking, he seemed to be convincing himself of something. ‘We’re her parents,’ he said weakly.
We sat like that for a minute or two in silence. We could hear the traffic outside and the loud radio of workmen on some scaffolding.
‘We did it for the best,’ he said in a faraway voice. He sounded softer, and sadder now. ‘Poor Chiara. She was only eighteen. It would have been a life sentence to expect her to bring up a young child on her own. She would never have had a life of her own, let alone a family. She made a mistake. We didn’t want her to pay for it for ever.’ He shook his head. ‘Maybe we made a mistake too. But when you’ve lied once, you have to keep lying, and it gets bigger and larger until there’s nothing you can do but let it take on a life of its own. We thought we were doing the best for Simona. Giving her a loving family life instead of leaving her with a young, single mother who barely knew how to lay the table, let alone bring up a daughter. The only mistake we made was loving her too much.’
‘And lying to her,’ I said.
He turned quickly and stared at me. ‘Sometimes loving someone means you have to lie to them. That’s the way to protect them.’
‘No one needs protection from the truth.’
‘Of course they do. Everyone does.’
We slipped back into resentful silence. He was beginning to seem like a pathological liar, someone who couldn’t tell the truth to his wife or granddaughter, let alone an investigator. But he said something that made sense in a strange way: he had abandoned one daughter and suddenly had the chance to adopt another. It was as if he could make up for the mistakes of the past rather than repeat them. It was a chance for redemption, he said. To do the right thing. It still seemed like just another deception to me, but I could see how it might have made sense to him somehow. From having been neglectful, he became overprotective.
‘Especially because,’ he swallowed hard, ‘that year Anna went missing. I was just getting to know her and suddenly she was gone. I had a few months with her, only a few months.’
He was full of self-pity. It sounded like he felt more sorry for himself than for Anna Sartori.
‘What happened to her?’ I asked bluntly.
‘To Anna?’ He shrugged, shaking his head slowly, his gaze fixed in the distance. ‘Mori happened to her. He dragged her round the clubs and society soirées, using her to ensnare unwitting, weak men. Then he blackmailed them the way he had blackmailed me. That’s what he did, all he knew how to do. She didn’t know what was going on at first. She thought she had to put herself about to get her photograph in those silly magazines. She didn’t realise he was getting paid to keep her out of them. She threatened to go public, denounce him for extortion, so he dealt with her.’ He rolled his head onto one shoulder and looked at me.
It sounded improbable. Mori had already been denounced for extortion. Biondi probably only wanted to believe he was involved because he held a grudge against the hustler who had taken so much of his money.
‘That’s why I’m worried for Simona,’ he said quickly. ‘It’s as if history is repeating itself. First Anna and now Simona.’
‘I’ll find her,’ I said, standing up. ‘I don’t think Mori’s a murderer. And I think he needs Simona alive.’
Biondi just nodded, bringing his shoes under his knees and pushing himself out of his chair. We walked to the door in silence.
As he held it open for me, he just nodded like there was nothing more to say.
I caught up with Mori eventually at Tony Vespa’s house. I went round there as soon as I left Biondi’s place and saw two cars in the drive. One was the same convertible that had been there before, but now there was another car, an old, dented Fiat that looked out of place.
There was no reply to the doorbell. I tried to look through the shutters but they were all lowered. I rang the doorbell once more but nothing happened. The side gate was closed so I scaled it and walked down the path that went down the side of the building. There was another gate at the end of the path and I jumped that too, landing on the terrace in front of two large glass doors. I saw two startled people sitting on the sofa there. The man, Vespa, suddenly stood up and pulled a gun, aiming it from his hip through the glass. I put my hands up and he moved towards me, pulling open the sliding door with one hand as the other kept the pistol on me.
Behind him I could see Simona. She was holding a screwed-up tissue in her two hands. Her eyes were red as if she’d been crying and her hair looked wet and dishevelled.
‘You again?’ Vespa looked high, like he was getting off on adrenalin. His eyes were excited and he was glowing with weird energy.
‘I’m here for the girl.’ I nodded the top of my head in Simona’s direction.
‘She and I are just having a little chat. You’re intruding.’
‘You normally chat with a firearm?’
‘You should see what happened to the last intruder.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I took a step closer to him, but he raised the pistol and smiled maniacally.
‘A man burst in here threatening me and my property. I had to defend myself.’
‘Who? Mori?’
‘I didn’t have time to ask his name. Ask him yourself.’
‘Where is he?’
‘You can see his feet just there,’ he waved his free hand behind him, ‘he’s having a lie down.’
I made a move to walk past him and stopped. I wanted to see if he was twitchy with the rod, but he let me past. I walked into the room and saw a body lying parallel to the sofa. His limbs were at unnatural angles and his whole chest area was wet with brown blood. I didn’t need to look twice to know it was Fabrizio Mori. His long, grey ponytail was splayed out behind him. I looked across at the girl. She was in shock, rocking backwards and forwards and muttering odd phrases that made no sense.
‘Simona,’ I said, putting a hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m here to take you home.’
She looked at me with scared, wide eyes. She looked like a trapped animal. I knelt down beside her.
‘Simona,’ I whispered, ‘I’m here to take you home.’
Her breathing was rapid and uncontrolled. ‘Home?’ She looked at me with scorn. ‘Back to my parents?’
Mori had clearly told her everything, that she wasn’t who she thought she was. It didn’t surprise me. It would have made him appear more honest than her own relatives. It would have persuaded her to stick with him. But now she wasn’t only in the throes of an existential crisis, she was also traumatised by having witnessed close up someone getting whacked.
‘Simona,’ I said, but she was pulling at her hair and moaning.
Vespa’s woman, Basia, came in, saw Simona and went and sat next to her. She pulled Simona towards her with an arm round her shoulder. With her other hand she started stroking the girl’s hair. They were rocking together now, making a low moaning sound – one traumatised and the other soothing.
I walked over to Vespa, who had his hands on his hips as he looked out across his parched, yellow lawn.
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘That man barged in here, started threatening me. I had to defend myself.’
‘And defend Di Angelo?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You were defending his empire. Mori was blackmailing him and you dealt with the threat.’
‘I told you. I defended myself from an intruder.’
‘You think she’ll confirm that?’ I flicked my head towards Simona.
‘Sure. She’ll confirm it. Of course she will.’
‘I won’t.’
‘You weren’t here.’
‘I know what happened.’
‘You think so?’
‘I know what happened. Mori checked into the Hotel del Fiume because that was the only way he kn
ew how to get a message to Di Angelo. He knew it was a dive, but he remembered who the owner was from when he used to go there in the nineties. He checked into the hotel with a special guest and sent a message up the chain of command that he had Simona Biondi, the girl who could prove that Di Angelo was running a prostitution ring to skew viewing figures. Di Angelo set you on Mori’s case, told you to find him, which is how you and I became friends, right? Eventually Mori got hold of you and you were spooked. This could bring down the whole house of cards – your paymaster’s political career could be over. His business empire would be broken up. So you arranged to meet Mori here. You wanted to set up this story about an intruder. He knocked on the door, you invited him in and it was easy. A twitchy finger on the trigger and you packed him off to eternity. Problem solved.’
He stared at me, trying to guess my price. ‘What exactly is it you want? Are you selling your silence the same as Mori?’
I held his stare, interested to hear him open negotiations.
‘I can give you what you want,’ he said. ‘Anything you want.’
‘Tell me about Anna Sartori.’
He didn’t say anything.
‘Did you pack her off as well?’
He chuckled quietly to himself as he shook his head. He still seemed intoxicated by what he had done. He was looking at the pistol in his right hand, turning it over so he could feel its weight and see both sides.
‘I don’t care about what went on,’ I said, watching the polished wood of the grip in his hands. ‘The inflated invoices, the fake viewers, the call girls and escorts. Not interested. I want to know what happened to Anna Sartori.’
‘Yeah, me too. She never showed.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Listen, she was a hustler the same as Mori. She was trying to throw mud at a man who likes to keep everything clean. She was sounding off about this and that, the same as that stiff on the carpet.’ He flicked the pistol in Mori’s direction. ‘Di Angelo told me to sort it out, to give her a pay-off. I was just the studio fixer – I sourced girls, sorted problems, smoothed feathers. And there are lots of feathers in TV, believe me. I went round there, he opened his safe and gave me a shoebox of cash.’
