Deep and Silent Waters (31 page)

Then Bertelli asked sharply, ‘Are you sure you don’t know who he was, this man you’re talking about? Did she have a lover? An ex-lover? She’s an actress – they have admirers, men hanging around them. Was it someone like that?’

‘If there was anyone like that around, she never told me. I don’t have a clue. I’ve seen very little of her over the past few years. I only met her again during the film festival here. We spent a couple of days together, I’ve called her a few times since, and then she arrived …’ He looked at the faded, blistered face of the old clock on the wall opposite him. ‘It was only today, around lunch-time, that she got here. It seems like weeks.’ Sweat stood out on his pale skin. ‘Look, can you ring the hospital again and find out how she is? How bad her injuries were. It’s hours since she was taken in. They must be able to tell us how she is. I need to know! I’m going crazy, not knowing whether she’s alive or dead.’

The policeman’s face betrayed no reaction. He didn’t respond by look or word, just blew smoke into a ring above his head, while he watched through those heavy-lidded, half-closed eyes every flicker of expression that passed over Sebastian’s face.

Stone-faced and hostile, thought Sebastian. Bastard. Doesn’t he have any feelings? He must know …

He drew a harsh, painful breath. Of course he must know. What wasn’t this bastard of a policeman telling him? Was Laura dead?

Laura was running barefoot through winding corridors, through shadowy rooms, in a house like a museum, richly furnished with old, old things grown shabby with time. Tapestries, faded and mysterious, blew about as she ran past, a high, ornate cabinet’s doors flew open, spilling black lace, a white carnival mask, a string of pearls – and then a knife. She heard it clatter on the tiled floor and shuddered, ran faster. A clock chimed on a highly polished octagonal table.

What time is it? Where am I? she thought, but did not speak aloud because she was afraid that the sound of her voice would echo up and down the dark maze and someone might hear her – find her.

Kill her.

She couldn’t hear footsteps, but she knew he was somewhere, might at any second spring out.

He … Who? She tried to remember, and felt only the pain. It burned like a hot iron in her flesh. She ran faster, fighting not to groan. He mustn’t hear her! He would find her! Who? Who was she running from? She knew but couldn’t remember.

On and on the corridors wound, now upwards, now on a steep incline down. The walls on either side arched to meet overhead. They were different now, white, blindingly white. She began to think she would never get anywhere, never get out, and at that second she saw ahead an opening, a round window, from which light streamed.

A giant eye stared in at her.

Gasping, she shut her own eyes, but found she could still see. How was that possible?

Because the eye was hers! She was outside, looking in at herself, could see that the white corridors were the winding interior of a skull, the window at which she had halted was an eye socket, the walls and floors were bone, white bone.

Dreaming. She must be dreaming. This wasn’t … couldn’t be … real.

Terrified, she opened her eyes again and the eye was still there, shining at her.

‘Come sta
?
’

Laura didn’t understand what had been said – but the giant eye was a torch. A face loomed behind the beam of light. Hair, a cap, a pale circle of a face.

‘Come sta
?
Si sente meglio
?
’

‘What? Who are you? Where is this?’

‘You don’t speak Italian? Don’t worry, please. You are in hospital. But you will be okay. Water? You like?’

‘Yes, please.’ Her mouth was so dry. Thirstily, she watched the other girl pour water into a glass. The nurse bent over her, slid an arm under her shoulders, to lift her higher on her pillows, and Laura gave a thick, involuntary grunt of pain. ‘Oh … God, that hurt …’

‘
Le chiedo scusa
!
Non volevo
—’ The nurse broke off, sighing. ‘Sorry, sorry. My English, she is not so good, okay?’

‘Better than my Italian,’ Laura told her.

The nurse laughed and held the glass to Laura’s cracked lips.

Sipping carefully Laura winced at the flow of cold liquid into her mouth.

The nurse laid her back gently on the pillows.

‘What have I done to my shoulder?’ Laura trid to look down sideways but could see only white bandages under the loose gown she was wearing.

‘Is not serious, please, don’t worry,’ the other woman said soothingly.

But Laura’s memory flashed her the image of a knife. She began to shake. ‘He stabbed me. He tried to kill me!’

From the outer darkness of the shadowy room a shape emerged, another face, a different uniform.

‘Who stabbed you, Miss Erskine?’ the policeman asked urgently. ‘Who was it? Did you recognise him?’

She shrank back. ‘Where did you come from? I didn’t see you.’

‘I was sitting beside the door. Tell me what happened, Miss Erskine. Do you remember who it was who attacked you?’

‘I don’t know. He had a mask on his face. He was wearing a … sort of cloak … one of those black carnival cloaks … It came right down to his feet.’ She began to sob. ‘He tried to kill me. And he smiled! His mouth was so red. He smiled and then the knife came out and – and – he stabbed me!’

The nurse spoke urgently in Italian but the policeman gestured her away, answering in the same language, tersely, sharply.

Then he sat down beside the bed, produced a small tape-recorder. ‘Could you tell me everything you remember, Miss Erskine? From the moment you left Ca’ d’Angeli.’

‘
Aspetta un momento
!’ the nurse told him angrily, and ran out of the room.

‘What’s going on?’ Laura asked, turned her head painfully to look after the nurse.

‘She is a silly girl. She goes to find someone to stop me asking you questions, but they have to be asked, you know. We have a man at the station. We need to know if he is the man who attacked you.’

Laura stared at him, eyes stretched so wide the skin around them hurt. ‘Who?’

The policeman didn’t answer, but she saw his eyes. What he was thinking leapt across to her. She bit her lower lip.

‘Sebastian? Is it Sebastian?’

Eagerly, the man leant forward, holding out the tape recorder. ‘Are you saying it was Sebastian Ferrese? Was it him, Miss Erskine? Did you recognise him?’

Sebastian was lying on his back, an arm across his eyes to shut out the electric light that stopped him from sleeping, but he still didn’t sleep. How could he when he didn’t know if Laura was alive or dead? Why wouldn’t they tell him?

That was obvious, wasn’t it? They were trying to trip him up, catch him out. If they kept him in suspense long enough they hoped he might make a mistake. Policemen were creatures of habit and routine, liked the obvious, played the percentages. They fixed on a prime suspect, the obvious one, the most likely one. Then they went through their bag of tricks to get him to betray himself. Because often enough the obvious suspect turned out to be the murderer.

And this time it was him. He was the obvious suspect. With his past, who else would they pick? He had never been charged, but everyone still thought he had killed his wife.

‘Your wife died in mysterious circumstances, didn’t she, Signore?’ he had been asked. ‘Tell us about that.’

‘Nothing to tell. She jumped out of a window and was killed. Nothing mysterious about it.’

‘You were in the room with her, though, weren’t you?’

‘Yes.’ They must know all this. ‘Haven’t you had the files sent over from the States yet?’

Bertelli didn’t answer that, but Sebastian saw his eyes shift. Yes, they had been faxed a report. He was sure of that. Well, of course, that was the first thing they would do, ask for information from the American police.

These days the Internet made the transfer of information simple, almost immediate. At the touch of a switch the stuff went speeding down the line. Instant evidence, your past open to inspection. No hiding place any more. Your whole life was on a computer somewhere and Interpol despatched it to any police force that wanted to scan it.

‘Where were you standing when she jumped?’

‘I wasn’t standing. I was sitting, at a table, writing.’

‘Writing what?’

‘Notes.’

‘Notes for what?’

‘The film I was planning.’

‘And your wife was by the window? Was it open?’

‘She opened it.’

‘You saw her open it?’

‘I heard her.’

‘And you didn’t get up to find out what she was doing?’

‘I knew what she was doing. She told me. “I’m going to jump,” she said, and opened the window.’

‘And you didn’t try to stop her?’ The policeman’s voice was cold, critical; he stared at Sebastian with that look he had seen in the eyes of the policemen who had interviewed him after Clea’s death.

‘You don’t understand,’ Sebastian said wearily.

‘Explain, then, tell me how it was.’

‘Have you ever lived with a hysteric? She threatened to kill herself all the time. Throw herself out of windows, out of trains, out of cars doing eighty miles an hour down a motorway.’

Bertelli’s heavy black brows twitched upwards. ‘Do you always drive that fast, Signore? If you do that here, you will find yourself in trouble.’

‘I haven’t even got a car at the moment. I don’t need one, in Venice, do I?’

Bertelli surveyed him. ‘You were telling me about your wife.’

‘She was always threatening to kill herself,’ Sebastian repeated. ‘She fought with me to grab the wheel of my car: “I’m going to kill us both,” she’d scream. “I’m going to jump out.” And then there was the gun. She kept a little handgun in her purse. Lots of women do in the States, for protection when they go out on the street. Clea was always waving it about. “I’m going to shoot myself,” she’d yell. Or she’d pick up kitchen knives and say, “I’m going to cut my throat!”’ He lifted his heavy head and looked at the policeman, his eyes lightless black. ‘That’s how she was. She threatened to kill herself all the time.’

‘And you never believed her?’

‘Oh, at first, yes. She terrified me. I didn’t dare leave her alone at times, in case she did kill herself. Her therapist told me people like that never do. If they keep saying they will and don’t, they never will. It’s an attention ploy. “She wants your attention,” he said. “She needs to know you care.” Well, I was sick of giving her my attention at the end. I was so tired of her scenes and tantrums. So that last time I ignored her. Took no notice at all when she opened the window, climbed on to the sill, screamed at me, “I’m jumping, I’m jumping”. “Go ahead, you stupid bitch,” I said, without even looking round. “Jump, give me some peace!” And she did. Okay?’ His voice hoarsened. ‘That last time she went ahead and fucking did it.’

And fell screaming, ‘No, no, no,’ all the way down while he had run to the window and had frozen in horror and panic.

He looked at the policeman with eyes that burned. ‘So in a way you’re right. I killed her. She died because I wouldn’t give her my attention. And if you want to know if I feel guilty – of course I fucking well do. If I had had any idea that that one time she would really do it …’ His voice broke. ‘Oh, go to hell,’ he said, putting his arms on the table and his head down on them.

They left him alone for an hour or so after that. He lay down and tried to sleep. He was so tired he was hallucinating, seeing images of his mother screaming in the blizzard over the canal, of Clea falling, crying out all the way down, of Laura …

The door opened. His nerves jumped. They were back. ‘Leave me alone, I’m not answering any more questions,’ he said, not moving from the bunk.

Bertelli walked towards him. He had a large plastic bag dangling over his arm. In it was something wet and black. A coat?

‘Do you recognise this, Signore?’

Sebastian shook his head.

‘Stand up, please.’ The man’s voice was curt.

Sebastian almost refused to obey, but what was the point? They would pull him to his feet. So he swung his legs off the bunk and got up. The policeman held the plastic bag against him. Adjusted it. Stared.

‘What’s going on?’ Sebastian asked. ‘What is this?’

‘It was found floating on the canal, close to where Miss Erskine was attacked. It fits the description of a cape she says her attacker was wearing.’

Sebastian stepped back involuntarily, away from the cold plastic bag and what it contained.

‘I told you, I was nowhere near there, I was in Florian’s, I never saw her.’ He drew a long, audible breath. ‘I wouldn’t harm a hair on her head. If I knew who stabbed her, I’d kill the bastard.’

‘That wouldn’t be very clever, would it?’ Bertelli frowned, yet his dark eyes were not unfriendly. ‘We’ll find him, don’t worry, Signore. And the law will deal with him when we do. We would like you to sign a statement. We talked to the waiter who served you in Florian’s, and the other customers. You were in the café when the attack took place. And you’re too tall, anyway. Miss Erskine said the cape came down to feet of the attacker. I can see it would only come midway down your legs.’

‘So you believe me now?’ Anger choked Sebastian’s throat, his voice sounded slurred. ‘Well, thanks for nothing. I told you I didn’t do it. You’ve kept me here all this time, grilling me, when you should have been out there looking for whoever really did do it.’

‘Oh, we’ve been following up many other leads, don’t worry. I’m sorry, Signor Ferrese, but you want us to catch the man who tried to kill Miss Erskine, don’t you? We need to know everything we can about her – how else can we be sure whether it was a random attack, or one aimed specifically at her?’

Sebastian asked, ‘Have there been other attacks?’

‘No, this is an isolated incident – so far. But we have to check every avenue. Tell me, to your knowledge, has Miss Erskine any enemies? Male or female?’

‘I told you about the threats—’

‘Yes, but did you suspect anyone you knew?’

Sebastian bit out, ‘No!’

‘When your wife jumped, Signore, were you alone with her? Just the two of you, in the room?’