Deep and Silent Waters (33 page)

‘We all are,’ Sidney replied. ‘In our own way. Some of us more so than others. Sebastian, especially.’

She looked up at him. ‘Do you think it was him?’

‘No. He was in Florian’s – I saw him there as I walked past before I found Laura, and she’d only just been stabbed when I got to her. It couldn’t have been Sebastian.’ He got out the front-door key of the
pensione
. ‘Let’s get out of this horrible weather and try to thaw out with a hot-water bottle – if you won’t help me get warmed up any other way!’

The Contessa lay awake in her high, cold room listening to the soft murmur and slap of the tide along the canal, the faint echo of music from somewhere in one of the grand hotels nearby, the hum of electricity that told her that her son was still up, working no doubt, in his studio. He had always kept strange hours: a sculptor did not need daylight to work by, as a painter did. Her husband had often been up before the sun rose, in his studio, preparing his paints, blocking out canvases, or just standing by the window gazing at the miracle of Venice in the first gold gleam of light, wrapped in a fur robe in winter but on hot summer days often naked, his beautiful tanned body gleaming as he stepped back from his easel to consider his work.

Suddenly she heard a sound in the room below her own, a creaking that told her somebody was in there, in her dead husband’s bedroom – that haunted, shadowy forest room, hung with green tapestries that always seemed to stir in some unheard wind, to rustle with whispers, echoes from the past. She never went in there. Even passing the door she would start to tremble and hurry on, eyes averted.

Who was in there? It couldn’t be that girl. She was in the hospital. The latest news bulletin had said she was fighting for her life – maybe the knife had penetrated her lung. Pity it hadn’t entered her heart. If she had one. Women like that never had hearts.

Another creak in the room below. Vittoria sat up in bed, her greying hair awry, shivering a little even though she wore a warm Victorian-style red flannel nightie. Tense and still, she strained to be certain she wasn’t imagining it, as she often had before, listening in the night for his footsteps, his breathing, the sound of his laughter, his groans of passionate satisfaction in that bed.

But this was no ghost. Someone was walking restlessly backwards and forwards from wall to wall like a caged animal.

She caught sight of her reflection in the dressing-table mirror; an old woman with a pale face out of which glittered obsidian black eyes. The police had searched the room earlier, and locked it when they left, taking the key with them.

It had to be Sebastian in there.

They had said on television that he was being held at the police station. Helping police with their enquiries was the phrase they always used but she hoped he was under arrest, was going to be charged with murdering the girl. She would have got rid of both of them, then. That would have been a neat finish, a beautiful, symmetrical knot, tying off the whole pattern.

Finally, it would all have ended. She would have won. Her teeth ground against each other. She had to win. She would not be beaten. One way or another she was going to be rid of every shred of evidence of what they had done to her, wipe it all out.

Climbing out of bed she rolled back the carpet – rolled back time with it as she lay down, remembering the misery, jealousy and rage.

For a second she could not be sure who she was watching. Domenico? Her heart beat so fast it hurt; sweat trickled down her body. How many nights had she lain here and watched him?

No. Of course not. How could it be? He was dead.

It was their son, walking restlessly to and fro in that room which, for her, was always haunted by his father.

Looking back over her life, Victoria Serrati saw it as a river whose twists and turns were always dictated by death. Sometimes she wondered if she had been cursed at birth. Why else did those she loved keep dying? Her half-brothers, Alfredo, Filippo, Niccolo … She had had so many brothers once, now they were gone, and so were her parents. In bed at night she woke up in terror from a nightmare thinking, Who will be next? Nothing seemed real to her any more. The world was a place of shadows and ghosts …

Milan, 1948

Carlo and his wife were too preoccupied with their own lives to notice the sadness and fear buried in Vittoria’s eyes. Rachele was obsessed with having a child, but although she became pregnant several times she never managed to carry the baby the full nine months, and each miscarriage had a devastating effect on both her and Carlo. Ravaged with weeping, her sultry face blotchy, her dark eyes red-rimmed, Rachele stayed upstairs in her bedroom all day.

Carlo was either explosive, snarling, shouting, barking orders at the servants, or he sat silent, staring sullenly into space, his brows heavy, his mouth turned down at the corners. Vittoria avoided him whenever he was in the house, which was rare. Rachele stayed out of sight, and Carlo took refuge at the factory. The house was empty and bleak, and Vittoria’s life revolved around school and her friends.

Nineteen forty-seven was a bad year for Italy: food was scarce and riots broke out. The government couldn’t solve the problems fast enough, but America, afraid of Communist power taking over, came to the rescue, with food supplies and money. In 1948 a new alliance came into being between America and the Western nations, which everyone soon called NATO, and life began slowly to return to normal.

During the spring of 1948, the Serrati family moved into their new house. Rachele was over the moon at having two bathrooms and an ultra-modern kitchen with electricity. She threw parties to show off to her friends, became more cheerful.

One morning at breakfast the post was brought in by Antonio, who was now wearing a livery: black trousers and a striped green waistcoat, which fitted tightly around his slim waist. He looked good in it, thought Vittoria. She was almost sixteen now, her body developing from a child’s into that of a woman: breasts rounding and ripening, hips taking on a female curve, her mind prickling with awareness of the opposite sex.

He caught her eye and smiled, his black eyes warm. He was her only real friend in this house. When her mother died she had knelt by the bed, sobbing, until Carlo told her gruffly to go to her room and rest. He wasn’t unkind, but he had never loved her mother: he had begun by resenting her and had ended indifferent to her. He didn’t share Vittoria’s grief. She had stumbled out, almost blind with crying, and collided with Antonio, who held her, wordlessly comforting, stroking her hair, while she wept on his thin chest.

‘She’s dead, Mamma is dead. And the baby, the poor little baby, it looks so small and white, like a wax doll. Mamma …’ In a wail, she cried, ‘Nobody here wants me. I’m all alone.’

They had both heard Carlo opening the bedroom door and had sprung apart. Vittoria had run along the winding corridors to her room. Carlo would have been shocked if he had seen a servant putting his arms around her. Ever since, she and Antonio had had an unspoken bond.

She smiled back at him now, knowing that Carlo was looking at the letters and would not notice. If he did, he wouldn’t approve. She had to be careful when he was around.

‘Who do you know in Switzerland?’ Carlo asked, holding out a letter with a Swiss stamp.

‘Nobody.’ She stared blankly, her mind still on Antonio, who had left the room.

‘You must know somebody – this is addressed to you.’ He tossed her the expensive cream envelope.

She had only to glance at the black, scrawling handwriting to know who it was from. ‘Olivia!’ she said, her eyes brightening. ‘I wonder what she’s doing in Switzerland?’

‘Open it and find out!’ Carlo teased – he was in a very good mood. Was Rachele pregnant again? Vittoria wondered, slitting open the envelope. Please, God, don’t let her lose this one. The atmosphere in this house would change dramatically if Rachele had a child. Even Vittoria could see that the woman was born to be a mother: her face showed the ache of emptiness, of need. Put a baby in her arms and Rachele would be transformed with joy.

‘Olivia … She’s the aristocratic one, isn’t she? Lives in a palazzo? One of the families whose names are written in the Golden Book of Venice?’ Carlo’s tone was faintly derisive: he had often been snubbed by members of the aristocracy and looked down on as a tradesman.

Defensively, Vittoria said, ‘That’s what Olivia told me, but I don’t even know if the Golden Book still exists. I don’t think it matters any more anyway.’

‘Oh, it matters – to the upper classes,’ Carlo said, mouth twisting. ‘They never stop thinking about their long history. Just because their families were around in the Middle Ages, and their names were written in this book Venice kept to make sure that only the right families got into government, these aristocrats look down on people like us, Vittoria. We’re vulgar manufacturers, we aren’t blue-blooded, we don’t live off the money our ancestors made. We get our hands dirty working to create wealth for this country, for our employees.’ He looked down at the letter in her hand. ‘Well, is your friend on holiday in Switzerland?’

He took a crisp hot roll from the basket in the centre of the table, spread it with black cherry jam and bit into it aggressively, with his big, white, teeth.

‘No, she’s at school there – well, she calls it a finishing school, very grand, she says, and she’s having a wonderful time. It’s not like being at school at all. She’s got a beautiful view of a lake from her window. The school’s at Lausanne – where’s that?’

He snorted. ‘Do they teach you geography at that school of yours? Lausanne’s on Lake Geneva, just inside the Swiss border with France.’

His mind wandered, as it always did, back to his obsession with work. ‘The Swiss drug companies have a big slice of the international market and it will be years before we catch up – but we will, I shall make sure of that. There’s a long road ahead of us. We need forward planning, and friends in high places, to take advantage of our position in Italy. Then we can expand into the rest of Europe.’ He drank some more of the fragrant black coffee, then said, ‘How long does your friend say she’s staying in Switzerland?’

Vittoria consulted the letter again. ‘Two years. Until she’s eighteen. She’s the same age as me – she was in my class at the convent school in Venice.’

Carlo tapped the fingertips of one hand on the table, frowning down at the roll on his plate. ‘How would you like to join her in Switzerland?’

Vittoria was so taken aback that for a minute or two she wasn’t sure what to say. She had never thought of going away again – she liked her present school and would miss her friends – but it would be a relief to escape the dark moods in this house, Rachele’s weeping and Carlo’s thunderous tempers. And she would be with Olivia – the only peaceful years of her life had been spent in Venice, with Olivia and Gina.

‘Won’t it be terribly expensive?’ she asked, uncertainly.

Carlo gave an assured shrug. ‘Don’t worry about that, we can afford it. The factory is doing better every year and I’ve almost finished paying for the new buildings. We make more money now than we ever did before the war. Look, I’ll ring the school and ask them to send us a prospectus.’

‘I think I would like to go. I wonder if I’ll learn to ski.’

‘I expect you’ll have to – they get a lot of snow. You’ll enjoy yourself, and you can be useful to me, too.’

‘Useful?’

‘One of our chief rivals has a factory in Lausanne. You might be able to pick up whispers of new ideas.’

She was astonished. ‘Spy, you mean? But … I wouldn’t know where to start.’

‘Just keep your ears open. Anything you notice or hear could be useful, any gossip about new drugs they’re developing. The local people will work in the factory. When you go into town to a cafe or a cinema, you might overhear something interesting. But be careful! Don’t let anyone guess what you’re up to, even your friend from Venice. Not a word to a soul, Vittoria.’

‘No, of course not.’ It might be rather exciting to play at spying, to listen in on conversations, ask carefully phrased, innocent-sounding questions. She smiled to herself. She certainly wouldn’t tell a soul. She liked having secrets.

Two weeks later she left for Switzerland, taking with her a large trunk of clothes, sports equipment and books. She was met at the railway station and driven to the school, an eighteenth-century building in the classic style, creamy stucco and elegant proportions, with two wings of more modern design hidden behind it, and beyond that gardens going down to the lake.

The weather was hot, languorous, even though a cool breeze blew softly off the lake. As the taxi came up the drive to the portico-shaded front door, Vittoria saw other girls: playing tennis on grass courts, sitting reading in a rose garden, talking in groups on benches with a young woman who was clearly a teacher. A few girls looked curiously out of the long windows on the first floor. Was Olivia one of them?

Vittoria had written to say she was coming and had received a delighted reply. ‘You’ll love it here, we’ll have such fun! I’ll try to get Michie to let you share my room, then we can talk about home in bed at night. Although I love it here, I am homesick, now and then. Nowhere is as beautiful as Venice, is it? We’re supposed to be asleep by nine, which is hard when it’s still light outside!’

Madame Michelet – Michie to the girls – the headmistress, Swiss by nationality but French-speaking and of French descent, was a slender, chic woman in her late thirties, in clothes Vittoria recognised at once as the highest fashion, with cropped black hair and dark eyes and a face like a razor, smooth-skinned, with a golden tan, but all sharp angles and dangerous lines, warning that she was tough and difficult to manipulate.

She had Carlo’s letter spread open in front of her, on her green-leather-topped desk, and glanced at it after welcoming Vittoria politely.

‘So. You are here to learn English, French and German, firstly, and various other subjects your brother has requested – Cordon Bleu cooking, typing, fashion, how to drive a car. But I gather that, above all, he wants you to acquire social graces – how to walk, sit, dress, talk to people.’