Home Before Dark (4 page)

Sam went in the bedroom to pack.
She was booked on a train to Venice, leaving Santa Maria
Novella at five forty – less than two hours from now. Having
failed to get a flight out that afternoon, she’d cancelled her
airline ticket to Boston and used the fifty per cent refund to
buy a rail pass across Europe. She hadn’t told anyone, not
even Jimmy, she’d changed her plans. It was safer that way.
She wasn’t sorry to be quitting Florence. She’d fallen in
love with the city aged nineteen on a Study Abroad
programme and ended up calling it home for nearly a decade.
But she saw herself now turning into what she despised, a
perpetual student, staying on year after year, completing one
course in fine arts, and then another, kidding herself that it
wasn’t only about Federico.
At twenty-eight, still attractive with her vellum-white skin,
sheaf of dark curly hair and blue eyes – she called it her
Jewish colleen look – Sam had days when she worried that
he had stolen her best years. She’d known too many lonely,
washed-up, middle-aged American women, who’d come for
the art and the sex and had to settle for working in bookshops
or as tour guides or teaching English at one of
Florence’s billion or so language schools. Even if her life
hadn’t been in danger, she felt she was getting out just in
time.
Sam frowned and listened.
The faint ticking came from her travel clock on the bedside
table. She folded it into its green lizard-skin case and dropped
it in her overnight bag, then sat down on the bed with a sigh.
She knew she should strip the mildly disgraceful sheets, she
just didn’t have the energy. A rumpled fold of cream silk
caught her eye. From under the pillows, she pulled out a
nightshirt that she hadn’t worn for the past couple of weeks.
In hot weather she always slept naked.
Wait a minute. The act of slipping a hand between mattress
and pillows had triggered a memory of her and Federico.
Jesus . . . wait just a goddamn minute.
She pulled back the pillows, then jumping to her feet tore
the sheets from the bed. She moved the bed out from the
wall and yanked the mattress to the floor. It was gone, no
mistake, she’d have remembered packing it – her vibe wasn’t
there.

She thought hard, trying to recall the last time, searching
for an innocent explanation. Unless Federico . . . but the
sonofabitch had given her back his key weeks ago, the same
day he dumped her and, with a predictability that made her
ashamed for him, returned to his Florentine wife and
children.
Her stomach heaved. She ran to the bathroom and stood
over the basin until the nausea passed. Catching sight of
her reflection in the mirror, Sam saw that her eyes were
almost black. Fear had dilated her pupils till only a thin
corona of blue was left. She needed to take something . . .
she knew she still had some Valium somewhere. Her white
face moved sideways as she slid open the door to the medicine
cabinet.
Behind it, on the glass shelf, lay her 'silver bullet’.
'Oh God, no,’ Sam breathed, as she took down the vibrator
and with trembling fingers slowly revolved its chrome
shaft. Then almost dropped it. Fixed to the base was a
little red heart-shaped applique sticker she had never seen
before.
She walked back in the kitchen and picked up her cell
phone. Her hands were shaking so hard she had to key four
or five times before she got the number right.
Ward must have come for her last night, and left a keepsake.

'There’s
something I haven’t told you,’ I said.
Her lips pursed as for a kiss, Laura leaned forward to
blow on a forkful of risotto that was too hot to put in her
mouth.
'I was supposed to meet someone earlier, a friend of
Sophie’s called Sam Metcalf.’ I hesitated. 'I kept the appointment,
only she didn’t show up.’
Laura lowered her fork.
'I think she stayed away because she’s afraid.’
'Does it make you feel better, Ed? Is that why you keep
doing this to me?’
Her voice grew loud suddenly, as if she’d forgotten we were in a restaurant. The terrace of the Villa Arrighetti was
busier than yesterday, the other tables mostly occupied by
elderly couples who talked in hushed tones.
'A week ago,’ I went on, ignoring some curious looks we
were getting, 'I received an e-mail from this girl. It said she’d
found some stuff on her laptop left there by Sophie that she
thought might be of interest. Apparently Soph used her
computer sometimes to go online.’
'Why did she contact you?’ Laura was instantly sceptical.
'Why not the police?’
'She was in Boston at the time of the murder. She knew
nothing about it until she got back to Florence a month later.
I’m not sure that she didn’t go to the police.’
'Did you talk to Morelli about her?’
'I brought up her name, he didn’t react. Sam asked me
not to tell anyone.’
'You don’t think that’s a little odd?’ Laura frowned, then
added, 'And why wait so long to get in touch?’
'Look, all I know is what she said in her e-mails . . . we’ve
never spoken.’
She blew on her food again, swallowed a mouthful of rice.
'You know . . . this is really delicious.’
'Can we stay on the subject? It’s important.’
'So bloody important you felt no need to tell me about it
until now.’
'I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to get . . . your
hopes up.’
I had been planning to tell her, but only after I’d met the
girl and decided whether the information she had was
significant. Same as with the sketchbook, I wanted to avoid
upsetting my wife over nothing
'My hopes?’ Laura smiled and shook her head.
'Anyway, I did speak to you about her,’ I said quietly; the
last thing I wanted was an argument. 'I asked you if you’d
ever heard Sophie mention anyone called Sam.’
'Maybe you thought you did.’
'I want justice for her, Laura. Is anything wrong with that?’
She didn’t answer, her pale unsparing eyes resting calmly on
mine. 'Well . . . is there?’
It wasn’t that Laura had no interest in seeing Sophie’s killer
caught. She just didn’t want things to drag on indefinitely.
As I said before, we deal with loss in our own ways. She was
seeking a different kind of peace.
She kept staring at me as she took a sip of wine. 'Try not
to be late this evening. You are going to be there, aren’t you?’
'What do you think? Of course, I’ll be there.’ I wasn’t
looking forward to the requiem mass she’d arranged to have
said for Sophie (who never set foot in a church, if she
could help it) at San Miniato, but I knew Laura needed
my support.
Our main courses arrived just then. She’d ordered carpaccio, I’d chosen the roast lamb with rosemary. We ate in silence,
enjoying the food. It’s an odd uncomfortable truth, but loss
doesn’t dull the appetite.
Laura had changed for lunch into a light summer dress
and done something different with her hair, which is sandy
blonde and very fine. When we first met she used to favour
the Alice band and striped shirt with the collar turned up
look – she’s come a long way since then. I told her how good
she looked.
'Were you thinking of taking a siesta?’ I asked, when we’d
left our table and were walking slowly back across the terrace.
She sighed. 'I might lie down for a while.’
At the foot of the stone staircase that leads up to the villa’s piano nobile, Laura turned to me and said in a low, feeling
voice: 'Let it go, Eddie. Leave the past alone. Nothing you
or anyone can do is going to bring her back.’
A friend offering sensible advice.

The moment we got inside the door of our suite, I locked
it. Laura stood waiting by the window, against the light.
She didn’t move away when I came up behind her. I took
the initiative, but I’ve no doubt it was what she wanted to
happen.
There was urgency, then the shared pleasure of release.
Perhaps I felt sorry for her, or for both of us, perhaps
she took pity on me, but we came out of our separate
fortresses and for a while forgot. Laura and I hadn’t made
love to each other for months. I find it difficult to write
about this.
I don’t want to keep saying that I loved my wife … I
did, but even before Sophie was murdered things had not
been brilliant between us. During the first days and weeks
after it happened, I depended on Laura to get through. We
clung to each other, literally clung to each other, but when
that no longer brought comfort, when the drug stopped
working, we retreated into ourselves, and grew further
apart.
We didn’t talk, not about what we’d just done.
Laura got up from the bed and went into the bathroom.
Naked she looked vulnerable and somehow very English.
She had a nearly perfect figure, yet she moved awkwardly
without clothes on. I told her I had some work to do. She
turned and smiled at me from the bathroom door, her
lavender-blue eyes unnaturally bright, and I felt a stab of
unspecific guilt.
There was love still, on both sides, only it was dying a little
every day.
After taking a shower, I went out onto the loggia with my
mobile and laptop and checked to see if Sam had left word.
There was nothing.
The next half-hour or so was taken up with business. I
dealt with my e-mails, then spoke to the London office on
the phone. The company I own, Beauly-Lister, pioneers
developable 'land with a view’ in the world’s most desirable,
which usually means unspoiled, locations. Our sector rivals
worry about return on cost of capital, land prices and
margin growth. We start from the premise that a magical
view is like a great work of art, almost but not quite beyond
price.
I let Audrey, my assistant, know what time our flight got
into Heathrow tomorrow morning so that the car could be
there to meet the plane.
While we were still talking, I received an incoming-mail
alert from Sam Metcalf, and hurried Audrey off the phone.
What Sam had to say was disappointingly brief.

Look, I made a mistake . . . there’s really nothing to
discuss. Please don’t get in touch with me again. I’m
sorry, Sam.

The e-mail came with an attachment which I opened at
once. It turned out to be another couple of lines of text. I
wondered why Sam hadn’t simply added them to her original
message. It was as if she’d had a change of heart.

You can try this, she had written, I came across it while
weeding my Favourites list. Like I said, I think your daughter
left it on my comp.

There followed, on a line by itself, the address of a
website:
www. homebeforedark. net. kg

The graphics took a long time to download. I hadn’t any idea
what to expect. I was nervous that something might be
revealed about Sophie that I didn’t want to know. I felt a
wave of sadness at the thought of her having had secrets.
There was no home page as such, no titles welcoming you to the site, no tags or text of any kind, only a counter in the
bottom left-hand corner. It clocked me as the 572nd visitor.
The domain name, homebeforedark, suggested something
vaguely apocalyptic, perhaps to do with religion or New Age
music. I was way off.
As the central image formed, mystified at first by the backdrop
of trees, lawn and picket fence, I felt a growing
excitement: for what was slowly taking shape in front of my
eyes was a building, a white American Colonial house in a
suburban setting.
I almost called out to Laura to come and look.
I wanted to know if she’d 'get it’ too, make the same connection
I’d instantly made with the 'clapboard doll’s house’ that
Bailey Grant had described so vividly from his memory of
Sophie’s sketchbook.
It wasn’t hard to see in the stylised design of the pillared
mansion on my screen where Sophie might have found her
inspiration. The graphics had that hyper-real, 3-D-ish look
of a virtual building which, like any doll’s house, can be
entered and explored room by room.
This couldn’t be coincidence. I looked back into our
bedroom and saw that Laura was napping. I didn’t feel like
disturbing her.
There were no instructions on how to navigate the site.
Access was certain to be protected, but that didn’t mean it
wasn’t worth eliminating the obvious. Moving my cursor to
the gate in the picket fence, I double-clicked on the latch
with no result. I tried the US-style mailbox; the flag was in
the up position, which looked promising, but again nothing
happened. I followed the path up to the dark-green front
door and clicked on the brass knocker.
A standard pop-up box appeared at the bottom of my
screen asking for username and password. I entered a couple
of random combinations, then gave up. I could have used
George’s help – my fifteen-year-old son was into 'gaming’
and nimble at reading visual clues. Laura had wanted to take
him out of school and bring him with us to Florence, but
for a number of reasons I’d vetoed the idea.
I dialled Bailey’s number at the atelier. A girl, who wasn’t
India, answered and said she would see if he could be
disturbed. Then put me on hold, activating a loop of the
Eagles’ 'Hotel California’.
While I was waiting, I moved the cursor slowly across
the facade of the house. The windows were all shuttered,
giving the place a deserted, rather forbidding aspect. I
clicked on each of them in turn until suddenly the shutters
of an attic dormer swung back, revealing a half-open sash
window. I let out a whoop, thinking I’d found a way in,
but the window wouldn’t budge. Behind it was only blackness.
'So
this is what you call work. I’ve often wondered.’
Laura, a towel wrapped around her, was standing by my
side looking over my shoulder at the screen. Absorbed in my
task, I hadn’t heard her come up behind me.
'You recognise it?’
Just then the Eagles cut out and I held up a hand.
'Mr Lister, I’ve got good news . . .’
I didn’t let Bailey finish. 'And I have a question. The clapboard
house in Sophie’s drawings . . . front door, left lower
panel, is that a cat-flap?’
There was silence from the other end.

'How could you possibly know?’
I looked up at Laura. I wanted to hug her.
'Bailey, say Sophie’s killer knew about the drawings – was
there anything inside the house he might have seen as a threat
to himself?’
'You’ll have to judge for yourself. We found the sketchbook.’
I
turned to Laura. 'Did you hear what he just said?’
She nodded coolly, her gaze held by the screen. I was still
taking in the significance of all this when I felt her touch my
arm.
'If you like,’ Bailey was saying, 'I can bring it along this
evening.’
'Isn’t that someone trying to reach you?’ Laura asked, pointing
to a blue flashing message icon on the taskbar of my
laptop.
'Here, you talk to him,’ I said and handed her my mobile.
'This could be the girl . . . Sophie’s friend.’
I knew it wasn’t Sam Metcalf, but the blue light kept flashing
and I had to divert my wife’s attention.
Two rings, then it stopped.
When it rang again, she snatched up the receiver.
'It’s me, Jimmy.’
'Wait.’ Sam went over to the window and looked down
into Borgo Stella. He was on the stoop immediately below,
talking into his cell; she could see the top of his head, Raybans
set jauntily among blond curls, and the shirt he had on earlier
with the wide magenta stripes. He stepped back off the sidewalk
and, holding out his arms, called up to her, 'E Samantha,
ti amo.’ Jimmy always had to act the fool. 'Amore e 7 cor gentil
sono una cosa . . .’
She leant out to check both ends of the street.
A girl in jeans walked past carrying a single sunflower over
her shoulder like a fishing pole, the base of the stem wrapped
in silver foil. She could hear Puccini’s 'Nessun Dorma’ coming
from an open window somewhere, the big notes struggling
to soar above the traffic. Nothing else stood out. The reassuringly
familiar smell of resin wafted from the furniture
restorer’s workshop two doors down.
'Okay,’ she said and hung up.
She went back out to the hall and buzzed Jimmy in. Her
building didn’t have
CCTV
or an intercom, which was why
she’d insisted he call first. She wouldn’t unlock the door until
she heard his voice outside, and could check through the
fish-eye that he was alone.
'You look a little rough,’ he said right off the bat.
'Thanks.’ She’d done her best, rinsed the red from her eyes,
pinned back her hair, even put on make-up, but Jimmy knew
her.
He swept past her into the hall. She bolted the front door
behind him, then turned and saw him standing there, waiting
for her. She stumbled into his arms. 'God’m I glad to see
you, you have no idea.’
'Hey, hey, hey. Take it easy.’
She was shaking.
'You’re later than you said. We need to get going.’
'Get going? Where?’ He blinked at her. 'You mind telling
me what this is about? Has that scumbag been messing with
you again?’
Jimmy was never a big fan of Federico.
She pulled away from him, shaking her head. All she’d said
on the phone was that she was in trouble, she needed his
help. It was Jimmy all over that he hadn’t hesitated, and that
it took him damn near an hour to get here.
“There’s been a change of plan. I’m leaving today, I’m
booked on a five-forty train to Venice.’
'Whoa, girl, what about tonight. . . the party? You cannot not be there.’
'Just tell people … I dunno, tell 'em I got news from
home. I had to get back for a family funeral. You’ll think of
something.’
'Come on, Metcalf, you can do better than that. This is
me, Jimmy. What the fuck’s going on?’
Sam smiled and touched a hand to his face. She felt uneasy
about involving him.
She’d known Jimmy Macchado since they were at college
together. After graduating from South Bend, Indiana, they’d
lost contact for a while; then bumped into each other again
by chance in Florence – he’d just arrived to start a job at
the New York Film Academy on Via dei Pucci, teaching
cinematography – and renewed their old friendship. A year
ago he’d moved out to Fiesole, but they stayed close, getting
together or talking on the phone most days.
Jimmy was the one person in Florence she could trust.
'Look, I need you to take me to Santa Maria Novella. All
you have to do is make sure I get on the train.’
'You’re crazy. I’m not moving until you level with me.’
She chewed her lip, debating.
She turned and went in the living room, navigating a path
through the packing cases to the couch. He followed and
helped her clear a space so they could sit down together. She
took his hands, searching his eyes.
'You can’t talk to anyone about this … I mean it, Jimmy.’
He drew a finger and thumb across his lips. 'Zipped.’
'Remember Sophie, the English kid who was murdered?’
'How could I possibly forget?’
'I got a call yesterday from the man who killed her.’ Sam
waited for a reaction, but Jimmy just looked at her. 'He warned
me not to stir up the past.’
'What? Wait a minute, back up the truck.You know her killer?’
'Only by sight. But he knows who I am.’
'So that’s why you came over last night. Why didn’t you
say something?’
'Because I was too goddamned scared . . . Jimmy, I think
he’s been here in this apartment.’ Her voice cracked a little.
'Okay, calm down, just tell me what happened. When did
you see him?’
'About ten days before Sophie was killed. It was late evening,
I went to draw the curtains and noticed a man standing across
the street. Youngish, early thirties I guess, average height, okay
looking – I didn’t pay much attention. Just assumed he was