Property of Blood (4 page)

‘The zip. It sounded different now, through my seashell ears, a low, swishing whirr like fabric running through a sewing machine, but I still heard it. Just in time I remembered to pretend I couldn’t. I didn’t know who it was. Someone grabbed my foot through the sleeping bag and shook it. I sat up. My hand was grabbed and I was yanked forward so that I lost my balance and fell forward on the side of my outstretched arm. I imagined I was to come towards the opening and so I scrambled out of the sleeping bag as fast as I could, which wasn’t very fast because of the chain on my ankle, which I had to pull out with me. I felt my way forward on my knees and someone slapped my hand away, then forced it to touch the tent pole and slapped it away again. Did they think I was as stupid as they were? I knew enough not to grab the tent pole. When I reached the opening I was pushed into a sitting position and my legs were stretched out in front of me. It was freezing outside. I thought of my fur boots but didn’t dare ask for them.

‘A cold tin tray was placed on my legs and my right hand guided to the food on it. The little claw-like hand of Fox. I understood that now I was blind and deaf I could sit half out of the tent to eat and not dirty it inside again. This was a great relief to me. I felt a bread roll, smooth and hard, a chunk of Parmesan cheese. How could I get this down without appetite and even without water to soften it? My hand was taken again and the neck of a wine flask put in it. Terrified of spilling it, I lowered my head towards it rather than lifting it. The wine was acidic and strong. I didn’t like it but, rough as it was, I could tell it was home-bottled because the tattered straw smelled of old wine, vinegary, reminding me of our cottage in Chianti. We take our flask round to our neighbours, who fill it and pop the old cork back in. Healthy country wine would do me no harm and would help break down the dry food. The bread roll was impossible to manage. I couldn’t bite into it because to open my jaw much increased the violent pain in my ears. I tried to break it in my fingers but it was too stale. Something cold and sharp slid over the back of my right hand. I stopped moving. The bread roll was taken from me and returned in two pieces. The knife blade slid along my throat. Fox. I could smell him. I understood that he was teasing me, playing with me, and I refused to react, otherwise he would amuse himself constantly like that. I sat dead still and, when the knife didn’t touch me again, I began to eat. Tiny bits at a time, each with a sip of the sour wine to help with the painful chewing.

‘When I couldn’t manage any more I touched the ground beside me and felt a flattish carpet of twigs and dead leaves. There was no snow there and I was sure that this space had been hacked clear in the undergrowth of a wood. The chain on my ankle, tight and heavy, would still be tied to the tree trunk and there must be at least one other tent or a shelter of some sort for my captors. All that activity and their complaints about there being so much to do must have been related to their covering everything with the hacked-out brush so that we wouldn’t be visible from above. I slid the tray sideways onto the ground and waited, not daring to move until somebody told me to. My legs and feet were frozen but I breathed deeply the good fresh air and then listened. Nothing penetrated the roaring inside my head and I was glad enough to crawl back into the tent when someone pushed me and to seek the warmth of the sleeping bag for my cold feet.

‘I supposed, since I’d just been fed, that it was now afternoon, an afternoon that stretched in front of me, an aching, empty distance, without sight or sound. I had to learn to live inside my head and to call on a lifetime of sounds and images that were stored there. I had to learn not to cry. I had to learn to eat out of duty and without hunger. I had to learn not to admit hearing those few things I could hear and not to react to deliberate torment. I had to learn to accept pain and immobility quietly so that I wouldn’t go mad. I had to learn to be passive when I had always been active. I had always thought of myself as a fighter but now I had to lay down my arms. If I wanted to live, I had to stay quietly inside my body and just be.

‘That afternoon I thought for a long time about what would be happening at home. Would they have called the police or the carabinieri? Had they received any message about me? Did the newspapers know? I thought of the anxiety and excitement we’d all been feeling because of the show coming up in New York. Now that had been replaced by this new anxiety. Now perhaps my children would have to face a future of being poor again. We had no choice but to pay whatever we could. How could I have let this happen? In a few seconds, all our lives compromised. What should I have done to prevent these total strangers’ overturning our world that I had constructed so carefully and thought I could control?

‘The minutes dripped steadily away until the afternoon was over and I felt my foot shaken again. I knew exactly what to do and the ritual was soon completed—the same tray, the same roll, already cut, the cheese, the sour wine.

‘Back in the tent, I began to arrange myself for the night. There was a sort of comfort in concentrating on the completion of small acts, rendered newly difficult by the absence of sight and hearing and the presence of the chain. I drew in the slack of the chain to allow my entry into the sleeping bag. I closed the zip of the bag. I arranged my coat over my legs and, still sitting up, managed to dab my hands and face clean with paper napkins and mineral water. Each thing accomplished was a small victory. I drank some water from the bottle and was careful not to spill any, which was easier now it was more than half empty. This small, familiar act, a drink of water before sleep, was comforting. I pulled my coat up further, pushed myself deeper into the sleeping bag, and turned on my side.

‘I managed to smother the scream down to a choking groan and turned on my back, gasping. I hadn’t yet dared touch the area round my ears for fear of hurting myself and I had no idea that those stone-hard constructions were so big. The pain caused by putting my weight on one of them when I turned over was indescribable and seemed to penetrate right through my brain to the other ear. How could I ever sleep if I had to lie on my back, afraid to move even by accident? A great surge of pure rage against these people grew inside me, hard as stone in my chest, hard as the stones in my ears. God damn them for doing this cruel, senseless thing to me who had never harmed them. If I ever got free I would find a way to kill them. If I, had the strength of a man I’d kill every one of them with my bare hands.

‘The zip whispered! I lay still, hating whoever it was who now crawled into the tent alongside me. A face close to mine, a hand whacking the packages behind my head. A shouting voice.

“‘That’ll teach you to keep your noise down!” Then a whisper that touched me and came through my undersea world: “What’s going on? You musn’t make a noise or they’ll plaster your mouth up!”

“‘My ear … I turned over.”

“‘Well don’t. I told you, lie on your back.” Another whack at the packages. “That’s enough!” They were out there. He was pretending to hit me for their benefit.

“‘I won’t be able to go to sleep on my back and I’m afraid of turning over in the night by mistake.”

“‘You won’t. I know you won’t. Just lie still and you’ll fall asleep. Do you understand?”

“‘Yes.”

“‘I’ve got to go.” I felt a hand brush my head and he whispered, “Goodnight.”

“‘Goodnight.” He was sliding back out of the tent. I heard the zip. I was alone. And because this man who had chained and blinded and deafened me, had reduced me to the status of an animal for his greed, had said that one word, Goodnight, the stone in my chest dissolved. For that one word I forgave him. One human, civilized word was enough to keep me alive and hoping. My anger left me and I felt my whole body go limp. I let out a long, liquid breath that rattled in my chest and throat as though I were dying. I wasn’t dying. I had learned my first lesson. I was crying without tears.

Three

T
here was silence in the small office. Beyond the closed window you could hear the moan of the mountain wind in the waving tops of the cypress trees and the occasional crash of a forgotten plant pot or a loose shutter. The heating was on but the icy fizzing air made itself felt even within the massive stones of the Palazzo Pitti. The quality of the light was enough to suggest yellow and purple crocuses sheltered in sunny Florentine gardens and a glitter of snow on the dark northern hills. Salvatore Guarnaccia, Marshal of the Carabinieri, his solid, black-uniformed figure immobile behind the desk, was conducting the silence. It was his strongest professional weapon. The thin young woman opposite him was still with the tautness of violin strings and silent because she was too nervous to speak. What she was nervous about had yet to appear. Her name was Caterina Brunamonti. She was the daughter of the late Conte Ugo Brunamonti. That much, at least, had been offered. She was wearing plain, very expensive-looking clothes and large, very real-looking diamonds in a ring on her long white hand. She looked twenty or little more. Having given him her name, she was now waiting for the Marshal to help her. The Marshal, in silence, observed her. She didn’t look him straight in the face but held her head turned just a little away, her brown eyes fixed on him obliquely. This attitude—her long fair hair, the almost invisible brows and eyelashes, and the white hands lying stiffly in her lap with the diamonds exposed to view—made her look like one of the portraits in the gallery next door, the sort that are all stiff lace frills and beaded bodices. Their fingers were always white and pointed like that. They didn’t look like real people and neither did Caterina Brunamonti, so you’d hardly expect her to speak, really. She was so wired up she seemed ready to short-circuit if the Marshal didn’t prompt her. The Marshal didn’t prompt her.

‘I had to come here! It’s the right thing to do, whatever Leonardo says, and I wouldn’t want to do anything illegal!’

‘Quite right,’ said the Marshal blandly. His brain was filming every fleeting expression, his ears recording every word but listening for the ones she didn’t say. He kept his expressionless gaze fixed on the map on the wall behind her just to her left. Nervous people stop talking if you stare them in the face. If you let your eyes drift, they come after you, seeking your attention. ‘Leonardo … that would be your…’

‘My brother, and he’s wrong. I’m the right person to decide. I’m more practical than he is and I’ve been reading up on these things. It’s best to call in the carabinieri.’

‘I’m sure you’re right.’ It was a map of his Quarter and he scanned it idly, looking for Piazza Santo Spirito. He knew where the Palazzo Brunamonti was. He didn’t know everyone in his area personally but he knew that. ‘Arid now you’ve called us in.’

‘I’m worried about my mother. She’s … something might have happened to her. Leonardo … I don’t think you’re listening to me!’

Which was understandable since he’d picked up the phone without so much as a glance at her and was connecting himself to Headquarters across the river.

‘Captain Maestrangelo.’

The young woman shot to her feet. ‘What are you doing? I just wanted to talk to you …’

Now he did stare at her with bulging, solemn eyes. She sat down and was silent, turning her head to its watchful position as before.

‘Your mother has a fashion house, if I’m not mistaken.’ Many years ago, the fashion shows which still bear its name were really held in the Palazzo Pitti. The security measures involved in giving the workforce access to the galleries were a problem the Marshal wasn’t sorry to be relieved of when they moved on, the men’s and children’s wear to the Fortezza over on the other side of town, the women’s wear to Milan. A long time ago, but he remembered the Contessa Brunamonti, not because hers had been among the better-known houses but because she was remarkably beautiful.

He pulled out his notebook. Someone much more important than he was would have to take her statement. ‘What is your mother’s name?’

‘Olivia Birkett.’

He spoke as he wrote. ‘Olivia Birkett, widow of the Conte … was it Ugo? Brunamonti…’

‘She never used the tide, except on our label. My mother was a model before she married.’

‘Born?’

‘Sixteenth May, 1949, in California.’

‘When did you see your mother last?’

‘Ten days ago, but—’

‘Hello? Hello! No, no. I must speak to him personally. I’m sure the Colonel will understand. It’s urgent. What? Yes. Yes, I’ll hold.’

‘Please wait!’ Her white face had turned deep pink and her brown eyes were alarmed.

‘It can’t wait, Signorina. You should have reported your mother missing immediately. What on earth persuaded you and your brother to wait all this time? And what are you doing here? You should at least have called 112. Hello? Yes, I am still here … Tell him it’s Guarnaccia at Pitti. Thank you. No. He’ll call me back.’ He hung up. ‘You haven’t answered my question. Why have you come here?’

‘It wasn’t me, I’ve told you, it was Leonardo. He doesn’t want the police or carabinieri involved in this case … He doesn’t even know I’m here now. I wanted to call you in last week so, whatever happens, nobody can blame me.’

‘Ten days ago. At what time?’ The moment for urgent action was long gone.

‘At night, almost midnight.’

‘And your brother’s afraid she might have been kidnapped, is that it? He thought he could deal with this alone? He’s afraid of your assets being frozen?’

‘Yes, but I don’t agree. We should be trying to find her and whoever kidnapped her, otherwise we’re aiding and abetting criminals. Besides, they can still kill the victim even if you pay. She could be dead already.’

‘Why are you so sure something has happened to her? People do often disappear because they want to and for many other reasons.’

‘Her dog had to be taken for a walk round the block before bedtime. Usually, I did it because she and my brother always work late. I’m an early riser because I think you should work when you’re fresh. But that night I’d already showered and was in my room so she took Tessie, and when she didn’t come back Leonardo went out to look for her. He found the broken-off handle of the dog lead in the courtyard. Her car was gone. She always left the keys in it because she tended to lose them otherwise and, since the entrance doors which give on to the courtyard were locked after eight at night…’

‘Except, perhaps, when the dog was being taken round the block for ten minutes?’

‘They’re very heavy doors for a woman to manage. She’d been thinking of having a normal door cut into them but it would spoil them. Olivia always said that if thieves wanted to get in they’d get in and if you locked your car it only meant the window would be smashed if and when you got it back.’

‘She’s right. Can you describe the car, tell me the licence number?’

‘I’ve written it down.’ She opened a leather shoulder bag and gave him a sheet of paper from it. He looked at it and placed it by the phone.

‘What about the dog? What sort of dog is it?’

‘Very small, sand coloured.’

‘Any particular breed?’

‘No. It was a mongrel bitch. She rescued it from the dog pound. She was rather sentimental about animals and thought it ridiculous to spend money on fancy breeds when so many ill-treated dogs needed homes.’

‘You disagree?’

‘Only because it’s a health risk. They can have leukaemia or even AIDS these days. I took the dog to the vet and had it checked. I’m the one who tends to think about these things. I’m very practical.’

‘I see. I take it no contact has been made?’

She shook her head. She was still very flushed and her eyes were glittering as though about to overflow with tears. The Marshal felt guilty. He felt he’d been clumsy and the ethereal appearance of this delicate young woman whose long white hands lay motionless in her lap as she cried made him feel even more of a bull in a china shop than usual. Of course, he could never have imagined that the matter was so serious. ‘You’re quite sure your brother doesn’t know you’re here? If he has any reason to suspect you he could have had contact and kept it from you.’

‘He hasn’t moved from the sofa by the phone since it happened but I’ve been there all the time, too.’

‘The phone in your own home?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Hm.’ There had been no contact in that case. You haven’t explained why you came here.’

‘I went to your Headquarters in Borgo Ognissanti first. I couldn’t call from home. Leonardo never moves from the phone, day or night. The guard at the entrance there stopped me and asked me what I wanted. I could hardly tell him, out in the street. I just said I had to report something and he sent me to that window just inside where you report thefts and things. I’d been there before once when my car was stolen. They offered me a form to fill in and I told them I wasn’t there to fill forms in, that I needed to talk to someone who could advise me. They sertt me here.’

‘Hm.’ He could hardly blame his colleagues. They were constantly beset with time wasters and troublemakers and she wasn’t very forthcoming even now.

‘I was nervous about doing this. The others were so against it.’

‘Others?’

‘My brother and Patrick Hines. Patrick’s a lawyer. He manages our affairs in New York. He came over as soon as it happened, and now he’s in London trying to hire a private investigator from a big agency there. He’ll be furious that I’ve been here. They’ll both be against me when they know what I’ve done but it’s the right thing, isn’t it? The proper legal thing to do?’

‘Of course. You mustn’t worry. It’s done now and they’ll have to accept it. It will be all the better if they can be convinced to collaborate rather than just tolerate our presence but, either way, they’re going to be too concentrated on your mother’s situation to be worrying about you.’ The phone rang. Before picking it up he said, ‘Would you mind sitting out in the waiting room a moment?’ She got up, her eyes still fixed on him obliquely. She was tall. ‘Do you have to say it was me? Isn’t there some other way you could have found out?’

‘Please … I’ll be with you in just a moment’

He waited as the door closed behind her.

‘Guarnaccia?’

Yes, it’s me. Something serious, yes. The Contessa Brunamonti, missing since about midnight ten days ago. Took the dog out—on a regular walk round the block, leaving the main doors of the palazzo open the way people do when they go out for ten minutes. Handle of the dog’s lead found in the courtyard … Yes, the same thing every night. Asking for it. Palazzo Brunamonti in Piazza Santo Spirito. We can’t rely on it, no. This has come from her daughter and she’s not that convinced … Could change her mind at any minute. There’s a brother and a business lawyer, American, who want a private detective in, so …’

As the Marshal hung up, a sigh escaped him. According to statistics, the 1991 law permitting a magistrate to freeze a family’s assets in kidnapping cases worked, the average number of cases per year having been reduced from twenty-one to five. Statistics didn’t tell you the rest—the increased difficulties the law created for investigators when families didn’t report the kidnapping quickly, the cruelty inflicted on the victim when money was longer in coming, the alienation of the victim, who would fail to release vital information on being freed. Professional kidnappers were adapting their methods to accommodate the new law and choosing victims who were sufficiently well-connected politically to get at least part of the ransom paid by the State under the clause allowing ‘payment for investigative purposes.’ The Marshal doubted whether the Contessa Brunamonti would be consoled by the thought of being one of five rather than one of twenty-one. You can’t add people together. You can’t add one person’s pain to another’s. It doesn’t mean anything. Getting up from his chair, he hoped his superiors would decide to go along—at least for the moment—with the daughter’s request for secrecy. It would make very little difference to the first stages of the inquiry, and it wouldn’t help if they lost the only collaborator in the family. He opened the door and looked out into the waiting room. It was empty. ‘Lorenzini!’

His young Brigadier appeared.

‘Did you let that young woman out?’

Yes. Should I not have—’

‘Never mind. Have Di Nuccio and young Lepori left?’

‘Just.’

‘Well, I hope to goodness they remember everything I said last night. Did they eat something?’

‘I think so.’

‘And take a supply of water? I told them. There isn’t a bar for miles.’

He zipped up his jacket and pulled his hat low, ready for the wind, grumbling as he stumped down the stairs, You’d have thought a royal family could afford its own bodyguards. I don’t know what the army’s coming to …’

The winter sun was every bit as bright and strong as the Marshal had imagined and he came out under the great iron lantern of the archway fishing hurriedly for the dark glasses which would prevent his sensitive eyes from streaming. Safe in a darkened world, he could enjoy the feel of the sun on his face and the morning smells brought to him by the fierce mountain wind. Sunshine or no sunshine, once he came out of the shelter of the Pitti Palace onto the open slope in front of it, that icy wind bit at his ears and made him thankful for the solid weight of his black greatcoat.

The traffic passing through the piazza at the bottom of the slope was noisy and ebullient, as the Florentines, inspired by the brilliance of the day, wanted to drive
allegro con brio.
The result was decidedly
staccato
since the junction with Via Romana and Via Maggio snarled up every few minutes to a chorus of horns. It was to avoid this confusion to his left that the Marshal crossed the piazza and continued straight ahead, cutting through the high buildings by a narrow alley lined with parked mopeds but empty of cars. He went into Piazza Santo Spirito at the corner by the church. There was no need for it. He could have crossed the river and gone straight to Headquarters. He knew what this business was going to entail and he knew his commanding officer. A case like this meant specialists, the emergency intervention group arriving in helicopters from Livorno, probably cooperation with the civil police force. All this would already be under way. It would not involve the Marshal. Captain Maestrangelo, on the other hand, by hook or by crook, would involve the Marshal. Somebody had to hold the family’s hand, and that was just the sort of task Maestrangelo would earmark him for. So Guarnaccia walked quietly into Piazza Santo Spirito, sniffing the air.