Shadows of the Past (11 page)

Once she was hauled on the deck of the trawler, she collapsed. Rough hands rubbed her back, stimulating the blood flow. Her teeth were chattering but even against this

the throbbing of the engines as the boat headed for port was music to her ears.

*

It was madness at the harbour. There were policemen and an ambulance, crowds of people filling the street; it was as if they all had come tumbling out of their homes to see what was going on. It is not for me, she thought, they have come out because the boats are back, they are here to greet their men …

Some warming stuff was wrapped around her; it looked like tinfoil but gave out a lot of heat. The men struggled against the mob with the stretcher, crying out excitedly for more room. Then the door of the ambulance slammed shut as she was laid on the bed and they set off, sirens blazing into the dark of night.

She felt herself falling to sleep. ‘Don’t sleep, Contessa,’ the man at her side urged, he gave her a warming drink … someone put a needle in her arm.

‘Luca,’ she murmured.

‘He will be at the hospital,’ the man said, ‘very soon, Contessa.’

*

Her eyes hurt. She opened them and they burned. Worst of all her lips felt so swollen and sore and dry. She had slept, falling deep into nothingness. Now it was still dark; a very soft light burned at the far side of the room. A shape loomed by the window, peering out of the slatted blinds two fingers holding the slats apart.

Where was she? She shifted slightly, feeling the crispness of sheets against her legs. Peeling open her eyes once more she peered through the dimness. A room, not too big; there was a rail at the foot of the bed. A hospital bed. Her heart thudded softly against her ribs, she was safe. No one could harm her here, could they?

The man had turned, moving softly across the room. The shadows falling from him showed her it was Luca.

"Alva,’ he lowered himself on to the bed, taking up her hand in his. His hand felt warm and strong against her own. ‘Alva,’ he murmured again, brushing back the hair from her face. ‘Let me … ’ He took up a stick of some kind and smoothed it across her salt encrusted lips. It soothed and cooled. ‘How are you,
cara mia
?’

She tried to speak but the words sounded like those of an angry frog.

He smiled. ‘Just nod your head, do you feel better?’

She nodded.

‘I want to take you home, to Santa Catarina.’

He saw a flicker in her eyes, recognized it as fear, and raised her hand to his lips.

‘Nothing will ever happen to you again, I will protect you.’

She wanted to say you can’t, no one can protect me entirely. Things keep happening and I don’t know why. The hit and run in London. Her falling down the stairs … was that really an accident? Now this — a man on the boat, a syringe in his hand.

Raising her hand she mimed paper and pencil. He went away and was soon back, accompanied by a white-coated doctor.

The
dottore
started to fuss and take her temperature, feel her forehead, check her pulse. Impatience needed to be controlled. If she made a fuss it could be misconstrued — she was suspicious of hospitals, did not trust that they would let her leave. Her mind was a jumble of confused thoughts.

Eventually he left, leaving Luca to hand her the pencil and paper. ‘I am sorry about that, I met him in the corridor and I foolishly told him you were awake.’

Nodding to let him know she understood, she concentrated on writing words on the pad. He waited until she had finished before he looked at what she was writing. It was a description of the man who had taken the launch, the man who had tried to kill her. All this she put down in broken, unpunctuated sentences.

‘I understand,’ Luca said. ‘And the police will come and talk to you. Now you must have something to drink. Perhaps a little food. You have to rest. Tomorrow I want to take you home if they will let me, you will come?’

She wrote on the pad. ‘
I want to get out of here!
’

‘You will, I promise.’ He leaned over, very gently kissing her cheek. ‘Oh, my darling, if I had lost you … ’

Her heart, even weak as she was, gave a pleasant lurch. He seemed so distressed. Could it be that he cared for her?

She lay back against the pillows, tired by the exertion of trying to get everything down on paper. Luca took up her hand once more and held it until her eyes fluttered to a close.

In the end she spent five days in the hospital. They were adamant, there were things to look for, and because of her previous accident they had to be extra vigilant. Not even for the conte would they do something so irresponsible as to allow their patient to leave. If she insisted on signing herself out there was nothing they could do, but … and that ‘but’ was couched in such a threatening tone, that Alva acquiesced. She would stay and give them what they wanted.

When the door opened and Luca came to visit it was alarming to see that there was a policeman on the door. They, too, had been vigilant and very, very caring. They sent a sketch artist and then went away only to return later with some mug shots. The man was not amongst them. He was not in the system.

‘I don’t know why,’ she murmured, ‘but I think perhaps he was not Italian. Oh, he spoke good Italian but there was a faint accent … very, slight … ’

‘Albanian perhaps, or from Istria … he could be Swiss … ?’

‘Maybe the latter, it was so slight as to be hardly noticeable but now that I concentrate I hear it. I did not exactly have a conversation with him but I remember he swore at me and there was a different language from Italian there … foreign swearwords, just one or two … ’

They went away again, presumably to liaise with Interpol.

The launch had been found, wrecked on a remote beach, partly burned out. ‘He did not make a good job of the fire; probably he did not have time.
Figlio di puttana
!’ Luca uttered, slamming his fist into the palm of his hand. Forensics was going over it and there were fingerprints but again, nothing on the system. Whoever this man was he had not broken the law in Italy … but perhaps somewhere else.

‘He wanted to kill me,’ she said one day to Luca as he sat on the bed.

‘What? No, he wanted to kidnap you. He wanted money for you, who would want to kill you?’

‘I don’t know.’ Was this to be it again, was she not going to believed yet again. She looked up at Luca, studying his face. There were lines of worry at his mouth. ‘He tried to choke me, he said I would die. It wasn’t a kidnap. He had a syringe, he was going to drug me, or worse’

‘But why? It makes no sense. I would have paid a ransom to have you back.’

‘What did he say? I fought with him and he said something,’ she put her fingertips to her forehead and massaged her temples. ‘Something about I should have stayed away … ’ Helplessly she looked at her husband. ‘As if someone did not want me to be with you. Did not want me back at the island.’

Renata? The name flew into her mind … Renata hated her but surely not that much. No, it would not be Renata, she must not think that, must not give the impression that she even suspected Luca’s daughter of wanting her dead.

‘There is no one that would feel that way. I know that Renata is upset that we may be together but she is not part of this.’

She lied, the lie slid off her tongue and she hated herself. ‘No, I know that … but there has to be something else. And maybe it is nothing to do with you and me but to do with something in my past that I don’t remember. When I was in the water I thought about money, I thought, “what happened to the money”, but what money was it?’

‘I don’t know what that could be,
cara
, but there could be something neither of us knows about. The accident in London, the hit and run … ’

‘Perhaps I knew something about some missing money. Do you think it could be to do with Tony?’

‘Tony? Antonio you mean?’

‘No, Tony Laker, the man I worked for.’

‘Tony, you remember his name? Ah, but it will be from our discussion.’

‘No, I don’t think so … only a day or so ago it came to me quite naturally. You said he was disgraced? Could it be to do with that?’

Luca stared into her eyes. ‘After all this time? Unlikely, although he was a slippery character.’

‘Well how was he disgraced?’

‘Too friendly with someone who was into shady deals; he had received a lot of gifts from this person, and then there was the girl … young, you know the kind of thing. Presenting himself as a family man but all the time he had this slip of a girl on the side.’

‘Miranda.’ The name came from nowhere. ‘Lots of red hair and gorgeous … ’

‘You remember!’

‘Yes I do, just now. A very posh girl but — ’

‘I am sorry?’

‘You know, good family, right schools and connections, she modelled a bit. Had everything going for her on the outside but a bit of a dimwit otherwise.’

He laughed softly. ‘You have a fine way of summing people up,
cara
— still, I don’t know why I am laughing because none of this is funny.’

‘The Miranda affair was funny. Even Tony’s wife thought it ridiculous. If it had not had so much publicity I think she would have stood by him but she just thought, “What the hell, I don’t want to do this anymore”. However, I think it was more to do with the other thing … the one you were telling me about. This bloke he was in cahoots with. I don’t remember his name. If I ever knew it. Surely it can’t be anything to do with that? I mean, that is a blast from the past. If I knew anything then, they would have acted on it at the time.’

‘True … but it was after we were married that everything went wrong for Tony. In fact it was while … ’

‘Yes?’ She took up his hand, holding on to it. ‘Tell me … let’s not have secrets.’

‘It happened while you were in hospital.’

‘My breakdown … that time?’

‘Yes. This is the first time we have discussed it because you left me … ’

‘You didn’t come after me?’

He had the grace to turn his head away, then, making up his mind, turned to face her. ‘Things were said, it was impossible to go back from them.’

‘I said things to you, rather than you to me?’

‘More or less. Then you left the hospital and I did not know where you had gone. You had not even discharged yourself. You just walked out.’

‘So it wasn’t a secure unit?’

‘Alva, of course it was not. It was a private clinic.’

‘Good. I thought you had me banged up like the wife in the attic.’

He stared at her for a moment but seeing the twinkle in her eye merely smiled. ‘I am not Mr Rochester,’ he murmured. ‘You see, I do listen to you, Alva, and I know that is your favourite book.’

Later, when Luca had left for the hotel where he was staying, she lay in bed listening to the soft sounds of the hospital. A squeak of a trolley being pushed along the corridor, its wheels swishing along the thick floor covering. A cough somewhere, the laugh of a couple of nurses.

It was late, the light in the corridor was dimmed, and she knew the guard had changed. The night one was called Giuseppe and she knew that one of the nurses was rather sweet on him because she had heard them talking. He did not seem over keen but she was a game girl and kept trying.

All these irrelevant thoughts drifted in and out of her mind. She had to concentrate really hard not to relive those moments on the boat, or the time in the sea.

It had seemed hours but it was not even an hour. If the fishing fleet had not found her she knew she would have drowned. She had been in the darkness swimming away from the shore. How could she have done that … why had she not looked for the North Star which was a guiding light, ah … she knew little about the stars and the heavens. Had she seen the North Star it was unlikely she would have recalled what it was telling her.

Luca. He came to her, filling her senses with wonder. Just why had she said things that had made it impossible for him to come and find her? He said she would remember and he did not want to go over it with her. Not now, maybe in the future if she did not remember. She knew he meant it for her own good but in what he told her might lie some clues as to why she had done that and, more importantly, why she had twice been in situations that had left her close to death.

The room smelled delicious, it was full of flowers. They were from Luca and from the servants. There was a bunch of pale cream roses from Rosa d’Casta, which was kind — even though she did not like the woman it had been thoughtful of her. Perhaps she had misjudged her on their first meeting. After all, what had the woman done that was so terrible? She had tried to monopolize Luca but it was to her that Luca came, and who could blame Rosa anyway? Luca was the kind of man a lot of women would take a strong fancy to, and she had to be used to that. Besides, she was not the jealous type.

Even more surprising than the flowers from Rosa was the delicious basket of fruit that came from Renata. At first she had thought that Luca had ordered it but on checking she found the order had come from Rome. She had asked one of the nurses to find out. It had been a ridiculous enterprise and came from someone with too many idle hours, because when he had seen it Luca had been utterly surprised.