Shadows of the Past (14 page)

‘Someone has done something terrible to Signora d’Casta,’ she said. ‘In the sitting-room, please go and see, I don’t think she’s alive but I can’t be certain.’

‘Go and look,’ the policeman said to the man who had searched her, ‘I’ll stay out here.’

Alva stood now with arms folded at her waist, leaning back against the car. Her body burned with the humiliation of the man’s rough and intimate search. She felt dirty.
It is nothing
, her conscience told her,
think about what has happened to Rosa d’Casta
.

Now the door to the police car opened a little. A tiny woman emerged, thin and pale with fright, not too young but not old. ‘Sir, I did not see this lady … ’

‘Zitto! Get back in the car!’

‘Officer, you surely do not think that I had anything to do with this,’ Alva said. ‘I found the
signora
, I was about to call you … ’

He said nothing, not making eye contact. The other policeman came out. ‘She’s dead, skull bashed in,’ he glanced at her. ‘Sort of thing a woman would do, you know, one turns away, the other bitch decides she’s had enough, boom, bang … ’

‘Any weapon?’

‘Nothing that I can see, better call the chief … we need forensics.’

‘Contessa, you will have to come with us, the commissario will require you to make a statement.’

‘Of course,’ she agreed.

‘You do know that will be on the mainland?’

‘No, I didn’t know that. I want to co-operate but I must insist I come in later. When my husband is here, I have not been well and … ’

The men exchanged a look, debating the point with their eyes. She knew they were wondering how tough they should be. Mentally questioning how far they dare go with her.

‘You have to know that my life was threatened too.’

‘We heard something,’ the one she decided to describe as arrogant muttered.

‘Call the commissario now,’ she demanded, coming out of her shock and fear. After all, she was innocent and would not be pushed around by these two, one who was obviously relishing humiliating her, and probably for some political purpose.

‘Perhaps you could give us a statement now,’ the marginally milder of the two suggested.

‘Let me call it in first,’ the other said.

As he went to the car, the sudden spurt of confidence had weakened Alva and her legs started to tremble. ‘Perhaps I could sit down,’ she murmured, then when no answer came, opened the door of her car and slid on to the seat. Her phone was there, she picked it up, looked at the policeman and quirked an eyebrow in an unspoken question. He nodded, probably thinking she was going to call some hotshot lawyer.

Luca’s telephone number was at the top of her list of stored numbers. She highlighted and pressed ‘call’. It was answered in seconds.

‘
Cara
,’ he murmured, full of warmth and pleasure, as if the call were important and welcome to him. ‘I was going to call you, I am at the port and I will — ’

‘Luca, something terrible has happened.’

*

Luca was obviously speaking to someone high up in police society. ‘If it were my ancestors they would have cut off his balls and made him eat them.’

‘Luca!’ Alva whispered, horrified.

‘How dare he pat down my wife so intimately? There is no need for that machismo from that
coglione
. The contessa was distraught, she found Rosa d’Casta with her head smashed in … she was in shock. Who are these men masquerading as cops you have sent me? I want replacements.’

Obviously, soothing words were being said on the other end of the line. She watched as Luca, hand tightened around the telephone receiver, marched around his desk, back ramrod straight, head thrown back, anger making him pale.

‘I know,’ he said at last, the words almost a sigh. ‘But have you ever seen my wife … she is a tiny thing, I doubt she could hit anything hard enough.’

‘Oh yes I could, if I needed too,’ she murmured. He turned; obviously he heard her for he winked.

The telephone call came to an end and he put the phone in its cradle and turned to face her, leaning his hip against the desk. She was sitting in a chair in front of him. How quickly he had come home to her, dropping everything, arriving in hours. Caring for her so tenderly, she wondered how she had ever wanted to leave him.

‘Oh Luca,’ she went to him, pleased when he drew her close, wrapping her in his arms. Only then did she feel truly safe. ‘What is happening, Luca? What is going on in this idyllic world of yours?’

‘I wish I knew,
cara
, but I don’t. When I think of what could have happened to you. Promise me you will never do anything like that again?’

‘I won’t. I think I have learned my lesson the hard way, but Rosa was so convincing, she told me she knew something about … about — ’ But she stopped, how she could tell him that what Rosa had told her hinted that he knew something about her fall down the stairs. It would surely wrench them apart again if he thought that she suspected him of involvement. Quickly she sought around for something to say.

‘I don’t care what gossip she had for you. Gossip is not important. Besides, Rosa was a woman who imagined she was in love with me. She would only want to make mischief; she could say nothing important about anything,’ he said.

Ah, he had not realized it was something serious to do with him. That above all proved his innocence to her; if he had done something wrong he would be questioning her more closely to find out if she knew anything.

‘The commissario will come here. He’s on his way; he will talk to you but I am going to be here all the time — you just have to tell the truth.’

But what was the truth? What could she say about what Rosa had said to her? If she told him exactly verbatim would that not pour suspicion on Luca? After all, the woman had hinted at something about Luca and his first wife. She knew she was a bad liar — the words needed to put an end to this terrible matter would not come easily to her, yet she had to try.

‘Luca, you are home early, I didn’t expect you until tomorrow?’

‘My business was over and I decided not to go and see Renata. As well, really, she will be home the moment she hears about Rosa. They were very close. She will be devastated.’

Alva’s heart sank. On top of everything else she must contend with the sulky and resentful Renata — but at the same time she knew there was nothing she could do about it. There was no way that she could show that she did not want the girl to come to her own home, no matter how unpleasant Renata would make life.

‘Are you sure, Alva, there is nothing else that Rosa said?’ Luca asked the question nonchalantly. He was standing at the window, partly turned away from her.

If she loved him as she knew she did, then why hold back the truth. Show that Rosa had meant to cause trouble between them perhaps. Damn her memory, if she was cognizant of the past then she knew there was nothing she could not share with him. But it was this lack of memory that made her hesitate. How did she know? She could not even remember what Luca had said about his first wife in the past. Of course he had recently told her that Silvia had died in a road traffic accident. That Renata had been with her. He had said they were on their way home from Rosa’s villa. Yet there was nothing sinister in any of that … speak up, her mind urged, but something tugged the thought back. Forget it. It has nothing to do with anything. He was probably right about Rosa; she had wanted him and wanted to make trouble to make her go away. That was all it was, a woman in love with a man who did not want her.

The commissario when he arrived was about forty, dressed in a suit that was most definitely not off the peg, his grooming highly polished. He had a hard, intelligent face and an overly large nose. He was small and wiry but exuding confidence. His politeness, she suspected was a veneer. Obviously, he was one ruthless cop and Luca had told her that he had risen up from the ranks. A Roman, he had transferred to the coastal fringe at his own request.

‘I suspect,’ Luca told her, ‘that he was spawned in the slums and knew intimately too many villains. Here he is an unknown quantity and can be what he wants. He is not so bad, as cops go.’

Alva could see where Luca got his assessment. The man had the stamp of someone who had had to pull himself up out of the streets but she did not find him in the least intimidating. Again, she suspected it was because of her ability to mix with so many different kinds of people. Probably it was why she had been good at her job in the past, that — more than ability with a word processor and telephone — had made her indispensable to Tony. Again the confirming thought just popped into her mind and she accepted it.

‘So, Contessa, perhaps you would tell me what happened? If you do not mind, from the beginning. I believe Signora d’Casta telephoned you and asked you to visit her, is that right?’

Taking a deep breath, Alva held it inside her for a few moments. She allowed herself to look directly at the commissario; his dark eyes were hard and his expression like that of a hawk examining its prey. He was not going to let her intimidate him, he had obviously decided, no matter her position. All the deference he had shown when he had first come in had gone; now he was professional. All men were created equal in his eyes — that would be his mantra. Alva knew the type and there would be just the tiniest core of resentment at the conte’s position, as if the commissario suspected that the conte imagined he could buy himself out of trouble with any authority. If only he knew, Alva thought, the opposite was true of Luca. He was not a man like that — or, Alva was certain, she could not love him.

‘
Cara
,’ Luca urged as if he suspected she had slipped into a trance, which in effect, she realized she had.

‘I’m sorry, Commissario. You must know that I lost my memory; things come hard for me.’

‘You cannot remember daily happenings?’

‘Oh no, I did not mean that. Thank God, I haven’t any sign of dementia. No, it is just that when I am going about my business things slip in and out of my head. Things that are not connected with what I’m doing. A memory, well a fraction of a memory to be exact, I had that just now. Something about my husband’ — she turned and smiled at Luca — ‘a rather pleasant realization about him.’

Luca looked back at her, unsure whether to smile or not.

‘But, I must get to the business at hand. Poor Rosa. Yes, she called. She was a little hysterical — ’

‘What do you mean?’ The hawk pinned her down.

‘Well, she said she had to see me but would not tell me what it was about. She was rather mysterious about it,’ which, Alva thought, was not entirely a lie. ‘And she couldn’t come here, I had to go there and I had to go alone. It was all rather strange because the
signora
and I were not close friends. I mean I don’t even know if I met her more than once?’ She looked at Luca.

‘You did, but not very much. I think if you met her at three social occasions that was it,’ he explained. ‘My wife met Signora d’Casta again at a dinner party a couple of weeks ago, here at the palazzo. For myself I cannot imagine why she wanted to see the contessa, unless … do you think she might have some information about the man that took you away, Alva. Did she say anything about that?’

‘Not a thing. As I said, she would not tell me anything over the telephone.’

‘Well go on, Contessa, you agreed to go and you left the house without telling anyone.’

Alva went on to explain about Carlo. How he was her bodyguard but Signora d’Casta had insisted she go alone, and so she had deceived the staff and Carlo into thinking she was going to lie down.

‘Why not tell them the truth?’

‘I thought that Carlo might follow me. He would believe that my husband would expect that of him. I admit, I’m a curious cat and if anyone tells me they want to reveal something I have to go for it. Inquisitive mind, I suppose. Besides, I thought she might be ill or something. She sounded so strange. With hindsight I realize it was silly of me. I should’ve had Carlo follow me — hindsight is great but it isn’t walking by your side when you make these stupid decisions.’

‘Yes, I can appreciate that. So you arrived at the villa and you saw no one and no one passed you on the road.’

‘No one, well there were just a couple of goatherds and their dog, but no one in a car or walking. Goodness, had I met a car I’m sure I would have died — how would they get past?’

‘There are passing places,’ the commissario said with serious concern, as if he doubted her ability to be a safe driver. ‘So then you arrived, what happened then?’

This took longer, as she began to explain how she had gone into the drawing-room and opened the shutters, the horror revisited her. She started to shiver and Luca crossed the room to sit next to her, wrapping a comforting arm around her.

‘The contessa is cold; perhaps a wrap would be good for her?’ suggested the commisario.

He obviously thought he was being crafty, but Luca was on to him. There was no way he would leave her alone. Going to the telephone he buzzed for a servant and asked for a wrap for the contessa.

It was accomplished in moments; the youngest maid had been dispatched to run up to the contessa’s bedroom and to come back with a shawl. The shawl was thick cashmere, a single green colour but it still reminded Alva of the shawl that had covered Rosa d’Casta’s head, the terrible scene that she had witnessed as she had removed the shawl.