Shadows of the Past (20 page)

‘You see, I did not want to cause trouble when you came back but, forgive me, you see Renata also confirmed his story.’

‘Renata! But Renata was not there, she was in her room, she did not see anything.’

‘You believe she lied for Antonio, but why would he say such a thing? You can see how difficult it was for me.’

‘Yes and no. I don’t remember not telling you what happened, maybe I did not remember … was that the start of my memory going, that push down the stairs? Had I already started to forget things then?’

‘What push down the stairs? Cara, you must tell me what you mean! What is it you have remembered?’

‘Oh, Luca … Renata and Antonio, it was not a new thing, it was going on when I was here first. I caught him coming out of her room. I … I had seen them in the summerhouse, making … ’ Making love? No, she could not describe it like that, more like having sex, she thought, but she added the softer version for his benefit. ‘He pushed me down the stairs because I said I would tell you. It is as simple as that. Antonio killed our baby.’

She recognized all the words he used, and turned her head away from the violence that spilled out of him, flinching from the anger, afraid as he paced the room.

‘It’s all come at the wrong time,’ she said, trying to soothe him. ‘So many things happening all at once, I’m sorry Luca.’

‘You have nothing to be sorry for. But one consolation, please … Renata was not part of the pushing; you swear she was not there?’

‘No, it was just him and me. I swear it. Maybe he told her I threw myself down the stairs, asked her to collaborate his story. She was a young girl, who imagined herself in love, whatever he told her she would believe. And it was easy to believe wasn’t it? I was so miserable; I was out of control myself.’

‘And that is something else. Maybe you were feeling so ill through no fault of your own, have you thought of that?’

‘You mean Antonio put something in my food to make me so ill? Why would he do that?’

‘I don’t know, to keep you tied to the house. Afraid that you would find out about him and Renata. If you remember, I was away a lot. I had a problem with some properties on the mainland.’

‘I don’t remember that … but I will … now that my memory is opening up, one day it will settle down and I will remember everything … ’

*

The palazzo became very quiet. Renata haunted her bedroom and seldom came out. Her psychiatrist came to see her and he stayed two nights, spending most of his days with Renata, and then went into the library to talk to Luca.

Renata was in unforgiving mood; her life was in ruins, she told the psychiatrist, and she would never get over what had happened to her.

Luca would not bend and Alva admired him for it. There was nothing more difficult than tough love but he believed that was the only way to get her out of her present mood.

It was only a mild surprise when the psychiatrist reported that she had been taking cocaine. No need to ask who had given it to her. She was not totally addicted, he said, because she had not been on it that long, only since she had been home. The highs and lows made sense to Alva.

‘I should have recognized it,’ she told Luca, ‘because I’ve seen it before.’

‘Of course, Tony liked to do drugs,’ Luca said.

‘Yes, he did, Tony would try anything. Did I tell you that? I seem to think I did.’

‘Of course, but I knew anyway because he asked me if I wanted some charley. I didn’t even know what he meant!’

‘You wouldn’t. Oh, Luca why have you had all this visited on you? You don’t deserve it.’

‘Not me,
cara
, you. Why have you had all this visited on
you
? All these things that have been happening have not been because that
coglione
seduced my daughter. There has to be more to it than that, you are sure you don’t remember anything else?’

‘No … nothing … there are gaps, so perhaps there is something else. I don’t think Antonio was trying to have me killed. Do you? I mean … because of what he was doing to Renata? Hardly likely, and he went easily enough. And what was it that Rosa wanted? Why was she killed? There is a lot we don’t know and I have a horrid feeling it is in here’ — she tapped her forehead — ‘somewhere.’

‘Or someone thinks you know something that you don’t. Oh,
cara
… I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault Luca. And I’m not sorry to be here, with you … ’

‘We will succeed, won’t we?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘You and I?’

‘If you want us to succeed then we will, Luca.’ She looked at him, he looked worried and she knew he was tortured by what had happened to Renata, as if he blamed himself, when there was nothing he could have done. Renata had not told him of her own troubles but sank into a terrible despair on her own. It had been Antonio who had taken advantage of her vulnerability.

Her heart opened up — it was all right when things were normal pretending that she was not in love with Luca, tucking her real feelings away, waiting for him to say something but now … now she understood why he would not say how he really felt. He was afraid of making her feel that he was tying her down. The bird had flown and might want to fly again …

‘Luca,’ she took up his hand. ‘Luca, I love you so much.’

The ‘oh,’ was dragged up from the very pit of him. She had never heard such a savage cry of agony. ‘I don’t deserve it,’ he muttered, holding her to him and then she knew, realized in that holding just how precious she was to him.

‘I never stopped loving you, Alva. I tried to chase it away with words of hate and I never completely succeeded.
Cara, sei il mio piu’ grande amore
…

*

It was very dark in the room. Alva awoke suddenly because something disturbed her sleep. Luca was working downstairs; she had left him there as she had felt exhausted. Everything that had happened had seemed to drain the life from her. Renata — Antonio — most of all, the memories that tripped like a fast-running, flickering film into her mind, overwhelming her.

All the questioning she had to do of herself, was that real, a genuine memory, or an imaginary incident? Most of the time Luca could supply the answers but there were some things in her past that even he did not know about.

‘Luca?’ Something had definitely woken her, a soft footfall, a creak; stretching out a hand she reached for the lamp. ‘Luca?’ she called out again, her finger found the switch, clicked it on and the bedroom’s blackness was pierced by soft pink light and then … blackness. Something over her head blocking out the warm glow of light. It was a rough kind of sacking bag, the smell of it musty and dank. It felt cold against her face and coated in slimy damp mould. The sack covered her from head to below her shoulders, a strap of sorts holding it in place at her throat. She struggled and tried to scream but hands grabbed her arms, tying them behind her, she was being dragged from the bed, her feet landed on the floor … she wriggled, terrified in the black nightmare … wondering if it was a nightmare, just for a moment, until a sharp little pain proved the reality, a needle, softly sliding into the flesh of her arm.

Bile rose up in her throat, she would choke … waves of heat broke out over her body, the thin shift of silk clinging to her. Her feet left the floor, her body was being thrown … down … down stairs … but no, just as the terror started to mount she slipped away into nothingness …

*

She came to slowly. It was very cold. She moved her foot, her ankles were bound now, but her toes were touching something soft and damp. There was a sound, a rushing, folding sound … she listened … it was almost drowned out by the fearful clamouring of her heart. God! It was the sea. She was trussed like a dozen unwanted puppies, in a sack, ready to be thrown in the water. The sea … the element she loved … yet where she had almost died before. ‘I don’t want to die like this,’ she thought hysterically, trying to move — but no, she was too well trussed even to wriggle, just able to move her toes against the sand.

A voice then. There was something familiar about it, but not in its tone. ‘What are you doing, you
testa di cazzo
?’

‘I’m getting rid of her.’ That was Antonio; she knew his voice, that high-pitched slightly effeminate tone. But who was the other? Where had she heard that voice before?

‘I told you to leave it.’

‘So, who are you telling me what to do? I want her out of the way.’

‘You know what, you’re trouble, and you’re too emotional.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘You think too much about what happens to you and not what happens to the job. So she upset you, so what? She knows nothing … she can’t even remember her name properly. She gets confused all the time.’

‘You think so?’

‘I know so. And what can she tell
him
anyway that he isn’t aware of. I told you when you tried to get rid of her before, leave her be, she’s nothing and the conte will never forgive you if you hurt her. He will hunt you down like the
coglione
you are. We stick to business, that’s the arrangement, nothing else. And why were you carrying on with the kid again? I told you to leave her too! You can only push him so far and then.

The voice, sounding commanding now, someone she knew … Italian … but with a slight accent, the man on the boat … but no, not him, only the accent a little like his. She lay still, she could hear her heart clanging away, and feared they would hear it too.

‘Who do you think you are, who put you in charge all of a sudden? You can’t order me what to do. I can please myself.’

The man ignored that, he went on saying. ‘It was the same with Rosa.
Sei pazzo
! No need to kill her!’

‘Oh yeah, well Rosa was going to tell
her
everything.’ Antonio kicked her, she knew it was him, his voice was the nearest, it took every ounce of courage not to cry out; it was not a gentle kick. But if they discovered she had come round it might make it worse.

‘Like what everything? You idiot, Rosa would not have told her anything — it was just business between two stupid bitches.’

‘She was going to tell her whose kid Renata was and other stuff … ’

‘
E allora
? Who cares whose kid Renata is?’

‘I care. I don’t want to marry a penniless bitch.’

‘Emotional, like I said. You think you’re going to marry Renata,
never
… you’re a liability, Antonio, always have been, always will be.
Ciao
, baby!’

Against the gentle swish of the sea in the darkness of night the gun sounded so loud. Not a crack but a thunderous noise that echoed around the bay. She was so close to it it hurt her ears.

‘Oh my God,’ she thought, ‘Luca … ‘ She squeezed her eyes, waiting for the pain of a bullet to come and rip open her

flesh. It didn’t happen. She felt herself being lifted and then dragged across the sand. Her bare feet met with the stiff grass that dotted the small sand dunes. She was not being dragged to the sea but
away
from it.

The voice called to someone else. Barking out instructions, bring the body, he was saying, or something like that, she could not be certain. Her ears were still ringing with the noise of the shot.

Now there were steps, cold stone against her burning toes. He was heaving a little and must have grown tired of struggling with her down the steps, for he let her go. She bounced and rolled, but there were not that many steps and she landed in a heap at the bottom, her hip banging against a wall of some kind. Moving her feet against the stone she felt at the back of her — it was wood. He had thrown her down the tower; she had to be at the bottom of the stairs by the door that led into the passage to the palazzo. His own steps echoed down to her, but he was going back up to the top. He was not going to shoot her …

Then there was a noise, something else coming down the steps, she tried to move away but it was impossible to do so. Antonio’s body landed in front of her, pushing her further against the door, she was trapped with a dead man blocking any chance of escape.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

‘
Cara …
’ The soft pink light was on, the bed covers disturbed but she was not there, the bed was empty. He went to the bathroom — it was in darkness. Still he switched on the light. He called again, as if she would pop out of a closet and it was a joke, she was hiding from him, teasing him — but Alva would not do something like that.

He went to Renata’s room, quietly opening the door.

Renata was in bed, her light was still on and the television was playing, yet as he went closer to the bed he saw the girl was sleeping deeply.

Racing now along the corridor, he put on all the lights in the palazzo, calling out as he went. A sleepy Claudia came down from her room, wrapped in a huge blue bathrobe.

‘Conte?’

‘My wife, have you seen my wife?’

‘No, Conte, not since dinner … ‘

‘Where is Carlo, find Carlo … quickly.’

Downstairs he ran like a demented man from room to room, servants began to appear and they, too, started to search, calling her name. Guido had thrown on a pair of jeans and little else.

‘Conte?’ He looked anxious. ‘Carlo is not in his room.’

For a moment Luca relaxed: she had gone somewhere with

Carlo. The clock in the hall just then struck the half-hour, he looked at it … it was one-thirty; she would have gone nowhere with Carlo.

‘Get the car … the jeep; we have to go to the port … ’

Guido had the engine started up; as Luca leapt into the jeep Guido sped off down the drive.

In the car, Guido slid something towards him; it felt cold against his hand, the metal hard.

‘You might need it, Conte; I took it from your gun case just in case.’

The gun felt good against his hand. He knew he would use it, if she had been harmed he knew he could kill them and think nothing about it. He could do that, he could do anything. He muttered something to Guido about what they would do but before the man could answer, Luca’s mobile phone shrilled out. They had just reached the port, and leaping from the vehicle, he answered it tersely.

He listened and then, without saying anything, snapped the phone shut. ‘We have to get to the shore,’ he told Guido.

Guido spun the jeep around, its tyres burning up on the paving.

*

Alva tried to roll away; she wriggled and moved but Antonio’s body, growing cold and heavy, had her pinned against the door. She was lying on her stomach; the body was almost on top of her, pressing down against her hips and legs. The bag over her head slackened if she turned her head to the side. She managed to do that, but still as she breathed in, it brushed back against her face.

Drowsiness came and went, she was afraid of it more than anything else. If she fell asleep would she smother? She must not fall asleep. Fighting sleep was difficult because whatever had been in the needle was still in her system, although it was wearing off because she was acutely aware of pain.

In her head she went through poems she knew — trying to remember all the verses was sometimes difficult, so when that happened she moved on to another one. Anything to stop the horror from mounting — she could not face what was happening. That she was trapped at the bottom of the stairs with the dead Antonio pinning her down.

‘I will survive this, it’s not as bad as the sea … I have a chance. I have to stay calm.’

She had reservoirs of mental strength, she realized. She was not a quitter so how was it that she had been so impossibly weakened when she was carrying her child? It was not like her! She was a pick-yourself-up kind of girl, dust off, start over. It would not have brought her down that much, unless, as Luca suspected, someone had been toying with her food. Making her feel ill, giving her something that would make her feel so depressed and cause her to throw up on a daily basis, even when she had supposedly passed the throwing-up weeks. But why? To keep her inside the palazzo? That is what Luca said, keep her from seeing things. Keep her out of — her body jerked with remembrance.

Something was going on, something she did not like and she suspected that Luca knew something about it.

Terrified of confronting him in case he confirmed it, not wanting to know the truth and yet wanting to know
everything
. Of course … that was why …

There was a human sound above the rush of the tide that was now fully in. She knew that — it came close to the steps and now and again a little rush of seawater dripped in. It was a high spring tide; only on the highest tides did the water lap the edges of the fort.

It did not come right over and fill the stairwell — that much she did remember.

She recalled Luca telling her about that when he had first brought her here as his bride. He told her how, when he was a boy, he was playing and was trapped by the tide in the stairwell. The sea was not very deep but he was afraid of wading through it to get off the beach, just in case it was deep, he had crouched on the stairs in terror. It taught him a lesson and he had a respect of the sea and for the tides from that day on.

There it was again, a human sound. She shouted, when she opened her mouth to cry out it was filled with the sacking, its taste causing the bile to rise up in her throat, terrifying her with thoughts of choking on her vomit.

She lay there, listening, feeling hopeless and lost, that they would never find her because who would know to look down these stairs that were, supposedly, never used. Only she knew differently, she remembered they were used by Antonio —
frequently
.

A voice echoed down to her through the dark dampness. ‘Alva … Alva.’

Her cry was merely a whimper — she tried to move her feet to make a noise, but it was impossible. Her feet merely hit the now-stiffened corpse of Antonio.

It was Luca up there, she heard his voice, knew the way he commanded someone. ‘Bring me a torch,’ he shouted.
Torcia
… yes, that was it, it meant torch.
Luca, hear me
, she murmured in her mind.
Look down, Luca, shine the
torcia.
Luca, see me, feel me, and know l am here
.

There was silence now, apart from the rushing tide. Dear God, he had gone, she would never get out of here. He would not come down; he would not wade through the tide, why would he ever expect to find her lying at the bottom of these steps. She would die here; hysteria mounted, she was trembling now, visions of her terrible fate coming in and out of her mind. Starvation, slow and painful, wasting away in this fetid hole with this decaying body holding her down. Dear God, it would be like being buried alive.

But no, she could not let that happen; heaving her body, shaking herself, rocking from side to side she tried to loosen the weight of Antonio. It knocked the breath from her body but she would wait and try again. This time she bucked, lifting her legs from the floor. Somehow her legs were now free, they were between the spread out legs of Antonio. Again, she had to stop, give herself more time to rest before starting again. If she lifted her legs at the knee would it help shift the weight, would it work? What if it didn’t?

It was so dark — if only she could see, if the bag were not on her head … but it was and there was nothing she could do.

What was that noise, a scraping sound, was it an animal? She listened, her body tense. The sound echoed again. It was a footfall. It was a footfall, she was sure it was. Her ears were straining to hear. She started to buck and rock again, bending her legs, hoping there was some sound.

She heard a voice echoing down to her. There were sounds that she could barely distinguish because they were couched in agony and then a wild triumphant cry. ‘Guido, she’s here … I can see her … get down here with me … ’

‘Alva, Alva … ’

She could not move, even as the body was rolled away from her, the pain now ripped through her, the whole length of her skeleton, every bone an aching agony. She could not move.

Light, air, she gasped, then squeezed her eyes shut against the torch that was resting close to her.

‘No,’ she cried as he tried to lift her. ‘Luca, no, a moment … ’

His hands were on her, soothing the pain, massaging the bruised flesh, easing her bones.

‘
Cara
,
cara
, what have I brought you to?
Cara
… ’

Weakly, she indicated she would turn around and slowly her body unwound itself. She managed to stretch out her freed hands and feet. The tight bands had caused the flesh to burn; her trying to free herself had made the rope tear into the skin and there was blood oozing from the open wounds.

‘Don’t talk, not yet,’ he murmured tenderly, now folding her to him. ‘Don’t speak; there,’ he brushed cool finger tips over her lips. ‘Stay still.’

She was aware of Guido, turning over the body of Antonio and uttering curses on the dead man.

‘Leave him there,’ Luca ordered. ‘Let the police deal with it.’

With care and tenderness, Luca helped her up and then, sweeping her up in his arms, he started to mount the stairs. She was aware of him splashing through the rushing tide, the water just above his ankles.

The off-the-road vehicle was parked close by. She wondered if it would sink into the sand and what they would do if it did that. But as she settled on the seat in the back, Luca next to her, Guido started the engine and they moved off. He had put on the seat heater; it felt wonderful against her aching hips, the warmth soothing her spine.

‘He’s dead,’ she said, ‘the other man shot him. He was so callous, the other man, I mean. He said … he said “
ciao
, baby” … just like that. He said other things, too, that Antonio was too emotional, that he killed … that he murdered Rosa.’

*

She knew it would be an ordeal. Expected it and dreaded it and yet at the same time wanted it over with. The commisario was poised and waiting. Something about him intimidated her as if he suspected her of lying or exaggerating.

The story did not grow easier with the telling, first Luca and now this stern policeman. But it had to be done and going through it all again it seemed fanciful and far-fetched. The questions came at her like bullets. Why had Antonio wanted to kill her? What did she know that frightened him so much that he would do such a thing?

He was growing a little impatient with her; as if suspecting she was holding things back. She was and had hoped that he would not notice but he was clever in a cunning fox kind of way.

With a shrug of helplessness she looked at Luca. He took over, he explained about Renata. Alva had not wanted to say anything about that, needing to protect Renata’s reputation. Oddly, the commisario was sympathetic about Renata. He had daughters; he practically shook with disgust when Luca told him what had happened. How Antonio had set about grooming the girl when she was at her most vulnerable. Of course, they knew that now. Renata, shocked by what had happened, at what Antonio had done to her stepmother had told them everything. The fact that he had pushed Alva down the stairs and caused her to lose the baby, the baby that was her half-brother, further motivated Renata to let it all out. He was dead; he no longer was able to exert any evil influence over the girl.

‘So he tried to kill you before … ’

‘I’m not sure, Commisario, whether it was just an action of anger … ’

‘Of course he tried to kill you!’ Luca said. ‘It was no accident. I think you have not remembered fully what it was all about,
cara
, but you will do … one day … ’

‘So … there is a history of something,’ the commisario murmured, ‘but now let us get to the murder of this man. You do not know who the other man was?’

She shook her head; of course, his voice had seemed familiar but she could not be certain. She told the policeman that he sounded a little like the man who had taken her on the boat, but it was not him. Of that she was sure.

‘Perhaps his brother,’ the commisario suggested.

‘I don’t know,’ Alva murmured.

‘But you say he accused Perseli of killing Signora d’Casta?’

‘Perseli?’

‘Antonio, that is his name, Antonio Perseli.’

‘Oh, sorry, I didn’t know. I hadn’t remembered that. He did not accuse him of it, he said it. He said, you are too emotional, and something about trying to kill me and then about killing Rosa … I can’t sort out in my head exactly what was said.’

‘Did he say why?’

Her heart started to throb, she felt her cheeks burn, had she flushed up? It felt like she had.

‘No,’ she lied.

‘You’re sure?’

‘I … I think so — remember I was lying down, the bag over my head, I might have missed something … ’

‘You might have done,’ the commisario said.

‘You sound as if you don’t believe any of it,’ she said, not sure whether she had intended actually to say the words or just keep them in her mind.

‘Of course I believe you, Contessa; I am just concerned that you are telling me everything.’

He stared at her, she returned his stare. Her mind told her, think about Luca, there is no point in knowing what they said about Renata. It would hurt him if he knew that Renata was not his daughter, it would in all probability destroy Renata were she to find out.