The Faces of Angels (51 page)

We stop at the lights after the bridge, then Isabella steps on the accelerator and jerks forward, taking a wrong turn. As I start to protest, she looks at me and smiles.

‘Don't worry,' she says, ‘this is a short cut.'

I have rarely driven in the city, and she's a native, but it seems to me, as we plunge into the maze of alleys and one-way streets that run from the river towards the station, that we're going in the wrong direction. Isabella turns, and turns again, and I realize I'm lost. Behind me Fonzi shifts, the fug of his breath hot on my neck.

Somewhere to our right are the fancy shops and bijoux restaurants of Via Tornabuoni—Prada, Gucci, the works—but Florence can change fast, parallel cities live alongside each other, and this area's seedy. The streets are like canyons, tall, dark and dirty. We pass a hotel with a flashing neon sign and Isabella honks at something small and dark that scuttles in the road. ‘Rat,' she says.

My shirt is sticking against the back of the plastic seat, and I blot my palms on my jeans. My scars itch, and the dog's breath smells. I'm actually afraid I might be sick. Under my bag, I inch my fingers towards the seat-belt buckle. I don't care. When this car stops, I'm going to open the door. If I have to, I'll jump.

Isabella shifts, and we burst out of an alley and are at Santa Maria Novella. She swears at a pedestrian. The buckle clicks under my fingers. Then she slams to a halt in front of a crosswalk and I scrabble for the door handle.

‘It sticks.'

I feel my skin turning red and hot. Our eyes meet and Isabella smiles. ‘What, Mary?' she asks. ‘Did you really think I was kidnapping you?'

Isabella looks at me for a second as cars pull up and stop on either side of us. ‘It's all right,' she says finally. ‘It's what happens. You end up afraid of everyone. And everything.'

She gives a little smile. ‘You'll get used to it,' she says.

S
IGNORA BARDINO IS PLANNING
what she calls a ‘Remembrance' for Billy. I find out about this the next morning when Henry calls and asks if I want to meet for lunch at the bar. When I tell him I can't, he sounds genuinely sorry. He says he needs my help to stop the Remembrance ‘getting out of hand', as though it's a riot, or an unruly child. ‘Things are dicey,' he explains. ‘Ellen's threatening to recite Elizabeth Barrett Browning.'

‘Oh dear.'

‘Billy would hate it,' says Henry. I have to agree. ‘How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways' was really not her kind of thing.

We talk a little more about nothing in particular, skirting around the mention of Kirk's name, until finally I can't stand it any more. Isabella's probably right, indiscriminate fear is like an infection, and possibly I overreacted, but I can't forgive him for hitting me. Eventually I just blurt it out.

‘Kirk hit me,' I say abruptly. ‘At the apartment, before you came the other day. That's how the chair got broken. He has a pretty bad temper, you know. He scared the crap out of me.'

There's a silence on the other end of the phone, then Henry says, ‘I know. He told me.' I can almost see him pushing his glasses up his nose, preparing himself for whatever he's going to say next. I wait and finger the sore place on my jaw.

‘You know he's full of shit, don't you?' Henry says finally. ‘About this being your fault? He's only saying that because he's angry with himself. He thinks somehow he didn't take care of her. That he could have stopped this from happening. So he blames you. He has to blame somebody. Or maybe everybody. Mostly Billy.'

‘Billy?' She didn't even love him. And she certainly didn't belong to him. She wasn't his to keep, like a pet or a toy.

‘Sure,' Henry is saying. ‘For being dead. Rational beings that we are, we hate the people we love when they leave us. Even if it's not their fault.' I don't say anything, but I think that if he tells me love and hate are really the same thing, I may scream.

‘Kirk thinks if he hadn't fought with her that night, this wouldn't have happened,' Henry adds.

‘Well, maybe he's right.'

My patience is fraying. Back in the real world, I'm tempted to say, Billy is dead, and it isn't her fault, and, guess what? Our actions do have consequences.

Henry doesn't reply right away. He wants it all to be simple, to fit into nice black and white squares like a crossword. Kirk's anger is just guilt. I have nothing to answer for. The only person responsible for Billy's death is the one who wielded the knife. Everything can be neatly explained, and we are all absolved. Amen.

Finally he says. ‘That's not all, is it? It's not just the fact that he hit you that bugs you?'

Bugs me
? What bugs me, I feel like shouting, is that women are being snatched. And tied up. And really hot things, cigarette butts, pieces of metal, are being put on their naked flesh before they're killed. That's what ‘bugs me.' But I can't. I'm not even supposed to know about Billy's autopsy, about what really happened to her. And besides, there's no real point in picking a fight with Henry. He's just trying to help. Anyways, he's right, there is something else. And I probably shouldn't talk about it either, but I'm going to.

‘When Billy was found,' I say, ‘she had her ring on, the one Kirk gave her, with the two hearts. But when they had that fight, in the piazza, she took it off and threw it at him. I saw her. And I saw him pick it up afterwards. He put it in his pocket.'

Henry sighs, as if he knew this was going to come up, and even finds it vaguely tiresome. ‘Kirk also told me that he gave the ring back to her,' he says. ‘He says he wrote a note and stuck them both in an envelope and dropped it off in the apartment, last Monday, after she didn't answer the phone.'

I did go to the apartment last Monday, before we went to Vinci, back when the world was still normal, but I didn't see an envelope, or a note. If they were in Billy's things the police could have taken them away, of course. They probably did. But Pallioti didn't mention it.

‘Do you believe him?'

It's a mean question—after all, Henry and Kirk are friends—but I have to ask it, and to my surprise, instead of defending Kirk outright, Henry weighs it up.

‘I guess,' he says finally, after a few seconds. ‘Yes. Probably. Kirk's competitive. You know, “I'm going to give you this whether you want it or not.” And he didn't want to be rejected. Just like the rest of the world. That's pretty normal, don't you think?'

Now it's my turn to say, ‘I guess.' But what I'm really wondering is what else Kirk tried to give her that she didn't want to accept.

Henry's obviously eager to change the subject by now, and the conversation drivels on for a few more minutes. He tells me that the Japanese girls have decided to leave the course early. They'll stay for Billy's service and then they're going to the Amalfi coast because it's safer than Florence. Henry pointed out that that's only true if you don't drive, but he didn't think they got it.

After we hang up, the conversation leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I can't decide whether it's because I'm annoyed with Henry for finding neat little reasons why nothing is anybody's fault, which I guess is his job, or because I lied to Pierangelo again this morning. It was easy, just like lying to Henry about not being able to come to lunch. I did that to save his feelings, of course. I could have gone to lunch, but there's something I want to do more and I tell myself I'm doing the same thing with Pierangelo. Saving his feelings. Yesterday I told him I went to a lecture, on Classicism. And reassured myself it was for his own good. Saving him worry. Just like when I said we'd have to wait until this afternoon to meet at Signora Bardino's apartment to collect my suitcases because I am meeting Tony and Ellen at San Marco this morning. Which is completely ridiculous. An outand-out lie. What I am actually doing this morning is going to see Gabriel Fabbiacelli.

Eleanora Darnelli's lover is doing a restoration job at a monastery up in San Felice. I know this because his mama told me. Pierangelo has the phone number in his notes, and when I called early this morning I said I was a ‘friend from America.' Mamas always fall for that one. They like their little boys to have friends, and on the whole they approve of American girls, I'm not sure why. Maybe it's a sort of benevolent hangover from Grace Kelly. They think we're all clean and blonde.

San Felice is in the hills to the south of the city, and by the time I finally get there I'm afraid Gabriel will have taken a break, gone out for coffee or quit for an early lunch. The place appears to be deserted. As I come through the open gates and cross the courtyard I catch a glimpse of the chapel. Inside what looks as though it may possibly be a Giotto crucifix hangs above the altar, and I stop to admire it, unable to resist stepping into the nave, making my way past the shadowed flowers and pamphlets about missions in Africa, and standing for a moment in front of the lithe, golden-haired Christ. His wounds ooze, his halo shines. Above him in her nest, a pelican feeds her young, while beside him, his mother folds her hands and weeps. A car goes by. I hear the revving engine of a scooter or motorcycle, a slice of voices behind me as the door opens and closes. There is the familiar rustle of someone slipping into a pew, and I don't have to glance back to see them crossing themselves, or know that they're muttering the familiar words, ‘Father, forgive me for I have sinned.' When I go back down the aisle, the shape is nothing but a hunched shadow in the corner, one more human soul begging for redemption.

Outside, the sun is momentarily blinding. It's so warm I don't even need my jacket. I follow my nose into the shadows of the cloister and, sure enough, I find Gabriel right where his mama said he'd be, high up on a scaffold among the angels he's named for.

Dark and lithe, with wild Italian curls and honey-coloured skin, he has a familiar quality. Pierangelo might have looked like this when he was younger. Gabriel Fabbiacelli is wearing paint-spattered khaki trousers and a blue denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and I wonder if this is how Eleanora first saw him, crouched like an overgrown faun, high up on his platform with a brush in his hand. When he finally senses me and turns to look, his eyes are almond-shaped, long-lashed and almost as blue as Billy's.

‘You're late, American lady,' he says in Italian, and I must look surprised because he laughs and adds, ‘My mama.' Gabriel pats his pocket. ‘These days,' he says, ‘even archangels have cell phones.'

He puts his brush down, wipes his hands on a cloth and climbs down the scaffolding to offer me his hand. ‘I'm sorry I don't speak your language, Signora—'

‘Thorcroft. I wish I spoke yours better.'

His grip is firm and warm, and as he lets go I decide that the best thing I can do is tell him the truth. ‘I'm not an old friend you've forgotten,' I say.

‘That's too bad.' A smile crosses his face, the reflection of it catching his eyes.

‘To be honest, I want to talk to you about Eleanora Darnelli.'

The words are hesitant, even though I try not to let them sound that way, but if what I've said surprises Gabriel, or distresses him, he doesn't show it. He doesn't even stop smiling. Instead, he just inclines his head, gracefully, almost a little bow.

‘Nothing makes me happier,' he says, ‘than to talk about Eleanora. Shall we walk?' He takes my elbow gently, guiding me up the cloister. ‘Are you a journalist?' he asks.

‘No. No, not really.'

He looks at me sideways, but doesn't say anything. The silence stretches out, measured in the beats of our footsteps as we move slowly past the arches, light and dark playing on the faded paintings on the walls beside us. Gabriel doesn't rush me, and finally I say, ‘Two years ago, I was attacked by the same man who killed Eleanora.'

‘Indrizzio?'

I nod. ‘My husband tried to save me, and he was killed. I think instead of me. I don't know, maybe you read about it. Anyways, I was lucky.'

He glances at me. ‘Or it wasn't your time.'

I smile. Put it however you want: Chaos or grand design. ‘God has something else in mind for you,' Gabriel says.

‘Maybe.' This is the kind of thing Mamaw would have said, and if nothing else, the familiarity is comforting.

‘Anyways,' I go on, leaving the divine aside, ‘the reason I've come is that a woman I knew was killed last week.' I'm getting good at this now. It's almost like a routine.

‘I'm sorry.'

‘Thank you.'

I stop and look at him. Serenity is a word that's frequently misused but, in Gabriel Fabbiacelli's case, it's appropriate. It's not just his beauty, which is undeniable, there's something else about him, a stillness. He looks back at me without questioning, just waiting to hear what it is that I have to say.