The Faces of Angels (9 page)

‘Yeah? Well, not everyone can be as perfect as you! Some people don't have that choice!'

The words come out before I even realize I've said them, fast and harsh, and I feel myself blush, feel the colour rising up under my turtleneck and flooding into my face. The couple and the child have passed us by now, but I watch resolutely until they're swallowed in the crowd, and finally I have no alternative but to look back at Billy.

I don't know what I expect to see. Shame? Some token effort to be contrite? It isn't there. Instead, her eyes are glittering. A tiny smile twitches at the corner of her mouth. The way she's looking at me reminds me uncomfortably of a child who has just lifted up a rock and seen something pale and naked wriggling underneath. Billy opens her mouth and closes it again, silently, like one of the fish. Then she says suddenly, ‘I have always wanted one of these.' She turns towards the jeweller's window immediately beside us. ‘Look.' Billy taps her nail on the glass, pointing to a tray of rings. ‘Don't you think they're absolutely gorgeous?' she asks.

The rings are thin gold bands, intertwined to hold a pair of gemstone hearts, each a different colour. The stones sparkle under the lights, aquamarine and topaz, fire opal and amethyst, garnet and citrine.

‘They're beautiful.' I mumble. And I try to look as if I'm seriously studying the heart rings, instead of watching Billy's reflection in the glass, and the tiny knowing smile that flutters across her lips.

B
Y THE TIME
we arrive at the bar the big mushroom heaters have been turned on. Fairy lights lace through the trees and floodlights hit the blank façade of the church. I comment on how beautiful it is with its Cyclops eye, but Billy just looks at me sideways. A gust of wind comes up as we sit down.

‘The weather,' Kirk announces when he and Henry join us a few minutes later, ‘is supposed to get better.'

‘Oh right! When? In the next millennium? After the current ice age ends?'

The wind has gotten stronger and now, despite the heaters, it is cold. Billy hunches down into her coat, reaches for her wine glass, and shakes her head in disgust. In the half-hour since we left the bridge, she has become progressively snarkier.

I don't know Billy that well, in fact, I barely know her at all, but I'm beginning to suspect she likes a little excitement. Prefers things spiced up. Mixed and stirred. And I think she hoped that after I'd snapped at her on the Ponte Vecchio, I'd wind myself into a real temper tantrum. Perhaps attack her in a wild and illogical fashion for being six foot tall. Maybe she thought I'd burst into tears and declare my unbridled jealousy for her perfect body. Announce that I lusted for her. Or for the woman next door. Who knows? I don't actually think Billy would be picky. But I do think, as I watch her toying with the edge of the ashtray that, for just a second, under that rock, she thought she saw something interesting. Something she might poke with a stick. She was hoping, I think, for some fireworks to light up the night, and now she's sulking because I've really let her down.

The breeze gusts, making the fairy lights dance, and I put my gloves on. One's bright blue and one's bright green, and when he sees them, Henry winks. He has a gigantic scarf wrapped twice around his neck and the end of his nose is red, as though he's either drunk or getting a cold. We could move inside, of course, but there's an unspoken agreement that that would be seriously wimpish, so instead we brave it out. Only Kirk doesn't seem to care about the weather. Wrapped in his black overcoat, his body temperature is apparently static.

‘The clocks go forward next week,' he says, reaching for the bottle of Chianti we've ordered and filling his own glass, then mine and Henry's. ‘So I think we should have a celebration. To mark the official start of summer. Regardless. On Sunday.'

‘What? Put roses in our hair and dance around a maypole?' Billy's drinking white wine, as usual, but she places her hand over the rim of her glass anyways, as if she's afraid Kirk will turn it into rosé.

‘I think Mary would look very fetching with roses in her hair,' Henry says.

‘I'm allergic to roses. They make me sneeze.'

‘Mary, Mary. Quite contrary.' Billy takes out a cigarette, making a big deal of fiddling with the package. Then she says suddenly, ‘Oh I forgot. Something happened today.'

‘What?' Henry asks. ‘The sun rose in the west?'

Billy smiles. She slides her eyes around the table. ‘A priest came to the door,' she says. ‘Of our apartment.'

Kirk raises his eyebrows. ‘And?'

‘Well,' Billy shrugs, lights the cigarette and cups it with her hand. ‘Since he was already inside, I thought he had to be looking for the old lady downstairs.'

Kirk stares at her, waiting. ‘Don't tell me,' he says finally, ‘he wasn't? This sure is a cliffhanger, Bill.'

Billy ignores him. ‘He said he was looking for a Mrs Warren,' she announces.

I have never told Billy my married name, and, suddenly, my mouth feels uncomfortably dry. I reach for my glass and start to ask when this happened, exactly, but I don't get the chance, because Henry is being witty again.

‘That Mrs Warren,' he asks, ‘doesn't she have a profession?'

‘Oh I wouldn't be so Shaw,' Kirk says.

Billy waggles her cigarette at him. ‘I told him I only knew a Mrs Dall-o-way, so he went a-way.'

‘Oh very good. Touche-ay.' Henry raises his glass in a toast.

I don't know what they talk about after that, but I don't talk about anything. I'm too busy wondering how on earth Rinaldo could have figured out where I was. Because it was him. I can feel it. It's as if thinking about him last night conjured him out of thin air and how I practically expect to look up and see him sitting across the square from us, watching me. Smiling. His smooth round face creased like a baby's, sure in the knowledge that at any moment I will get up and come towards him, propelled like a sleepwalker, one of those ladies in Bram Stoker's
Dracula
, pale and driven and begging for forgiveness.

By the time we leave the bar, an hour later, I've worked myself up into a state of barely suppressed fury. I'm convinced that Rinaldo is following us through the streets, and that at any minute he'll pop up like some dreadful priest-in-the-box, and I'll have to explain him to Billy.

She doesn't actually say anything as we walk back, but more than once I catch her watching me out of the corner of her eye. When we finally get in, she makes a big deal of asking me what I want to eat, and ignoring me when I say I'm not hungry. She takes her coat off, flings it down and rootles through the fridge, sighing loudly as she takes things out and puts them back again. I was going to ask her more about Rinaldo, but this performance is driving me crazy, so instead I slip into my room and use my new phone to call Pierangelo.

‘
Pronto
,' he says before it even rings. ‘I was about to call you. I'm on my way home in just a minute.'

‘I knew that,' I say. ‘I'm psychic.'

I have never seen his office at the paper, but I imagine him now, leaning back in his chair, one arm behind his head as he talks, and suddenly Rinaldo and Billy and everything else seem ridiculous.

‘What?' He asks.

I settle for, ‘I'm hungry.' Which is actually true, I just didn't want to give Billy the satisfaction of feeding me.

Pierangelo laughs. ‘So you pick up the Chinese. I'll be home in fifteen minutes. I have to go back to Rome in the morning, early. But,' he adds, ‘that doesn't mean we can't watch the football.'

Football is something of a joke between us. I'm no big fan, admittedly, but Monika banned the watching of matches altogether. No matter how great the club, Real Madrid, Barcelona, even, God forbid, Milan, she decreed it vulgar. As a result, Pierangelo was forced out of the apartment and into the homes of friends, to sports bars, or sometimes even to a hotel, to watch his beloved clubs. Now, he celebrates the absence of
La Tiranna
, the Tyrant, as he calls her, with orgies of Chinese takeout, beer straight from the can and a lot of obscene cheering. We take it in turns to buy the chow mein and egg rolls.

A half-hour later, when I arrive and buzz the intercom, nobody answers, so I figure the match has already started and punch in the security code myself. Piero has never actually given me permission to do this, or explicitly told me what it is, but I'm sure he knows I know it. One of the talents you acquire if you grow up around an accountant is an excellent memory for numbers. Mamaw taught me how to read columns of figures the same way she taught me to read books, and all I have to do is look at a sequence once. I still feel a little funny, though, letting myself into his building like this, so to make up for it, when I get out of the elevator on the top floor, I knock on his apartment door.

There's no answer, and I don't hear fans screaming and frantic Italian commentary, or the sound of Piero's footsteps coming across the living room. Which is weird. Maybe he's in the bathroom. Maybe he isn't even back yet, and I should wait out here. But the food's getting cold and the bags aren't that great. They already feel like the bottom might drop out of them, and I don't want to be stuck with a pile of noodles at my feet, so I figure
What the hell?
And punch myself into the apartment too.

The lights are on, and the first thing I notice is Pierangelo's overcoat thrown across the sofa. So he is here, somewhere. Probably in the shower. I go into the kitchen, study the Ferrari-like stove, turn the oven on to warm, and stick the food in. Then I listen. At first I think I'm hearing the radio, but no, it's Pierangelo's voice, raised and angry and coming from the study.

The apartment is L-shaped, the master bedroom, bathroom and living room in the long front wing, kitchen in the corner, a utility room and hallway leading down the short arm, where the girls' bedrooms look onto the side alley, and, opposite them, Piero's study looks over the inner courtyard. Good manners demand I should go find a magazine, or hang around humming and pretending I can't hear, but I've literally never heard Pierangelo angry before, and I'm curious, so I sidle into the utility room and hover beside the washing machine and linen closet. Then I step into the hall. The study door's ajar, and now I can hear Piero clearly. My Italian has improved, and I get that he's arguing, hard. Something about the police. Then I hear the word
mostro
, monster. There's no answering voice, so he must be on the phone.

‘What do we start if we start this?' he says. ‘This girl, and then after her, how many? I don't know how long you want to cover their asses.'

There's a pause, and I'm not aware of it, but I must have stepped forward, because I can see Piero's shoulders, the back of his head. He senses me, swings his desk chair around, and pulls the door open.

‘Yeah, yeah,' Pierangelo says to whoever he's talking to. His eyes meet mine. ‘I get that,' he adds. ‘I just think it's a lousy idea. We're not in the business of covering up. For anyone.' He listens again for a second and then nods. ‘OK. OK. I do see the point. I just don't agree.' His voice drops, indicating either acquiescence or defeat. ‘Well, fine. But you know what I think,' he adds. ‘
Certo
.
Ciao
.'

Pierangelo puts the phone down and sighs. His eyes are on me, but mine are on the long, polished expanse of his desk. Photos of the girl they found by the Arno, Ginevra Montelleone, are splayed across it like playing cards.

‘She didn't commit suicide, did she?' I ask.

‘No,' he says. ‘No, she did not.'

Pierangelo looks at me for a second. Then he begins to gather up the photos and slide them into an envelope. I feel a sudden wave of irritation.

‘For Christ's sake, Pierangelo! I won't go to pieces, you know!'

He stops, his hands in mid-motion. ‘I know,' he says, ‘it's just—'

He doesn't like talking about this kind of thing with me, and he's not alone. I've noticed this in other people, too. Back home in the States, the ones who didn't want me to write or talk endlessly about what happened to me seemed to feel they couldn't mention the words death, attack, kill, or murder in my presence. Some even struggled over saying knife. I know it was well intended but, frankly, it really pissed me off, just like this is pissing me off now. Between Billy's pop-up priests and Pierangelo suddenly treating me as if I'm made of glass, it's turning out to be a really crappy evening.

‘Look,' I say with more force than is probably strictly necessary, ‘I was attacked two years ago. And it was terrible. But every awful thing that happens to someone else does not threaten my sanity.'

I'm probably glaring at him because he sighs, runs his hands through his hair, and leaves the photos where they are. ‘I'm sorry,' he says. ‘She was murdered.' He waves his hand over the desk. ‘Of course, you can see for yourself.'

And so I do. I step forward, look down at what are obviously copies of Ginevra Montelleone's crime-scene pictures, and see that she wasn't just murdered. She was butchered.

She looks unusually clean, as though she's been washed, which makes the wounds, if you can call them that, even more graphic. Strips of skin have been peeled back from her ribcage. And despite my determination not to, I feel sick.

‘Here,' Pierangelo jumps up from the chair and starts to take my shoulders, but I push him away. I can't stop looking at her.

‘What's that?' I point towards Ginevra's white naked shoulder, which is partially covered by her hair. Long and dark, it looks as if it's been combed, and in the midst of it, above her naked breast, there is a lump, something bulging. Pierangelo picks up the photograph.

‘
Una borsa di seta rossa.
' His voice sounds flat and tired.