Steve lay flat on his back in the large matrimoniale of their safe house, Jeanne Barbet’s flat for holiday-makers. He was fast asleep. Kate, propped up on pillows, watching him, wasn’t surprised that he was exhausted; merely grasping the chain of events which had taken place since the discovery of the letter would have been enough to exhaust anybody, quite apart from the rest of an unusually busy day. In sleep he looked boyish, life’s lines of tension and determination smoothed away.
Naturally everything had changed between them. She had called for him, and he had come eight hundred miles to help her. Their meeting, their embrace under the sympathetic but watchful eyes of Françoise and her sister, had been oddly formal and, left alone together, they had not, as in the past, hurled themselves on to the bed, locked together. Something in both of them said, ‘There’s time. Things are different now.’
Kate had realized, even as she was telling him her story, and most of Daniel’s too, that the journey to Corsica, the bizarre results of it, her asking for his help and his so readily giving it, had in some way eased her away from the old life; it seemed inconceivable that she would ever return to Hill Manor, and inconceivable that she had not realized straightaway that somehow or other her future lay with this man.
Their lovemaking, when finally they came to it, provided further proof: so gentle, so natural, so sure of itself, and so satisfying. ‘See?’ it appeared to be saying, ‘you’re made for one another. I told you at your first meeting, and you’ve been fighting against me ever since. Don’t worry, human beings have always been fools.’
She pulled the pillows down to the horizontal and let her body lie against his. He muttered, turned on his side and put an arm over her. Her last thought before she too slept was, ‘Tomorrow we’ll be in Italy.’
Steve, having fallen asleep first, woke up first, still entangled in a dream which was more than half a memory. There had been a time, at school, when teenage fashion suddenly dictated black. Everybody appeared in black. But he had no money to spend on clothes and had continued to wear his old jeans, suffering the usual merciless mockery because of it. Then the idea had come to him; he possessed a pair of white jeans, and a white shirt, and an old pair of white shoes which he cleaned up; and so, next day, turned up all in white. His contemporaries were too astounded for mockery, and he, looking like some ad for washing-powder, had turned on them laughing, calling them a lot of mouldy old crows, asking them where the funeral was. It didn’t change the fashion—only fashion does that—but it shut their mouths, and he learned a lesson which had served him well ever since: if you can’t join ’em, beat ’em.
He turned to look at Kate beside him, silky hair tousled on the pillow, dark lashes flickering a little on the smooth cheeks. One breast lay outside the bedclothes; he kissed it gently, not wanting to wake her.
What a story! Dead dogs being thrown through windows, and that crippled brother trapped, alone in a forest miles from anywhere, and all because some powerful, obviously deranged berk had ordered intimidation by dog-slaughter and car-burning. Perhaps you should expect such Gothic antics once you started defying the moneyed classes, let alone the semi-aristocratic ones. Well, Steve knew a great deal about that little lot; had spent half his business life learning how not to be rude to them, whatever the provocation, while at the same time hoodwinking them in every possible way.
For their part, they’d seldom missed an opportunity to let him know that they considered him a common and pushy upstart, if quite bright. As a result he had no respect for them whatever. Come to think of it, if Kate needed help against the Upper-Middles, with all their constipated shibboleths, she could scarcely have summoned a more knowledgeable or relentless ally. It would be a positive pleasure to trip this overbearing bully-boy, Mark Ackland, and rub his nose in it.
He was still a little surprised by his own unquestioning acceptance of Kate’s appeal. He could easily have said, ‘But I’m leaving for New York tomorrow,’ it would have been the truth. He was amazed he hadn’t said it, and in that moment he’d realized, as Kate had realized upon their reunion in this room, that it was useless to pretend they could exist apart from each other. If Steve Callender, of all people, could for one moment risk his career for another person, then that other person had to be momentously important.
Not that in the end he was taking too much of a risk anyway, provided he could be back in London within five days, six maximum. Maddon, one of his juniors, had been about to depart for Turin; to his delight he’d found the trip switched to New York. Steve had explained to the managing director that there might be trouble with Guido Amari, who was getting too big for his boots: he wasn’t sure Maddon could deal with Signor Amari, and proposed to go himself. So, somehow or other, if Kate’s adventures allowed, or even if they didn’t, he must spend at least a day in Turin.
Looking at her now, so childishly vulnerable in sleep, he was amazed all over again that she’d embarked on this dangerous quest merely because she hoped it would lead to money which might be used to cure her brother’s disability. Very few men or women in the world he inhabited were capable of such loyalty and unselfishness. Added to these virtues was, he’d been surprised to find, a tough acerbity which would drive her to defy her Uncle Mark to the very end, no matter what form that took. Quite a girl! It seemed to Steve that they might go far together.
Both Françoise and Anna came down to the ferry to see them off: an odd pair, one so tall, blonde, untidily elegant, with those sombre dark eyes, the other so small, with black Spanish hair standing out in a frizz around her pretty face. Anna had brought a bottle of good French cognac as a gift from herself and some of ‘the boys’ from the l’Oasis, those with a spare franc or two in their pockets. They must not on any account, she said, drink Italian brandy which would rot their stomachs.
‘Perhaps,’ said Françoise with the rare and surprising smile which so transformed her austere good looks, ‘you will come and spend a holiday near Bastia. Perhaps even your honeymoon. I will find you the perfect little place to stay.’
Kate shied away from the word ‘honeymoon’, but Steve, at his engaging best, replied, ‘Why not?’
‘And take care of her,’ added Françoise, ‘or some of my customers will not be pleased.’
Steve, who had seen the customers in question on his arrival the night before, assured her that he wouldn’t like to displease any of them.
And so they sailed for Italy.
After a good deal of thought Daniel telephoned Booth, Howard and Lord, Solicitors, of Bournemouth and asked if he might speak to Andrew Howard. He was kept waiting, but then Andrew was the kind of man who would keep everybody waiting as a matter of principle; he wasn’t yet successful or rich enough to eschew this small man’s gambit, and probably never would be.
‘Howard here.’
‘This is Daniel Ackland. We met outside your mother’s house, you may remember.’
‘I most certainly do.’
‘I’ve been thinking about that meeting, Mr Howard.’
‘I’m glad to hear it.’
‘We consulted our solicitor, and you were perfectly wrong in claiming the letter belonged to your mother because she wrote it. That would have been the case before it was posted and delivered, after which it became our grandmother’s property—but I’m sure you know that.’
‘Well …’ Faint but unmistakeable sound of a lawyer climbing down. ‘I was … upset, you know how it is.’
‘The point is that it struck my sister and myself that we really have no use for the letter, it’s not even of any sentimental value …’
Faint sound now of breath being inhaled and held.
‘… and as you seemed so keen to get hold of it, we thought we might hand it over to you.’
‘That would be generous of you, Mr Ackland.’
Daniel had hitherto doubted Kate’s contention that this man intended to use the letter to blackmail Uncle Mark; he almost wished he was really going to let Andrew Howard have the thing; on the other hand, he and Kate might yet use it to deliver a much harder and dirtier blow. He said, ‘I’m staying with friends in London at the moment. I believe you come up from time to time.’
‘Frequently.’
‘So I thought perhaps we could meet and I could hand the letter over to you. I don’t like the idea of sending it through the post.’
‘No, no. A meeting would be far better.’
‘What day would suit you?’
‘The sooner the … I see from my diary I’ve rather a busy week, but I’m free tomorrow. Why don’t you have lunch with me?’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t manage lunch. How about a drink beforehand?’ He was thinking of Rosemary Howard’s rest from two until four p.m.; he would have to visit her in the morning.’
‘Perfect. Let’s make it … twelve o’clock at the Savoy.’
‘That’ll be fine.’
They bade each other a cordial farewell.
Midday in the Strand. Even if Andrew Howard travelled by train his journey would take over two hours, and at a rough guess he could be relied upon to arrive half an hour before their meeting. Add half an hour, at least, of irritated waiting when Daniel didn’t appear; say an hour wasted in London, probably much more, followed by another two-hour journey home. That gave a minimum of five and a half hours: more if the pompous clown decided to drive in his expensive car; in any case, Daniel wanted no more than an hour’s conversation with Mrs Howard.
He would now check train times, and as soon as Andrew was out of the way tomorrow morning he’d ring The Pines for an appointment. He had no idea what he expected to discover; but he was sure there were treasures buried there and, with luck, he might turn up a diamond or two.
Kate and Steve arrived in Italy at lunch-time after what seemed an interminable crossing. They rented a car from Hertz, a small blue Fiat, and drove straight to the Hotel Bobbio in La Spezia, as recommended by Françoise. During their voyage they had discussed in detail the time and money at their disposal, coming to the conclusion that they could afford to waste neither. Therefore Kate immediately rang Cousin Julia at the telephone number given to her by Netta; she didn’t expect to find her at home and, even if she was, didn’t want to interrupt the sacred siesta. ‘Siesta!’ cried Julia on a burst of laughter. ‘Oh my God, you will see!’
What they saw, after finding the place with some difficulty—it lay at the edge of the town—was children. Julia had five of her own in evidence, which, since she must have been about forty, meant other older ones elsewhere; she was also minding another four belonging to a neighbour. Bedlam, rather than siesta, was the order of the day.
Netta’s cousin was an attractive woman, fleshy, even voluptuous, with dyed red hair and a laughing face. Since she wore nothing but a flowered cotton shift, a great deal of the flesh was on show, including, from time to time and depending how fiercely one or another of the young ones was mauling her, a pair of fine breasts. But there was nothing coquettish in this; she took her ample body for granted, and since she found it the most natural thing in the world, which after all it was, the occasional disclosure of it became natural too.
Her little box of a house, cheek by jowl with a couple of dozen others, would in a Northern climate have been deeply depressing, but few things are depressing in brilliant sunshine under an Italian sky; they had moved here, she explained, because her husband worked at the cement factory, an ugly collection of concrete slabs which dominated the area.
Obviously she had an eye for an attractive man, insisting that Steve, with his black hair and eyes and dark complexion, must be Italian. His inability to speak more than a few words of her language amused her greatly, and, winking at Kate, she proceeded to call him by several ripe and suggestive nicknames. It was impossible not to like Julia.
Opening a bottle of Valpolicella and brushing aside children, she explained that Netta had indeed telephoned her last night, as she’d told Kate she might. ‘So you’re interested in Signor and Signora Acklan’, eh?’
Kate replied, ‘Yes. It’s a … rather complicated family matter: they’re my uncle and aunt.’
Julia smiled over her wine. ‘Netta told me not to ask awkward questions, so I won’t.’
‘It was a long time ago you worked for them,’ suggested Steve, haltingly. ‘Perhaps you remember little.’
‘Oh no, Signor Handsome, I remember everything.’ She sighed. ‘It was the last work of that kind I did. I enjoyed it, I enjoyed having a finger in other people’s pies. More interesting than having babies and cooking.’
Kate said, ‘There were just the two of them?’
‘And the little boy when he was born.’ The dark eyes had suddenly become sharp. ‘Why? How many did you expect?’
‘Well …’ Kate shrugged. ‘At one time I believe they were travelling with a third person.’
‘Yes, they were.’
‘For some time perhaps.’
Julia nodded. ‘I too got that impression. Many months.’
‘I don’t know if it was a man or a woman.’
‘It was a man …’
Kate and Steve exchanged a glance.
‘… but he never came here, to La Spezia.’
‘Then how do you know … ?’
Julia gave her great laugh. ‘Signorina, if you don’t ask me how I know, I won’t ask you why you ask such questions. In those days I was a mad bad girl. I kept my ears open, and my eyes. Enough?’
‘Enough. Then this man stayed at … at the place where they’d lived before they came here.’
‘He had no choice, he died there.’ And, while Kate was still staring in surprise, ‘I saw them set off for the funeral.’
‘Julia, where was this place?’
‘I don’t know, they never spoke of it. Strange, uh? They spoke of everything else when I was around, but never of that place, and only once of that man.’
‘Do you think it was near here?’
‘Yes, I do. Because they went to the funeral in a big black car with a chauffeur. They had money, I know, but to have gone far in a thing like that would have cost the earth. One would take the train or fly, and have the big car meet one. Yes?’
‘Yes, of course.’
Steve tried again. ‘You said they speak once of the man?’
‘Ah, you’re coming along, but not “speak”, “spoke”.’ And then, frowning: ‘I couldn’t understand them. You know how it is—if you don’t understand what’s going on, the subject, words have no meaning. She said something like, “Mark, he wanted to die. I’d have felt the same, wouldn’t you?”—something like that.’ She paused and looked into her wine, drank it and added, ‘I think the man who died was her lover.’ And when Kate glanced up sharply: ‘Now that’s a guess. I know nothing, I heard nothing, but women … You know it yourself, there are certain things one senses.’
She picked up a small girl, disentangled her clinging arms and put her on the floor with a light spank on the bare bottom to indicate ‘Off!’ Then said, ‘Also, you see, the funeral was only a few days after they’d come to San Matteo—that was the name of the villa, and I hadn’t got used to their ways.’
‘A few days! I’m surprised you were there yourself—I mean, they’d hardly had time to employ you.’
‘I was there when they arrived, the owner kept me on when she left. They weren’t the first of her tenants I’d looked after—but they were the most strange, that’s why I remember them so clearly.’
In English, Steve said to Kate, ‘They must have left this first place very soon after the other guy’s death.’ Kate translated. Julia shrugged. ‘I don’t know. If the … the dead one was her lover, the husband could have taken her away, men do things like that. Also … I shouldn’t say this—I can see Netta’s face, she thinks I’m shocking—but I thought then that perhaps this other man, not Signor Mark, was the father of the little boy. Ah, will God forgive me for saying such things? I confess it often enough, my confessor doesn’t seem to mind.’
‘Probably enjoys it,’ said Steve, grinning.
‘All right, I will say this too—Signor and Signora Acklan’ came here to escape from the other place. They were … awkward, how do you say it?’
‘Ill at ease.’
‘Yes. All the time they were at San Matteo. And then, only three weeks after the boy was born what do they do?’
‘Corsica.’
‘Again escaping.’
‘So how long did they stay at La Spezia in all?’
‘Six weeks, no more.’
Kate was shaking her head in bewilderment.
‘Just enough time to pick up my Netta and they were gone.’
‘But Julia, why?’
‘I told you, they were afraid. And that’s another guess, I’m a wicked woman. You ask me, I say what I think—God gave us brains, didn’t he? Listen, I will tell you. My husband’s brother is a stupid fellow, always in trouble with the carabinieri. Once he stayed here in this house, hiding, for three days. It was the same feeling at the Villa San Matteo—hiding, escaping, fear.’ She raised both hands and let them fall again.
Kate said, ‘This place where they lived before they came to La Spezia, we have to find it.’ She knew that the urgency in her voice was not lost on the other woman, and had no doubt that her husband would be entertained to a fine, mysterious story when he came back from work.
‘There are a thousand small towns, villages in the hills of Liguria, a hundred within a few miles of La Spezia …’
It was the name ‘Liguria’ that touched something in Kate’s memory, but at the moment she couldn’t grasp it. She said, ‘Julia, there must be some small clue, something they said.’
Julia frowned and thought for a while. ‘Yes, they … they spoke of a contessa. More than once.’
‘Spoke of her in what way?’
‘Now you remind me, I … I thought that perhaps the house they’d lived in, before coming here, was owned by this contessa, just as Villa San Matteo was owned by a doctor and his wife. A letter came one day when I was cleaning windows, and Signora Acklan’ says to him, “It’s from the contessa. Apparently we owe her for the telephone,” something like that, I forget. Telephone or perhaps electricity.’
Liguria, Kate was thinking, Liguria?
It came to her in the car when, having thanked Julia and said goodbye to swarming children, they were trying to find their way back into town. She and Daniel had been talking to Rosemary Howard in Bournemouth, and the old lady had spoken of Liguria: ‘Gerald and I loved Italy, particularly Liguria.’ And then her sudden remark about the ménage-à-trois had diverted them both, and while they were pursuing an explanation which wasn’t forthcoming she had specified some village. Her voice sounded again in Kate’s memory: ‘Are you sure it was Corsica? I thought Italy, I’m sure Lydia mentioned …’ Yes, there had been a village, perhaps two villages, and Kate could recall neither of them. But according to Rosemary, their grandmother had actually named them in connection with what she had discovered about Mark: about Mark having cheated their father out of ‘a lot of money, a very considerable sum’.
Somehow or other all the threads seemed to be drawn together at this unknown point not too far from where they now were: Mark and Helen Ackland—old Lydia’s suspicions which may have been fatal—Rosemary Howard’s muddled, or possibly mock-muddled memories—a contessa who was owed for a telephone bill—a maid who saw and heard too much—a man who had died and whose funeral Mark and Helen had attended—their retreat to this town and their further retreat to Cortiano—all, all drawn together at a village with a name Kate could not remember.
Daniel was the one with the memory, and Daniel also made notes. She prayed that he’d done so after they’d left The Pines, seen off the premises by a rude and angry Andrew Howard. She would ring him as soon as possible.
Steve, who had been lost in thought, or perhaps merely lost in the maze of one-way streets which blocked any approach to their hotel, said, ‘What were they scared of? Why were they hiding? You don’t suppose they’d killed the other man?’
‘I don’t know. If he really was Helen’s lover …’
‘Is Mark the jealous type? He sounds it.’
‘But they’d been travelling around with this man for a long time—they must have been great friends.’
‘Something funny happened at the contessa’s house. If Julia’s right and that’s where they’d been living.’
Kate nodded. ‘It’s there, Steve, I’m sure of it—all there.’
‘Ah, but all where?’
‘I’ve an idea Daniel can tell us, if we ever get to a phone. Haven’t we been down this street before?’
‘We’ve been down this street, dear Kate, three times, this is the fourth.’
When they finally reached the calm of their room at the Hotel Bobbio, Kate immediately telephoned Daniel at the Woolpack. Tom Duff answered and called him at once; he laughed when he heard his sister’s inquiry. ‘Funny you should ask—I’m going back to see Rosemary tomorrow.’
‘What about filthy Andrew?’
‘I’ve arranged for him to be elsewhere. And of course I made a note of what the old girl said, I make a note of everything. Hang on a sec.’ The sound of rustling pages. ‘Sleeping dogs lie … all the past had been forgotten long ago … Ah! She said, “I’m sure Lydia mentioned Lasetto or Lazzetta, something like that.”’
Kate wrote down the two names, at the same time asking, ‘Are you all right? No more trouble with Uncle Mark?’
‘Doesn’t know where to find me, does he? Let’s hope he doesn’t know where to find you, either.’
‘He can’t, not that quickly.’ She wished him luck in Bournemouth, he wished her luck in Lasetto or Lazzetta.
Steve spent ten minutes at the porter’s desk and came back with the answer on a slip of paper. ‘No Lasetto around here. Lazzetta is about twenty-five miles away up in the hills, near a place called San Pietro Vara.’
She hugged him excitedly. ‘It’s only four o’clock, we can go there now.’
‘Bit late for dropping in on people.’
‘But we can find out if it’s the right place—if they were really there. Perhaps we can even discover where they stayed.’ And, sensing slight reluctance: ‘Steve, this could be the answer to the whole thing, we must know.’
Steve, who had been thinking more in terms of a comfortable half-hour with his feet up on the bed, next to hers naturally, could only capitulate, laughing at the excitement. He hoped that when they got to this place she wouldn’t find rows of shaking heads and hands outspread in incomprehension.
Lazzetta may have been only twenty-five miles away, but reaching it was no easy matter. In the first place they found themselves funnelled on to the autostrada when their intention had been to pass under it; so there they were, trapped amid tons of hurtling metal and going in the wrong direction. Moreover, there was no escape for some thirty miles, at Sestri Levante. But in the end this didn’t turn out to be quite the disaster it seemed, for the little town of San Pietro Vara, their point of reference, was actually nearer to Sestri than to La Spezia.
It was one of those still evenings, golden yet glittering, which the Mediterranean only produces in spring, and as they ascended out of the dark pine woods they came to a barer, more ancient-seeming landscape, scattered with terraces of olive and vine and narrow strips of agriculture. But when Lazzetta came in sight, sprawling down a hillside in the late afternoon sunlight, it was a complete surprise to them: not the crumbling peasant village they’d been expecting, but a small town, very neat and orderly, with its own police station and an absurd fin-de-siècle town hall, fallen into disrepair. The wide main street was lined with plane trees, already in full leaf, and the piazza at the end of it sported a wondrously involved fountain: mermaids and tritons and a buxom lady, Venus perhaps, rising from their midst; this dated from the period of the town hall and was unfortunately just as abandoned; it was also waterless.
In fact, the fountain was symbolic, for this had once been known as Lazzetta Terme, one of those diminutive spas so dear to the Italian heart. The deserted town hall, the empty fountain, as well as the leafy boulevard, the spa itself, a ruined grand hotel and a handful of imposing villas were all that remained of the terme because the spring of mineral water had suddenly and for no known reason dried up.
This much Kate and Steve learned from a friendly waiter who served them cappuccino outside the determinedly named Café Fontana, but when it came to the existence of a villa owned, some years ago perhaps, by a contessa he was less informative; he wasn’t, he said, a local man, why didn’t they ask at the police station, give the lazy so-and-so’s something to do for a change?
A young carabiniere, very aware of how handsome he looked in his immaculate uniform, was inclined to be flirtatious, quickly realizing that Steve spoke very little Italian and that the pretty girl spoke it fluently. The waiter, he implied, was a mere peasant who had better get back to his goats. Anyone of any intelligence in Lazzetta knew that Il Campanile belonged to the Conte and Contessa Pilati Castalda. Yes, for many years they had rented it to various visitors, but now they were old they’d come to live there themselves. What, he added, might be the signorina’s interest? Kate replied that her uncle and aunt had once been the contessa’s tenants. ‘Ah!’ he said, and reached for a massive tome, blowing the dust off it. ‘Now, if the signorina will just give me their name?’
Kate laughed. ‘It was years ago, fifteen years perhaps—there can’t be a record of it.’
‘We are highly efficient,’ he replied sardonically with a flash of fine teeth. ‘Besides, you’d be amazed how few foreign visitors come to Lazzetta Terme.’
‘They were called Ackland.’ Kate was by now quite intrigued to discover whether Mark and Helen had ever been registered as residents. They had indeed, and only three pages back: two pages, presumably, per decade. Unfortunately he was already closing the book when Kate realized that there was another name written under the two Acklands; it could belong to no one except the mysterious third member of the ménage-à-trois, and she had missed it. For a second she was on the point of asking him to reopen the book and show her, but he was now putting it back on its shelf, and also something warned her that too great a show of curiosity might be a mistake. Glancing at her face, he said, ‘For further information you’d better apply to the contessa herself.’
Kate’s growing excitement might have led her to apply there and then, but Steve now put his foot down firmly. It was six-thirty, and both the lady and her husband were old, they were going to be left alone.
‘But,’ protested Kate, ‘I can ring them, can’t I? Make a date to see them tomorrow.’
Steve could hardly object to this, so they went back to the Café Fontana, ordered Campari-sodas, and Kate retired to the telephone. When she returned, the blue-grey eyes were no longer brilliant with excitement. Steve said, ‘They won’t see us? They’re not there?’
She shook her head. ‘No, she’d love to see us—any time after nine-thirty tomorrow, they’re early risers. We settled on nine-forty-five. She has a thing about the English; I suppose she’s old enough to think of us as we used to be.’
‘Then what’s the matter?’
Kate sat down and took his hand. ‘Steve, it’s all going so well.’
‘I don’t call dead dogs and setting fire to …’
She waved this aside. ‘I mean finding Netta. And then Julia. And now, tracing this villa so easily …’
Steve laughed. ‘But life isn’t difficult if you go for it—attack it head-on.’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Then you should be, you’re the living proof of it—we both are.’ He picked up the hand and kissed it. ‘But you have to do the doing. Ninety per cent of people think life is just sitting on their fat bottoms waiting for things to happen. And of course nothing does happen, why should it, so they just die without having been alive.’
‘I bet Daniel would have a quotation to fit that one.’
‘He’s a doer all right. How about that cross-country trip in a wheelchair?’
Kate smiled. ‘I don’t know. When things go smoothly I always feel uneasy—as if something dire is going to happen.’
‘Sure. And something dire often does. So what?’
It seemed the most unexpected time and place for certainty to strike her, but she had waited for it a long time and had always known she’d recognize it when it came. She heard her own voice saying, ‘I love you, Steve.’
He accepted it as seriously as she had meant it; they stared at each other in silence for a long moment. Then he said, ‘I’m going to live up to that one, you see if I don’t.’
Late sunlight cast a pattern of leaves on the table and on their clasped hands. The waiter, watching them, smiled at some private memory of his own.