“Marcello?” Ric yells into the darkness. “Marcello? Where the hell are you?” The salt water stings in the wound to his temple and when he wipes the water from his face, his vision is obscured and the thin metallic taste of blood infects his mouth.
The last Aliscafo of the day drones out of the Lunga close to his right and other, smaller barche are crisscrossing the water between him and the shore; the whine of their engines drowns out his shouting.
Ric treads water and tries to pick out the shape of Marcello’s boat against the shore lights, whilst wiping the blood away from his eyes.
“Marcello? Where the hell are you?” he shouts again, as loud as he can. But again, his words are absorbed by the noise of the other boats.
Slowly, it dawns on him that if he was thrown into the sea, then there’s every chance the very same has happened to Marcello. The outboard had no dead-man’s cord, so it’s all too possible the boat has motored off, abandoning them both to the dark waters of the Mare Siculum.
Ric swims around, calling out, but receives no response. He realises that neither of them were wearing life vests, so either Marcello is lying unconscious, drowning slowly, somewhere nearby or the man is out in the darkness looking for him.
He continues to swim around in ever larger circles, hoping he might find him. But, after a good few minutes, Ric begins to tire and his head pains him.
Reason, eventually, gets the better of him and he decides it is time for him to start making for shore. He remembers they were the better part of a mile or more from the beach when Marcello turned off the motor and Ric knows he is a stranger to the current. If it should run north to south, he needs to start swimming hard to avoid being dragged out where the currents converge in the straights between the islands; there, he knows, the sea will not treat him kindly.
So Ric strikes out towards the lights of the harbour, figuring that if he heads that way and the current pushes him south, he should make it ashore somewhere near Valeria’s house at Punta San Giuseppe. He tries the mental maths to work out how long he will be swimming: at a mile or more out and swimming at a speed easy enough to conserve some energy, he knows he’s going to be in the water for at least half an hour and that’s if the current isn’t too strong and he can avoid being run down by a fishing boat.
That he has not found any sign of Marcello or his boat worries him, and whichever way he looks at it, whether Marcello has drowned or has left him out in the open sea, he knows there will be questions to answer when he gets ashore.
Fortunately, the current is not as strong as he fears and the water is neither too cold nor too warm to make life uncomfortable. The idea of drowning spurs him on, but if Ric needs any extra encouragement to reach the island in as short a time as possible, it is provided by the jellyfish. Their stings provoke a vicious and near paralysing tingling, like a second degree burn or the score from a sharp knife. And as he sweeps them out of the way with his breaststroke, he can feel the welts swelling on his fingers and forearms. The better part of an hour later, Ric drags himself up onto the beach at Punta San Giuseppe and lies, like a beached whale, gasping for air.
There are no lights on in La Casa dei Sconosciuti and Valeria does not answer the door when he raps loudly on it. So he sets off for the Marina Corta, drying as he hurries. He has to alert someone to what has happened to Marcello, but hasn’t the first idea who to report to.
In the Maddalena there are lights, and more. A police car, its blue light playing ghostly shadows against the flank of the Hotel Rocce Azzure, bars the way at the bottom of the rise and Ric remembers the sound of the gunshots as though they’d happened in another life.
When the two uniformed Carabinieri give him the once over, Ric hides his stinging hands behind his back and turns his head to one side to conceal the wound on his face. The policeman shrugs and waves him away towards the longer, steeper route into town.
“Per favore…” Ric begins.
“No! Vada via,” one of the policeman replies.
“Commendatore, per favore,” Ric tries again.
The Carabinieri shrug again and glare at him. “No! Vada via,” one orders, “subito, immediamente. Non c’è nulla da vedere. Vada via!” And they wave Ric away again. But, one of them catches sight of the blood on the side of Ric’s face. He raises his head and frowns in question.
“No, va bene, nessun problema,” Ric explains, rubbing at his temple. He turns away to walk swiftly up the steep hill out of the bay.
Ric’s legs cramp and his arms sting viciously. And through the chorus of discordant arias playing in his head, he wonders who he can talk to about Marcello and whether Sandro will still be hanging around down in the Corta sponging drinks off tourists.
He jogs up the steep road and has to pause at the turning into town to catch his breath. He realises he must look a sight, wet, bloodied about the face and tattooed with welts, but a vision of Marcello floating face-down out in the bay drives him forward.
The Via Sant Anna is strangely deserted. Although it is close to midnight, the houses are all shuttered and apart from the barking of a dog, the street is eerily silent.
Down in the Corta however, there is more than the usual collection of widowers lurking beneath the statue of San Bartolo. They are talking earnestly and gesticulating at the police. A blue La Polizia launch, a few metres longer than the one Ric watched the policemen hustle the kid into, is berthed on the finger quay beside the Purgatorio and an ambulance sits waiting at the foot of the steps up to the Chiesa di San Giuseppe.
Ric is relieved to find Sandro sitting, drinking with Giuliana in the café at the foot of the Garibaldi.
Sandro notices him approach and hurries over to meet him.
“Oh, my friend,” he says before Ric has a chance to speak, “what has happened to you? You are bleeding. Come, this way,” he leads Ric by the arm, “I will ask Giuliana for the first aid.”
“Hang on a minute, Sandro,” Ric gasps. “We need to get a boat and go look for Marcello. We need to tell the harbour master, the coast guard, someone: Marcello’s out in the bay beyond Portinente. His boat… we were run down… I think Marcello’s still out there somewhere.”
Sandro stares back at him, puzzled, “My friend, you have suffered a blow to your head. Are you alright? Are you confused? It is not a good sign to be so confused when you have such an injury. Come, sit down, I will get you a grappa.”
“No,” Ric replies, tetchily, “I haven’t got time for that. You’re not listening to me, Sandro. Marcello’s barca has sunk and I can’t find any trace of him. I think he might have drowned.”
“Il Velaccino? Drowned? Not possible, my friend.” The escurzionista stands back and looks Ric up and down. “My friend, you are in a bad way; you are not thinking straight. Perhaps I should walk home with you and we will call for the doctor.”
“Sandro, listen to me will you,” Ric replies, now angry, “I tell you; we’ve got to get a move on; Marcello’s boat has been run down. He’s somewhere out there; for all I know, he may have drowned.”
“No, Ric, this is not possible.” Sandro frowns, his curly black hair framing his concern. “Il Velaccino was here in the Corta not five minutes ago.”