I read Vanzetti’s notes, which were detailed, listing names, dates and addresses. However, none of the people interviewed had seen Vittoria recently or had any idea where she might be.
The photograph of Vittoria exuded youth and contentment. In the photograph, she was smiling, revealing her dark, Italian ancestry. Her Roman nose, firm chin and dimpled cheeks spoke of character, rather than great beauty, while her hazel eyes, her father’s eyes, hinted at intelligence.
I sat back in my faux-leather chair and studied the photograph. I thought about the notes, written by Vanzetti’s henchmen. The notes offered a clue to Vanzetti’s character and his deep concern for his daughter. However, they took me no closer to Vittoria, so I decided to get up off my backside and talk with her mother, Catrin.
Catrin Vanzetti lived in a ten-storey apartment block overlooking the waterfront. The apartments were swish and luxurious, the location highly prized; whatever the terms of Catrin’s divorce settlement, the apartment suggested that she had walked away with a fair chunk of the swag.
A lift eased me up to the seventh floor and Catrin’s apartment. I knocked on her door, ignored a suspicious neighbour and waited for Catrin to answer. Eventually, her door swung open to reveal a woman in her mid-forties with dark, intense eyes, a determined face and a figure easing into middle age. Her hair was cut short; red, it glowed like a warning beacon. I sensed that not many people got the better of Catrin Vanzetti.
“Mrs Vanzetti?” I asked. “My name’s Sam, Sam Smith...”
Catrin inclined her head. “I’ve been expecting you. Vince hired you?”
I nodded then adjusted the strap on my shoulder bag.
“Come in,” she said.
With Catrin leading the way, I wandered into her apartment, a spacious, open-planned affair. The walls and ceiling were beige and they toned harmoniously with the luxurious brown carpet and the chunky cream chairs. I spied a square, glass coffee table, a wall-mounted television and a series of tall, ornate sculptures. Two mannequins and a drawing board stood in the far corner of the room, positioned to take advantage of the generous light offered by the French windows. The mannequins were naked, though flamboyant sketches of frocks, dresses and ball gowns covered the drawing board.
“Lovely apartment,” I said with a smile.
“Not as nice as Vince’s mansion,” Catrin replied with a scowl.
“You’re into fashion,” I said, glancing at the drawing board.
“I design. I run a boutique.”
I nodded. “I know of it. In the city centre.”
Catrin appraised me through narrow eyes, her gaze scanning my attire. “You should call in sometime,” she concluded, “maybe we could fit you up with a new outfit.”
I straightened then flattened the lapel on my trench coat. True, my coat had seen better days and maybe it was time to refresh my wardrobe.
“You trying to hide your figure or something?” Catrin asked. “Take your coat off,” she demanded and, meekly, I complied with her request. Catrin draped my coat over a mannequin then she appraised me again. “Short leather jacket, figure-hugging blouse, tight pants, very tight pants,” she suggested. “You’ve got the curves, honey; show them off.”
My trench coat did offer a degree of anonymity, an asset in my business, and it did hide my femininity, which I found desirable during the early years of my agency. However, experience, and my life with Alan, had transformed my outlook, so maybe it was time to heed Catrin’s advice and offer sartorial expression to my inner feelings. Faye had a good eye for the latest fashions; when she returned from North Wales, we’d go on a therapeutic shopping spree.
Broaching the reason for my visit, I said, “I’m looking for your daughter, Vittoria.”
Catrin walked over to a cocktail cabinet. She splashed three fingers of whisky into a glass then waved the bottle at me. I shook my head and she sipped the whisky, neat. “Vince told me you’d call.”
“So the two of you are still talking?”
After a terse nod, Catrin sat on a large, leather armchair. She sipped her whisky, crossed her legs and stared at me. “If you can call monosyllabic grunts talking, yeah.” She reached across to the glass coffee table and a packet of cigarettes, shaking one of five cigarettes loose from the cardboard. “We talk, when Sherri allows us to get a word in edgeways.”
“You dislike Sherri.”
“She destroyed my marriage; what do you think?”
“And your feelings towards Mr Vanzetti?”
“At first anger.” She lit her cigarette with a marble cigarette lighter, flicking the flint three times before obtaining a spark. “Now I’m through anger and out the other side.”
“Do you still love him?”
“Filthy habit,” she said, waving the cigarette at me. “I quit, but started back, after the divorce.”
“Do you still love him?” I repeated.
“What are you,” Catrin scowled, “a marriage guidance counsellor?”
At Catrin’s invitation, I eased myself on to a second armchair, nudging a leather cushion to one side. Absentmindedly, I adjusted my engagement ring. “Not exactly,” I said, “though through the course of my work, I’ve done a fair bit of marriage guidance counselling.”
Catrin sipped her whisky. She sucked on her cigarette. Through a plume of acrid smoke, she said, “We spent twenty-five years together, raised a family, built a solid business. Make no mistake, I put Vince where he is today. He’d still be selling fake designer jackets if it wasn’t for me.” She stubbed out her cigarette in a glass ashtray. The scowl on her face suggested that she was annoyed with herself, exasperated at succumbing to the lure of the nicotine. “It’s hard to reflect on all that and not feel something.”
“Do you get on well with Vittoria?” I asked.
“She’s my daughter. I love her, she loves me.”
“But after the divorce, she decided to stay with her father.”
“That’s because I’m the disciplinarian and Vince is the soft touch. In business, Vince is ruthless, but at home he’s a pussy cat.”
I thought back to our meeting, and Vanzetti’s reaction to Marlowe. “He has a fear of cats.”
Catrin drained her whisky glass, grimacing as the malt hit the back of her throat. “It’s the only thing Vince is afraid of, believe me.”
“Do you have any idea where Vittoria might be?”
Catrin stared at her empty glass. Her pause for thought and her pained expression revealed that she was battling with herself; battling an inner demon, the need for more medicinal whisky. “None,” she said; “I’ve no idea where Vittoria might be; we’ve tried all the obvious places.”
“Sometimes, it’s a matter of timing, of luck.”
She placed her empty glass on the coffee table then turned her back on the cocktail cabinet and the whisky. She was under great stress, tense and anxious. However, she was strong; she’d fight her own fight and not rely on alcoholic aids. “You mean, we might have looked when Vittoria wasn’t there and she could be there now?”
“Something like that,” I nodded. “Can I have a list of the obvious places?”
“Sure,” Catrin said. “Hang on a sec, I’ll write you one.”
She walked over to her drawing board where she scribbled a list before handing that list to me. I studied her large, loopy handwriting, recalled familiar names and places, recorded in Vanzetti’s original notes. I would check them out, more in hope than expectation.
After folding the paper and placing it in my shoulder bag, I asked, “Do you have any idea why Vittoria ran away?”
“I can’t think of one,” Catrin replied with a sad shake of her head.
“When she has a problem, who does she talk with?”
Catrin stared at the ornate sculptures; they were black and very tall, like two surreal bodies with arms outstretched, reaching up to the ceiling. “Vittoria tends to work things out for herself. She’s studying to be a child psychologist, through the Open University.” I raised an inquisitive eyebrow and Catrin shook her head. “I know,” she said. “I don’t know where she gets that from; neither Vince nor myself are into any kind of psychobabble.”
“Vittoria’s a deep thinker,” I said.
“She can be.”
“Is she a sensitive person?”
“She’s a Vanzetti,” Catrin scowled, revealing a family trait. “I brought Vittoria up the right way; she’s no soft touch.”
I stood and gathered up my shoulder bag. Then I collected my trench coat from the mannequin and draped it over my arm. It was a bright, warm, spring day; the gentle breeze had eased the rain clouds away. There’d be no call for my coat this afternoon.
“Thank you, Mrs Vanzetti. I’ll be in touch.”
Catrin Vanzetti accompanied me to her front door. At the door, she paused then said, “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, I’m a hard bitch, as hard as nails. But I’m a mother, first, last and everything. Find Vittoria for me. Find her soon. I can’t put up with this. It’s doing my head in.”