She was silent on the journey back, her face turned towards the window, his jacket over her shoulders to shield her from the plummeting night temperatures. She felt so angry she didn’t know what to do with herself.
‘Can I come up?’ Nico asked, seeing how she wouldn’t meet his eye as he parked in the tiny street off the west side of the piazzetta.
‘Oh, I don’t think so. “Dinner with your mother” has left me rather worn out,’ she said with her best sarcasm, hauling herself out of the tiny car before he could stop her.
‘Cesca!’
But she strode away, refusing to look back. Thirty seconds later, just as she got to the bottom of the steps, he grabbed her by the hand, pulling her up the stairs. ‘I’m coming up,’ he insisted. ‘We’re going to talk.’
‘No. Nico!’ she protested as he retrieved the key from under the geranium by the door.
‘In.’ He opened the door and she stumbled in, feeling how he took up the space in the small room, in her head.
She whirled around to face him, refusing to let him boss her, to let him dictate how this went. ‘You knew!’ she accused.
He nodded. ‘Yes.’
She gawped at the blunt response. Did he not even have the decency to lie? ‘And you never thought to tell me? Your mother just ambushed me, Nico! Did you know what she was going to do tonight?’
‘No. But there are often problems between her and Elena. Their relationship has always been . . . difficult.’
‘Yeah, I got that, thanks. It was just great to be caught up in the middle of them.’
‘Look, whatever she has said is not some sort of action against you, but her trying to do her best by Giotto – she is his godmother. She doesn’t even know about us yet. As far as she is aware, you are just working for Elena.’
‘Oh! So you think she’d have been a bit more diplomatic if she’d known I was sleeping with her son?’
‘Probably not.’
‘You know she effectively wants me to spy on Elena? She wants me to get hold of that letter and read it.’ But even if she did, Cesca thought, was it really going to tell them what Giotto needed to know – to confirm which of them was his father? To confirm Vito’s death, and not Aurelio’s?
Cesca couldn’t imagine what reserves it must have taken the two of them to get through each day – Aurelio passing himself off in public as his own brother, pretending to be Elena’s husband as he quietened his voice and toned down his jokes, swapping the playboy lifestyle for opening fetes and judging at cheese festivals. How had he done it without anyone ever knowing? Had there really been no slip-ups in all those years? They’d even managed to push out Christina, the one person who could have unmasked them.
He shrugged. ‘My mother is a woman of strong principles. She loved Vito like a sister and she believes it is her duty to protect his son.’
‘Really? She loved him as a sister? That’s what you think?’
A pulse beat in his jaw as he looked away and she realized the implications – for him – of what she had said. ‘Nico—’
‘None of this is anything to do with me, okay? It’s between my mother and Elena. I don’t get involved with it.’
‘But you are involved! You’re working there! You’re down there in those—’ She stopped suddenly.
‘What?’ he asked. ‘What is it?’
‘You’re in the tunnels. You knew about the tunnels.’
‘. . . What?’
‘Your mother said she told you stories about how she used to play in the tunnels. They weren’t a discovery at all. You already knew they were there.’ Her eyes widened as the facts began to shuffle into the slots in her mind. She gasped. ‘That’s why you extended through from the sinkhole into the service tunnel. You knew it would connect to the other tunnels that had been bricked off.’
‘Ces—’
But she cut him off by holding up a hand, her eyes narrowed as she began to pace. Pace and think. ‘At the time I couldn’t understand why you looked beyond the sinkhole itself; it was like you knew there was something extra down there.’ She looked at him again. ‘And you did. It’s why you were down there on your own that Friday night; it’s why you were so cross with me for getting you out.’
He sighed, raking a hand through his hair. ‘Yes, I’m sorry.’
She stared at him, not wanting his apology. ‘Why, though? Why were you trying to find the tunnels?’
He sighed, a look of resignation dawning on his face as he saw the intensity on hers. It was clear she wasn’t going to let this drop. ‘Because of the ring. My mother knew it was down there.’
Cesca’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Your mother knew the Bulgari Blue was in that tunnel?’ So she had known it was lost! She had been deliberately provoking Elena at dinner, pushing her.
‘Yes.’
‘And she sent you down there to find it for her?’
‘She didn’t send me anywhere,’ he said shortly. ‘But when I told her about the sinkhole, she saw an opportunity to see if it could be retrieved and I agreed to help. I knew how important it was to her to try to help Giotto.’
‘And you too, I’m sure,’ she added drily. ‘It bought you time to look for more pieces of your map?’
He nodded. ‘Yes. But you have to under—’
Cesca held up a finger again, as though trying to halt the too-fast thoughts racing through her mind. ‘Why would finding the ring help Giotto?’
‘Oh my God,’ he groaned, becoming exasperated. ‘Now I see who you used to be! Look, I don’t know for sure; I didn’t ask for details. She thought it had something to do with the night of the crash when Aurelio died.’
‘You mean, Vito.’
He shrugged. ‘Yes.’
Cesca tore her eyes away from him and stared at the wall again, her antennae quivering. What was it? What did that ring have to do with the crash? She was reaching towards something, but . . . but she couldn’t see it yet. She squinted, biting her lip. ‘Why didn’t your mother just go into the tunnels herself to look for the ring?’
‘You mean, apart from the fact she is a woman in her late seventies?’
She ignored the sarcasm. ‘That ring was lost almost thirty years ago, Nico. Why has she waited all this time?’
He sighed. ‘Look, why are we even talking about this? We are not working now. It’s supposed to be our night!’
‘Tell me.’
He turned away, his hands on his hips, frustrated. ‘She only found out about the affair recently – Easter, I think. She ran into Maria Dutti and they had coffee – they had always been close. Signora Dutti had never been fond of Elena either. Apparently she found her to be imperious.’
‘But why did Maria only tell your mother about the affair now? Years had passed.’
‘Because they had not seen each other since Aurelio’s funeral.’
‘Vito’s,’ she corrected, rather pedantically.
He shrugged and sighed. ‘Yes. Whatever.’
‘Why hadn’t they seen each other? If they were close, surely your mother would have run into her when she was visiting at the Palazzo Mirandola? She lives just across the square.’
‘Because after he – Vito – died, my mother was pretty much cut out of their lives. She continued to see Elena “socially”,’ he said, making speech marks in the air with his fingers. ‘But she almost never went back to Mirandola. I think she had lunch with Vito – I mean, Aurelio—’ He rolled his eyes, frustrated. ‘—Just once, immediately after the funeral. But after that, she practically never visited them at home again.’
‘Why not?’
‘She said he was very distant with her – he had just buried his twin, after all – but she said it was more than grief. Something in him had changed. She was devastated. It was only when Giotto came to her and confided what he had heard that it all made sense.’
‘So she was pushed away because Aurelio knew she’d see straight through him and would realize that he wasn’t Vito?’ Cesca blinked, trying to absorb this new truth: Vito had died that night and Aurelio had assumed his identity; Elena had pretended he was her husband . . . But it didn’t matter how many times she repeated the facts, she couldn’t accept them. ‘No, it’s just monstrous!’ she cried, shaking her head and turning away, pacing the small room.
Nico watched her. ‘Yes.’
‘How could they do it?’
He shrugged. ‘Desperation? Maybe it really was true love.’
True love. Cesca’s eyes narrowed to slits as she remembered something. ‘. . . You know, I asked Elena recently whether her marriage suffered after Aurelio died. She’d been married so many times by then, I kind of assumed marriage was like handbags for her – something to change with the seasons. I’d thought that Vito would surely have been broken by the loss of his twin, and I found it surprising they had managed to weather it. But she said a really odd thing. She said, if anything, they were strengthened by it. It brought them closer together.’
‘And now you know why – it meant she was able to be with the brother she really wanted.’
‘My God, that car crash turned out to be the perfect solution, didn’t it?’ she murmured. ‘They got to live as man and wife without any of the scandal that would have ensued if the world had caught scent of the fact that Aurelio was having an affair with his dead brother’s wife.’ She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. ‘And if that was the solution to their problem, then it’s also a cast-iron motive behind Vito’s death.’
Nico frowned. ‘Motive? But it was an accident.’
‘No. I’ve got a copy of the death certificate. He died of heart failure.’
‘Heart failure,’ Nico repeated.
‘Exactly. Not from the crash. I’ve examined the photographs and there’s no way that’s what killed him. Something else must have happened.’ She slapped a palm to her forehead, frustrated. ‘Ugh, I’ve been looking at it all the wrong way round.’
Nico frowned. ‘I am lost.’
‘When I thought it was Aurelio who had died, I assumed it was Vito who had killed him in a crime of passion – he’d just found his wife in bed with his brother; at most it was manslaughter.’ She drew a breath, trying to steady her thoughts. ‘But with Vito dead, it’s different again. If Aurelio killed Vito to be with his wife . . . then that’s murder.’
Nico stared at her, watching the way her expression changed with every thought, her mind racing, her body tense. ‘Why did you stop, Cesca?’
She blinked, looking over at him, but still deep in contemplation. ‘Huh?’
‘You are good, you know that? I can see it in you, how you must have been.’
‘Been where? Sorry, I wasn’t listening. What are you talking about?’
‘Your old job. Why did you stop?’
Her expression folded down. ‘No. I’m not talking about that.’
‘Why? Why do you always shut it out?’
‘Because that’s my prerogative. It’s in the past. It was a mistake. I’ve moved on.’
‘Have you? Then what are we doing here?’ He held his arms out questioningly. ‘Is this writing? Or are you constructing a case?’
Cesca felt the blood begin to rush to her cheeks. ‘It’s about getting to the truth. Something terrible has happened, Nico – can’t you see that? We have to talk about it.’
‘Yeah? Well, what about the fact you told me you killed someone, Cesca?’ he said, losing his temper suddenly. ‘When are we going to talk about that?’
She felt as though the air had been punched from her lungs. Hot tears sprang to her eyes as she stared back at him, yet she refused to let them fall. ‘We’re not – this isn’t about me. Don’t twist this . . .’
He turned away, taking a few deep breaths before he turned back again. ‘Listen, I don’t care what you said, okay? I don’t believe it. I know you – you are not capable of something like that.’ He walked over to her, taking her hands in his. ‘But you have to tell me what happened.’
‘No.’ She looked up at him, feeling the guilt, the shame, rushing through her blood again, her head shaking from side to side. ‘I can’t.’
‘You can.’
She shook her head harder. The tears were beginning to splash onto her cheeks, in spite of her best efforts.
‘Yes,’ he insisted. ‘And if we’re going to have any sort of future at all, you have to.’
He let go of her then, stepping back, giving her space, giving her hope. She watched as he moved across to the window, looking out across the square. It was shrouded in darkness, everywhere shut up for the night. He leaned against the ledge of the open window and waited patiently, the ends of his bow tie hanging at his neck, the top button undone, moonlight catching on the satin stripe down his trouser leg. His silhouette, his stillness, his calm – everything about him was strong.
And in that moment, she knew he was right. To do otherwise would be to live like Elena: dodging the truth, living a lie. She had to tell him. Somehow, she had to put a voice to the shadows that stalked like wolves in her heart. She could feel the secret straining to be let out, but to say those words, to admit to what she had done . . . After all, who was she to judge Elena for her weaknesses and indiscretions, when she herself had done something just as bad, if not worse?
She held her breath, feeling the memories assault her from within as she put her mind back there, back in a past she had been determined to outrun. ‘I was legal counsel for a man charged with aggravated assault and battery against his wife,’ she began finally, her voice halting. ‘It was . . . it was a tough case; he had a rap sheet as long as this room. But I was known in my chambers for having an eye for detail. I was getting a reputation for being able to find the one anomaly that could make or break a case and I did it with him. I found a technicality and got him off; I had him returned to society a free man.’ She stared down at her own toes, knowing she once would have said these words with pride, not shame.
‘There’s a big difference between “not guilty” and “innocent”, you know,’ she said more quietly, as he stayed silent. ‘People think they’re one and the same, but they’re not. I had a friend who once asked me how I could defend people when I knew they were guilty and I told her it was because justice is a process that is based upon the assertion that a defendant is innocent until proven guilty. It was for the prosecution to prove guilt, not for me to prove innocence, and I believed in that system. No matter what I may have thought about someone privately, when I stood up in court and addressed the jury, I was defending a person who was considered innocent until the moment that verdict was delivered – and it was my responsibility to defend them to the fullest of my abilities.’
‘And that’s what you did.’
She shook her head. ‘No, because if it’s a process, it’s also a game. Like anything, you learn to keep an eye on the stakes and if I wanted to progress in my career, I couldn’t afford to lose. It stopped becoming about seeing that justice was served and instead became about getting the right result, getting the win.’
She glanced up to see if he was still listening; still there, even. She wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d turned on his heel and left. ‘Ten days later, I had a call from a colleague at the CPS. The police had a man in custody, charged with murder.’
A sob escaped her, bringing her hands flying to her mouth, tears streaming in an unstoppable torrent as the memories – the full horror – broke through in a rush. ‘H-his wife had moved with their daughter to a new part of town. They had changed their names, their hair, everything. They were starting over; they wanted a new life away from him. But he found them. He f-found them and broke in while they were sleeping. He—’ She covered her face, not wanting to see it, not wanting to say it. ‘—He s-s-stabbed the little girl in her bed. Then h-he tortured his wife for six hours before h-he killed her too.’
Nico was across the room in a heartbeat, his arms around her. ‘Oh mia cara,’ he whispered as the tears choked her, making her shake. ‘Cesca, I am so sorry.’
‘I-I think about them every day. Every hour, every day. I see them when I close my eyes at night, w-when I wake up in the morning.’
‘Oh no. No. No.’
‘Yes,’ she argued, refusing to take comfort, to be consoled. ‘It’s only right. It’s something I have to live with, because I put him back out on the streets. I sent him straight back to them. I am as responsible for their deaths as if I’d had that knife in my hand myself.’
He clasped her head between his hands, forcing her to look at him, though she couldn’t see a thing past her tears. ‘Cesca, no! You have to forgive yourself.’
‘No. It’s my fault. It’s on me. It is. I could have ignored the technicality. We would have lost the case without it and I could have let him go down. I should have done that. I knew what he was.’ Her mouth twisted into a sneer of repugnance. ‘But I wanted the win: it’s that simple. I wanted the win and to hell with the human cost.’
He wiped her tears with his thumbs but they were no sooner gone than replaced. ‘You have more than paid the price, Cesca. Punishing yourself will not change the past. You have to let it go now.’
‘I c-can’t.’
‘You must. Right or wrong, you did your job. Maybe too well.’ He kissed her forehead gently, his lips lingering on her skin, making her eyes close and her soul relax. He pulled back and she looked up at him. He didn’t hate her? She didn’t disgust him?
‘But you’re doing it again now,’ he said. ‘You have to learn to step back.’
‘I tried. I thought I was stepping back,’ she protested, remembering how lightly she’d taken her duties in the first few weeks, sorting through photographs, sipping tea . . . ‘Well, initially.’
‘Initially?’
‘Until I realized Elena was lying to me,’ she sniffed. She rubbed her cheeks hard, dragging away the tears, knowing and not caring that she probably looked a state. ‘Oh God, what am I supposed to do this time? Going public with this would destroy the family.’
‘Yes. It would,’ he said sombrely.
‘But what about Vito – doesn’t he deserve justice? Doesn’t Giotto?’
Nico looked at her. ‘You need to confront Elena. Tell her what you know.’
Cesca shook her head. ‘I’ve already tried that. She just stonewalls me. And besides, I need proof. Actual evidence. An overheard conversation proves nothing.’
He stepped towards her, his eyes on one of her shoulder straps that had become twisted. He lifted and corrected it, his fingers brushing against her bare skin. The action made her shiver, her body reacting automatically to his touch.
He saw it.
‘Well, you have unlimited access in the palazzo. Alberto does not question where you go, what you do, does he?’
She shook her head.
‘There must be something in that building that gives them away,’ he murmured. ‘They can’t have not made a single mistake in all those years,’ he said, combing his fingers under her hair and tipping her head back so that she looked up at him.
The diaries? she wondered, as she felt that current of electricity dart through her stomach again, as it did every time their eyes met. ‘Okay. I’ll look into it,’ she murmured, knowing it was the blue letter she really needed. Christina had been right. Everything would be in there.
‘But not yet,’ he murmured, his other hand sweeping down her neck and, this time, brushing the strap off her shoulder.
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Not just yet.’