The morning was cold and wet. Rain slashed at the windowpane as I closed my eyes and let my mind crank up. As my thoughts gained momentum I headed towards hysteria. You’re supposed to see things differently in the clear light of morning. I didn’t. All I could think of was that there was a murderer who was killing my friends and was going to kill me if I didn’t get him first.
Last night Win had persuaded the hospital and the police to release me into her care. The drive back to her house was swift and silent. I was working hard to suppress all thoughts of Marianna and Vanni. I would deal with that later. My rage at the unknown perpetrator for making me into some kind of harbinger of death had finally overridden everything else.
I was fighting mad but exhaustion beat me and, aided by Win's 'very mild’ sleeping pills, I slept. As I drifted off I suddenly thought of the guard’s gun. Where was it? I would need it now.
There was a tap on the door. It was Win. The gangly awkwardness was nowhere in evidence as she swept across the room to pull back the curtains. Her hair stood around her head like a red gold halo and fell in tangled ringlets around her face, reflecting in her creamy, freckled skin. She looked magnificent and the sight of her was enough to divert my thoughts and calm me down.
I sat up quickly. I shouldn’t have. I creaked all over. She smiled slightly as she very carefully and without mishap placed a cup of coffee on my bedside table.
`Don’t worry. You’ll heal quickly,’ she said sitting on the side of the bed. She reached out and stroked a finger down my cheek.
`Bristles.’ She grinned and pointed towards a closed door.
`Bathroom?’
She nodded and handed me the cup. `Then coffee.’
We didn’t talk much because there was too much to talk about. We just briefly outlined our next moves. I had to talk to Lorenzo. To make up for my desertion last night after the bomb. I wanted to be the one to tell him that Vanni was dead. I owed him that. Guilt crawled up my spine when I realised that I was relieved it was Vanni, not Suzy or Win.
We rang Suzy's service. She’d called the night before and collected her message. What message? She said to tell us she was completely safe. The woman repeated it and said I would know what that meant. I didn’t.
`What does she mean? It means completely safe, doesn’t it?’
Win had entered her meditation mode again. This time it irritated me. I leaned forwards and asked into her face, `Well, doesn’t it?’
She didn't even flinch. She just nodded slowly and smiled. `I wonder...I wonder if she might have meant...that she has heard from David?’
`David?’
`Yes. I wonder if she only feels `completely safe’ with David.’
`But what makes you think that?’ My heart was beating at the back of my teeth again. Please God she was right...but?
`Look at it for a minute. She doesn’t want casual callers knowing anything. She does want us to know she's okay. She rang yesterday to tell us that. Later, sometime during the night, she gets a message from somewhere. She then places a message with the service to tell us she’s completely safe. Why, unless she’s trying to tell us something else? Now if the something else could be that she has some vital evidence, mightn’t she have said, `good news’, or something like that? But she doesn’t, she gets a message that we don’t know about and says that you, Rob, not me, would know what it means.’
There was a tickle at the edge of my brain. Had Suzy ever said that about David? Skating. Why was I thinking about skating? Then I remembered...that’s when she said it. It was a joke. We'd been skating. Marianna, me, David and Suzy. As a dancer she never dared risking injury by skating but she'd always wanted to do it. It was hilarious. She’d fallen several times when David glided up to her, pulled her up and taken off with her. He spun her around a bit and she said, `He's my rock. With him I'm completely safe.’
Suzy had found David.
So where were they? Where was he? In what state? Then the police arrived to take a statement. The rage swept through me again.
I answered the police questions as best I could. No, I didn’t know about the bomb. They knew about the break-in, and they had our report about David’s disappearance. Did I believe these were connected? No. Surely people don’t set bombs because of missing relatives or thwarted burglaries. No. They were very courteous and sympathised over my friend’s death. I'll swear they thought we weren’t telling them everything, but I guess they were used to that, working as they did in an Italian area. It was clear they knew nothing about Marianna.
Lorenzo opened his eyes as we approached and the look in them almost sent me scuttling from the room. Win was more steadfast and marched across to the bed to clasp his hands. I told myself it was professional competence. But it wasn’t. She was stronger than me. It was all I could do to just stand beside her and stare at him. Panic rose up my throat as I faced his despair.
But face it I did. `I’m so sorry, Lorenzo.’
I had to clear my throat three times to get even that much out. I saw tears fill his eyes and I couldn’t stand it. I understand now, and maybe did even then, that it was my own sadness I couldn't face.
I had to hold on to my rage if any of us were going to get out of this. Even if it meant I had to desert Lorenzo. I mumbled something about getting the bastard who had done this, swallowed a few times and fled from the room. I would carry his look of bleak desperation in my mind forever. Outside the room I leaned on the wall with my eyes closed, trying to wash out the images of death. I didn’t see the television news team arriving. A microphone appeared under my nose and a young woman started firing questions at me.
`Could you comment on the dead man? Are you a friend of his? A close friend?’
They followed us into the lift and down to the foyer, still shoving the microphone under my chin. Win interrupted the rapid-fire questions explaining that the police had asked me not to speak to the media. It didn’t deter them. Suddenly an idea popped into my head. I stopped backing away, took hold of Win and stood facing the cameras.
`Stop doing this!’ I shouted into the lens. 'Leave us alone!’ There was an immediate silence. I'd declared war, on public television.
Win pulled me away. `The briefcase. We have to see what's in the briefcase.’
I looked around, confused. In the hospital foyer, there was something...something not quite right. That's all I could think of. Something wasn't right.
`Leave it. It will come to you if you don’t think about it.’ How did she always know what I was thinking?
We headed for Stanton St.J’s office. The old boy had nearly had a stroke when David and I presented him with the outline for our computer business.
`Computers are all very well,’ he said, `but when it comes down to it, can they be trusted?’ As if they were a temporary aberration that would soon pass, leaving everything to carry on as before. Poor old Stanton. His father probably said the same thing about the horseless carriage.
Ignoring the parking signs Win parked right outside the building. It was nearly two and the street was crowded. I looked around for...what? I didn’t know, but as we approached the doors of the bank, I stopped. Something was at the edge of my vision. It was the same as in the hospital foyer. Something that wasn’t quite right.
I looked back. There was a quick movement behind a group of girls. A furtive, wrong sort of movement. I ran as a car pulled away, accelerating quickly. I didn’t see the driver.
Win was watching me as I walked slowly back. `Who was it?'
`I don't know. Maybe nobody. But I keep getting this feeling that I’m looking at something, or someone, that I should know. But it’s all wrong, somehow.’ I took her arm again. `It’s probably nothing.’
She squeezed my arm and we walked into Stanton St.J’s office.
The old man unfolded from behind his enormous desk, bowing to Win. He was so gracious I thought he was going to kiss her hand.
He was a small, thin man, balding and stooped. He must have been eighty but he still put in a full week. He’d outlived all his contemporaries and I bet the younger partners were busting for him to leave them to run the practice. We retrieved the briefcase from the vault and the old boy allocated us an office.
Once we were alone I was able to slump into a chair and deal with the shaking hands and nausea that rose the moment I laid eyes on the briefcase. Win carried it over to the desk and stood with her back to me. I didn’t see what she did but the case wasn’t there when I looked up, just a pile of papers and a small book.
She didn’t say anything and gradually I was able to block the horror. I took a deep breath and got on with it. The small book was a diary. Marianna had written down her appointments and tasks, with a comments about who, what and where. It dated back to her first meeting with Jimmy. It was eerie to read her thoughts after she was dead. I felt repulsed but fascinated.