Log In
Or create an account ->
Imperial Library
Home
About
News
Upload
Forum
Help
Login/SignUp
Index
CHAPTER ONE I’M CRAZY to leave. The words pounded in Luke Cayman’s head as he packed his bags on the day after his brother Primo’s engagement. I should stay and fight for her. Yet he got into his brand new state-of-the-art sports car and headed out of Naples ‘like a bat out of hell’, as he put it. It was a relief to get on to the autostrada, where he could let it rip, driving the two hundred miles to Rome at the top of the legal limit and making it in two and a half hours. Once there, he checked into a five-star hotel in Parioli, the wealthiest and most elegant part of the city, and indulged himself with the best of Roman cuisine and wine, which he drank in brooding silence. I should have stayed. But there was Olympia’s face in his mind, as he’d last seen it, her eyes fixed blissfully on Primo, her fiancé, soon to be her husband. Who was he trying to kid? He’d never stood a chance. He was just thinking of an early night when a hand clapped him on the shoulder and a hearty voice said, ‘
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO THE young policeman looked up with admiration as Signora Minerva strode into the station. ‘Buona notte,’ he said. ‘It’s always a pleasure to see you here, signora.’ ‘Be careful, Rico,’ she warned him. ‘That remark could be construed as harassment. You’re reminding me that my relatives are always in some sort of trouble.’ ‘No, I was saying how pretty you always look,’ he replied, hurt. Minnie laughed. She liked Rico, a naïve country boy, overwhelmed by his assignment to Rome, and wide-eyed about everything, including herself. ‘Always?’ she teased. ‘Every time your relatives are in trouble,’ he said irrepressibly. ‘How an important lawyer like yourself comes to be related to so many criminals—’ ‘That’s enough!’ she told him sternly. ‘I grant you, they can be a little wayward, but there’s never anything violent.’ ‘Signor Charlie has been in something violent tonight. His shirt is torn, he’s bleeding. Huge big fight. The fellow with him is even worse. He’s a big, bad man with a
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE TWO hours later she presented herself before the Justice of the Peace, Alfredo Fentoni, clad in the voluminous black robe of the advocate. Fentoni, who knew her, smiled benignly, addressed her as Avvocato, and they began. Minnie had to admit that Luke was much improved. The suit spoke of sober respectability, and a shave had transformed him into something resembling an ordinary man. But only resembling. Now that she saw him at his best, she realised how far from ordinary he was. In the cell she’d been aware of brute force. Now she was even more intensely aware of the skill with which he disguised power. That made him a cunning man as well as a forceful one, and all the more dangerous for that. It seemed odd to be regarding him as dangerous when his fate was in her hands, but he was no longer the down-and-out she’d met that morning. In fact, that had been an illusion. The reality was this other man who strode into the court as though he owned it, and took up position in th
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR AFTER handing round more drinks, Minnie went into the kitchen to help Netta make coffee. ‘You looked good together,’ her mother-in-law observed. ‘Just doing my duty,’ Minnie said. ‘It was purely formal.’ ‘How can you be formal with him? He is a man.’ ‘So are a lot of other people here,’ Minnie observed, trying not to understand Netta’s meaning. ‘No, they are not men, like he is,’ Netta insisted. ‘Boys, feeble creatures who look like men but don’t measure up. He is a man. He can bring you back to life. Why were you so careless as to let him leave?’ ‘Has he left?’ ‘Can you see him anywhere? He’s slipped out with a woman, and they’ve found a quiet place to do things that—’ ‘Yes, I can imagine what they’re doing.’ Minnie stopped her hastily. ‘I suppose he has every right to please himself.’ ‘He should be pleasing himself with you,’ Netta said stubbornly. ‘And you should be pleasing yourself with him.’ ‘Netta, I only met him today.’ ‘Huh! I only knew Tomaso one day before I had
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE TERESA’S flat was in reasonable condition, but too large for one person. As soon as they entered Luke’s eyes were drawn to a low table on which stood a photograph of an elderly man. ‘My husband, Antonio,’ Teresa said with pride. ‘This is where we lived together. Now he is gone, and this place is too big for Tiberius and me.’ Tiberius turned out to be an imposing black cat, sitting on a window sill, washing his face and observing proceedings with the indifference of one who knew that he would be all right, whoever else wasn’t. ‘Please move us on to a lower floor,’ Teresa pleaded. ‘I’m too old for those stairs, and Tiberius doesn’t like heights.’ ‘In that case,’ Luke said at once, ‘you must take my flat, and I’ll move into yours.’ There was a cheer of approval from the residents, and they all trooped downstairs to Luke’s flat. ‘We can start on the exchange tomorrow,’ he said. ‘It’ll need redecorating—’ ‘Oh, no,’ Teresa said quickly. ‘It’s lovely as it is.’ ‘It’s not,’ he sai
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX THE next day he received a call from her secretary, making a formal appointment in her office. He wore a respectable suit in dark grey, with a snowy white shirt and a dark red tie, and was glad of it when he saw her office, a large, impressive room, the walls lined with legal books. Almost as if inspired by the same thought, Minnie too wore a grey suit with a white blouse. He briefly considered making a mild joke about their similarity, but a glance at her face changed his mind. She was pale, with very little make-up. Her hair was drawn back against her skull in a way that seemed designed to deny life—or, perhaps, to send him a message. ‘There was no need for that, you know,’ he said gently. ‘I’m not sure of your meaning.’ ‘Aren’t you? I thought you might understand. Oh, well, never mind.’ ‘Signor Cayman, if we keep to the matter in hand I think we’ll make more progress.’ Her voice was cool, self-possessed, the voice of a woman in control of the situation. But he heard in i
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN HE SURFACED again, having lost track of time, but seeing that it was still dark outside. Turning his head painfully, he saw Minnie standing at the window with her back to him. He tried to speak but the sound that came out was weak, and she didn’t turn towards him. He wished he could see her reflection in the dark glass, but her head was bent. Minnie, standing at the window, knew that he had stirred, but needed a pause before she could look at him. She kept her head lowered, lest he see her face, and her tears should reveal too much. She could still hear the explosion. It happened again and again in her head until she thought she would go crazy from the endless repetition. Then everything slowed and she seemed to be wading through glue as she ran to him, her heart pounding at the sight of the smoke and flames. It was playing back again, the moment she’d rushed in to find them dragging him out of the bathroom and laying him out on the floor, dropping to her knees beside him
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT LUKE settled into a peaceful routine in which he slept a lot, had his dressings changed by the visiting nurse, and entertained visitors. Teresa came every day with Tiberius. If Luke had been her hero before, he was doubly so now that he had received injuries that would otherwise have descended on herself and possibly the cat. ‘The dear old girl has somehow persuaded herself that it was all a plot against Tiberius’s life,’ he told Minnie one evening, ‘and that I charged in at the last moment, seized him up and put myself between him and the blast.’ ‘What was Tiberius doing taking a shower?’ ‘He’s a cat of many talents, according to Teresa.’ ‘And nobody will ever make her understand the truth,’ Minnie said ruefully. ‘That, but for pure chance, you’d have been the villain and I’d have been suing you, on Teresa’s behalf, for every penny you have.’ He grinned. ‘Better luck next time.’ They had fallen easily into this way of talking, still opponents, but teasing each other almo
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE ‘I LOVED Gianni,’ she said softly. ‘I loved him with all my heart and soul. We were close in every way a man and woman can be close. We laughed at the same jokes, saw the world through the same eyes, and when we made love, everything was perfect. ‘But in the last year things started to go wrong. My career had suddenly taken off and I had to devote a lot more time to it. He’d never minded before but he began to mind about my being away from home so often. And even when I was here I had to do a lot of work. He resented it, and we began to quarrel. ‘In the end we seemed to do almost nothing but bicker. We tried to set aside some time for ourselves, we planned a big meal—we were going to cook it together—it was going to make everything right. But at the last minute I was called out to see a client. We had a terrible fight. He said if I went out now we were finished, he never wanted to see me again. I said that suited me fine because I’d had enough of him. ‘I ran out, to go to
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN HE WAITED to see if she flinched at Gianni’s name, but she merely gave a fond, reminiscent smile. ‘Gianni thought I was crazy but he didn’t try to stop me. Come to think of it, that was always the way. He was very easygoing. He used to say, “You do it your way, carissima.”’ She gave a brief laugh. ‘So I always did.’ ‘He sounds the ideal husband,’ Luke observed, keeping his voice carefully light. ‘You said, “Jump” and he jumped. What more could a woman ask?’ ‘Sure, it makes me sound like a domineering wife, but actually it was all a con trick. He pretended to be meek and helpless but it was just a way of pushing the boring jobs on to me. If there were forms to be filled in, phone calls to be made to officials, it was always, “You do it, cara. You’re the clever one.” And after a while it dawned on me that I’d been tricked into doing all the work.’ ‘Did you mind?’ ‘Not really. It made sense since I was a lawyer, and you know what bureaucracy is like in this country.’ ‘And if y
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN HOPE RINUCCI came home that afternoon. Toni went to collect her, insisting that nobody should come with him, as he wanted to be alone with his wife. When he handed her out of the car she looked well, smiling with pleasure at her family’s attention. It was obvious now that it really had been a false alarm. Watching from the sidelines, Minnie saw an elegant, beautiful woman in her fifties, a woman who would attract admiring attention wherever she went, no matter what her age. She couldn’t help smiling as Hope’s sons converged on her. It was like watching vassals do homage. She almost expected them to kiss her hand. One by one she hugged everyone—Justin, her eldest son, Evie, his new wife, and Mark, his son by his first marriage. Then Primo and Olympia. ‘We can really get down to planning your marriage,’ she told them. When she’d kissed her twins, Carlo and Ruggiero, she looked around hopefully. ‘Franco?’ ‘Later today, Mamma,’ Carlo said. ‘It’s a long way from Los Angeles.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE ‘AND I tell you, you’ve got it wrong. You’re confusing him with someone else.’ ‘The man I knew was called Gianni Pepino, he had a wife called Minerva and she was a lawyer in Rome.’ Luke poured himself a glass of brandy, and drained it in one gulp. Somewhere inside him an earthquake was taking place. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he murmured. ‘She adored him. She still does.’ ‘Well, he certainly managed to pull the wool over her eyes,’ Franco said. ‘The girl is called Elsa Alessio, and the child is called Sandro. He got her pregnant when he was down here one summer, fooling around. He was only eighteen, and there was never any talk of marriage. She was older, a divorcee, and she had some money of her own. ‘From the way he talked, they weren’t in love or anything. They just had a fling and stayed friends. He used to come here to see her and the boy, then go back to Rome. After he got married he just kept on visiting her, chiefly to see his son and give her money—’ ‘I thought you s
CHAPTER TWELVE
← Prev
Back
Next →
← Prev
Back
Next →