The biggest pitch was allocated to a fruit and vegetable stall, selling more exotic imported items, olive oil, bottled water and greenhouse lettuce, as well as local produce. Liliana Granchi. Everyone knew purple-haired, handsome Liliana; knew her sullen daughter-in-law, her unruly grandsons, her co-workers on the stall who she sent running here and there with a sharp look. Her soft words were reserved for her little curly-headed poodle, sat perched on his cushion in an orange box. The stall had a pyramid of oranges, even in August.
‘That’s where they met,’ said Sandro, nodding at the oranges. Giuli was at his elbow, with a tray, two cups of coffee, a spremuta d’arancia, and a cloth for the table. She set it down.
‘Where?’ said Luisa, seizing the cloth before Giuli could, and working it into the table’s corners. When she’d done she set down the drinks.
‘Buying oranges,’ said Sandro, nodding at the stall. ‘Last November.’ He might have talked to Liliana, too, but events had overtaken him. Which reminded him. ‘What was that about the Russian?’ he asked, taking the mobile out of his pocket and feeling the smooth weight of it in his hand. ‘The message you sent me.’
Luisa tutted just barely, at the memory of a broken night. She pushed the orange juice towards Giuli with a frown.
‘I don’t know,’ Giuli replied, despondent. ‘Too late now. It’s just — well, she saw him. We only had that terrible image on the mobile, and she’d actually seen him.’
‘Did you think he might not exist?’ He spoke wryly, because they both knew there was evidence that Anna Niescu had had a lover. He felt a pang, at the thought of the big melon-belly, and what effect it might have on Luisa.
‘Come on,’ said Luisa, knowing what he was thinking. She drained her coffee. ‘Let’s get this over with.’
At the great wooden street door to the Loggiata, they squabbled, briefly. ‘D’you think I — we should wait down here?’ said Giuli nervously. ‘Just you go up?’
Luisa took charge. ‘We’re all here now,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose she’s going to be frightened by us, under the circumstances.’
And so up they all went, squeezed into the tiny lift. It was eight-thirty.
There was no sign of the Russian receptionist, just an impossibly ancient woman behind the desk, who looked at them with filmy eyes and an unfocused smile. To Sandro’s surprise, Luisa immediately greeted her with respectful formality, asking after her health, commiserating over the heat.
Giuli and Sandro sat on hard chairs from the small collection in the corner that served as a foyer, and waited while Luisa talked, working her way around, with the right courtesies, to stating their business. They saw the old woman indicate the door to the loggia, Luisa bowing thanks, turning back towards them.
Sandro raised an eyebrow.
‘Serafina Capponi. My mother knew her,’ Luisa said, settling herself between them. ‘She owns this place. She used to shop at Frollini, in the old days. I haven’t seen her in years; I’d forgotten about her.’
‘She doesn’t look as if she’s out and about much,’ said Giuli.
‘I thought they might be exploiting the girl,’ he said in an undertone to Luisa.
Luisa frowned. ‘I doubt that. It’s a funny old place.’ She looked around, at the wide foyer’s odd combination of dusty magnificence and tat, a vast, gilded mirror set over a cheap veneer table. ‘They’re all in the same boat in this place, just lame ducks. Just limping along.’
‘No children?’ Luisa shook her head.
They all looked at the old lady at once then, all with the same thought. And when she dies? The Russian, Anna, the other staff, the handful of guests — they’d all be out on the street, while some distant cousins fought over the property. The hotel’s owner smiled with vague benevolence at their faces turned towards her, her head almost imperceptibly nodding.
The door to the loggia opened and a slow-moving elderly couple emerged. Behind them was Anna Niescu, holding a tray, waiting patiently for them to move along. She saw the three visitors, and stopped.
Sandro watched Luisa’s face, but she was too quick for him.
She was on her feet and hurrying, hurrying to get to the girl, and seizing the tray and its cups and saucers and stacked breadbaskets before Anna went over and it all went with her. Because she’d seen in an instant what he saw too late, that this — the sight of them, waiting with their anxious, knowing faces — was almost too much for Anna Niescu. She was close to collapse.
‘I’m Sandro’s wife,’ said Luisa, taking the tray and passing it to Sandro, guiding the girl on to a rickety cane sofa while the old lady looked from them to the lift door in vague panic. ‘It’s all right.’
And there was something about Luisa — her voice, her solidity, her capable hands — that made it seem almost a possibility. Anna Niescu obediently sat.
‘Are — are we all going?’ Her eyes went from one of them to the next: at anxious Giuli, grave, unwavering Luisa. At Sandro.
‘We didn’t want you to feel alone,’ he said, not looking at Luisa. ‘As you haven’t got — anyone.’
Anna didn’t protest at that. But a little colour was coming back to her cheeks. ‘That’s nice of you,’ she said. ‘That’s kind.’
‘He’s bringing you home with him, after,’ said Luisa. ‘To us. Until you feel — ready.’
‘After,’ repeated Anna, with diffuse terror.
Sandro took her hand. ‘What do you want?’ he asked gently. ‘Do you think you’d like us all to come?’
It only occurred to him fractionally too late that he was putting more stress on her, obliging her to make choices. Anna looked at them again: Giuli, Luisa, Sandro. He could see a different variation of anguish in each woman’s face.
‘You,’ she said, stopping at Sandro. ‘Just you.’
‘Good,’ he said, getting to his feet, showing nothing of the sudden terror he felt himself. There was a pinpoint flush on Giuli’s cheeks, the shame of a child not chosen at school.
It was nine o’clock. Pietro had said he’d be waiting for them at the pathology lab from nine-thirty. The body had been moved there from the morgue, now that the official identification had been made.
‘Do you have a bag?’ he asked Anna, refusing to hurry her. ’You go and get your bag. Perhaps a few overnight things, just in case.’
When she was gone, Luisa turned on him. ‘You bring her straight back to me,’ she said, in an agony of frustration. ‘For heaven’s sake. Anything could happen. In her condition.’
Giuli was frowning hard. ‘All right, Giuli?’ he asked.
‘It’s all wrong,’ she burst out. ‘It’s not fair. I thought you’d find him — I told her you’d find him, and you did, only he’s dead. It’s like a horrible trick. Why should it be him? You don’t know it’s him.’
‘That’s what we’re going to find out,’ said Sandro, his heart like a stone in his chest. ‘That’s why I’ve got to take her.’
Giuli subsided, all the fight gone. ‘She was talking, last night. About the place he’d made for her, she said. Like a — a nest, he’d built for her. A view of the hills, she said. Where’s she going to live now?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Sandro, feeling Luisa’s eyes on him. He knew she was wondering whether they’d have their own view of the hills, from that rusted balcony in the Oltrarno. He thought of something.
‘Look, you’re right,’ he said, lifting his battered briefcase, rummaging in it. It was just a distraction, but who knew? They didn’t know anything, really. ‘It won’t do any harm — to know more about him. It might help her. Even now he’s-’ And he looked quickly across at the door through which Anna had disappeared. ‘Even if he’s dead.’ He found it: the paper with the address she’d given him. He thrust it at them, and it was Luisa who took it.
‘This is it. The apartment’s address.’
He saw Luisa frown down at it. Why hadn’t he gone straight there? He couldn’t remember, only that he’d had his doubts, straight off, about this dream home of theirs. Brunello had taken Anna there only that one time. She’d gone back looking for him when he disappeared, but she hadn’t got in.