‘It’s not about the paintings in the Brancacci!’
They were getting stares from the woman behind the counter.
Luca Cassini didn’t blink. It occurred to Julia that he had engineered this moment rather cleverly.
‘I sort of thought that actually, Pino,’ he said quietly. ‘But since you don’t want to tell me what it is about, there’s not a lot I can do, is there? I know. I’m just the office boy. Walter Marrone doesn’t trust me. Neither do you really.’
He paused. Waited. Heard nothing.
‘Do you?’
‘It’s not a question of trust,’ Fratelli insisted. ‘It’s a matter of belief. If nobody listens to a word you say…’
‘I’m listening. Have been all along. You’ve put more faith in me than anyone ever did in Ognissanti. But it only goes so far, doesn’t it? I’m still the boy—’
‘Tell him,’ Julia cried. ‘For God’s sake.’
Silence.
‘It’s to do with your wife, I imagine,’ Cassini prodded. ‘I guessed that.’
Fratelli glowered at him. ‘People do talk, even to the office boy. You can’t stop them. They said you went bonkers years ago when she died. From what I heard… can’t blame you. But that’s not all, is it?’
‘Tell him!’ Julia said again.
‘No,’ Fratelli muttered. ‘It’s not all.’
He got up, walked to the bar, talked pleasantly to the woman there, came back with another round of drinks.
Then started slowly going through the story he’d recounted to a horrified Julia the night before.
She found she couldn’t hear this again. So she went outside, opened the little Fiat, took the black mongrel from Fiesole for a walk in the park for a while.
When she returned, there was a man waiting anxiously by the door of the bar, as if frightened to go in. Tall, in his fifties, a downcast distinguished face beneath a black beret. He was puffing a cigarette and looked familiar.
‘I know you,’ she said as the mongrel from the farm pulled on the lead.
A dog collar. A face from another context.
‘You’re the Englishwoman,’ he replied, staring into her face. ‘Fratelli’s friend from the chapel.’
‘His lodger. But yes, his friend too, I imagine. Have you cleaned up your paintings?’
He shrugged. ‘It was just a lunatic who broke in from the street. Nothing at all. The damage was fixed the day it was done. Washed off for good. I’ve forgotten about it already.’
Father Bruno. That was the name.
He nodded towards the bar. ‘Why won’t Fratelli let this go? He’s a sick man. I tried to talk to him with his doctor yesterday. He as good as told me to get out of the room.’
‘I don’t think he regards himself as one of your flock.’
‘He grew up in my parish. In my eyes that’s exactly what he is.’
‘Why are you here?’
‘God knows. I don’t.’
‘I don’t have a line to God.’
‘Oh, very clever! I thought I’d try one last time to persuade him to behave sensibly again. But looking inside…’
Fratelli was talking to Luca Cassini, his face set in the gloomy, determined expression she’d come to know.
‘I’m wasting my time, aren’t I?’
‘You mean he should meekly accept what’s happened to him? Stay in bed until… one day…’
There was an unpleasant cast to the man’s face.
‘I deal with the dying every week of my life, Signora. Don’t talk down to me.’
‘I didn’t. Who asked you to come? His doctor?’
‘I’m the parish priest. Everyone begs me to intercede on behalf of those in trouble. It’s my job. My calling. What I do.’ He looked even more miserable than Fratelli. ‘All I do.’
‘Who asked you to come?’ she repeated.
‘His old captain, of course. Everyone knows Fratelli. Most like him. And we all feel sorry for the man. But what can we do? Every night he’s here, taking solace in alcohol…’
‘He has two Negroni. That’s all I’ve ever seen.’
The priest looked her up and down, as if staring at something of which he disapproved.
‘And when he doesn’t have pretty company he wants to impress? How much then?’
‘I’ve no idea. Do you see what happens then? Does God tell you?’
He didn’t answer.
‘Why would Walter Marrone wish…?’ Julia persisted.
‘A vandal broke into the Brancacci and caused a small amount of temporary damage to those paintings of ours. It’s been repaired. No one will notice. No one need worry about it. The Carabinieri have better things to occupy their time. This terrible business with Tornabuoni…’
‘I thought Tornabuoni’s murder was supposed to be solved.’
‘Marrone told me you were egging him on,’ the priest said coldly. ‘Do you think that’s wise? Do you think it’s good for him? To be encouraged to believe he’s still a working detective? The best in Florence, or so he thinks? Not a dying man engrossed in his own sorrowful delusions? What business is this of yours?’
She was so taken aback by his sudden vehemence she couldn’t think of an answer.
‘And who are you anyway?’ he snarled. ‘A foreigner? Come here for your own amusement. Is Pino Fratelli part of that? Another sight on the Grand Tour? An unexpected discovery for you to take back to England when you pack your bags and leave? Like a picture postcard or a little statue of the Palazzo Vecchio?’
‘That’s uncalled for.’
‘Is it?’
The dog was starting to growl at him.
‘The best thing you can do for Fratelli is to persuade him to listen to his doctor and his friends. His parish priest perhaps, too. To accept his fate and learn to make good use of what time remains to him. Not be consumed with these ridiculous fantasies…’
‘I think you should go and tell him that yourself. If you’ve got the guts.’
‘What’s the point?’ the priest said, stepping back from the black animal, which was pulling towards his feet. ‘He won’t listen to me. Or Walter Marrone. Or anyone.’
The grey, ascetic face lit up for a moment.
‘Except perhaps you. A stranger. That’s the way he is. Always was. Peculiar in the extreme. But I imagine you’re having too much fun to do him that service.’
‘I will not listen to this.’
‘No need. I won’t waste my breath on Fratelli any more. Or you.’
He threw the cigarette into the gutter, patted the black beret in an ironic salute, then said, ‘Good night.’
And was gone.
The dog stopped growling. Fine rain was starting to fall from somewhere. The sky still looked clear but a little out of focus. Or perhaps it was her eyes.
She was startled by someone taking the mongrel’s lead from her hands. Luca Cassini. He looked pale and shocked. Pino Fratelli had now introduced the young man to his secrets and she couldn’t stop herself thinking: how much of this is true? How much only real in Fratelli’s disordered, dying head?
‘I’d best get this little chap tucked up for the night. Out of this bloody city,’ Cassini mumbled in a quiet, fractured voice.
She glanced back. Fratelli was still at the table, clutching what looked like a fresh Negroni.
‘Did you suspect?’ she asked.
‘I knew his wife had died. Poor bugger. All that other stuff about…’
Luca Cassini looked ready to burst into tears himself.
‘What’s going on, Julia? What are we supposed to do? Walter Marrone won’t have him in the stazione after this. Or you. Or me probably. We can’t… Sit!’ He pulled on the lead as the dog struggled. The animal went down on its haunches obediently with one spoken word. ‘We can’t fix all that for him, can we? Even if it’s true.’