She didn’t know what to say.
‘Is it?’ he wondered. ‘True? I mean… why didn’t he tell someone back then?’
‘Because he was in a sanatorium. Lost to the world. Would they have listened if he had?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe. You’d still think he would have said something…’
‘He thinks the sickness started then. The tumour. He thinks what happened prompted the cancer inside him. Maybe he’s right.’
‘Maybe,’ Cassini agreed, with little conviction.
‘Leave it for now,’ she said, and touched his arm, tried to smile. ‘It’s been a long day.’
‘How can we leave it? He needs looking after. He can’t go on like this. He looks poorly. It’s driving him mad.’
‘I’ll deal with it, Luca. Take the dog to your uncle’s. Let’s talk tomorrow. And thanks…’ She was struggling with the words and they should have been so simple. ‘Thanks for everything.’
‘Didn’t do bugger all,’ he grumbled, and slunk off, leading the animal to the car.
She went back to Fratelli’s table, turned down the offer of another drink.
‘It’s time to go, Pino. I’m filthy. And tired.’
‘The American woman never went inside the Brancacci,’ he said. His face was pale, his eyes bloodshot. ‘It’s unthinkable that damage was her work. She was ten when Chiara died. The man with her. It has to be. I’ll make some calls…’
‘Who to?’
He hesitated, looked a little sheepish.
‘I… I still have friends. Contacts. Marrone can’t freeze me out of this city. I grew up here.’
She said nothing.
‘Julia. You see things almost as well as I do.’
‘I’m flattered.’
‘You should be. For whatever reason, two weeks ago, Aristide Greco went out to kill Vanni Tornabuoni only to find himself the victim. Another man has taken his place by the side of Greco’s wife. He — or they — then murdered Tornabuoni. The political classes still fear some kind of retribution. Why else would Soderini be there? Armed too? And Walter Marrone wishes to pretend none of this has happened. That it’s all…’
His voice fell; his eyes went to the black night beyond the window.
‘It’s all water under the bridge.’
‘There’s nothing to say this concerns you or Chiara.’
‘Because we haven’t seen through the mist yet.’
‘I want to leave.’
His mournful eyes peered at her. She got up, picked her bag off the back of the chair and walked outside.
The bus stop was by the river. The rain was steady now but there were still stars. Across the Arno the lights stood dim and yellow in the arches of the Uffizi. The ugly castellated tower of the Palazzo Vecchio rose behind in the Piazza della Signoria, exaggerated and comically grand.
Winter in Florence.
Arrhythmic breathing by her side. A cough that had an apologetic ring to it.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said simply. ‘I just thought…’
A shape in the distance along the riverside road. Their bus was bouncing towards them.
‘Come,’ he said, taking her gently by the arm, leading her to the open door. ‘Come, Julia. Let’s go home.’
She made him lie in the centre, head on the fusty pillow, ran her hands over his jumper, pulled it off.
His breath was coming in short gasps. His mind was racing, confused. There were things to think about, plans to make. Yet all these sensible ideas seemed not to matter at that moment. He was with her, drowning in the force of Chavah Efron’s character, her forceful physical presence.
As always he did as he was told. Lay down on the soft coverlet, not moving a muscle as she reached out and, with lithe, slow fingers, dragged the clothes from him then stripped off her own, touching him gently, laughing all the time.
She rolled one leg over his stomach and straddled him, hair falling against his cheeks, the smell of her everywhere, the fatal scent of woman.
‘Don’t tell me I’m the first,’ she whispered.
‘Of course you are,’ he wanted to say, but then she had him, held him, moved closer and took him in. Kept him there, not moving. Trapped like this, he felt he might not breathe again.
‘I am Chavah…’ she said, and rocked him, just the once. ‘I am the woman here. In this place. With my guns. And…’ Her pupils narrowed, like an animal, as he watched. Some emotion, a stirring of passion, detached a little of her sense of control. ‘When I want something, I get it.’
He was somewhere else. Down the hill, two decades before.
‘You with me?’
‘Sì,’ he gasped.
‘This is my world and you entered it without asking. My life. Not yours. Not Ari’s, not…’
She snorted through her nostrils, an animal noise.
It took a minute, maybe even less, and then he grunted like a pig and felt the sharp, sweet stab of release between them.
All the years he’d never known this. And now it seemed such a brief and ordinary thing next to the ordeal that went before.
Still she didn’t move. Her hair was in his face, her breath warm and damp against his neck.
‘Ari came like that,’ she murmured, her voice so close it felt as if she was inside his head. ‘When I made him. I could choose.’
He coughed and tried to force his breathing into a familiar rhythm as he stared at the cracks in the ceiling, trying to count them, the way he did as a child.
She wriggled from him, slipped on to his thighs, stayed there, elbow on the creased sheets, green eyes on him, always sharp, always focused.
Her hand came out and stroked his cheek.
‘Do you still want to save me, Aldo? The lost woman. Fallen. Needing her man to rescue her.’
‘Right and wrong,’ he mumbled. ‘I know the difference.’
‘That’s sweet, in a stupid kind of way. Ari wouldn’t have done that.’ Her face darkened. Her hand moved to his chest. ‘Stood up for me.’
‘Tornabuoni raped you. Your husband wanted to…’
‘Tornabuoni was a minnow. As much a plaything as me. Or you. Ari was mad because he felt he’d taken something that belonged to him alone. It wasn’t about me. It was about him.’
She shuffled over, kissed him once on the cheek, smiled.
‘I don’t think you’re like that. Tell me again. What day is it?’
‘Wednesday.’
‘First Thursday of the month. Every month. Ever since…’ She ran a finger across his brow. ‘Ever since when?’
The beginning, he thought. That first day outside the garden.
‘Tomorrow was when we were supposed to move,’ she said. ‘If Ari hadn’t let his stupid male arrogance get the better of him.’
‘For what?’
She leaned down and whispered hot in his ear. He could smell the wine on her breath, feel her excitement.
‘For the reason we’re here,’ Chavah Efron said as her fingers reached down and played with him again. ‘Fire and blood. For all of them…’
And then she was on him again; nothing could stop her.
The house was dark, too warm and empty. They stood on the landing, stamping their damp feet. She felt filthy. All there was in her room was a small shower crammed into little more than a closet. The water came in a miserly stream — and that only when it was in the mood.
Fratelli watched. Reading her mind, she thought. He could do that.
‘There’s a tub in my bathroom, Julia. Please. It’s yours. I’m Italian. I’m used to squeezing into little places. The English like their baths. I know.’
She went and got her things, passed him going the other way on the landing, didn’t say a word. Went into his bathroom. A white bath, white sink, white tiles, all gleaming; all the bachelor things — a razor, a toothbrush — set on a mirror by the window. Along with a line of medication: four bottles, one pack of tablets. This was the Grassi dragon’s work. Keeping everything spotless, making sure he took his pills. And she’d broken into this precise, fenced-off world. Then — the priest had made this plain — encouraged Pino Fratelli in his madness.