‘And this morning?’ Fratelli asked. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Shopping for a dress, of course. Something suitable for this evening. You?’
A flash of guilt on his face.
‘I thought I’d… go for a walk.’
‘Where?’
‘Up the hill,’ he said, vaguely waving at the ceiling.
‘You won’t go near Walter Marrone, will you?’
‘Of course not. I’ll have a coffee with Luca somewhere if he has the time. Tell him not to dwell on all that stuff I told him last night. Perhaps we could go to San Marco with you.’
The suggestion surprised her. ‘Good idea. That should keep the pair of you out of trouble,’ she said, then deposited the plate and the mug by the sink and walked to her room.
Pino Fratelli watched her go, thinking.
In twenty minutes the Grassi dragon would be back. He needed to be out of the house. Talking to people. Feeling his way back into the case, the way he should have done days before. Directly.
Morning in the green bowers and lost glades of the Boboli Gardens. The two of them emerged late and lacking in words.
Somewhere in the distance, a high-pitched two-stroke engine whirred. Voices. Men at work. It was close to ten. A bright clear day, though grey-brown clouds were starting to gather against the blue sky, as if to talk about the rain to come.
‘They’ll find us,’ she said, taking his arm, pulling him back into the shadow of the doorway.
The smell of the cottage, damp and smoke from the fire he’d set, was stronger than ever. The workmen were tending to the ornamental gardens a good distance away. Closest to them were the vegetable patches: winter onions, dying artichokes, kale and cabbage. He knew the routine by heart. Some time around eleven, one of the kitchen people would come round looking for something to throw into the inevitable ribollita for the staff. Stale bread, green leaves, some cold meat if they had it, onions and garlic. He’d grown up on this pauper’s fare and the memory brought its smell to his nostrils as vividly as if his dead mother was reheating the same old pot on the stove, the way she did most days.
‘We could run,’ he said.
That sounded like a prayer now, uttered into silence, not knowing where it went.
‘Tomorrow, Aldo.’
He got what few things he had. Passed her the rest of her clothes. Then hid the weapons and the ammunition. When the gardeners came, they’d think tramps had broken in, spent the night, and fled knowing there’d be a beating if they were found.
The men were stupid. They’d never look behind the log store, thinking to find semiautomatic weapons and bullets there.
‘We’re here for a reason,’ she insisted, touching his arm — not that he minded any more. He was hers. He was fallen. He was one among the grey doomed drones who walked the streets of Florence. ‘We have to. Then we’re gone.’
‘Where?’
She hesitated then. He knew why. She’d never given it a second thought.
‘The south. Calabria. It’s warm there. And green.’
‘Never been,’ he said.
‘I have. I’m telling you.’
Another voice outside. Nearer.
He picked up what few things he owned and walked outside, found the narrow meandering path back to the broken door in the wall, knew she was following all the way.
Soon they were in San Niccolò, glad to be drinking two hot cups of cappuccino and eating warm cornetti.
‘Who was this man you told me about?’
‘What man?’
His head felt light and unreal. Life was a machine moved by cogs and mechanisms. Something had turned the previous night, as she strained and heaved over him, screeching with her passion, bringing the same animal noises from his throat. Forcing him back with her fist when he tried to turn her, straddle over her, do the same in return.
‘The one they burned. The one they hated. Your hero.’
‘Savonarola,’ he said, remembering the brass plaque outside the Palazzo Vecchio, and how he’d placed Vanni Tornabuoni’s head beneath the fist of Perseus, a few short strides away, dead eyes set on the cobblestones where the priest and his two fellow martyrs had died amidst the jeers and crackling flames almost five centuries before.
‘He was a good man who saw the world as it was.’
‘But who was he, Aldo?’
He looked at the clock. Time to go to work. To the refectory kitchens that the catering company rented from the city for the occasion; the same kitchens that had once fed the awkward friar and his little army.
‘I’ll show you,’ he said.
Sandro Soderini spent most of the morning alone in his office in the Palazzo Vecchio, putting off meetings, refusing calls.
Thinking…
Had Vanni Tornabuoni received those same, strangely worded threatening letters? If so, the voluble arts commissioner had never mentioned them, which was strange and out of character. Besides, the language…
The bloody antics of the Red Brigades had been headline news for more than a decade. They were revolutionaries, fired by a perverted brand of savage Marxism. Not religious fanatics wishing to warn their victims with the mangled words of a lunatic priest.
Something felt amiss. And then there was the nosy, persistent and sick Carabinieri detective. He knew a little of the man’s background from Marrone. But nothing in it explained why he was out in the countryside around Fiesole, chasing what appeared to be the last, fugitive member of a terrorist gang. One most of Italy thought had ceased to exist, shattered by raids and prison sentences that would see an end to the bloodshed and the fear that had dogged politicians and industrialists the length of the nation.
None of this made the mayor of Florence feel happy or secure.
So he picked up the phone and got through to Marrone in Ognissanti, demanded a report on the state of the investigation, into the woman called Chavah Efron and the man thought to be with her.
He got the captain’s usual surly grunt, then a perfunctory report: photos distributed, social service records checked. Nothing much found.
‘Her VW van was left in a side road in San Niccolò last night. We found some prints there,’ Marrone said. ‘We’re checking them now.’
‘You think they’re in the city then?’
‘It depends how stupid they are,’ the Carabinieri officer replied. ‘If they have any sense they’ll have stolen a car and got out. I’ve sent people down to the stations to check the bus services. If this woman’s a genuine terrorist, she’ll know the form. The moment you think your cover’s blown, you flee. She’ll have the money. Contacts elsewhere…’
‘I thought,’ Soderini said archly, ‘we’d dealt with this scum.’
‘As did I.’
‘Then who would she go to?’
Silence. Then Marrone said, ‘I’ve put extra officers in the Piazza della Signoria. Around the civic buildings elsewhere. All the obvious targets. Given the amount of weapons and explosive they left behind, I doubt they could have taken much with them. They were in a hurry.’
‘Guesswork, Captain. We don’t pay you for that.’
‘What do you want of me?’ Marrone asked, a harsh note of temper in his voice.
‘Certainty. Knowledge. These people out of the way. For good.’
‘I’ll do my best. In return I require circumspection on your part. Don’t engage in any new public engagements without our prior knowledge. Keep us informed. Be vigilant. This event of yours tonight. I assume it’s cancelled.’
Soderini felt the heat rise in his head. ‘Because?’
‘It’s a time to lie low,’ Marrone added. ‘To stay out of sight. If you—’
‘Florence is my city! Don’t presume to tell me where to go and what to do.’