When she came to she was downstairs, being placed on a sofa in an office by Luca Cassini’s strong arms. Even Mariani looked worried as he scuttled round getting water, offering tea, coffee, biscotti.
Fratelli knelt by her side. He looked terribly worried. ‘What happened?’ he asked.
‘I fainted, of course.’ She looked at Mariani and said, ‘Tea would be nice. It was nothing. I’m not…’ She felt her legs, her arms. ‘Not hurt.’
More nervous now than ever, the director hurried from the room, calling to an unseen secretary somewhere.
‘What really happened?’ Luca Cassini asked.
‘I’ve seen that face before. The black hood. The long nose. Those cold, dead eyes.’
Fratelli said not a word.
‘But you knew that, didn’t you, Pino? That’s why we came.’
‘You had an invitation from the mayor. Not me.’
‘You knew.’
‘I had an inkling. I didn’t want to push you to conclusions.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, folding her arms.
‘It’s nothing,’ he replied, without the least embarrassment or suggestion of an apology. A tug of the white hair. That distanced, puzzled look. ‘A man who thinks of himself as the new Savonarola. A deliverer of judgement to a tainted, corrupt den of sin and iniquity.’
‘We’re not that bad,’ Cassini complained.
‘To him you are,’ Julia said. ‘Who is he?’
Fratelli took a piece of paper out of his pocket. It had bloodstains on it and the printed logo of a Sant’Ambrogio butcher.
‘I believe his name is Aldo Pontecorvo. He buys unusual items from the market once a month. Pays cash always. Picked up an order last Saturday, three cockerels among them. Not seen since. No one knows where he works. Where he lives. A quiet, surly man. Big.’
‘You’ve got a name?’ Cassini said. ‘You know what he looks like?’
‘It would seem so, Luca.’
‘Oh, crap.’
‘What?’ Julia asked.
‘We’re going to Ognissanti, aren’t we?’
Cassini sneaked into the stazione by the side entrance using his ID. Fratelli and Julia Wellbeloved marched to reception and demanded an audience with Walter Marrone. After close to an hour of argument, and finally being threatened with arrest, Fratelli scribbled out a name and a description on a piece of paper and told the desk officer, ‘If you want to find the accomplice of the terrorist Chavah Efron, tell your stubborn captain to look for this man.’
By six o’clock they were back at Fratelli’s terrace house in Oltrarno, drinking coffee and talking in his living room. Luca Cassini had not been idle. The stazione had been too occupied to eject him, so he’d hung around the corridors picking up what little gossip was going. The general opinion in the office was that in Tornabuoni’s gardener they had their murderer, if only he’d do them the courtesy of reaffirming their suspicions. The man had now withdrawn the confession he gave under interrogation. Even so he was due to appear in court the following day. At Fratelli’s suggestion the young cop had made inquiries to see if there were any reports of an unusual-looking man wearing a black monk’s habit acting suspiciously around the city. His questions had been met with raised eyebrows and a curt answer in the negative. His attempt to search the files for the name Aldo Pontecorvo had led to him being ejected by the records officer. The Romans had taken over the terrorist case and seemed unwilling to allow any locals near. If they had leads, they were keeping the fact quiet.
‘Why would anyone report him?’ Julia asked.
Fratelli frowned. ‘Who knows? You can’t get answers without asking questions. There has to be a reason he’s doing this. Pontecorvo’s a casual worker in the food industry. Thirty-five, forty years old according to my butcher friend. Once a month he buys unusual provisions in quantity, pays cash and never explains what he does with it all. But why should he start killing people now?’
Cassini put his coffee cup on the table and said, ‘So we’re looking for some bloke who thinks he’s this Savonarola nutcase? A mad monk who hated… what, exactly?’
‘Everything he saw as impure, unclean, corrupt and worldly,’ Fratelli replied without the least hesitation. ‘Homosexuals. Corrupt city officials. The godless. The sensuous. Men who had affairs and visited prostitutes. Women who wore garish clothes and displayed their bodies.’
‘Doesn’t exactly narrow it down, does it?’ Cassini responded. ‘He must hate most of us then.’
‘I believe he does.’
‘Including himself,’ Julia suggested. ‘Logically…’
‘Logically he must!’ Fratelli declared with a grin. ‘There’s an interesting thought. Didn’t Savonarola whip himself in times of doubt? I don’t remember. Many of his peers, though…’ He glanced at the shelf, seemed to think about pulling down a book, then decided against it. ‘Self-loathing is an interesting idea. Some burning sense of guilt. Perhaps lasting decades. I like that, but it must have a source. A reason why he should turn murderous two nights ago — not two years or two decades. For that… I have no ideas whatsoever.’
He smiled at her. Julia now wore her new clothes from the second-hand shop. A simple black dress, sleeveless and modestly cut at the front, with a string of pearls, a relic of her brief marriage, around her slender neck. The shoes didn’t match. Her hair was tied back in the severe way she had adopted for work. When she thought about it, she might have been ready to walk back into her old office and attack a new set of conveyancing documents. It probably wasn’t right. But for such a mysterious evening, what was?
‘Have I done something wrong?’ she asked, worried by the way they were looking at her.
Fratelli tugged at his hair and winced.
‘You look a bit scary,’ Cassini offered. ‘Like a schoolteacher. No offence but…’
She sighed then, grumbling, took off the band and shook her fair hair around her shoulders.
‘That’s a lot better!’ the young carabiniere cried.
‘You’re too kind. What am I supposed to learn tonight?’
No answer.
‘If this turns into something squalid—’ she began.
‘You must do what you see fit,’ Fratelli cut in. ‘You’re a guest of the city. A foreigner. A woman who happens to be lodging with a former maresciallo ordinario of the Carabinieri. If you choose to walk out of the Brigata Spendereccia, Soderini might be cross, offended — vindictive, even, when it comes to helping your project in the future…’
‘My project,’ she muttered under her breath.
‘He’ll do nothing to prevent you leaving, Julia. He’s no fool.’
Luca Cassini drained his cup. ‘Well I grew up here and I never heard of this nonsense. Not till Pino mentioned it. Toffs like Soderini. All them posh people who think they own everything. They love their secrets, if you ask me. Why? I mean… they run the bloody place as it is. They’ve got this city in their tight little fists already. There’s nothing left that isn’t theirs, my granddad says.’
‘And he’s a wise and worldly man,’ Fratelli added.
‘Exactly,’ Cassini agreed. ‘So what have they got to hide?’
Julia and Fratelli exchanged glances. Luca Cassini was coming out of his shell so quickly, revealing a smart and likeable young man. She hoped Fratelli’s use of him wouldn’t work to his disadvantage.
A glance at her watch. It was time to go.
‘Will someone walk me to the Palazzo Vecchio?’ she said. ‘I seem to have a date.’
‘Two noble escorts into the Florentine night,’ Fratelli said grandly, then stood up and offered his arm. He looked well again. Activity suited him. It was hard to believe he was sick at all when she saw him like this.