A vast glazed mahogany cabinet filled the wall behind the desk. Its lower shelves were given over to books, the majority of them relating to the Etruscans. A large section was devoted to anthropological texts. These were in a variety of languages—Italian, French, English and Dutch—and were decades old. The upper shelves of the cabinet were home to all manner of strange objects, mostly of an archaeological nature: clay figurines, bronze implements, bits of pottery, fragments of stone sculpture and the like. On the very top shelf were two skulls, their hollow eye sockets deep pools of shadow behind the glass.
Adam opened the cabinet door and, with the aid of some steps from the library, found himself face to face with the macabre display. They weren't human skulls, but they weren't far off—primates of some kind. Although similar in size, there were distinct differences. The skull on the left was narrower and less angular. Its partner had longer canines, jutting cheekbones and a bony crest rising across the skull from ear to ear, met at its apex by two ridges running from the sides of the eye sockets.
Adam reached out and ran his hand over the skull, his fingers tracing the cranial ridges.
That's when he heard the footsteps.
He turned to see Maria enter the study from the terrace. The reproachful cast of her eye would have driven him from the library steps if he hadn't already been descending.
"Very interesting," he said pathetically, nodding behind him.
"Would you like some coffee?"
"Yes, thank you."
Maria stopped and turned at the door to the library. "Orango-tanghi," she said, her eyes flicking to the skulls.
"Oh," he replied in English. "Right."
The moment she was gone, he reached for the dictionary.
He hadn't misunderstood her.
Despite her offer of coffee, Maria barely concealed her relief at not having to feed him at lunchtime. Toward three o'clock, she appeared in the study with a summons from the lady of the house.
He found Signora Docci sitting in her bed, patting at her face and neck with a wet flannel. A typewriter sat beside her on the bed, an unfinished letter in its jaws.
"I've asked Foscolo to prepare a bicycle for you," she said. "To spare you the walk every day."
"Thank you, that's very kind."
"I don't want your death on my conscience, what with this heat."
She asked him how his work was going, and he came clean about his dilemma, now resolved.
"You like the house?"
"I do. A lot."
She looked on approvingly as he spelled out why exactly. He asked her who the architect had been.
"No one really knows. There is a reference somewhere to a young man, a Fulvio Montalto. My father looked into it, but he could find no records. It is as if he just disappeared. If it was him, he never built another villa. A sadness, no? A great talent."
"Yes."
"I'm glad you think so. The house does not speak to everybody. Crispin never felt much for it."
Adam hesitated, still not accustomed to hearing Professor Leonard referred to as Crispin.
"No," he said, "he hardly mentioned it."
"What did he mention?"
"Well, the memorial garden, of course."
He could see from her expression that this wasn't what she'd intended by her question.
"He said you were old friends."
"Yes, old friends."
"He also said your husband died some years back. And your eldest son was killed during the war."
"Emilio, yes. Did he say how exactly?"
"Only that the Germans who took over the villa were responsible."
"They shot him. In cold blood. Up there. Above us." Her voice trailed off.
He wanted to ask her why and how and if that was the reason the top floor was off-limits. The pain in her drawn eyes prevented him from doing so.
"You don't have to say."
"No, you might as well hear it from me."
She spoke in a flat, detached monotone, which clashed with the sheer bloody drama of her story. She told him how the Germans had occupied the villa, installing their command post on the top floor because of the views it afforded them over the surrounding countryside. She and her husband, Benedetto, were obliged to move in with Emilio and his young wife, lsabella, who lived in the big house on the slope beyond the farm buildings.
Relations with the new tenants were strained at times, but generally civil. The Germans were respectful right from the first, giving them fair warning to vacate the villa, suggesting that all works of art be stored out of harm's way, and even assisting in this exercise. At no point were the stores stripped, the cattle slaughtered, the wine cellar pillaged. The estate was allowed to function as normal, just so long as it provided the occupiers with what little they required for themselves.
On the day in question—an unbearably hot July day—the inexorable Allied advance rolling up from the south finally reached San Casciano, and the Germans began moving out of the villa. All day, trucks came and went to the sounds of the fierce battle raging just up the road. Her younger son, Maurizio, arrived from Florence to be with his family for yet another awkward handover to yet another occupying force. At nightfall, though, San Casciano was still firmly under German control. That's why the family was surprised when, just as they were finishing dinner, they heard the sound of gunfire coming from up at the villa.
It was Emilio who insisted on going to investigate, more out of curiosity than anything, because the gunfire was accompanied by the unmistakable sounds of music and laughter. Maurizio agreed to go with him, along with a third man, Gaetano the gardener, who had also heard the ruckus.
Approaching the villa from the rear, they saw furniture being tossed from the top floor windows, splintering on the terrace below. Incensed, Emilio stormed inside and upstairs, Maurizio and Gaetano hot on his heels. Most of the Germans were gone. Only two remained, left behind to burn documents and destroy equipment so that it wouldn't fall into Allied hands. Fueled by drink, they had overstepped their orders, using the frescoes for target practice and hurling furniture out of the windows—pathetic acts of destruction that enraged Emilio.
A fierce argument ensued. If Emilio hadn't pulled out his pistol and fired a warning shot, it might have ended there, with heated words. But it didn't. The Germans opened fire, killing Emilio before fleeing.
"That's terrible."
"Yes, it was. Just a few more hours and we would have come through the war untouched."
There were questions Adam wanted to ask, but Signora Docci steered the conversation back to Professor Leonard, saying that he had shown himself to be a very good friend in the aftermath of the tragedy.
"How did you meet him?"
"Through my father. They worked together on an archaeological excavation. Well, not together exactly. It was an Etruscan site near Siena. My father was in charge; Crispin was one of the young people who did all the work—a student, like you, in Italy for the summer. It was the year your Queen Victoria died. In 1901. We were very aware of it here. She often came to Florence. Papa even had the honor of meeting her once." She paused. "Anyway, he brought Crispin home one day, out of pity, I think, as you would a stray dog. He was so poor and so thin and so very intelligent. He stayed with us for a month that first summer."