Whatever Maurizio might or might not have done on the top floor of the Villa Docci fourteen years before, what was he, Adam, now going to do about it? Confront Maurizio with a direct accusation based on a few scraps of evidence? Run to Signora Docci and lay out his case? Of course not. He had taken the matter as far as he possibly could. Maurizio would no more be brought to justice than Federico Docci had been. Why pretend otherwise?
After this, his decision came easily.
ADAM WAS AWAKENED BY THE SOUND OF RUNNING WATER coming from his bathroom.
"Hello . . . ?" he called groggily.
"Yours is brown too."
He checked his watch. He'd slept for ten hours. He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept for ten hours. "What?"
Harry appeared in the bathroom doorway. "The water—yours is brown too." He was unshaven and dressed in the same clothes he'd been wearing when he headed down into Florence.
"You just got back?"
"Uh-huh."
"You stayed the night?"
"Are you always this sharp first thing? Yes, I stayed the night. And now I'm back and I want a bath and the water's brown."
Adam rolled away onto his side. "So complain to the management, demand a refund."
Harry dumped himself on the mattress. "Good evening, was it?" "Hard to imagine, with you not there."
"Want to hear about mine?"
"Not especially."
Harry pointed to his cheek. "The boyfriend came back early."
Adam tried to focus. There was some discoloration at the side of Harry's mouth.
"He hit you?"
"I wish. He slapped me."
"He slapped you?"
"It's humiliating, believe me, worse than you think, being slapped by a very small and very angry Italian man."
"Why did he slap you?"
"Well, not because I polished off the milk in his fridge."
"I thought she lived with two girls."
"We went to his place."
"Harry, why on earth would you go to his place?"
"The view. It's got a great view, right along the river, the Ponte Vecchio, everything. He wasn't meant to come back till today."
"I give up."
"That's what he said."
"Huh?"
"When I had him by the throat: 'I give up.' He spoke good English."
Harry's use of the past tense was more than a little worrying.
"You didn't kill him? Tell me you didn't kill him."
"Of course not, but after that we couldn't exactly stay there."
"You don't say?"
"We went back to her place. She was upset. She asked me to hang around, so I did. She just drove me back on her scooter. It's a Lambretta." "Harry, I don't care."
"I think I'm going to get one for myself—a black Lambretta."
"With what? You're broke. You're always broke."
Harry turned on his side and grinned at Adam. "I'm glad you brought it up."
"How much do you need?"
"I don't know. Anything you can spare."
"You can have it all."
"Really?"
"I'm leaving on Sunday, same as you. You can have whatever's left."
Harry took in the news. "Why are you leaving?"
"I want to go home, I want to see Mum. That sounds pathetic, doesn't it?"
"No," said Harry. "Not if it means I get all the money."
By midmorning a small army had descended on the villa. Trucks and vans jostled for space in the courtyard, disgorging everything from flowers to food, crockery to Chinese lanterns. There were even two pigs skewered on spits, ready for roasting.
The whole operation unfolded with military precision, coordinated by a handful of generals hired for the occasion, with Signora Docci and Maurizio acting as joint commanders-in-chief. She seemed much more inclined to involve him and allow him a say than she had the other day.
Maria bustled about in her efficient and rather formidable fashion, keen to exercise her authority over the outsiders—a category to which Adam and Harry clearly belonged, in her view. They found themselves dispatched on numerous errands. It was on returning from one such menial mission that Adam found himself alone in the kitchen with Maria.
"La signora wants to see you in the study."
These were the first words of English he'd ever heard her speak. Her accent was thick, but the intonation perfect. He hoped that the slightly foreboding note in her voice was accidental.
Signora Docci was indeed in the study. She was seated behind the desk where Adam had spent so much of his time. And sitting in the middle of the desk was a bird's nest. Dusty and dried out, it was also disheveled after its descent from the top-floor window. Adam cursed himself silently for the oversight.
"Maria found it on the terrace yesterday. There is only one place it could have come from." There was no hostility in her voice, but there was a hard edge to her gaze, one he'd never seen before.
No point in playing dumb. Their footprints were all over the top floor. She had probably checked already.
"Did Antonella tell you where the key was? I hope she did. I don't like to think that you went through all my things looking for it."
"It's not her fault. I kept pestering her."
"Why?"
Adam shrugged. "Morbid curiosity. An untouched murder scene. A frozen moment in time."
All true, all things he had felt. He almost sounded convincing to himself.
"And was it worth it?"
"Worth it?"
"Worth risking our friendship over?"
Adam's mind shuddered to a halt. All he could think was: Christ, her English is good.
"I'm sorry," he said feebly.
"I don't mind that you've insulted me, but you have insulted Benedetto. You knew it was his wish."
"Yes."
After a long moment she brought her hands together. "Good. Well, let's not allow this to spoil your last week here."
"I'm leaving on Sunday with Harry."
"Oh." She seemed surprised, even disappointed.
"I've finished my work on the garden."
"I thought there were still questions."
There were, not least of alclass="underline" Did the garden hold a clue to the identity of Flora's lover? The library had yielded no more information on Tullia d'Aragona following her sudden disappearance from view the year of Flora's death. She was definitely emerging as a viable contender. The hunchback poet, Girolamo Amelonghi, seemed a less likely candidate, and many of the other names on the list were excluded by dint of the fact that they'd outlived Flora by many years. There were still a few individuals he needed to check up on, but that was something that required a far more extensive library than Villa Docci had to offer.
"Nothing we'll ever know the answers to for sure."
"No, probably not," Signora Docci conceded.
The first thing Adam did was go in search of Harry. He found him in the courtyard, where two truckloads of water were replenishing the villa's depleted well. Antonella was also there—she had just arrived—which meant he only had to have the conversation once.
"A bloody bird's nest?" said Harry.
"Merda," said Antonella.
"She didn't seem too annoyed."
Antonella wasn't convinced. "We'll see."
"I'm sorry, it was completely my fault."