Mimi's Ghost (27 page)

Considering his list again, he opened a sublist beside the entry watch your back, and wrote:

But it was hopeless. Morris stopped. How could he even begin to control everything? How could he know what Fendtsteig knew or might find out, or even what the man needed to find out to get a conviction? A body? A witness? It was simply amazing, he thought, his mind flitting rather dangerously from the sensibly practical to the philosophic, amazing how one - anyone - could live so blithely in one's ignorance, one's unknowing, until such time as one knew something, did something, that others mustn't know. At which point it became necessary to be almost omniscient, to know everything about what everybody else was doing and thinking, simply in order to make sure that they remained ignorant of what you knew, of what must be for ever hidden.

The truth was, you had to become a sort of god when you committed a crime. In the day ye eat thereof,' he remembered, ‘then ye shall be as gods.'

Standing up, straightening his tie as he watched himself in the glass of a bookcase (it was so nice to be able to wear his own smart clothes again), Morris phoned Inspector Marangoni and offered his congratulations on the policeman's having arrested the two immigrants. And thank God he had! Because that man Fendtsteig or Fennstig, or whatever he was called, at the carabinieri just hadn't seemed to be interested at all.

‘I hope,' Marangoni said, cautious as ever, ‘that you didn't find prison too trying.'

Morris was aware that it would be as well to appear consistent. Yet he must not seem to be flaunting consistency. He hesitated. ‘From a commercial point of view' - he spoke slowly - ‘it was something of a disaster, I'm afraid, with Bobo gone and me out at the same time. The company's just been drifting. By the way, I don't suppose there's any chance of compensation over that?' But then, before Marangoni could tell him the inevitable no, Morris added somewhat vaguely: ‘In personal terms, though, I don't know, I suppose it proved quite a watershed. I mean, I had time to think about a lot of things.'

Marangoni managed a sort of sad chuckle. ‘I often think I wouldn't mind a month or so in prison myself with all the work I've got to do here.'

‘I can imagine,' Morris said politely.

‘Anyway, I'm sorry, but there can be no question of compensation,' Marangoni went on, ‘since I gather that you were in fact choosing to be reticent in a situation where there was the apparent danger of perverting the course of justice.'

Morris left a brief embarrassed silence, before saying: ‘I suppose I should apologise if I held up investigations, but it was a very personal matter. I was confused.'

‘So I gather,' Marangoni said, but non-committal.

‘Anyway, yes, I just phoned to offer my congratulations, I mean, I'm sure it isn't easy to track down these people.' He hesitated. ‘And then to say that if I can help in any way, I'd be delighted to do so.'

‘We'll be in touch,' Marangoni said.

But Morris had other ideas. ‘You see . . .'

‘Yes?'

‘Well, you see, there's something I remembered while I was in prison, only I don't know if it can really be corroborated, so I don't know if there's any point in mentioning it.'

Was Marangoni's voice a trifle weary as he said: 'Tell me'? Morris decided that it was.

‘Forget it,' he said. ‘It's probably nothing.'

‘Signor Duckworth, if you . . .'

That was better. ‘No, I just wondered if, when you did your forensic tests on the office, you might have found, er . . .'

But at this precise moment, without even knocking, his wife put her head round the door. It was something that was definitely going to have to stop.

‘What?' Marangoni enquired, clearly getting interested.

‘Guests for you,' Paola said, but then stayed to listen. When the art of marriage, surely, was learning to give your partner the kind of breathing space even a saint would need.

‘Yes, whether you'd found,' Morris continued, ‘er, any particular kind of cigarette ash in the room.'

There was a brief pause. ‘Signor Duckworth, even if you were not yourself in a difficult position in this case, it would hardly be professional of me to reveal details of our forensic investigations to you, would it? Now why don't you just tell me what you have to tell me.'

‘It's precisely because people insist on considering me a suspect,' Morris came back, ‘that I didn't wish to appear to be too forward.'

His wife, he saw, was shaking her head, a smile at once intrigued and sardonic playing over painted lips. One could only hope, once again, that imminent motherhood would give her something else to think about.

Morris knitted his brow: ‘The fact is that when I walked into the office, you know, that morning, and found everything turned upside down like it was, I remember there was a strong smell of cheroots. You know, that really acrid sort of cigar tobacco. I mean, it was only later that I remembered it. I thought it might be worth checking whether one of these two immigrants you've arrested smokes that kind of thing. Though of course if you don't have any forensic evidence to corroborate the fact. . .'

Inspector Marangoni said he would look into the matter. Any information was always useful. So long as it really was information.

‘Definitely a smell of cheroots,' Morris confirmed, and in a mixture of nervousness and euphoria got the phone down.

Paola was still shaking her head. 'Don't you think it would be better to leave well alone?'

Morris was blandly quizzical. ‘How do you mean? I'm only trying to get this horrible business behind me. The more I can tell them, the more likely they are to settle the thing. Now, who are these guests?'

Forbes and Kwame were standing in the hallway amidst the antique furniture and the smell of wax. The bespectacled Englishman was small and shabby beside the splendid stature of the black. Kwame was clearly flourishing, a brilliant set of teeth blossoming in a great white smile between fleshy lips.

‘Quod bonutn, felix, faustumque
sir,' announced Forbes in the same accent public-school masters no doubt used to say grace at Eton and Harrow. Turning to the wall he picked up a large flat parcel wrapped in brown paper. ‘A small token of my affection, Morris. When I discovered they wouldn't let me visit I decided to prepare something for your return.'

While Forbes was speaking, Kwame stepped forward and embraced Morris tightly, kissing him on both cheeks.

‘I is so glad the boss is back,' he said.

In a low voice, though he was perfectly aware that Paola was watching, Morris whispered: Thanks for not running for it. We must talk.'

The black was still hugging him quite fiercely and with genuine joy. ‘You is the best, boss, everything going to be all right now.'

Paola's eyes had opened wide indeed. This would show her, Morris thought - his body filling with a pleasant warmth and sense of security - this would show her the kind of affection her husband was capable of inspiring in those he had helped. Then disengaging from the black's embrace, he found he was looking directly at Massimina.

He froze. These moments of sudden and complete disorientation were so frightening! But it really was her: her face, her hair, her faintly wry, rosy-lipped, lightly freckled smile. And wearing, as in his dream, the blue-and-red robe of the
Vergine incoronata.
What had she come to tell him? Was it a warning? Did he have to kill somebody?

Two weeks' work,' Forbes smiled. ‘As you requested. Remember? A token of my thanks. By the way, I've had a contractor in to get a quote for the renovation work at the villa.'

Morris had turned to paper.

‘Mo!' Paola said.

Darkness looded the brain. He almost passed out, then with an immense effort somehow forced the shadows back. From being her living face in flesh and blood, the image receded to indifferently painted canvas.

‘Hey, boss!' Kwame's hand was round his shoulders.

Morris managed a weak smile. ‘Sorry, it's nothing. Just a bit overwhelmed,' he murmured, ‘by all your kindness. Can't tell you how glad I am to be back. We'll hang it in the bedroom.'

Where, later on that evening, Paola protested that just because he claimed to be converted there was no reason for them not to use a condom. Morris reminded her that since she was pregnant there was hardly any point. Paola shook her head. How could she be pregnant if they'd always used something? Where was he getting all these crazy ideas? When was her last period? Morris asked. Oh, but she frequently skipped a cycle or two, he knew that,

She stared at him. She was wearing the suspender belt and extravagant underwear she sometimes masturbated in, in front of the mirror.

‘Perhaps you should buy a test,' he suggested. He had never felt less excited, at least sexually.

This bed will have to go,' she said. ‘It's too old-fashioned and soggy. It turns me off. We'll bring the other one over from Montorio.'

Over my dead body, Morris thought, exchanging glances with Mimi over her shoulder. Looking at the picture more calmly now, he noticed that the face was rather more boyish than in the original. The effect was not unlike that of his androgynous Christ crucified that had so impressed the prison psychiatrist.

Paola said: ‘
A proposito,
don't you think it's a bit extravagant giving that big black boy the flat?'

‘I saw it as a gesture of kindness.'

‘So why not give it to one of the others? Or to all of them. That would really piss the builder off.'

Morris was silent. Surely the thing about a wife was that she was supposed to trust you without requiring explanations. Paola sat cross-legged on the bed, clearly trying to impress her physical presence upon him, one hand resting lightly on her furriness. When Morris still showed no interest, she said: ‘You know, if you did do in Bobo, this religious conversion thing is not such a great idea. People tend to convert when they feel guilty.'

‘What do you mean, if I did in Bobo!' Morris sat bolt upright.

She laughed. ‘Just testing.' At the same time she was shaking her head. ‘There's something so weird about you, Mo. I sense it. So many odd things you've done lately. It's scary. Anyway, what did happen to Bobo?'

‘The obvious explanation is that those immigrants did him in.'

But Morris was reaching the conclusion that, like it or not, he was going to have to distract the woman, the only way he knew how. So to resolve the difference of opinion over contraceptives, since he didn't want to go back on having sworn not to use them, he lured her into their first anal adventure, and to his surprise found the procedure not ungratifying.

The following morning was a Sunday. Morris rose bright and early, just registering the predictable swell of superiority one got from seeing someone else, and particularly one's wife, still clinging on to sloth. What everybody else seemed to lack was a proper sense of purpose. In this respect- and the thought came as a surprise to him - he couldn't help feeling a certain affinity with the odious but undeniably purposeful Fendtsteig. Which was interesting. Then the mere fact that he had thought this new thought cheered Morris up. He pulled on an Armani silk dressing-gown, crossed himself briefly in front of Massimina and explained in a loud voice, just in case either of the two women present were listening, that he had things to look over at the company, after which he planned to go to Mass. As indeed he would every morning of his life from now on. Like the present Prime Minister, Andreotti. Morris smiled, because he recalled having read somewhere that Andreotti had been accused of more or less everything, from embezzlement, to
associazione rnafiosa,
to murder. And never been caught. Never, never, never been caught. Italy, it was heartening to think, was that kind of place.

Stepping through to the bathroom, Morris washed and shaved, reflecting that in due time the dated ceramics here might profitably be replaced with a good white marble. And though he would never be seen dead with mixers or gold-and-ivory taps, something would have to be done about the fittings, which had that public-lavatory feel of the kind of unfortunate renovations people used to make in the mid and late fifties.

He had wiped his face and was unlocking the door when something occurred to him: a tip a rather pleasant young man had given him in prison and that he had promised he would act upon just as soon as he had the opportunity. Turning back into the bathroom, he picked up a small yellow sponge on the ledge over the tub, wrung it dry and slipped it into his pocket. Downstairs, he removed a plastic bag from the roll in the kitchen and spent all of five minutes trying to get the damn thing open. Or was he fiddling with the wrong end? So much for modern convenience. Looking in the fridge, he pushed the yellow sponge into a pool of greasy juice swirling about the remains of yesterday's celebratory roast beef (not so much an unusual culinary effort on Paola's part, as the work of Signora Trevisan's old
donna di servizio,
who appeared, most acceptably to Morris's mind, to have come with the house). As soon as the sponge had gained a bit of weight and turned suitably brown and meat-like and sticky, Morris slipped it into the plastic bag, tied a knot at the top and put it in his jacket pocket. This was going to be fun! Quite apart from throwing another red herring into the already muddy water. Feeling light-hearted for the first time in weeks, he found his coat and stepped out into an air that smelt appropriately spring-like.