The Drowning River (32 page)

Raising his head from the page he was writing on in an attempt to process this information, Sandro saw Luisa pour more wine. Was it his imagination, or was she just pushing the food around her plate? ‘Eat up,’ he coaxed, and she gave him an impatient look.

‘And what about Claudio, then?’ she said. ‘I know you; you don’t
want to talk to Cat Lady exactly because she might have seen the whole thing; she might point the finger at your beloved Claudio.’

Sandro looked away, because she was right. ‘If I was still in the force,’ he said slowly, ‘we’d assume the boyfriend did it.’

‘And only the wife as alibi,’ said Luisa. ‘That gallery’s very near to the Boboli.’

‘The sidekick from the school was there, too,’ he said reluctantly. ‘Antonella Scarpa.’

Luisa stroked her cheeks thoughtfully. ‘We saw the place,’ she said. ‘This morning. Galleria Massi. He could have been in and out of the Boboli in ten minutes, no one the wiser, couldn’t he? You haven’t even spoken to the wife yet.’ She turned to Giulietta. ‘Wasn’t there a shop right opposite? She’d see any goings on?’

‘He was very quick with his alibi,’ said Sandro. ‘And I didn’t believe any of that, about his wife always popping down with a bit of lunch for him.’ He frowned. ‘Particularly if he was supposed to be at the airport at two.’

‘Yes,’ said Luisa, sitting up straight. ‘That’s true. I bet she was never there at all.’

‘I’m supposed to be meeting Massi down there in a bit,’ said Sandro thoughtfully. ‘I’d really like a look in that place, his gallery.’

The old
padrone
was at the table, with the bill.

‘Caffe?’ he asked, and as Sandro was about to answer emphatically in the affirmative, there was a discreet creak and the restaurant’s door opened. A slight, faintly seedy-looking individual slipped inside, darting a sheepish glance at the darkened kitchen and the
padrone,
who was bristling at the after-hours intrusion.

‘Beppe?’ Luisa intervened quickly. The waiter from the Kaffeehaus.

‘Four coffees,’ he said, reluctantly, because he had the certain feeling that this camp, skinny, apologetic little man had come to bring him bad news.

Iris thought he’d be upset, but she hadn’t expected this.

‘I don’t know why I’m crying,’ he said, hopelessly, wiping his eyes
with the back of a sleeve. ‘This is stupid. I hardly knew the guy.’ Iris didn’t know what to say; it was almost as if he was crying for himself.

‘I can’t believe he’d do that,’ Jackson went on, ‘walk into the river like that. He was such a – such a great guy, he – he was full of stories, y’know? Talking about his wife, and shit –’ He swallowed, stopped, cleared his throat. ‘Sorry. I mean, I liked him. How can you be so wrong about someone? He’d had such a life.’

‘Jackson,’ said Iris gently. ‘You only met him once.’ He stared at her.

‘I guess I did,’ he said, dully. ‘I did feel like I knew him, though.’

Was that Jackson all over, though, thought Iris, just jumping from one fascinating new person to the next? Yesterday Sophia, today Iris; it didn’t make her angry, even.

Looking at his crestfallen face, Iris hardly knew how to say it, but she felt she had to. ‘What if he’d done something – I don’t know, by accident, to Ronnie. Or if his illness – he had Alzheimer’s, Sandro said.’

‘Oh,’ said Jackson, blowing his nose on the tissue she got for him. Her last one; Sophia’d had the rest.

‘Alzheimer’s,’ said Jackson, sitting back on his chair. They were in the window again, although below them the piazza seemed deserted now. ‘I guess Alzheimer’s explains anything, does it?’ He frowned.

‘I don’t know anything about it,’ said Iris honestly. ‘It seems to be a pretty bad deal.’

‘He drowned?’ said Jackson. ‘You don’t think she could be – he could have taken her with him?’

‘Into the river,’ said Iris, as that image returned to her, of Ronnie rolled over in the river, caught in branches, turned face up under the rain by some tidal bore. ‘I don’t know.’ She forced herself to consider. ‘Wouldn’t they have – found her by now?’

‘Massi did know him,’ said Jackson suddenly. ‘Knew Claudio, I mean.’ He frowned. ‘Or his wife did, said something like that. When I went back to ask him? Um, last night?’

‘Last night?’ She felt the flush threaten. The truth was she’d forgotten that bit. Standing in the Piazza Pitti waiting for Jackson to run back to
her, and the rain had started up again. She’d told him to go back and say something to Massi.

‘Did he say he’d tell the police?’

‘He said I should give them a statement myself,’ said Jackson. ‘He said it was a really important piece of information, but he was kinda insistent it should come from me.’ He made a face. ‘I guess he’s right, too. I guess I do need to talk to them, eventually.’

‘Did he know the guy was dead?’ she asked curiously.

‘Well, if he did, he didn’t mention it,’ said Jackson, frowning again.

‘They were still in the gallery? When you caught up with them?’

Jackson nodded. ‘It was dark in there,’ he said slowly, ‘but the car was still parked, up on the pavement. So I knocked, and I looked in the glass and there was a light on, right at the back. They must have been having some kind of big discussion because they didn’t hear me at first then I knocked again. Massi came and let me in, and Antonella stayed out the back, putting stuff in boxes, there’s some kind of a storeroom and a yard out there. The gallery’s weird, it goes back so far it’s like a tunnel. We only saw the showroom, didn’t we?’

It seemed a hundred years ago, that first week, when Massi had showed them around the gallery, telling them this will be where we show the best work produced on the course. A big room with downlighters and dark red walls, Massi’s own massive seventeenth-century desk in the window, artlessly strewn with engravings and heavy art books. He must like sitting there, she remembered thinking, like some Renaissance noble, some patron of the arts.

Jackson went on. ‘He turned on the lights when he saw me; they’ve put up some of the work already, did you know that? For the show?’

‘I wonder if Antonella knows,’ said Iris, not thinking about the end-of-course show, imagining instead the tunnel with Antonella standing at the far end, in the shadows. ‘You know, for a second the other day I did wonder if there was something going on between her and Massi.’

‘Antonella?’ Jackson sounded disbelieving. ‘No way. It’s just the work with her.’

‘They spend a lot of time together,’ said Iris. ‘How could she not know? Didn’t you say he told her he was going to Sicily?’

Jackson shook his head. ‘I don’t think she cared, one way or the other. I think all she cares about is the art, and maybe the business. She polishes that damn old printing press every five minutes, she stays late doing his books. I’ve seen her.’

There was something about the dismissive way he said it that annoyed Iris. She realized she liked Antonella; or had liked her, anyway. What was wrong with caring about the art, anyway?

‘I wonder what he said to her, when he didn’t go to Sicily after all?’ Iris puzzled. ‘She never said anything to us about Sicily.’ In fact, she had told the class almost nothing; none of their business why he was going to be away for the week. Or why he was back earlier than expected. ‘She just said he was hanging the show.’

‘She does what she’s told,’ said Jackson. He sounded contemptuous.

‘Not always,’ said Iris, angrily, thinking of the line drawing of Ronnie that Antonella had stuck up on the wall in the studio. And then the obvious explanation came to her. It wasn’t really any good at all, was it? What if Antonella had put Iris’s drawing up there to make a point, to show Paolo that she was a woman, after all, not just his workhorse, and that she knew what was going on?

‘Baby,’ said Jackson, cajoling, putting out a hand.

‘No,’ said Iris, and she flipped his hand away, and got to her feet. All of a sudden she felt so overwhelmed with fury and disappointment that she couldn’t look at him; she stalked away from the window, stiff-legged, to the door. She didn’t even know who she was furious with: Antonella for being a fool after all, Massi, Jackson, Sophia; even Ronnie. With herself.

‘Why don’t you do something useful and speak to the Carabinieri, like Massi told you?’ she said as he stood there in the window, shoulders slumped. Iris knew she should be kinder but he was occupying too much room in her head, and she wanted to be on her own. There was stuff she needed to do – well, one thing in particular – and she wanted her space back to do them.

‘Where are you going?’ said Jackson. ‘What have I said now?’

‘This is serious,’ Iris said angrily. ‘If your friend Claudio did something to – did something with Ronnie, then there’s a chance they
might be able to find her. The Carabinieri have to start doing something; we can’t do this on our own. It’s ridiculous.’

‘Can’t you come with me?’ said Jackson.

The pleading note in his voice made Iris want to slap him. She reached abruptly for her bag and managed to drop it. It emptied itself out, a mound of sweet wrappers and receipts and Tampax, and as she knelt to sort through it Iris felt the flush come back, like an old enemy, scalding her face. ‘Damn, damn, damn,’ she muttered.

He was on his knees beside her, helping her; ‘I’m all right,’ she said, scooping stuff up in her hands and dumping it, dust and old envelopes and her purse and – and what were all these little bits of glass and junk? Iris sat back on her heels.

‘Hey,’ said Jackson, reverently, peering into his cupped hand. ‘Hey, what’s this?’

‘Give it to me,’ said Iris, and thinking it would be a tampon or something and he’d be trying to embarrass her, she grabbed.

‘Hey, hey,’ said Jackson, and there was a new note in his voice, curious, excited. He held it up between thumb and forefinger. ‘Look.’

It was a tiny rectangle of plastic, scuffed and dirty, a centimetre by a centimetre and a half, with a gold square inset, and a minuscule circuit board.

‘It’s a – it’s a -’ Now she remembered, the blue glass from Ronnie’s phone, the scraps of plastic she’d scooped into her bag yesterday.

‘It’s a sim card,’ Jackson said it for her.

She raised her head. ‘It’s Ronnie’s sim card?’ she said, disbelieving.

In the silence that followed as they stared at it the cold wet air outside seemed to be full of sirens, and then another sound, closer, and more urgent. Someone was battering at the door downstairs. They crossed back to the window and leaned out, looking down.

A man in a fluorescent tabard, face upturned, was yelling something up at him in Italian. Jackson looked at Iris blankly for help.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said in Italian, leaning down. ‘What was that?’

‘Diluvio,’
said the man. ‘There is some flooding.’

‘The Arno?’ asked Iris. ‘The river?’

The man shrugged, his face slick with water. ‘Maybe,’ he said.

‘Maybe soon,’ and he pointed. At the foot of the building, grey water was bubbling up through an iron drain cover. ‘Is better if you evacuate,’ he said. ‘Is temporary.’

Jackson held up a hand. ‘Sure,’ he said, nodding with eager politeness. ‘Five minutes, yeah?’ The man shrugged, already turning away; further around the piazza Iris saw other fluorescent tabards moving from door to door. At Rivoire, the big flashy bar on the corner, the tables and chairs had gone, and boards were being placed across the ornate threshold.

Turning back to Iris, all Jackson’s plaintiveness was gone, and he was as excited as a small boy. ‘If we’ve got her sim card, it’s, like, we’ve found her phone.’

Iris stared at him blankly.

‘You can put it in another phone,’ he said, ‘well, actually, not mine, the iPhone – um never mind,’ he finished as he saw her impatience with the technology that had once made him seem so nimble. ‘Gimme yours.’

Iris handed it over and deftly he slipped off the back, the battery, slid out its sim card, wrapped it carefully in a receipt from the pile of junk still on the floor and handed it to her. He slipped the new card inside in its place, carefully, laboriously put the phone back together and they stared at the screen, waiting. Then there it was, an unfolding logo, an icon. Jackson punched the air; ‘Not even blocked,’ he said triumphantly.

Iris stared at the tiny bit of Ronnie, glowing up at them.

‘See who she was calling, the night of the party,’ she said. Wanting final confirmation that it was him, not Jackson, not some bar owner on the other side of town – not her mother, though fat chance of that. She wanted to know who Ronnie had been talking to when she looked so dreamy and happy leaning out of the big window in the Piazza d’Azeglio.

Jackson was humming to himself, his fingers flickering over the keypad. In his element.
Call info,
it said and he handed it to her.

She flipped back down, two, three, four days ago – 31 October, Halloween, was what she was after, eleven thirty-three p.m., on the left a little arrow to denote a call out. Paolo, it said. She went to the address book; Paolo, an Italian mobile number.

Yes.

When Ronnie had been hanging out of the window on the phone to someone who had made her smile all evening, all night, all the next morning, she had been talking to Paolo Massi.

Not finished yet, though. Iris flipped to the next day, up; 1 November, nine-ten, Claudio; nine-twenty, Jackson. She called Claudio to fix their meeting, then Jackson to get him over, to see if he’d guess, to tease him, only he didn’t guess, did he? They had a glass of wine and she sent him on his way. At ten-forty she had been back on the phone to Paolo; calling him to make last-minute arrangements?

Then nothing.

Jackson was at her shoulder. ‘Try missed calls,’ he said, leaning across her. Concentrating, Iris nodded. Outside someone was shouting again. ‘Go and look,’ she said, distractedly. ‘Tell them we’re coming out.’ He was gone.

Missed calls; Iris. A lot from Iris; she was working backwards this time, from today, yesterday, Friday; Iris, Iris, all Iris. All those calls Iris had made, that niggling anxiety when she heard,
The number you are calling is not in service.

One from a girl they’d known at school, Joey, on an English landline, one from Jonathan, the boy who’d called Iris the fat chick. Just random, bored calls, Iris imagined, if she’d answered they’d have said, Hey, Ron, what’s up? What ya doin? I’m bored. But, still, only two calls? Iris felt suddenly sad for Ronnie, who didn’t have so many friends after all.