Vita Nuova (10 page)

‘Where have you been, for goodness’ sake? It’s been more than twenty minutes.’

‘What?’

They were forced to shout directly into each other’s ears.

‘Where were you!’

‘Had to go out for a smoke. This place is very very correct.’

‘Can we leave?’

‘I think we’d better. You can get cleaned up at the hotel.’

‘Hotel? What hotel?’

‘Our next stop. Unless you want to come back another night—in which case—’

‘No! Now, listen, Nesti—’

‘We’re in this together. You’re my witness or I won’t get the front page, and I’m your witness or how will you get this through the courts?’

‘I’m investigating a murder, Nesti, not creating career opportunities for you.’

‘It’s all one. Let’s get out of here. And watch out for anybody with a camera. Cristina says they like to take snapshots of anybody new as a sort of insurance policy and she thinks we might have attracted attention by trying to go upstairs with her together. That was probably a mistake. . . .’

The two bouncers were escorting the star stripper from the room, clearing a path for her, delaying their departure. She was amazingly tall, like a huge doll. The marshal glanced around him. There were no cameras in sight but they could be hidden—not that it need matter to him, since he was here on official business.

It was a relief to be outside in the darkness and walking away from the noise. By the time they neared their cars they could hear their own footsteps on the gravel and the pounding music had faded to a background rhythm.

‘Before we go anywhere else, what about telling me—’

‘Not here,’ Nesti muttered. ‘It’s too dark. Can’t see who’s around. Get in your car and follow me.’

They drove back to the town centre, to the street where they’d eaten. In front of him, Nesti signalled and turned left into an alleyway that led to a carpark. It was nothing more than a patch of bumpy spare ground, but a custodian appeared with a torch and took ten euros from each of them.

‘How long is that for?’ the marshal asked.

The man only shrugged and vanished into the darkness.

Back on the street, which was as brightly lit and busy as before but with fewer women about, other than young ones looking for clients, Nesti said, ‘Wait there a minute. We don’t want to be conspicuous again.’ And he vanished into a crowded bar.

The marshal stood well away from the door, affecting to look at a four-thousand-euro handbag in one of the designer shops, but managed to watch Nesti out of the corner of his eye as he went to the cash desk and spoke to the man behind it. He was given something from under the counter. He came out of the bar, walked by the marshal without looking at him, saying, ‘Follow me at a distance.’

Feeling more than a little ridiculous, the marshal did as he was told. As well as feeling ridiculous, he was tired, but he was curious too. Nesti crossed the road and turned a corner. All the buildings on the main road had been new, built from the sixties on, but now they were in a quieter street which must be nearer the spa park, judging by the smell of greenery on the night air. Nesti turned in at the gate of a liberty-style villa and stopped to wait.

‘Isn’t this a private house?’ murmured the marshal.

‘Discreet hotel.’ Nesti opened the main door with a large key. There was no one in the entrance hall, no reception desk, no sign of life. Only soft lighting and huge potted plants standing on the fancy tiled floor. The staircase had an elaborate wrought-iron banister.

As they climbed, Nesti gave the marshal a key.

‘We’re on the first floor. Cristina will be joining me so we can carry on our little conversation, so I’ve paid for two rooms; so, if you want to take advantage, it’s paid for.’

‘No, thanks. And I hope all this is going to be worth it.’

‘You’ll see. Come in here. This is your room, I’m opposite. I’ll fill you in a bit. It’ll be an hour before Cristina gets off. Not bad, eh?’

The room was big and its centrepiece was a four-poster bed, its gauzy curtains tied back with ribbons.

‘Sit down. There’ll be a fridge somewhere. . . .’ Nesti soon discovered it, hidden inside an antique sideboard. ‘Champagne . . . right—and look at that! There’s even milk for breakfast! You’ve got to admit, Paoletti knows his stuff. Glasses are in the fridge, too. I like things done properly. Here.’

The marshal sat on a shiny striped chair and accepted the glass, though he had no desire to drink anything ice-cold at this hour.

‘There you go . . . decent champagne, too. So!’ Nesti plumped down on the four-poster and fished out his cigarettes. ‘This is a hotel where you don’t see anybody and nobody sees you. Useful for expensive love affairs; but if you haven’t got a woman, Paoletti will provide. Nothing leads back to him, by the way. He owns this place, though it’s in his wife’s name, but what goes on here, that’s the guest’s business and it won’t be easy to touch him for it.’

‘Well, for a start, we’re here and we haven’t filled in a police hotel form.’

‘And this isn’t registered as a hotel. It doesn’t look like a hotel, there’s no sign outside, no reception, no concierge, no money changing hands.’

‘So how did you pay?’

‘At the club, but there’s no record of it. I followed Cristina’s instructions, went down, paid at the cash desk, and was given a number to recite at that bar in exchange for the keys. Anyway, first things first, here’s how it works: I paid to go upstairs with Cristina to a private room— whole floor’s about the same size as the room we were in downstairs, but divided into what you could hardly call separate rooms, not much more than cubicles, wall to halfway up and then a sort of beaded-curtain effect—I mean, if you wanted to you could peep into the next one and you can bet your life the whole lot will be under surveillance.’

‘So . . . you mean you can’t get up to much for your sixty euros.’

‘One twenty in my case, remember—we’ve got to keep our accounts straight. No, you can’t get up to anything at all. A bit of private lap dancing and that’s it. The girls aren’t allowed to do more than wriggle around and they have to keep the tanga on. So, no sex in the club, no money changing hands here. Anyway, Cristina wriggled around and we talked while she wriggled. She and another five are sex slaves. All of them came over from eastern Europe. They share a dormitory, so she knows them all. Then there are two more she doesn’t know. They all came here legally to work as waitresses or in domestic service through the agency— and there are enough of them really doing that for word to have spread that it’s above-board. Once they’re here, Paoletti looks them over and decides what to do with them. If they’re not much to look at, they find themselves cleaning lavatories or looking after somebody’s senile granny. They’re overworked and underpaid, but they’re the lucky ones. If they’re pretty, all the worse for them. They end up slaves like Cristina.’

‘What about the one we had dinner with? Maddalena? She’s very pretty, but she’s free.’

‘Different circuit. Like she said, she’s freelance, has a good agent. She did her stint at Paoletti’s club and that was that. She can dance and somebody has to keep the standards up. Same thing with the strippers—they’re real professionals, and some of them are big-time porn stars, very highly paid, also with tough agents. The poor creatures Paoletti brings in learn a few lewd poses, slither around their poles, and that’s about it as far as dancing’s concerned. On top of that, they’re used for the weirder sorts who frequent this place. Anyway, Maddalena got talking to the other girls and told all to her boyfriend, Tommaso, who happens to be a colleague of mine.’

‘Did Cristina tell you the names of the others?’

‘Anna and Lara Lazurek, two sisters, Natalia, Danuta, and Maria.’

‘I’ve seen a girl called Danuta at Paoletti’s house. She really is a cleaner—what’s more, she showed me her passport and work permit herself, so maybe somebody’s having you on, somebody who’s got it in for Paoletti.’

‘Or there’s more than one Danuta and the one you saw is one of the lucky ones. Besides, I’ve told you, they’ve all got legal papers, that’s why he feels safe— only, in the case of the sex slaves, he keeps those papers and their passports locked away.’

The marshal recognized that it might well be true. The Danuta he’d seen was far from pretty. Everything had been arranged for his visit. That was only too obvious.

‘Does he harm the girls who are sex slaves? Physically, I mean.’

‘Once, when they arrive. On their first night he locks them up and his bouncers are let loose on them. It’s a night they don’t forget. In any case, if they tried to leave their so-called jobs and run for it, where would they go? They’re scared of the cops and they wouldn’t get far without passports.’

‘There are refuges. . . .’

‘Listen, there’s one thing you can be sure of: Paoletti can size these girls up in seconds. If they’ve an ounce of spirit in them, he’s on to it. It’s the only time he appears at the club. He calls it auditioning.’

‘Yes . . . the marshal here told me Paoletti was auditioning when he was taken ill. . . .’

‘And don’t tell me
he
doesn’t know everything that’s going on here and turns a blind eye.’

‘I’ve no evidence for that.’

‘And you don’t want any, right?’

‘I keep telling you, I’m investigating a murder. I need to know if, being a freelance, he’s trodden on the toes of the mafia, Italian or Russian. Besides, you said there were two more girls Cristina doesn’t know. How come?’

‘I don’t know anything about the other two yet. That’s why we’re here. I ran out of time and, anyway, she needs persuading, she’s scared of saying any more, scared of what she’s already said. Have a drop more of this stuff. You’re paying for it. The girls who are slaves have to be decent lookers, but they also have to be trained to satisfy some rich clients with, shall we say, particular tastes.’

‘I can imagine.’

Nesti look at his watch. ‘I’d better get over to my room. I’ll leave you to finish the champagne—and don’t fall asleep. Officially, she comes to you after me so you can talk to her. I’ve paid for both of us and I warn you it’s expensive—these rooms can only be taken for the night—but the champagne’s included, so you might as well enjoy that, at least.’

‘Ugh!’

‘What are you moaning about? You ought to be grateful and make the most of it!’

He left.

Once he was alone, the marshal looked about him, sipped absentmindedly at his champagne and grimaced. It was very nice, of course, but you don’t want to be drinking cold fizzy stuff in the middle of the night. He placed the glass on the bedside table and stood up. Might as well see if he could do something about the stain on his trousers while he was waiting. The bathroom was done all over, floor and walls, with pretty, painted tiles. They were the sort Teresa liked, and they had a narrow strip of them in the bathroom at home. Majolica, Teresa said, and that narrow strip cost a fortune because it was hand-painted, not factory stuff. He wadded up some toilet roll, wondering at the expense of this place and the probable wealth and standing of its clients. The sink was set into a marble-topped piece of furniture with a big mirror above it. Hot water or cold? Unsure, he went for lukewarm, looking at himself in the mirror as it ran. Despite being tanned from his holidays, he looked pale. Fatigue, he supposed. A big sepia photograph was reflected behind his head showing a woman, young and plump, her soft piled curls tumbling, washing herself. As well as tired, he looked as out of place as he felt next to that picture and surrounded by all this elegance. Bull in a china shop. He sloshed at the splatter on his trouser leg, rubbed a big new cake of scented soap on it, sloshed a bit more and lifted the dark wooden seat to throw away the wad, pulling at the old-fashioned chain with a china handle. The only towels he could see had lace borders with bits of ribbon threaded through so he made another wad of toilet roll and dried the wet patch with that. Back in the bedroom, he wondered where to sit. Not on that fancy bed, that was for sure. It was all silk stuff and lace and ribbons, and there was that wet patch on his trousers to consider. So he wandered about, looking at everything as though he were at a crime scene—which, when all was said and done, it was. Not one where he’d be likely to find any evidence, though. He discovered a sort of curtained-off closet where there was a marble-topped table and everything needed to make coffee, including a fine brass espresso machine. He remembered the milk in the fridge. People did stay for breakfast, then, though not, he imagined, with the Cristinas. The sort of thing you’d need to be young and beautiful to enjoy and old and rich to afford. Well, the marshal never had been and never would be a candidate, at either end of the scale. He wished he were at home, showered and in pyjamas, between cool, freshly ironed sheets. They smelled so nice. In here it smelled of cigarette smoke, thanks to Nesti, and he could still taste the grappa that was lying heavily over his meal rather than helping digest it. Teresa would tell him off for eating so much so late: ‘You know you always have nightmares.’ And then she’d make him some chamomile tea and talk to him for a long time until he felt better.

He ached to go home, but the ache bumped to a stop in his chest. Teresa wasn’t there. A deep sigh escaped him and he walked about, too restless to settle anywhere, opening and shutting antique wardrobes, bare of anything but coathangers, and drawers lined with marbled paper. The faint tapping at the door, when it came, was a very welcome interruption. He opened it to Cristina and let her in. She looked very different dressed in blue jeans decorated with coloured bits and sequins and a short jacket over a plain T-shirt. Little more than a child. He sat down on the striped chair and, since there wasn’t another nearby, indicated that she should sit on the bed. She pulled off her jacket and, her face expressionless, unzipped her jeans.

Six

‘N
o.’

She stopped, waiting for instructions.

‘No, no. . . . Sit down. I want to talk to you.’

‘Like Roberto?’

‘Roberto . . . ? Ah, yes. Yes, like Roberto.’ He couldn’t recall ever knowing Nesti’s first name, though he must have seen it in the paper. He’d always known, though, that, whatever his many vices, he was a real professional.

He wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t mixed business with pleasure.

He indicated that she should fasten her jeans.

‘Are you frightened’

She only stared at him.

‘Do you speak Italian?’

‘Yes. But will you talk slow?’

‘I’ll talk very slowly. All right?’

‘Roberto told me to tell about the children.’

‘There are children here? How many children? Two? Are they the two names you don’t know?’

She shook her head. ‘Don’t know.’

‘Have you seen them? How do you know? How old are they? I’m sorry. I’ll talk slowly.’

Bit by bit they pieced her story together. She seemed to think there were two children, one about twelve or thirteen, the other much younger. They lived, as they all did, on the top floor of this building where a woman named Maria Grazia was in charge of them all.

‘The one called Danuta—does she work at Paoletti’s house in Florence in the afternoons?’

‘No. That’s another Danuta. She works there in the afternoon and washes glasses and cleans the club rooms here at night.’

‘Where does she sleep?’

‘She and Frida sleep in a room in the basement at the club.’

‘And do they have a room in the basement at the villa in Florence too?’ It would explain who was peeping out at him the other morning.

‘No. Unless Frida has one now. She doesn’t come here now, since . . . Danuta’s not one of us, but she’s scared to death of Paoletti, especially after what happened.’

‘You know about that? About the murder?’

She nodded. ‘Danuta thinks he killed her.’

‘Paoletti?’

Another nod. ‘He’s got guns. Frida saw. She cleans and waits on people with Danuta, only, since it happened, he makes here stay at the villa in Florence all the time and she’s scared. . You won’t say that I told—I mean about the guns?’

‘No, no. We’ll search the house and find them. We won’t say anything about you or the two cleaners. Is there any other reason why Danuta thinks he killed her?’

‘She’s scared of him. We all are.’

‘I understand. Nothing else?’

‘Danuta says. . . .’

He waited, not prompting, not asking. It was a while before she spoke but he held out.

‘Danuta says, and Frida says, he never lets his daughters out. That’s why they’re so strange. And that his wife. . . .’

‘Yes. I know about his wife. But Paoletti didn’t kill his daughter. He was in hospital.’

She shrugged, unconvinced. For her, Paoletti was all-powerful. He didn’t need to be there. If he decided you were dead, you were dead. And it was a pretty good assessment of his character, too, as far as controlling his family was concerned. But a murder in his own respectable, churchgoing household? That, never. And yet hadn’t he himself said it to the captain? A professional-style killing, yet something personal . . . and the wrong type of weapon. Cristina and the other girls had good reason to know how dangerous Paoletti was. He had to take her seriously.

‘Tell me about what’s happening here. About these children.’

The children, she told him, were kept separate, but the others knew they were there. They had heard them crying.

‘You have never seen them?’

She held up one finger.

‘One of them? Once? Where?’

‘Here.’ She touched the bed. ‘Crying.’

If she really had seen the child, it had been for no more than a second or two. As she arrived to meet a client in the room opposite, she saw the door of this room start to open, so she shot into her room quickly, according to the rules. Never see or be seen. That would have been the end of it, but she could hear crying, so she peeped out. The man was closing the door as he left, so it was a matter of a fleeting glimpse. He was a big man, in his sixties, she thought, florid, bald dome. He pulled the door closed, but the bed, as he could see, was right facing it. She saw the child.

‘You’re quite sure it was a child?’

‘Sure. A little child.’ She indicated the height. ‘Seven, eight years.’

She had closed her door then, but went on peeping through the keyhole.

‘Maria Grazia went in. The kid stopped crying. That’s all.’

The marshal sat for a moment in silence, working out how to move. He certainly couldn’t barge up there now with only the word of this girl to go on. He’d need a warrant and he’d need to tread carefully. This was a very high-class operation, with clients to match. He could be on very dangerous ground. He would have liked to get this girl, at least, out of here right now and into a safe house, but that would alert Paoletti. The children would vanish and, as Paoletti had been at pains to demonstrate to him, they would find no usable evidence. Still, Nesti had apparently done everything according to the house rules, so they could hope, for Cristina’s sake, that no alarm bells had sounded.

‘How long are you supposed to stay with a client?’

‘Half an hour.’

‘How do you get here from the club?’

‘Mauro drives us. If we have to go back to the club, he waits downstairs. If not, he phones upstairs so
she
knows what time to expect us up there.’

‘None of you drive, then?’

‘No. We can’t, because of our papers.’

‘What about Danuta and Frida? They work at Paoletti’s house every day. How do they get to Florence?’

‘Mauro takes them. He lives in Florence with his mother. He brings them back when he comes to work in the evening. But now he only brings Danuta.’

Not since the murder, though. Nobody had seen this Mauro, but they had seen two girls leave in the mini on Saturday night. He didn’t insist, not wanting to frighten her off.

‘Don’t you ever think of running away?’

‘I have no money, no passport. If they catch you, they kill you.’

‘Why are you talking to me? Aren’t you afraid?’

‘Because Maddalena said she’d help me. She said she’d lend me some money to start with, but I need my passport. She said Roberto could fix things so that he’d have to let us go.’

‘Paoletti?’

‘Is it not true?’

‘Yes. It’s what we’re trying to do.’

What else could he tell her? That he was only here because of Paoletti’s daughter, and Nesti just wanted the front page? Now that he knew about the children, it was different; but, even so, Cristina was nobody’s priority and she’d be the one to get caught in the machinery if things went wrong. She was too trusting, too obedient. Paoletti, as Nesti said, knew how to choose them.

‘Listen, Cristina, whatever you do, don’t talk to the other girls about Nesti or anything else. You have to be very careful or you’ll get hurt, you know that. But don’t worry about money or your passport. There’s a safe house you can go to where Don Antonino will help you. You’ll be able to go home.’

‘I can’t go home! My father will kill me! Don’t send me home!’

‘No, no . . . I know you think that now, but you can’t imagine how worried they’ll be and how glad to see you again. . . .’ He stopped as he saw her expression. She was looking at him as though he came from another planet. She didn’t look like a child now. She looked old. He’d lost her. Her face settled behind the expressionless mask it had worn when she unzipped her jeans.

She repeated, as if to herself, ‘He’ll kill me.’

‘No. We’ll help you, do you understand? Something can be done, especially if you help us. We won’t make you go back if you want to stay. Are you sure that’s what you want?’

‘There’s this man, Aldo—he always asks for me. He says I have talent and that he could get me on television. He says I’ve got the body for it. He says a lot of the showgirls on the programme are not as pretty as me, and they’re always looking for new ones. He’s somebody important and another girl here got a job on a television show. It was before I came, Anna told me. She got all dressed up and went for an audition. Mauro drove her and he said she’d got the job and wasn’t coming back, and she didn’t either. So, now, when I get out of here—if I’m going to be in the paper like Roberto says—Aldo will see me, won’t he? Do you think I have the body for it? That he wasn’t just saying that to be nice?’

‘No, no . . . I’m sure he meant it.’

It was true. She had the body for it. And she was very pretty, but. . . .

He looked at the tired little face under its thick makeup, her limp, dark curls. He’d seen her picture in the paper a thousand times, and she was always the victim.

He looked at his watch. ‘I think you’d better go. Should you muss this bed up a bit, do you think?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘This woman upstairs, doesn’t she check on things?’

‘Oh yes, but it doesn’t matter, anyway, because it often happens with old men that they don’t. She’ll see those two glasses, so that’s okay.’ She stood up to go, but hesitated.

‘What is it?’

‘Can I have a drink of champagne?’

‘Of course. You’d better drink from one of these used glasses, though. We can’t leave three around.’

He filled his own glass for her and she drank it down thirstily

‘Thanks. I like it on this floor because there’s always champagne and nobody hurts you.’

‘There’s another floor of bedrooms? Apart from where you girls live?’

‘That’s just an attic. The floor above this one’s for the weirdos, specials . . . you know . . . I’m off.’

He went towards the door with her, but she stopped him.

‘I shouldn’t be seen with you. It’s the rule. Never see or be seen. Listen, will I really be in the paper, like Roberto said?’

‘I’m sure you will.’

‘So you . . . you’ll be coming back?’

‘I’ll be coming back, Cristina. I promise you.’

Why in the world should she believe him, a total stranger, an Italian like Paoletti, a man? There was nothing much else he could say. He let her go. After waiting a moment, he went across and knocked on Nesti’s door. There was no answer, so he went in.

His shoes were parked near the bed and no doubt he’d hung his fine clothes in the wardrobe. Very little was visible of Nesti himself in the tumble of silk sheets, a few locks of dark hair on the pillow, a thick hairy forearm and a Rolex. He was snoring quietly.

‘Nesti! Wake up. Let’s get out of here.’

Nesti mumbled something.

‘Wake up, for heaven’s sake!’

‘Who’s that . . . ?’

The marshal pulled the covers off his face and Nesti squinted up at him, mumbling, ‘Oh, it’s you. . . .’

‘Who else would it be?’

‘For fuck’s sake, Guarnaccia, go to bed. I’ve phoned my story in . . . it’ll make the late edition. . . . And you owe me one thousand eight—’

‘What?’

But Nesti rolled over and was snoring again. The champagne bottle on the lace-covered bedside table was empty and, apart from the two glasses beside it, there was a balloon glass with the remains of some brandy. The marshal went back to his own room.

It was the sensible thing, after all. The rooms were paid for, it was nearly half past four, and he’d drunk a glass or two himself during the long night. He undressed and got into the four-poster. Lying there, propped on the big feather pillows, he could see out of the corner of his eye the lacey frills billowing round his head. He threw one of the pillows down to the end of the bed and lay flatter. He still felt ridiculous. Sometimes they dressed elephants in the circus in ballet frocks. Poor beasts. Did animals feel embarrassment? This bed. . . .

It often happens with old men, Cristina had said. Was that just a general remark? To explain why there was no need to worry about the bed? Or did she really think that he hadn’t touched her because he was too old to . . . ? No, no. She’d said ‘Like Roberto.’ No. Of course, he and Nesti must be pretty much the same age. All the customers here probably were. She had described a florid man with a bald dome . . . and a crying child.

He couldn’t imagine falling asleep here, thinking of the floor above—were there any ‘weirdos’ up there now? If there were, no sound of their goings-on reached him. The ceiling was painted with clouds and, around the chandelier, pink cherubs held flowers and waved blue and gold ribbons. And above the ‘weirdo’ floor, in an attic, two children. Did they know each other? Comfort each other? Most probably they’d been kidnapped.

He should try to sleep, because tomorrow was bound to be a long and difficult day. He switched the flower-shaped bedside lamp off and lay there, rigid, in the dark.

An hour or so later, he was still lying there, trying to pretend he was getting to sleep. This place might not be registered as a hotel, but it had hotel noises. Things that clicked on and off and hummed. Air conditioning, maybe. He hated air conditioning. It damaged your sinuses, and if you got the draught of it on your shoulder, you could end up in serious pain. He listened to the blasted thing for a while, getting more and more annoyed, and, in the end, switched the light on and got up to look for the controls. It was definitely air conditioning because, he realized, now, it was far too cold in the room. Even the silky soft carpet was ice-cold under his feet. He searched and searched but found no controls, Of course, they’d have hidden the damn things, like they’d hidden the fridge, so as not to spoil the effect. Probably had ribbons stuck all over them or a lace frill round them. Why the devil weren’t they near the door like the light switch? Things should be in their proper place.

‘And that includes me, and I shouldn’t be here!’

He did find the vent, at least, a cold blast coming out from under a half-moon table with fluted legs and brass decorations, and a fat lot of good it did him since there was no way of shutting it. He tried the bathroom. Nothing. He was frozen. Better get back in bed, and pull the bedclothes up round his shoulders. Could have done with a sweater. He switched the light off and, after five minutes or so, still frozen, switched it on again.