She couldn’t keep the triumph out of her voice, though. Her brain raced. He would have to stay in England with his wife and his child. Please, God, keep him there, never let him come back to Italy, she prayed, as she went upstairs to her room, taking a sandwich of bread and honey with her. This would be their last evening together. She would stay out of their way. Now she could afford to be generous.
The following day, Frederick Canfield left, and six months later Anna Serrati gave birth to his son. Mother and child died within forty-eight hours.
Venice, 1998
In the police station Sebastian sat with two officers in a chilly, cream-painted room, wrapped in a blue blanket since everything he had been wearing had been taken away for forensic testing. He stared across the table at the policeman who had been interrogating him for what seemed days. Captain Bertelli. Big, sallow, with a waxy black moustache above a full, red mouth. He kept taking a small carton of thin cheroots out of his pocket, looking at them, then sliding them back out of sight.
‘Do you smoke, Signore?’
‘No, but go ahead if you want to.’
‘I’m trying to give up. It isn’t easy, especially when you’re working on a case. Habit. Smoking when you’re questioning a suspect.’
‘How can I still be a suspect?’ Sebastian erupted. ‘Have you talked to the people in Florian’s? They must have told you I was there for half an hour before my camera man ran there to tell me Laura had just been attacked. I had nothing to do with the attack on her. I was never anywhere near where it happened,’
Bertelli regarded him stolidly. ‘You say she has been receiving anonymous letters, death threats. Why didn’t she take them to the police in England?’
‘I told her to, but she said she had burned the letters. She wouldn’t even tell the police about the doll.’
The policeman looked down at his notes on the table. ‘Ah, yes, the doll that was sent back to her, broken …’ He sounded amused, as if he didn’t take it seriously,
‘Don’t laugh! It wasn’t just broken. The bastard had smashed it into smithereens,’ Sebastian growled. ‘I told her to talk to the police, show them.’
‘But she didn’t?’
‘She said it would sound stupid – after all, it was only a doll. But there was a note pinned to it saying, “You’re next!” I thought someone very nasty was behind it and Laura ought to take precautions.’ He ran a shaky hand over his face. ‘Obviously, I was right. It must be the same guy.’
‘Which guy?’
‘I don’t know. Someone she knows, obviously. Someone who had access to information about her, where she lives in London, how much she loved that doll – she’d had it from childhood, she never parted from it, took it everywhere with her. He must have known that or he wouldn’t realise how upset she’d be to see it smashed like that. And how did he get into her hotel room to steal it before she left?’
The policemen listened in brooding silence. Then Bertelli took out his packet of cheroots again, opened the lid, delicately slid one out, rolled it between finger and thumb, lifted it to his nostrils and inhaled with a sigh of need.
‘For God’s sake, smoke one of the damned things!’ Sebastian snapped, and Bertelli gave him a smile, which was somehow triumphant, as if by provoking Sebastian into rage he had won some battle against him.
‘You know, I think I will,’ he purred, putting the cheroot between his tobacco-stained teeth. The other man produced a lighter, flicked the top with his thumb and a little flame appeared. He held it to Captain Bertelli’s cheroot and the policeman inhaled deeply, his eyes half closed in something like ecstasy.
I must remember that look, Sebastian thought, the half-closed eyes, the funny little sigh. It will focus attention on the actor lighting his cigar, whatever else is going on. Could be very useful in that scene where …
Then Bertelli asked sharply, ‘Are you su
re you don’t know who he was, this man you’re talking about? Did she have a lover? An ex-lover? She’s an actress – they have admirers, men hanging around them. Was it someone like that?’
‘If there was anyone like that around, she never told me. I don’t have a clue. I’ve seen very little of her over the past few years. I only met her again during the film festival here. We spent a couple of days together, I’ve called her a few times since, and then she arrived …’ He looked at the faded, blistered face of the old clock on the wall opposite him. ‘It was only today, around lunch-time, that she got here. It seems like weeks.’ Sweat stood out on his pale skin. ‘Look, can you ring the hospital again and find out how she is? How bad her injuries were. It’s hours since she was taken in. They must be able to tell us how she is. I need to know! I’m going crazy, not knowing whether she’s alive or dead.’
The policeman’s face betrayed no reaction. He didn’t respond by look or word, just blew smoke into a ring above his head, while he watched through those heavy-lidded, half-closed eyes every flicker of expression that passed over Sebastian’s face.
Stone-faced and hostile, thought Sebastian. Bastard. Doesn’t he have any feelings? He must know …
He drew a harsh, painful breath. Of course he must know. What wasn’t this bastard of a policeman telling him? Was Laura dead?
Chapter Eleven
Laura was running barefoot through winding corridors, through shadowy rooms, in a house like a museum, richly furnished with old, old things grown shabby with time. Tapestries, faded and mysterious, blew about as she ran past, a high, ornate cabinet’s doors flew open, spilling black lace, a white carnival mask, a string of pearls – and then a knife. She heard it clatter on the tiled floor and shuddered, ran faster. A clock chimed on a highly polished octagonal table.
What time is it? Where am I? she thought, but did not speak aloud because she was afraid that the sound of her voice would echo up and down the dark maze and someone might hear her – find her.
Kill her.