Angel of Darkness

It was one in the morning before Angelo retired for the night. She heard him passing by her room and froze for a second, but he didn’t even hesitate at her door. To be safe, she waited for another forty minutes and then her heart thumping unnaturally loudly in her eardrums, she grabbed up her bag, opened her door as quietly as a mouse and crept downstairs. With her breath in her mouth, she slowly lifted his car keys off the side table before tip-toeing down to the room Angelo employed as an office.

She needed her passport and her money. No doubt she would eventually get home without the passport but it would be a lot easier if she could simply step right on to the first available flight. Afraid to turn on the desk lamp in case someone saw it shining out into the courtyard, she had to make do with the moonlight.

Her passport would be in his desk. It was the obvious place. She rummaged frantically through the drawers, only one of which was locked and that she left to the last. Biting her lip in frustration, she looked round for a suitable weapon to employ. She swooped on a paper knife and tried, nervous perspiration beading her brow, to force the lock. The knife scraped incredibly loudly across the wood when she failed.

It was an antique desk, built to last. She hacked with increasing desperation at the recalcitrant drawer, her nervous tension escalating by the minute. Finally, she acknowledged defeat. May you rot in hell, Angelo, she thought furiously. The window was not locked and it opened with the minimum of noise. She was halfway over the sill when she remembered the necklace.

With a curse, she wrenched at it and all but strangled herself! Using both hands, she attempted to pull it into breaking without lacerating her own throat. It was a considerably more difficult feat than she had imagined. Her neck bruised and sore, she gave up, and all the time her rage was building even higher. Hacking at Angelo’s desk had made her feel like a criminal. She slid the rest of the way out the window and hurried across to the Porsche.

Angelo hadn’t got all of her money. She had had some tucked for emergencies in her case. It would be sufficient to cover petrol if she needed any, at least one night’s accommodation somewhere and telephone calls to arrange sufficient funds to travel home on. She would abandon the car in Pisa and head for the tourist office to ask what she had to do about her ‘lost’ passport.

Taking a deep breath, she started up the Porsche. It fired with a low growl and she filtered it slowly down towards the gates. Damn, they were shut! Leaping out, she opened them, dived back into the car and took off down the hill like a bullet.

Kelda was a confident driver but she had no map. She had driven quite a few miles before she came on a small town. There she slowed down in search of a signpost. A car came up close behind her and flashed its lights. Ignorant pig, she thought, so I’m not going fast enough! When a police siren went off, that same car overtook her at speed and pulled across the road in front of her, forcing her to a halt. She was thunderstruck.

She was arrested. The policeman spoke even less English than she spoke Italian but there were sufficient similarities between the languages for her to grasp with a sinking heart that she was being accused of stealing the car. Dear God, Angelo had reported the Porsche stolen! Her inability to produce her passport only exacerbated the situation.

Within half an hour, Kelda was in a police cell. It was a small town, an even smaller station and it was the middle of the night. Clearly there was nobody available to question her in English.

‘Domani...’ the policeman said in receipt of her shattered protests. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, it would be sorted out.

Kelda was in a blind panic by then. It had finally dawned on her that she had stolen Angelo’s Porsche and that if he wanted to proceed with such a charge, he was probably well within his rights. She curled up on a bed with all the comfort of a funeral slab and burst into floods of tears. She was terrified. How was she going to explain what she had done?

It was dawn when the cell door was unlocked and she was taken into what appeared to be an interview room. The policeman went out again and reappeared with Angelo.

Kelda took one paralysed look at him, flew out of her chair and threw herself at him. ‘Angelo, get me out of here...please!’ she sobbed.

He went rigid for a split second and then he closed his arms round her and said something in his own language to the policeman. Somebody else started talking. She took a deep shuddering breath and fought for self-control but she really was at the end of her tether.

Angelo guided her back out to the Porsche. ‘How the hell could you be so stupid?’ he raked at her as he pushed her into the passenger seat.

‘How could you report your car stolen?’ she gasped strickenly. ‘How could you do that to me?’

Angelo drove off at a mercilessly controlled speed. His profile was set like granite, tension emanating from him in waves. ‘I did not report my car stolen. Stella saw it being driven off and got one of the maids to ring the police immediately. As it happens,’ he shared with grating emphasis, ‘they were already on their way. When you climbed out of the window of my study, you activated an alarm at the police station—’

‘An alarm?’ she echoed.

‘A highly sophisticated security system installed to repel intruders,’ Angelo spelt out fiercely. ‘If it’s activated and I don’t call to say it was a mistake, naturally the police take it seriously. By the time I got out of bed, they were on the doorstep. When I saw the open window and the mess you’ve made of my desk, it did not instantly occur to me that you were the culprit—’

‘Well, it should have done!’ she raged at him with a sob tearing at her shaking voice.

‘Do forgive me if I am not accustomed to a guest under my roof sneaking out of a window in the middle of the night and stealing my car!’ Angelo flashed back at her with savage impatience.

‘I was not stealing your car...I was b-borrowing it!’ she blistered back hotly.

‘You took my car without permission.’

‘Oh, shut up about your bloody car!’ Kelda shrieked at him. ‘You took my passport and my money away! I was a prisoner! Of course I tried to escape...I’ll never forgive you for what you’ve done to me tonight! Do you hear me?’

‘Sta zitto!’ Angelo bit out wrathfully.

‘No, I will not keep quiet. Why sh-should I?’ she sobbed furiously at him. ‘I was locked up like a common criminal—’

‘You were arrested because you were driving a car that had been reported stolen. It was a misunderstanding and you are fortunate that the police, who drove me here to pick you up, were willing to be so helpful. You could have been locked up for the rest of the night.’

‘I hate you so much I could kill you,’ Kelda threw at him bitterly. ‘What did you tell the police?’

‘That we had had a lovers’ tiff,’ Angelo drawled silkily as he filtered the car to a halt in the courtyard. ‘What else? Italian men understand and appreciate women of volatile temperament.’