Christobel Kent - A fine and private place

‘Me,’ said Sandro sadly. ‘I’m sorry.’

Michelle Connor was inside the room, in a shapeless grey sweatshirt, uncombed hair and tracksuit pants, standing by the window and watching him with an air of calm determination.

‘I need to talk to Signora Connor,’ Sandro said humbly. ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt.’

‘Couldn’t it wait?’ said Luca wearily. ‘Did you have to come here? We — we are talking.’

‘I am afraid that it can’t wait,’ said Sandro, standing his ground. He felt a sweat bead on his forehead despite the cold and realized even the couple of glasses he’d drunk last night had been too many, and he’d gone to bed too late.

‘It’s all right,’ said Michelle. ‘We’d finished.’

Gallo looked at his feet, but she didn’t move.

‘We can talk here as well as anywhere,’ she said, holding Sandro’s gaze boldly. ‘Can’t we?’

Between them, ignored, Luca Gallo said, ‘I’ll just — I’ll get my — of course, do feel free to talk in here.’ He hurried to the desk, reaching fora small leather satchel. Sandro felt a spasm of pity for the man. ‘No,’ said Michelle Connor swiftly, ‘I’d like you to stay, Luca.’

Both men looked at her, Gallo blinking in surprise. ‘I don’t have anything to hide,’ she said, her chin up. ‘Let’s hear it.’

Sometimes it went like this, remembered Sandro: sometimes. Nothing to hide, nothing left to lose; Michelle Connor had no children, and her husband was dead. Was that it?

‘If you’re sure,’ said Sandro, stepping inside, pulling the door to behind him and standing in such a way as to block the exit. But from his position behind the desk it was Luca Gallo who looked trapped in the cluttered office, not Michelle Connor.

In the window she remained standing, ready for a fight. ‘Say what you have to say,’ she said, and as she spoke Sandro was struck again by the ghost of Michelle Connor’s beauty in the worn face. It came into his head that somehow these were the traces of having been loved. Was that sentimental?

‘Because I’m leaving when you’re done,’ Michelle went on defiantly. ‘I’m packed and gone.’ Gallo’s shoulders dropped at the desk and Sandro guessed her leaving was what they had been talking about.

‘Signora Connor,’ Sandro said. ‘When did your husband die?’

And he didn’t know what it was she had been expecting him to say, but he guessed not this. She paled abruptly, her eyes suddenly dark in her wide, lined face.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I have to ask.’

‘Joe died August 18, last year,’ Michelle said quietly. At the desk Luca Gallo made a small sound, a clearing of the throat.

‘Mr Gallo told me that Per Hansen was appointed to replace your husband after his death,’ said Sandro, without turning his head to include Luca. Holding her gaze, one that was full of pain. ‘That wasn’t strictly true, was it?’

Slowly she shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, and her gaze flickered across to Gallo, then back. ‘I guess Mr Gallo wanted to avoid — embarrassment. Or something.’

Sandro sighed. ‘He’d already been told he couldn’t come here, hadn’t he? Shortly after Loni Meadows was appointed: I’m guessingshe made that decision.’ She turned her head away, and Sandro saw something gleam in her eyes, in the thin grey light from the window. He saw that he was right, and then Luca Gallo spoke.

‘The Dottoressa was adamant. No spouses.’ His voice faltered. ‘We had to respect her decision; it was her first decision as Director.’

‘Although she herself was conducting an affair?’ Sandro couldn’t conceal his distaste.

Gallo bowed his head. ‘I think perhaps his work was also not to her taste. She could be very — scathing.’

‘Did she put anything on that blog of hers about him?’ asked Sandro softly.

Michelle shrugged, barely perceptibly.

‘Did she do one of her — ’ and he searched for the words, ‘character assassinations? Or was it only his rejection from a position here that did it? That led your husband to take his life?’

‘It came at a bad time,’ she said, and he could hear only grief in her rough voice. ‘He didn’t have it easy, my Joe. He was fighting it every day of his life.’

He supposed she was talking about depression: to Sandro it appeared as a low grey sky, pressing down. Like the sky beyond the window, like the thick grey walls of the castle closing in. What a place, he thought. Enough to drive anyone crazy.

‘And so you must have hated her,’ he said as gently as he could. ‘Blamed her; how could you not? And then you came here anyway, because at the very least you’d get the chance to tell her what you thought of her?’

Michelle Connor remained silent, but the look she turned on him said enough. All the same, he had to go on. ‘And to have to observe her, flirting with guests and visitors. Her evenings away from the castle.’ She shook her head, just minutely.

‘Really,’ pleaded Luca Gallo, sounding frightened, turning to look at the door, the window, as if he might escape through them. ‘What are you saying?’ They ignored him.

‘You found Niccolò Orfeo’s mobile phone,’ said Sandro carefully, and Michelle’s wide eyes told him Caterina had been right. ‘He leftit behind, and you picked it up. Why didn’t you return it to him immediately? Did you know already that they were having an affair? By all accounts, it was fairly obvious. Or did you discover it only from the messages he sent her? I imagine it occurred to you quite quickly that it might be — interesting. At least. To have that telephone. What you might do with it.’

There was a silence, and then at last she spoke.

‘I didn’t care about her damn love life, I’m too old to find that stuff rewarding.’ She closed her eyes and her ashen, weary face, briefly shadowed with shame, might for an instant have been a death mask.

Then she opened her eyes. ‘Yes, I got the phone,’ she said flatly. ‘Yes, we even laughed, looking at his messages. What an old fool he is, and what a whore she was. Yes, for a second or two.’ She twisted her mouth. ‘I shouldn’t even have looked.’

Sandro stared at her, trying to make her out in the dim room. And as he stared it felt smaller; all around him the stacked shelves, the pinboard covered with photographs and brochures, pressed in on him. The bitterness rose in the back of his throat and Sandro felt a sudden reluctance to go on with it. But he had to. He took a breath, wanting to express himself as precisely as he was able.

‘You are an angry woman, Mrs Connor. And you are intelligent, educated at college. You are certainly intelligent enough to devise a way to send Loni Meadows to her death.’ He took a breath, remembering what Cate had told him. ‘You could have gone out running with water in your backpack. You could have observed how that water froze when you poured it across the road. And then, on the coldest night of the year so far, you could have used that phone to send a message from her lover. Perhaps you had found that each day here made you hate her more, not less: perhaps you were so angry you could not stop yourself.’

At his desk Luca Gallo was on his feet and stuttering but it was the look in Michelle Connor’s eye that stopped Sandro.

‘Are you making this up?’ she said slowly, as if something was only just occurring to her. ‘Ice? Do you think I’m crazy? Crazy enough to cook up this — this plan?’

‘You were hospitalized,’ said Sandro in a low voice. Not wanting to say it. ‘In a psychiatric unit.’ But Michelle didn’t even seem to hear.

‘Angry?’ she said. ‘Sure, I was angry. I’m still angry, but with her?’ She made a small explosive sound of contempt. ‘She was not even worth a minute of my time. You want to know who I’m angry with? I’m angry with him. With Joe.’