Mark Mills - The Savage Garden

This was all well and good, except for the fact that Adam now found himself caught on the horns of the biggest dilemma of his life. Should he act, or do as Benedetto had done: nothing? Why should he pursue the matter further, when the victim's own father had chosen not to do so? This was a serious business. This was murder. And it surprised him that the enormity of what he had embarked on hadn't occurred to him before.

His instinct was to make for the memorial garden. It was where he usually went to gather his thoughts. Not this time, though. If he was going to face some plain and hard truths, he couldn't risk exposing himself to its influence.

It was a preposterous notion, and not one he would have shared with any soul, but he still had the uneasy feeling that Flora Bonfadio, dead in 1548, was largely responsible for his current predicament. She had set him on his course, and she had been illuminating his path ever since. The flash of guilt in Maurizio's eyes, the revelation about Emilio's paternity—other insights too—all had come to him while passing through her kingdom.

Nor could he rid himself of the sensation that she had also exercised a similar control over matters relating more directly to her. She had nudged, cajoled and teased him, revealing her own tragic story to him piecemeal, as if by will. How could he be expected to enjoy a dinner in his honor when he had discovered nothing that she hadn't already chosen to share with him? And now that she had finally broken her centuries-old silence, why did he have the unnerving sensation that she expected something from him in return?

No, the memorial garden was not the place to head in search of clarity. He needed distance, and lots of it. Which was why he made for his bicycle and peddled off into the hills.

The moment he saw the sign, he knew that's where he would go. Sant'Andrea in Percussina was not so much a village as a hamlet strung out along a country road, the sort of place you passed through without so much as a second glance or thought. But if Fausto was to be believed, it was here that Niccolo Machiavelli had written one of the world's most controversial and prophetic works of political science: II Principe.

Fausto was right. The first person Adam collared directed him to the modest stone property that had once been Machiavelli's country residence. It lay dormant, the windows shuttered against more than the heat. He walked around to the overgrown garden at the back and tried to imagine Machiavelli strolling there, hatching his ideas, or hunched at a table, scratching away with a pen.

He knew the book well. It was short, to the point, uncompromising in its opinions—a manual for rulers on how to obtain and maintain political power. Machiavelli didn't shy from the more unpleasant realities of the political world. Anything was acceptable just so long as it served the primary goal: the survival of the state. This took precedence over all else. Even religious and moral imperatives were to be ignored by a ruler if they vied with his own interests.

Men of all political persuasions had bent Machiavelli's model of statecraft to their own ends over the intervening centuries, and Adam now found himself drawing guidance from The Prince, from the bald pragmatism that suffused the book.

Whatever Maurizio might or might not have done on the top floor of the Villa Docci fourteen years before, what was he, Adam, now going to do about it? Confront Maurizio with a direct accusation based on a few scraps of evidence? Run to Signora Docci and lay out his case? Of course not. He had taken the matter as far as he possibly could. Maurizio would no more be brought to justice than Federico Docci had been. Why pretend otherwise?

After this, his decision came easily.

ADAM WAS AWAKENED BY THE SOUND OF RUNNING WATER coming from his bathroom.

"Hello . . . ?" he called groggily.

"Yours is brown too."

He checked his watch. He'd slept for ten hours. He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept for ten hours. "What?"

Harry appeared in the bathroom doorway. "The water—yours is brown too." He was unshaven and dressed in the same clothes he'd been wearing when he headed down into Florence.

"You just got back?"

"Uh-huh."

"You stayed the night?"

"Are you always this sharp first thing? Yes, I stayed the night. And now I'm back and I want a bath and the water's brown."

Adam rolled away onto his side. "So complain to the management, demand a refund."

Harry dumped himself on the mattress. "Good evening, was it?" "Hard to imagine, with you not there."

"Want to hear about mine?"

"Not especially."

Harry pointed to his cheek. "The boyfriend came back early."

Adam tried to focus. There was some discoloration at the side of Harry's mouth.

"He hit you?"

"I wish. He slapped me."

"He slapped you?"

"It's humiliating, believe me, worse than you think, being slapped by a very small and very angry Italian man."

"Why did he slap you?"

"Well, not because I polished off the milk in his fridge."

"I thought she lived with two girls."

"We went to his place."

"Harry, why on earth would you go to his place?"

"The view. It's got a great view, right along the river, the Ponte Vecchio, everything. He wasn't meant to come back till today."

"I give up."

"That's what he said."

"Huh?"

"When I had him by the throat: 'I give up.' He spoke good English."

Harry's use of the past tense was more than a little worrying.

"You didn't kill him? Tell me you didn't kill him."

"Of course not, but after that we couldn't exactly stay there."

"You don't say?"

"We went back to her place. She was upset. She asked me to hang around, so I did. She just drove me back on her scooter. It's a Lambretta." "Harry, I don't care."

"I think I'm going to get one for myself—a black Lambretta."

"With what? You're broke. You're always broke."

Harry turned on his side and grinned at Adam. "I'm glad you brought it up."

"How much do you need?"

"I don't know. Anything you can spare."

"You can have it all."

"Really?"

"I'm leaving on Sunday, same as you. You can have whatever's left."

Harry took in the news. "Why are you leaving?"

"I want to go home, I want to see Mum. That sounds pathetic, doesn't it?"

"No," said Harry. "Not if it means I get all the money."

By midmorning a small army had descended on the villa. Trucks and vans jostled for space in the courtyard, disgorging everything from flowers to food, crockery to Chinese lanterns. There were even two pigs skewered on spits, ready for roasting.

The whole operation unfolded with military precision, coordinated by a handful of generals hired for the occasion, with Signora Docci and Maurizio acting as joint commanders-in-chief. She seemed much more inclined to involve him and allow him a say than she had the other day.

Maria bustled about in her efficient and rather formidable fashion, keen to exercise her authority over the outsiders—a category to which Adam and Harry clearly belonged, in her view. They found themselves dispatched on numerous errands. It was on returning from one such menial mission that Adam found himself alone in the kitchen with Maria.

"La signora wants to see you in the study."

These were the first words of English he'd ever heard her speak. Her accent was thick, but the intonation perfect. He hoped that the slightly foreboding note in her voice was accidental.