Mark Mills - The Savage Garden

"But you made sure. With his own gun?"

Maurizio didn't reply; he stared at his hands, as if they alone had been to blame for his actions.

"Where was Gaetano?"

"He arrived as the Germans were leaving. He was coming upstairs when he heard the shots." Maurizio raised his head and added flatly, "There's nothing you can do."

"I can tell your mother."

"Yes. And she will do nothing."

"How do you know?"

"Because I won't permit her to."

"Oh really?" scoffed Adam.

A slyness crept into Maurizio's smile. "You're an intelligent boy—work it out."

Even in the half-light Adam could make out the cold and creeping cunning in his eyes. Maurizio seemed to be saying he was ready to add matricide to fratricide, if that's what the situation called for.

"It's your decision."

Ugo's sudden bark sounded like a triumphant cry, applause for the brilliance of his master's devilish strategy.

"Zitto," spat Maurizio. But Ugo had no intention of remaining silent. He barked again, bounding toward the door of the chapel.

Maurizio moved with impressive speed, but the door still swung open before he got there.

Maria stepped into the chapel, shielding her eyes from the glare of Maurizio's flashlight.

"Maria ..."

Maria pulled the door shut behind her, her face set in stone. "I heard everything."

Maurizio's eyes flicked back and forth between her and Adam, searching for a connection. Adam could have told him there was none, if Maurizio hadn't figured it out for himself.

"What are you doing here?"

"Listening."

"Who for? My mother?"

Maria didn't reply, but her silence seemed to speak to Maurizio.

"Who, then?" he asked. "Antonella?"

Again, Adam saw nothing in Maria's face that constituted an answer. Maurizio clearly knew how to read her better. "Of course ... she knows it will come to her if I don't get it," he said, his tone suggesting that the pieces were now falling into place for him.

Adam, on the other hand, was struggling to keep up, his mind reeling, trying to process the information.

He gave up the fight when Maurizio added, "Whatever she's giving you, I'll give you more." "She's giving me a lot."

"It's nothing."

Maria took her time before replying. "I want a house of my own. Not an apartment. And I want money."

"How much?"

"Enough so I don't ever have to worry again."

"It's yours," said Maurizio.

Adam didn't intend to speak. The English words just exited his mouth. "Maria, what are you doing?"

She glanced at him, her expression ashamed but resolute. "What about him?" she asked Maurizio.

"What can he do? He's leaving tomorrow. He already knows he has no choice."

Maria nodded again and made for the door.

"Maria . . ." pleaded Adam.

She stopped and turned. "What? Who are you? What do you know? You know nothing." She thrust a finger toward the villa. "All my life my father worked for her, and what did he get? Nothing. What will I get? Nothing. That is the way it is. All I want is to die beneath my own roof and pay for my own funeral. Is that so much to ask? Well, is it!?"

Maurizio made a calming gesture with his hands.

"Who are you?" Maria went on. "You're a child. You know nothing."

In the silence that followed her departure, Adam reached out a hand to steady himself against a pew. It wasn't enough. He had to sit down.

Maria was right. He knew nothing. He was entirely out of his depth. He looked up to see Maurizio standing over him, nothing triumphant in his look, just a quiet certainty.

They left the chapel together. Maurizio locked the door and placed the key in his pocket. He raised his face toward the stars, then turned his gaze on Adam. "I mean what I said about my mother. It's your decision."

Sleep was out of the question. He didn't even try. He sat on the terrace and chain-smoked. Bewilderment and an overwhelming sense of his own naïveté battled for possession of his head. He was unable to absorb what he'd witnessed. He knew there had been a trade—Maria had sold her silence for a hefty price—but what was all the talk of Antonella?

She knows it will come to her if I don't get it.

He hadn't misunderstood Maurizio's words. Or Maria's response to them. He ran their exchange over and over in his head— feverishly testing it, challenging it—until the creeping dawn light had dimmed all but the brightest stars. Then he got to his feet.

Nearing the farmhouse, he stopped briefly to admire the new sun stretching its pale fingers over the hills. If he hadn't delayed for that moment, he would have been walking across the yard, caught in the open, when the door at the top of the outside staircase swung open and Fausto stepped from the farmhouse.

Adam dipped out of sight behind the corner of the barn. Fausto! It wasn't possible. He resisted the urge to check, certain that his eyes hadn't deceived him, wishing that they had. What was Fausto doing creeping from Antonella's house at dawn?

He hurried around the back of the barn. From the corner of the farm buildings he had a broken view through a cluster of cypresses on the track leading to San Casciano. Fausto passed along it, grave and pensive, slightly stooped. Adam followed, sticking to the trees.

Fearing detection, he was obliged to fall behind when Fausto reached the outskirts of San Casciano. Twice he almost lost him in the labyrinth of streets. The third time, he did lose him, but by then he had a pretty clear idea of where Fausto was headed.

The Pensione Amorini wasn't yet open for business. The shuttered windows of the ground floor allowed him to skirt the building undetected. He slipped into the back garden through the door in the stone wall. The kitchen was at the rear of the building, its windows giving directly onto the garden.

He could hear voices and the clatter of crockery. Peering cautiously around the window frame, he saw Signora Fanelli loading up a tray with plates and bowls. Her back was to Adam, which meant he had a clear view of Fausto's left hand resting lightly on her arse. Signora Fanelli turned her head and kissed Fausto briefly on the lips.

He walked to the bar in the Piazza Cavour as if in a trance. His head throbbed, his ribs pulsed with pain, and he was jittery from lack of sleep. Unsurprisingly, the coffee didn't help.

He picked over the evidence of his own eyes, desperate to find fault with it. He couldn't. Antonella had claimed not to know Fausto, yet she clearly did know him. Signora Fanelli and Fausto's relationship had appeared to be one of vague acquaintance, yet there was obviously much more to it than that.

Slowly, strand by sticky strand, the web they had spun to ensnare him came into focus. He couldn't see all of it, but he could see enough of it. Fausto was the key. It was Fausto who had first fired his suspicions about Maurizio with an apparently throwaway comment two weeks before. Fausto had backtracked, yes, but just enough to remove suspicion from himself while keeping Adam's interest alive. La Capannina in Viareggio had come from Fausto, just as the key to the top-floor rooms had come from Antonella. Christ, she had played it well, refusing him once before offering it up. And why had she offered herself up to him at the thermal spring? Because she thought he was leaving the next day? Because his work wasn't done yet, and she needed him to stay? The answer was obvious, impossible to ignore.

Maria too had played her part, fueling tensions with Maurizio, raising the temperature. There had been no need to tell Maurizio about Adam's visit to the top-floor rooms, but she had done so. According to Signora Docci, it had also been Maria's idea that Adam wear Emilio's dinner jacket to the party, the cause of yet more antagonism with Maurizio.