Galileo's Room (Noir Florentine Book 1) Read online

  He didn’t need their numbers. He needed Katia. He could stay in Florence if she was there, or just somewhere nearby. The idea that she might be somewhere in the vicinity was enough. Without the idea of her, the place really would be a tomb. The drinks hit him then, just as his mind was touching on her. He felt a little dizzy and wondered if he ought to be worried, losing it so badly over a woman whose full name and place of residence were still a mystery. He closed his eyes, and let her wander around in his head.

  He’d only been with her five times over the course of the last year. She'd arrived in his life exactly eleven months and seventeen days ago and now he couldn’t remember how he’d managed to stumble through the empty days in the long pre-Katia era. Those first three nights and days with her, near a turquoise ocean swallowing a too-hot copper sun, umbrella pines, oleander, maritime willow, had, in his mind, grown the aura of a classic film to be viewed on special occasions.

  It started with a party at a seaside villa near Quercianella. The villa belonged to old family friends who'd been so well-healed for so many generations that they didn’t know what cash looked like. Later in the evening, citronella torches lit the vast terrace. There was a buffet- mountains of food and drink- and a nice wild wooded garden below for wandering with glass in hand and thinking about nothing. And that’s what Sam had been doing down there. Meandering and escaping from some woman who’d tried to nail him in a corner and read his future in his palm. He didn’t want his future read. He liked surprises.

  He heard her before he saw her, down in the rosemary and tamarind. At first he thought it might be an animal, a stray cat, or a nightingale searching for a comfortable perch. The breathing was throaty, laboured. When it came again, it hit him right in the solar plexus. Human, and female. A stifled sob. He moved toward it quietly, through the dark tangle, until he came to a stone summerhouse concealed in the undergrowth.

  She was sitting on the large cushion-covered dais at its centre, propped on her arms with her head tilted back and her long legs stretched out in front of her. She was tall, maybe six feet. A single dim garden light picked out long wavy reddish hair, slender white arms and legs barely covered by a little green summer dress.

  Her whole body had a strange slackness, an abandon that might be worth worrying about. When she saw him, she tensed and sat up ramrod straight, poised to jump up and run if she had to, an almost savage expression on her face. She must have stayed frozen there for a good ten seconds, just staring at him.

  He did what anyone would do and asked, “Stai bene?” When she didn’t answer or stop staring, he went over and eased himself down beside her. By then, she had an expression of curiosity on her face, though she was still staring.

  He thought she might not understand, so he made a stab and tried in English, “Are you okay?”

  Her expression cleared and she actually smiled. “I know who you are. You’re Samuele Montefalcone. You're a climber. You did that Acqua Cristallina advert.”

  Sam put his hand on his heart, bowed his head and replied, “Guilty as charged.”

  She relaxed a little. “Are we going to see you on the telly again?”

  He shook his head. “Not sure. It was a bit of an accident really. They needed a climber and someone mentioned me.”

  She smiled again, revealing dimples. Her chin had a tiny cleft that gave her beauty an impishness. And her eyes were almond-shaped and green. His body was tightening all over. He wanted this to be a very long conversation of the non-verbal variety, so he said, “Would you like to go up to the terrace and get a drink with me?”

  She looked at her feet and then closed her eyes and sighed. “No, I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”

  “I didn’t see you up there before.”

  “No. You didn’t.”

  “I would have noticed a girl as beautiful as you.”

  “I’m not here either. You didn’t notice me. But it does sound like a really lovely party. I’m sorry I can’t go up there with you. I imagine there are lots of good things to eat. Pineapple boats, lobster salads and caviar on ice?”

  “And prosciutto and melon.”

  “And octopus salad and white peaches?”

  “Yeah. All of that good stuff. These people don’t know what restraint is.”

  “I like the music. The band. It's quite jazzy. Are people dancing to it?”

  “Yep.”

  “I used to like dancing. I seem to remember that I was always doing it when I was a teenager. In my room in front of the mirror. On the street. I’m trying to remember how it felt, being carefree enough to want to dance.”

  “That’s an awfully nostalgic tone for someone so young.”

  “I'm thirty-four and don't flatter me, Signor Montefalcone.”

  “Not Signor Montefalcone. You make me sound like Walter.”

  “Your father.”

  “Yes, how did you know?”

  “I've heard about Walter. He's a bit of a celebrity too.”

  “Ha. Well, I'm Sam, not Samuele. And you are…?”

  “Katia. It's my nickname really… well, my grandmother's nickname for me, a very long time ago.” She looked forlorn, staring into the distance for a second, then back at him with a look that was so direct he thought she might be able to see right into his heart.

  “Katia. Is there a last name? Real or otherwise? I mean, you seem to know a little about me.”

  “No, no last name, Sam. And I’m not here. In fact, I should probably go. I just came down here to think… to spy on the party a little.” This time her expression was almost one of disappointment.

  Her limited disclosure made him fairly certain that she was in hiding. He was mentally grabbing at topics that might make Katia stay where she was. She seemed to be thinking just as hard and the infinite pause was filling up with the sound of cicadas and waves breaking on the rocks.

  Then she snapped to attention and said, “Satisfy my curiosity, Sam.”

  “Anything.”

  “How did you do that advert? It was an awfully steep, awfully high mountain. How did they do that? Get you dangling there like that?”

  “It wasn't as high as it seemed. That was an illusion.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. The crew couldn't wait around for me to actually climb it so they helicoptered me in, dropped me down from the top.”

  She nodded, then said, “Will you do a favour for me?”

  “If I can.”

  “Will you please kiss me?”

  “Uh…”

  “Here. This should make it easier.” She positioned herself in front of him. Now she was demanding, impatient. He was supposed to understand something that was just out of his grasp. He'd never felt so awkward. Not wanting to advance without a prelude, he touched her face. He was afraid that he might break some mysterious rule and make her vanish in a puff of smoke.

  He could feel her control, her determination. Slowly, clinically, he took her by the shoulders and pulled her toward him until his lips touched hers. She pulled back, rigid, something verging on distrust in her eyes, so he tried again with as much instinct as he could muster. He could sense her softening, slowly, so he slid his hands around her waist and drew her into him. She was pliant now, then pressing in tight, as if she needed to get so close she might pass right through him.

  His instinct told him that she would let him do anything he wanted. When he pulled back and looked at her again, he could see that edge of desperation that he'd heard at first, that thing that suggested that all her options were used up, as if she were at the end of her rope. In other people it was sad, but in her, it was sexy. So he would offer her a little of his rope.

  Laughter erupted from the edge of the woods. Katia’s body stiffened again. She pulled away from him and glanced in the direction of the sound. Then she smoothed her dress, held out her hand and said, “Follow me.” He let himself be pulled along by her.

  She moved quickly, almost running, and the now-shrill jaggedness of the party retr
eated as they shot through leafy arcades. When they reached the stone wall that divided the properties, Katia pushed open a termite-eaten wooden door and went through. Sam followed, his scalp prickling. They were on somebody else’s land now. Dogs or buckshot could be a problem, but she kept moving, sure of herself.

  They spent the whole weekend and the Monday after in a restored stone cottage at the cliff's edge. He remembered scented white linen sheets, the sweet damp, total abandon of her body, and her barrage of questions.

  “This mean-looking thing here...” She traced the ragged welt along his torso, “how did you come by this?”

  “A souvenir from the French Foreign Legion.”

  “They did this to you?”

  “No. It was a skirmish in the Balkans.”

  “I don't understand.”

  “I joined the French Foreign Legion when I was nineteen.”

  She laughed. “You were on the run then?”

  “I needed to get away.”

  “Some people go to the beach, or the mountains. What were you trying to prove?”

  “I wanted to upset my father,” he said.

  “And did you?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact.”

  “Are you happy you did?”

  “Things never work out the way you think they will.”

  “No. What is it they say? Man makes plans...?

  “And God laughs himself silly. Yeah. When I got out of the Legion, I tried to make it up to Walter.”

  “In what way?”

  “I did what he wanted and studied law. Never practiced though. I just needed to shut him up.”

  “I see.”

  “Walter maintains that one lawyer per Italian family is the minimum required to keep the family estate from ending up on the auction block.”

  “You're a dangerous man, Samuele Montefalcone.”

  “Not when you get to know me.”

  Sam stared out the aeroplane window at the dirty candy floss clouds and continued to remind himself that she’d made the first move.

  Chapter Two

  Suicide was a reasonable option at this point. And Porteus wouldn’t be alone, because from the moment Mario Monti announced his packet of measures to save the Italian economy, hard-working and beleaguered citizens were giving up and throwing in the towel. While Parliament shed crocodile tears over the plight of the electorate, the electorate was taking the only way out.

  The bodies were piling up. Entrepreneurs lacking the heart to lay off all their employees, commanded to fork over hundreds of thousands in employee benefits whose miscalculation had been discovered twenty years too late. Elderly widows forced to pass over the designer cat food in favour of the economy brand because one hundred Euros had been cut from their six hundred Euro pensions. Poor drudges on the verge of retiring, finding their lazy tomorrows now too far out of reach to even contemplate. And a few men crazed with despair who had actually set themselves on fire.

  Porteus Halcro also despaired, but was far too cowardly to douse himself in petrol and light a match. He waited in the long queue, stepped over the threshold of the Duomo, dipped his hand into the water of the acquasantiera, crossed himself, then he stepped up to the wicket and paid the eight Euros to climb the cathedral's four hundred and sixty-three steps to the top of the cupola.

  He needed to think. His first impulse was to let gravity do the job, to go ahead and commit that most mortal of mortal sins. Porteus Halcro was considering going directly to Hell and very much looking forward to seeing his mother when he got there.

  It was a lucky moment, fewer tourists than usual and he reached the top, exhausted and bathed in sweat, in just under half an hour. Apart from a small group of American girls laughing and videoing each other, it was just him. Leaning out over the iron railing, he inspected the terra-cotta tiles in front of him. He realized immediately that the Duomo wouldn’t do. One couldn’t leap effectively from the Duomo’s cupola. It would be idiocy, impossible, given the way the dome swelled out and downward, the true pitch of it. It would involve far too much painful rolling, bumping and bouncing before the final plunge. There had to be a better alternative. Perhaps hurl himself from the top of Giotto’s Belltower. Infinitely more expedient.

  He wondered whether he was going to have the bottle to do it, and then, on realizing the magnitude of his cowardice, he started to weep. The salty tears mixed with his equally salty sweat and streamed down his face, stinging his blazing cheeks. The American girls were staring at him, their faces filled with concern. “Dreadful allergies,” he gasped, taking out a handkerchief and dabbing at his burning face.

  Porteus thought of La Pira, Florence's post-war mayor. He longed for such spiritual strength. La Pira, who had compared Brunelleschi's dome to a hen that gathered her brood, Florence's rooftops, her children, her chicks, under its wings, Florence, the new Jerusalem.

  If only Porteus could have managed the same degree of saintly self-sacrifice. But it just wasn’t in his nature. He couldn't set himself on fire, and he probably wouldn’t be able to heave himself off Giotto’s Belltower either. And he certainly couldn't see himself living like La Pira, in a monk's cell in San Marco, walking the streets of Florence barefoot and half-naked because he had given his jacket, shoes and last lira to the needy.

  Porteus had come to the Catholic faith late in the game. He had done it for Ilaria. What had he been thinking? A young wife who insisted on his conversion to Catholicism. Well, he didn’t regret his new faith at all. It was like opening a huge illustrated book of fairy tales. The ceremonies calmed him, gave him a sense, albeit false, of security. All those Amens and Aves and Mea Culpas and crossing and confessing bolstered him up in the face of his difficulties.

  The major difficulty was the young wife herself. So young they had nothing to talk about at all. She was beautiful but she had the vocabulary of a longshoreman and no interest in anything that could distantly be described as culture. He’d had another perfectly serviceable wife, a good conversationalist, but he’d cut her loose many years ago. What a fool he was.

  As for his faith, he still lacked technique. Had he been capable of La Pira-like epiphanies, he might have been able to give himself up to a joyous penniless state, but he equated his sense of self, his sense of success, with material things, such as enough money for the rent and bills, three square meals a day, and enough cash to keep the demanding Ilaria quiet. All things that, thanks to the bankers and the floundering euro, were now luxuries.

  And then there was Walter Montefalcone.

  Porteus pressed himself against the railing, looked up at the suffocating sky and cursed God (silently, of course - only a moron cursed God out loud). He had counted on everything except Walter's fall from the belvedere. Well, yes. And the Italian economy's fall into the gutter.

  Porteus had been diligent. He had paid taxes, poured huge amounts into an INPS pension fund specifically designed for free-lance professionals. Before Monti, he would have had a few months of contributions and then retirement. Now his main source of income, Walter, was kaput.

  Everything he had sacrificed for the pension fund would be lost by default if he couldn't come up with the next payment on time. The deadline was three weeks from now, and although to some it would seem like enough time, he knew how Florence emptied out in July and August, how all work drew to a halt, how the place became a ghost town.

  He looked into his future and saw cat food for one and a bedroll under a bridge.

  There had been work for Porteus at Walter's antique shop, restoration jobs, and private acquisitions and auctions that required his expertise. And a few rather exotic commissions. That bloody bird for example. And that marvelous Mekharist bible, a beautiful thing of gilded parchment, tooled silver and gemstones.

  Porteus continued to stare at the drop below him and wondered how it had come to this. Perhaps if he had chosen a more sensible profession? Accounting instead of Art? The artistic streak was inherited from Mum. They had tried to convince him that he didn�
��t remember her, but he remembered everything, right back to his own raucous, jaundiced entry into the world in 1953, vacating his mother's womb at record speed (or so the midwife had claimed), with his left arm flattened against his ear and small fist punching upward in what Dad would always call a precocious Bolshie salute, rankling Mum right from the start.

  Mum left them early one morning – Porteus had been five and still had a very clear picture of it - when a means of escape wearing a baggy-kneed and shiny-bottomed summer suit rang the doorbell in frosty winter, intent on selling the lovely lady of the house a set of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Four hours later, Mum, her cosmetic bag, rabbit fur jacket, and the family's sterling silver spoons were gone, vanished into the day and the myriad roads of Encyclopedialand.

  Porteus, although still shaky on the technicalities of his new faith, was reasonably sure that his mother had gone directly into the brand new Tenth Circle of Hell, a non-denominational Girone, with plenty of space for dictators and bankers. She was probably there right now, almost certainly roasting and freezing alternately, and being intermittently devoured by ravenous encyclopaedia salesmen.

  After her departure, it had been just Porteus and Dad, teas on the Oxfam Chesterfield by the gas fire, the Goon Show, and the realization that if Mum had been there, she would have found their sense of humour plebeian, and told them so.

  Dad would catch Porteus' wistful look and tell him, “Don't think about her, son. Needle Nardle Noo to her anyway.”

  Dad, good old Dad, great humanitarian, terrible poet and local librarian. A Stromness man with a ruthlessly fair skin, prodigious sandy eyebrows, and fatal generosity. Only reason Mum married him was because he showed her the snapshots of the family estate up in Orkney. A pile of stones really, but in the snaps you couldn't see the holes in the roof or the lack of central heating. Place bought up years ago by a gay Glaswegian couple who did a complete renno and turned it into a B&B.

  Dad was like a clowning Sisyphus, shoving the boulder of their two small lives uphill every day, with that one exception in November of 1966, when he reached a summit, and for a few weeks, they were able to abandon the boulder.