2006 - Wildcat Moon (36 page)

An owl called out from behind the high walls that guarded Killivray House. Cissie nudged Dom Bradly and pointed towards the big house.

“Bang! Bang!” she said.

He felt the hairs on his neck prickle. The last time he’d been here he’d sneaked inside the grounds and had a mosey around. He’d stood inside the funny little summerhouse and thought what a great setting for a murder the place would be. He’d written in the dust of the window, Murder Scene.

And then weeks later, he’d read the news about the death of the master at Killivray…

He felt his whole body quiver with foreboding as he saw the bent-backed silhouette of a woman crossing the window of the Boathouse.

“Mad Gwennie,” Cissie said.

Dom Bradly drew in his breath.

“Why do you call her mad Gwennie?”

“Everyone does. But she’s not really mad, she swears a lot though. She’s just sad and lonely, that’s all.”

He looked down at the child and squeezed her hand.

“Thank you,” he said.

She looked up at him then and saw the tears gathering in his eyes. He looked down at her and knew mat he would never forget the look in her lovely wide eyes, the precious innocence and strange intelligence set into the bones of her pale face.

“Go home now.”

He watched her clamber back up to the odd little place perched up on the rocks. She turned and waved. Dom Bradly waved back. And then she was gone, vanished into the darkness like a sprite. Bracing himself, he walked purposefully away across the beach towards the Boathouse.

Martha Grimble could hardly contain her excitement as she saw Archie coming down the steep hill towards her. He was walking slowly, head down as if he was deep in thought. She couldn’t believe how much he’d grown since she’d seen him last And the colour on him! He was suntanned and his hair had grown, bleached almost white at the front. Dear God in heaven, the Galvinis had worked miracles with him while he’d been here in Santa Caterina.

Suddenly he looked up and saw her. His face broke into a wide smile and he half ran, half walked into her outstretched arms.

“Oh, Archie, I’ve missed you, son. My, look at you, you’re the picture of health.”

“Mammy, Mammy, I’m so pleased to see you. Guess what I can do?”

“Tell me!”

“Mammy, I can swim! Alfredo taught me.”

“Never to God, Archie, that’s wonderful.”

“And I’ve caught loads of fish and I can make pasta and pizza. I can make you some if you want. Oh, Mammy, I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too but haven’t you just had the best time in the world?”

“Why didn’t you say you were coming, Mammy?”

“I didn’t know if I was going to make it and I didn’t want to disappoint you. Come on, though, Lena is making dinner and there’s someone back at the house waiting to see you.”

Archie’s heart sank. It was the porker! He just knew it.

Holding the beaded curtain open for his mammy to pass through into the house, he followed her reluctantly.

In the kitchen Lena was busy at the stove and Alfredo was filling an earthenware jug with wine.

A small-boned, pale-faced woman, more like a ghost than a real live woman, was sitting at the table, chewing hungrily on the cuffs of her shrunken grey cardigan. When she saw Archie she giggled her head off like someone who wasn’t quite right.

“Archie, this is my sister Lissia. Lissia, this is your nephew, Archie.”

Archie swallowed hard and looked at his mother for an explanation. This couldn’t be Lissia! Lissia was dead. “Mammy, I don’t understand. I thought that Lissia was..,”

“There was a misunderstanding. She’s very much alive, Archie, and well be looking after her from now on.”

“Come, sit down and eat,” Alfredo said quickly. “Lena has cooked you mussels and to follow a lasagne.”

Lissia giggled again and dribbled down the front of her grey pinafore dress.

Archie sat up next to his mammy and watched Lissia warily out of the corner of his eye all through dinner. Why had his mammy told lies about her?You were either dead or alive. You couldn’t make a mistake about that.

Alfredo had finished painting the walls and the paint on the tables and chairs had dried to a glossy finish. Candles were set in niches in the walls and Alfredo had found old-fashioned photographs of Santa Caterina and hung them around the room. Lena had made all the table cloths and napkins and they were neatly ironed and ready to be laid. The room was beginning to look like a real restaurant and to Archie’s delight Alfredo had painted a name on the outside wall of the house in large curly blue letters,
Ristorante Skilly
. In memory, he told Archie, of their time in the Skallies.

In a few days’ time they would open and Lena was so excited she hardly kept still for a moment.

Alfredo was teaching Archie how to take orders from imaginary customers and wait at table and his mammy was having Italian cooking lessons with Lena. Lissia got under everyone’s feet and so Archie often took her with him on his travels round Santa Caterina.

One hot afternoon while the grown-ups took a siesta Archie took Lissia with him for a walk. He was getting used to her now, with her peculiar ways and her daft talk She was a bit like Cissie Abelson only much dopier. She didn’t act like a grown-up woman at all. She was nosy and tried to peep inside people’s houses the way a toddler might. She was always picking things up off the floor, bottle tops, foil paper, shells and dried seaweed. Sometimes her pockets got so heavy that she jangled when she walked.

He had to watch her like a hawk when they went to the market because if he took his eyes off her for a minute she got herself into mischief; one day she had picked a rabbit from a cage and was walking off with it. Another time a beggar showed her a trick, pretending that he’d pulled a baby crab out of her ear and she laughed so much she peed herself and he had to take her home for his mammy to change her.

They were walking up past the bread shop when Lissia saw the cat. She squealed with delight and stooped to pick it up but the cat took fright and bolted. Before Archie could stop her she was off in hot pursuit. Archie called out to her but she was like an elephant after buns when she saw something she wanted and she went deaf if she didn’t want to hear what you were saying.

He hurried after her, lost her in a dark side street then caught sight of her turning into an alleyway to the right, dose to the convent walls. He’d seen the alleyway before but he’d never been up there because a faded sign on the wall said
PRTVATO
! Lissia never took notice of signs at all; he wasn’t even sure if she could read.

At the end of the alley, there was a rough path that climbed steeply between high stone walls. Lissia was way ahead of him now and he caught a glimpse of her disappearing through an archway overgrown with geraniums. He followed her through the archway and into a garden that was dense with straggly, drooping sunflowers.

“Lissia,” he hissed, “come away from there, this is someone’s private garden!”

She turned and smiled at him but ignored him.

He lost sight of her again and had to follow the hissing noises she made as she stalked the cat.

Eventually, he found her sitting on a broken bench in front of a whitewashed house, the cat now purring happily in her lap.

He was about to scold her and drag her away when his heart skipped a beat. On the wall of the house, written in faded blue paint, were the words, Casa delle Stelle.

House of the Stars.

He stood staring at the words in disbelief. Sister Isabella had told him it had burned down. Why had she lied to him? Nuns weren’t supposed to lie! It was against the rules.

Why would she want to stop him from finding the Casa delle Stelle?

“Lissia, put the cat down and come away this minute or Mammy will be mad we’re away so long!”

He had to be stern with Lissia sometimes, for her own good.

She stuck out her lower lip and her eyes filled with tears. He hated it when she did that.

“It has a fat belly and is going to have kittens,” Lissia said, pointing excitedly at the cat.

“Come on, put the cat down now.”

She smiled suddenly, reluctantly let the cat go and allowed him to take her hand and lead her back through the garden.

He looked back at the house longingly; how he’d love to have a nosy around but he couldn’t take Lissia inside the house, there was no knowing what she’d get up to. One day soon he’d come back here alone and have a good scout around.

The front door of Casa delle Stelle was locked and the faded blue shutters on the downstairs windows were closed fast.

Archie skirted around the outside furtively and found a small window at the back that was warped with age and not shut properly. He tried to open it with his fingers but it was stuck fast. He found a rusty skewer on a window ledge and with much huffing and puffing he managed to prise the window open. The gap wasn’t very large and it would take some doing but if he breathed in and twisted like a rubber man he should be able to get in. He’d have to take his calliper off first though.

He looked around the garden for something to stand on, found an old bucket and set it down below the window. He took off his calliper, tested the bucket with his weight and then climbed tentatively onto it. Taking a deep breath, he heaved himself up onto the windowsill. He’d have to get through head first which would make it difficult…

He was breathless by the time he’d wriggled in through the window and landed in a heap on the floor inside the house.

He lay puffing with exertion, his laboured breathing loud in the quiet of the house.

He was in a cupboard that smelled of garlic and onions, cinnamon and tomatoes. He shuffled over to the door, lifted the latch and stepped out into a large room and looked nervously around him. It was dark and hard to make out anything except the outline of furniture. He inched towards the windows, fumbled around and opened one of the shutters.

Light flooded greedily into the house. He moved slowly around the room, taking in everything. Someone still lived here by the looks of it; maybe they’d just popped out on an errand and might come back in at any moment.

There was a large table on which stood a half-empty bottle of wine and a bowl of fruit.

There was a bookcase crammed full of books in different languages. There were lots in Italian, some in French and English. There were dictionaries and rail timetables and an A to Z of London.

There was an enormous sideboard with a glass front that contained glasses of all shapes and sizes, cups and plates and oil lamps. There was a bottle of whisky and a half-full bottle of gin. There were paintings on the walls that looked as though they had been done by children. He opened the door at the far end of the room and stepped into the kitchen. It was a normal sort of kitchen with a large stone sink and wooden shelves filled with jars of bottled fruits and vegetables. There was a stove filled with wood ready for lighting and a basket of logs next to it There were strings of purple onions and hams hanging from hooks in the ceiling. On the table there were two places laid ready for a meal.

He wondered who lived here now and what they would do if they came back and found him snooping around in their house.

He thought sadly that this was the house that Thomas Greswode had wanted to come home to and never did. This was the place he had dreamed about in his miserable days at Killivray House. If he had managed to get back here, though, he would have had a terrible shock to find his father dead and buried.

Archie found the stairs and climbed them cautiously, feeling like Goldilocks in the house of the three bears.

It was lighter upstairs because the windows were unshuttered although outside the daylight was fading fast. He stood nervously on a small landing area keeping his ears peeled for the sound of anyone returning home. Opening a door to his right he stepped into a small bedroom. There were two narrow beds with gaudy knitted blankets thrown over them. Near the window there was a small writing desk with a few dusty books on the top. He went across to the wardrobe and opened the door. It smelled vaguely of flowery soap and freshly washed clothes. It was empty except for a few coat hangers that jangled and made him feel nervous.

He dosed the wardrobe door and stepped up to the desk. There was a sheaf of yellowing papers on the desktop. He lifted them up and looked through them. There was nothing written on them. No clues there. He put the papers back down on the desk, slid open the drawer and looked inside. There was a chewed-up pencil, a pen and a bottle of dried-up ink, a mildewed lemon and a sheet of pink blotting paper.

He knelt down by the bed and looked underneath it. There was nothing except a thin layer of dust and a scallop shell full of dried-up dog ends with crimson lipstick stains.

He left the room and closed the door quietly. The next bedroom was larger, there was a big double bed and a large wardrobe and a blanket box. The blanket box was full of starched sheets and pillowcases but nothing interesting. Underneath the bed there was just an old pair of cracked black ballet pumps.

He turned the key in the lock and the door to the wardrobe grated open. The strong smell of mothballs caught in his throat and made him sneeze.

There, hanging up, were a variety of costumes. Faded red satin, moth-eaten silver and gold, sequins and spangles…

He drew in his breath sharply. These must have belonged to the silver bird: Rosa Gasparini. He closed the door and struggled to steady his breathing.

Outside a lone star pricked the sky above the Convent of Santa Caterina.

There were two more rooms left for him to see. He crept stealthily along the corridor, lifted the latch and walked into a large room. There was an ancient roll-top desk and nailed to the whitewashed wall was a gigantic map. He stepped up to the map and studied it. There were small flags stuck into it here and there as though someone had been on a long journey and wanted to remember all the places where they’d been.

On the other walls there were a few uninteresting oil paintings and circus posters.