Juggling the Stars (31 page)

Three million, not two, Morris noted. Never trust anyone. Probably as well he hadn't risked …

‘So what does that all add up to, in your opinion, Signor Duckworth?'

Morris looked the heavy man in the face. It added up to life imprisonment, obviously. But he shook his head.

‘Doesn't it seem to you a rather strange kind of kidnap where the girl learns to pluck her eyebrows, henna her hair and gets pregnant, where the kidnappers are so lax in vigilance that they let the girl send get well cards and phone home?'

'Yes,' Morris said humbly. Though he hadn't been lax. It was just impossible trying to do everything on your own. And then, taking a plunge, he tried: ‘lf I didn't know her better I'd say she'd taken the money and then gone and run off with somebody else.'

Morris waited. Inspector Marangoni was watching him.

‘What we want to know from you,' he said, ‘is who that somebody was.' There was an agonizing pause before he continued. 'The point is that the family absolutely refuse to consider this possibility and they haven't been at all cooperative with lists of friends, etc. They even refuse to believe the medical evidence of the pregnancy. Now, if you can offer anything at all on her friends, habits, the places she visited and so on, or if you can very discreetly get something out of the family, we would be …'

And they took him back to the funeral party.

Morris had expected dust and ashes and a sorrowful, mournful silence of desperation and horror. And instead there was laughter and tittle-tattle in the Trevisan household, plentiful cocktails and spicy help-yourself titbits on silver trays. He was annoyed. The least you could expect was sobriety.

He went for a solemn handshake with Signora Trevisan and instead she hugged him, she pressed him against her bosom, she wept, but not sobbing, simply shedding tears as she spoke, and she said it was a terrible terrible thing that would haunt her all her life long, but at least it was over now, at least they knew the worst and the doctors had said from the way the blow was struck the girl couldn't have known anything about it. Probably done while she was sleeping. And she and the family had really done everything they could, and the police too, she thought. There was nothing on their consciences nothing they need reproach themselves with, and they must remember that. There was no point in feeling guilty. Vengeance was the Lord's and the Lord would find the murderer out.

She was probably thinkings thank God it was dumb little Massimina, and not one of the other two, Morris thought.

‘Oh, by the way, Morris, could I have a little word with you afterwards? I was wondering if you could do me a small favour.' And she smiled through her tears.

Morris nodded politely, without the slightest curiosity. He supposed he could afford the woman a favour if it was nothing too time-consuming. He had a lot of business to be getting on with and he wanted to make a brief trip to England for a couple of weeks to buy his father a flat and show him who knew how to be a success in the world.

He sat on a stiff, straight-backed chair, keeping as aloof as possible from the small group of friends and relations, and was surprised when Paola, the middle sister, came over to talk to him. She didn't mention Massimina at all. She talked about Antonella's imminent wedding with Bobo and how expensive it was all turning out to be and the cost of redecorating their flat in the centre and how difficult it would be to have fun after, after … this. Her eyes blinked, but were quite dry. Did she have a
fidanzato
herself, Morris asked, or was she going to be left alone when her sister moved out?

Paola blushed - rather softly and sweetly, Morris thought, rather as dear Mimi would have. No, she said, she didn't have a boyfriend, but her eyes didn't move and held his for a second, soft and brown. Her cheeks had the same shape as Massimina's, only not a freckle.

Morris poured himself more Verdicchio and helped himself to mushrooms.

‘Actually, I'm going to England next week for a while,' she went on quickly, lowering the eyes now to show her long lashes. 'To get over it, I suppose. I'll be studying English, In fact, that was the favour Mamma was saying she wants to ask you. We heard that you were going back to London and she thought, maybe, you could travel with me.' She smiled. ‘Poor Mamma's terribly worried about us being outside alone after all this.'

‘Of course,' Morris said cordially. It would be infinitely better to visit his father with a girlfriend, he thought, and one couldn't mope over the dead for ever.

Critical acclaim for Tim Parks novels

GOODNESS

Thrusting software executive George Crawley hauls himself up by his bootstraps to escape from Ms Methodist upbringings but finds Ms faltering marriage further threatened by the birth of a handicapped chid. A taut fable about the conflicting claims of religion and common sense, Goodness negotiates the highwire between tragedy and farce with unerring dexterity,'

Independent on Sunday

The overriding impression is of a brutal but beautiful book,'

Sunday Times

FAMILY PLANNING

‘At the end of
Family Planning
the hulking schizophrenic Raymond, whose disposal has been exhaustively argued in family letters and councils of war, is writing to the Court of Human Rights to reveal that Ms mother, who has been certified after attacking Mm with a cake knife for butchering the cat, his loyal sister Loma, and Ms younger twin brothers,'the hopelessly adrift Gany and the self righteous Graham, have all been taken over by alen beings

The novel brilliantly prospects the family's predicament for the Yest and worst in individuals.'‘

Guardian

‘Like a collaboration between Kafka and Aykboum,
Family Planning
is below the belt writing of the most arresting kind,'

Daily Telegraph

TONGUES OF FLAME

Touched by undercurrents they do not understand, innocents in an environment of religious fanaticism, the. Bowens become the focus and sacrifice of a frenzied envangelical movement: the cost of winning over the soul and saving the body is sometimes the heart. Merging structural simplicity with emotional complexity, Tim Parks has written a novel of extraordinary balance arid grace,'

Booh & Bookmen

‘Not since
The Catcher in the Rye
has there been such a believable portrayal of male puberty. The quality of the stray teling and the cadences of the prose have a piercing authenticity,'

Catholic Herald

LOVING ROGER

Tight and disturbing,
Loving Roger
begins with a dead body and a chilling question. Why has nice, ordinary affectionate Anna picked up her kitchen knife and murdered the man she insists she loves?… This brief novel is a mordantly illuminating essay on the way love contains the seeds of vindictiveness and hatred,'

Observer

‘Every aspect of this novel is beautifully realized … It is compulsive reading and I highly recommend it,'

Illustrated London News

HOME THOUGHTS

‘For such a short book, Parks presents an impressive number of characters in Ml dress. There are well over a dozen, set in a plot of such convoluted intricacy it could fuel a soap opera for years … This is a startMngly sharp and impressive piece of work,'

New York Times

‘No reader will feel short changed by Parks … Between the orderly lines there are passions, betrayals, violent deaths - more surprises and revelations than one narrative could normally contain,'

Hilary Mantel,
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