The Savage Garden (38 page)

    At a certain point he had to stop, he could go no farther. He dropped into some shrubs, pressing his face into the sandy soil, his fingers groping in the darkness for a better weapon to wield than a learned tome on Renaissance sculpture. He felt stripped bare, every action base and primitive, inborn. The same body that had let him down now came to his aid, helping him to control his labored breathing, sharpening his hearing.

    All he could pick up was the muted drone of distant vehicles. That was good, because the ground was spongy with pine needles and fallen twigs, impossible to move across without generating some kind of noise. He must have given them the slip. He waited five minutes, waited another five for good measure, then he crept from his lair.

    Stealth suited his style. It also blunted the blind, headlong panic of before. He moved cautiously, sticking to thick vegetation, stopping every so often to listen for telltale sounds, avoiding any areas where the moonlight cleaved the darkness. When obliged to cross a path, he would halt, wait, checking first that the coast was clear.

    He traveled a fair distance like this before reaching the clearing. It was large and ovoid, and through the dense belt of trees just beyond it he could make out the lights of the buildings on the north side of the park. He thought about skirting the open space. If he had, he would have walked straight into the arms of the enemy. Because it was from the tree line off to his left that the man exploded the moment he began padding across the clearing in a low crouch.

    "I've got him, he's here, I've got him!"

    Adam surprised himself with the burst of speed he put on, the pain in his ankle forgotten. He might even have made it to safety if he hadn't collided with a tree.

    He reeled backward, stunned. He was aware of the book falling from his hand, and of the fact that it had cost him four shillings from a dusty shop just off the Charing Cross Road. Then something hurtled into him from behind, driving the air from his lungs and sending him sprawling.

    The man wasn't big. He didn't need to be. He was brutal. He kept Adam subdued with a few well-placed kicks until his companion arrived. Together, they hauled him to his feet.

    "Who the fuck are you?"

    "What?" he said groggily, in English.

    He was jerked, spun around and hurled against a tree. He cracked the back of his skull against the trunk, staggered but didn't fall. This meant that they didn't have to pick him up before seizing him by the arms and running him headlong into another tree.

    For a moment, the world receded from him. When it flooded back in, he found himself on the ground, clutching his head, his palm sticky with blood.

    "Who the fuck are you?" spat one of the shadows looming over him.

    He cowered, raising his arms protectively above his head. "No," he said pathetically, tearfully, convinced now that he was pleading for his life, that they would keep piling him into trees until he was nothing but pulp.

    He never got to know if that really was their intention.

    There was a sound like the snapping of a branch and the shadow on the left pitched forward onto him. By the time he had scrabbled out from beneath the dead weight, it was almost all over for number two. He was on the ground, yelping in pain as blows rained down on him. The assailant had some kind of instrument in his hand, hard to make out in the darkness, and with blood sheeting into his eyes.

    Suddenly, there was silence. He heard his rescuer breathing heavily.

    "Go," snapped a gruff voice. "Get lost!"

    He didn't require any more encouragement; the first man was already beginning to stir.

    Stumbling off through the trees, he heard the sound of a couple more blows finding their mark. He also became aware of the dampness between his legs.

    SIGNORA OLIVOTTO AT THE PENSIONE RAVIZZA PROVED TO be something of a saint. She took him into her apartment and cleaned and dressed his wounds. When she suggested he remove his trousers so that she could clean them, she mentioned the dirty stains at the knees, not the wet patch around the crotch. She even pretended to believe his story that he'd tackled two men who had tried to pick his pocket.

    "Well, you're going to have a scar to remember your bravery by," she said archly.

    The cut in his eyebrow was not so long, but it was deep. When it refused to stop bleeding, a doctor was summoned. He shaved one part of the eyebrow, administered three stitches and two aspirin, and then categorically refused payment. Signora Olivotto must already have solicited the doctor's discretion, because he never once asked how Adam had come by his injuries.

    The pain in his head and ribs made for a terrible night's sleep. So did the thought of two men lying bludgeoned to death in the park by his mysterious savior. What would have happened if the shadowy stranger hadn't come to his rescue? And who was he? Was it possible that he was connected in some way? Or had he simply stumbled upon the fracas and done the right thing by the weaker party? They were imponderable questions. There was also the matter of his book on Renaissance sculpture, abandoned at the scene, his name scrawled on the flyleaf. A calm and reasoned assessment of his predicament threw up only one solution: Get out of Viareggio as quickly as possible.

    Signora Olivotto had washed his trousers and left them out to dry overnight. They were still damp in the morning, although they quickly dried off in the early sunlight. He took breakfast in his room so as to avoid the stares of the other guests, his left eye now badly swollen.

    Realizing that he couldn't leave town without knowing for sure, he slipped out of the
pensione
and hurried to the park.

    He wasn't able to identify the exact spot, but he made a thorough sweep of the patch of woodland where the confrontation had occurred. There were no dead bodies and no police cordons sealing off a crime scene. He didn't find his book, but he did feel his spirits lift a little as he limped back to the
pensione.

    Signora Olivotto ordered a taxi to take him to the station. The moment it pulled away, he redirected the driver to the first stop down the line. He wasn't going to risk boarding the train in Viareggio itself. If Gaetano had any sense, he'd be waiting for him there.

    It was a small station, and the train that stopped at it also stopped at every other small station between Viareggio and Florence. This was fine by Adam. It gave him plenty of time to think.

    Rattling along through the shimmering heat of the Arno valley, it dawned on him that his one night in Viareggio had changed everything. The search for the truth behind Emilio's death was no longer a private affair, one to be pursued in secret. He had lost the initiative. Gaetano must surely have contacted Maurizio by now. He had to assume, therefore, that they'd worked out exactly who he was and why he'd traveled to Viareggio.

    At first he chided himself for the silly slip of the tongue that had led to his exposure. His thinking had changed by the time the train pulled into Santa Maria Novella station.

    So what if they knew? What if things had gone according to plan? He would be stepping off the train, his suspicions confirmed, and wondering just what the hell to do next. He had been nai've. Discovering the truth was never going to be enough of an end in itself. There was always going to be a confrontation of some sort with Maurizio. Viareggio had simply hastened the inevitable.

    MARIA WAS THE FIRST TO SET EYES ON ADAM. THE moment she did so, her hand shot to her mouth. She took him to the kitchen and listened to his (now embellished) account of the set-to with the pickpockets. She insisted on removing the bandage and examining the wound in his eyebrow. The doctor's needlework was decreed "adequate," although an extra stitch wouldn't have gone amiss. She rested a consoling hand on his arm and asked him if there was anything he wanted. She made him a coffee, then dispatched him upstairs with instructions to have a bath and change his clothes before lunch.

    As he stood staring at himself in the bathroom mirror, three thoughts occurred to him in quick succession: he looked truly terrible, dirty and damaged; it was good to be back at Villa Docci; and Maria had shown him more warmth in the last fifteen minutes than she'd managed to muster during his entire stay.

    He wasn't surprised to find Maurizio seated at the table on the terrace when he came down to lunch. Maurizio's reaction was no less predictable. It matched his mother's for horror and surprise and furrow-browed sympathy. Adam spent much of the meal trying to reach Maurizio, to extract from him a look, something, anything that suggested they both knew that his story of pickpockets in Arezzo was a ringing lie.

    It was a faultless performance by Maurizio. Adam was able to spend much of his time admiring it, because he never doubted for a moment that it
was
a performance. As the meal wore on, however, he began to worry. Maurizio would have quizzed Gaetano closely; he would know that Gaetano had not let slip Maurizio's name to Adam. All Maurizio had to do was brazen it out, make no reference at all to Viareggio, and Adam would be hamstrung, left with nothing more than a broken chain of circumstantial evidence.

    This is what Maurizio should have done, so Adam was surprised when he showed up in the study soon after lunch. He entered from the library, shutting the door behind him. He also closed the French windows leading onto the terrace.

    Adam was at the desk, reading. He hadn't absorbed one word of the book. He had been praying for Maurizio to make just such a blunder.

    Maurizio lit a cigarette. "Gaetano sends his apologies."

    Silence seemed the best tactic.

    "Who was the man in the park?"

    So that was it. Seeking Adam out wasn't a blunder on Maurizio's part; it was an act of necessity. He needed to know if Adam was working alone. He needed to know just what he was up against.

    "I don't know. It was dark, I didn't even see his face."

    Maurizio's eyes narrowed, studying him closely. "I believe you." He wandered to the fireplace and flicked some ash into the grate. "I don't know what you think you know, but let me tell you how it is. I know Gaetano, of course I do. We all do. When he left last year, he asked me to help him in his business." He gave a wry smile. "No, he asked to borrow some money. I said no, and then I saw La Capannina and I said yes. I thought it was a good investment. And it is. The arrangement between us is very complicated. I'll be honest, it is not exactly legal. This makes him very sensitive. It makes us both very sensitive. I'm sorry you suffered because of it. But that's all it is—a business arrangement."

    He had to hand it to Maurizio, it was a nice try, offering up an explanation that would allow Adam to walk away from the affair with a clean conscience.

    But he was beyond that now. He had changed. They had hurt him. They had scared him. No, they had made him piss himself with fear, thinking he was about to die.