The Villa (46 page)

‘And do you think – my lovely Flavia – that you would do me one last favour – for old times’ sake?’ he asked. He had hold of her hands again.

She knew she couldn’t refuse him. She might never see him again. He was staying at the big hotel on the hill.

‘I’m not asking you to let me make love to you,’ he said. ‘But I can’t die without holding you. Just once. I can’t, Flavia.’

She knew exactly how he felt. Hadn’t she thought the same thing years ago? So she walked up the hill with him to the hotel. She waited by the reception desk as he collected his key and she went up in the lift with him to his room.

Inside the room, he turned down a corner of the sheets and quilt and left her.

Shivering, Flavia took off her clothes – her warm black overcoat, her suede boots, her thick skirt and her stockings. She took off her cardigan and her blouse and the silver cross Lenny had given her when they married. Silently, she asked her husband to forgive her for what she must do. She took off her under-things, she slipped under the covers and she waited for Peter, just as she had waited for him before.

They came through the door on the other side of the kitchen, the door that led through to the living room.

Giovanni Sciarra and another man, older, wearing a grubby shirt and dungarees. Giovanni himself looked cool in jeans and a white linen shirt. As if he’d been invited round for Sunday tea.

‘Giovanni,’ she hissed. ‘What the fuck’s going on? What do you think you’re doing?’

A myriad of expressions passed over his face, as if, she thought, he couldn’t decide who to be.

‘You are back early, Tess,’ he said. He shook his head mournfully.

Back early? What was he talking about?

‘Too early for your own good.’

She tried to push down the fear that was rising in her, making her legs weak. He wouldn’t dare. Not with a witness. ‘What do you want?’ she demanded. ‘What are you looking for?’

But she knew – of course. And she knew why Giovanni had been so angry that she didn’t want his builders. He thought it was here, in the villa.
Il Tesoro
. He was convinced of it. That’s why the place had been in such a state when she
first arrived. Edward Westerman hadn’t left it like that – Giovanni had.

‘Where is it hidden?’ he muttered. ‘
Il Tesoro?
’

So he’d never believed that story he fed her about
Il Tesoro
being handed in to someone by Tonino’s grandfather in return for money. He’d just been trying to cause trouble between them. ‘Giovanni,’ she said. ‘You seem to have forgotten something – this is my house and you are trespassing.’

He muttered something she didn’t understand.

‘Please leave. Now.’ She watched them as they came further into the room. The guy in the dungarees was holding a pneumatic drill, for God’s sake … So, Giovanni had already searched in the obvious places, and with the prospect of the building being refurbished, he had been hoping to dig deeper, so to speak. Now that she’d rejected his builder …

‘Ah, Tess,’ he said.

Again she felt the sliver of fear. ‘It must be very special,’ she said. ‘
Il Tesoro
. But what makes you think it’s here?’

Giovanni shrugged. He spoke to the man beside him, who slunk away past Tess, into the hall and out of the front door.

Tess let him go. Now they were alone. She was scared and she was angry. But she wanted to get to the bottom of this. She wanted the truth.

‘Where else could it be?’ Giovanni was watching her closely. ‘It is the obvious place to hide it, no?’

‘I don’t see why,’ she snapped. ‘It could be anywhere.’

‘For example?’ Giovanni’s voice rose. ‘
Scopi questo!
Wherever it was hidden, it would have been found by now.’

Tess had spent enough hours already thinking back over the story. Alberto Amato had been asked by her grandfather to hide it during the war. But why? Why hadn’t her grandfather just hidden it himself? That way he could have been sure of not being betrayed; that way, only he would have known its whereabouts … It didn’t make sense.

‘Even if it was here,’ Tess said, treading carefully now, ‘what gives you any claim to it, Giovanni?’

He swore softly. ‘It was owed to the Sciarra family,’ he said. ‘It is our right.’

A piece of the jigsaw clicked into place. He had told her this before, hadn’t he? About the debt owed by the Amatos – which would be a debt owed by Luigi Amato in particular. Protection money for his business. But why would Edward Westerman end up with
Il Tesoro
if it had originally belonged to Luigi Amato? And then she got it. Millie had told her, without meaning to tell her. Luigi Amato was gay. Edward Westerman was also gay. This gave them at the least a common bond and possibly even a relationship. Was Edward Westerman the only person Luigi could trust? Did he give it to Edward for safekeeping because the Sciarra family meant to have it?

‘Where did Luigi get it from, Giovanni?’ Tess asked. She’d gone too far to back off now.

‘Clever girl.’ He smiled. ‘It was unearthed when he was building the foundations for his stupid little restaurant,’ he said. ‘But we have eyes everywhere, you know, and even if we didn’t, his gossiping sister could not keep her mouth shut.
Like most women.’ He scowled. ‘So. It belongs to Sicily, to Cetaria.’ And he straightened up, looked almost proud. ‘To the brotherhood,’ he said, so quietly, she almost missed it. The brotherhood?

‘And you would give it to Sicily, would you, Giovanni?’ she asked. Because she would gladly give it to Sicily. To be truthful, she had no interest in the bloody thing; it had just caused a load of trouble as far as she could see.

‘What do you know,’ he spat, ‘of Sicily? Some English tourist, walking in here like she owns the place …?’

He seemed to have forgotten that she was half-Sicilian, Tess thought. That her mother had grown up here just as his had, had played with his own aunt in the same streets. And that she did own the place. This place.

‘That’s enough.’ She held out her hand, palm up.

He looked at her enquiringly. ‘What?’

‘The key, Giovanni. Give me the key to my villa and we’ll say no more about it.’ She didn’t feel scared now, just angry.

He grinned, took a step closer. ‘Come and get it, Tess.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ She turned away.

‘No, I mean it.’ Closer still. ‘Come and get it.’ He raised his hands. ‘Come on. I’ll make it easy for you.’

She glared at him. ‘Who do you work for, Giovanni?’ She couldn’t imagine that he was a one-man band. He was far too self-assured. And he knew too much – how had he known she’d be out today, for example?

Giovanni hadn’t bothered to answer her question. Or perhaps he already had.
The brotherhood
… He was still
grinning, laughing at her. The poor Englishwoman, just a tourist and utterly out of her depth …

‘I suppose you’ve been having me watched?’ She fired a shot in the dark.

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Now, why would I do that?’

‘To see when I go out – so that you can break into my house?’

He laughed. ‘No need, my dear Tess.’

Ah yes, because he had a key.

‘I have other ears,’ he continued in a whisper. ‘And other eyes. And we care about
Il Tesoro
. We want it. It cannot have simply disappeared.’

‘Well, I don’t have it,’ Tess snapped.

‘Hmm.’ He regarded her thoughtfully. ‘The problem being that we do not entirely believe you. Which is why we cannot leave you alone,
no
?’

Tess thought of Tonino. Did he too want
Il Tesoro
? It had, after all, once belonged to his family. Was that why …?

But it couldn’t be. If that were so, he would never have broken off with her, would he?

‘The key is in my shirt pocket,’ Giovanni whispered. ‘Here.’ He pointed.

Tess could see the shape of the heavy metal outlined under the white linen. The shirt was undone at the neck, his dark chest hair visible, the faintest sheen of sweat on his olive skin.

‘Take it,’ he said.

Tess’s gaze fixed on to his. She knew he was goading her. Nevertheless, she reached up for it.

He snatched her hand as she did so, pulling her roughly towards him. He grabbed a handful of her hair.

‘Get off me.’ Her voice was shaking. His face was almost touching hers, his eyes cruel and cold.

‘Do you think I want you?’ he muttered. ‘After that bastard has been there?’

And he pushed her away, so hard that she stumbled and almost fell. She grabbed the back of a chair. ‘Give me the key, Giovanni,’ she said.

He was already at the door. He turned for a moment, plucked the key from his shirt pocket and threw it on the floor between them. It landed on the flagstones with a dull, metallic ring. ‘Take it,’ he said. ‘It makes no difference.’

He opened the door.

‘And don’t come here again,’ Tess yelled at his retreating back. ‘Or … Or … ’

But she was wasting her breath. He was gone.

Yes, thought Flavia. Sicilian food embraced contrast and discord – it had always been so. Sweet and sour, hard and soft, sweet and salty, hot and cold …

In
cassata
, for example, there was the hard density of the candied fruit, the sweetness of the icing over rich, cheesy ricotta. A cake as well as an ice cream. By 1300, Arab Sicily was a thing of the past, and
cassata
became an aristocratic dessert, its recipes jealously guarded by monastic nuns or the chefs of the aristocracy. Even today, she knew, not many people outside the culinary profession were ambitious enough to make it at home.

However, cassata was a speciality of Flavia’s home village. And it would not do to let traditions and recipes die out. It was part of her story for her daughter.

The candied fruit should be stored in a cool place in a covered jar. The true flavour of the fruit is preserved underneath the sugar coating.

She began to write the recipe in the back of the book.

Just so …

He undressed slowly, as if every movement was an effort; tugging off his sweater, pulling at his shirt, looking at her all the while. A sad
look, a look of love. Were those looks so different, Flavia thought?

She lay there under the crisp white sheets, trying to control the trembling of her body. It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t anxiety. It wasn’t even desire. It was just emotion, she realised. The emotion she had once invested in this man bubbling up again like lava inside her.

And then he was naked, standing next to her by the bed. ‘We wasted so much time, Flavia,’ he said.

His body hair was a fair down – thicker than she remembered, but golden and hardly visible on his shoulders and, as he half-turned – on the small of his back. He was too thin – that was the disease, she realised. There was already a wasted look about him and his skin was too yellow-pale, glistening with a light sweat.

She pushed back the sheet and coverlet. ‘Come here,’ she said.

He bent towards her, climbed into the bed, and opened his arms and she lay inside the circlet he had made, her head in the hollow between his chest and shoulder, her arm around his back as he turned to face her.

They were silent. Two separate hearts beating. She could feel the pulse of him, thumping against her skin. For a moment, her thoughts flitted to Lenny. He was a different shape – a stockier, shorter man, with dark hair on his chest and legs, but also with a pale skin; not honey-pale like Peter’s but white–pink pale like the blush on an apple. She had become used to Lenny’s shape, Lenny’s body and it felt strange to be in anyone else’s arms – even Peter’s. But … ‘So good,’ she murmured.

Because they fit. They breathed in the same rhythm. The hollow between his chest and shoulder was the exact right shape for her head, and her hip fitted neatly into the curve of his waist and groin.

And, as he held her, he stroked her hair and began to murmur, ‘Flavia, Flavia … I have never stopped loving you.’

‘Nor I you, my love,’ she said.

And she relaxed; until the trembling stopped and she slipped into a peaceful semi-hypnotic state that was almost sleep …

For how long they lay there, holding one another, she had no idea.

Afterwards, when she had left him and was waiting for the bus that would take her home, she thought about it. She could still feel his skin against hers; still smell the scent of him – tobacco-woody mixed with something slightly chemical. Had he started chemotherapy? She hadn’t even asked.

But she didn’t feel guilty – about Lenny. This was separate from Lenny, something that would not affect him. She would not allow it to.

And she realised that she did know Peter after all – it was in him and in her and in the fit of them. It was in the love between them that they had never lost. In the way he held her and the way she felt in his arms.

Tess was still numb with anger as she gathered the gear together for her dive. She knew perfectly well that she was not in the right emotional state to go diving – it was important to be calm and use minimum energy to conserve air and deal with the whole underwater experience.

But she was not going to let Giovanni Sciarra spoil her day. She’d planned this dive, looked forward to it, checked the tide times, everything. So she would go ahead. And if he – or any of his bloody
brotherhood
– were watching her, they would see how much she cared.

Tess put on her bikini and wetsuit, leaving the top half unzipped for now as it was still pretty hot and she had to get all her stuff down to the water’s edge. She had thought she was coming to Sicily to discover her mother’s story and she had uncovered so much more … She put on her weight belt, picked up her mask, her fins, her torch and her little diver’s knife.

All the time, during her preparations, a small part of her was thinking –
was
it hidden here in Villa Sirena?
Il Tesoro
? Had it been here all the time? Tucked away behind the old stone fireplace perhaps, hidden in the ancient well, buried in the terraced garden: five paces from the dwarf palm,
three from the purple hibiscus, X marks the spot …?