The only answer she heard was a low moan. But it was an answer.
‘I’m going to call for help. Don’t worry,
She ran into the other room and reached for the telephone. For a second, she didn’t recognize what it was that prevented her from picking up the phone, but then she saw the bloody knife, her hand white-knuckled around the handle. She dropped it to the floor and grabbed the receiver. With stiff fingers, she jabbed out 113. After ten rings, a woman’s voice answered and asked her what she wanted.
‘This is an emergency. I need an ambulance. In Cannaregio.’
Bored, the voice asked the exact address.
‘Cannaregio 6134.’
‘I’m sorry, signora. It’s Sunday and we have only one ambulance. I’ll have to put your name on the list.’
Flavia’s voice rose. ‘There’s a woman here who’s hurt. Someone tried to kill her. She has to get to the hospital.’
The voice took on a tone of wearied patience. ‘I’ve explained to you, signora. We have only one ambulance, and there are two calls for it to make first. As soon as it’s free, we’ll send it to you.’ When she had no response from Flavia, the voice asked, ‘Signora, are you still there? If you give me the address again, I’ll put your name on the list. Signora? Signora?’ In response to Flavia’s silence, the woman at the other end broke the connection, leaving Flavia with the receiver in her hand, wishing she still had the knife.
Hand trembling, Flavia replaced the receiver and went back into the hall. Brett remained where she had left her but had somehow managed to turn over onto her side and lay still, holding one arm across her chest, moaning.
Flavia knelt beside her. ‘Brett, I have to get a doctor.’
Flavia heard a muffled noise, and Brett’s hand came slowly towards her own. Her fingers barely made contact with Flavia’s arm, then fell to the floor. ‘Cold,’ was the only thing she said.
Flavia got to her feet and went into the bedroom. She ripped the covers from the bed and dragged them back into the foyer, where she spread them over the motionless form on the floor. She opened the door to the apartment, not bothering to check through the spyhole to see if the two men had returned. Leaving the door open behind her, she ran down two flights of stairs and pounded heavily on the door of the apartment below.
After a few moments, the door was opened by a middle-aged man, tall and balding, who held a cigarette in one hand and a book in the other. ‘Luca,’ Flavia gasped, fighting the impulse to scream as this went on and on and no one came to help her lover, ‘Brett’s hurt. She’s got to have a doctor.’ Suddenly her voice cracked and she was sobbing. ‘Please, Luca, please, get a doctor.’ She grabbed at his arm, no longer capable of speech.
Without a word, he stepped back into his apartment and grabbed his keys from a table beside the door. He dropped the book on the floor, pulled the door closed behind him, and disappeared down the steps before Flavia could say anything else.
Flavia went up the steps two at a time and back into the apartment. She looked down and saw that a small pool of blood now spread out under Brett’s face, a strand of her hair floating on the surface. Years ago, she had read or been told that people in shock should be kept awake, that it was dangerous for them to go to sleep. So she knelt again beside her friend and called her name. By now, one eye was swollen shut, but at the sound of her name, the American opened the other just a slit and looked at Flavia without giving any sign that she recognized her.
‘Luca went. The doctor will be here in a minute.’
Slowly, the eye seemed to go out of focus, then pulled itself back to look at her. Flavia crouched lower. She wiped Brett’s hair back from her face, feeling the blood trail across her fingers. ‘It’s going to be all right. They’ll be back in a minute, and you’ll be all right. Everything’s going to be all right, darling. Don’t worry.’
The eye closed, opened, drifted into long focus, then came back. ‘Hurt,’ she whispered.
‘It’s all right, Brett. It’s going to be all right.’
‘Hurt.’
Flavia knelt by her friend, gazing into the one eye, willing it to stay open and in focus, and she continued to mutter things that, in future, she never remembered having said. Sometime later, she began to weep, but she was not aware of this.
She saw Brett’s hand, half hidden by the covers, and she grabbed at it, held it softly, as though it were made of the same down as the covers around it. ‘It’s going to be all right, Brett.’
Suddenly, from below, she heard the sound of footsteps and raised voices. For an instant, it occurred to her that this might be the two men, come back to finish whatever it was they had come to do. She got to her feet and went to the door, hoping to be able to close it in time, but when she looked, she saw Luca’s face and, behind him, a man in a white jacket with a black bag in his hand.
‘Thank God,’ she said and was surprised to find that she meant it. Behind her, the music stopped. Elvira was at last reunited with her Arturo, and the opera was at an end.
* * * *
Chapter Two
Flavia stepped back from the door to allow the two men to enter. ‘What is it? What happened?’ Luca asked, looking down at the heap of covers on the floor and what they covered.
He bent down over her, reached out his hand, and felt for the pulse at her neck. Feeling it, slow but strong, he pulled back the covers to see how badly she was hurt. Her sweater was bunched in a blood-streaked tangle under her throat, exposing her ribs and torso. Her skin was red and broken in places and beginning to turn livid and dark.
‘Signora, can you hear me?’ the doctor asked.
