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
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
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
