This was the only consolation in the affair—Maria's betrayal. Antonella hadn't banked on Maurizio outbidding her as the hammer came down. She had underestimated him. Maria, older and wiser, hadn't.
He carried this pleasing thought with him as he strode briskly along the track back to Antonella's farmhouse.
She wasn't there. Nor was her car. Both were gone. It was no bad thing. He would only have screamed at her. Or worse.
He made do with snatching up a rock from the roadside and hurling it through her kitchen window.
The farewells were absurd, Signora Docci the only unrehearsed actor in the farce. Knowing the stakes were high, Adam played his part to innocent perfection. So did Maria. Her eyes even misted with tears as she kissed him goodbye on both cheeks. Maurizio sweetly offered to drive Adam to the station himself.
They sat side by side in silence for most of the journey. Time was on their side, and Adam asked if they could swing by Piazza Repubblica to pick up his photos of the memorial garden. Maurizio accompanied him inside the shop. He also insisted on staying with him until the train departed. His last words were to the point.
'You have a good brain. Use it. Somewhere else. Not here. Don't ever come back here again.'
As the train jerked out of the station, he reached for the photos of the garden. He skipped over the ones of Flora, not because they were any worse than the others—he was a hopeless photographer, they were all second- rate—but because he felt ashamed. He felt as if he had let her down.
There was to be no justice for the man who slept alongside her beneath the stone floor of the Docci family chapel.
ENGLAND WAS IN THE GRIP OF A HEAT WAVE, WHICH meant there had been four whole days of uninterrupted sunshine. Adam woke to the sound of the rain hammering against the window on the morning of day five, his first morning back.
His mother's opening words to him when he headed downstairs were, 'I told him he should have taken his umbrella to work.'
It was a familiar phrase; he'd heard her utter it many times before in that gently reproachful way of hers. This time, though, it grated, it remained lodged in his brain while the coffee percolated and his mother sang the praises of the new pop-up toaster they'd purchased while he'd been away. The cat had also been neutered in his absence, he discovered.
He didn't blame her. He knew he was party to the petty little exchanges that constituted life at home. He had shared nothing of any significance with his parents over dinner the night before, aside from some impressions of Italy and an account of his work at Villa Docci. His father's reaction to the news of Adam's unmasking of the garden could be described, at best, as one of grudging respect. Just as predictably, his mother had waited until she was alone with him before offering some heartfelt words of congratulation. Publicly, she always took her lead from her husband—a state of affairs that had irritated Adam in the past, but which now seemed wholly unacceptable.
'Sit down, Mum.'
'Darling?'
He carried the cup of tea he'd just made for her to the kitchen table, leaving her little choice but to join him.
'It's lovely to have you back, darling.'
'Mum, I know about Dad.'
'About Dad?' she asked, a slight note of anxiety jarring with the cheery innocence.
'Harry told me.'
Her gaze faltered. 'He shouldn't have done that. I asked him not to.'
'Mum—'
'He promised he wouldn't.'
'Mum—'
'I'm very angry with him.'
'Mum.' He reached across the table and took her hand.
She bowed her head and stared at her cup of tea. He couldn't see her face behind the curtain of hair, but he could see her shoulders start to convulse. The first faint sobs built quickly in volume.
He slid from his chair and skirted the table. He wrapped his arms around her from behind and held her tight while she bawled.
Later, after they had talked, it was she who suggested they treat themselves to lunch at the Grey Friar—an old coaching inn set in a fold of the North Downs beyond the urban sprawl. It was known for the quality of its cooking and its exorbitant prices, and they only ever went there on special occasions. This felt like one. His mother certainly seemed to think so. She sank two sherries before the meal and even smoked one of Adam's cigarettes. They both ordered the trout, which they ate at a table in the garden now that the rain had stopped and the clouds were clearing.
He told her everything that had happened to him in Italy. The only details he spared her were those of a more intimate nature. She rarely interrupted, allowing him to unburden himself.
When he was finished, she said, 'Well, you young people certainly do lead colorful lives.'
It was exactly the sort of thing she
