One Summer in Italy…

‘I’ve spent some time there.’

‘Did you see the boats?’

‘Yes, and I went sailing,’ Holly replied.

‘Mamma lived in Portsmouth. She liked sailing. She said it was the loveliest feeling in the world.’

‘It is. Having the wind in your face, feeling the boat move under you-’

‘Tell me,’ Liza begged. ‘Tell me all about it.’

It was hard to speak light-heartedly when she was full of dread, and her mind was on whatever was happening further down the train. But she forced herself to do it. It was her only chance, yet it was more than that. The child’s shining eyes showed that this meant the world to her, and Holly was swept by a sudden determination to give her whatever happiness she could.

Her memories were vague but she embellished them, inventing where she had to, trying to bolster the illusion that the little girl wanted. She had found someone who reminded her, however tenuously, of her dead mother and happier times. Not for anything would Holly have spoiled it for her.

Now and then Liza would interrupt, asking about a new word, and practising until she was sure she had it. She was a quick learner and never needed to be told twice.

Suddenly Berta began to grow agitated, looking at the door. Seeing her, Holly too began to worry.

‘I was just wondering when the judge would be returning,’ Berta said.

Holly grew tense. ‘Judge?’ she asked.

‘Liza’s father is Judge Matteo Fallucci. He is visiting a friend in another compartment. I thought he-’ she struggled for the words ‘-perhaps-return by now. I can’t wait. I need,’ she dropped her voice to a modest whisper, ‘gabinetto.’

‘Yes, but-’

‘You will stay with the piccina per un momento, si? Grazie.’

She rushed out as she spoke, leaving Holly no option but to stay.

She began to feel desperate. How long would she be trapped here? She had hoped to be safe, but it seemed she’d jumped out of the frying-pan, into the fire.

‘You will stay?’ Liza echoed.

‘Just for a moment-’

‘No, stay for always.’

‘I wish I could, I really do, but I have to go. When Berta comes back-’

‘I hope she never comes back,’ Liza said sulkily.

‘Why? Is she unkind to you?’

‘No, she means to be kind, but…’ Liza gave an eloquent shrug. ‘I can’t talk to her. She doesn’t understand. She thinks if I eat my food and do my exercises-that’s all there is. If I try to talk about…about things, she just stares.’

That had been Holly’s impression of Berta too; well-meaning but unsubtle. It hadn’t seemed to occur to her that she should not have left the child with a stranger, even for a moment.

But perhaps she’d hurried and, even now, was on her way back. Meaning just to take a quick look, Holly turned to the door and ran straight into the man standing there.

She hadn’t heard him enter, and didn’t know how long he’d been there. She collided with him before she saw him, and had an instant impression of a hard, unyielding body towering over her.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded sharply in Italian. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Signore-’ Suddenly she couldn’t breathe.

‘Who are you?’ he said again in a harsh voice.

It was Liza who came to her rescue, limping forward and saying hurriedly, ‘No, Poppa, the signorina is English, so we only speak English.’ She took Holly’s hand, saying firmly, ‘She comes from Portsmouth, like Mamma. And she’s my friend.’

A change came over him. With an odd feeling, Holly remembered how Liza, too, had changed. She had become joyful, while this man seemed to flinch. Yet they were reacting to the same thing. It was a mystery.

Liza drew her back to the seat, keeping hold of her hand as if to say that her new friend was under her protection. Even though she was so young, her strength of will was clear. She had probably inherited it from her father, Holly thought.

He eyed Holly coldly.

‘You turn up in my compartment, and I’m expected to accept your presence with equanimity?’

‘I’m-just an English tourist,’ she said carefully.

‘I think I begin to understand. There’s a commotion further down the train. But I imagine you know that.’

She faced him. ‘Yes, I do know.’

‘And no doubt it has something to do with your sudden appearance here. No, don’t answer. I can make up my own mind.’

‘Then let me go,’ Holly said.

‘Go where?’

His tone was implacable. And so was everything else about him, she realised. Tall, lean, hard, with dark, slightly sunken eyes that glared over a prominent nose, he looked every inch a judge: the kind of man who would lay down the law and expect to be obeyed in life as well as in court.

She searched his face, trying to detect in it something yielding, but she could find no hope. She tried to rise.

‘Sit down,’ he told her. ‘If you go out of that door you’ll run straight into the arms of the police, who are examining everyone’s passports.’

She sank back in her seat. This was the end.

‘Are you a suspicious person?’ he asked. ‘Is that why Berta has vanished?’

Liza giggled. ‘No, Berta has gone along the corridor for a few minutes.’

‘She asked me to look after your daughter while she was away,’ Holly said. ‘But now you’re here-’

‘Stay where you are,’ he ordered.

She had half risen in her seat, but his tone of command was so final that she had no choice but to fall back.

‘Are you really running away from the police?’ Liza asked her. ‘How exciting!’

Her father closed his eyes.

‘Is it too much to hope that you’ll remember I am a judge?’ he asked.

‘Oh, but that doesn’t matter, Poppa,’ the child said blithely. ‘Holly needs our help.’

‘Liza-’

The child scrambled painfully out of her seat and stood in front of him, taking his outstretched hand for support and regarding him with a challenging look.

‘She’s my friend, Poppa.’

‘Your friend? And you’ve known her for how long?’

‘Ten minutes.’

‘Well, then-’

‘But who cares?’ Liza demanded earnestly. ‘It doesn’t matter how long you’ve known someone. You used to say that.’

‘I don’t think I actually said-’

‘You did, you did.’ Liza’s voice rose as she began to be upset. ‘You said, with some people you knew at once that they were going to be terribly important to you. You and Mamma-’

Without warning she burst into tears, drowning out the rest of her words.

Holly waited for him to reach out and hug his child, but something seemed to have happened to him. His face had acquired a grey tinge and was suddenly set in forbidding lines, as though the mention of his dead wife had murdered something inside him. It was like watching a man being turned into a tombstone.

Liza’s tears had turned into violent sobs, yet still he did not embrace her. Unable to bear it any longer, Holly scooped her up so that the little girl was sitting in her lap, her face buried against her.

At that moment the door of the compartment slid back. Holly drew in a sharp breath as the full horror of her