Spotted Hemlock

‘Mr Biancini took sufficient interest in her, then, to think about her future? What sort of work had she been doing before this holiday in Italy?’

‘School-teaching. Oh, not at a proper school, you know. She was at one of these little private boarding schools where they employ the staff term by term.’

‘Term by term?’

‘Yes. You get the sack at the end of every term so they don’t have to pay you for the holidays. Then you apply again at the beginning of the next term and they take you on again, automatic, as it were.’

‘But,’ said Dame Beatrice, who had heard of this hand-to-mouth system before, ‘isn’t it true that the summer holiday at such schools can last as long as ten weeks?’

‘Oh, yes, with a month at Easter and three weeks at Christmas. Either Carrie used to get a holiday job or else go on the Unemployment. She managed somehow, or else got into trouble with debts and stealing, which I had to see to, as I told you.’

‘Did she ever spend her holidays, or part of them, with you?’

‘No. It wouldn’t have done, once I’d married my Tony.’

‘But you were sure that it would work when you agreed to having her join you in Italy?’

‘It seemed safe enough at the time. She told us she was engaged.’

‘To whom?’

‘She never said, and we didn’t press it. We didn’t think it could be to anybody very much, or else she’d have been the first one to crow about it. Putting two and two together, we reckoned it might be to a garage hand or a barman, or something of that—that is, if it was true, and not just a tale she’d made up.’

‘Did anything transpire during the holiday which caused you to think that she might be in any trouble, difficulty or danger?’

‘Not without it might have been the man who kept following us around. And, of course, she was a nuisance with Tony. But this man — ”

‘Indeed?’

‘Yes. We noticed him first when we went to visit Pompeii. I don’t understand these old ruins and things, but Tony was very proud of them and insisted on me seeing them all. I suppose it was because I wasn’t interested that I noticed this man and pointed him out to Tony. But Tony seemed to think he was only creeping in on our party to hear what the guide had to say. Personally, I thought the man was up to no good, but, as he behaved himself and even gave the guide a tip at the end, I couldn’t do anything, and tried to persuade myself it was just my fancy.’

‘Quite so. Did your daughter seem to notice the man particularly?’

‘No, I can’t say she did, but you couldn’t ever tell, with Carrie, from quite a little girl, what she noticed and what she didn’t. She never gave herself away.’

‘Except over Mr Biancini, I think you hinted.’

‘Even then, I’ll admit, I never noticed anything. I suppose it wouldn’t have occurred to me. It was Tony himself tipped me off and told me she was getting embarrassing, so, of course, I made a bit of a scene and turned her out.’

‘That, surely, was drastic treatment?’

‘You didn’t know Carrie. Half-measures didn’t mean a thing to her. I told her to get back to her boarding school and be quick about it. She got short shrift from me, I can tell you.’

‘Was it your first visit to Italy—this holiday?’

‘Yes. Tony and me had often talked about it, and then, quite suddenly, he said his relations had invited us over, and he’d like to go, and what about me. Well, I wasn’t all that keen, but I could see he was dead set on it. Of course, Italians are great family people, even if they do get excited and quarrel with each other, and I could tell I’d better say yes. But, oh, dear! When we got there! Well, really, Dame Beatrice, I couldn’t tell you! To begin with, there were dozens of them, all living (if you can call it that!) in one of those dreadful tenement houses in the back streets of Naples.’

Dame Beatrice made sympathetic noises and suggested that it depended upon what one was accustomed to in the way of living accommodation.

‘I packed it up at the end of the third day,’ Mrs Biancini continued. ‘I told Tony he’d got to find us a hotel. I will say for him that he did see it my way, and so we went to the Vittorio, and, my, what a nice change that was!’

‘He chose the Vittorio, I believe, because one of his relatives worked there.’

‘That’s quite right. It was out of the season, I suppose, and his brother Giovanni got us special terms, but, I must say, that didn’t seem to make any difference to the way we were treated. Always respect shown, and doors opened for you and a light for your cigarette, just as it might be the Ritz or anywhere else. I really enjoyed myself.’

‘And your daughter Carrie was with you all the time?’

‘Well, until I gave her her return tickets and sent her back to Naples until the boat sailed. Mind you, the noise and smells and dirt didn’t seem to get on her the way they did on me, but then, as she said, being used to crowds of kids, and the stink of everlasting cabbage, and not being able to get housemaids, it wasn’t so very different from the boarding school. She gave me plenty of cheek before she went.’

‘She preferred the Vittorio, I take it?’

‘I suppose so. Anyway, she paid her own bill. I insisted on that. “You can’t expect Tony to treat you. He isn’t made of money,” I said. She said Tony had invited her and that if we’d stayed with the relations, as was the first arrangement, it wouldn’t have cost her anything, because he’d paid her fare. First I’d known of that, I must say, although I ought to have known when he handed me three sets of