Nick made a beeline for the nearest stall, which was selling morsels of meat and cheese, and purchased a small plastic bowl filled with what looked like pieces of marinated sponge. My stomach rumbled.
‘What’s that?’ I asked as he popped a piece into his mouth.
‘Tripe.’ He grinned around his mouthful as he chewed.
I wrinkled my nose in disgust. ‘That’s revolting.’
‘Al contrario, mio amore,’ he said. ‘It’s a true Roman delicacy, beauty girl. Want to try?’
He held the bowl out towards me and I backed away, holding my hands out to ward him off. I heard a few titters and aghast cries from the stall behind me and knew they were making fun of me, but I didn’t care. Delicacy or not, I didn’t do offal.
‘Let’s get started,’ I said.
‘What exactly are we getting started on?’ He tossed another piece of tripe into his mouth.
‘We’re going to ask all the vendors whether they’ve seen Ford.’
‘You’re kidding, right?’
It took us two hours to finish our tour of the market, and we had no luck whatsoever. Many of the stall vendors didn’t speak any English, but their reaction to the photo of Ford was unanimous. No one had seen him.
I stopped near the exit to look back at the row of stalls we had just negotiated, and saw a man watching us from about ten metres away. He was short and wiry and wore a flat, peaked cap. His face was covered in fine stubble. An expression of momentary guilt flashed across his face as our eyes met, then he turned his attention to the boxes of tomatoes beside him. I frowned as he picked up a tomato to test its ripeness. He had no bags and it seemed he hadn’t purchased anything from the market. So why was he inspecting tomatoes if he wasn’t buying? And why had he looked as if I’d caught him out?
I realised Nick was waiting for me by the exit. I tore my eyes away from the man in the cap and joined him.
‘What now?’ he asked.
I opened my mouth to answer, but then I noticed the man was looking at me again. Even from this distance, his gaze was piercing, eyes dark and glittering. An inexplicable shiver went through my body. Then he turned back to the stall and moved on, unhurried, to the artichokes.
‘What are you looking at?’ Nick asked.
I nodded in the direction of the man. ‘That guy over there was giving me funny looks.’
He followed my gaze. ‘Why don’t you go and ask him about Ford?’
My reaction came straight from my gut. ‘No, let’s go. He’s just a customer. Ford hasn’t been here… not today, anyway.’
We left the pavilion. The streets were narrow and organised in a grid formation, lined with tiny cars and scooters and overshadowed by tall buildings. Wooden shutters were closed against the summer heat, and air-conditioning units hummed on the walls. We wandered until we reached a square packed with giant marquees and open-air stalls. The surrounding streets were festooned with streamers, flowers and balloons. There were people everywhere.
‘We should probably find a hotel for the night, just in case,’ I said. ‘It looks like there’s some kind of festival in the area.’
But this task proved to be more difficult than I’d expected. We tried several hotels, but everywhere we went was completely booked out. It was already late afternoon by the time a cafe owner directed us to a small pensione hidden down a little cobbled street.
‘I am sorry, signorina, we have only one room available,’ said the owner, a rotund man with a moustache.
I sighed. ‘OK, we’ll have to keep looking.’
‘Signorina, this is the only room you will find in Testaccio during Gay Village. Everything is booked out for months in advance. This room is only free because I had a cancellation.’
‘Gay Village?’ I raised my eyebrows.
‘Lots of dance parties and performances. Very fun for everybody.’
‘So that’s why you brought us here?’ I gave Nick a playful punch on the arm. ‘My friend here is gay, you see. I was wondering what we were doing out this way, but now it makes sense!’
Nick scowled at me. ‘Not everything revolves around you, friend.’
‘Anyway, I’m not sharing a room with him.’ I jerked a thumb at Nick. ‘We’ll just have to go back to the city for the night.’
‘It is a twin share room, signorina,’ the owner said. ‘Two double beds, no funny business. If you go back to the city now, you will miss the best part of the festival. In the evening, everybody comes out to eat and drink the best food and wine you will find anywhere in Italy.’
Hmmm. That sounded like exactly the kind of thing that would attract Ford. Nick was waiting for me to make the call, but his eyes held the hint of a challenge. He didn’t think I could handle it.
‘We’ll take it,’ I said. ‘It’s only one night.’
But as we climbed the stairs to the room we were going to share, I started to have second thoughts. He’d been hateful enough to travel with as it was without sleeping in the same room as him. But then, if I found Ford and got the story, we’d be on our way home and I could pretend the whole thing never happened. I’d see James, and we’d talk through our differences, and he’d move back in. And everything would go back to normal. It was just one night.
I turned the key in the lock and opened the door to a room that was much smaller than I’d expected, with two beds that were much closer together than I’d expected. My heart sank.
Nick grinned when he saw the look on my face. ‘Couldn’t resist the chance to spend the night with me, could you, Burrowes? Sure you won’t be tempted to, you know…?’
I threw my bag on the bed closest to the bathroom. ‘Believe me, I’ll never be tempted to, you know, with you.
