With a defeated sigh, she checked the time.
It was half past seven. Time to go and get the girls up, and stop this endless fretting. She’d already given the investigator her version. She couldn’t go back and change it now. Her fate was out of her hands. It depended what that quiet, intelligent detective managed to uncover, and how she chose to use the information she found.
Cassie climbed out of bed and swallowed yet another tablet, hoping that the extra dose would help her to stay calm and cope with whatever bombshells the day might bring. She dressed quickly and went to wake the children.
Despite her agonizing stress, her heart lifted when she heard their happy voices from all the way down the corridor.
“Good morning, girls,” she said.
At some stage during the night, Venetia must have come into Nina’s room, because they were tucked up together in Nina’s bed, paging through a pony magazine.
“Good morning,” they chorused.
“Who would like some breakfast? I was thinking we could have toast with Nutella this morning, and look in the fridge to see if there’s any bacon or sausages.” Cassie was relieved by how calm she sounded, and that the children didn’t seem to pick up any of the turmoil that consumed her.
“Yay!” Venetia squealed. “Yummy.”
“I love the sound of that,” Nina agreed.
“All right. I’ll go and make a start, and you girls can get dressed. Think about what you would like to do today, as your papa is only arriving in the evening.”
Cassie headed downstairs, relieved to be able to look in the fridge without feeling as if she was overstepping a boundary. Now that Ms. Rossi was gone, Cassie was realizing how her iron rule and obsession with control had affected the whole household. Although the children were the biggest victims, her mindset must have affected everyone who walked through the door.
The cook had not arrived and Cassie realized that the household staff would not yet know what had happened. She didn’t feel as if it was her place to break this news, and it would be difficult due to the language barrier. When the detective came back, Cassie decided she would ask her to do it. She would be able to give them the official version, and could do so in Italian.
Opening the fridge, Cassie found a pack of sausages. She fried them up in the cast-iron pan she had seen the cook using, and ten minutes later, as if drawn by the delicious aroma, the children came downstairs.
“Sausages for breakfast,” Nina breathed, as if this was nothing short of a miracle.
“We haven’t had sausages for ages,” Venetia said.
“Because they’re so messy,” Nina explained. “And because Mama said we had to wash up and tidy away after breakfast. She used to come and examine the kitchen.”
“Really?” Cassie asked, forking the sausages onto a plate. She was glad the children felt ready to share the vile experiences they had endured.
“Yes, and if there was even a crumb on the counter, it meant that we got no lunch,” Venetia added. “I was very hungry a lot of the time after Papa left.”
“If we used food by mistake that she had planned for a meal, she used to get angry and then we wouldn’t get supper, and we would have to do things like tidy and clean the whole fridge,” Nina said. “Why was she like that, Cassie, do you know? Why did she get so cross with us?”
“And why didn’t she want us to eat?” Venetia added.
Cassie shook her head in sympathy.
“It’s not normal to treat children that way. She was the one doing the wrong thing, not you,” she said, and decided to leave it at that.
No wonder the children had only chosen toast and butter as the safest option. She’d wondered why they’d had such simple tastes. It had been brave of Venetia to request jam at all, and now Cassie understood why she’d so determinedly insisted on putting it away.
It sounded as if Ms. Rossi had deliberately set her children up for failure so that she could have the satisfaction of punishing them. Terrible as Cassie’s actions had been, she was relieved that they had saved the children from having to endure any more of it. Their life had already turned into a living hell, and would only have become worse.
“Remember, though, we can’t tell the lady detective,” Nina reminded her sister.
Venetia nodded conspiratorially and Cassie understood that these girls were going to keep it their secret. They had obviously decided that it was the best course of action.
Knowing this didn’t ease the sick tension Cassie felt inside. No matter what the girls chose to do, they were innocent minors, and if the truth was uncovered, they wouldn’t get into trouble. She would, and might still.
It all depended how much Detective Falcone was able to find out.
*
Detective Falcone started her day at five-thirty a.m. with a run. At this time of year, her exercise was done in darkness and, on this particular day, in a light, misty rain. She loved to run. It energized her mind and cleared her head for the coming day. Her usual route led through the winding streets of suburban Milan and crossed the park where, on weekends, she brought her daughter to play. During this hour’s run, she’d often have ideas or even breakthroughs on her tricky cases. Falcone guessed it was due to the oxygenation of her body.
When she started running after her daughter was born, her husband, Marco, had joked that she could surely energize her brain just as well through caffeine and sugar, and why not enjoy her much-needed sleep, and have a sweet, strong cappuccino for the same results? The teasing was all the more outrageous considering he used to get up as early as she did, and went for
