Last Voyage of the Valentina(112)

“I’ll tell her tomorrow,” said Alba. “It’s not goodbye.”

“Why can’t Fitz stay here with us?” Immacolata asked, settling her eyes on Fitz in a silent challenge. Fitz didn’t need to speak Italian to understand what she was suggesting.

He looked embarrassed. “Because my business is in London.” Immacolata didn’t much like Fitz. He lacked passion.

“You have made your choice,” she said to Alba, getting up. “But I don’t have to like it.”

“I’m going to take Fitz to that old ruined castle tomorrow,” said Alba, keen to change the subject.

Immacolata turned, her face as white as a corpse. “Palazzo Montelimone?” she croaked, leaning on the back of her chair.

“There’s nothing to see,” Falco protested. He looked shiftily at his mother. Alba’s curiosity was ignited.

“I’ve been meaning to go since I arrived. It is a ruin, isn’t it?” She tried to work out what silent communication passed between her grandmother and uncle.

“It’s dangerous. The walls are crumbling. You mustn’t go,” Immacolata insisted.

“Take him to Naples instead.”

Alba backed down. Anything to make her grandmother happy. It was the least she could do, considering she was leaving. “Okay. We’ll go to Naples,” she said in English.

“Naples it is then.” Fitz didn’t care where they went so long as they left the house.



The following morning Alba borrowed Toto’s small Fiat and set off in the direction of Naples. She was disappointed. She had looked forward to exploring the ruin. It had sat temptingly on the hill attracting her gaze for months. She shouldn’t have told them she planned to go there. She should have just gone.

“You’re very quiet,” said Fitz, watching her grim face staring at the road ahead.

“I don’t want to go back to Naples,” she told him. “I’ve seen enough of it.”

“We can have lunch in a nice restaurant and wander around. It won’t be so bad.”

“No,” she said suddenly, the shadow passing off her features like a cloud. “I’m turning around. There’s something there, I just know it. Why else wouldn’t they want me to go? They’re still hiding something, I can feel it. And whatever it is, it’s up there in that palazzo.”

The tires screeched on the hot road as Alba braked and steered the car back down the coast. They were both injected with enthusiasm and purpose, united on a mission, partners in crime.

After a while they turned off the road that wove down the coast and set on up the hill in the direction of the palazzo. The lane began to grow steep and narrow. After a while it forked off to the right. The forest had almost covered it with shrubs and thorns and leaves, and the cypress trees that lined it cast their shade upon it so that they now drove in near darkness. When they arrived at the black iron gates, tall and imposing though peeling with neglect, she saw that they were locked with a padlock, and the lock itself was brown with rust. They climbed out of the car and looked through the bars first at the overgrown gardens, then at the house.

An entire wall had collapsed and lay in ruins. Even the fallen stones were being gradually swallowed by ivy and other weeds. It was a compelling sight and one which drew them in. They had come this far; they weren’t about to turn around now. Alba looked about her and saw that if they didn’t mind suffering the odd scratch, they could squeeze through the shrubbery and climb over the wall. Fitz went first, the thorns tearing at his jeans. Then he turned to help Alba, whose short, flimsy sundress was inappropriate for such an expedition. When she jumped down on the other side she felt a surge of triumph. She brushed off her dress and licked her hand where the skin had been ripped.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She nodded. “I’m just a little nervous as to what we’re going to find.”

“Perhaps we’ll find nothing at all.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I want to find something. I don’t want to go back to England with so many questions unanswered.”

“Okay, Sherlock, let’s go.”

As they walked up the drive toward the house, she was struck by the cold. It was as if the palazzo were situated at the top of a high mountain with its very own climate. It had been a humid day and she had grown hot walking up the hill. But here, in the grounds of the house, there was an icy edge to the wind and she rubbed her arms to keep warm. The sun was high in the sky but still the house was set in shadow: gray, austere, and deserted. There was little feeling of life, not even from the gardens, where she could sense the movement of the bindweed as it crept silently over the grounds like evil snakes, winding its way in possession around the foliage it had already choked to death.