‘Coffee, signorina?’ he asked, grinning back at her.
‘Black, please.’
‘I’ll have one too, Fiero,’ said Rosa. Fiero turned on his heels and disappeared inside.
‘So, you’re writing the article about the palazzo?’ said Rosa. ‘Shall we sit down? Breakfast is on the house,’ she added grandly. ‘I know all there is to know about that place. My mother is Alba, Valentina’s daughter. Just ask away. It’s my favourite subject.’
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said Romina, looking at her watch. ‘I have things to do at home. So many people, you know . . .’
‘Give us an hour, if that’s okay with Rosa,’ Fiyona suggested.
‘You can have all morning,’ Rosa replied. ‘It’ll be quiet today and Fiero is here to help.’ For a moment her face turned moody. ‘I can’t imagine Cosima will show up. She got home at four this morning and she’s still in bed! Such a sudden transformation. She deserves an Oscar for that sort of performance!’
Romina narrowed her eyes. She had heard the car and her son’s merry whistling some time after that. So that’s who was keeping her son up to that ungodly hour of the morning.
‘So, will your mother talk to me?’ Fiyona put the tape recorder on the table and switched it on.
‘No, she won’t even go up to the palazzo. She’s furious that it’s been developed. I think she feels it should have been left to rot. She’ll hate me talking to you but she forgets that Valentina was my grandmother. I’m very like her, you know.’
‘There are no photographs of her . . .’ Fiyona began.
‘But there is a portrait. Wait, I’ll get it for you.’
As Rosa rushed off to get the picture, Fiero returned with Fiyona’s coffee. ‘Would you like anything else?’ he asked.
‘I’d like you to talk to me. It’s important that I practise my Italian,’ she replied with a flirtatious smile. She placed a cigarette between her red lips. Fiero was quick to snap open his lighter. She leaned forward, steadying his hand with her own. ‘You’re very young, Fiero.’
‘Twenty-five,’ he replied, disarmed by her predatory expression. She looked him up and down.
‘Italian men are more sophisticated than their British counterparts. Are you a good lover?’
Fiero ran his tongue over his bottom lip. ‘You know how we Italians are. We live for making love. We live for women.’
‘Shame I’m only here for such a short time, otherwise we could strike a deal. I’d teach you English if you’d teach me Italian. Get my drift?’ He nodded, his nostrils flaring. ‘Another time, perhaps.’ Rosa returned with the picture of the reclining nude that hung inside, oblivious of the lascivious gleam in Fiero’s eyes. She handed it to Fiyona. ‘No one notices it now. But that is Valentina, painted by my grandfather.’
Fiyona read the handwriting beneath it: ‘Valentina, reclining nude, Thomas Arbuckle, 1945.’
‘Isn’t she beautiful?’
‘Beguiling,’ said Fiyona. ‘Naughty smile. I can see the resemblance,’ she added, grinning at Rosa.
Rosa was pleased. ‘I’m not that naughty. Sadly, I don’t have the opportunity.’
‘You’re married?’
‘Yes. Three children. Very conventional!’
‘Valentina might not have been so naughty had it not been wartime. She took lovers to survive.’
‘I don’t think she took up with Lupo Bianco to survive. For her he was a ticket to the high life in Naples. With him she could be someone different.’
‘Simple village girl found in diamonds and furs,’ said Fiyona, recalling the newspaper coverage of the murder. ‘Terrible shock for your poor grandfather.’
‘They were due to marry that day. So romantic, to be swept off your feet by a handsome foreigner! You know, they say that the statue of Christ didn’t weep for the first time in years, predicting the tragedy.’
‘You believe that?’
‘Not really. They say it’ll only weep again when all the ghosts are at peace.’
‘They still think the old Marchese haunts the palazzo?’
Rosa turned serious. ‘There was something strange going on. My husband is a policeman. Before Romina bought it there were dozens of sightings. Lights moving through rooms, strange noises. No one dared go up but him. He is extremely brave.’
‘Did he find anything?’
She shrugged. ‘Nothing. I have been up many times. It doesn’t scare me. There was something beautiful about the ruin. It’s not the same now.’