‘You married a local girl?’
Casartelli glanced at the snapshot. ‘Yes. Many of us did. My Grace. We were happy. Cancer – just 54. A long time ago.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Dryden, meaning it. ‘I had a favour to ask,’ he ploughed on, catching the wary look in the old man’s eyes.
‘If I can,’ said Casartelli, withdrawing slightly into his niche of brass and mahogany.
‘This is not for a story in the paper, not directly. I’m just trying to understand something about the Romas – about Il Giardino – something which doesn’t make sense. I’m trying to understand Azeglio’s past. You knew the family – there were three brothers, that’s right?’
Casartelli swallowed hard and played with the ring on his wedding finger.
Dryden set his cup down. ‘This is just so that I can understand – I’m not going to quote you, or put your name in the paper.’
Casartelli picked up the Express with its story about the appeal. He fingered the paper. ‘Of course. I will try to help as you have helped us. So – but no secrets, I think. No confidences broken – especially now.’
Dryden smiled, cursing the old man’s honour.
‘So. Yes. Azeglio – the oldest, then Jerome, and then Pepe – who you know yes?’
Dryden cut to the point. ‘Why, and how, did the first two leave home?’
‘Families,’ said the old man, shrugging. ‘I have two sons as well – and three daughters. I do not understand them either. Things happen.’
‘What happened?’ said Dryden, looking the old man in the eyes for the first time. ‘I don’t want any secrets – but the Italian community must have talked – what did they think happened?’
Casartelli looked out into the mist, clearly wishing he was alone again. ‘I think the story was a common one. The generation that survived the war prized security: a good job, keeping the family together. For the next generation this did not mean so much – that is their compliment to us, of course – if they knew it!’ He laughed, resting one hand on the polished brass lever beside him.
‘When Marco died they were all teenagers. This was a bad time. No secrets we said – but we were friends, Marco and I, and I spent some time with them. There was grief for all of them – but especially for Gina. I think she thought all the boys would go. Long nights, Mr Dryden, a family at war with itself. I could help very little, but I tried.’
‘So what happened?’
‘Azeglio had won a place at university, at Cambridge. Marco had wanted him to wait – perhaps a year, perhaps two. But Gina could not stop him – she knew that. That’s the problem with an expensive education, it buys you more expense. Jerome too had been well educated but was less dutiful, I think. He wanted a new life – as simple as that. The business was in trouble although the association had made some loans – which, please understand, are all paid back. But we could go no further – the business was very close to folding. So Jerome went to Italy. He and Azeglio decided – they told no one else. There was family there and the capital needed was relatively modest – £25,000 perhaps.
‘As we know, he did not return. Nor the capital. Like his elder brother he had never been keen to inherit the business – a disappointment Marco had shared with us all. Pepe he loved, but he thought the boy simple-headed compared to his brothers, which is uncharitable.’
‘The woman Azeglio married – Louise Beaumont – did you know her?’
He smiled again. ‘Of course, yes, we all knew Louise, because of Jerome.’ He bit his lip and Dryden understood, instinctively, that he’d found what he was looking for, but he calculated that he had to ask the right questions before the old man would tell the story.
‘Jerome? He is the enigma for me. And you?’
‘Brothers,’ said Casartelli, throwing his eyes heavenwards. ‘You have to understand that Jerome and Azeglio had been born a year apart, less. They were very similar in many things, they looked alike, spoke alike, and so there was a natural competition. No – an unnatural competition.’
‘A competition for…?’ asked Dryden.
A masterstroke. Casartelli sighed: ‘Jerome and Louise Beaumont were engaged, Mr Dryden. They were just a little younger than Azeglio and they’d all been to the school – the private school. It is in Cambridge – I forget the name. The wedding day was fixed. Everyone was excited: my own son was to be the best man. 1984: the year that Marco died. It had not helped Gina – to think that her son’s marriage would follow so soon after her husband’s funeral.’