He sipped his coffee. Dryden waited, filling the silence with his thoughts. He saw it suddenly, but with the clarity of the truth. Two brothers so alike they loved the same woman. So alike she was able to love them both. And the lonely figure of Azeglio, twenty years later, working by torchlight near the tunnel.
Casartelli went on. ‘But it never came: that year swept all their plans away. Jerome went to Italy: he didn’t tell Louise he was going – at least this my son tells me. Then Azeglio went to the university, and Louise went too, the next year: a clever woman, you see. When Azeglio completed his degree and moved on into academia, they married. We heard this only much later, and it is not so unusual in large families. It is no scandal, but it cannot have brought the brothers closer. For Jerome it was embarrassing, so perhaps that is why he went, why he stayed away. Perhaps he knew she loved his brother. A broken family, Mr Dryden. A sad story, especially for Italians.’
Dryden accepted the offer of a second espresso.
‘So Gina and Pepe were left with Il Giardino?’ he asked when Casartelli returned. They heard a mainline passenger service rattling through Queen Adelaide.
‘Yes. Azeglio’s career has made us all proud but he visited very rarely and taking up the original family name made his point clear. I don’t think he was a nice man, Mr Dryden – cold, I think.’
‘And Jerome?’
‘Jerome was not cold. The opposite, in fact – in that one thing. He rings home, for Gina. He has a new life. But he does not share it with them. Best left, perhaps. Each year Gina wants to see him less. And there is bad blood with his brothers – so why should he come?’
‘Did Jerome make a donation to his father’s memorial fund?’
‘Yes, he did. We make sure that all the children are contacted. We asked Azeglio for his details. Jerome’s reply was a gesture of reconciliation I think. Five hundred pounds. A good sum.’
‘I don’t suppose you have his bank details? I’d really like to get in touch briefly.’
He shrugged. ‘It was a banker’s draft – he did not send a cheque.’
Of course, thought Dryden, seeing now how the great deception had been sustained for all the years.
‘But there was a covering letter with the donation – and a telephone number. Milan, I think. Please wait.’
Outside the mist folded itself in the breeze and briefly revealed a horse standing motionless in a nearby field.
Casartelli returned with the letter. The note was brief, typed, and in English.
Dear Roman,
I enclose a small donation for father’s memorial. He did great things for the community, and for all of us, perhaps more than he should have. His life should stand for something when we are all gone.
Best wishes to you,
The signature was Jerome’s and the notepaper headed with an address.
1345b La Strada Vittorio Emanuele I
Embonica
Milano
MIL FXT 4578 678.
Tel: Milano 598 346 346.
Before Dryden got back to the cab he’d rung the number. It rang after the usual whirl of interlocking call tones, but there was no answer for about twenty seconds. Then it transferred again, through another maze of telephonic static until an automatic answering service came on the line: a woman’s voice, the Italian precise and disjointed. He left a message, almost certain now that he left it for no one.
31
The Valgimigli brothers had fought over a woman, a beautiful woman. Dryden could see why – even though twenty years had passed. She emerged from the pale blue water of the therapy pool in a black one-piece swimsuit and stood in the light which streamed in through the 1930s latticework windows. Water trickled from her body, which was still slim at the waist, her breasts full and firm, her neck tanned and sleek. She stood soaking up the warmth from the wraparound towel, a sybarite alone.
There had been no answer from the flat, so he’d wandered the grounds thinking about the enigma that was Louise Beaumont – a woman who had been engaged as a lovestruck teenager, abandoned by her lover and then wooed by his brother. He felt, almost passionately, that she was at the crossroads – where the stories of the moon tunnel and Azeglio Valgimigli met. The place where Azeglio Valgimigli had died.
As twilight approached he had become lost amongst the hospital buildings. Beyond the main block the old RAF wards, now mothballed, ran in a graceful arc around playing fields. Towards the perimeter fence, in the same 1930s style as the main buildings, stood the pool – refurbished for use by the occupational therapists who worked with patients referred to the convalescent unit. The lights within showed that someone was swimming.
Now he skirted the windows, keeping out of the setting sun, and found a door. He heard another door open and shut within and, intuitively, stepped quickly to one side and behind a buttress wall. He heard the outside door open and then footsteps moving quickly away along the gravel path. The figure dissolved quickly in the last shreds of the day’s mist but he knew the outline well: Pepe Roma. Why was Azeglio Valgimigli’s brother visiting his widow?