Read Online A Murder in Tuscany by Christobel Kent - Free Book Online Page A

it turned out to be.
     
     
    ‘He called again, you know,’ said Giuli, as soon as they were sitting down inside.
    The make-up hadn’t been that great an idea, Sandro decided, although it did have the advantage of making her look marginally closer to him in age. Rough around the edges though she might be, Giuli could look fine, unadorned, now she had a bit more weight on her. There was a liveliness in her face, a crinkled-up, well-worn sort of look that Sandro had a soft spot for, only make-up turned it clownish. ‘You look nice,’ he’d said on the pavement, trying to be kind, but she’d just shaken her head at him. ‘I know what I look like, Sandro,’ she’d said. ‘Let’s just convince the man on the door, shall we?’
    The man on the door was in fact an Indian boy, maybe twenty years old, and he didn’t seem to care. ‘Members?’
    Giuli had taken charge, stepping into the cramped space behind the curtained door. ‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘How much?’
    At her shoulder Sandro had tried to look seedy, a middle-aged man – well, almost old – slipping off on a Friday afternoon with his bit on the side. God, he’d thought belatedly, what if Luisa hears?
    ‘Five euro each,’ the Indian boy had said without much interest, and Sandro had taken out his wallet. And that was it: they were in.

    Almost immediately Sandro had wished he was back out on the street. The room they’d edged into was kitted out in a fake Moroccan style, tasselled velvet clashing horribly with wall-to-wall leopard print. A false ceiling had been fitted to squeeze in a mezzanine overhead, making the place screamingly claustrophobic, and certainly a deathtrap in any kind of emergency situation. Fire, for example. In one corner a man Sandro’s age was sitting next to a sallow, bored-looking girl in a miniskirt, his hand on her thigh. He was leaning back against the leopard print, eyes half-closed. Averting his gaze, Sandro had followed Giuli up a spiral staircase in the corner.
    The light was so bad, Sandro hadn’t seen them at first, then he’d nearly stumbled over the boy’s foot, stretched out into the cramped aisle between low Moroccan stamped-tin tables and banquettes and lampshades. There’d been a murmured exclamation, a hand raised palm out in apology, and to Sandro’s relief the foot withdrawn without a glance being exchanged. Not looking back, he’d proceeded to a vantage point on the far side of the cramped, dark room where Giuli had settled herself in a corner. Behind him a girl had tittered. Carlotta. He hadn’t known if she was laughing at him, at something the boys had said, or if she was just stoned.
    This was what the parents wanted, wasn’t it? Yes, she’s taking drugs. Talk to her about it.
    ‘He phoned again,’ said Giuli then. ‘Luca Gallo.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Sandro glumly. ‘Sorry.’
    ‘It’s all right,’ said Giuli softly. ‘You were busy. But he did sound kind of – weird.’
    ‘You said that,’ said Sandro, remembering that she had. ‘Really?’ The softness of her voice had an odd effect on him; he felt the cushions trying to reclaim him, and stifled a yawn. It was like he’d entered a different world, where different rules applied. He thought of the man downstairs; how did he feel when he came back out, into the real world? What did he tell his wife, if he had a wife? Dangerous to come in here.
    ‘Uh huh,’ assented Giuli, ‘just a little bit freaked out. Something about an accident, he said.’

    ‘An accident,’ repeated Sandro absently. Luca Gallo. He laid his head back, and thought about that job, the woman with startling blue eyes, that castle in the Maremma. With Giuli, an expert in the art of computer applications, he’d looked for it on Google Earth, zoomed in on it, in from the bright blue sea and the coastal motorway, past ugly little towns in the flatlands. A great grey prison of a place around a courtyard, an avenue of trees, a scattering of outbuildings, standing proud