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ignore a feeling
of restlessness, almost apprehension. It may have been thinking
about Sophie that brought it on, or wondering if I’d ever
hear from 'adorablejoker’ again, or the more immediate worry
that tomorrow’s meeting with Sam Metcalf would turn out
to be another dead end: I wasn’t sure of the reason. Then I
realised that I was being observed.
Our loggia couldn’t be seen from the garden, but at the
end of the cypress avenue, the other side of some old iron
gates that give onto the Viale Galileo Galilei, I could just
make out a figure standing motionless and gazing up towards
the villa.
I swung around, almost knocking over my beer – Laura
had just wandered out onto the balcony. I said something to
her, and she smiled. When I looked back down the hill again
the figure was gone.
    At the turn of the stairs, Sam Metcalf paused, leaning out
from the rail and looking up through the balusters to check
the landing above, before she climbed the last flight. It was
a precaution she always took, ever since coming home from
a party late one night to find a stranger waiting for her there.
She counted herself lucky he’d only wanted money. Sam felt
in her jeans pockets for her key.
Outside her apartment, she pushed the door all the way
open so that she could see there was nobody lurking in the
hall or the kitchen. Then, still wary, stood and listened for
any unfamiliar sounds, straining to hear over the music.
The Iranians in the apartment below were playing Sheryl
Crow’s 'All I Wanna Do’ at full volume. At least she knew
she wasn’t alone in the building.
It was broad freaking daylight . . . what could possibly
happen?
She had to psych herself up before she could walk into
the apartment, dump her stuff, then, armed with a small knife
taken from the magnetic rack in the kitchen, look through
all the rooms. They were exactly how she’d left them.
A storm of honking rose from the street under her windows.
She came back into the hall and kicked the front door shut.
Leant her back against it, eyes closed.
She let the music soothe her, waiting for that line she liked
about the sun coming up on Santa Monica Boulevard, when
Sheryl’s 1990s hymn to laidback LA suddenly cut out. In the
silence it left she could hear a car’s engine idling.
A moment later, the Iranian couple’s door slammed and
there was a clatter of heels on the stone stairs. From the street
a hoarse male voice bellowed ' VaffanculoF
Then, as the car moved off, the telephone rang.
In the kitchen, Sam glanced at the Leonardo clock above
the stove and went on fixing herself a cup of coffee, trying
not to think about where she should have been thirty minutes
ago. She wasn’t picking up, not for anyone.
Clearing a space for her laptop, she sat down at the table
and waited for the phone to stop ringing. She knew she
should have called Sophie’s father, told him she couldn’t make
the meeting, made up some excuse. The last shrill note
resonated through the empty apartment. She took a sip of
coffee and scalded her lips. Shit . . . Her hands wouldn’t stop trembling.
'Nobody knows about. .. any of this. Let’s keep it that way.’
The voice had been seductive, fresh and faintly husky, like
a young Bill Clinton’s. It was the insinuating Midwestern lilt,
the question mark at the end of a sentence where none was
needed that had creeped her out, leaving her in no doubt as
to what would happen if she talked.
Last night, at her friend Jimmy’s house in Fiesole, she had
been too afraid to confide in him. He’d have insisted on her
going to the Questura. But what could she have told the
police? That she’d received a vaguely threatening phone-call
from an unknown person she thought might be a murderer?
Sam had lived in Italy long enough to know the police wouldn’t
offer her protection. They’d probably just withdraw her permesso, stop her leaving the country.
She’d lain awake until four a.m. trying to decide whether
or not to keep the appointment at the