The Drowning River Read Online Free PDF Page B

But not fat. She had swallowed, blinking at the insult. She hated him, whoever he was; for an instant as she’d tugged on the light pull to extinguish the sight of herself, she’d thought that if she had an instrument, an etching tool or a kitchen knife or a hammer, she could kill him.
    On the Ponte alle Grazie Iris felt the cold of the rail under her gloves. She hauled the bag higher up on her shoulder and set off towards the far bank and another day at the drawing board. She’d be first to arrive.

Chapter Four
    Had He Passed Her in the street, Sandro might have thought she was a nun, if he’d noticed her at all. She didn’t have a nun’s veil, but a band over her hair that made him think of one. The hair itself was quite white and cut severely, a fringe just above pale blue eyes, then straight across behind, just below the ears. Like a schoolgirl, or at least, Sandro reminded himself, not the kind of schoolgirl you get these days, chewing gum with long hair and jeans, but a schoolgirl from his own childhood and one, furthermore, in whom vanity was being firmly discouraged.
    Standing on his doorstep, waiting for him, she demanded closer inspection. There was something nun-like about her clothing, too, the colours all grey and black and white, the skirt just below the knee, the flat, laced black shoes, but like the severe haircut the whole ensemble suited her somehow, it had not been imposed on her, as a nun’s habit would have been. He thought she was perhaps seventy years old.
    They stood, a dozen paces apart on the pavement, and he could see her grip tighten on the newspaper. Their eyes met, then both turned to look at the new brass plate,
Cellini Sandro, Investigazioni,
and the sight of his own name propelled Sandro towards her at last, late for an appointment he hadn’t known he had.
    ‘Signore Cellini,’ said the white-haired woman, quite formally. She looked at him with a directness he was not prepared for, or perhaps it was the blue eyes that took him by surprise, clear and pale and luminous.
    ‘Yes,’ said Sandro, although it had not been a question. ‘Please.’ He gestured towards the door and showed her up the stairs ahead of him out of a chivalrous instinct, then found he had to struggle back past her to get the door open. A fine start, he thought grimly.
    To his relief he had left the office clean the night before; he had even emptied the wastepaper bin of his sandwich wrapper. Almost as a distraction he found himself wondering if he would need to employ a cleaner, whether that was something he might ask Giulietta to do or whether she would be offended. Concentrate, he told himself.
    Taking off his coat, offering to take hers – she refused, sat down with it still buttoned to the chin – Sandro realized that his first client, or so he assumed, reminded him of school; he felt as though he was in the presence of a teacher. Sandro had been educated by nuns, and several, if not all, had had precisely the quality he felt from this woman, whose name he did not yet even know. A quality combining quiet authority, composure and economical gestures. He realized that he was very nervous, and might be about to start babbling. Don’t be ridiculous, he told himself; this is your first client. This is not about you; this is about her. With the woman already having seated herself, Sandro went back behind his own desk.
    She stayed quite still in front of him, ankles together and her handbag and newspaper on her lap, waiting.
    ‘Well,’ said Sandro, ‘Mrs. . .?’ And with that innocuous and inevitable first question he saw her composure falter. He could not have defined it, but he knew it when he saw it. And he had seen it before, in years of interviewing witnesses and suspects, the innocent and the guilty, the moment at which a crack appears in the subject’s certainty, and negotiation can begin.
    Her mouth opened a little, then closed. She looked at him very hard, without blinking, and he knew she was