The Devil You Know (60 page)

‘If it’s where our parents died, I want to see it,’ said Rose, and Daisy nodded.

They found the hunting lodge first, or, rather, the site of it. Rose parked their little rented Flat outside a caf8 in the village ofSpolina, a thriving hamlet with a post office, a shop, and two restaurants, both bustling. It had been a long drive out of the city, and the sisters were happy to sit in the shade and drink cool water, then follow it with a wonderful, light young Chianti served from an earthenware flagon. ‘Can we see a menu?’ Rose asked.

The old woman serving them shook her head. ‘No menu, signorina. Today, Tuesday. Stew. Lepre.’

‘Rabbit,’ Rose told the others. ‘That’s fine,” she.said, and the woman bustled back inside and brought them three bowls of something hot and black. Poppy took a sip gingerly, then her face blossomed into a wreath of smiles. ‘That is incredible,’ she said. ‘That might be the best thing I ever tasted.’

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Daisy tore into it and so did P,-ose. They were both starving, not having had the benefit of the bagels and cream cheese, and the stew was a revelation: tender, strong-flavoured rabbit, bits of unidentified herbs floating around, slow-cooked beans and lentils.

‘I never tasted anything so good, not in any of the fancy restaurants Magnus takes me to,’ Daisy said.

1Lose didn’t reply; they were too busy guzzling the food. The black-clad old woman smiled toothlessly and murmured encouraging things in Italian. She seemed delighted when they all asked for another bowl, and when that was finished, she brought out three glasses full of shaved ice, flavoured with real lemon.

‘Forget the Hassler,’ Poppy said, ‘I’m never leaving, I’m moving in here.’

While Daisy licked every last drop from her spoon, tLose asked the old woman in halting Italian about the hunting lodge. She crossed herself, and bent down to Rose, and whispered in her ear. 1Lose threw a generous amount of money on the table and stood up.

‘She said that road leads up there, into the hills. Nothing was ever built there, because the locals regarded the place as cursed; the gypsy woman died there. She said it was a terrible fire, and the three little girls were killed. People still remember it here.’

‘Let’s go,’ Poppy suggestel.

They walked for half an hour, sweating in the boiling noonday heat, up the white road covered with pebbles, little more than a dirt track. It was uncomfortable, but none of them complained. They sipped at bottles of water, all three feeling the sense of darkness and foreboding

that loomed over them despite the bright sunshine and clear sky. Finally, the summit was reached.

‘My God,’ 1Lose breathed. ‘My God.’

There was no mistaking it. Someone had done a pretty good job all those years ago; nothing grew on the ground where the lodge had been. It was black and lifeless, a stark shadow in the midst of the green woods which sprung up all around it.

‘I don’t know if it’s my imagination,’ Daisy muttered, ‘but I feel I just feel sick.’

All three stared at the dark earth.

‘Nothing natural started this fire,’ Poppy said flatly. ‘I didn’t know what to think, but now I do. I truly believe it. He murdered our parents.’

She walked forward, slowly, tracing the outline of the lodge, foot

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by foot, encircling it. Poppy’s heart was racing, but ahe felt calm, resolute. Her mind flickered back to her parents’ comfortable house in LA, to MTV and bat mitzvah parties, and learning to drive, and her whole wealthy suburban life; and meanwhile, the other parents who had given her life in the first place, half a world away, had died here, been killed here.

Poppy felt something. She felt as though she were two people, that the old world, here, now, was calling her, her parents were calling out to her. She felt that they had loved her. Tears started to roll down her cheeks. She had, after all, survived, and been saved. Her parents must have done that. And now she was back here, to give them something. Justice.

Daisy saw Poppy crying; so did 1Kose. Neither of them said anything. Daisy felt her heart expand in gratitude, gratitude at last to be standing here, to know the truth. She felt distressed, and still nauseous, thinking of a deliberate fire, of her mother burned beyond recognition. But underneath it there was a sense of gratitude. Because at last she knew that she had not been rejected. She had been rescued. Her parents had saved her life; her parents had loved her. She pictured her wild, glamorous mother, the woman in thse faded magazine photographs, picking Daisy up and swinging h around, taking her to the beach, her baby hand in her mother’s slim fingers. Normal mother-type things, that she would have done, if anybody had given her a chance.

Daisy said a quiet prayer for her birth-parents. They had not had that chance, but they had made sure she got one. She looked at Nose and Poppy. She now had her sisters, despite the evil man who had tried to take them from her. Her parents’ memory would not be blotted out. After all, they were a family, and that was what she would take away from this.

Two sisters. Family. Which he would never be able to destroy.

1Kose stared at the scorched earth while Poppy walked around it, weeping, and she felt something connect in her heart, like a circle snapping together. She had always thought of herself as Italian, because her father was, and for her, this felt natural; a homecoming. She wondered what her mother would have wanted. Blood revenge? What would her father have wanted? She had it within herself, at this moment, to be eaten alive with a desire for vengeance. But she knew, even examining this desolate spot where 1Koberto Parigi had

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tried to steal her father’s life, his family, his inheritance, that her parents would not have wanted that. Rose thought that maybe there was a spark of R.oberto in her. She was from the same gene pool, after all. But he had been consumed by anger and desire for revenge. His desire, true, was groundless, it had been sheer envy; and Rose’s was not. But she was not about to go down the path Roberto had trodden.

She would have her revenge. Revenge that would please her

parents, though; no more blood, because she was better than him. She was Luigi and Mozel’s daughter.

Abruptly, she turned away. She didn’t want to look at the site any more. ‘Let’s go to the Palazzo di Parigi, and see if the Principe is at home. We have some business with him.’

Rose and Poppy started to walk back down the hill. Daisy, with tears glittering in her eyes, kissed her fingertips and placed them against the ground.

Saying goodbye.

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‘What do we have today?’

Principe P,.oberto di Parigi turned to his private secretary. It was his usual morning question, delivered in the flawless upper-class accent he took such care to preserve, loberto never allowed one word of dialect, or the merest hint of a regional tone, to creep into his perfectly modulated Italian.

Signor Grucci, his assistant, was a small, thin man, with an obsequious manner. He was used to taking abuse from his master. He hated Parigi, but didn’t really care as he was so well paid. The Prince liked to be surrounded by toadies and hangers-on, anal.he paid enough to ensure he always got the respect he thought he deserved. .

‘Tea in the morning at the Eden with Mademoiselle Fleuri,’ le intoned, ‘then after that, Principe, you have a meeting with Signor Oliverio from the company, and you have lunch at the Palazzo Barberini with the art commission to discuss the winter ball …’

P, oberto waved a languid hand. It was hot, and he was a lazy man. He enjoyed sitting on the boards of the important social bodies in Rome; this orchestra, that art gallery; he was a big fish in a small pond, respected and courted, and, most importantly, his name and the name of his house was lionised. But today, Roberto only wanted to see the French model, Elaine Fleuri, with whom he might have some anonymous and selfish sex. Girls like her were little better than high-priced hookers, Roberto thought contemptuously; but he made them submit to his private doctor before taking up with them for a month or so, then dismissing them with some pearls or a pair of diamond earrings. He always had a thug call them afterwards to let them know that their mouths should stay as tightly closed as their legs had been wide open. The carrot and the stick.

‘I think cancel all but Mile Fleuri - I shall read today,’ he replied, ‘and we can pack for the Palazzo this evening.’

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‘Very good, Principe,’ Signor Grucci responded. ‘Can I bring you

anything further?’

Roberto shook his head. ‘You may go.’

‘Yes, Principe,’ Grucci said, retiring with a little bow.

Weasel, Roberto thought. But he enjoyed the little bows, and the

repeated use of his title. He sighed with satisfaction. He would take his coffee on the roof garden, along with his pills, and prepare for the expert attentions of Elaine. And later on, maybe take a nap …

It was good to be in Rome, rich, respected, admired, his family

honour quite restored. Roberto had avoided children, and now he thought with satisfaction that no young brat of his could come along and disgrace the name of Parigi which he had so carefully restored. He would leave the Palazzo to the state, and donate his shares to the Church, and leave behind the legend of the last of the Parigis, a true nobleman who shunned work, and ordered the world to his will, instead of the other way around.

He felt perfectly happy. He had achieved everything his heart had

ever desired.

The Palazzo was on the outskirts of the town. They saw it from the car before they parked, the’ ancient silhouette rising into the clear sky, looking almost alive and organic. It was huge and imposing, and they craned their necks to look before they parked the car a few streets away and got out.

‘Well,’ Rose said, ‘it’s a long way from Hell’s Kitchen.’

‘And the Home Counties,’ Daisy added.

Poppy just stared. None of them could believe that something so

old and so noble had belonged to their ancestors.

‘You know, this is his,’ Rose said. ‘This is actually his. He was

from the older branch.’

‘The older branch,’ Poppy snorted.

‘I know it sounds ridiculous.., but that’s Europe, and titles. And

it’s our family too,’ Rose said defensively.

‘If he doesn’t have any children, we would inherit it,’ Daisy

pointed out.

‘Only the eldest,’ Rose said, ‘but who knows who that is?’

‘I don’t mind sharing,’ Poppy said, her eyes drinking in the beauty

of it. She was suddenly consumed with curiosity. ‘This is our family

seat, huh? Is that what they call it?’

‘Yup,’ Daisy said.

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‘I want to go inside.’ Poppy turned eagerly to the other two. ‘I want to see it. Think we can get in?’

They walked around the outside of the Palazzo’s grounds, staring up at the Florentine-style wails; Renaissance brick, gorgeously restored, with balconies and turrets and a walled garden, and everywhere a coat of arms which bore a rearing gryphon clawing its way across the shield.

‘What is that?’ Poppy asked.

‘His coat of arms,’ Rose said, and corrected herself. ‘Our coat of arms.’

‘Place looks locked up,’ Daisy said.

Rose walked up to the locked double doors of wood in the middle of the wall and pressed the bell there. There was a moment’s silence, then the sound of footfalls across cobbles as somebody walked to the gate.

She turned to her sisters. ‘Just let me handle this, OK?’

The door creaked open. ‘Yes?’

Rose batted her eyelids. ‘We’re here to see Principe Roberto Parigi.’ “

‘The Principe is in Rome,’ said the man, a thick-necked securit guard type, in perfect English.

Rose pouted. ‘I was sure he told us to meet him here. He’s going to be very disappointed if we’re not waiting for him.’

The guard’s dark eyes swept up and down Rose’s body, and he grinned.

‘Special order? Americans? I suppose you should come in.’

Covered by the noise of the creaking gate as it swung open, Daisy hissed, ‘He thinks we’re hookers!’

Poppy smirked. ‘Ssh, Rose has something here. That dirty old bastard.’

They fixed wide smiles on their faces as the gate swung open, and revealed the guard plus another. Both of them carried submachine guns slung over their shoulders. Daisy blanched, and Rose squeezed her hand.

‘A very special order,’ Rose said, waving her hand at. her sisters.

The guard and his pudgy companion took in the three of them, then started to cackle.

‘Sisters! Triplets! He’s a lucky son of a bitch, that one,’ the pudgy guy said, in Italian.

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P,.ose smiled at them both. ‘I believe we are supposed to wait in

the main hall?’

They were showed inside the Palazzo. ‘Stay here - I will check

with his staff,’ the guard said shortly, lose waited until he had

walked up a flight of stairs, then beckoned to the others. ‘Let’s go.’

They walked quickly though the ancient halls, examining the

drawing room, the corridors, the dining hall with its huge fireplace, the portraits, and tapestries, all the while their mouths open, drinking it in. Rose thought it was the loveliest building she had ever seen. That it belonged to the man who had murdered her parents made her feel physically ill; her stomach churned, and she had to sit down.

But not for long. She was resting on an antique carved bench

when the guard returned, his eyes colder.

‘They never heard of this order. Are you sure it was here?’

‘Maybe it was the place in lome.’ lose sighed. ‘Oh well, guess

we’ll drive down there.’

‘You know the address?’ the guard asked, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

P,.ose had done her research. ‘Of course, baby. Appartamento

Cinque, Numero Ottanto, Corso 17ittorio Emmanuele Due.’ She rattled it