‘Apart from that,’ Nino pressed him. ‘Have you been ill?’

Galvanised, Greyly leant forward in his chair, staring at Nino. ‘You came to the house with Hester – I remember now! She was a nosy old bat, but kind. She brought you here—’

‘That’s right.’

Greyly slumped back in his seat. ‘Hester’s dead now.’

‘I know – she fell.’

To Nino’s surprise, Greyly put his index finger to his lips, jerking his head towards the closed door.

Following has gaze, Nino glanced over. The draught still snaked from underneath. It was too cold, he realised – too cold for the temperature of a house. Someone had left the back door open. Someone who had left in a hurry. Someone who had watched him arrive and didn’t want to be seen.

‘Who’s been here?’

‘No one …’ Harold replied, picking at the corner of his left eye.

By his feet the dogs snuffled and shifted around in their sleep, the room morose and unwelcoming as Greyly carried on drinking. Nino could feel the cold slithering around him. Silently, he moved towards the door.

But as he reached it, Greyly shook his head.

‘No!’

Nino paused, turning back to him. ‘Who’s in there?’

‘No one.’

‘There are two used glasses, so you must have had company. You might still have company. Who is it?’

Teetering to his feet, Greyly grabbed Nino’s arm. His expression was fearful – even his drunkenness couldn’t disguise that.

‘There’s no one here. Sit down and have a drink with me.’ His grip increased on Nino’s arm. Even inebriated, he was very strong. ‘Sit with me! I’ve no one else. Fuck them all! I’ve no one left and it’s Christmas. I don’t like fucking Christmas anyway, all that posturing about. All that lord of the manor stuff.’ He burped acidly. ‘My wife’s wrecked everything, you know. All families have secrets – all families. But no, she couldn’t live with it. Cow …’ He dragged Nino away from the door, pushing him into the seat next to his. His condition was deteriorating rapidly, his attention wavering. It wasn’t just alcohol – there was something else. ‘You came to the house with Hester.’

‘Yes, I did,’ Nino agreed, leaning towards him. ‘And she wrote a letter to me, about Claudia. Claudia Moroni.’

Greyly’s eyes were half closed, the glass tilted, whisky dribbling on to the front of his trousers.

Taking the glass from him, Nino shook his shoulder. ‘Listen to me! I want to talk about Claudia Moroni.’

‘She’s dead too …’

‘I know,’ Nino replied, ‘but you remember her story, don’t you? Hester wrote and told me about her. About what happened to Claudia, why she had to leave England.’ He shook Greyly again, trying to regain his attention. ‘She was an ancestor of yours, and she was killed in Venice.’

His eyes widened, fixed on Nino, suddenly alert. ‘Venice?’

‘Yes, Venice. She was killed by Angelico Vespucci.’

Nino could see some semblance of coherence returning, but as it did so, he could feel a heightening of the draught coming from under the door, and he had the sudden and unpleasant sensation of someone having entered; someone who was now listening to their conversation.

‘Did someone come to see you today?’

‘I don’t know.’

Nino dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Did someone come to see you?’

‘No. No …’

‘Who was it?’

‘No one,’ Greyly blathered. ‘There was no one … no one … There’s no one left. No one …’ His voice slid off, his head sinking on to his chest as he passed out.

Uneasy, Nino stood up, looking around for anything he could use as a weapon. Picking up a poker from the grate, he moved silently towards the door and opened it, standing back in case anyone rushed out at him. But there was no one there, only the draught, coming stronger and stronger. Stealthily he passed through the library, moving into the kitchen beyond. The room was in semi-darkness, but there was enough light to see a door swinging open.

A door which led out into the yard beyond.

56

Rachel Pitt knew it wasn’t ideal, that he would probably never leave his wife. All married men said they loved you. That one day, when the time was right, they would tell their wives about you. Of course there never was a right time. If they ever did pick a day then one of the children would be ill, or the wife would be having a bad time at work, and he couldn’t, just couldn’t tell her now. He would, in time. But not this time.

It wasn’t as though Rachel hadn’t set deadlines over the previous two years. If he hasn’t left his wife by June, she swore, I’ll finish the relationship. But June always slid into July, then tripped the light fantastic down to Christmas. Which she always spent alone. A few times she had gone home, but her mother was divorced and Rachel could hardly see herself confiding. The grim reality of her mother’s life – of her hatred of men and her increasing isolation – served as a mirror to her own existence. Was this to be her lot? If her lover didn’t leave his wife, would she find herself too old and too bitter to find someone else?

There was no escaping the fact that she loved Michael and found snatching moments with him more palatable than having another man a hundred per cent of the time. Rachel had chosen her life, and she was sticking to it because the chance to walk away had passed. He was too close to her now. Too much a part of her. Too entrenched in her life to consider amputation. Everything she did she made a note of to tell him when they spoke. Her words, her actions, her thoughts centred around this one man who would never be hers.

Rachel had often wondered if she was a masochist. If she was, in some perverse way, punishing herself for some subconscious fault. Her appeal was obvious, so why attach herself to a man already attached? But she had stuck with Michael, even after she found out he was married. She should have walked away then, but he was charming and he made her feel secure and happy, and he understood her the way no other man had understood her before.

He was a marvellous lover too, and she knew that also kept her tied to him. And if, sometimes, she was jealous of his wife, he would reassure her. They hadn’t been sleeping together for years. She didn’t know him, love him as Rachel did. They stayed together for the children … Oh, she knew all the clichés by rote.

The same hackneyed phrases came out year after year, and even when Rachel ceased to believe them, she pretended she did. After all, the relationship wasn’t completely onesided. Michael had helped her out financially many times over the previous five years, and paid most of her rent. And when she had left her job and gone back to study full-time, he had supported her. Not that he couldn’t afford it. Being in banking he was rich enough to carry two women, even three. Even three … She wondered about that sometimes. If he could cheat on his wife, could he cheat on her? He travelled around the world – surely attractive women constantly crossed his path? Younger women, prettier women, women he hadn’t known for five years and become used to. Women fresh and flirty, who never thought about wives or children.

But Rachel did. It haunted her, the fact of his family. She might be able to dismiss his wife or count her as a harridan, but his children were omnipresent, a constant reminder of what she was doing. If the affair was ever discovered, she could imagine the fallout. The trauma for the children. The break-up of the marriage … No, who was she kidding? It would make the marriage stronger. Everyone knew how expensive divorce was, how prohibitive it was to split up shared properties, funds, bank accounts. And children. Whatever Michael promised her, whatever he assured her, he would stay with his family if it came to a choice. Men might like to stray, but in the end the duvet at home always sucked them back in.