The Third Shadow

Eight

*

After the impromptu press call at the front gate, I settled down in the armchair with the Corriere Della Sera. Sarah and Olivia meanwhile flicked inattentively through the magazines they'd picked up at Stansted, the previous Thursday's Daily Mirror. All of us were killing time, waiting for the next thing, whatever it might be. Signor Caputo armed with another of his wife's homemade offerings. A journalist begging for an exclusive interview. Ciavarella dropping by to see how things were, if we needed anything.

Another visitot that morning was an embassy representative just arrived from Rome, a capable and sympathetic woman of around fifty by the name of Annie Rogers. Over the clink of stirred tea she made acquaintance with the two sisters-in-law, updated herself on latest developments. There were several practical matters to consider of course, most notably their return in patria.

"I'm staying."

This was Sarah's rasped response when the subject was broached. "I have to stay. If I leave now, it'd be like giving up on him. Like saying that's that, he's dead." Tears by now were never far from her eyes, never more than the next throat-snagged sentence away. "Today's our anniversary. Fifteen years. Not all been one-way traffic you know." Her face was momentarily illuminated with something approaching a smile. "Lord knows I'm not the easiest to live with sometimes. I just feel like I owe it to him, you know. Even if it's only one per cent, half a percent. I have to keep that dim glow of hope alive."

Though as a sentiment it was an easy one to understand, the truth was she needed to be at home now. Needed to be near her family, her friends. Promising to return later, Mrs Rogers headed off to attend to details: the sisters-in-law would be booked onto a flight departing from Naples the following morning.

Lunchtime came as a milestone along the road, a third of the day finally behind us. The silence was broken by the beep of the microwave, the hungerless click of cutlery. I turned on the regional news, the image of the brothers' faces now headlining the bulletin. This cut to various-angled shots of the holiday bungalow, the voiced-over pleas of the two sisters-in-law at the gate. Then Nuzzo again, another press conference in the caserma. As the day before, he was immaculately groomed for the cameras, but seemed noticeably tired-looking this time - a small town copper grappling with the highest profile case of his career.

Dishes washed and put away, I got back to the Corriere. The women to their magazines, the still-not-quite-finished crossword in the Mirror. Every few minutes, one or the other's phone would ring - family and friends, the truth now out. The calls were fielded in hushed, muted tones, like conversation at a post-funeral gathering.

At around quarter past two my own phone squealed into life; that is, halfway through the one o'clock news back home.

"Kevin just called. Said he's just seen you on the TV."

It was Diane, the statement delivered in her trademark accusatory tone. Kevin was her seventeen-year-old son from the first of her two failed marraiges.

"Hope you're not taking on too much Jim. You're supposed to be retired now you know."

Stepping out onto the patio, I propped myself onto the plastic garden chest conveniently located in the thin slice of shade slanting off to the left. Beyond the back gate, the British journalists weren't difficult to spot - they the pale blobs dotted amidst the sprawl of bronzed latin flesh, zoom lenses trained. That walks along the beach were now out of the question only served to heighten the sense of claustrophobia.

"You know me sergeant," I replied, touched by her concern. "Always a sucker for a damsel in distress."

"Two damsels, in this case."

In the background I could make out a burst of laughter - snorted, familiar. DS Paxton. Diane was in the CID room clearing her in-tray, reducing its thickness at least.

"Anyway," she continued, "Kevin says he hardly recognised you you've gone so brown."

The truth was, I barely recognised myself these days. The face which gazed back at me in the shaving mirror was that of a stranger, his hair ever whiter in contrast to the toffee-coloured skin. Around his eyes, in the hollow of his cheeks, he was wrinkling up like a dried prune. I was getting old, no doubt about it.

"Bloody raining here," she moaned. "On and off all day. On and off all summer."

The Middlesbrough rain, ah yes. A variety lent added fragrance and pungency by all the petro-chemical plants out towards Darlington. Along with the biting North Sea winds which often accompanied it, the thing I was missing least.

"Keep hoping we might get a bit of summer eventually. Too late now though, boys are back at school next Monday.."

"How are they getting on?" I asked. "Kev and Johnny." The latter was her fourteen-year-old son from the second of her two failed marriages. Over the years I'd become something of an uncle figure to them I suppose. There'd even been trips to see the Middlesbrough football team together - favours called in, good seats behind the directors' box.

"If we overlook personal hygeine issues and non-existent conversational skills, then fine I suppose."

I have a brother of my own, Frank, but the age difference between us means we've never been particularly close. By his tenth birthday I'd already enrolled in the merchant navy, was off sailing the seven seas.

"Their age, argue a lot I suppose."

"Oh, I wouldn't say argue exactly. Engage in high brow debate would be more correct. You know, whether this actress or that TV presenter's got the bigger bra size. Which game to put on their console thingy, the one where you splatter zombies or the one where you splatter east european nationalist rebels. Who's got the coolest dad, even if the truth is they're both spectacularly uncool." There was a sigh. "Not being much help, am I?"

Diane is sharp, possibly the sharpest person I know. She'd understood that my enquiry into fraternal conflict hadn't been entirely casual.

"Why can wait. Wasn't that what you always used to say? When we were stuck on something, tried to get too intellectual." It was strange now to think of myself as DCI Jacks, as if she were referring to a mutual friend neither of us had seen for a while.

In the background I could hear Paxton snorting again. Something was amusing him, clearly. One of his own jokes no doubt.

"Where, Jim? That's the question you should be asking yourself. For those two damsels of yours, the only one that counts right now."

KEEP SROLLING! There's another chapter up...
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