Free The Drowning River by Christobel Kent Page A

housekeeper, or whatever she was, seemed to relent.
‘Si,’
she said. ‘Ma
gli signori non ci sono. Sono in Inghilterra da un mese’.
And then Iris had given up, handing the phone dumbly to the long-nosed carabiniere.
    They weren’t there. The Hertfords existed, they had a house in Greve and therefore probably were Serena’s friends. But they hadn’t asked Ronnie out there for the week, nor even for a day, because they’d been in England for the previous month and were still there now.
    After talking to the housekeeper for another five minutes, the policeman had hung up. The place was shut up for the winter, he said. There’d been no one there, no teenagers, no house parties, not even unauthorized ones. No Ronnie.
    There was a silence, then Massi and the carabinieri talked among themselves about how to proceed. Massi seemed serious, but he didn’t betray any panic, for which Iris was grateful. Ronnie, she thought, where are you?
    As they talked, Iris listened but they talked quickly, and she found the accents hard. ‘What – what do they think has happened?’ she asked quickly, at the first opportunity.
    ‘They’re not sure,’ said the director, carefully.
    ‘I know that,’ said Iris. ‘But what do they think?’
    ‘Iris,’ said Massi, and she had the impression of being deflected. ‘I think first we need to talk to Ronnie’s mother. Perhaps – well, it’s possible Ronnie may have phoned her. And then perhaps – well, other friends.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Iris, trying to stay calm, trying to be reasonable. ‘Of course.’ But the panic she’d felt at the sight of that fine dust in Ronnie’s bag was still there; it wouldn’t be held down. She forced herself to say it.
    ‘But do they – they’re worried, aren’t they?’
    And reluctantly Massi met her eye. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s four days. If Veronica’s mother has heard nothing, either – well. I think they have to take it seriously.’
    She was grateful for the way Paolo pretty much forbade her to go back to the flat on her own. ‘If necessary, you can sleep here,’ he said, and she could see he was worried, too. About her, as well as Ronnie. ‘There is a fold-out bed in the office.’ But Hiroko inserted herself into the conversation at that point.
    ‘I have a bed in my apartment for visitors,’ she said in her polite, quiet way. ‘It’s no problem.’
    They had walked along the Arno in the dark, the lights coming on in the big, fabulous apartments overlooking the river. And then they’d turned north and dived into the maze of narrow streets and cold, dark facades heading off towards the station, with Hiroko leading the way as she took small determined steps, occasionally looking anxiously at Iris with her pale, closed face. The more she walked, the colder Iris felt, and she wondered if it was some kind of shock reaction. Florence had never seemed like a sinister place to her before, but now she was scared; every shuttered window, every heavy door, every overflowing dumpster looked frightening to her in the sparse streetlighting.
    Now in the soft, warm gloom of another unfamiliar apartment, Iris stared at the ceiling in the dark. It had been stupid of Ronnie to go away with that bar owner, hadn’t it? What had his name been? Josef. Ronnie’d hardly known him. But when she’d got back and gone over it all with Iris in the freezing kitchen with a cup of tea, Iris had to admit that some of what she’d felt had been jealousy. Because she didn’t know if she’d ever dare to do such a thing.
    The flat was quiet but not silent; as she lay still, not wanting the day to begin, Iris could hear small, measured kitchen sounds; things being put away, or set out, very carefully. She’d gone straight to bed the night before, apologizing, suddenly unable to keep her eyes open. Hiroko had pulled out the futon in her sitting room, showed her the tiny bathroom, and disappeared, and overwhelmed with voiceless gratitude Iris had fallen deeply