A Florentine Revenge by Christobel Kent

Author:Christobel Kent
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2008-10-20T04:00:00+00:00

Out on the plain towards the sea the snow had fallen thick and silent for hours on to frozen ground, and there were drifts along the riverbank, up against the shanty towns and trailer parks, the rows of blank white factory units. The police car was parked outside a broken wooden fence; inside the snow was trodden into dirty mush between the caravans and corrugated iron lean-tos. The two policemen were standing behind a camper out of sight of the dirt road with a third man, one with three-day stubble and bundled in layers of greasy coats. Otherwise the place seemed deserted, a plastic chair thickly furred with the morning’s snowfall sat out under the blank, louring sky, and the caravans looked dark and empty.

Of course during the day their occupants would be working, if you could call it that – selling drugs at the station, begging outside the cathedral, picking pockets in the market – but still the place looked abandoned. Not much of a place to call home; you could see that in the policeman’s eyes as he kicked at a patch of frozen snow, his expression an uncomfortable mixture of disgust and pity.

‘You haven’t seen them – for two days, then?’ The man’s hands were jammed into his pockets – They never had gloves, thought Sandro with disbelief, do they think they’ve come to the Promised Land, perpetual summer? You would have thought they could lift a pair of gloves if they can steal handbags, silver, sunglasses – and, hunched against the cold, he shrugged his shoulders even higher. The man frowned, his stubbled double chin wrinkling as he buried it in his mangy scarf.

‘Yeah, whatever,’ he said in his guttural, alien Italian. ‘Packed up, off and out of it, Friday morning early, three, four. Pots, pans, girlfriend and all.’

‘And that’s all you know?’ The man shrugged again.

‘Where you from?’ asked Pietro with mild curiosity. The man looked alarmed.

‘Romania,’ he muttered, his voice hoarse as he pronounced it. Pietro nodded, kicked out idly at the plastic chair, and a chunk of snow slid off the arm, revealing the dirty plastic underneath. ‘Refugee, is it?’ he said.

‘That’s it,’ said the man hopefully.

‘Wouldn’t do you any harm to be a bit more cooperative, would it?’ said Pietro, his tone still mild. Then he kicked the chair again, hard this time, and it skittered across the frozen ground, one leg hanging off. The Romanian’s face set hard with anger and fear.

‘Where are they from?’ said Sandro. ‘Ukraine?’

‘Yeah,’ said the Romanian, sneering. ‘Chernobyl country. That’s Russia, isn’t it?’

‘Not any more,’ said Sandro, his head on one side.

‘I’d have called them Russians. Sounded like Russians, acted like ‘em. Nasty. Kicked the girl about.’

‘What game were they in?’ asked Sandro, thinking of the girlfriend. ‘Whores? Drugs?’ As he waited for an answer he leaned down and picked up something from the ground where the chair had been, a wedge of paper used maybe to prop a table, folded tight. Idly he began to

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