The Drowning River by Christobel Kent Page B

to commit suicide.’ Her pale eyes gleamed.
    ‘Two years?’ he said. ‘How old was he?’
    ‘Aged seventeen to nineteen,’ she said, and Sandro bowed his head to hide his shame.
    ‘We weren’t religious,’ said Lucia. She looked at the candle. ‘At least, I thought we were not. There are some things that turn out to – to bring comfort even if you have spent your life finding rational ways to deny them.’
    ‘Would your husband have disapproved?’ asked Sandro, nodding towards the candle.
    She thought a moment. ‘Yes,’ she said, and smiled the smile again that had made her beautiful before. ‘But he didn’t like demonstrations of any kind, not saying. . .’ She hesitated. ‘Not saying one loved him, for example. Even if one did.’
    She gestured at the long, low sofa, upholstered in dark linen, and tentatively Sandro sat. It felt strange to be interviewing someone without the benefit of uniform. He took out his notebook.
    ‘Do you have the post-mortem report?’ he asked. She reached towards the low table where the candle was burning and he saw that she had set it out ready for him, in a pale brown folder. Sandro opened it and scanned it. The yellow water of the Arno had been found in Claudio Gentileschi’s lungs; some lesions seen in the brain consistentwith late-onset dementia although this would be confirmed by a neurologist at a later date. There was some bruising that would have occurred at or around the time of death, but it was not definitive; it did not unequivocally indicate violence. He had been alive when he had entered the water.
    There were photographs with the report, which was unusual. He took them out, looking up at Lucia Gentileschi. He found he didn’t want to look at the pictures; perhaps two years out of the force had changed him more than he’d thought.
    ‘I asked for copies,’ she said. ‘They were shocked, I think. But I insisted; I knew that I would need them if I were to – well. If I went to you. I had to pay for them.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Sandro, and he sighed. He looked again at the top of the post-mortem report, where the investigating police officer would be named. Gianluca Scappatoio; not a bad guy, but not a brain surgeon. I’ll talk to Pietro, thought Sandro.
    He looked at the pictures then, quickly. He had seen drowned bodies before; he expected the pallor, the swelling to the tissues. He could see that Gentileschi had not been in the water long because he still looked human. You could imagine him alive. A heavy, handsome man, short-cropped white hair and a strong Roman nose. There were photographs of bruising to one arm, and abrasions to the palms of the hands. He put them away.
    There were photographs of the contents of his pockets – a wallet, a handkerchief, a set of house keys. A separate photograph of tiny white pebbles.
    ‘Found in his shoes,’ said Lucia. ‘It’s crazy, isn’t it? Little stones. I don’t want to know, or about the kind of waterweed they found clinging to his trousers.’
    ‘No,’ agreed Sandro. ‘They must be thorough, though. Sometimes these things tell us something.’ He paused a moment. ‘No mobile phone?’
    ‘If he’d had a mobile, I might have called him,’ she said, her eyes faraway. ‘He didn’t like mobiles.’
    ‘Didn’t he?’ he said. ‘Tell me. Tell me about your husband.’
    The conversation went on for two hours, perhaps more, and by the time they had finished Sandro felt quite done in. He had filled half his notebook. He knew the daily routine – the route he took on his morning walk, the swim at the Bellariva twice a week, winter and summer. The career he’d had as an architect in Milan and Verona before coming back here and settling in Florence with his own small practice.
    ‘Government work,’ said Lucia. ‘Some restoration, some buildings for the
comune.
Nothing grand.’
    ‘Did he enjoy it?’
    ‘He didn’t mind, in the end,’ she said. ‘He always wanted to build something wonderful and