The Rome Affair Read online

  The Rome Affair

  Karen Swan was previously a fashion editor and lives in East Sussex with her husband and three children.

  Visit Karen’s website at www.karenswan.com, or you can find her author page on Facebook or follow her on Twitter @KarenSwan1.

  Also by Karen Swan

  Players

  Prima Donna

  Christmas at Tiffany’s

  The Perfect Present

  Christmas at Claridge’s

  The Summer Without You

  Christmas in the Snow

  Summer at Tiffany’s

  Christmas on Primrose Hill

  The Paris Secret

  Christmas Under the Stars

  The

  ROME

  AFFAIR

  KAREN SWAN

  PAN BOOKS

  First published 2017 by Macmillan

  This paperback edition published 2017 by Pan Books an imprint of Pan Macmillan 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Associated companies throughout the world www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-1-5098-3801-1

  Copyright © Karen Swan, 2017

  The right of Karen Swan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Pan Macmillan does not have any control over, or any responsibility for, any author or third-party websites referred to in or on this book.

  1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Typeset by Ellipsis Digital Limited, Glasgow Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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  For Wol

  Who wrote this book, really.

  Prologue

  Rome, November 1989

  ‘Darling?’

  He knocked at the door, his ear straining to pick up the usual sounds of his wife in her suite – running water from the bath, the soft ‘tock’ of the wardrobe doors opening and closing, her gentle humming as she dressed. ‘Elena?’

  He waited another moment before letting himself in. The curtains were open, the sidelights on, and a small indent on the bed showed where she had been lying, the pillows still slightly crushed from her earlier nap.

  He smiled to himself as he went to close the door again – but his eye caught on an object which had been designed expressly to be noticed and, instead of leaving, he walked over to the dressing table and picked it up. The ring was still warm from the heat of her body. He rubbed the stones with his thumb, then brought them to his lips and kissed them lightly. She must have forgotten to put it on after her bath, he thought, slipping it into his pocket and thinking to check the library next.

  She must be—

  The little white slip was, in and of itself, hidden from view beneath a ring dish. Ordinarily, he never would have seen it, but the thick crystal had a magnifying effect and he would have known that handwriting anywhere. He tore the note from its hiding place, his breathing ragged as he read and saw and understood.

  And then he ran.

  Chapter One

  Rome, July 2017

  ‘“The amber light and sparrows,” that was what she wrote,’ Matteo said, putting his phone back down on the table.

  ‘That’s what you like best about this city?’ Alessandra asked in disbelief.

  ‘And it’s had more likes than almost any other post!’ Cesca laughed, her palms splayed towards the stars. ‘What can I tell you?’

  ‘I know I can tell you that most people would say the Colosseum, or the Forum, or the Pantheon,’ Alé replied wryly. ‘Even the hawkers selling roses at the Spanish Steps are in with a chance, not the little brown birds that scavenge off the plates.’

  ‘Ah, but most people have no imagination. I refuse to be a cliché. Perhaps that’s why they enjoy my little blog so much.’

  ‘Less of the little,’ Matteo said. ‘Your following is growing so fast, you’ll have advertisers knocking on your door soon and that is where the big money is.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, if they could hurry up about it . . .’ Cesca quipped.

  Yet it was true that The Rome Affair – her online homage to the home of the Ancient World, pecorino and la dolce vita – had hit some sort of collective nerve; she was both thrilled and amazed by its growing popularity. Since putting out a first tentative blog post seven months ago, she had found her voice, musing on everything from the locally made honeycombs in Aventine Hill to her favourite vintage stores, as well as sharing anecdotes from the tours she guided as her day job.

  Guido cracked a grin, his tanned pate gleaming under the golden, glowing lanterns. ‘Well, I guess at least it is clear why you could not have carried on as you were. Anyone for whom Rome is defined by its light could not be expected to work in a world as dry as the British law courts.’

  ‘Thank you, Guido,’ Cesca said, raising her glass to him. ‘I’ll drink to that.’

  Everyone joined her, draining the grappa and sitting back in their seats with relaxed smiles. It was the tail end of another beautiful night, the hot air drooping like sleepy eyelids, the scent of jasmine like a powder that dusted the sky. They had feasted well on courses of pasta and fish, every table in the courtyard restaurant occupied; it was after ten but that was early still for Rome; early, usually, for her too these days.

  ‘So what now? Shall we go to Zizi?’ Alé asked, leaning back in her chair and pulling her black hair up into a ponytail, her slim bare arms on display in her khaki vest. ‘They’ve got that band playing tonight. You know, the one we saw at Rock in Roma in June?’

  ‘With the hot lead singer?’ Matteo asked, looking interested – as he always was when an attractive woman was involved.

  ‘Well, I thought he was hot,’ Alé laughed, letting her hair tumble down to her shoulders. ‘But I’ll be honest, I didn’t think beards were your thing.’

  Everyone chuckled, Matteo dropping his head as a couple of napkins were thrown his way. ‘I thought you were talking about—’

  ‘I know, those three sisters.’

  ‘I’m up for Zizi,’ Guido said. Beards were his thing.

  ‘Well, you’ll have to count me out, I’m afraid,’ Cesca said, reaching down for her bag by her feet. ‘I’ve got a group booked for six so it’s up at five for me.’

  ‘But that’s so boring.’ Alé frowned, watching as Cesca took the bill from the saucer and calculated her share, her lips moving in silence.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Cesca said a moment later with a roll of her eyes. ‘Unfortunately, though, that rent’s not going to pay itself.’

  Alé tutted. ‘I can’t believe they don’t pay you to live in your flat!’ she quipped, giving a lazy, half-flirtatious smile to the waiter as he came back with another round of digestifs.

  ‘Thanks for that. I happen to think it’s charming. You should see what the equivalent rent would get you in London. At least here everything’s—’ Cesca frowned. ‘How do you say �
��quaint”? You know, like small and cute and old?’

  They all translated for her in unison.

  ‘Right, so that.’ She nodded, rifling through her purse while wishing her Italian could be half as good as their collective English. Perhaps if she had insisted on their speaking only Italian to her, she might have progressed further, but she suspected they wouldn’t laugh so often or have half as much fun.

  ‘But you said a cockroach ran over your face in your sleep,’ Alé reminded her with a shudder.

  ‘Only the once. And that was in the very first week. I think I’ve scared them away now.’

  ‘And the lights flicker when you walk across the room,’ Matteo added. ‘And your TV must be the only black-and-white still in operation in the whole of the country.’

  ‘The whole of Europe,’ Guido corrected.

  Matteo looked across at him. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Plus, it smells of horse,’ Alé said, wrinkling her nose.

  ‘Nothing a scented candle can’t fix and I’ll have you know everyone thinks my black-and-white telly is a design statement – like Guido’s craft beer and hipster beard,’ she added with a grin, before brushing her hand against said beard affectionately, as if Guido was an Irish terrier. She’d never known him without it, couldn’t imagine him clean-shaven. It would be like seeing him naked. ‘Besides, it’s got a bath in it—’

  ‘Ugh!’ Matteo grimaced. ‘What is this English obsession with lying in your own dirty water?’

  ‘It’s comforting! I’d like to see you survive an English winter. At uni, taking a bath was sometimes the only way to get warm.’ She took a deep breath as she saw their grinning faces watching her, enjoying making her dance. ‘Besides, it’s not like any of you are living in penthouses, anyway,’ she pouted, as they collapsed into laughter.

  ‘Stay. At least for one more drink,’ Alé implored.

  ‘I really can’t,’ Cesca said, bending down to kiss them all. ‘I’ve pushed my luck too many times recently and you know what I’m like in the mornings.’

  ‘I wish I did,’ Matteo chuckled, stretching his arms up and back to show off his impressive muscles.

  ‘You’re incorrigible.’ She grinned. ‘But I need this job. I’ve got holes in my shoes from all the walking and I can’t afford a new pair.’ To prove the point, she lifted her foot to show them the worn-through canvas of her yellow Converse.

  ‘But you can afford wine with your dinner, obviously,’ Guido said, tipping the nearest empty wine bottle.

  ‘Obviously. Priorities, baby,’ she joked.

  ‘I thought your shoes were supposed to be like that,’ Matteo said, eyeing them. ‘Everything else you wear is falling apart.’

  ‘Hey! Just because you haven’t got an eye for vintage,’ Alé riposted in solidarity. ‘You think that if it isn’t box-fresh Gucci, it must be trash.’

  Matteo’s gaze pointedly fell to the hole in the side of Cesca’s white cotton Edwardian camisole. She covered it with her hand. ‘It’s just loved, that’s all,’ she laughed, retrieving her (admittedly somewhat donkey-nibbled) panama from the back of her seat. She put it on, blowing kisses to them all. ‘So long, amigos. You’re the best. Call me!’ She smiled, waving as she began to walk away, her friends’ voices already bubbling above the low hum of the rest of the restaurant as they resumed their conversation about the club.

  It wasn’t a long walk home. Nowhere was particularly far from anywhere in Rome. She crossed the Piazza San Cosimato, where the market stalls were stacked and chained ready for the next morning’s trading, stepping into the maze of winding narrow streets, the buildings steadily disappearing beneath bushy facades of jasmine and ivy. There were crowds everywhere, tables pushed against walls to allow the airport limos to get past, scooters arranged in precariously dense lines like dominoes, music curling from every open window.

  Her apartment in the Centro Storico, hidden in the warren of meandering streets between Piazza Navona and Campo de’ Fiori, may not have been a fashionable address like her friends’ trendy Trastevere places – where artists, designers and hipsters hung out at late-night bars and pop-up restaurants – and she might have been single-handedly responsible for bringing down the average residents’ age by forty years, but it was centrally located, making it handy for work. She walked so much for a living these days, the last thing she wanted was another hike just to get home.

  Besides, she’d never been one for following the crowd; dressing top-to-toe in vintage was the least of it. As a teenager, she’d listened to Patti Smith and Carly Simon when everyone else was crying over McFly; she had accepted early on that her frizzy strawberry blonde (okay, ginger) mane was never going to respond to hair straighteners; and at five foot ten, she was too tall to hide in the crowd. So, yes, her apartment may have had cockroaches and dodgy electrics, but it also had original 1960s turquoise tiles in the kitchen and a tin bath. Its tiny roof terrace – barely bigger than her table – looked out onto a vista of rooftops with no fewer than seven church towers (she loved to watch the bells swing out of time with one another on Sunday mornings). Perhaps best of all, it was positioned on one side of a particularly small and quiet square which led off from the bustling Piazza Angelica and which had everything she needed in it: a dark osteria in one corner, a pizzeria opposite that and Rome’s best bakery right next door to her flat. There was a bushy fig tree in the osteria’s corner and smack bang in the centre of the square was an ancient olive tree whose branches swayed in the breeze like hula dancers. It had felt like home the first time she’d set eyes upon it.

  Occasional piazzas opened up the narrow linear spaces as she walked, letting the sky stretch out in cut rectangles overhead, silvered moonlight dressing the sleeping streets. Her feet, shod in their tatty Converse, were silent on the cobbles, her head full of tomorrow’s tour and the stories she’d need at hand if she was to do her job well. It was still something of a novelty that she was here, doing all this. Her old life felt like a distant dream, like a story she’d been told by someone else rather than something once belonging to her, concerning her, defining her.

  She turned into her little square, Piazzetta Palombella, and passed Osteria Antico, which was always full, even though they didn’t accept reservations, had no specials and no menu – you were simply served whatever Signor Accardo had cooked and his wife brought out to you. As she strolled by, Cesca raised a hand in greeting to Signora Accardo, who was wearing her traditional long black apron and carrying plates back to the kitchen.

  On the opposite side of the square, Franco’s Pizzeria had the usual line of people queuing out the door, the loud chatter and whoops and calls of the waiting crowd pitching and diving as the dough was tossed with acrobatic flourishes and the flames of the wood-fired oven threw a gladiatorial light onto the street. Owned by Franco Luciano, himself a third-generation pizzaiolo, it was now run by his six sons and they were as much a part of the draw as the famous Luciano dough. It was so hard to tell them apart in the kitchens – they all had mops of dark hair, white teeth, brown eyes and olive skin, and dressed identically, shouting and gesticulating wildly as they jostled, wove and waltzed around one another – that Cesca had decided she would master the Italian language before she’d learnt all their names. They worked by instinct, handling the ten-foot oven paddles with deft experience. She had never realized pizza-making was such a virtuoso skill until she’d come out here and seen how they kneaded and tossed and turned and flipped the bases with an artisanal skill, their biceps bulging as they did so in tight white t-shirts.

  Ricci, Franco’s eldest son, caught sight of her as he took out one of the bins and hailed her; she waved in return, feeling grateful for her new neighbours’ welcoming sense of community.

  She climbed the side-on stairs which led up to the front of her apartment, having to step carefully around the many potted geraniums arranged on each step by her landlady, Signora Dutti, a widow who lived downstairs. For the past seven months now, Cesca had awoken to the sound of her
sweeping those steps every morning on the dot of seven-forty, the pick-up and put-down of the flowerpots the Italian equivalent of the tinkle of breakfast china.

  It was cool and dark inside her flat, the vintage hand-worked lace curtains hanging limp and still in the window: she opened the shutters to let the breeze rustle up and disturb the day’s stagnant air. The terracotta-tiled floor felt good underfoot as she slid her feet out of her Converse trainers and padded across the open-plan sitting/dining area to the dark, minuscule kitchen at the back, pouring herself a glass of water and cutting a peach straight onto a saucer. Flicking the TV on, she channel-hopped until she found an old rerun of a Detective Montalbano series, then went through to the bathroom and began running a bath – her nightly ritual, irrespective of her friends’ mockeries.

  She ate the peach slowly, sitting on the edge of the sofa and watching a shootout in silence as, in the background, the sound of the water hitting the tin bath became a deeper splash. She could judge by ear just when it was at the perfect depth and when it reached that point she turned off the taps.

  The peach stone now the sole item on the saucer, she took it back through to the kitchen, rinsed the plate and bagged up the rubbish. Lifting it carefully, aware that yesterday’s cereal bowl had had rather more milk left in it than she’d realized before scraping out the leftovers, she hurried to the front door, her slim bicep straining to hold the bag up off the ground. As she slid her shoes on again, standing on the backs so as not to have to untie the laces, she turned and – sure enough – saw large white milk drops on the tiles behind her. With a tut, she hobbled down the stairs as fast as she could, cursing as she clipped one of the flowerpots with the bottom of the bag and sent it toppling sideways, soil sprinkling the step.

  She turned left into the tiny alley between their building and the bakery, and lifted the top of the large covered bin, her holding arm ready to swing the bag up and into it, automatically holding her breath as she did so – the stench was always overwhelming.