But an earth tremor had taken place here, and however slowly, the shock waves would ripple out from the epicenter of the Hatto household, undermining the stability of people’s lives at ever greater distances. It had already struck; they just didn’t know it yet.
A few hundred yards away, their immediate neighbors were going about their own business, oblivious to the ghoulish adrenaline rush that would sweep them all up in the next twenty-four hours, beyond comprehending the legion of TV crews, journalists and photographers that would make the quiet neighborhood its own.
Further off, but still less than two miles away, the Shaw family was enjoying a barbecue with friends. Alice was there: happy, a little drunk on red wine, unaware that her feelings for Ben Hatto, confused as they were, would soon take on a lifelong significance, a mantle of sadness and regret and lost opportunity.
Five miles away in the nearest town, the CID unit had no idea they were about to have their first murder case in two years. Nor could they yet know who’d been living among them, or that within twenty-four hours they’d be announcing to the media that Mark Hatto’s business affairs had been ‘complex,’ a shorthand way of telling the public not to worry, that this guy had brought it upon himself.
And thousands of miles away, in a small town in Italy, the place where the true force of the tremor would be measured, was a daughter, a sister, someone the police would need to contact to break the tragic news. And too late, it would be the detective who turned off Ben Hatto’s music who’d puzzle over the boy’s death and realize that perhaps his sister was also in danger. He’d stand there dwelling on the pointlessness of it, the fact that the kid clearly hadn’t disturbed anyone, that the killer had known he was there, sought him out. And he alone would realize that this feud was total and that Ella Hatto, wherever she was, if she was still alive, was perhaps in as much danger as if she’d been in this house herself.
Chapter Two
They were people-watching, sitting on either side of the small table but with their chairs turned facing the street. There was plenty to look at—people sitting outside the other bars and cafes across the way, the passaggiata in full flow along this and the other main streets.
Every now and then Chris would point out someone in the crowd, a classic medallion man or a woman dressed like a hooker or transvestite, and they’d laugh about it. For the most part, though, they didn’t talk, satisfied with watching, sipping at their drinks, winding down after the heat and hassle of the day.
The last few days had been hectic—Rome and Florence—but even so, Ella was pretty happy with the way things were going. Thailand with Susie the previous year had been a nightmare and a few people had warned her that traveling with a boyfriend was a classic recipe for a bad holiday and a wrecked relationship.
So far, though, things had gone well, and glad he was there with her. If she’d gone with anyone else, she’d have spent the whole time wishing Chris was with her anyway. She looked at him now, hair unkempt, his skin already tanned. He turned to meet her gaze, gave her a quizzical smile as he said, ‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ She smiled and moved her head toward him. He leaned in for the kiss and gently pushed his tongue between her lips. She laughed a little and kissed him back for a few seconds before becoming self-conscious and breaking away.
‘Later,’ she said, facing back into the street, ‘without the audience.’ She scanned the crowd, reassuring herself that no one had been looking anyway.
‘You’re so Anglo-Saxon,’ said Chris, joking.
‘And you’re such an Italian stallion.’
‘Oh yeah. Trust me, before the night’s out I’m getting a medallion and a chest wig.’
She laughed and they went back to watching. Her eyes were snagged immediately by a man sitting at the cafe directly across from them. He didn’t look Italian but apart from that he was nondescript, average-looking, a guy in his forties maybe: short hair, medium build, a face and look that seemed designed to be lost in a crowd.
And that was the intriguing part, because she’d singled him out and, now that she was looking at him, Ella was certain she’d seen him before. She closed her eyes momentarily but couldn’t picture him like that and had to open them again to remind herself what he looked like.
He seemed to be studying the passaggiata so she took the opportunity to study him in turn, staring at him as she tried to recall where she might have seen him. Maybe it had been in the railway station in Rome, or on the Ponte Vecchio perhaps, or the Duomo.
She became uneasy at the possibility of him having been in Rome and Florence, in all of those places, and after trying to shake the thought for a while she said, ‘Chris, see the guy sitting across from us, short-sleeved blue shirt, forties?’
‘What about him?’
‘I know it sounds weird but I’m pretty certain he was in Rome and Florence.’