Medusa - 9 Read Online Free Page A

Ferrero.’
    Claudia didn’t move or speak, didn’t react at all for at least a minute. Shock has its uses, and comes in various forms. Hearing that name on Danilo’s lips was like hearing a poodle pronounce the secret name of God.
    She reached forward to flick the ash off her cigarette, then slowly stood up, looking around her with the startled expression of someone who has fallen asleep on the bus home from work and awakened to find herself in a foreign country.
    Danilo coughed.
    ‘You knew him, I believe.’
    Claudia smiled brightly, as though putting two and two together at last.
    ‘Lieutenant Ferrero? Certainly we knew him. He was one of Gaetano’s favourites. But that was all a long time ago.’
    She finally seemed to become aware of Danilo’s silence.
    ‘So why bring it up now?’
     
    ‘Because on the basis of the information that we have received, and I must stress that this is strictly confidential, the preliminary identification of the corpse that has been found in those tunnels up in the mountains appears to indicate that it is his.’
    Claudia went over to the window giving on to the courtyard of the building. The woman in the apartment opposite had opened her shutters, a thing she only did when she was entertaining one of her many younger lovers that evening. Later, just before the crucial moment, she would teasingly close them again. At least I’ve never sunk that low, thought Claudia abstractly. Flaunting one’s romantic triumphs was vulgar. She finished her cigarette, opened the window and tossed it out.
    ‘That’s absurd,’ she said, turning back to face Danilo. ‘Lieutenant Ferrero died thirty years ago in a plane crash. An explosion in the fuel tank. Gaetano and I attended the funeral.’
    ‘So did I. And that’s what we all believed, of course. But it seems that we were wrong.’
    ‘So what did happen?’
    Danilo made a wide, open-handed gesture.
    ‘That’s what the authorities are trying to find out now. The point is that sooner or later they may come here, wanting to question you. It would therefore be best for you to prepare yourself.’
    Claudia walked back to her drink, downing half of it at a gulp.
    ‘But what on earth has it got to do with me?’
    Danilo looked her in the eyes in a way he had never done before.
    ‘I don’t think you really want me to address that question, Claudia. We both know the answer, and to discuss it would be unnecessarily painful for both of us. At our age one wants to avoid pain as much as possible, don’t you agree?’
     
    The telephone rang, and for once she was eager to answer it. It turned out to be Naldo, making his usual weekly duty call.
    ‘ Ciao , Naldino! How are you, darling? And how’s the restaurant going? Really? Oh dear! Well, I’m sure things will pick up once spring comes.’
    She carried on in this vein for several minutes, deliberately overdoing the maternal gushiness in hopes that Danilo might take the point and leave. But he showed no signs of doing so. Eventually the conversational flow began to dry up and Naldo even started to sound slightly alarmed, as though he suspected that his mother was drunk. And perhaps she was ever so slightly tipsy, for she had a sudden urge to tell Naldo that his father’s body had been recovered. Only Danilo’s presence saved her.
    The drawback was that when she hung up, Danilo was still there. Claudia regarded him with the air of someone who has just noticed a very bad smell in the room and is speculating as to its origin.
    ‘Do forgive me if I’m being dim,’ she said, ‘but I still haven’t the remotest idea what you’re talking about.’
    Danilo walked over and took her hands in his. More physicality. Not wanting to meet his eyes, Claudia looked down at the white, perfectly manicured fingers grasping hers. Not the hands of a soldier, one would have said, although Danilo had served for almost thirty years. He had handled guns, knives, shells, bombs, and perhaps a select number of the