‘A penny for them?’
He was awakened out of his reverie by a warm English accent, and turned to look at the woman who had seated herself at the next table.
‘Do forgive me, you looked quite lost in thought,’ she said to him.
The woman was attractive, and in her fifties, though her lively eyes could have been those of a curious child. Inspector Gallo thought that there wouldn’t be very much that those eyes missed.
‘È un piacere conoscervi, my name is Roberto. You are English?’
‘Oh yes, very.’ She laughed and Gallo couldn’t help smiling too. ‘I’m Olivia. Are you on holiday here, Roberto? Venice is a wonderful place, isn’t it?’
‘Oh yes, I have never been to Venice before, it’s even more impressive than I was led to believe, but I am … how shall I put it, it’s not exactly a holiday as such … maybe you’d call it a working holiday.’
Olivia rubbed her hands, ‘Oooh I do like a mystery. Now let me guess, you’re having a madly passionate affair … No, you look too honest for that. I know, you’re a secret agent from Interpol looking for public enemy number one. He’s in disguise and you have to work out which guest he is?’
Gallo hesitated, thinking that this English lady was closer than she thought.
Olivia clapped her hands, ‘Oh, I am right, how marvellous!’ Her voice dropped to a stage whisper. ‘I mustn’t give the game away!’
Gallo smiled reassuringly, ‘Don’t worry, I’m not from Interpol, but I am trying to get to the bottom of an old case.’
‘You’re a detective?’
‘Inspector Roberto Gallo at your service.’
Olivia was thrilled with this, and her eyes sparkled with delight. ‘I knew there was something special about you, Roberto.’
Gallo didn’t normally fraternize with the public, but there was something about Olivia that was making him reveal more than he would normally. She was rather charismatic.
‘And what about you? You are here for pleasure?’
She told him all about her upcoming wedding. ‘I truly believe that this is the most perfect place in the world to get married.’
‘You have been married before?’
Olivia told him about the loss of her first husband and meeting Max for the first time in the White Palace.
Her eyes took on a faraway look. ‘Losing Simon was the worst thing that ever happened to me. And I never thought I’d get over it, but Max – and Gina – made sure that my convalescence in Venice could also heal my soul. They showed me that learning to live again was possible.’
‘So, it was love at first sight?’ he asked her.
‘Oh, not quite, Max was married at the time you see …’
Olivia didn’t think she’d ever get used to walking with a stick, but finally she was starting to think of it as a help rather than a hindrance.
There’s worse that could happen – you could be dead.
Two years after her trip to Venice, when her mind and body were still feeling broken, Olivia was learning to embrace life again. There were times after losing Simon that she had wished she could have died too, but not any longer, and certainly not today.
‘You need to get out and about Mum,’ her daughter Sarah had told her. ‘You love history and architecture. Why don’t we go on a trip?’
‘Perhaps, darling, but I don’t want to go anywhere too far away,’ she answered, with slight reluctance.
‘What about Bath, Mum?’ Her daughter’s eyes lit up, reminding Olivia of her father for a moment. ‘I’ve always wanted to see the famous baths.’
‘I went with your father, years ago …’
‘Well, now you can go with me,’ Sarah insisted. ‘I’ll drive us there and we can stay in a hotel for a couple of nights.’
Once they arrived, Olivia was delighted that Sarah had talked her into it. Bath was a wonderful city, and in the sunshine it was truly sparkling. On each corner there was something beautiful to look at in the well-preserved Georgian town. That morning they had taken in the Royal Crescent, and now they were enjoying the wonder of the ancient thermal baths. Olivia had forgotten just what an extraordinary survival from the Roman era they were. But they had been on their feet a long time, and Olivia was flagging a little. Her injuries had healed remarkably quickly, but she could still tire easily.
‘Do you mind if I sit down, Sarah?’ There was a stone seat set into an alcove that looked directly on to the Great Bath. She sat on it with relief. ‘I’ll catch you up.’
‘If you’re sure, Mum?’
While Sarah went off to look at the gift shop, Olivia indulged her imagination and thought about the people who had ‘taken the waters’ in the two millennia since they were built by the Romans. She imagined bloated bureaucrats sharing the same waters as slaves from Abyssinia, Roman wives airing their grievances with each other in the warm spring water flowing down from the Mendip Hills. She was quite lost in her imagination, and barely noticed a man take a seat beside her. That was until he spoke.
‘Ad astra per aspera, Olivia.’
Olivia felt a strange sensation as she heard the voice, almost as if he was the person she was expecting to hear, or the person she most wanted to hear.
She turned to face the voice.
‘Max!’
‘Through adversity to the stars … It seemed appropriate for the moment – given that it’s a Roman saying, and to sum up how you seem right now. You look quite … restored.’
‘I can’t believe it’s really you! How are you? What are you doing here?’
