The Painted Altar

Chapter Ten

Plot reminder: Mary is in the Italian fishing port of Punto San Giacomo to trace her uncle, Salvatore D'Ambra. In the previous chapter a local man helped her place her order in a pizzeria. Two chapters ago she described the letter she posted to Inspector Kubič detailing all she knows about the case.

~~~~~

The hotel bed proved surprisingly comfortable - so much so that I found myself wide awake with the hands of my watch still to tick past six o'clock. Too early for the hotel to be serving breakfast, and in the meantime I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. It would have been absurd to start searching for Salvatore D'Ambra before the sun had even risen, and neither had I thought to bring a novel with me. There was a small television set on top of the chest of drawers in the corner of the room, but the idea of attempting to decipher Italian breakfast-time TV was singularly unappealing.

A walk along the beach it would be then. A chance to breathe some fresh sea air into my lungs, gather my thoughts.

Dawn was still an unformed concept, half of an idea concentrated into a sliver of crimson along the distant horizon. Its nascent glow faintly illuminated the rippled contours of the sea, the lights of the returning trawlers scattered there amidst. Closer to the shore, gulls swooped and splashed, bobbed lazily on the peach-coloured water.

As I slipped off sandals, felt the cool silkiness of the sand between my toes, I found myself wondering about Inspector Kubič. About what he'd made of the anonymous letter which had awaited him amongst the previous day's work mail. Wondered what I myself, were I in his still possibly mud-caked shoes, would have made of it. That it was the work of some unhinged crank to be immediately dismissed? No, I didn't think so. That the author was well-intentioned but ultimately misguided then? Yes, perhaps. I think the missive would have planted some sort of a seed of doubt in my mind however. If the claimed connection between Vincenzo D'Ambra and Irene Brennan were indeed valid, then yes, I would have to admit that it was all a bit of a coincidence. Enough so to make a few discreet enquiries into the nature of the old lady's death. See what the name Sergeant Reynolds might throw up amongst official archive databases.

I hadn't planned on strolling all the way to the headland, but that was where I suddenly found myself, the sand ahead abruptly blocked by a jagged mound of rocks. I felt almost trancelike, the sea a becalmed presence beside me, its gentle ebb and flow against the shore like the soft whispered breathing of someone emerging from deep slumber. I imagined my father as a boy, his feet pressing hollows into the same sand where my own trod - a wiry exuberant scamp dashing and yelling and spraying out Catherine wheels of water as he charged into the waves. I had never felt closer to him than in those moments.

Whilst on the outward leg of my stroll I could have counted on the fingers of one hand the number of joggers and dog-walkers I passed, turning back around I saw that with the unfurling of the dawn the tiny silhouettes scattered along the beach had increased three or four-fold. It was at the halfway point of the return leg that the sight of a wet energetic Labrador charging in my direction caused me yelp in panic. Turn my back, brace myself...

"Dante!" I heard an angry voice cry. "Dante, viene qua!"

The anticipated impact not coming to pass, I opened my eyes once more, turned back around. Ahead, the figure of a man was bent in admonishment of the high-spirited mutt. Once lead had been rehooked to collar, he turned an apologetic gaze in my direction.

"Mi scu-"

I think we both recognised each other in the same instant - that quick-fire rifling through of mental drawers, searching the context of a familiar face.

"Ah, it's you," he smiled. "The English woman who doesn't like mozzarella on her pizza."

Maybe it had been the shadowiness of dusk, but his face seemed more interesting than it had done in the pizzeria the previous evening. In the limpid light of dawn I now saw that it was a detailed relief map of ridges and nooks and vales, a landscape carved by time, the multitudinous travails of life. A face topped by messy mop of curly silver hair, the chestnut brown eyes alive, engaged with the moment.