The Painted Altar

Chapter Thirty-Six

Plot reminder: After initial misgivings over her father's crimes, Mary agrees to accept his invitation that she, he and Lucio have dinner together. She is eager to discover if he can help shine a light on the possible identities of Ettore Lo Bianco's murderers.
This chapter references several of the details described in parts one and two of the novel: Vincenzo's teenage bride Ada, his brother Salvatore, the anonymous letter Mary wrote to Inspector Kubič.

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My father's delight upon our return was evident, the face revealed behind the front door illuminated by the kind of wide, spontaneous smile it was hard not to be touched by. He took us to his local trattoria, a rustic and lighthearted place where the wine flowed freely and the background chatter was peppered with laughter. Having no means of comparison, I can't vouch for his claim that the bollito misto - a local speciality of boiled meats - was the best in the whole of Verona, but I certainly wouldn't have been surprised.

As the previous evening, we found it difficult to take our eyes of each other, both of us registering previously unnoted details. In my case, these included the small patch on the right corner of his chin bald of grey stubble and the way the top of his ears veered slightly outwards, the overhead table light washing them with a pinkish glow. As he reached for his wine glass the cuff of his shirt slid an inch or so back along forearm, enough to reveal the white jagged line of some ancient scar over wrist bone. A wound inflicted by the perimeter barb of camp 106a, I wondered?

We told him everything, all we knew, his gaze saddening at the news that his three sisters, as well as Ada, had all passed away. It lightened again as we informed him of the second chance the widowed boat builder had provided Ada, the young family she'd inherited; positively glowed at the news his brother Salvatore was still alive and in good health, and that he lived with his wife in the old family home in the harbourside.

His eyes momentarily moistened then, turned from mine to Lucio's and back again. "All those people, others besides, I swear to you, there hasn't been a single day that they haven't passed through my thoughts. That their absence hasn't shadowed my heart."

I found myself reaching my hand across the table, gave his a gentle squeeze. A gesture which surprised myself as much as he. Instinctive, without premeditation.

His lips twitched into an appreciative smile, the gaze directed into my own a steady, unwilting one. Drinking me all in.

"You know, when I look at at you Mary it's like the decades melt away. Like it's 1943 all over again. That Irene is once more before me."

I gave his hand another squeeze. "She said something similar."

"Her life. After I had to flee from her....  Was it a happy one?" There followed a shake of his head as he rephrased himself. "Happier, at least, than the one she'd lead before?"

"Yes," I replied. "Yes, I think it was."

I went onto recount how she'd first met Stanley Harvey in '42, had written him weekly letters throughout the rest of the war. The shrapnel wound he'd suffered, his heroic knee-bent proposal on VE Day. The two children they would go on to rear, the long and contented marraige they shared.

"I need to know father," I then pressed. "If there's any chance - any chance at all -  that Irene's passing might in some way have been connected to the events of that night in September 1943."  I hunched myself forward towards him across the table, lowered my voice to melt in with the momentary lull in background conversation. "Sergeant Reynolds. Was he amongst the men waiting beyond the wire?"

The suggestion seemed to surprise him. "Reynolds? No, no, he wasn't with them. I remember as I lay there stomach down in tne mud listening to the repeated thrust of the spade through the soil, the breeze carried the sound of his voice from the guard house. He and the other officer on duty singing away, as drunk as lords."