‘He’ll be home soon,’ Minnie said soothingly. ‘He’s just trying his wings.’
She kissed her mother-in-law and wandered back to her own little apartment. As always, it felt very quiet when she let herself in. It had been that way since the day her young husband had died in her arms.
She was suddenly very tired. Netta’s conversation had steered her close to things she normally tried not to think of.
From his place on the shelf Gianni seemed to follow her around the apartment with his eyes. She smiled at him, trying to find reassurance in his presence as she had so often before. But this time she couldn’t sense him smiling back.
The kitchen table was scattered with papers. Reluctantly she sat down to finish her work, but her mind couldn’t concentrate. It was a relief when her cellphone rang.
‘Charlie! Mamma’s been worrying about you. Where have you got to? You’re where?’
CHAPTER TWO
THE young policeman looked up with admiration as Signora Minerva strode into the station.
‘Buona notte,’ he said. ‘It’s always a pleasure to see you here, signora.’
‘Be careful, Rico,’ she warned him. ‘That remark could be construed as harassment. You’re reminding me that my relatives are always in some sort of trouble.’
‘No, I was saying how pretty you always look,’ he replied, hurt.
Minnie laughed. She liked Rico, a naïve country boy, overwhelmed by his assignment to Rome, and wide-eyed about everything, including herself.
‘Always?’ she teased.
‘Every time your relatives are in trouble,’ he said irrepressibly. ‘How an important lawyer like yourself comes to be related to so many criminals-’
‘That’s enough!’ she told him sternly. ‘I grant you, they can be a little wayward, but there’s never anything violent.’
‘Signor Charlie has been in something violent tonight. His shirt is torn, he’s bleeding. Huge big fight. The fellow with him is even worse. He’s a big, bad man with a nasty face.’ Rico took a deep breath as he came to the real crime. ‘And he doesn’t have any papers.’