When he’s given me the key back, I tuck it into a little recess that leads into some kind of filter just under the rim of the pool—hoping this will give me more time to talk. Once Archie’s searching, I sit back down. “And how did Arnaldo die? Actually,whendid he die? I don’t even know that.”
Angelika narrows her eyes as she works it out. “It would havebeen twenty-five years ago, because I remember Willie saying we were coming up to the anniversary. He was a heavy smoker and had lung cancer.” She takes one last drag on her cigarette, blows out her smoke and stubs it out. “Willie hated smoking. He always said if Arnaldo hadn’t smoked they may have had another five or ten years together.”
I suddenly have an idea. But I put it to the back of my mind as Archie’s swimming around the pool, clueless. I shout to him, “You’re stone cold!”
He switches direction.
“Getting warmer!” I yell.
I turn back to Angelika. “So was Arnaldo ill for a long time?”
She nods, gravely. “It was a slow end and very unpleasant. And then there was the injustice of their legal situation.”
As she tops up our glasses, Angelika explains that Arnaldo wasn’t able to register Wilf as his next of kin, as they weren’t married. So when Arnaldo had an infection, lost consciousness and was rushed into hospital, Wilf wasn’t allowed at his bedside. On that occasion, Arnaldo regained consciousness and Wilf was then allowed to come in during regular visiting hours, but Arnaldo didn’t want Wilf showing him affection. “He didn’t want Willie to hold his hand and that really upset him. So when Arnaldo recovered—but it became clear he wasn’t going to beat the cancer—he stopped the treatment and moved back home.”
“Am I warm now?” shouts Archie, treading water next to the filter.
“Red hot!” I shout back.
“After he died, Willie became quite reclusive,” Angelika continues. “Then one day—about a month later—I drove down to the house, bundled him in the car and brought him up here. After that I used to tell Edgar to piss off and play golf so Willie and I could sit here drinking. I’d tell him my stories and gradually he started laughing again.”
Archie spots the key in the recess, thrusts his hand in and pulls it out. “Got it!”
I trot over to congratulate him, then look for a new hiding place. Callum and Lina are no longer sitting on the side but standingin the pool, and he’s trying to impress her by showing how long he can hold his breath underwater. I persuade him to stand with his foot covering the key.
“Right,” I say to Archie, “on your marks, get set, go!”
I sit back at the table and take a swig of my drink. “So did Wilf come up here a lot?”
“Every Thursday afternoon at first. Then when Edgar died, we spent more and more time together. During the pandemic, we saw each other pretty much every day. He even moved in for a few months. There were only the two of us so we became like a little family.”
I check on Archie and worry I’ve made his task too hard. I steer him in the right direction, then sit back down. “And did you ever go out?” I ask Angelika. “When it wasn’t the pandemic, I mean?”
“Oh, yes. We’d go to Lucca for dinner on the Piazza dell’Anfiteatro. Willie loved it there. Apparently, it’s where Arnaldo came to meet him when he arrived in Italy.”
I pull my chair closer. “Really? He said something about that in one of his letters.”
My heart drops. I didn’t intend to tell her I’d read the letters: it just slipped out. I hope she doesn’t turn on me for snooping.
Angelika arches an eyebrow. “So you found them, did you?”
“Yeah. Sorry. Should I not have read them?”
She rearranges her bracelets and bangles. “Don’t be silly, darling. If Willie left them, I’m sure it’s because he wanted you to.”
I let out a breath.
“Oh, and we’d sometimes go to opera at the Teatro del Giglio,” she continues. “That’s also in Lucca. Or the open-air Puccini festival in Torre del Lago. That also brought back his happy memories of Arnaldo.”
Seeing that Archie has no idea where the key is, I stand up and approach him. “I’ll give you a clue,” I say. “It’s hiding underneath something beginning with a C.”
Archie scrunches up his forehead. “Chair?”
“No. It’s in the water.”
“Captain America?”
“No, but that’s a good guess.”
