Through her curtain of hair, his hand stroked her back, soothing and familiar. Comforting. ‘Must be hard, Jade. Must have been a shock.’
She shook her head, letting tears ooze from her eyes. Probably they’d carry the day’s mascara down her cheeks and onto his T-shirt, but it was difficult to care. ‘I don’t know what to do. Don’t I have enough to cope with?’
‘You do.’ His hands continued their mesmeric stroking.
She let the tears come – for the loss of Mairead, the gaining of sisters, the shellshock of seeing her mother for the first time – unless her newborn eyes had looked up and registered the woman dumping her on Gran.
Finally, she sniffed and collected herself. ‘Sorry about your T-shirt.’
His shoulder moved beneath her cheek as he shrugged off the apology. ‘Shall I get you a drink? Water? Tea? Whisky?’
She shook her head, still sniffing, disentangled herself to find a tissue, wiped her eyes and blew her nose. ‘No. I need an early night. But thanks for letting me blub all over you.’ She managed a wobbly laugh. ‘I might miss you a bit when you’ve gone.’ She laughed again, to show him that he shouldn’t read anything into those few stupid words.
He gazed at her for a long moment, eyes unreadable. Then he patted her arm and let himself back out of the apartment door. ‘Buonanotte.’
‘Buonanotte.’ With a last watery smile, she locked up behind him. Then she closed her eyes and rested her forehead against the white-painted door. She would miss Leo, because, unlike Vittoria or Sheenagh, he hadn’t tried to influence her. He’d asked how she felt and tried to understand. She really would miss him when he’d gone.
But she’d better get used to it, because he was going. Again.
Chapter Fourteen
Leo lounged on the terrace of Villetta Nascosta, doodling on his notepad and occasionally staring at photos of Hotel Casa Leonardo and hearing again Jade saying that she’d miss him.
He still hadn’t made an offer on Hotel Casa Leonardo. Nor completed a mortgage application. Nor slept well.
He couldn’t unstick his heart from Como.If he stayed, was there anything to be resurrected between him and Jade?If there wasn’t, he would have sacrificed a perfect business opportunity... and would still want to get away.
He opened his banking app to check his UK savings account balance, as the monthly interest should have been applied. And, of course, the app picked now to demand his password rather than accepting facial recognition. Impatiently, he tapped it in, sighing when he received atry againmessage. Then, when he’d tried twice more with the same result, a new message told him that he’d been locked out and he should contact his bank.
‘Vaffanculo,’ he muttered, as he telephoned the number, and only became further irritated at the bank’s agent, a man, wanting to drag him through security procedures. ‘Can’t I just choose another password?’ Leo asked. ‘Send me a link or something.’
The operative refused to be ruffled, guiding him courteously through the irritating rigmarole, including his currentcodice di avviamento postale, the equivalent of the UK’s postcode, his full name, date of birth and the answer to his security question.
Finally, the unseen man moved things forward. ‘Could you give me some idea of the balance you’d expect to see on your account, Mr Sartori?’
‘It was just short of half a million pounds last time I checked, but interest should have been applied.’ Leo closed his eyes and wondered how Jade was this morning. Always having known her family history, he’d some idea of what a disorientating shock it would have been for her mother to stroll into Pensione Three Sisters.
‘Sorry to keep you,’ the bank employee said in his ear. ‘I need to consult a colleague.’
‘Why?’ Leo asked. But canned music was already assaulting his senses. Growing more annoyed by the moment, he put the call on speaker and balanced the phone on his pad while he doodled a pattern in the margin. A geometric pattern to illustrate how spikey he felt.
Then the canned music ceased and a woman’s voice took over the conversation. ‘Mr Sartori? Your call’s been passed to me and I’m going to see how I can help you.’ She hesitated. ‘The concern is that your account stands at zero. I believe you told my colleague there would be a much higher balance, but those funds were removed in increments over three days, fifteenth to seventeenth of August.’
Leo’s voice stuck in his throat. His gaze fastened on the phone screen as if he could change the words emanating from it by sheer force of will.Zero?ZERO? He felt sick. ‘That can’t be,’ he said, through numb lips.
But, apparently, it could.
And his current account had also been cleared.
The woman remained composed. ‘I can see that your accounts were accessed with your password, in line with properly authenticated transactions. However,’ she said, ‘your password was changed on the same day as the first transaction occurred.’
Numbly, he whispered, ‘I haven’t changed the password.’
‘Did you receive email confirmation of the change?’ she asked.
‘I don’t think so. Hang on, I’ll check.’ Shaking, he accessed his inbox and then his deleted messages and spam. ‘No.’
‘I understand.’ She paused. ‘I need to ask you for information that might help us establish what’s happened.’
