Chapter Five #2
Teddy sounded aggrieved. ‘All the newest cars from our car park. The police say that thieves do it with their laptops, somehow, after painting over the CCTV cameras. Whatever next?’
Leo scratched his head. ‘Did they take your Aston?’ Teddy was extremely proud of his beautiful green DB12, which Leo thought wore a supercilious expression similar to Teddy’s own.
Teddy called it ‘classic’ to explain the fact it was over twenty years old.
The first part of the registration was KN03, which Leo always chose to read as KNOB.
Teddy snorted. ‘Of course! It was immaculate. Little bastards.’
Leo allowed himself a grin. But Teddy’s next words wiped it from his face.
‘The police want to talk to you,’ he said.
Jerking upright, Leo protested. ‘What the hell for? I’m miles away.’
Teddy sounded unmoved. ‘I suppose they think you might have been in cahoots with someone local – for revenge, maybe.’
Cynically, Leo laughed. ‘And where did they get that idea? You? Or Isabella?’ He noted that Isabella hadn’t been the one to call.
Teddy assumed an air of exasperated injury. ‘Look, I don’t tell the police what questions to ask. But when they asked if any members of staff had left recently, I couldn’t avoid giving them your name.’
Gritting his teeth at the word ‘staff’, when he’d been both partner and Isabella’s boyfriend, Leo said offhandedly, ‘OK. Thanks for letting me know.’ He rang off with a faux-cheery goodbye.
Barely had he retrieved his pen and attempted to rejoin his earlier train of thought when the phone burbled again.
This time, he read the screen before answering.
Isabella. He sighed. A band of tension started above his eyes and he made a conscious effort to relax.
‘Ciao. Your dad’s already told me about the cars. ’
Isabella answered expectantly. ‘What do you think?’
He shrugged. ‘That the police will be wasting their time if they’re looking at me.’
She clicked her tongue impatiently. ‘I mean, do you have any bright ideas on how to stop this getting out? It gives guests a bad impression. We’re full for a conference and I expect all those biz people are firing their comments onto Tripadvisor and Facebook.’
He frowned. The little bird outside fluttered down to the ground and tilted its head as if interested in his reply.
‘I don’t suppose you can stop it, but, Isabella .
. .’ He paused, searching for a phrase that would get his point across.
‘It’s literally not my business. You and your dad need to deal with it. Look, I’m busy—’
‘Well.’ She interrupted him, sounding woeful. ‘I didn’t think you’d get so standoffish.’
Briefly, he found himself dumb with astonishment.
Was he in some parallel universe where he had to explain the obvious?
Or was Isabella playing games? As if physical distance from the handset would help, he laid it on the counter and put the call on speaker.
Patiently, he recapped their situation. ‘You and Teddy eased me out of the Black Falcon. You and I aren’t together.
Standoffishness is kind of implied.’ He glanced at the laptop screen, filled with details of small hotels and pensioni.
Going it alone was looking more attractive by the second.
Isabella heaved a dramatic sigh. ‘But Dad and I have argued because the night manager’s resigned after he criticised her.
’ Her voice wavered. ‘The car thefts have got him charging about like a bear with a sore head. He’s laying everything on me.
And now he’s going back to South Africa in a strop, though he’s making out it’s because he’s sick of the English weather.
’ She ratcheted up to what was close to a wail.
‘He says I was hasty in splitting with you.’
Incensed by Teddy’s mendacity and, despite everything, outraged on Isabella’s behalf that Teddy was running out on her after the heap of trouble he’d caused, Leo snapped, ‘That’s bullshit.
How can you have been “hasty” when it’s taken months to negotiate?
He wanted me out so he could boss you about and lord it over the staff.
If things aren’t going smoothly, he’ll have to suck it up.
Merda,’ he added. Isabella only knew a few words of Italian, but ‘shit’ was one of them.
For once, she didn’t fire up in Teddy’s defence. ‘Well, he’s not going to suck it up. He’s blown hot and cold on me since you left, and now he’s buggering off to South Africa. I’ll be overwhelmed. And, if he withdraws financially, underfunded.’
It was said so starkly that Leo was shocked.
Even if she’d brought it on herself, it was painfully clear that she was horrified by the turn of events.
‘Teddy can’t demand his dosh out of the hotel with no notice, can he?
’ But he could hear the doubt in his own voice.
Leo had left Isabella and Teddy on July 6th and today was only the 24th.
If they’d managed to fall out so spectacularly already, anything could happen.
He thought of Jade worrying over the fate of Pensione Three Sisters in a similarly uncertain scenario – when she’d done nothing to bring the situation on herself.
Isabella sounded close to panic. ‘I don’t know! But I can’t manage the financial burden of the Black Falcon alone.’
‘I suppose you’ll have to get legal advice.
’ Which would be the second time in a year as, of course, lawyers had been involved when Leo had been eased from the business.
‘He’s probably stressed about too much happening.
Returning to South Africa’s a huge reaction to the issues you’ve described. Sit down and talk.’
Her voice began to tremble. ‘We’re not on speaking terms. Thanks anyway.’ Voice clipped, as if she actually meant, ‘Thanks for nothing,’ she ended the call.
Her snitty disappointment affected Leo more than it should.
Only a few weeks ago Isabella and Teddy had all but dusted their hands, glad to be rid of him.
Perhaps he should be gloating if they’d turned on each other, but instead he felt uncomfortable and unsettled. Once, Isabella had been his girlfriend.
Should he call Teddy back and explain that Isabella seemed to be crushed, and they should talk rather than argue?
Fucksake. He tossed down his pen.
That was so not his role. He had no role. He was no longer a partner in the Black Falcon.
But the interchange had temporarily leeched the pleasure from exploring possible new enterprises.
He stretched and then wandered outdoors into the dappled sunlight between the palm trees, hearing a faint rumble of traffic from a road further up the slope.
Maybe he should get lunch in Bar Fiori and see if he could locate Massimo to chat things over.
The sun between the trees laid bars of light across the path that wound downwards.
Villa Panorama mainly attracted adults, but there were some teens on their phones in the gardens now the UK kids were on school holidays.
Como wasn’t the kind of place where every hotel had a pool and a kids’ club.
There were lidos with public pools at either end of the lakeside for those who liked the sunbed life, but otherwise Como attracted those who liked history, art, culture, walking, boating and nature. And spending money in nice shops.
Hands in his shorts’ pockets, he wandered into Reception.
Two front-desk staff were busy with guests.
He now possessed the code to access the back-of-house area, but when he caught Massimo’s voice floating from his partially open office door he peeped in cautiously, in case his brother was busy on a call.
What he found was Massimo and Sofi in a clinch behind the desk, Massimo’s smart uniform jacket crumpled by Sofi’s enthusiastic embrace.
His dark head was tilted down to her, and her fair head was turned up to him. The air around them smouldered.
Leo reversed smartly out, unseen and unheard.
A middle-aged woman in a black dress and sandals was fitting new cups into the sleeve beside a nearby water cooler and glanced at him curiously, calling, ‘Buongiorno,’ without pausing. He returned her greeting.
Plainly, it was inappropriate to hover until Massimo had stopped devouring his wife, and Leo knew his parents wouldn’t be in their own office, as they were still unwell, so he returned to Reception, where a knot of chattering teenagers made faces while a laughing couple tried to take their photos.
Once out of the front door, he strolled down the short drive to the street and decided to check his parents had everything they needed.
With the July temperatures up in the thirties, the midday sun instantly made him wish he’d brought a hat.
Sellers often meandered along the prom, a stack of colourful hats in each hand and a stack on their heads, but he couldn’t see one now.
The light bouncing from the lake made him wish he’d brought sunglasses too.
He closed one eye against the glare. A ferry was chugging towards its mooring with a cheery toot, its deck alive with passengers.
In summer, it seemed a ferry was constantly arriving or departing Como and tourists mobbed the ticket office each morning like a football crowd.