Susan-Jane had noticed her long absence from the party, had been concerned enough to ask if Alex knew where she was, and people had started looking for her, calling her name in the garden, along the beach. The sound of their voices had frightened her attacker away, she realised later.
Uncle Alex had found her staggering up towards the villa, bleeding and weeping. She remembered his stunned white face, his anger, as he’d got out of her what had happened, wrapped her in a towel, and taken her into the villa, where the police and doctor were called.
‘Who did this to you?’ Uncle Alex had asked.
‘The Englishman...’ she had wept, not even remembering his name in her confused condition. ‘It was him...the Englishman...’
‘Englishman?’ Uncle Alex had asked. ‘Do you mean Ogilvie?’
‘Yes,’ she had said, and again, when the police asked, ‘Do you mean Mr Patrick Ogilvie?’ she had repeated it.
‘Yes, it was him.’
She had been so sure.
Afterwards, when they had told her it had been someone else, it had not been Patrick Ogilvie, she had felt a bewildering mix of reaction—relief, that he hadn’t hurt her like that, after all; shock, because it had been some total stranger and her view of what had happened had changed again; and eventually distress because of what she began to realise she had put Patrick through.
‘He must hate me,’ she had said to Uncle Alex.
‘It was an honest mistake; you can’t be blamed,’ her uncle had soothed, but she had not been comforted.
She knew Patrick must hate her, especially when she heard that he had left Bordighera without even going back to the villa to collect his things, and, later, that he had walked out of his contract to illustrate Rae Dunhill’s books because he was so angry with Rae for having been ready to believe he had
attacked Antonia.
She had seen Rae briefly before she, too, left Bordighera. ‘I feel very badly about having accused your friend,’ Antonia had whispered, and Rae had given an impatient little shrug.
‘Oh, nobody blames you,’ she had said flatly. ‘Don’t worry about it. From what the police have said, it sounds as if the real guy did look vaguely like Patrick.’
Antonia had suppressed an instinctive shudder of reaction at that, hating the thought; but Rae Dunhill hadn’t seemed to notice the change in her expression.
She had been too busy talking. ‘It’s just a pity it happened now, at this particular moment in his life. Patrick was already off balance after his engagement was suddenly broken off. That hit him hard; I’m afraid this has been the last straw. I went over to see him the other day, and hardly recognised him. He was always such an easygoing, reasonable guy. You could always talk to Patrick—he was never difficult; I could always get him to do what I wanted—but out of the blue he told me he wouldn’t work with me again, he was backing out of his contract. At first I didn’t believe he meant it, but suddenly he’s like granite. I actually felt quite nervous of him, he’s so different.’
Antonia had winced, filled with guilt, knowing that all this was her fault. ‘What is he going to do instead, then?’ she had asked miserably. ‘How will he earn a living?’
‘Oh, I gather he has quite a bit in the bank—he had been saving for a long time, to buy a house after he and Laura were married. He can live on that for some time, and I’m sure he’ll get lots of work elsewhere. He’s always been very successful. That’s what’s so maddening. I don’t want to lose him; he’s the best illustrator I’ve ever worked with.’ Rae had sighed heavily, impatiently. ‘But I got nowhere when I tried to talk him round, he was adamant, and—do you know?—I was actually afraid to go on arguing with him. I got the feeling I would be sorry if I did.’ Rae had made a wry face at her. ‘And I’m not normally the nervous type with men. I wouldn’t have believed Patrick could change that way.’
Antonia had been wondering if she should write to him to tell him she was sorry, or maybe even try to see him, but after listening to Rae she had been scared of facing him again, and during the last two years she had always felt a leap of alarm and agitation whenever she thought of him.
Now she had met him, talked to him, and at one and the same time it had been both worse, and easier, than she had anticipated. He had been very angry at first; there had been explosive rage in his face, in the way he moved. After she had fainted, though, he seemed to have calmed down. He talked quietly, conversationally, as if they were mere acquaintances—until he saw her engagement ring, and then he changed again. Why had he been so angry when he’d found out she was engaged?
She had thought herself round in a circle, was back where she had started, facing the fact that Patrick Ogilvie still haunted her and she still didn’t understand him.
She warily approached the house on the Dorsoduro that evening, making sure Patrick wasn’t around before she unlocked the gate in the wall and walked through the garden to the back of the house.
She ate some salad for her evening meal, with freshly bought Italian bread, followed by a peach which she peeled and ate listening to local radio, the current top twenty hits, humming along with those she knew quite well.
She opened a can of cat food after that and went out to call the half-wild cats which lived in the garden shed, but were not allowed indoors. They warily approached, tails up, hissed at each other as they began to wolf down their food.
While she was watching them, she heard a thud in the garden, then a rustling, followed by another, unmistakable sound.
Footsteps grating on the gravel.
The hair rose on the back of Antonia’s neck. She turned hurriedly, her heart racing so fast that she felt sick.
She knew before she saw him that it was Patrick. He loped towards her, a darker shadow in the gathering dusk, like a wolf coming down on the fold, a tall man wearing black jeans and a thin black summer shirt, open at the throat.
She was so taken by surprise that she didn’t even think of running back indoors before he reached her.