Graveyard of the Hesperides

XXIV

She had turned around and was making her way downstairs again. Although our discussion about Rufia ought to have been sad, she seemed to take it matter-of-factly. I cast a rapid glance back at the room before I started down but there was nothing there to detain me longer.

“Who was it?” I demanded, once we reached the ground again. “This other one?”

“That Menendra. I told you, I didn’t take to her.”

“She came here, and recently?”

“She came yesterday.”

“Yesterday? What did she want?”

“To see the room, like you. Only I just showed her from the doorway and wouldn’t let her go inside. I never liked her attitude.”

“You knew her already? I have been told she was something to do with Rufia, I don’t know what that was-friends, or they worked together?”

“They worked. That was all. I met her once with Rufia. That was enough for me, thank Juno.”

The landlady had a tight mouth, disapproving of the other woman. Somehow I knew she regarded me more favorably. With luck, she would talk to me.

“I have not met Menendra yet, though I shall have to.” I spoke openly, on equal terms. “I am not sure what to expect. Can you tell me what she’s like?”

“Pushy. You won’t like her. I can tell you’re not that kind.” That would be news to my friends and family, who all thought me an obstreperous fiend.

“Is she foreign like some of the others?”

“Something. Speaks with a funny accent. Don’t they all?”

“Barmaids, you mean?”

She let out a hard laugh, loaded with meaning. “And the rest!”

“She is a prostitute?”

Now my informant retracted. “Not for me to say!” Her voice told me, however, just how she regarded Menendra; whether she thought the same of Rufia was unclear, though I thought not.

“So why did this Menendra come now? Why was she interested in Rufia’s room?”

The worn landlady drew herself up, becoming a pillar of rectitude. “That I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to know her reasons. But what I can say is this, young lady. That Menendra came here in the morning. I gave her the runaround and saw her on her way, quick as I could. The same night, and yes I mean last night, someone else came and they tried to break in on us!”

I was shocked. This was a harmless couple with nothing to steal. “That’s terrible. What did you do?”

“Our son was here,” she replied, relishing this. “Bad luck for them! He calls in to see us most days. He had his three big dogs with him-they are sloppy things but they bark loud. So whoever it was, they stopped trying to get in the door and they scrammed.”

“Did any of you see them properly?”

“No, they hopped it too quick. Our lad ran down the alley after them, but it was no good. He’ll be back this evening,” she assured me, seeing I felt great concern for the besieged couple, especially the frail old man. “He’s going to bring materials to make the door safer. One of the dogs will stay here with us; the other two cry if they’re not in their own bed.”

Rome was full of mosaics saying beware of the dog, with portraits of fierce curs in big spiked collars. Few houses actually had a guard dog, or if they owned one, he was gentler than his portrait. Of course we had the usual men who wanted to look tough, leading about horrible curs they could not properly handle-and also families with much-loved pets who wanted to greet strangers with ferocious licking.

“That’s good. All good. I’m very glad you have someone to look out for you.” I let the woman see me thinking hard. “What’s your name?”

“Annina.”

“Look, Annina, if the people who tried to break in had something to do with Menendra’s visit, they must want to find something.”

“That was what we thought.” These people were savvy. She and her husband and son had debated this. Their conclusions were the same as mine. The burglars and Menendra were connected, and they all wanted something. Something they thought Rufia had had, something they wanted to get to before me.

“Did any of you go up and search?”

“We know there’s nothing.”

“May I take another look?”

She nodded at once, almost as if she had been hoping I would ask. She let me go back by myself. This time I searched hard, scoured the room like a professional. I went through everywhere, hunting for hidey-holes. Not simply under the mattress and behind the cupboard, but seeking out loose boards, removable bricks, hollows in plaster above architraves. I found the secret places that Rufia may have used when she lived there. But they were all empty.