In The Italian's Bed. Anne Mather

      Ignoring the suspicion that Raphael di Castelli’s visit the previous day was influencing her, she chose a cream chemise dress that was spotted with sprigs of lavender. It was long, as her skirt had been, but she chose canvas loafers instead of the boots she’d worn the day before.

      Her hair had dried in the sunshine and she surveyed its wisps and curls with a resigned eye. Some women might appreciate its youthful ingenuousness, but she didn’t. She should have left it long, she thought gloomily. At least then she could have swept it up on top of her head.

      Shrugging off these thoughts, she rinsed her coffee mug, left it on the drainer, and exited the apartment. Three flights of stone stairs led down to the ground floor and she emerged into the warm air with a growing feeling of well-being. She wasn’t going to let Ashley—or Castelli—spoil her holiday, she decided. She had a good mind to shut the gallery early and spend the latter half of the afternoon on the beach.

      Ashley’s little Renault was parked a few metres down from the apartment building and it took some patience to extricate it from between a badly parked Fiat and a bulky van. It didn’t help that she had to keep control of the vehicle by using the handbrake, the steep slope of the road making any kind of manoeuvre an act of faith.

      She managed to regain her composure driving down to the gallery. Tumbling blossoms on sun-baked walls, red-and ochre-tiled roofs dropping away towards the waterfront, buildings that seemed to be crammed so closely together, there didn’t seem to be room for anything between. But there were gardens lush with greenery, fruit trees espaliered against crumbling brickwork. And the sensual fragrance of lilies and roses and jasmine, mingling with the aromas from the bakery on the corner.

      The phone was ringing when she let herself into the gallery. Ashley, she thought eagerly, hurriedly turning off the alarm as she went to answer it. ‘Hello?’

      ‘Teresa?’ Her spirits dropped. She should have known. It was Ashley’s mother again. ‘Teresa, where have you been? I’ve been trying the apartment but you weren’t there.’

      ‘I expect I was on my way down here,’ said Tess, adopting a pleasant tone even though she felt like screaming. Then, with sudden optimism, ‘Have you heard from Ashley?’

      ‘No.’ The clipped word conveyed it all, both distress and impatience. ‘Have you?’

      ‘If I had I’d have let you know,’ said Tess flatly, and heard Andrea inhale a sharp breath.

      ‘As would I, Teresa,’ she said. ‘And there is no need for you to take that tone with me. If you don’t know where your sister is, I consider that’s your mistake, not mine.’

      Tess bit back the indignant retort that sprang to her lips. It was no use falling out with Ashley’s mother. She was upset, and who could blame her? Her daughter had gone missing and she was over a thousand miles away.

      ‘I suppose I assumed she’d keep in touch,’ she said at last, deciding she didn’t deserve to shoulder all the blame. ‘And I did speak to her a few days ago.’

      Andrea snorted. ‘You didn’t tell me that yesterday.’

      Tess sighed. ‘I forgot.’

      ‘Or you kept it from me, just to worry me,’ Ashley’s mother said accusingly. ‘Didn’t you ask her where she was?’

      No. Why should she? But Tess kept that question to herself.

      ‘I never thought of it,’ she said, which was true enough. ‘Anyway, she’ll be in touch again, I know, when she finds the time.’

      ‘Well, I think it’s a very unsatisfactory state of affairs,’ declared Andrea tersely. ‘And if it wasn’t for this customer of Ashley’s wanting to speak to her, I’d have heard nothing about it.’

      Nor would she, thought Tess ruefully. But that was another story.

      There was an awkward silence then, and before Tess could think of anything to fill it Ashley’s mother spoke again. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I’m getting the distinct impression that you know more about this than you’re letting on. And if Ashley was forced to ask you to stand in for her, she must have been desperate.’

      Gee, thanks!

      Tess refused to respond to that and Andrea continued doggedly, ‘Well, all I can do is leave it with you for the present. But if you haven’t heard from her by the end of the week, I intend to come out to Italy and see what’s going on for myself.’

      Tess stifled an inward groan. ‘That’s your decision, of course.’

      ‘Yes, it is.’ Andrea had obviously expected an argument and Tess’s answer had left her with little more to say. ‘All right, then. So, the minute you hear from Ashley, you’ll ring me? You promise?’

      ‘Of course.’

      Somehow Tess got off the phone without telling the other woman exactly what she really thought of Ashley’s behaviour. And then, after hanging up, she spent several minutes staring gloomily into space. She no longer felt like closing the gallery early and spending the rest of the day on the beach. This so-called holiday had suddenly become a trial of innocence and she was the accused.

      It wasn’t fair, she thought bitterly. It wasn’t her fault Ashley had disappeared; it wasn’t her fault that she had taken Castelli’s son with her. So why was she beginning to feel that it was?