English Rose for the Sicilian Doc

Matteo did as she asked, wondering what this was all about. Then she opened the box. ‘We reckon that this probably dates from around that time.’

In a plastic bag lay a bullet. Matteo stared at it open-mouthed. ‘You’re kidding...’

She grinned. ‘No, we found it in one of the test pits. We often find things which are more modern when we dig down to get to the older strata. You’d be surprised how many old plastic bags get turned up.’

Matteo picked up the bullet, looking at it carefully, the sudden thrill of discovery throbbing through his veins. ‘It could be from a hunting rifle...’

‘Could be. We’ve sent photos off to a forensic ballistics expert, and we should know a bit more soon. I’d have thought it would be more likely to be buckshot if it was for hunting, though. There were no human or animal remains there, so maybe target practice?’

‘You’re hoping target practice.’ The idea of anything else made Matteo shiver.

‘Yes, hoping.’ She smiled, leaning towards him, obviously catching his mood. ‘Careful. We’ll have you hooked if you don’t watch out.’

‘You might have warned me sooner. I’m already hooked.’ In more ways than one, when he thought about it.

‘Ah. Well, since the damage is already done, it can’t do any harm to show you a bit more.’ Rose gave him a bright smile, her obvious enthusiasm for her work bubbling deliciously. Putting the bullet away and picking up the sheets of paper, she led him away from the finds to a large computer screen in the corner of the room.

‘I thought this might be of interest to you. Where your skills and mine meet.’

The thought of her off-duty skills meeting his, and testing them to their limit, sent a cool shiver down his spine. Matteo reminded himself that he needed to get a grip. That clearly wasn’t what she was talking about.

She opened directories, finding the file she wanted, and an image came up on the screen. ‘This is the geophysical survey.’

Matteo sat down next to her, leaning forward to study it carefully. ‘This is ground-penetrating radar?’

‘Yes, that’s right. We’re using a combination of GPR and electromagnetic survey techniques.’ She leaned back in her seat. ‘This is a pretty easy one. What do you reckon?’

‘I’d say...well, that line looks like an external wall of some sort, and those are internal walls?’

‘Yes, that’s right. Most people don’t see it straight away.’

‘And this is...what, two doorways?’ Matteo indicated the breaks in the pattern.

‘Maybe. I’m inclined to think a doorway and a window. We’ll see when we excavate.’ She pulled up the directory and opened another file. ‘We interpret the survey data and map out the site using computer aided design software. These green lines here...’ Her hand flew to her mouth.

Matteo grinned at her. ‘It’s okay. You can mention green in my presence. I can take it.’

She laughed, changed the settings on the image, and it reformed on the screen, different hatching styles replacing the difficult-to-read colour coding.

‘That’s better. So these single lines are...?’

‘It’s what we’ve gleaned so far from the surveys. The cross-hatching is what we’ve extrapolated from that.’

‘Guessed, you mean?’ he teased.

She gave him a look of mock horror. ‘It’s in keeping with what we know about this type of building. Call it an educated guess.’

‘Right. And this is the atrium?’ When he leaned in, he caught her scent. She smelled gorgeous, like the scent of silk against skin.

‘Yes, that’s right. It has a mosaic floor and usually an indoor pool right at the centre, below the open part of the roof.’

‘Is that another guess?’

‘No! We’ve dug a few test pits there, and there is evidence of a mosaic floor. We’re hoping that it’s in good condition and the bits we’ve seen aren’t just fragments. Would you like to come and see?’

When they walked out into the evening sunshine, Rose tipped her head up slightly, as if welcoming the cool caress of the breeze on her face. ‘It’s beautiful up here. I’m very lucky...’

‘You like Sicily?’ Suddenly that mattered more than it should.

‘I haven’t actually seen a great deal of it yet. I’ve been pretty involved up here, and the rest of my time is William’s. But what I have seen is wonderful.’

Such a bright, sparkling spirit, contained in such strictly drawn boundaries. Matteo felt himself wanting to break those boundaries down, and wondered if Rose ever felt constrained by them.

‘You do this kind of thing back in England?’

‘These days, I usually teach during term time and dig during the summer holidays. William’s grown up messing around in the mud.’ She grinned. ‘But this was such an opportunity I couldn’t say no to it, and I’ve taken a six-month sabbatical.’

‘But you don’t do forensics any more?’

‘No, never.’ She quirked her mouth down a little. ‘I got involved with that when I was at university—one of the professors did work for the police. Finding remains, modelling faces, that kind of thing. It seemed like a good thing to do at the time and I went on to work on a number of cases with him and then some alone’

‘It’s important work.’ It seemed as if the spark, which invigorated her and made everything she touched seem special, had suddenly gone.

‘I felt that getting justice for people mattered. I still do, but it was very hard emotionally. I couldn’t stop myself getting over-involved.’

‘I can understand...’ Matteo bit the words back. He knew all about being involved with his work, and could understand a wish for justice. But he wasn’t sure he understood these particular pressures, or how Rose must have felt.

* * *

Did he? Did he really understand? When she looked into his face, she saw only humanity, the gentle eyes of a healer. To understand some of the things she’d seen, someone would need to have a streak of evil in their heart.

‘No, you don’t understand. And, trust me, that’s a good thing, there are some things that decent people shouldn’t be able to make sense of.’

‘Can you explain it to me, then?’

‘No. I really don’t think I can.’ Suddenly the air seemed cold, and Rose shivered, wanting to cover up her bare arms.

Why should Matteo be any different from her ex-husband? It was better not to say anything, so that she didn’t have to hear him dismiss her feelings.

Rose shot him a smile and he took the hint. ‘What was it you were going to show me?’

She almost wished he hadn’t given up so easily. As she showed him the newly excavated test pits and the areas of mosaic that they’d uncovered, he seemed to have left everything else behind, concentrating only on what was before his eyes.

But Rose couldn’t forget. Alec had been a lot like Matteo, easygoing and charming, and that was what had drawn her to him. He hadn’t wanted to know about the hard parts of life, or even its necessary practicalities, and Rose had dealt with them willingly, not wanting to spoil his almost shining aloofness from such things.

They’d set up home together, working on scraping the walls and rebuilding the ramshackle kitchen and bathroom in the house in Tufnell Park. And they’d been happy.

It had been Rose who couldn’t cope. When her work had become stressful, Alec hadn’t wanted her to spoil their evenings by talking about it. She’d stayed quiet, turning in on herself, and in the end they’d hardly communicated at all. Her pregnancy, so unexpected but so much wanted, had left her even more tired and that had been the last straw for Alec. He’d wanted the carefree life they’d had, and when Rose had destroyed it all he’d left without looking back.