Page 3 of Far from Home
Diana
Amy set down the letter and picked up the enclosed envelope, noting that it bore an Italian stamp and it had been addressed to her, care of her mother’s old address. Considering that she hadn’t lived there for almost thirteen years, she was intrigued. She opened it and pulled out a formal-looking letter from anotaio, a notary, in a place whose name she didn’t recognise. Correspondence from Italy in itself wasn’t too unexpected, as Amy’s mum had originally been from there. Since her death, Amy had been receiving sporadic letters, cards and messages of condolence from old friends of the family in and around her mum’s birthplace near Turin. Her mum had always spoken Italian to her as she grew up, even though Amy had been born and brought up here in the UK, and so she had no trouble reading it. As she digested the contents of the letter, she did a doubletake and glanced up in amazement.
‘Gav, you’re not going to believe this. It’s from a notary, a lawyer in Italy…’
‘What does it say? Is it bad news?’ Amy didn’t react. She just went on staring blankly at the letter in her hands. He pulled out the chair and sat down, leaning towards her. ‘What is it, Amy? What’s the matter?’
It was a while before she managed to tear herself away from the letter, struggling to take in what she had just read.
‘It appears that I’ve just been left a house.’ She could hear the disbelief in her own voice. ‘In a little town in Tuscany.’
‘A house? Who by?’ He looked at her with increased interest.
Amy shook her head blankly, her mind still trying to digest this totally unexpected news. ‘That’s the thing. It makes no sense. The man’s name is… was… Martin Thomas Slater.’
‘Doesn’t sound very Italian. Are you sure you don’t know who he is? One of your mum’s friends maybe.’ He was looking happier now and he grinned at her. ‘Not some secret lover you’ve never told me about?’
She was still shaking her head in bemusement. ‘Nope, I’ve never heard of him.’ For a moment an image appeared in her head of her Italian grandparents’ old house in the foothills of the Alps and the happy holidays she and her mum had spent together over there, and another little wave of melancholy swept over her. ‘And, of course, there’s no way Mum will ever be able to tell me now.’
‘And this guy’s left you a house? Are you sure?’
Amy looked up and nodded. ‘Yes, that’s what it says, but why…?’ Her voice tailed off helplessly.
‘Let’s see where it is. What’s the name of the town?’
‘Sant’Antonio.’
He pulled out his phone and tapped in the name but immediately raised his head again. ‘We might have a problem. Do you know how many places in Italy are called Sant’Antonio? As saints go, he must have been a popular chap.’
‘This place is in the province of Pisa, if that helps.’
‘Hang on.’ A few seconds later it popped up and he read the results out loud. ‘Sant’Antonio is in Tuscany, thirty-eight kilometres southeast of Pisa. Main industry: agriculture, principally olive oil and wine production. According to this, there are 2497 inhabitants. Not the biggest of towns, but it does have the remains of a medieval castle. There’s a photo. It looks quite pretty actually.’ He held his phone out so she could see. ‘And some random man has left you a house there? What does this mean? Are you going to have to take a trip to Tuscany to see for yourself?’
‘I suppose I should.’ Amy was still trying to get her head around what had just happened. ‘It’s just so weird… Mum was from the very north, up in the foothills of the Alps. As far as I know she had no connections with Tuscany… or with anybody called Martin Thomas Slater.’
‘Does the letter say anything about the man, or the house for that matter? Seeing as the guy’s got an English name, could he be some distant relative or friend of your dad’s? He was British after all, wasn’t he?’
Amy nodded. ‘Yes, but I’ve no idea if he had friends in Italy. He and Mum met when she was already living and working in the UK and she said the first time he ever went to Italy was to meet her parents just before they got married…’ Her voice tailed off. ‘And then he was killed only a year later.’
‘Is there anybody you could ask?’
‘He only had a handful of relatives in the UK and, to be honest, Mum had pretty well lost touch with any of them.’
‘What about your grandparents? Your British ones, I mean?’
‘Dead, just like mynonnaandnonnoin Turin.’ She shrugged helplessly. ‘I can’t think of anybody I can ask now that Mum’s dead too.’ She glanced back down at the letter in her hand. ‘Maybe this Alfredo Lucchese, the notary, will be able to fill me in. It’s just plain weird.’
Chapter 2
Amy was discharged from hospital on Saturday morning with a clean bill of health as far as her heart was concerned but with strict instructions from the specialist to ‘Take life a bit easier’. She did her best to heed this advice and rested on Sunday and stayed at home on Monday, but by Tuesday morning she couldn’t resist returning to Canary Wharf where she was greeted by a surprise. Just minutes after she got there, Scott called her into his office and laid it on the line.
‘I’ve been talking to Karl, and we both feel you need to take some time off. You’ve been burning the candle at both ends for years now and you need to start thinking about your health.’ He held up a hand to stave off her protests. ‘This is non-negotiable, Amy. You do a wonderful job but nobody’s indispensable, and we’ll get by without you while you take a good long holiday. I want you to just relax and recharge your batteries. You’re due a whole heap of time off anyway. Christian will be only too happy to step into your shoes for a month or so.’
Amy had to struggle hard to avoid grinding her teeth. Christian, with his Oxford degree and his plummy accent, had been cosying up to Scott for years now and openly eyeing Amy’s job. Amy knew the man would be overjoyed to step into the breach and she felt sure there would be trouble when she returned from her compulsory break and tried to evict him from her office. Still, she heard the resolve in her boss’s voice and couldn’t miss the fact that it sounded very much like what the tall specialist had told her, so she nodded meekly and agreed.
She left Scott’s office and went back to her own and, sure enough, barely a minute later she spotted slimy Christian leering at her through the glass, obviously relishing the prospect of taking over her desk. She shot him a disarming smile while growling to herself and set about collecting her things. As she did so, she realised that this did at least resolve one problem. She could now head off to see the Italian lawyer and, hopefully, find out what this bequest was all about.
She called Gavin to see whether he might be able to take a few days off and accompany her. He was a bit reticent at first but he finally agreed to see if he could get Friday off. That way he could make it a long weekend and only miss one day of work, if you could call it that. He worked for an international property company and his job seemed mainly to consist of trips to exotic locations – most of which had been without her because of the pressure of her own job – and games of golf and squash with clients, plus slap-up dinners at the top of the Shard. Nice work if you can get it.
