Italian Tower

The body of the young girl was lying motionless on the patio. Eddy Marsh was the first to see her, as his eyes swept dreamily over the view of the villa. It was early in the morning, and from his window in “torre”, the majestic, old stone tower in the Italian village, Eddy unfortunately had a good view of the villa and its patio.
‘Good grief…no,’ he spluttered in disbelief. ‘Not – not her?’
He got dressed and ran downstairs, out of the tower and over to the villa. ‘Poor thing,’ he said, as he leant over the body. He lightly touched her hair, warm from the sunlight. Eddy didn’t know what to do. He felt ashamed at the thought of leaving her for someone else to deal with, but at the same time he couldn’t get too involved. He certainly had wanted to know this girl, but that sort of luck hadn’t come his way. Now it was too late.
A noise from the villa stirred him from his thoughts. He then realised that he shouldn’t have stolen his way onto the patio as he did, even under the present circumstances. He walked away, fearing that his presence wouldn’t be the best thing in the world for the family.
The tower greeted him coldly. It was his third day there, on what he had pre-labelled to be a peaceful Italian holiday. The remote location had appealed to Eddy.
Half an hour passed, with the details of everything going around in his mind. Reluctantly he returned to the heavy front doors of the tower, swung them open and absorbed the sharp light of the day. His sense of reality was lost, at times, and he felt that the encountering of the body had been nothing more than a dream. But the chill in the air; the touch of her violent black hair…they gauged the reality with force.
Once he had joined the narrow streets of the village, Eddy was calm and collected. He knew that, soon enough, he would hear about it again, and he may even have to admit to finding the body first.
The villa, being so close, offered him the first sight on that walk. He just had to look once more; the morbid curiosity within him was too great.
There was no body on the patio. It was gone.
Eddy stared. He felt sure he hadn’t heard anyone move her.
His confusion and curiosity turned to guilt, when he realised that by now, others must know, including her family. He spent five minutes deliberating whether he should visit the villa again; eventually he considered it the fairest thing to do, if only to ease his conscience.
He was greeted at the front door by a woman in her sixties. She was joined quickly by a man of a similar age. They were British, which came as no surprise to Eddy. The thing about the village was that there were lots of British people, who would all cloister together in their own small community.
‘You’ve found her, then,’ he breathed. ‘I’m very sorry for you, of course. I was the one who first noticed her there, I think. Have you told anyone else, or would you like me to be discreet?’
He had blurted a lot of sentences out; feeling awkward in the presence of what he thought must be the parents of the 20-something year old. The occupants of the open door looked at him in confusion. ‘We don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Eddy paused for a moment. This didn’t seem satisfactory somehow.
‘The girl,’ he said, ‘the girl.’ He felt awfully sorry for trying to force them to realise what he was talking about, it wasn’t very sensitive.
‘What girl? We haven’t found anyone.’
Eddy didn’t press them. He held up his hands and apologised. The shock of their daughter’s death had obviously toyed with their minds; they weren’t thinking straight. He understood that, shook their hands, and left them alone.
As he walked down the street, events of the previous night ran through his head. He took out his meticulously filled-in diary and began to read some passages, hoping that they would provide insight into the death.
“A rather odd night tonight. Gathering in the café. Wondering what everyone will be like.”
‘Oh, yes,’ remembered Eddy. He hadn’t really known anyone until they had all found themselves in the small café providing the only ‘night out’ in the village. He had guessed they often did that, though last night he was involved, too. He again looked at the diary and read another part.
“The girl is the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. I don’t know her name, but I must. She seems to be sitting alone, somehow; certainly she’s with others but she is alone in her thoughts, and her feelings. She won’t look at anyone else, I’ve noticed. Not directly, anyway. She doesn’t want to give them the satisfaction of her full attention. It’s as though she dislikes them all…”
Eddy looked up from the page. This was pretty much all he had written about her, and he thought about how he hadn’t learnt her name, or even approached her. It all seems easy on the page, but in real life – well…
He strolled down to the square, in the heart of the village. There were some people dotted about, most of whom he recognised from the evening before. Julie Forrester was there. She greeted him warmly, with not the slightest fracture in her voice, or manner. He said ‘Hello,’ but he must have looked very far away in thought, for she gave him a little smile and walked away. Eddy was thinking of her place in the diary:
“Julie and her husband are talking about their travels. (Well, mainly Julie.) She is being loud, and I notice how others around her are flinching in the most awful manner. They all seem to hate her forceful tone; the way she dominates conversation.”
Eddy recalled how apparent this was last night. At the end of it, he heard whispers amongst some people. Whispers regarding Julie.
‘Annoying woman. Wouldn’t be surprised if she makes half of it up.’ That sort of thing. Eddy remembered the girl being heavily involved in these. He wondered for a moment whether anyone could kill over malicious comments here and there. Without thinking any longer, he ran to catch up with Julie.
‘Pity about the girl, isn’t it?’ he had been direct in his approach.
‘What’s the matter with her?’
‘Well…’ Eddy told her all about it.
‘Dead, you say? No, that’s not right.’
‘Oh?’
‘I’ve been up to their villa, now – just to enquire after something. There was no mention of the girl, although I didn’t see her when I was there.’
‘But I saw her, on the patio – dead!’ Eddy protested.
Julie looked at him with the air of one judging another for such a statement. ‘You must be mistaken,’ she said, and walked away.
Eddy was annoyed. So far, the people he asked were acting as though nothing had happened. He made his way right back up to his room in the tower, taking another glance out of the window to the villa. There were the parents, lounging on sunbeds.
Eddy felt sick. They were right over the place she had been, as well! How could they behave in such a way; to have no regard for the loss of their daughter?
At that point, he answered his own questions. He had uncovered a terrible truth, and he hadn’t the faintest idea of what to do. Frantically he leafed through his diary to see whether he had written anything – anything at all – about these parents. He relied so much on his observations. There was nothing. They weren’t at the café last night, but their daughter was. They must have waited for her and…Oh! He wished he knew more about these murderers.
‘I’ve been so stupid,’ he thought. ‘I should never have mentioned anything to them. They know that I know about them. That’s awful. And now, so does Julie, for she was also denying the death. She was in on it with them.
He calmly cleared his head of these anxieties. He knew that he was playing detective and jumping to all sorts of things. He looked around his room in the tower, trying to think of something. How the stones looked back at him. They all looked so much like faces, especially at night. His only thought was that they were the faces of lost souls. He would be the next one. He recalled his horror, a few nights ago, to find a solitary smooth stone, that didn’t resemble a face – yet. He tossed, and turned after that, his heart beating as he fought the image of his face in that godforsaken stone…
The door banged, and he was brought back to reality. He had been called upon by a man he recognised, again from the evening at the café. What was his name again? Tom Fields, he thought.
‘Hello, Tom. What can I do for you?’
Tom was quite serious in his speech. ‘I heard something from Julie,’ he said, and he proceeded to relay her message back to its original author.
‘I know,’ said Eddy, quietly. ‘It’s awful, isn’t it?’
He so wanted to shout about all that he’d been thinking of, but it was too risky. What if he should die for the things he knew? There was a high enough chance of that already.
‘I don’t really know anything,’ he lied to Tom. He knew this wasn’t enlightening, but he couldn’t say any more. ‘I must go for a walk, to clear my head,’ he said, in an attempt to prevent further discussion. It seemed to work, and Eddy watched Tom as he set off down to the square. Eddy walked in the opposite direction, toward the mountains.
The walk did manage to put his mind at ease somewhat, and he began to enjoy it. There were footsteps behind him, and he turned to see who was there. But there wasn’t anyone, they must have turned away. Eddy set off again, picking up the pace a little.
Still the footsteps came, lighter this time, and it didn’t take Eddy long to realise he was being pursued. It was horrible. He turned off the track leading to the mountains, fearing that their remote nature would not bode well for him if he were caught. He headed back to the village, hearing the follower turn on their heels as well.
Eddy panted and shook as he quickly walked into the village. ‘If I go somewhere with some people, I’ll be safe,’ he thought, and headed for the square. There were indeed people there, but they didn’t include Tom. Eddy thought that was odd, considering that Tom had previously gone that way. He must have changed his direction to follow him? But why?
Breathless, Eddy sat down. The image of Tom kept appearing in his mind, vividly. He had seen him in the café last night, and he got out the old diary to check up on the guy.
“Tom is probably the friendliest one. He keeps talking to me, asking me about my life and everything. Bought me a few drinks, the kind chap. And I think he might be interested in the girl, also. He’s asking me what I think of her. No doubt she’ll be interested in him.”
Eddy recalled the certain bitterness in his writing at that point, and it stopped there. He knew he needed to think harder about the previous night; it was all he had to go on. He and Tom had been the last ones in the café. They had drunk quite a lot, partly due to Tom’s generosity. Eddy painfully recalled the headache he had when he had woken up and spotted the girl. He also recalled Tom walking him home last night, but it seemed a blur after that.
Thinking of all of this made him tired. He decided to walk back to the tower, and stay there for some time.
Tom was leaning against the door when he returned. ‘Oh, there you are,’ said Eddy. ‘I had a worrying thought…’
‘…that I was following you? I was; I was worried about you,’ said Tom. ‘You seemed very bothered by it all.’
Eddy felt a little relieved, and happy to hear of Tom’s kindness. He felt a little better at the thought of confiding in him about his suspicions. ‘Would you like to come in?’ he asked.
‘I’d love to,’ said Tom, and went in first. As soon as Eddy had shut the door, he felt Tom’s hand on his shoulder.
‘You’re very tense, you poor thing,’ Tom said. Eddy felt slightly uncomfortable, and shifted over to the kitchen. To a lot of people, it was too early to drink, but not to him. He made something for Tom and himself. Then he sat on the sofa, where Tom sidled up to him.
‘Last night was fun, eh?’ said Tom. ‘You were a bit out of it, though. But I looked after you.’ He then very slightly twirled a wisp of Eddy’s hair in the strangest way, causing Eddy to stand up. ‘What are you doing?’ he demanded.
This had an odd effect on Tom; he became quite angry. ‘What’s your problem?’ he said.
Eddy didn’t answer. He was beginning to realise more about Tom. He had been here, last night, but for how long?
‘You killed her!’ shouted Eddy. He hadn’t expected to say it, and even he was unsure.
‘I didn’t!’ shouted Tom. ‘No-one did.’
‘Don’t give me that! Everyone is giving me that, and I’m tired of it.’
‘Why would I want to kill her?’ said Tom.
‘Because I liked her, and you were jealous. Jealous because she wasn’t you.’
‘Ridiculous,’ said Tom. He sighed. ‘I saw her, today, and she wasn’t dead.’
‘You’re sick,’ said Eddy, ‘of course she is. She’s the…’ he stopped.
‘She’s the what?’ asked Tom.
‘No…no…please, no,’ pleaded Eddy, with himself.
Tom began to understand. He knew what had happened; he needed Eddy to realise it too. ‘You need help,’ he said gently, and walked over to him. Eddy ran upstairs to his room.
There was the stone.
The only smooth stone without a face.
Eddy sat down as it all came back to him. How he had been driven crazy by the stone. How he knew it was destined for his face, to be trapped their forever.
How he had seen the girl, in the early hours of the morning, taking a stroll on her patio. She was so perfect. But she was the only one, and it nearly killed him to think of it.
How he had crept down to the villa, approached her, and strangled her until she had stopped moving. She was dead. She would be the final stone, immersed in the walls.
But here was the stone, as smooth and clear as before. Without a face.
Eddy wondered why, but then he looked out of the window. There she was, the woman he loved, the woman who had pretended to die to be left alone, for him to stop.
Eddy looked back at the wall, and saw his face in the stone.