The Savage Garden. Mark Mills

be a dusty white track following the crest of a high spur to the north of town. It rose and fell past ochre-washed farmhouses, hay meadows giving way to olive groves and vineyards tucked behind high hedgerows ablaze with honeysuckle, mallow and blood-red poppies. His mother would have been thrilled, stopping every so often to call his attention to some plant or flower. That was her way. But all Adam was aware of was the mocking chant of the cicadas pulsing in time to the pitiless heat.

      He was about to turn back, convinced that he’d made a mistake, when he saw two weathered stone gateposts up ahead. Beyond them an avenue of ancient cypresses climbed sharply towards a large villa, the trunks of the trees powdered white with dust thrown up from the driveway. There was no sign beside the gateposts, but a quick glance at the hand-drawn map Signora Docci had sent him confirmed that he had at last arrived.

      Nearing the top of the driveway he stopped, uncertain, sensing something. He turned, glancing back down the gradient, the plunging perspective of the flanking cypresses.

      Something not right. But what? He couldn’t say. And he was too hot to ponder it further.

      The cypresses gave way to a gravel turning area in front of the villa. There were some farm buildings away to his left, down the slope, beyond a stand of holm oaks, but his attention was focused on the main structure.

      How had Professor Leonard described the architecture of the villa? Pedestrian?

      Admittedly, his own knowledge of the subject was drawn almost exclusively from a battered copy of Edith Wharton’s book on Italian villas, but there seemed to be nothing whatsoever run-of-the-mill about the building in front of him. Though not as large or obviously grand as some, its symmetry and proportions lent it an air of discreet nobility, majesty even.

      Set around three sides of a flagstone courtyard, it climbed three floors to a shallow, tiled roof with projecting eaves. Arcaded loggias occupied the middle and upper storeys of the front façade, while the wings consisted of blind arcades with pedimented and consoled windows. There was not much more to it than that, but every detail of it worked.

      The building felt no need to proclaim its pedigree; rather, it exuded it like a well-cut suit. You were left in little doubt that the hand of some master lay behind its conception – long-dead, unrecognized, forgotten. For if one of the more illustrious architects of the period had been responsible for bringing it into being, that fact would have been preserved in the historical record. As it was, he had found almost no references to Villa Docci during his preliminary research.

      He skirted the well-head in the middle of the courtyard and mounted the front steps. There was a stone escutcheon set in the wall above the entrance door, a rampant boar the centrepiece of the Docci coat of arms. He tugged on the iron bell pull.

      She must have been observing him from inside, waiting for him to make his approach, for the door swung open almost immediately. She was short and stout, and she was wearing a white blouse tucked into a black skirt. Her dark eyes reached for his and held them, vice-like.

      ‘Good morning,’ he said in Italian.

      ‘Good afternoon.’

      ‘I’m Adam Strickland.’

      ‘You’re late.’

      ‘Yes. I’m sorry.’

      She stepped aside, allowing him to enter, appraising him with a purposeful eye as if he were a horse she was thinking of betting on (and leaving him with the distinct impression that she wouldn’t be reaching for her purse any time soon).

      ‘Signora Docci wishes to see you.’

      At either end of the long entrance hall was a stone stairway leading to the upper floors. When she made for the one on the left, Adam fell in beside her.

      ‘May I have a glass of water, please?’

      ‘Water? Yes, of course.’ She changed tack, heading for a corridor beside the staircase. ‘Wait here,’ she said.

      He didn’t mind. It allowed him to cast an eye around the interior. Any suspicions that the quiet elegance of the villa’s exterior owed itself to little more than chance vanished immediately. You sensed the same poised hand at work in the proportions of the vast drawing room that occupied the central section of the ground floor, giving on to a balustraded terrace out back. The flanking rooms were connected by a run of doorways, perfectly aligned, which generated a telescopic sense of perspective and permitted an uninterrupted view from one end of the villa to the other.

      Adam retreated at the sound of approaching footsteps, not wishing to be caught snooping by the maid, or the housekeeper, or whatever she was.

      Signora Docci lay propped up on a bank of pillows in a four-poster bed of dark wood, reading. She inclined her head towards the door as they entered, peering over the top of her spectacles.

      ‘Adam,’ she said, smiling broadly.

      ‘Hello.’

      ‘Thank you, Maria.’

      Maria acknowledged the dismissal with a nod, pulling the door closed behind her as she left.

      Signora Docci gestured for Adam to approach the bed. ‘Please, it’s not contagious, just old age.’ She laid her book aside and smiled again. ‘Well, maybe it is contagious.’

      Her hair hung loose, tumbling like a silver wave around her shoulders. It seemed too long, too thick, for a woman of her advanced years. A tracery of fine lines lay like a veil across her face, but the flesh was firm, shored up by the prominent bones beneath. Her eyes were dark and wide-spaced.

      He extended his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

      They shook, her grip firm and bony.

      ‘Please.’ She indicated a high-backed chair near the bed. ‘I’m glad you’re finally here. Maria has been fussing around for days, tidying and cleaning.’

      It was hard to picture: stern, monosyllabic Maria preparing for his arrival.

      ‘She is a good person. She will let you see that when she’s ready to.’

      He was slightly unnerved that she’d read the thought in his face.

      ‘So, how was your trip?’

      ‘Good. Long.’

      ‘Did you stop in Paris?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Milan?’

      ‘Just Florence. And only for a night.’

      ‘One night in Florence,’ she mused. ‘It sounds like the title of a song.’

      ‘Not a very good one.’

      Signora Docci gave a short, sharp laugh. ‘No,’ she conceded.

      Adam took a letter from the inside pocket of his jacket and handed it to her. ‘From Professor Leonard.’

      She laid the letter beside her on the bed. He noted that her hand remained resting on it.

      ‘And how is Crispin?’ she asked.

      ‘He’s in France at the moment, looking at some cave paintings.’

      ‘Cave paintings?’

      ‘They’re very old – lots of bison and deer.’

      ‘A cave is no place for a man his age. It’ll be the death of him.’

      Adam smiled.

      ‘I’m serious,’ she said.

      ‘I know, it’s just…your English.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘It’s very good. Very correct.’

      ‘Nannies. Nannies and governesses. My father is to blame. He loved England.’ She shifted in the bed, removing her spectacles and placing them on the bedside table. ‘So tell me, how is the Pensione Amorini?’

      ‘Perfect.