“I desperately wanted to like Luca, because this was my way into my fantasy. He had a car, and he was definitely criminal. He didn’t tell me anything about summit meetings between heads of crime families, though… mostly he talked about his Fiat, and drugs and beating people up.

“After a few dates, it was obvious Luca was quite keen on me, or… no,” said Gloria, unsmiling, “not keen, because that implies genuine affection. He really just wanted to fix me down, to keep me his. I was so stupid and lost to my fantasy, I found that quite exciting, because it seemed—you know—the proper Mafioso attitude. But I liked Luca best when I wasn’t actually with him, when I was mixing him up with Michael Corleone in my head, in my bed at night.

“I stopped studying. My fantasy life took me over completely. Gangsters” molls didn’t need A-levels. Luca didn’t think I needed A-levels, either. I failed all of them.

“My grandparents were really disappointed, although they were so kind about it,” said Gloria. For the first time, her voice quivered slightly. “Then—I think it was the following week—they found out about me seeing Luca. They were desperately worried and upset, but by this time, I didn’t really care. I told them I’d given up on the idea of college. I wanted to go out to work.

“I only applied for the job at the St. John’s practice because it was in the heart of Little Italy, even though Little Italy didn’t really exist any more. Luca’s father was one of the very last relics. But it was all part of my fantasy: I was a Conti, I should be there, where my forefathers had been. It made it easier to see Luca, too, because he lived there.

“I should never have got that receptionist’s job. I was far too young and I had no experience. It was Margot who wanted me to have it.”

Gloria paused, and Robin was sure it was because she’d just had to say Margot’s name for the first time. Drawing another deep breath, she said,

“So, there I was, on reception with Irene all day. My grandparents weren’t registered at St. John’s, because they lived in Islington, so I got away with telling Irene a bunch of lies about my background.

“I’d created a whole persona by now. I told her the Contis were an old Sicilian family, how my grandfather and father had been part of a crime family and I don’t know what else. Sometimes I used bits and pieces Luca had told me about the Riccis. Some of it was straight out of The Godfather. Ironically,” said Gloria, with a slight eye roll, “the one authentically criminal thing I could have told her, I didn’t. I kept my mouth shut about my boyfriend. Luca had told me never to talk about him and his family to other people, so I didn’t. I took him seriously.

“I remember, a few months after I got the job, a rumor went round the local area that they’d found a body buried in concrete in one of the builder’s sites up the road. I pretended I knew all about that through my underworld contacts. I told Irene I had it on good authority that the corpse had been a member of the Sabini gang. I really was a fool,” said Gloria quietly. “A little idiot…

“But I always had the feeling Margot could see right through me. She told me not long after I started there that she’d ‘seen something’ in me, at the interview. I didn’t like that, I felt as though she was pat­ronizing me. She never treated me the way I wanted to be treated, as some street-smart Mafia girl with dark secrets, but always as though I was just a sweet young girl. Irene didn’t like Margot, either, and we used to moan about her all the time on reception. Margot had a big thing about education and keeping your career, and we used to say what a hypocrite she was, because she’d married this rich consultant. When you’re living a lie, nothing’s more threatening than people who tell the truth…

“I’m sorry,” said Gloria, with an impatient shake of the head, “this probably doesn’t seem relevant at all, but it is, if you just bear with me…”

“Take your time,” said Strike.

“Well… the day after my eighteenth birthday, Luca and I got into a row. I can’t remember what it was about, but he put his hand round my throat and pushed me up against the wall until I couldn’t breathe. I was terrified.

“He let go, but there was this horrible look in his eye. He said, ‘You’ve got only yourself to blame.’ And he said, ‘You’re starting to sound like that doctor.’

“I’d talked to him quite a lot about Margot, you see. I’d told him she was a complete killjoy, really bossy and opinionated. I kept repeating things she’d said, to denigrate them, to tell myself there was nothing in them.

“She quoted Simone de Beauvoir once, during a staff meeting. She’d sworn when she dropped her pen, and Dr. Brenner said, ‘People are always asking me what it’s like working with a lady doctor, and if I ever meet one, I’ll be able to tell them.’ Dorothy laughed—she hardly ever laughed—and Margot snapped right back at him—I know the quotation off by heart now, in French, too—‘Man is defined as a human being and a woman as a female—whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.’

“Irene and I talked about it afterward. We called her a show-off for quoting some French woman, but things like that got in my head and I couldn’t get them out again. I thought I wanted to be a fifties Mafia housewife, but sometimes Margot was really funny, and I watched her never backing down to Brenner, and you couldn’t help admiring her for it…”

Gloria took yet another gulp of wine.

“Anyway, the evening Luca half-throttled me, I went home and lay awake crying half the night. The next morning, I put on a polo-neck for work to hide the bruises, and at five o’clock that afternoon, when I left work, I went straight to a call box near the surgery, rang Luca and finished with him. I told him he’d scared me and that I didn’t want to see him any more.

“He took it quite quietly. I was surprised, but so relieved… for three or four days I thought it was all over, and I felt amazing. It was like waking up, or coming up for air after being underwater. I still wanted to be a mobster’s girlfriend, but the fantasy version was fine. I’d had a little bit too much contact with reality.

“Then, at the end of our practice Christmas party, in walked Luca, with his father and one of his cousins.

“I was absolutely terrified to see them there. Luca said to me, ‘Dad just wanted to meet my girlfriend.’ And—I don’t know why, except I was petrified of there being a scene—I just said, ‘Oh, OK.’ And I grabbed my coat and left with the three of them, before anyone could talk to them.

“They walked me to my bus stop. On the way, Nico said, ‘You’re a nice girl. Luca was very upset by what you said to him on the phone. He’s very fond of you, you know. You don’t want to make him unhappy, do you?’ Then he and Luca’s cousin walked away. Luca said, ‘You didn’t mean what you said, did you?’ And I… I was so scared. Him bringing his father and cousin along… I told myself I’d be able to get out of it later. Just keep him happy for now. So I said, ‘No, I didn’t mean it. You won’t do anything like that ever again, though, will you?’ And he said, ‘Like what?’ As if he’d never pressed on my windpipe till I couldn’t breathe. As though I’d imagined it.