Those Who Walk Away by Patricia Highsmith Page A

boat. They stopped at Santa Maria della Salute on the other side of the canal. Inez did not get off. Ray could see her through the stem window of the boat, seated on one of the bench seats, her back to him. She wore the yellow-feathered hat. The boat rushed on.
    “ Giglio! ” called the conductor.
    A creak of dock as the boat touched.
    Inez did not move.
    “ Accademia the next stop! ” shouted the conductor.
    They chugged smoothly towards the arched wooden bridge at Accademia. Inez stood up, moved forward and to the left where the boat’s door was. Ray walked along the port deck, keeping behind the ten or twelve debarking passengers. Inez, on the pavement in front of the Accademia di Belle Arti, looked all around her as if she did not know her way, and stopped a passerby. The man pointed to the broad street that went across the island.
    Ray followed her slowly. No need to rush now, to watch her turnings, because he knew where she was going. In the wide courtlike area behind the Seguso, Ray walked left, a direction that would bring him to the canal that went along the side of the pensione, but which was also a dead end, because no pavement bordered the canal just here. Inez also disappeared in the sottoporto which led to the Ruskin house. Ray retraced his steps quickly, crossed the open area diagonally, found another street which led to the little canal, but here, he knew, were pavements and also a bridge. He crossed the bridge over the canal, and turned right on the pavement. Now the Seguso lay on his right, across the canal from him. An arched stone bridge spanned the canal on the Zattere quay. Ray remained at the foot of the bridge, the end away from the Seguso.
    Inez was not in view. Was she still talking inside the pensione, or had she left already? He could not see her on the quay. Ray rested his arms on the bridge parapet, and looked over his shoulder at the Seguso’s entrance. He looked up at the Seguso’s windows, at the fourth window from the bottom which had been his, giving on the little canal, and just then, Inez’s light hat, dark coat appeared in its greyness, and Ray looked away, out towards the length of Giudecca.
    Inez had asked to see his room. They had not yet packed up his things, Ray supposed. He was sorry he had a bill there, but at least they had his suitcase. What was Inez telling them? Not, surely, that he might be dead. What was she asking them? That could be any number of things, what he had said to them, if he had said anything, if he had telephoned—questions that were quickly answered, leaving the mystery still there. Ray had disappeared. Ray felt an instant’s shame at his behaviour, at his silent telephone call less than an hour earlier, and the shame almost immediately became anger, anger against Coleman.
    Well I’m not going to his hotel. I don’t give a damn , Ray could hear Coleman saying. Why do you think somethings happened to him? He’s probably run off, chucked everything and run off You know damned well he’s got Peggy on his conscience .
    Would Inez believe that? No. Would she question Coleman until he told her the truth? Ray could not imagine Coleman telling the truth about that night to anyone. Was Coleman expecting daily that the body would be reported. Washed up somewhere? Probably.
    Inez was coming out of the pensione.
    Ray grew tense, hoping she would not turn in his direction because she was walking forward from the hotel, past the Ruskin turn, more slowly and thoughtfully than she had walked from Accademia. She turned right on the Zattere quay, so that her back was to him. Ray followed her, but at such a safe distance now, the following was purposeless for observing her. He observed the black spot that was her fur coat. She passed the Zattere boat stop and turned right.
    He followed her back to Accademia, where she crossed the bridge. She walked at a moderate pace, though the air was nippy and most people on the street hurried. She stopped now and then to look