“Very English,” he chortled, sniffing and running the back of his hand across his nose.
“Well, I am English, after all,” she replied coolly.
“You don’t look English, except for the eyes. They’re very strange.” She didn’t know whether to take that as a compliment. Lattarullo, who enjoyed the sound of his own voice, continued regardless. “They’re very pale. An odd color of gray. Almost blue.” He leaned toward her and his coffee breath enveloped her in a malodorous cloud. “I’d say they were violet. Your mother had brown eyes. You look just like your mother.”
“Did you know her well?” Alba asked, deciding that if she were going to suffer his coffee breath and intrusive observations she might at least get something back.
“I knew her when she was a little girl,” he said proudly.
“So, what was she like?”
“A little ray of sunshine.” Most unhelpful, Alba thought. He and Immacolata had the habit of speaking about Valentina in clichés.
“What was her wedding like?” she asked. That, at least, was one question she hadn’t asked yet. Lattarullo frowned at her.
“Wedding?” he repeated, looking at her blankly.
“Yes, her wedding.” For a moment she thought she might have chosen the wrong word. “You know, when she married my father?”
“There was no wedding,” he said in a whisper.
Alba’s heart stopped. “No wedding? Why not?”
He looked at her for a long moment, his face reminiscent of those stuffed fish stuck on the walls of English pubs. “Because she was dead.”
Alba’s face drained of color. Valentina had never married her father? “The car crash happened before the wedding?” she asked slowly. No wonder her father hadn’t wanted her to come to Italy.
“There was no car crash, Alba,” he said. “Valentina was murdered.”
23
Beechfield Park, 1971
A fter Valentina’s murder, Thomas vowed to himself that he would put the memories of that dreadful time in a trunk, lock it up, and let it sink to the bottom of the sea, like the scuttling of a boat that contains the bodies of the dead. For years he had resisted the macabre temptation to find it, prise open the lock, and rifle through the rusty remains. Margo had rescued him from the dark shadows where he dwelled and brought him, blinking in bewilderment, into a world of light and love, albeit a different kind of love. He never forgot the locked chest, but the memory of it only tormented him in dreams. Then Margo was there to run a soothing hand across his brow, and the chest was willfully discarded in the ever-mounting silt at the bottom of the ocean. He had hoped that when he eventually died the chest would sink into the silt, never to be seen again.
He had not anticipated Alba’s determination to dive into those waters. For years he had endeavored to keep her firmly on dry land. But she had found the portrait, the key to the chest, and she knew that somewhere was a lock that fitted it to perfection. He was proud of her intelligence and a part of him admired her resolve; it was the first time in her life that she had demonstrated purpose. But he feared for her. She hadn’t the slightest idea of what lay in the chest. That, once opened, it could never be closed. She would learn the truth and have to live with it, even rewrite her own past.
Now Thomas was left with no choice but to drag the chest out of the sea, brush off the silt and coral that had grown up around it, and open it again. The mere thought of it caused his skin to bristle and turn cold. He lit a cigar and poured himself a glass of brandy. He wondered whether Alba had found Immacolata. Whether she was still alive. Perhaps Lattarullo was there too, retired maybe, chatting as he did without caring whether or not anyone was listening. He thought of Falco and Beata. Toto would be grown up now, perhaps with children of his own. After Valentina’s death they might have decided that living on in that peculiar place would only bring them unhappiness. Alba might never find them. He hoped, for her sake, that she’d return with her imagination still fresh and innocent for, although he had never lied to her, he had never corrected her own childish version of the truth. He hadn’t told her that he had never married her mother. That she had been murdered the night before the wedding. After all, he had done it for her. He was protecting the secure world he had built for her. If she discovered the truth, would she understand? Would she ever forgive him?
Puffing on his cigar, he sat back in his leather chair. Margo was out with the horses and he was alone, the chest at his feet, the key in his hands. All he had to do was turn the lock and lift the lid. He didn’t need to look at the portrait, for her face was as clear now as if she were standing before him. Once again the warm scent of figs enveloped him, transporting him back to Incantellaria. It was evening. He’d be married in the morning. His heart was full and bursting with happiness. He had forgotten the festa di Santa Benedetta. The disastrous moment when Christ had refused to bleed. He had ignored Valentina’s strange words. Now he put the key in the lock, lifted the lid, and remembered them, pondering their significance.