The Mermaid Garden(158)

He wanted to call his mother. He wished he could speak to his father. He wished he had never set out in the first place. The cowardly part of him wished things could go back to the way they were, before his head had grown muddled and confused, before his heart had taken it upon itself to get involved.

He began to toss his clothes into his suitcase.

The following morning he awoke late. He looked at his watch. It was ten o’clock. He hadn’t slept that long since his university days. He showered and dressed and began to finish what he had started the night before. He’d make up some excuse and leave as quickly as possible; that way he could put this whole business behind him. When he thought of Clementine, he felt a sharp pain in his chest—the thought of never seeing her again was unbearable.

He was interrupted by a soft knocking on the door. He glanced at his case lying open on the bed and then back at the door. He was left no alternative but to open it. There, standing on the landing, was Clementine.

“Do you mind if I come in?”

He shrugged. “You might as well, now you’re here.”

She was surprised to see that he was packing. Her heart lurched with panic. “You’re leaving?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Today.”

She gazed at him, horrified. “Where are you going?”

“Home.”

“But I thought you were going to stay the whole summer?”

“My plans have changed. It’s complicated.”

“Not as complicated as the story Marina told us last night. Or should I say Floriana Farussi from Italy.”

He sat down on the window seat and rubbed his temple.

“Did you know?” she asked.

“What did she tell you?”

“Everything.” She sat beside him and hugged her knee against her chest. “I had a lot of time to think while you were away. I’m sorry I ran off up the beach and didn’t give you time to explain. It was cowardly of me. I’m ready now, if you still want to tell me.” She looked at him intensely. “Why are you running away, Rafa?”


Marina was gathering herbs from the trough outside the stable block when the shiny black Alfa Romeo pulled up in front of the hotel. The engine stopped and footsteps could be heard on the gravel, but her attention was on the job at hand. There followed a brief conversation in low voices and then the footsteps grew louder. She looked up to see Grey striding towards her with Dante. Her heart leapt in surprise, and she dropped her secateurs.

“Dante?”

“Floriana. I couldn’t wait, and I didn’t want to tell you over the telephone,” he said in English. “Besides, I wanted to be here with you when I told you.”

“Told me what?” But she knew, and her eyes filled with tears.

“Our son.”

Her fingers shot to her lips. “You know where he is?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“He’s here.”

She felt her head spin. “Here?”

“Yes.”

“But I don’t understand.”

“His name is Rafa Santoro.”

Marina was speechless. Her emotions rose in a great tidal wave, and she let out a loud wail. Both men rushed forwards to catch her as her knees buckled. But Dante saw her reach out to Grey and caught himself. He stood back as her husband helped her inside and settled her in the sitting room on the sofa.

“I’m fine,” she said as he released her. “Please go and get him. Bring him to me.”

Grey strode out, his own head whirling as the final piece to the puzzle had now snapped into place.

She patted the sofa. “Dante, how did you find out?” He sat beside her. She took his hand and smiled, although her eyes were streaming.

“When you told me that Father Ascanio had sent you to England because he feared for your life, it suddenly occurred to me that this was not my father’s doing. You see, my father would never have involved a priest, and his ways of dealing with problems such as ours were way more brutal. If my father had promised to look after you, there would have been nothing to fear. You wouldn’t have been sent away, and our son would never have been adopted. So, it got me thinking, if not my father, then who? Father Ascanio would never have had the means to set you up in England and arrange for your passport and change of identity. The only man I know capable of all that is Zazzetta.”

“Zazzetta?”

“I took the helicopter straight back to Milan and confronted him. All these years he kept the secret, surreptitiously sending money when needed to an old flame of his who had agreed to look after you here.”

“Katherine Bridges was an old flame of Zazzetta?”

“She worked as a governess in Milan when Zazzetta first started working for my father. You owe your life to him, Floriana. When my father received the letter from Elio, blackmailing him, he told Zazzetta to make the problem go away. He told him to make it look like an accident.” Marina blanched. “But Zazzetta is a religious man, and it was more than he could do to kill a young girl and her unborn child. So, he arranged everything in utmost secrecy with Father Ascanio, whom he knew he could trust, and sent his own brother to fetch you. You see, Floriana, they couldn’t tell you the truth, they couldn’t trust anyone, because their lives depended on it, too. Were my father to find out that his most trusted aide had betrayed him, he would have done away with the lot of you. He would have tracked you down, and he would have buried Zazzetta without so much as a backward glance.” He lowered his eyes. “I cannot begin to tell you the wickedness of that man. I’d like to say that money and power corrupted him, but I think he was just born wicked.”