‘You must be Mr. & Mrs. Bradley. We’ve put the ramp up for you on the ground floor, but I’m very sorry there’s no lift for the basement or upper floor.’ She looked at Lucy apologetically.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll carry her, she’s as light as a bird.’
The girl looked relieved. ‘I hope you have a wonderful visit. Your husband told me Keats is your favourite poet.’
Lucy blinked at her once as Jack wheeled her into the house.
In Keats’ parlour they listened to an audio tape of Keats’ poem An Ode To A Nightingale; the poem Keats had written in only one morning. Jack watched Lucy’s face as she listened and actually saw a glimmer of her old smile and his heart sang. He carried her down into the basement to see where the servants worked and up to second floor to Keats’ small pink-painted bedroom and they looked out of the window at what he would have seen. After an hour, Jack’s arms and back were cramped with tension and they decided to leave. As Jack wheeled her towards the car, Lucy typed: thank u wonderful die happy now
Jack blinked rapidly to stop his tears and said lightly. ‘Didn’t bring you here just for Keats, Luc. Remember the blonde woman I told you about? She lives just down the road. Thought we’d have a recce.’
Lucy typed what a romantic!
Jack laughed as he wheeled her down the drive of Keats’ house and turned towards the Logan house. They stopped outside a large detached Victorian villa.
‘This is it. How much do you think, Luc?’
Lucy typed 3 million
‘Should have been a newspaper editor not a DCI. Think I missed my vocation.’
Lucy typed again no u didnt got 2 go back
‘One day, Luc. One day. We ought to go home. You must be tired.’
As Jack was wheeling Lucy back to the car, a large Mercedes came out of the driveway of the Logan house and drove past them. There were two people inside it: Angelica Logan and Rico Batas; both of them looked grim.
‘Bloody hell!’ Jack said. ‘The blonde and the Filipino manager coming out of the Logan house! What do think about that?’
Lucy typed blackmail
Jack stopped wheeling her and looked at her in surprise.
CHAPTER 24
12th August 2011
Angelica had never intended to go to Paolo’s place. She had everything she wanted in life, except a child. Why should she go to a playboy’s penthouse apartment to fuel his desire for dominance? But three weeks after meeting him at the charity dinner she was standing nervously outside his apartment ringing his doorbell. The door opened immediately and Paolo beamed at her.
‘At last you’ve come!’ The pleasure in his voice was genuine. It made Angelica feel very wanted. He was obviously overjoyed to see her. ‘I didn’t think you would.’
‘Nor did I,’ she whispered as she walked in.
He closed the door and guided her into the most exquisite exhibition of religious icons she had ever seen. She was trans-fixed; here was a cornucopia of paintings she could only dream about buying.
‘You really like them, don’t you?’ Paolo smiled at her. ‘You’re not just going through the motions that people do who know nothing about art. It’s wonderful to have someone appreciate them as much I do.’
An hour later, she was still studying the exquisite paintings and statues with a glass of Chablis in her hand. Paolo walked over to give her a top-up.
‘I can’t stay any longer, but thank you for showing them to me. It’s given me great pleasure.’
‘Not as much as it’s given me,’ Paolo said looking at her with the same intensity as he had at the dinner. ‘But I’ve saved the best until the last. You haven’t seen Salvi’s Madonna and Child yet, remember?
Angelica glanced at her watch. Mark was working late tonight. She could see the painting and still be home before he got home to cook dinner.
‘Where is it?’
‘I don’t display it. It’s too valuable. It’s in there.’ He pointed into his bedroom.
She was appalled with herself; how stupid she’d been to go to a stranger’s apartment.
He turned and saw the tension on her face. ‘It’s all right. I’m not going to seduce you. As a Catholic, I know you revere the Virgin Mary as much as I do. You are the first person I’ve showed it to. Please come and see it.’ He made the sign of the cross in front of one of the paintings before walking into his bedroom. She stood in the doorway of the lounge looking at him. he moved over to a wall and pressed his fingers against it; a panel slid silently sideways to reveal a vaulted room. He pressed his splayed fingers against the vault door and it clinked. As he opened it a soft sensor light came on. Angelica was fascinated. She had heard about hidden rooms when she was a child and had always wanted one, but none of her collection was as valuable as his.
‘Come,’ he said simply and stood back so she could see. She walked over, barely glancing at the enormous bed that was center-stage and stood at the doorway of a security room; the room was filled with numerous statues and paintings, but the only painting she wanted to see was the one Paolo had spoken about. And there it was in front of her: Salvi’s The Madonna And Child. Angelica stared up at the beautiful face of the Madonna, seated in the foreground; her dark hair covered by a cream-colored cloth. A titian-blue cloak was draped over part of her body and underneath it was a rich red dress. Angelica’s eyes moved down to the baby she was cradling so tenderly.
‘She’s everything a mother should be,’ Paolo said. He was standing too close to her.
‘And what’s that?’ she whispered.
‘Tender, loving, forgiving.’
Angelica was disconcerted by his words; thinking of the anger and bitterness in her own mother. She had never been able to please her. ‘Is your mother like that?’ she asked him.
Paolo’s face was suddenly full of sadness. ‘My mother was like that. She died. And yours?’
‘She’s dead too,’ she answered lightly. Why should she explain her complicated relationship with her mother to a man she hardly knew?
‘Have you any children?’ he asked her.
She winced at the rawness of the question and shook her head; unable to answer.
‘That surprises me,’ Paolo said.
She glanced at him in case he was mocking her, but his gaze was tender. She hadn’t expected tenderness from such a man; every gossip columnist mentioned his debauched lifestyle.
‘You possess the same translucence and tenderness I see in the Madonna in Salvi’s painting. The only difference is his Madonna has brown hair and your hair outshines the sun. Can you see the resemblance between you both?’
Angelica was stunned. She had seen copies of this painting many times before, but had never noticed any resemblance at all. Did she look so virginal? So pure? Every time she looked into the Madonna’s face, time simply stopped.
‘I must go.’ She walked away from the seduction of the room and his words.
‘Have I said something to offend you?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, I must go.’
‘My remark was meant as a compliment. I don’t go in for gratuitous flattery. I simply meant that you look as if you would love a child a great deal.’
Angelica turned away from him so he couldn’t see the sudden tears that flooded her eyes; if only he knew how many times a day she prayed to the Madonna to give her a child.
Paolo turned her around gently. ‘What have I said to upset you? Please tell me.’
He looked at her with such compassion that she whispered: ‘What is beauty if the one thing you want more than anything in the world is denied to you?’
‘And what is that?’
‘A baby to love and cherish.’
‘If only you didn’t look so pure,’ Paolo said, looking deep into her eyes.
She frowned at him; not understanding what he meant.
CHAPTER 25
16th November 2012
Giovanni Macari sat in his shabby house, waiting for his son’s girlfriend to arri
ve. He hadn’t known what to think when she had written to ask him if she could visit him. He had written many letters to Paolo since his mother’s death, but he had never answered. They hadn’t spoken since his mother Maria died ten years ago. He and Maria had been born in the same mountainous region in Italy and married when he was twenty-five and Maria was eighteen. She had had so much love and compassion to give that the loneliness of his loss was great, but he often thought that Paolo’s arrival had prepared him for it.
A sudden knock on the door brought him out of the past, shuffling towards the door, thinking how vigorous he had been once. An attractive dark-haired young woman with sad eyes stood at his door, looking embarrassed. He couldn’t think why.
‘Come in and sit, mio caro. Thank you for coming,’ he said as he closed the door. ‘It is always a sadness when a father and son lose touch with each other.’ What an odd English expression that was, Giovanni thought, but how could he tell her that he and Paolo had never had any touch to lose.
‘Please sit down. How long have you and Paolo been seeing each other?’
Bianca smiled at him. ‘Two years, Mr. Macari. We’re going to be married.’
Giovanni raised his white eyebrows in surprise as he settled himself back in his favourite chair. ‘I thought Paolo enjoyed his…freedom too much to settle down with one woman.’
‘He’s found the right woman to settle down with, but…sometimes he forgets.’ She looked around the shabby room with its peeling paint and worn carpets, wondering why he was living in such a dilapidated house when his son was so wealthy.
‘La mia casa non è buona. Mi scusi, I have lived here for over forty years. I even think in English, but Italian sometimes breaks through.’
‘I understand Italian and your house is fine.’
‘I’m too old to pretend and I know what you’re thinking. It’s an old wreck like me.’
‘I don’t understand why Paolo doesn’t buy you a beautiful house. He has so much money he wouldn’t have even notice.’
‘I have always worked for my own money, Signorina Vella. I’m not going to change now. I was a tailor in Italy and when we came to England I went into business with my brother-in-law and we made money; a lot of money in the West End.’
Bianca looked at him in surprise. ‘Then why do you live here?’
The old man sighed heavily. ‘One night my brother-in-law disappeared with all the money. We never saw him again and I became bankrupt. It was a terrible shock for my wife, Maria. Her brother stealing from his own family. But you don’t want to hear about my problems. Tell me how Paolo is. I don’t hear from him.’
‘He’s always travelling around, Mr. Macari,’ Bianca spoke quickly. ‘I’m sure he would visit you if he wasn’t travelling.’
‘I would like to think so, but I haven’t seen Paolo for ten years.’
‘Ten years!’ Bianca was stunned.
‘I have brought out some things of Paolo’s to show you. Pictures when he was a boy. So beautiful with his golden hair. He was a gift from God, my wife said. They are on the table over there. Would you fetch them for me please?’
Bianca went over to a small rickety table, picked up the albums lying on it and sat down again. For five minutes she looked at grainy photos of the man she loved growing up and in each photo he looked like a confident golden cherub with two dark-haired parents. It was strange that he was so fair when his parents were both dark, Bianca thought, but she’d heard that sometimes hair color missed a generation; perhaps one of his grandparents had blonde hair. She closed the last album and saw that the old man was nearly asleep in his chair. She got up quietly and put the albums back on the table, then noticed a blue rattle with a silver band around it lying in front of a book. She couldn’t resist picking it up. It made a tinkling sound. Mr. Macari opened his eyes.
‘I’m sorry, you must be tired. Thank you for showing me the photos. Paolo was a very beautiful child, wasn’t he?’
Giovanni nodded. ‘Yes. Perhaps too beautiful.’
‘Was this Paolo’s?’ Bianca asked, showing him the rattle before placing it back near the book.
‘That’s the only thing he had with him, the nuns told us when we adopted him.’
Bianca was shocked. ‘Adopted? He was adopted?’
Giovanni looked at her in surprise. ‘He didn’t tell you? I thought he would if you were…but perhaps, he still didn’t want to disobey his mother even though she’s dead. She told him not to tell anyone about the adoption when we came to England. Paolo was her son and no one else’s.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Bianca looked at him in bewilderment.
The old man sighed as if the memory was too much for him. ‘Maria and I had been married for twenty-five years but no bambinos came along and she was very sad. I said let’s adopt one, but she said no. Then one day, some nuns from a nearby convent came to our little house in Oropa and told us a baby boy had been abandoned at their convent.’
Bianca was stunned. Not only was Paolo adopted but he had been abandoned! Why hadn’t he told her?
‘You look upset, my dear. It is not as barbaric as it sounds. Usually the abandoned babies are illegitimate. The mothers don’t know what to do so the church found a way to help them. They built special rooms in the wall of some convents where girls could place their babies knowing that they would be well cared for by the nuns, then placed in orphanages.’
‘But what if the nuns don’t find them for a long time? They’d die.’ Bianca couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
The old man shook his head. ‘No, there was a custom in Italy when Paolo was born that each convent that looked after abandoned babies had a small bell inside the special room. Once the babies were placed in a cradle, the mother rang the bell and the nuns would come. They would access the room from inside the convent so the girls could remain anonymous. It was a humane solution to a difficult problem.’
It was too much for Bianca to take in. Being abandoned must have affected Paolo. Was that why he was sometimes cruel?
‘How old was he when you adopted him?’
‘Eight months, but we had looked after him since he was about two months old the doctors thought. Of course, we didn’t know his exact birth date.’
So Paolo doesn’t even know when he was born, Bianca thought. That was so sad. She looked up and saw that the old man was looking at her with concern. She smiled at him to reassure him. What a lovely man he was, she thought. To be concerned about a stranger he had only just met.
‘I wish Paolo had brought me to see you, Mr. Macari. I can’t understand why he didn’t.’
The old man stared out of a dirty window and closed his eyes again; too many painful memories were flooding in.
‘I’m sorry.’ Bianca said. ‘It’s none of my business. It’s just that I’m sure you’re a good father. You seem so kind.’
Mr. Macari opened his eyes and smiled at her. ‘Grazie, mio caro…I must tell you something, but…it is very difficult for me. Paolo blamed me for his mother’s death, that’s why he changed his surname. He didn’t want to be linked to me.’
Bianca looked at him, startled. So this was the reason Paolo hated his father; he was involved in his mother’s death in some way. The old man’s face creased with emotion as he stared at the worn carpet. She shouldn’t have come here. This was too painful for him. But just as she was about to get up to leave, Giovanni started speaking with great difficulty.
‘You see…we didn’t go to the doctors early enough to stop her cancer spreading. The doctors…they told Paolo they could have saved her, but it wasn’t my fault. Maria didn’t tell me about the lump in her breast until it was too late and then she made me promise not to say anything to Paolo. She never wanted him to worry. He was her sun, moon and stars, Signorina. He grew up knowing he could do no wrong in his mother’s eyes and of course, he worshipped her. What boy wouldn’t with such adoration?’
So that’s why Paolo feels that the world is his, Bianca thought. ‘That must
have been difficult for you, Mr. Macari.’
‘Sì, lo era,’ he whispered. ‘Tell me about Paolo. I haven’t seen him for such a long time. Are his tablets helping?’
‘What tablets?’ Bianca asked, puzzled.
He looked surprised again. ‘He keeps many things from you, Signorina. We found out when Paolo was a baby that he had an arrhythmic heartbeat. He has lived on tablets to control his heart all his life. Perhaps that’s why Maria was so protective of him. If you didn’t know that they are obviously working.’
Bianca suddenly realized that she didn’t know the man she loved at all.
‘Has he changed?’ Giovanni said, looking at her with a desperate hopefulness.
How could tell this kindly man that his son was still the self-absorbed narcissist he had always been? So she invented a man who was becoming less narcissistic; who was beginning to see that he wasn’t the center of the Universe; she painted a picture of a person they both wished Paolo was. ‘Soon he’ll realize how lucky he is to have you as his father, Mr. Macari.’
A slow smile spread across the old man’s face on hearing her words. ‘Lo pensi davvero?’
‘I don’t think so. I know. Paolo gives a lot of money to charity. He hides a kind heart.’
The old man nodded his head, but Bianca could see that he wasn’t convinced. Suddenly, a small section of the ceiling crashed down onto the worn carpet in the corner of the room. They both jumped.
‘You can’t live in a house like this when Paolo has so much money, Mr. Macari!’ Bianca shouted. ‘I’ll tell him that your house is falling down and he must buy you a new one!’ She was almost crying with anger. But the moment she’d said the words she realized she couldn’t. She’d found the old man’s letters in one of Paolo’s drawers in his apartment when she was looking for some clothes she’d left. How could she tell him that she’d read his personal mail when he was so secretive?
A Fatal Façade Page 12