When Harry finally left that morning, I knew I must do something. I didn’t want to stay in Paris, but Harry had told me not to leave, just in case there was some news. I needed to get out of the city, and where best to go than to my own home? As my car was in Nice, I knew the only option I had was to take the train.
It was seven in the morning. I wondered if I’d already missed the train to Nice. Opening the laptop Harry had on his desk, I quickly searched the web. I was lucky: I found the train to Monaco was leaving the Gare de Lyon at ten minutes to nine.
I booked the ticket and ran out of the apartment. I found a taxi outside and was soon on my way to the rail station. It felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from me.
“On the right you can see the Eiffel Tower,” the taxi driver said in broken English. I nodded in response. A long time ago I had learned that I couldn’t say anything negative about that ugly metal thing. The last time I had, I was thrown out of the taxi in the pouring rain without my umbrella. I had learned my lesson. Never ever say anything bad about the Eiffel Tower to Parisian taxi drivers.
Because of the traffic, it took me almost an hour to get to the Gare de Lyon. All I had with me was my handbag. Everything else was still in Harry’s flat.
For a few days my brother avoided me like the plague. It looked like Lorcan had also listened to Harry’s words not to mess with my head. He didn’t call me either. I wasn’t sure if I liked the situation. I knew I should be more focused on current events around the search for my son, but there was no new information.
Boarding the train was quick and, not much later, the TGV was on its way with me on board. A memory from my past rose from the depths of my mind: I’d ridden this train more than once before.
The first time, I had followed Juan to Spain, to San Sebastian. In the six months we had spent together I had been in heaven and then I was thrown into hell.
The second time, I went back to London to tell my brother the truth. Half of the journey I spent in tears. While crossing the English Channel, I managed to get a grip on myself. I knew I couldn’t back down. I was alone, yet I was not alone anymore. I’d needed to break the news to Harry cautiously. The memories overwhelmed me completely as my mind wandered back to that time.
“Harry, I have news for you.” I’d said when I had entered his office in London.
He’d raised his head from the sketches he had on his table, smiling at me. We hadn’t seen each other for almost a year.
“You’re finally home,” he’d greeted me and taken me into his big embrace. I was nineteen at the time.
“Am I interrupting something important?” I’d asked.
“You, D.D? Never. I missed you.” He’d pushed away the sketches and leaned against the desk. “What is it? Take a seat.”
I’d shaken my head and taken his arm.
“No. Not here.” His eyes had been full of questions. After all my tears on the train in France, I had found a new joy in life.
“Fine. Let’s go out. Lunch?” I’d smiled. Hand in hand we’d left the large office building.
“So, what’s going on?” he’d asked the minute we’d stepped out onto the pavement. I had shaken my head again and flagged down a taxi instead.
“Hyde Park, please.”
“Hold on to your horses, D.D. … I haven’t got.” Harry started, but I interrupted him.
“Harry, when do we usually go to the park?” I asked.
“When we have something important to say to each other,” he’d said and leaned back on the seat.
“When did we start with this tradition?” We’d looked at each other and Harry had slowly nodded his head. We’d both remembered that day. It was the day after the death of our parents and he had needed to break the news to me.
The news he’d had to share with me was cruel and I was barely six years old. He was twenty-one and not sure if I would understand or how I’d react.
It’d been our father’s fault that the traffic accident had happened. He’d driven off the road and crashed into the only tree in the field. They were killed instantly.
We, or at least I, were lucky. Harry was allowed to take care of me. Otherwise, who knows what would have happened to us—to me?
Since then, we always went to Hyde Park if we needed to tell each other something important. During those years I always waited for some big news from Harry; that he was going to be married, for example. Yet no such news ever came from him. That made me sad, but somehow I was quite selfishly satisfied. He was mine.
Before we’d entered the Park, the following words exploded from my mouth:
“I’m pregnant. You’re going to be an uncle.” I’d started to jump as I’d done in the past with pure joy. Yet Harry had remained silent. Shocked.
“What?” he’d finally said. I’d stopped jumping and looked at him, realising that he couldn’t believe my words. He’d thought I was joking. I’d finished school, but he’d hoped I would go to university and join the business. A child? Not that early. I’d looked at him. I was even more serious than when he’d had to tell me we’d become orphans.
“How?” he’d asked.
The expression on my face had shown him that he’d asked me a stupid question.
“I didn’t mean that. Tell me everything.”
While walking through Hyde Park, I’d told him everything: how I’d met Juan, how I’d fallen in love with him and how I’d decided to finish the cooking course when he’d left Paris and I had followed him to Spain, where he had lived.
When I finished that part of the story Harry had stayed silent. He gave no indication as to what he was thinking. We’d walked quite a few yards and I knew he was thinking of everything I’d told him. Suddenly he’d stopped walking and stepped in front of me, his brown eyes searching my face.
“You didn’t tell me everything,” he’d finally said. “How long…”
I’d interrupted him.
“Ten weeks. I learned a few days ago.” I’d turned around. The inevitable unspoken question waited to be spoken.
“When I will meet Juan?” I’d stared over the Serpentine.
“You won’t. He vanished after I broke the news. The next day he was gone.”
“My God, D.D, are you serious?” I had simply nodded.
“Yes. It will be only three of us, Harry. You, me and the child!” And I’d started to cry again.
I felt tears on my cheeks and I looked around quickly. I was not alone in the compartment but everyone looked busy. No one noticed either me or my tears, which I’d wiped away with the back of my hand.
I checked my mobile and, as I presumed, there were no calls. It was nearly noon so I left for the Cafe-Bar Carriage, as I needed something to eat. Anne-Marie didn’t know I was coming and I’d also decided to go to Monaco first. I wanted to see the perfumery and the girls. I wondered what news they had for me.
I ordered my meal and as I sat eating, my mind wandered off again.
I saw myself in the hospital. My pregnancy hadn’t gone well and I had spent most of it, after my first trimester, in bed in hospital.
I spent almost five months in hospital. First, my morning sickness continued endlessly and almost no food or drink stayed in me; I vomited constantly. After the doctors managed to solve this problem and send me home, I started to bleed.
Harry didn’t want to risk my life or the life of the baby. When the day had come, Harry was with me. No one else: no one I wanted. I’d got over Juan a long time ago. All I was sorry for was that the baby would not know his or her father. Yet I knew better, a father is someone who is there for you your entire life, to guide you and help you. Harry was not my real father, he was my brother, yet he fulfilled a father’s role almost perfectly.
The child’s birth had not been easy and, when it was over, I’d passed out. All I’d been able to do was plead with Harry to watch over his newborn nephew.
I was woken a few hours later and received a transfusion to replace my lost blood. Because of that, I couldn�
�t get out of bed but I asked for my baby. My brother handed me a little blonde baby boy. Judging by the look on Harry’s face, I knew he loved the boy almost as much as I did.
“You are mine, Iain,” I remember saying. “And we will watch over you, your Uncle Harry and I.” The baby was blonde. That was quite a surprise, as Harry and I had reddish hair, and Juan had black hair and brown eyes. When my son’s eyes met mine for the first time, I saw my eyes. They were green like my mother’s and mine. He was perfect.
I never told Harry that the day before we were released from the hospital a social worker came to me. She was very nice and asked some—what I presumed were—standard questions. I had been shocked when she had asked me:
“Have you thought of giving him up for adoption?”
“No!” I barely managed to answer her.
She was writing something in her notebook.
“Are you sure? We have some…”
“Get out!”
She left without saying another word.
I knew if I had told him, he would have created hell in the hospital. I didn’t want that. They had all been so good to me and I didn’t want one person to ruin that.
Only later did I begin to wonder whether the social worker was really a social worker. That thought occasionally crawled into my mind when we were deep into the search for my kidnapped son.
Three months after I had given birth to Iain, Harry decided it was time to expand the business to Paris. In the years after the death of our parents, Harry excelled himself. Mum and Dad had a small fashion boutique, big enough to provide for our family. In a little less than fifteen years, Harry enlarged the boutique to become one of the leading fashion houses that worked solely with famous sportsmen and women from the worlds of football and tennis.
As he didn’t want to leave us alone in London, we accompanied him and moved to Paris at the beginning of the spring. All I had to do was to care for my son. Everything was perfect until that cursed day in June. I was taking Iain out in his stroller on our daily walk through the Champ de Mars,. We were on our way home and were almost beneath the Eiffel Tower when it happened: someone on rollerblades knocked me down; a boy or a man—I was not sure, I fell hard. Some passers-by helped me up. I had a bump on my head, but that was nothing compared to what waited for me. Iain’s stroller was empty. I became hysterical and was taken immediately to the hospital.
Harry was called to the hospital. He learned what happened when he found two policemen outside my room and, inside, me, drugged and restrained to the bed, alone, without my son.
He took control immediately. I was released. The police called their superiors and finally the search that should have been started an hour before finally began. Harry confirmed my story and told everyone that I was not insane and that in fact I’d had a child with me when the incident in the Champ de Mars happened.
As the stroller was found empty, the police had assumed I was just a lunatic walking around Paris with an empty stroller. Hours later I realised why the stroller was empty. It had not been Iain’s. It was the same but not his. The strollers had been exchanged.
The police had called for help through the media to find out whether anyone saw anything. Soon phone calls had started to come in and much of the story revealed itself and a clearer picture of events emerged.
It seems that I had been knocked down and away from the stroller and at the same time people around me were helping me onto my feet again, a woman with the same type and colour of stroller passed us by. The police conclusion was that she had exchanged the strollers and left the scene. The only problem was no one could remember what she looked like.
At that point Harry went almost insane. As little as I told him about Juan before, I had to tell him everything then. Who was he? Where he had come from? Where had we met? Everything … but it just didn’t help.
There were several men in Spain with the same name, but none of them was my Juan. We realised that the man who convinced me I was in love with him and got me pregnant had been using a false name and had deceived me completely. What we didn’t understand was why?
The story of the kidnapping was reported all over Europe but that didn’t help either. Many people were questioned, but the police had no real suspect. It was like searching for a ghost. Not even a police sketch helped us find him. Iain was gone and I didn’t know what had happened to him.
All other traces of my son vanished with him. I had a camera in the stroller and it went missing too. All I had was one photo I had taken with my mobile and it was the one I carried with me in my purse. It was taken just a few days before he was kidnapped.
In two years nothing had been found. No traces. No leads. Only my memories of my son and my days with him were as clear as a blue Cote d’Azur sky. Harry tried to persuade me to go back to England. I refused. I was convinced I would find my son in France.
Two years later the French police decided to close the case. A cold case they said. Unsolved. I’d seen in their faces their belief that my son was probably no longer alive. I refuted that thought completely.
That night I made Demain and when I came home to our apartment a letter was waiting for me on the doormat. It changed everything.
A week later I told Harry about my plan. I wanted to leave Paris, but I didn’t want to leave France. I knew I was torturing myself, but that was all I was able to do. One week later everything was arranged. My name was changed from Desiree Dame to Desiree Hart. I dyed my hair back to my natural colour and moved to a rented house in Nice. We opened a perfumery in a prestigious hotel in Monte Carlo. It was done.
After a few weeks, I hired a private detective and my personal search for my son started. In the last three years we had many leads but they had led nowhere. Finally, Harry had had enough of picking up the pieces after every dead end. Without my knowledge, he hired another private detective who followed the first.
Were we really closer to the end of the search, or had we just been fooled again?
“Excuse me, miss.” I looked around and realised I was still in the Café-Bar Carriage with a plate full of food on the table. I hadn’t eaten anything.
“Is there something wrong with the food?” the waiter asked me. I shook my head.
“No. It’s not the food. It’s me. I forgot I have to eat.”
His expression was strange. He didn’t understand me.
“Can I bring you something else?” he asked. I checked the clock on my mobile. We still had an hour before arrival. I nodded.
“If you would please be so kind.”
Marcel was very excited when he saw me. He greeted me like a long lost relative, yet I’d only been gone a few days, less than two weeks. He gave me a quick review about what had happened in my absence and I listened to him closely. But he said nothing about Lorcan.
Leaving him standing at the door, I went into the perfumery. The hugging and laughing went on and on. Luckily the Jasmine was empty. It was that time of day. We talked and then my mobile rang. I looked at it and I just let it ring.
“Are you not going to answer?” Lucille asked.
“No,” I said. “It can wait. But I can’t wait for your news. How are you both?”
Lucille and Michelle looked at each other and Lucille answered.
“We are fine, but we were afraid.”
I was surprised by this.
“Afraid? Why?”
They were silent as my mobile rang again. I checked it again and continued to let it ring. It was Harry. I was not yet prepared to tell him I was no longer in Paris.
“Let’s go to the office. Turn the sign around, Michelle,” I said.
Michelle was shocked.
“Are you sure?” she asked. I nodded.
“Yes, I am.”
Michelle did as I asked and we all went to the back office. I sat on the sofa and let the girls choose where to sit. I actually wanted to see which one took which position. Lucille sat behind the desk and turned around. Michelle stayed at the open door.
>
“So, what’s going on here?” I asked and let them talk.
In the two weeks of my absence nothing had changed. They were visited by Dame, which I knew, and were told that I would not be around as much as before. Listening to their story, I knew Harry had told them another fairy-tale. It was not fair of him, but it was the best he could do.
I was told that the same day that Dame came, Lorcan Shore was with him. I knew which day they were talking about, but I didn’t know they’d had an argument in the same office we were now sitting in.
We spoke for a good half an hour. When they finished their eyes were on me. The girls waited for me to confirm or refute the story. I was silent. At that point I was not sure what to tell them. I had complete confidence in them, yet so much depended on my silence.
Finally, I said only that they would be the first to hear the complete story—once it was finished.
“Some of the facts you were given by Mr Dame are true and some of them are false. Don’t question me or yourselves about which you should believe and which you shouldn’t. It’s too early to tell you or anyone. I’m sorry. You are very good, ladies, and I’m proud…”
At that precise moment a Skype call appeared on the right corner of the computer screen. Lucille almost answered, when I stepped quickly away from the screen.
“Don’t tell him I’m here.” Lucille turned the connection on and, although I didn’t see Harry, I heard his voice.
“Is she there?” Lucille immediately turned red. I knew she would not be able to lie.
“Good afternoon, Monsieur Dame. Michelle is in the perfumery. Should I call her?” I was astonished at how quickly she managed to turn the tables. I almost applauded her. But it was a short victory. Harry’s voice was angry.
“Lucille, please. Don’t treat me like I’m stupid and stop lying to me. You know I’m not talking about Michelle.” She became redder still. I felt sorry for her. Michelle stepped forward but, before she managed to reach the desk, we all heard him speak again.
All That the Heart Desires Page 14