The Perfect Couple

by Lexi Landsman

  About the Book

  Sarah and Marco Moretti are the perfect couple. Together they have travelled the globe building high-profile careers as archaeologists. Now, at a dig in Florence, they are on the brink of the discovery of a lifetime.

  However, their marriage is not what it seems. On the very evening that Sarah uncovers the San Gennaro necklace – a long-lost antiquity that will bring them worldwide fame – she witnesses Marco kissing another woman. Blinded by tears, she drives home alone in the dead of night …

  When Sarah wakes up in hospital, she has no memory of the car accident that brought her there – or the 48 hours preceding it. Gone is the knowledge of her husband’s infidelity. But gone too is all recollection of finding the precious necklace.

  And the loss of those two crucial memories will have devastating repercussions …

  In this masterful suspense novel, the truth is not always what it seems …

  CONTENTS

  COVER

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  EPIGRAPH

  MARCO

  SARAH

  SARAH

  MARCO

  SARAH

  SARAH

  DANIEL

  DANIEL

  MARCO

  SARAH

  MARCO

  DANIEL

  MARCO

  SARAH

  MARCO

  MARCO

  SARAH

  DANIEL

  MARCO

  SARAH

  DANIEL

  EMILY

  SARAH

  MARCO

  SARAH

  DANIEL

  SARAH

  MARCO

  SARAH

  EMILY

  DANIEL

  MARCO

  DANIEL

  SARAH

  EMILY

  MARCO

  MARCO

  SOFIA

  EMILY

  SARAH

  SARAH

  EMILY

  MARCO

  EMILY

  SARAH

  EMILY

  SARAH

  MARCO

  EMILY

  DANIEL

  SARAH

  MARCO

  EPILOGUE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY LEXI LANDSMAN

  COPYRIGHT NOTICE

  For my boys,

  my greatest treasures

  ‘The pearls weren’t really white, they were a warm oyster beige, with little knots in between so if they broke, you only lost one. I wished my life could be like that, knotted up so that even if something broke, the whole thing wouldn’t come apart.’

  – Janet Fitch, White Oleander

  I never thought I’d be in a room like this talking to someone like you. I suppose you want me to start at the beginning. To show how we got here. How everything fell apart.

  It starts and ends with the necklace. A rare masterpiece. A time capsule of history told in diamonds and stones. Flawless in its perfection.

  Maybe I was never meant to be its keeper. Because, you see, I’m its antithesis. I’m flawed. I’m a rough diamond. If you look closely, you’ll see my imperfections, how loosely I’ve been strung together. All it took was one link to unclasp to set off the chain, to everything unravelling. Piece by piece.

  MARCO

  It’s like a drug. One hit of it and you’re under its spell, and then all you can think about is more. When you’ll have it again. When you’ll relive that rush of holding it in your hands. The thrill of announcing it to the world. The glory and fame that comes afterwards.

  At least, that’s how it was for me. It was the reason I became an archaeologist. Finding an ancient relic that told a story of the past: it was my addiction. I lived for the chance to find an artefact that could rewrite history, something so significant that it wouldn’t just illuminate the past, it would shine a light on me.

  So, when I was on archaeological excavation sites like the one in Florence, that desire drove me, pushed me through the unrelenting heat, the often claustrophobic trenches and the long days. I wanted to be the one to find what my predecessors couldn’t.

  It was close to midday and, being the middle of July, the sun was potent. It felt like an eye, watching us, beating down on our heads and the back of our necks, blistering any uncovered skin. I had deliberately scheduled the recording during the team’s siesta so I wouldn’t have any distractions during my televised interview. My wife, however, stayed behind to watch the filming.

  ‘Doctor Moretti, five minutes until we’re live on air,’ the television producer said. He was standing behind a silver circular reflector, with a notepad in hand, squinting into the sun. The popular cultural TV show Italy Uncovered wanted to do the interview live on the excavation site. This was exactly the type of exposure I was hoping for.

  The humidity was making me sweat incessantly. A make-up artist stepped forward and dabbed my oily forehead with powder. The presenter, Tarea Soretto, was sitting in front of me scanning her questions and then using her notepad as a fan over her face. ‘You’re going to be great,’ she said to me and smiled in that artificial journalist way. Perhaps she mistook my sweating for nerves. I almost laughed – if only she knew how much I relished these televised interviews. I felt more at ease in front of the camera than I did almost anywhere else.

  Tarea had been a news reporter and host for twenty-five years, and was something of a legend in Italy. She was wearing a tight-fitting red dress with cropped sleeves, revealing her surprisingly toned arms. She looked pretty good for a woman in her early fifties, but even though I was forty-five, she was far too old to be my type.

  The sound recordist did a final adjustment of my lapel mic and then returned to his position next to one of the cameramen. He called out ‘Rolling,’ and Tarea sat upright, staring down the lens of the camera, her whole demeanour livening.

  ‘Welcome to Italy Uncovered. We’re live today in Florence on the excavated courtyard of a medieval castle with Doctor Marco Moretti, a real-life Indiana Jones. He’s a historian and archaeologist who recently made headlines with the astounding claim that the famed San Gennaro necklace – thought to have been lost at sea in the late 1700s – may, in fact, be buried right here, metres below ground level.’ She turned to me, her dark brown eyes penetrating. ‘So, Doctor Moretti, tell us about the San Gennaro necklace and your remarkable theory.’

  ‘Thank you for having me on the show, Tarea.’ I smiled. ‘As you know, the necklace of San Gennaro – or Saint Januarius as it’s known in English – was part of a collection of lavish gifts honouring San Gennaro, the patron saint of Naples, in return for his protection from epidemics, earthquakes, plagues and the dreaded Mount Vesuvius. The necklace was made in 1679 by goldsmith Michele Dato. Thirteen gold links form the base of the necklace, which was continually added to by royals, emperors and aristocrats so that by the time it was supposedly lost at sea, it was recorded as having seven hundred diamonds, two hundred and seventy-six rubies and ninety-two emeralds.’

  Tarea knew this information but she widened her eyes as if it were a surprise. ‘What would you estimate the necklace to be worth if it were found today?’

  ‘It would be the most valuable piece of religious jewellery in existence. A remarkable chain of Italian history.’ I spoke slowly now for impact. I’d done enough of these interviews to know how to work the camera. ‘So, if I were to put a figure on it, I’d say it would be somewhere in the vicinity of one hundred and fifty million euros.’

  She gasped, and I had no doubt that the second camera positioned behind me had reframed to get a close-up of her awestruck expression.

&nb
sp; Tarea shook her head in disbelief. ‘Wow. That’s incredible. To understand the value of the necklace, take us back to the late 1700s when Napoleon Bonaparte was at the height of his powers. Is it not true that before departing on his first Italian campaign, he assigned four renowned artists to join the French army, with the goal of collecting monuments of arts and sciences when they looted Italian museums?’

  ‘That’s right. In 1796, the army entered the north of Italy, pushing down the Italian peninsula. As they moved they stole classical artefacts and Renaissance works of art, which were later displayed in museums across France.’

  ‘As they continued south, were the people of Naples fearful for the San Gennaro treasure?’

  Her questions were feeding perfectly into my somewhat rehearsed speech. ‘Absolutely. In December of 1798, the French army was marching towards Naples. The royal family was planning to flee Naples, which they kept a closely guarded secret, fearing a revolt. The priest of Naples Cathedral grew increasingly fearful that the royals would soon come to seize the San Gennaro necklace, and he was right. Before the French arrived, King Ferdinand of Naples and his wife Maria Carolina commanded he hand it over. They loaded the English ship Colossus with the precious jewel along with British Ambassador to the Kingdom of Naples Sir William Hamilton’s collection of extremely valuable antiquities that were to be sent to England.’

  ‘So, what happened?’

  ‘The monarchs fled Naples on another ship, setting sail on Christmas Eve. However, news soon arrived that while the monarchs had reached safety in Sicily, the Colossus had sunk in a storm off the Scilly Isles near England. The San Gennaro necklace was lost at sea.’

  Tarea narrowed her eyes, a look of concern on her face.

  ‘And so for more than two hundred years, it was believed to have been lost forever,’ I continued. ‘In 1974, explorers and ocean archaeologists scaled the sea floor near the Isles of Scilly searching for the necklace. They found the box the necklace was kept in, but it was empty. The necklace was never found.’

  ‘This brings us to your compelling assertion that the neck lace was never lost at sea and might be right here, buried under our feet. How did you come to that theory?’

  ‘During my PhD studies I came across the San Gennaro jewellery box that was found at sea, along with letters the Neapolitan priest received from a loyal acolyte. I studied the box closely – and I realised it was a replica. The genuine box that the necklace was stored in during the eighteenth century was made using the technique of pietre dure inlay, which used multicoloured polished precious and semiprecious stones cut and fitted with such precision that the lines of contact between each stone are invisible, creating the impression of a painting on stone. Drawings of this particular ebony box reveal that it had scrolling leaves and an image of the saint surrounded by rectangular slate plaques framed in red marble. But I soon realised that the box found on the ocean floor was actually created using a technique called scagliola, a sort of poor man’s pietre dure in that it resembles inlays of marble and semiprecious stones but is actually made from a composite substance of selenite, glue and natural pigments that imitate marble and other hard stones.

  ‘Once I knew for certain it was a fake, I returned to the letters. I ascertained from my lengthy study of them that the priest had a trustworthy source within the palace, and when the monarchs started collecting treasures to take with them as the French army closed in, the priest must have commissioned one of the finest scagliola artists to create a replica of the box in which the San Gennaro necklace was kept. He knew that if he let the necklace go with the royal family, the people of Naples would never see it again. On the eve of their departure, the priest’s acolyte replaced the pietre dure box with the empty replica.’

  ‘So, if your theory is right, what really happened to the necklace?’

  Each time I reveal my discovery, I get a rush through my body that makes me feel electric. ‘The letters were sent to the priest from his acolyte, who spoke of his new life in Florence. He described where he was living in great detail – a castle on a hill in Fiesole.’ I stop and gesture with my hands to the site around me. ‘This very castle. When I examined them closely, putting all the letters together, I realised that each one was leaving a coded clue to the necklace’s hiding place. He wrote things such as I am safe here. There are no windows in my room as I sleep below the castle floor. And in another, I yearn to return to my true home of Naples and will await your instruction as to when it is safe to do so.’

  ‘But the fate of the necklace was to be dealt another cruel blow, wasn’t it, when in 1805 a catastrophic fire destroyed a large section of the castle, burying with it the secret of the necklace?’

  ‘In the last letter, obviously written in haste, the priest’s loyal follower described how the fire destroyed an entire wing of the castle. He had been badly burned and didn’t think he would survive. He had no time to write in code and it was the only letter in which he referred to the necklace. His last words were: Our precious jewel is buried within the castle ruins. I do pray that it will one day return to its rightful home.’

  Tarea maintained her steady gaze and appeared completely mesmerised. ‘And what became of the castle?’ she asked animatedly, genuine intrigue clear in her voice.

  ‘The castle was later purchased by an English expatriate, who spent twelve years redesigning it in Victorian Gothic Revival style. Over the wing that had been destroyed by the fire, he built a courtyard, and so it remained.’

  ‘And here we are now. The excavation is in full swing. And if your theory is right, any day now, you might hit gold,’ she said, her eyes glinting.

  ‘It would be an enormous find, not only for the people of Italy, but for all of Europe. Each stone tells a story. It’s a remarkable chain of our history.’

  After the television crew had left, I felt invigorated by what I knew was an exceptional interview. I’d certainly done a good enough job to arouse even more interest in our excavation.

  I had four teams of six working across the trenches, plus a full-time conservator back in the sheds. We called in specialists whenever they were needed.

  The workers had returned from their siesta for the afternoon session, which was usually spent cleaning any new finds. We would wash any pottery fragments, what we called sherds, and record any found artefacts onto a database. Once everything was cleaned and processed, we would label and store them. The team had been working for the past hour under the blazing sun. ‘You can go home early today,’ I told them. ‘This heat is insufferable.’

  It wasn’t so much their welfare I cared about. As the field director, the most senior figure on site, I would sooner have them work through the night if it meant finding something of value. But all I could think about was escaping the heat and going for a swim.

  Carlos, who like me had dark olive skin from a lifetime spent under the European sun, turned to me, relief in his brown eyes. ‘Thank you, Marco,’ he said standing and stretching.

  ‘My mother says it’s the hottest July she’s ever known in Florence,’ Sofia said. She was one of the youngest on the team at twenty-eight, and incredibly attractive.

  Even though I’m a married man, younger women have always had an effect on me. I met my wife Sarah two decades ago when we were both studying for a PhD in archaeology at Cambridge University. We were assigned together in a group research study in medieval artefacts. I wouldn’t say we hit it off straightaway. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Sarah was opinionated and didn’t like to lose an argument. I was used to women lusting after me thanks to my good looks and intellect, and hanging on to my every word, something I used in my favour during my undergraduate degree in Florence. Sarah wasn’t like that. She would argue any theory I put forward and seemed to get a rush out of proving that she was smarter, that she was one step ahead of me. I admired her strong-headed nature.

  Of course, it helped that she was not only smart but beautiful in an unusual and arresting way. For some reason when my eyes
first fell on her, she reminded me of the depiction of Venus in the famous artwork, Birth of Venus, by renowned Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli. Maybe it was her pale flawless skin or her long hair, which was a shade between red and a sort of orange-blonde, or perhaps it was the sense of mystique that shrouded her. She had a warm smile, high cheekbones and pale green eyes, the colour of water in a shallow stream, but with a dark green midnight rim.

  I guess you could say we were opposites in almost every way. She was an Australian from a warm family who lived comfortably and I was a dark-skinned and often dark-tempered Italian whose upbringing was one of neglect and poverty. Then there were the little things – she had a love of coffee, I detested it; she hated to swim, I couldn’t last more than a few days without taking a cool dip; she loathed being in the public eye, I relished it. And yet, despite our contradictions, we worked like different shapes of a jigsaw puzzle that fit perfectly together. She filled my broken edges. Our friends and colleagues often remarked that we were the perfect couple and I often got the feeling that their words were tinged with jealousy.

  I gazed over at Sarah now as she wiped a film of dirt off her cheek. She was wearing a long-sleeved beige shirt and loose khaki pants, her slim figure hidden underneath the baggy clothes. No one ever looked particularly glamorous in this line of work, except of course for Sofia, who exuded effortless elegance.