Her crying begins to subside but she’s still trembling. ‘A man hired him to take me,’ she says, still staring ahead. Lieutenant Fallaci follows behind us and jots down notes as she speaks. ‘He’s the one who should be locked up.’
‘Did he say who the man was?’ Fallaci asks tentatively.
I hold my breath.
‘No,’ she says, looking suddenly exhausted. ‘But he implied that I knew him.’ Emily looks at me now, her eyes searching. ‘Who would do something like this, Mamma?’
How do I tell my daughter that the one man who was supposed to keep her safe is the one who put her through this?
I give the lieutenant a glance so he knows not to say anything. She’s not ready for the truth yet. She’s been through hell already and when she finds out that it was her father, she will go through a new kind of torment.
‘I don’t know, sweetie,’ I lie.
Forensics officers holding evidence bags make their way inside the farmhouse. A paramedic comes over. ‘We just need to assess you,’ she says gently. Emily looks at me, afraid to leave my side. ‘Your mother can come too,’ she adds, with a warm smile.
Emily leans on me as we walk to the ambulance.
‘Where’s Papà?’ she asks innocently.
I can feel Fallaci’s gaze on my back. ‘They wouldn’t let him come here. Only me.’ Another lie.
My heart feels swollen, like it has expanded outside my ribcage. When Emily finds out the truth, she’ll be completely shattered.
With what little energy she has left, she turns to Fallaci. ‘When you catch the man who organised this, I hope you lock him up for life.’
MARCO
Don was chillingly unreachable. The entire way to the farmhouse I kept redialling his number, only for it to ring out. I went through the messages he had sent to me, analysing every word in the hope that I’d misread them and they weren’t meant to be threatening in nature. But no matter how many times I re-read them, it was impossible to escape the sinister tone. She’s seen my face. I need to end this. Now.
I had to get there before he did anything impulsive. With no way to reach him, I had to fight the disquieting feeling that I was too late. Up until that moment, I had justified my actions by telling myself that she was kept in a clean room with everything she needed, that she was fed well and that in the grand scheme of her life it was an incident she would soon forget. I realised with an overwhelming rush of shame and regret that I had been entirely wrong. I’d focused on the ‘good conditions’ – having food, water, a tidy room, television, clothes and a bathroom – and neglected the fact that none of those things could make up for my daughter being locked up against her will. I had assured myself that she was resilient and could handle it, and deliberately overlooked that the trauma might have a lasting impact.
I had not only risked my daughter’s life, but my grand plan had failed spectacularly. It had done nothing to reignite Sarah’s memory. The necklace was gone. My career would be over. And now I feared that I could lose what should have been more precious to me than any antiquity – my child.
I needed to get my daughter safely out of that farmhouse and end this. But how could I do it without incriminating myself? As I drove, I tried to think of a way to ensure that I would come out as the hero instead of the villain. There was no way I was going to go down for a crime that didn’t even achieve anything. I toyed with the possibilities as I passed through long tunnels carved into the mountainside and continued down the narrow motorway, often holding my breath where there was no division between lanes.
And then it hit me … I could say that I had been blackmailed by the kidnappers and told to go to the farmhouse, alone, when they realised the necklace was truly gone. I would say that they had threatened to kill Emily if I alerted the police. On the way, I would self-inflict some injuries so that when I got there, I could tell Emily that I fought with her abductor before rescuing her.
To do that, I needed to get rid of Don first. I would give him more money and tell him to leave. Then I’d rush to the attic and ‘save’ Emily. Only then would I call the police and tell them about the blackmail, that I’d handed over a large sum of cash in place of the necklace, that we’d exchanged blows and he’d fled. And finally that I’d rescued Emily.
My daughter would never know the truth. Other than Don and Stefano, no one would. Emily would look up to me like a hero. The newspapers would write about how I’d risked my life to save hers. Television stations would offer enormous sums of money for the exclusive tell-all interview. If anything, it would boost my career.
So, for the first time since I conceived the abduction plan, I started to feel some relief. I could undo it all. And I could turn it around and come out on top. All that stood in my way now was Don. I just had to get there before he did anything foolish, because if he hurt my daughter in any way I would never, ever forgive myself.
The navigation device showed that I was fifteen minutes away. I peered at my rear-view mirror and had the sudden unsettling feeling that I was being followed. I could see a silver car and I was sure I’d noticed the same vehicle a few kilometres back. But then it turned off the motorway and I could breathe again. I was obviously imagining things. My paranoia seemed to be rising exponentially. No one is following you, I kept telling myself.
When I was five minutes away, I pulled off the motorway and into what appeared to be deserted woodland. If I was going to pull off a convincing battle with the kidnapper before he got away, I needed to make it look realistic.
I got out of the car and searched in the darkness for a broken branch. I found one about the length of a cricket bat at the base of a tree. It was solid and sturdy enough not to splinter on impact. I couldn’t inflict the injury on my right arm; it had to be my left. I faced my palm down and rested my wrist on the ground. There wasn’t time for me to hesitate, so I did what I used to as a child when my father beat me – I squeezed my eyes shut and pictured a happy memory from when I was a toddler – holding my mother’s hand on the beach in Positano. And then with all the force I could muster, I brought the branch crashing down onto my hand. There was an audible crack of bones followed by a burst of pain. My lip began to bleed from biting down so hard on it to stop myself from screaming. In the darkness, I couldn’t see the damage I had done but I could feel the shattered bones, the blood rushing to the surface, my fingers doming forward.
Despite the searing pain, one wound wouldn’t be enough. So, I cradled my broken hand to my chest in agony and searched along the ground for a rock, using my phone as a flashlight. I moved fast, knowing I would lose my nerve if I didn’t act quickly. I found a rock about the size of a tennis ball. With a shudder, I pressed my back against a tree to steady my weight and held the rock in my hand, hovering it in front of my face. I froze. I couldn’t do it. But then I heard my father’s taunts rise in my mind. Figlio di puttana. Son of a whore. Pezzo di merda. Piece of shit. Sei un vigliacco. You’re a coward.
‘I’m not a coward!’ I shouted aloud into the empty woodland, and with that I swung my arm back and then smashed the rock onto my left cheekbone with all my strength. I cried out. The pain was unbearable. It spread from my cheek, to under my eye, to my jaw, to the back of my head. I dropped the rock and instinctively brought my right hand up to my cheek. The place where my cheekbone had been was now flat, indented almost. I could feel blood pooling, the compression of nerves and muscles, the shock of damaged tissue and broken bone. My vision became blurry. My lip and nose felt numb. I staggered back to my car in a daze. The pain overwhelmed me and clouded my thoughts.
With my right hand, I unlocked the car door and turned the key for the ignition. My left hand sat limply on my lap, throbbing. It took an immense amount of coordination to drive with one hand and with only one clear-sighted eye. Blood dripped onto the steering wheel from my face and onto the seat from my hand.
To explain the blood in the car, I’d have to tell the police that after our battle, I’d got in my car and chased after
the abductor before I lost him and went back for Emily.
I drove the rest of the way to the farmhouse in unbearable pain, fighting nausea as I emerged off the motorway and onto a dirt road that led towards Lake Mezzola. I was light-headed, but I felt no self-pity. It was a necessary act. The more pain I felt, the more gain I would have when this ended and I was portrayed as the hero who saved his daughter.
I followed the dirt road all the way down to where it became a dead end. In the black of night, nestled between trees overlooking Lake Mezzola, the stone farmhouse emerged. It was isolated and exactly like it looked in the pictures I’d seen on the travel website when I made the booking for a week’s stay.
Don’s father’s van was parked in the driveway but the lights inside the house were all out. It was jarringly quiet save for the hum of wind through the woodland. I got out of the car slowly, cautiously. The blurred vision in my left eye made me feel lopsided.
Something felt wrong. Very wrong. What if Don had hurt my daughter? What if I was too late?
When I reached the front door, I froze in my tracks. On the ground was a large pool of blood. My cheek and hand throbbed but the pain that sliced through my heart was far worse. Oh god, oh god. What have I done?
‘Emily!’ I screamed frantically as I ran inside the farmhouse, searching for her in the darkness like a man possessed. ‘Don, where is she? What have you done to my daughter?’ I screamed.
My body must have gone into shock because I no longer felt the burning pain in my hand or the ache of my face, my flesh hanging loosely off the bone. Adrenaline pulsed through me.
I had chosen the farmhouse because it was in the remotest part of the woodland and the floorplan had showed a converted attic made into a windowless bedroom with a bathroom. I knew that’s where he had been keeping her.
‘Emily, Emily. I’m here, tesora. Papà’s here. It’s all going to be okay,’ I yelled as I ran up the stairs, praying he hadn’t harmed her.
I reached the first floor and the wind rushed through the curtains from an open balcony door. As I continued charging up the staircase to the attic, I tripped and fell on my broken hand and screamed in agony.
Cradling it against me, I levered myself up and kept moving until I reached the closed door of the attic room. I was terrified of what I would see when I opened it. A horrifying image rushed to my mind … My daughter tied to a chair, a single slit across her neck, blood all around, her unseeing eyes open, her lips purple, her young life drained from her.
Fear and guilt gripped me so fiercely that I vomited outside the door. I wiped the spittle and then turned the knob slowly.
When the door swung open, all I could see in the darkness was a solitary figure sitting on the bed. Was it Don, repentant for what he had done to my daughter? I rushed towards him, prepared to kill him, when suddenly the lights flashed on and the figure came into view. It was Vittoria Belardo.
I looked to my sides as two officers grabbed my arms, pulling my broken hand behind me and fastening handcuffs to my wrists.
With a mocking grin and black, accusing eyes, Vittoria came right up to my face, her breath like acid on my broken skin. ‘Marco Moretti, you’re under arrest.’
EMILY
Emily was running through the woodland along the edges of the lake. It was pitch black. She couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of her. Panic overwhelmed her as she tried to find a place to hide. She could hear him getting closer to her, his breaths loud, his steps heavy on the fallen leaves. Suddenly she felt a gun press against her temple. ‘Papà, please save me!’ she screamed. As the man pulled the trigger, she woke up from the nightmare with a start.
‘You were just having a bad dream,’ she heard her mother say soothingly. ‘You’re safe now, sweetheart.’
Emily looked around and then realised she was in the hospital in Milan, where she’d been brought by ambulance last night so they could keep her for observation. ‘We won’t leave your side, Emmy,’ her brother said. He was sitting on the chair next to her bed.
‘You need to rest,’ Sarah said.
Emily lay back down. The events of the past few days, culminating in the final showdown last night, felt surreal to her. She was in a cold sweat, fear trapped in her chest, and she wondered if that feeling would it ever go away or if it would stay with her, making her too afraid to ever run again on her own, or to go anywhere at all on her own.
‘I know I’m free now, but I still feel scared,’ she admitted in a timid voice.
Sarah stroked her hair tenderly. ‘It will take a while before you feel yourself again. That awful feeling will pass eventually.’
‘When will Papà get here?’
Her mother went silent and a strange expression passed over her face. ‘He’ll meet us at home,’ Sarah said eventually. Her mother had told her last night that her dad was assisting the police, which is why he hadn’t been there when she was rescued. But what would be keeping him from her now?
‘Surely he wants to see me? To know that I’m okay?’
‘Of course he does,’ Sarah said.
An orderly walked into her room with a tray of food, which Emily ate gratefully. After she finished her breakfast, they waited for a nurse to come and sign her discharge papers. Emily was mentally and physically exhausted. Every time she closed her eyes, a stream of terrifying images would press upon her: a gloved hand on her mouth, passing out, waking up in a windowless room, the claustrophobia, the creak of the stairs, the click of the lock, the shape of a gun in his back pocket, standing on the balcony ready to jump, seeing the armed police, the piercing gunshot, the pool of blood.
To distract herself, Emily flicked on the television and her skin instantly went cold. Along the bottom of the screen, a ticker of the breaking news headline ran: ABDUCTED TEENAGER FREED IN DRAMATIC RESCUE.
Emily watched in shock as aerial footage of the farmhouse she had been kept in appeared on the screen. She saw a man being led away by police. They then zoomed in and Emily gasped. It was her father. His face was swollen and his eye was completely bloodshot. There was blood all over his shirt. The reporter’s voiceover began: ‘In a shocking turn of events, the man behind the abduction of sixteen-year-old Emily Moretti has been revealed to be –’
The footage had only been playing for a few seconds when Daniel grabbed the remote and quickly turned off the television before she could hear the end of the sentence.
‘Oh my god. What happened to Papà? Did the man that took me beat him?’ she cried. ‘Turn it back on,’ she pleaded, but Daniel remained mute and instead looked over uneasily at their mother.
Sarah stood up and took a deep breath. ‘We wanted to wait to tell you until you were home.’
Emily’s heart started racing. ‘Tell me what?’
Emily gazed over at Daniel, who looked down, avoiding eye contact. Sarah spoke with a gentle and measured tone. ‘Your dad is fine,’ she said, and then cleared her throat as if she was struggling to get the words out.
Emily rubbed her damp eyes. ‘No, he’s not. I just saw on the TV. He’s hurt.’
Sarah spoke slowly, delicately, as if her words were shrapnel and she was fearful of how they could wound. ‘I don’t know how to tell you this, sweetheart.’ She swallowed, her brows furrowing, her eyes soft. ‘But your dad is the one that did this to you. He hired that man because he believed that abducting you might trigger my memory to return, and that way he’d get his precious necklace back.’
Emily listened in disbelief. ‘That’s not true,’ she snapped. ‘Papà would never do this to me. Someone must have framed him. I know it. There’s obviously been a mistake.’
‘Emmy, I’m so sorry but it’s true,’ her mother said, moving a hair from Emily’s face. ‘They have evidence. They found a phone with messages between him and the abductor. And he went to the farmhouse last night after you were freed. The police followed him there and watched him inflict wounds upon himself to make it look like he had fought with the abductor.’
It
was all too much for her to bear. Emily tried to absorb what her mother was saying, fighting against the tide of denial that rose assertively, demanding that it couldn’t possibly be true. But slowly, agonisingly, the truth took hold like a bruise spreading across her heart, an ache more painful than a bone that broke or a wound that bled. The hurt was deep and throbbing and insufferable.
‘How could he do this to me, Mamma?’ she cried. Emily thought of how foolish she had been to picture her father coming to her rescue, imagining him being her saviour, when all this time he had in fact been her captor.
‘I don’t know, Emmy,’ her mother said gently. ‘This necklace has driven him to the point of insanity. It’s unfathomable that he would go to these lengths to get it back. But he’s behind bars now and he’ll have a very long time to think about what he’s done.’
‘Everyone at school will know, won’t they? I’ll be that girl whose father faked her abduction because he cared more about some stupid diamond necklace than his own daughter’s life.’
Daniel leaned forward and put his hand on her arm. ‘You don’t need to worry about what people at school might say,’ her brother said. ‘You’ve been amazingly strong through everything, stronger than I could ever have been. The only person who has anything to be ashamed of is Papà. And he’ll pay the price for what he’s done.’
A nurse walked in amid the uneasy silence that followed. ‘Here are your discharge papers,’ she said with an awkward smile.
‘We don’t have to leave the hospital now, Emmy, if you’re not ready. We can wait a bit,’ Sarah said tenderly.
Emily cradled her knees to her chest as she sat on the bed. She took a deep breath. ‘No. I just want to go home.’
Sarah helped her up off the bed while Daniel gazed out the window to where a scrum of press was gathered, waiting for their shot of the day’s headline news. ‘There’s a lot of media outside, so just prepare yourself. They’ll probably ask you a lot questions, but just ignore them,’ he said. ‘The police will be in the foyer waiting for us and they’ll escort us to one of their vehicles.’
The Perfect Couple Page 28