The Perfect Couple

by Lexi Landsman

  He makes a note and I try to see what he’s written but he has such messy handwriting that it’s impossible to decipher a single word.

  ‘Sarah said that you were desperate for her memory to return and became almost, how did she put it?’ He scans over the transcripts. ‘Ah yes, “possessed” by the idea that her memory was the key to finding it. Sarah also says that you had a theory about what happened to her in the two hours from when she supposedly left the lab to when she had the accident.’

  I notice he uses the word ‘supposedly’, implying that Sarah could be lying, so maybe he does believe my account. ‘I thought that she might have been followed from the lab by some thugs who beat her up, made her take them back to the lab, open the safe and hand over the necklace. And then I thought it was possible that they left her for dead and staged it to look like her injuries were inflicted from a car accident.’

  ‘So, her bumped head, broken ribs and wrist, the way her car was found near the river – you believed all of that could have been at the hands of the necklace thieves?’

  ‘At the time, it seemed plausible. It’s a necklace worth hundreds of millions of euros. I have no doubt that there are many criminals out there who would have committed murder to get their hands on it.’

  ‘Would you have committed murder for it?’ His face remains unchanged as he asks the question. It’s the first time since I’ve been in this room with him that I begin to worry that he could be like all the others, already taking a side. I clench my fists, the anger rushing over me in a flash. ‘Of course not,’ I snap.

  He startles for a second and looks at the door.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to lose my temper,’ I say quickly.

  He makes a note. ‘That’s okay, Professor. It’s one of those questions I have to ask. But of course, I believe you,’ he says, and smiles faintly.

  I feel my shoulders relax and remind myself that he’s different from his predecessors.

  ‘You must have been under enormous strain, having to look after your injured wife while at the same time trying to find out what happened to the necklace, and keeping the media at bay.’

  Finally, he seems to understand the immense pressure I was under. He’ll soon see that I had no choice but to do what I did. ‘On top of all that I had the added pressure of being a television star and having the world watching my every move, and –’

  ‘The world?’ he asks quizzically.

  I’m annoyed by the interruption, which has disturbed my chain of thought. ‘The worldwide media,’ I say, being more literal, as he seems preoccupied with the semantics. ‘So, I had to quickly send another email to delay the announcement. That alone made me look like a fool. I was utterly humiliated.’

  ‘Was that humiliation what ultimately drove you to concoct the abduction plan?’

  I knew it would come to this. It always does. It’s the part of the story I loathe telling. When I was arrested and interrogated, I learned that they had ample evidence to convict me of the crime. There was the testimony from Don and Stefano, my secret phone data, a record of a large withdrawal of money made in Naples and my internet browsing history that showed my searches for the farmhouse. Then, to catch me red-handed, they’d followed me that night from Sofia’s hotel to the farmhouse. They’d watched from a police car as I broke my own hand and fractured my cheekbone. I was cornered. They had me.

  ‘The humiliation was part of it,’ I admit tentatively. I have to answer carefully so I appear remorseful and of sound mind, then I can begin to show that Sarah is the real liar. ‘I guess greed played a part too,’ I continue. ‘I spent my career searching for the antiquity. So, when I finally held it in my hands and then had it ripped away, I was utterly shattered. It was mine,’ I say with gusto, and then quickly correct myself. ‘I mean it was my discovery. My career-defining moment. And it was taken from me.’

  He’s staring at me so intently that it’s making me uncomfortable. I wish he’d look away. I hate when people make unflinching eye contact. It’s made me suddenly self-conscious; I’m aware of every inflection in my voice, ever tremor of my hands and legs, every uncomfortable shift I make in my seat.

  ‘Is that when you came up with the idea to hire a man to abduct your daughter and make it look like a kidnap-for-ransom?’

  I nod. ‘My wife is a brilliant woman. My ex-wife,’ I corrected. ‘Her memory has always been infallible. I did my research on memory loss and I knew the memories were there, she just needed a trigger to uncover them. And I believed that Emily would be that trigger.’

  He unclasps his hands and rubs his chin. ‘But it didn’t work, did it, because your wife’s memory never returned?’

  ‘She never lost her memories!’ I snap, even though I promised myself I wouldn’t when it came to this. ‘See, that’s what none of you realise. She faked everything. The car accident. The memory loss. All of it.’

  He interrupts and stares at me incredulously. ‘You believe your wife faked a car accident that gave her a brain injury and broken bones?’

  ‘Sarah came to see me in jail six months ago and admitted the truth to me. It was payback for my adultery. The night we found the necklace, she went back to the safe and hid it so I would arrive at the media conference and be humiliated.’

  He makes a note. ‘You are aware that it would be impossible to fake those injuries.’

  ‘I don’t know how she did it but Sarah is a liar. You have to believe me,’ I beg.

  He remains calm. ‘You know, Professor Moretti, Sarah’s whereabouts that night have since become known. The police found a receipt proving she went to the ballet that night, which explains why she was driving home at that late hour. There’s even CCTV footage of her at the theatre.’ He speaks slowly now, delicately. ‘Therefore there’s no evidence to suggest she ever went to the lab. You understand that, Professor, don’t you?’

  I stand up and start to pace. ‘I knew you’d be just like the rest of them and believe her lies,’ I spit out, and then I turn to face him. ‘She planned the whole thing. Every last detail. She’s a smart woman, don’t you get it?’ I yell. ‘She framed me!’

  ‘Please sit down, Professor,’ he says, gesturing with his hands, his voice artificially calm. ‘I’m not taking sides here. I just want to hear your version of events.’

  ‘She deleted the photos we took of the necklace on her phone,’ I say, making a fist and then wincing from the burning pain, a residue of having broken my hand. ‘She was there. She was the one who found it!’

  He shakes his head gently as he speaks. ‘But the photos don’t exist. They were never found on her phone.’

  ‘She wiped them from her phone!’ I yell. ‘It was all part of her revenge plan to make me look like I was a madman. That’s why I’m locked up here – because she’s made you people believe I’m crazy.’

  ‘Do you think you’re crazy?’

  I hate when they do that. Reframe the questions so it’s like I’m asking them of myself. ‘Of course not. I saw the necklace with my own eyes. It was there.’ I’m close to tears at the frustration of another person buying her lies. ‘Why doesn’t anyone listen to me? My wife hid it. She set me up. You have to believe me.’

  The psychiatrist looks at me sympathetically but I can see in his eyes that I’ve already lost him. It’s no use pleading my case.

  ‘Please, Professor, sit down.’ His tone is more forceful this time, so I do as I’m told.

  ‘I really want to believe you, and that’s why I’m here. But I’m afraid that everything you said just doesn’t add up. The necklace was an obsession of yours. Not finding it drove you to the point of a psychotic episode. You never found the necklace. Everything that happened was in your mind. It’s not real. It was a delusion,’ he says gently. ‘Sarah was never at the lab. She never found the necklace. She never hid it. You believed your delusion to the point that you concocted the abduction of your own daughter. You hired a man to kidnap her so you could spur on your wife’s memory in order to get a ne
cklace back that you imagined finding. Do you understand, Professor, the serious ness of your crime?’

  I bang both my fists on the table and a jar of pens tumbles to the ground. I want to strangle him. ‘I didn’t make any of it up!’ I yell. ‘My wife planned this. I promise you. She is a vindictive bitch. She masterminded this whole thing.’

  He sighs. ‘Sarah only wants you to get the help you need. That’s why you’re here, in the psychiatric wing of the jail.’

  I start to laugh. Slowly at first, like he’s made a joke, and then it becomes a full-belly laugh and I’m keeling over. But soon tears are running down my face and I realise that I’m crying. ‘She’s lying!’ I scream. ‘I held it in my hands, I had the necklace.’ I lean across the table and grip him by the neck. ‘She’s fed you her lies and you’ve just eaten them up. She did this to me.’

  The psychiatrist presses a button below his table and in a second, two guards rush in. I let go of his neck and they pin me down onto the cold, hard floor. I writhe and scream and try to push them off me.

  ‘I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, Professor,’ he says in a patronising tone as he stands, towering above me, while my face is planted on the ground.

  ‘She’s a liar!’ I keep screaming.

  A nurse comes in, and I feel something injected into me that runs through my veins, making my blood warm. I try to fight it and push them off me, but soon my arms are weak and my legs become numb and my voice is nothing more than a hoarse whisper.

  ‘You’ll sleep now,’ the nurse says quietly.

  The messages from my brain to my body are lost. The faces all around me become bright white lights and I feel like I’m floating on a lake, like my body is made of air. The last thing I see before my eyes close is the San Gennaro necklace sparkling on the surface of the water. It shimmers and beckons. The sunlight catches on the gemstones in all their magnificence. I reach my hand to grab it and my fingers close around the radiant diamonds, the sparkling sapphires and rubies and emeralds, around the links of four centuries of history, around the mesmerising antiquity that would have been lost forever if not for me. I feel a lightness rush through me. A weightlessness. Pure euphoria. It is mine at last.

  But then suddenly it slips out of my fingers and I watch helplessly as it sinks below the surface. Until it’s gone …

  I was so close.

  EPILOGUE

  SARAH

  The Outback is the perfect place to disappear. There is no internet. No phone signals. No First-World problems. You could go weeks without seeing another soul if you wanted to. It’s so different from the places I’ve called home for the past two decades. Out here, you could die quickly from a bite from a brown snake or a death adder, or even a funnel-web spider. You could be dragged into a creek by a crocodile. You could get trapped by a bushfire. You could get lost and dehydrate in the unrelenting heat. Despite the dangers, nothing beats being immersed in a place with untouched natural wilderness as far as the eye can see.

  I’m working at the top of Australia in the Northern Territory as the field director on the archaeological excavation of the Yallambee rock shelter, which lies at a remote location south of Kakadu National Park. The walls and pillars of the rock shelter feature prehistoric paintings of barramundi, wallabies, crocodiles, people and spiritual figures. I’m working with leaders in their areas – a rock-art specialist from France and geomorphologist from Melbourne’s Monash University.

  So far, we’ve discovered stone flakes, knives, axes, ochre palettes and animal bones. Our biggest find is an uncovered portion of a charcoal drawing on a rock fragment that was radiocarbon dated at 28,000 years, meaning it is the oldest firmly dated rock-art painting in Australia.

  The heat is insufferable, and the work is tiring but infinitely more rewarding because I no longer feel like I am etching a career in my ex-husband’s shadow. I can only see now how foolish I was to relinquish my own research interests for his. Not only had I helped him write his paper on the San Gennaro necklace without any credit, but I had never questioned why I was always a notch below him on the excavation hierarchy.

  The last year has been tumultuous, to say the least. Marco was like a bushfire that swept through our lives, leaving only destruction in his wake. The abduction ordeal has left a permanent mark on Emily that like a burn will never fully heal. My daughter showed maturity and resilience beyond her years but she still goes to therapy. She has to come to terms with the fact that her father put her through the most terrifying experience of her life. Daniel, on the other hand, seems to be coping remarkably well. Confronting his father in the hospital gave him some sort of closure and now he’s intent on moving forward without Marco’s shadow cast over his life.

  After Emily was released from hospital, we returned to our apartment in Florence. The media camped outside our home and followed the story for weeks. It was only when they moved on to the next scandal that I tried to return our lives to normal. But we all felt unexpectedly unsettled.

  So, I decided that we needed a fresh start. I quit my work on the Vincivoli Castle excavation. I was through with being a nomad, roaming from country to country, never having a fixed address. It was time to go back to the only home I’d ever known – Australia.

  Emily and Daniel were thrilled with the idea of moving there. So, we packed up our lives and flew across the globe. Emily and I moved in with my parents in Berry.

  I enrolled Emily in a small school nearby and she had no problems making friends. She quickly adjusted to the laid-back lifestyle and the fact that people there didn’t know about the poison her father had brought into her life. On weekends, she works at my parents’ bookstore.

  Daniel has taken up music full-time. He’s enrolled in a music course in Sydney and joined a band. His relationship with Caterina is going well. She’d always wanted to travel to Australia and so she secured a student visa and moved with Daniel to a small apartment in Bondi Beach.

  As for me, I’ve decided to spend only three months a year away doing field work, and the rest of the time I lecture in archaeology at the University of Wollongong.

  It’s an uncomplicated existence. The future is an unknown to me, and I’m okay with that. It’s the past I am relieved to have finally packaged and locked away, except for one piece I take with me everywhere. It’s a glimmering reminder of how I got here, a memory of sorts that’s tangible, irreplaceable and unforgettable.

  It’s Friday evening and the sun is setting, making the sky almost look like a flame as it streaks with hues of red and orange. I feel a sense of contentment and inner peace that I haven’t felt in years. Sand flies up around the wheels of my open-aired jeep as I cross the rough terrain from our camp to a small pub where we head at the end of every week for a drink.

  When I park outside the pub, I can already smell spilt ale and cider, and the aroma of fried fish. The sound of the pub chatter coming from inside is broken only by the hum of crickets and the buzz of flies. Fans spin overhead but do little to cool the stifling air as I walk in and head to the snooker tables.

  ‘There’s a jug of beer with your name on it,’ Phil says when he sees me. He’s our geomorphologist and about a decade older than me. He’s lanky and tall and soft-natured and so unlike Marco in every way. He’s shown a keen interest in me but I’m not ready to start a new relationship yet.

  Phil pours me a glass. I never used to drink beer; I detested the taste, but it has grown on me. My colleagues are already into a game, with three balls left to sink. Murray turns on the television and flicks through the channels, stopping when he reaches the news. A story appears and I recognise the backdrop immediately. It’s Florence.

  ‘An important historical discovery was made today when art restorers unearthed the famed Saint Januarius necklace in the large, gilded frame of a valuable Italian Renaissance painting inside Vincivoli Castle,’ the reporter says. My colleagues go quiet as we gather around the television set. ‘The exquisite necklace was discovered when the painting depicting Minerv
a, the Goddess of Wisdom, triumphing over her capture of a centaur, was taken down for scheduled restoration work. It is believed to be the first time the painting has been moved in over two-hundred years.’

  I cover my mouth and gasp as though I’m in utter shock.

  The reporter continues. ‘Former Italian television personality and archaeologist Marco Moretti made the bizarre claim one year ago that he had found the necklace in the excavated trenches of the castle grounds only to have it stolen on the same night – a claim that’s now been proven to be false. Moretti is currently in psychiatric care while serving a jail sentence for his plot to secure the necklace through the staged abduction of his daughter.

  ‘The jewel is estimated to be worth around one hundred and fifty million euros and was perfectly preserved except for one missing stone – a single diamond.’

  I smile to myself, imagining how Marco will feel when he hears the news. The idea came to me the night I discovered the necklace. After seeing Marco kiss Sofia, I returned to the castle and retrieved the necklace from the safe. I was about to leave when my eyes fell upon the art restoration schedule. The castle had a valuable replica of Sandro Botticelli’s acclaimed artwork ‘Pallas and the Centaur’, made by one of his students in the 1490s. It was due to be taken down for restoration in six months’ time.

  I thought the painting was a nice symbolic touch. Marco always used to say I reminded him of the golden-red haired, beautiful and serene Venus depicted in Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. In the castle’s painting, Botticelli’s student had depicted red-headed Minerva grasping a half-man, half-beast by the head, in a sign of her triumph over his worthless, lustful and animalistic ways.

  I had all the tools I needed in the lab and it was easy to open the deep-set frame just enough to slip the necklace inside and then seal it off again, without leaving any trace. And so there it was. An inspired moment to have Marco framed and hung for his deceitful ways.