Authors: Joanna Rees
‘What happened?’
‘You really don’t know? Shelley didn’t tell you?’
Thea shook her head, trying not to betray how fast her heart was beating with anticipation. ‘She hinted at something, but . . . ’
He took another deep breath. ‘I – we . . . well, we were kids and we . . . well, she got . . . Lis got pregnant.’
‘Pregnant?’ Thea felt her heart jolting.
‘Lis was terrified. She was training hard. She wanted to get rid of the baby, but it went to full term. We were young. That’s what happened back then.’
Thea stared at him, her mind whirring. ‘She had the baby? Where? What happened to it?’
‘Lis went to her schoolfriend Shelley’s house. She had the baby there. Then she left the baby with Shelley. Lis felt it had to be that way.’
Thea felt her skin tingling all over. Shelley had known this about her mother? This enormous fact. Her mother had had a baby . . . in Shelley’s house. Did that mean Bridget had known? Had
Tom
?
What if Thea hadn’t ended things with Tom – how would things have played out? Would Shelley really have kept such a big secret, with Thea right under her nose?
Her head was flooded with questions, hundreds of questions, and her mind started scrambling for dates and timings. What if that baby . . .
Tom
. . . No, that couldn’t
possibly—
Thea felt adrenaline pumping through her. ‘What kind of baby? What was it?’
‘A little girl. We had a baby girl.’
She stood very still, letting the information sink in. Somewhere out there was a little girl – Thea’s half-sister. Her own flesh and blood.
A sister.
And there and then Thea knew, without a doubt, that this was the reason her heart had brought her here. Had her subconscious known all along that there had been something – someone –
missing from her life?
A sister.
Her heart soared at the thought. Staring up at the fist-like mountain, Thea vowed that she would find her sister, no matter what. No matter how long it took.
September 2001
‘And then,’ Alfonso was saying, ‘you chop the oregano up very fine. See? Rub it between your fingers. Now smell.’
Romy smiled as Nico reluctantly dipped his head towards the proffered herbs. Alfonso’s impromptu cookery lesson had already been going on for more than an hour.
They were in the kitchen of Villa Gasperi, Alfonso’s family’s home in the centre of Milan. Maria and Roberto had given Alfie and Romy a couple of months here alone whilst they were
travelling. After their wedding in the summer, the press speculation on the couple had been so intense that the old convent, with its thick stone walls and large garden full of towering palm trees,
was the only place they could truly be protected from the prying eyes of the press.
‘And then you’re going to stir it into the sauce right at the very last second, before you serve it up,’ Alfonso said.
‘It seems a lot of effort,’ Nico complained, taking solace from another fortifying slug of wine. Romy smiled. He was the one who wanted to impress his new boyfriend, Pierre, who was
arriving in Milan tomorrow.
It had made Romy’s honeymoon even more special when Nico had fallen for the handsome Pierre. Nico had been there for the first week of their trip to the Maldives, to do the official
honeymoon shots as the final part of the wedding deal that Romy and Alfonso had done with
Vogue
and
Grazia
. Out on the dive-shoot his romance with Pierre had sparked.
‘Do you want to learn how to cook or not?’ Alfonso demanded.
Nico winked at Romy, who was washing salad at the sink. ‘Maybe it would just be easier to order a takeaway? A pizza?’
Romy smiled. It was good to see the two men in her life getting on so well. Together they formed a link between her past and her present. They made it feel as if her life had direction and
consistency, and that the future too would be a clear path along which she could tread.
As she gazed out through the kitchen window at the sun setting across the orchard and the garden’s cobbled wall, she thought back to her wedding day, less than two months ago, but already
it felt like a lifetime away.
She remembered now how she’d walked from the house to the tiny church arm-in-arm with Nico, the clanking of the church bell breaking through the hazy afternoon as old ladies from the
crowded balconies above threw flowers in her path.
Behind her, Alfonso’s nieces in white dresses and lace gloves fussed around her dress, pulling the train out behind her. The same train that Maria had worn on her wedding day to Roberto,
and his mother before her.
‘This will take ages at this rate,’ Nico had said.
‘But it’s nice,’ Romy had squeezed his arm and then straightened the pink rose in his buttonhole. ‘It’s all part of it.’
‘You’re right. It
is
pretty amazing,’ he’d said. ‘I’ve never been big on weddings myself, but this . . . well, this is incredible. I can’t
believe how much work you’ve done to pull it all together.’
‘I am doing the right thing, aren’t I?’
‘You’re not sure?’ Nico had asked, stopping her. ‘Because if you’re not—’
‘No – it’s not like that,’ she’d said. ‘It’s just I’m scared that I love Alfonso too much. That I could never live without him. I don’t know
if it’s possible to love someone this much. I feel so out of control. So strong, and yet so frightened.’
‘The only thing you’ve got to be frightened of is not making it to the altar on time. And after that you can get worried about becoming fat on Mamma Scolari’s pasta.’
Romy had smiled then, and had waved when she’d seen that Roberto Scolari was waiting for her at the doorway of the church.
‘Were you worried I wouldn’t come?’ she’d teased him, noticing a tear in his eye. She’d touched his face affectionately. It had been Roberto she’d had to
thank for the lavish wedding. He’d spared no expense, and she’d been able to tell how proud he was.
‘Of course not.’ Then he’d held her gaze and had said softly, ‘You gave back my son.’
And as he’d hugged her, Romy knew that he really did love her like his own daughter, and that today had made him happier than he could possibly put into words. She’d turned and given
her flowers to Cesca. Then she’d looked at Roberto.
‘I’d like you to come with me,’ she’d told him, taking his arm.
She’d winked at Nico, who’d instantly understood, and together all three of them had walked up the aisle of the tiny church, each pew packed full of smiling guests. And Romy
hadn’t imagined that she could ever feel happier than she had right then.
She’d heard the majestic organ filling the church, the light flooding in through the high stained-glass rose window, sending shafts of colours onto the black and white tiles leading to the
altar, where the priest stood with Alfonso, waiting for her. Behind him a flower arrangement of tumbling roses from Maria’s very own garden had added sweet perfume to the heady incense.
It had felt as if every step of her life had been bringing her to this moment. She hadn’t been able to stop grinning, as her favourite of Alfonso’s nieces, Cesca, pulled back
Romy’s veil, and Alfonso had been able to see how happy Romy was.
‘You look incredible,’ he’d whispered and she saw tears in his eyes. ‘Stunning.’
And Romy knew that, for all the compliments she’d ever been paid in her life, this had been the best one yet.
She had listened to the same priest who had baptized Alfonso here as a baby start the service, but her eyes had never left Alfonso’s, the rest of the church forgotten. She’d wanted
to pinch herself, she was so happy.
She’d dreamily smiled at Alfonso as he’d slipped the gold band onto her finger.
‘I will love you forever, Mrs Scolari,’ he’d whispered.
And as his lips had touched hers, Romy had known that she really was safe now.
Forever.
The CCTV intercom monitor lit up on the wall by the kitchen door, just as the CD on the huge sound system was changing. Alfonso picked up the silver remote and paused the
familiar introduction to Robbie Williams’s ‘Rock DJ’.
The unsmiling face of Max, the burly security guard manning the gate, filled the small screen.
‘There’s a . . . woman . . . here who’s insisting on seeing Mrs Scolari,’ Max’s gruff voice crackled through the speaker.
Mrs Scolari. Romy still adored the sound of those words. But it was clear from the way he’d hesitated before using the word ‘woman’ that forty-something, ex-paratrooper Max did
not believe that whoever it was with him had any right to be here.
‘We’re not expecting anyone – are we?’ Alfonso checked, glancing across at Romy.
‘No.’
Alfonso crossed over to the monitor. ‘Please tell her to go away. If she wishes to make contact with either of us, she can go through Father’s office,’ he said to Max before
flicking the monitor off.
The screen faded into a grainy black. Probably just another journalist or photographer, Romy thought, as Alfonso flicked the remote. There’d not been a week since their honeymoon when
they’d not been hounded by one tabloid hack or another.
But Villa Gasperi felt safe. It ought to, with the amount of security here – there were alarms and locks everywhere. That was because it was home to the renowned Scolari art collection. In
the dining room alone there was a Titian and a priceless Da Vinci sketch. Its wine cellar wasn’t bad either, she reflected, watching as Nico poured himself another full glass of
Roberto’s best Pinot.
Romy smiled as Alfonso started singing along with the song, sidling up behind her and dancing. She laughed, but then the intercom monitor flickered back into life.
‘What now?’ Alfonso said, irritated. He paused the music again and went to the monitor. Romy dried her hands on a tea towel and joined him.
‘She’s refusing to leave,’ Max apologized. ‘She wants me to tell you – to tell Mrs Scolari – that her name is Claudia Baumann. And that she knew Mrs Scolari
many years ago, in Schwedt, when they were both still girls.’
Claudia. Schwedt . . . Even through the guard’s mangled pronunciation, the word reached out and scraped like a talon across Romy’s skin. The room seemed to sway before her eyes for a
moment, as if she might faint. She steadied herself against the long wooden kitchen table – a table she’d spent Christmas at with Alfonso’s noisy, chattering family.
Claudia. It could not be possible. Claudia was dead.
The dogs. The dogs had been there . . .
‘What is it? Nico asked.
The shock must have shown in her face. She balled her hands into fists. She tried to speak, but no words came to her. She tried to think, but all she kept seeing were Ulrich’s dogs in the
woods; all she kept hearing were their snarls.
‘Romy?’ a voice broke through. ‘Romy?’ More urgently now.
It was Alfonso. He was walking towards her now.
‘Romy? Is this woman telling the truth? Do you know her? Do you want her to come in?’
It was past midnight. Romy took one last look at Claudia lying there asleep in the guest bedroom. She wore her hair severely short these days, shaved at the back. She looked so
much older than she should.
It didn’t seem possible that she was really here, really alive. Romy shivered, again thinking back to those dark, snowbound woods on that night, so many years ago, when they’d made
their desperate bid for escape. She remembered red on white, blood on snow. Ulrich’s dog had sunk its teeth into Claudia flesh. It had shaken her by the throat.
Ulrich’s dogs. The ones that he’d fed on live rats.
I would have helped. I would have stayed and helped, if I’d thought you’d stood even a chance. If I’d not thought you were already as good as dead
. . .
She stared at the familiar curve of Claudia’s cheekbone, guilt welling up inside her as she turned and sighed in her sleep, the scar on her neck a livid red. One by one the other
girls’ names started coming back to Romy, their scared and tiny faces passing through her mind in a phantom parade. She pictured the photos she’d found in Lemcke’s desk. What had
become of them all, those lost girls? As Claudia was now, Romy prayed they’d one day been found.
‘Let her sleep.’
It was Alfonso. He gently put an arm around Romy’s waist and drew her back, before quietly closing the bedroom door.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered in the twilight of the corridor.
Sorry – the word wasn’t enough. No matter how many times she said it to him, it could never undo all the lies she’d told.
‘You’ve done nothing wrong,’ was all that Alfonso said now. Her husband. This man she loved with all her being. Could he really just forgive her? Could it really be as simple
as that?
He was leading her now by the hand down the long, winding corridor to their bedroom, passing Nico’s room, from which the rumble of drunken snores could already be heard.
More guilt, more regrets, swelled up in Romy’s chest. If anything, it was Nico rather than Alfonso who’d been the more hurt and confused by Claudia’s arrival and the secrets
from her past that had begun to spill out.
She’d read it in his eyes. What kind of friend lies to you from the first day they meet you? What kind of sick person does that? Why hadn’t Romy respected him enough to tell him the
truth?
She saw Nico thinking all of these things as she’d stood and admitted everything to him and Alfonso. There’d been no tears. Just bald statements: words falling like bricks from her
mouth. Walling herself in. Cutting herself off. She’d told them about the orphanage. About how she’d caught Fox and the other boys raping Claudia. About how she’d attacked them
– how she’d stabbed Fox – and had got Claudia out.
She’d told Alfonso and Nico all this in the time it had taken for Claudia to be escorted up the long gravel driveway to the house.
‘I don’t expect you to forgive me,’ she’d told Alfonso when she’d finished, unable to look him in the eyes. ‘But, please, let Claudia stay. If she needs
to.’
He’d lifted her chin so that he could see her face. ‘I don’t care what you’ve done’ was all he’d said. ‘We agreed. Whatever happened before we met
– it doesn’t matter. I love you. That’s all there is to it. And if this girl needs your help now, then I will help her too.’