Page 64 of The Stolen Child

They jumped out of the car, and Zach practically bounced up to the villa on the left-hand side. He opened his phone, then punched in a code from an email he’d received into a keypad on the wall. Pulling the key out, he opened the front door.

‘Welcome to Casa Rosa,’ he proclaimed, ushering Lily in. ‘I think you’ll like this place. It’s over a century old.’

The hall led into a small open-plan living space. Whitewashed walls, terracotta flagstones on the floor and dark wooden beams on the ceiling gave the room a rustic charm. A small galley kitchen ran along one end, with a sitting room on the other. A comfortable green sofa sat beside a log stove, and a rattan rug was on the floor.

‘It’s lovely,’ Lily said. She opened a door off the hall to reveal a small bathroom with a Moroccan feel. Then, opposite that room, was a bedroom with a large double bed in its centre, with pristine white duvet covers and pillowcases. ‘Erm, Zach, where’s the second bedroom?’

‘There’s only one. You get the bedroom; I’ve got the couch. Simple,’ Zach said. ‘And don’t even think about arguing.’ He left the room to end the discussion and called over his shoulder, ‘Come check this out.’

She followed him onto a small brick terrace. Pots filled with peonies in every rainbow colour sat along its edge, framing the view below. She was speechless as she took in the incredible vista below.

‘This brick –’ Zach touched the weathered caramel and honey-coloured bricks – ‘is part of the city wall of Ronda. Isn’t that something? To be part of something so historic. It’s one of the best-preserved city walls on the peninsula. It’s famed for it.’

‘It’s stunning, Zach,’ Lily said as she breathed deeply the scent of flowers, and birds sang out a welcome. ‘I can’t believe that this morning I was scraping porridge from Ben’s hair and face at breakfast . . . and now this.’

‘Wild, right?’ Zach asked, grinning. Then he paused, his smile disappearing as a frown deepened into his forehead. ‘Lily, this is the first home that I remember. This is the villa my mom and I lived in, in the 1980s.’

Lily felt her breath disappear as the weight of that piece of information hit her.

She looked at Zach, and the years slipped away like leaves in an autumn breeze, until he was no longer a grown man, but a young toddler of two and a half. After decades of wondering where Robert had disappeared to, was she finally standing in the answer? A shiver ran down her spine.

‘Were you happy here?’ she managed to whisper.

He shrugged his shoulders, his own eyes filling with tears too.

‘I don’t know. I think so. But, as I’ve told you before, most of my earliest memories are American ones with Mom and Dad. Playing with my sisters when they came along. All happy there. But I do have fragments of my Spanish childhood locked away in my mind. And when I came here for that summer it was as if the air around me had the key to open them up again. I remembered feelings or moments. Nothing I could cling to, though.’

Lily saw something flash across Zach’s face. A shadow of . . . pain, she thought. ‘Good memories?’ she pushed.

‘Not all of them. I remember feeling scared while I was here,’ Zach said, his eyes looking downwards to his feet.

‘Are you okay?’ Lily asked, moving towards him.

Another shrug. Then he walked back into the villa. ‘Let’s go next door and meet Señor and Señora Alvarez. They are the owners I told you about. I’d like you to meet them.’

They were in luck. A smiling woman with twinkling brown eyes opened the door. She had long dark hair peppered with white streaks, tied in a low bun.

‘Hola, mi querido chico, Zach,’ she said as she pulled him into her arms for a warm embrace.

Zach began speaking fluent Spanish. Lily guessed he was introducing her, and smiled as Señora Alvarez kissed both her cheeks, before ushering them both inside.

The Alvarez villa was larger than their rental next door, but had the same earthy charm and similar decor. They walked to a large patio overlooking a lush green garden and found Señor Alvarez smoking a pipe. They exchanged more hugs, and he kissed Lily on each cheek when she was introduced. Señora Alvarez disappeared into the kitchen momentarily, returning with drinks for them all.

‘Tinto de verano is a red wine with fizzy lemonade. It’s delicious and addictive, honestly,’ Zach said as Lily accepted a tall glass, resembling rosé Prosecco.

Lily took a sip and thanked Señora Alvarez. It was cold, sweet and, as Zach predicted, delicious.

She sat back and watched Zach and the older couple chat, laughing as they swapped stories. Their ease with each other suggested many happy moments on this terrace, drinking Tinto de Verano.

‘We should speak English. For Lily,’ Señor Alvarez said slowly.

She could see that he was a kind man, and Lily was grateful to him for this concession.

‘Your mother, she is well?’

Zach smiled as he opened his phone to show the older couple the screen saver, which displayed a photograph of Zach and his mother together.

Señora Alvarez clapped her hands in delight. ‘I like seeing her smile. She not smile enough when she lived here.’