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chapter 78
alex
Everything seems to stop and spin. I don’t know if the sound in my head is the wind whipping through the courtyard or the blood rushing to my ears. My stomach swoops, as if I’m falling into an abyss. My gut churns and my lungs constrict and it’s suddenly hard to breathe.
It’s not possible.
Luca is dead. I was there when he was buried.
Isawhim go into the ground.
I watch my dead husband saunter across the courtyard, solicitously seating his mother back on the stone bench by the fountain. A pungent, sweet smell is suddenly strong in my nostrils: the woody, spicy scent of incense, eddying around the courtyard. I hear the clink of the chain as the priest raises his gold thurible, the muffled sound of stifled sobs, the shuffle of feet on the flagstones, the ancient pews creaking as mourners take their seats.
My brain struggles to process conflicting images, superimposing them on each other like a photographic double negative:
Luca in his coffin, beautiful and pale and still.
Luca in front of me, tanned and vital and alive.
‘I’m impressed,’ he says to me. ‘You actually found us. I wondered if you might. Mamma here was certain you’d giveup, but I told her, you don’t know Alex.’ He smiles fondly at Elena. ‘She doesn’t remember much, these days. She hasn’t been the same since Papà died last year. She doesn’t know what day it is, most of the time. She thinks I’m my father, and I don’t have the heart to correct her.’
Shock is the mind’s way of protecting you, a shutdown mechanism designed to buy you time to repair your shattered defences. The external world fades from view; sound and sight are put on hold as the brain eliminates distraction, while it reconciles your lived experience with the impossible. Only when your mind has caught up does the real world come roaring back, vivid and unstoppable.
My first thought:
‘Where is she?’ I say.
‘Lottie’s safe,’ Luca says. ‘Whatever you’re thinking of doing right now, Alex, stop. If you want to see her again, that is.’
I clench my hands against my thighs, my nails digging into my palms, to stop myself from flying at him and gouging out those come-to-bed eyes, ripping the flesh from his beautiful bones.
He faked his own death.
I can’t imagine how confused Lottie must be. He’s not just the narcissist I always suspected him to be; he’s a psychopath. His very existence is living proof: there’s nothing this man won’t do.
But even as I try to wrap my head around this, I’m aware the ice I’m standing on is perilously thin.
I’ve seen him, now. His cover is blown.
He can’t let me leave.
Quinn is still hidden in the shadows of the loggia and I realise Luca hasn’t seen her. For the briefest of moments, I catch her eye, and she nods.
Lottie’s all that matters. If something goes wrong, you don’t wait for me. You take Lottie and you leave.
‘I buried you, Luca!’ I cry, making sure his attention stays on me. ‘You were dead. Isawyou!’
‘You saw what you were meant to see.’
‘How? How is it even possible?’
Luca rubs a pale scar on his forehead. ‘Iwasin the Genoa bridge collapse. That wasn’t a lie. I was in a coma for more than six weeks. In a state like that your body shuts down, and your breathing slows way, way down. Your circulation slows, too: you’re pale as death, and it’s hard for someone to find a pulse. You’d think Iwasdead, to look at me. Unless you touched me and realised I was still warm, you’d never know I was alive.’
‘You staged your own funeral,’ I say, incredulously.
‘Actually, my mother did that,’ Luca says.
I glance at Elena, sitting silent and slack-jawed on the stone bench, gazing blankly into the distance. She was very careful no one got too near his coffin, I remember suddenly. Flowers were heaped all around the catafalque, making it hard to get near: I was at least six feet away from Luca, perhaps more. And the only people at the funeral were Luca’s Sicilian family, who’d have closed ranks around Elena. But she still must have had nerves of steel to pull this off.
