Page 24 of Far from Home
3) Your mother has a brooch in the shape of an animal. How many diamonds are there on the brooch?
4) The pub opposite the church where you were christened – how many bells on the sign?
She set about answering the questions in her head. Her mother had been born on the ninth of October and her own birthday was the thirtieth of March. The pub was the Seven Bells and the only complication was the brooch that she realised was still buried in one of the cardboard boxes back at the flat in London. For a moment she toyed with the idea of calling Gavin and asking him to go round and look for it but, as he still hadn’t bothered to contact her, she didn’t really feel too much like talking to him and decided against it. Still, she reckoned from memory that there were between fifteen and twenty little diamonds on it, so it should be possible to make it work. Armed with the letter she and Max hurried back to the house.
Upstairs in the study, she dropped to her knees in front of the little safe and wondered what to do. How many numbers would it need? She started with 9 30 15 7. She carefully spun the dial so as to compose the numbers, but nothing happened. She tried again, using all the numbers in third place from sixteen to twenty, but still without success. She tried inserting the month of her mother’s birth as well as her own, but still to no avail. Frustrated, she sat back on her heels and considered her next move. She read the letter again very carefully and suddenly realised something she had missed. The first word of the riddle wasinitially. Maybe this meant that only the initial digit of each number counted? She tried once more, this time just with the numbers 9 3 1 7. Again no joy, so she tried substituting a two for the number of diamonds and as she clicked on the final 7, the door sprang open.
She had done it.
She leant forward and reached into the safe. As far as she could see, all it contained was an old-fashioned cardboard box file. Amy pulled it out and then peered inside the safe, even running her fingers around the interior in case anything was left behind, but found nothing. Picking up the file, she got to her feet and went over to the desk.
Sitting down on the chair, she switched on the table lamp and opened the lid of the box. The first thing that caught her eye was a wad of banknotes. They were green one-hundred-euro notes and a quick count revealed that there was a total of twenty thousand euros there. Although she dealt regularly with seven- and eight-figure sums in her working life, she had never handled so much cash before and she felt almost awe-struck. Mr Slater’s generosity knew no bounds. She set the money carefully aside and checked out the rest of the contents of the box.
There were some odd keys, a British passport in the name of Martin Thomas Slater, a collection of old cheque book stubs held together with a rubber band, and a copy of his will. A quick check revealed that this was exactly the same as the one she had received from the notary. Beneath them, held together by a bulldog clip, was a clutch of other documents. She flicked swiftly through them and saw that they all appeared to be relating to the house, insurance, guarantees for household items and so on, along with a load of old invoices and bills. And then, underneath everything, she found a sealed envelope addressed toMy dearest Amy. With shaking hands, she slit the envelope open and took out two sheets of paper.
The first bore the heading of a private clinic in Geneva, Switzerland and, although Amy had never seen one before, it was clear that it was the DNA profile of Martin Thomas Slater. The other document was a single typewritten letter. It was dated the thirteenth of January the previous year, not many months before his death.
Amy read the letter closely, word by word. As she read, she found herself having to keep stopping every so often to unclench her fingers, such was her state of nervous tension. When she reached the bottom of the page, she went back and read it again, and then again, until she had absorbed it all. Only then did she drop it back onto the pile of documents on the desk and sit staring blankly out through the window. Teardrops began to form and run down her cheeks. She had never, ever, in her whole life felt so totally bemused, stunned and perplexed.
My dearest Amy
I imagine this will come as a considerable shock to you and I apologise for not being able to tell you in person, but your mother made me swear never to contact you during my lifetime. As the doctors tell me my life will now come to an end within a few months, I’m finally able to tell you what I have been waiting all my life to say. I just wish it could be to your face.
Amy, I am your father. (I’m attaching a DNA test that will support my claim.)
You are the product of the relationship your mother and I had while your father was away on active service in the Marines. I never met him but I’m sure he was a good man and I have carried the burden of guilt for what we did throughout my whole life. I was much younger then, more irresponsible, more selfish, but I loved your mother very dearly. I can still remember the thrill that ran through me the very first time I saw her. To me she was the most beautiful woman in the world and I can honestly say it was love at first sight. I truly believe she felt the same way about me, but your father’s death hit her very, very hard. She was struck by an insurmountable feeling of guilt that changed her whole being. Although we had agreed to break the news of our relationship to him as soon as he returned from abroad, the news of his death changed everything. From that moment on, your mother refused to see me ever again and, as I say, she made me promise never to contact you.
I was left with no choice other than to respect her wishes and move away. I gave up my job teaching history at Bristol University and went to Canada. I lived and worked in Edmonton for some years until I was lucky enough to write a bestselling book. There are copies of Far From Home on the shelves of my study if you ever want to read it. Although fictionalised, I can tell you that I drew heavily on my own personal heartbreak when writing it and deliberately wrote under an alias so as to avoid any possible embarrassment for your mother.
When my subsequent books sold even better and I realised I was able to make a living from my writing, I desperately wanted to return to the UK but, instead, I settled for Italy. Much as I felt the urge to return to England and to see you, I knew I had to stick to the agreement I had made and keep my distance, hard as it was. At least I was in nearby Europe and not separated from you by the ocean. I spoke reasonable Italian, so I came to Italy and settled here in this wonderful historic building. Here, after so many unhappy years, I finally found some contentment, although, without you and your mother, it was never all I could have wished for.
I have many regrets in my life, and I am acutely aware that my actions have brought unhappiness to those I loved as much as to myself, but the greatest by far is that I have never spoken to you, held you in my arms. I gave your mother my solemn oath and I had no choice but to stick to it. All I can now do is to ensure that you are well provided for and hope that, now you know the truth, you will be able to think well of me. I do so hope your own life has been, and will continue to be, much happier than mine.
With all my love, my dearest Amy, from the father you never knew.
Martin Slater
She was still sitting there, weeping softly, when she was roused by the unmistakable sound of Labrador paws on the wooden floor. She looked around and saw Max standing at the study door behind her, his head cocked to one side, his expression troubled. As they made eye contact he trotted across to her side and laid his big hairy head on her thigh, his unblinking eyes staring up at her. She reached down to scratch his ears.
‘You know you shouldn’t be up here, don’t you, Max? Dogs live downstairs, not upstairs.’ The reprimand would have carried more weight if her voice hadn’t been croaky and she hadn’t had to stop partway through to blow her nose.
In spite of her words, he just kept looking up at her and then sat down and raised a big heavy black paw and laid it on her thigh in a canine gesture of solidarity. She caught hold of it with her free hand and held it tightly. And the tears started once again.
It was quite a considerable time later before she roused herself and headed back downstairs for a sorely needed glass of wine.
Chapter 14
Rosa and Vincenzo lived less than five minutes’ walk away. It was still very hot on Sunday, but at least now a good breeze had started blowing, and the branches of the trees above Amy’s head were being whipped about by it as she made her way to their house. As a result, the air felt fresher and cooler. Rosa and Vincenzo lived in a large modern detached villa. The front garden had been meticulously looked after, the house itself was newly painted and it all looked very smart. Amy could hear a hubbub of voices inside as she rang the bell. A few seconds later Rosa appeared, looking flustered. She greeted Amy with kisses to the cheeks and ushered her inside where her husband welcomed her and handed her a glass of what looked like Prosecco.
‘Welcome, Amy. So glad you could come.’ He took the bottles of Signor Montalcino’s wine off her and set them down on the table. ‘Thank you so much for the wine, but you shouldn’t have.’
She grinned at him. ‘It’s the least I can do. If somebody had told me only two weeks ago that I would actually have wine made from grapes on my own land, I would have laughed at them. It still feels like a dream.’
The lounge was a charming room with French windows that opened onto the garden. The property boasted a magnificent expanse of lawn that would not have disgraced an English garden, ringed by some fine shrubs and ornamental trees. Amy found herself wondering how much time, work and, above all, water it needed to keep it looking like this. Maybe they had a well. Her reflections were interrupted as she spotted the notary outside admiring the plants.
She hurried out to Alfredo and saw a smile of recognition appear on his face. As before, he was impeccably turned out in a dark suit, polished black shoes, collar and tie.
‘Signora Sherwood, how lovely to see you again. All going well?’
