Everybody Knows

by Karen Dodd

“How did you know?” she asked him.

  “The police had my DNA from a water glass I drank from when I reported Francesca missing,” he replied. “They suspected I might have been involved in her disappearance and they used it to compare prints and DNA left at Francesca’s apartment.”

  “And?”

  “And unfortunately for you, they also found two other sets of prints. One from the felon who kidnapped Francesca.” Nico paused while Elle squirmed and looked away. “And the other were prints the police matched to the ones taken when you were arrested outside that nightclub in Soho. You know, when you were there with Vincenzo Testa, the journalist you said you’d never met.”

  She scowled, her impenetrable persona cracking, and all at once, Elle Sinclair’s true persona was laid bare.

  Nico stared at her. And to think she had almost convinced him that Francesca was involved in Lydia’s death and Max’s disappearance.

  “Why?” he said. “What possible reason could you have had to break into her apartment?”

  Elle looked away and shrugged. “I couldn’t have children. I loved Max and I knew Ariana had named Francesca as his guardian if anything should happen to her. But Ariana had entrusted him to me—when she died, he should have been mine, not Francesca’s.”

  “But that’s not what Ariana intended. You knew that.” Nico shook his head. “And you hoped to find the guardianship papers in Francesca’s apartment after she’d been abducted.”

  The door opened, and a policewoman entered. “It’s time,” she said. “Miss Sinclair will be remanded until she either pleads or goes to trial.”

  Nico put up his hand. “Please, just five more minutes.” The window was closing and he had to get Elle to confess to where she’d taken Max.

  “Five minutes, that’s all.” The officer backed out of the room and closed the door behind her.

  “You told me Max always called Ariana ‘Mummy.’” Nico pulled the tattered red fragment of paper from his pocket and put it on the table between them. “He didn’t call her either of these things. He called her Omm, the Maltese name for mother. His eyes bored into hers. “How did this come to be in Ariana’s apartment?”

  Elle’s shoulders collapsed. Her eyes filled with tears.

  “You broke into Ariana’s apartment before you took Max out of the country. Just like you did Anna Braithwaite’s and Francesca’s. That seems to be your specialty.”

  She shook her head and took a ragged breath. “I didn’t know Max had left anything there.”

  Nico exhaled. Elle Sinclair had just confessed. Had she forgotten the recording device was on? Or had she just given up?

  “You know where he is,” Nico said quietly. “You didn’t take him to his father in Kent.”

  She sat stock-still, barely appearing to breathe.

  “You’re going to prison for a long time, Elle. If you love Max as you say you do, you need to tell me.”

  There was a rap at the door, and it opened. “Sorry, time’s up.”

  She sat facing him, hands shackled to the table.

  “Elle, please.”

  The wall of ice was back up. Impenetrable. Nico felt as if he were lunging for the elevator doors before they snapped closed.

  The policewoman detached the handcuffs from the table. Elle drew herself up to her full height and faced Nico. “If I can’t have him, nobody will.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Nico moved as though wading through quicksand. Desolate, he’d heeded Mifsud’s advice and came back to the hotel to catch a few hours of sleep. Elle would appear before a judge in the morning and unless she had a change of heart overnight, Nico might never know where Max was. All he could do was hope that once she was taken back to the UK and put in prison there, she might confess. Unlikely, but if she had any love at all for Max, surely she’d want him to be safe.

  Nico was brushing his teeth when his mobile rang. It was a UK number but no other caller ID.

  “Nicoló Moretti?” a man’s voice asked.

  “Yes, who is this?”

  “It’s Detective Superintendent William Sondhelm. With the London Metropolitan Police.”

  Nico tried to swallow the nausea that churned in his gut and rose in his throat. But his mouth was suddenly dry of saliva. His knuckles were white as he grasped the back of the chair by the bed. As he steeled himself for the news, he bargained with God. I will do anything you ask of me, he pleaded. Please just let him be alive.

  “Mr. Moretti, we have found your son.”

  “Is he . . .?” His strangled voice came out like a squeak.

  “He’s alive and well, sir.”

  Still holding the chair, Nico lowered himself onto the bed.

  “Where . . . How?” The words caught in his throat.

  “We located him two hours ago at a children’s camp just out of Southampton. I’m sorry for the delay but we had to be sure it was him.

  “There’s too much to give you all the details over the phone, but I wanted to call immediately to let you know. He’s safe and in the care of a child protection officer here in London. I’m about to address the media, but obviously I wanted to advise you first.”

  Pressing his palms to his eyes, Nico bowed his head and listened to the scant details of how they’d found Max. Once again, Nico thanked God for CCTV cameras. After a woman in a South London neighborhood had heard a child screaming hysterically outside her window, she’d looked out to see someone “suspicious-looking,” as she’d put it, forcing a child into a van. Although she got a license plate number, which she called in to the police, it turned out to be stolen. However, with London having just under a fifth of all the surveillance cameras in the UK, the vehicle was picked up at several locations before being traced to a children’s camp in Maybush, Southampton.

  “What twigged the camp’s education officer something wasn’t quite right,” Sondhelm said, “was that the woman who took Max there had packed a bag for him with several days’ clothing.”

  A woman? What other woman would have taken Max to a summer camp?

  Nico was just about to ask when the detective sergeant continued. “From what we can gather, the woman was hired by Elle Sinclair to look after the child until she returned from Malta. When she hadn’t heard back from Sinclair in nearly two weeks and she saw there was an Amber Alert out for him, she panicked. She has a record, so instead of turning him in to the police, she took Max to a children’s camp that she thought had a live-in program. When told it was a day facility, she just left your boy there and ran.”

  Oh my God, Elle was proving to be diabolical. He couldn’t decide who was worse, her or Baldisar. They would have made a good pair.

  He was afraid to ask Sondhelm the next question. “What did the woman have a record for?” Please tell me it wasn’t for anything to do with children.

  “That’s the thing. It wasn’t even for that serious a crime. She’d been caught shoplifting at Harrods. She told us she’d met Sinclair at a therapy group.”

  As Nico recalled what Testa had told him about BBC sending Elle to counselling, he prayed it wasn’t at a group for addicts. God bless them, but he didn’t want someone with serious mental health problems looking after his son.

  “How soon can I see him?” Nico asked. “I can be on the next plane to Heathrow.”

  “I understand how anxious you must be, I’m a father myself, but hold off booking anything for now. You have my word we’ll contact you the minute he’s clear to go.”

  All Nico could think about was that they’d need to put Max through a battery of tests, to insure he was both physically and mentally OK. But he was alive. That’s what mattered.

  “In the next few hours, we should also know more from social services. Don’t worry,” Sondhelm assured him, “I’m assured Max is doing very well, but we have to take it one step at a time. I’m sure you understand.”

  Fighting back tears, Nico expressed his gratitude to Superintendent Sondhelm and hung up. He was still sitting on the bed when
he heard a quiet rap at the door. “I don’t need anything, thank you,” he called, his voice breaking.

  “Nico, it’s Mikel. Please open the door.”

  He wiped his eyes and cleared his throat as he walked to the door and opened it. “I came as soon as I heard, I thought you might want some company.”

  Nico could only nod as he stood aside to let him in. As the door closed behind him, the dam burst. It was as if his entire being was folding inward and all the tears he’d held in since Ariana’s death erupted. He sat on the bed, his head in his hands and wept.

  Mifsud sat down beside him. “Now comes the joyful part, my friend,” Mifsud said, clasping Nico’s shoulder. “But in order to recognize that, first you had to make it through the pain.”

  * * *

  Three days later

  The Maltese press would have had a field day if a commercial aircraft had brought Max home. The thought of it gave Nico the terrors. But while every newspaper and TV station had camped out at Malta’s airport, awaiting Max’s arrival, Mikel Mifsud had used his considerable influence to have him flown to Malta on a private jet that arrived at a small hangar on the island of Gozo. Nico would have given anything to be the first person his son saw when he got off the plane. But Max wouldn’t even have known who he was, and it was decided that Francesca should be there to meet him. After everything the boy had been through, what he needed now was to be with someone he knew and loved. One of the reasons the UK police had kept him longer than Nico would have liked, was that a child psychologist had broken it to the little boy about his mother’s death. Social workers had wanted to monitor him to be sure he was coping. Nico knew his son would be safe in Francesca’s hands and security would be provided at Ariana’s home until the police could untangle Baldisar’s tangled web of corruption.

  Max’s face was all smiles on the front page of every paper and newscast in the UK and Malta. But it was a very different little boy reflected in the photographs the police had shared with Nico privately. He’d never actually seen his son. In the photographs taken immediately following Max’s rescue, he had dark, intense eyes— Ariana’s—but the dyed blond hair cut close to his head looked incongruent against his olive skin. Nico’s blood boiled at the lengths Elle had gone to in order to avoid him being recognized.

  She had said she loved Max.

  Testa had said she was the devil’s spawn.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  As Nico waited at the main square for his ride, he wondered if the plane transporting Elle back to the UK had crossed paths with the one carrying Max. How would she feel knowing they had found him despite her steadfast refusal to cooperate? He wondered if she’d been told that he was Max’s father. She’d dodged a murder charge, but she would remain in a UK prison for a very long time. There was even talk she might have to be put into segregation, as she’d already come out on the losing end of an altercation with another inmate while in Maltese custody. If Elle thought she would be treated differently than any other prisoner once back in her own country, she was sorely mistaken. Many incarcerated women were also mothers. Mothers who didn’t take kindly to those who stole other women’s children.

  Mifsud had told Nico to be ready at 8 a.m. for one of his officers to pick him up and transport him to the ferry that went to Gozo. Within minutes, a dark SUV pulled up at the curb. The window was rolled down and behind the wheel sat Inspector Mifsud.

  “Get in,” he said to Nico. “All my people were busy, so you’re stuck with me.”

  On the drive to the ferry, Mifsud caught him up on his news. He would now be known as Superintendent Mifsud and would be transferred to headquarters. While obviously proud of his promotion, he told Nico the thing he was most elated about was that he’d be home for dinner with his wife and three little girls most evenings.

  “Congratulations, Mikel. You deserve it.”

  “Thank you. And you, what will you do once you’ve seen Francesca and your son?”

  There was a deep hollowness in Nico’s stomach as he considered Mikel’s question. “Return to Tropea, I guess. And get back to prosecuting the kinds of cases Ariana was so passionate about.” And somehow figure out how to be a single parent to a little boy he’d never met.

  “Thanks to Pezzente, Anna Braithwaite has formally entered the witness protection program.”

  Nico nodded. Even though Baldisar was no longer a threat to her, there was no telling, in his absence, which of his foreign investors might try to retaliate against her. It might be a long time, if ever, before she’d be a truly free woman.

  “But what will happen to Roberto?” Mifsud asked.

  Nico shrugged. “That’s above my pay grade. I was never privy to what he and his team did before all this. I don’t imagine that will change now.” Although Pezzente had certainly gone up in his estimation.

  “Wouldn’t it be more efficient if you all worked together in your country?”

  It struck Nico as a naïve question coming from a man of the superintendent’s status. “One would think so, Mikel. But while Italy is a beautiful country, sadly, it is full of gross inefficiencies.”

  Both men remained quiet as they came upon the signs indicating the turnoff for the ferry. The inspector flashed his badge as they pulled up outside the ticket booth and came around to Nico’s side as he retrieved his bags. “Don’t be a stranger, my friend. Keep in touch when you get back to Italy. If there’s anything you need, I’m only a phone call away.”

  “Your people weren’t all too busy to drive me, were they?” Nico asked. Mifsud winked.

  “Thank you, Mikel.” Nico held the inspector’s hand in his. “For everything.”

  * * *

  Once on the ferry, Nico eschewed the coffee shop and passenger lounge in favor of the view from the upper sundeck. On his way, he passed a news kiosk. The marquee boasted Today’s London Newspapers on Sale Here Early Every Morning. Max’s face was plastered across the front pages of them all, some alongside Ariana. He swallowed hard as he hustled past. On deck, he pulled up the collar of his jacket against the early-morning wind that whipped the waves into a choppy gray soup. The sky was a montage of fat white clouds gradually giving way to the sun as it tried its best to break through.

  So much had happened since the last time Nico had made the crossing from Ċirkewwa to Mġarr. Lydia Rapa was dead, her brother’s bar had been reduced to ashes, and Elle was in a British prison. Baldisar had at last been exposed for what he was, but to what end? In his vegetative state of mind, he would likely receive more sympathy than justice. But Francesca and Max were alive, thanks in large part to Roberto Pezzente. Nico had so many questions he wanted to ask him, but he suspected the next time they’d meet would be in their official capacities, with both men playing their respective cards close to their vests. Things in his native land changed slowly. Or not at all.

  The ferry crossing went quickly, and they were soon approaching the burnt-brown rolling hills of Gozo. The boat slowed as it passed the tip of the breakwater where several small pleasure craft bobbed up and down. A child waved from one of the boat’s cockpits as they glided into Mġarr Harbour, then alongside the cement pier. Heeding the announcement, foot passengers rose from their seats and shuffled down the stairs, where they would disembark. Nico’s stomach was in such knots he was tempted to stay on board and make the crossing over and back again, but as the last of the passengers trailed down the stairs, he joined them.

  By the time all the passengers were off, there was already a long line at the taxi stand. As Nico waited his turn, he watched with envy the holidaymakers boarding the hop-on-hop-off buses for a day of sightseeing. What was wrong with him that he’d sooner be on a crowded bus of tourists than on his way to meet his son?

  The taxi made the journey through the narrow streets of Mġarr and then out onto the highway. Nico strained to pinpoint the exact location where he had witnessed Lydia being run off the road to her death. Really, he didn’t want to relive those moments. As they whizzed by kilometers
of low stone dike walls and majestic palms swaying gently in the breeze, he thought of Giorgio. And the secret he’d likely keep from his mother until her dying day. Then he thought of Ariana. The Maltese were good at keeping secrets.

  The twenty-minute route to the northwestern tip of the island where Ariana had her home essentially bisected the island. The taxi driver was friendly and pointed out various sites along the route, including the historic Basilica of The Blessed Virgin of Ta’ Pinu, rumored to be where Pope Paul II celebrated Mass in 1990. Nico wished he could have been more engaged, but his thoughts and emotions churned more intensely the closer they got to their destination.

  What would it feel like to step into the intimacy of Ariana’s home? Unlike her apartment, which seemed more designed for efficiency than comfort, he would finally get a glimpse into what the real Ariana was like. She’d been a past lover, a friend and confidante, and now, the mother of a five-year-old boy. But what did he really know about her life other than her ardent quest for justice? Had she ever been tempted to tell him about their son as they’d dallied over long dinners and too much wine? He could no longer remember the open and relaxed woman he’d been so attracted to in university. In the months before she died, their discussions had turned into heated debates. The anger and disappointment Nico had seen mirrored on her face still haunted him. Her accusations of living in his ivory tower, unwilling to do what it took to put both their countries’ criminals in jail had cut him to the quick. And yet, he knew in his heart she was right.

  As they drove higher and higher up into the hills, Nico swallowed to relieve the pressure in his ears. Even on this idyllic historic island, Ariana had chosen to live as far away from the main villages of San Lawrenz and Għar as possible. Or had that choice been dictated by her need for safety? He imagined her coming home late, perhaps after a night in one of the many trattorias and restaurants in town. But would she have been seen in such public places, or would she have had to remain cloistered, choosing her friends and acquaintances wisely? Perhaps Lydia was one of the few she could be open with when she took Max there to play with Gabriela. Or did they meet to discuss the sensitive topic of government corruption within the confines of Ariana’s remote property? There was so much he wanted to know, but no one to ask.