Disappeared

by Colin Falconer

  Stephen looked at his wife. “We will call her and ask her to come down. You have to let us talk to her first. This is going to be a great shock.”

  Reuben nodded. After all this time he supposed he could wait a day or so longer.

  ***

  Stephen walked with Reuben to his car. He was staying at a hotel in London, he said, in Bloomsbury. Stephen promised to call him the next day, after they had had the chance to talk to Diana.

  When he came back into the house he found Mercedes in the kitchen, hunched by the Aga cooker. “I don't like him,” she said.

  “He is her father. We must put our own selfish thoughts aside.”

  “What do you think Diana is going to say when she finds out about him?”

  “She will probably react the same way as you did. She will be shocked. She might be very angry. I don't know. I hope she will she that everything we did, we did for her own good. But we have to be prepared for the fact that she may not see it that way at first.”

  Mercedes rocked gently back and forwards. “Why is this happening to us now?”

  “I don't know. But it is and we just have to face it.”

  “I don't want to face it.”

  Stephen shoved his hands into his pockets. “We have to tell him about this other girl in Rome.”

  “We don't have to do anything.”

  “For God's sake!'

  “No!' Her voice rose. “You won't tell him anything!'

  “Why not?”

  Their eyes locked in a silent battle of wills. Stephen looked away.

  “If you tell him,” she said, her voice no more than a whisper, “I will leave you. I mean it. You are not to tell him about her.”

  “That is unbelievably cruel.”

  “We will tell her, we’ll tell both of them, but not now. It’s too much of a shock, everything at once. We have to see how she deals with this first. I won’t lose her, Stephen. I won’t lose both my children.”

  “All right. As you say, one thing at a time, I suppose.” He went out, shutting the kitchen door behind him.

  Chapter 88

  STEPHEN WAS IN his study when he heard the distinctive lawnmower rattle of the Volkswagen Beetle as it pulled into the courtyard. He slipped on his jacket and boots and hurried across the hall and out into the courtyard. Diana got out of the car dressed in a ski jacket and boots, one of Luke's university scarves round her neck, her cheeks pink with cold. “Hi, Dad.”

  “Hello, pudding,” he said, using the nickname he had given her as a child.

  Her face was etched with worry. All he had said when he had called her that was that he and Mercedes had to talk to her urgently.

  No, neither of us is ill. It's nothing like that. It's just not something I can talk about over the telephone.

  She looked small and lost. His heart ached. He had never loved her as much as he did at that moment. Altman had said he was her father. But that was not true. I’m her father. I’m the one who saw her through the tumult of her schooldays, the one who sat up late when she had been out on dates, the one who paid her school fees, the one who had ferried her to all the hockey games. He wondered whether all that would count for anything now.

  She hugged him. “So, what's up?”

  “You’ve only just got home. Why don’t we have some tea.”

  “No, Dad. You can’t torture me with this anymore. Tell me what’s wrong, for goodness’ sake.”

  “All right. Why don't we have a wander?”

  She looked past him to the house and her face fell. “Is Mum okay?”

  He fixed a smile on his face. “Yes, I told you, it's nothing like that. We're both fine. Come on.” He put an arm around her shoulder and led her down the path behind the stables.

  There was ice on the pond and nothing moved in the skeletal branches of the oaks and hazels. The only sound was the plaintive call of a crow somewhere out in the fields.

  “Okay. What's the big mystery?”

  He had rehearsed the words so many times since Reuben had left. Now he couldn't remember a single word he had meant to say. “Can I just say this ... ' He took a deep breath. From now, he told himself, everything changes. “I just want you to know that we've always loved you, like our own. You know that, don't you? Nothing can ever alter that.”

  “Dad. What is it?”

  “It's about ... about your parents.”

  The blood drained out of her face. “My parents?”

  “Diana, we told you certain things. They weren't completely true.”

  Nervous laughter bubbled up in her throat. “You mean you lied to me?”

  “We thought it was for the best at the time.”

  Her eyes clouded over.

  “We said your parents were dead and we also said we didn't know who they were. That was the lie. So now I'm going to tell you the truth.”

  Chapter 89

  SHE DID NOT remember Argentine. She had grown up far from the pampas and the tango clubs as the daughter of a comfortable conservative British family, in the shadow of the Berkshire Downs. Her mother still had family there. They got Christmas cards from Buenos Aires every year.

  She remembered going there once, when she was about nine years old. They had stayed with her mother's brother in San Isidro and a lot of people had made a fuss of her. She remembered being surprised that everyone in her uncle's family spoke English and had big afternoon cream teas. But her abiding memories were of the heat, the toothpicks on restaurant tables, the smells of garlic and strong breath.

  The fact that she was adopted had never bothered her before. But she had never tried to discover the real truth. She told herself she would go back one day; but not now. She had always been frightened of what she might find. And her questions as a child always distressed her mother so much. She had learned to let it be.

  Sometimes, especially in her early teens, she had tried to imagine her parents, what they had been like, why they had died. In her fantasies her father had been dark and big shouldered with a booming voice, always laughing, one of the boys; a tango dancer, a gaucho, a bandoneón player. None of her imagined fathers was much like Stephen, the man she had called her Dad for twenty years.

  Neither was he like the pale and sallow stranger her father led into the room the day after she got back from university.

  ***

  They stood facing each other, awkward. Finally he held out his hand. It was soft and his grip was not very strong.

  Her mother rescued her. “Why don't we all sit down?” she said and led the way into the drawing room. She started to pour them all tea.

  Reuben did not sit. He seemed too agitated. He stood by the fire, an uncertain smile on his face. He had his overcoat draped over his arm as if he was in an overheated railway waiting room. Diana looked for some resemblance in his face and her own and found none. The moment seemed unreal. She had expected an unspoken connection of some sort. Instead it was like being trapped in an elevator with a total stranger.

  No one knew what to say. Stephen and Mercedes exchanged an uneasy glance.

  “So this is Diana,” Reuben said, finally.

  She had no idea what to say to him, how to respond. She felt like an actor on stage who had forgotten her lines.

  “You look so much like your mother,” he managed, finally.

  She looked at Stephen and Mercedes. She felt as if she were betraying them just by talking to this man. They were all looking at her but still she could not find her voice.

  Reuben turned to Stephen, as if looking for support. But he was lost for words, too.

  “Why did you wait so long?” she heard herself say.

  “I have not been able to find you until now. I have searched all my life.”

  He told her everything, filled in the gaps in the terrible tale her father had told her the previous evening by the byre; a mother abducted, murdered; a twin sister she never knew she had but lost now, apparently forever.

  Stephen had been right not to tell her, she decided. It
was a history she did not want, that no one would want. She stared at the stranger who had brought her this burden and experienced a sudden upwelling of rage. Her hands shook and her teacup spilled off the saucer onto the floor.

  Stephen jumped to his feet and put his arms around her. “It's all right, Diana.”

  “I don't want to talk to him.”

  “Diana?”

  She pushed Stephen away and jumped to her feet. “I don't want to do this!' she shouted and ran out of the room. Her reaction was as sudden as it was unexpected. Stephen looked at his wife, then at Reuben, who had slumped against the mantle, his face stricken.

  They heard the front door slam. Diana ran across the yard towards the stables.

  “I'd better go after her,” Stephen said.

  ***

  Reuben was about to follow. Mercedes put a restraining hand on his arm. “No. I think it's best if you stay here.”

  “You were right. This was a mistake. I should go.”

  “No. Sit down. Please.”

  The expression on her face, the compassion he had not expected to see there, stopped him. “I'm sorry,” he repeated. “I'm so sorry.”

  There was nothing from here, nowhere to go. What had he imagined, that there would be redemption at the end of this? He had hated himself for twenty years, if God had been less kind he would have hated himself for another twenty. At least knew now there would be an end to this.

  “What did you expect?” she asked him, echoing his own thoughts.

  “You’re right. It was stupid.”

  “No, not stupid. Just human. But you have been so desperate to see her again you have not been able to imagine what it is like for her. You have missed her for twenty years. Meanwhile she did not even know that you existed.”

  “Now you feel sorry for me. I think I liked it better when you hated me.”

  “I don't feel sorry for you.”

  “No?”

  He felt the pain coming again. He reached into his pocket, found the morphine tablets, swallowed two of them dry.

  “What are they?”

  “Morphine sulphate. Pain killers.”

  “What for?”

  “I'm dying. That’s why I had to see her. I do not wish to be dramatic but I do not have very long. Now do you understand?”

  She stared at him.

  “I have a tumour on the liver. In four more months I will be dead. This is why I am in such a hurry.”

  “I'm ... I'm sorry.”

  “It's not the end of the world.” A bitter smile. “Just the end of it for me.”

  “Why didn't you tell us?”

  “So I could manipulate your sympathy?”

  Mercedes put a hand on his arm. “She will want to talk to you again. An hour. A day. Next week.”

  “I don't think so.”

  “Yes, she will.”

  “I should not have come.” He took his car keys out of his pocket. “I should get back to London.”

  “Don’t leave. Not yet. She will want to talk to you again. She needs to talk to you.”

  “Perhaps she will call me at the hotel. Here is the card. I am in room number 507. Here I’ll write it on the back. Thank you for your kindness. I know it was hard for you.”

  “I'm not kind. I hated you that day you came here. I have always hated you, even before I found out you were still alive. I was afraid you were going to take her away from me. I’m sorry.”

  “She is a grown woman now. No one is going to take her away from you.”

  Reuben could not read her expression, could only watch as she struggled with some private dilemma. “Do you believe in heaven and hell?” she asked him, finally.

  Reuben waited, not knowing where this might be leading.

  “I believe in hell. I live in it. I don’t know about heaven.”

  “There is something, Señor Altman, something I told my husband not to tell you. But Stephen is right, the truth is just the truth, however much we would like it to be different. And I believe we owe you the truth.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “What would you do if you found the man who murdered your wife?”

  “I'd kill him.”

  She studied his face intently. “Without hesitation? I mean, would you? It is easy to say, standing here, among civilized people with your back to a warm fire. But would you really kill him?”

  “What is this?”

  “Just answer me.”

  “Of course I would kill him. I would die happy if I could find him.” He hoped it was true. Or perhaps Domingo was right. You don't have the stomach for it.

  “Only you don't look like a killer to me.”

  “What does a killer look like?” He leaned closer. “Tell me what you know.”

  She stared back at him, her eyes unfathomable.

  “Please,” he said.

  “The thing is,” Mercedes said. “I think I can help you find your other daughter.”

  Chapter 90

  “SHE’S ALIVE?” Reuben said.

  Mercedes sipped her tea. The cup rattled in its saucer.

  “How do you know?”

  “My son found her, by chance.” Their eyes locked. “She is living in Rome. The man she thinks is her father was once in the military in Argentine. I expect you to kill him, as you said you would. You have ample reason, and it also appears to me that you have nothing to lose.”

  “I don't understand. '

  She leaned forward. “He not only murdered your wife. He also murdered my son.”

  “What are you telling me?”

  “I'm telling you what you wanted to know, what you said you came all this way to find. You don't look like the fist of god to me but you're all I've got.”

  “I shall do this for myself. Not for you.”

  “I don't care who you do it for. But I only ask that you do not tell Diana about this ... sister ... until it is all over. Please.”

  Reuben slumped into an armchair. This was the last thing he had expected. The world shifted on its axis. He could not speak.

  “Promise me you will kill him, Señor Altman.”

  “I promise,” he said.

  Chapter 91

  EVEN AFTER YEARS standing empty the old tap room still retained a unique perfume of its own, a piquant mix of leather and dung. This was where she had always come to hide as a child, whenever she got into trouble. Now she ran into one of the loose boxes, put her head against the wall, her hands balled into fists on the cold stone. She was only wearing a thin jumper over her blouse and she shivered with cold.

  The world had turned on its head. She felt like a blind man in a room where all the furniture had been moved around. Now she blundered in alien darkness, no longer sure of anything.

  She heard her father's footsteps on the cobblestones.

  “Pudding?”

  She hid her face in the crook of her arm and said nothing.

  “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”

  “I just want to be on my own for a while.”

  He slipped off his jacket and put it over her shoulders. He stood there for a long time in his shirtsleeves, torn; then he finally turned away and walked back to the house.

  ***

  It was too much to take in.

  So many questions. If her mother had been taken by the death squads, as this man who called himself her father had said, then how had he survived? He hadn’t explained that. How had he found her and why had it taken him so long?

  And now they were telling her she was a twin. It was strange but she had always felt as if there was a part of her that was missing, that she was somehow incomplete. But she had always thought everyone felt like that.

  She was not alone then; there was someone else out there in the world who looked just like her, who perhaps felt and saw things just the way she did. There was someone else who shared this terrible history and this appalling secret.

  She had only just stopped crying every day for Luke. Now this. She had a father she did not wan
t, a twin she had never suspected. It was too much right now.

  After a while she heard Señor Altman drive away. She stayed in the tap room; it was bitterly cold but she could not face her parents, not yet. She felt utterly lost.

  Rome

  There is a seventeenth century tower leading off the courtyard of Sixtus V, just near the Porta Sant”Anna. A brass plate set into an arched entranceway announces that these are the offices of the Instituto per le Opera di Religione, the IOR, better known to the world as the Vatican Bank. It had been created by Pope Pius XII during the Second World War to facilitate the transfer of funds from fascist Italy to Catholic organisations around the world. After Mussolini's overthrow it had financed the founding of the Christian Democratic Party to ensure that communists did not gain power in Italy. It had channelled one hundred million dollars to Solidarity in Poland.

  It was also Vatican money that paid for the Exocet missiles that Catholic Argentine had used against the British Navy during the Falklands War.

  It was a unique institution in the world of finance and was answerable, in this world at least, only to the Pope himself. It has been described as an offshore tax haven in the middle of the Tiber and has attracted, over the years, many clients whose access to heaven might not be considered a foregone conclusion.

  Men such César Angeli.

  ***

  A Swiss guard, in steel helmet and starched neck ruffs guarded the entrance to the Porta Santa”Anna. Angeli nodded to him as he strolled through the entrance, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a large black leather briefcase.

  In the briefcase was three billion lire in cash.

  He pushed through the frosted glass swing doors of the IOR, his heels echoing on the marble floors. Around him, blue uniformed ushers escorted wealthy clients to the polished wooden counters. Angeli, however, was escorted upstairs to receive the personal attention of Archbishop Stanislaw Tomaszcewski.