Unlocking her Innocence

by Lynne Graham

  Vito strode into the castle with three other men, a reality that took Ava aback and she hung back from greeting him. Even so her entire focus was on Vito as she drank in his darkly handsome features and the lithe power of his well-built body sheathed in a dark designer suit.

  ‘Miss Fitzgerald?’ A stocky man with a tired but familiar face was smiling at her and extending his hand. ‘It’s been a long time.’

  Ava was stunned: he was the solicitor, Roger Barlow, who had represented her when she was on trial three years earlier.

  ‘Possibly longer for her,’ the older blond man behind him quipped, catching her now free hand in his. ‘David Lloyd, senior partner with Lloyd and Lloyd Law Associates in London.’

  ‘And this is Gregory James,’ Vito introduced the final man in the group, a thickly set balding bearded man, with grave courtesy. ‘Gregory and his firm were responsible for upgrading the security on the estate after the break-in we suffered here five years ago.’

  Ava nodded, while wondering what all these men had to do with her. Was her solicitor’s presence a simple coincidence? She glanced at Vito, belatedly noticing the lines of tension grooving his mouth, the shadows below his eyes. Barely forty-eight hours had passed since she had last seen him and he looked vaguely as if he’d been to hell and back, she thought in dismay, suddenly desperate to know what was going on. Why on earth had he brought members of the legal profession home with him?

  Vito suggested they all adjourn to the library where everyone but him took a seat. ‘I asked Greg to come here and meet you personally, Ava. He’ll explain what this is all about.’

  ‘I saw those photos of you in the newspaper on Sunday,’ Greg James volunteered, studying her with calm but curious eyes. ‘I read the story and I was very shocked by it. I was at the party here that night as well and I had no idea there had been an accident until I read about it. I left the party an hour before midnight to catch my flight to Brazil where I had my next commission.’

  ‘Greg had no idea you’d been tried and sent to prison for reckless driving because he was working abroad for months afterwards,’ Vito explained. ‘But after he had read that newspaper he phoned me and suggested we meet up.’

  ‘You weren’t the driver that night,’ Greg James informed Ava with measured force. ‘I saw what happened that evening outside the castle. I thought I was seeing a stupid argument between people I didn’t know … with the exception of Vito’s brother. I had no idea I was witnessing anything that might be relevant to a court case and I thought no more of it until I learned that you had gone to prison over what happened that night.’

  Ava’s lips had fallen open and her eyes were wide. Her heart was beating so fast she almost pressed a hand against it because she was feeling slightly dizzy. ‘What are you talking about? How could I not have been the driver? And what argument did you see?’

  David Lloyd leant forward in his armchair. ‘Ava … your defence at the trial was hampered by the fact that you had no memory of the accident. How could you protect yourself when you remembered nothing?’

  ‘As I said, I left the party early,’ Greg continued. ‘I’d arranged a taxi pickup and while I was waiting for it on the steps outside I saw an argument take place around a car. There were three people there … you, Vito’s brother, Olly, and a large woman in a pink dress.’

  ‘Three people,’ Ava almost whispered with a frown. ‘A large woman?’

  ‘The last thing you remembered before the accident was running down the steps towards Olly’s car,’ her former solicitor reminded her helpfully.

  ‘The large woman followed you outside and a row broke out between you all,’ Greg James supplied. ‘That’s why I noticed the incident. The lady in the pink dress had obviously had too much to drink. She was very angry and she was shouting all sorts at you and the boy.’

  Vito spoke up for the first time. ‘I’m sorry but I think the lady in the pink dress was your mother. I also saw her leave the castle in a rush. I assumed she’d had another argument with your father. To my everlasting regret I didn’t go outside to check on you and Olly.’

  ‘My … mother?’ Ava was repeating while studying Vito with incredulity. ‘Are you trying to suggest that she was driving?’

  ‘Oh, she was definitely driving that night,’ Greg James declared with complete confidence. ‘I saw her in the driver’s seat and I saw her drive off like a bat out of hell as well.’

  Nausea stirred in Ava’s tense stomach and she dimly registered that it was the result of more shock than she could handle. She skimmed her strained gaze round the room as if in search of someone who could explain things because her brain refused to understand what she was being told.

  ‘With sufficient new evidence we can appeal your conviction,’ David Lloyd informed her seriously. ‘My firm specialises in such cases and Vito consulted me for advice yesterday. He didn’t want to raise false hopes.’

  ‘Mum couldn’t have been there … it’s not possible,’ Ava whispered shakily. ‘It couldn’t have been her. I mean, she was banned from driving and she’d stopped drinking.’

  ‘She fell off the wagon again at the party,’ Vito countered heavily. ‘I can confirm that. I called on Thomas Fitzgerald yesterday and your mother’s husband confirmed that he caught your mother drinking that night and that they had a colossal row from which she stormed off saying that she was going home. He assumed she was getting a cab and he was simply relieved she’d left without causing a public scene.’

  Ava blinked rapidly and studied her linked hands. Her mother had worn a pink dress that night but that surely wasn’t acceptable evidence. ‘If she was in the car what happened to her after the crash?’

  ‘Obviously she wasn’t hurt. We can only assume that she panicked and pulled you into the driver’s seat before fleeing home. She would have known that Olly was dead.’

  ‘A woman in a pink dress was seen walking down the road towards the village about the time of the crash.’ Roger Barlow spoke up, somewhat shyly, for the first time since his arrival. ‘The police did appeal for her to come forward but I’m afraid nobody did.’

  ‘Olly wouldn’t have let her drive his car. She wasn’t allowed to drive, she wasn’t insured,’ Ava mumbled in a daze. She was horrified by the suggestion that her mother had not only abandoned her at the crash site while she was unconscious but had also moved her daughter’s body to make it look as though she had been the drunk driver who had run the car off the road into a tree.

  ‘You did try to reason with the woman and so did the boy but she wouldn’t listen. She kept on saying that she was sick and tired of people trying to tell her what to do and she repeatedly insisted that she was sober. She was determined to drive and she didn’t give Vito’s brother a choice about it. She pushed him out of her way and just jumped in the driver’s seat and slammed the door. He yanked open the rear passenger door and flung himself in the back seat at the last possible moment and the car went off down the drive like a rocket,’ Greg James completed with a shake of his head while he studied Ava’s pale shocked face. ‘You were the front seat passenger. You weren’t driving, you definitely weren’t driving that car that night …’

  ‘Roger drew my attention to the fact that there were other inconsistencies in your case,’ David Lloyd informed her helpfully. ‘The police found a woman’s footprints in the mud by the driver’s door although you were still out cold when the ambulance arrived. One of your legs was also still resting in the foot well of the front passenger seat and the injury to your head was on the left side, suggesting that you had been bashed up against the passenger window.’

  ‘When your mother’s husband came home later that night, your mother had locked herself in the spare room and was refusing to answer either the phone or the doorbell,’ Vito informed her levelly. ‘When did your mother finally come to see you in hospital?’

  Ava parted bloodless lips. ‘She didn’t come to the hospital. She came down with the flu and I was home within a few days and receiving out
patient treatment.’

  ‘And how did she behave when she saw you again?’

  ‘She acted like the accident hadn’t happened. She got very upset when … er … Thomas lectured me about how I’d killed Olly and ruined my life.’

  ‘She wasn’t upset enough to come forward and admit that she was the driver,’ Vito breathed, his tone one of harsh condemnation.

  ‘I think we have a very good chance of, at the very least, having Ava’s conviction set aside as unsafe,’ David Lloyd forecast with assurance. ‘I’m happy to take on the case.’

  ‘And obviously I’ll take care of the costs involved,’ Vito completed on an audible footnote of satisfaction.

  The other men were all heading straight back to London again in the helicopter. As the trio stood chatting together Vito approached Ava, who was still frozen in her armchair showing all the animation of a wax dummy. ‘I really do have to get back to the office, bella mia,’ he imparted, searching her blank eyes with a hint of thwarted masculine frustration. ‘I pushed a great deal of work aside to deal with this over the last couple of days. I didn’t want to bring it to you without checking out the evidence first.’

  ‘I know … you didn’t want to raise false hopes,’ she said flatly.

  ‘Naturally all this has come as a shock but say the word and I’ll stay if that would make you feel better …’

  ‘Why would it make me feel better?’ Ava parted stiff lips to enquire. ‘You’ve already done more than enough for me. I’ll be fine.’

  Vito remembered tears running down her face that day in Harrods and silently cursed. Amazon woman didn’t need anyone, certainly not him for support. He stepped back, anger glimmering in his stunning dark golden eyes, his strong bone structure taut with self-discipline. ‘If you need me, if you have any questions, phone me,’ he urged, knowing he wouldn’t be holding his breath for that call to come.

  ‘Of course.’ Ava looked up at him as if she were trying to memorise his features. In truth she was in so much shock and pain, she felt utterly divorced from him and the struggle to maintain her composure was using up what energy she had left.

  As soon as she heard the helicopter overhead again, Ava went and got her coat, collected Harvey from the hall and went outside, her feet crunching over the crisp snow that had frozen overnight.

  To Ava, it seemed at that moment as though Vito had unleashed another nightmare into her world. In the same week that Ava had lost the man she had believed was her father, she had been confronted with the horrible threatening image of a mother who might have sacrificed her youngest daughter to save her own skin. Was it true? Ava asked herself wretchedly. Was it true that Gemma Fitzgerald could have done such a thing? Was that what her mother’s distraught letter was all about? Gemma’s own guilt, guilt so great she couldn’t even face the prospect of seeing Ava again?

  Ava’s head was starting to ache with the force of her emotions. She tried to imagine how she would feel without the ever-present burden of feeling responsible for her best friend Olly’s death. She couldn’t imagine it, her own guilt had long since become a part of her. But the pain of thinking that her mother might have stood by doing nothing while her daughter was reviled, tried and sentenced to a long prison term in her place was greater than Ava thought she could stand.

  Yet Gregory James had been so sure of facts, so certain of what he had witnessed that night. He said that Gemma Fitzgerald had been driving. And his description of the scene he had witnessed before the car set off rang more than one familiar bell for Ava. Her mother had been a forceful personality and, under the influence of alcohol, her temper and her determination to have her own way would have been well-nigh unstoppable. Growing up in such a troubled home, Ava had seen many scenes between her parents that bore out that fact. Few people had been strong enough to stand up to her mother, certainly not kind, always reasonable Olly. Olly wouldn’t have known how to handle her mother pushing him away and climbing into his car drunk. He wouldn’t have wanted to create a scene. He wouldn’t have wanted to hurt or embarrass Ava by calling for help to deal with her obstreperous mother. But he wouldn’t have wanted to leave Ava alone in that car either at the mercy of a drunk and angry driver … and that would have been why he threw himself into the back seat before her mother drove off and, unhappily, also why he had died.

  Ava let the tears overflow and sucked in a shuddering breath in an effort to regain control of her turbulent emotions. Harvey licked at her hand and looked up at her worriedly and she crouched down and hugged him for comfort. She felt so weak and helpless.

  What had Vito’s motivation been in pushing forward the prospect of trying to clear Ava’s name with such zeal? Was it for her sake or … his own? Was he more interested in cleaning up her image to ensure that his own remained undamaged? Had he resented the charge that he was sleeping with his brother’s killer enough to move heaven and earth to prove that that had not, after all, been the case? She reminded herself that had Gregory James not first contacted Vito, the possibility that she had been unjustly imprisoned would never have occurred to Vito. Just like everyone else he had believed Ava guilty and he had never forgiven her for it …

  Her phone rang and she answered it. It was her sister, Bella.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Bella asked worriedly.

  ‘Not really,’ Ava admitted, swallowing one hiccup only to be betrayed by a second audible one.

  ‘I’ll come and pick you up,’ Bella told her bossily. ‘You shouldn’t be dealing with this on your own. Where’s Vito?’

  ‘He had to go back to London,’ Ava explained, feeling a twinge of guilt at that statement when she recalled his offer to stay. But what would he have stayed for? So that she could weep all over him instead? Prove how much very hard work she could be even in what was supposed to be a fun lightweight affair?

  Her sister’s home was a former farmhouse on the far side of the village, a cosy home filled with scattered toys, a chubby toddler called Stuart with an enchanting smile and a wall covered with photos of children in school uniform and crayon drawings.

  ‘Excuse the mess,’ Bella urged. ‘Dad came over last night to talk about this. He’s appalled by what Vito had to tell him. To be honest we were all just grateful that Mum disappeared that night without making a big scene. You know what she was like … we assumed she’d caught a cab home. All of us were drinking, none of us were driving. We’d arranged a mini cab for midnight to take us back.’

  Ava sipped gratefully at the hot cup of tea Bella had made her. ‘Do you think it’s true?’

  ‘Well, I always had a problem getting my head round the idea that you could be that stupid and I never could work out why Olly was in the back seat without a seat belt when you were supposedly driving. But in the end we all just assumed you’d gone a bit mad for a few minutes and that few minutes was all it took to wreck your life,’ Bella remarked in a pained tone. ‘I’m so sorry, Ava.’

  ‘You don’t need to be. It’s done now. I mean, the police thought I was guilty too.’

  ‘I do remember Mum being really weird about it all,’ her sister confided with a grimace of discomfiture. ‘Now I can understand why. No wonder she felt guilty. It was an incredibly cruel thing for her to do to you … you not being able to remember the crash delivered you straight into her hands.’

  Ava hugged the friendly toddler for security, still freaking out at the belief that her own mother could have taken advantage of her like that.

  ‘I know I shouldn’t interfere,’ the small blonde woman remarked gingerly, ‘but I don’t think Vito liked being referred to as your lover in that offhand voice you used.’

  ‘Oh.’ Ava went pink. ‘I didn’t know what else to call him.’

  ‘He’s very volatile, isn’t he?’ Bella murmured reflectively. ‘I never saw that in him before. In fact I used to think he was a bit frozen and removed from all us lesser mortals, but yesterday it was obvious that he was absolutely raging about what Mum had done to you. I expect he feels horri
bly guilty—we all do now.’

  ‘I don’t want his guilt,’ Ava proclaimed and blew her nose. ‘After the party I’ll be going back to London.’

  ‘Oh, Ava, must you?’ Bella pressed. ‘Gina and I were looking forward to getting to know you.’

  ‘I would have enjoyed that.’ A tremulous smile formed on Ava’s lips as her sister gave her a hug on the doorstep. ‘But I can’t hang on Vito’s sleeve much longer—it’s getting embarrassing.’

  Ava returned to the castle. The caterers phoned with a query and the owner of the firm asked to call out that afternoon to run through the final arrangements for the party one last time. Grateful to be occupied, Ava used her visit as a distraction from her harried thoughts. The bottom line in her relationship with Vito, she had almost told her sister, was that he didn’t love her. They didn’t have a future together. Vito had not once mentioned anything beyond the Christmas party and she wasn’t planning to hang around being pathetic in the hope that he suggested she extend her stay. She would get over him, it wouldn’t be easy but she would manage it. But the very prospect of a life shorn of Vito tore at her like a vision of death by a thousand cuts.

  Vito phoned at supper time and asked in a worried tone how she was. His tone set her teeth on edge and she assured him that she was perfectly all right. He said he’d probably spend the night at his apartment and she didn’t blame him. He was fed up with all the hassle and drama she created around her, she decided painfully. She went to bed early, longing for the bliss of sleep, which would settle her tired, troubled mind.

  At what point she started dreaming, she later had no clear idea. In her dream she was running down the steps of the castle the night of the crash and she was doing it over and over again. Olly was behind her, telling her he would run her home, and then without the slightest warning the picture in her head changed and her mother erupted into Olly’s lecture about Ava’s provocative behaviour with Vito.