Page 167 of Stolen

Looking at her now, it’s hard to imagine her capable of it. But dementia isn’t linear, of course. Elena had just been diagnosed with the disease when Luca went to visit her nearly three-and-a-half years ago, but he said she was still fully coherent and functional: unless you spent time with her at close quarters, you’d never have guessed she was beginning to lose her mind. Her behaviour at the funeral seemed perfectly rational to me, especially in the context of a mother’s grief. There was no sign of the moonstruck, senile old woman she is now.

Luca’s father must have been part of the lie too, I realise.Elena couldn’t have managed deceit on this scale without his cooperation. She was always the dominant one in their relationship: he’d have done whatever she asked.

Luca frowns. ‘I still get headaches. It’s hard, sometimes, to concentrate.’

There’s a shadow in his eyes, a darkness, a confusion, as if he himself can’t quite remember how he got here any more. ‘Mamma thought she was doing it for the best,’ he says. ‘A gift from God, she called it.Un dono di Dio.’

‘Luca, you’re not making any sense.’

He rubs his hand over his face. He’s lost weight, I realise, more than is healthy; beneath the tan, his beautiful face is drawn. You could cut diamonds on his cheekbones.

‘I was in trouble, Alex, after we divorced. There was a woman.’ He sighs. ‘I know. Always a woman, right? She was Genovese; I met her when I was visiting my parents. It turns out she was married.’

His eyes dart nervously around the courtyard.

‘Her husband’s a bad guy, Alex,’ he says. ‘I got in over my head.Wayover my head. He’s got connections everywhere. I couldn’t go to the police, because half of them were working for him. I didn’t know what to do. I was scared to come home, to London, in case I led him to you and Lottie, scared to go back to my parents. And then the bridge in Genoa collapsed and, the next day, they found my car, crushed to nothing. Everyone thought I was dead.’

I have no idea how much of this is true and how much just paranoia. But Luca evidently believes it.

‘I didn’t have any ID on me and I was admitted to hospital as a Mario Rossi – what would you say? John Doe? Or is that just in America?’ He shrugs. ‘When my father finally found me, after three days, he had me transferred to a hospital here, in Sicily, using my mother’s name. Luca Bonfiglio.’

‘Why didn’t you tellme?’ I say. ‘How could you letusthink you were dead?’

‘It wasn’t my choice,’ Luca says. ‘I swear to you, Alex. I was in a coma for weeks and afterwards I had to learn how to do everything again. How to walk, how to eat. It was months before I learned what my parents had—’

‘But it was your choice to keep the charade going!’

His expression darkens. He is Luca, but not Luca, I realise suddenly. He’s changed. The accident has left invisible scars deeper than the one above his eye. He seems brittle, volatile, as if he doesn’t know himself which way he’s going to break.

‘We were divorced, Alex,’ he says, coolly. ‘Why should you care if I’m alive or dead?’

‘Of course I care! And what about Lottie?’

‘I came back for her,’ Luca says.

‘Youstoleher! You didn’t even let me know she was alive!’

‘You didn’t want her.Iwas the one who looked after her. It’s better she’s with me. I’m not the only one who thinks so.’

There’s something in his smile that gives me pause. A spite I’ve never seen before.

‘What does that mean?’ I say.

‘How d’you think my mother knew to be on the beach at that time, on that day?’ he says. ‘Work it out, Alex.’

Someone told him about the wedding.

Someone close to me, someone I trusted.

‘Who?’ I say.

He laughs. ‘Ask your boyfriend,’ he says.