Chapter Seventeen #2
“Absolute madness, right? Jayston Lake was old enough to be Claire’s father.
Put Claire in tears when Fiona accused her.
I told her it wasn’t worth it. No amount of cash was worth putting up with cruelty.
Folks like the Lakes—they think money buys everything.
They act like they own you. I said, ‘Darling, you can walk away anytime. You don’t have to take that rubbish. ’ But she wanted to stay.”
“Claire left the yacht on Saturday night,” Nikki said. “In Capri. Did she tell you she was leaving?”
Lydia shook her head. “No.”
“What was she like in the days before she went missing? Did she seem alright?”
Lydia put a hand to her forehead, and took a deep breath.
“I can’t shake it off. She rang me the first day they docked—I remember it was Friday.
She always did that. Normally, she’d be bubbling over about how fantastic everything was.
But not this time. She sounded…different, you know?
Not herself. She was in tears, saying she wanted to hop on the next flight back.
I told her, ‘Then come back, simple as that.’ But she insisted she had to stay put.
I just wish…I wish she’d come back. I wish I’d known what was eating at her. ”
“Did she say she was meeting anyone?”
“Who would she meet? She didn’t know anyone in Italy.”
“Was Claire romantically involved with anyone who might have met her up in Naples?”
“Nah. She was too shy for that. She was a natural with kids—more than that, brilliant with them. But she struggled with people her own age. She was more into books than boys.”
“She’d never had a boyfriend?” Nikki asked.
“Just mates. I said to her, ‘It’s alright to take your time. You’ll get there eventually. There’s plenty of time for all that later on.’ ”
The words seemed to strike Lydia afresh, and she began crying again. Nikki excused herself and, returning with a glass of water and a handful of bar napkins, found that Lydia had been joined by a matronly woman in a long, pleated skirt.
“Oh, my dear,” the woman said to Lydia. “What are you doing out here all on your lonesome? No wonder you’re feeling down. This is meant to be a celebration of Claire’s life. Come along. Let’s fetch you something to eat.”
Lydia nodded.
“This is Nikki,” she said, accepting the napkins from Nikki and blowing her nose. “She’s looking into what happened to Claire.”
The matronly woman drew herself up. Her voice was sharp with indignation: “What are you doing here? This is completely inappropriate. This is a private event of the Albion Nanny Agency.”
“It’s alright,” Lydia protested, but the woman stopped her with a hand and rounded on Nikki. “I don’t know what dirt you’re trying to dig up but let me make it perfectly clear that the ANA bears no liability whatsoever. You shouldn’t be here.”
“She can come—” Lydia started to say, but the woman interrupted her with a flutter of hands, shooing Nikki away.
“Get out! Go! You heard me. Leave!”
—
The pub was filling with the dinner crowd.
Nikki chose a table, and ordered a beer, a vegetarian burger, and a plate of fried haloumi.
She logged in to the pub’s wi-fi with her phone and looked at the Facebook page for Claire’s memorial event, where people had begun posting pictures and leaving messages.
She scrolled through, cross-checking the names with those in the photos she’d taken of the condolence book.
Among the condolences, she found Sally Tate’s name and the message, Nobody misses you more than me. XOXO.
Sally had also posted to the Facebook memorial page: eight selfies, three wide shots of the memorial, and a dozen photos of Teddy Sexton as he laughed with a cluster of women.
Nikki sent connection requests to Sally on Facebook and Instagram.
Next, she followed the tags of Teddy to his social media accounts, where she found a collection of pictures of the toned and handsome man: in an art gallery; drinking and laughing with friends; sitting beneath a blossoming tree and reading a copy of Infinite Jest; lifting weights at the gym; sparring in a boxing ring.
From this account, she navigated easily to his other social media sites and to the website of a company he owned called Innovare MindCapsule, which boasted a “personal growth companion” offering “neurofeedback, time-capsule messaging, and cognitive training.” The company had been featured in a few online magazines, and Nikki scrolled a range of testimonials from beautifully coiffed young men and women.
An architect called the MindCapsule “an absolute revelation.” A PhD student described it as “grounding and inspiring,” and a creative director said that it was “a game changer for anyone looking to push their creative boundaries.” After a half hour of reading through the website and testimonials, Nikki wasn’t sure she understood precisely what Innovare MindCapsule was offering.
—
Gianni texted: You free? Mac wants to meet up. He’s got some great ideas. You should hear them.
She wrote back: In London. With Izzy and Preston.
Gianni wrote: Yeah. Oops. Forgot.
—
Audrey Lake had left a dozen text messages for Nikki. More emojis and then a series of crooked photographs of what she’d eaten for dinner: marinara pizza and chips and an orange Fanta and a tiramisu. Nikki texted her a thumbs-up emoji.
—
People started to filter out of the memorial at around 20:30. Nikki watched the groups of young adults tromp down the stairs and out of the pub. She had the idea of talking to Claire’s mother again, but Lydia was firmly escorted out by the woman from Albion Nanny Agency.
Nikki paid her bill, and then went back upstairs into the memorial room.
The space was empty and smelled stale. Bottles and glasses littered the tables, and a platter of forlorn sandwiches was decimated, leaving behind only crumbs and a few wilted slices of lettuce and ham glistening with mayonnaise.
—
Nikki’s hands and face felt numb and cold—something she was starting to associate with death. It had been there at Adriano’s funeral; and that peculiar sensation of distance—seeing things through the wrong end of a telescope.
She seemed to feel it now: the cold church on that December morning.
The funeral came nearly a month after Adriano’s death because the police wouldn’t surrender his remains until they’d finished their investigation.
It calmed her to see the coffin, to know that her brother was, at last, back with his family, where he belonged.
Rain had invaded Nikki’s coat, her damp collar pressed icily against her neck.
Her father wept openly and her usually lively mother stared empty-eyed, fingers like rigid claws at her sides.
The posture reminded Nikki of a fairy-tale sorceress, as if any moment, she would lift her hands, casting a spell to rouse Adriano from his sleep.
The men from her brother’s unit stood to attention by the coffin, so orderly in their dress uniforms; fitted tunics and capes and black boots.
Nikki remembered the lean body of Sandro Balestrieri, grief twisting his features.
After the service Sandro’s pregnant girlfriend stood beside him, wrapping her arms around Sandro, tucked beneath his chin, and he’d kissed the top of her head.
How Nikki envied them their consolation.
Her own arms had lost the feel of Tito and, aching with emptiness, held only the memory of cradling Adriano long after he had slipped away.
She had learned to accommodate the peculiar ache of loss, grown around it until it became a part of her. Then, little more than a year ago, death returned to refresh the wounds.
The months and weeks leading up to her mother’s death had been tumultuous.
Nikki’s relationship with Beatrice had none of the easy rapport that Lydia described with her daughter.
Instead, Beatrice had been as stubborn and unyielding as Nikki, as unable to force her feelings into words.
A natural tendency for detachment and secrecy had amplified over the years, and Beatrice became a solitary soldier, fiercely secretive and driven—fighting an enemy only she seemed to see.
In unguarded moments of fatigue or surprise, however, the armor would slip and then Nikki would glimpse such a tender vulnerability and weariness in her, she wanted to wrap herself around her mother and keep her safe.
When Raoul called Nikki with the news in the dark of early morning, she had raced across Naples and to the mountains of Benevento on her Hornet. Some instinct told her that if she was fast enough, there might be a way to combat the insidious invader that had stolen her mother in her sleep.
Arriving at the house, and into her parents’ bedroom, she almost cried with relief.
You made a mistake, she wanted to say. It isn’t her.
Without the familiar animation, the warm movements, the resonant voice and laughter, the body of her mother had looked nothing like Beatrice Serafino.
Nikki and her father sat together in a strangely frozen vigil the rest of that night. They hadn’t looked at each other, hadn’t touched. Only stared at the body on the bed until the sun lit up the small bedroom, and the undertaker arrived to take Beatrice away.
—
Lost in her thoughts, Nikki was startled when someone said, “You alright?”
It took a moment to recognize the pale, handsome face of Teddy Sexton. He stood at the threshold, leaning back a little to look at her, as if he’d paused on his way someplace else.
“Yeah,” she said. The memories were sticky. She wiped a hand across her face as if to brush away the cobwebs.
He took a step into the room.
“Are you one of Claire’s friends?” he asked.
Nikki felt tired. She’d come here with the intention to investigate, but the prospect had become a stone in her throat. She was done here.
She sighed. “No. I was just leaving.”
She moved to the door and he stepped aside to let her pass.