Chapter 43 Rosie – Day 10
Rosie can’t believe she’s able to say everything out loud. For so long, she’s kept this to herself. It almost feels like a trap.
‘By your dad.’ Fenna swats a mosquito away. ‘He had Danielle’s phone. He was seen rowing with her earlier that day. No wonder everyone assumed he killed her.’
She clenches her jaw. Her heart aches every time she thinks of her dad and all he put up with.
It must have been terrifying. The witch hunt.
No one in his corner. ‘He didn’t kill her.
It wasn’t until the next day that he remembered he’d confiscated her phone.
He had an alibi – his host family said he was in all night.
None of his DNA was found on Dani’s things by the lake. Yet mud sticks.’
With no body but bloodied, abandoned clothes the speculation was rife. The town was overrun with journalists, which frightened the tourists away. Fingers were naturally pointed at the only man in the country who was supposed to be taking care of Dani.
Fenna folds her arms. ‘Anyway, you said there was a message on her phone from someone called Fraser?’
Rosie explains how she discovered that Fraser must mean The Frasers.
‘When I found out the Frasers own a holiday home in the same town where she vanished I knew this was who my dad meant. It has to be one of them. Theo wasn’t here that summer.
So it’s got to be Marianne, Gerry, or Luke Fraser. One of them messaged Dani and—’
‘And you’re sure Theo was away?’ Fenna cuts in.
Rosie nods. ‘He was at a football camp in Croatia when Dani went missing.’ She remembers the framed certificate in his room.
The photos with the famous footballer. ‘I also went through the family photo albums. Everything happened at a time when digital cameras were everywhere, so there’s plenty of evidence that Theo is telling the truth.
It’s all Luke, Marianne, and Gerry in the snaps from that summer. ’
Rosie doesn’t know if the penny has dropped about what this means for Fenna’s marriage.
‘Wait. So if you – and your dad – believe this mysterious phone contact is such a key part to discovering the truth, then why has that name never come out in the press?’ Fenna continues.
‘Because the police went and lost her phone when it was in storage. All the evidence they had to go off was that at one point my dad had her phone – and his prints were all over it. They put two and two together and got five. Or the media did.’
‘So what did this text message say?’
‘It was written in English and sent by Fraser at midnight. It said, “You made me do it. You gave me no choice. Sorry—”’
Fenna’s eyes widen.
Rosie had the same reaction. She can still hear her dad’s breathy, panicked voice, the rustling of his trousers as he paced, his thoughts tumbling out, speaking as fast as he could. The panic in his voice scared her.
Fenna frowns. ‘It could have been sent about something totally unconnected and innocent. It doesn’t mean anything ominous.’
Rosie gawps at her. ‘You made me do it. You gave me no choice. Sorry—!’ she repeats, dropping her voice when she realises she’s drawn Alba’s attention. ‘What else could it be referring to?’
Fenna’s mouth draws into a tight line. ‘Was there any other evidence?’
‘According to my dad’s information, there was one sighting of her on CCTV at half past ten when she left her host family’s house—’
‘Mario’s Shoes . . .’ Fenna interrupts.
‘Sorry?’
‘Nothing. Go on.’
‘She turns down the main road, the one leading from the church, and vanishes. Somehow her Polaroid camera and bloodied denim jacket end up near the lake. In my dad’s journal he’d drawn maps based on the newspaper reports of the routes she could have taken to get there.
Villa Speranza is on every possible route from where she was staying. ’
‘Why didn’t you take this evidence to the police?’ Fenna asks, after a pause.
Rosie looks away.
His journal looks like the scribbles of a madman. Things crossed out. Angry lines underlining words. Circles and arrows linking possible thoughts. It’s taken her months to work out what he was trying to say. The dictaphone tapes don’t help either. He sounds as if he’s having a psychotic episode.
‘I don’t trust the police,’ she says firmly.
‘All they would do is lose it like they suspiciously lost Dani’s phone.
They treated my dad like a criminal from the very start.
The Italian police didn’t once reveal he had an alibi or that his DNA wasn’t on her belongings by the lake.
Instead, they openly disclosed it was suspicious that he had her phone.
They let the media and the public tear him to shreds.
Journalists hounded him.’ Her voice crackles.
‘They hoped that by having a “bad English guy” linked to the case, tourists would come back to the region once more since the locals were trustworthy. It was political.’
As well as the many police interviews, he was dragged in front of the board of school governors, and the media wanted a pound of flesh.
Journalists huddled in a cloud of cigarette smoke outside their house.
Paparazzi snapped pictures of him with his coat over his head as he leapt into his car.
They made him look guilty. It was relentless.
‘My dad was a proud man who was let down by everyone. He was humiliated, publicly. This was fifteen years ago, remember, the world was different. His reputation, built up over a lifetime, was irreparably tarnished and he could do nothing to stop it.’
They sit in silence. Fenna is the first to speak.
‘But you came here, despite all this.’
‘I had to.’ She accepts the tissue Fenna pulls from the packet tucked in the hood of the pushchair.
Alba presents her with a bunch of colourful weeds, crushed in her sticky palm. Rosie smiles and dabs her eyes.
‘I know my dad didn’t have anything to do with Dani’s disappearance. I just don’t know who does.’ Rosie sniffs, staring up at the imposing Tuscan farmhouse. ‘I wanted to be proven wrong. I wanted to discover the Frasers have nothing to hide, but then Carla went missing.’