Chapter 48 Rosie – Day 11
Rosie dabs the mascara smudges under her eyes with a damp tissue. She’s too nervous to sit in the stuffy bedroom and do her make-up, but she needs to act like everything is ok. She is supposed to be an excited, blushing bride-to-be.
Get it together . . .
She finishes her make-up and gets up to close the shutters in the bedroom, catching sight of the wild garden.
Something niggles at the back of her mind.
She’s risked everything to be here and she is no further on than when she first arrived.
Giovanni was uninterested. And, as much as it pains her to admit, he’s right.
She needs to discover a solid piece of evidence that a crime has taken place.
All she’s got is a series of suspicions and a gut feeling.
Fenna didn’t speak to her the whole way home. She’s ignored her ever since.
A beeping sound from across the room pulls her attention.
She picks up her phone. A flurry of messages and a couple of missed calls are waiting for her.
All from her mum. She must have connected to the internet again and picked up Rosie’s voice note.
Rosie takes a deep breath, scrolling a finger down the screen to read them.
Mum: Have you lost your mind? Can you call me, please? I’m seriously worried about you now.
Mum: Rosie? Please let me know that everything is ok.
Mum: Call me back. Please.
Rosie lets out a slow and steady exhale and turns her phone off.
She doesn’t have the time to explain it all now.
She hurries downstairs. Everyone has congregated in the hallway.
The men are in muted smart shirts and chinos, and Marianne looks elegant in a long floaty cream skirt and chic, one-shouldered top the colour of nectarines.
‘You look lovely, dear,’ Marianne smiles at Rosie.
She tugs at her knee-length, chiffon dress that she’s owned for years. Pale yellow with all-important pockets. Luckily, she had packed something elegant in her suitcase. She never imagined that she would be wearing it to her engagement party.
‘Thank you. You, too.’ Rosie clenches her jaw. It takes all her effort to smile and return the compliment.
Despite what Fenna and Giovanni think, Rosie believes Marianne is up to something. Could she be the one who texted Dani the night she went missing? The many hidden paintings reveal a secret side to Marianne. Who knows what else she’s hiding.
Theo steps forward and kisses her softly on the cheek. He has no idea. ‘You look amazing. The taxi will be here any minute now.’
‘Is everyone ready? Where’s Fenna?’ She tries to sound natural but her heart gallops in her chest trying to remain calm.
‘She’s changing the baby. Why?’ Theo asks.
‘No reason. She said she’d lend me a lipstick. Let me see if I can find her.’
‘We don’t want to be late for our own party,’ Theo calls after her.
She walks as fast as she can in her uncomfortable heels down the tiled corridor.
The house is unnervingly quiet. She needs to do one final check, and she knows exactly where to go.
She glances over her shoulder to make sure no one is watching.
They have gone to wait for her outside. She dashes to the library.
She needs to look at the photo albums again. There must be something she’s missed.
She examines the floor-to-ceiling shelves, running her clammy finger across the spines. A lot of photography and art books, a couple of romance novels, a selection of Tuscan and Umbrian guidebooks, and the odd Richard Osman.
Where are they?
There is a fireplace on the opposite wall.
She wanders over to the large mahogany desk in the corner, tucked in an alcove.
More books are stacked on their sides, next to an Italian newspaper and junk leaflets.
Her eyes roam around the room before they land on what she’s searching for.
The photo albums that Marianne left out for her are neatly placed on a shelf.
She pulls them out and flicks through the plastic pages past gappy smiles, action shots of the boys leaping into the swimming pool, eating dripping gelato, and enjoying candle-lit meals on the terrace.
A normal family holiday. She goes faster, pulling out the other albums to see what she might have missed.
There’s nothing out of the ordinary.
‘Rosie,’ someone shouts her name. ‘Taxi’s here.’
There is a beep of a horn. It won’t be long until they come looking for her.
She sits on a padded pouffe in the centre of the room, needing to think. Her pulse races. Another book catches her eye. She hadn’t spotted it before.
The Light Within.
The book that was mentioned on the first night of the holiday about the Soho set that Marianne and Gerry were once part of.
Rosie picks up the heavy coffee table hardback from the bottom shelf.
The front cover is an arty black-and-white shot of a dimly lit doorway.
Two men in a suggestive embrace are pressed against the brick, their silhouettes lit by a streetlamp.
She flicks to the page where the book naturally falls, prised open by many hands over the years.
It’s a black-and-white shot of Theo’s mother lying on a picnic blanket, laid out on the sand, surrounded by sharp bull reeds and spikey shoots of seagrass at odds with her soft, stretched-out form.
She is completely naked. The tuft of hair between her legs is a shadow.
Marianne has her arms over her head and her eyes shut as if sleeping.
No wonder Theo didn’t rush to show her this.
It must have been mortifying as a teenage boy to imagine your mother naked, let alone see her displayed in an exhibition put together by your stepdad.
Rosie goes to close the book but there is something stuck in the back pages. A Polaroid picture. She pulls it out. Her breath catches in her throat.
The smiling face of Danielle Dixon beams up at her.
‘Rosie!’ Her name is called yet again. She ignores them, her heart hammering in her chest as she stares at the Polaroid.
Dani is sitting on the ground with her back against a white-washed wall, a trailing pink flower hanging overhead from a trellis.
She is doing the peace sign with a lopsided grin.
The photo was taken at night. An outdoor light has lit up an ornate window above her head.
Inside the circular mahogany frame is a stained-glass pane depicting a sailing boat.
Where was this taken? Rosie’s certain she’s not seen this distinct backdrop anywhere in the house. Dani is wearing a yellow daisy print top and a denim jacket. The same jacket was found covered in blood by the lake, along with her Polaroid camera. This shot was taken on the night she disappeared.
How the hell has it ended up here? In Marianne’s art book?
There is a shadow in the corner of the shot. Rosie holds it closer to her eyes, her hand trembling. It’s impossible to make out who it might be. A blur of a body.
There is the sound of approaching footsteps.
‘Rosie? Are you ok?’ Marianne’s concerned voice drifts down the corridor.
She shoves the photo in the pocket of her dress as Marianne walks into the library.
‘Is everything ok . . .?’ She trails off, her eyes widening. ‘What happened?’
‘I heard a noise. Something must have fallen and I was trying to tidy everything up.’ Rosie quickly attempts to organise the mess around her feet, refusing to meet Marianne’s eye.
The hidden racks of paintings in the basement leap to the front of her mind. Danielle Dixon as Marianne’s muse. Nausea churns in her stomach. She needs to call Giovanni and tell him what she’s found. This is the piece of the puzzle they need.
There is another toot of a horn.
‘Leave it. Julietta will tidy it up.’ Marianne tugs her arm. ‘Come on. They’ll kill us if we’re late.’