Chapter Seventeen

“The heart of man is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths it has its pearls too.”
Vincent van Gogh

Gabriel had turned to gaze out of the window, his arm raised and braced against the wall. The question was on the brink of my lips, almost bursting from me and I couldn’t hold back any longer.
“When were you going to tell me that it was your wife’s murder you were a suspect in?” I blurted out.
Gabriel spun around.
“Giannetti told you?”
“No,” I swallowed.
“Who then?”
“No one. I read it in a newspaper article I found in the glove box of your car, along with what I think was a blackmail note,” I explained, calmly. “And Vittorio’s cap.”
He stared at me.
“What? When?”
“Just before you left me at the institute and dashed off across the island.”
He crossed the room.
“What did you do with it?”
“Left it in there.”
“You didn’t tell anyone?”
“No.”
He stood studying me.
“But you suspected Vittorio was blackmailing me and I had killed him?”
I looked up at him.
“There was so much you didn’t tell me,” I sighed. “And I saw how angry and passionate you could get, so I didn’t know what to think or believe.”
“What do you mean? When have I been angry with you?”
“Not with me. But that day you bought me a new hat, you became very angry with the men outside the store so quickly.”
I could see him remembering. His hands rested on his hips.
“They were saying some very offensive things that I wasn’t going to ignore, especially as they were about you,” he added. “I very rarely lose my temper but they . . . I couldn’t just walk past and do nothing. It’s not OK for men to talk about women like that.”
“Oh,” I blushed.
He sat down on the edge of the sofa, turned away from me. I interlaced my fingers and stared up at the ceiling.
“And yes, I was a suspect in my wife’s murder,” admitted Gabriel, with a sigh. “But I didn’t kill her.”
He paused. I waited.
“I married too young and too quickly,” he revealed. “Before I really knew what Nina was like. I found out too late that she was selfish, greedy and vindictive. She refused a divorce, you see she liked the lifestyle my money provided. So I buried myself in my work and tried to avoid her as much as I could. She had an affair and when she ended it her . . . lover wasn’t willing to accept it. He was obsessed with her and possessive and . . .”
“He killed her?” I butt in.
“Yes. When the press found out about the affair, they painted me as the jilted, angry husband who killed her in a jealous rage. Truth is I didn’t care that she was sleeping with another man. But the police hauled me in for questioning again, even though I had a solid alibi. They let me go soon enough, but that didn’t stop the media from speculating.”
He still sat with his back to me.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Telling people that my ex-wife was murdered isn’t something I do. It’s part of my past I’d like to forget,” he said. “I didn’t know someone would try and use it to implicate me in another murder. I would have told you eventually.”
I deliberated this answer for a moment.
“So the things in your car, they were planted?”
Gabriel nodded.
“They must have been. Giannetti told me they had received an anonymous phone call informing them of what happened in the Netherlands,” he explained. “How Vittorio recognised me and tried to blackmail me by threatening to reveal everything to the local press here, which would affect my relationship with the institute and my work, so I would be desperate to deal with Vittorio.”
It was a credible story, if you didn’t know Gabriel.
“That’s why Giannetti told you about my past and warned you after he received the phone call,” he continued. “Once he had heard back from the Dutch police with the whole story, he had more faith in my innocence and suspected someone was trying to frame me. I expect it was the same person who put the newspaper and hat in the car, just to reinforce the accusation.”
That wasn’t beyond belief.
“You said Vittorio was drunk and talking nonsense the last time you saw him. What was he saying?”
“That some people were out fishing for other things than fish,” Gabriel replied.
“So he could have seen George out on a smuggling run?”
“It’s possible.”
“Do you think George killed Vittorio?”
“He tried to kill Francesco, beat up Stefano and . . . took you, it’s not difficult to believe that he could have killed Vittorio.”
I fell silent then, laying back and closing my eyes, my mind overloaded with plots, suspicions and theories.

The silence hung over us like a settling fog, heavy with emotion and unspoken fears. The laughter and chatter of children playing down in the street floated up through the open window, a car doom slamming and garbled speech from a TV followed.

I heard Gabriel hitch in a breath.
“It was hell, Jenny, not knowing where you were. Fearing you were in danger and not being able to help you.”
Tears seeped out beneath my closed lids. There had been moments when I’d thought I’d seen anyone I loved again and that had frightened me more than anything George could afflict on me.
“I can’t believe I made it,” I swallowed, my voice trembling. “It’s like it was a horrible nightmare, it doesn’t feel real, but I know it was.”
I felt the cushions around me shift. Gabriel didn’t speak but he touched my hand tentatively.
“But alone and helpless as I was, I couldn’t give up,” I sobbed, my voice cracking. “I couldn’t.”
Gabriel’s arms were around me suddenly, and he lifted me onto his lap. He hugged me fiercely, burying his face in my neck. I cried, gulping in air as the tears stung my face and shook my ribs, releasing all the fear, uncertainty and fatigue that had saturated me for days, weeks, months, perhaps even years. And Gabriel held me, his arms never slackening. 

Once my sobs had calmed, Gabriel clasped my face in his hands, his thumbs gently stroking my unblemished cheek and looked into my eyes.
“My brave girl,” he whispered, tenderly. “To think I almost lost you when I had only just found you.”
“Careless of you, really,” I teased, my voice hoarse.
He smiled, his eyes crinkling and my heart skipped.
“Regular bungler, me,” he nodded.
A short, delighted laugh escaped me. Gabriel kissed me gently and rested his brow against mine.
“‘Sometimes the road to Heaven leads you straight through Hell,’” he murmured and I silently agreed.