But how could his mother love him when he was responsible for the loss of her adored baby girl?
Not that his mother ever blamed him. Not openly. Not in words. It was the looks that told him what she thought. His father’s too. Those looks said, why weren’t you watching her? As the years went on his father had begun to verbalise it. The blame would come pouring out after he’d been on one of his binges. But it was nothing Leandro hadn’t already heard echoing in his head. Day after day, week after week...for years now the same accusing voice would keep him awake at night. It would give him nightmares. He would wake with a jolt and remember the awful truth.
There wasn’t a day that went past that he didn’t think of his sister. Ever since that gut-wrenching day he would look for her in the crowd, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. Hoping that whoever had taken her had not done so for nefarious reasons, but had taken her to fulfil a wish to have a child and had loved and cared for her since. He couldn’t bear to think of her coming to harm. He couldn’t bear to think of her lying cold in some grisly shallow grave, her little body bruised and broken. As the years had gone on he imagined her growing up. He looked for an older version of her. She would be thirty now.
In his good dreams she would be married with children of her own by now.
In his nightmares...
He closed the door on his torturous imaginings. For twenty-seven years he had lived with this incessant agony. The agony of not knowing. The agony of being responsible for losing her. The agony of knowing he had ruined his parents’ lives.
He could never forgive himself.
He didn’t even bother trying.
* * *
Miranda spent an hour looking over the collection, carefully uncovering the canvasses to get an idea of what she was dealing with. Apart from some of the obvious fakes, most of the collection would have to be shipped back to England for proper evaluation. The paintings needed to be x-rayed in order to establish how they were composed. Infrared imaging would then be used to see the original drawings and painting losses, and Raman spectroscopy would determine the identity of the varnish. It would take a team of experts far more qualified and experienced than her to bring all of these works to their former glory. But she couldn’t help feeling touched Leandro had asked her to be the first to run her eyes over the collection.
Why had he done that?
Had it simply been an impulsive thing, as he had intimated, or had he truly thought she was the best one to do it? Whatever his reasons, it was like being let in on a secret. He had opened a part of his life that no one else had had access to before.
It was sad to think of Leandro’s father living here on his own for years. It looked like no maintenance had been done for a decade, if not longer. Cobwebs hung from every corner. The dust was so thick she could feel it irritating her nostrils. Every time she moved across the floor to look at one of the paintings the floorboards would creak in protest, as if in pain. The atmosphere was one of neglect and deep loneliness. As she lifted each dustsheet off the furniture she got a sense she was uncovering history. What stories could each piece tell? There was a George IV mahogany writing table, a Queen Anne burr-elm chest of drawers, a seventeenth-century Italian walnut side cabinet, a Regency spoon-back chair, as well as a set of four Regency mahogany and brass inlaid chairs, and an Italian gilt wood girandole mirror with embellished surround. How many lives had they watched go by? How many conversations had they overheard?
Along with the furniture, inside some of the cabinets there were Chinese glass snuff bottles, bronze Buddhas, jade Ming dynasty vases and countless ceramics and glassware. So many beautiful treasures locked away where no one could see and enjoy them.
Why was Leandro so intent on getting rid of them? Didn’t he have a single sentimental bone in his body? His father had painstakingly collected all of these valuable items. It would have taken him years and years and oodles of money. Why then get rid of them as if they were nothing more than charity shop donations? Surely there was something he would want to keep as a memento?
It didn’t make sense.
Miranda went outside for a breath of fresh air after breathing in so much dust. The afternoon was surprisingly warm, but then, this was the French Riviera, she thought. No wonder the English came here in droves for their holidays. Even the light against the old buildings had a certain quality to it—a muted, pastel glow that enhanced the gorgeous architecture.
She took a walk about the garden where weeds ran rampant amongst the spindly arms of roses and underneath the untrimmed hedges. A Virginia creeper was in full autumnal splendour against a stone wall, some of the rich russet and gold leaves crunching and crackling underneath her feet as she walked past.