300 Days of Sun (25 page)

But then I thought about the time I'd spent with Nathan. His sweet nature and generosity and willingness to trust in strangers could now be seen as extraordinary courage. To have managed to retain those qualities was a mark of the man he had become.

“But this Terry Jackson,” Eduardo went on. “When Fausto told you he worked as a fixer for ‘certain elements' he was being cautious. Jackson is a known associate of the Himmelreich family.”

I was digesting that when Ribeiro's mobile rang.

The lawyer spoke only a few succinct words before ending the call. “Palhares has also been arrested and is at Faro police station.”

Walde swore in Portuguese.

It couldn't be another coincidence, surely.

W
e sped along the soulless autoroute, the driver making easy work of the ground I had covered with less power and comfort only that morning. I had managed what I had set out to do, although I had no real sense of what was going to happen next. If Nathan really was his nephew, and it was obvious that Eduardo had decided that was a possibility, then it followed that he would do all it took to get him released and to speak to him.

“Do you know why Nuno Palhares has been arrested, too?” I asked. “Is it because Nathan was seen speaking to him at the Café Aliança?”

“They are not saying. It might be political, though. They are saying he, too, has links to the murder of Ian Rylands,” said Ribeiro.

“They probably spoke in the café, too,” I suggested. “Rylands was fascinated by the place.”

“I have been told,” said Walde, “that in the regional elections, some of the candidates are openly quoting from Esta Hartford's book. One of them is my old friend Nuno Palhares. When it seems Palhares is gaining too much support, especially after he negotiated the reopening of the Café Aliança for political meetings, he is charged with a crime, which of course he did not commit. But do the voters understand that? No, they just think there must be something suspicious about him.”

“But Portugal is no third-­world country. That kind of electoral manipulation doesn't happen in Europe.”

Eduardo made a sceptical face. “If you say so.”

By now we were on the outskirts of Faro negotiating the ten­tacles of the road feeding the airport, heading towards the shabby apartment blocks that rose from heat-­baked ground. The Jardim Manuel Bivar, the marina, the gate to the Old Town, all were subtly changed by my view through the window of the Walde ­limousine. We headed straight to the Polícia Judiciária. The chauffeur dropped us outside the Old Town gateway and we walked up the narrow cobbled Rua Municipio to an unassuming white-­rendered building with a green outer door. The Directoria de Faro was ­announced unobtrusively on a tiled plate to the left of the door.

Ribeiro led the way. “They are expecting us.”

I couldn't help but remember the television reports of the Tilly Stern case, the pinched faces of the parents as they were captured walking this same route, entering this doorway to the baying of the press pack gathered outside. We slipped through the entrance heralded only by another burst of low-­key ringtone from Ribeiro's mobile.

 

ii

I
t was an interminable wait, on hard plastic seating. In the unsettling acoustics of the police headquarters, part cold stone building, part institutional bubble, I fretted away the hours with cups of strong coffee. Would I be interviewed again if the detectives were serious about linking Nathan to Rylands' death? I was left to stew.

It was almost midnight when Walde and Ribeiro reappeared. Both looked drained. They were closely followed by Nuno Palhares, surrounded by a group of furious men, some flinging what sounded like angry recriminations to the officers accompanying them.

I stood up.

“Released without charge,” said Walde.

“And Nathan?”

Walde nodded in the direction they had come. I thought he meant that Nathan was still being held, but a few seconds later, he emerged. I didn't stop to think how it would look. I hurled myself at him and he wrapped his arms around me. I closed my eyes, perilously close to tears.

Then there were more arms around the two of us. They seemed to belong to Eduardo Walde.

I had no chance to ask what had transpired between them, as we all made a rapid exit into the narrow cobbled street. Walde, still with an arm around Nathan, began speaking into his phone.

“Carolina,” he said urgently. “It's me.”

He nodded at me, and strode away to speak privately.

“Are you OK?” I asked Nathan.

“Thanks to you. Come here.” He pulled me closer and hugged me again, awkwardly.

“Do you think—­has Eduardo spoken to you?” I didn't know where to start.

“He has, he has . . . but how did you do it? I can't believe . . . you are amazing, you know that . . .” He was almost incoherent.

“Shhh, it's all right. There will be plenty of time to explain. Take it easy.”

It felt like comforting a child, the child he had once been.

“I told Eduardo I would take a DNA test, but then he showed a ph-­photo of her . . . and said he would show me photographs of himself in his early twenties—­that I would be astonished to see the likeness . . .”

The relief gave way to a wave of profound exhaustion.

“He said she was in Cascais.”

“His sister?” I assumed that was who he meant.

Nathan rubbed his forehead. He did not seem to hear.

Eduardo returned, his face deeply shadowed by the dim light of the streetlamp beside the entrance where we were still waiting, like wreckage caught between rocks.

“We are going to Cascais,” he said.

“Now?” asked Nathan.

“Why not? It's only one more sleepless night.”

I
n the car heading north—­I assume the chauffeur had rested during the hours we were at the police station—­Nathan and I sat in the back with Eduardo. Nathan held my hand tightly. I dropped my head on his shoulder and I think we both slept for a while. A bend in the road brought me round from a vivid dream (a door unlocking and a missed train) not knowing where I was. For one blissful moment I thought we were curled up in my little studio.

As I struggled to regain consciousness I wondered what Eduardo and his lawyer made of our relationship. Any conclusions they came to were likely to be wrong, unless they had a greater instinctive understanding of him than I did. If they assumed anything from our shy closeness, they made no comment. Whatever it was, that night it was incommunicable to anyone else.

I was blearily awake as we slid into Estoril and along the grand seafront avenue at first light. Sea and sky were the same muted blue-­grey.

“Not far now,” said Eduardo.

A
t Cascais, the palms were less majestic than at Estoril, the town smaller and prettier. On the other side of the bay, the light was golden yet we emerged from the car into dusky shadow. Brick steps led up to an imposing house that grew out of a seawall shaggy with wind-­blown plants. From an upper storey, an Italianate loggia overlooked the beach.

Eduardo asked Nathan if he was ready. He said he was, though he looked daunted. They ascended the steps, followed by Ribeiro. As Nathan went into the house without a glance back the thought sliced through my sleep-­deprived head that this was the moment he ceased to be Nathan, ceased to be Josh Harris, and had the chance to reclaim his identity as Rafael.

I was left with the chauffeur, whose name turned out to be Tiago. I don't think anyone had given a thought to us, which was entirely understandable. If there had been a café open, I would have suggested breakfast but it was still too early. Tiago stretched his legs for a few minutes then got back into the driver's seat, miming that he intended to snatch some sleep while he was parked. He had earned his rest, so I left him to it and wandered down to the beach.

Waves curled onto coarse sand that granulated the froth. It looked like crystallised ginger. I watched for a while, hoping to calm myself, then turned to stare up at the house, noting how many of the windows were shuttered, and tried to guess how the story was reaching its climax within.

How would, or could, the severed ties be rejoined? Was it possible Carolina would recognise her child? A mother who had suffered the loss of her only child, whose love was frozen in time like the statues of leaping dolphins and stately warriors on horseback, impervious to change. A fossil love, deeply embedded. And the dread niggle: what if I was wrong, and Nathan was not their lost boy?

I took off my sandals and walked into the edge of the water. It was freezing cold, like needles under my feet. I almost lost my balance as small sharp stones threaded more pain across my soles.

Nathan. Josh. Rafael. Which one was he?

 

iii

A
t the western end of Cascais, the yellow fort sat on a long rock, jutting out from the beach into the sea like a run-­aground battleship. Brown ridged cliffs rose up beyond, dunes behind. Nowadays the Fortaleza do Guincho, cannons at the entrance, is a luxury hotel at the western end of Cascais, and this was where Eduardo arranged a room for me that day, to try to catch some sleep while the family conducted its business.

I was shown through an interior courtyard to a fine room, seventeenth-­century according to the booklet on the desk, with a wide view of the rollers crashing below as the tide came in. And there I waited. I showered. I had a long bath. I rinsed out my underwear and sent my dress to the hotel laundry for a two-­hour ser­vice—­the same dress I had been wearing since I drove to Lisbon to meet Eduardo by the Monument to the Discoveries the previous day. It felt like much longer.

But I was too pent-­up to rest properly. I considered making inroads into the minibar but resisted, taking the sensible option of ordering some food from room ser­vice. Even though I was hungry, I couldn't eat much. My phone was either in my hand or by my side at all times. I desperately wanted to call Nathan but knew that I had to hold off, to let him contact me when he was ready. It remained silent. Not even the jaunty whistle of a text arriving.

It was early evening before I heard anything.

“We are coming over to you,” said Eduardo. “Dinner at eight in the restaurant.”

He sounded strained. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes . . . yes, of course.”

“Just . . . an emotional day . . .”

“Yes. Extremely so.”

I hoped that was all it was.

At least my dress felt fresh as I pulled it on. I brushed my hair and did a scratch job on my face with the old cosmetics that floated loose at the bottom of my bag.

The dining room at the Fortaleza do Guincho might as well have been on an ocean liner, surrounded by the sea and sky. The others, minus the lawyer, were there when I arrived, installed at a table in one corner by the panoramic window. Eduardo and Nathan stood—­was this awkward for Nathan?—­and I was introduced to a slim, well-­preserved woman in late middle age. Carolina would have been lovely once, I could tell, before suffering etched deep lines on her face. Her eyes watered.

I held out my hand, not knowing what else to do, but she got up and gave me an encouraging smile, and then a shaky hug. Nathan took my hand and held on to it when I sat down next to him. “All right?” I mouthed to him. He nodded, also teary.

Carolina was scarcely able to look away from him, transfixed by his every movement.

“Thank you,” she said to me, over and over in a light American accent, voice slightly husky. I could see that Nathan was taken with her. Conversation was forced, the usual social niceties inappropriate.

“How long have you known each other?” she asked me. If she had any misgivings about the age difference between her son and me, she did not allow them to show.

“Not all that long,” I replied.

“A lifetime,” said Nathan.

I thought I knew what he meant. At least I hoped I did. I had known him, as Nathan Emberlin, for as long as he had existed. I gave his hand a squeeze under the table though it made me feel sad.

“Do I still call you Nathan?” I asked.

“To us, he is Rafael,” said Carolina. “Healing from God—­that is what his name means, and it has never been more true.”

The question of whether he was who the Waldes hoped he was seemed resolved. Food and wine was ordered. Family history was exchanged. I supposed this was an extension of the conversations they had been having all day.

“For two decades I prayed to a deity who did not seem to be listening. I should have had more faith,” said Carolina. “There was a statue of the Virgin Mary on the hall table in my mother's house. She was tall, half a metre high, with family rosaries draped over her shoulders. My mother told me that when she was a child she once saw oily tears rolling down the Virgin's cheeks. When she touched her she was warm, warm as my mother's skin. I have the statue still. She has never cried again. Her blessings remained dammed behind that smooth, knowing face.”

She was giving vent to a stream of pent-­up emotion. “When the snatch happened, the hours and minutes before did not seem important. I was not taking notice of them. It was only afterwards that they became the most crucial moments of my life. I picked my memories clean until they were sterile but there was nothing more. I detached from life, barren of expectation. But now he is here, and it is a miracle.” She gave him a hesitantly broad smile, perhaps one that she had not used for more than twenty years. “My child, returned to me as a man.”

It hardly needed to be said that there was still a delicate puzzle to be resolved, that there were parts of him that were forever lost to her, that she could never know or understand. Perhaps, for now, it was enough just to know that such a long period of suffering had concluded.

There was a sense of history, of stories converging. Nathan gave them a picture of his boyhood in South London, fleshing out the bones of the story he must already have told them.

“What is so strange is that it's only recently that I found out that what I thought belonged to me there, didn't. Not the family, the relatives, the memories they shared with me. There was no connection, except that I was there. It's like a bomb has hit the house, the garden, the streets around and now it's just a wasteland. I can't explain it any better than that. Like I said, I'm not the person I thought I was. The only link was with Terry Jackson.”

I looked at Nathan fondly, then at the other two. “You have to admire this man's tenacity and courage,” I said.

Eduardo nodded. Carolina seemed about to cry.

“What about Terry?” asked Nathan. “We need to get hold of him.”

“Let's get our house in order first.”

I assumed Eduardo was referring to an official DNA test. They would certainly need it to build the case from the bottom up.

“There are a few things I want to say to Terry Jackson,” said Nathan.

“Don't worry, we're working on it.”

Over a succession of delicate fish dishes, the conversation was more positive. Justice would be served, they had no doubt of that. The family had money and an excellent lawyer, as well as media contacts. The possibility was discussed that Nathan might become involved in the various Walde businesses. Not only had Nathan been reunited with his family, but with them had come new opportunities in Portugal he had never even considered.

“It's a good country,” said Eduardo. “Not perfect, but where is?”

It was as if the past twenty-­four hours had revitalised his faith in human nature. Optimism had replaced cynicism.

At the end of the evening, the three of them departed for Carolina's house. Carolina asked if I wanted to come back with them for the night, but I judged it better to stay where I was. The last thing I wanted was to crowd Nathan and his mother.

He gave me a peck on the lips as we said good night.

“You didn't tell me,” I said softly. “What name?”

A fingertip landed tenderly on the end of my nose. “For now, to you, Nathan. I like the way you say it.”

I wasn't sure what to make of that, but I smiled, and said, “Sleep tight.”

“See you tomorrow. I'll pick you up.”

A
t ten o'clock the next morning the concièrge rang up to tell me a limousine was waiting. I assumed the chauffeur had come alone to provide a taxi ser­vice, but when I got down to reception, Nathan was there. He bounded over, fizzing with all his old energy and more.

It wasn't far back to Cascais, but Nathan asked Tiago to take the coast road and then drop us at Praia da Rainha. I sat back and let him take charge. He didn't stop talking—­about Carolina, about Eduardo and Eduardo's children, his cousins; what he had been told about his father Luiz's family—­until we reached the town and the small beach in town where I'd sat early the previous morning.

I saw more now, beyond the rocks strewn across the sand and the needle-­cold water: the way the buildings perched on rocks at the edge of the sea at in the centre, the shape of the beach that would once have been used only by fishermen. A tower shaped like a church steeple rose and stabbed the sky from an aristocratic house on the eastern end of the small bay. A restaurant called Fim do Mundo, the end of the world.

The past bore down heavily. What made someone leave one life and strike out for another, like Esta, or Karl—­or Nathan? How could a person cope who discovered they were not who they thought they were? Were they the lucky ones, those who could step out of a shed skin and move forward? I had found it hard enough to escape my own, mundane past.

“We're getting the DNA test done this afternoon, at some private clinic in Lisbon,” he said.

“Good,” I said, because I wanted him, wanted them all, to have peace of mind. “The sooner the better.”

Nathan held my hand again as we walked along the beach. I could already feel that our relationship was reverting to the comfort of friendship, and I didn't mind, not really. I was happy to have shared what we had. It had never been a realistic prospect, the two of us—­but fun while it lasted.

“What are you going to do now?” I asked, after a while.

He was silent for a long minute, then he leaned in and kissed me, slowly and beautifully. It might have been for the last time—­or maybe not. Who knew?