Paulo’s face lit up when he saw her walk onto the ward. ‘You don’t have to come and see me every day.’
‘I want to.’
Now that he was in the infirmary, visits could be daily, and Sophie knew full well that he had little time left.
‘How is Luka?’ Paulo asked.
Her father’s mental health had deteriorated throughout the trial and by the time he’d got to Rome he’d been a shadow of himself. He had never been a strong man, and was an exhausted man now.
Sophie just wanted him to know a little peace so she had lied to her father over the years and pretended that she was with Luka.
‘He’s busy with work.’ Sophie smiled, grateful that her father was easily confused and very forgetful. ‘He says hello and that he will try to come in and visit you soon.’
‘Bella?’
‘She’s still working at the hotel.’
It was the same questions most days and Sophie knew the routine well. She took out some fruit she had bought for him. A lot of her money went on bringing in Paulo treats, even though she couldn’t afford to.
‘This is too expensive,’ her father said, when she gave him a large bowl of raspberries, which had always been his favourite fruit. When she’d been growing up, they had been a very rare treat.
‘Luka can afford it,’ she said, and the bitter edge to her voice had her father frown, and Sophie did her best to rectify her small outburst. ‘He’s a good man,’ she said.
‘If he is such a good man, why hasn’t he married you?’ Paulo asked.
‘I’ve told you that,’ Sophie said. ‘He knows how much I want you to walk me down the aisle. We are waiting for that day when you are released...’
It was never going to happen. Paulo did not have long left, maybe a few weeks of life, yet his jail sentence was forty-three years.
‘I want to see you married in the same church your mother and I were,’ Paulo said.
‘I know that you do.’ Sophie smiled. ‘It will happen one day.’
‘Maybe,’ he said, and Sophie swallowed back tears at the sudden brightness in his voice. ‘The director said this morning that things are looking hopeful.’
‘Of course there is hope,’ she said, and squeezed his frail hand.
‘We will know next Wednesday if I am going to get out.’
Sophie looked up and smiled as a nurse came over.
‘The director wants to speak with you, Sophie.’
‘Thank you,’ Sophie said, and stood. ‘I’ll be back soon,’ she said to Paulo, and walked with the nurse, assuming that she was going to get a health update.
She was led through the prison infirmary and to a corridor of offices and there she met a tired-looking woman, who gave Sophie a warm smile and offered her a seat.
‘He’s more confused than ever,’ Sophie said. ‘Now he thinks he is getting out of here on Wednesday.’
‘He might be getting released,’ the director said, and for a moment Sophie wondered if the chair had been moved for it felt as it the ground had just given way.
‘Your father’s hearing has been brought forward. We have signed all the forms and have done all we can for him at this end.’
‘I don’t understand—I didn’t even know there was to be a hearing.’
‘We are hoping that your father can be released on compassionate grounds. He is no threat to anyone, really he is too weak to go to anywhere other than a hospital or be nursed in your home.’ She gave a small shrug. ‘Now it is up to the judge to decide but the lawyer who is working on his case is a very good one.’
‘I didn’t even know there was a lawyer looking out for him.’
‘When patients come into the infirmary and their condition is terminal, we try to have their cases reassessed.’
‘Why wasn’t I told this was happening?’
‘It all came about very speedily. When Legal looked at his file they thought there might a possibility for a mistrial but your father does not have time for that. It was thought best to try to get him released on compassionate grounds.’ She smiled at Sophie. ‘I don’t want to get your hopes up but I think in just a few days you might well be able to take your father home.’
Sophie smiled.
It was wonderful news, unexpected and amazing.
And yet it was terrifying too.
She had built a world in her father’s mind. One where she lived with Luka in a beautiful flat in Rome, not a scruffy apartment that she and Bella shared.
She had told her father that Matteo and Luka were still friends, which they were, according to the business press, but she hadn’t seen him in years.
The only truth she had told was that Bella worked at Hotel Fiscella, only because once Bella had had to visit on her behalf and had worn a coat over her uniform, which her father had seen.
Paulo was confused enough not to question too many things and there was a lot that he didn’t remember.
He simply believed that Luka had kept his word and had got engaged to his daughter.
How could she tell her dying father it had all been a lie?
How could she tell him that she had nothing and that, apart from her friend, she had no one?
‘I called you in,’ the director continued, but it was as if Sophie was hearing from a distance, ‘so that you can start to make plans for his release.’
Sophie managed to thank the director and she even went in to kiss her father goodbye. Once outside again, though, she ran from the hospital and took the crowded bus. When she got off, she raced along the cobbled streets and up the small stairwell, where she wrenched open the iron security door and called out to her friend.
‘What?’ Bella asked, when she saw her stricken face.
‘Pa may be being released...’
Bella let out a shocked gasp. ‘That’s fantastic news.’
‘I know that but how can I bring him here when I have told him that I am engaged to Luka, that we live in a beautiful home?’
‘You can’t tell him the truth,’ Bella said. ‘Your father deserves to die knowing that his daughter will be looked after.’ Bella’s eyes filled with tears. ‘My mother didn’t know that peace. I think that night Malvolio got released and sent me to work had her go to her grave with a broken heart. It’s not going to happen to your father.’
‘Oh, so I just produce a luxury apartment? I could just get a photo of Luka, perhaps, and blow it up and sit him in a chair. I know my father is confused but he’s not mad...’
‘No,’ Bella said. ‘You are to go and see Luka and tell him that he owes you this much...after the way he shamed you, after all that he said in court, he can damn well go along with things for a while.’
‘Do you think I could pull it off?’ Sophie said, but then shook her head. ‘I can’t face him like this.’
‘You won’t have to,’ Bella said. ‘I can still sew, I can make you the most sophisticated, elegant woman he has ever seen. You can blow those London women out of the water. He will eat his own words.’
Sophie thought for a moment. ‘Luka could do it,’ Sophie agreed. ‘He’s a Cavaliere after all. They better than anyone know how to lie under oath.’