The Perfect Couple Read online

  I examine the images closely, zooming right in to observe the acuity of detail when I pause after spotting something unexpected. There are clear fissures in two areas. I pull up the ground-penetrating radar scans and put them side by side to the photos and, with a tingle up the back of my neck and down my arms, I realise something startling: one of the fissures marries up perfectly to where there is a void behind a staircase. It could be a pure co incidence that I’ve suddenly recognised the same anomaly in the photos and the 3D scans but instinct is telling me otherwise.

  I stare at my computer screen numbly as if there’s a fault line between what my eyes have seen and what my mind has yet to process. I run my finger along the edges of the fissure and trace them back again. I convince myself that it’s the wine, or the heat, or exhaustion, or a combination of all three.

  I take note of the exact location of the two fissures. The image locks in place in my mind as if I’ve taken a mental snapshot. When it comes to memory, mine has always been razor sharp. It was my schoolteachers who first suggested that I had a photographic memory. I could read a page and recall its contents with ease. When my father lost his car keys, I would be the one to the find them just by picturing where I saw them last. When I wrote maths papers, the formulas would appear in my mind and so I aced exams. I thrived at Cambridge as I continued to harness the capabilities of my memory and now, at forty-four, it’s a valuable asset in my profession as an archaeologist.

  I feel a sudden urgency to return to the excavation site. This is something I should do tomorrow, in daylight with the rest of the team, but I just can’t wait. So I rush out the door, speed in my step. There is a pulse of adrenaline pushing me forward that I haven’t experienced in so long that I’ve forgotten how exhilarating my work can be.

  I could so easily have missed seeing the fissure, which would mean I might never have realised its position matched perfectly with the subtle depression behind the staircase – an imperceptible hiding spot to the naked eye.

  Sometimes the signs can be right under your nose and you simply fail to see them.

  SARAH

  By the time I reach Castello di Vincivoli, it’s so dark that the only thing illuminating the medieval castle and its cloak of ivy is the light of the full moon. I use a remote to open the electronic gates to the castle grounds, making sure they close behind me before I continue driving down the long road to the entrance. In the daytime, you can see the estate’s vineyard and orchards on one side and thick green woods on the other, but now, my off-road view is only of eerie blackness. I park my car as I always do just outside the high stone walls that are punctuated by archways and surround the entire castle. The only way to enter from here is on foot, unlocking the heavy black iron door that is guarded by two stone lions. I take a small torch from my car and shine it onto the lock as I fiddle in my bag for the key. The door shuts loudly behind me, a jarring clang of metal that seems to reverberate against the imposing walls, disrupting the deathly quiet. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I am suddenly aware of my every breath. There is something simultaneously seductive and terrifying about being alone at night in a place where history’s secrets lay buried beneath the earth.

  The castle is now state owned and has been open to the public for the past fifty or so years as a living history museum, with the furniture, decor and art left as it was in the 1800s. In order for it to keep operating, we have put scaffolding around the twenty-metre courtyard to secure the excavation site.

  The heat of the day has been replaced by a cool breeze but in my haste to get here I didn’t bring a cardigan, so I rub my arms to stay warm until I need to shine my torch ahead to find my way along the path that runs through the centre of the magnificent Italianate garden. Tall cypresses shadow the gravel-lined avenue that leads to a stone fountain with a marble statue of a peasant pouring water from a barrel.

  Even though I do this same walk almost every day, being alone in the empty grounds at night makes me uneasy so I walk under the Gothic-style watch tower, hugging the walls. I startle when a loose vine of ivy brushes over my arm. I travel down the carved stone stairs to the lowest of the castle’s three levels to reach the sunken courtyard, passing the columns lining the cloister and statues of mythical monsters that seem to glare at me with their cold stone eyes. I’m relieved when I finally reach the excavation area. I unlock the two padlocks on the only entry point and leave them unlocked behind me; if I were to lose the key in the dark I would be trapped in here overnight.

  I am about to turn on the master switch, which will illuminate the whole site, when I hesitate. My finger hovers over it for a few moments and then I pull it back. I can’t explain why but as I look around the empty grounds, I have the perturbing feeling that I am being watched. I try to shrug it off, assuring myself that it’s a simple case of my wild imagination getting the better of me. But still, I can’t bring myself to flick the switch. Instead, I walk back out past the scaffolding to a building that was once a storeroom for equipment used in nearby quarries. The management has kindly given us use of the large two-roomed space, which we’ve converted into a shed and a lab. I unlock the door, turn off the alarm to the castle, and enter the shed, where I retrieve several hurricane lamps and small battery-powered lights, along with trans parent mylar sheets, a pen and tape. From there, there’s another locked door with a combination to enter the lab, which holds the safe that we use to secure any valuable finds.

  I lock the building behind me and walk back to the courtyard. I climb down a portable ladder to the floor of the trench where I spotted the fissure that matched the area with a small void behind it. It’s against our code of practice to be alone on the site. As the trench supervisor, I know the risks all too well. The condition of the soil surrounding the trenches can become unstable, so we regularly inspect the soil condition and the state of the trench walls for signs of earth fretting, slipping, slumping or ground swelling. The slightest change could cause the trench to collapse. In my excitement rushing here, I didn’t even put on a hard hat – the most basic of our safety requirements when working below ground level. I can feel my phone in my pocket and I know that I should call Marco and tell him what I’m doing. But I want to be absolutely sure that my hunch is right first.

  In the darkness and still of the night, I place my trowel, brush and pickaxe on the ground. I position the hurricane lamps and lights around the trench and turn them on. I stare up at the exposed staircase until the mental snapshot of the exact location I’d seen the fissure on the high-resolution photos marries up with what I’m looking at in the flesh. I run my hand along the wall until I find the subtle fault line in the plaster.

  Now that I’ve seen it, I notice that there’s also a subtle difference in the texture of the plaster on each side of the fissure. One side is coarser and messy, like an afterthought.

  I take out the mylar sheeting and use a pen to trace the entire way along the fissure, making dots and short lines. When I step back, I realise that I’ve drawn the shape of a rectangle. My breath quickens. There’s no logical reason for a shape like that to be produced as a result of construction. Someone must have created a hole at a later time and then carefully tried to disguise its existence. I am almost certain of it.

  I take down the mylar sheet, and use my handpick to loosen the soil around the fissure and then a trowel to scrape the new sediments flat. Every now and then, I moisten the sediments with a spray-bottle of water in order to clearly see the differences in colour and texture.

  As I work alone in the silence of night, a question rises to the forefront of my thoughts, irrepressible and undeniable: What’s happening to my marriage?

  Our relationship used to be solid. But something seems to have changed in Marco when we started our excavation work in Florence. He has stopped looking at me the way he used to. There’s a vacancy now when he gazes in my direction. A big part of our job is recognising patterns and noticing even the slightest deviation. And after two decades of marriage, I’d b
e lying to myself if I believed things were exactly as they should be.

  I don’t even realise that two hours have passed when suddenly my handpick breaks through the soil to empty space behind. I watch my hand move at a furious pace as if it has a mind of its own. After a few more blows with the handpick, the earth around the rectangular shape falls away. I use my brush to dust away the soil, which is when I see an object begin to appear in the void.

  I feel a strange presence and I stop momentarily to look around with that same unsettling feeling that I am being watched. The site is empty. It’s just my imagination getting the better of me. And yet, instinct tells me to turn off all the battery-powered lights and work only with the hurricane lamps as I continue to dig around the shape.

  My hands are trembling by the time I see the edges of a box begin to appear through the dirt. I carefully dig around it, desperate to free it from its ancient grave. When the top is visible, I gently dust away a layer of mud entombed over it. Now that I know its shape, I dig my pickaxe deep around the area until I can pull the box free.

  When I finally hold it, I can barely keep my hands from trembling. It is light but feels heavy with history. I crumble away some soil easily but in other parts it is stuck like cement. In the gaps, where I brush away the dust, a painting of Saint Januarius begins to appear, made from multicoloured polished precious and semi precious stones. I turn it over in my hands, trying to absorb what I could possibly be holding. I see snatches of the features I’ve researched countless times – scrolling leaves, a rectangular slate plaque on one side. I dust more frantically and can see a sliver of red marble and gilded bronze on one of the feet. It’s the genuine pietre dure box. I am certain of it.

  Breathless, I hold the box in my hands, hoping that encased inside is the priceless necklace we have been searching for. My heart feels like it is beating outside my chest. I am desperate to see inside, but the dried soil has sealed it shut. I could use a thin palette knife from the lab to carefully lever it open. So I place it delicately in my rucksack and find myself instinctively looking around again, the presence of the unknown lingering. If this is indeed the genuine San Gennaro jewellery box and holds the precious necklace inside, its safety is paramount.

  I climb up the ladder out of the trench and as I do, one of the torches drops out of my hand and thumps loudly on the ground, the light zigzagging across the ruins like a bolt of lightning. My heart jumps. I reluctantly climb back down to retrieve it. When I finally reach the top, a spiral of nerves courses through me.

  It’s only now that I have the box in my hands that I regret not calling Marco. I just didn’t want to get his hopes up if I was wrong. But now I wish he were with me sharing in the exhilaration of what could be the greatest discovery of our careers.

  It’s so quiet that I can hear the crunch of gravel under my shoes as I walk. When I unlock the door to the lab building, I cradle the rucksack against my chest, feeling as if the box were alive, a beating heart. I look around before I step inside and let out an audible scream when I turn to see two yellow-brown eyes staring at me. Then I exhale with relief. It’s only an owl peering calming at me from the cavernous ceiling above but my nerves are shot. I step inside and quickly lock the door behind me.

  It’s eerie being in the lab alone at night. I’m not accustomed to seeing the microscopes, electronic calipers and the portable X-ray fluorescence machine sitting unused.

  I’m fully aware that I should follow the recording procedures but I haven’t followed any of the excavation rules tonight, so I decide to go ahead and attempt to open it and come back early in the morning to go through due process.

  My hands are covered in dirt and plaster so I wash them and dust my clothes. Then I grab cotton gloves and search the drawers for a blunt palette knife. I push away a notice detailing the castle’s art restoration schedule and place the pietre dure box on the lab bench. I take a deep breath. I have to be exceptionally careful not to damage the box in any way, so I use the palette knife to delicately pry away the soil that seems to have glued it shut. I run the knife slowly across the horizontal line where the top and bottom of the box meet, watching with impatient glee as each grain of dirt crumbles away. When I’ve worked from end to end and the knife glides freely across the gap, I attempt to push it open.

  Without realising it, I am holding my breath. I shouldn’t be doing this. I should be following procedures, but I simply can’t wait. I lift the lid slowly, knowing it could have been shut for over two hundred years.

  When it finally opens, I see a coil of red velvet. My heart pounds against my chest. I put on a new pair of gloves and move to a clean part of the bench. Then I unravel it slowly. And that’s when I see it – the unmistakable Saint Januarius necklace in all its exquisite beauty, having been incredibly well preserved in its ebony box. Tears roll down my cheeks in disbelief. I can’t actually fathom what I’m looking at. I have a sudden renewed admiration for my husband, knowing that he was right all this time, that he did indeed uncover one of history’s secrets. If not for him, the necklace could have been buried forever. And now I am staring at it – the most valuable piece of religious jewellery in the world.

  The workmanship is remarkable. Despite being buried below the earth and locked away in a box for two centuries, the necklace twinkles and glows as if celebrating being freed from its forgotten grave.

  I reach for my phone and dial Marco’s number. He answers on the third ring.

  ‘Hi Sarah,’ Marco says, his voice distracted. ‘Sorry I missed dinner. I got caught up at the university going through some of the excavation paperwork. I’m still here in my office. Everything okay?’

  ‘Marco,’ I say, unable keep the elation out of my voice. ‘You need to meet me at the lab. Now.’

  MARCO

  It was the kind of unexpected phone call that made my mind spin with possibilities. What had propelled my wife to go to the lab at this hour?

  There was urgency in her voice and possibly jubilation but when I probed her to tell me more, she told me just to get in the car and meet her there.

  Over the months, I’d had many moments of self-doubt where I had wondered if I’d made a grave error in believing that the San Gennaro necklace was actually buried there. Now, I was filled with a sudden sense of hope. As I left my university office, I toyed with the idea that Sarah had found it, and imagined my name emblazoned across every newspaper in Europe. I wanted the press to be so prolific that my father wouldn’t be able to deny the fact that I’d made something of my life and was nothing like him. And maybe my success would motivate my mother to come out of hiding and finally reach out to me.

  I was hungry for media attention. Sure, I’d already had my fair share and was regularly recognised in the streets thanks to my television appearances. But I wanted more. I didn’t want to be known simply as an ancient historian, I wanted to make history.

  I took the shortest route to the lab and navigated past a strip of bars, where tourists spilled onto the street in drunken hazes. It seemed as if alcohol were filling the air like steam rising from the asphalt and filtering into my car through the open windows. I shivered. After all these years, I still couldn’t bear the smell of liquor.

  I noticed a man on the street turn suddenly and throw the contents of his drink in the face of another, before a brawl broke out in seconds. I only saw the look of shock on the other man’s face as the drink drenched his skin for a second, but it was enough to cloud me over with a dark memory, taking me back to when I was a thirteen-year-old boy, cowering from my father.

  I was sitting in the lounge room watching television, eating tuna from a can again because there was no other food in the house.

  ‘Marco!’ my father yelled. ‘Get me a drink.’

  I went to the kitchen and opened the bottom drawer and took out a grappa bottle. I put four ice cubes in it, like my father had instructed me to so many times before, and then added the clear grappa. But then, in a moment of defiance, I found myself pouring half
out and filling the glass with water. I don’t know why I did it. Maybe I was testing my fear of him. If I could do this one small act, maybe I could stand up to him. I could convince my mother to leave him for good and we could travel far away and start over.

  I had to keep my hand from trembling as I stepped quietly into his bedroom. It was well past midday but the curtains were drawn and the room was heavy with the putrid scent of fermenting alcohol.

  I looked down as I handed him the drink and then made a quick exit as he took a sip.

  ‘Figlio di puttana,’ he swore in Italian, Son of a whore. ‘Che cazzo hai fatto?’ he yelled, What the fuck did you do? I stopped at the doorway, his voice like a knife to my spine as he called me back to him.

  I don’t know what I expected – that he wouldn’t notice I’d diluted his drink. I could have run out of the house there and then, and left him cursing my name, but I never disobeyed my father, no matter how much I wanted to.

  I kept my eyes downcast but I still caught a glimpse of his moustache curling at the ends, his nostrils flaring, his black eyes narrowing.

  I did as I was told and walked over to the foot of the bed, quivering. He grabbed my wrist with fury and yanked it. ‘Pezzo di merda,’ he spat out, Piece of shit.

  His strength always surprised me. No matter how many drinks he’d had, no matter how blurred his vision became or how slurred his words, he still had a sharp tongue and an iron fist.

  He slapped my cheek with such brute force that I could feel a line of skin breaking apart, drops of blood rushing to the surface. ‘You’ll be just like your mother,’ he said with venom in his voice. ‘You’ll never amount to anything.’

  He threw the drink at me and the ice cubes hit my face hard. I blinked as the diluted grappa fell down my cheek, seeping into my skin, into my bones and settling into my heart as permanent reminder that no matter what I did to defy him, I would always be my father’s son.