A Touch of Notoriety(37)

That last comment had given Beth the sneaking suspicion that Cesar’s interference might have had something to do with Graham’s easy acquiescence to her request. Cesar probably hadn’t bought the company, yet, but no doubt he’d had a quiet word with whoever did own it! But she was too upset, too tense, from her sleepless night, and the thought of her planned visit to Stopley later that afternoon, and the ensuing consequences of that visit, to bother questioning Graham on the subject. What was the point, when all of the evidence now pointed to her being Gabriela Navarro? And Cesar had already made it more than clear that he did not approve of his sister Gabriela working in an English publishing house, that her place was in Argentina, with her family...

* * *

Raphael had no idea what answer to make in reply to Beth’s husky comment. It was indeed a tiny grave. And six feet beneath that top layer of grass were the remains of two-year-old Elizabeth Carla Lawrence. The daughter of James and Carla Lawrence.

‘You never did finish telling me how you think they managed all this.’ Beth spoke again quietly. Raphael had no doubts that she was referring to the Lawrences, and that she was questioning how they had replaced their own dead daughter with the child of another couple, Carlos and Esther Navarro, who had mourned for their own child for the past twenty-one years.

‘We have managed to piece together the information that the Lawrences visited Carla’s family in Buenos Aires a month after Elizabeth died.’ He spoke evenly, dressed in one of his dark and formal three-piece suits, a dark grey tie knotted neatly at the throat of his white shirt. ‘The same month that Gabriela was taken. They travelled alone on their way to Argentina, but when they flew back to England a month later their two-year-old daughter Elizabeth accompanied them.’

Beth’s eyes were like two dark bruises as she turned to look up at him, appearing very pale and slender, even ethereal, with her blond hair loose about her shoulders and wearing a pair of fitted brown trousers with a brown figure-hugging sweater. ‘Is it really that easy to abduct someone else’s child?’

‘No, it is not,’ Raphael assured her softly. ‘All we can assume is that Elizabeth’s name had not yet been removed from her mother’s passport. As you know, the Navarros had not publicly announced that their daughter had been abducted, for fear it might jeopardise her being returned to them, and as such the airport authorities would have had no reason to suspect that the golden-haired two-year-old little girl with the Lawrences was not their own child.’

She nodded woodenly. ‘But what about when they returned to Stopley? Surely someone must have noticed that they had a little girl with them who closely resembled Elizabeth but couldn’t possibly be her?’

‘The Lawrences did not return to Stopley.’ Raphael grimaced. ‘The neighbours Rodney spoke to yesterday said that James Lawrence returned only briefly, in order to pack up the contents of their house. He told them that Carla did not feel she could return to the home where they had lived with Elizabeth, that they were moving to—’

‘Kent,’ Beth supplied softly.

‘Yes,’ Raphael confirmed huskily, knowing that was the county in which Beth had supposedly spent the first five years of her life.

‘And so Elizabeth Lawrence lived and then died.’

‘Yes.’

Beth drew in a long and steadying breath. ‘Then I really am Gabriela Navarro. Or Brela, as Cesar called his little sister. Strange the two names, Brela and Beth, should be so similar,’ she added flatly.

‘Yes.’

She looked up at Raphael quizzically. ‘You seem to have got stuck in a groove.’

In truth Raphael was full of admiration for the way in which Beth was responding to learning, once and for all, that she really wasn’t Elizabeth Lawrence. That she never had been. Apart from her pallor, and that bruised look to her eyes, Beth—Brela—was remaining remarkably calm, considering her whole life had just been turned on its head.

His first instinct was to take her into his arms, and offer her the comfort she so desperately needed, but there was a distance to her now, a barrier encircling her, that didn’t encourage anyone to so much as touch her, let alone try to comfort her. ‘Have you seen enough?’ he prompted abruptly instead.

She made no effort to walk away as she turned back to look down at the gravestone. ‘Do you think my—the Lawrences, ever came back here? To visit their real daughter’s grave, I mean?’

‘Perhaps.’ Raphael shrugged. ‘There is no way of knowing one way or the other.’