Dante frowned, his eyes narrowing as he looked across to where Matilda sat, but even though he was looking directly at her, Matilda knew he couldn’t see her, that instead he was surveying a painful moment in time, and she sat patient and still as Dante took a moment to continue. ‘But, saying that, I guess at the time I wasn’t really paying much attention…’ His voice trailed off again and this time Matilda did speak, took up this very fragile thread, wanting so very much to hear more, to know this man just a touch better.
‘You must have had a lot on your mind,’ Matilda volunteered gently, and after a beat of hesitation Dante nodded.
‘I often wonder if I failed to notice something. I was just so grateful that Alex seemed OK and she really did appear to be, but a couple of months later—it was the twenty-second of September—she started screaming…’ He registered Matilda’s frown and gave a small wistful smile. ‘I remember the date because it would have been Jasmine’s birthday. They were all difficult days, but that one in particular was…’ He didn’t elaborate, he didn’t need to. ‘I was getting ready to go to the cemetery, and it was as if Alex knew. When I say she was screaming, it wasn’t a usual tantrum, she was hysterio, deranged. It took hours to calm her. We called a doctor, and he said she was picking up on my grief, that she would be fine, but even as he spoke, even as I tried to believe him, I knew this was not normal, that something was wrong. Unfortunately I was right.’
‘It carried on?’
Dante nodded.
‘Worse each time, terrible, unmitigated outbursts of rage, and there’s no consoling her, but worse, far worse, is the withdrawal afterwards, her utter detachment. I spoke to endless doctors, Hugh was concerned, Katrina in denial…’
‘Denial?’
‘She refuses to admit there is a problem. So do I too at times, but I could not pretend things were OK and Katrina was starting to get…’ he stopped himself then, took a sip of his drink before continuing. ‘After a few months I took Alex home to Italy—I thought a change of environment might help. And, of course, it did help to have my family around me, but Hugh and Katrina were devastated,’ Dante continued. ‘They’d lost their daughter and now it seemed to them that I was taking away their granddaughter. But I had no choice and for a while Alex improved, but then suddenly, from nowhere, it all started again.’
‘So you came back?’
‘For now.’ Dante shrugged. ‘I am back in Australia to try and sort things out and make my decision. I have a major trial coming up in a week’s time so I am still working, but I am not taking on any new cases. You see now why it seemed pointless to renovate the garden when I do not know if Alex will even be here to enjoy it. But I think that Hugh and Katrina are hoping if they can do something—anything—to improve things, there is more chance that I will stay.’
‘And is there?’ Matilda asked, surprised at how much his answer mattered to her. ‘Is there a chance you might stay?’
‘My family is in Italy,’ Dante pointed out. ‘I have two brothers and three sisters, all living near Rome. Alex would have her nona, nono and endless cousins to play with, I would have more family support, instead of relying on Katrina and Hugh, but…’ He halted the conversation then, leaving her wanting to know more, wanting a deeper glimpse of him. Wondering what it was that kept him here, what it was that made him stay. But the subject was clearly closed. ‘It cannot be about me,’ Dante said instead, giving a tight shrug, and there was a finality to his words as he effectively ended the discussion. But Matilda, wanting more, attempted to carry it on.
‘What about your work?’
‘I am lucky.’ He gave a dry smile. ‘There is always someone getting into trouble, either here or in Italy—and being bilingual is a huge advantage. I can work in either country.’
‘Doesn’t it bother you?’ Matilda asked, knowing that she was crossing a line, knowing the polite thing to do would be to leave well alone, but her curiosity was piqued, her delectable salmon forgotten, barely registering as the waiter filled her wine glass. ‘Defending those sorts of people, I mean.’
‘I believe in innocent until proven guilty.’
‘So do I,’ Matilda said, staring into that brooding emotionless face and wondering what, if anything, moved him. She’d never met anyone so confident in their own skin, so incredibly not out to impress. He clearly didn’t give a damn what people thought of him; he completely dispensed with the usual social niceties and yet somehow he managed to wear it, somehow it worked. ‘But you can’t sit there and tell me that that guy who killed—’
‘That guy,’ Dante broke in, ‘was proved innocent in a court of law.’
‘I know.’ Matilda nodded but it changed midway, her head shaking, incredulity sinking in. She certainly wasn’t a legal eagle, but you’d have to live in a cupboard not to know about some of the cases Dante Costello handled. They were Big, in italics and with a capital B. And even if that man she had read about really had been innocent, surely some of the people Dante had defended really were guilty. His job was so far removed from hers as to be unfathomable, and bewildered, she stared back at him. ‘Do you ever regret winning?’
‘No.’ Firmly he shook his head.
‘Never?’ Matilda asked, watching his lips tighten a touch, watching his eyes darken from dusk to midnight.
‘Never,’ Dante replied, his single word unequivocal. She felt a shiver, could almost see him in his robes and wig, could almost see that inscrutable face remaining unmoved, could see that full mouth curving into a sneer as he shredded seemingly irrefutable evidence. And anyone, everyone, would have left it there, would have conceded the argument, yet Matilda didn’t, green eyes crashing into his, jade waves rolling onto unmovable black granite.
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Then you don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I know I don’t,’ Matilda admitted. ‘Yet I still don’t believe you.’
And that should have been it. She should have got on with her meal, he should have resumed eating, made polite small talk to fill the appalling gap, but instead he pushed her now. As she reached for her fork he reached deep inside, his words stilling her, his hand seemingly clutching her heart. ‘You’ve been proud of everything you’ve done.’
‘Not everything,’ Matilda tentatively admitted. ‘But there’s certainly nothing big league. Anyway, what’s that got to do with it?’
‘It has everything to do with it,’ Dante said assuredly. ‘We all have our dark secrets, we all have things that, given our time again, we would have done differently. The difference between Mr or Ms Average and my clients is that their personal lives, their most intimate regrets are up for public scrutiny. Words uttered in anger are played back to haunt them, a moment of recklessness a couple of years back suddenly relived for everyone to hear. It can be enough to cloud the most objective jury.’
‘But surely, if they’ve done nothing wrong,’ Matilda protested, ‘they have nothing to fear.’
‘Not if I do my job correctly,’ Dante said. ‘But not everyone’s as good as me.’ Matilda blinked at his lack of modesty, but Dante made no apology. ‘I have to believe that my clients are innocent.’
She