Page 66 of Someone in the Water

Salvo

Sartène

My dearest Patrick,

I am an old man now and my time is drawing to a close. I have had a long life, and I should be ready for this next chapter. But I’m scared. I have too many secrets. And if I want to rest in peace when I die, I need to unburden my soul.

I am sorry to pass this weight to you. But you are a man now, a good man, and I know you’re strong enough. All I really hope is that you use this knowledge to escape your destiny. Because I’ve spent too long not believing that’s possible.

Over the years I have tried to keep the worst of my discord with your father from you, but I’m sure you’re aware of how difficult our relationship is. Now, I will tell you why.

You will know that your Uncle Jean was the leader of a mafia gang in Ajaccio before he was killed in 2004.

What you don’t know is that, to my shame, I used to work with him.

It was the 1970s and 1980s and the heroin trade with America was blossoming.

Jean ran the factories in Marseille while I negotiated with our American partners.

But I’m making it sound like a legitimate business.

It wasn’t. We were ruthless, violent. It was the only way to survive in that world, although I know that doesn’t excuse what we did.

I even lost my best friend Pascal to England because he couldn’t stand by and watch me live the cruel life I’d chosen.

Then in 1991, something happened. Something that meant I needed to walk away – I could not be responsible for any more suffering.

I killed my cousin. At least, that’s how it felt.

It was no gang fight, or family feud. But I had a mazzeri dream and saw my cousin’s face on a wild boar as it lay dying in the forest. Young people call the mazzeri a fantasy, a mystical legend.

They ridicule its power. But two days after my dream, my cousin died in a car accident.

The mazzeri power is real, Patrick. Please never forget that.

And while I knew I was merely the prophet; I couldn’t shake the feeling of responsibility that came with it.

Jean agreed that I could leave the firm, but unbeknown to me, it came at a price.

Your father was twenty-one at the time, and he filled my shoes.

The FBI had shut down our American trade by then, but there were other opportunities, and your father laundered Jean’s dirty money.

It paid for the hotel expansion and other businesses in Porto Vecchio that you no doubt never knew he owned.

I’m not proud to admit it, but I benefited too.

I turned a blind eye to Raphael’s criminality, convinced myself that laundering money was an improvement on what I was doing at his age.

But I was lying to myself, and that became evident when Jean was murdered by one of our rivals.

Of course Jean’s boys, my nephews, wanted to take revenge against the killer, and when things went wrong, they needed a local man to get rid of a body.

Perhaps I could have accepted that, even with Raphael stealing my boat to take the man’s body out to sea – I’m sure the man had blood on his hands too, and as you know, we Corsicans love a vendetta. But then your father crossed a line.

A young man witnessed the body being carried down the beach.

One of your father’s employees, Archie. He was drunk, and I’m not sure he even realised what he was bearing witness to.

But accepting the balance of probabilities is not the mafia way.

Your father used his position as Archie’s boss to draw the poor boy into the woods, then wound his own belt around his neck and strung him up on a tree branch.

You father killed an innocent man, Patrick. But it gets worse.

I was brought up to believe that family is everything.

So when I realised that another employee had witnessed your father taking a dead man’s body out to sea, my first instinct was to protect my son.

And I used the death of my cousin to do that.

It worked. I filled the girl’s traumatised mind with too many macabre possibilities for those real memories to ever surface.

Then I told your father what had happened, to reassure him.

But my solution wasn’t enough for him. However passionately your mother and I argued for her salvation, he wanted her killed too. You mother never forgave him.

Except it didn’t work out. The girl survived and another young woman died in her place.

And do you know who that woman was?

My cousin’s only child. So first I had Luca’s blood on my hands. And then I stood by while his daughter died too. I felt numb after that. Too guilty to even allow myself to feel.

It ruined your father too. Your mother worked to save the hotel – a generosity I’m finally able to compensate her for – and Raphael never worked with his cousins again.

But it was all much too late for redemption.

I gave Jack half the vineyard to assuage my own guilt, but Raphael needs to pay for his crimes.

I am asking you to take revenge against your father for me, Patrick. But without bloodshed – I know you’re clever enough to find a way. Then get away from your Corsican family. Make the choices Pascal made, go to England, find a British bride. You are half British after all.

And one last thing before I sign off forever. I am bequeathing you the thing I have loved most in my lifetime. It came to me in the embers of my life, but I have treasured it ever since, and I know you will too.

Your loving grandfather, Salvo