The Missing Italian Girl (11 page)

“It’s not that kind of trouble. They’re afraid. They think someone killed their friend and might try to kill them.”

A murder? Last time it was kidnapping and beating, now murder?
Stunned, Clarie leaned against the wall. This was insane. Or perhaps it was Francesca who was a little crazy, or even lying. “Surely, if someone you know has been murdered, you must go to the police.” When Francesca stood staring at her, not responding, Clarie recalled their first conversation and the Italian woman’s claim that the police would never help an Italian immigrant. Clarie shook her head. As a wife and teacher, with a reputation to protect, as the mother of a young child, she could not let herself be drawn into Francesca’s problems. “I’m sorry, I must go,” she said finally. “I’m expected at home.”

As Clarie started toward the front of the room, Francesca broke her silence and began to plead. “I don’t know what to do. They’ve been crying all day. And they’re scared.” Francesca’s words tumbled out faster and with more urgency. “Per favore, please, just talk to them. I brought them here and hid them in the basement. I promised them.”

Just talk to them.
Despite her misgivings, Clarie stopped. According to Francesca, her daughters were the same age as her students. Perhaps there was something she could say to them, or at least find out how much truth there was to what Francesca was telling her. She stood for a moment, all too aware of the charwoman behind her. Clarie turned. “Very well,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “Bring them here. And remember I have to leave soon.” Francesca made a slight, grateful bow of her head before limping out of the room.

Clarie thrust a few papers into her brown leather bag and began to pace in front of her desk. She’d find out if there was really a threat, give advice, just as she would to her own students. And that would be the end of it.

When the three of them knocked on the door and entered the room, Clarie saw at once that no one would have mistaken Francesca’s daughters for her eager, crisply uniformed students. Their faces were worn and puffy from crying, and their long floral dresses were faded and rumpled. Still they were a striking pair, if only because they were so different. The almost ethereally blond Angela timidly approached the front of the room, while the tall, dark one, Maura, hung back. Francesca quietly closed the door behind them. She had obviously taken the precaution of making sure no one had seen them lurking about. This made Clarie even more wary.

“Can you tell me who was killed?” she asked, trying to keep the suspicion out of her voice.

“Pyotr. Pyotr Ivanovich,” whispered Angela. “And he’s been accused of terrible things. We need to find a way to prove that he was innocent.”

Clarie’s mouth fell open. “The bomber? The anarchist? That was your friend?” She did not even try to hide her alarm.

“He was a very good friend. So gentle, he would not hurt anyone.” Angela’s hands were clasped in front, as if in prayer. Watching her, Clarie recalled her first conversation with Francesca. Angela was the angel, the beauty, the innocent one, and so obviously her mother’s favorite. In the sunlight beaming into the closed, stifling room, the wisps of hair escaping from the topknot she had wound on her head shone like spun gold. Her eyes were an astonishing shade of blue. She was pretty, pretty enough to be in a fairy tale. But she could also be lying.

Clarie lifted her chin toward Maura. “And what do you think?”

Maura crossed her arms in front of her chest and answered, “Pyotr was a good man. The best we have ever known. He did not believe in violence.” Her tone was as defiant as her stance, and for that reason, and the fact that she wasn’t her mother’s favorite, Clarie’s heart went out to her. In Maura, Clarie saw something of her own younger self. She, too, had been tall for her age, tawny-skinned, saddled with thick, unruly black hair—and angry. She hadn’t understood why God had allowed her mother to die. Maura’s father had left her. Did she love him as much as Clarie had loved her mother? Was there anyone loving and sheltering her in the way that Clarie’s father, aunt and uncle had coddled and protected her, easing her pain, helping her to grow up?

“How well did you know him? What makes you think he did not intend to plant a bomb?” The least she could do was make them understand how skeptical people would be about their version of things.

Angela hastened to answer her. “We knew him for a year. He lived next to our building. Sometimes he carried the work up the stairs for our boss and down for us. Our sewing work, the shirts we finished.” Her lips trembled as she added, “He used to sit and talk with us. To tell us about his homeland. How people had believed in assassinations, in throwing bombs. How much worse it made things. If he had bread or a bit of cheese, he’d share it with us. He had a beautiful soul. He would never hurt anyone.”

Clarie’s contemplated the two girls. It was obvious from the tears they had shed that their relationship with the Russian boy had hardly been casual. Angela, at least, must have been in love with him. Yet presumably they had tried to run away. Or was it that they had planned to run away with him, an anarchist, a would-be assassin? No, Clarie thought, she would have nothing to do with this.

“If you feel he is innocent, then you must go to the police,” she said finally. What else could she say?

“You know they won’t believe people like us!” Maura spit out.

“Maura, the professor is trying to help us,” Francesca hissed.

The dark-haired girl responded by scowling, crossing her arms even tighter, and staring at the ceiling. Although her demeanor was extremely rude, Clarie understood her frustration. The police
were
unlikely to believe anything two girls, especially two infatuated girls, had to say. Francesca had been wrong to bring them here, to hide them in the dusty, spidery cellar for God knows how long, in the futile hope that Clarie could do anything for them.

“Please, you must understand,” Angela sat down on a chair in the first row as if her knees had become weak from fear, “someone killed him.”

“Who?” Clarie asked, before she could stop herself from being drawn in any further.

“Maybe the police,” Maura cried. “Although people like you probably believe that they would not break their own laws.”

Clarie shook her head. The girl was going too far. What could Maura Laurenzano possibly know about people like her? If Angela hadn’t spoken she would have turned her back on the lot. But the older girl did speak.

“Maybe someone who saw us with Monsieur Barbereau,” Angela’s chest began to heave, “someone who—”

“That’s right. Monsieur Barbereau,” Maura blurted out, interrupting her sister. “Our boss. He’s the one who did it. He was jealous. He beat Angela because she didn’t want to marry him.”

Angela gasped as her sister spoke and let out a long moan. She covered her mouth and began to sob, rocking back and forth.

Clarie walked over to her. “He hurt you, didn’t he?” she said gently. “Your mother told me.”

Angela nodded, as her fingers quivered over her temple and cheek. Clarie took a closer look. The yellowing marks were barely perceptible, but Clarie had no trouble imagining what they would have looked like days ago, black and blue and purple. “How long has this been going on?” she asked.

“Months,” Angela whispered and refused to meet her eyes.

She’s ashamed
, Clarie thought as stepped back, her heart swelling with pity,
ashamed of what he’s done to her
. No matter what her relationship with the young anarchist had been, Angela’s suffering was real. No one should have to live with such brutality. “If you go back home, will you be safe?” Clarie asked. “Is there somewhere else you can go? Someone to protect you?”

“Nothing for
you
to worry about,” Maura said. She marched over to her older sister, put a protective arm around her, and told her she didn’t have to say anything else. Maura glowered at Clarie, undoubtedly hating her because she was so useless.

Really, the girl was impossible. Clarie strode back to her desk and began to fasten the belts on her schoolbag with hard, swift motions until she gained enough composure to tell them she would talk to her husband to see if anything could be done to bring Barbereau to justice.

By this time, Maura had already led her sister halfway to the door. “Maman,” she ordered, “it’s time to go.” Offering Clarie an apologetic nod, Francesca got up to follow her daughters. The girls did not look back as they left.

Clarie sighed and closed her eyes. In this room, she was accustomed to young women obeying and adoring her. Perhaps that’s why she had reacted too quickly to Maura’s youthful resentments. What mattered is that a girl had been horribly abused. This time Bernard would have to listen to her story.

10

C
LARIE DID NOT BRING UP
the plight of the Italian girls until after supper. By the time she came out of Jean-Luc’s room, Bernard had settled into his chair, holding the staid
Le Temps
angled into the circle of light thrown by the kerosene lamp. In his pin-striped shirt and suspenders, one leg crossed over the other, he looked so dear, as engrossed as a child at serious play. She went over to him, bent down and kissed him on his forehead.

“And what is this about?” he asked, obviously pleased.

“I want to talk to you for a moment, ask your advice.”

Bernard straightened the newspaper and folded it on his lap. “A problem at school?” His blue-gray eyes were kind. He’d always shown a keen interest in her teaching and colleagues.

“Nothing like that.” She sat down across from him and laid one hand on the reading table as she leaned toward him. “It’s the Italian girls, the charwoman’s daughters. Remember, I told you about them.”

“Are they still missing?”

“No, they’re back. I actually saw them today.”

“Really. And?” He raised his eyebrows, his curiosity aroused.

“Francesca brought them to my classroom. They came to seek my advice. But I’m not sure how I can help them.” She cleared her throat, hesitating to say something that might alarm Martin. “It turns out they knew the anarchist who was killed. They don’t think he planted the bomb.”

“The Russian anarchist.” Martin sat up, displeasure overshadowing his curiosity. “If they were at all involved—”

“Don’t worry. They insisted that he didn’t do anything wrong, that he couldn’t.”

“And you believed them?”

Clarie withdrew her hand from the table. There was something in Bernard’s tone that she did not like, an assumption she had been gullible. “Actually, I didn’t know what to believe. They seemed intent on wanting to prove him innocent. They described him as gentle and generous. They said he would never plot to hurt anyone.”

Bernard shook his head. “That proves nothing, except that he was clever and the girls were naïve. Or perhaps they are being clever, too.”

“I don’t think so.” Heat flushed her cheeks.

“In any case,” Bernard went on, seemingly unaware of her pique, “whether he did it or not is a matter for the police and for the courts.”

“For men and for judges,” she responded rather too tartly.

“Yes, my dear,” his smile broadened into a grin. “Not for a beautiful wife and mother. Besides,” he said, becoming serious again, “if the Russian didn’t do it, who did? Did they have any ideas about that?”

“They thought it could be police.” She paused. When Bernard pressed his lips together without responding, she realized that this accusation was not as wild as she had thought. She had to wonder why he didn’t mention this suspicion to her last night.

“Or,” Clarie continued, “they thought it might be their boss.
The man who beats one of them,”
she emphasized. She had no desire to get involved with anarchists, or the police. She simply wanted to enlist Bernard to help her rescue Angela. “The older daughter is still very frightened of this Monsieur Barbereau,” she added.

Bernard straightened up, alert. “Barbereau? Marcel Barbereau?”

“Perhaps.” She could not imagine why her husband would know that name. Or be alarmed.

“That can’t be.” He rattled the paper open and turned to the second page. “It says right here, a body they found floating in the Basin yesterday morning has been identified as that of Marcel Barbereau, and he had been in the water for several days. If it’s the same man, he can’t still be threatening the girls. Nor could he have planted the bomb.”

Clarie slumped back in her seat. Her eyes roved over the floral pattern of the carpet.
A bomb, a drowning. No, first a drowning, then a bomb?
Both connected to the girls. “How do they know,” she murmured, “that he didn’t die after the bombing?”

“They seem sure, by this account. They do have their ways of estimating how long someone has been in the water.”

Of course Bernard, who had prosecuted many criminals, knew all the gruesome details of investigations at the morgue. Clarie did not even want to imagine what happens to a body left in the water for several days. “You think it was the same Barbereau?” She had to know for sure.

“They say he ran sweatshops in the Goutte-d’Or district.”

Clarie fell silent.
It had to be him.
She could feel Bernard scrutinizing her.

“Clarie, they think the man was murdered. Perhaps he was another victim of the Russian. Or those girls, for all we know.
Do not get involved with these people
.”

This was an order. An emphatic order. Bernard had never given her an order before. She didn’t like it. But the worst part was that he might be right. Especially if Maura Laurenzano had deliberately lied to her. Clasping her hands together, Clarie stood up. She’d been a fool. She didn’t face Bernard as she started walking past him to her desk. “I’ve still got some work to do to get ready for the preliminary examinations tomorrow.”

He stood up, caught her with one arm and held her in an embrace. He put his finger under her chin until she was willing to meet his eyes. “I never want anything to happen to you. You’re not used to dealing with criminals and deceivers, and you shouldn’t have to. You should enjoy your summer, relax, spend time with Jean-Luc. You’ve earned a rest,” he said as he planted a kiss on her forehead.