The Missing Italian Girl (35 page)

Clarie could see Séverine exactly, too. Imagining the story in her head. But she wasn’t interested in hypotheses: Clarie wanted to know everything Séverine had found out. She had to know. “So you believe he killed Pyotr and Angela?”

“Yes, I’m almost sure of it.” Séverine began counting on her fingers. “He is educated. He works for the Gas Company. It wouldn’t be hard for him to build a bomb. Undoubtedly he saw Angela and your Maura with the Russian. And here’s where you were right,” she said, leaning toward Clarie: “the Charity Bazaar fire. Something about that set him off. Apparently he was obsessed with going there and looking at the victims. He kept trying to describe them to his little friend.”

“He saw the bodies,” Clarie murmured. He had tried to describe them to her, too.

“And smelled them.”

Clarie touched her cheek, remembering how his hand had hovered over his wounded face. “He couldn’t help himself,” she said suddenly.

“Yes, I suppose. He may be mad.”

“Yes, mad,” Clarie said, her mind racing over a path she had been avoiding, “but in a certain way. In Nancy, Bernard worked with the famous Dr. Bernheim, who used hypnosis and suggestion with his patients. He believed that suggestions, images in our minds, if introduced correctly by a psychotherapist, can be so strong, they can cure neuroses. Or, left unattended, they can lead a person to commit horrible crimes. Those poor women laid out for everyone to see must have brought it all back to him: the smell, the pain, the hurt, the anger. He had to strike out. Find a way to strike out.” Clarie realized that she was talking as if in a trance. What she was saying was frightening. “If that’s what happened. If seeing those women made him envious and revengeful, he is a dangerous man. Pitiful, but dangerous. What would stop him?”

Séverine slumped back with a sigh. “If only I could prove all of this. What a great story that would be.”

“What!?” Clarie got up and crossed her arms, clutching her elbows. Despite the way the summer baked the parlor in the afternoon, she was cold, chilled and clammy. “A
story
? These are people’s lives.” Her life, Luca’s life, Angela’s life, Maura’s life. Maybe the lives of other anarchists making speeches in that café.

“I know this is about real lives, my dear,” Séverine retorted. “But certainly you, of all people, having been married to an investigating magistrate, know how important solving crimes is to building one’s career.”

“Bernard never felt that way.” In fact, he had given up
that
career.

“Well, then your Bernard must be the exception you believe him to be.”

Séverine’s retort felt like a slap. “Yes,” Clarie said curtly, “he is.”

Sighing, Séverine got up and put her arm around Clarie’s shoulders. “Look, my dear, we shouldn’t be arguing. We should be talking about how to keep ourselves safe. What if the charwoman tells this Monsieur Arnoux that I talked to her? He may go wild! You need to figure out how to take care of you and your child. You can leave the solution of the crime to me.”

“Or to the police,” said Clarie.

Séverine shrugged. “Do you think they’d listen to me, after all my run-ins with them? I doubt it.”

“Then Bernard will go to them.” She moved away. She and Luca and Maura were not a
story
. If anyone could persuade the police to investigate this man, it was a former judge.

“If you insist,” Séverine said, plopping back into a chair, “I’ll wait to tell him what I know as long as he keeps me informed about what the police are doing. I want to be the one to break the news.”

“You can’t wait here,” Clarie objected.

“Why not?” Séverine stuck her chin up and Clarie suddenly understood the kind of impudent charm the famous investigative journalist must display when she wanted something. She hadn’t noted the elegance of Séverine’s outfit when she forced her way into the apartment. A white cotton dress with a scattering pattern of periwinkles that perfectly matched her eyes, the tightly corseted waist, the fetching bow at the neck, and, adding a certain piquancy to the whole, a lavender toque small enough to accentuate the stunningly white-blond curls. None of this mattered to Clarie. It was the simple question “Why not?” that changed her mind. Of course Séverine had to tell Bernard everything. He knew how to ask the right questions, and he would have to listen.

“You’re right. You should stay. But let’s not pounce on him. Give me a chance to tell him that you are here.”

“If you insist.” Séverine sighed and stretched out her legs, wiggling her feet, as if she had been hard at work the whole day.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” Clarie didn’t really want to make a pot of tea. She wanted to run downstairs to prepare Bernard.

“That would be lovely,” Séverine answered as she laid her head back on the chair.

Clarie was pouring the boiling water into the pot when the key rattled in the lock. As she put the kettle back on the stove, she heard the exchange in the foyer.

“You must be Maître Martin.” Clarie imagined Séverine thrusting her hand forward to be shaken.

“And who are you?” Bernard was too polite to refuse the gesture. But, considering his opinion of Séverine and her flamboyant life, he was not about to give her the satisfaction of recognition.

Clarie dashed around the corner into the foyer. “Bernard,” she said, “this is Séverine. I’ve told you about meeting her.” Their guest stood between them. In the relative darkness of the foyer, Clarie envisioned a cloud passing before Bernard’s eyes and a storm brewing behind them. “She’s come to give vital information about something that happened to me yesterday.”

His expression changed from anger to concern. “You?”

“I was waiting for the right time to tell you. That’s why Jean-Luc and Rose are in the courtyard.” The words tumbled out. She needed to say them as quickly as possible. “Why don’t you two sit, and I’ll pull up a chair from my desk.” Surely he had seen Rose and their son in the courtyard. If he didn’t believe her, there was nothing she could do about it now, not with Séverine between them. Clarie picked up her wooden desk chair and carried it across the room to set in front of the two armchairs. If she kept her eyes on both of them, she’d make sure they stuck to what was important: finding a killer, keeping safe, saving Maura, not their dislike or distrust for each other.

Séverine retook her place in Bernard’s usual chair. He was slower in coming. Clarie leaned forward to watch him take off his bowler, hang it up, and loosen his cravat. He was a thoughtful man, a tactful man. He’d do the right thing.

He strolled behind the two armchairs and settled into Clarie’s usual place. “So tell me what happened,” he said in a measured voice.

“I was in the Square d’Anvers with Luca yesterday, when a man came up to me and said awful things, about the women in the Charity Bazaar fire. He said they had suffered despite doing the things that ladies should do.” She didn’t say he had touched Luca’s head or that he had implied she deserved punishment. What she told him was frightening enough.

“What did he look like?”

Bernard’s voice was surprisingly gentle, considering what must be going through his mind, that she had once again kept something important from him.

“He had scars, burn marks, all up the side of his face, so bad that one of his eyes was closed.”

Bernard froze for an instant. If she hadn’t known him so well, she wouldn’t have noticed. When he unclutched his hands from the side of the armchair, she saw that he had regained his composure. “Had you ever seen him before?” This time his voice carried less love and more authority.

She hated saying it. “I’m not sure. Perhaps at the café in the Goutted’Or. It was dark,” she ended in a whisper.

Bernard’s nod said “later,” as if he already knew, as if once more she was to blame for having gone on that foolish venture. He shifted his focus to Séverine. Always eager for center stage, Séverine repeated what she had found out. She also mentioned Clarie’s remarks about Dr. Bernheim.

“Bernard,” Clarie asked, “do you really think the Charity Bazaar fire could have set him off? The timing seems right. That’s apparently when he first got to know the Russian boy, perhaps started to observe and follow him, and Angela, and Maura.” What a terrible idea. Being watched by someone waiting for the opportunity to kill. Was the same happening to her? The thought of it brought her to her feet. She began to pace.

Bernard watched her with worried eyes. “I think both of you may be right,” he said.

She paused to listen, wanting to hear how he, the former judge, analyzed the situation.

“If, as Madame Séverine says,” he began, “the suspect was bitter about being left by his fiancée, he might have something against pretty young women and would have been very envious of an anarchist, someone he hated, being surrounded and admired by them. And, as we know, the smell, the sight, the imagined screams of the women who died in the Charity Bazaar fire powerfully affected everyone who went to see their bodies after they were laid out in the Palace of Industry. For someone who had gone through a similar trauma….” Bernard shook his head, thinking. “There’s a good chance you are right.”

“Then they were and are the targets—Pyotr, Angela, and now Maura.” Clarie said this with a mixture of shame and hope. She did not want to believe that she was among those being stalked. She had only been
warned
.

“And, if he’s not caught, other anarchists and the women who dare to admire them might also be in danger.” Bernard looked up sharply. “He may think you admire them. You mustn’t take any more chances.”

Clarie sat down again. “Then you must go to the police and have them question this man.”

“Why doesn’t Madame Séverine go?”

“You must know why I can’t go,” Séverine said, striking a rather coquettish pose.

Bernard had managed not to sound sarcastic. That was his way, even though Clarie was fully aware of the grievances behind his question: he didn’t like Séverine, he didn’t like Clarie’s relationship with her, and he had already been embarrassed by a run-in with the police. But Clarie was not about to let Séverine’s pride in her reputation for disreputability nor Bernard’s barely repressed irritation interfere with what needed to be done. “I’m sure they’ll take what you say seriously,” she insisted to her husband.

“Of course I’ll go,” he said. Their eyes locked. Clarie had the feeling that if they had been alone, he would have apologized for insinuating, even for an instant, that he did not intend to do everything in his power to keep her safe.

“And,” Séverine said, interposing herself, “I hope you will keep me informed about any arrests or new developments. I want to be sure I’m the one who reports the story first.”

The silence following her remarks was palpable. Bernard turned ever so slightly to block her from his view. Clarie didn’t want to look at her either.

“It’s my living,” Séverine said. This time without a touch of archness or frivolity.

“Of course.” Clarie got up, a peacemaker, moving closer to both of them. Séverine had never hidden the fact that Clarie’s plea for help fed into her ambitions. And there still was work to do. “What about Maura?” she asked.

“
My
concern is for you and Jean-Luc,” Bernard said dryly, distancing himself from any concern about the Laurenzanos.

“My friend, who has been following them, says she is performing around Montmartre at night and in the Parc Monceau in the daytime,” a subdued Séverine responded. “I’d better go.”

Clarie walked her to the door and watched while she put on her gloves. Séverine clasped Clarie’s hands in hers. “Tomorrow night, I promise, I’ll find an escort and go look for Maura on Montmartre.” She kissed Clarie on each cheek. “Stay safe, my dear,” she said.

“You too,” Clarie answered.

“I hope this is not good-bye.”

Clarie shook her head. “I don’t think so.” She embraced Séverine. “Be careful,” she whispered.

Séverine squeezed Clarie’s hands one more time before turning and leaving.

Taking a deep breath, Clarie went into the parlor to talk to Bernard. She soon found out that he, too, had a secret. He had not told her that Jobert warned him about the scarred man. He hadn’t wanted to alarm her or to believe she was in danger. This admission made it easier for Clarie to tell him everything she had done in the past few days. He did not ask, and she did not promise, to give up the hunt for Maura. Perhaps he assumed she would. What he did not understand was that for her, giving up on Maura would be like surrendering a piece of herself.

20

“B
RAVO
!” M
ONSIEUR
A
NDRÉ CALLED, AS
if he were some high-class gentleman instead of the head of a rascally ragpicking family. “Bravo!” echoed his wife. Others clapped and banged on pots and pans.

Maura held her hand to her waist and bowed, joining in the mockery of those who thought they were better than the motley crowd that surrounded her. She and Nico, the street musicians known as Piero and Nicoló, had taken to performing for the ragpickers each night as they waited for the ten o’clock hour when they were allowed into the streets of Paris to hunt and gather. In the last few days, the commencement of the ragpickers’ work had become the end of Nico’s and Maura’s.

To her amazement, her plan had worked, and she and Nico had made more money than they needed to survive, especially as they gained the courage to perform in wealthier neighborhoods. It helped that she had grown up with many of the songs that Nico knew. It also helped that he was so willing to sing of Pyotr and Angela.

“Sing your song, we like it!” Jacques, one of the strays, yelled.

“Nicoló, strike up the chord.” Maura stretched out her hand toward her companion.

Pieter, a boy from Tzarist Russia

Loved mankind with all his heart….

More amazing to her than her success was the fact that she had learned to like some of the ragpickers, although she’d never dream of wanting to live among them, or rather among the stinking mounds that undulated out of their doorways. Her first friendly exchanges began with the women who had worried about Nico being alone and told her they were happy he had a companion. For them, sleeping five or six or seven in the one room they called home was not only hardship, it was companionship, protection, warmth in the winter. Maybe that’s why the families so willingly took in the strays, the lice-ridden, emaciated runaways that eventually found themselves in “the zone,” the ragpickers’ quarters. To share while having so little. To be so honest in plying their trade, when everyone treated them with contempt. She almost began to believe the words she had written.