This is the moment to turn back the clock, back to that Sunday in 1993 when Elisa Claps went to church and was seemingly spirited away.
Of course there was panic and bewilderment in the Claps’s household but, at the outset, there was no comparable urgency exhibited by the police. This is not meant as a criticism of the Potenza force – the police in London, New York or Paris would probably have reacted little differently. Elisa, in the eyes of the law, was a grown woman. Furthermore, she was acknowledged to be responsible and most certainly of sound mind. Also, it was not as if she had gone missing after a rave at a nightclub, or had attended a booze- or drug-fuelled party and had last been seen tottering helplessly through the dark streets in the early hours of the morning.
Her ‘disappearance’ – something of an exaggeration if the police response was gauged accurately – could not possibly have seemed less sinister. Yes, she had not returned home, but that did not make her ‘missing’. Yes, she knew that the family was waiting for her prior to the picnic. But inconsiderate behaviour did not amount to the probability of a felony.
True, Elisa was not noted for letting down people and behaving irrationally on the spur of the moment. But she was also a teenager. And teenagers the world over have always had a certain reputation, especially when the heart starts to rule the head.
After a few basic enquiries, the police had learned that there was more in Elisa’s life than her family were aware of – and there was nothing extraordinary about that.
People who had been out and about at around the time of Elisa’s disappearance were questioned by police. Staff at the rail and coach terminals were shown a photograph of Elisa. One by one, they shook their heads. No one had seen her getting into a car, nor catching a coach or train. Nor could anyone recall seeing her in the streets with a man – or, indeed, a woman. The trail seemed cold before having even started.
All the clergy attached to the Most Holy Trinity Church assisted the best they could. They provided background assistance but, as for the actual ‘disappearance’, they were as baffled as Elisa’s family. Hospitals were contacted. Maybe she’d had an accident on the way home, hurrying, and had fallen, hitting her head and suffering concussion, perhaps even amnesia? A forlorn hope, the police knew, because they would have been the first to be contacted by the medics, but they ticked the box for the sake of the Claps family.
Nothing, of course.
Danilo Restivo has never denied that he was seeing Elisa and readily admitted that he was the man she met behind the altar after Mass that particular Sunday morning. In fact, on that very day when he heard that there was a search under way for Elisa, he came forward voluntarily with an offer to help, just out of church, Christian to the core.
Why had their meting been conducted behind the altar, in the apse, of all places, Restivo naturally had been asked in one of the first questions? His answer would not have pleased Filomena Claps, but was most probably fully understood by the police. ‘Because her mother wouldn’t have approved. Because none of them [the Claps family] would have been sympathetic. They would have rounded on me. They would have pressured her to stop seeing me, even though there wasn’t anything in it. You know, nothing romantic. They would have made her life hell. It was already hell for her. She was having a bad time of it.’
The actual reason given for the furtive meeting had still not been answered. ‘She had to tell me that we couldn’t be together that day; that she had to go out with her parents. I was disappointed. So was she.’
‘Were you angry?’ he was asked.
‘Not with Elisa,’ he replied. ‘If I was angry, it was with her parents, but I don’t think anger came into it. I was downbeat. We get along so well. But she is very mixed up; messed up. She has a lot of troubles. She has told me a lot and I’m sort of her confidant. Like our priest, I’m sworn to secrecy. I shall never betray her trust in me.’
According to Restivo, the couple had been together in the apse for a maximum of ten minutes, by which time the church had emptied. They had then left separately, avoiding the main entrance.
‘Did she seem distressed?’ the questioning continued.
‘No,’ he said, ‘just a little sad.’
‘Why sad?’
‘Because she was having to go somewhere she didn’t want to. And with people she didn’t want to be with.’
‘You mean she’d have preferred to be with you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did she actually say that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you any idea where she might have gone?’
‘No.’
‘You haven’t seen her since you parted in the church?’
‘No.’
‘Has she any friends she might have gone to?’
‘I don’t know of any.’
‘Are you worried about her, Mr Restivo?’
‘No, she’ll turn up.’
‘She is only 16.’
‘She’s quite mature. She can look after herself – better than her parents look after her.’
Restivo was 21 at the time.
While the Potenza police were carrying out routine enquiries to establish if Elisa might have been admitted to a hospital, they stumbled across a fact that not only surprised them but changed their attitude towards the case. Elisa had not been treated in hospital that Sunday, but Restivo had. He had had a cut to his left hand that had required stitching. He claimed that the injury had been caused when he fell while crossing a building site, a place he claimed to have taken another girl, Paola Santarsiere, three days before Elisa’s disappearance.
Paola was later to deny to the police that she had even been to a building site with Restivo, but she did provide them with some very interesting information. Restivo had boasted to her that he had keys to the Most Holy Trinity Church and that he knew ‘every nook and cranny’.
The doctor who treated Restivo at the A&E department of the local hospital was Michele Albano. He said that he treated Restivo at about 1.30pm on the Sunday. The wound was small, about 1cm deep and 1 – 1.5 cm long; a clean cut, not bleeding, on the back of his hand between thumb and index finger.
Restivo was pulled in for a more intensive interrogation. He fiercely denied being Elisa’s lover. ‘We’re just friends,’ he claimed. ‘I’m trying to help her.’
‘In what way?’ he was quizzed.
‘She’s not happy at home,’ he said.
‘That’s not what we hear,’ said the police inquisitor, confused.
‘There are two sides to every story,’ Restivo countered. ‘Of course her family would say that she’s happy, but that’s not what she tells me, which is the opposite. In fact, she wants to run away from them.’
‘She told you that?’
‘Yes, she did – her very own words … hand on heart.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘I told her not to be so stupid … that she’d never survive on the streets … that she’d have to do the worst possible things to get money for food and clothes. I warned she’d either end up dead, in a clinic for addicts, or in an asylum. I was trying to scare her out of doing something she’d live to regret – perhaps for ever.’
‘Where did she plan to go?’
‘Naples.’
‘Why Naples?’
‘You know why Naples,’ he said. ‘It’s such a big attraction to a young girl. I tried to warn her just how dangerous Naples could be, especially for an unescorted young woman without money. She’d be eaten alive … I said as much. But she’s determined … very strong-willed.’
‘You talk of her running away, yet she parted from you after only ten minutes because she was going into the country with the very people you say she was eager to flee from.’
‘She had to go. She is afraid of them. She has to do things against her will. That’s the problem. She doesn’t have a life of her own.’
‘Yet you also say she’s strong-willed. Aren’t you arguing against yourself?’
‘Nothing is black and white,’ he said.
‘So she wasn’t planning to run away just yet?’
‘I don’t think so. I thought I’d made her think twice. But you can never tell with Elisa because she can be so impulsive.’
‘So you haven’t seen her since you were in church with her?’
‘No. I don’t understand.’
‘What don’t you understand?’
‘Why all these questions? I thought she’d be with her family.’
‘She didn’t arrive home … that’s the problem.’
‘I’m sorry. But I can’t help you. I don’t know anything.’
‘Aren’t you worried?’
‘Not really. She’ll turn up, I’m sure. She’s just taken off, that’s all.’
‘Where to, do you suppose?’
‘I’ve no idea. Anywhere to be away from her family, I guess.’
The police believed that Restivo knew far more than he was letting on. Asked for an explanation of what occurred at the church that Sunday, Restivo admitted that he ‘led her behind the altar’, adding, ‘I do not know if it is called the rectory, where the organ is.’ He was eager to ask her about her exam results and her studies, and to chat with her about Paola Santarsiere, whom he liked.
Restivo then alleged that ‘a young guy’ had harassed her earlier that morning before they met in church, making her nervous.
When questioned about how long they were together in church, he answered that they had parted at 11.50am. ‘I saw her leave the church,’ he said. After she had gone, Restivo stayed to pray a while. He left the church at noon, heading straight towards the building site, where he injured himself.
The Italian police already had considerable knowledge of Restivo. They knew that he had previously taken two girls, Nunzia Mauro and Uberta Corona, to a small room at the top of the church. They put this to him and he made no denial. They also accused him of having Nunzia leave so that he could be alone with Uberta. ‘That is not true,’ he replied.
Asked if he had kissed Elisa before they parted, he became agitated, exclaiming, ‘Kissed her! Why do you ask that?’
‘Because we need to know,’ he was told.
‘Of course I didn’t kiss her,’ he insisted. ‘I’ve told you, we are just friends. We like to talk. She has troubles, I could tell. Talking often helps to make things clearer in your head.’
When he was then asked more about his damaged hand, he began changing his story. It could have happened when he knocked it on something ‘rough and jagged’, he said.
‘In the church, perhaps?’ the officer pressed.
‘Yes, in the church.’
‘Where exactly?’
‘Well, there’s some unfinished work at the back, inside.’
‘But earlier you said you stumbled on a building site.’
‘I did and that’s when I noticed my hand.’
‘It didn’t hurt you before then?’
Restivo was further questioned on whether there had been any ‘sexual intimacy’ between him and Elisa. He repeated that he had not kissed Elisa in church – or outside of it – that Sunday. He was reminded that this last question had not been specifically about ‘kissing’, but more.
Having achieved little clarity over the actual events surrounding Elisa’s disappearance, but having little reason to hold Restivo any longer, the police investigators released him.
By nightfall, Filomena Claps was hysterical. Gildo organised a search-party, comprising the entire extended family, all his friends and those of Elisa, and many people who worshipped regularly at the Most Holy Trinity Church, which dominates the town’s central square.
Filomena, with Gildo’s arms around her, was further questioned by the police. They had to put to her some of the accusations made by Restivo. She was as outraged as she was hurt.
‘How could he say such things?’ she wailed. ‘Who is this man? What does he want? What is he trying to do to us? Has he been turning Elisa against us?’
Of course, these were questions to which the police did not have answers.
Gildo was more composed and forthright. ‘He’s a liar,’ he said. ‘Don’t believe a word of it. Ask anyone. Ask Elisa’s school friends. Speak to anyone who knows her. You won’t hear a word against her family.’
And the police did not. Everything seemed exactly as the Claps family claimed. Yet Elisa remained missing.
On that same Sunday evening, Filomena returned to the church, knelt in prayer, lit a candle and wept, consoled by her friends and immediate family. And while Filomena couldn’t help fearing the worst, her son tried to reassure her that all would be well.
‘She will be found, you’ll see,’ said Gildo. ‘There will be a simple explanation. We’ll be laughing about this in a few days.’
Filomena was not comforted by her son and Gildo was not really sure if he believed himself, he was to confess later.
Initial formalities complete, Elisa was posted officially as a missing person. Her photograph, name and physical features were circulated among all the regional and city police departments, especially Naples, in view of Restivo’s statement.
‘She has not gone to Naples,’ Elisa’s mother told the police. ‘She would never go to Naples, not alone. She’s only too well aware of the dangers of Naples. In any case, she doesn’t have the money. Where would she live? How would she get by?’
The thought of how runaway girls did ‘get by’ in Naples horrified Filomena. Naples had a vice trade to match any in Europe for depravity. There was a flourishing market in child prostitutes. ‘Virgins for sale’ was a common strap-line on business cards squeezed into the hands of tourists. Young girls were routinely sold to North Africa and into Middle Eastern harems. Brothels abounded, catering for every conceivable obscenity. Orphan boys and girls were recruited into pickpocket gangs. And behind nearly all the rackets was the Camorra, Naples’ Mafia.
Filomena Claps had a host of very good reasons why she did not want to believe that her daughter had ended up in Naples.
But it might have been preferable to the alternative.