Chapter Thirty-Six

When Isabella walked out of the Caffè Greco into the Rome sunlight, she looked ill, as if she had a fever. Her wide blue eyes were too bright. Her skin was flushed except for the patch around her mouth that was a dull leaden gray.

Roberto felt a pulse of anger. At the man inside the café who had done this to her. And at her dead husband, the brash black-shirted husband who had dragged her into this nightmare that she was fighting so hard to break out of.

Immediately Roberto went to her side. Her hand had fallen from the makeshift sling, so he gently retied it and drew her other arm through his. As they walked, she shared the information that Giorgio Andretti had given her, and it was hard, appallingly hard, not to heap his rage and disgust on Luigi Berotti’s name. But Berotti had been her husband. And he was dead. He had paid the final price for his sins. Evil attracts evil to itself as surely as the moon draws the tide each day, and it was stalking the streets of Italy every day as long as Mussolini held power in his fist.

On the train Roberto sat Isabella beside a window, giving her room to breathe. To think. To find in her head the man she thought her husband had been and to fit him into the skin of this murdering bastard whose blood pumped faster when he was brutalizing others. Roberto could see the rise and fall of her chest, as labored as if she were running.

Her thigh pressed along the length of his where they sat side by side in the smoky carriage. Her body needing him, needing the comfort that her mind refused to ask for. During the journey she stared with unfocused eyes at the beauty of Italy’s green fields and shimmering poplars speeding past, and yet for Roberto it was impossible not to imagine Luigi Berotti’s hands claiming ownership of her slender body, his lips leaving the imprint of his kisses on every part of her creamy skin.

Ten years ago. He reminded himself with a rough shake that it was ten years ago and she had been only seventeen when she married him.

Don’t judge her, Roberto. Don’t judge her. Any harsher than you judge yourself.

He turned to her and kissed her hair. He breathed her deep inside him as if by doing so he could inhale the pain, removing all trace of it from her, and in its place leave the solidity, the certainty, the calmness she craved.

Her hand sought his, sliding her fingers between his, and together they waited for Bellina to come closer.

Dark blue uniforms. A red stripe down the side of the trousers. A white bandolier across the chest. The carabinieri were out in force. The sight of the dark wall of them standing at attention on the Bellina railway station platform alarmed Roberto, but he turned his back on them, helped Isabella off the train, and set off toward the exit gate with no sign of agitation. His aim was to get her out of here as fast as possible.

“Signor Roberto Falco?”

Colonnello Sepe stood before him. The thin face and brilliantined hair looked deceptively ordinary and innocent in the warm autumn sunshine. Except for the gun on his hip. That didn’t look innocent.

“Yes?”

“You are under arrest, Signor Falco.”

Beside him Isabella uttered a cry.

“On what charge?” Roberto demanded.

“On the charge of sexually maltreating a child.”

“What! Don’t be absurd.”

Isabella stepped in front of him, placing herself between him and Sepe. “There’s been a mistake,” she said firmly.

“Roberto Falco,” Sepe continued, “do you deny that you kissed one of the girls at the convent? Gisella Sevona, to be exact.”

“Of course he didn’t,” Isabella responded. “This is a lie that someone is . . .” But she glanced over her shoulder at Roberto’s face and the words died on her lips. “Roberto,” she whispered. “No.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Roberto said stiffly. “It was nothing more than . . .”

“You did kiss this Gisella?”

“Yes. But it was as a friend, nothing more. I kissed her forehead.”

Colonnello Sepe gave a signal to the wall of uniforms that immediately surrounded them. “You had only just met the child,” he pointed out with disgust. “So don’t call her your friend, Falco.”

The handcuffs closed over his wrists. Isabella was wrenched away from him. The black doors of the arrest vehicle slammed shut.

The girl stood immobile.

Her cheeks were flaming; her eyes clung to the floor of terra-cotta tiles in one of the interrogation rooms at the police station. On each side she was flanked by Mother Domenica and Sister Agatha, but her head seemed too heavy for her because it hung down low.

“Gisella, repeat what you told me,” Mother Domenica commanded, her white neck stretched taut as a swan.

“He kissed me,” the girl muttered to her feet.

“Say it again.”

“Signor Falco kissed me.”

“By force?”

“Yes.”

“Gisella,” Roberto stated flatly, “that’s not true.”

“Silence, photographer,” Mother Superior hissed. “Silence. What you did was an abomination.” Her colorless eyes flared with righteousness. “Our Lord Jesus tells us, Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. You hear those words, photographer? Drowned in the sea. Even that is too good for your damned soul.”

The woman was a distraction. She wasn’t the one with the key to the handcuffs or to the prison cell waiting to slam shut on him. Roberto switched his attention to Colonnello Sepe and felt all hope drain away. The policeman had him condemned and convicted already. The dark eyes were bored. They wanted the girl to fall into hysterics, to crumple to the floor, to sob out her accusation and demand that her violator be hanged.

Instead she hunched in silent misery before him.

“Look at me, Gisella,” Roberto said quietly, and her furtive gaze sneaked up at him out of the corner of her eye. “Tell the truth to them. You know and I know what really happened. I only kissed your forehead because you begged me.” His glance flicked around the sterile room and over the uniforms of the policemen and the nuns. “But I know you’re frightened. It’s all right, I understand, I’m not angry with you. But please tell them the truth.”

The girl in gray spoke to her shoes. “I did tell the truth.”

“Condemned out of his own mouth,” Mother Domenica stated with satisfaction. “He admits he kissed her.” She waved an arm at him like a great bat’s wing. “He will pay for his sins.”

“And you will pay for yours, Mother Domenica,” Roberto said angrily. “You are the one who has forced that child into this situation, but who is forcing you? Who is behind your venom?”

“I am appointed by God to protect these innocent children.” She raised the metal crucifix that hung on a chain around her neck and thrust it toward him in a dramatic gesture. “Be gone, the devil is within you.”

“We are each our own devil and make this world our hell,” Roberto said harshly. “Even you.”

“Enough! Colonnello Sepe, remove this man. You’ve heard enough from his own lips.”

The policeman regarded her with dislike. “I do not require you to tell me my job, Mother Domenica.” He nodded at the two carabinieri standing at attention by the door, and they stepped forward to seize Roberto’s elbow. He turned on Sepe.

“Tell Grassi this will not work. He may have something on that nun over there, but he has nothing on me. This is dangerous. Dangerous to him.” His words filled the small silent room, banging on the walls. “Tell him that from me.”

“Take the prisoner to the cells.”