‘I don’t know what you mean. In any case it doesn’t matter now. None of that matters.Thisis what matters.’ And she got up stiffly, walked over to a bookshelf, and carried back a small wooden box which she handed to Florence.
‘What is it?’ Florence asked, biting back her anger.
‘Open it.’
Florence lifted the lid and found inside a Catholic rosary with a Maltese cross attached, and a note.
‘Rosalie sent me that.’
Florence frowned. ‘Your sister? How did she know you were living here?’
‘She didn’t. They were lost in the post for ages but eventually turned up at the house in Richmond and were then forwarded to me here. Read the note … from Rosalie. She said she’d write again. There were problems,she said, and she needed my help urgently. But she never did write again.’
Claudette looked close to tears and Florence held out a hand, but her mother, looking terribly forlorn, didn’t respond.
‘How distressing for you,’ Florence said. ‘I’m so sorry. But now I’m here we’ll have plenty of time to talk about what happened, won’t we? And I can help you in other ways too.’
‘No,’ Claudette snapped. ‘For God’s sake, I’m not old and I don’t need help.’
Unaccustomed to hearing such a harsh tone from her mother, Florence recoiled. Élise was used to Claudette’s sharp tongue, cruelty even, but not Florence.
The room went silent for a few moments.
Florence was the first to speak. ‘Do you miss her, your sister?’ she asked.
Claudette sighed deeply and snapped back. ‘Of course. What do you think I am? When she went, it left me in pieces.’
Florence wondered if Rosalie’s disappearance accounted for a great deal about her mother.
‘I think she may be in Malta.’
‘Because of the cross she sent?’
‘Yes. It’s a tiny fortress island just south of Sicily and close to Africa.’
Florence nodded. ‘How did your parents know she’d run away and hadn’t been … well, hadn’t been taken.’
‘They knew. Oh yes. They knew and I did too.’
‘And did they know why?’
‘They did.’
‘And you?’
‘Yes. Now, that’s enough,’ Claudette snapped.
‘Very well …’ Florence said, on the verge of asking exactly what had happened. But seeing the distress in her mother’s eyes her other questions were left to hang in the air. Except for one. ‘All right, what is it you want me to do?’
Claudette looked lost for a moment, her eyes shining with unshed tears. ‘I think Rosalie may be dead. But I want you to find out. Please. If she is alive, it might be my only chance to … well, to put right what happened in the past. I didn’t help her when she needed me in Paris nor when she sent me that note.’
Florence blinked. ‘But she didn’t tell you where she was. And she ran away almost twenty years ago, didn’t she? Nobody has seen her. Nobody knows where she is.’
Her mother’s face crumpled. ‘She was always in trouble, wild and independent, just like your sister. My parents couldn’t cope.’
‘Like Élise?’
Claudette nodded and with a shaking hand she swiped her tears away. ‘And it’s true nobody knows where she is, and I don’t know anything for sure. All I have is this note and the rosary. But if you do find her, I need you to tell her how sorry I am,’ she said. ‘I have few regrets in my life …’
