“Any idea why Nicu came back to Paris?”
“Work? For his interviews at the Sorbonne?” Rose shrugged. “What did you mean when you said Nicu’s murder wasn’t a hate crime? That you were there?”
Aimée uncapped an Evian, sipped. It wouldn’t do to get this girl in more trouble; her arrest last night was more than enough. Her name had no doubt made it onto a list at the commissariat.
She gave Rose an edited version.
“Hit men?” Rose gasped. “I don’t understand why anyone would target Nicu. He is … was … gentle, non-violent.”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Can you remember anything that seemed off with Nicu in the last few days? Or anything that stuck out as strange?”
But Rose had dissolved into tears. “How could anyone do that …?”
“Please, Rose. I need your help.”
She had to persist, get something from this girl. She pulled out the snapshot Nicu had given her. “Rose, look at this picture. That’s me, my father, Drina and Nicu. He must have been about six or seven.”
Rose wiped her eyes. Stared. “That’s you? Whoa, your hair is so eighties.”
Aimée felt older by the minute. “Rose, I should tell you that Nicu asked for my help because—”
“Mais oui,” she interrupted. “I saw this. He liked him, your father. That’s right, I remember. Nicu told me how his mother … yes, she had an arrangement with your father. She hid until your father told her it was safe.”
And then once her father had given Drina the all clear, she became his informer. But it brought her to more questions—Who was it Drina had been collecting information on? Who were Fifi and Tesla, and what secret did they want to keep so badly that they had resorted to murder?
“Aimée, don’t you remember all this?” Rose was saying. “You’re in the picture.”
Aimée wished she remembered. “What else did Nicu tell you? Anything else about my father?”
“He felt sorry for Drina, Nicu said.”
Sorry he couldn’t solve her sister Djanka’s murder even after he’d been pulled off the case? So like her papa.
Rose was standing up. “I’ve got class, then I’m working on the newsletter and trying to get petition signatures.”
Think; she had to remember what kept slipping from her sleep-deprived brain. These days she was so quick to anger, to jump into things and reflect later—but then she’d always been this way, as René often reminded her. Only it had gotten much worse since Chloé. Could it be postpartum? She grabbed at the question swimming through the grey matter. An idiot not to think of it sooner.
“When did you last see Nicu?”
“We spoke on …”
“Non, Rose, I mean in person—when and where?”
“Sunday, non, Saturday he met me in the courtyard at Sciences Po.”
“Did he mention Drina, her sickness?”
“He was going to meet her, to convince her to go to the hospital. That’s all. I had an afternoon lecture.” She pulled her bag onto her shoulder.
“So he seemed sad?”
Rose nodded. Thought. “But it wasn’t just about his mother, Drina had told him she didn’t have long. There was something more than that. I don’t know. Nervous and worried.” Tears welled in her eyes.
“Nervous because he sensed they were being watched?” Aimée took Rose’s hand. “He told me someone had been following him.”
Rose’s lip quivered. “I thought … he always …” She shook her head. “I thought he was just being paranoid. Gangs pick on Gypsies and beat them up. I’ve seen it happen at the market, the Métro.” Tears slid down her face as she shook her head. “But he wasn’t paranoid. I was wrong.”
Rose’s phone trilled. She glanced at it. “My mother.”
“Think back, Rose. Picture Nicu in the courtyard at Sciences Po the last time you saw him,” said Aimée. “Where you were standing while you talked, the people nearby. Close your eyes. Can you describe what you remember?”
Rose muted her phone. Closed her eyes. “I remember … the white blossoms of the marronniers on the stone wall. We walked over the squished blossoms in the courtyard. Gross. Nicu waited while I went to my locker to get my books. But when I got back, he was leaving, going out the courtyard gate. He saw me. I waved, but he didn’t wave back. I figured he’d remembered his appointment with Drina. He was terrible at keeping track of time.”
He didn’t wave back because he wanted to protect her.
Afternoon sunlight pooled on the herringboned wood floor. A horn blared from below on rue du Louvre.
Rose opened her eyes, which shone with tears. “That’s the last time I saw him.”
“Who did you see, Rose?” Aimée forced herself to breathe. Count to three. “Because you did see someone, maybe behind him? You do remember.”
Rose blinked. “I don’t know. Maybe at the gate?” Pause. “That’s right, he left right behind Nicu. I didn’t think anything of it.”
“Can you describe him? Maybe another student, or did he look like a teacher?”
“I’m not sure.”
One of René’s monitors started to beep. Time to re-loop. She walked over and double-clicked a key. Walked back to her desk and turned back to Rose.
“Think, Rose … try to think back to what he was wearing. You can, I know, because you remembered he left right behind Nicu.”
“Maybe older, maybe a suit?”
“That’s good, Rose. What else?”
“All I remember thinking is that he might have been someone’s grandfather.”
PRIORITIZE.