I knew that now. Like a lot of things, and others I should have acted upon. Like the way she’d tried to flirt around Danny once she’d eaten Papa and spat him out. Gilles Dugard was right, although I’d not wanted to hear it. But I’d seen Papa’s invitation with her writing on it. Wanting to tag along…
Moi auusi?
My arse.
“Do you think she came all the way to west Wales and took Mathieu?” I asked as somewhere called Brentwood came and went, and a big sign saying Harwich was 43 miles away.
“Anything’s possible.” Alison turned to her man. “Right?”
He nodded. “First thing this morning I suggested a check for any strange vehicle sightings in the area between Thursday afternoon and yesterday midday. Also waiting for a trace from Glan y Mor’s only phone booth.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Just before I arrived at Ty Capel. A woman wearing dark clothes was standing inside it, watching me drive by. I didn’t actually see her phoning, but it’s worth a shot.”
“Danny was worth two,” I said bleakly, aware of Alison being impressed by his industriousness.
No-one spoke for a while until John broke the silence. “There’s something else on my mind.” Again, he eyed me in his rear-view mirror. “That note you gave me before Alison joined us. I’m no mediaeval scholar but the bit about the first circle of Hell is…”
“From The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri,” interrupted Alison. “I studied it for ‘A’ Level. Turgid stuff, and the rubbish translation didn’t help. It details your fate depending on how you behave on earth.”
“And the third circle?” He clearly wasn’t letting it go.
“For family betrayers.”
*
I must have slept, because when I woke, that once pale sun was much stronger, stabbing my eyes, while giant seagulls looped and swooped around the car, beaks and talons at the ready. We were also surrounded by juggernauts from every imaginable country. Those few from France were already familiar - Giraud, Norbert Dentressangle amongst others. What we were all looking for was big and dark blue. A left-hand drive, which John still thought unusual. I wanted out, but he was shouting down his new phone to some harbour official about this Scania transporter while Alison craned her pretty neck out of the open window. Her pony tail pulled sideways by the breeze.
They were both on my side. Papa could stuff himself.
“It’s already gone,” John repeated to us. “Could even be in the Hook of Holland by now and on its way God knows where.”
“Shit. How come?” I said.
“Apparently, all its papers were in order,” said the voice on the other end of the phone. “They use us a lot. Sheep, calves…”
“They?
“Confidential, unless you’re the law.”
“What was their cargo this time? Do you know?” John persevered, looking across at Alison. His face set hard, waiting for the answer.
A pause, during which I heard another phone ringing.
“According to our records, a horse. Nothing odd in that,” the guy added. “Except they’ve been known to carry more.”
*
I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear anything except those vile words, the name Interpol and that of some Belgian official, while all the while that knowing woman with the black, fringed headscarf lurked in my mind. Alison got out and came to sit next to me, her arm tight around my shoulders. “Try not to worry,” she said. The transporter obviously wasn’t inspected and Vervain may still be drugged. Your brother may even be with him somewhere.” She tapped John’s shoulder. “You’d thought that too, hadn’t you?”
“Initially, yes, but…”
“Well, that’s what we have to cling on to.”
*
“We board the next thing that floats,” John began revving up. “Wherever. Come on.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Alison snapped, re-joining him at the front and leafing through a ragged Michelin map of my new country and bits of its neighbours as he drove south out of the lorry park. “They’ll be ahead all the way. Even have time for a re-spray if they’ve not done so already.”
“It’s hopeless,” I said, feeling empty.
“Not if we can make the right connections.” He half-turned my way. “Help us, Laure. You’re not stupid.”
The eastern sky was suddenly too bright, the seagulls too big. The multitude of cranes too tall. I squeezed my eyes shut.
*
“I’m back again in Les Saules Pleureurs,” I said. “On my fifth birthday and just home from the school in our village. It was the second week of the new year. I remember that because the latest snow had just melted, and I was on my tree swing amongst the weeping willows…”
“Go on,” urged Alison as John stopped the car alongside CHRISSIE’S SNACK BAR
where more seagulls waited along its bird-shitty roof.
“Cooking smells were coming from the farmhouse. Nice smells. Maman always started dinner early so that everyone was fed in time for the evening’s chores.”
“And?”
“This car pulled in. Not one I recognised, on the far side of the drive. It was Elisabeth who never usually called except on Sundays. I was pleased to see her, naturally. Like I’ve said, she’d always been generous to me and Mathieu.”
I glanced at the snack bar where a group of workmen now waited for their burgers to finish sizzling on the griddle. The smell of raw flesh seeped into the car, even though all its windows were up.
“But this wasn’t the Tante Elisabeth I knew,” I continued, feeling queasy. “She seemed different in every way. Even the expression on her face, which usually lit up whenever she saw me.”
“In what way different?” John Lyon asked as if this was all very important.
“Tense. No, angry. But that wasn’t all. I got off my swing and went over, which she obviously didn’t want me to do. Then I saw what she was wearing…”
*
Our burgers were ready, although still too pink in parts. The men paid for theirs, collected them and moved off. I wanted to gag. To be out of there.
“A white overall, but more than that. It was spattered with blood. Dark, dead blood almost as if she was proud of it. And she wore a label on her chest.”
I paused, now after all these years realising the significance of it all. How I’d been sleepwalking and not protected anyone. “An abattoir label showing a horse’s head in silhouette.”
At this, Alison turned so she was facing me. Her blue eyes serious. “What else did this badge say? Please try and remember.”
“Elisabeth. I realised that once I’d begun reading properly.”
“No abattoir name?”
“I’m thinking.”
“Come on,” John Lyon urged me. “Even the sound of it.”
“I can’t, I’m sorry. But there is someone who might know.”
“Who?” Both together. Normally, I’d have laughed.
“Mamie Jourdain. She’s in the Jacques Cousteau Maison de Repos in Aucentrelle just south of Poitiers.” Then, I remembered another woman’s voice. Another stranger referring to Vervain. Her black, hard eyes. The way she’d stared into my soul.
21. Elisabeth.
Saturday March 12th 1p.m.
If, on my deathbed, the priest were to ask me, ‘what is your greatest regret?” I’d have to reply that contrary to dear Maman’s enduring opinion, things hadn’t always been as carefully planned as I would have liked. I’d let myself down several times, particularly with that nasty little episode on the ferry. Others might say I’d been lucky to have left its heaving prison due to the old Douane dozing at his post.
Then God and his angels had seen me sweetly through Cherbourg’s busy centre - where too many traffic lights could so easily have turned to red - and out along the N13 past Caen with a full tank of petrol. ‘Merci Dieu,’ I’d muttered before connecting with the road south to Falaise, praying He would stay on alert.
*
So, ther
e was I, on a wind-blown morning, just eighty kilometres from the planned rendez-vous south of Poitiers. My nerves so well-hiddden on that boat, brought an unpleasant sweat to my forehead. I’d have to wait a while for the next stage, and that could bring unwanted problems, especially as I wasn’t on my own and the third jab of Noctran likely to wear off within the hour.
My research proved that those male truck drivers who habitually parked in the aires de repos with their curtained windows, weren’t necessarily asleep. More likely they were giving themselves a hand job while reading porn. And it was inevitably they who would, for payment, inform the gendarmerie of any criminal activity. Increasingly so, as more undesirables made their way into my country.
Cruising at 70 kms. per hour between hectare after hectare of brown, newly-seeded fields, restored some equilibrium and kept me unnoticed. Me, whose prayers until now, had been answered.
I touched my precious rosary.
Referring to God as lazy had been wrong, and I was sorry. Then, having re-fuelled outside Tours, I made a back-up call to a man I could trust. A man who took excessive pride in his footwear. Always a good sign.
*
All at once a banging noise from immediately behind made me veer in and out of the hard shoulder - thankfully not long enough to be noticed. Then it came again, plus swearing. Enough to keep a team of navvies happy.
Con…
“Let me out, you black bitch!”
The Nactron had obviously run its course, and I’d still at least forty minute’s driving before I could risk my cargo seeing the light of day again.
Fuck him.
My phone rang again as signs for Chȃtellerault and various ‘bouchons’ flashed up. More road works and more hold-ups behind some transporter or other, but not the one I was looking for. Three rings, then stop. As we’d agreed.
“They had a re-spray and change of plates outside Lille,” was all Eduard Gallas said. And that he’d call again when he could. Just as this one ended, came another.
You are popular…
On a hunch, I let my caller speak first.
“Elisabeth Jourdain?”
Laure, my lovely niece, sounding as though she was close by. But could I trust her? Why not refer to me as Tante Elisabeth as usual? Was she fishing under pressure?” I tried listening for any background noise but there was none. Just whimpering coming from my car’s boot.
Be careful what you say.
“Oui.” I said cheerfully. “Comment ça va?”
“Good. No, not good.”
“So, when are you coming to see me, you and Mathieu?” I said brightly, ignoring that last remark. “Have you booked your trip over? Cleared it with Papa?”
Silence, while one sad memorial after another to some human roadkill passed by. Wilted flowers and bleached sympathy cards tied to posts in the verge. Dark forests on either side. The kind I’d once seen in the Landes as a kid, before the differences between me and Christine had become insurmountable. When we could no longer do anything together. At least I’ve always treated my nephew and niece equally. No-one could argue with that.
Something wasn’t right. And why was she on a new phone?
“Laure?”
“I’ve got my diary ready now. We need to fix a definite day and time.”
Someone else was obviously within earshot. Just play along. I told myself. You know how she is.
“Absolutely,” I agreed, then I softened my tone, sensing she might be crying. “Are you alright? Is something the matter? Come on, you can tell me…”
“No,” she hissed. “You tell me.”
*
Bang, bang, bang...
Merde…
My car was moving over the central white line and back again. Out of control while the shouting and shrieking from inside the boot intensified. This couldn’t go on. I’d be pulled over. Questioned, and I’d had enough of that during the past 24 hours.
Keep calm, remember? Keep moving.
*
I did, and soon those oppressive forests had gone, and in their place, came the kind of space that lures so many foreigners to our shores. I had to acknowledge, that despite my difficulties, it was a quite beautiful spring day with layers of wispy, yellowish clouds backlit by a sun that would doubtless soon be emerging. I thought of Maman, surely enjoying it too, from her expensive room in Aucentrelle.
A sign announcing the Aire des Arbriers in ten kilometres came into view.They felt more like twenty. Each woeful, straggling birch tree bearing black boluses of foliage; every unkempt little farm, one too many.
Enfin...
*
As far as I could tell, there were only two other cars parked between an overflowing poubelle and a phone box. A new, white Mazda with a Loire number plate, the other, a battered grey Fiat - both at first glance empty. This wasn’t ideal, but I’d no choice. The shouting from the boot was still too loud. The banging too, the little bȃtard. Why I chose the furthest point from these cars, where the curve of Tarmac and banks of thorny scrub shielded me from their view. A nurse always arouses less suspicion than other uniforms. Or so I hoped. Especially with a child.
*
Having left my driver’s door open, I knelt on the rear seat and unhooked the heavy vinyl ledge above it which normally housed my maps and acted as a shield between my shopping and prying eyes. I could hear my heart. The Tamazepan wasn’t working. Nothing would, until all this was over. Anyway, I’d used them all up.
Please God, let there be no trouble…
Then all at once, before my eyes could accustom themselves to the boot’s dim light, something hard and sharp met my neck below my left ear. Brought a deep, stinging pain making me sway, lose my grip on that rear seat’s top edge as a red, crazed face reared up, like that of an overblown baby. He struck again, this time on my head, so hard a sea of tar seemed to flow behind my eyes.
“For you, black face!” he yelled, landing a third blow before I could stop him. “I hope you bleed to death and rot in Hell!”
“Get back now!” I yelled. “Lie down or…”
“Or what? Go on, scraggy old cow.” He was already climbing up, like the monkey he was, straddling that wobbling defence between us, pushing me back against the front seats. Pushing, pushing… His too-big jeans stiffly soiled. The smell nauseating. “Why?” he bellowed, pummelling my breasts, on top of me now, tearing off my apron. Hitting me wherever he could with that big screwdriver I should never have left in the boot. “Why do you hate me so much like you hated my Maman?”
“Hate is too easy a word,” I managed to mumble. My blood throbbing, spreading too far, too thick. “If you must know, it’s what you represent.”
“Biche folle. I should never have got in your car by that old farm when you said you were taking me and Laure back home for Easter. Liar… liar…”
And before I could even begin to raise myself from the pit, he’d scrambled over me and my driver’s seat and flung open the door.
“Come back, you little skunk,” I shouted. “Or we’ll kill Vervain. How will you live with that, hein?”
I knew he’d stopped.
“What’s he done wrong?” he screamed.
“Like I said, mon petit, it’s what he represents.”
“I’m off to find a gendarme. I’ve learnt your number plate off by heart, and I know where you live. I even heard you speaking to Laure…”
With that, came a mighty slam of the door, followed by his shambling footsteps outside. He wasn’t that mobile after all. Bon. But when I finally extricated myself from that leatherette grave, pulled what was left of my bloodied uniform into shape, and wound a duster around my bleeding neck, realised with another blow to my heart that he’d not only vanished, but also stolen my car’s keys.
22. Odette.
Saturday 12th March.1.40 p.m.
I’d soon grown tired of all Lieutenant Desoulis’s questions about the drug theft repeated ad nauseam as if he assumed that like many of my fellow residents, I was senile.
All before breakfast too, with no chance to even clean my teeth or brush what was left of my tousled hair. I’d felt vulnerable; without rights or the support of anyone who really knew me. And still, after fifteen long minutes, this detective from the local gendarmerie had stood too close to my bed, too big for the visitors’ chair. His knees touching my mattress. Pen scratching his notepad.
Where on God’s earth had Elisabeth got to? My one survivuing daughter, initially so attentive, after manoeuvring me in here. Whose wicked lie about her Papa I’d had to swallow. To live with it night and day until I’d believed it myself. But like me, she knew that a rotted corpse - as he surely was by now - couldn’t fight back. Neither realistically, could I. Unless…
I had to tell myself she was ill. That some small part of her mind had curdled like the summer milk we’d often had to throw out. Yes, I confess I’d colluded in her treachery. Why? Because since the day she passed from my body, and more particularly once her baby sister Christine had arrived, I’d felt a shallow pool of fear begin to grow.
“Madame, I ask again,” the Lieutenant had said, making me jump. “Can you think who might have needed such a powerful sleeping drug as Noctran? Been prepared to risk their freedom to steal it?”
I’d shaken my head, still worried that if these pills were so strong, I’d better ensure none landed on my pill tray.
“Any relative, friend or acquaintance?” My interrogator had pressed on. “Do you understand what I mean by that last word?”
“Lieutenant, that’s insulting. I’m a Sorbonne graduate, and as for you implying…”
“I assure you, Madame, everyone - staff and residents here - are being treated equally. My questions are standard. This crime is a serious offence. Too much of the drug can cause neurological and psychological disorders. And in the elderly, like yourself, falls.”
Before pocketing his pen and notebook, he’d given me a warning look.
“Call me straight away if anything does come to mind. The Director here understands it could have bappened during the night.”
He’d handed me a small card and had almost reached my room door, when he’d suddenly stopped. Turned round. “As for your grandson, Mathieu Deschamps, let me assure you we’re doing everything to find him, and his aunt Elisabeth, your daughter.”
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