The crack of the kneecap shattering was immediately followed by the deafening scream of the monster, whose body had stiffened. Even before the scream ended, Bruno dropped the sledgehammer and went back and released the winch. The two chains quickly slackened and the monster collapsed onto the floor at the foot of the table. Bruno watched him writhing on the ground, screaming in pain and holding his mangled leg. There was no emotion on Bruno’s face. But in his eyes, the fury was gradually subsiding, replaced by a morbid fascination.
After several long seconds, Bruno left the room, leaving the screaming monster behind. He went to Josh’s bedroom and took the bottle of Scotch to the kitchen, where he filled a glass. He looked at the glass with vague amusement and downed it in a single gulp. Then he sat down in the armchair in the living room and looked out the window at the moonlit lake. He heard a muted litany of sounds coming from the other room. Once or twice, he thought he made out words like “fucking bastard,” but it was mostly limited to grunts and howls.
Those sounds! Bruno was practically drunk on them! Hearing them, he felt something finally relax within him. The weight that had been with him since the coming of the darkness was still there, but he felt a kind of release, as if he had been standing on one leg for an eternity and he could finally stand on both feet again. He felt more tired than he ever had before, a comfortable, pleasant fatigue. His shoulders sagged, his arms went limp, his face softened, and he closed his eyes.
Lulled by the symphony of curses and wailing, he fell into a peaceful sleep.
DAY 2
SO?”
Sitting at his desk, his hands folded behind his neck, Mercure was watching his two colleagues, waiting. Christian Bolduc, twenty-eight years old, a refrigerator in width and height, shrugged.
“We don’t have much to go on.”
Anne-Marie Pleau was dwarfed beside him, although she was quite a big woman. She was thirty-six years old, but her face, with its delicate features, was that of an adolescent girl and contrasted with her rather masculine body. She was looking at a copy of the photograph of Hamel.
“He called from Longueuil yesterday, right?” she asked.
“Yes, but I’d be surprised if he’s there. If I wanted to hide with a guy I’d kidnapped, I doubt I would do it in the middle of a city. We have no indication that he’s still there. He could be anywhere.”
He sighed, folding his hands over his nonexistent belly. A needle in a haystack. Hamel had really planned things well. Mercure’s mind kept returning to the same thing: that cold, surgical preparation.
Surgical, yes, that was the word for it. He chuckled joylessly. His two colleagues looked puzzled.
“Okay. I want you to go question these people,” he said, handing them each a list. “These are friends and relatives of Hamel. I went to see his mother yesterday, a widow who lives in a seniors’ residence. She’s in such a state of shock that she’s incoherent. She won’t be any use to us. We also checked his cottage in the Eastern Townships, and of course, he’s not there. Send people to question employees of service stations around Drummondville, especially the ones on Highway 20 on the way to Longueuil. Have them show them the photo of Hamel.”
“Are you hoping that . . . ?”
“Not really, no.”
A brief silence, then Mercure rapped the arms of his chair and said, “Okay, let’s get to work!”
* * *
Bruno opened his eyes at twenty minutes before noon. He had slept more than fifteen hours straight in that chair without waking up once! That had never happened to him before, not even when he was a teenager and had been at a party smoking hash all night.
He had dreamed of threatening jowls and shiny fur. And there was a strange noise with the dream images, like a distant knocking. A weird, meaningless dream.
He stood up, stiff all over, still feeling that oppressive weight. Out the window, the lake beckoned with thousands of little waves. In spite of that dull look everything now had, Bruno still found it pretty.
To say he was happy would have been an exaggeration, and even indecent. Besides, he knew that happiness was no longer for him. It wasn’t what he was looking for, anyway; what he wanted was a kind of satisfaction. And he felt that, the day before, he had climbed the first rung of the ladder that would take him there.
He fingered Jasmine’s blue ribbon for a moment, and then put it back in his pocket.
He picked up the old telephone and called Morin and told him where the money was. Morin played along, replying in monosyllables, but Bruno could hear the satisfaction in his voice. He must think he had a good fairy watching over him.
He had just hung up when he heard an uncertain voice calling, “Is anyone there?”
Bruno looked toward the hallway, his eyes suddenly lighting up. He walked down the hall and into the room. The monster was sitting on the floor with his back against the vertical table and his injured leg stretched out in front of him. When he saw Bruno, his face showed a strange mixture of relief and fear: relief at seeing that he had not been abandoned, and fear when he recognized Bruno. He touched the thigh of his injured leg softly.
“My . . . my knee,” he complained in a trembling voice. “I think it’s broken.”
The knee had doubled in volume and was now blue, with yellowish patches. Internal bleeding, of course. The monster was right: the kneecap must be mush. Bruno had hit a perfect home run. According to plan.
“You broke my knee!”
Bruno leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. The monster asked, then begged, for explanations, then got discouraged, and then begged again. And Bruno just stood there with his arms crossed, looking at him in a vaguely interested way.
The monster then became solemn.
“I know who you are.”
Bruno didn’t flinch, but he listened.
“You’re Hamel, right? The father of the little girl who was raped and killed?”
Bruno took a slightly hoarse breath.
The monster said, “I’m innocent. It wasn’t me. You got the wrong guy.”
He tried to look angry and play the victim, but it was so false that Bruno found it insulting and lost his temper. He picked the sledgehammer up from the floor and walked toward his prisoner, raising it in the air. Every trace of assurance left the monster’s face. He huddled against the table, his arms raised, and pleaded, “No! No, don’t hit me! Come on, don’t hit me anymore!”
Bruno stopped and looked curiously at the monster, who was panting and trembling and still pleading for mercy. Bruno suddenly realized that there was another possible form of torture, one he hadn’t thought of, different from physical torture but perhaps just as effective.
He slowly lowered his weapon. The monster looked hopeful but still wary. Bruno turned around as if he were leaving the room, and even took a few steps, but then he suddenly turned around and ran toward the monster, brandishing the sledgehammer, with an exaggerated, theatrical expression. The prisoner screamed in pure terror and covered his face with both hands. Bruno lowered the sledgehammer and laughed a booming laugh, throwing his head back. But there was something strange in his laughter, a peculiar, indefinable sound.
With a last chuckle, Bruno leaned the sledgehammer against the wall and left the room under the monster’s terrified gaze.
He made himself a late breakfast. Yes, fear, waiting, uncertainty . . . that could be as effective as physical torture.
While Bruno was eating his eggs and toast, the monster shouted that he could smell the food, that he was starving and wanted something to eat. Bruno stood up, his plate in his hand, and returned to the room. When he saw the plate, the monster gave a weak hopeful smile, but he started moaning when he saw Bruno calmly eating in front of him, leaning against the wall.
“Come on! Give me something to eat! My stomach hurts and I’m thirsty!”
Bruno chewed his toast in silence and took another bite. The monster began to protest. Since his broken knee prevented him from standing up, he pounded the f
loor like a child having a tantrum.
“I tell you it wasn’t me, goddammit! And I haven’t had my trial yet! Do you understand? It wasn’t me!”
Bruno had a crazy impulse to remind him that he had pleaded guilty, but he held back. The monster leaned his head against the table and closed his eyes.
“Give me something,” he begged. “Anything . . .”
Bruno stopped chewing and spat out the huge mouthful he had in his mouth. The sticky, shapeless mixture of egg and bread fell a few centimeters from the monster. He stared at the chewed food and made a face.
“You fucking bastard!”
The doctor threw his empty plate like a Frisbee. Instinctively, the other man covered his face, squealing, but the plate missed him by a good fifty centimeters and smashed into pieces on the back wall. The monster’s eyes filled with fear, the same fear that must have been in the eyes of his little Jasmine. It was so good to see that terror in his eyes. Oh, yes, so good!
He left the room, closing the door behind him. Slowly, he tidied up the kitchen. Once he heard the sound of chains. The monster must be trying to crawl painfully to the door with his broken knee. But the chains were not long enough, Bruno knew that. After a minute, the rattling of the chains stopped and the muffled moans could be heard again.
As he was putting the butter in the fridge, the doctor had a grimace on his face that could have been likened to a smile.
He put on his coat and went out. The weather was perfect for the season: sunny, but cold enough to be invigorating. Bruno walked toward the lake, the dead leaves rustling pleasantly under his feet, surrounded by the joyous cacophony of the birds. At the shore, he stopped and contemplated the lake. But the splendid spectacle didn’t occupy his mind for long. He was imagining the monster in the house, terrified, wondering what would come next, weeping uncontrollably faced with the unknown.
Bruno closed his eyes, looked up at the sky, and let the cold autumn breeze caress his face.
* * *
In normal times, Josée Jutras and her sister Sylvie looked alike, but now Sylvie just looked like a survivor. It was past one in the afternoon, but she was still in her dressing gown, and the red rings under her eyes convinced the detective sergeant not to ask how she’d slept. She was sitting very straight in a chair, with her elbows on the arms, staring unseeing at the carpet. Mercure figured she must be thirty-five, but she looked ten years older.
“Coffee, Inspector?” asked Josée Jutras, sitting on the couch.
Mercure looked at her. She must be older than her sister, although she gave the impression of being the younger of the two.
“No, thank you. I’m only going to stay a few minutes.”
He had sat down without taking off his coat.
“I watched the ten o’clock news last night,” Sylvie’s sister continued. “They said something about a seven-day deadline, that Bruno was going to kill the guy on Monday and would turn himself in then. They know everything!”
She might be surprised, but Mercure wasn’t. Sylvie, distressed, must have called a few people to talk yesterday, and they had called other people, and so on. And this morning, reporters from Montreal had come and asked Wagner some questions, and he, reluctantly, had confirmed everything.
“Do you know anyone in Longueuil?”
Sylvie said no. Could Bruno be hiding there?
Mercure told her that it was far from certain.
“I would like you not to mention anything about this Longueuil lead to anyone. If the reporters talked about it and your partner heard, that could cause him to panic and . . .”
The two women indicated that they understood.
“We tried to call him back on his cell phone,” he added. “But he keeps it turned off.”
“I tried to call him too . . . all evening.”
She sniffled, but sat up straight, still looking at the floor. Mercure checked the notes in his notebook.
“That thing he said yesterday, that he was the victim of the dog now . . . did you understand what he meant?”
Again she shook her head.
“In fact, he himself didn’t seem to be aware of . . . of that image,” added Mercure to fill the silence, which was becoming oppressive.
No reaction. Josée finally said something. “I think my sister is most afraid of what is going to happen to Bruno when you find him. Maybe . . . maybe you could tell us about that.”
Mercure scratched the top of his head. It was hard to say. If they found him now, he would be charged with kidnapping, assaulting a police officer . . .
“Assault?” Sylvie said suddenly, finally looking up.
“Well, yeah, for the nitro overdose.”
“But an hour later the policeman was fine!”
“I know, but . . .”
He scratched his head again, ill at ease.
“But since there were extenuating circumstances, he would only get a few months in prison. Maybe he wouldn’t go to prison at all . . .”
Sylvie didn’t react; she just kept her eyes riveted on the detective sergeant, urging him to take his reasoning to its logical conclusion. Summoning up his courage, he continued, “But all that will also depend on what condition Lemaire is in.”
“And what condition was poor Jasmine in? Doesn’t that count?” shot back Josée.
Sylvie closed her eyes for a moment.
“It’s . . . You’re mixing things up, Ms. Ju—”
“And what if he isn’t found before he kills Lemaire?” Sylvie interrupted. “What will happen to him?”
“We will find him.”
“You won’t find him, and you know it,” she replied evenly. “You have hardly any leads. He had a reason for keeping him for seven days. It’s too short for you to have time to trace things back to him.”
Mercure was taken aback. Sylvie repeated insistently, “How much, if he kills him?”
This time, the policeman couldn’t help sighing.
“I suppose he’d get the same sentence as the murderer himself!” Josée said nastily.
Mercure looked the woman straight in the eye.
“It’s very likely . . .”
Josée gasped in horror. Sylvie did not react, but all the blood drained from her already pale face and her nostrils quivered.
“It would be first-degree murder,” Mercure explained pathetically. “Unless it were proven that he wasn’t responsible, which does not seem to be the case.”
Josée shook her head, offended. Sylvie, pensive, murmured, “He knows it.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“He knows he’ll go to prison. And he doesn’t care.”
Mercure nodded gravely. But Josée continued to object: to spend years in prison for eliminating the murderer of his daughter! Where was the justice in that?
“Ms. Jutras, you have to understand that—”
“Do you have children, Inspector?”
The discussion had taken an unpleasant and inappropriate turn. He was not obligated to answer, but since he still wanted to be polite, he answered tersely, “No.”
“That’s it! If you lost the person you loved most in the world as my sister did, you . . .”
“My wife died five years ago.”
An icy silence followed this statement. Josée turned scarlet, opened her mouth, closed it again, and looked down at her hands.
“I . . . I’m . . . I’m sorry, Inspector.”
Mercure lowered his head, rubbing his hands together and telling himself he was an idiot. What was he doing bringing that up? He had always been able to keep his cool!
“Really,” Josée said. “I’m sorry I—”
“It’s okay,” Mercure interrupted brusquely.
He finally looked up. Sylvie was staring at him intently. In her eyes he read surprise mixed with curiosity.
“In any case,” he said quickly, “I’m sure we’ll find him before he does anything irreparable.”
With those words, he averted his eyes from Sylvie’s.
&n
bsp; He stood up. He had regained his calm, reassuring manner. He asked if, before leaving, he could take a look around the house. Especially the master bedroom and Hamel’s office, if he had one. Josée seemed surprised by the request, but Sylvie agreed without hesitation.
Mercure went upstairs alone, and first went into the bedroom. Tasteful, simple decor, nothing garish, nothing ostentatiously rich. A few paintings on the walls, reproductions of classic works. On the desk, photos of Hamel and Sylvie. And little Jasmine. One of them showed Hamel with his daughter. Mercure picked it up and looked at it for a while. The little girl was kissing her father, who looked very happy.
He left the bedroom and went into the room Hamel used as an office. There was a desk, a filing cabinet, and a few more family photos. Lots of books, mostly medical books but also a few novels, completely unknown to Mercure. And a few comic books too, including Calvin and Hobbes and Get Fuzzy, as well as Mafalda, which Mercure wasn’t familiar with. He picked one up, read a little, and smiled. A comic book with a social and political message.
On the desk was a computer, quite a new one, judging by the design. There were shelves with a pile of computer books, dozens of floppy disks and CDs, and other computer gear Mercure wasn’t familiar with.
There were two posters on the walls. One was a funny drawing by someone named Mordillo. It showed a street of houses that were all identical, gray and drab, except for one, which was painted in vivid colors. In front of the house, a person was being arrested by two police officers. Mercure chuckled silently. At the bottom of the poster were the words “Amnesty International.”
The other one was much less funny. It was a strange drawing, vaguely childlike, mainly black, white, and gray, with a little blue. Mercure examined it for quite a while. In the entangled lines and twisted shapes, you could recognize distorted, terrified faces, a woman screaming, holding a caricature of a child, an incongruous electric lightbulb, the head of a nightmarish neighing horse, and especially, the peculiar, troubling head of a bull. Mercure knew nothing about painting, but he felt perfectly the extreme violence emanating from that disturbing and falsely naive work.
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