Seven Days

by Patrick Senécal

  He drove faster than usual and got to Charette in twelve minutes. He stopped the car at the end of the street the duplex was on. In the distance, he could see the window of his apartment, lit up in the rainy night. He put the binoculars to his eyes and he could see everything in the kitchen. He could clearly see the closed door, the oven, the front of the living room. He could see not only his computer, but his screen, where two mice were chasing each other: his screen saver.

  There didn’t seem to be anybody in the apartment. But Bruno knew that meant nothing; if the police were there, they wouldn’t stand in front of the window. He watched the kitchen through the binoculars for a while longer. No movement, no shadows, nothing seemed to have moved.

  He was more and more obsessed with Mercure and his dog story.

  Ten seconds later, he stopped the car in front of the duplex. When he was walking to the door, someone came down the stairs from the apartment above. It was the same guy Bruno had met the other day. Bruno hunched his shoulders and stuck his hands in his pockets. But as he passed, the other tenant spoke.

  “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

  Not answering him would have seemed too suspicious. So Bruno stopped and, without facing him directly, grunted a noncommittal “Yes.” The neighbor smiled, happy to chat a little. How did he like the apartment? Nice, wasn’t it? The village wasn’t bad either. Very small, quiet, with the river nearby. Bruno answered in monosyllables, trying to find a way to cut this painful conversation short. After twenty seconds, he finally said in a weak voice that he was in a hurry, and climbed the stairs to the landing as the man looked at him in surprise.

  Bruno pressed his ear to the door of his apartment: silence. Holding his breath, he finally entered. Empty. No one had come.

  Reassured, he went directly to the computer, looked for a number in his pockets, and, when he found it, typed it in on the keyboard, all the while calling himself an idiot.

  * * *

  Sitting at his desk, Mercure waited. Since the evening news was broadcast on Saturday at the same time on both networks, Radio-Canada was supposed to call him so he could deliver the same little message as he had on TVA. Hamel had been watching the news for four days, and there was no reason to think that would change tonight.

  Wagner came in, looking doubtful.

  “I just listened to your message on TVA. I have to say I really didn’t get that business with the dog.”

  “It doesn’t matter. If Hamel was watching, he understood it.”

  “And you think that will make him want to call?”

  Mercure shrugged and said he hoped so. He asked if the triangulation was still in place and Wagner confirmed that it was. Mercure looked at his watch: six seventeen. Five more minutes until Radio-Canada called.

  “One thing bugs me,” he muttered. “The last call from Hamel led me to believe he had a computer with him. What could he be doing with it?” Silence, and then, “Maybe he uses it to call us.”

  “No, no, he uses his cell phone, we have proof!” replied the chief.

  Mercure thought so hard he made a face without realizing it. An idea suddenly came to him.

  “Unless . . .”

  Mercure’s telephone rang. He answered, but it was not Radio-Canada on line three. It was Hamel.

  A long, rather pleasant shiver ran through Mercure’s body. Good Lord, it had worked! And even faster than he’d expected! Very excited, he said he would take the call, and put the phone on speaker. Wagner understood, and he loosened his necktie.

  Mercure looked at his watch and noted the time in his notebook. Then, recovering his usual calm, he pressed the button for line three.

  “Good evening, Dr. Hamel.”

  “Tell me what you know about that dog!”

  Hamel’s voice no longer possessed the control he had shown in previous calls.

  “So, it seems there’s a dog haunting you . . .”

  “Answer me, you bloody bluffer!”

  “It’s not a bluff, Dr. Hamel. I really believe I know what that animal is.”

  “Go ahead, Mercure, impress me!”

  Hamel was putting on a good show, but Mercure sensed his nervousness. As if he was really hoping to learn something.

  “Do you remember Luky, the Cussons’ dog?”

  No reaction from Hamel. Calmly, Mercure continued. “I imagine that you particularly remember Denis Bédard killing the dog. Because you were there, weren’t you?”

  Still silence. The memory must gradually be resurfacing in his mind. Finally, he exclaimed, with a mixture of anger and disappointment, “This is ridiculous! What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “You tell me.”

  Hamel was silent again. Mercure licked his lips. Was he on the wrong track? It really didn’t matter . . . The important thing was to pinpoint the origin of the call. He could even hang up now, the triangulation must be completed. But as long as he had Hamel on the line, why not get to the bottom of this story?

  “I’ll help you a little,” continued Mercure softly. “It seems you found his killing particularly horrible. In fact, you told your partner you would definitely have done the same thing, that it was human, and that it was precisely that that terrified you the most.”

  Was the doctor breathing a little more heavily?

  “The violence that is dormant in every human being fascinates you, but it also repels you, doesn’t it? Like that bull in Picasso’s painting . . .”

  “Don’t play psychoanalyst, Mercure, you’re way off the mark. The Cussons’ dog is an old story that has nothing to do with what’s happening to me.”

  “So what dog is haunting you?”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have called you! Believe me, this is the last time I’m going to fall into one of your stupid traps!”

  “Don’t you think you’re the one who’s trapped yourself ever since the beginning?”

  Click. Hamel had hung up.

  “Perfect!” shouted Wagner, clapping his hands. “The guys in Longueuil will find the location. They should be calling us within ten minutes!”

  He smiled conspiratorially at Mercure.

  “Nice work, Hervé.”

  Mercure smiled slightly, but less enthusiastically than his superior. The telephone rang. It was Radio-Canada, but Mercure told them the call was no longer necessary.

  Seeing Mercure’s pensive look, Wagner asked what he was thinking about.

  “I wonder if I was on target with that dog story.”

  Wagner said it didn’t matter, since they’d nab him in half an hour at most. He crossed the office, chuckling contentedly. “I really thought for a while that we would never find him!”

  Mercure said nothing, still staring at the telephone. He was still thinking about that computer . . . but most of all, about the hunch he had had just before Hamel called and that he didn’t dare share with Wagner.

  * * *

  Bruno met a few cars on the road back, but he barely saw them. In spite of himself, in spite of his anger at that stupid phone call, his thoughts were on the past . . . three years ago, to be specific.

  It was June and he was repainting the porch when he heard screaming and crying. He turned around just in time to see little Frédéric Bédard run across the street . . . just in time to see that his face had been reduced to a bloody pulp.

  As a doctor, he hadn’t hesitated: less than a minute later, he had entered the Bédards’ house and found himself in the midst of turmoil. Louise was on the telephone pleading with 911 to send an ambulance, while Denis was holding his crying son in his arms, repeating, “Who did this to you, Fred, who did this to you?”

  They had put the child down on the couch, still screaming in pain. Bruno had cleaned the blood from his face and examined his injuries. He said, “It was a dog, Denis.”

  The father stared, incredulous. The paramedics came almost immediately and carried the child out. The mother went with them.

  But not Denis. Silently, he opened a closet and took out a bas
eball bat. There was only one dog on the street big enough to inflict such wounds, and the two men knew it. Without even a glance at Bruno, Denis had walked to the door and left the house. Bruno had gone outside too and caught up with Denis on the street. He had put his hand on his shoulder and asked him what he was planning to do. Denis had turned around abruptly, and Bruno had quite simply not recognized his neighbor. His face was scarlet, his features so fixed and tense that they almost looked like they would crack . . . but mostly it was his eyes. Bruno had the impression that they had changed color. As if there were a filter over his eyes.

  A filter . . .

  And what Bruno had seen in that gaze was so frightening that he had let go of Bédard’s arm and backed away a few steps.

  Denis had started walking again. Other neighbors had come out of their houses and were watching him, unsure what to do. Gilles Cusson, Luky’s owner, had run up to him. He was distraught.

  “Denis, I . . . My God, it’s horrible! I just . . . just found out what . . . And your son, is he . . . ?”

  Denis had violently pushed him away and continued forward, his steps fast but so heavy. Gilles had tried to grab him, but Bruno had held him back, saying, “Leave him alone, Gilles, or he’ll hit you!”

  “But . . . but my dog, he . . .”

  “Forget your dog.”

  Bruno had followed Denis. He did not intend to stop him from killing the dog, but he wanted to make sure Denis did not do anything compromising . . .

  . . . and maybe he also wanted to see . . .

  He was not the only one. Four other neighbors had joined them, ill at ease and yet curious. Some had timidly spoken to Denis, but he had not turned around once.

  Then Luky had appeared on the lawn. He had watched his victim’s father approaching, growling in a really threatening way. Bruno had never seen him like that. Luky was a really large Great Dane, but he was a gentle dog. At that moment, though, he looked like a real killer. His eyes were like bullets and foam around his mouth indicated that he had rabies. He was crouched to attack, and his growl sounded more like that of a werewolf than a dog. Bruno wouldn’t have gone near him for anything in the world. He and the other neighbors had stopped in the middle of the street, intimidated.

  But Denis had not even slowed his pace. Stepping onto the lawn, he raised the bat just as Luky leapt up with a terrible howl. Luky was stopped short in midair by the bat, which shattered his jaw with a loud crack. Bruno remembered thinking to himself Nice move, Denis! and frankly, the sight of the dog lying on its side with its jaw broken had not inspired pity in him. Luky was making little growls that did not seem to be synchronized with the movements of his dislocated muzzle. He was about to get up when Denis hit him again on his front legs. The growls became howls, and the animal fell down on its side again.

  “Go on, Denis, kill it, kill the filthy rabid animal!” screamed Pierrette, one of the onlookers.

  Denis had continued beating Luky on his front and back legs, making him howl with each blow, and Bruno had realized that he did not want to kill the dog right away. He wanted it to last.

  He wanted the dog to suffer.

  Bruno had not felt the horror right away, but rather a vague discomfort that he could not clearly identify.

  Then Gilles had run toward Denis, shouting at him to stop, but Denis blindly swung the bat to the side, hitting Gilles in the stomach. Gilles collapsed with the wind knocked out of him. Claude, another neighbor, said, “Come on, Denis . . .”

  But he hadn’t insisted. In fact, no one had said anything else.

  * * *

  In his car, Bruno was gripping the steering wheel harder and harder without realizing it, his dilated eyes staring at the road ahead. The car gradually slowed down.

  * * *

  Without a glance at Gilles, who was painfully trying to catch his breath, Denis had started hitting again, this time on the dog’s side. The sounds had become more squishy, and Luky’s yelps had turned into plaintive whimpers. There was no longer rabid rage in the dog’s eyes now, only distress, while its jaw continued to open and close crookedly. There was a gush of blood from its mouth, then another. You could hear the bones breaking, the internal organs being squashed. Openings had appeared in its flank.

  Gilles had stood up, sobbing, and taken refuge in his house. But neither Bruno nor any of the other neighbors had moved. They were paralyzed. Bruno had been shocked to see the dog slaughtered like this, but he had been just as shocked by Denis’s face: cold, hard, and impenetrable, with empty eyes that looked on his victim with icy detachment.

  Luky’s whimpers had become unbearable, and Bruno had had to make an effort to keep from blocking his ears. The dying animal, now lying with its guts exposed, had managed to turn its muzzle toward its tormentor, and Denis had gone for its head. The sound of the blows had become deafening, as if someone were smashing china, and the whimpering had changed to gurgling. Then Bruno had finally felt the full horror of it. All the onlookers had felt it, including Pierrette, who had put both hands over her mouth, her eyes wide with terror. Another neighbor, Jacques, had turned and fled and, while he ran, had started vomiting.

  As for Bruno, everything had gradually disappeared around him—the onlookers, the houses, the street—leaving only darkness, and in the center of it, overexposed under red light, Denis hitting Luky. What was left of Luky. Because the dog was clearly dead. Yet Denis had kept on beating it for two or three more minutes, maybe longer. The onlookers were silent, the dead dog was silent, and the street was completely silent except for the blows of the bat raining down on the shapeless, bloody carcass . . . blows that had become dull, empty, without resonance . . .

  . . . and the sound of those blows had cruelly hammered Bruno’s soul.

  * * *

  Bruno stopped the car on the shoulder. He had not thought about this story for a long time, and now suddenly he was so haunted by it that he had lost contact with the present. He rubbed his hands over his face. Wait . . . wait for those images to fade. But they did not fade, they remained . . .

  * * *

  Denis had finally stopped. After the last blow, he had remained bent forward, panting, with the bat still touching the broken corpse. Then he had slowly straightened up. Bruno clearly remembered thanking God that the carnage had ended. Holding the bat in his right hand, Denis had backed away without taking his eyes off Luky. He had looked at the four remaining witnesses, one by one. When his eyes fell on Bruno, the doctor had shivered. Bruno no longer saw hate or fury in Denis’s eyes, but total disorientation, as if he had been asleep for centuries and had woken up in a setting he was unable to comprehend.

  And for Bruno the most terrifying thing about the whole episode was that look in Denis’s eyes.

  Still in total silence, Denis had started walking, and everyone had stepped aside for him as if he were a leper. He had gone to the street and headed toward his house, his gait mechanical yet zigzagging, like a drunken automaton. After about a dozen steps, the bat had slipped from his hand and fallen to the asphalt with an incongruous noise. A little farther on, he had stumbled, and his left knee had even touched the ground, but he had managed to get up again and continue forward without turning around.

  It was only when they saw him in the distance, going into his house, that Bruno and the other witnesses had finally looked at each other, appalled and distraught. Pierrette was crying softly, rubbing her hands together nervously.

  Bruno had not glanced at the dog again. And he would have bet his last penny that the three others had carefully avoided looking at it too. They had all gone back to their houses without a word. When they had followed Denis, they had all expected to see a dog get killed. But no one had expected that.

  Bruno had hardly slept a wink that night. And his brief moments of sleep had been haunted by the growling and whimpering of a dog and the dull, hollow sound of blows.

  * * *

  At the steering wheel, Bruno sighed and closed his eyes.

  * * *


  During the days that followed, Denis was not once seen leaving his house. When Bruno met any of the neighbors who had witnessed the slaughter, they said hello and chatted a bit, but no one ever mentioned that.

  After a few days, Bruno had gotten up the courage to go and visit Denis at home. He had been alone in the house, assembling a bookcase in the living room. The stereo was playing a CD of the Guess Who with the volume turned up very loud. Ill at ease, Bruno had asked Denis how his son was doing. Without interrupting his work, Denis had answered that he was out of danger, but that he would be left with deep scars on his face. He spoke calmly and politely, but Bruno felt he was absent. And the overly loud music felt odd.

  “And how’s Louise?” he had asked.

  “Not too bad. She still has moments of enormous anxiety, but she’s so happy Frédéric is alive. She’s recovering quite well.”

  Denis had placed a shelf on two brackets and then suddenly stopped. He had lowered his eyes and added, “Better than I am, anyway.”

  Burton Cummings was crooning “These Eyes,” which struck Bruno as the height of absurdity. Still uncomfortable, he had asked Denis what he meant.

  “You know what I hear all day, Bruno?”

  Bruno shook his head.

  “The echoes of the blows.”

  “What blows?”

  “When I was hitting the dog, at the end,” answered Denis in a voice that was a little more animated. “I just kept hitting it, even though I knew it was dead, because I wanted to see more blood, to hear more yelping, more frightful howls, to cause more pain! Because I would have liked to kill it another five, ten, a hundred times! And the more I hit it, the more the sound of those blows rang in my head! Especially the echoes . . .”

  Bruno too remembered those sounds very well: dull and hollow. He had muttered stupidly, “There were no echoes, Denis.”