All of a sudden, the bull-man stopped striking and turned around. Horrified, Bruno recognized his own features in the vaguely human face. His double stared at Bruno with mingled hatred and despair. Although the blows of the bat had stopped, the sound went on rhythmically, and the echoes grew stronger and stronger until they were louder than the blows themselves.
Paralyzed with terror, Bruno stared at his double, his head resounding with the echoes until it was unbearable, until . . .
He awoke with a start. For an instant, he thought it was evening, because the light outside the window was so dull. But his watch said ten in the morning. He got up, still feeling the heaviness, and opened the curtains. It was raining again, really hard now, and the sky looked like a storm was coming.
That dream was ridiculous. Yet just thinking of it gave him gooseflesh. That idiot Mercure. It was all his fault. He had to get rid of the memory of that dog, which really wasn’t doing him any good.
He put on his filthy clothes and went to see the monster, who was in such a pitiful state that Bruno quickly put him on the intravenous again. He also changed the bandage on the empty eye socket; there was an ugly infection. The monster submitted passively, half-unconscious, his irregular breathing making an ominous whistling sound.
What if Bruno let him die? Letting him die in exhaustion and suffering would be a good torture, wouldn’t it?
No, it would not be satisfying. It was too passive; Bruno wanted to be active. Satisfaction could only come through action.
He went and got two slices of toast and a glass of orange juice and fed them to the monster, who painfully swallowed what was put in his mouth. At one point, his remaining eye turned toward Bruno. He even said a few words, which Bruno had a hard time making out:
“Am I in Heaven now? Is it over . . . ?”
How could this filthy piece of rotting meat hope to go to Heaven? If such a place existed, it was Jasmine who would be there, not him! Not him! Never!
He wanted to stick his fingers in the eye, but at the last minute, he stopped himself—no more torture until this afternoon, or it would kill the monster. He settled for spitting in his face. The monster gave a feeble moan and mumbled, “I’ve atoned . . . I’ve atoned . . .”
Bruno backed up a few steps and contemplated his prisoner lying there hooked up to the intravenous tube. He no longer looked like the arrogant young man Bruno had kidnapped six days ago. In fact, he no longer looked like anything much. Coldly, Bruno made a visual assessment of his state: his body covered with welts, his two knees broken and swollen, his mangled genitals, the filthy opening in his belly, his broken nose, his right eye plucked out, and his whole body befouled with blood, pus, urine, and shit.
This was no longer a monster Bruno had in front of him, nor an unhappy, suffering human being. It was . . . nothing. Nothing at all. Yet he hated this “nothing,” detested it, wanted to destroy it. But this hatred was frustrating precisely because Bruno had the impression it focused on nothing.
He left the room in ill humor and called Morin.
“I’m glad to see you made the decision that was best. For you and for me.”
“Where’s the money?” was all Morin said. There was resentment in his voice.
Bruno took out his notebook and explained where he would find it. Morin asked, “You’re going to kill him tomorrow, right?”
“Yes,” answered Bruno evenly.
“How do I know you’re going to call me?”
“I don’t need the money anymore, Morin. What good will it do me in prison?”
Morin didn’t say anything. He was probably thinking about that argument.
“I’ll call you in the morning,” added Bruno.
He hung up and went to make himself some breakfast. While eating, he thought about the phone call of the night before. He was sure he would hear about it on the next news report on TV. That would give his morale a boost. It would give a new . . .
. . . meaning?
. . . new energy to what he was doing, would give him the encouragement he needed to climb to the top of the ladder and get the complete satisfaction that would be the culmination of this long week.
By the end of the afternoon, the monster would be a bit stronger. And then Bruno would take his feelings out on him one last time, would subject him to everything a human body can endure without dying, and would let him spend the night in agony. Tomorrow, he would get up, feast his eyes on the monster’s last convulsions, and then finish him off with a bullet to the head.
After which, fully satisfied, he would call the police and surrender.
During these reflections, Sylvie didn’t even cross his mind.
* * *
There was nobody in the quiet little street, and that suited Sylvie. She walked slowly in the rain, protected by her umbrella. Her sister had said it was crazy to go for a walk in such foul weather, but Sylvie really needed to walk in the fresh air. To search. Or at least to feel she was searching.
Because since she had come to her sister’s place in Sherbrooke, avoiding all exposure to television or newspapers and keeping to herself as much as possible, she still hadn’t found what she was seeking. Her mind was filled with Bruno and the madness of the last few days, preventing her from grieving as she wanted so much to. She surprised herself wondering if it was raining as hard where Bruno was hiding.
If he were with her now, things would be so simple. But that was it, he wasn’t with her and he would never be with her again. So, as senseless and impossible as it might seem, she had to get him out of her thoughts and make room for Jasmine.
She got to the end of the street at the edge of the woods, the little woods Jasmine had loved. Every time they came to visit Josée, Jasmine always wanted to go for a walk there. Sylvie had often gone there with her.
On a sudden impulse, moved perhaps as much by nostalgia as by a vague hope, Sylvie went into the woods, onto the path that wound through the trees. The rustle of the rain in the leaves gave the woods a whole different atmosphere, making her want to immerse herself more deeply in her memories.
She remembered her walks with Jasmine on this path. She remembered one time a little over a year ago, when Jasmine had suggested that they leave the path and wander in the woods. They had been walking like this for a few minutes when they found a huge, splendid tree trunk lying horizontally but suspended just above the ground, and had sat down on it for a few minutes. Sylvie had taken some chocolate from her pocket. And that was the image that had suddenly come to her mind: she and her daughter sitting side by side eating the chocolate, Jasmine swinging her legs, her eyes sparkling with pleasure.
But the image remained unclear, strangely devoid of real emotion. Sylvie suddenly wanted to find that tree trunk again. She looked around her, trying to recall the point where she and Jasmine had gone off the path. But she couldn’t, there was too much confusion in her head in spite of the soft whispering of the rain in the trees. For a minute, she resented Bruno, blaming him for her inability to act freely. But she pushed the thought aside; it was pointless. She brought her thoughts back to the woods, the path, the tree trunk . . . and suddenly she remembered what Jasmine had said.
“Are we going to get lost, Mommy, if we leave the path?”
The childish worry had amused Sylvie. She could have explained that it would be impossible for them to get lost in such a small woods just by leaving the path for a few minutes, but that answer was too rational, too adult. So she had gone along with Jasmine. Sylvie always kept a few hair ribbons in her pockets because Jasmine often lost them, and she had explained to the little girl that if they tied the ribbons to branches along the way, they would be able to find their way back and would not get lost.
“Like Hansel and Gretel leaving bread crumbs, only they wouldn’t get eaten,” Jasmine had said.
“Just like that!”
In the three minutes the great adventure in the woods had lasted, Sylvie had tied three ribbons to the trees, to Jasmine’s delight. When the
y were walking back to the path, the little girl had asked her mother to leave the ribbons in place.
“They’ll grow with the trees,” she had explained with stars in her eyes. “And in two or three years, we’ll come back and get them and they’ll be very, very long!”
So the ribbons had remained on the branches . . . and Jasmine would never come back to see if they had grown.
Sylvie stood immobile under her umbrella in the middle of the path before starting to look for the first ribbon. While she was looking from tree to tree, she was telling herself what an idiot she was, that the wind and snow would have destroyed the ribbons. And even if they hadn’t, what were her chances of finding the ribbons? The path was long and she didn’t remember where she’d tied them. Nevertheless, as she walked, she kept on looking for them in the trees along her way, her step quickening as she went. She had to find the ribbons, to find the way.
Suddenly she saw the first one. A blue ribbon tied to a branch, saturated with rain. Sylvie walked over to it, incredulous, and unthinkingly walked into the woods. She remembered now. They had gone in this direction, she was almost certain. Her umbrella caught in the low branches, making it hard for her to walk. She closed it, hardly feeling the rain on her head.
She glimpsed the second ribbon, a red one. Her heart beating wildly, she went and touched it, and then continued walking into the woods. The third one must be right near here, they had walked for barely three minutes.
There it was! Bright yellow, it stood out clearly against the brown bark. Sylvie was breathing so heavily that the rain was getting in her nose and mouth. Almost running, she passed the third ribbon, now sure of the way, clearly recognizing every tree she and Jasmine had passed. And suddenly, she saw the trunk, still in the same place, beautiful with its sheen of rain.
Sylvie stood there soaked from head to toe, her hair plastered to her face, contemplating the tree for a long time. She finally went and straddled it, and sat there very straight, swinging her legs. Then she leaned back until she was lying along the trunk. The stream of her tears mingled with the rain on the bark of the tree and fell to the ground, and sadness and happiness mingled in her sobs.
* * *
At noon, Bruno settled down on the couch and, very excited, turned on the television to TVA.
“We now present a special report on the latest developments in the sensational Hamel case. The story will end with either the discovery of Bruno Hamel by the police or the killing of his prisoner tomorrow, Monday, at the end of the most incredible countdown in the history of crime in Quebec.”
Bruno winced at the word “crime.”
The news anchor explained that Bruno Hamel had given the names of three other young victims of “his prisoner” (they were still being careful not to give his name), three more little girls who had been raped and killed in the past six years.
“We imagine that Bruno Hamel extracted this confession from his prisoner using torture.”
Bruno grimaced with impatience. These details did not interest him. It was the next part that he was waiting for. The anchor added, “We went to see the parents of the three little girls, in Joliette and Saint-Hyacinthe. The mother of one of them refused to talk to us, but the parents of the two other victims gave us powerful messages.”
Bruno leaned forward on the couch, clasped his hands, and rubbed them together nervously.
A couple in their forties appeared, sitting in an ordinary living room. A bit uncomfortable in front of the camera, and clearly upset, they explained that they had long ago abandoned hope of ever finding the murderer of little Sara, who had been killed six years ago in Joliette. A reporter asked what they hoped would happen now that the alleged perpetrator was in Bruno Hamel’s hands. The woman hesitated briefly, as if she wasn’t sure she had the right to say what she wanted to, but finally she said, “Frankly, we wouldn’t really be sad if Hamel killed him tomorrow.”
“We would even be glad,” the husband said without a trace of irony.
Bruno relaxed his hands. There was a sparkle in his eye.
“Would you have liked to be in Bruno Hamel’s place this week?” the reporter persisted.
The woman hesitated again. But there was a flash of cold hatred in the husband’s eyes, fleeting, barely perceptible, but very real, as he said, “Yes, I would have liked to be there.”
From the slight movement of the woman’s head, Bruno understood that she agreed.
Another couple appeared, standing in front of a cute little house in Saint-Hyacinthe. Despite his sadness, the man was quite composed, but the woman was like a fury, with hate permanently rooted in her eyes. Bruno realized that it had been there for a long time, just waiting for an event like today’s to explode.
“I hope he tortured him like nobody was ever tortured before!” she spat so vehemently that it made the tragedy almost seem ridiculous. “He could never suffer as much as Joëlle suffered! To think he was arrested two years ago and released for lack of proof! Some justice!”
For an instant, she gave in to sadness and her eyes filled with tears. But the hate came back immediately and she started ranting again.
“If the police want justice, they should leave Bruno Hamel alone and let him finish what he’s started!”
Slowly, Bruno leaned back and sank into the couch, his face almost serene. Hardly aware that he was doing it, he took the blue ribbon out of his pocket and, with his eyes on the screen, stroked it gently with his fingers.
The reporter asked the husband if he felt the same way as his wife. The man seemed more moderate, and a little irritated by his wife’s vehemence, but without hesitation, he said, “I totally approve of what Bruno Hamel is doing.”
“We not only approve, but we would have liked to be with him!” added the wife, starting to cry.
Bruno made a grimace that was trying to be a smile. The anchor reappeared on the TV.
“The police have now determined the area where Hamel is hiding with his prisoner.” He named nine little municipalities. Saint-Mathieu-du-Parc was one of them, but that did not worry Bruno: the police would not be searching private houses that were inhabited year-round, like Josh’s.
The anchor added that if residents of these regions thought they had seen this man (and a photo of Bruno appeared in an inset), they should call the number at the bottom of the screen. When he heard the music at the end of the special report, Bruno turned off the TV and gave a deep sigh of contentment.
It was better than he’d hoped! He now had proof that what he was doing had meaning! Although the parents of the third victim had refused to speak to the media, that didn’t matter; the other two couples supported him. They had even urged him to continue!
But immediately, he heard the same little inner voice as the night before.
Is that why you called Monette yesterday? Because you suddenly need legitimacy?
He frowned and lowered his eyes to the ribbon he was still holding. Wasn’t Jasmine’s death sufficient reason?
Wasn’t hate sufficient reason?
For a second, he was shaken. Then he laughed. Of course he didn’t need legitimacy! This report merely provided further evidence, external proof that he was right!
He nodded, thought for another moment, put the ribbon back in his pocket, and turned the television on again. He tried all the stations but didn’t find anything interesting. He turned it off, stood up, and after a second’s hesitation, walked to the little hallway. He was sure the monster wouldn’t have recovered sufficiently to be tortured, but without really knowing why, he still wanted to see him.
The prisoner’s one remaining eye was closed, but it opened when Bruno approached. Was it still possible to read fear in this abyss of resignation and despair? In spite of everything, he was a bit better than before. At least, he seemed more conscious, more lucid. Was he still suffering terribly? Or had his body gone completely numb?
He tried to lick his lips and said in that hoarse yet childlike voice, “I wish I could see my mother .
. .”
Bruno went closer to him.
“I wish I could see . . . my mother . . .”
Bruno felt a sudden wave of nausea. Without thinking, he hit the monster hard on his broken nose. The monster moaned feebly.
At least the punch that had broken the monster’s nose last night had given Bruno a few seconds of satisfaction. This time he didn’t feel anything.
Of course! What he wanted was not to punch him in the nose, but to tear out his . . . break his . . .
Kill him . . . Get this over with and kill him.
It was the second time this ridiculous thought had come to him, and it exasperated him so much that he actually roared, startling the monster, who found the strength to give his torturer an astonished look.
Bruno rushed from the room and went into the kitchen, where he stopped, out of breath. Why such a rage? He had found the television report he had watched just a few minutes ago encouraging. Leaning against the wall, he felt his right hand trembling. Bewildered, he held it up in front of his eyes.
My God, what was happening to him?
He punched the wall and really hurt his hand, which had a calming effect on him.
He began to think in a serious and structured way. In two or three hours, he would be able to go back to his ladder and climb a couple of rungs higher.
But he had been telling himself that for two days now!
He recalled the interviews with the parents and regained some assurance. But again, the little inner voice repeated its tedious question:
Why do you need legitimacy?
He opened the fridge and took out a beer. He drank it in less than two minutes, looking out the window at the rain.
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