by Zuni Chopra
A morgue is never a pleasant place to be. Allison pulled her hoodie closer around her. The reception, a brown desk with a brown-haired lady, was waiting at the end of the hallway.
‘Can I help you?’ came the crisp voice.
‘Yes, I’m looking for the records of the man who was killed. On the Notre-Dame.’
‘Mm-hmm,’ murmured the lady, her eyebrows rising into slowly forming wrinkles, judging her in every form but spoken word. ‘We’ve had many morbid and foolish teenagers come in here wanting pictures with the corpse. I didn’t think a decent young woman like you would be—’
‘No, no, nothing like that!’ Allison cut in hurriedly. ‘I’m a journalist, and I’m writing … well, an article on the incident. I don’t need to see the man – I mean the corpse – or anything. I just want a copy of the autopsy reports.’
‘We’re not allowed to give out information to just anyone!’ huffed the lady, surprisingly superior for her age. ‘We sign privacy agreements, I’ll have you know!’
Allison slapped her work ID onto the desk, aiming it so the sound would echo down the empty hallway. But the sound wasn’t as sharp as it should have been; it was muffled, almost stifled. The lady frowned at the ID, moved it aside to discover the couple hundred Euros, and smiled at Allison in a way that marvellously complimented the yellowing of her teeth. Allison wondered if she’d practised it in the mirror.
‘Won’t be a moment.’
The train home was a quiet one. It had become colder in the evening, and the frayed subway seats were filled with large coats and faded grey scarves. Allison sat by the window, watching the flashing white lights of the tunnel zip past. She tried to read the graffiti splattered on the walls, but they were moving too quickly. Reminding herself to focus, she turned back to the file in her hands.
It was small; oddly small for such an important document. It was coloured a dusty yellow, but the pages within it were clean and freshly printed, as though the file had been waiting a hundred years to find its purpose.
The listed name was Luke Greystone. Something didn’t seem quite right about that.
Cause of death: blood loss and heart failure as a result of impalement of the heart.
Allison smirked.
She turned the page to find a photograph, labelled in hasty ink pen, of the man’s heart, still in his chest. She retched slightly; she had not expected to be faced with something so gruesome so soon. Steadying herself and avoiding the glance of the squinting man in front of her, she forced herself to look at the diagram. The parts of the heart were marked, the amount of blood loss was listed, the wound was circled three times. There was a small, single question mark beside the circled incision – so small, in fact, that Allison wondered whether its author had meant for anyone to see it. She looked carefully at the spot it marked.
It was nothing out of the ordinary. The blood was red, and the heart was red, and the veins were worn and thin, the largest sliced through at its centre. You could barely even see the cut, really. It was precise. Surgical. Perfect. Just where it needed to be to kill him. Hardly the result of uncontrollable rage. More likely, she realized, the product of a planned killing; a man that had to die for very specific purposes and was to die by very specific means.
Allison felt a chilled snake slide up the bones of her legs. Somehow, she had not truly been frightened enough until this moment.
Looking up around her as though seeing her fellow passengers for the first time, she snapped the file shut and shoved it into her purse, trying to hide the panic in her eyes.
Allison liked to think she was a mature, independent adult. As such, hiding in the blankets with her laptop and a box of jam cookies was not exactly where she’d imagine herself after acquiring a bit of particularly sensitive and equally horrifying information. Yet here she was; flipping through pictures of the Notre-Dame, surfing website after website detailing its history, anything to understand why the killer had chosen the church as a place of death. It couldn’t have been its fame, or its pious spirit; as categorizations go, these would be too broad and too vague for this city. There were a hundred other, less crowded, less protected locations that could have served the same purpose – actually served it better. No, it must be something so specific that historians and architects had almost missed it.
She searched everything; the precise curve of the arches, the history of the sculptures, the candles left out by over-eager souls, even the engravings on every wall. She wanted so badly to find something curious, something that pointed towards a mystery, yet she could feel something chuckling over her shoulder with every failed attempt.
She read through the supposedly humble origins of the cathedral for the third time. But her eyes were blurring over the words, the captions were smudged and far too clever, and she scrolled through so very slowly that it seemed it would never end. The links above the webpage were now enticing her to click on ‘The Modern Artist and You’, and now she had no thought in her head but that modern art, in her opinion, was nothing more than a result of the world’s collective guilt over Van Gogh.
The church clock chimed loudly against the velvet blue sky, and Allison lost count after the ninth. She let her eyes slip shut; but not before mentally checking that she had, in fact, locked the window.
Morning dawned over Paris as though it had slept in too late; with a certain panic about the way it melted across the sky. Allison’s shabby purple curtains had been left open, and so she, too, dawned with it. The bathroom became a sanctuary that morning. Somehow, a nice hot shower and a firm brush through tangled hair always gives one the feeling of invincibility. After that, it was right to work.
Back on her deflating bed, she typed out a few clunky words on her laptop, waiting for them to give her a sense of accomplishment. Finally beginning the article she intended to did indeed bring with it a sense of purpose, and moved her forward as coal would an old and rusty train. Once she’d completed the first paragraph, she got out her camera to see if anything she’d taken was usable here. But there was too much of a crowd in each frame; the selfie sticks and Chanel sunglasses didn’t look … historic enough.
She sighed. That meant a return trip.
But there was no way to get better pictures. The crowd would always be there. Especially now. Unless she went after closing hours.
She snapped herself to attention with a quick shake of her head, a horse bothered by incessant and nagging flies. She wasn’t about to go to the location of a murder when it was dark and scary and empty.
The day went on; Allison wrote, deleted, edited, and fell back asleep. Around midday, she went out to buy some groceries. She forgot to let the shopkeeper keep the change, forgot to give the change to the forgotten hungry man, and forgot to mend the hole in her change-holding pocket.
When she returned, she overstocked the fridge with produce and threw her coat over the closest chair. Sighing, she stared out of the window at the winding Parisian streets. The cars moved so quickly, so forcefully, she could almost imagine them racing into flight. The rooftops were dull and bronze, flickering reflections in their dusty skylights. The sky was tired now, irritable from its hasty awakening, beginning to let its baby blue fade into the sun’s ageing yellow.
She turned back to the first paragraph, the laptop sitting open on her pillow. It really was rather beautifully written … but it wasn’t perfect without a beautifully shot photograph to go with it. It was a skill of hers that she wanted shown, and she battled fiercely with herself, survival and ambition, once again, at odds. I could take one from the street beside it, she muttered to her hesitant heart. And if I want to go closer, I could just stick my hands through the gates around it. I wouldn’t have to go in. I wouldn’t be breaking in or anything; I’d still be out on the street, in a public place. She felt her anxious resolve beginning to weaken. And I’d go in the early evening, not too late or anything; there’ll be plenty of people still about!
Moments passed. It had become a habit of theirs.
The paint on the wall seemed to shift and morph in tandem with her thoughts.
Well.
She rose from the blankets, snatched up her best purse (last year’s Christmas gift), and remembered to pocket some change for a metro ticket.
If she was going to skip dinner, she might as well go grab a bite to eat.
The café across the river was brimming with warm and graceful chatter, the gentle clinking of blood-filled wine glasses. The smoke of cigarettes and candlelit tables mingled over the heads of the diners. Allison had taken a window seat, and through it she could see the magnificent structure, looking the same as it had the morning of the man’s death. ‘Luke Greystone,’ the report had said. For some reason, Allison could not bring her subconscious to call him that. So much easier to think of him as nameless, as a well-built mannequin that happened to fall from the sky, no more than her ticket to the New York Times.
She sipped her water, feeling the jagged ice press against her tongue. She bit into it, crunching loudly and nearly swallowing it with the water, feeling it melt against her aching throat.
The sun was almost gone. The lighting was perfect. A stage beckoning her to the spotlight. She threw a couple of coins down, told the waiter to cancel her order, and headed out into the city once more.
The bridge across the river was tall and beaming in the twilight, streaks of sun still striking its topmost statues. Allison’s footsteps seemed loud and disruptive; a couple watching the river’s quickening movements shot her a dirty look. She moved back and forth, unsure, trying out angles and focus with increasing frustration.
Fourteen pictures later, she decided this really wasn’t enough. She swung her purse over her shoulder and, determined, moved closer. The cathedral towered in front of her, sirens calling to her in the ocean of the night. At last, she reached the gates. She looked about. Two laughing men in suits were walking down the pavement. A single homeless man – it might have been a woman, it was difficult to tell – was leaning against the wall. There was an accordion lying next to them. It seemed old. And broken. A woman and her son were marching away into the distant dim alleyways, going in the opposite direction as the suits. All in all, thought Allison, they were not exactly humans to count on for protection. But they were all she had. Taking a measured breath, she slipped her wrist through the gaps in the gate and threw the camera over into her hand before sliding the other wrist through. It was a manoeuvre she’d performed many times in many an ‘off-grounds’ place. She thought she might drop the camera … but she didn’t.
She leaned forward … waited till the sunset struck the towers just right … tilted her camera so that its wondrous stone and wooden doors came starkly into focus … and took the picture.
She drew her hand back, retrieving the camera with another flick of her wrist. And there it was. The framing was perfect, the lighting was almost filtered, the Notre-Dame itself seemed a humble and holy woman, sun-golden hair drooping over her face, wrapped in the grey, woollen clothes of her homeland, eyes still sparkling at the beauty life could bring. Allison could have almost leapt for joy. The other pictures were lovely, of course, but this was going to be the crown jewel of her article. She went through every pixel, savouring the feeling.
She saw something dark and stooped in the lower left corner. It drew her eyes somehow. It was bold. Striking. She would have thought it was another statue but for the human way in which it held itself; hands in pockets, shoulders back, messy, messy hair. She looked up.
The handsome stranger was smiling at her from across the pavilion. His shirt was black, and his tie was black, and his eyes seemed darker than the night.
She swallowed. Suddenly, she felt her bones meld with the gravel of the road. What was he doing there? How did he get in? Her eyes drifted to the glinting spire atop the arches. It had been scrubbed clean. So clean, in fact, that she felt she could see her tiny, feeble figure in its distorting reflection.
She leaned against the gate, feeling her head swim. It slowly creaked open. She swallowed, eyes shut. You can just walk away. Walk away with your bloody photograph and forget this ever happened to you.
A shrill, off-key note brought her back to the street. The woman – and she could see it was a woman; long, matted hair and torn, tight clothes bringing her to light – had taken up the accordion. She was looking at Allison with a horrible unpractised grimace, nodding in time with the music, hoping for a last bit of change before she gave in to the lateness of the hour.
Allison watched her play, rough, dirty fingers gliding over the crackling keys, a stream of upbeat music swarming the now empty city. It seemed to glide over the bridges, over the train station clocks, over the churches, the statues, the pyramid, over the tower itself, giving life to the shimmering city, a beacon of white and gold amidst a darkened world. She wondered if it was the last beautiful thing she’d ever see. Emptying her wallet into the gaping woman’s upturned hat, she pushed her way into the abandoned Notre-Dame.
The courtyard clacked against her worn-out boots. The cathedral seemed to grow taller before her, the maw of some great dragon, and with a palm pressed against the ageing wood, she entered its reeking jaws.
The church pews were empty, rainbow light gleaming upon their polished wood. Oh, how the plunges of stone created mesmerizing art. The statues seemed oddly grotesque, baring themselves to the flame of the flickering candles. Darkened stone tears were etched into their cheeks. Some of them, Allison could have sworn, were humans painted over, hardened cement suffocating them where they stood. A brilliant sea blue was splashed against the shimmering golden altars, giving her the feeling of a fish, frantically flopping under water. She looked up into the eyes of the angels, but they were painted over, mischief glinting somewhere in their smiles.
‘It’s nice to see you again,’ she began, ignoring her shaking knees.
‘Likewise,’ he hissed, back turned, facing the altars with his hands in his pockets as though challenging the cherubs to punish him.
‘So …’ she began, trying to remain as professional as possible, ‘I’m trying to get a story on this place. Seeing as you’re somehow here after closing, I thought maybe you could—’
‘Oh, I just walked through the open gate. Same as you.’
She paused. She knew he was lying. Yet why he would bother to was lost on her.
‘Fine.’
‘You don’t believe me, do you?’
He still hadn’t looked her in the eye.
She gritted her teeth.
‘No.’
He turned at last, miraculously unchanged since their previous meeting. His eyes bore into her as emerald vines would brittle soil. She noticed the growing stubble upon his cheeks, the oddly high cheekbones within his wax face.
‘Good. Actually asking questions for once.’
‘I always ask questions. That’s my job.’
He snorted. Some childish part of her willed her to run and hide; anything to avoid this shame.
‘And now,’ she went on, determined not to be dampened by his words, ‘I have a few questions for you.’
He took her in, eyes raking through her new black jeans, her old blue T-shirt, her frizzy, unkempt hair. ‘Go ahead, sweetheart.’
She felt like he’d just slapped her across the face. Her fury propelled her into the first question.
‘What do you know about the man who was murdered here three days ago?’
‘I know a lot of things. The question is what you want to find out.’
‘Ugh.’
‘What?’ he smirked.
‘Do you know what the man’s name was?’
‘I know what his official listed name was.’
‘How?’
‘Because it’s mine.’
He grinned again, as patronizingly as if she were a dog and he’d just given her an oversized treat.
‘And why is it your name?’
‘Because I had him murdered.’
She stiffened, feeling her tongue salivate a
gainst the top of her mouth.
He laughed. ‘What did you expect to hear? C’mon, love, don’t act like that’s not the answer you wanted.’
‘It’s not the answer I’d expect a murderer to give.’
‘Oh, please,’ he snarled, moving closer now, leading with his squinting eyes like an enraged viper. She clutched the pew beside her, determined not to back away. ‘You think you can stumble in here, camera at the ready, and capture all you need to know in a few little flashes of light?’
He came to a stop. He was inches away from her. Inches. She could count the golden flakes within his cold, jade eyes.
‘Pathetic,’ he spat, features distorted with simmering rage, enunciating every syllable, watching it cut open a fresh wound on her pale cheek.
His shaking jaw finally began to relax. The mask rippled, then fell back into place. He stepped back, letting the heated air between them escape into the echoing chambers, moving suddenly and silently to a chink in the wall. Wind whistled around her. Enticing. Powerful. He slipped around the corner and was lost.
She had a choice. She could walk away now and live forever with her cowardice, dreaming eternally of the post she might have had if only she’d called his bluff. Or she could for once, for once, take a chance.
Somewhere in the night sky, a cloud moved away from the moon. The light came swirling through the stained glass, painting her face a hundred different colours. She closed her eyes, picturing the red and yellow and blue and gold adorning her unmoving form. Like a statue, almost.
Slowly, beckoned by malicious heavens, a singing choir hissing in her reddening ears, she made her way down the aisle.
The wind struck her the moment her head popped out of the small opening. She closed her eyes against it, hand grasping at scratched, rough stone. He was looking out over the railing, staring into the stars. She rose up onto the roof and the world below her burst into form. The lights: they were red and gold and silver, rivers of melted jewels, the rooftops a shimmering, deep purple, the sky fading to a twinkling violet. Allison caught her breath. The Eiffel Tower stood at the centre of it all, radiant and gilded, the culmination of every lamppost on every street, shining a bright white light out into the world.