When we arrive two marked police cars flank the drive. As if poised for an outdoor concert, a uniformed officer directs oncoming cars into parking spaces.
Contini glances at the car clock and flashes me a smug smile.
‘You planning a party? Or a press conference?’ I ask.
‘Neither. Hope you’ll enjoy it though. Meet you at the house in fifteen minutes.’ He waves me away and disappears between parked cars.
I walk slowly. Despite the agitated barking of the dogs and the commotion of cars, there is an odd hush in the air. To the left, beneath the old gnarled oak, men huddle in a small, tight group. Gagnon’s capped head is distinguishible amongst them. So too is the mountainous bulk of Georges Lavigueur. Next to him stand Noël Jourdan, Michel Dubois and to my surprise, Oscar. I make my way towards them, but Gagnon shoos me away as if he didn’t recognize me.
Closer to the house, I spy a torch glimmering amidst the ranked cars. A woman officer materialises behind it and next to her a figure I am certain is Maryla. They are talking in low voices as the woman plays her light over the cars. The one being examined at the moment is mine. The small pool of light beams across its scratched left hand side and broken wing mirror.
Maryla sees me and takes a step in my direction, but the officer puts a staying hand on her shoulder, flashes the beam in my face and hurries me along towards the house.
Suspicion chills me more certainly than the wind. With it comes a sudden spurt of fear. I have a distinct feeling that I am being set up.
Out of the shadows of the porch, young Miron emerges like an eager puppy.
‘Hello again, M. Rousseau. Managed to get here before you. Go right in. They’re expecting you.’
‘What’s up, Miron?’
He averts his eyes, shuffles his feet. ‘It’s Contini. He’s… Just go on in.’ He rings the bell for me and Monique appears at the door. Her cheeks are flushed.
‘Can’t stand that Detective Monet,’ she mutters as she takes my coat. ‘He’s been bullying me. Treating me like a servant. Not that you’d care. And no one explains anything. The way he talked to Marcel…’’
‘Is he here?’
She gestures vaguely towards the door. ‘Out there somewhere.’
I edge towards the living room, but she bars my way, prods me in the chest. ‘You didn’t help, did you. Not a sou for her real mother in her will. As if I hadn’t carried her in my belly for nine months.’
‘I don’t know anything about Madeleine’s will, Monique. Not a thing.’
‘I bet you don’t. Her executor. With that high and mighty Marie-Ange Corot. Don’t know anything!’
I stumble as I take in this information and try to order my jumbled thoughts. The sight of the unexpected group gathered round the hearth sends them racing.
Mme Groulx is here, wearing a black felt hat complete with feather, as if Madeleine’s funeral had been scheduled for this evening and the coffin already set up for ghoulish viewing. Mme Préfontaine sits between her and Mme Rossignol, who from the glazed look on the assembled faces, must be recounting one of her interminable stories. Mme Tremblay has her profile to me. It is as taut as a mask. Next to her, I recognize one of Mme Groulx’s daughters and old Senegal.
In the far corner of the room, Serge Monet leans his gangling form against a table and peers through the window. Near him Marie-Ange is engaged in what seems to be desultory conversation with my brother, Jerome. On the far side of the room, a pretty blonde woman I don’t recognize is leafing through a magazine.
I murmur a generalized hello and all eyes turn to me for a moment, only to be as quickly averted. Only Mme Tremblay stands to greet me by name. Her mouth is tilted in stubborn defiance, her eyes bewildered. At a sign from Monet she sits down again. He beckons me towards him.
‘Only a few more minutes, Rousseau.’
‘Is anyone planning to tell me what’s going on?’
‘You’ll find out soon enough.’ His face is as impassive as a carved totem. He leans it towards the window again.
‘Sit with us, Pierre.’ Jerome gestures to me, a little stiffly. ‘I was just saying to Mme Corot that Ste-Anne is usually a sleepy little place. There haven’t been so many policemen around since… well, since the Duplessis days.’
Marie-Ange stares at me strangely, then rotates her chair by a hundred and eighty degress.
It occurs to me that only Fernando Ruiz is missing. What has Contini done with him?
‘Okay everyone.’ Monet suddenly unfurls his lean form from the window seat, switches off the overhead light and pulls the chain on the standard lamp in the corner. ‘Quiet now.’
All eyes are turned towards the empty doorway. A figure steps through it and pauses. In the dim light, it takes me a moment to recognize Fernando Ruiz. The collar of his leather jacket is turned up. His profile as he turns towards the lamp is all cheekbones and jagged plains. He crosses his arms and claps them against his shoulders, as if a blast of cold air had whipped through the room. With a sideling movement, he walks slowly towards the corner of the room where the blonde woman turns to greet him.
She has pulled on a coat while I wasn’t looking. It is golden and plush. Its leapoard spots leap and dance and blur my vision. Madeleine’s coat. I rub my eyes.
The woman lifts her face to Ruiz and coils her arm round his waist. He draws her close and, smiling, plants a kiss on her lips.
There is a startled exclamation from Mme Groulx, a note of discord from one of her neighbours. I can’t make out its content in the generalized shushing.
As Ruiz and the blonde woman disappear through the door, the room seems to release a collective breath. A moment later the central light comes on and with it, Contini enters the room, closely followed by Monique who carries a tray of wine glasses.
My brother scrapes his chair backwards across the floor and throws me an embarassed glance.
‘Our Detective has a remarkable way of holding an identity parade. Doesn’t play by the rules, does he? Trouble is, from the distance of an altar… Even that woman could be Madeleine.’ He shakes his head. ‘What did you think?’
‘What was I meant to think?’
He bends towards me, his mask of composure slipping, his face suddenly strained, and whispers, ‘Pierre, tell me truthfully, on the night, did you…?’ He stops himself as Monet approaches.
‘We need you, Rousseau. Follow me.’
Maybe he thinks my brother has tipped me off about something, for he claps a hand on my shoulder and propels me towards the kitchen, where I can hear the dogs yelping and straining against the door.
When I open it, they yap and leap and lick at me with enthusiastic familiarity. At least they, unlike my neighbours, seem to know that I am the same person I was yesterday and the week before.
‘Keep them quiet, Rousseau,’ Monet mutters as I bend to greet them. ‘Settle them into the corner or something.’
As I do so, a pair of cord-clad legs appears beside me. They bend and Fernando Ruiz’s face is level with mine. He pats the dogs and gives me a smirk. ‘What did you think of my performance?’
‘Authentic,’ I murmur.
‘Okay you dog-lovers in the corner,’ Contini’s voice hails us from the other end of the room. ‘Pay attention. That was act one. Now we’re about to stage, act two. You too, Rousseau. You first, in fact.’
‘What?’
‘You heard me. Ruiz, you come along and coach him. You’re the pro.’
‘What are you concocting, Contini?’
‘Just follow orders, Rousseau.’ He prods me towards the stairs as if I were a stranger and we hadn’t by now shared too many dinners.
‘Okay,’ he says when we reach the landing. ‘Now this is how it goes. Ruiz will give you a dry run with the curtains shut tight. And then you’re on. Con brio.’
I stare at him in incomprehension.
‘There’s no time for explanations. The guys out there will freeze. Show him Ruiz.’
We have reached Madeleine�
��s bedroom and after a quick check of the curtains, Contini switches on the bedside lamp, gestures Ruiz and the blonde woman who has now joined us through, and comes to stand with me at the entrance. His arm holds me back, as sturdy as a metal gate.
The woman pulls off her coat and then quickly, with only a sideways glance of embarrassment at Contini, her trousers and sweater. Underneath, she is wearing a pale blue slip of a garment. Ruiz eyes her approvingly and moves towards her only to be stopped abruptly by Contini’s, ‘No. Take your jacket off. I want you in shirtsleeves. You, too, Rousseau.’
Ruiz removes his jacket and sweater.
‘Okay, action.’
‘You want my job, eh Inspector?’ He grins at Contini.
‘Detective. Go.’
Ruiz shakes himself, head, arms, hips, legs, and then smiles seductively at the woman who is standing within the frame of the curtained window. He moves towards her, lifts her chin, looks into her eyes and holds her gaze for a beat. Then he winds his arm round her, places his hand firmly on her bottom and draws her closely to him in an embrace. With his other hand he ruffles her hair and cups her head. He kisses her. It is a long slow kiss.
‘That’ll do. Or “cut” as they say.’ Contini is enjoying himself. ‘Okay, Ginette?’
With a start, I recognize Ginette Lavigne. The flowing blonde wig over her hennaed spikes, her concoction of make-up and clothes, has completely fooled me.
Now she looks a little dazed.
‘You think you can do that, Rousseau? Make it last a bit longer. And I want you to end up on the bed. You’re taking Madeleine Blais to bed.’ He smirks. ‘For our audience, of course.’
Briskly, he switches off the light and motions Ruiz from the room.
‘But I can’t possibly…’
‘But nothing. Get on with it. And turn off the hall light for me.’
Reluctantly, I do as he asks and hear the sound of the curtains being pulled open. Then Contini is beside me in the darkness, prodding me, telling me to turn on the bedside lamp as I go in.
I am standing in Madeleine’s room, framed by the window. Outside everything is black and still. Peaking out from the far corner of the artfully rumpled bed is a frowsy old Teddy Bear, one of its eyes askew. A pair of stockings hangs from the bed frame. On top of the dresser stand an assortment of perfume bottles, a comb and a brush. Next to them is an open enamel jewellery box. It looks as if someone has recently gone through it.
From the box’s edge, a leather thong droops. I follow it upward and see the spangled silver of a sun, the signs of the zodiac clustered round its centre. My childhood medallion. Dizziness assaults me.
‘Jacket,’ Contini hisses invisibly from the doorway.
The woman who is and isn’t Ginette Lavigne stands in front of me in her silk slip. I can see the arch of her nipples, the outline of her breasts through the thin material as she moves to ease my jacket off my shoulders. She throws it on the bed. I raise her chin so that our eyes meet. Her eyes are not the colour of Madeleine’s. They are two angry points of light. She doesn’t like me.
With an impatient gesture, she takes my hand and curls it round her.
‘Kiss her, for Christ sake!’ Contini orders.
She raises her lips to mine and I kiss her and as I kiss her I hear Madeleine’s voice ringing in my ears. Telling me all those years ago, too many years ago, ‘It’s not sex, Pierre. It’s cinema. When you’re asked to repeat a gesture for the fifth take, arousal is not what you feel.’
I battle against the voice. Perversely I try to make this encounter real. I kiss this blonde Ginette, who resists and isn’t allowed to resist, kiss her hard. I stroke her back, I pull her down on the bed, oblivious to her muted struggle. And all the time Madeleine is there, laughing, until Contini hisses a ‘Cut,’ and Ginette switches off the lights.
‘Enjoyed that, did you?’ Contini cackles as he leads me away from darkness.
I am too confused to answer.
‘Off with you, now.’ He hands me my jacket. ‘Monet will tell you what to do. I want you to watch closely.’
Before I can get my bearings, Monet has pushed me out the front door of the house where a uniformed officer stands waiting. ‘We’ve saved you a good seat,’ he says enigmatically. ‘Just follow Jean, here, and don’t move once you’re in position. We regroup when the siren goes.’
A light snow has started to fall. The wind whips the feathery moistness across my face and whistles faintly amidst the trees. Jean doesn’t speak. He treads as noiselessly as a cat through the darkness. I concentrate on his back, concentrate so hard that as we go round the house and trail through wood, I lose my orientation.
He leaves me amidst clustered firs and raises his finger to his lips as a parting salute. His shadowy outline disappears in seconds. Then all I can make out are gradations of gloom.
I lean against prickly branches and wait. The cold seeps through my joints. What am I waiting for? What is this elaborate game Contini is staging? Why has he not alerted me to it? I have a certain sense that the show is for my benefit. Yet he has also made me a player. What more does he want from me, since he already has my confession?
Madeleine’s laugh rings in my ear and as I listen to it, a light comes on in the house. It illuminates Madeleine’s room. A figure moves into the light. The policewoman, her wig bright, dishevelled, her face uplifted. She could be Madeleine at this distance. Why not? A man steps into the frame. I cannot make out his face. All I can see is the blackness of his hair and a suggestion of pale features. His arm comes towards her and she moves into its circle. I watch. I have the sudden impression that I am in a movie theatre and around me, wrapped in the secret dimness a hundred faces are raised towards the same screen.
The figures clasp, play out the pantomime of sex and despite myself, despite the fact that I know the scenario, I am drawn in, grow warm with the heat of their mingled bodies, am bound by the spell of the darkness and the illuminated frame.
Suddenly the script shifts. The man raises his hand. It comes down on the woman’s face with a searing slap. I want to move nearer. I ache for the camera to give me a close-up and show me her pain. But my feet are fixed in the ground.
The woman’s hand moves swiftly to return the man’s slap and then he is shaking her. Rage is unleashed. His fingers move to her throat. She eludes him, runs towards the window, flings it open. She screams. The scream echoes through vastness.
Near me, there is a flutter and swoop of bird’s wings, a sound like the scraping of a gate against stone. Phosphorescent eyes leap through the night.
My mind is racing. It provides a dialogue. A narrative. But the narrative isn’t my own. I hear Contini’s voice again, low, mesmerizing, giving me the script I need to hear.
The man is dragging the woman back from the window. There is a rope in his hand. Thick cord, loosely looped at its end. She looks at him. Her mouth is open. His hand cleaves her shoulder. Moves to her neck. Squeezes. Her head slumps. Her whole body slumps. He holds her up.
I hear a rush of breath. My own. No, no. Not my own. There is a presence near me. A stir. A movement. Another release of breath, almost a moan as the rope makes its way round the woman’s neck.
Sleepwalker’s mists lift from my mind. Suddenly for the first time since Madeleine’s death, everything moves into crystalline focus.
This is not my script. No, definitely not my script, but Contini’s. Yes, in my half-sleep, I did come out that night after the telephone call. I did see Madeleine framed with a man in the window - and, after the initial spurt of jealous anger, the key plaque hurled at the pane, I walked on. This was not something I wanted or needed to see. This was something to forget, to repress. I didn’t want the coils of a fresh jealousy strangling me. I had seen nothing. I went home, the memory wiped, a blank tape in place. I had done nothing but lie in bed that night and dream, dream as I so often do, of a shadowy, elusive Madeleine.
No, however little I may be able to bear that ultimate separation from her
which death marks, I am not Madeleine’s killer.
As the scene above me is acted out, I find myself anatomizing my derangement with surgical precision.
No, I could not bear the shock of Madeleine’s death. In the event, death by suicide provided an almost tolerable notion. Somehow or other I could be implicated in a suicide, enmeshed in the emotions which had led to it. They had something to do with me.
Possessed by love, by a jealous possessiveness, by a desire to recapture what I had lost, I could only come to terms with the possibility that Madeleine had been murdered, if I could be named as her murderer. No one else must touch Madeleine in that ultimate rite of passage. She had put her virginity into my care. She had called me her earth. I had to continue to be so. Only I could be responsible for her death.
Contini’s blue movie provided me with a script to which I could confess.
A sperm sample would have obliterated both bond and confession.
Whatever my lover’s delirium, I do know the difference between the stuff of dreams - the Madeleine of fantasy over whom in the image-lined chamber of my attic I had a zapper’s power - and the embodied woman who danced away from my every attempt at control. At last, I know.
The man’s back now all but fills the illuminated window frame. I have decided it is Ruiz. The acting is so good. Too good, perhaps. As he turns, his face has the cast of a tragic mask. Anguish and terror are there. There in his posture, as he brings his hands to cover his eyes, in his tensed shoulders, in the barely controlled movements with which he leaves the frame.
Where he stood, the woman’s legs hang - thin, frail, swinging slightly.
Behind me, beside me, there is that sound again, a choked rasping.
How has Contini managed these particular effects?
From somewhere a creature lets out a thin, high screech. I think of poor Minou and in her wake of the desecration of my attic room, of the brutal pounding of Maryla’s car and my own. I think of the blazing barn. I know now with a physical certainty that someone far more dangerous than myself has stalked Madeleine’s landscape.
The Dead of Winter Page 36