by Lazlo Ferran
After we had found a nice spot under some trees, not far from a stream and small waterfall, we set up the tent and then I poured us both a tumbler of sherry. We sat back in the deck chairs and watched the sunset with the glasses in our hands. As usual there was a silence between us, but it was peaceful, encroached as it was by birdsong.
“It feels like we have been married a lifetime,” joked Rose. We both laughed but it was like watching a stone fall into an abyss.
I stood up quickly. “I’ll get the chocolate.”
Rose caught my hand. “Wait.” I looked at her and she smiled up at me and in her eye I saw that glint of female desire and longing.
I pulled away from her as gently as I could. I didn’t want to say I wasn’t in the mood and I didn’t need to. Inside I felt self-loathing though. I knew I had finally reached a point where I feared making love. I feared the pressure of needing to get her to conceive, of creating a new life. It was becoming not just a performance, but a battle, and increasingly we were on opposite sides. I was so close to hating her I had to push the thought from deep inside me. I had seen many other marriages go that way, for other reasons, and now I just wanted to delay the inevitable.
“I’m going for a walk,” I said as lightly as I could, but my voice sounded heavy, aggressive and dark.
“God! It doesn’t matter!” she screamed after me, her suddenly hoarse cry excoriating the air.
I walked and walked, kicking weeds and undergrowth as I went, for what seemed hours, when in truth it must only have been twenty minutes. Dusk was fast throwing its night-blanket over the beauty of the forest, but it was still light enough to make out details, as I reached a rocky outcrop just above a place where two streams entwined. The mad tumble of fluorescing foam calmed me for a moment, and I stopped still. Suddenly I noticed a slight movement from the corner of my eye. Something that wasn’t a branch moving in the slight breeze. Remembering where I was, I grew cautious and glanced, rather than looked at the place of motion. On a rock, its back highlighted by the purplish light on the horizon, was a wolf, looking directly at me. I cold chill ran down my spine and I stood stock-still. It seemed without fear, and its yellow-orange eyes were staring mercilessly through me.
We stood still looking at each other for the longest breath. We both seemed to be waiting for something, listening for something. I couldn’t tell any more if I was breathing or not and then I saw the wolf exhale, its nose flaring slightly. As if it had caught a sound in the distance it glanced away and in one smooth movement was gone.
I didn’t move for several minutes at least. I was overwhelmed by the moment, the privilege of being so close to something so wild. I turned back for our little camp and as I walked, I found that I felt completely calm and at ease with myself. I reached the camp and Rose was getting ready for bed. She didn’t speak when I started to undress. I didn’t speak either and this finally prompted a question from her.
“You were gone a long time?”
“A strange thing happened. I saw a wolf.”
“Really?” She seemed as amazed as I was.
“Yes, But you know, I really saw it. I mean we looked right at each other. It was strange.”
“Tell me about it,” she said and I saw her reach towards my forearm but then pull back, too nervous to touch me. I felt a stab of remorse, and, taking a deep breath, I pulled her towards me. I had intended simply to hold her and tell her about the experience but then I kissed her and then kissed her again, more deeply. Her lips yielded and her body seemed to melt at my touch.
I started to pull at the blouse she had just been undoing when I entered the tent, but I wasn’t bothering with the buttons. I couldn’t wait to see her naked body.
“Oh yes, Darling.”
As I quickly undressed her and kissed her all over, I felt that she was giving herself to me more completely than ever before. We moved like birds on the breeze as they take flight for some distant dark and secret land.
She murmured, “I want you so much!”
I felt an indescribable wave rise inside me which I was sure I could not ride and yet I opened my eyes and looked at her and knew with her it would be alright. I knew that she was with me and I shuddered slightly as I looked to her to see where to go, what to do. “Are you with me?” I said.
We reached the final crest of the final wave together and I collapsed on top of her, exhausted but very happy. She held on to me and we lay like that for a while, breathing hard.
I wanted to say, “What was that?” but I knew she had felt the same thing and words seemed unnecessary. It had been an incredible experience. I felt as if something very special had happened.
It was about ten weeks later, back in Sofia that I found Rose sitting neatly on the sofa when I came home from work. Normally she would still be bustling about or at the very least, reading a magazine. She was looking straight at me.
“Hi darling. Everything alright?”
“I think I’m pregnant.”
I gave her a long, penetrating stare, before seeing that she was telling the truth.
“But that’s wonderful!” I shouted, hauling her to her feet, lifting her up and swinging her about as I kissed her furiously.
“Bloody great! Bloody fantastic! At last.”
I rushed out and bought the biggest bottle of Dom Pérignon Champagne I could find and we invited all our friends round to break the news.
After another thirty-six weeks Annabel was born, and two years later Edward.
Eventually I retired from the Civil Service to take up the antiques trade full time. We spent about half our time in Nevers and half in London, and we were wealthy and relatively happy, as the kids grew up.
So what of my encounters with evil? Sometimes it was mild, as if I had a demon running about, turning on all my taps, but sometimes it was a much more focused genius, a vile intellectual presence, as it was on the worst day of my life.
This most terrible day dawned ordinarily enough. I was walking Annabel to school in Nevers. My antiques business had really taken off by this time; I had an office in London, another in Paris and a large one in Sofia, with a small office and one secretary in Nevers, where I organised it all. Usually I would drop Annie off on my way to work, leaving her only about half a mile to walk through town. She was fifteen and quite capable of the walk on her own. However on this day she had exams and had been fretting about them the night before, so I said I would walk her to school when I kissed her goodnight. She smiled up at me, saying ‘Thank you Daddy’.
I parked the car on the outskirts of town and we started off, reaching one of the main streets within a few minutes. I looked at Annie by my side and marveled at her long, dark, curly hair. I often thought she looked like a gypsy, no less when her dark brown eyes looked questioningly at me. Even now, at fifteen, there seemed a lively skip in her gait as she walked. When she was a small child she had always been running, running to see what was behind something or round a corner.
I was feeling a growing sense of unease and I took hold of her soft hand. This feeling of unease is difficult to explain if you haven’t felt it. It feels as if one is stepping closer and closer to an abyss. One feels one’s confidence, ‘sense of rightness’ and safety all being stripped away from you. It was once best described by a soldier who survived the Normandy Invasion as being like ‘balancing on the head of a pin’. Disaster was close at hand and the day could go either way. As we neared a busy intersection of four roads, I suddenly pulled Annie away from the corner and pressed her against the wall.
“Daddy! What are you doing? Is this another one..?”
There was an almighty crash and the sound of scraping, breaking metal as a car left the road and careened towards us. I hardly had time to shout “Annie!” before it hit the corner of the wall, just where she had been standing moments before.
“Daddy,” she whispered, and clutched me tightly. Annie had seen these moments of foresight before so she knew it wouldn’t be easy but this was the closest she ha
d come to being killed.
Fortunately the driver was not injured and after a stream of profanities he stepped from the car and asked our forgiveness. We stood by until the Gendarmes arrived, cordoned off the area and ushered the crowd away.
My hand was shaking and beads of sweat were dripping from my brow as we went on towards the school. I said quietly under my breath, “Annie. We must be very careful.” She nodded silently.
We turned into a quiet street where there was no traffic to cut a corner off our journey. The sense of an ‘evil presence’ was overpowering me and I felt rather than saw things moving in and out of my vision. I felt nauseous.
I stopped and looked around me.
This can’t be right.
That was when the air split and the Serpent stepped out from eternity to take Annie from me.
Chapter Five
5843, 3557, 101, 2011, 1269, 1306, 5594
“The note from Rose goes on. ‘You are closer now to your friend Henry than you are to me. That is all I have to say really.
On a practical note, I want to keep the house in Nevers – you rarely come there any more anyway and Edward still feels that it is his home.’
She was always resentful of the relationship I had built up with Henry. For me, in the aftermath of Annie’s death was a need to investigate, myself, what had actually happened and get to the truth.”
Thursday, 3rd of August – seven days ago, started like many other days. An eye opened, forced to do so by the spike of light that pierced the grey airlessness of the office, through a commercial blind, at the top left of the window. I nearly fell off the sofa before finding, once again, that I was on the sofa, and not a bed. I finally struggled to the small fridge which had a kettle on a tray on top of it. There was a dirty mug beside the kettle with a tea-caked spoon inside the mug. I pressed the red button and leaned against the sofa until the cloud of hot vapour filled the room. It has to be said this is probably my favourite time of day because nothing has usually gone wrong yet. With milk from the fridge, I finished making the tea and sat back down on the sofa to enjoy the tranquility of half-wakefulness. Then it was time to get ready. I clumsily tore open the packaging of the new electric razor I had bought, and put the two big batteries in it. Then I walked into the small room with a toilet and shower, which passed as a bathroom, and placed the shaver on the topmost of two shelves above, and to the left, of the toilet, and under the tiny frosted-window near the ceiling. I found a pair of grey flannel trousers that were almost clean, and swapped my only belt from the previous day’s trousers onto this pair, but as I did so the pin on the buckle became somehow bent in the wrong direction and broke off! Cursing, I suddenly stopped and listened. I had heard a loud bang from the bathroom. I was sure of it. I walked into the room and looked around. I could see nothing amiss. Shrugging my shoulders, I walked out and considered what to do about the belt. I didn’t have time now to buy a new one, but I had plenty of money and I could buy one later. So I took a ball of string from a stationary drawer in the main reception room downstairs, and cut off a length to use as a temporary replacement. I would wear a long pullover to cover it. As I cut the string with a blunt pair of scissors they nicked my finger slightly but the cut was not too bad. Sucking my finger I looked proudly at my trousers, held around my waist now by fine white string. I boiled the kettle again, but this time took the cup off of a thermos flask and poured the hot water into it, leaving the last two tea bags to brew in the water.
I walked back into the bathroom to shave. Where was the razor? It was nowhere to be seen! I swore and went back out into my main office and searched for it, but I couldn’t find it. I went back into the bathroom and, placing my hands on my hips, I tried to recall events a few minutes earlier. With some clarity, I remembered putting the razor on the top shelf. I eyed the toilet suspiciously. The toilet seat was down, which was a bad sign. I rarely closed the seat before going to bed. Saying a little prayer under my breath I walked over and lifted the lid. A cream razor-shaped rectangle shimmered below the surface of the water. I would have laughed if it hadn’t been so awkward. The razor must have somehow slipped off the shelf, which was very smooth, and bounced sideways off the shelf below, into the toilet, making the lid close in the process. None of this was unusual and I simply lifted the razor out of the water, and placed it to dry on a tea-towel on the fridge. It was probably ruined but only time would tell. The annoying thing was that I needed to take a razor with me.
So my demon is in a lighthearted mood today.
I had packed most of what I needed in my old black leather bag the night before; maps, spare clothes and a raincoat, an envelope with most of the 9000 guineas, a few books, a notepad with important telephone numbers on, and pens. To the inventory now, I added the sandwiches from the fridge, which I had bought in the boulangerie the day before, the thermos of tea and various cakes and croissants from the pâtisserie. I looked around the room and added the original little bronze flying wolf statue, which I had kept in the office since Rose and I had started drifting apart. Finally I was ready, and stood to take one last look around the room before leaving.
The telephone rang and I jumped. I forgot to mention the name of my company as I answered.
“Hello?”
“Hello. Are you the man who was in the Richelieu Library last week?”
I thought for a moment. “Yes, I was.”
“My name is Georgina. I was the dark haired girl in the afghan coat.”
“Really?” I sat up in my chair. I should have asked immediately how she’d found my number but I was too flattered. “What can I do for you?”
“Well it’s nothing really. I just saw your face in Le Monde and I believe you are innocent and there is something I want to talk to you about.”
My mind was doing back-flips. “In the paper? Me? Are you sure?”
“Oui!” She laughed. “Have a look at today’s edition.”
“I don’t have it here. What does it say?”
She read the whole article to me. Basically, paraphrasing, it amounted to ‘suspect called in for questioning on Crusher Killer murders’. It mentioned my name and Nevers and said that the Gendarmes believed I had been in each of the locations of the murders at the right times. “There is even a grainy photograph of you.” She described it and I recognised it as one which was taken a few years ago at a business lunch with the Mayor of Nevers.
“Oh no!” I said out loud. “How could they do this?” It felt like they were putting pressure on me; a known police tactic when they believed someone was the culprit but couldn’t prove it.
“Don’t worry. I know you didn’t do it.”
“Do you? You are one of the few people who does,” I said sarcastically.
“I think I may be able to help you.”
“Really? How did you get my number?”
“Oh you would be surprised what a girl can do with a little wiggle and wink at an old librarian.”
I thought for a moment and then remembered that I had left my contact details behind the counter in the research room of the library.
“I am just going out actually and I may be gone for a few days.”
“No problem. Let me give you my number at home.” She told me the number and for a moment I was not going to write it down, but then while she was talking I memorized it, and reached over, stretching the receiver cable to take a pen from the bag, and wrote it on the notepad.
“In Paris?” I asked.
“Um hm.”
“I have to go. What is your name again?”
She laughed. “Georgina.” Now I was equating the name with her face, I didn’t think it would be hard to remember.
“Okay Georgina. I have your number. I will call you.”
“Bye then!” She had put the receiver down. I threw the pen and notepad back in the bag, zipped it up, pulled a jacket on and grabbed the car keys. On impulse, I grabbed the wet shaver too, and threw it in the bag before leaving. On my way through the reception I notic
ed a white envelope in the pile of mail on the floor, by the door, with my Rose’s handwriting on it. I picked it up and stuffed it in my jacket pocket. It was an hour after dawn and Nevers was still deserted as I started the Citroën and drove north.
I needed to get away for a few days. My plan was to pick up the camping gear from our house and then drive to our favourite camping area, via Lyon, where I wanted to pick up the photocopy sheets with translated passages from Henry. As I left Nevers I looked in my mirrors and noticed that a little red DAF, which was behind me when I left the office, was still behind me. I took a right-turn which I knew would bring me back to my route via a left turn later on, but when I was back on course, the DAF was still behind me. “Police,” I said out loud.
I pulled up on the driveway of our house and rang the bell but Rose didn’t answer. Surprised, I used my key to unlock the door and went inside to make a cup of strong coffee. The house looked exceptionally tidy and Rose was not there. Looking out of the landing window, I could see the little DAF through the trees, parked at the end of the drive, on the main road. The driver was not in the car. I would have to lose him.
I backed the car up to the trailer and set about checking all the gear under the tonneau cover, on the trailer. I left the tonneau loose, and then locked the car. I stood around for about a minute, to make sure I had been noticed, and then set off cross country for a little walk. I was sure I could lose the tail, and he wouldn’t be able to resist following. Sure enough from the corner of my eye, after I had walked for a few hundred metres, I could see a flash of green and white moving erratically some way behind me. I walked into a heavily wooded area, and started down a track which wound on for several miles. Knowing how it changed direction at fairly steady intervals, I increased my pace until I was just in view of the tail, at the end of each section. This would surely lull him into a false sense of security. When I was almost at the end of the wooded section, I turned left into the trees and made my way to another, smaller track, which led at an oblique angle back towards the house. The main track led into more woods about two hundred metres further on over the other side of a field. The tail would have a dilemna to deal with when he reached this spot. Could I have reached the woods on the other side or did I turn left or right? He would have to make a decision and then he would have to search.