22
Lakmé
She shook him until he opened his eyes. He shot a wary, probing look at the outside world, then opened his eyes wide when he recognised her.
‘Christine? What are you doing here? What time is it?’
Half of his face was hidden by the blanket, like a Bedouin, and the rest of his body was buried in cardboard boxes. Then Christine’s gaze went down to the pavement, and she gave a start: the cup was on the right.
‘Time to get moving,’ she replied, a cloud of breath rising from her lips. ‘I’ll wait for you at my place. In five minutes. There’ll be some hot coffee.’
She saw an astonished gleam in his gaze. She turned on her heels and went back upstairs. He rang at the door three minutes later.
‘You look bloody terrible,’ he said when she opened the door. ‘It’s so cold! Some hot soup wouldn’t go amiss.’
He headed into the living room as if he were a regular visitor, and she repressed a burst of anger. She watched as he sat down on the sofa, and she noted the dirty hem of his coat, crusted with snow and mud, the dirty rag he must use as a handkerchief emerging from one pocket, and a dog-eared book sticking out of the other. She caught a glimpse of the author: Tolstoy.
‘You fell asleep,’ she said. ‘And someone was here.’
Max looked up at her in surprise, scratched his greying beard as if it were itching, which might well have been the case.
‘At night I sleep, like everyone else,’ he replied. ‘If you want someone on guard twenty-four hours a day, you should call a security firm.’
For a split second she resisted the temptation to throw him out.
‘You put your cup on the right. Why?’
He nodded, frowning. He suddenly looked preoccupied. He was chewing pensively on the wooden stirrer clenched in his rotting teeth, between his chapped lips.
‘A guy went by more than once, and he stood for a long time watching the building. Then he eventually went in. He obviously knew the code.’
‘Could it have been someone from the building?’
‘No.’ He shook his head, firmly. ‘I know every single person who lives on this street. He wasn’t one of them. It was him, the guy you’re looking for.’
She went pale.
‘Why do you say that?’
He gave her an intense look, still chewing on his stirrer.
‘You’re right: you have got a big problem. I don’t know who he is, but that guy … there’s something about him … He’s a nasty piece of work.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Because I grabbed him by the bottom of his trousers to ask him for money. I didn’t expect him to give me any, mind you. I know how to recognise generous people. I just wanted to know who we were dealing with, what sort of man he is. So I grabbed him, just lightly, and he stopped and looked at me…’
He took the stick from his mouth.
‘You should have seen his face. He leaned over and grabbed me by the collar. And told me that if I ever touched him again, he would cut off all my fingers, one by one, with a pair of rusty shears, in a very dark place, once he had gagged me and everyone was asleep. And you know what? The guy wasn’t bluffing. Not for one second. His face was a few inches from mine and he was staring at me, looking me right in the eye. He really believed what he was saying … Oh, yes. He would even have enjoyed doing it. There’s no end of violent men on the street, I’ve seen my share. But this one was worse than any I’ve ever seen, believe me. I don’t know what you did to him, but if he’s got it in for you, I think you’d better call the police.’
She shot him a desperate look.
Max didn’t know, of course, that the police would be of no help to her whatsoever.
‘And apart from the police,’ she said in a toneless voice, ‘what can I do?’
Once again she saw a gleam of surprise in his grey eyes.
‘Why don’t you want to call the police?’
‘That’s my business.’
He shook his head, incredulous.
‘Not much you can do. Get out of town for a while. Do something so he can’t find you, wherever it is you go. Do you know who it is?’
‘No. What did he look like?’
‘You’re sure you don’t know who it is? He’s in his thirties, and small, very small, no more than one metre sixty-eight. He looks fucking insane, if you want my opinion. Oh, yes, and he’s got a strange tattoo on his neck.’
She gave a start. A memory. She thought of the tattoos covering Cordélia’s tall body. But it wasn’t that. She’d seen another tattoo, recently.
‘A tattoo? What sort of tattoo?’
‘Kind of unusual. It looked like a Madonna with her halo.’
She’d already seen that tattoo somewhere. But where? Suddenly, it came back to her: the Grand Hôtel Thomas Wilson. When she came out of the lift, after her meeting with Léo. She’d bumped into a funny little man with a Madonna tattooed on his neck. So he’d followed her. She thought she’d got rid of him, but she hadn’t.
The thought brought a surge of despair. Had he found Léo, too?
‘What’s that?’ said Max.
She followed his gaze. He was looking at the CD case.
‘Do you know it?’
‘Yes. It’s another opera.’
She studied him intensely.
‘It’s another tale of suicide, isn’t it?’
‘Mmm. Lakmé is a young Hindu woman who poisons herself with datura when she understands that the man she loves, Gérald, is going to go back to his family.’
She was staring at him, as pale as a shroud.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked. ‘What did I say?’
‘Did you say Gérald?’
‘Yes, why? Do you know someone called Gérald? Good God, Christine, are you sure you’re all right? You’re very pale…’
* * *
‘Here. Drink this,’ he said. ‘You passed out. We should call a doctor.’
‘No, thank you, I feel better already.’ She took the glass of water from his hands.
‘So you know someone called Gérald, do you?’
She nodded.
‘Is he the man with the tattoo?’
She shook her head.
‘You don’t want to talk about it?’
‘Not yet. Thank you for all you’ve done, Max. And I’m sorry about my comments just now. But I’m not ready yet.’
He gave her a worried look.
‘Christine. Up to now I didn’t really know what to make of your story. But I saw that man. I saw his expression. I know that kind of man: he won’t let you go. What will he do next time, have you thought about that? How far is he prepared to go? Because sooner or later he’s going to come after you again. That sort of sicko has a one-track mind. Believe me: I think you should call the police; you need help.’
‘I already have your help. And there’s someone else, too. Someone strong, someone who is at least as strong as that man.’
She had raised her voice, as if to convince herself of what she was saying.
‘Now, if you don’t mind,’ she added, ‘I’d like to be on my own.’
He nodded, his lips pinched. He got slowly to his feet. In the doorway, he stopped and turned around.
‘If you need me, you know where to find me.’
Once he had left, she waited a long time for the adrenaline to subside. She didn’t understand what was going on, it didn’t make any sense. Max seemed to think that the man in question was a professional criminal. What sort of criminal? A member of the mafia? A thief? A hitman? The business with the tattoo reminded her of stories about Russian or Latin American gangs she had seen on television.
Her thoughts returned to Gérald, and it was as if a viper were unwinding in her belly. What did that guy know about her relationship with her fiancé? Was he the one who had photographed Denise and Gérald? And why this reference to Gérald by way of opera? It couldn’t be a coincidence. Gérald was part of the equation. She
felt the paranoia washing over her again and she thought about Denise. Had Denise hired some crook, some criminal to frighten her, to make her give up Gérald? It was absurd. Ridiculous. The sort of thing that happened only in films. And in programmes like Bring in the Accused, said the little voice in her head, with a hint of impatience. In real life, in other words, my dear.
What escape routes were left to her? She took out her phone and looked at it. Shouldn’t Léo have called her by now? He had said he was going to see what else he could find out, mobilise his contacts. Had he made any progress? She wished she could have had news from him right at that moment.
She was not going to let that fucking bastard poison her life forever.
The thought galvanised her. She would fight back. But not the way the guy expected. Up to now, she’d always been one or two steps behind. But thanks to Max, she had just obtained some precious information. Yes. She was going to pass it on to Léo; he had talked to her about a private detective: he would know how to make the most of this information. Secondly, she had to get out of here. Max was right: she couldn’t stay in her apartment. But where could she go? Her first thought was, why not pack her suitcase and take refuge with her parents for a few days? But her killjoy inner voice immediately reacted: Your parents? Are you serious? And what will you tell them – that you needed a change of scenery?
The voice was right: Why now? they would ask – without bothering to hide the fact that their daughter’s incursion into their everyday life was not part of their retirement plan. But she couldn’t go and tell them what had happened, after all. And if she made up a story, no matter what it was, her father would see it as confirmation of what he had always thought, namely that his daughter was spineless, that she would never be capable of finding her place in the world, that deep down it would have been so much better if she had died instead of her sister (because that was what he thought, wasn’t it? When he’d had enough alcohol to find the nerve to assert his … preference). As for her mother: well, she would look at Christine and wonder where she had gone wrong as a mother, and she would view her daughter’s failure as a personal failure.
Anything but that.
Christine went back into the living room and poured another full cup of coffee. She had just had another idea. She looked for Ilan’s number in her address book; she knew that at this hour he wouldn’t have left for the radio station yet. Moreover, when he answered, she could hear children’s voices and a commotion in the background.
‘Christine?’
She tried to determine whether his voice was hostile or wary, but it was simply surprised.
‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ she said, ‘but I need you to do me a favour. I know I’ve already caused you a lot of problems and I would understand if you refused – but you’re the only one I can count on, Ilan.’
Not leaving him the time to reply, she explained what it was she needed. Then she waited.
He was silent for a long time.
‘I can’t promise you anything,’ he said. ‘But I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Daddy, who is it?’
A little girl’s voice by the telephone. And the sound of another incoming call on her own line.
‘It’s no one, pumpkin.’
With that he hung up.
She took the second call. ‘Hello?’
‘Christine? Guillaumot here. The police rang me yesterday. They asked questions about you, and they also told me what you’d done. I called Cordélia after that. She explained what happened over the weekend, and that she had filed a complaint with the police and then eventually withdrawn it.’ There was a sigh on the other end. ‘Fuck, how could you do such a thing? It’s … it’s … We all knew, here, that you’ve got a hell of a temper, but that … that … it’s … I still can’t believe it.’ He made a grinding sound on the line, as if he had a sudden toothache. ‘There’s no point in you coming to the station tomorrow morning. Or the day after. Or any day after that. We are preparing a procedure of dismissal for grave misconduct, and opening legal proceedings against you.’
There was a pause.
‘Maybe that poor girl thinks you’ve been punished enough, but I don’t: your behaviour is seriously detrimental to the radio station’s image. You’d better find yourself a good lawyer. You are one fucking crazy bitch.’
23
Leitmotiv
Servaz had rarely seen so much snow in the valley. He was driving across an immaculate white expanse, along the lines of trees stripped bare by winter, his only companion the music of good old Gustav. The grey skies formed a second upside-down valley above his head, filled with hills of clouds. In the middle of a long straight stretch, he left the main road for a narrower, poorly maintained one, and, three kilometres further along he saw the farm on his right.
He parked outside a long residential building whose grey cement had never seen a coat of paint, and got out.
He pulled up his collar, instantly feeling the cold and damp.
Before he had even gone in, he had a vision of Célia Jablonka’s childhood and youth in a place far away from everything that might enliven an adolescent’s long days. He instantly understood the nature of her ambition, her dreams, as a kid with an imagination that was too big for such a stifling background.
A bottle blonde was standing on the threshold. She watched him approach, her eyes narrowed warily, about as welcoming as the hoarse barking of the dog choking as it yanked on its chain.
‘Commandant Servaz, Toulouse police. I have an appointment with Monsieur Jablonka.’
With a brief jerk of her chin, never unclenching her teeth, she pointed to a large barn thirty metres away, and Servaz began walking along the deep ruts left in the snow and mud by tractor wheels, past piles of silage covered with white tarpaulins or stored in bales, and a row of silos and agricultural machinery. When he went through the two wide-open metal doors, he was overpowered by the stench coming from drains full of a brownish, steaming liquid.
‘Over here,’ said a voice.
He turned to the left and saw a man with white hair sitting at a computer screen in a little office. He had a pile of papers and notes in front of him. Servaz went into the little room. There were columns of numbers on the screen.
‘If you don’t mind,’ said the man, ‘I just have to check on the robot. See if everything went all right during the night.’
‘The robot?’
‘The milking robot.’ The man turned around for the first time and gave him a sharp look. He had the same suspicious eyes as his wife. ‘You’re a city cop, aren’t you? I can tell. Have you got a card?’
Servaz had expected this question. He reached inside his jacket pocket. The older man, frowning, compared the visitor with the photograph on the card he held in his gloved hand. Then he turned back to the screen.
‘Sorry, but I have to check whether everything went all right last night and take care of the cows that are late, according to the robot.’
Servaz nodded.
‘Do what you have to do,’ he said. ‘I have time.’
‘Good for you.’
‘How many cows do you have?’
‘One hundred and twelve. But you didn’t come all this way to talk to me about my cattle.’
Servaz looked at him closely. He had blue eyes in a face that was brown and sun-ravaged, but firm.
‘You’re reopening the investigation? Why?’
‘No,’ said Servaz, ‘we’re not reopening the investigation, Monsieur Jablonka. My job is just to examine a few closed cases,’ he lied.
‘Why?’
‘That’s just the way it is: administration.’
‘Why this case?’
Servaz didn’t reply.
‘She grew up here, did she?’
The man gave him a twisted smile.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said.
‘Do you?’
‘Mr Policeman … what we do here is what you call concrete. We don’t speculate with
money that doesn’t exist; we don’t sell useless products to people who think they need them; we work day and night; we might be the last people to know the real world exists – and that is why others want to see us disappear. But as far as Célia is concerned, I’ll have you know that she grew up surrounded by books. If I invited you into that house you see over there – which I won’t – you would see that there are books everywhere, dog-eared books, books with notes in the margin, books that have been read. Célia loved books. And we always encouraged her. Her ambition didn’t come from wanting to get away from here, or to do better than her parents; on the contrary, it was so that we would be proud of her. Whenever she felt the need to recharge her batteries, to breathe a bit, she came back here. You should see what it’s like here in the spring, this countryside – she liked this place better than anywhere on earth…’
‘And did she come in here often?’ asked Servaz. ‘Or did she tend to avoid the place?’
Célia’s father give him a hard look.
‘Célia was against putting in this machine,’ said a woman’s voice behind his back. ‘She said it was inhuman to keep the cows inside all the time. Maybe she was right.’ The look the woman gave her husband was not kind. ‘Célia was a very intelligent young woman. And well balanced. At least until she met that guy.’
Servaz turned around. The blonde woman was staring at him.
‘What guy?’
‘I don’t know. We never met him. I think he was married. Someone important. That was why she didn’t want to talk about him. All she said was that she had met someone. An exceptional man, by the sound of it. At least in the beginning … before her mood began to change—’
She broke off.
‘I think towards the end she was depressed. But she refused to talk about it. During those final days, she seemed to be afraid of her own shadow. Something was terrifying her. Something or someone … But I would never have thought that she would … she would…’
Servaz felt as if time were decelerating, flowing infinitely more slowly than the milk in the robot’s greedy hoses.
‘Are you sure she didn’t say anything about this man?’
Don't Turn Out the Lights Page 22