Don't Turn Out the Lights

by Bernard Minier

  She felt her heart begin to beat wildly, uncontrollably. The sky was bleeding.

  ‘Move.’

  They walked along the stream, climbing the slope with difficulty. Marcus went ahead of her. He knew she wouldn’t get far if she tried to escape.

  ‘Shit, my head is spinning,’ she said, slowing down.

  She skidded and landed on her hands and knees. Brown mud and leaves stuck to her palms. She got up; paused for a moment to regain her balance and wipe her hands. Marcus had stopped to wait, his face rigorously inexpressive. Mila drew level.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  A gentle rain began to fall. Cold little drops like a spray on her face.

  ‘So this is where it’s going to end?’ she said. ‘In the woods.’

  In front of her, Marcus bent down to go under a low hanging branch.

  ‘Hurry up!’ he said with his slight accent. ‘We have other things to do.’

  He came back and they each grabbed her by one arm to make her move more quickly. They went down into a small gully, a place where the trees were not as dense. Almost a clearing. Suddenly, she began to fight back, digging her heels into the slippery ground with all her strength when she saw the dark hole at the end of the hollow, a shovel lying next to it. They dragged her forward.

  ‘No! No!’

  She struggled.

  They let her go; Marcus aimed his gun at her.

  ‘Lie down in the hole.’

  A gnarled old tree twisted like a gymnast by the edge of the pit. A few of its roots had been cleanly severed by the steel edge of the shovel.

  She turned around and faced them.

  ‘No! Wait! Wait!’

  Marcus pushed her. She fell backwards. She was sinking like a stone. She was drowning. Fortunately, the earth in the pit was loose, and she landed on a very soft mattress. Christine opened her eyes. She was lying on her back. The smell of freshly turned soil filled her nostrils; the rain was falling harder now on her face, into her eyes and her hair full of dirt.

  ‘Women make better killers than men,’ said Mila above her. ‘They’re more sophisticated and have more imagination, they think things through.’

  ‘You do it,’ said Marcus, nodding towards Christine.

  From inside the hole, she saw him hand the gun to Mila, holding it by the barrel. And she saw the fierce expression on Mila’s face.

  ‘What? What are you talking about? Do your job! It’s what I paid you for!’

  ‘Nyet. You didn’t pay enough for me to risk life in prison,’ he said. ‘Pazhalsta: please.’

  Mila gave a nasty laugh as she took the weapon by the grip.

  ‘And there was I thinking you had balls … So is this what the Russian mafia has come to.’

  Calmly, he took out a packet of cigarettes, without bothering to respond, and lit one. Smiled. Christine turned her head slightly. Was she dreaming, or were those really earthworms wriggling where the shovel had severed the forest’s tender flesh? She saw them stirring just a few inches from her cheek, beneath a tangle of fine white roots.

  Marcus’s voice:

  ‘Up to you, now, Gaspazha. There are only two bullets. So don’t waste them.’

  Christine closed her eyes.

  Suddenly she felt herself trembling with both fear and despair. She wanted to leap out of the pit and run away as fast as she could. With her eyes closed, she did not see Mila take a step closer to the edge of the grave and point the gun in her direction.

  She did not see her trembling slightly.

  Taking aim.

  Squeezing the trigger.

  The report exploded through the woods and reverberated. It made all the birds in the forest fly away. The two bullets hit her right in the thorax, and her body jolted with each impact. A moment later, two red flowers spread across her jumper, soaking the wool. One last tremor. Her body arched and stiffened. A trail of blood from her lips, and it was all over.

  Simple.

  Clean.

  Final.

  The barrel of the gun was still smoking. Mila stared at Christine’s body. The gun in her hand was trembling violently. She had never killed anyone before. Or in any case, not directly.

  Marcus picked up the shovel.

  ‘Welcome to the club,’ he said, tossing the first shovelful of earth onto the dead woman’s face.

  ACT III

  I know that for her deep distress

  there is no consolation.

  But it is necessary to provide

  for the child’s future.

  Madame Butterfly

  40

  Aria da capo

  It was a cold, clear January morning, and Fontaine was swimming naked in the pool while Servaz, through his binoculars, observed his muscular back, his slender legs cleaving through the steaming water. Then he went back to his car, which was as cold as a freezer, put the binoculars in the glove box and slowly pulled away.

  Too early. It was still too early to confront Léonard Fontaine, but he knew that sooner or later they would meet. It was inevitable. As soon as he had more cards to play; a better hand.

  Where had Christine Steinmeyer gone?

  She had given no sign of life for the last ten days. While he was driving, staring ahead of him at the ribbon of motorway and the pale lights of the cars, it seemed to him that there was one word blinking in dazzling neon letters in his mind. Dead. Christine Steinmeyer was dead. Buried somewhere. They had all tried to piece together her trail on the morning she left the house never to return, but in vain. No one had seen her since. Not her fiancé, nor her parents, nor her former colleagues from Radio Five. An investigation had been opened for suspicious disappearance. Corinne Délia and Marcus – whose real name was Yegor Nemtsov – had been questioned at length. But they had not let anything slip. Servaz was sorry he couldn’t be there for the interviews. But he had heard about them in detail from Vincent and Samira, and also from Beaulieu, who had decided to collaborate and who seemed to be feeling rather guilty.

  Like Servaz, Beaulieu was now convinced that Yegor ‘Marcus’ Nemtsov had something to do with Christine’s disappearance. Servaz thought about Mila’s diary, still in his possession. About the photographs showing Fontaine together with Célia Jablonka. About what Christine had shared with him. Mila-Célia-Christine: the triangle of three women who had been the astronaut’s mistresses. Mila’s testimony was devastating. Ever since he had crept into the house and seen the book on Fontaine’s night table, Servaz had been convinced that Fontaine was the man he was looking for. And now Christine had disappeared. But no judge would order an investigation with so little to go on. He knew he would have to push Fontaine to make a mistake. But how? The man was cautious, and tough.

  * * *

  Mila watched as Thomas gave her a last wave before running off to join his mates under the huge plane trees in the playground, his satchel on his back. Then she went back to her car. It was Friday. She didn’t work on Fridays. She turned the ignition on the four-wheel drive and headed for her usual hypermarket, left the car in the car park, walked over to the rows of shopping trolleys, and slotted a coin into one of them.

  Mila pushed her trolley unhurriedly for almost an hour up and down the aisles. Despite the fact it was Friday morning, the store was crowded. She wove in and out, shoved past those who got in her way, was shoved in return, checked her list at regular intervals even though she always bought the same things week after week, and made one exception for a bottle of Clos Vougeot. She would go to the farmers’ market the following day to take care of the perishable stuff.

  She hunted for the shortest queue and joined it: there were fifteen people ahead of her and by the time she got to the till, roughly just as many behind her.

  The check-out assistant greeted her politely and began to scan her purchases. Mila walked through the metal detector to collect them on the other side. There was a sudden strident wailing; the assistant looked up abruptly and studied Mila more attentively.

  ‘Please step back, ma
dame,’ she said, ‘and go through again.’

  Mila sighed and took one step back. And another forward. Again there was the wail of the alarm, deafening, causing everyone in the store to look their way. The check-out assistant gave her a nasty look.

  ‘Step back, madame, step back.’ Her voice was increasingly irritated. ‘Are you sure you don’t have anything in your pocket?’

  It wasn’t exactly an accusation, but it was a bit more than a question. Mila realised that it was not only the customers in her queue who were staring at her, but also those in the neighbouring lines. Her cheeks went red with shame.

  She put one hand in her coat pocket. There was something, all the way at the bottom. Her fingers closed around a plastic box, and she pulled it out. She looked at it: a gift card for perfume. For a value of €150.

  The check-out assistant was frowning.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Mila.

  ‘Do you want it or not?’ she snapped, with a menacing look.

  ‘I don’t know what this card is doing in my pocket,’ answered Mila curtly, looking daggers at the assistant.

  ‘Okay. Give it to me and go back through the metal detector, please.’

  Mila swallowed her fury and put the gift card in the woman’s outstretched hand. She took one step backwards, another one forwards, a knot in her belly.

  The detector wailed, jangling her nerves. She could hear exclamations in the queue behind her.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ shouted the check-out assistant.

  She gave Mila a furious look, picked up the telephone and spoke quickly into the receiver, then looked down the aisle that went past the check-outs, drumming impatiently on her counter. In the queue, people were beginning to complain vociferously. Mila could hear them: ‘What’s going on?’ ‘Why aren’t we moving?’ And their blunt replies: ‘A shoplifter’, ‘Unfortunately, this is what France has come to.’ She saw a security guard walking briskly up the aisle. A tall black man, dressed in a dark grey suit. He gave her a quick, professional look then leaned down to hear the check-out assistant’s explanation. All with the utmost discretion: they wouldn’t make waves, they would handle the problem efficiently; they were used to it.

  Her legs were shaking, her head was spinning. Dozens of people looking at her.

  ‘Please come with me.’

  ‘Listen, I don’t know what—’

  ‘Please follow me, madame. Don’t make a fuss. We’ll deal with this calmly, all right?’

  ‘What’s going on?’ said a voice behind them.

  A second security guard. White, older, in a too-tight suit. A great hulking brute who clearly didn’t look after himself, with a sly expression and cheeks pitted like vines after a hailstorm. He scrutinised Mila, while the other man repeated in a low voice what the check-out assistant had told him. Then he put a large hand on her arm. She shook him off abruptly.

  ‘Get off me!’

  ‘Okay, now, you stop that fuss and you come with us, all right? And whatever you do, don’t go asking for trouble, because I’m not in the mood. Understand?’

  * * *

  In the car park, she put her trembling hands on the steering wheel. She was breathless with fury and shame. The store manager had interrogated her in a windowless little room. He had agreed not to file a complaint because she was not in their database, and she had returned the two ‘stolen’ gift cards. ‘Are you calling me a thief?’ she’d said. The two security guards were present, and she could feel the three men’s gazes weighing on her. The big bastard with the pitted skin took the liberty of staring at her breasts; the manager was scornful and condescending. She wished she could have slapped him. The first security guard didn’t care. Fuck, she would like to come back and set the bloody place on fire. Or ask Marcus to put the wind up that arrogant little boss. She switched on the ignition and pulled slowly out of the row where she was parked. A strident horn made her jump out of her seat: lost in thought, she hadn’t seen the Prius coming the other way.

  * * *

  On Monday, another incident left her puzzled. Mila had been working for several years for Thales Alenia Space, one of the world leaders in satellites; their futuristic headquarters occupied a vast space in the Mirail neighbourhood to the southwest of Toulouse, not far from the A64 motorway. She was head of communications and media relations. Mila was not universally popular: some co-workers had difficulty putting up with her uncompromising character, disinclined as she was to make concessions or try to be diplomatic. But from that to going and puncturing all four tyres on her car, in the huge car park reserved for 2,500 employees …

  Her anger had not abated by the time she got home, two hours late (she’d had to call the nanny to ask her to pick Thomas up from school). That evening, to calm down, once she had read Thomas his bedtime story, she put her favourite opera into the CD player: Verdi’s Don Carlos. Another story of impossible, thwarted love. That was what she liked about opera: it always reflected her own life. Everyone’s life. Wasn’t everyone fighting for the same thing? Money, power, success – all with the same goal in mind, unchanged since childhood: to be loved. She collapsed in the comfortable armchair she’d placed in the spot with the best acoustics. At this hour, however, she could not put her spherical Elipson Planet L loudspeakers on full blast, so she picked up the Bose headphones, then pressed the remote.

  She closed her eyes. Tried to breathe calmly. This delicious silence that precedes the opening bars … She opened her eyes again when she heard the first notes.

  This wasn’t Don Carlos.

  She listened for a few more seconds.

  Lucia di Lammermoor!

  She must have put the CD away in the wrong case. She got up and went over to her CD collection. She hunted for the case for Donizetti’s tragic opera, where Lucia succumbs irreversibly to madness. She opened it thinking she would find Don Carlos inside. And looked, puzzled, at the CD that was in there: Tales of Hoffmann.

  There was something wrong. Increasingly uneasy, she opened another case, at random: L’italiana in Algeri. And found La Traviata. She tried again with Schönberg’s Moses und Aron: it was Tannhäuser. Then Les Indes galantes: Cavalleria Rusticana. Ten minutes later, dozens of cases were scattered across the floor. Not a single one contained the right CD. And Don Carlos was nowhere to be found.

  Either she was going mad, or …

  Someone was playing with her. Someone had been here.

  She looked all around, as if that person might still be there. Right, she thought. The incident at the hypermarket, the four punctured tyres on the car, and now this. Someone was trying to pay her in kind. In revenge for the death of that whore. Inflicting on her what she herself had inflicted on Christine Steinmeyer – as in an aria da capo, where the last part is a reprise of the first.

  Thomas. She had left him alone with the night light on. As she did every night. She ran up the stairs four at a time. He was sleeping, his thumb in his mouth and his head deep in his three pillows. The halo of the little bedside lamp left a glow against the half-light in the room, which smelled of baby shampoo. She made sure the shutters were closed properly, went over to her son, stroked his shoulder where his pyjama top had left it bare, and felt the fragile structure of his bone beneath the skin.

  Just as she was about to switch off the light, she noticed the open book on the bedspread. Mila had read to Thomas, but it wasn’t like her to forget to put the book back on the shelf. She went over to pick it up, and snapped it shut. And took a step backwards.

  It wasn’t Thomas’s picture book, but a book entitled Opera, Or, the Undoing of Women. She recognised it: it was one of the many books in her library devoted to opera. But she was almost certain she had never brought it up to Thomas’s room.

  It wasn’t exactly reading material for a young child.

  She was about to take it down to the library and give it no further thought, when she froze.

  She had read this book several years earlier, but she remembered the contents very well: it desc
ribed the long procession of fallen, wounded, abandoned, betrayed, scorned, murdered women, not to mention those driven to madness or death: in short, all the women whose misfortunes had always enchanted opera lovers. In operas, women always died. In operas, women were always unhappy. In operas, women always came to a tragic end. Princesses, commoners, mothers, whores: opera was the place for their ineluctable defeat – and Mila began to feel more and more uneasy.

  That night, she walked around the house twice to make sure all the doors and windows were properly locked, including the shutters. But she didn’t sleep more than a few hours, and she listened to the sound of the winter wind against the window until morning.

  * * *

  She called work the next day to say she had a fever and would stay at home. Then she began to look on the Internet for someone to install an alarm system. She compared products, companies, ratings, and made several phone calls. The system she eventually chose had movement detectors in strategic spots around the house, and would photograph any undesired visitors; a powerful 110-decibel siren, signalling to an electronic surveillance centre in the event of an intrusion; and text message alerts sent at regular intervals to Mila’s mobile. If there were the slightest doubt, she could even check remotely whether she had set the alarm. A man came to install the system that afternoon. He was small, with grey hair, and looked as if he ought to be retired, but he seemed to know his stuff and was very reassuring, installing the system in record time. He verified that everything was working with the electronic surveillance centre and Mila’s mobile phone, then declared, ‘There, now you can sleep soundly,’ and drove away in his blue mini-van.

  The little man was right: that night she slept like a baby; there were no creaking shutters and the next morning she dropped Thomas off at school and went back to work.

  * * *

  The light bulb at the top of the stairs must have burned out, because when she flipped the switch the following evening, nothing happened. She told Thomas to wait downstairs and she went to the shed to fetch a new one, along with a stepladder. She climbed up, changed the bulb, and the light came back on. Then she read to Thomas (The Grinch Who Stole Christmas), tucked him in, and closed the door on her sleeping boy.