One Green Bottle

by Curtis Bausse

  Perhaps, deep down, he’d felt sorry for them. Thomas, Isabelle and Lisa. Nice, ordinary people who’d done nothing to deserve being killed.

  But niceness shouldn’t come into it. They’d all been nice in their way, even grumpy old Roncet. When David prepared to kill, he was impervious to niceness.

  More likely, he thought, it’s the guilt. He wasn’t able to cope any more with the terrible wrongness of murder. It was why he’d felt so despicable after the Terrals, and why it was getting harder each day to present a front of normality to Marion. The other David, the one that killed, was no longer excusable, driven to seek that state of grace that every artist craves. He was the other David, permanently putrid to the very core of his being.

  He’d felt the solid shaft of the hammer, imagined the blow to Dallet’s head, the walk to the kitchen where his wife was making the tea, then the surprise on the daughter’s face as he entered her bedroom. But he hadn’t been able to take the hammer out of the rucksack and do it. Guilt. His conscience had finally won.

  He was cured. He could go back to Marion without having to pretend. He could be the person he’d always endeavoured to be. Worthy at last of her love.

  But something was wrong: he should have been overjoyed, but as he slowly leant forward till his head was touching the steering wheel, he became sucked into an eddying swirl of depression.

  ‘Hey, mister!’ A rap on the window caused him to leap in fright. ‘Are you all right?’

  A boy in a thick black parka was leaning anxiously towards him. David opened the window. ‘I’m fine,’ he muttered. And he added crossly, ‘You gave me a scare.’

  ‘Thought you might be ill, that’s all, bent up like that.’ The boy leant a forearm on the side of the car. ‘Been with that pair of arseholes, then? Got to you, did they?’

  ‘The Dallets? What’s wrong with them?’

  ‘Fucking racists.’ The boy straightened up. He was tall and good-looking, with sleek, black hair and smooth, brown skin. ‘Daughter’s too good for me, isn’t she? Still,’ he added with a mischievous grin, ‘Lisa doesn’t think so, that’s all that matters to me.’

  ‘Waiting for her, are you?’

  ‘She’ll be out in a minute. They can’t stop her.’

  ‘What do you get up to in a place like this?’ It was even smaller than Beauvais.

  The boy shrugged. ‘Hang out. Grab a burger, maybe. Not much else to do.’

  ‘OK.’ David rested his hand on the key. ‘Thanks for looking out for me. Take care.’

  Not guilt, then. Some sixth sense that told him he’d been seen. And abruptly, as he drove away, the spiral of depression disappeared.

  Ten. If he didn’t reach the magic ten, there’d always be the taste of something unfinished.

  He looked at his watch. If he called Marion, she’d give the phone to Elodie and she’d tell him what she’d done at school and he’d say he’d be back to put her to bed and read to her.

  But on reaching the outskirts of Alès, instead of turning towards the motorway, he took a left up the road that led to Padignac.

  ***

  It wasn’t wise to go back. Often that was how the real psychopaths, the sick ones, got caught. They liked to go back and bask in the memory, experience again whatever weird arousal they got from killing.

  And he had to admit that returning to the area did indeed give him a tingle of joy. But he wasn’t there to recapture any sensation; his aim was to understand why the sensation had been missing the first time.

  He checked into a hotel, where he phoned Marion to say he’d be back in the morning. Then he went for a stroll round the town. The atmosphere was pleasant. Quieter than Orange, more peaceful. Funny, he thought, that growing up in Beauvais he’d been bored, and now all he craved was peace.

  Out of curiosity, he started looking in estate agents’ windows, and when he saw Mannezon, he stared. He wouldn’t have recognised the outside, but the kitchen was unmistakable. Enzo Perle’s house was up for sale. He smiled. The perfect excuse for a visit.

  The estate agent was about to close, but she let him in. David asked if he could make an appointment to see the house the next morning. ‘Though on second thoughts,’ he added, ‘I have to be off quite early. It wouldn’t be possible now by any chance?’

  The woman hesitated. ‘It would be better to see it in daylight.’

  ‘For the outside, yes. It’s got a good view, I see. But the real test of a house would be how it feels inside on a winter evening.’

  ‘Well, I’ve finished for the day, but you’re in luck,’ she said. ‘The owner’s out there now. I’ll give her a ring to ask if it’s all right.’

  He parked in the same spot as before, a few yards up a track leading into a field, hidden from the road by a hedge. It was less cold now than in March, when the ground had been frozen. He sat in the car, remembering.

  ***

  He’d walked down to the house. There were two cars in the yard. He moved round to the side and peeped through the window. Perle was in a heated discussion with a woman. Brigitte Bussert, his mistress. On his previous visit, in December, David had spoken to the builder who was helping on the house. Perle had come down with a girlfriend, he said, but she’d gone. Everyone knew he’d taken up with Bussert. Apart, he added, from the husband, who’d no doubt kill them both if he found out.

  She didn’t stay overnight for precisely that reason. But still, the longer she stayed, the harder it would be. Half-nine, ten at the most. No one would open their door after that to a stranger, however persuasive he might be.

  David wondered for a moment about killing them both. But he hadn’t planned it that way and he opted to give it another half-hour before reaching a decision. On his way back to the car, he picked up a rusty iron bar from a pile of debris by the side of the house: it was a little longer than the lead piping in his rucksack, but it fitted almost as nicely down the back of his jeans. A local weapon for a local killer. Just the job.

  Bussert left at half past seven, ejected forcibly by Perle. David opened his window and listened to her sobbing and begging as Perle manhandled her into the car, thrust her belongings inside and slammed the door. A few seconds later, Bussert drove past at speed while Perle, sucking at something painful on his thumb, went back inside.

  David waited a while longer for Perle to calm down. Then he put on his gloves, a first pair of latex, a second of leather, and got out of the car. He knocked on the door, announced the purpose of his visit and was immediately let in. He held up the Satie score for Perle to inspect. The young man was delighted.

  ***

  ‘In the summer you’d be living outside most of the time. The view’s magnificent.’ Madame Perle seemed a likeable woman, though not exactly effusive.

  ‘Yes, I’ve driven past in the daylight. I hope you don’t mind me dropping by so late.’

  ‘Not at all.’ She showed him round, explaining the occasional detail and answering his questions as best she could. It was hardly a brilliant sales pitch but given the circumstances, David thought she was doing remarkably well.

  When they got back to the kitchen, she stood with her hand resting on a corner of the table, just as her son had done when, after thanking David profusely for the score, he said, ‘A glass of wine? And I can add a couple of eggs to the bowl if you’d like to stay for supper.’

  David had been in the house for barely a couple of minutes. After the row with his mistress, Perle was evidently glad of the chance to talk of other things.

  David accepted the offer of hospitality. ‘This music is beautiful,’ he added. ‘What is it?’

  It came back to him now. At the time it was over too quickly for him to fully realise, but standing in the kitchen again, he remembered becoming vaguely aware, as he watched Perle crack the eggs into the bowl, that the angels he’d been with were not the right ones.

  ‘Purcell. Sweeter than Roses.’ Perle went to the fridge, took out a bottle of wine and poured a glass for David. ‘Here the Deities A
pprove, to be precise,’ he said as he put the wine back.

  David removed his gloves and put them on the table. He stood with his hands behind his back, feeling the iron bar.

  ‘It’s a lovely house.’

  Madame Perle acknowledged the compliment with a brief smile. He saw then how sad she was and he wondered how she’d reacted when she heard the news.

  ‘And I must say, reasonably priced,’ he went on. ‘But there’s just one thing.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I was in the village earlier and they said there’d been a murder here.’ He made a gesture of dismissal. ‘It’s silly, I know, but it does put one off a bit.’

  Madame Perle took a deep breath and turned away. ‘My son lived here,’ she said. ‘That’s why it’s on the market. At a reasonable price, as you say.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said David. ‘I didn’t mean to...’

  ‘No, I understand.’ She turned to face him again. ‘Well, I suppose you’ll think it over and let the agency know.’

  The proper angels, the real ones, had been here, in this room, in the music. Perle had stood with his eyes half-closed and a dreamy smile on his face, his fingers dancing gently in the air as he followed the notes. ‘Yes, it is beautiful,’ he said. ‘Very soothing.’

  He turned towards the sideboard. In three long strides, David moved round the table and brought the bar down on his head. He thought Perle was dead but just to make sure he dealt a second blow which caved the side of his face in.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he said, then shook his head in consternation. ‘I didn’t realise... Have they brought the killer to justice?’

  ‘There’s a suspect. A woman he was...’ Perle’s mother faltered. Then she sat at the table with her hands clasped before her and carried on speaking almost as if he wasn’t there, lost in a world of her own. ‘She was very much in love with him. Wrote a beautiful email just a couple of days... It’s difficult to say, I suppose. A jealous rage. I don’t know if they’ve got enough to charge her. You know, they talk about closure but I don’t think there ever is any. The closure’s for them – the police, the media, society. Justice seen to be done. But there can’t be justice, can there? When a life’s taken away... The whole thing’s meaningless. It might just as well be a serial killer for all the sense it makes.’

  She was still in her private sadness and she didn’t see David’s hand tighten the back of the chair on which it was resting, nor hear him catch his breath.

  But her own words brought her back to the present and she glanced up at him to explain. ‘There’s a private detective on the job as well. That’s what she says. Some sort of psychopath came down here and...’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. She’s good, I think, but whether she’s right or not, I have no idea. And in some ways, as I say, it’s academic.’

  The music continued to fill the room as David waited for his angels to appear. When nothing happened, a sensation formed in his chest that began to oppress him, a blend of dread and panic.

  He’d been deceived. Led to believe he was walking with God when in fact he was on his own. There’d never been anything heavenly about it. He was doing the work of the Devil.

  ‘A private detective? I could do with one myself, actually.’

  Madame Perle’s mournful eyes managed a flicker of interest. ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh, nothing serious. But a family heirloom was stolen a couple of months ago and the police just don’t seem interested.’

  He would have liked to feel sorry for her but he didn’t. He could see her suffering but that was part of the world, part of God’s creation. In the wider design, human emotions were trivial: you couldn’t feel any more sorry for Charlotte Perle than you could for the Virgin Mary.

  It wasn’t that he was shifting the blame on to Satan. That would be too easy, as if he was somehow possessed by a force that came from outside. But the evil was in himself and he acknowledged it. It was simply that like Satan, he must have been cast out, because God created the world and Marion was in the world and he didn’t deserve either.

  Here the Deities Approve. He understood now. He would carry on killing because in a world he wasn’t good enough for, murder was the only thing he was good at.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said to Madame Perle as he folded away the piece of paper on which she’d written Magali Rousseau’s contact details.

  ***

  ‘I can see you!’ Elodie couldn’t stop giggling as David crept around the room, invisible. ‘Daddy, I can see you!’

  ‘No, you can’t. I’ve got my invisibility cloak on.’

  ‘But I can! I can see everything you’re doing.’

  ‘Oh, dear.’ He stood up straight, took off the imaginary cloak and inspected it. ‘Ah, it says here it doesn’t work on grown-ups. But I bet it’ll work on you.’

  It was difficult because he didn’t know who he was any more. He remembered that once he’d thought that the real David Sollen was the one that was deeply in love with his wife and daughter. Back then, the one that killed was an aberration, a stranger passing through. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  He loved them more than ever. He loved them so much it hurt, and he tried not to let that show. Every so often, he went to the garage and cried.

  It did him good to cry. Once he’d made sure the traces had all disappeared, he was able to go back and be normal enough for Marion and Elodie not to notice the struggle going on inside him. But it was hard, because he knew that the David that killed was doing his best to make sure that one day the David that loved would lose them.

  He clung to the idea that when he got to ten, he would stop. But what if he reached the milestone and then decided to push it back? There was no more logic to the figure ten than twelve, fifteen or twenty. What if this unbearable cycle of need and revulsion was nothing more than the merciless torment of an addict?

  Eventually, he reasoned, he’d have to stop in any case because he’d be caught. He’d known all along, of course, that he was playing a dangerous game, but until Perle’s mother told him about Magali Rousseau, he’d been sure he would win every time. A real maestro, huh?

  He had no idea how much Rousseau knew, nor how she’d figured it out, but his only option now was to kill her. If he didn’t, she could be on to him at any moment. The chances were he’d still get caught if he did, but at least he’d be able to buy himself some time. And apart from anything else, she had to be punished.

  ‘Where are you?’ He walked round the room looking behind the furniture for Elodie, who was standing in the middle, laughing uncontrollably. ‘Elodie, come back! I can’t see you!’

  She performed an elaborate twirl and spread her arms. ‘Here I am!’

  ‘Oh, thank heaven!’ He picked her up and spun her round, hugged her to him till he had to stop in case he began to cry.

  He was losing Marion. He held on to Elodie tight and tried not to think about living without her, but he was losing Marion anyway. Half the time she was up in Paris discussing new collections and designs. She’d been featured in Elle and Marie-Claire and was dealing with celebrities. She still worked in the shop in Orange but only when she felt like it because she didn’t need the money any more.

  They still discussed the future but it wasn’t the same as before. Not the same discussion and not the same future. It wasn’t that she was getting above herself, because Marion couldn’t be snooty if she tried, but it wasn’t about a little house in the country now, it was about flying off to Tokyo or New York.

  She didn’t raise her hand any more and ask for permission to criticise him. She didn’t notice when he was moody or withdrawn, or perhaps, he thought, she noticed but didn’t care. He wondered if there was someone in Paris she was seeing. She was so pretty and now that she was successful, she was moving in a world of opportunities. He half expected her to come back one week and say she was leaving him, and if she did, he knew that he wouldn’t blame her and nor would he have the right to feel jealous.

  But the thought that whatever
happened he would lose her was unbearable. When they were together, he tried to act normally but in fact he was looking at her as if he would never see her again, feeding on her beauty like a condemned man on his last meal. But she didn’t notice his eyes capture her every movement, and she had no glimpse of the anguish in his heart.

  Franck noticed more. He saw that David was absent-minded, not as much on the ball as he was before. A couple of items were sent to the wrong address, a couple of others under-priced, a few appointments were missed. ‘What the fuck’s going on?’ said Franck. ‘Get with it for fuck’s sake, will you?’

  David gave him a surly look and said nothing. Of course Franck was right to give him a bollocking but he seemed to forget how much David had done for him. Any more lip from you, he thought, and you’ll deserve whatever’s coming.