The Double Mother

by Michel Bussi

  Convicted: 231

  Acquitted: 336

  www.want-to-kill.com

  Marianne hated the Amazonia fitness center. Everything about it. Seriously, everything.

  The garish color of the mats and the walls, the smell of sweat, the type of men you saw there, the type of women you saw there, the skin-tight shorts and leggings, the money she spent on it, the smiles of the bimbos behind the reception desk, the smiles of the little idiots in the changing rooms, the instruments of torture lined up like it was a museum belonging to the Holy Inquisition.

  Yes, that was it. This place was torture.

  Marianne hated running on the spot. And pedaling a bike without getting anywhere was even worse. Almost as ludicrous as rowing without water.

  The captain forced herself to keep going at the same speed. 7.6 km/h, read the fluorescent numbers on the screen. Her trainer had told her not to go below 7.

  Eighteen months! She gave herself another eighteen months to play along, counting the kilograms, firming up her flesh, tightening her bum and strengthening the supposedly crucial “core.” Come on, my poor muscles, keep going a bit longer, until a man falls under the spell of my bouncing breasts and gives you a helping hand by massaging you every night.

  And, a year and a half from now, she’d give it all up. Sport. The diet. The whole healthy lifestyle thing. She’d even start smoking again. After all this effort, if fate—or God, or a flock of storks—couldn’t even be bothered to send her a man who would give her a child, then the world had no right to judge her!

  Another ten minutes on this treadmill and Marianne would stop. After that, she’d give herself a reward. The only comfort this hellish place could offer: a cooking pot into which sinners such as she could dive. A hot tub, then a sauna. The only reason she was willing to pay this club’s subscription was because of its spa facilities. Seventy-three euros per month. At that price, the bubbles in the jacuzzi should be flavored like champagne.

  Lying in the sauna, naked on her towel, Marianne sweated buckets. She loved that, even more than the hot bubbling water. Especially when she had the sauna all to herself, as she did this afternoon.

  She wiped the screen of her iPhone with the corner of her towel and checked her messages.

  No news of Timo Soler. Not that she was expecting any. Not this soon. Soler had managed to remain hidden for ten months, apparently in the Neiges quarter. An area that they had searched from top to bottom. Something was now obvious: Soler had an accomplice. Maybe more than one.

  He had gone back into hiding and would not come out again unless he thought he was going to die.

  Marianne slid her finger over the damp screen: she’d received an email, which she opened, her heart aflutter.

  lucas.marouette@yahoo.fr

  An emoticon in uniform running after another emoticon in a ski-mask. Nothing else, not even a word of explanation. But there was a document attached.

  The captain sighed then clicked on the document that her intern had sent her. She had dispatched him to the little village of Manéglise that afternoon to tactfully dig up anything he could on Amanda and Dimitri Moulin. For her, it was a way of testing out this rookie—although a genius with computers on a mission that was, theoretically, less dangerous than the car chase around the port.

  Marianne was impressed. Lucas Marouette had written her a novel. Apparently, he was just as gifted with words as he was with technology.

  She used one hand to wipe her chest, which was beading with sweat. Her thoughts drifted towards Vasily Dragonman. Alone in this pine box, she felt a bit like an odalisque, one of those voluptuous, seductive women who spent their lives in Turkish palaces, in tiled hammams, those sultans’ favorites, free to parade their flabby bellies and their large breasts under their hijab, to gorge themselves on Turkish delight and give birth, year after year, to princes worthy of leading the Ottoman Empire’s great army.

  She slowly stroked her steam-softened skin, almost reconciled to her curves, then touched the mobile’s screen, moving her thumb and index finger apart to zoom in on the text.

  Report, November 3, 2015

  (Trainee Officer Lucas Marouette)

  Neighborhood survey

  On Amanda, Dimitri, and Malone Moulin

  5 Place Maurice-Ravel, Manéglise

  Let’s start with one thing we know for sure, boss. Malone Moulin was born on 29 April 2012, at the Estuary Clinic, weighing 3.45 kg. You’ll be proud of me: I even got a photograph on my Samsung of the card announcing his birth two little baby-blue slippers with laces in the shape of a heart. I took it at the house of Dévote Dumontel, 9 Place Ravel, the building directly opposite the Moulins’ home. That may not sound like much, boss, but it wasn’t easy. To obtain that picture, I had to swallow the godawful coffee that Dévote heated up in a rusty saucepan and poured into a Pyrex glass for me, her hands trembling but smiling proudly as if she believed that her saucepan had turned into copper and her mug into crystalware. I’ll spare you the details, but that coffee forced me to visit the toilet soon afterwards! That was how I discovered that this kind old lady had all the birth cards she’d ever received on display in the loo. Malone Moulin’s was pinned to the wall, along with those of her own children and grandchildren, who presumably don’t come to visit her very often. If they did, surely they’d have bought her a proper coffee-maker?

  Anyway, boss, other than the teary-eyed memories of Dévote Dumontel, I also got confirmation from the Estuary Clinic: there is no possible doubt about the birth of Malone Moulin and the identity of his parents. I also met the pediatrician who looked after the kid for the first two years of his life: Dr. Pilot-Canon, a woman as skinny as a beanpole who, strangely enough, only has photos of vegetables, fruit, and plants on the walls of her office. According to her, the Moulins are a perfectly normal family. The mother is very loving, maybe a bit too attached to her son according to Dr. P-C, but no more so than most mothers. The father is more distant and crabby, but he still turned up to all the medical checks. The kind of bloke who’d rather build the bookshelf in the kid’s room than read any of the books on it to his son, if you see what I mean. The kind who’d rather sow, plant, and water the vegetables recommended by Dr. P-C than get lumbered with the mush, the baby spoon and the sticky bib. Anyway, the doctor had everything written down in the kid’s medical record book: his weight, height, vaccinations, all that. After Malone turned two, a doctor from Montivilliers, Serge Lacorne, took over. I talked to him on the phone: nothing to report. He saw little Malone four or five times in his office, for a cold or a stomachache. According to him, he’s a fairly healthy kid.

  As for the neighbors . . . The Moulins have lived in the Hauts de Manéglise housing estate for three years now. They bought their house exactly four months after Amanda Moulin found out she was pregnant. Before that, they lived in an apartment in Caucriauville. I spent an hour hanging around the housing estate in the middle of the afternoon, and honestly, boss, I didn’t see a soul. There were plenty of dogs though—mostly Alsatians barking from behind six-foot-high hedges. All right, I’m exaggerating: I did see Dévote, standing at her window. And then, just before I left, I also met a guy who did the nightshift and was going home to sleep. A guy who worked in a warehouse in the Fécamp industrial zone and who seemed happy just to talk to someone. They both know the Moulins personally; they do each other favors. Amanda Moulin feeds Dévote’s parrots once a year, for example, when the old lady goes to see her children in Vendée, and the warehouse guy and Dimitri collect wood together. But that’s all. They used to see the mother pushing the kid around in his pram from time to time, and now that he’s bigger, they’ve seen him riding his bike around the estate, with his mother watching over him.

  I hope you’ll forgive me, boss, for not interrogating the Moulins’ inner circle friends, cousins, colleagues but you asked me to be discreet, so I tried to make my questions sound casual and offh
and. I did ask around in the village a bit, though, just to be able to cross-check anything you might have at the station. Amanda Moulin is quite well-known in the village because she lived there with her parents when she was young. She left home when she was a teenager, then came back years later. The prodigal daughter! She wasn’t exactly a child prodigy, though. I found a retired schoolteacher who remembered her well. Said she was a good girl, not too bright, but she tried hard. A fighter. Not the kind to let someone walk all over her. Amanda Moulin is also fairly well-liked by the customers at the minimarket where she works. They say she’s punctual, friendly, talkative. The last of those doesn’t have to be a compliment, of course, but I think it was meant that way by the people I talked to.

  I know, boss, I know—you’re thinking that the Moulins of Manéglise sound a bit Little House on the Prairie, with Caroline Ingalls at least having turfed Harriet Oleson out of the grocery store. But don’t worry, I did dig up some dirt on Dimitri Moulin! He’s a qualified electrician, but for the past few years he’s gone from one crappy job to the next, with long periods of unemployment in between. So he’s been having a tough time. But there’s more. This is my special surprise for you, boss: Dimitri has a criminal record. He was convicted of selling stolen cars in the Paris region, more than eleven years ago. He didn’t know Amanda back then. He was locked up in Bois-d’Arcy for three months. Apparently, that calmed him down, because he’s not been in trouble with the law since then. Do you want me to dig a bit deeper on that?

  Lastly, while I was at it, I also checked out those key words you gave me: Rocket. Castle. Pirate ship. Forest. Ogre.

  You won’t believe this, boss, but strangely enough no rocket has blasted off from the estuary since little Malone was born. Even worse, no pirate ship has attacked the port of Le Havre in the last four years. And as far as the ogres are concerned, it’s strictly omertà: maybe people are afraid to talk?

  Sorry boss, don’t mean to piss you off, but what exactly was the deal with those key words? Were they part of an initiation ritual or something?

  To conclude, according to Dévote Dumontel, the Moulins have not left the housing estate for more than a week during the last three years. The last time they went away was when they went to Carolles, near Granville, the summer that Malone was two. There are postcards in her bathroom too, near the birth announcements; they probably help her remember things. Dévote also remembers a wedding in Le Mans, and a trip to Brittany with the kid during last year’s Christmas holidays.

  And that’s it, boss! I did what I could. I sought information with all the diplomacy I could muster, but I can’t make any promises. You know what it’s like in those little villages: no need for surveillance cameras to spot a nosy outsider. Anyway, I’m at your command if you want me to do anything else. Maybe some research into flying saucers, Martians, and armies of trolls?

  Seriously, though, should I keep digging or should I fill in the holes?

  Marianne couldn’t help smiling. The young cop hadn’t done badly at all. She quickly typed a text to him:

  Keep digging!

  At that moment, the door of the sauna opened. Two slender blondes walked in, wrapped in pink towels, which they took off without embarrassment and carefully folded. Tanned skin, without even a white G-string mark. Painted fingernails and toes. Small bums and flat chests. It wasn’t their contemptuous looks that finished off Marianne—the kind of look you give to an ugly house disfiguring a pretty landscape: she was used to that from other women—but the start of their conversation.

  Only one topic on their minds: men.

  Just so many dogs—mad, lazy, obsessed—to be kept on a leash. Husband. Lovers. Boss. The same struggle, repeated over and over.

  Marianne left the sauna and went to take a cold shower. The first thing she did after that was check her phone. A professional habit.

  Still no news from JB or Papy. Timo Soler was going to spend a night in hell.

  7:23 P.M.

  She had an hour before she was due to meet Angie at Uno. Well, at least she’d have plenty to talk about . . . and a few questions to ask her friend about a certain Romanian psychologist with eyes the color of burnt sienna.

  15

  Little hand on the 8, big hand on the 7

  Malone’s eyes slowly closed, even as he tried to keep them open. Maman-da caressed him, rocking him gently to sleep. He liked her hugs—the tickles on his back, the kisses on his neck, the smell of her perfume.

  But he also wanted her to go away.

  While she was there, he couldn’t listen to Gouti. And today, it was the day of the war! Malone had tried to speak with his toy before Maman-da came up to his room, so that Gouti could tell him what he had overheard at school, when Clotilde, Maman-da and Pa-di had shut themselves in the classroom. But he hadn’t understood anything. It was all too complicated, and they were speaking too loud, or too quietly, or for too long.

  Besides, he preferred his own story.

  “Time to go to sleep now, darling.”

  Amanda tucked Malone in tight, planted one last kiss on his forehead, and turned off the main light, leaving only the little nightlight that projected stars and clouds over the room’s four walls and ceiling.

  “Good night, sweetie.”

  Then she added: “Listen, I know Papa shouts sometimes, but it’s only because he loves you so much. He wants you to love him too, to love him as much as you love me.”

  Malone did not reply; the door gently closed.

  Malone waited for a long time, his eyes wide open now. Staring at the green hands on the cosmonaut clock.

  To make sure he didn’t fall asleep, he would occasionally turn his eyes to the little calendar pinned to the wall next to his wardrobe. Every day of the week was represented by a planet, and to mark what day it was, a little magnetic rocket could be placed on any of them. Today, the red and white spacecraft had stopped on Mars. Malone made it take off every day, when he woke, and flew it to the next planet. From the moon to the red planet, this morning.

  MARS.

  The day of the war.

  He knew the planets and the days by heart.

  He knew Gouti’s stories by heart too. One for each day.

  Everything was calm.

  Gouti’s heart started beating again. Malone crawled under the duvet—in total silence; in total darkness—and listened to his toy’s story.

  He had to listen to these stories every night, just before the prayer to keep him safe from ogres. He must never forget. He’d promised Maman. His mother from before.

  * * *

  Once upon a time there was a big wooden castle that had been built with the trees from the large forest that grew all around.

  In this big castle, which could be seen from far away because of its four high towers, lived the knights.

  In those days, the knights each bore the name of the day when they were born, and each day bore the name of a quality—a quality that everyone had to have on that day.

  Do you find this a bit complicated?

  Perhaps it is, so I’m going to give you an example. The knights from the castle born on the day of St. Juste were called Just; those born on the day of St. Courtois were called Courteous, and others were Faithful or Friendly or Constant, Modest, Clement, Prosperous or Prudent. And on the birthday of the Friendly knights, everyone had to be friendly, you see? It’s very simple, in fact.

  Except that some of the days of the year corresponded to faults—bad qualities—because that’s just how it is. And on those days—but only on those days—everyone was allowed to have that fault (but only that fault). For example, some knights were called Greedy, or Curious, or Joker.

  The knight that we’re interested in was called Naive. Where other knights wore a sword on their belts, he had a flute. Where the other knights wore metal armor, his was made from flower petals. And that wasn’t all: his h
elmet was made from feathers, and the only shield he carried was a large book, which he was constantly reading. The bravest knights—Bold, Gallant, Valiant—were not allowed to make fun of him, except on one day: the birthday of the Mocking knight.

  I have to tell you something else as well. There were strict rules in the castle. No one knew why—or, rather, no one dared suggest why, except on the birthday of the Frank knight, but that was not that day.

  Two simple and very strict rules.

  It was forbidden to go very far from the castle.

  It was forbidden to leave the castle at night.

  But one day—on the birthday of the Generous knight—Naive wanted to go and find a present for the other knights. It was a warm and sunny day. He had the idea of going out to gather a bouquet of flowers, the prettiest and biggest he could find.

  I can see what you’re thinking. You can guess what’s coming next. The Naive knight is going to gather one flower, then another, then another, and suddenly he’ll find himself too far away from the castle and he’ll get into trouble. Not at all! I’m telling you the story of the Naive knight, not the Imprudent knight.

  So Naive went to gather flowers in the forest, taking good care that he could always see the towers of the castle. As he was putting together his bouquet, he met a cicada, and he decided to play his flute for the creature. Then he met a bird and gave it a feather from his helmet for its nest. Then he met a rabbit and told it one of the stories from his big book. Then he met a butterfly and offered it his petals so that it would have somewhere to rest.

  He had already gathered a huge bouquet and was about to go back to the castle when he saw the princess. She looked a bit like Snow White. In fact, you would have thought it really was her!

  She smiled at Naive, and gave him a little wave, then she walked away, laughing. Naive, still carrying his bouquet, followed her.