Children don’t see death. Because their life lasts a day, from when they get up to when they go to sleep.
That time Goran understood that, however much he tried, he could never protect his son from the evil of the world. Just as, years before, he had not been able to rescue him from what his mother had done to him.
Sergeant Morexu was not like Mila’s other superior officers. He cared nothing for glory, or for having his picture in the paper. That was why Mila expected him to haul her over the coals for the way she had conducted the operation at the music teacher’s house.
Morexu was brusque in his manners and moods. He couldn’t hold an emotion for more than a few seconds. So one moment he would be furious or sullen, and immediately afterwards he would be smiling and incredibly kind. Also, to avoid wasting time, he combined his gestures. For example, if he had to console you, he would put one hand on your shoulder and walk you to the door at the same time. Or he would speak on the phone and scratch his temple with the receiver.
But this time he wasn’t in a hurry.
He left Mila standing by his desk, without inviting her to sit down. Then he stared at her, his feet stretched out under the table and his arms folded.
“I don’t know if you realize what happened today…”
She anticipated him. “I know. I made a mistake—”
“And yet you saved three people.”
The statement froze her for a long moment.
“Three?”
Morexu sat back in his chair and lowered his eyes to a piece of paper in front of him.
“They found a note in the music teacher’s house. Apparently he planned to take another one…”
The sergeant handed Mila the photocopy of a page from a diary. Beneath the day and the month, there was a name.
“Priscilla?” she asked.
“Priscilla,” repeated Morexu.
“Who is she?”
“A lucky little girl.”
And that was all he said. Because it was all he knew. There was no surname, address, photograph. Nothing. Only that name. Priscilla.
“So stop beating yourself up about it,” Morexu went on and, before Mila could reply, he added, “I saw you today at the press conference: it looked as if none of it mattered to you.”
“It doesn’t.”
“For God’s sake, Vasquez! Do you realize how grateful the people you saved should be to you? Not to mention their families!”
You didn’t see the look on Elisa Gomes’s mother’s face, Mila wanted to say. Instead, she merely nodded. Morexu looked at her, shaking his head.
“Since you’ve been here I’ve never heard a single complaint about you.”
“And is that good or bad?”
“If you can’t work it out for yourself, you’ve got big problems, my girl…That’s why I decided you’d enjoy a few days working with the unit.”
Mila didn’t agree. “Why? I do my job, and it’s the only thing that interests me. I’m used to managing that way. I’d have to adapt my methods to somebody. How can I explain that—”
“Go and pack your bags,” Morexu interrupted, dismissing her complaint.
“Why the hurry?”
“You’re leaving this evening.”
“Is it some kind of punishment?”
“It isn’t a punishment, and it isn’t a holiday either: they want advice from an expert. And you’re very popular.”
Mila’s face grew serious.
“What’s it about?”
“Five abducted children.”
Mila had heard it mentioned on the news. “Why me?” she asked.
“Because it looks as if there’s a sixth, but they don’t know who it is yet…”
She would have liked further details, but Morexu had clearly decided that the conversation was over. He went back to being brusque, merely holding out a file with which he pointed at the door.
“Your train ticket’s in here as well.”
Mila took the bundle of papers and made for the door. As she left the room she repeated the name in her head. Priscilla.
4.
T he Piper at the Gates of Dawn, 1967. A Saucerful of Secrets, 1968. Ummagumma was 1969, as was the sound track of the film More. In 1971 there had been Meddle. But before that there was another one…in 1970, he was sure of it. He couldn’t remember the title. The cover, yes. The one with the cow. Damn, what was it called?
I’ve got to get some petrol, he thought.
The fuel gauge was on empty, and the warning light had stopped flashing to settle into a peremptory red glare.
But he didn’t want to stop.
He had now been driving for a good five hours, and had traveled almost six hundred kilometers. And yet putting that remarkable distance between himself and what had happened tonight didn’t make him feel any better. He held his arms stiffly on the wheel. The tense muscles in his neck ached.
He glanced behind him for a moment.
Don’t think about it…don’t think about it…
He kept his mind busy by running through familiar, reassuring thoughts. Over the past ten minutes he had concentrated on the entire discography of Pink Floyd. But over the previous four hours it had been the titles of his favorite films, the players in the last three seasons of the hockey team he supported, the names of his old schoolmates, and even the teachers. He had got as far as Mrs. Berger. What had become of her? He would have liked to see her again. Just to keep that thought at bay. And now his mind had got stuck on that stupid album with the cow on the cover!
And that thought had come back.
He had to chase it away. Send it back to the corner of his mind where he had managed to confine it at various times during the night. Otherwise he would start sweating again, and every now and again he would burst into tears, despairing of the situation, even if it didn’t last long. The fear came back and gripped his stomach. But he struggled to stay clear-headed.
Atom Heart Mother!
That was the title of the record. For a moment he felt happy. But it was a fleeting sensation. In his situation there wasn’t much to be happy about.
He turned round again to look behind him.
Then, again: I’ve got to get some petrol.
Every now and again a gust of ammonia rose up from the mat at his feet to remind him that he had lost control of himself. The muscles in his legs were starting to ache and his calf had gone to sleep.
The storm that had been beating down on the motorway almost all night was moving away beyond the mountains. He could see its greenish flashes on the horizon, while a voice on the radio delivered yet another weather report. Soon it would be daybreak. An hour before he had come out of a tollbooth and emerged onto the motorway. He hadn’t even stopped to pay the toll. His purpose at the moment was to carry on, to get further and further.
Following the instructions he had received to the letter.
For a few minutes he let his mind wander elsewhere. But inevitably it kept coming back to that memory.
He had reached the Hotel Modigliani the previous day, at about eleven in the morning. He had done his work as a salesman in town all afternoon and then in the evening, as planned, he had had dinner with some of his clients at the hotel bistro. Just after ten, he had gone back to his room.
Having closed the door, he had loosened his tie at the mirror and, at that moment, his reflection had shown him, along with his sweat-drenched appearance and his bloodshot eyes, the true face of his obsession. That was what he turned into when the desire took hold of him.
Looking at himself, he had been surprised at how he had been so good at hiding the true nature of his thoughts from his colleagues all evening. He had talked to them, listened to their inane chatter about golf and demanding women, laughed at the irritating jokes about sex. But he was elsewhere. He was savoring the moment when, back in his room, the knot in his tie loosened, he would let the lump of acid that was choking his throat rise up and explode in his face in the form of sweat, labored breathi
ng and a treacherous expression.
The true face beneath the mask.
In the seclusion of his room he had finally been able to give vent to the urge that had been pressing in his chest and in his trousers, making him fear that it too might burst out. And yet it hadn’t happened. He had managed to control himself.
Because soon he would be leaving.
As always he had sworn to himself that this would be the last time. As always, that promise was repeated before and after. And, as always, it would be denied and then renewed the next time.
He had left the hotel at about midnight, at the peak of his excitement. He had started idling: he was early. That afternoon, between tasks, he had made sure that everything was going according to plan, so that there would be no glitches. He’d been preparing this for two months, carefully grooming his “butterfly.” Waiting was the down payment required for any kind of pleasure. And he had savored it. He had checked all the details, because any one of them could expose everything. But that wouldn’t happen to him. It never happened to him. Now that the graveyard of arms had been found, he had to take additional precautions. There were a lot of police around, and everyone seemed to be on the alert. But he was good at making himself invisible. He had nothing to fear. He just had to relax. Soon he would see the butterfly in the driveway, at the spot they had agreed the day before. He was always afraid that they might change their minds. That something would go wrong. And then he would be sad, that rotten sadness that took days to dispel. And what’s worse, you can’t hide it. But he went on repeating to himself that this time too everything would be fine.
The butterfly would come.
He would quickly help her into the car, welcoming her with the usual pleasantries. The ones that help things along, make everything nice, take away the doubts produced by fear. He would take her to the place he had chosen for them that afternoon, turning off into a little side road from where you could see the lake.
The butterflies always had a very penetrating scent. Chewing gum, gym shoes. And sweat. He liked that. That smell was now part of his car.
Even now he could smell it, mixed with the smell of urine. He wept again. So many things had happened since that moment. Things had moved quickly from excitement and happiness to fear and disaster.
He looked behind him.
I’ve got to get some petrol.
But then he forgot and, taking a mouthful of that polluted air, he immersed himself once more in the memory of what had happened next…
He was sitting in the car, waiting for the butterfly. The opaque moon appeared from time to time among the clouds. To dispel his anxiety, he ran through the plan again. At first they would talk. But he would mostly listen. Because he knew that the butterflies always needed to receive what they couldn’t get elsewhere: attention. He played his part to perfection. Listening patiently to his little prey which, by opening up its heart to him, made itself weaker. It lowered its guard and let him move undisturbed into deeper territories.
Close to the cleft of the soul.
He always said just the right thing. He did it every time. That was how he became their master. It was nice to teach someone about their own desires. Explain properly what it takes, show them how it’s done. It was important. To become their school, their training ground. Give a lesson in what is pleasant.
But just as he was composing that magical lesson that would throw open all the doors of intimacy, he had glanced distractedly into the rearview mirror.
At that moment he had seen it.
Something less solid than a shadow. Something you might not really have seen, because it comes straight from your imagination. And he had thought of a mirage, an illusion.
Right up to the fist on the window.
The dry click of the door opening. The hand snaking into the gap and grabbing him by the throat, clutching it. No chance of reacting. A gust of cold air had filled the inside of the car and he clearly remembered thinking, I forgot to lock it! The locks! Not that they would have been enough to stop him.
The man was remarkably strong and he had managed to drag him out of the car with only one hand. His face was covered with a black balaclava. As the man held him in midair, he had thought of the butterfly: the precious prey he had taken such trouble to attract, which was now lost.
And this time he was the prey.
The man had slackened the grip on his neck and flung him on the ground. Then he had lost interest in him and gone back towards his own car. He’s gone to get the weapon he’s going to use to finish me off! Driven by a desperate survival instinct, he had tried to drag himself along the damp, cold ground, even though the man in the ski mask would have needed to take only a few steps to reach him and finish what he had begun.
People do such pointless things when they’re trying to escape death, he thought now, in the stale air of his car. Some people stretch out their hands when they’re faced with the barrel of a gun, and all that happens is that the bullet perforates their palm. And to escape a fire some people throw themselves out of the windows of buildings…They’re all trying to escape the inevitable, and they make themselves ridiculous.
He hadn’t thought he belonged to that group of people. He had always been sure that he could confront death with dignity. But that night, he had found himself wriggling like a worm, naively begging for his own safety. He had just managed to limp a few yards.
Then he had lost his senses.
Two dry blows to the face had brought him to. The man with the balaclava had come back. He loomed above him, staring at him with two dead, dark eyes. He wasn’t carrying a weapon. He had nodded to the car and said only, “Go now and don’t stop, Alexander.”
The man with the balaclava knew his name.
At first it had struck him as reasonable. Then, thinking about it again, it was the thing that terrified him most.
Getting away from there. At the time he hadn’t believed it. He had got up from the ground and staggered to the car, trying to hurry for fear that the other man might change his mind. He had immediately sat down at the wheel, his eyesight still misty and his hands trembling so much he couldn’t start the engine. Then at last his long night on the road had begun. Far from there, as far as possible…
I’ve got to get petrol, he thought, becoming practical again.
The tank was running on fumes. He looked out for signs for a filling station, wondering whether or not this was part of the task he’d been set the night before.
Don’t stop.
Two questions had filled his thoughts. Why had the man with the balaclava let him go? What had happened while he had been unconscious?
He had had the answers at one o’clock in the morning, when, his mind clear for a moment, he had heard the noise.
Something rubbing against the bodywork, accompanied by a rhythmic, metallic beating—tom, tom, tom—grim and ceaseless. He must have done something to the car; sooner or later one of the wheels will loosen and detach itself from the axle and I’ll lose control and crash into the guardrail! But nothing of the kind happened. Because the noise wasn’t mechanical. But he’d worked that out only later…even if he still wasn’t able to admit it to himself.
At that moment a road sign had appeared: the nearest filling station was less than eight kilometers away. He would get there, but he would have to be quick.
At that thought he turned around for the umpteenth time.
But his attention wasn’t focused on the motorway that he was leaving, or the cars in his wake.
No, his gaze stopped before he got there, long before.
What was pursuing him was not on the road. It was much closer than that. It was the source of the sound. It was something he couldn’t get away from.
It was the thing in his luggage.
That was what he kept staring at insistently. Even though he was trying not to think about what it might contain. But by the time Alexander Bermann turned around to stare straight ahead, it was already too late. The policeman at the edg
e of the carriageway was gesturing to him to pull over.
5.
Mila got off the train. Her face was bright and her eyes swollen from her sleepless night. She walked under the roof of the station. The building consisted of a magnificent nineteenth-century main hall and a huge shopping center. Everything was clean and orderly. And yet, after a few minutes, Mila knew all its dark corners. The places she would look for missing children. Where life is bought and sold, where it nestles or hides.
But that wasn’t why she was there.
Two colleagues were waiting for her in the office of the railway police. A stocky woman of about forty, with an olive complexion and big hips, too big for the jeans she was wearing. And a man of about thirty-eight, very tall and well-built. He made her think of the lads from the village where she had grown up. She’d gone out with a couple of them at middle school. She remembered how clumsy their advances had been.
The man smiled at her, but his colleague merely stared, with one eyebrow raised. Mila stepped over for the introduction ritual. Sarah Rosa mumbled her name and rank. The man, however, held out his hand, saying clearly, “Hello, I’m Special Agent Klaus Boris.” Then he offered to carry her canvas bag: “Let me.”
“No, thanks, I can do it myself,” said Mila.
But he insisted: “It’s not a problem.”
His tone, and the stubborn way he smiled at her, told Mila that Agent Boris must be a bit of a ladies’ man, convinced that he could work his charm on any woman who came within range. She was sure that he’d decided to have a try as soon as he had seen her in the distance.
Boris suggested having a coffee before setting off, but Sarah Rosa glared at him.
“What’s up? What did I say?” he pleaded.
“We don’t have much time, remember?” the woman shot back dismissively.
“Our colleague has had a long journey and I was just thinking that—”
“There’s no need,” Mila cut in. “I’m fine, thanks.”
The Whisperer Page 4