Stifling Folds of Love

by John Brooke

  ‘I don’t think we have much choice,’ responded Aliette, suddenly not a cop but just another woman, maybe a friend. ‘The heart’s a strange thing. It leads, we have to follow.’

  ‘Must be something like that.’ Flipping to the horoscopes. ‘What are you, Virgo?’

  ‘Mm…Georgette too.’

  Anne-Marie consulted Virgo. ‘Says you need less knowledge and more imagination, fewer hard facts and more dreamy truths.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘Oh, they never get me right.’ She reached for her half-gone bottle of wine. ‘Want some?’

  Indicating no thanks, Aliette tried to keep it less than official. ‘I have to talk to him and I think you know why. Is there anything you want to tell me? It would be better now than later.’

  Moving on from the horoscopes, the errant street girl considered a perfect woman on the page in front of her. ‘I guess I knew there’d be trouble when I saw the tennis racquet in with all his stuff.’

  ‘You knew whose it was?’

  ‘Monday I did… Not till then.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Nothing. I didn’t ask.’

  Aliette nodded: par for the course. ‘I believe he killed him.’

  ‘I heard something about another heart attack…You can’t kill anyone with a camera.’

  ‘How do you know that, Anne-Marie?’

  It looked like she might cry. Her exquisite dark eyes appeared to swell. She controlled it. ‘Tommi told me…He showed me. He’s an expert. He’s an interesting man.’

  The inspector gestured toward the house. ‘He’s waiting for you. Left his door wide open. You want a word in private before I go in?’

  ‘He’s gone.’ Whether for the night or forever wasn’t clear as she leafed dully through another page or two of Marie-Claire, crying now, tears dropping on the fantasy images in front of her. Anne-Marie muttered, ‘That was your guy.’

  ‘My guy?’

  ‘Your commissaire? Smashed his way in…’ Fixing Aliette with a twinkle of sad street girl irony. ‘They look so funny in their tennis clothes. Like little boys.’

  Smashed his way in? ‘Is he still in there?’

  A shrug. She wiped a tear. ‘Don’t know. Lost track. Sorry…Please don’t let him hurt Willem.’

  ‘I won’t.’ Adding, ‘Thanks.’ And, ‘Don’t get too far away…and be careful.’

  Standing at the open door, she called, ‘Tomas Bonneau? I’m here to inform you…’ et cetera, exactly according to the rules. No response. Then, more tentative, slowly entering with Patrice Lebeau, ‘…Claude?’

  Tommi’s studio was a smashed-up shambles with lights and stands knocked helter skelter; the entire pane on the back door was shattered, as if someone had been thrown through it, shards of glass everywhere. There was no blood immediately evident. But Pearl Serein’s enlarged and dreamy B&W face was no longer on the wall. Shit and damn! She crouched for a closer look at the tennis racquet lying in the corner. It could be Belfort’s. But not likely if Tommi’d thought to get rid of the picture, possibly ripped by the noble’s hand. It had to be Claude’s. The signs of a fight were recent; they fit with a kicked-in door. Inspector Nouvelle had to think Claude Néon had finally taken Tommi’s bait.

  Patrice beckoned from the darkroom.

  She confronted herself — 8x10, black and white, clipped to a string with a clothes peg.

  A senior inspector did not take it upon herself to explain this picture to her assistant. It’s that ‘need to know’ police mentality, and Patrice Lebeau did not ask. She began to go through Tommi’s darkroom drawers. In the top: his shots of Pearl, which she had already had the pleasure of perusing; then his birds — many drastically over-exposed, solarized and otherwise drenched with light. Had they all been blinded in the process? Poor birds. And why?

  From the bottom drawer she lifted a pile of more oddly bleached-out shots. Tommi’s mistakes? These ruined photos appeared to be of faces; but it was hard to recognize characteristics. More like glyphs or carvings. Or those bogus images of spirits some people claim to have captured. Though almost void of facial character, the ‘looks’ in the eyes were haunting. Aliette’s heart turned over and picked up speed. Forcing herself to slow down, stay calm, she spread the images on Tommi’s table and, cop-like, began to go methodically from one face to the next.

  ‘Looks like the tip of a tongue,’ offered Patrice.

  ‘Yes.’ A tongue stuck between clamped teeth. Now the pained eyes in the ghostly face — over-exposure actually seemed to magnify it — showed the same helpless thing she had observed with horrified fascination amid chaos that night at the club. My Pearl! Raymond Touche struggling to understand why his Pearl, his all and everything, would dance away with another man. The inspector now knew Tommi had been at the club, with his camera, hiding under cover of the band’s demonic light show.

  This next shot showed a white swirly mass that could be Bruno Martel’s ugly biblical beard.

  These bent lips could be Pierre Angulaire’s final grotesque rictus grin.

  These were death masks. For the most part, they were thickly cloudy, white and indistinct. She hoped forensics had a technique for bringing out more clarity. Tommi’s mistakes? The error was consistent, and — with the eyes at least, it seemed to convey a constant root quality, the same non-quality of a man utterly exposed and completely lost. A man disappearing from the core of himself.

  Question: Were they intentional?

  But you can’t kill someone with a camera…

  No? What about with a light?

  Nonplussed, the inspector headed to the front of the house in response to Patrice’s call.

  Forcing the thought of Claude facing that same light to stay out of her mind so she could think straight, Aliette read a fax Patrice had found on Tommi’s desk: a fax of a letter signed by Willem van Hoogstraten addressed to the editor of Le Cri du Matin, dated that day, forwarded from Christian Godchick, Ed., along with an effusive note: This arrived with the evening post. If I have to pay to send someone to Paris for the weekend, this will be our man…You’re doing brilliantly!

  Willem’s voice came through all too clearly: Sir, If I could, I would send a violet to Pearl Serein, with a note asking humbly to be forgiven. But I fear it is too late. A Rembrandt menu was lying on the desk in plain view. As were several sheets, where Willem’s baroque lettering had been copied with a wide nib several times. Tommi Bonneau had copied it out to the point of perfecting Willem’s highly mannered hand.

  Patrice retrieved several more attempts at it littering Tommi’s floor.

  Going through the drawers of Tommi’s writing desk: here was a drugstore photo of a topless Pearl Serein on the sunny deck of a boat floating in perfect blue. A folder with Pierre Angulaire’s production logo, packed to bursting with images of Pearl. A gilt-framed, rather formal portrait that would no doubt have a sad old banker’s lonely fingerprints.

  The two cops left in a hurry.

  The old Westfalia van was no longer parked in front.

  46

  Convergence

  ‘Do you have children, Willem?’

  No. Willem couldn’t speak.

  ‘But you were a child once?’

  Yes. He tried…Tommi watched Willem trying to make a sound come to his lips.

  ‘Of course. And I think you still are. It’s in your eyes. You can’t hide it, never in a million years. And that’s what beautiful about you, Willem, what everyone will remember you for. Tommi’s readers will be shocked and so sad. I believe each of Tommi’s gentle readers is a child at heart. And full of love. Yes?’ Tommi held him close like a mortified friend.

  Perched at the end of the diving board extending from the top of Pearl’s diving tower, a place so often dreamed of, Willem van Hoogstraten was numb with shock, traumatized from the dash through the the city’s alleys and up eleven flights locked in step with a freewheeling, large-stepping Tommi Bonneau. Witnessing Tommi’s show of diabolical talent on the
wobbly board had almost stopped his heart. And now there was a rope tied in a noose round Willem’s fragile neck. The hard foam lifebuoy from Pearl’s cabana was looped around the board — making the board a makeshift scaffold. Willem was going to be hanged. It would appear as if Willem hanged himself.

  Gazing into Willem’s eyes, Tommi asked, ‘Are you afraid?’

  ‘Yes!’ Barely a whisper.

  Tommi was sympathetic. ‘Fear’s an intoxicating thing. Some people say fear focuses the mind. I think it’s the opposite. Fear floods the mind, dominates the heart, drowns the soul. Not that I’d ever pretend to be an expert where it comes to psychology. Me, I’m more a pure poetics type. I think you are too. Eh, Willem? My fellow traveler?…But how do we arrive at a place like this? Is it really for the love of Pearl? What else could it be?’

  Willem couldn’t answer.

  Standing beneath the early stars and a storybook crescent moon, Tommi was feeling fateful, in a mood to talk. ‘My devotion to perfection started early, Willem. I was shaped by it. My work, my story, all of this was shaped by that.’ The mystery of Pearl’s lovers. The fact that they had died. ‘Now I’ve lost her, my story’s over. Unfinished. Incomplete. It’s sad: I don’t know what she’s become. She’s never once since shown me what I need to see. What I saw. I believe it’s still there, but…’ Tommi watched a tear slide down his captive’s cheek. ‘Where is she, Willem?’

  Eyes are amazing. Willem’s understanding appeared to click on like a light. So Pearl wasn’t dead and Tommi believed he held the key. Willem shook his head, defiantly. No way I’ll ever tell.

  Tommi was impressed. ‘That’s good. Be a hero, at least tonight…Did you know the ancients believed virtue resided in the heart? They were sure it was a real thing, like a gallstone or a tonsil, this little chunk of stuff called virtue that made a man what he was. Or wasn’t.’ Tommi stared far into the night. ‘None of them had it. Eh, Willem? Pearl’s boys… Have to have virtue if you want to have love. And if you want the love of the local goddess, then the bar has got to be raised, the stakes go up. Of course. But you and I, we knew that all along, didn’t we?’

  Willem looked away.

  ‘All I ever wanted was to tell a beautiful story, bring it to my gentle readers because I know what a beautiful story can do to bridge the distance in the soul. I didn’t want anyone to die. I was doing my job! I asked questions — tough questions, Willem, to get to the heart of it, and I took a picture to get a glimpse of the thing behind their eyes. For you, Willem, so you would know. Because you deserve to know. Pearl defines your life and you believe in Pearl. Your letter, Willem. It glows with virtue! It is beautiful and I hope that you, at least, won’t be afraid.’ He stared grimly at the man in the moon. ‘How could a Tommi ever kill the likes of them? With a camera and a light? Sure, if you can get the strobe synced to the alpha waves, you can induce a seizure. That’s basic RG, MI6, CIA, Stasi, KGB stuff. But it’s top end, as in military, Willem. You can’t just go and buy it at the corner. I never had anywhere near enough control to make it do something like that. They were petrified — but not of me. Of themselves. Do you know what I’m saying? Willem?’

  Willem wasn’t listening — you could see it in his eyes.

  Tommi sniffed, ‘I believe they just gave up and died.’

  Tommi pulled an envelope from his pocket, waved it in front of Willem’s nose. ‘Here’s a note for when they find you. You see, this cop, Néon, by now my readers agree, and some more than others, that the man is not only second-rate and nowhere near good enough for our Pearl, but he is also definitely the negative energy that sucked her out of our lives. All the letters we’ve been getting? We’re going to do a special page in tomorrow’s paper to support that view. And then there’s yours, Willem, your heartfelt letter, pure poetry dedicated to her.’

  In a choked-out whisper Willem pleaded, ‘Then why kill me?’

  ‘B’en…’ Tommi slipped the note into Willem’s breast pocket. He hoped it would stay dry; ‘because of love. Anger. Then bitter hopelessness. And you’re just a waiter. It’s perfect. It’s the only way out. They’ll find you, and a note saying Tommi was right, Pearl deserved better, that you’re sorry to act in such a heartless way, but you did what you had to do.’ Tommi breathed. ‘They’ll find that cop in your café. I’ve got everything I need to lay all of it in his jerk-off lap, no problem, clean, clear, very solid.’ Tommi took more deep breaths. Control that anger; control it… He breathed. He smiled at Willem. ‘And you’ll get full credit for getting rid of the cause of this sad thing. Tommi will do that for you. I’ll bring my readers around. They’ll be with you on this, I promise. Don’t move now…’ Checking the noose, Tommi left Willem balanced there. He pulled his camera and flash from his satchel and laid it on Pearl’s board. Willem, balanced on the springy plank, did not dare budge. Tommi checked the hard foam ring…a nudge, a kick, he was satisfied it would hold a swinging waiter. Now he prepared to take a picture.

  Adjusting focus, Tommi said, ‘Really, Willem, this will be your finest moment.’

  Willem jiggled, panicking…now he whimpered in despair.

  Tommi reached, steadied him ‘Wait. Have to get a picture first.’ He aimed at Willem’s eyes. ‘It’s the only way out for me, too,’ confided Tommi, moving closer. ‘It wouldn’t even matter if you told me where she is. I don’t want to know, not now, not anymore. Truth be told, it’s better for the story if she’s just gone.’

  Then a voice enquired, ‘But what will become of her?’

  Tommi’s breathing tripped over itself. There was an old woman with silver hair standing at the top of the ladder. With a book in her hand. Not the most threatening of opponents.

  Tommi’s breath restarted. He asked, ‘Does it matter? I mean, who really cares?’

  She raised an imperious nose toward the waiter. ‘Willem is my friend. He cares.’

  Willem gasped, ‘Georgette!’

  Georgette? ‘Have I seen you before?’ Then it clicked. Some kind of artist’s model, sister of that seamstress who was killed at Mari Morgan’s. He’d seen her observing the proceedings at the trial. That perpetually bleak face… But where else? More recently. Where? ‘Another gentle reader?’

  Georgette informed him, ‘Everyone knows I don’t go near your stupid column.’

  Tommi smiled. ‘Come up. A little closer. I need a picture.’

  She slowly climbed the last two rungs, then took a careful step along the board.

  Tommi had Georgette’s ancient forest-green eyes squarely in his frame. He read contempt and something else. Pity? He adjusted his setting a touch to split the difference, and moved closer.

  Taking one more step, Georgette reached out with the hand that held the book and swatted the camera away at the very instant Tommi pushed the button triggering the shutter and the light. Tommi’s system fell, flashing up toward the stars…and it continued to flash after the brisk splash below, sending strange icy pulses through the water, layering the aqua depths of Pearl’s pool with surreal dimension.

  Now easing down the ladder, drawing him on with the driest smirk, Georgette Duguay repeated her question: ‘What becomes of her — our Pearl? According to your story?’

  Tommi advanced. ‘The more interesting question is: Why did the waiter kill Georgette?’

  Left bound and stranded at the end of Pearl Serein’s much-talked-about 3-meter board, Willem moaned with terror as Tommi Bonneau stepped down the ladder, held by Georgette’s eyes, considering it, teasing out his story line; ‘…and what was she even doing there? Maybe you were in love with this waiter. And you came after him on his tragic pilgrimage to the home of Pearl Serein, and you fought…yes, and then he threw you over the side of the terrace. Then hanged himself. That makes sense: an artist’s model and a waiter, two of the little people, unknown, invisible, two gentle readers swept up in this larger thing. I think I like it.’

  Georgette placed her feet on the deck. ‘Everyone knows I don’t love the waiter.’

&n
bsp; ‘Maybe you loved the cop who’s taking all the heat. They’re going to find him in the morning on the floor of your friend’s café. Yes, that works…I think it’s you who you found him, put it together, followed the murderous trail. If you’re here, you must have been there. No?’

  ‘That would be impossible.’ Georgette meant loving Claude Néon.

  Tommi shrugged that away. ‘No one really knows anything about love, madame.’

  Georgette ran for the cabana…that spear thing hanging there!

  Tommi leapt with a quick dexterity, landed squarely, grabbed her by the arm and threw her hard against the cabana wall. It shook. The impact stunned the seventy-one-year-old. She crumpled.

  Tommi approached and bent to gather her up in his stringy arms, too calmly, an almost tender look, a hunter picking up a felled hare — this is how nature works, but he was a man with compassion at his core — and no clue how insulting this sympathy could be to a woman like this one. Seeing it, Georgette writhed and kicked. And kicked again. Her legs were powered by her fury, her outrage at the machinations of this absurd, this ugly man. Georgette was a large woman, a head higher than Willem, and nothing like passive. ‘Cretin!’ Ripping at his face when he tried to lift her in his arms.

  ‘Oh–là-là…’ Tommi realized he would have to fight. He kicked and sent her sprawling.

  From overhead, Willem forced out a cry. ‘Georgette!’

  Eleven stories below, Claude Néon exploded into the foyer. Suddenly stopped dead.

  A half-dozen residents were gathered there waiting for the lift. One woman was waiting at the reception desk, looking edgy, while the puffy concierge, back on duty after a sordid break with Miriam in the garage, faced the panel controlling the second lift, stolidly going through a massive key ring, testing each key against the top floor button which contained a lock: the lock to Pearl Serein’s front door. All the residents turned as one — looked askance at the chaotic, bloodied tennis player. Except the one woman at the concierge’s station, none too patient, waiting to be served. ‘Where’s Arthur? Can’t he do that?’ she demanded. ‘I just want — ’