Blood Wedding

by Pierre Lemaitre

  “So, you’re a translator . . .”

  Sophie has been trying to think of a topic for conversation. She need not have bothered. Now that she is at home, Véronique is very chatty.

  “English and Russian. My mother is Russian, which helps.”

  “So, what do you translate? Novels?”

  “I wish. No, I do more technical stuff, letters, brochures, that sort of thing.”

  The conversation meanders, they talk about work, about family. Sophie invents relations, colleagues, a family, a beautiful, brand-new life, taking care to keep it as far from reality as possible.

  “What about your parents, where did you say they lived?” Véronique says.

  “Chilly-Mazarin.”

  She blurts out the name, she does not know where it came from.

  “What do they do?”

  “I persuaded them to retire.”

  Véronique has uncorked the wine, she serves a fricassée of vegetables with lardons.

  “I should warn you: it’s cooked from frozen.”

  Sophie realises that she is ravenous. She eats and eats. The wine gives her a woozy feeling of well-being. Thankfully, Véronique is very talkative. She sticks to small talk, mainly, but she has a talent for conversation, mixing everyday details with little anecdotes. As she eats, Sophie picks up information about her parents, her education, a younger brother, a recent trip to Scotland. After a while, the flow trickles, then stops.

  “Married?” Véronique asks, gesturing to Sophie’s right hand.

  There is an uncomfortable silence.

  “Past tense.”

  “But you still wear it?”

  Remember to take off the ring.

  “Habit, I suppose,” Sophie improvises. “What about you?”

  “I was all set to get the habit.”

  She says this with an awkward smile, hoping to forge a sisterly bond. In other circumstances, maybe, Sophie thinks. But not here.

  “But?”

  “It didn’t work out, but who knows . . .”

  Véronique brings out a platter of cheeses. For someone with nothing in the fridge . . .

  “So you live on your own?”

  Véronique hesitates.

  “Yes.” She bows her head over her plate, then raises it and looks Sophie in the eye almost defiantly. “Only since last Monday. It’s still a bit raw.”

  “Oh.”

  All Sophie knows is that she does not want to know. Does not want to get involved. She wants to finish her lunch and go. She does not feel well. She needs to leave.

  “These things happen,” she says inanely.

  “Yes.”

  They talk a little longer, but something in the conversation is broken. A small, private grief has come between them.

  Then the telephone rings out in the hall.

  Véronique turns towards the hall as though expecting someone to appear. She sighs. The telephone rings once, twice. She apologises, stands, and goes to answer it.

  Sophie drains her glass of wine, pours another, stares out of the window. Although Véronique has closed the door behind her, her muted voice is still audible. An awkward situation. Were Véronique not in the hallway, Sophie would grab her jacket and leave right now, without a word, like a thief. She can make out a few words and, without meaning to, pieces together the conversation.

  Véronique’s voice is grave and harsh.

  Sophie gets up, takes a few steps away from the door but it makes no difference, Véronique’s words are so clear now that she might as well be in the same room. The terrible words of a banal break-up. Sophie is not interested in this woman’s life. (“It’s over, I told you: I’m through with you.”) Sophie does not care about this failed relationship. She moves to the window. (“We’ve been through this a hundred times, let’s not rake over it again.”) On her left, there is a little writing desk. An idea begins to form in her mind. She cocks her ear to listen to the conversation. It’s got to the point of “For Christ’s sake, just leave me alone”, she still has a little time, she pulls down the central panel of the writing desk and finds two rows of drawers. “Save your breath. I don’t fall for that kind of emotional blackmail.” In the second drawer she finds a few 200-euro notes. Four of them. She stuffs them into her pocket and goes on searching. Her fingers (“I suppose you think that’s going to upset me?”) locate the stiff cover of a passport. She flicks it open but postpones examining it until later. She slips it into her pocket. She picks up a half-used chequebook and a driving licence. By the time she has reached the sofa and crammed everything into the inside pocket of her jacket, she hears: “Sad loser!” Then there is “A pathetic excuse for a man!” and finally “Scumbag”.

  The receiver is brutally slammed down. Silence. Véronique stays in the hall. Sophie tries to look suitably casual, laying one hand on her jacket.

  Finally Véronique reappears. She apologises clumsily, tries to smile.

  “I’m so sorry, you must have felt . . . I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Sophie says, quickly adding, “I’ll leave you to it.”

  “No, don’t,” Véronique says. “I’ll make some coffee.”

  “I really ought to get going.”

  “It’ll only take a minute, really.”

  Véronique wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, attempts another smile.

  “It’s so stupid . . .”

  Sophie decides she will give herself fifteen minutes and then she will leave, regardless.

  From the kitchen, Véronique says:

  “He’s been calling me non-stop for the past three days. I’ve tried everything. I even unplugged the telephone, but that’s not very practical given that I work from home. And I can’t bear just letting it ring. So, from time to time I go out for a coffee. He’ll get bored in the end, but he’s a weird guy. Clingy, you know the type . . .”

  She sets the cups on the coffee table in the living room.

  Sophie realises that she has had too much wine. Everything has started to spin slowly, the posh middle-class apartment, Véronique, everything starts to blur and then Léo’s face, the carriage clock on the mantelpiece, the empty wine bottle on the table, the child’s bedroom as she steps inside, the huddled figure under the duvet, the clack of drawers opening and closing and the silence as terror takes hold. Objects dance in front of her eyes, she sees the passport she stuffed into her jacket. A wave washes over her, everything gradually goes dim, fading to black. From far away she can just hear Véronique’s voice asking: “Are you alright?” It seems to come from the bottom of a deep well, it echoes. Sophie feels her body go slack, then crumple and there is only darkness. This is another scene she can remember perfectly. Even today, she could describe every last detail, even the wallpaper.

  She wakes to find herself lying on the sofa, one foot dangling on the floor, she rubs her eyes, searching for a flicker of consciousness, now and then she tries to open them but feels something within her that resists, that wants to remain asleep, far from everything. She is so tired, so much has happened since this morning.

  Eventually, she props herself up on one elbow, turns to face the room and slowly opens her eyes.

  At the foot of the table Véronique’s body lies in a pool of blood.

  Her first reaction is to drop the kitchen knife in her hand, it clatters ominously on the floor.

  *

  It is like a dream. She gets to her feet and staggers. Instinctively she tries to wipe her hand on her trousers, but the blood has already dried. She slips on the crimson pool slowly spreading across the floor, but manages to steady herself on the table at the last minute. She reels for a moment. She is drunk. Without realising, she has picked up her jacket and is trailing it behind her like a leash. Like the wire from a bedside lamp. Hugging the walls, she makes it to the hallway. Her bag is there. Once more, her eyes blur with tears, she snuffles. She crumples and sits down heavily. She buries her face in the jacket now wrapped around her arms. She feels something on her f
ace. Raising her head she notices that she trailed her jacket through the blood and has just smeared it on her face . . . Wash your face before you leave, Sophie. Get up.

  But she does not have the energy. It is all too much. She lies back on the ground, her head close to the front door, desperate to drift back to sleep, desperate to do anything but have to face this reality. She closes her eyes. Then suddenly, as though a pair of hands has lifted her up by the shoulders . . . Even today she cannot say what happened, but she finds herself sitting up again, then standing. Staggering, but upright. She feels a brutal determination welling in her, something animal. She goes back into the living room. From where she is standing, she can see only Véronique’s legs, sprawled half under the table. She moves closer. The body is lying on its side, the face obscured by the hunched shoulders. Sophie comes closer still and leans down: the blouse is black with blood. There is a deep wound in the middle of the belly where the knife went in. The apartment is silent. She goes to the bedroom. These ten paces took all the energy she could muster and she sits on the corner of the bed. One wall of the room is lined with wardrobes. Hands on her knees, Sophie painfully shuffles over and opens the first door. There is enough here to clothe an entire orphanage. She and Véronique are about the same size. She opens the second door, the third, and finally finds a suitcase which she tosses, open, onto the bed. She chooses dresses because she does not have time to find tops that would go well with the skirts. She takes three pairs of well-worn jeans. The effort of doing something brings her back to life. Without even thinking, she picks out things that are most unlike her own style. Behind the last door, she finds drawers full of underwear. She puts a handful into the case. As for shoes, at a glance she can see that they range from horrid to hideous. She takes two of the ugliest pairs and a pair of trainers. Then she sits on the suitcase so that she can snap it shut, drags it into the hall and leaves it next to her bag. In the bathroom, she washes her face without looking at herself. Looking in the mirror she notices that the sleeve of her jacket is stained with blood and rips it off as though it were on fire. Back in the bedroom, she opens the wardrobe again, spends four seconds choosing a jacket, opting for something bland in navy blue. In the time it takes to transfer the contents of her pockets to the jacket, she is standing in the hall, her ear pressed to the front door.

  She can still picture herself clearly. Gingerly she opens the door, takes the suitcase in one hand, her handbag in the other, and leaves, taking the lift, her stomach heaving, her eyes now dry of tears, as though drained. Jesus, the suitcase feels heavy. Probably because she is so tired. A few steps and she is opening the door to the street, she is out on boulevard Diderot and turns left, away from the train station.

  7

  She has propped the passport on the washbasin, open at the photograph, and is studying herself in the mirror. Her eyes flick back and forth from her face to the photograph. She picks up the passport again and checks the issue date: 1993. It is old enough for her to pass. Véronique Fabre, born February 11, 1970 – not much of an age gap – in Chevreaux. She has not the faintest idea where Chevreaux might be. Somewhere in the middle of France? Not a clue. She will have to look it up.

  Translator. Véronique said that she translated from English and Russian. Sophie, when it comes to languages . . . A little English, a few words of Spanish, and that was long ago. If she has to offer proof of her occupation, things will fall apart, but she cannot imagine any circumstances in which it might arise. Come up with more improbable languages: Lithuanian, Estonian?

  The impersonal passport photograph shows an unremarkable woman with short hair and banal features. Sophie looks at herself in the mirror. Her forehead is higher, her nose broader, her eyes are very different. But she has to do something. She opens the plastic bag containing everything she has just bought at the nearby Monoprix: scissors, a make-up bag, dark glasses, hair dye. One last glance in the mirror. She sets to work.

  8

  She tries to read her fate. Standing beneath the departures board, her suitcase next to her, she scans the destinations, the times, the platform numbers. Choosing one destination rather than another might make all the difference. Avoid the T.G.V. for the time being, since she would be trapped inside. Decide on a densely populated city where she can easily melt into the crowd. Buy a ticket for the last station on the line, but get off at an earlier stop in case the person at the ticket desk remembers her. She picks up a handful of timetables and, at the table of a snack bar, works out a convoluted route which will take her from Paris to Grenoble, with six changes. It will be a long journey, it will give her time to rest.

  The ticket machines are literally under siege. She will have to use one of the counters. She wants to choose. Not a woman, since they are supposed to be more observant. Not a young guy who might find her vaguely attractive and remember her. She finds the perfect person at the last counter and joins the line of people waiting. It is a single queue from which customers go to the next available ticket desk. She will have to manoeuvre subtly to end up with the one she wants.

  She takes off the sunglasses. She should have done so earlier so as not to call attention to herself. She will have to think about these things now. It is a long queue, but her turn comes too soon for her liking, she moves forward, pretending not to notice a queue jumper slip past her and now finds herself in the perfect position. There is a God who watches over criminals. She tries to make her voice sound firm, pretends to rummage in her bag as she asks for a ticket to Grenoble on the train leaving at 6.30 p.m.

  “I’ll see whether there are any seats left,” the man behind the counter says, and begins tapping into his terminal.

  This possibility had not occurred to her. She cannot change her destination now, or decide not to buy a ticket since the man staring at the screen would surely remember that fact. She does not know what to do, thinks about turning and walking away, going to a different station, a different destination.

  “I’m sorry,” the man says after a moment, looking at her for the first time, “I’m afraid the 6.30 p.m. is booked out.”

  He types a little more.

  “I still have seats on the 8.45.”

  “No, thanks.”

  She spoke too quickly. She tries to smile.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  She can feel it is going badly. What she is saying is implausible, it is not something a normal traveller would say in such a situation, but it was all she could think of. She picks up her bag. The next customer is already standing behind her, there is no time to lose. She turns and leaves.

  Now she needs another counter, another destination, but also another strategy. She has to phrase the question differently so she can choose without needing to hesitate. Despite having carefully chosen the ticket seller, she is terrified that he will remember her. It is at this point that she notices the sign for Hertz Car Rentals on the station concourse. By now, her name will be public knowledge, people will be looking for her, but not for Véronique Fabre. She has the driving licence, and she can pay in cash, or by cheque. A car would offer her greater independence and freedom of movement. It is this thought that persuades her, she is already pushing open the glass doors to the rental office.

  Twenty-five minutes later, a suspicious employee is walking her around a dark-blue Ford Fiesta, commenting on its perfect condition. She responds with a calculated smile. She has had time to think and, for the first time in hours, she feels resolute. People will be expecting her to get away from Paris as soon as possible. For the time being, her plan amounts to two things: check into a hotel in the suburbs for one night, and tomorrow buy a couple of number plates and the tools for changing them. As she drives through the outer suburbs, she feels a little freer.

  “I’m alive,” she thinks.

  Immediately tears begin to well again.

  9

  LE MATIN – 13/02/2003 – 2.08 p.m.

  WHERE IS SOPHIE DUGUET?

  Police experts were all agreed and, depen
ding on the sources, the predictions hardly varied: even in the worst case scenario, Sophie Duguet would be arrested within a fortnight.

  Yet it is now eight months since the most wanted woman in France disappeared without trace.

  In a series of high-profile press conferences, public statements and communiqués, the senior police detectives and officials at the Ministère de la Justice have been passing the buck.

  This, then, is what we know:

  *

  On May 28 last, shortly before midday, a cleaner working for M. and Mme Gervais discovered the body of their son Léo, aged six. The child had been strangled in his bed with laces from a pair of hiking boots. Police were immediately called and suspicion rapidly centred on his nanny, Sophie Duguet (née Auverney), 28, who had been looking after the child and has not since been found. Early evidence seemed damning: there was no sign of forced entry to the apartment, Mme Gervais, Léo’s mother, had left Sophie Duguet in the apartment at 9 a.m. that morning, supposing her son to be still asleep. The autopsy has revealed that by this time the child had been dead for several hours, most probably having been strangled in his sleep during the night.

  The police judiciaire were all the more determined to make a quick arrest since, in the days that followed, the murder provoked a public outcry. The media circus around the case undoubtedly owes much to the fact that the victim’s father was a close associate of the Ministère des Affaires Étrangères. Farright parties, notably Pascal Mariani and several other organisations, some of which had notionally been disbanded, used the case to call for the reintroduction of the death penalty for “particularly heinous crimes”, and in this they were vociferously supported by the right-wing member of parliament, Bernard Strauss.

  According to the Ministère de l’Intérieur, the suspect would not be able to evade justice for long since rapid police response would have made it impossible for Sophie Duguet to leave the country. All airports and train stations were swiftly alerted. “Those few suspects who manage to stay on the run succeed only by virtue of experience and considerable preparation,” commissaire Bertrand of the police judiciaire confidently assured the press. But this young woman had scant financial resources and no relatives or friends in a position to help her, with the exception of her father, Patrick Auverney, a retired architect who was immediately placed under police surveillance.