Now that Vincent is safely installed in the suburbs, she has put the house on the market. And she’s flogging everything at knockdown prices. She has had a curious collection of people come by, vans show up at all hours with antique dealers, bric-a-brac merchants, the Emmaus Homeless Charity. Sophie waits for them and stiffly greets them at the top of the front steps; she is never around when they leave. In the meantime, they load up boxes and furniture, a whole pile of junk. It’s strange, when I saw those same things in her house the other night, I found them charming, but now, watching them being cleared out and packed up, they suddenly seem ugly, damaged. Such is life.
February 9
Two nights ago, at about nine o’clock, Sophie jumped into a taxi.
Vincent’s room is on the second floor. He somehow managed to push the safety bar on the door that leads to the vast stone staircase and launched his wheelchair down the steps. The nurses are at a loss to know how he did it, but obviously he still had considerable strength. He took advantage of the general kerfuffle after dinner, when groups are getting together to play games and the pensioners are gathered in front of the television.
He died instantly. Curious that he died the same way as his mother. Talk about fate . . .
February 12
Sophie decided to have Vincent cremated. The ceremony was poorly attended: her father, Vincent’s father, a handful of former colleagues, a few relatives she rarely sees. It is at times like this you realise how completely she has cut herself off. At least Valérie showed up.
February 17
I expected her to be relieved by Vincent’s death. For weeks, she must have been imagining herself having to visit him for years and years. But in fact her reaction was completely different: she is tormented by guilt. If she had not “put him in a home”, if she had had the strength to care for him to the end, he would still be alive. Despite Valérie’s e-mail saying that the life he was living was no life at all, Sophie is devastated. But I believe that, sooner or later, reason will prevail.
February 19
Sophie has gone to stay with her father for a few days. I didn’t feel I needed to tag along. Besides, she took her medication with her.
February 25
I have to admit that it’s a decent neighbourhood. It’s not one I would have chosen, but it’s fine. Sophie moved into a third-floor apartment. I will have to find a way to visit some day. It’s unlikely I’ll be able to find an observation post as convenient as I had back when Sophie was a radiant young woman. But I’m working on it.
She brought almost nothing with her. There cannot have been much left after her clearance sale in the Oise. The removals van she has rented is tiny compared to the one they used when they moved out of Paris. I’m not one for symbols generally, but even I can see it as a sign, and a good one, too. A few months ago, Sophie moved house with a husband, with tons of furniture, books and paintings, and with a baby in her belly. She has come back alone, with nothing but a small van. She is no longer the young woman who radiated life and energy. Far from it. Sometimes I look at the photographs from back then, her holiday snaps.
March 7
Sophie has decided to look for work. Not in her own field, she no longer has any contacts in P.R., and besides, she no longer has the ambition or the drive. Then there is the problem of why she left her last position. I watch from a distance. I’m not bothered one way or the other. She visits offices, arranges interviews. She obviously doesn’t care what she does. She barely mentions it in her e-mails. It is strictly utilitarian.
March 13
Well, I didn’t see that coming: a nanny. The advertisement was for a “child-minder”. The manager of the agency took a liking to Sophie. And it took no time at all to find her a position: that same evening, she was hired by “M. and Mme Gervais”. I will have to do a little digging about them. I saw Sophie with a little boy of about five or six. It is the first time I’ve seen her smile in months. I haven’t yet figured out her work schedule.
March 24
The cleaning woman arrives at about noon. Sophie usually lets her in. But since she lets herself in when Sophie isn’t there, I assume she has her own keys. She is a plump woman of a certain age who goes everywhere with a brown plastic bag. She does not clean for the Gervais on weekends. I watched her for days on end, I have learned her routine, her habits. I’m an expert. Before starting her shift, she stops at Le Triangle, the café on the corner, for one last cigarette. She is evidently not allowed to smoke in the apartment. Her big thing is the horses. I sat at the table next to her as she was filling in her betting slip, and then, when she went to give it in, I slid my hand into the brown plastic shopping bag. It hardly took me a moment to locate the keys. On Saturday morning I went out to Villeparisis (it’s ridiculous how far the woman has to come to work), and while she was doing her shopping, I slipped the keys back into her bag. I’m sure it was a load off her mind.
Now, I have my access to the Gervais’ apartment.
April 2
Nothing much has changed. It was less than two weeks before Sophie lost her identity card, for her alarm clock to go on the blink (she showed up late in her very first week). I am piling on the pressure and waiting for the right opportunity. So far, I have been pretty patient, but now I’d like to move on to Plan B.
May 3
Although she loves her new job, for the past two months Sophie has found herself facing the same psychological problems she did a year ago. Exactly the same. But one thing is new: the furious outbursts. Even I have trouble understanding her sometimes. Her unconscious mind seems to be rebelling, driving her into wild rages. It was different before. Sophie was resigned to her madness. Since then, something inside her has snapped and I don’t know what. I see her getting angry, she has no self-control; she is rude to people, it’s as though she finds everyone infuriating, as though she no longer likes anyone. But it’s hardly anyone else’s fault that she is like this! I find her aggressive. It did not take long for her to get a terrible reputation in the neighbourhood. She has no patience. For a nanny, that is a serious drawback. And though I admit she has a lot to deal with right now, she takes out her personal problems on other people. There are times when I think she is capable of murder. If I were the parent of a six-year-old kid, I wouldn’t leave him in the care of someone like Sophie.
May 28
I was dead right. I saw Sophie with the boy in place Dantremont. Everything was calm. Sophie was sitting on a bench, daydreaming. I don’t know what can have happened, but a few minutes later she was striding down the street in a towering rage. Trailing a long way behind her, the boy was evidently sulking. When Sophie turned and ran at him, I knew things would not end well. She slapped him. A vicious smack, the sort that is meant to hurt, to punish. The kid was dumbfounded. As was Sophie. As though she had woken from a nightmare. They stood for a moment staring at each other, not speaking. The traffic light turned green and I drove away. Sophie was looking around wildly, fearful that someone might have seen, that someone might say something. I get the feeling she hates this child.
Last night, she slept at the Gervais’ apartment. This is rare. As a rule, she prefers to go home, no matter how late it is. I know the layout of the apartment. When Sophie stays over, there are two possibilities, because there are two guest bedrooms. I watched the lights flicker on and off in the various windows. Sophie read the boy a bedtime story, then I saw her at the window smoking a last cigarette, the light went on in the bathroom briefly, then the apartment was dark. The bedroom. To get to the boy’s bedroom you have to go through the room in which Sophie sleeps. I’m sure that when the nanny sleeps over, the parents don’t dare check on their son for fear of waking her.
Mme Gervais arrived home at 1.20 a.m. The light came on in the bathroom again, and their bedroom lights went out at about 2.00. I waited until 4.00 before I went up. I made a detour to the cloakroom to find her hiking boots, to remove the laces, then retraced my steps. I stood listening to Sophie sleeping for a l
ong time before slowly, silently, creeping through her room. The little boy was sound asleep, his breathing made a soft, high-pitched whistle. I don’t think he suffered much. I wrapped the laces around his throat, pressed the pillow down on his face with my shoulder, and it was all over quickly. But it was horrifying. He writhed and thrashed furiously. I felt that I was going to throw up, tears came to my eyes. And suddenly, with absolute terrible certainty, I knew that in those few seconds I became someone very different. I managed to finish the job, but I could never do it again. Something in me died with that boy. Something of the child in me that I had not realised was still alive.
In the morning, I was concerned when I did not see Sophie emerging from the building. It’s not like her. There was no way of knowing what was happening in the apartment. I telephoned, twice. And a few minutes later, a few interminable minutes later, I saw her suddenly appear, clearly in a blind panic. She took the métro. She raced back to her apartment to pick up some clothes, and then called into the bank just as it was closing for lunch.
Sophie was on the run.
The following morning, the headline in Le Matin read: “SIX-YEAR-OLD STRANGLED IN HIS SLEEP. POLICE SEARCH FOR NANNY”.
January 2004
In February of last year, Le Matin ran the headline: “WHERE IS SOPHIE DUGUET?”
It had just been discovered that, after murdering little Léo Gervais, Sophie had bumped off a woman named Véronique Fabre and stolen her identity in order to escape. No-one could know that the following June, she would murder the manager of a fast-food restaurant who was employing her cash in hand.
Sophie Duguet proved more resourceful and determined than anyone imagined. Myself included, and I know her better than anyone. “Survival instinct” is not an empty phrase. For Sophie to get away, she needed a little help from me, though always at a distance, but I suspect she might have managed it without my help. Whatever the case, the fact remains that Sophie is still a free woman. She has moved several times, changing her hairstyle, her clothes, her routine, her job, her friends.
Despite the difficulties posed by her being on the run, living incognito, never staying in the same place for long, I have managed to keep up the pressure on her because my methods are effective. Over the months, she and I were like two blind actors in a tragedy: we were destined to meet, and that moment was fast approaching.
They say that it was by constantly changing tactics that Napoleon won his wars. This is also how Sophie succeeded. She has changed course a hundred times. Recently she has changed her plans again. And she is about to change her name once more. This is a recent development. With the help of a prostitute, she has managed to purchase genuine/forged papers. The papers themselves are forgeries, but the identity is genuine, almost verifiable, irreproachable, the name of someone to whom nothing much has ever happened. As soon as she had her new identity she moved again to another city. I have to say that, at the time, I could not really work out what good it would do her to spend an exorbitant amount of money on a forged birth certificate, given that they are only ever valid for three months after issue. But when I saw her signing up with a dating agency everything fell into place.
It is an ingenious solution. Credit where credit is due: Sophie may still be suffering harrowing nightmares, shaking like a leaf all day long, obsessively keeping a check on her every action, but I have to admit she has an extraordinarily ability to come up with imaginative ideas. And this one means I need to think on my feet, and fast.
I’d be lying if I said it was difficult. I know her so well. I knew how she would react, what would interest her. Because I was the only person who knew precisely what she was looking for and, I believe, the only person in a position to play the role. To be really plausible, I had to make sure I did not come across as the perfect candidate; it was a matter of striking just the right balance. Initially, Sophie knocked me back. Then time worked its magic. She hesitated, she came back. At that point, I had to appear awkward enough to seem convincing, yet cunning enough not to put her off. As a sergent-chef in the Signals Corps, I can pass for an acceptable moron. As of a few weeks ago, Sophie had three short months to seal the deal, so she decided to speed things up. We spent a couple of nights together. Here, again, I think I played my role with admirable delicacy.
As a result, the day before yesterday, Sophie asked me to marry her.
I said yes.
Frantz and Sophie
The apartment is not very large, but it is practical. It is perfectly fine for a couple. This is what Frantz said when they moved in, and Sophie agreed. Three rooms, two with French windows overlooking the building’s small communal garden. They are on the top floor. The place is quiet. Shortly after they moved in, Frantz took her to see the military base twelve kilometres away, though they did not go inside. He just waved to the orderly on duty, who nodded vaguely in response. Since his hours are flexible, he leaves home late and gets back early.
The wedding took place at Château-Luc town hall. Frantz took responsibility for finding two witnesses. Sophie was rather expecting him to ask two of his colleagues from the base, but he said no, he would rather it remained private. (He must be pretty creative: he managed to get one week’s leave.) Two men of about fifty who seemed to know each other were waiting for them on the steps of the town hall. They shook Sophie by the hand a little self-consciously, but when it came to Frantz they simply gave a curt nod. The deputy mayor ushered them into the wedding hall and when she saw there were only four of them, asked “Is that all?”, then bit her lip. She seemed keen to get the ceremony over with.
“She turned up the wick a bit, but at least she got the job done,” Frantz said.
A military expression.
Frantz could have got married in uniform, but he preferred to wear civvies which means that Sophie has never seen him in uniform, not even in a photograph; she bought herself a print dress that accentuated her hips. A few days earlier, blushing to the roots of his hair, Frantz had shown her his mother’s wedding dress. Though somewhat threadbare now, Sophie had been spellbound: a lavish creation of chiffon as insubstantial as snow, which had since been in the wars. There are patches of darker fabric that looked like ancient stains. She realised that Frantz had an ulterior motive in showing her the dress, but when she saw the condition it was in, she dismissed the idea. Sophie expressed her surprise that he had kept the relic. “Yes,” he said, startled, “I’m not sure why myself . . . I should probably throw it out, it’s just an old thing.” Then he carefully packed it away into the hall cupboard, something that made Sophie smile.
When they emerged from the town hall, Frantz handed his camera to one of the witnesses and explained how to focus. “Then all you have to do is press this button.” Reluctantly, she stood next to him on the steps of the town hall. Then Frantz wandered off a little way with the witnesses. Sophie turned her back, she did not want to see the money changing hands. “It’s still a marriage,” she thought a little foolishly.
Now that he is her husband, Frantz seems quite different from the impression Sophie had of him when he was her fiancé. He is more subtle, less boorish in his manner. As often with simple souls, Frantz will sometimes say things that seem particularly astute. Though he is more reticent now that he does not feel he has to keep up the conversation, he still gazes at Sophie as though she were one of the wonders of the world, a dream come true. He calls her “Marianne” with such tenderness that Sophie has become accustomed to the name. He is the epitome of a caring, attentive husband. Sophie is surprised to find herself noticing his good qualities. The first, and the most unexpected, is that he is a powerful man. Sophie has never fantasised about muscular men, but on their first night together, she was thrilled by his strong arms, his taut stomach, his well-developed pectorals. She was naïvely charmed when one night he smiled and effortlessly lifted her up and set her on the roof of a car. She felt a sudden longing to be protected. Something deep within her, something weary and worn out, slowly began to relax. Events in
her life have robbed her of the hope that she might be truly happy; in its place she feels a contentment that is almost enough. Many marriages endure for decades with just that. She had felt a little contemptuous when she chose him because he was simple, ordinary. Now she is relieved to feel a certain respect for him. Without thinking, she curls up with him in bed, lets him take her in his arms, allows him to kiss her, to make love to her.
So the first weeks passed, still in black and white, though the ratio was different. On the black side, though the faces of the dead did not fade, they appeared less frequently now, as though distancing themselves. On the white side, she was sleeping better, and if she did not exactly feel completely alive, she could feel a certain stirring: she took a childlike pleasure in doing the housework, cooking the meals – like a little girl playing at having a tea party – and looking for a job – though half-heartedly since Frantz assured her that his salary was enough to keep them both.
At first, Frantz would leave for the base at 8.45 a.m. and come home between 4.00 and 5.00 p.m. In the evenings, they would go to the cinema or have dinner at the Brasserie du Templier, a short walk from where they lived. Their path was the reverse of that of other couples: they had started by getting married, now they were getting to know each other. Even so, they did not talk much. Sophie would have been unable to explain what made their evenings together pass so smoothly. But then again . . . One subject did come up regularly. As with every couple in the early days, Frantz was very interested in Sophie’s life, her past, her parents, her childhood, her studies. Had she had many lovers? How old was she when she lost her virginity? All the things that men claim are not important but never stop harping on about. So Sophie created plausible parents, talked about their divorce (this part was based largely in reality), invented a new mother who had little in common with her real mother, and of course she made no mention of her marriage to Vincent. As for her lovers and losing her virginity, she drew upon stock clichés, which seemed to satisfy Frantz. As far as he is concerned, Marianne’s life seems to stop abruptly five or six years ago and begin again on the day they were married. Between the two, there is still a yawning gap. She knows that sooner or later she will have to come up with a credible story to cover this period. But she has time. Frantz may be an inquisitive lover, but he is no sleuth.
Blood Wedding Page 17