by Michel Bussi
“So… a pretty girl like you… You don’t look like a pro. How is it possible that you’re here, when you’re so pretty, I mean?”
Lylie leaned toward Richard.
“Come here, you.”
Suddenly grabbing hold of his tie, Lylie pulled him toward her until her mouth was close to his ear.
“I’ll tell you, Mr. Floppy Tie. I’m not pretty at all. This is just a disguise.”
Richard looked dazed. “Huh?”
“My thighs, my breasts, my mouth, my skin… all those things that guys look at and want to touch… it’s just a disguise, you see, made of latex. Like a wet suit…”
“You… are you…”
“I’m not joking. Everyone thinks I’m beautiful, but the truth is, inside, I’m a monster!”
“Uh…”
“Cat got your tongue? I’m telling you, I’m like a snake. I have several skins. I’m like those monsters on TV, the ones that look like humans on the surface but underneath they are ugly reptilian things. You know what I’m saying?”
“Not really. I don’t watch much television, you see. I’m a professor…”
A pull of the tie, and the man shut up.
“I’m going to tell you something else. Something worse. I’m not alone: there are two of us inside this skin. Can you believe it? Two of us in the same body.”
“Well… I think it’s…”
“Don’t say a word. It’s better like that. I’m going to have to leave in a few minutes. You know where I’m going? I’m going to do something bad. Something I really don’t want to do. Something that disgusts me. But I have to do it…”
Richard clung to Lylie’s shoulder; it was either that or he would fall off his stool. His arm was pressed against Lylie’s breast. As he brought his lips closer to hers, he stammered: “Why? No one has to do anything they don’t want to do. Perhaps I could help you… take off your disguise, so I could see underneath. See you and your friend…”
Richard grew bolder. Lylie still had hold of his tie, so he did not have much room to maneuver, but he managed to slide his right hand under her skirt. Lylie did not bat an eyelid.
“It’s too late. You can’t do anything for me, nobody can. I’m going to kill someone who has done nothing to deserve it… That’s just how it is.”
“All right, all right… but there’s still time. A few minutes. You should show me your other skin, before you leave… if you want me to believe you…”
The man’s right hand climbed higher up Lylie’s thigh, while his left hand brushed against her breast. The bartender frowned with both eyebrows at the same time and slammed a glass down on the countertop.
“Easy, Richard. Take it easy with the kid. Take your hands off her. Don’t you think you’ve had enough hassle with that kind of thing already?”
Richard hesitated. Lylie pulled harder on his tie, half choking him.
“Hey, are you listening to me? I’m telling you I’m going to kill an innocent person!”
Lylie leaned farther forward. This time, it was too much for the stool, and she collapsed in a heap on the floor.
Richard reached down to help her up.
“Don’t touch me!” she screamed. “Take your filthy hands off me! Piss off!”
28
October 2, 1998, 1:11 p.m.
Mathilde de Carville pulled apart the curtains and looked through the window to see if her granddaughter was doing what she had been told to do. Marc gazed after her, out through the fine mesh of the white net curtains, to the vast green and ocher park. The Roseraie seemed to be permeated with the cocooned ambience of an old film, with its antiquated bourgeois decor and pastel tones, all of it slightly out of focus. In the distance, Malvina was pushing her grandfather along the pink gravel path. The old man’s head seemed to have fallen to one side during the walk on the uneven path, and his neck was now twisted. His open eyes were staring up at the white sky, or perhaps at the treetops, at the slowly falling leaves of the large maple tree. Malvina did not bother to fix her grandfather’s position.
Mathilde waited a few seconds longer, then slowly let the curtain fall. The room was once again plunged into a dim half-light, in which the white silhouettes of the sheet-covered furniture and the white lacquered wood of the Petrof glowed like frozen ghosts. Mathilde de Carville turned toward Marc.
“Marc… May I call you Marc? I think my age makes it permissible. As you have come to visit me, Marc, I would like to ask you a question. One simple question. When you saw Lylie, in the past few days, after her eighteenth birthday, was she wearing any new jewelry? A ring, for example?”
Marc was standing near the piano. His fingers danced over the keyboard without touching any of the keys.
Why lie?
“Yes, she was wearing a ring. A pale sapphire…”
Mathilde de Carville did not smile. She showed no sign of triumph or jubilation. Marc found that strange.
Marc’s hand stroked the piano. The Mauser was still there, on the white wood, about three feet from his fingertips. Marc looked through the window, attempting to spot Malvina in the park, but the curtain revealed nothing but a line of pale light.
“She’s mad,” Mathilde de Carville’s voice announced calmly. “My granddaughter has gone almost completely insane. I assume you realized that.”
Marc did not reply, so Mathilde continued: “What about you, Marc? What do you think?”
Marc waited.
“About madness, I mean. What do you think?”
Marc let his fingers dance over the ivory keys.
“I am talking to you, Marc,” the cold voice insisted. “I am talking about you. As a little child your brain, just like Malvina’s, had to deal with all the uncertainty, the doubt. What had happened to your little sister? Was she alive? Dead? Are you in a better state than Malvina, when all is said and done?”
Marc looked up, but still did not speak.
“It’s torture, isn’t it, Marc? All those years. Not knowing what to feel about the girl you love more than anyone else in the world. Is it a chaste brotherly love? Or something more passionate and carnal? How must it feel to grow up with all that uncertainty?”
Her voice had changed. It had grown louder, more threatening. Mathilde de Carville moved toward the piano.
“In order to survive, we rationalize our feelings, don’t we, Marc? Through all those childhood years, little Marc sought the affection of Emilie, his adorable little sister… and then little Marc grew up, and the doubt began to seem like an opportunity. Why not take advantage of it? Bury little Emilie and fall in love with Lyse-Rose, the rich and beautiful de Carville heir…”
Mathilde de Carville’s fingers crept toward the revolver.
“I suffered, Marc. My God, how I suffered. I atoned for my sins, all those years. I don’t even know what my sins were, but I atoned for them anyway. My vengeance has a bitter taste, Marc, believe me.”
Marc coughed. It was the only sound he seemed to be able to make. Mathilde now stood only a couple of feet away from him. What vengeance was she talking about?
Suddenly, Mathilde de Carville turned away and walked toward the bookshelves on the other side of the room. She picked up a thick-spined book, the title of which Marc could not see, and opened it. From inside its pages, she extracted a lavender-blue envelope.
“Grand-Duc grew close to you, Marc. He even became a family friend. But don’t be fooled: he was still my employee. He would file a report for me almost every week… at least in the early years. After five years of investigation, there were practically no new leads to follow. After eight years, there were none at all.”
The image of Grand-Duc’s corpse flashed through Marc’s mind. Mathilde placed the blue envelope on the piano, next to the revolver.
“None at all… except for one. The last one. The only one. This was in 1988…”
Mathilde turned around again.
“Marc, we aren’t in any rush. May I offer you something to drink?”
Ma
rc hesitated. Everything that had happened to him, everything he had found, since he arrived at the Roseraie, seemed to have been prepared, calculated, as if his arrival had been expected. This dimly lit room. The white piano with the Mauser on top of it. The disappearance of Malvina and Léonce into the garden, or elsewhere.
“Yes… sure,” Marc said, in spite of his misgivings.
“Herbal tea? I have some excellent varieties, grown in my own garden.”
Marc nodded. Mathilde de Carville was gone from the room for a long time, leaving Marc alone, next to the blue envelope and the Mauser. This was, clearly, her intention. A form of slow torture. Mathilde’s revenge. Marc tried to slow his breathing, examining himself for the first signs of agoraphobia. While he had not sensed any danger at all in the company of the armed monster Malvina, this scene with her grandmother was having quite the opposite effect. He was beginning to feel the familiar tingling as the blood rushed through his veins.
Mathilde returned, carrying a small tray on which sat two cups. She poured hot water into both, and handed one to Marc with a saucer.
“Drink, Marc.”
Marc hesitated. Mathilde smiled at him. “I’m not going to poison you!”
He took a sip. The liquid scalded his lips.
“I will not prolong your suffering any longer, Marc,” said Mathilde de Carville.
He drank some tea. It tasted good.
“At the beginning of this decade,” she went on, “as I am sure you are aware, it became possible to find out the truth. All that was needed was a simple DNA test. It was infallible. In return for a lot of money and a few drops of saliva or blood, there were laboratories in England that could give you the results within a few days. It took me several years to make the decision. The Catholic religion does not fit particularly well with this form of science. I hesitated for a long time, but finally I decided to have the test done three years ago, when Lylie was fifteen. It was Grand-Duc’s final mission, in a way. He took care of everything. He had connections with forensics specialists in the police force and I provided him with the money. The way we did it was not strictly legal. He got hold of a sample of Lylie’s blood on her birthday. I gave him mine, some from my husband, and some from Malvina. It was so simple.”
Marc felt his legs give way beneath him. He took another sip of herbal tea. The more he drank, the more sour the taste became. He remembered Lylie’s fifteenth birthday, of course. Grand-Duc had been invited, as he was every year, and he had given her a glass vase. The vase was so thin—or perhaps it was already cracked—that it shattered as soon as Lylie held it. She cut her index finger. Grand-Duc had stammered his apologies while he picked up the broken pieces of glass.
Would Grand-Duc confess to this subterfuge in his notebook? Marc would find out soon. His throat was burning.
Right now, he wanted only one thing: to tear open that blue envelope and read what was inside.
Mathilde de Carville smiled at him strangely again.
“Marc, the results are inside that envelope. I have known them for three years now. I am the only one who knows them. You have helped me by coming here, Marc. Now you can take this envelope with you.”
Marc took a last sip of tea. With trembling hands, he grabbed the blue envelope. Mathilde de Carville’s face creased into a triumphant grimace.
“But you must not open it, Marc! You must take this envelope to Nicole Vitral. This is between me and your grandmother. If anyone else deserves to know the truth, after all these years, it is she.”
A long, frosty silence filled the room. Marc put the envelope in his pocket.
“How do you know I won’t open it as soon as I leave here?”
“You are a good, obedient child, aren’t you? I don’t think you would betray your grandmother. This letter is for her.”
“Those are your rules. Why should I follow them?”
“You’ll follow them, Marc. Of course you will. Because you are already convinced that you know the answer written inside this envelope.”
Marc gasped. His throat and stomach were burning.
“What do you have to fear, Marc? Isn’t this what you wanted? For Lyse-Rose to have survived, for Emilie to be dead. Nicole will be sad, of course, but I am sure her grandson’s happiness will console her.”
Marc could feel the symptoms of a panic attack overcoming him. He could not control his breathing and he felt as if the herbal tea was consuming his stomach. Mathilde de Carville gave a horrible laugh.
“What are you hoping for, exactly, Marc? To marry Lylie? Do you want her to become Lyse-Rose de Carville? Do you wish to be my son-in-law? A white wedding at Notre-Dame? My husband might find it difficult to escort his granddaughter up the aisle, but we could work something out. And what about afterward? Would you come with Lyse-Rose to drink coffee on Sundays, to play chess in the park, while I discuss waffles and fries with your grandmother? What a shame, Marc. What a waste…”
Marc tried to grab hold of his cup, but it fell from his hands and smashed on the carpet, splattering the legs of the piano.
“Give that envelope to your grandmother, Marc. If she wishes, she may let you read the DNA test results afterward. And tell her that I have no regrets, in particular about the money I spent. I am at peace with myself.”
Marc’s eyesight grew blurred and his veins felt as if they were on fire. His legs, like two towers weakened by an inferno, collapsed beneath him and his hands grasped at the Petrof’s keyboard, slowing his fall with a sinister clash of discordant notes.
29
October 2, 1998, 1:15 p.m.
Ayla Ozan stood in front of number 21 Rue de la Butte-aux-Cailles. Standing on tiptoes, she tried to see as far as she could into the garden. Nothing moved. The pale green shutters were all tightly shut. Ayla rang the bell several times, but nobody answered.
Finally, she turned around and walked down the street, desperately searching for some kind of clue. She had often been to Grand-Duc’s house; she would make dinner while Crédule and Nazim worked on the case, talking late into the night. She would listen to them sometimes, but she always ended up falling asleep before they did, on the sofa, warmed by the fire in the hearth, watching the dragonflies in the vivarium, lulled by the sound of her men’s voices: the love of her life and his best friend. Where could they have gone? With no one answering the door at Crédule’s house, and no news from Nazim, she knew that something was very wrong.
Ayla passed a bar, Le Temps des Cerises. She thought about going in, to ask for information. Crédule sometimes came here for a coffee. She stopped, aware that the way she was walking did not look very natural. Before leaving her kebab shop on Boulevard Raspail, Ayla had taken a large kitchen knife, the sharpest she could find, and wrapped it in a plastic bag before sliding it down her leg, under her wide trousers. It was too long to fit in her backpack. She felt she needed a weapon, just in case… She could not rid herself of the feeling that Nazim was in danger.
Ayla looked down Rue de la Butte-aux-Cailles. There were very few people around. Mothers and children. Customers at the bakery.
Suddenly, she froze. Her heart thudded beneath her long winter coat.
Crédule’s black BMW X3 was parked on the street, a short distance from his house. She could find no trace of Nazim’s blue Xantia, though. Nazim had gone to Crédule’s house; if they had left the house together, why the hell would they have taken the filthy, dented old banger rather than the BMW? Especially Crédule, who was so fastidious.
Ayla walked slowly around the area. She took Rue Samson, Passage Boiton, Rue Jean-Marie-Jégo, and Rue Alphand, her leg unnaturally straight due to the knife secreted in her trousers. She thought about the possibility of the plastic bag giving way at any moment, the sharp steel slicing open her leg…
“Are you looking for something?”
A man with a dog was staring at her, the type of nosy do-gooder who didn’t like strangers hanging around the place. Particularly a Turkish woman who kept gazing at parked cars.
The man looked at her as though he belonged to the immigration department. He consulted his dog.
“Rusted bumpers? Dried flowers attached to the rearview mirror? A Turkish flag hanging in the back window? Is that the one?”
The man seemed pleased with himself. Ayla nodded and gave him her most dazzling smile, even though he seemed more interested in his dog than in her Ottoman charms. The mongrel was clinging affectionately to Ayla’s legs.
“The Xantia was parked here for a few days,” the man said finally, “but it hasn’t been here since yesterday.”
The knife was digging into Ayla’s leg painfully. If that stupid dog kept pressing against her, he would soon end up with his head cloven in two, like a kebab. She bent down to free herself from the dog’s affections, while simultaneously attempting to adjust the position of the knife. The man watched her even more mistrustfully. He was slimy, but he could prove useful. Ayla smiled and caressed the dog, so that neither of them would feel jealous.
“Do you mind if I ask you something else? You seem to know the area very well. Did you happen to see anything new or suspicious recently, in the last few days? A stranger, perhaps? Another car that didn’t belong here?”
The man stared at her, amazed by her insolence. Instinctively, he pulled at the dog’s leash, but he could not resist the temptation to show off.
“Actually, there was something. A blue Rover Mini, fairly new. The owner was hanging around practically all morning: a young girl with the face of a middle-aged woman. She looked rather shifty to me. Is that the person you had in mind?”
Ayla Ozan’s face suddenly went white. Of course, she knew who the man was talking about. Nazim had told her many times about Malvina de Carville: her unusual appearance, her capricious nature, that car—the Rover Mini—given to her by her wealthy grandmother. Nazim had also told her that the girl had gone utterly insane after the plane crash.