After the Crash: A Novel

by Michel Bussi

  Grégory… Apart from hosting the rare visit from groups of schoolchildren, he probably spent most of his time seducing the students who worked at the reception desk. That was the impression he gave, anyway. The bastard seemed to grow more handsome with each passing year, his hair turning a distinguished salt-and-pepper while the students remained exactly the same age each year. He left the side of a pretty young blonde who was making eyes at him and came toward me.

  “Listen, I’m going to take pity on you. I’ll give you a lift in the Jeep. You’ll have to walk the last mile or so, but it’ll save you a couple of hours. Julie, I’ll be back in twenty minutes. Stay here if you want to hear what happened next that night in Spitzberg…”

  Morez dropped me off at the end of the path and, with a wink, turned the Jeep back toward his headquarters and the pretty blonde. On the way up the mountain, I had questioned him about Georges Pelletier. He hadn’t heard of the man, but then again, that wasn’t too surprising. It had been seven years ago, after all. While I walked, I tried to sift through my memories from the previous year: the cold rain, the flashlight beam, the stones piled on the grave.

  I found the hut easily enough. The weather was much warmer than it had been the year before, and I was sweating. Winter sunlight gilded the treetops and bathed the mountaintop in almost springlike warmth, although the primroses, daffodils, and gentians were as yet barely visible.

  I felt the same excitement I had on my first stakeout. It was a long time since this investigation had yielded any new clues. I began with the hut. Nothing seemed to have been moved since the previous year. Of course it was perfectly possible that no one had visited in the interim. Wearing gloves, I picked up samples of the detritus that lay scattered over the ground. Sometimes I had to scratch at the mud to unearth half-buried objects: cigarette butts, beer cans, scraps of paper. All of this could help my search for Georges Pelletier, even if it had been seven years since he last stayed here.

  I went outside. Now it was time for the most difficult part of my task: the grave. I stood in front of the pile of stones. The little wooden cross was still there but, beneath it, the winter jasmine had withered and died. So, nobody had left flowers here since the previous year. But why? Why would someone have brought flowers every other year, but not this one? It was very hot. I took off my sweater, but even in just a shirt, I was still sweating.

  I leaned closer to the stones, and suddenly I sensed that something was wrong. It was strange, but I could not shake the conviction that these stones were not piled up in the same order as I had left them. They had been moved.

  I tried to reason with myself. How could I be so sure? It had been night when I last saw this place, and pouring rain. And I had replaced them haphazardly…

  And yet… This was more than a feeling. I was sure someone had been here. I had a very precise image in my mind of the shape of that pile of stones, and my memory was almost photographic. Those stones had definitely been moved.

  But I knew I was not going to find the answers to my questions without getting my hands dirty, so I began to remove the stones, very carefully, one by one. That took over half an hour. Thankfully my grave robbing did not seem so macabre in the daylight. I stopped several times to have a drink of water.

  When the last stone had been laid to the side, I picked up my spade and began to dig, taking great care all the while. I did begin to wonder what was the point of it all. Why was I going to such great lengths just to dig up a dead dog? What else was I expecting? The skeleton of a human infant?

  I dug for nearly an hour. The sun sank toward the west and the cooling shadows of the pines fell over the grave. The hole I had dug was more than three feet deep now. I had removed the cross and dug under that, too. Stubbornly, I kept going for another half an hour.

  But finally… nothing!

  Not even a single bone from a dog, goat, or rabbit.

  Nothing at all.

  So that mound of stones, that cross, and that withered plant had been placed over virgin earth? I collapsed, exhausted and disappointed. All that effort, for no reward. I drank some water and did some thinking. Now, in the shade, drenched with sweat, I began to feel slightly cold, so I walked around for a bit, conversing with the pine trees. Suddenly, I laughed at my own stupidity.

  No, of course I had not dug this hole for no reason! It would have been far more disappointing, for me and the investigation, if I had found an animal’s bones under the grave. That really would have been a dead end. How would it have helped me if I had dug up the bones of Georges’s dead dog?

  An empty grave, on the other hand… that offered all kinds of possibilities. I wiped my forehead, then took out the cheese sandwich that Monique had prepared for me. In fact, as I thought about it, I realized there were only two possible explanations.

  First, it could be a symbolic tomb, like the shrines you find at the side of a road where people have died in a car crash. That was plausible… The family of one of the victims of the Airbus 5403 might have decided to perform a similar gesture. To construct a place of pilgrimage, an empty tomb, because they had no body to bury inside it. But in that case, why build it here, over a mile from the actual crash site? Why dig this rectangular grave, the exact size of a three-month-old baby? There had been only two babies on the Airbus. Who had planted this cross, piled up these stones, watered the jasmine all those years? A member of the Vitral family? A member of the de Carville family? But who? And when? And why?

  Then there was my second theory. There had been a skeleton under the stones. Someone had come here every year to pay tribute to a loved one, to leave flowers by the grave, quietly, in secret. But this year, the mysterious person discovered that the grave had been searched. The secret was out, or soon would be. So, this person could see only one solution: exhume the body. Remove the stones, empty the grave, fill in the hole, and replace the stones.

  Because the stones had been moved, I was certain of that.

  This second theory raised as many questions as the first one. Why go to so much trouble? Why be so careful? Certainly not if it were a dog’s grave—only a madman would act in such a way. Georges Pelletier? No, that made no sense at all…

  I felt serene, calm. This latest development, with all the questions it raised, was exactly what I had been waiting for. I would have plenty of time to explore my theories. I rummaged in my bag and pulled out the sieve. It was made of wood and nylon, the kind of sieve used by gold prospectors. I wanted to go through this earth with a fine-tooth comb. If even the smallest piece of bone remained—whether it was from a dog, a baby, or a dinosaur—I would find it.

  I spent five hours sieving the mud. I am not kidding. Even an archaeologist could not have been more patient.

  The reward for my stubbornness came that afternoon. As you can see, I was really putting the work in to earn my one hundred thousand francs. In the sieve, after all the earth had passed through the holes and the smallest stones had been moved to the side, I was left looking at a tiny piece of gold, shining in the sunlight. Oval-shaped, and no more than two millimeters long, it was a link from a delicate golden chain.

  “What do you want, asshole? My photograph?”

  Marc looked up from the page, suddenly brought back down to earth. The din of the station contrasted markedly with the silence of the pine forest he had been reading about.

  Like most of the people around him, he turned to stare at the source of the demented cry, but it was just some hysterical girl insulting her neighbor. The other passengers shrugged and went back to their own lives. Marc, however, kept staring, his eyes riveted to the young woman.

  He had recognized her voice, and his heart had plummeted. About thirty yards away, standing in front of an automatic ticket machine, Malvina de Carville was yelling at the man behind her.

  There could be no doubt about it. This was not a coincidence. She had followed Marc here.

  35

  October 2, 1998, 3:21 p.m.

  The motorcycle stopped on Chemin
des Chauds-Soleils, just in front of the Roseraie. The rider jumped nimbly to the ground, removed his helmet, tousled his long black hair, and pressed the intercom.

  “Yes?”

  “Package for Mrs. de Carville. Special delivery. It’s urgent, apparently.”

  “She’s not available right now. Just leave it in the mailbox.”

  “I have to hand-deliver it to her.”

  “Well, you’ll just have to wait, then. She can’t be disturbed for the next ten minutes.”

  The motorcyclist sighed. “I can’t wait. Who is this?”

  “I’m Linda. The nurse.”

  “Well, that’ll do, I guess,” the deliveryman said after a moment’s hesitation. “I can trust you. Will you give the envelope to Mrs. de Carville?”

  “I think I can manage that…”

  The motorcyclist laughed, then said: “Listen, Linda, what is going on here? I’ve seen ambulances, fire engines, police cars. It was hell getting across the Marne. Did they find a serial killer in the village or something?”

  “You’re not far off, actually! They found a woman’s body in Coupvray Forest, close to our house. She’d been shot, apparently. They still don’t know if it was an accident or a murder. Can you imagine? A murder in Coupvray!”

  “Well, at least it’ll liven things up round here…”

  Linda went and collected the large padded envelope. She was not sure if she should call Mathilde de Carville. Her boss was in the greenhouse, and Mrs. de Carville hated being disturbed when she was gardening. That greenhouse was like a temple to her, and gardening a sacred act that Linda had no desire to profane. Yes, she decided, the envelope could wait. Linda put it next to the telephone on the desk in the entrance hall.

  She did not want to leave Léonce de Carville on his own for too long. Above all, she did not want to get behind schedule. She still had to wash him, put his pajamas on, give him his dinner, and change his drip. If she worked quickly, she could be done by 6:00 p.m. Then Linda could pick up her baby early, and enjoy his company for a little while longer than usual…

  She pushed the old man’s wheelchair into the bathroom. This was her least favorite part of the day. She laid him down flat on the bench. When she had done that, she exhaled and pressed a button. The body was raised up to the level of her waist. The whole bathroom was automated, equipped with the latest and most expensive devices. It was as good as any hospital. Better, even. She had nothing to complain about in that regard: Mathilde de Carville had provided her with everything she needed to do her job properly.

  Linda began to undress the old man.

  When she turned him over to unbutton his shirt and slide his inert arms through the sleeves, Linda almost had the impression that he was reacting, trying to help her. Three days ago, she had even felt certain that he had smiled at her. Voluntarily. She knew this was impossible. At least according to the doctors. The patient was incapable of recognizing a voice or a face or a sound, of telling one day from another. So, the idea that he might try to help her slide his arm through a sleeve…

  Linda removed his trousers, and then his soiled underwear. A few maple leaves fell to the bathroom floor.

  The doctors are wrong, thought Linda.

  She had been looking after Léonce for almost six years now—two hours in the morning and three in the afternoon—and she had become convinced that he was more than just a digestive tract on wheels.

  Linda ran warm water from the tap, then rubbed soap onto the glove. She always began his daily wash with the genital region, then the lower part of his body. Linda’s baby, Hugo, was seven months old now. She could tell the difference between a real smile and the mere twitch of a muscle.

  She rubbed the glove along his left leg. In fact, Linda actually liked Léonce, even if everyone else in this sinister mansion hated him. His wife. His granddaughter, that horrible girl Malvina. She had heard so many bad things about Léonce de Carville: that he had been a tyrannical boss, capable of firing hundreds of workers—in Venezuela, Nigeria, Turkey—with just a snap of his fingers. An unscrupulous man. A hard man. But she didn’t care. To her, Léonce was nothing worse than a life-size rubber doll, a defenseless old man. A poor, fragile creature whose only source of protection, care, and tenderness in this world was herself. He was just like her baby.

  The two of them understood each other. The old man and the nurse. They were together for five hours a day. No doctor in the world could perceive the connection between them, even less so Mathilde and Malvina de Carville. But Léonce could still communicate, in his own way.

  She heard a door bang.

  Linda’s gloved hand froze on the old man’s flabby stomach. It was the front door. And yet Linda was sure she had closed it. She removed the glove and went out into the entrance hall.

  There was nobody there. It had probably been just a gust of wind. That was not unusual: the Roseraie was a huge building with more than twenty rooms, and there was always a door or a window left open somewhere. Linda went back to the bathroom. Léonce was waiting for her. He needed her. As with her little Hugo, he should not be left alone.

  Linda had made a mistake. Lost in her thoughts about Hugo and Léonce, she had failed to notice something important. She did not look at the desk in the entrance hall.

  The padded envelope was no longer there.

  Linda had finished washing her patient and had dressed him in clean pajamas, as she did each day. She refused to put an adult diaper on him, something even the most expensive hospitals did. It was a messy choice, but Linda didn’t care. It simply meant she had to change his pajamas and his sheets every morning.

  She put the old man on the special bed in his room, next to the bathroom. A new door had been installed so that the wheelchair could be rolled through. The bed was also the best and most up-to-date model available, entirely operated by means of electronic switches. In medical terms, Léonce de Carville was better off here than he would be in any nursing home. At least he would be able to die in luxury. Alone, but in luxury. Mathilde de Carville had been sleeping in a separate room on the first floor for years now.

  Linda removed a feather pillow from the bed and set it on a nearby chair. Then she took a larger white pillow and slipped it behind Léonce’s back so that he could sit propped up while she fed him. She looked at her watch. She would give him dinner in less than an hour.

  She checked one last time that the old man’s torso was firmly strapped to the bed. His eyes were wide open now, staring as they always did after he had been washed, only blinking occasionally. Linda had heard about a paraplegic who had written a book simply by blinking. Incredible! What if Léonce could do the same thing? What if the doctors were wrong and his brain did still work? What if there was something he wanted to tell her? The only problem was that she did not understand his way of communicating. What was going on inside that head?

  Linda had also been told that Léonce de Carville was an extraordinary man. One of the richest and most powerful in France. And he had built up his fortune from nothing, constructing factories all over the world. He had commanded an empire. It was probably because of that power that he had become so hated. People were jealous. Now that he could no longer defend himself, the weaklings were getting their revenge. And yet those weaklings owed everything to him. The Roseraie, for example.

  Linda placed a monitor—the same kind mothers use to check on their babies—on Léonce’s bedside table. She always put the other monitor in the kitchen while she was preparing his dinner. That way, she felt reassured. She knew it was slightly ridiculous—what could possibly happen to him while she was away?—but she did it just the same.

  As she left the bedroom, Linda took one last glance at the old man. His eyes were still wide open. A genius who had begun with nothing, brought back to square one.

  The shadow crept silently behind Linda’s back, then hid between the wall and the staircase. Linda could have seen it if she had turned her head that way. But she didn’t. She walked straight to the k
itchen.

  Linda prepared the old man’s dinner herself. His soup. She made a point of always using fresh ingredients: vegetables, ham, and many other ingredients that she would find at the market in Marne-la-Vallée, which she peeled, chopped, and mixed together by hand. Léonce spat up half of it and crapped out the rest, but Linda would not compromise her standards. And, for the past month, she had been making twice the usual quantity. She deliberately made too much soup, so that she could take half of it home to Hugo. She got home just in time for his supper, so it was perfect timing. She had not mentioned this fact to Mathilde de Carville, but surely the old woman wouldn’t begrudge her a couple of leeks, three potatoes, and a slice of ham!

  Linda put the baby monitor next to the blender and began peeling carrots. She liked this moment of silence. It reassured her.

  The shadow moved past the kitchen and pushed open the door to Léonce de Carville’s bedroom. Cautiously, it entered. Linda saw and heard nothing.

  The old man stared at the advancing figure, his eyes wide open. He looked petrified, as if he understood the figure’s intention. The shadow hesitated. The look in the old man’s eyes seemed unreal, almost menacing. But the shadow’s hesitation lasted only a second or so. It moved forward again. It felt no pity for the inert body of the old man, only hatred and contempt.

  The shadow noticed a pillow sitting on a chair near the bed. It smiled. The perfect solution. Quick, silent. The shadow walked toward it. The old man’s gaze remained fixed on the open door. The shadow felt relieved. So, the man’s apparent fear was merely an illusion. Léonce de Carville had not recognized the intruder; he no longer recognized anyone or anything. Under the intruder’s feet, the floorboards creaked quietly.