by Enzo Bartoli
‘You’re afraid of flying?’
‘Yes, sort of. Actually, it’s not just that. Let’s just say I’m not really at ease when close proximity to others is foisted upon me. And I don’t really like changes in my environment either. That’s all. Why do you ask?’
He turns to face me and gives a weak shrug of his shoulders. ‘Because it can be that, too. Before dying, you could regret never having seen New York, the Great Pyramids or Ha Long Bay.’
I let out a laugh that sounds a little too forced. ‘You’re determined for me to find something I want to do before I pass on, aren’t you?’
‘I think it would be a good idea, yes. At least, it might be worth a moment’s thought. Should we speak about it again next week?’
‘I can’t promise you anything, but we can still have a drink together if you want. I can get some fruit juice in or something fizzy between now and then?’
‘I’m perfectly happy with water,’ he says, smiling. ‘Have a lovely evening.’
Once I’ve closed the door I just stand there for a few seconds, my arms swinging, wondering whether to return to my computer or head back to the sofa and the TV. The news is coming on shortly and for once I decide to pay it some attention; but not without first going to the fridge for another beer so I can face the litany of bad news in good company.
This is the opening headline: ‘Grégoire Thule, the man infamously incarcerated following the murder of Lilian Dupres and presumed to have committed crimes against other minors, has survived an attempted assassination in his hospital room in Lyon. The shooter himself was killed by police gunfire when trying to make his escape with a female nurse he had taken hostage. His identity has not yet been made public. Nor his motivation. However, investigators suspect . . .’
I stare at the screen without listening to what follows. I have an image in my head of the young woman who came to this very flat not ten days ago. Is this a coincidence? I mean, there must be a lot of people out there who want to see a man like him dead. Should I conclude that she was serious? That she found some other desperate man after I refused to do her bidding? This also leads me to believe that she’ll be on the hunt for someone new now that the poor soul she managed to convince is no longer of use to her.
I hesitate for a few seconds, and then my blood suddenly starts pounding. Where in the heck did I put that damned envelope? I scan the coffee table, remembering I’d wanted to throw it away and then thought it wiser to burn it. But I don’t remember doing that. I rush through to my office and shuffle through the ever-present pile of papers on my desk. There it is, between one of the thousand social security receipts and my latest pay slip from the Institute of Astrophysics.
I carefully remove each sheet from the envelope. It’s on the last piece of paper that I find the mobile number she mentioned. I hesitate for yet another few seconds before consulting the rest of the documents. Among others, there’s a plan of the hospital and a photo of this Grégoire Thule. I go and look for my phone.
CHAPTER 5
‘Hello, Régis. I’m delighted to hear from you.’
I’d secretly hoped that she wouldn’t pick up and that I could leave her a message. No such luck. Now I have to find the right formal greeting, or at least an opening topic of conversation, no matter how banal; but nothing comes to me, so I make do with a direct order.
‘Explain yourself.’
At the other end of the line I hear a light laugh, which helps me to imagine her. She must be at home. I have an image of a chic interior, like something out of a homes-and-gardens magazine – the on-trend vintage look. Whatever it looks like, it’ll be nothing like my flat, which I’ve decorated any which way without the first thought to style. She lives alone, too. But probably not for the same reasons I do.
‘If you’ve decided to call me back,’ she says in a sarcastic tone, ‘then you’ve already understood.’
‘Perhaps. But I’d like to hear your version. Just to see if it matches my own.’
‘Not on the phone, though. Let’s say your place in half an hour?’
With what I know, or what I think I know, I am not inclined to have her over to my flat. When all is said and done, this woman, who I first took to be so kind and bright, is now starting to seriously worry me – intimidate me, even.
‘I’d rather meet elsewhere. Nine o’clock outside Saint-Sulpice church?’
‘As you wish. See you later.’
When I get there, there are a couple of yuppie types making the most of the warm spring evening to go for a run. Sitting in front of the church are three homeless men drinking wine straight from the bottle, surrounded by a small pack of dogs. Chloé is standing at a short distance. She is dressed a lot more elegantly than she was when she visited my place. Her short tailored jacket gives off an air-hostess vibe. Her hair looks better styled than it did, and she’s applied her make-up tastefully. She gives me a frank smile by way of greeting and assures me that she’s very pleased to see me. Once the niceties are out of the way, she suggests we continue our conversation somewhere a little more discreet, and her eyes scan the edges of the square.
‘Any ideas?’
‘Come,’ I say to her, turning and walking back towards the Jardin du Luxembourg.
There are only thirty minutes left before they close the gates for the night. I have no trouble finding a little bench set back from the main pathway, where a number of pedestrians are still making their way through the park. A wannabe poet has engraved on the wood that a certain Salomé is his muse and inspiration. I sit down to one side of this declaration and invite Chloé to take a seat beside me. She is wearing the same triumphant grin that I seem to remember noting when she left my apartment.
‘Were you surprised?’ she asks me playfully, as I sit there trying to find a way to break the ice.
I can’t think of an answer. I don’t really want her to know that yes, I was surprised – astonished, even.
I tread carefully. ‘So you’re saying it was you who made an attempt on that rapist’s life?’
Her smile disappears, and in its place I see an affronted grimace. ‘Of course it was me! Did you doubt it? You obviously didn’t take me seriously, then?’
‘Please understand,’ I reply weakly. ‘You turn up at my place to tell me that there are a number of people you want to get rid of and that you’ll need my help. I don’t think many people receive visitors quite like you. You must admit, I was bound to wonder if it was some kind of joke.’
‘And now?’
‘Now, I think I’m more inclined to believe you . . . even though there’s still room for an element of doubt.’
‘What more do you need?’
‘If this man did what he was charged with, you could well imagine that the father of one of those poor kids decided to take things into his own hands.’
I’m not expecting her to take this well, but I get quite the opposite reaction. Her eyes start to shine again.
‘Have you been told the identity of the person who committed this attempted murder?’
I stare at her for a moment before understanding where she’s going with this.
‘No,’ I admit. ‘They said on the news that his identity hasn’t been confirmed.’
‘I think it will remain undisclosed for a few days to come, but I can assure you that before tomorrow morning they’ll announce that the man was ex-army, aged thirty-nine and originally from Poland. They might also let on that he was a drug addict suffering from AIDS. Later on, everyone will learn that he was one Tomasz Olech. Anything else?’
‘Yes. Where were you when it happened?’
‘I was at the wheel of an ambulance in front of the accident and emergency department at the hospital, waiting to get our man out of there after the execution.’ There’s the triumphant grin again.
I make it disappear as quickly as it arrived by reminding her of the terrible outcome. ‘Hmm . . . A hostage got taken, your man was shot dead and your target is still alive, so I’d hardly call
the operation a success.’
‘I wasn’t expecting a miracle either,’ she says in a defensive tone. ‘I was under a lot of pressure from my . . . well . . . from the people in the group when I was choosing the guy. He reckoned he was some kind of elite soldier but honestly, I never really thought he’d be up to scratch. Big head, small brain. That’s all he was.’
A park-keeper makes his way towards us. We lapse into silence as he approaches. When he reaches our bench, he reminds us that the gardens will close very shortly, and I reassure him that we’re just about to leave.
Chloé waits until he’s moved on before adding in a whisper, ‘That’s why I need you! If I have to deal with his kind again, not only will I not achieve anything but there’s a chance I’ll get arrested into the bargain.’
She pauses before offering me a self-mocking but humorous look. ‘And that would be a shame, don’t you think?’
A whistle sounds, signalling that it’s time to leave. She ignores it and continues pleading with me as we walk. ‘Now you know exactly what went down. What would you have done?’
Rather than telling her clearly where to go, which as a more or less balanced human being I should do, I start considering her question. Without having taken a close look at the plan of the hospital, I try to imagine the site. A sterile room isolated from the other wards, with extremely controlled access and, in the case of this particular man, police presence.
‘I don’t think I would have tried my luck in his room, you know. Maybe I’d have had a go while he was being transferred, or done it in the room they put people in immediately after surgery. And I’d have used a method that would make it look like a result of his illness – a heart attack or respiratory failure, for example.’
She stops and holds me back by my arm, bringing me to a standstill. She appears to be absolutely delighted and lets me know as much. ‘See? That’s what I knew I’d be getting with you! That idiot just wanted to get straight in there, whereas if we’d just taken forty-eight hours to prepare we could have done a clean job, no fuss.’
Am I supposed to agree with her? Her enthusiasm is quite childlike, but it’s equally contagious. No. I cannot for a single second imagine myself coming up with a plan to execute another human being, but I also have to admit that this young woman has something about her . . . something that gives you the hopeless feeling of wanting to hang on to her every word.
‘You do realise,’ she continues, ‘that if you’d just accepted my proposal from the beginning, we’d be rid of this bastard by now.’
Time to calm things down. Just because I’ve voiced something that resembles a hypothesis, she’s now concluding that I can immediately step into a mercenary’s shoes. She’s got some imagination. I’m a respected scientist, a responsible man who’s never put a foot wrong, and someone whose death is just around the corner. I’m not going to spend the rest of my existence playing around at vigilantism. I want to tell her what I’m thinking but, as always, my words can’t follow the same rhythm as my thoughts and I start to stutter. Obviously this is what she was hoping for, because she carries on as if there is nothing wrong.
‘OK, we’re going to have to be a little patient when it comes to Thule. After even a bungled attempt on his life like this, he’s going to be really well protected, and he’d be an idiot to take any pointless risks. We’ll deal with him at a later date. I suggest we turn our attention to the second person on the list.’
And right then, even though we’ve just set foot on the bustling Rue de Vaugirard, I take the time to make sure nobody can possibly be eavesdropping and hear myself say, ‘As you wish. So, who is it?’
I can clearly see that my ‘accomplice’ is doing her best to disguise her glee, but her efforts are in vain. She positively beams as she speaks. ‘You’re going to have a field day! I’m pretty sure you must know him . . . and hate him . . . It’s Arthur Reimbach.’
CHAPTER 6
In the end, I decide to invite her back to my place. She sits on my sofa in the exact same spot as last time she was here. I put two wine glasses down on the coffee table – I’ve never owned any champagne flutes – and we wait for the bottle of Roederer Cristal that she bought in the off-licence at the bottom of Rue de Vaugirard to chill in my freezer. Is it possible that I feel even more ridiculous than usual? I’m swinging between two contradictory feelings: pride, because strange as it might seem I’m proud of the decision I’ve just made; and shame, because I’m not being duped . . . I’m allowing myself to be manoeuvred by Chloé. But as it stands, I’m trying to chase away such thoughts and look at her in a positive light. She’s absolutely thrilled, there’s no doubt about that, which must be why she bought the bubbly – to seal our pact.
‘Should we get down to it?’ she asks as she pulls out an identical envelope to the one she gave me last time she was here.
‘Sorry?’
‘Well, while we’re waiting for the champagne, I thought we could look at the best way forward. Do you agree?’
Won over by such determination, I acquiesce, and she passes me a series of photographs on which we can see the plump figure, rounded face and blond wispy hair of this pseudo-journalist who nowadays spends more time attending far-right rallies than penning anything for magazines. Chloé wasn’t wrong. I hate him with a visceral passion for his sickening neoreactionary beliefs . . . He’s leaving a stunning nineteenth-century apartment building, then crossing the wide pavement before climbing into the back of an enormous Mercedes. He’s followed closely by a big bruiser of a bodyguard wearing a suit that’s a couple of sizes too small. Another henchman of the same ilk stands a little further back, scrutinising the surrounding area. The last photo is a close-up of the tinted windows of the estate car from behind, through which we can just about make him out.
‘I took these photos outside his flat five days ago as he was heading out to record a programme he’s going to be on . . .’ She pauses and looks at the time on her mobile. ‘It’s on in about twenty minutes. Do you think we could take a look?’
I respond with a grunt as I remain focused on the photos. I give one back to her. ‘Listen . . . Those two men with him . . . Are they . . .’
‘They’re police officers. A while back there was a group of students who tried to beat him up as he was leaving his publisher’s, and now he has full-on protection. This won’t make our task any easier, but I’m sure we’ll find a solution. Come on.’
She moves along the sofa and pats the place where she’s just been sitting, inviting me to get settled. I do as she asks obligingly, and she spreads all the other documents from the envelope out across the table.
‘The difficulty,’ she says as she picks up a plan of his building, ‘is that there’s no way we’re getting into his place. It’s far too well protected. But I can’t think of a single other location where we can be certain we’ll get our hands on him. He doesn’t use an office away from his flat. He’s not on any regular radio or TV shows any more. He doesn’t write columns for any particular magazine or paper. Basically, he has no fixed schedule we can study in order to work out when we might be able to act.’
I take a closer look at the photos and stop again at the two that show his stocky police bodyguards. I don’t want to get on the wrong side of them. Perhaps it’s just the air they give off, but everything leads me to believe that the pair of them are the trigger-happy type.
‘What about his windows?’
‘They overlook an interior garden.’
‘Family obligations? Does he have parents or children over on a regular basis?’
‘His parents are dead, and he never married. No children he’s ever spoken of. We also have a strong suspicion he’s gay – maybe even a latent gay, because he’s certainly never come out.’
‘No hobbies or things he does for himself? I don’t know . . . a sport, for example: tennis or a gym membership?’
Chloé roars with laughter at this. It’s true that just imagining this fat pig sweating it out on a treadm
ill is hilarious.
But I remain focused on the task at hand. ‘Even though he doesn’t have his own show these days, he must appear as a guest pretty often. He’s on every channel whenever he brings out a new book or during elections. He gives his opinion even when nobody’s asking for it, doesn’t he?’
‘True enough. But we’d need access to his diary, so we’d know in advance when to act. Not to mention that it’s usually the journalists who go to him. He stays put.’
‘Hmm . . .’
‘What are you thinking?’
‘There might be an idea in there somewhere. Why not get ourselves invited over as journalists? We could set up a meeting. Are you sure he lives alone? No staff?’
‘Yes, but there’s some sort of housekeeper. She’s with him a lot, but she doesn’t sleep there. She usually works from seven to eleven in the morning and then comes back in the evening from six until nine. Other than that, he’s pretty much your typical hermit.’
I hold my head in my hands – not because I want to think more clearly, but because a sudden tiredness has come over me, accompanied by a wave of nausea. I remember now that not three hours ago Professor Lazreg was here giving me my injection and that it was at this exact time last week that I’d started to feel some side effects. I put every effort into pulling myself together so that Chloé sees nothing, and continue to establish my thoughts. Crikey. I’m capable of calculating the trajectory of a microparticle in a cyclotron through numerical integration alone, so I should be able to foresee when and how an overexposed ‘political thinker’ is going to head out and about around our capital city. I’m interrupted by Chloé, who suddenly jumps up off the sofa.
‘Can I go and look in the freezer? I don’t want the bottle to explode. It would be such a waste.’