by Enzo Bartoli
Prudence forces me not to forget to pay for an hour’s parking. If the police take an interest in little old me at some point in the future, it would be best not to have paper evidence in the form of a traffic warden’s ticket proving that I was in this vicinity today.
As soon as I set foot on the island, an inexplicable reflex makes me turn around and look behind. There’s no mistaking it. It’s her. With her headphones on, she’s wearing that little smile of hers that I’ve got so used to seeing. She’s going a lot faster than when I saw her leaving her office. She’s picked up her pace. This is good. This is what she always does once she’s warmed up. It means she hasn’t changed a single detail of her routine. Perfect. Logically, she should turn right when she gets off the bridge and she’ll start her tour of the island in an anti-clockwise direction. If I turn left, I won’t need to run faster than her to get to the spot I have in mind. In fact, I’ll have plenty of time to get my act together. The first time she comes past will give me the chance to think it all through. The second time, I’ll do it.
Less than five minutes later and I’m in position. The place is exactly as I remember it from last night. There are no houseboats or barges nearby. The bridge, which carries only pipelines and hydraulics, screens the right bank perfectly. And the building masks the left bank as well as the campsite in the Bois de Boulogne. The noise from the floodgates drowns out all sound within, I estimate, a hundred-metre radius of the site. Nobody could possibly guess what I’m working myself up to. And unless a barge or pleasure boat passes by, nobody can actually see me here.
I have a few minutes left to find the perfect lookout spot, so I can assure myself of Stéphanie Tisserand’s exact movements. I notice a tree right next to the building. The trunk is definitely wide enough for me to comfortably hide behind. I check around for other joggers and make my way towards it.
And there I wait. I recognise her clothing in the distance and, as she nears me, I attempt to work out the distance between us. When she’s almost parallel, I count out four of her steps and then note that, at this exact point, the angle is perfect. All I have to do is run up behind her and push her the four or five metres to the waiting river. She still has her earphones in and, if the volume of her music is as loud as I hope it is, combined with the racket of the water, she won’t even hear me coming.
I don’t take my eyes off her until she disappears down the footpath by the lock. I know that she runs at approximately eight kilometres an hour, which means that she’ll be dead in less than half an hour. Because, strangely enough, I have not a single doubt remaining. Unless another jogger happens to come by at the exact same time as her, I’m doing this.
Just to pass the time, I try to work out how I acquired this certainty and how I managed to do away with my last remaining scruples. There’s Chloé, of course. If that girl asked me to kill the Dalai Lama, I’d probably just get on with it, no questions asked. I don’t know what that’s all about. I’m not the kind of man who falls head over heels like this. Unless . . . It could just be that I’ve never really understood the emotional state of love. Maybe I am in love and I don’t even recognise it for what it is. No, I need to be a little more dispassionate about all this. If I take Chloé out of the picture for the moment and focus solely on my prey, I easily reach the conclusion that I simply want to kill her. Not when I see her leaving her home in the mornings or looking around the shops. When I observe her in her typical daily life, I can’t even conceive of laying a finger on her. If I stretch things a little, I might even describe her as pleasant. But there’s also the side to her I witnessed today. I’ve never felt particularly comfortable during the physical act of love, so I cannot even begin to imagine the hell it must be to have to tolerate the advances of a perfect stranger, like you’re just a cheap commodity. How does she manage to dominate her girls like that? Does she promise them a marvellous future when she goes around the world picking them up? Does she take their passports off them, like I’ve seen reported on TV documentaries? It doesn’t matter how she does it. If everything goes as planned, in ten minutes’ time, I’m convinced I’ll be sparing myriad young girls from a despicable end.
I can see the movement of a runner now. But they’re too fast. Too light on their feet. And it’s too soon. It can’t be her. I take another quick look, just to be sure. I don’t recognise the clothing. It’s a man. He’s finely built, toned, and doesn’t seem to have a scrap of fat under his copper-coloured skin. It’s as if he’s running on air. I bet he has an excellent marathon record. At the speed he’s going, it’ll be a good idea to just get out of here, because it won’t take him long to get back if he laps the island again. He’ll be the one to find the body, I imagine. Unless there’s a strong current . . .
I can see someone else coming. I don’t need to check this time. I know it’s her. She runs past me. And just like before, I count out four steps. And then I launch myself at her.
She turns at the last moment as I throw my arm around her head and shove my left hand over her mouth to stop her from screaming. She looks terrified, but I ignore that. I’m already forcing her towards the riverbank and she’s losing her balance. I’m using all my weight to push her forward and still keep her on her feet. We reach the edge.
One final push and I tip her over into the river. I lie on my stomach on the wet quayside, still holding on to her body and pushing her head under the water with my hand. She struggles but can’t escape my grip. I add a little more pressure, and with my free hand I try to stop her arms from flailing. I look around me briefly. Not a soul. I hear a muffled cry come from the water as a few bubbles rise to the surface. She’s defending herself, but the energy she’s putting into it is lessening. A minute or so later and only the odd jolt comes from her limp frame. I keep her head under the surface for a few seconds longer and then congratulate myself on the speed of the operation.
It’s done. She’s now just an inert mass, which I’m about to hand over to the flow of the river. I slide away from the bank after giving her one last push, and then I stand up. Her sports clothing is in shades of khaki-green; a beautiful camouflage in the murky waters of the Seine, I think. There’s no way she’s immediately recognisable as human, that’s for sure. I look down at my own outfit, tuck my shirt into my trousers and try to rub away the odd muddy stain. I walk down the deserted towpath alongside several abandoned barges and look up towards the bridge. There’s not a soul in sight. I glance between two of the boats and can see the outline of Stéphanie Tisserand’s body. It’s floating away from me in the direction of Levallois-Perret. I’ll be able to call Chloé now.
CHAPTER 14
‘I’m not sure you’ve done the right thing.’
When I call her straight after the deed, I’m hoping for a small gasp of surprise, a hint of approval in her voice or even a compliment on my initiative. But there’s none of that. On the contrary; she declares that we have to see one another as soon as is humanly possible. And by the time I get back home from Neuilly, she’s already waiting for me.
When we’re settled down in my living room, things are unmistakably frosty. On her part, in any case. She begins by asking me why I took it upon myself to act the way I did without first consulting her, and I quickly understand that my basic ‘because I felt like it’ argument isn’t going to wash with her and will only feed the anger she’s trying so desperately to contain. I’d rather just get it over with, so I confirm with unexpected insolence that I just couldn’t let an opportunity like that pass me by; that if I hadn’t done it, we’d maybe have had to wait a long time, and that the idea of saving more innocent victims gave me the boost I needed to act quickly. And that it was an unmitigated success. Again.
Upon her request, I go into every last detail as to how I went about it and the precautions I took. She is clearly suspicious. She wants to know if I thoroughly checked that there was no video-camera surveillance, and if there really were no eyewitnesses who might be able to place me on that island at the time of death.
Despite my every effort, and several arguments in which I think I come across as very convincing, the only thing she says to me is, once more, ‘I’m not sure you’ve done the right thing.’
And if only it could stop there, it might not be so bad. But no. There’s more where that came from.
‘Do you remember what happened to that man? After the job you turned down?’
‘The elite soldier?’
‘Yes, the elite soldier. Do you want to end up like him? Shot to pieces like a rabbit?’
All I can do is look at her sheepishly as I reply. ‘Of course not.’
‘Please,’ she continues in what strikes me as an excessively stern voice, ‘don’t take such a childish tone with me.’
I cringe at this.
Although it’s true that I haven’t always known how to behave around people, I still realise that here I have no choice but to feign indifference and wait for the thunderstorm to pass. So I keep my mouth shut and walk to the kitchen to fetch two beers without asking her if she wants one. I place hers in her hand and state simply that, seeing as we have nothing to celebrate, there won’t be any Moët & Chandon this evening, just a simple 1664. I score a point with this, and the briefest of smiles crosses her lips.
Then, just a couple of moments later, she cracks.
‘It’s fine,’ she says, holding out her bottle. ‘I’m sorry for getting cross with you.’
I pretend to hesitate before clinking my 1664 against hers to seal our reconciliation.
She adds, ‘I’m just frightened that you’ll get caught and we won’t be able to carry on with this. You have to admit that it would be a shame, wouldn’t it? I want us to keep at it!’
I have trouble sharing her enthusiasm. I’m feeling a little sceptical about the whole business now, and she notices this. She asks what the problem is.
‘You know,’ I say after a moment’s thought, ‘I can’t say that this has been the most exciting week of my life. I’ve spent hours and hours sitting in a cafe, and I’ve driven a few kilometres around Paris in a Twingo. Even I’ve had better adventures than that in my time. So maybe I just wanted to speed things up a bit. It was starting to feel too drawn out.’
My assessment appears to amuse her. After asking a few more questions about how exactly I’ve been spending my time over the last few days, she admits that getting rid of Arthur Reimbach was no doubt a lot more ‘entertaining’ but that there was a moral contract in place and it wasn’t really up to me to choose my victims, but rather her and her associates. I admit that this is true, and add only that it would suit me greatly if perhaps we could spend a little less time preparing in future and move on from one case to the next with greater speed.
‘Christ alive! I hardly recognise you! Do you remember what you said to me back when I first came to talk to you? You said you were just a scientist who wanted to live as a recluse in his flat and that there were bound to be others out there more suited to murdering than you. And now you’re wanting to step it up?’
‘Yes, well . . . There’s no need to exaggerate. I just mean that if I’m going to play your game and risk spending what time I have left behind bars, then the game had better be worth playing.’
She looks at me now with an unbearable air of triumph, which, as I’ve noticed before, she exudes every time she feels a victory is hers. She gives me one of her delicious smiles again and I just can’t stand it.
‘Let’s turn the page on Stéphanie Tisserand, OK?’ she says. ‘I just want you to guarantee me that you didn’t take any risks, and we can be done with it.’
‘I swear.’
‘So, you want to move on swiftly to the next case, then?’
‘Erm, yes. If that’s at all possible.’
‘I’ll be back in a few days, OK? I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve got something.’
‘Are you going away?’
‘Yes, but not far and not for long. Promise.’
It’s been five days and I’ve had no news from Chloé. And let’s make no bones about it: it’s been five days of misery either sat in front of my TV . . . or sat in front of my TV. This is a situation that would have suited me down to the ground only a few weeks ago, but now it weighs heavier on my soul than the two murders I’ve committed in the meantime.
The programmes on offer are just dire. It’s the start of the school holidays and all my favourite games have been rescheduled to make way for sitcom repeats whose infantile humour would probably escape your average viewer, let alone someone like me.
I decide to follow the Tour de France instead. Every single second of it. It’s a struggle, though.
Hours later and I’m now more than capable of reciting the list of teams and the names of all the leaders’ managers. I’m also pretty much the expert on the right way to cook ruifard de Valbonnais or how to ripen Chabrirou du Velay cheese, for these are the sorts of interesting things you pick up in the commentating. I also manage to calculate to the nearest three seconds who will arrive in the top ten in the overall rankings, and the number of kilowatts released by each and every cyclist since leaving the Domancy coast.
So it’s not like I’m allowing brain rot to set in, and I do manage to catch a little bit of daylight. In the mornings I venture outside to buy a baguette and other bits and pieces to eat, and one evening, uncharacteristically, I wander down Rue de Rennes to the Virgin store at Montparnasse. It’s not that I have an irrepressible desire to buy a CD or read a book, it’s just that I left my laptop there weeks earlier to be repaired and I think it’s about time I picked it up. It’s on this little expedition of mine that something worrying occurs . . .
I spot a family exiting the Saint-Placide Métro station. The man is up front with his hands in his pockets and seems indifferent to the woman, who I presume is his wife, walking a dozen or so steps behind him. In her left arm, she’s carrying a little girl close to her body. The child can be no more than two or three years old and wears a distant, almost haunted look on her little face. In her other hand, the woman is holding a discount-supermarket carrier bag and it looks heavy – too heavy for her to manage properly.
The man turns back to look for his wife. She has stopped to put the child and the bag down on the ground so she can swap arms. I’m too far away to hear him, but I don’t have to. I can tell from his gestures that he’s hurling insults at her. I stop to watch the scene unfold and I notice that a young couple have stopped, too. The three of us watch as this man walks back to his wife and screams in her face just that little bit louder. He doesn’t hit her. I suppose he knows better than to do that in public, but I can see by the way she flinches, lowers her head and moves her arms to protect her child that violence is something she knows intimately.
The couple and I look at one another. We are clearly all weighing up the idea of going over and saying something. But what? I think that, if things had gone a little further, the young man would have intervened. He looks the self-assured type and is certainly the right build. I would have helped him, no doubt – but I don’t really know what I might have done. The nasty individual has already given up yelling at his wife by this point and is yards ahead of her again, leaving her with the toddler and the bag.
The young man and I exchange a second sorrowful glance and then his girlfriend pulls at his arm and they walk off in the direction of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. I too continue my journey towards Virgin, but after making my way across the road I have second thoughts. I turn back and search through the crowds, looking for that dreadful excuse for a man and his unfortunate little family.
I spot them in next to no time. They are walking down Rue de Vaugirard towards Boulevard du Montparnasse and I run to catch them up, narrowly avoiding being hit by the number 96 bus.
My pursuit of them doesn’t last long. They turn down Rue de l’Abbé-Grégoire and disappear behind the door of a building that’s half-obscured by scaffolding.
I don’t go to Virgin. I stay put in front of that building until 9 p.m. I think I’m expectin
g some sort of drama, or for the man to come out on his own; in which case, I would have followed him again to find out a bit more about him. Who knows? Perhaps it’s better that we don’t understand my thought processes on this one.
CHAPTER 15
Chloé finally decides to let me know she’s still in the land of the living. It’s late evening when she calls. She starts by telling me how sorry she is for not having been in touch. Well, that bit’s not true, really – what she actually does is laugh and take the mickey out of me, asking how much I’ve missed her. I do my best to ignore her jibes, which makes her laugh even more, and so, beaten, I admit to having wondered whether or not I’d ever see her face again.
‘I promised you! And I always keep my promises,’ she tells me. And then she adds, ‘Unless I’ve got all my dates mixed up, it was yesterday that you had your treatment, wasn’t it?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And how was it? I imagine it was a long night?’
‘It was just like it always is. I’m feeling better already.’
‘So you’ll be back on your feet in no time?’
‘No doubt about it.’
‘Come and meet me in Lille. There’s a train that leaves every hour on the hour from the Gare du Nord. You tell me which one you’re on and I’ll come and pick you up. Come tomorrow.’