“It’s called Sea View,” she heard Alan pant next to her. “The café where Mum is!”
At that moment the first shot was fired. It rang out over the landscape and spooked the gulls, which broke out in wild cries right afterwards. They sounded like the gun’s echo. A second shot was fired. Another three hundred yards to the car. Franca no longer had any doubts that the men would kill them if they caught them. They had too much on their rap sheets, they couldn’t afford to get arrested. They hadn’t just stolen ships. They’d also committed a murder.
In that first moment that Alan fell, he thought he’d been shot. To his amazement he felt no pain at first. It should hurt somewhere, shouldn’t it? he thought matter-of-factly. Doing so he had the vague sense that he was only asking this right then insignificant question because he was in a mild state of shock and didn’t want to think of what was actually going on: that they were about to catch him and then kill him.
He tried to stand up, but a sharp pain in his right ankle made him fold up, groaning. Was that where the bullet had hit? Or had he just tripped and pulled or torn something?
Or broken, he thought. Oh, dear God!
He noticed that Franca had stopped. He had been holding her hand, and she had almost hit the ground with him. Now she was staring at him, breathing hard. Her eyes were wide open and frozen as a frightened animal’s. He grabbed the car keys from his jeans pocket. He threw them at her.
“Run,” he said. “Go, run to the car. Drive to the police station! Call Mum! Hurry!”
She didn’t move.
“Hurry!” he urged.
Two men were running towards them across the field. One was Gérard. The crook whose face had been carved permanently in his memory on that afternoon on Hauteville Road in front of Maya’s apartment. Gérard, Maya’s lover. Gérard, the killer. Probably the one in the group who did the dirty work.
“Damn it, Franca, don’t stand there staring at me like a frightened rabbit!” Suddenly he thought of their first meeting — also on Hauteville Road, on the same day he first saw Gérard. Like a rabbit in front of a gun barrel, he’d thought of her then. Once a rabbit, he thought, always a rabbit!
Why was he thinking such useless stuff, now of all times?
“Run! Now!” He shouted at her. “Run, or I’ll give you something that’ll make you run!”
A ridiculous assertion, but at least it got Franca to open her mouth.
“No. Not without you! Come on, I’ll help you! Stand up!”
“There’s no use. I won’t make it! Please get yourself out of here. Warn my mother!”
Her eyes flickered left and right.
No panicking now! He thought beseechingly.
She started to run. As if he’d tripped some secret, apparently pivotal lever. She ran to the car, pulled open the door and fell onto the driver seat. She turned the key. The car started at once. She turned around, tires squealing. Another shot fell. The car lurched off.
Thank God, thought Alan. He sank back down on the grass. He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again he saw Gérard standing over him. That cold, brutal face. It was without any human emotion, unmoving and mercilessly hard.
He thought of Helene. The woman who had told him fairy tales and read him stories, who had brought him warm milk in bed at night. He thought of how this was the face she had looked into as she died. Into these eyes, devoid of sympathy. She couldn’t hope that he would let mercy prevail. Had she understood this? Or had it all gone so quickly that she couldn’t have understood what was happening anyway?
Why had he just had to find Kevin, why had he had to play the detective?
This is the end, he thought. A fleeting regret overcame him. He’d made so little of his life. Then he turned his head.
He didn’t want to look at Gérard’s eyes any longer.
8
“I am truly sorry about what happened to Helene,” said Julien. “It must be horrible for you.”
They had barely spoken a word since Alan and Franca had gone. Julien seemed deeply lost in thought. He had ordered two more coffees, and Beatrice had thought he must’ve felt his heart beating up in his throat. He drank his coffee black, no sugar. Had he always done this? She thought back, but then it occurred to her that during the war there practically wasn’t any coffee, and no sugar or milk either, towards the end, and the awful ersatz brew that you did drink had a taste that nothing could have saved.
“It was a shock,” she said in reply to Julien. “It’s already a shock when a person dies suddenly, but then when it also happens in the way it did … you can’t fathom it. Sometimes I wake up at night and I think I’ve been having a bad dream. And then I realize that it happened. That it will be a part of my life from now on.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Of the paltry remainder of my life, at any rate. There won’t be all too much time left for me, I’m sure.”
“You’ll be a hundred years old,” Julien predicted. “That means you’ve got to get through thirty more years.”
“Ok then,” she said serenely. “I think I can handle that.”
They looked at each other, and suddenly Julien reached his hand across the table, and Beatrice took hold. They held tight to one another, and both breathed very calmly and evenly. “Sometimes I think …,” Julien began, but he broke off and said nothing further, and she didn’t press him, because she knew what he’d wanted to say: He had wanted to speak of the life the two of them could have led and hadn’t allowed themselves, the life that might have been better than what each of them had had. He might well have been struck with the absolute irretrievability of this missed chance.
“How nice it is to sit with you, here, by the ocean, under the sun,” he finally said instead, and then both were silent once more, and Beatrice asked herself if he too was overcome with the sadness that filled her.
Damn it all, she thought, some things in life just go so horribly wrong!
But that was part of it, and there was no sense despairing. She tried to master her pain, blinked in the sun, focused on the view of Castle Cornet, towering over the harbor, so majestic, so unmatched. It had been with her all her life. Its enormity gave her some of her calm back, a bit of composure.
Julien looked at his watch. “I have to go,” he said. “I have another appointment. I’m sorry to be so abrupt …”
The blond waitress of Sea View had been approaching, and paused at their table. “Mrs. Shaye?” she asked.
Beatrice looked up. “Yes?”
“Telephone for you. Inside, at the bar.”
“Oh!” she was surprised. She had never gotten a call at a restaurant or café before. She stood up. “Please, wait just a moment more, Julien, okay? I’ll be right back.”
She had the impression that he was nervous, was really in a rush. She planned to ask him straight away who it was he was going to meet with. The whole time she’d been thinking he had come to Guernsey just like that, on account of whatever sentimental memories, but apparently he really did have plans.
He never made plans with me, she thought, and the jealousy was like a sharp stab.
The mouthpiece of the telephone lay on the bar, next to the base. The waitress, who had gone ahead of her, gestured with her hand. “Here you are!”
Beatrice picked up the phone. “Beatrice Shaye,” she answered.
Franca was on the other end. She sounded like she’d completely lost it.
“Beatrice, are you still with Julien? Good. Then please keep him there somehow. What? I can’t give you all the details. He’s part of a gang that steals ships on the Channel Islands and sells them in France. Yes, I know it sounds absurd. But Alan is absolutely certain. Kevin’s in on it too. I have to call the police and send them to Perelle Bay and to the Sea View. Julien must be kept there at all costs. He might be dangerous, Beatrice. He … He might have
something to do with Helene’s death. No, I’m not making it up. Please, Beatrice, believe me. I just barely escaped. You don’t have to do anything but keep Julien there. Please, just do what I say. Now I’ve really got to call the police. We’ll talk later!”
She turned off the cellphone. She felt like it must’ve taken an eternity for her to figure out how it worked. She was sitting on the outskirts of some village by the sea, she didn’t know where she was, but she assumed she was near Pleinmont. She had stopped on the side of the road and turned her attention to the cellphone. She’d been trying while she drove, but she couldn’t manage to find the network. She accepted that she couldn’t do anything while she was driving. If it didn’t work right away, she’d look for the next restaurant or café and use the phone there.
Easy, nice and easy, she had admonished herself. You have to keep your nerves up, otherwise you can’t do a thing.
Suddenly the cellphone had chirped, and she even managed to get put through to the service provider’s information line. She asked for the Sea View Café in St. Peter Port. Much to her surprise, she suddenly had a woman who worked at the café on the line.
“Mrs. Shaye,” she’d told the girl. “A woman with white hair, seventy years old. She’s sitting on the terrace, way in the back, right on the water.” The Sea View’s deck was, she realized, surrounded by water on three sides, and so her description wasn’t especially precise, but the girl said she would go look. Franca’s hands were shaking as she waited. Had she done this right? Should she have informed the police first? But then Julien might have been gone. She couldn’t think about Alan. She broke into a sweat, her fingers were tingling. Oh God, she couldn’t think about him for a single moment!
Then she had heard Beatrice’s voice, and with her own voice breaking gave her an outline of what had happened and said she should keep Julien where he was. She hadn’t said anything about Alan, and she had ended the conversation before Beatrice could ask any more questions. She noticed that Beatrice had thought she’d snapped, and she didn’t want to get wrapped up in further discussions. She turned off the cellphone and took a deep breath. She could only hope that Beatrice would do what she’d told her.
No time, she thought, no time to think about it. I have to call the police.
She’d let the operator connect her like before. Again she punched at the keys.
I should have called the police first. Why didn’t I do that? That was wrong!
The shaking in her hands grew worse. The word wrong hammered away inside her head. It was the familiar machine gun sound that she knew from Michael. She did everything wrong. She simply didn’t function. She was mixed-up and idiotic and always made the wrong choices. That was just how it was. That’s how it had always been. She had chosen the wrong career. She had chosen the wrong husband. She chose the wrong food at the restaurant and the wrong dress at the boutique. And she made phone calls in the wrong order. For Alan it was a matter of life and death, and she called Beatrice first, only so that insignificant Julien could be caught.
Even if it was wrong, said a voice inside her, now’s not the time to think about it. It’ll all get that much worse. Now call, God damn it, call the police already!
Her fingers were trembling so much that she couldn’t use the keys. Everything was shaking, her legs, her whole body. She was soaked in sweat. It came in streams, poured over her. The most profound hopelessness, a crippling, beaten down feeling, took hold of her.
Panic. The panic that she’d been struggling against all day, was now bursting through. It had had time to gather strength. It was more determined than ever. For hours it had been kept in check. Now it wouldn’t be held back any longer.
Not now, not now, not now! I have to call the police. For God’s sake, not now!
She was gasping for breath. Her vision went blurry. She couldn’t focus on a single point any longer, everything was spinning around her. The phone slipped from her fingers, slid somewhere beneath the pedals. Her whole body was drenched now, she could have been underwater. It was getting harder and harder to breathe. Fear surrounded her like a fog that became thicker and more impenetrable with every second. It crowded in on her, grew dark. Black. The fog turned into a black wall coming straight towards her.
Oh God, I’m going to die. I’m going to die.
She was gasping for breath. She had always been afraid of drowning in her panic one day. Now that time had come. She was sitting on Guernsey in a car on the side of the road just outside a village the name of which she didn’t even know, Alan was in mortal peril or maybe dead already, murdered as horribly and gruesomely as Helene, she had called Beatrice and thrown her into confusion and now she was incapable of informing the police and was having a panic attack that she was going to die from. Her heart was racing, her pulse shot up. There was a roaring in her ears. She wanted to open the car door, wanted to gasp for air, but her hands wouldn’t obey her. And it was impossible to find the door handle, she couldn’t see a thing anyway. She felt like the windshield was bearing down on her, was already lying on her chest and robbing her of air. She couldn’t even scream anymore. The horror formed a mass of words and sounds inside her, but she couldn’t get it out. Her cries for help died away inside her own head, unheard. And it got worse. With every instant it got worse, more threatening, narrower, deadlier. With every instant Alan’s situation grew more perilous.
The thought of Alan shook something loose within her. Some chain of thoughts that she couldn’t quite grasp. But there was something there amidst all the chaos raging within her. Something she could hold on to. She only had to get a grip on it. It was an image … She felt like someone trying to catch a leaf as it flutters in the wind: each time she reached her hand out for it, it capered away once more.
She caught a tip between two fingers and held on tight. A wave. The image of a wave. A wave that got higher and higher, that reared up and finally broke, collapsed, toppled, grew small and flat and ran over the sand as harmless white foam.
Alan had spoken of this. At some point he had sketched this image of a wave before her eyes. What had he said exactly? She felt certain that remembering his words would help her. What had he said about the wave?
Nothing can climb higher than its own peak. After that it starts to fall back again. Like the waves in the ocean.
And he had said something else.
You should remember what it was like … when the panic crumbled in on itself. How you could breathe again, calm and even. How the shaking stopped. How you realized that you were going to live.
That you were going to live. She clung tightly to these words, imagined Alan’s calm, deep voice, as he spoke them.
That you were going to live … You will never die because of it. You will survive your panic every time. You don’t have to feel half as afraid as you do now.
The wave rose and rose and rose. Franca still could not breathe, but she had Alan’s words, which enfolded her like a promise of lifelong safety. She managed not to resist the panic any longer. She let it come, let it tower over her. The black wall was right in front of her now. So close, so close … Just a millimeter closer and there would be catastrophe, she’d be devoured, swallowed up, undone …
And at exactly that moment, it hit its peak. Once more she fought for breath, gasped for air, a last wave of sweat soaked her clothes, and then the panic fell back, grew weaker, smaller, grew more insignificant. Turned to white, flat foam, surf rolling over the sand.
Her breath returned. The roaring in her ears died down. Her vision no longer flickered, images surfaced, took shape. She saw the steering wheel in front of her again, looked through the windshield at trees and flowers and a paved road that wound its way into the village. She smelled the car’s smell: a little gas, cloth seats, the rubber of the tires. This was mixed in with her sweat, turning cold as it dried on her skin. She heard birds chirping, the sound of an airplane
somewhere up above. She was awake, she was alive. As alive as you could ever be. She had withstood it. Alone. Without pills, but also without another person looking after her, like Alan had that time on Hauteville Road in St. Peter Port. She had endured it, and now she lifted her head and realized that it hadn’t been any grand tragedy. It had been unpleasant, awful, and frightening, but in the end it hadn’t lasted all that long.
Even if it comes again, she thought, I can withstand it.
She didn’t have the time to sit there and celebrate her victory. She could do that later. Alan needed her. She bent over and fished the phone out from beneath the pedals. She had to send the police to Perelle Bay at once. And to the Sea View in St. Peter Port.
9
Beatrice walked slowly back out to the table in the sun. Thoughts flew through her head. What Franca had just told her, hurried and out of breath, sounded so strange, so bizarre, that she couldn’t believe it. Julien a member of a gang that stole ships and smuggled them over to France? And hadn’t she also mentioned he’d had something to do with Helene’s death? Franca must have gone completely bonkers.
Now what should I do? she asked herself.
She thought of what she knew about Franca.
She took pills, because she suffered from some kind of nervous episodes. She struggled with profound self-doubt, feelings of inferiority, and the neurotic belief that she was forever failing. She did indeed seem to have grown more stable in the past weeks, but of course it couldn’t be ruled out that she’d have a setback at some point. On the phone, though, she hadn’t given Beatrice the impression that she was imbalanced. Then again, that would probably be difficult for an outsider to recognize anyway.
When she got to the table, Julien stood up and put his cigar case in his jacket pocket.
“There you are,” he said. “I really do have to go now, I’m afraid. Is everything alright? You’re a bit pale. Who was it who wanted to speak with you?”
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