After the Crash

by Michel Bussi

  Nicole Vitral, with her unusual charms, and perhaps without even realising it herself, had a troubling effect on millions of Frenchmen that February in 1981. And her charm worked on me too, that night, although I would not meet her in person for another few months. In fact, she has had a troubling effect on me for the last eighteen years. She troubles me still, at nearly sixty-five years of age. My age, in other words, almost to the month.

  As you will have guessed, the Vitrals’ case suddenly became much more winnable. The best lawyers in France – at least those who had not already been hired by the de Carvilles – offered their services. Gratis, naturally. There was so much publicity surrounding the case, and public opinion was firmly weighted towards them. It was a godsend.

  The first task for the Vitrals’ new, influential, media-friendly lawyers was to wage a guerrilla war against Judge Le Drian. They suspected him of partiality because Le Drian and the de Carvilles belonged to the same world. The Lions Club, the Rotary Club, the Freemasons, dinners with the ambassador . . . all of this was mentioned, along with some rather unsubtle and ignoble insinuations. Finally, the Ministry of Justice gave in to the pressure. Judge Le Drian offered his resignation on 1 April, and a new judge was appointed: Judge Weber, a star of the court in Strasbourg; a small, honest figure who wore glasses, somewhere between Eliot Ness and Woody Allen; a man whose integrity was never questioned afterwards, not even by the de Carvilles.

  The hearing began on 4 April. No matter what happened, it would all be over within a month and the judge would have to choose. The two parties had agreed to avoid any compromise solution, so, the judge would definitively not recommend a dual identity, or a shared-parenting arrangement – school terms with one family, holidays with another, that sort of thing. The hearing would not give birth to a monster with two names. Whatever happened, Lylie would exist no longer. She would be Emilie or Lyse-Rose.

  Judge Weber simply had to decide who had survived and who had perished. I have wondered about this question ever since: has any other judge ever been given such power: to kill a child so that another may live? To be at once saviour and executioner. One family would win, the other would lose everything. It was better this way; everyone agreed.

  Just make a decision.

  Fine. But based on what?

  I have been through the investigation file dozens of times. I

  have read the hundreds of pages that Judge Weber read. I have listened over and over again to the recordings of the hearing: I was given access to the recordings years later, thanks to the de Carvilles.

  What a lot of hot air! Experts asserting one thing, and another bunch of experts contradicting them. The hearing came down to a battle of words between the experts called by each side, none of them impartial. The impartial experts had nothing to say. After days and days of questions and statements, it boiled down to the same thing: the baby had blue eyes . . . like the Vitrals. The Vitrals were leading on points, but only just, and then at the last moment, the de Carvilles’ lawyers discovered a distant cousin with pale blue eyes, so we were back to square one.

  Judge Weber should have kept a coin in his pocket, should have been weighing it up constantly during those interminable sessions in court.

  Léonce de Carville’s lawyers devoted all their time and energy to erasing the memory of their client’s disastrous media outing, altering the way he was perceived by the public. They were not wholly successful, but this strategy did bring results. They launched public attacks on what they called the ‘Vitral clan’, which implicated not only the family, but the neighbourhood in which they lived, the entire region.

  At war with the clan, snubbed by public opinion, Léonce de Carville ultimately stood alone, with his dignity, his principles, his morality. His lawyers somehow succeeded in making him look like the victim of a witch-hunt, a noble individual torn to pieces by the mob; they cast him in the role of the tough but honest man, who had fought tirelessly all his life to achieve success, never allowing himself to relax, to be a grandfather, a ‘Papa’.

  This was the picture of Léonce de Carville that emerged from the hearing and was made public through the words of the watching journalists: the great man humbled and humiliated by a crowd of pygmies. Naturally, people began to doubt their convictions: what if, after all, de Carville was telling the truth? What if we have let ourselves be manipulated by the Vitrals’ media circus, by the poverty that they displayed so immodestly, by Nicole Vitral’s large breasts?

  Léonce de Carville’s lawyers knew exactly what they were doing. The whole issue was heading inexorably towards a draw. In spite of the urgency, the possibility of extra time was looming, followed by a penalty shoot-out that might never end.

  That was the situation when, on the last day of the hearing, the youngest of the Vitrals’ lawyers entered the fray. Maître Leguerne is now a highly renowned and successful lawyer in Paris, with a three-storey office on Rue Saint-Honoré. But back then, in 1981, he was a complete unknown. He was one of those lawyers working for the Vitrals for free. The moral being: defending penniless orphans and widows can end up earning you big bucks.

  Leguerne had prepared his coup meticulously. He had asked Judge Weber if he could have the final word in the hearing, as if he were about to pull a crucial piece of evidence from his sleeve at the very last minute . . .

  13

  2 October, 1998, 10.47 a.m.

  Saint-Lazare A sudden noise made Marc turn his head. The doors of the compartment opened and the crowd of people waiting on the platform surged into the previously half-empty train. It was not quite the sardine-like crush of rush hour, but all the same the density of bodies forced Marc to stand up. His seat banged shut. He stepped back into the corner, his back pressed against the window, and settled into position with his legs slightly apart so he could keep his balance. A man’s hand, holding onto one of the metal bars, jutted just under his nose, while with the other hand the man held a paperback thriller which he was reading avidly. Marc turned away slightly, so he could keep reading his own mystery. As the train shook him from side to side, Grand-Duc’s tiny handwriting danced before his eyes.

  Crédule Grand-Duc’s Journal Maître Leguerne took the stand. There were about thirty people in court that day – 22 April, 1981 – including the two families, lawyers, various witnesses, and the police. Leguerne addressed himself first of all to the policemen in the room:

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he asked, ‘was the miracle child wearing any kind of jewellery when she was discovered? A necklace, for example? Or a bracelet, perhaps?’

  The policemen looked shocked. Superintendent Vatelier, sitting in the front row, coughed into his beard. No, of course not. As if the baby might have been wearing a bracelet around her wrist spelling out Lyse-Rose or Emilie . . . What point was this smartass young lawyer trying to make?

  ‘All right,’ said Leguerne. ‘Mrs Vitral, did little Emilie ever wear jewellery of any kind, such as a bracelet or a small chain?’

  ‘None at all,’ Nicole Vitral replied.

  ‘Are you certain of that?’

  ‘Yes . . .’ Nicole Vitral swallowed a sob, then continued: ‘Yes. We were supposed to give Emilie a bracelet for her christening, after the family came back from Turkey. We had already ordered it from Lecerf, in Offranville, but she never got the chance to wear it.’

  Nicole bent over, rummaged in her handbag for a few moments, then took out a long red jewellery box which she held out for Judge Weber to see. She opened it and into her palm spilled a tiny silver chain.

  A wave of emotion ran through the people in the courtroom, including the de Carville camp.

  Emilie was engraved on the nameplate in italics – in a childlike, cheerful calligraphy – as well as the date of her birth: 30 September, 1980.

  As Nicole Vitral admitted to me afterwards, this was a set-up. The christening really had been booked for the following month, but no bracelet had yet been ordered. It was just a clever piece of theatre, risky but effective. A preparatory move,
before dealing the death blow.

  The young lawyer then turned towards Léonce de Carville. ‘Mr de Carville, did Lyse-Rose have any jewellery – a bracelet, for example?’

  Carville shot a worried look at his lawyers but Judge Weber insisted: ‘Please answer Maître Leguerne’s question, Mr de Carville.’

  Léonce de Carville was about to open his mouth, but Leguerne did not give him time. Triumphantly, he pulled from his thick red file the photocopy of a receipt from the famous, and extremely expensive jeweller Philippe Tournaire, on Place Vendôme.

  Judge Weber confirmed the contents of the paper. The receipt made explicit mention of the delivery of a solid gold chain bracelet. It stated that the name ‘Lyse-Rose’ and the date of birth – ‘27 September, 1980’ – had been hand-engraved on the bracelet. The receipt was dated 2 October, 1980 – less than a week after LyseRose’s birth.

  This proved nothing, absolutely nothing at all. But for the first time since the hearing began, de Carville was on the defensive, without a counter-argument meticulously prepared for him by his legal team.

  ‘Mr de Carville,’ Leguerne continued, ‘did Lyse-Rose usually wear this bracelet?’

  ‘How should I know? I sent it to my son in Turkey, just after Lyse-Rose’s birth. But I imagine he would only put it on her for special occasions. It was a bracelet of great value.’

  ‘You imagine? Or you know?’

  ‘I imagine . . .’

  ‘All right. Thank you.’

  Maître Leguerne produced another photocopy from his red file – this time of a postcard sent from Ceyhan, in Turkey.

  ‘Mr de Carville, did you receive this card from your son about a month after Lyse-Rose’s birth?’

  ‘Where did you get that?’ Léonce de Carville yelled.

  ‘Did you receive this postcard?’ the lawyer asked again, impassive.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ de Carville admitted. He had no choice.

  ‘ “Dear Dad”,’ Leguerne began to read. ‘I will skip over the details to the part that interests us. “Thank you for the bracelet. You must have paid a fortune for it – it is magnificent. Lyse-Rose never takes it off . . . It is the only truly French thing she possesses” . . .’

  Leguerne went silent, triumphant amid the general air of astonishment.

  I never found out who betrayed the de Carvilles. Probably one of their domestic staff. Leguerne must have paid a handsome price for that postcard. Then again, everything is relative. However much he paid, you can be sure it was nothing like the value of a three-storey building on Rue Saint-Honoré.

  ‘This proves nothing!’ one of the de Carvilles’ lawyers shouted. ‘It’s ridiculous! The bracelet could have been stowed away for safekeeping before the journey. It could have been torn from her wrist during the crash . . .’

  Smiling, Leguerne asked: ‘Was a bracelet or any other kind of jewellery found near the Airbus, in that area of ground which was searched so diligently?’

  Everyone in the courtroom was silent, including Vatelier, who was shocked at having been beaten to the punch in the investigation by an ambitious young man in a black robe.

  ‘No, of course not. Isn’t that right, Superintendent? Were there any signs on the baby’s wrist of a bracelet having been torn from it? Was there even the faintest red mark?’

  A well-timed pause.

  ‘No. The doctors found no marks on her at all. Let us go further . . . Was there an area, a line, on the baby’s wrist that was slightly paler than the surrounding skin? A little less suntanned? The type of mark that is usually left by a piece of jewellery that is never taken off . . .’

  Time seemed to stand still.

  ‘No, there was no mark of any kind. Thank you. I rest my case.’

  Maître Leguerne went back to his seat. Léonce de Carville’s lawyers reiterated loudly and repeatedly that this coup de théâtre was nothing of the sort, that the bracelet’s existence was insignificant. Leguerne did not reply. He knew perfectly well that, the more the opposing lawyers argued, the greater weight would be given to the question he had raised.

  If the bracelet was unimportant, why had de Carville never mentioned it to the police?

  With hindsight, this question about the bracelet looks no more or less important than any of the other evidence. Just one more doubt. But at that particular moment in the trial, the bracelet was transformed into a decisive proof against the de Carvilles’ case. A new piece of evidence, something the courtroom had been waiting for since the hearing began. So, however tenuous, however slight, this new piece of evidence was enough to tip the balance.

  Judge Weber looked at Léonce de Carville for a long time. The industrialist had lied. It was a lie of omission, admittedly, but a lie all the same. He had been caught red-handed. For that alone, in the absence of any more compelling reason, shouldn’t the law take the side of the opposing party?

  If in doubt . . . As for the de Carvilles’ bracelet, it would haunt me for many years to come. When I think now of how much energy I spent on searching for it, tracking its long journey . . . When I think of how close I came to getting my hands on it . . . But please forgive me, I am getting ahead of myself again.

  Judge Weber’s decision was announced a few hours later. The miracle child of Mont Terrible was Emilie Vitral. Her grandparents, Pierre and Nicole Vitral, became her legal guardians, as well as the legal guardians of her elder brother Marc.

  Lyse-Rose de Carville was dead, burned alive with her parents in the cabin of the Airbus 5403 from Istanbul to Paris.

  Léonce de Carville’s lawyers wanted to appeal, to take the case all the way to the High Court, but it was de Carville himself who refused. His role as the noble victim, the broken man, was no longer just a stance.

  The two heart attacks he suffered the following year, with only a few months in between, and which left him more or less a vegetable in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, seemed the logical conclusion to the affair.

  14

  2 October, 1998, 10.52 a.m. ‘Hide Grand-Duc’s body!’

  Mathilde de Carville’s tone brooked no argument.

  Nevertheless, Malvina de Carville did attempt to protest. ‘But, Grandma . . .’ she said into the telephone.

  ‘Hide his body now, I said! Doesn’t matter where. In a cupboard,

  under a bed. We need to play for time. Anyone could come to his house. A neighbour, his cleaning lady, his mistress . . . Sooner or later, the police will turn up. I bet you’ve left fingerprints all over the place, haven’t you, you little fool? You have to wipe them all away.’

  Malvina bit her lip. Her grandmother was right: she had behaved like an idiot. She was standing in the living room, just between the detective’s corpse and the vivarium, where the insects were still dying. She knew she had to remove her fingerprints, but she could not stay here too long: she needed to tell her grandmother this.

  He was on his way.

  ‘Grandma, there’s something else . . .’

  On the other end of the line, Mathilde de Carville was silent for

  a moment. She was holding the receiver with one hand while continuing to prune her roses with the other.

  ‘What is it, Malvina?’

  ‘Marc Vitral called Grand-Duc’s house. About five minutes ago, if that. He left a message on the answering machine.’

  Mathilde de Carville cut a branch off with a precise clip of her secateurs.

  ‘Marc says he wants to see Grand-Duc. He’ll be here in half an hour. He’s coming on the metro. It’s about Lyse-Rose. And . . . and he says that he has Grand-Duc’s notebook. Lyse-Rose read it yesterday. She gave it to him this morning . . .’

  Another rose branch fell, cut off at its base. Wilted petals rained down over Mathilde de Carville’s black dress.

  ‘All the more reason to hurry, Malvina. Do what I told you to do

  – clean up every trace of your presence, and then get out of there.’

  ‘And then what, Grandma?’

  For the first
time, Mathilde de Carville hesitated. To what extent could she use Malvina? To what extent could she keep her under control? Without risking another mistake . . .

  ‘Stay close by, Malvina. Marc Vitral doesn’t know you. Hide in the street somewhere. Watch him, follow him. But don’t do anything else. Telephone me as soon as you see him. You understand, don’t you? Don’t do anything other than what I’ve told you. And, most importantly, hide that body immediately!’

  ‘I understand, Grandma.’

  They hung up.

  The steel jaws closed and a severed branch fell to the ground.

  Mathilde de Carville knew all about Malvina’s hatred for the Vitral family. She was also well aware that her granddaughter was walking the streets carrying a loaded Mauser L110, and it was in perfect working order: that, unfortunately, had been confirmed in the most terrible way. Was it really reasonable of her to allow the possibility of Malvina and Marc Vitral meeting on Rue de la Butteaux-Cailles, in front of Grand-Duc’s house?

  Reasonable!

  Mathilde de Carville had banned that word a long time ago.

  The simplest course of action would be to leave it up to fate, to God’s judgement. As she always did.

  Mathilde smiled to herself and continued pruning the roses with a surprising dexterity. Her long fingers had the strange ability to hold the branches, between the thorns, without ever being pricked, twisting them with a firm movement towards the sharp blades. Mathilde de Carville worked quickly, methodically, hardly even looking down at her hands, the way a dressmaker sews with her eyes elsewhere.

  Her elegant black dress was dirty with soil, blades of grass and rose petals. Mathilde de Carville was unconcerned. She turned her face towards the vast park of the Roseraie. Léonce de Carville was sitting in his wheelchair, in the middle of the lawn, under the large maple tree. His head had fallen sideways. He was a hundred feet away from her, yet Mathilde could still hear him snoring. She thought about calling Linda, the nurse, to tell her to go and straighten his head, place a cushion under his neck . . . she could take him back to the house too: it wasn’t very warm anymore.