by J. A. Kalis
Carol found it hard not to stare at Corinne as she went by. But she couldn’t approach her now. She had to be patient and wait until she met her later, when no one was around.
After breakfast, Carol returned to the lobby. This time she saw Corinne standing alone behind the counter, reading the newspaper. Without a moment’s hesitation, she headed straight towards her.
‘Could I speak to you somewhere in private?’
At the sound of her voice, Corinne straightened and lifted her face, her bright eyes scrutinizing the figure in front of her, slightly alarmed.
‘You can speak freely here. There’s no one to disturb us. What’s the matter? Is there something wrong with your room?’
‘No, no, that’s not what I want to speak to you about. It’s about what happened in Georgia,’ she blurted, unable to prevent a note of accusation from creeping into her voice. ‘My name is Carol Morton.’
Their eyes locked and held for a couple of seconds. Tense silence enveloped the small room. Although Corinne didn’t say anything, her expression showed a glint of recognition at hearing Carol’s surname. Recognition and surprise. But a moment later, the girl’s initial astonishment seemed to give way to a mixture of distrust and fear. Carol caught a glimpse of something dark, like a shadow crossing her face, twisting her features into a grimace that was supposed to pass for a smile.
‘Morton? I get it. You are Sandy’s sister.’ It was more of a statement than a question.
‘Yes, I am. Please, tell me where she is. What happened to her? Why doesn’t she answer our calls? You can’t imagine how worried we all are. My father has even gone to Georgia to look for her. You travelled together; why did you split? You must know where she is. Please, tell me. I need to know.’ Her voice rose in pitch as the words tumbled out of her mouth.
‘How did you find me?’ Corinne seemed oblivious to Carol’s plea.
Carol ignored her question and kept enquiring. ‘What happened to Sandy? Where is she?’
Corinne’s voice lowered almost to a whisper. ‘You want to know what happened to her, fine. I’ll tell you, but not here. Someone might overhear us.’ She looked quickly around, visibly nervous. Carol could almost see her mind racing. ‘Give me your number and I’ll call you when I’m free to talk. I’m too busy now. We’ll meet somewhere else.’
‘Just tell me if she’s alive. I must know now. I can’t wait.’ She fixed her eyes upon Corinne, not bothering to hide the pleading from them.
***
The next day, Patrick and Natia met in the hotel lobby, which was empty except for the front desk clerk. Natia had called Patrick two hours earlier, saying she had some news for him, but had refused to specify on the phone whether it was good or bad. Against one of the walls, wedged between two green potted plants, stood a brown leather sofa. They headed towards it. The spot looked secluded enough to enable them to talk freely without anyone overhearing. Patrick could hardly wait to hear what she had to say but didn’t want to appear pushy. So he didn’t ask.
When they sat down at either end of the sofa, facing one another, one look at her was enough to tell Patrick that she didn’t bring him good news. Her habitual vivacity was gone, replaced by an unusual solemnness. His eyes fixed on hers but she kept averting his gaze.
‘I’m afraid I don’t bring good news.’ She confirmed his fears in a soft voice, close to a whisper. ‘I am very sorry. The body of a girl was found in the area you said your daughter went missing. No ID but the police believe it could be your daughter. They need you to identify the body.’
In the vast and sudden silence that followed all Patrick could hear was the blood rushing through his temples and the mad pounding of his heart. A tight band of pain constricted his chest, catching him by surprise. He gasped. A lump formed in his throat. He opened his mouth to try to say something but no sound came out. He sat staring blankly ahead, unable to move, while his mind processed what he had heard: A dead body. Probably Sandy’s. His baby was dead.
He began to feel warm, claustrophobic. The room swayed and everything in it blurred. For a moment, he was afraid the walls were going to close in on him. Struggling to get his racing heart under control, he inhaled deeply.
He cleared his throat a few times. His left hand gripped the armrest, looking for support. ‘How … How did she die?’
‘Actually, the police found the body a few days ago. And kept it in the morgue. Because there was no ID they didn’t know who it was. My father asked them to take a closer look at all the unidentified victims, and when they connected all the evidence they concluded this might be your daughter. It was a local herder who found her as he was walking up in the mountains, not far from the village she was last seen in.’
‘When can I see her … her … body?’
‘Whenever you wish. Tell me when you are ready. I understand you need some time to prepare yourself emotionally.’
‘Today?’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, I am. I need to know if it’s her. I want to get it over with as soon as possible.’
‘Okay. Then I’ll call and tell them we’re coming.’
***
Seconds ticked away and Corinne remained silent.
‘Please, tell me if my sister is alive,’ Carol repeated her plea.
‘She is dead,’ Corinne said bluntly, her voice a mere hush.
Carol’s face paled, and she swayed as if the ground moved under her feet. Her hands grabbed the counter top so hard her knuckles whitened. She closed her eyes to dissipate the sudden dizziness. It was one thing to presume her sister was dead, but quite another to have it confirmed. Those three words – she is dead – felt like a blow to her head. She felt like she was going to faint.
‘Are you all right? Do you need to sit down?’
‘I’m fine. It’s nothing. It will pass in a moment.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Was it an accident? How did she die?’
‘Sorry but I can’t tell you anything else right now. I’m expecting some guests to arrive any moment. Someone might overhear us and tell him. You don’t know how dangerous he is. He terrorizes people. I’m so scared.’
‘Scared? Who are you scared of? Lucien? Is he here?’
In response, Corinne only nodded her head.
‘What do you mean, dangerous? Are you saying that Sandy’s death was not an accident? Was she killed?’
Corinne ignored her questions.
The bell chimed and a young couple, giggling, entered the hotel.
‘Go now. I’ll call you later, I give you my word,’ she urged Carol gently.
***
In the morgue, he didn’t get to see the whole body. Only the face. The rest was hidden under a white sheet.
The face looked ghastly, each detail amplified under the harsh, bright light. But even so, one quick glance was enough to recognize her. The final sliver of hope departed, leaving Patrick in a daze. Everything in the vast room was so lucidly real but at the same time felt so dreamlike. He wondered if it was a bad dream from which he would soon wake.
He felt like dropping to his knees and crying but couldn’t move his legs, as if they were rooted to the floor. He swayed slightly, wondering if he might pass out. His face lost what little colour it had left.
The coroner looked at him inquiringly wanting to hear whether he recognized the body. He stared back, unable to utter a word. His throat felt dry and tight. So he just nodded his head, confirming to the coroner it was his daughter. Then he shuddered and turned his gaze away, feeling nausea creeping up his throat and tears welling up in his eyes. He couldn’t wait to get out of the room.
With the body of his daughter identified, his search for her was over. But the nightmare continued. Worse was still to come when, half an hour later, sitting in the police station, he heard how Sandy died.
Her death wasn’t an accident. She was killed. Two stab wounds, with the knife left in one of them, constituted the irrefutable proof. The police had little doubt as to who killed her: all th
e evidence pointed to Lucien. What’s more, they had an ATM photo of the person who had used Sandy’s credit card to withdraw money from her bank account. Although the photo was poorly lit and grainy, Lucien was well identifiable.
The problem was, the police didn’t have a clue where he was, and they suspected he had already left the country, along with his accomplice. An international search order would have to be issued. Patrick could do nothing but wait.
Patrick’s quest was over. He could go home now. But he didn’t feel thrilled or relieved by the prospect. His heart sank as he realized he would have to break the terrible news to Karen and Carol.
CHAPTER 7
It was early afternoon. Lucien, already more than a week back in France, sat in one of the wicker chairs on a café terrace. He leaned back comfortably, his legs crossed one over the other. Enjoying the warm weather from beneath a beige parasol, he slowly sipped his cool beer and eyed the passers-by appraisingly, particularly the female ones; disappointingly, there weren’t many in a sleepy provincial town like Cahors. Just a handful of tourists, generally Brits or Dutch, walking in pairs. Most of the women weren’t really his type. At this time of day, the locals stayed at home, hiding from the sun behind closed shutters.
Even so, he had managed to find someone worth his attention. Two tables away from him sat a pretty blonde talking to a dark-haired man roughly the same age; probably her boyfriend.
The girl was definitely Lucien’s type: slender but well-shaped body, soft-featured, strikingly-beautiful face. He found her manners irresistibly seductive. There was something bewitching in her smile and the way she tossed her long hair was feminine and charming.
To show his interest, every now and then Lucien – not put off by the fact she wasn’t alone –cast her a longing glance. She didn’t respond, pretending not to have noticed. But then their eyes met and held for a second, before she quickly averted her gaze. This was enough to tell Lucien she liked him. There was no mistake about it. It was plain to see in the glint of her eyes. And why wouldn’t she? He thought. I’m much better looking than her boyfriend.
Lucien was proud of his looks, of his slender frame, muscles tight as ropes, golden-olive skin and fine-featured face framed by jet black shaggy hair. Moreover, he was perfectly aware of his great personal charm, which women found irresistible. Most of them, anyway. He had to admit that sometimes a girl was undecided, teasing at first only to change her mind a few hours later. Playing with him, disrespecting his feelings. He loathed those types.
The one in Georgia – Sandy – was like that, and that’s why he’d had to teach her a lesson, make her pay for what she’d done. Clearly she’d found him attractive, shamelessly flirting with him, only to turn him down later, when he’d made a pass at her. Unbelievably, she even dared to accuse him of theft and threatened to go to the police. By acting the way she did, the stupid girl had signed her own death warrant. It wasn’t his fault it had to end that way; she had asked for it, she deserved to die. He couldn’t stand the humiliation of being rejected.
She wasn’t the first one. Before her, there was a girl in a small town in the Spanish Pyrenees, the last place he’d lived. He’d had to kill her, too. She had humiliated him. The rage that took hold of him as a result of her foolish behaviour on that memorably fatal day made him lose control, turning him into a murderer. The feeling was so strong that it put him into a daze. He remembered how his fingers had closed around the girl’s neck of their own accord and squeezed hard, even before the realization of what he was doing sank in. He didn’t know how long it had taken before his blinding rage had passed and he snapped back to reality. But by then it was already too late to change anything. Gazing at his hands, he saw they were holding a limp body. The girl was dead.
He’d felt a rush of excitement and power followed by a bout of anxiety. He admitted to himself he had gone too far. Not because he regretted the girl’s death, but because he was frightened of the consequences of his act. It was his first murder and he didn’t know what to do, afraid panic might overwhelm him any moment. His initial reaction was to run away as fast as he could, without even attempting to hide any incriminating proof of his deed. Only later, when he recounted the event, did he realize he’d left enough evidence at the crime scene to indict him. The awareness that the police would find out easily enough who had killed the girl gnawed at him. But he didn’t dare go back to remove anything that would implicate him. It was too risky.
Afraid of being caught, he decided he had no other option but to flee the country as soon as possible. To hide somewhere, at least for a short period of time seemed like the most reasonable thing to do. Just lay low and wait till things blew over.
The French border wasn’t far away. He crossed it and changed his name from Lorenzo Cristobal to Lucien Chabert. And he claimed to be French, though only his mother was from France; his father was Spanish. Born in France, Lorenzo had spent his childhood years in a small village not far from Rocamadour. When he was ten years old, his mother died, and later that year he moved to Spain with his father.
Corinne, who had lived in Rocamadour all her life, was his childhood friend. During his frequent visits to France they became closer, and when they were older they started dating each other on and off. This casual relationship suited them both. They would lose touch at times but always went back to each other. Knowing Lorenzo well, Corrine understood he wasn’t ready to settle down, though contrary to his other girlfriends, it didn’t bother her.
While in Spain, Lorenzo flirted with other girls. But none of them interested him for long. It was the same with jobs. He never held a job for more than a few months at a time. He moved around, doing all sorts of jobs, most of which he disliked. The most recent, being a mountain guide in the Pyrenees, was an exception. He loved the freedom, the physical exertion, and being surrounded by splendid nature. He really regretted having to quit it.
When he killed the first girl, Lorenzo knew he could trust Corinne. She helped him find a hiding place in the vast, wild countryside around Cahors, where he spent a month sleeping in caves.
The idea of going to Georgia was Corinne’s. She stumbled across it while browsing the Internet. When she told him about it, he thought it was a crazy idea, but the more he listened to her arguments the more sense it seemed to make. She insisted he needed a change of scenery, that in France he wasn’t safe from the police. What if they discovered his relationship with her and looked for him at her place?
Georgia was cheap, easy to reach by plane and the least probable place the police would look for him. What really got him at the end was that it was home to the beautiful Caucasus Mountains. For a true nature lover like himself, the very idea of hiking those mountains sounded perfect.
Before they left, Corinne suggested they find a fellow traveller to journey with. She thought it would be fun, especially for him if they travelled with another girl.
Unlike Lorenzo – a true outdoor man – Corinne was handy with the computer and usually spent a lot of time behind it. She soon found some sites on which to search for travel companions. And that was how they finally ended up in Georgia with Sandy. If it wasn’t for the incident with that silly girl, they would have stayed longer there. He’d started to really like the country. Life was cheap there and the mountains were in fact even more magnificent than he had dared to imagine. But after the incident it was better to flee, go back to France. Even though there wasn’t much chance of the girl’s body being discovered, he didn’t want to risk it. The prospect of ending up in a dingy prison hellhole scared him too much. Aware of the necessity of maintaining a low profile while in France, he kept to himself and avoided socializing with the locals.
He chose to stay in the Quercy region, which was sparsely-populated and somewhat off-the-beaten track. As he knew from hiding there after he’d killed the first girl, the vast area with its gentle rolling hills covered by dry grasslands and scattered oak wood and juniper bushes, through which few roads passed, with its numerous open a
nd underground caves – some of which were as yet unexplored, due to their difficult access – had plenty of great hiding places. Should the need arise, he knew where to find a safe shelter, to stay out of anybody’s reach.
Luckily, he hadn’t yet felt the need to hide, but to be on the safe side, he and Corinne decided to stay separated for the time being. He chose to look for a place to live in Cahors, only an hour away from Rocamadour, where nobody knew his real identity. Soon, he had found a modest flat, containing just the bare necessities. Unfortunately, the money he had stolen from the girl in Georgia was nearly gone, and he needed a new source of income. Soon after his arrival in the small town, he had started to look for a job, but had yet to find one. But with his experience as a mountain guide he would surely find something soon, as a tour guide for walking trips or the caves. It was holiday season, a good time to find this kind of job.
As he sat on the café terrace drinking the last of his beer, the elderly lady sitting at the table next to his waved over a waiter and asked for the bill. Seizing his opportunity, Lorenzo ordered a cup of coffee. While he waited for the drink to arrive, his eyes focused again on the blonde and her boyfriend. They sat talking over their drinks. Or rather, he was talking and she was listening, only occasionally opening her lovely mouth.
A few minutes later the waiter reappeared, skilfully balancing a tray with a cup of coffee for him and a little silver plate with the bill for the elderly lady. Lorenzo turned his head and saw the blonde’s boyfriend stand up and lean over to kiss the girl and give her a quick hug.