by Michel Bussi
Alina Masson picked up the thread.
“Myrtille was a romantic. She liked letters. Letters on paper, I mean. She liked writing. While the camp was on, we sometimes finished our meetings after midnight, and she still made the effort to write in her tent by flashlight.”
Each character trait of Myrtille’s, drawn from the lips of her best friend, seemed to pierce Saint-Michel like an arrow. He wedged an unlit cigarette between his lips and put his head in his hands. Ellen observed him the way an entomologist observes a fly bumping against the walls of an upturned glass. Despite his promise, Commander Bastinet couldn’t resist butting in.
“Would you read that letter to us.”
Ellen frowned—as far as she was capable, given her suspiciously smooth forehead—then softened her superior’s words in that reassuring voice:
“Monsieur Saint-Michel, I know that this is an intimate letter, a poem, from what you’ve told us. Probably the last words written by Myrtille before her life was taken. But perhaps we will find a clue in those words . . .”
Frédéric Saint-Michel crushed the cigarette in the hollow of his palm before replying, “We were supposed to be getting married.”
Off topic.
The criminal psychologist fluttered her long eyelashes. Too long. False.
“I know, Frédéric. We’d like to hear what she wrote to you.”
Saint-Michel took the sheet of paper from his pocket as if it weighed more than a stack of books. His lips moved, but no sound came from them.
Under the desk, Ellen Nilsson laid her fingers, their crimson nails a perfect match for her amaranth-red dress, on the commander’s knee. Startled at first, he soon realised that she was urging him to be patient.
She advanced towards the witness, her wrist hidden beneath a tunnel of bracelets.
“It doesn’t matter, Frédéric. Give me the letter.”
The sheet of paper slid on to the desk. The criminal psychologist read in a firm, clear voice.
Myrtille, August 24th, 2004, Isigny-sur-Mer, 2:25 A.M.
My love
I will steal time’s wings
To keep it from flying
I will steal the day’s crutches
To keep it from rising
I will steal spring’s jonquils
To keep it from fading
I will steal the cocoon’s caterpillar
To keep it from escaping
I will put bars on the universe
To keep it from parting us
I will dress our good fortune in rags
To keep it from buying us
I will kill all the other girls
To keep them from loving you
I will ask life for a family
To keep us from getting bored
I will build a fortress around us
And I will defend it
M2O
Alina Masson twisted a Kleenex to wipe the corner of her eyes. Frédéric Saint-Michel put a new cigarette between his lips and bit it until he left a grove between the filter and the tobacco, his expression blank.
“It’s a wonderful poem,” Ellen said.
It wasn’t an empty compliment, she really believed it. Myrtille had a gift. A talent that had been squandered like a handwritten page that someone crumples into a ball before throwing it in the bin.
She had a keener understanding of the reactions of those whose lives had been touched by Myrtille’s charisma, reactions that lay between rage and despair. She had invited Charles and Louise Camus to witness the statement, but Myrtille’s parents had politely declined. They no longer wanted to share the memory of their daughter with police officers or judges. Myrtille was buried in Elbeuf at the Saint-Étienne cemetery, and they liked to go and collect their thoughts there every morning. Alone. Talking endlessly to the investigators about the smallest details of Myrtille’s life, they felt as if they were scattering her memories as one might scatter ashes.
Bastinet said nothing. Disappointed. Not that he was insensitive to these poignant rhymes, but he saw nothing in the poem that might help him to identify the killer, no matter how many times he read it. He let his finger run over the page.
“What’s this signature, M2O?”
“Marriage, 2 October,” Saint-Michel explained. “It’s the date we’d chosen for the ceremony. The church in Orival, the town hall in Elbeuf. The community centre for the dinner and the party.”
He decapitated his cigarette and spat the stub into the palm of his hand. Alina set her damp Kleenex on the table.
“Can this poem really help you?”
Bastinet gave a slight shake of the head, unable to restrain himself. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her that it had been a waste of time. The thing that would have helped them was Myrtille’s sky-blue Moleskine notebook, the journal she wrote in every day, which might have contained details about the days and hours leading up to her rape. The notebook that the murderer had taken.
Bastinet rose to his feet. He stared at Frédéric Saint-Michel and thought he was nothing like Chichin the guitarist. It was hard to see what the young women at the community centre, including the lovely Myrtille, saw in him.
Bastinet headed for the door, explaining that he had urgent matters to attend to, that he would leave Ellen to finish the interview on her own, that she had his full confidence.
To go on talking about poetry, he thought. To ask about Myrtille Camus’s incongruously sexy outfit on the day she was murdered, about the date of the wedding. Compassion wasn’t going to help them solve this case. Aside from feeling good about doing the right thing, there was nothing to be gained from taking an interest in the victim. The investigation needed to focus on the murderer. During the twenty minutes that had been taken up by the interview, three calls had come in from people claiming to have recognised the stranger with the Adidas cap who had been prowling around Myrtille Camus before her death. So far this week they’d had dozens of these calls. He would have to follow up on every single one of them, though he was convinced it was a waste of time. This was not how they were going to catch the rapist.
The brigadier in charge of Valognes police station called him three hours later. Bastinet was busy trying to arrange for posters to be displayed in every the tourist information office in the region showing the facial composite of the man with the Addidas cap, and his twin with the red Burberry scarf. The suspect lived in his parents’ holiday home, so they needed to target resorts, but those responsible for tourism were unwilling to cooperate.
“Put your posters up wherever you like, Commander, but not right under the noses of the tourists.”
Tourists? In September?
“Léo? This Larochelle, Valognes brigade.”
“Yeah.”
There was a long silence from the brigadier. Get a move on, man, Bastinet thought.
But Larochelle couldn’t resist milking his moment of triumph. But he had Bastinet on the edge of his seat a moment later:
“They’ve got him!”
“Who?”
“Your guy with the Adidas cap. The one who was hanging around the Camus girl. They picked him up in Morsalines. Trust me, there’s no question it’s him. And I’ve got his name and address!”
23
HIS NAME AND ADDRESS?
I read and reread the poem.
Moved. Disturbed.
Once again I wondered what connection there might be between the Myrtille Camus case . . . and me.
How did all these details add up? How could the investigation into the red-scarf killer’s second crime help me to solve the first one, the murder of Morgane Avril? And the suicide of Magali Verron, two days ago? How would it get me out of this mess I found myself in?
I was in no rush to find out the name of the guy identified by the cops in Valognes, number one suspect in the murder of Myr
tille Camus. Whoever was sending these packages was going to let me know. It was part of his plan.
I got up and walked into the drawing room, analysing each verse of the poem.
Something in the back of my mind kept nagging at me.
What if this wasn’t a trap? What if someone was sending me these letters so that I could find the solution? So that I could discover, ten years on, some clue that the cops had missed. The identity of the double murderer.
The poem was one more piece of the puzzle.
I went to the window. Outside, a man in a tie was walking towards the beach, telephone wedged against his ear, turning frequently.
I ran through the questions jumbled up in my head:
Why send me those envelopes? Two days ago, I’d never heard of the case—what made them think I would be capable of solving it?
Who but Mona could have known that I was hiding in Martin Denain’s second home?
Where had Christian Le Medef gone? Had he been kidnapped? Killed?
What was the significance of that table—four boxes and eight numbers—that both Le Medef and Piroz were so interested in?
A blonde was making her way down the steep slope, accompanied by two children with a four-wheel bike and a scooter.
Though I had no answers for the first four questions, they at least seemed logical and rational. Unlike the six that came next, each more insane than the last.
How could the cops have found my prints on Magali Verron’s body when I never touched her?
How did she manage to wrap that red scarf around her neck as she fell off the cliff?
Why hadn’t the media reported the death of Magali Verron?
What could explain the surreal coincidences between Magali Verron and Morgane Avril? Birth, tastes, education . . . and their identical features?
Was it possible, as I now believed, that Morgane Avril hadn’t died ten years ago, even though her murder had made headlines?
And the subsidiary question.
Was it conceivable that one single parameter could resolve an equation with ten unknowns?
I took another glance through the window. The last member of the family, a teenager dragging his feet on the tarmac, cut off from the world, headphones the size of ear muffs.
I was certain of only one thing: I couldn’t solve this mystery on my own, simply through the power of my little grey cells, as happens in old films where the investigator solves the case without even leaving his armchair.
I needed to act, and my first act would be to discover the identity of the third witness.
Denise.
Mona was right: I just needed to ask the dog for her address . . .
I searched Martin Denain’s drawing room until I found the phone book under a pile of old newspapers. I flicked through the Yellow Pages. There were only three vets within a twenty-kilometre radius. I started with the closest one, the Abbatiale clinic in Fécamp. A purring secretary answered the phone.
“Excuse me,” I miaowed. “I’m calling on behalf of my grandmother, Denise, about her dog Arnold.”
“Arnold,” the girl replied in her sugary voice. “One moment . . .”
The rattle of a keyboard sounded in my ear.
“Arnold, an eleven-year-old Shih Tzu. Is that the one?”
I almost screamed with joy!
“Yes! How . . . how can I put it? My grandmother isn’t always on the ball these days. She forgets appointments and vaccinations. So I’m taking over, for Arnold as well as everything else.”
“I understand, just give me a minute, I’ll check.”
I heard the keyboard rattling again, then her voice came back on the line.
“We sent your grandma a reminder six months ago. Arnold needs to pay us a visit before June for his vaccination.”
“I knew it! Gran’s forgotten. Can you send that letter again?”
“To your address or hers?”
“My grandmother’s would be better. I call in every week.”
The secretary loved that. Her voice turned to barley sugar.
“I’ll send that out today.”
I hesitated, timing it so I would catch her at the very last minute, right as she was about to hang up.
“Wait! Which address did my grandmother give you? Now that I think about it, the previous letter may have gone astray—we had to move her to a bungalow a few months ago.”
A brief silence, no typing this time. I guessed that she was spinning the rolodex.
“Denise Joubain, Ancienne Gare, Route des Ifs, Tourville-les-Ifs. Is that the right address?”
“Perfect, miss.”
Miss.
She chuckled a syrupy thank you and then I hung up.
The 1/25000 map was spread out on the drawing-room table. The hamlet of Les Ifs was six kilometres from Yport, in the middle of the countryside. I spent a long time highlighting the wooded areas, the isolated paths, to find a route that would get me to Denise Joubain while minimising the likelihood of being seen by anyone who might tip off the police. Six kilometres, a long way for a one-legged man to travel through forests and fields without being spotted.
Trying to meet the old lady was risky, but was it any riskier than staying in this place all day?
I had one last ace to play.
Denise and Arnold.
And now was the moment to play it.
24
IS SHE LOSING HER MIND?
I had been following the abandoned railway line for several kilometres. The old Fécamp line, which once connected with the Rouen–Le Havre train, hadn’t survived the decline of tourism on the Normandy coast. All that was left was a long scar through the boggy fields. About ten metres deep. Now partially reclaimed by hazels, oaks and elms.
The rhythm of my stride was dictated by the space between the sleepers, rendered slippery by a cold drizzle. Until Tourville I hadn’t encountered anyone beyond a few seagulls spying on me, and a buzzard, motionless on a tree stump, which seemed to have been waiting for a train to pass since the Belle Époque.
When I reached the hamlet of Les Ifs, I climbed the embankment and found myself outside the address where Denise Joubain was supposed to live.
The former railway station, the old station master’s house, pastel blue, with roughcast walls and a slate roof, topped by two chimneys with orange chimney-pots. According to the station clock, time had stopped here one day long ago at 7:34. No one had seen fit to remove the enamel “Railway Station” sign. I could imagine the waiting room door opening to reveal elegant ladies in crinolines, moustachioed bankers in boaters and Parisians in sailor costumes for a day at the seaside.
The trains were waiting for them.
About ten carriages and three locomotives lined the abandoned railway track. A carriage from the Orient Express, a Pullman car, a Pacific Chapelon locomotive. All looking as if they had still been in use the day before.
The setting seemed surreal to me, even though, while preparing my itinerary, I had discovered that an association of retired railwaymen had set up their headquarters alongside the old station. They were restoring the rolling stock so that railways companies all over the world could offer them a second youth.
The drizzle was more intense now, which probably explained why no one was tinkering on site today. I made my way to the door, unable to shake the conviction that nothing would go as planned.
That Denise wouldn’t be at home.
That she too would have been silenced.
That . . .
Arnold’s yapping exploded behind the window, then his black snout appeared, topped by a lace curtain. He slobbered on the pane, hysterical, for two long minutes before Denise Joubain opened the door.
She opened her eyes wide as she stared at me from head to toe, as if, in my purple WindWall, I was time traveller from another century.
>
“Can I help you?”
She hadn’t recognised me. And yet I had been careful to wear the same clothes as I was wearing the first time I met her, two days previously.
“Jamal. Jamal Salaoui. You remember: the beach at Yport. Magali Verron, the girl who committed suicide?”
Still plumbing the depths of her memory, Denise ushered me in without asking any further questions. Arnold looked at me suspiciously for a long time, then went and lay down on a green cushion that matched his lime-coloured pullover.
The big room that served as hall, dining room and sitting room was prettily decorated, with exposed beams, cupboards and Normandy dressers, lace and dried flowers, but what drew my eye were the photographs hanging on the walls. Dozens of photographs of trains, captured in the most beautiful landscapes in the world. Vast snow-covered steppes, Andean mountainsides, endless dykes crossing the sea.
“My husband was a railwayman,” Denise explained. “Jacques passed away over nine years ago.”
She turned towards a poster of the Orient Express crossing the Venice Lagoon.
“We took full advantage.”
I reached into my pocket for the article torn from the Courrier Cauchois dated Thursday, June 17th, 2004.
“Denise, I’d like to show you a photograph too.”
I held up the portrait of Morgane Avril, taking care to hide the headline and the date of the article. Even though the old woman was losing her memory, she couldn’t have forgotten the face of Magali Verron after her suicide on the beach, two days earlier. The same face as the one in the newspaper.
“Do you recognise her?”
Denise excused herself and left me on my own for a few seconds while she went to fetch her glasses from the bedroom, the first door on our right. As I watched her walk way, it struck me that she seemed less alert than she had on Yport beach on the morning of the suicide. As if she had aged two years in two days. Finally she leaned over the photograph.