Never Forget

by Michel Bussi

  I took the King Cobra out of my pocket. I held it against my temple for several long seconds.

  My fingers clenched on the icy butt of the revolver, as tight as they would go.

  I threw the gun on the bed of apple blossom.

  I would wait for my judgement.

  Other people would tell me what a monster I was.

  I barely heard the shadows approaching behind me, just a few footsteps that stopped ten metres away. One of the shadows spoke in a very low voice, like someone whispering in a church. I knew the voice, I had heard it before, just a few hours before, but my slow-motion mind couldn’t recognise it.

  “They were only twenty years old. They were so beautiful.”

  A woman’s voice. I turned around. Carmen Avril was standing behind me. She was wearing trousers and a black jacket, the only colour a thin red thread attached to her buttonhole. She held a sprig of apple blossom between her fingers. Slowly she threw it on one of the beds of petals, the one on the right.

  “Morgane had her whole life ahead of her. If only she hadn’t bumped into you that night . . . If only . . .”

  She fell silent, unable to utter another word. On my left the grass was crushed by lighter footsteps. A slender shadow came forward beneath a hazel tree. It too was dressed in black: a waist-length leather jacket and a charcoal grey velvet dress. And a thin red thread sewn over her heart.

  Océane.

  Tears were running down her cheeks.

  “You should have murdered me as well that night,” the girl murmured. “Morgane and I were as one. Two sisters. One heart.”

  She too set down near the flames the sprig of apple blossom that she was holding in her hand.

  “Yes, Jamal Salaoui, you should have murdered me. Even the worst hunters finish off their prey. A wounded animal never forgets.”

  Without thinking, like a sleepwalker, I walked towards the undergrowth to lose myself in the night. My legs barely carried me, I had to lean against each trunk, but I stepped forward as a drunk totters from table to table. Behind me, Carmen and Océane Avril hadn’t moved. I saw a kind of brightness towards the edge of the forest, in the fields that stretched towards the sea.

  I passed the last curtain of trees. A few dozen metres ahead of me, the silhouette of a woman, motionless in the meadow, was looking at the estuary. She was holding a candelabra. Five fragile flames defying as if by magic the wind that came off the sea.

  That silhouette was familiar to me . . .

  The blood suddenly stopped circulating in my veins.

  “Myrtille was my best friend,” the voice said gently.

  The words flew away above the hedges, towards the horizon. A few cries of gulls stabbed the silence.

  “Myrtille was an angel. Why take the life of an angel, Jamal?”

  She turned around, slowly. I already knew the face of that girl whose gleaming eyes were about to crucify me with grief. Pain without hatred, without a desire for revenge. Just incomprehension in the face of absolute evil.

  “Why, Jamal?” she said again.

  Then Mona gave me a sad smile which meant that there was no longer anything that she could do for me.

  I fell down, straight in front of me, knees and palms in the mud. I stayed there for several seconds waiting for the red clay to swallow me, or for one of these women to come and finish me off.

  Océane. Carmen.

  Mona’s ghost

  The chapel bell rang, a gloomy chime that lasted a few seconds. Instinctively, I got back up, bent-backed and dirty, as if the clay had dried enough to stiffen each of my limbs. I walked towards the shadow of the chapel with the schist walls, fifty metres to my left.

  Curiously, in spite of the sequence of inexplicable events, I knew I wasn’t dreaming. My mind had abandoned the hope that I might wake up sweating in the bed of room no. 7 in La Sirène, or that I’d fallen asleep at the wheel of the Fiat 500.

  The door of the chapel opened abruptly. Neon lights and halogens lit up the interior, so powerful that they dazzled my eyes. I stepped forward, shielding my eyes with both hands. In the tiny nave I made out two prie-dieux in front of an altar decorated with faded flowers. As I got closer, I noticed a few pale oak benches, empty, with red books placed on them. Probably bibles or prayer-books.

  The bell rang once more. I held out my hands, red with clay.

  “We were supposed to marry on the fourth of October,” a voice rang out in the chapel. “Everything was ready. Charles deserved to walk his daughter down the aisle. Louise, to hold in her lap the child that I would have had with Myrtille. If only she hadn’t bumped into you.”

  Two footsteps rang out on the stone floor. The man’s wedding suit appeared in the chapel door. My eyes first saw the red thread in his buttonhole, then rose towards his face.

  A face that I knew.

  The severe face of Christian Le Medef stared at me, then he repeated, clearly for me:

  “Madame Myrtille Camus-Saint-Michel. Sounds good, doesn’t it?”

  As I fled, I heard the words that he spoke, this time for himself.

  “If only I had been there to protect her.”

  I walked on, towards the farm with the closed shutters I had passed on my way in. I was going to hammer on the door, shout, beg the residents to let me in, then to bolt the door so as not to let the ghosts in.

  There wasn’t a single living being in the farmyard, not even a rooster.

  A moment later a dog barked. The ridiculous yapping of a lapdog, not the ferocious animal that you would expect to guard a property. Then a light went on somewhere and the ball of fluff appeared like an arrow. It froze a few metres from my clay-covered legs.

  “Arnold!” I exclaimed.

  The Shih Tzu was wearing a beige pullover with red stripes, the one he had worn in Denise’s arms on the morning of Magali Verron’s suicide.

  “Arnold,” I said again.

  The little creature refused to recognise his name. He stared at me with a defiant air, showing his fangs at my slightest movement.

  I desperately looked for help from the closed shutters of the farm, then I decided to walk forward, holding out my hand, covered with red clay, to the Shih Tzu. The dog’s muscles tensed, his mouth open, ready to close on my wrist.

  “That’s enough!” a voice called from the other end of the farmyard.

  The dog hesitated, then gave up and ran in the direction of the voice. Two seconds later he jumped into his mistress’s arms. Denise Joubain let go of the cane that she held in her right hand to press him against her.

  I met the gaze of the Shih Tzu’s old mistress, then I turned around again. There was only one direction I could take, the path towards the channel, all other exits were blocked by ghosts.

  It felt as though every neurone in my brain was stretching to its absolute limit before snapping. Millions of them at the same time. A safety net breaking, falling into the void, taking all moorings with it. My arms, my legs, my fingers, my neck. I felt my blood slowing in my veins, like an engine that coughs and then, inexorably, slows down before stopping once and for all.

  I had to keep going for another few seconds.

  Get away. Get away. Flee those ghosts.

  I had passed the last hedge, almost feeling my way, when the two men in blue uniforms appeared behind me.

  “Don’t move, Salaoui.”

  Piroz . . .

  Of course . . . That’s all I needed, at this dance of the living dead.

  I turned around, struggling to keep my balance.

  The headlights of the police van dazzled me like a rabbit blinded by hunters. The police captain, between light and shadow, was pointing his revolver in my direction. His deputy did the same with his usual lack of conviction. I took three steps back, the canal was only a few metres away.

  “Stop! Stop, Salaoui. This is the e
nd of the race.”

  I held my hands in the air and stepped back another metre.

  “We haven’t finished our conversation, Salaoui. You remember? I was asking you a question two days ago. Just before you smashed the model of the Étoile-de-Noël over my head.”

  To my right, in the distance, I saw the lights of Isigny. The dark canal emerged from the harbour and descended to the sea, like a giant sewer, open to the sky.

  “One last time, Salaoui. Did you rape and strangle Morgane Avril and Myrtille Camus ten years ago?”

  I closed my eyes. In my brain, the dam broke and images flooded in: my hand grabbing a woman’s genitals under a dress, her hysterical body escaping me, I was tearing her dress, nailing the woman to the ground under the weight of my body, crushing her breasts, tearing off her panties, freeing my cock, my bloody hands tightening a red cashmere scarf around a white neck, hard, for a long time, until the body gave up. I started again. Once, twice. Mona was watching me, in tears.

  I took a step back and, when I cried out, three crows flew off from the field, joining the seagulls in the distance.

  “Yes, Piroz! You’ve won. I raped and strangled them. All three . . .”

  The decision to dive into the canal was made for me.

  III

  SENTENCING

  Rosny-sous-Bois, August 3rd, 2014,

  From: Gérard Calmette, Director of the Disaster Victim Identification Unit (DVIU), Criminal Research Institute of the National Gendarmerie, Rosny-sous-Bois

  To: Lieutenant Bertrand Donnadieu, National Gendarmerie, Territorial Brigade of the Territory of Étretat, Seine-Maritime

  Dear Lieutenant Donnadieu,

  Further to my letter of July 22nd, 2014 concerning the discovery on Yport beach on July 12th, 2014 of three human skeletons.

  As agreed, we conducted a thorough examination of all the bones, in particular their DNA.

  We were able to solve the first mystery quite quickly, namely the cause of their death. It is identical for all three individuals, whom, as I may remind you, we christened, for the purposes of the investigation, Albert, Bernard, and Clovis.

  All three were poisoned. Their bones contain traces of muscarine, the toxin extracted from amanita mushrooms, at a concentration which leaves no doubt about the criminal intent. For the record, muscarine is a toxin that is very difficult to conceal in food, and which leads to rapid paralysis of the central nervous system, then an inevitable retardation of the cardiac rhythm.

  Also for the record, I should remind you that we have also established beyond reasonable doubt that Albert, Bernard, and Clovis died several years apart. More specifically, Albert died in the summer of 2004; Bernard, between autumn 2004 and winter 2005; Clovis in 2014, between February and March. The most likely hypothesis, therefore, is that they were murdered by the same person, employing the same modus operandi, several years apart. But there is insufficient evidence to confirm this beyond doubt; one might equally speculate that Clovis poisoned Albert and Bernard before taking his own life, or even that Albert murdered Bernard, before going on to be murdered by Clovis.

  On this point it is impossible to go any further.

  On the other hand, and this is the main purpose of this letter, cross-referencing the DNA of Albert, Bernard, Clovis and the National DNA database sheds new light not only on the identity of these three individuals, but also the resolution of an old case, the double murder of Morgane Avril and Myrtille Camus (known as the “red-scarf killer” case), which the location of the discovery of these three skeletons, namely the beach below the cliff at Yport, inevitably recalls.

  To be precise, the cross-referencing between the DNA of Bernard and Clovis and the NDNAD yielded nothing. The identity of these two individuals remains unknown to the police.

  Albert’s DNA was not a match of any of the identified samples in the database, but his DNA is not unknown to us. In fact, this an understatement; one might say it is one of the best-known of the last decade. Albert’s DNA corresponds beyond any possible doubt to that of the sperm found on the corpses of Morgane Avril and Myrtille Camus. Since the date of Albert’s death may be estimated as between June and September 2004, and knowing that Myrtille was raped on 26 August 2004, we may conclude with certainty that Albert died between several days and several weeks after the second crime. This explains why, in spite of the thousands of DNA tests carried out on relatives and residents, the rapist has never been identified, but it does not allow us to establish his identity, or to determine the reasons for his death.

  I have also forwarded this data on to Judge Paul-Hugo Lagarde, who will assess whether this information calls into question, in full or in part, the official theory concerning the identity of the double murderer, who, as we both know, was formally unmasked on Saturday, February 22nd, 2014.

  I do not know, Lieutenant, whether this information will allow you to shed more light on this matter. Our men continue to work on this enthralling mystery. Perhaps Albert, Bernard and Clovis have not revealed all that they had to tell us, and we are currently moving in the direction of certain complementary tests. We are obviously willing to carry out any research that you consider useful with regard to recent revelations.

  Awaiting an outcome which I hope will be favourable to this investigation, please accept our most cordial regards,

  Gérard Calmette

  Director, DVIU

  37

  THE HOPE THAT I WAKE UP?

  The light danced in front of my eyes, an artificial light like that of a fluorescent fish in the depths of a dark ocean, a tiny shining point that began to grow until it occupied the whole of my field of vision.

  All I could see was a white square.

  It must have been one of those school whiteboards that you write on with erasable felt-tip pens or magnetic letters.

  I spotted a little red card stuck to the top of the board. I already knew every word on it.

  Carmen Avril, mother of Morgane Avril, president

  Frédéric Saint-Michel, fiancé of Myrtille Camus, vice president

  Océane Avril, sister of Morgane Avril, secretary

  Jeanine Dubois, grandmother of Myrtille Camus, deputy secretary

  Alina Masson, best friend of Myrtille Camus, treasurer

  Like an artist who appears on the stage after parting a black curtain, Carmen Avril suddenly appeared in front of me. She opened her mouth and her voice echoed in my brain as if her thoughts were replacing mine.

  “It isn’t difficult, Monsieur Salaoui, to make someone lose their footing so much that they are driven mad. To send all certainties toppling into the void. A very small association is enough, five people at most, as long as they are determined. As long as they are wedded to the same goal, absolutely and unshakeably. Never forget.”

  She took a step forward. At least that was what I thought as I watched her face assume immeasurable proportions, as when an actor approaches a camera. Her voice also increased in volume, hammering out beneath my skull halting words that seemed to bounce from one temple to the other.

  “I have good news, Monsieur Salaoui: you are neither mad nor dead. But I also have some bad news. We, the members of the Fil Rouge Association, accuse you of the double murder of Morgane Avril and Myrtille Camus.”

  As abruptly as it had appeared, Carmen Avril’s silhouette melted into the darkness, and old Denise Joubain appeared in her place. Only then did I notice some coloured magnetic letters stuck to the whiteboard. Thirteen letters, to be precise.

  D E N I S E J O U B A I N

  Denise looked at me, or at least she looked in my direction, because I was unable to move, unable even to say if I was there, in front of her, to know if I even had a body.

  Her voice was shrill.

  “You see, my boy, I’m not the only one losing my memory.”

  D E N I S E J O U B A I N

  Her wrinkled
hands slowly slid the magnetic letters around on the board.

  Until they formed a different name.

  J E A N I N E D U B O I S

  Her voice trembled again.

  “You know everything now, my boy. I only hope I too know the truth before I die. The whole truth. My granddaughter’s last words, her last breath. At least you can give me that.”

  And with that she disappeared, as if a director had cut to the next scene. A moment later the board was still there, but the letters had changed.

  Sixteen letters this time.

  C H R I S T I A N L E M E D E F

  The depressed and unemployed man suddenly appeared in front of the board, as if spat out by the night.

  A vague smile at the corner of his lips.

  They didn’t move, and yet I clearly heard the rasping smoker’s voice in my skull, as if he too had pirated my brain.

  “Between a fifty-year-old man, worn out and alone, and another man of forty, in love with his twenty-year-old lover, a few months away from building a family, his family, there is more than one letter’s difference, Salaoui. There is a life. The one you have stolen from me.”

  His long fingers moved around the letters of his name.

  C H R I S T I A N L E M E D E F

  And made another.

  F R E D S A I N T M I C H E L

  “Le Medef,” the broken voice vibrated in my head. “It took some nerve, don’t you think? Calling an unemployed person Le Medef . . . It was so obvious, so tempting, so brazen . . . But you believed, right until the end . . . When it was all there, in front of your eyes!”

  He disappeared in turn.

  I was pure spirit, slow, calm, as if bound to a cotton wool dream, condemned to observe this procession in front of the board without the strength to turn my head, raise an arm or a hand. Did I still have them, lost somewhere in the limbo of a violated memory.