by Michel Bussi
He took three steps towards the edge and lit a Marlboro.
Eight P.M. Any other day, this would have been his final task. He’d be locking up and heading off for a well-earned beer on the terrace of the Choucas.
Not today.
The little redhead let the last of the Chinese visitors pass and then walked towards him. Behind her stood a well-built man, handsome as a mountain infantryman, less tanned, but wearing the same snow-white coat with badges and braids. Very classy. Probably someone from the Directory of Criminal Matters and Pardons, Émile thought.
He extended a hand to the girl. “Mademoiselle Alina Masson?”
The girl slipped her hand into his.
“No. Salinas. Mona Salinas.”
Émile shrugged. If the minister had made a mistake, he didn’t care. The bodyguard of the DCAP gave him a series of authorisations with red, white, and blue stamps. Émile spat out the stub of his cigarette, and then pointed to the sliding door of the cable car.
“It’s leaving. Last one of the day . . . I’ll get in with you. What you are asking me to do, mademoiselle, is something that has never happened before, as far as I know.”
The cable car shook. The two black cables looked like two enormous scratches that disfigured the mountain all the way to its snowy peaks, almost three thousand metres higher. Mona was holding her treasure to her chest. Hervé, the representative of the Directory of Criminal Matters and Pardons, was made of marble.
“This is crazy, this business,” Émile went on, if only to fill the silence. “It may even be forbidden.”
Hervé chimed in: “Authorisation is granted directly by the minister. You are aware of the story, aren’t you? Don’t you think it’s moving?”
Émile stared at Mont Blanc without replying.
Moving.
If the muscle-men of the ministry are getting their tissues out . . .
“Given the circumstances,” Hervé went on, “the ministry would find it difficult to refuse this symbolic gesture by Mademoiselle Masson.”
“I thought her name was Salinas,” the cable car conductor muttered into his beard.
Due north, the last rays of the sun painted the Vallée Blanche with pink and gold reflections. Émile turned on his walkie-talkie.
“Next stop requested! Étoile station. Paradise Road exit right under our feet.”
A moment later the cabin came to a standstill. Mona smiled, staring at the sky. Émile crouched down on the floor and unscrewed a security trapdoor.
Thirty centimetres by thirty.
Four bolts.
A void of more than one thousand one hundred metres below their feet.
Mona took her eyes off the sky and lowered her gaze to the Vallée de Chamonix.
“Where are the racers going past?” she asked.
“Down there,” Hervé replied. “Behind the Aiguille de Bionnassay, that white pyramid along the crest. They will pass through the Cold du Tricot a little lower down. I’ve run the north face twice, that’s probably why they’ve entrusted me with this mission. The runners set off just over two hours ago. The first should reach Italy before nightfall. Then they will have another fifteen hours of running, the fastest of them.”
Émile sighed, as if the effort of the participants in the Mont Blanc Ultra-Trail was nothing in comparison with the effort he was making to deal with the four bolts that couldn’t have been unscrewed for an eternity.
Mona slowly turned the lid of the urn.
Just above her, Venus was already shining. Five dreams . . . She spread the fingers of her left hand and recited them one by one, murmuring them silently like one last prayer.
Five dreams. Jamal would have accomplished them all.
To be mourned by a woman when I die, Mona whispered.
Tears ran down her cheeks. She bent her thumb. Hervé offered her a handkerchief, which she refused.
To pay my debt before I die.
Bending her index finger, Mona thought of the arrest of Océane Avril, accused of six murders: the three bodies found in the cliff, that bastard Saint-Michel, Captain Piroz, Morgane, her twin . . . Jamal had managed to reveal the truth, the truth that had defeated a thousand police officers over ten years. She closed her eyes, and her memories drifted towards a swing in an empty playground above the beach at Yport. The first time she had heard of Ophélie. They had talked a lot about Jamal since then. Next weekend, the Saint Antoine Institute had agreed to let the girl spend two days with her, in Elbeuf.
Three bolts rolled on the floor of the cable car. Émile was triumphant. The wind blew behind the metal plaque.
“As soon as I’ve released the last one, it’s going to shake.”
Mona shivered in spite of herself.
Make love to a woman more beautiful than me.
She closed her middle finger. The images of that first night in La Sirène passed in front of her. Room 7. The sound of pebbles rolled by the waves. Their skin. Her recklessness. Making love without a condom.
An icy blast abruptly engulfed the cabin. Émile held the iron plaque in his hands.
“Alina,” Hervé said. “Let’s get this over with.”
His voice was less gentle, more pressing.
Mona closed her ring finger.
Have a child.
For a moment her hand touched her round belly as the high-altitude currents rocked the cabin. Six months since that night in La Sirène.
She gently knelt down by the trap door. Hervé held her back by the shoulder but there was no danger. No body, however slender, could have passed through that opening. She tipped the urn towards the void below.
Become the first disabled athlete to run the Mont Blanc Ultra-Trail.
She bent her little finger and, with her right hand, poured the ashes through the trap door.
The wind immediately scattered them towards the Mont Blanc du Tacul, the Mont Maudit, and the dômes de Miage, high, very high, at a rate and an altitude the runners of the Ultra-Trail, whose multicoloured ski suits could been seen on the path that ran along the Glacier des Bossons, would never reach.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michel Bussi is a professor of geopolitics and one of France’s best-selling authors. His novels have been published in 35 different countries. He is also the author of After the Crash (Hachette, 2016, Black Water Lilies (Hachette, 2017), Time Is a Killer (Europa Editions, 2018), and Don’t Let Go (Europa Editions, 2018).