Seven Days

by Patrick Senécal

  Bruno looked at him one last time, for a few seconds. He opened the closet door, tossed in the whip, and left the room without closing the door behind him.

  That had been quite satisfying. He had climbed another rung on the ladder of satisfaction. He could feel it. It had been difficult, though, and the satisfaction had been a long time coming. Why? Maybe because of that strange sound of the dog whining. What was that peculiar sound? Preoccupied by this, he went to the kitchen, opened a beer, and drank it standing up leaning on the counter.

  He heard the muffled crying of the monster and decided to concentrate on that. The moaning of his prisoner always gave him a lot of pleasure and helped him relax.

  He listened for a long time, and finally he forgot the whining of the dog.

  * * *

  Mercure had almost finished watching the second cassette. He hadn’t learned much more than the day before, except that Hamel could be very impulsive in spite of his kindness and his altruism. Mercure had witnessed a couple of scenes where he had lost his temper. One in particular had obviously occurred during a party, where he was discussing globalization with some friends. Mercure was not surprised to discover that Hamel was against it. The discussion got pretty heated and there was quite a bit of drinking, and Hamel, at first passionate, started to get angry and then went into a rage out of all proportion, calling one of his friends a thoughtless, selfish capitalist, until finally Sylvie, ill at ease, had intervened to calm her partner down. Then the camera had discreetly stopped filming.

  There were also a great many demonstrations of the love between the parents and their daughter.

  Mercure pushed pause and reread the phrase he had written earlier in his notebook: capable of sudden anger, can be very impulsive.

  He reread it several times. Impulsive anger lasts a few minutes, not a week.

  He turned wearily to the two other cassettes, and thought briefly of returning them to Sylvie Jutras without watching them. But he knew he wouldn’t. In spite of the boredom, he would watch them to the end. Because for Mercure, satisfaction did not only come from arresting criminals. It also came from understanding them. That is why a good third of his investigations left him with a sense of only partial success. That had been the case, for example, with Lemaire. He did not want it to happen again with the Hamel case. Whatever the outcome.

  He pushed the play button on the old video player.

  * * *

  In the doorway of his ground-floor apartment, Henri Gamache, the owner of the building, sighed as he glanced at the photo of Hamel.

  “You already came to see me this week,” he said, handing it back to the two police officers. “You asked me the same questions and showed me the same photo, and I’m going to give you the same answer: no.”

  “We think he might have been wearing a disguise,” Bolduc added.

  “Then how am I supposed to recognize him?”

  Bolduc asked if he had any new tenants. Gamache replied that he rented by the month or week, so there was a constant turnover. And in the last ten or twelve days, had there been anyone new? Reluctantly, Gamache checked his papers. There had been three new arrivals in the last two weeks: a student at Édouard-Montpetit College, a woman with a young child, and a man alone. Bolduc showed some interest in the last one: what did he look like? Gamache searched his memory: quite tall, beard, black hair.

  “It could have been him in a disguise,” suggested Bolduc. “Do you see him coming and going very often?”

  “Do you think I have nothing to do but spy on my tenants? I’m not here during the day!”

  The tenant in question was in number eight. While Bolduc and his colleague went upstairs, they called for two patrol cars to provide backup but not to go in right away. Bolduc was not really convinced. Hamel wasn’t crazy enough to hide with his victim in a building like this, with so many people around. And the other tenants would have noticed something or heard noises. No, it didn’t make sense.

  They knocked on the door. No answer. Bolduc listened. Not a sound. He asked his Longueuil colleague to go get the extra key from the landlord. The officer came back in two minutes and they unlocked the door.

  “I hope you have a warrant!” shouted Gamache from downstairs.

  They entered cautiously, weapons in hand; after all, they shouldn’t take any chances. But there was no one there. In the bedroom, the bed was unmade. There were some remnants of food on the kitchen counter and table. An open newspaper was lying on the living room couch. There was no trace of blood or violence. No indication of anyone being held prisoner here.

  “Should we do a complete search?” asked his colleague unenthusiastically.

  Bolduc sighed. What would be the point? Hamel and his victim could hardly be hidden in a drawer.

  The two police officers left again, locking the door behind them. All these searches were ridiculous! Hamel and his prisoner wouldn’t be hiding in an apartment building, it didn’t make any sense!

  “Are you going to come back again in two days, or can I hope you’ll leave me in peace now?” asked Gamache ironically when they returned his key.

  Bolduc just glared at him, and the two police officers left the building.

  * * *

  Sitting in an armchair with a magazine on his knees and a beer at his feet, Bruno was looking out the window, his eyes vacant. The afternoon had been long.

  Around two thirty, he had returned to the monster’s room. He had observed that the plate and glass were empty. In spite of his weakened condition and the pain, the monster had still crawled to his food. He was now half lying, half leaning against the wall, unable to find a comfortable position. The blood had dried on his body; he looked like an Apache warrior whose war paint was running in the rain. The two welts on his face looked nasty, but his eyes had been spared. He looked drained. But when he saw Bruno come in, he recovered a certain amount of energy and backed up as far as possible against the wall, begging Bruno not to hurt him.

  Bruno had pulled up his chains again to bring him back to a hanging position, and had applied an antibiotic cream to his wounds. Not to relieve the pain, but to prevent any dangerous infections. The monster had offered no resistance. Relieved, he had kept quiet for a while, and then had started his soliloquy again, his voice rasping but surprisingly energetic: how long did he intend to torture him like this, it didn’t make sense, it had to stop, he was sorry for everything . . . and he had started crying again.

  Expressionless, Bruno had returned the table to the horizontal position, laid the monster on it, shackled him with the rings, and attached the intravenous tube to his arm again.

  He had felt like having a beer, but for a change, he had poured himself a glass of Scotch. It was no use, though, he really didn’t like the taste. So he had emptied the bottle down the sink and opened himself a beer. He had tried to read outside on the porch, but it was a little too cold. He had sat down in the living room to listen to a classical music record belonging to Josh.

  He looked away from the woods and checked his watch: five twenty. In two and a half hours, he had read just five pages.

  He couldn’t get those whining dog sounds out of his mind. But he had to forget that and relax. TV maybe? He remembered that the TVA news started at five thirty. He switched off the music and turned on the TV, just in time for the beginning of the broadcast.

  To his surprise, his story was the third item.

  “No progress in the Bruno Hamel affair, the case of the thirty-eight-year-old doctor who kidnapped his daughter’s murderer and . . .”

  Without divulging the monster’s name, they said the police still had no leads and there were only four days left until the deadline set by the doctor for killing the prisoner.

  Bruno looked satisfied. The police were still floundering. It was perfect. But then he immediately told himself he was an idiot: if the police had any clues, they certainly wouldn’t tell the reporters, especially since they knew Bruno was listening.

  So why continue watch
ing the news? Out of curiosity?

  Again they showed the report on Lemaire’s arrest, which Bruno had already seen so many times. This was a condensed version, though, and they still said nothing specific about Lemaire: they just called him “the killer.”

  But at one point, the journalist said, “The killer had already been arrested for a similar crime in Saint-Hyacinthe, where he was . . .”

  With a scream of rage, Bruno threw his bottle of beer at the TV. Barely missing the screen, it hit the right side of the cabinet and shattered. The doctor leapt to his feet and turned off the set with a hard kick.

  They hadn’t taken him seriously! They’d ignored his instructions! That meant he couldn’t watch the news anymore without risking finding out information about the killer. He kicked again, this time the little table in the middle of the room. He was so angry that he tripped over the fallen table twice. Each time, he kicked it again.

  But he wanted to watch the news, he needed it, much more than he would have thought. He wanted to know how they were reporting the case, how people were reacting, how . . . He needed it, that was all, as ridiculous as it might seem.

  Therefore he had to show them he was serious . . . that his instructions were not empty threats.

  Bloody images passed through his mind: he saw himself cutting off both the monster’s arms, scalping him alive, sewing his testicles over his eyes, and each of these images excited and tantalized him.

  He went to get another beer and drank it down in a few gulps. He was still thinking and was unable to come up with anything. He hit the refrigerator, growling with frustration.

  And suddenly, he had it.

  Ten seconds later, he was in the monster’s room. The monster was still shackled to the horizontal table. He lifted his head weakly. He seemed to be a little better than before, although his slashed face was still as swollen.

  “You . . . you’re going to hurt me again, huh?”

  His voice was marked by fear, which was now constant. The voice was stronger than in the afternoon, but less clear because of the bruised lips.

  Bruno searched in one of his bags and took out a small ampoule containing a transparent liquid. He prepared a syringe and returned to the monster. Most of the dried blood on his body had disappeared; it had turned into scabs and fallen to the floor. Now you could clearly see the big red welts on his belly, his torso, and his legs; they were no longer bleeding but still seemed raw.

  The monster became anxious when he saw the syringe, and asked what it was. Bruno shoved the needle in his left arm and injected the substance. Panting a little, the monster started opening and closing his hands frantically and moaning. “You’re going to . . . you’re going to hurt me again, Dr. Hamel! You’re not going to . . .”

  He stopped and blinked his eyes, dazed.

  “Wha . . . what’s going on? Christ! What’s happening to me?”

  His words became slurred and his hands opened and closed with more and more difficulty, as if in slow motion. His mouth was barely moving now and the words were becoming inaudible. “Wha . . . da . . . wha’s happ’n . . . ?”

  He was unable to speak any more and his eyes suddenly opened wide.

  Perfect. The curare had taken effect.

  Carrying his two bags, Bruno went to the kitchen. He took out a series of surgical instruments and sterilized them as best he could with soap and water. He took a plate, laid a clean towel on it, and lined up the instruments.

  He put on a surgical mask, a surgical cap, and latex gloves. He looked at himself in the little mirror by the door. This operation would kill two birds with one stone. It would give him satisfaction and obtain what he wanted from the reporters. Combining business with pleasure.

  He returned to the room and went over to the table. The monster was petrified; none of his limbs moved, his slightly open mouth did not quiver, and his wide-open eyes stared into emptiness. Only his shallow respiration indicated that he was alive. You might think he had fainted with his eyes open.

  But Bruno knew he was completely conscious, that he could see very well what was happening. Curare paralyzed the body, but it did not affect consciousness or sight . . .

  . . . or sensation.

  He put the plate of instruments down on the edge of the table, chose a scalpel, and raised it slowly close to the monster’s face, so that the monster could see it clearly.

  The prisoner’s features didn’t move, but there was a glimmer of panic in his frozen stare.

  Slowly, the scalpel moved toward the left side of his belly, pressed against the flesh, and penetrated it. The doctor applied pressure and the blade moved upward, producing an incision about twelve centimeters long. Thin streams of blood flowed down the ribs to the table.

  There was still no emotion in the monster’s features, but the glimmer in his eye remained there.

  In the doctor’s masked face, only the eyes were visible, as sharp and cold as the scalpel. Using a retractor, he expanded the incision until it was an oval opening about fifteen centimeters wide, exposing the inside of the body.

  Bruno brought his face close to the monster’s and stared intently at him. The glimmer was still there in the prisoner’s eyes. Without taking his gaze from his victim, with his mask almost touching the other man’s nose, Bruno slowly inserted his hand into the red opening in the belly. A soft, wet noise broke the unbearable silence in the room, and the glimmer in the monster’s eyes exploded, while the wheezing of his breathing grew a little louder.

  Smile, thought the doctor. Come now, just a little smile.

  He remained that way for several seconds, slowly moving his hand in the cavity, his face still close . . . and when he saw two big tears run down the inert face of his prisoner, his eyes narrowed until they were nothing but two blazing slits, glowing lava smoldering under black ashes.

  Finally, he pulled his hand out of the large incision. His dripping fingers picked up another instrument, and under the harsh fluorescent light, the doctor silently began his operation.

  DAY 4

  AT EIGHT O’CLOCK, WAGNER WAS standing with his arms crossed, solemnly watching Mercure enter the squad room. When Mercure saw him, he wondered if his superior had actually slept in his office.

  “TVA gave out information on Lemaire yesterday . . .”

  Mercure’s shoulders sagged.

  “Did you hear it?”

  “Yes. I was here, but I had a look at the news.”

  They had only said that Lemaire had already been charged with rape and murder in Saint-Hyacinthe two years before, nothing else. Mercure slumped into a chair with a deep sigh.

  “Idiots!”

  “It wasn’t all that much, actually. And maybe Hamel didn’t watch TVA.”

  “We can always hope. We could try to call Hamel. If he heard the news, he might be waiting for our call.”

  “We tried, of course.”

  There was a long silence, and then Mercure shrugged fatalistically: they had to cross their fingers. He went into his office and sat for a long while, his hands folded under his chin, thinking.

  Twenty minutes later, Wagner stuck his head in the door, looking agitated. They had just gotten a call from the Mister Poutine restaurant on Highway 20 toward Montreal, not far away. In front of the garbage container, one of the employees had found a package on which was written: For the Drummondville police, from Bruno Hamel. Mercure immediately sent one of his men to the restaurant.

  “He watched the news,” Mercure sighed as he sat down on his desk.

  “He took the package there last night while the restaurant was closed, knowing it would be found this morning.” Surprised, the chief added, “He came all the way to Drummondville for that! He’s a cool customer!”

  “Driving on the 20 isn’t really very risky for him.”

  “Still, every cop in Longueuil is looking for him, and he took the risk of leaving.”

  After a brief silence, the chief asked, “What do you think is in the package?”

  Mercu
re preferred not to answer.

  * * *

  The monster was waking up. Bruno went to the kitchen, picked up a plate already filled with food and a glass of juice, and walked to the hallway.

  When he entered the room, the monster, still lying on the table, was awake. Bruno put the plate and glass down on the floor and went over to him. The monster looked like a zombie. It was no longer just because of his dirty hair plastered to his face, or his skin that was whiter and whiter in spite of the red welts, but also because of his limpness and inertia, even in his shackles. He turned toward Bruno. Even the fear in his eyes was weary, exhausted. He clenched his teeth for a moment, and said in a rasping voice, “You’re insane, Hamel.”

  Not so polite anymore. Had the monster finally understood that he had nothing to gain? Bruno did not react. In a voice that was barely stronger, the other man added with difficulty, “What did you do to me last night?”

  Silence. The monster lifted his head slightly.

  “Answer me, dammit! What did you do to me last night? You could at least say something to me before I die!”

  And as if he realized what he had just said, his face tensed with panic and he moaned, on the verge of tears, “God, I can’t take it anymore! Do you understand? I can’t take it anymore, Hamel!”

  He sobbed.

  “But I don’t want to . . . I don’t want to die! You can put me in prison for the rest of my life, but I don’t want to die! What . . . what can I do to get you to stop? I can’t take it anymore!”

  While the monster moaned, Bruno activated the lever of the table and put it in the vertical position. A minute later, the prisoner was on the floor, half sitting, half lying against the wall, his limp arms on the floor, his hands still attached to the chains, which were now loose. The food was very close to him, but he ignored it. He looked like a marionette with its strings cut. He was still looking at Bruno, his gaze shifting between terror and despondency.