Seven Days

by Patrick Senécal

  “You’re not obligated to accept my visits, you know. In fact, for the first six months, you refused to have anything to do with me. I’ll stop coming when you tell me to stop.”

  “Or when you have answers to your questions,” added the prisoner, his eyes piercing behind his little glasses.

  Mercure returned his gaze. Demers added, “Besides, maybe you’re the one who should be talking today. You look awful.”

  Mercure hesitated and made a vague gesture with his free hand.

  “I’m on a very special case now. Perhaps the most disturbing and complex one of my career.”

  He summarized the Hamel case, surprised to find himself recounting the whole thing to someone like Demers. The convict listened in silence, expressionless, with the telephone at his ear.

  “What is it that bothers you about this business?” he asked when Mercure had finished.

  “I don’t know, I . . .”

  Why was he telling Demers all this?

  “It’s the behavior of this guy Hamel that fascinates me and . . . disturbs me. I could very well have done to you something like what Hamel is doing, for example. But I opted for a different solution. Does that make me a better man? Am I more human than Hamel because of that? It’s . . .”

  He sighed and passed a hand over his forehead. Demers, vaguely amused, murmured, “More human . . .”

  “I told him that if he tortured and killed Lemaire, it would make him a murderer just like Lemaire. He answered that it would make him a murderer, but not like Lemaire.”

  “He’s wrong, sir,” Demers said softly. “There are no different murderers. There are only different flaws.”

  “And you, Marc, what’s your flaw?”

  Demers gave a strange grin.

  “That’s your obsession, huh? It’s the hope of an answer to that question that’s been bringing you here three times a year for almost four years now, isn’t it?”

  He switched hands with the telephone and leaned his head slightly forward, suddenly very serious.

  “Unfortunately—and I’m repeating this for the hundredth time—I don’t know why I killed your wife. I’ve finally felt remorse for it, and sorrow for what I’ve done, but I still haven’t understood why I committed a completely gratuitous murder with absolutely no motive. I went into that store intending to rob the till, I saw your wife paralyzed with terror and I fired even though she wasn’t doing anything. I was totally ripped on coke, but that’s no reason. I don’t know what my flaw is, and that’s why probably nobody will ever know why, for one brief moment of my life, I became a monster.”

  He leaned back a bit in his chair. Mercure said nothing, his face impassive.

  “With your Hamel,” added Demers, pushing his glasses up his nose, “we know his flaw—despair, devastation, loss . . .”

  “Is that enough to excuse him?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying. Look at you—you don’t come to see me in order to forgive me.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Of course not. You’re not a fool.”

  Demers said this with a strange smile.

  Why am I talking to him about all this? wondered the policeman.

  “You come to try to understand,” continued Demers. “That’s the conscious reason. But I think there’s also an unconscious reason, a reason that connects you a little to Hamel. Relatively speaking, of course.”

  Mercure frowned. With a half-amused, half-bitter grin, Demers explained, “Don’t you think it’s a kind of torture for me, seeing you three times a year? You’re my bad conscience. Your presence takes me back five years in the past, forces me to face the murder I committed and its terrible consequences—your inconsolable sadness, which I sense in you in spite of your effort to keep it private.”

  After a short pause, he added coolly, “Under your façade of sincerity and humanism, there lies the worst torturer.”

  Mercure did not flinch, but he was so shaken that his vision blurred for an instant. He licked his lips and tried to make his tone ironic, but his voice quavered slightly.

  “If I’m torturing you, Marc, why do you agree to see me?”

  Demers had an indecipherable expression on his face, an expression that was so serious it was almost a caricature.

  “For my redemption, of course, as you know very well! We all know redemption requires a certain amount of masochism.”

  Mercure would have liked to smile, but he could not. How could he smile at the man who had killed his wife?

  Demers shrugged.

  “There are all sorts of monsters. Some are monsters their whole lives, some are monsters just for a brief moment, and some are monsters without even knowing it.”

  And he glanced teasingly at Mercure. The policeman rubbed his eyes. This visit had taken a completely unexpected turn. But unconsciously, wasn’t that why he had come? Hadn’t he known deep down that Demers would give him a completely different perspective on this case? And wasn’t that precisely what he had been looking for?

  He had to leave, but in spite of his turmoil, he asked one last question of this man with whom he had the strangest, most ambiguous, most incomprehensible relationship.

  “So Hamel has become a monster?”

  Demers watched Mercure for a moment. In contrast with his suddenly serious expression, his voice remained light and melodious.

  “He has become too human. There is nothing more monstrous.”

  * * *

  Bruno had promised himself a shower at the end of the morning, but he forgot again.

  After walking around outside for quite a while, he tried to read a novel he’d found in Josh’s bedroom, but without much success. He was still unable to concentrate. Several times, he felt like going to the monster’s room, but he stopped himself. He had to let him recuperate. Patience.

  He drank six beers in the course of the afternoon. He had not intended to drink that much, but after his third one, when he was sitting in the living room trying to read, he again heard the whimpering of the dog from the hallway. He quickly opened the monster’s door. The monster, lost in dark thoughts, just started. Then he whispered, “Could I . . . at least . . . wipe off . . .”

  And he pointed feebly at the excrement stuck to his belly.

  Bruno closed the door and returned to the living room. The dog’s whimpering persisted, but now it was coming from outside. Furious, he went out on the porch and screamed, “Where are you, you filthy mutt? Where are you hiding?”

  He was answered only by the echo of his own voice, and it gave him gooseflesh. He couldn’t stand that dog’s howling anymore! What did it mean? Why did he hear it? Oddly, he felt he knew the answer to that question deep down inside, but it refused to surface to his consciousness . . .

  Troubled, he returned to the house. During the next two hours, he drank three more beers.

  The howling of the dog stopped. Bruno even managed to read six pages, in spite of his slight drunkenness . . . or maybe because of it.

  He glanced at his watch: five o’clock. In about two hours, he could go to the monster.

  * * *

  The rain was so fine that Mercure only turned his windshield wipers on at two- or three-minute intervals. As he drove to Drummondville, he kept thinking about his meeting with Demers. And for the first time in four years, he asked himself the question Demers had asked him: how many years would he keep going to see him?

  Did he really hope to have an answer one day, an illumination that would finally make him accept Madelaine’s death? The first year after his wife’s death had been filled with hatred and anger. Then, suddenly, he had had enough of rage, and he had come up with the idea of going to visit Demers. And since then, he had been going to see him three times a year.

  The anger and hatred had truly disappeared. But was he satisfied?

  Maybe those visits had had a meaning for the first three years. But now? For a few months, he had been thinking of not going anymore, but every time, he would see his wife’s body ag
ain with that hole in her head, and suddenly, the possibility of ending his meetings with Demers seemed unthinkable. So he continued.

  And his mourning for Madelaine continued . . .

  That idea made him frown.

  His cell phone rang. It was Wagner, wanting to know when he’d be back. Mercure told him he would be there in twenty minutes and asked if there was any news. Discouraged, the chief answered that the guys in Longueuil hadn’t turned up anything yet. It almost seemed like witchcraft.

  “In any case, they’re doing a triangulation, but it’s taking longer than we thought it would. The Longueuil police didn’t have the necessary equipment, so they had to go get it in Montreal. But in a couple of hours, it should be ready.”

  Mercure hung up. Hamel would still have to call again for them to be able to do the triangulation . . . and it was far from certain that he would.

  For the rest of the trip, he no longer thought about Demers.

  * * *

  Bruno had just finished his seventh beer and his head was beginning to feel cloudy when he watched the TVA news. This time, there was no information on the monster. He sighed with satisfaction: his little demonstration had borne fruit. The reporter only repeated that the police still had no leads. And then he announced that a demonstration had taken place that day in Drummondville in relation to the case. A group of about twenty people were shown walking up and down Maple Street, in the quiet neighborhood where the doctor lived, chanting some incomprehensible words. Some were carrying placards reading “We want justice!” and “Death to child killers!” Bruno observed the scene in stunned amazement as a voice explained, “A little group of sympathizers with Bruno Hamel’s cause marched in the streets of Drummondville today. We collected statements from some of them . . .”

  A man of around fifty appeared, looking sure of himself. “We approve Bruno Hamel’s actions one hundred percent. I’m sure there are dozens of parents who have had a child killed by a maniac who agree with him now! They felt powerlessness! Hamel refused to accept powerlessness!”

  A woman took the place of the man on the screen, and Bruno recognized Marielle Lesage, one of his neighbors.

  “If a person tortures and kills a child, prison is too good for them! They should have the same thing done to them! If these murderers were turned over to the parents of their victims, I swear that would make the scum that are still running around free think twice! Bruno Hamel is not just taking revenge; he’s sending a message!”

  Bruno had never foreseen this kind of reaction—a demonstration in his support! In fact, he had never asked himself what impact his action might have on public opinion. These images fascinated him as much as they surprised him. On one hand, he was glad to see that certain people supported what he was doing. However, there was something he found disturbing about the demonstration, something that made him uncomfortable. And he finally understood what it was. A few weeks earlier, he would have found this kind of demonstration horrible and incomprehensible.

  He clenched his fists in irritation, then gave a nasty little chuckle. Of course, he hadn’t understood anything. Because nothing had happened to him yet! Jasmine was still alive and he thought he was safe from everything! It’s so easy to be a right-thinking person when everything is fine in your life! It’s easy to be a humanist when you’ve never known suffering and sorrow! But now everything was changed, and now he understood. And those demonstrators also understood, because of what he was doing.

  “But this group of people does not represent everyone,” continued the reporter. “Here are some comments from people watching the demonstration.”

  A young man of about twenty appeared on the screen.

  “I could never be in favor of violence, whether or not it’s motivated by revenge.”

  “Hamel thinks what he’s doing is a solution, but he’s wrong,” added a woman in her forties. “I would never do anything like that.”

  “What do you know?” shouted Bruno, leaning toward the TV. “What do you know, you ignorant bitch!”

  “Bruno Hamel should make a grand gesture,” suggested an older man. “He should free his prisoner, take him in his arms and tell him he forgives him for what he did. Then they should pray together.”

  The doctor laughed scornfully.

  A dog barked.

  Bruno leapt to his feet. Even with the sound of the TV, he could clearly hear the dog growling outside, close to the house. He dashed to the door as more barking sounded.

  Outside on the porch, he looked around furiously, trying not to shout as he had before. This time he wasn’t dreaming—a dog really had barked, it wasn’t in his head!

  He heard a car pass on the road above, more than a hundred and fifty meters away. A few scattered drops of rain were falling from the overcast sky. A gust of wind made the dead leaves dance for a moment.

  Bruno went back in, nervously rubbing his hands. He went to the refrigerator to get another beer. There was only one left. He wanted to put more in the fridge, but the two cases were empty.

  Had he drunk forty-eight beers in four days?

  He had also drunk a few while Morin was preparing the room. And Morin had had three or four. Still . . .

  Puzzled, he went back to the living room, taking a big slug from his last bottle, and then froze in the middle of the room. On the TV screen, Sylvie was in the doorway of their house. Several microphones were being held toward her. She appeared exhausted and seemed to be speaking reluctantly. In a weak voice, she said, “No, I am not in any way associated with this demonstration. I love my partner, but I . . .” She sighed. “I cannot approve of what he is doing.”

  Bruno watched slack-jawed, his eyes bulging. God! She was so much thinner. She had such dark circles under her eyes. She looked so broken.

  “Bruno has always been against any form of violence, although he had a lot of questions about it. He was a peace activist, he signed petitions, he . . .” She licked her lips nervously. “That’s not him, that . . .”

  “Yes, it’s me!” shouted Bruno. “Stop denying it and accept it! It’s me, whether you like it or not!”

  “I hope that . . . that the justice system won’t be too hard on him,” continued Sylvie with difficulty. “That they take into account that Bruno is acting this way because he’s in a state of shock . . . that the pain made him crazy . . .”

  “Crazy!” Bruno laughed nastily. “Crazy!”

  Sylvie could not go on. She covered her eyes with one hand and was on the verge of tears when her sister appeared behind her and took her by the shoulders to lead her back into the house.

  “I haven’t gone crazy!” Bruno continued to shout hoarsely. “You have no right to say that! No right at all!”

  He finally realized that Sylvie had been replaced by the impassive news anchor, who was summing up the latest debate in the House of Commons. Bruno blinked, caught off guard, and started pounding the wall.

  He stopped suddenly. His blows had echoed in an odd way. Like those indistinct, confused blows in his strange recurring dream.

  He finally sat down again and finished his beer, brooding. Sylvie’s words were hammering in his head, mixing with the alcohol. The fact that she didn’t understand what he was doing was disappointing . . . but her condemning it was unacceptable. Intolerable. How could she? She was Jasmine’s mother. She too had seen the murderer. She had seen him smiling.

  After about twenty minutes, he couldn’t take it anymore, and he put on his wig and false beard, got his coat, and went out.

  He drove fast toward Charette, holding himself back to keep from going over the speed limit. Fifteen minutes later, he parked his car in front of the duplex and literally ran to his apartment. Without even taking off his disguise, he went to his computer, which he always left on, and typed a series of commands, and then waited, his breathing shallow, his face tense with anger. On the computer speakers, there was a ring. A second, then a third ring . . . When Sylvie’s weak voice answered, Bruno bent toward the mike and said angr
ily, “What got into you saying that on TV?”

  “Bruno! Oh, my God! Bruno, I’ve . . . I’ve tried to reach you dozens of times, why did you—”

  “Why did you say that to the reporters?”

  “I . . . There was that demonstration on the street, in front of the house. I found it so . . . so indecent, I had to react, to . . .”

  “And calling me crazy on the air, isn’t that indecent?”

  “That’s not what I said!”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what you said. Dammit, I’m not deaf!”

  Her voice quavering, she begged him to stop all this and to come home. She said it wasn’t too late. Bruno shook his head, furious. He saw his daughter’s blue ribbon again dancing in front of his eyes. He was grasping the mike with all his strength and pressing it to his mouth.

  “You don’t understand, Sylvie! You don’t understand at all! How could . . . how could I have loved someone who’s so dumb?”

  She gasped, but Bruno continued, more and more enraged.

  “I’m not the one who’s gone crazy. You’ve lost all emotion, all feeling for Jasmine!”

  “That’s not true! I want to mourn our daughter! I want to mourn her with you, so we can get through this together! But you, you . . . you . . . you push it away! You deny it!”

  “And you, you’d be satisfied if the monster went to prison and came out again after only twenty-five years, maybe only fifteen! He would come out, all smiling, while our daughter was nothing but dust in the grave!”

  “Bruno . . .”

  “You’re completely insensitive! I wonder if you even really loved Jasmine!”

  “Lord, it’s . . . You’re babbling. You’ve completely lost your mind!”

  “Stop saying that, you bitch!” he screamed. “Stop it right now!”

  She started sobbing. Bruno wanted to tell her to stop blubbering, but he was suddenly completely quiet—the dog had started whimpering again.

  “God! Not again!”

  Still sobbing, Sylvie asked what he was talking about. Bruno spun around.