Rosy and John

by Pierre Lemaitre

  Pierre Lemaitre

  Rosy & John

  Translated from the French by Frank Wynne

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Also by Pierre Lemaitre in English translation

  Dedication

  Day One

  Day Two

  Day Three

  About the Author

  An imprint of Quercus

  New York • London

  © 2013 by Librairie Générale Française

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of the same without the permission of the publisher is prohibited.

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  e-ISBN 978-1-62365-441-2

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, institutions, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons—living or dead—events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  www.quercus.com

  Also by Pierre Lemaitre in English translation

  Alex (2013)

  Irène (2014)

  Camille (2015)

  The Great Swindle (2015)

  Blood Wedding (2016)

  Three Days and a Life (2017)

  Inhuman Resources (2018)

  For Pascaline

  For Dominique and Jean-Paul Vormus with my friendship.

  “There are cases (rather rare, it is true) where the best way to gain time is to change place.”

  MARCEL PROUST, À l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs

  Day One

  5.00 p.m.

  The unexpected encounter that will forever change your life, the treacherous patch of black ice, the answer you give without thinking . . . It takes only a split second for such decisive events to occur.

  Take this little boy, for example, he is eight years old. He has only to make one false step and his whole world might change irreversibly. His mother once had a tarot reading where she was told she would be widowed within the year. She shared this information with her son, her lower lip quivering, her hands clawing at her chest, her voice tremulous with sobs. I had to tell someone, you do understand, don’t you? The little boy had never imagined the death of his father, who seemed to him immortal. Now, he lives in constant fear. Some mothers, honestly . . . This particular mother is thirty but has all the maturity of a teenage schoolgirl. She has long since forgotten this prediction (besides her thoughtlessness, she is also quite scatter-brained, one thought displaces the previous at a frantic rate). For her young son, however, it is a very different matter. His imagination has been overwhelmed by this witch’s tale, he dares not talk to anyone about it; he has constant nightmares. There are days when he is so consumed by the idea of his father’s death it makes him ill; then, for weeks at a time, it will disappear, as if by magic. When it returns, it is with a savage ferocity that makes his knees buckle, forcing him to cling to something, to sit down.

  When the threat resurfaces, he resorts to all kinds of rituals, convinced that if his father dies, it will be his fault.

  Today: “If I don’t step on a crack, my father won’t die.” It only counts after he passes the boulangerie.

  He has scarcely been able to breathe since he left the house, and there is a long way still to go before he reaches his music lesson. Something tells him that this time he will not make it, but he can think of nothing, no excuse that would allow him to give up his challenge. One street, two streets, already he can see the boulevard, but the panic is rising and it seems to him that the closer he comes to deliverance, the closer he comes to catastrophe. He stares at the pavement as he walks, his clarinet case dangling from his wrist. He is sweating. He is two hundred metres from the music school. For no apparent reason – a sense of foreboding perhaps – he looks up and suddenly he sees his father coming in the other direction. There is scaffolding here that forces his father to make a detour, along a wooden walkway that juts out into the street. It is very narrow. Shoulders hunched, his father is walking quickly, decisively. When he walks like this, he looks as though nothing could stop him. The boy is surprised because it is unusual to see him coming home so early.

  The slow-motion images that follow will forever be engraved on his memory. Needless to say, this momentary lapse of concentration is all it takes. When he realises his mistake and looks back down at the pavement, he stops dead: his foot is squarely planted on a crack between the paving stones . . .

  His father is going to die, it is inevitable.

  It takes only a split second for decisive events to occur.

  Take the young woman who is walking a little way behind this boy. Not particularly pretty, an economics student, she has never had sex. “The opportunity never presented itself,” she says simply. The truth is more complicated, but that does not matter. It is May, she is twenty-two years old, and all that matters is that at this precise moment she has arrived at the corner of rue Joseph-Merlin, where she now waits for a man who wants her: this is why he suggested that they meet, to tell her that he desires her. She has only to say yes or no and everything will change one way or the other. Nor will it simply affect the pedestrian matter of her virginity. Because she will say no. The man will say that he understands (yeah, right) . . . she will watch him walk away, and just as she is beginning to regret her decision and wants to call him back . . .

  Too late.

  The explosion is so powerful it rocks the whole neighbourhood. It is like an earthquake, the shockwaves from are felt a hundred metres away.

  In a split-second, the little boy sees the body of his father soar into the air as though a giant hand has punched him in the solar plexus. The young woman scarcely has time to open her mouth when her ex-future lover is swept off his feet and thrown through the glass shop front of Women’s Secret.

  The rue Joseph-Merlin is a shopping precinct. Clothes shops, shoe shops, delicatessens, dry cleaners, pharmacies . . . it is the most commercial street in the area. To find anything better would mean walking as far as the junction with avenue Pradelle. It is May 20: for days now, a warm summer sun has settled over the city. At 5 p.m., it feels almost like a July afternoon with its tempting promise of an aperitif on a café terrace, there are people everywhere, so, naturally, when the bomb explodes, it is a tragedy, but it is also an injustice.

  Then again, if there were any justice in this world . . .

  Pedestrians thrown to the ground shield themselves with their arms. A woman in a print dress is pitched backwards, her head slamming against the wooden posts in front of the scaffolding. On the far side of the street, a man dismounting from his moped is hit by an iron bar that appears from nowhere, it shatters his pelvis, doubling him in two; although he is still wearing his crash helmet, it may not be enough to save his life.

  The roar of the explosion is followed by an ear-splitting shriek of metal: having wavered briefly after the blast, as though taking a moment to think, the huge edifice of scaffolding shudders, lifts slightly off the
ground, and crumples, as though slumping onto the pavement, like those tower blocks dynamited on television that seem to dissolve in an instant. On the pavement opposite, a girl in high-heeled white boots looks up and sees the scaffolding poles disperse like sparks from a firework and fall towards her in a rain as slow as it is inexorable . . .

  The explosion obliterates shop windows, cars, the very thoughts in people’s heads. In these endless seconds, no-one can think, ideas seem to have been snuffed out like candles. Even ordinary sounds have been obliterated, a tremulous, unsettling silence hangs over the scene, as though every last person in the city has been killed outright.

  When finally the reality of the situation gathers momentum, it flares into every mind. Above the street, those windows not shattered by the explosion timidly begin to open and incredulous faces appear.

  Down below, the survivors struggle to their feet and stare, uncomprehending, at the new cityscape.

  A war-torn city.

  Shop fronts have vanished, the walls behind the scaffolding have collapsed, sending up clouds of plaster dust that settles slowly like tainted snow. The most spectacular new landmark is the vast pile of metal poles and planks that all but blocks the street, four storeys of scaffolding make for an impressive heap. The collapse was almost vertically, completely crushing two parked cars. The heap of planks bristling with metal rods pointing towards the heavens looks like a giant mohawk.

  How many are buried beneath the rubble, the shards of glass, the slabs of tarmac? It is impossible to say.

  Here and there lie a few prone bodies, a scattering of soil and sand and settling dust, but there are strange sights, like the blue-trimmed jacket on the coat hanger dangling from a “No Entry” sign. The sort of things one might see in houses ravaged by an earthquake: a baby’s cot, a doll, a bride’s tiara, small objects that God seems to have carefully placed here and there to illustrate the black irony of His mysterious ways.

  Before his son’s astonished eyes, the father traced an improbable arc. The explosion that lifted him off the wooden walkway has set him down on the bonnet of a parked van where he sits, motionless, looking for all the world as though he is about to play a game of dominos with his son, but his eyes are vacant, his face blood-streaked, his head lists to left and right as though trying to ease a crick in his neck.

  The little boy was also swept up by the explosion. His eyes wide, one cheek pressed against the pavement, he is lying next to the portico that broke his flight, still clutching the clarinet case that has snapped open; the clarinet is gone, it will never be found.

  Sirens begin to wail.

  Confusion gives way to a sense of urgency, a rush of energy, of compassion; those who survived unscathed race towards the fallen bodies.

  Some struggle to their feet only to fall to their knees, exhausted.

  The dazed silence is followed by a growing clamour of shouts, screams, orders, whistles.

  Whimpers are drowned out by a chorus of car horns.

  5.01 p.m.

  The man on the corner of the rue Joseph-Merlin and rue Général-Morieux has missed nothing. Although he is almost thirty, most people would call him a boy, there is something childlike about him, something immature that contrasts sharply with his heavyset, farmhand’s build. He may be self-conscious, but he is anything but inept. In fact, he built the bomb himself . . . He set it to go off at 5 p.m., but that was more in hope than expectation – it’s impossible to tell if these things are going to work properly.

  Or even if they will work at all.

  His anxiety is easier to understand when one knows that this is his first bomb. Several weeks’ work. He had no real sense of the damage it would cause. Despite his damage assessments, this was the one unknown factor. A professional would doubtless be able to make predictions with a greater degree of certainty. This man is an amateur, forced for the most part to rely on instinct. He did all the necessary theoretical calculations, but everyone knows that life and theory are two very different things. But he did the best he could with the means at his disposal. After that, as Rosie always says, “Work won’t get you everything in this life. You also need a little luck.”

  The young man gets up from his terrace table and leaves without paying – not that anyone will notice this. In a few quick strides, he is far away, heading towards the métro.

  Let’s call him Jean. In fact, his name is John, but that is a long story. Since his teens he has been calling himself Jean, something we will come back to later. But, for the moment, Jean.

  The bomb worked pretty well; on that score, he has every reason to be pleased. Though he has concerns about the eventual death toll, it should bear fruit.

  The walking wounded are already hurrying to help those still sprawled in the street. Jean disappears into the métro station.

  He will help no-one. It was he who planted the bomb.

  5.10 p.m.

  Camille Verhœven is four feet eleven of towering rage. Four feet eleven may not be much in a man, but in terms of concentrated fury it is colossal. Especially as, in a cop, rage, even when suppressed, is not a cardinal virtue. At most, it is a boon to journalists (in various media appearances, his razor-sharp comments have made for blistering copy), but more generally, it is a headache for his superiors, for witnesses, colleagues, prosecutors – pretty much everybody.

  Camille has been known to rant, to lose his temper on rare occasions, but he is careful to watch his step. His is the type to seethe rather than lash out and punch the nearest object. Which is just as well since, given his stature, the controls in his car are mounted on the steering wheel so a driver needs to be careful: one false move and you’ll find yourself in a ditch.

  The reason for today’s fury (he finds a new one every day) came to him while he was shaving, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and did not like what he saw. He has never much liked the way he looks, but for many years he successfully suppressed the bitterness he feels at not having grown up like everyone else. But since the death of his wife, Irène, there have been moments when his self-loathing has seemed frankly alarming.

  It has been six months since he took a day off. His last major case ended in failure: the girl he was tracking was dead by the time he found her,1 it had left him quite shaken up. (In truth, it was not a total failure, he successfully arrested a killer, but to Camille the glass is always half-empty). So he took a couple of days. He almost suggested to Anne that she come down to the country for a day or two, it was a perfect opportunity to show her his bolthole, but they had not known each other for long, and he decided he would rather be on his own.

  He spent three days sketching, painting. He has too much talent to be a cop, not enough to be an artist. So he became a cop. Besides, he never wanted to be an artist.

  Camille never listens to music while driving, any more than he does at home: he finds it distracting. With his laconic turn of phrase, he simplifies things by saying “I don’t like music”. And, deep down, this is true, if he liked music he would buy it, listen to it. But he never does. For those around him – what? how can you not like music? – this is unimaginable, they cannot believe it, they quiz him about it, they stare at him, dumbfounded. Not liking art or literature, now that would be alright, that’s understandable, but music? So Verhœven lays it on with a trowel, he can’t help it, he finds their reaction infuriating – he can be a complete pain in the arse sometimes. Once Irène said to him “It’s a pity you don’t know more misogynists, you’d help them put things in perspective.”

  Since music is out of the question, Verhœven listens to talk radio non-stop.

  The first newsflash comes just as he turns on the radio. “. . . a powerful explosion in Paris’s eighteen arrondissement. The cause of the blast is not yet known, but the extent of the catastrophe is considerable.”

  The sort of news story you listen to only if you live in the area, or if the body count is truly spectacular.

  Verhœven carries on driving, following the sequence of
news bulletins: “Emergency services are already at the scene. The number of victims has not been confirmed. According to witnesses, it would appear that . . .”

  Verhœven’s only thought is that this will mean traffic jams as he approaches Paris.

  5.20 p.m.

  A first world country is truly something.

  Hardly have the victims had time to gather their thoughts than the fire fighters are on the scene. Four stations mobilised. Ambulances and paramedics from S.A.M.U. are hurtling towards the scene, while just outside the cordon set up by the police, paramedic units are throwing open the doors of their vans and unloading stretchers, emergency foil blankets, I.V. drips, boxes filled with pharmaceutical supplies, antiseptics, bandages; quickly, professionally, the unruffled paramedics take up the positions assigned to them on the Emergency Evacuation Plan that has been drawn up. Paramedics are already at work. The Securité civile is organising and coordinating efforts, setting up lines of communication. The triage tents seem to mushroom out of the rain of dust that is still falling.

  From this angle, it is easy to see where our taxes go.

  And then there are the journalists. They are professionals too. Mobile broadcast units from radio and rolling T.V. news channels arrive with the emergency services: technicians unspool cables, make ready for the first live transmission; journalists are playing at war correspondents, scanning for an ideal spot, a place where the wreckage will be visible in the background as they deliver their report.

  This is the meaning of modern democracy: a country where professionals have seized power.

  5.30 p.m.

  Ministère de l’Intérieur. Crisis meeting.

  “What does the president say?” asks the private secretary.

  The minister does not answer, what the president has to say is nobody’s business. Especially since, like everyone else, Monsieur le président is waiting for more information.