“You could say that, yes.”
With her answer the numbing sensation of finality slammed shut a doorway out. There was no chance Aline had induced blood vessels in Dumont’s brain to burst, yet there was also no hesitation in her voice. She wasn’t testing me to gauge my reaction as Claude Dumont had done more than fifteen years before; Aline believed. I accepted the unexplained blast of air was more likely an opportune gust of wind and nothing as dramatic as witness accounts by people who didn’t have a better answer. Pushed by a sudden, emotionally charged moment and extraordinary circumstances, one person’s “good, stiff gust” could so easily become another’s biblical “breath of God.”
Far less thrilling or dramatic, Dumont’s untimely death was surely a product of his own fragile physiology. The structure of his brain was taken beyond a breaking point perhaps, but with the same result regardless of Aline’s presence, and nothing could change that unfortunate truth. Renard’s suspicions didn’t explain anything but they weren’t unsubstantiated after all. Still, I hated him for it. It was difficult to accept but it would be more accurate to say I hated him for dredging up what surely meant the problems that had landed Aline in a mental hospital would do so again; I understood at last there was much more at work than only his desire for closure and a misplaced application of justice.
I wondered about the muggers at a darkened bus stop in Glasgow, too. The police wisely left the investigation “open” despite committing Aline to the care of a psychiatric facility, but that fact did nothing to describe how a 115-pound girl could possibly overcome two hardened street thugs, both intent on stealing her purse. Would she say the second event was the product of her hand as well? There was no point in asking because I knew it couldn’t be, and my remaining thoughts went to the despair that would follow when they came to take her away.
My spine tingled the way it does when reality breaks through in the end. Trapped in a corner made of logic and the crush of despair, I understood at last all I hoped for would soon evaporate. She reached for me but I could only think of myself and I just wanted her to go. It was the first time I’d seen the face of insanity at close range, but worse still, from the very person I was least prepared to accept in so horrible a state.
I wanted to offer an excuse—something benign and far from the moment—so she wouldn’t see and understand I had to get distance between us. I wish I could say it was only for the understandable purpose of gathering my thoughts or thinking through everything Inspector Renard claimed in the pages of his folio to avoid prejudgment, but that wasn’t true. Instead, I felt revulsion and then a numb feeling of loss. Secrets again—always unwanted and usually delivered with a measure of regret or sadness when the truth is revealed. Aline was no longer a picture of warmth and the place where I felt most comfortable; she had been transformed into a different person and was far worse in reality than I ever imagined, remembering those who bought my little farm years before, only to sell it and run away a few months later. I saw the faces in my imagination, drawn up into worried frowns and desperate expressions, forced to abandon their property and escape a lunatic on the far side of their shared hill. In those terrible first seconds of despair, I thought of Damon.
I hoped Aline would sense the uneasiness until I looked at her and it was clear she had, nodding with a faint smile and closed eyes. I’ve given up being embarrassed by my thoughts from a time when I didn’t (or couldn’t) understand, and that moment was such an occasion. She stood and placed her hand softly against my cheek.
“You’re not ready,” she whispered, turning slowly for the path and a return through the forest to her house.
I felt sullen and alone pacing slowly in my kitchen as a strange analogue to the grieving process began. I know perfectly well how self-absorbed and dramatic it sounds today, but it took a while before the shock went quietly from disbelief to a place where we go to accept what cannot be avoided and begin to plan how best to deal with the aftermath.
Few of us can prepare for so profound and sudden a change, but I was determined to stiffen my back and face it head-on. No amount of handwringing or worry could make things better, and until they came for her we would spend our remaining time no differently than we had before. Whatever course loomed in an unseen future, I refused to withdraw and leave her to follow it alone.
The cold truth behind a sudden, horrible revelation seemed overwhelming and I worked hard to avoid wallowing in a pool of self-pity, oblivious to what Aline’s condition would mean for her. I mention it now because Burke and Halliwell stopped the conversation again and not from a fear of what Aline might think or do. Instead, they paused with surprising and deliberate sympathy knowing a moment in time so far from ordinary simply made continuing without regard for the emotional wreckage it would cause unacceptable.
Mo waited in polite, considerate silence, and even Berezan understood, solemn-faced and quiet in deference to an impossible pit of despair I couldn’t escape. After a while, and reassured the narrative could resume, they wondered why Aline had waited—why she went home to allow time so that I could adjust to what I thought I knew instead of putting it right, then and there. She only smiled at them and said simply, “There was plenty of time for that, and Evan just needed to be alone for a while.”
Burke nodded and smiled, too, and his small gesture changed the way I felt about him afterward. He knew what Aline’s words meant from hindsight, but he approved because her answer was correct.
STANDING ALONE IN my kitchen, I looked without purpose at anything in my line of sight, somehow hoping the best course of action might appear out of nowhere if only I would look hard enough. I didn’t notice the sun was setting behind distant hills to the west until I stood at a window with unexpected determination to shake off my funk; there were things to do and preparations to make. Renard’s words echoed in my thoughts as I opened my computer and began a search through the internet to learn all I could on the subject of acute mental conditions and the most likely regimen of treatment to prepare for the moment when they came to take Aline away. Her likelihood of escaping a return to an isolation ward seemed remote, but I read the articles closely for no better reason than to prepare for the inevitable separation it would mean.
Would she accept and go along without a struggle, I wondered? Worse still, how would the authorities even know to search for her? The answer, I reasoned, would lie with Renard and the conclusion of his tireless investigation; he would tell them and the sad ending would begin. I won’t pretend I didn’t consider alternatives—intercepting the detective with an impassioned plea to simply leave her alone, for example. In my desperation all kinds of thoughts paraded through, even if most of them were absurd, but I held them just the same.
Could Jeremy intercede on the chance Renard’s impossible tale might yet be discredited and made worthless? What could I say that would be truthful without making things worse? Any testimony from me might only add fuel to the fire and accelerate the very nightmare for Aline I wanted so badly to avoid.
She had claimed no memory of the Glasgow incident despite a bloodied face and policemen at her hotel room door. Perhaps momentary amnesia as a shield raised by her traumatized mind against further damage was possible, but Renard never believed, and it seemed odd to the police investigators, too. There had to be another answer: a condition or illness consistent with their decision to admit her to an isolation ward. I returned to Renard’s notes, with references to the first interviews conducted shortly after Aline’s arrival at an inpatient facility, but something seemed off. I noticed a questionnaire apparently crucial to the process was missing, but sidenotes photocopied and stapled to administrative documents made it clear they considered something much worse than amnesia. I looked twice to be sure at secondary analysis fixed on the possibility of “bizarre delusional disorder” and a cautionary note directed at attending staff to watch for associated symptoms.
I pored over each paper carefully, but it was obvious Renard had been denied much of what
the psychiatrists saw and did to treat Aline. It made sense, understanding the intensely private nature of medical record keeping, but little of what remained helped explain the treatment schedule and how it turned out. When the paper trail stopped suddenly with an authorization to shift from inpatient care to a transitional facility in Stornoway—a halfway house—there was nothing more to see. The records were incomplete and I could only estimate how many of them must have been withheld or redacted. I wondered (as Berezan did during our interviews) how Renard got his hands on any of them.
WHEN ALINE CALLED as I was turning off the lights on my way to bed, I felt the adrenaline jolt and reddening face, wishing she hadn’t bothered. After the day’s events, I simply wanted to be left alone. For the first time since we’d met, I had no desire to speak with her. My phone buzzed repeatedly as the voicemails mounted until it was clear she wouldn’t take “no” for an answer, and it seemed I was making things worse by refusing to pick up. At last I gave in and selected her number, but she didn’t pick up. I tried again, but the unique sound of her Rover pulled me to the window to wait for her headlights to appear and wander through my gate.
I opened the door and stood aside, bracing for what looked to be round one of our first real fight, but she only smiled and took my hands in hers.
“I know this has made you worry,” she began, “but don’t; everything will be fine.”
We sat for a while in silence and I know she waited for me to speak, but when I did the tone must have been severe because I watched the gentle smile disappear, replaced by a face of one who’s been injured.
“Do you understand where this is going?” I asked sharply. “Renard doesn’t believe for a minute your memories from that night are gone; he thinks you’ve been lying all this time and he’s determined to expose it—to expose you.”
“Yes,” she replied softly. “I know.”
“He’s not going to stop until somebody arrests you or sends you back to that hospital, Aline.”
She looked on with an expression I will never forget because it placed before me two options to consider and one was just as plausible as the other. In her eyes I saw at once the disturbing evidence of a mind corrupted beyond redemption, but with it, the unavoidable possibility of something else and not a product of delusion or insanity. I couldn’t see it clearly then, but she tossed her own rope for me to grab and hold tight: a fleeting image suggesting perhaps the old Belgian cop was right and an army of experienced doctors had gotten it wrong.
“Renard will lose interest, Evan,” she said at last.
“He’s been building his case for fifteen years!” I replied with a voice much louder than I intended. “There’s no way he’s letting go of it now, especially when he has copies ready to hand over when he gets in front of the North Wales Police.”
“He will lose interest,” she repeated. “They always do.”
“Who are ‘they’?” I asked with a frown.
“It doesn’t matter right now,” she answered, “but trust me. Renard has no case to make and when the police tell him as much he’ll go back to Liège and forget about it.”
“There’s no telling what the police will do,” I protested. “Renard’s a retired cop and that has to carry weight with other cops.”
“Maybe it does but I can’t tell them any more today than I already have. Allegiances between policemen can’t change that; Renard will run out of things to say and when he does, his fantasy will die out.”
I listened to her words, troubled not by their meaning but instead an absolute certainty and disinterest in a growing problem that might well land her back in a psychiatric hospital. Did the nature of her condition force Aline to ignore or dismiss tangible facts in the present merely because they are connected to an episode in her past she cannot recall? I felt myself floundering, unable to make her see and understand the profound risk and likelihood her liberty would be taken from her once more. She saw it and placed a hand gently against my face.
“You mustn’t let this bother you, Evan. Inspector Renard is the one who has run out of time, and I’m telling you as plainly as I can: he won’t be able to make a case because there isn’t one—there never will be. They may listen politely, but in the end, he will go back to Belgium empty-handed and there will be an end to it.”
I had nothing more to say. Aline’s mind must surely have shifted to another world where the consequences of Renard’s threat didn’t exist and, in her mind, brought no reason to worry. I felt my anxiety begin to ease suddenly, although I couldn’t understand why. Whatever the result when Renard made his play, I was in no position to compel Aline toward anything and least of all a magical return from the dark recesses of her illness. As night fell over our valley my only choice became obvious: I would stay close and ride out the days until the authorities arrived with a new sectioning order and a return to Glasgow or (at worst) a warrant for her arrest.
The following day passed quietly, and the day after and the day after that were no different. In slow increments, our lives returned to normal and I began to lose the nagging, daily expectation they would show up at any moment. For weeks it went on like that, with sudden bouts of worry and constant glances at the gate whenever she visited, watchful for a van to make its way down my driveway filled with burly attendants carrying straitjackets and loaded syringes to ensure Aline’s eventless return to the wards. It’s the dramatic (and badly misrepresented) notions we get from movies or the television that does it, I suppose, leaving dire images of brutal insane asylums and lost, screaming souls behind heavy doors that will never open for them again. I knew better, of course, but the mysterious world hiding behind the walls of inpatient facilities seems to invite and amplify those scenes because few of us have been inside one to see and know for sure.
THE FULL CRUSH of summer arrived with caravans of tourists in its wake and still there was nothing from Renard. The police didn’t roar in and take Aline away in shackles, nor did the padded van bound for Glasgow, yet all of it seemed little more than a cruel delay in a conspiracy to make me miserable. Each morning I heard the old expression in my mind “if it seems too good to be true, it probably is,” but the effort (and a prickly sensation of worry) was wasted. It took a while but I came to a juncture and another decision point demanding an answer. Perhaps it was my nature and personality, or even my training as an investigator, but either way I had to know.
On a bright Saturday afternoon in late July when Aline was up in Colwyn Bay, I gave in to the urge at last. I won’t pretend it didn’t make me feel guilty for going behind her back, but I found Renard’s card in a drawer where I’d stuffed the documents to keep them out of sight. I accepted the risk of stirring up trouble, but without confirmation one way or another, the threat of his return would hover above us like a black cloud and I had reached the point at which I’d simply had enough.
My first attempt failed because I mangled the phone number input, but a second try found its mark. When Renard answered, I thought he was just awake from a nap because he mumbled and it seemed he didn’t recognize my name.
“Inspector,” I repeated slowly, “this is Evan Morgan.”
My pulse quickened in the long pause that followed until he seemed to come alive at last.
“What do you want?” he demanded in a gravelly voice.
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” I replied. “It’s been a few months since…”
“Don’t ever call me again, do you understand?” he demanded. “Never!”
There was silence and I stared at my phone as if it could explain but mostly to make sure the call had dropped. I touched the number once more, and it only rang once before Renard picked up.
“Leave me alone, bastard!” he thundered. “Goddamn you, it’s finished!”
I blinked with astonishment in that moment, taken off guard by Renard’s sudden, profane outburst. I wanted to believe his words were delivered with anger and resentment because he had discovered at last no one cared enough to
bother with Aline. I was sure he’d lashed out in rage after learning the Welsh police had no intention of pursuing a Belgian cold case with so scant a collection of evidence and most of it circumstantial at best. His rant might easily have been one built on fury and his own failures, but that’s not what it was. Instead, Renard’s strained voice sounded more a siren of desperation and fear.
I sat on the arm of my couch for a while, trying to sort out the abrupt, unlikely conclusion of more than a decade of work and Renard’s obsessive hunt to find justice for Claude Dumont. What had the police told him, I wondered? The scenario played out in my imagination and I nodded involuntarily at what must’ve been his last hopes being dashed. Renard likely did approach detectives in Denbighshire to show them his papers, but the locals turned him away for lack of evidence, motive, or cause. Did they see an old cop past his prime and grasping at a chance to win a decade-long search? Maybe a call to counterparts in Liège’s police department with a request to stand Renard down and aim him again toward the reality of a pensioner’s sunset days had resulted in a rebuke and warning to leave things alone and move on. Either way, Aline was right; there was no longer interest and Andre Renard would fade into the distance.
She stopped by on her way home from the coast and I decided to tell her of my strange call to Belgium. She smiled politely as I described Renard’s bizarre outburst and it seemed her thoughts were elsewhere. Others hearing a similar story might’ve perked up simply for the novelty of a loud and vulgar speech, but Aline only asked if I preferred chicken or fish for dinner. As she always knew it would, life in our valley returned to normal.
TOWARD THE END of the month we spent a long weekend in Cardiff so Aline could show me her childhood home and stomping grounds at the university. It’s a vibrant city and I saw a lot more on that trip than I did my last time there, but it was the nice, slow drive down from Llangollen I enjoyed most. We made needless stops simply to walk a bit and look around in clean country air that was fragrant and nothing like D.C. It took a while to reach that point but I remember nodding in quiet satisfaction that my choice to stay on had been correct, and suddenly northern Virginia seemed a million miles away.
The Seventh Life of Aline Lloyd Page 17
