When I realize it reminds me of how ghosts look when they’re on the point of moving on to wherever ghosts who have found peace go, I get scared and run after Clothilde and Evian.
The moment I start moving closer to what remains of my dead body, I get back my filaments and become as solid as I’ve ever been in ghost form.
Not really in a state of mind to play too much with danger, I hurry to catch up with the two women.
“Well?” Clothilde asks me. She’s walking backward, keeping an eye on Evian as she walks right through signposts and cars alike, not caring one whit about physical objects.
“Twenty meters became very uncomfortable,” I tell her and shudder.
She nods. “I got farther on the day we arrived. Could the link be weaker because there’s just the one bone now?”
A shiver runs through me as my left middle finger vibrates. I look to Evian and realize she has a hand in her pocket and must be touching the bones.
Clothilde’s eyes go to the same place and she clenches her right fist. “It’s weird actually feeling something.”
I nod.
“That woman’s crazy sensitive, by the way,” Clothilde says. “We mention the bones and her hand goes straight to them.”
“Maybe we should pay attention to what we say then,” I say. “So we don’t scare her off completely and make her get rid of the things. I don’t feel like haunting a landfill for the rest of eternity.”
Evian reaches her car—a white Peugeot 206 that is clearly a rental and has seen better days—and as she opens the door, Clothilde slips inside to settle into the passenger seat. She throws me a smile that is anything but reassuring.
Evian gets into the car and I hurry to follow. I’m not taking any chances right now. I settle into the back seat and lean forward between the seats to look Clothilde in the eyes as I talk to her. “Play nice,” I tell her.
“I always play nice.” She doesn’t even try to pretend that’s true.
Evian snorts as she turns the ignition.
Fourteen
Evian brings us straight to her apartment. She has a cozy one bedroom on Jeanne d’Arc, with a small but functional kitchen and a bedroom with plenty of closet space. At the moment, the closet is depressingly empty, with only enough clothes to fill one suitcase. It looks like she didn’t plan to spend too much time in Toulouse and seeing how she’s opening all the cupboards in search of a mug, I’m guessing she hasn’t lived here long.
In an unspoken agreement, Clothilde and I leave her some space. We settle on the couch on the far side of the room and don’t talk.
I’m not sure what I have to say, anyway.
I’ve been dreaming of getting out of that cemetery ever since I woke up screaming in my casket underground thirty years ago, but now that I’m out, I’m not sure what to do with myself.
The world has changed while I hustled around in my cemetery. I recognize the streets and the older buildings, the people are pretty much the same, and the noise of the city center is like it always was. But it’s also so very different.
The clothes aren’t quite right. The phones are everywhere. The cars are bigger, smaller, silent…different. The people are the same in general, but I don’t recognize anyone. I’m in the city where I lived all my life, where I felt like I knew every other person on the street—and now I recognize nobody.
Nobody would recognize me if they saw me.
I’m starting to wonder, for the first time in a very long time, what my family and friends are up to. Do they still wonder what happened to me? Have they moved on?
Are they still alive?
I realize I’m overwhelmed. I’d say a good night’s sleep will do me good, but ghosts don’t need sleep. Ghosts can’t sleep. Still, a night of nothing happening will probably help.
I just need to get my head on straight.
Then we can start again tomorrow, and take things one step at a time.
First things first: we’ll be looking for Clothilde’s murderer. The infamous Laurent Lambert.
My finger tingles and I look up to see Evian at her kitchen counter. She has removed her jacket and hung it on the back of the front door and she has a steaming cup of tea in her left hand.
With her right, she’s playing with the two finger bones on the kitchen counter.
She’s pushing them around like she’s doing a puzzle and she can’t figure out how the pieces fit together. Every time she touches my bone, my finger tingles.
From Clothilde’s clenched fist, I’d say she feels the same thing.
“Who are you two, anyway?” Evian whispers.
Clothilde opens her mouth to answer, but I put a hand on her thigh to stop her. She can’t feel it but seeing it is enough. Her eyes ask me why.
“Leave her some space to think for herself,” I whisper.
Clothilde’s gaze goes to Evian and she nods. She slides farther down into the couch, leaning her head against the headrest.
Evian takes a sip of her tea and winces at the heat. Her short dark blond hair stands out a little on one side of her head, where she must have run her hand through it as she brewed her tea. Other than that little detail, she’s impeccably presentable in her black jeans, white shirt, and tiny golden necklace that I have yet to see the details of. After such a long and tiring day, this is no mean feat. The woman must be used to being in control of everything.
So being pushed into stealing two finger bones is probably messing with her head just a little bit.
“What the hell am I supposed to do with these?” she asks herself, making me wonder if it’s possible for her to be so sensitive as to pick up on my thoughts.
She picks up the bones and stares at the trashcan in the corner. “I should just ditch them. I don’t need the reminder of why I’m doing this.” She walks over to the trashcan and pushes the pedal so it opens.
Clothilde jerks up next to me, but I hold up a hand to stop her from talking.
Evian needs to decide to keep us on her own.
And I do believe she does. She stands there, with her fist over the open trashcan, for what feels like hours. Her hand is clenched and I can see the muscles of her forearms working. It’s like she’s telling her hand to let go, but the hand’s not obeying.
Finally, she lets the trashcan fall shut and her hand falls to her side while her chin drops to her chest. Then she raises her head, mutters, “Fuck it,” and goes to drop the bones back into her jacket pocket.
I turn to smile at Clothilde. “I do believe we’re in.”
Fifteen
I’d say the night is boring, with the two of us stuck in Evian’s living room, but it’s actually a lot more interesting than the cemetery we already know by heart. We study everything the place has—which isn’t much other than the bare basics needed to get by—and settle on the couch to wait for morning to come.
We don’t talk much. I think we both need some time to adapt to this new reality of ours and to let our thoughts settle. It seems like we may be allowed to tag along for the ride when Evian goes after Clothilde’s murderers so it’s important we keep our wits about us.
With someone as sensitive as Evian, I think we also need to watch what we say around her so as not to distract her from her work.
At seven o’clock the next morning, we hear an alarm clock going off in the bedroom, then the shower running. Ten minutes later, Evian comes through the door, wearing the same pants and a different shirt from yesterday, and her hair is wet but combed.
“Morning,” she says as she enters the room.
Out of reflex, Clothilde and I both reply.
Evian stops in her tracks—just for a second—tilts her head, and scans the room. With a shake of her head, she sighs and resumes her walk toward the kitchen, where she immediately starts the water heater and prepares a mug of green tea.
As she wait
s for the water to boil, her gaze keeps going back to her jacket hanging on the back of the front door.
At our bones.
She leaves them where they are, though. She has a quick breakfast consisting of cereal with milk and an apple, makes a quick trip to the bathroom to brush her teeth and finish drying her hair, and by seven thirty she’s putting on her comfortable-looking black running shoes and her jacket and walks out the door.
We’re still sitting on the couch but the moment the door closes behind her, suddenly we’re standing in the hallway, almost on top of her, as she locks the door.
“That’s an efficient way of moving around,” Clothilde comments lightly.
“Kind of confusing, though,” I say, shaking my head. I might not have a physical form, but my mind is not used to going from one place to another in the blink of an eye without having told my ghostly form to go there.
We take a few steps away from Evian, to give her some space, then trail after her as she walks toward the staircase. I could continue testing our bond to her—or rather to those finger bones—but I don’t feel like it today. Right now, being close to Evian is exactly where I want to be, anyway.
We run across a neighbor on the staircase, a beautiful woman with skin the color of milk chocolate and eyes like emeralds. She greets Evian with a huge smile and Evian says something unintelligible back, so I assume they already know each other.
Then we get in the rental car and take off toward the police station. I sit in the front seat and I’m yet again studying the city of Toulouse around me.
But this time I’m not staring at the changes, noting how much time has passed. I’m noting the changes so that I have as much information on the city as possible. My mind is back in police officer mode, and it’s not happy with lacking knowledge of the terrain we’re working in.
So I take note of the fact that quite a bit of work has been done on the neighborhood around the train station. Despite the grand three-story stone buildings, this still won’t be one of the most sought-after neighborhoods in the city, but it also doesn’t look as dangerous as it was during my time. People can probably walk through here at night and not look over their shoulders every few seconds. A couple of prostitutes are still out, and one of them no more than fifty meters from a primary school that will open its doors in less than thirty minutes, but Evian doesn’t even look her way and I’m tempted to make the same assessment. It’s not great that they’re there, but it’s also not a danger to anyone right now.
I don’t see many police officers on the streets—in fact, I only see two, who are talking to a group of homeless guys with at least five dogs in tow—but I spot at least ten guys in uniform writing out parking tickets. There are also quite a few surveillance cameras. I’m not sure if there are many of them here because the neighborhood has been tagged as dangerous or if it’s a widespread thing across the entire city.
Despite being so early in the morning, there’s a lot of traffic. This is certainly something that has changed a lot in the last thirty years. I guess the city has grown but the infrastructure hasn’t been able to follow. The streets are as narrow as when they were built decades ago. I can’t even imagine what it will be like trying to drive through this area during rush hour.
We follow Evian as she parks her car in the police station parking lot and walks to her office. It turns out she has one of dozens of desks in an open-plan area, which surprises me at first.
“I thought she was some big-shot investigator from Paris,” Clothilde says as she runs a hand along the edge of Evian’s mostly empty desk. “Why doesn’t she have one of the big offices?”
I shrug. “Well, for one, she’s a visitor, theoretically here for only a short time, so it doesn’t make sense to kick someone out of their office to make room for her. Also, she’s here to investigate the work of fellow officers, so they might not want to give her any perks. Or…” I trail off as I wrap my mind around this idea. “Or whoever brought her here wants her to be close to the people she’s investigating, so they’re putting her desk close to theirs, forcing them to interact with her, so to speak.”
I glance around the room. Only three desks are occupied. One fortyish woman in uniform is sending angry glances in Evian’s direction when she thinks the other woman isn’t looking. A man in his early thirties is doing much the same thing from the other side of the room except he’s not trying to hide it. At one of the desks closest to Evian, a white-haired woman who must be close to retirement gives Evian a smiling greeting and asks if she wants a cup of coffee.
I’m not sure if it was done on purpose or not, but having Evian here in the open space is definitely good for the job she’s here to do.
If I had to guess, I’d say Evian is also happy with the arrangement. She doesn’t seem like the type of person who needs a corner office to know her worth, and she’ll be spending the majority of her time out in the field, anyway.
“Thank you for offering, Blandine,” Evian says to the white-haired colleague. “But I’ve already had my cup of tea this morning and I don’t really like coffee.”
Blandine’s smile is as grandmotherly as they get. “Of course, Emeline. You just let me know if you change your mind.”
“Is Doubira in yet?” Evian asks.
“Oh yes, he came in about half an hour ago. I think some results from that autopsy came in and he took them with him to the green meeting room to read them. Haven’t seen him since.”
Evian nods and purses her lips. “Sounds like it’s an interesting read.” She removes her jacket and hangs it on the back of her chair, then takes off toward the far end of the room.
“Oh, come on!” Clothilde cries. “Don’t leave us behind like that. We also want to know what the report says.”
Evian stops in her tracks. Takes a deep breath.
And comes back for the jacket.
She stares daggers at the pocket where our bones are hiding but wraps the jacket over one arm and takes off toward the green meeting room, grumbling all the way.
Sixteen
Emeline throws her jacket on a chair along the wall when she enters the green meeting room. She tries not to think too hard about why she suddenly decided to bring it with her rather than leave it at her desk.
Malik is sitting at the large table in the middle of the room, with papers spread out to cover almost the entire surface. All the lights are on full blast, making it feel like they’re in the middle of a soccer stadium with dozens of floodlights pointed their way. Malik is wearing his usual jeans and white shirt but he has removed his jacket and unbuttoned the top two buttons on his shirt and pushed the sleeves up to his elbows. His short, curly hair is standing up on the left side, where his hand has clearly been running through it a number of times already.
“Are those the autopsy reports?” Emeline asks as she sits down on the chair next to Malik.
He nods. “They came in five minutes after I arrived this morning.”
“Nobody else has seen them?”
Malik shakes his head and points to a large brown envelope at the far edge of the table. “They were sealed and addressed to the two of us.”
“All right.” Emeline takes in the papers strewn across the table. Quite a significant number of pages, if she isn’t mistaken. She will sit down and read every word herself later, but if Malik has already gone through everything, she might as well take advantage of it. “Give me the highlights, please.”
Malik’s eyes widen with a flash of surprise—he must not have expected her to trust his judgment. He recovers quickly, though.
“I guess the most important part is that the DNA from Mademoiselle Humbert’s rapist was a match for Gérard de Villenouvelle. The same guy we nailed for the rape and murder of at least six young women in the last few years.”
“He might be on trial for the murder,” Emeline says softly, “but we actually only have proof that he
raped them. There’s a very good chance he didn’t work alone.”
Malik nods, accepting the correction, but doesn’t seem to be overly chastened. Good, Emeline doesn’t need a partner she has to watch how she talks to.
“Alone or not,” Malik continues. “He’s been at it for at least thirty years.” He pauses and stares at the multitude of papers spread out on the table before him, his lips pressed into a thin line. “Out of those forty bodies we had exhumed, how many do you think were victims of Monsieur de Villenouvelle?”
Emeline was sent down to Toulouse from Paris in order to look into two cold cases. Two mothers were raising hell because they felt their daughters’ deaths had been ruled suicides too quickly. Since the integrity of local officers was in question, they asked an outsider to come in and have a look.
It didn’t take long to figure out that someone had, indeed, been closing cases too quickly left and right. It wasn’t only the two girls whose mothers started the whole thing, either. Emeline easily found thirty-eight different cases of assumed suicides where the police work was sloppy at best.
But she only went back ten years in her search.
Which was the right decision at the time. She needed to catch whoever was killing these girls and it would be easier catching him on the most recent ones, where there might still be evidence on the corpses and where people still might remember the events around the time of death.
“We need to look into all similar cases going back at least thirty years,” Emeline says.
Malik’s hand goes to a document where Clothilde Humbert’s name is written in large block letter at the top. “Do you think Mademoiselle Humbert was his first victim?”
“Probably not. The likeliness of us happening on the very first victim like this is very low. But it does give us a date of reference. We know he’s been at it for at least this long, so let’s focus on the years in between first.”
Emeline runs a hand over her face, tired at the mere thought of going through that many files. “Actually, Doubira, you wouldn’t happen to know anyone in the building who might be able to help us with this? We need to focus on Mademoiselle Humbert and Monsieur X first.”
Beyond the Grave Page 6
