Talking to Ghosts

by Hervé Le Corre

  “In that case, how could she stomach the visits from … from Éric? And her fling with Thierry Lataste?”

  “I don’t know … Habit … Or money, maybe.”

  “How did it work? I mean, she didn’t do it at her place, with her son in the next room, surely?”

  Sandra looked away.

  “I don’t know. We never talked about that.”

  Vilar sprang to his feet, making the woman flinch in fear and surprise. He paced the room, trying to think of some way he could get her to talk.

  “Look, do me a favour and stop fucking me about, alright? ‘I don’t know’, ‘I can’t remember …’ It’s one step forward and two steps back. I’m not here for the good of my health, you got that? A guy you know comes around here one night planning to kill you, but you, you don’t know what it’s about, you play the innocent … I don’t mind you taking me for a fool, I mean in my job I get it all the time, but just know that right now you’re guilty of perverting the course of justice, you’re protecting a criminal on the run, and that’s more than enough for me to make your life very difficult.”

  Sandra tried to say something. She stood up. He waved for her to sit down.

  “Let me finish. I reckon you know a lot more than you’re saying, about Nadia, about her activities, and I think you probably did what she did sometimes, when you needed cash, and you often need cash, don’t you? It’s as you said, whores are just people. So now you’re going to tell me everything, very calmly, because if you don’t I’m going to arrest you and have your son taken into care by social services. Think about that. It’s another thing you have in common with Nadia, trying to protect your sons from the shit you’ve had to deal with, am I right?”

  “I see, so that’s your attitude?”

  “Maybe. But let’s talk about yours, because I’m losing time and patience.”

  She got up quickly and stalked across the room. As she passed him, Vilar could smell her perfume, though he did not recognise the dominant fragrance. Nor did he react to her swearing at him behind his back.

  Then she went back and curled up in the chair again, her eyes fixed on the tray on which the glasses stood.

  “We hit it off the first time we met at S.A.N.I., we worked in the same team that first month, we joined at about the same time. There was this foreman, Castets, who was desperate to fuck us, so we stuck together. He’d do his round every night in a company van and he’d ask us out for a drink, or for something to eat at Les Capucins, as if we really wanted to party at eleven or twelve o’clock at night when we had kids at home. Every night, the same thing. We’d say no, he never pushed it and he never held it against us, never tried to blackmail us, nothing. It was weird … Let’s just say it was friendly persuasion, or maybe that dickhead was waiting until one us felt desperate enough to fuck him, I don’t know. And then he stopped. So anyway, Nadia and I, we’d laugh about it, and she’d say that we could make serious money out of a nerd like that, then she started talking about what she did so she could make ends meet, so she could save up to buy her apartment. One day, she told me she’d found a little studio flat on the cours Balguerie – it’s number 145, if you want to check – and she’d go there once or twice a week with clients who contacted her on a mobile phone she kept only for that. It was cheaper than the hotels on the bypass where she used to go. Sometimes, she’d stay overnight, especially Saturdays, and she was making good money. She also had a network of guys who’d call her up if they needed to close a deal with some foreign client. She’d pretend to be a secretary at some meeting, or over dinner and she’d be all over these guys, spend a couple of nights with them while they were here and mostly it worked out pretty well …”

  “Did that happen a lot?”

  “Three or four times a year … maybe more, I don’t know. It was well paid.”

  “Why did she go work at S.A.N.I.?”

  “To have a payslip, so as not to attract attention at school, with the civil service. She did it for her kid … She wanted him to have a normal life – a normal mother, as she put it. She didn’t want a social worker coming around poking her nose in.”

  “What about Éric? Was he collecting the takings?”

  Sandra smiled bitterly and shrugged.

  “No. Nadia worked alone. She wasn’t some whore walking the streets, competing with girls from Africa and Romania with some bastard of a pimp running the show. Besides, Éric never gave her any grief about what she did, he told her he loved her, that he’d never hurt her or her kid. Let’s just say that from time to time he borrowed money that he never paid back.”

  “Did she ask for it back?”

  “He’s not the kind of guy you ask for anything. But she must have done, once or twice, and from what she told me that’s when things got ugly. He’d get angry, they’d fight.”

  “Where? At her place? At her studio flat?”

  “It depended. Wherever. Every time it happened she’d try to get him to forgive her. Or he’d bring round a few of his mates to punish her, if you know what I mean.”

  Vilar knew. He tried to see where all this was leading. He would have to go and talk to the boy, Victor, who might know something about this man who thought he was his father. He took two large swigs of water to wash the bitter taste from his mouth. He desperately wanted a cigarette, and vaguely hoped that maybe the young woman might take out a pack so he could ask for one. He glanced towards the closed shutters, wishing he could look out at the scenery rather than at these blank boards: a lit window in the tower block opposite, the halo of light that hovered above the city at night. Suddenly he felt boxed in. Trapped in a blind alley. Only Sandra de Melo’s gentle face, the shimmer of her dark eyes, stopped him from getting to his feet and leaving right now. It had been a long time since he had taken such pleasure in looking at a woman’s face.

  At the same time, he wondered how she could have sold her body to these men, allowed them to touch her, penetrate her, pollute her. In spite of everything he had seen in his years with the police, he still found it difficult to imagine the terrible plight that could lead people to debase themselves like that. At what point does a person think that there is no other solution than this self-abnegation, this leap into the void, this poison that seeps into you, that you try to wash away, to mask with perfume, this self-loathing that kills more swiftly than any illness since with each new humiliation something in the body, something in the soul dies? Nadia was already dead long before she was murdered. Her body no longer mattered to her. All she could do was try to keep a small part of herself, that part of her mind that included her love for her son, her last vestige of dignity, safe from this mental necrosis. As someone might clutch their most precious belongings to them as they are swept away by a landslide.

  He wanted to go on talking to her, if only for the simple pleasure it afforded him, and the curious sensation of helplessness he felt when she looked at him.

  He came up with one more question, a pointless one in all probability. One way or another he would track down this Éric, it was only a matter of days, he had only to find the man’s police record.

  “These special … parties, what was Éric’s role?”

  “He was the one who told Nadia about them, he always drove her there. From what she said, he checked out the place where it was being held. Apparently there was some cop who helped him out.”

  “A cop? What do you mean, a cop?”

  “What do you want me to say? Some officer he knew. Maybe they were friends. I mean sometimes criminals get to know policemen, don’t they?”

  “Did you ever see this officer?”

  She shrugged and gave him a mocking smile.

  “It bugs you, doesn’t it, the idea that there’s some colleague mixed up in this shit?”

  He thought back to his conversations with Daras and Pradeau. The possibility of a leak.

  “What kind of places were these parties held? Did she tell you?”

  “A couple of times it was a villa in Cap-Fer
rat, or one down near Pyla, there were politicians there and people off the television. The sort of arseholes who get their pictures in the paper when they spend their holidays or the weekends in the area. Famous people, she said, but she never mentioned any names. A lot of guys off the T.V. are happy to pay for a hooker for the night, as long as she doesn’t look like a hooker … The sort of girls who play walk-on parts and are happy to get fucked for a thousand euros, or two thousand, in the hope that one of these bastards might call and ask her to work on his fucking show. I tell you, there’s no shortage of slappers who dream of being on T.V. Nadia used to try and persuade me to come, telling me I’d see loads of famous people, that it was totally safe. About how there was lots of champagne and coke set out in little bowls. Not that she ever touched the stuff, but she saw those bastards doing coke. And she told me …”

  A telephone rang, the ringtone made a mooing sound like a cow and Sandra jumped to her feet and took a small black mobile from her pocket. She was pale now, her hands fumbled to open it and her fingers hesitated over the keys. She looked at bluish glow of the screen. Vilar stood up, and they stood staring at each other, the mobile and the ridiculous mooing sound between them. On the screen he saw a picture of little José.

  “Who is it?” Sandra said to Vilar.

  “Answer it and you’ll find out. Doesn’t it tell you on the screen?”

  “No. This is my new phone. I haven’t had time to set it up properly.”

  She tried to bring herself to answer.

  “What if it’s him?”

  She stared at Vilar, wild-eyed, leaning towards him. He tried to think of something to say.

  “If it’s him, give me the phone. Keep calm.”

  She answered the call and gave a little cry of surprise.

  “Paola? What’s happening?”

  Paola. Sandra’s sister. From where he stood, Vilar could hear her voice crackle through the receiver. She was talking quickly and loudly.

  “So what was he like, this guy? Yeah, I know him, kind of. Say again? Yeah, obviously.”

  “Let me speak to her.”

  Vilar introduced himself, explained why he was there with Sandra. The woman told him that a guy had turned up asking for Sandra at about six o’clock, saying he was a friend of hers, and was worried because she wasn’t at home. Charming, polite, with a big bandage on his neck. Since Paola could not tell him anything, he did not press the point and left, wishing her a pleasant evening. Too polite to be genuine.

  “I can spot that kind of bullshit artist from fifty metres,” Paola said, “I watched him leave, he got into a big car, a metallic grey estate. I stood behind the curtain and watched him drive slowly past the block. Given that Sandra had phoned me this morning and told me a bit about what had happened – she’s a magnet for this sort of trouble, I don’t know how she does it – anyway, I thought I should call to warn her. So who is this guy?”

  “You said he had a bandage on his neck?”

  “Yeah, a big thing like surgical collar. So who is he?”

  “Someone we’ve been looking for. He’s got a grudge against your sister, but we’re protecting her. Did you call the local police? And what about the car, did you see what make it was?”

  “No. I don’t know anything about cars. It was an estate, really big, too … Pretty new, I guess, because it was gleaming. But no, I didn’t call the police. In our family, we sort out our own problems, we don’t get the police involved. When it comes to Sandra, I’m kind of used to situations like this.” She hesitated. “I’m all alone here with the kids. My husband’s a truck driver, he’s not here at the moment. Do you think we’re in any danger from that guy?”

  “No, I don’t think you’re in any danger. He’s just trying to track down your sister, but we’ll be waiting for him if he shows up. But give the local force a call, they’ll keep an eye on things. Meanwhile, if you see him hanging around again, give me a call, maybe we can collar him.”

  He heard the woman sigh, clearly relieved. She trotted out a few hollow platitudes about the world we live in, then asked if she could have another word with Sandra. Vilar handed the phone back and left the two sisters to say their goodbyes. Eventually Sandra rang off and set the mobile gently on the table in front of her, still open, as though her life depended on the next call, or the next, or the next.

  “How did he know my sister’s address? He didn’t even know she existed!”

  “You’re sure you never mentioned her?”

  “Of course I’m sure. I would never get her mixed up in my shit. She did more than enough for me when I was young, when I moved out of my parents” place and all she got for it was grief. And it’s not like Éric could have looked her up on the internet, her last name is Ménenteau, not de Melo.’

  Vilar looked at his watch. I was 8.50 p.m.

  “He’s coming here,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “What do you mean, who? Éric whatever-the-fuck-his-name-is. Who did you think I meant? We have to get out of here. Let’s go up to your neighbour’s place. You get the kid ready, and I’ll get another officer to take you somewhere. We’ll put you in a safe house.”

  The neighbour, Madame Fadlaoui, opened as soon as they knocked, looked at them wide-eyed and ushered them inside quickly, glancing anxiously along the walkway before she closed the door. She was a tall woman with a face like a knife, an aquiline nose. In the immaculately polished living room decorated with brass plates, intricate lamps, leather cushions and sofas, she invited them to sit down and offered them something to drink. In a corner of the room, a little girl was staring goggle-eyed at a flat-screen T.V. and jiggling the buttons on a games controller. Little characters were running and jumping and shooting at each other.

  “You’re the police officer, is that right?” Madame Fadlaoui said.

  “My name is Sihem. And this is Amel.”

  The little girl barely tore her eyes from the game to greet them with an extravagant flick of her eyelashes.

  “What’s going on?” Sihem Fadlaoui said.

  “We need to leave,” Sandra said. “I’ll explain everything later.”

  The woman looked at Vilar questioningly. He turned away and keyed a number into his phone.

  “Marianne? Something’s come up … No, nothing, I don’t have time to go into it right now. I need you to put out an alert for a man named Éric, surname unknown, released from prison in ’93, probably from the Gironde area … No, that’s all I’ve got. We’re not talking some minor offence here, it had to be something major. Yeah, that kind of thing … Anyway, Sandra de Melo. I found her, she’s here with me. We need to get her into a safe house, I’ll sort that. O.K.? I’ll call Laurent. I don’t want news of this getting all around the station. This guy knows too much, he’s got someone on the force feeding him information, I have confirmation of it … I’ll tell you later, I’ve no time now. You have any idea where Laurent is at the moment? O.K., well that’s not too far. He should get her quickly. I think our guy might come back. We need bodies here. I’ll hang around to wait for reinforcements. Yeah, that’s good.”

  He hung up and keyed another number.

  “Laurent?”

  He gave a detailed account of the situation, told him that they had identified the suspect, Éric, and had officers looking for him. Pradeau seemed overwhelmed by so much information, his uneasiness was palpable. Vilar felt as if he were dealing with a swimmer, overcome by exhaustion, plunging into the murmuring depths of the ocean. He told Pradeau to get a grip, said he needed him. Pradeau quickly composed himself and promised to get there within half an hour, and he kept his word.

  By the time Pradeau rang the doorbell, José was half asleep, slumped against his mother, the clown in his arms. As a precaution, it was Vilar who opened the door. They said goodbye to Sihem Fadlaoui, thanked her for her help and warned her to lock the door and not to open it to anyone, and to call the police if she saw anything suspicious. The building would be under surveillance in case É
ric came back. The woman turned the almost gentle steel of her grey face on the policemen and gave them a sceptical smile.

  “My husband and my son will be home soon; that way I’ll feel safer,” she said.

  Sandra stepped out into the walkway behind Pradeau who was already on his way down the stairs, waving for the woman to follow him. Vilar brought up the rear. Little José was clinging to his mother’s neck, his chin on her shoulder, staring behind her, looking up only when they passed a ceiling light. When Vilar appeared in his field of vision, the child raised his head, his mouth half open in surprise, then reverted to his previous position. Sandra de Melo was panting, José was a heavy child and she frequently had to hitch him up, having trouble finding a comfortable way to hold him.

  It was now almost 11.00, nothing was stirring in the building. The buzz of television sets, the sound of muffled voices, music and laughter followed them to the ground floor, but they encountered no-one. Sandra and her son got into the back of Pradeau’s car; he was to drive them to the police station until someone could find them a place for the night. As Vilar was heading back upstairs to hide out in Sandra’s apartment, Pradeau insisted he take his weapon and pressed the pistol into his hands.

  “You never know … this guy sounds like he’s completely out of control.”

  He did not give Vilar time to answer, quickly putting the car into gear and driving off. Vilar stared at the gun, watched the street light cast copper reflections on the steel, then he tucked it into his belt.