Talking to Ghosts

by Hervé Le Corre

  “Was he different when you met him?”

  “He used to be the gentlest, most handsome man in the world. He was working as a barman in a club, where me and a gang of girls used to go for a laugh, for a break. We were twenty-five back then, working on the checkouts at Carrefour, so to let off steam – to forget the crappy job, the bosses, the long shifts – we would go down this club on a Saturday night and we weren’t scared of anything, maybe because we already knew we’d never get far in life. I don’t know … Anyway, he was working behind the bar and he had this amazing smile and we got talking. And that was that. For two years, he was fantastic. I knew he’d been inside, he insisted on telling me, wanted things to be clear. Some nights he didn’t come home and I suspected he was still in the life, but I ignored it because otherwise I was happy.”

  The ghost of a smile flitted over her face and then her features hardened again.

  “Alexia was born, and that’s when he changed. He never took to her. Once, when he was really pissed off, he told me she wasn’t his. But anyway …”

  She fell silent, leaned back in the seat, her eyes down. From outside came the sound of children playing.

  “She’s not here, your daughter?”

  “I put her in the outdoor day-care centre. It’s not good for a kid, being shut up in a caravan. Just look around – I do my best to keep the place clean, but it’s like living in a shoebox. At least at the centre they look after her, she can have fun. When you’ve got a social worker, it’s pretty much free. And it saves on food. And it means when I’m at work I know where she is. One of my neighbours picks her up and looks after her till I get back.”

  She stood up suddenly, grabbed her cigarettes and lit one.

  “There is one place you might find Éric. At his foster parents’ place in Saint-Martin-du-Puy, over in Entre-deux-Mers. An aunt of mine lives nearby, she’s from Sauveterre, that’s how I remember. He put them through hell when he was a kid, but every time he goes home they take him in with open arms. The father worked in the post office, and she looks after kids placed with her by social services. That’s how they ended up looking after Éric until he was eighteen.

  “What are their names?”

  “He must have told me, but I can’t remember … Pralon? Something like that … Oh, I’ve got it: Pradeau. He even mentioned the mother’s name was Irène.”

  A painful shudder ran through Vilar’s body.

  “Has Éric got a brother?”

  “Yes, but they fell out. Pradeau’s son, his biological son. I don’t remember his first name. Éric never talked about him. It was like he was ashamed. Like he was hiding something. And no-one was ever allowed to bring up the subject. It was taboo.”

  Vilar stood up and immediately felt so faint he had to lean against a cupboard to stop himself from falling. The woman noticed his malaise, the hand bringing a cigarette to her lips froze in mid-air, but she said nothing. Vilar mumbled something like an apology or a farewell and rushed outside. He stared up at the leaves of the towering oak trees, peaceful, dappled, rustling gently, and headed back to his car, his mind blank, the heat clinging to his shoulders like an attacker weighing in him trying to wear him down.

  He drove to Langon at an almost steady 150 k.p.h., sirens blaring. He had the front windows open and the noise left him dazed. He did not even try to think about Laurent Pradeau’s betrayal. He knew only that he had been betrayed, and that that was reason enough to floor the accelerator, drive to some tiny village of whose existence he had only just learned, turn up on the doorstep of these people and see what happened, improvise. He felt as though he were driving through a tunnel. Not a dark tunnel, one that was dazzling, blinding. A light had been turned on in his darkness and he could not bear it; nor could he work out anything other than that this journey was necessary.

  He bought a local map at a petrol station and pored over it, smoking a cigarette from a pack he found in the glove compartment. With some difficulty he found the village, circled it in pen and set off again through this peaceful, verdant countryside with the almost childlike feeling – a mixture of excitement and anxiety – that he was advancing into enemy territory. He took two wrong turnings and had to negotiate paths that led into deep woodland. He drew up outside the little village, at the junction of two narrow roads, turning the car so it was facing back the way he had come. He continued on foot and spotted an old woman in a large straw hat sitting in a garden chair in the shade of a catalpa tree.

  She started at the sound of his voice, roused from her doze, she narrowed her eyes and glared at him, her mouth a black hole of astonishment. He repeated his question; she appeared to give it some thought then raised her arms and hesitantly pointed to the right.

  “Down that way, the last house, the one with the blue shutters and the car outside.”

  He wished he could calm the confused hammering in his chest. He wished he did not feel so out of breath, wished that the heat would let up. He wondered whether he might not collapse, right here in the middle of the village street. He walked around the car, an old Renault estate whose right-hand doors were dented. The inside of the car was a jumble of boxes, empty water bottles and plastic bags. A duvet was spread across the huge boot. Someone had slept in this car. Éric Sanz had slept here. He lived in this car, forever moving about, travelling alone, impossible to pin down, the more so since his brother the policeman was keeping him up to speed about their investigations. And now he was in his parents’ house. Vilar kept walking, past the house and towards the fields and the vineyards which stretched as far as the line of tall, dark trees. As he walked he tried to decide on a plan of action, given that he was alone and unarmed. He thought about phoning Daras, imagined the melee, dozens of uniformed officers, Sanz being led away in handcuffs to the waiting police van, taking any information he had about Pablo to his cell. He saw himself standing in the confusion of a major police operation, watching the man being led away without a word – because guys like Éric, the ones who talk tough, who like to spew threats and insults, rapidly become silent as a tombstone as soon as they’re caught, somehow let fall scraps of information, just enough false leads to keep the investigating magistrate happy without ever giving up the truth. At any moment now, he might pile into his car and drive off and Vilar had no way of stopping him.

  He turned back up the lane. He knocked on the door.

  The man who opened looked at him wild-eyed, his jaw dropped, his chin quivered – it was so obvious he knew exactly who was standing on his doorstep that Vilar did not feel the need to flash his warrant card.

  “My son has just left,” the man stammered.

  He was tall and thin. His long neck was nothing more than a bundle of tendons in the midst of which his Adam’s apple bobbed like a ball in a fountain. His eyes, set into his tanned face, trapped in a web of wrinkles, were bright and piercing.

  “Let me in,” Vilar said.

  “Reinforcements will be getting here any moment now.”

  Pradeau senior let his arms fall to his sides and led him down a long corridor adorned with small picture frames, but Vilar did not so much as glance at them. They went into the living room where a television was blaring.

  Vilar saw the elderly woman sitting in an armchair, her head propped up on a large cushion as her husband moved over to take the remote control and turn down the sound. She gave a bad-tempered scowl and then stared blackly at the policeman.

  “May I present Irène, my wife. She’s been ill for five years. She’s always complaining she can’t hear the television, so she steals the remote and turns up the sound. She can’t manage to wash herself any more, but she can still steal the remote … The doctors are mystified. This gentleman wants to speak to Éric!”

  He shouted and Vilar realised the message was intended not only for the old woman. He listened carefully. The rest of the house was silent.

  “Give him the bread money,” the old woman said, “I put it on the shelf in the kitchen. I thought the loaf he brought
on Tuesday was overbaked. The boys don’t like it like that, I don’t know how many times I’ve told him.”

  She nodded and turned back to the television, picked up the remote control and turned the sound up again, but even so Vilar heard a faint creak outside the living room. He dashed out of the room, but did not even have time to turn before he felt a tremendous blow, someone slamming him against a chest of drawers. He felt himself being lifted up and thrown to the ground. His head banged against the skirting board, pain shot through his body and his stomach heaved as someone kicked him.

  “What on earth is going on?” the old woman screeched.

  Vilar vomited up a little bile, forcing himself to breathe because he could feel himself slipping into a bleary darkness. He inhaled almost with a roar, felt a hand grab his throat and heard a shriek echo through the house, dimly aware that the shrill, cracked voice was screaming: “Help, son! Help!”

  Then a face pressed itself against his and he saw the green eyes staring into his, the hesitation in the stare, the uncertainty that flickered across the face each time the scream started up again. And the mixture of hatred and moronic brainlessness. His breath smelled of menthol. The guy was chewing gum. Vilar focused on this because he could focus on nothing else.

  “So you managed to track me down … a nice piece of police work. I heard you were good, but even so, I have to fucking hand it to you. I’m not going to kill you. Not here. Not in front of them. You already scared my mother and I should rip you apart just for that, you fucker. Not here, but soon, I’ll tell you where to meet me and then we’ll see. And anyway, you’re not done yet. What’s his name again? Oh, yeah, Pablo! Think about him. I’ll be in touch soon.”

  Sanz slammed Vilar’s head against the floor and Vilar saw him clamber over him, but did not hear the door bang or the car drive off. He lay there, barely conscious until the old man pressed some ice against his forehead. When he came round, he had no idea how long he had been unconscious. He struggled to sit up, leaning back against the wall and pressed the bag of ice to his head. The old man said nothing. He came and went between the hall and the living room, fussing anxiously around Vilar, shuffling about in his slippered feet. He brought a glass of water which Vilar drained. The old woman sat in her armchair moaning over and over, “Oh God, oh God.”

  Vilar slowly tried to get to his feet and was surprised to see blood on the tiles. He wondered where he was bleeding from, his fingers felt a wetness at the back of his head and another wound above his cheekbone, blood trickled from his chin down his shirt and onto the floor.

  “I’m getting blood everywhere,” he said to the man who reappeared with a sponge, and knelt down to clean him up.

  The man got to his feet again and disappeared into the kitchen. Vilar followed him, in spite of his headache and the dizziness that almost did for him again. He tore off a sheet of kitchen roll and pressed it to his cheek, then dropped the bag of ice into the sink.

  “Monsieur Pradeau, I need to call Laurent.”

  Pradeau looked at Vilar sadly.

  “What difference will it make? Just look at this mess … this catastrophe. My sons.”

  “I knew nothing about it. Laurent told me that his mother was ill, he told me sometimes he couldn’t bring himself to come and see you.”

  “I know. He doesn’t visit much anymore. It hardly matters, she hasn’t recognised him for the past couple of years … And, well, he and I have never known how to communicate … It’s been a month since I’ve seen him. No news. Not even a phone call. I called his mobile the other day, but there was no answer. I don’t know. But Éric, he visits all the time. He’s the only person she still recognises. It’s very strange. She didn’t give birth to him, he didn’t come to us until he was four, but every time he comes, she gets out of her chair and takes a few steps so she can hug him. And every time he leaves, she cries. Five minutes later she’s forgotten he was here, but every time it breaks her heart to see him go.”

  He pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and sat down heavily. His pale eyes bored into Vilar as he asked why he had come.

  “I came to arrest your son Éric.”

  “What did he do?”

  The old man clung to the table with both hands, leaning forward waiting for Vilar’s answer.

  “We believe he killed a woman.”

  Pradeau closed his eyes. His knuckles were white from gripping the sides of the table so hard. “It’s not true,” he murmured. He shook his head slowly then opened his eyes again and looked at Vilar through tears that welled in his eyes but did not flow.

  “I’m listening,” he said in a whisper.

  “It took us three months to trace it to him, to here. I also came because I wanted to find out why Laurent lied to me for so long, and why he disappeared a week ago. There are other things I’d like to know too, but there’s no guarantee I ever will.”

  Vilar sat down because the room was spinning.

  The old man took a pack of tissues from his pocket, wiped his eyes and sniffled. He was struggling to breathe. His voice quavered a little.

  “They really were brothers, you know. They really loved each other. Laurent used to protect Éric, he stood up for him at school when the other kids bullied him, and Éric would barely talk. Years it went on, until he was in the sixième he hardly said a word, the only person he’d talk to was his big brother … He was very affectionate with us, he’d come and snuggle up to us on the sofa. He was like that for a long time. And then when he started getting into trouble in his teens, Laurent covered for him, as they say … He lied for him. I’m sure he was even in on some of his brother’s pranks. But there was nothing anyone could do. Not us, and not Laurent. It was as if there was something broken inside him before he ever came to us. As soon as he turned eighteen he moved out, we weren’t able to stop him. He promised he’d come and visit … It was three years before we had any news from him … Laurent was studying for his law degree at the time. He’d already decided he wanted to join the police, it was all he ever talked about.”

  “And did they see each other? I mean other than here?”

  “I think so. It’s something I only realised a few weeks ago. Laurent knew about one of his mother’s funny turns, even though I’d never mentioned it to him. But Éric was here the day it happened. That’s how I knew that there was something – that they were in touch with each other. When Éric was sent to prison, Laurent said he never wanted to hear his name again. All the time he was inside, he would tell us to shut up if we so much as referred to his brother, and it broke my wife’s heart. Éric being in prison and our sons not speaking to each other …”

  “Did you know that Éric had a daughter, that he had lived with a woman for two years?”

  “Yes … He mentioned it. But he said it was his life and none of our business. So we had no choice but to accept it.”

  Pradeau got up and went and looked in the living room.

  “How is she? All this has shaken her up.”

  The man shrugged and sat down again.

  “She’s asleep. I gave her a tablet. One of the advantages of the disease is that you tend to forget your troubles. I doubt she’ll remember anything about what happened. Or maybe she’ll have a nightmare or an anxiety attack, but she gets those all the time over such trivial things, or sometimes when she realises that she’s slipping away … I don’t know how it’s possible, those moments of lucidity. Sometimes, she’ll look at me, she’ll take my hand and squeeze it hard enough to break a bone and she’ll say ‘What’s wrong with me? What’s happening to me?’ And it’s like seeing her sink into quicksand. I don’t know how to explain it. She’s so far away and at the same time she’s so close. She’s alive and she’s already dead … She’s still here and yet all I have of the real her are memories.”

  He trailed off, out of breath.

  “They all leave and there’s nothing I can do to keep them here. Even her … It’s like when you catch someone’s hand as they’re falling and y
ou feel it slipping and there’s nothing you can do, you know?”

  “But you can still touch her, still talk to her …”

  The old man shook his head angrily.

  “You can’t possibly understand. She’s not the woman she used to be, she doesn’t even remember who she used to be. I don’t know how to explain … You don’t touch someone, don’t kiss someone just for your own pleasure … It doesn’t work like that. And she doesn’t react, doesn’t react at all. Sometimes she gets frightened when I get too close to her and she screams. And sometimes I’ll hold her in my arms like a big doll. There are times I’d rather be alone than have to live with someone who exists only because she has still has

  “vital signs”, as the doctor puts it. Sometimes, when I have to change her or wash her, I get these terrible thoughts. I shouldn’t really tell you that, you being police and all. I’ve never even told my son. He pretends he doesn’t understand. That way he doesn’t have to deal with it.”

  Vilar tried to summon an image of Laurent Pradeau from the description his father gave. He found it difficult to reconcile it with the man he thought he knew. He gulped air like an exhausted swimmer forcing himself to stay on the surface.

  “What’s going to happen now?” the old man said.

  “We’ll put your house under surveillance, put a tap on your phone in case Éric gets in touch. That’s all. One way or the other he’ll be arrested. He’s been playing a game and he’s bound to lose in the end. I’ll need a photograph of him, the most recent one you have. We’ve probably got a mugshot, but you know what they’re like, your own children wouldn’t recognise you in one.”

  Vilar made no mention of Laurent because he did not know what would happen, and he did not want to overwhelm the old man slumped in the chair. He got to his feet and realised he no longer felt dizzy and his legs seemed able to support his weight.