by Lazlo Ferran
“Are you ever afraid of the dark?” she asked later, with her hands clasped on the railing of the viewing platform at the top of the Tower. Her hair, black as the night around us, gently wafted in the breeze.
I looked out over the sparkling myriad of little lights below us, and considered her question. “If you mean did I want the lights on in my bedroom when I was a boy, then the answer is no. But during the war, over enemy territory, I was afraid of the darkness around us. It seemed malignant, solid, like a gaping wound in the fabric of sanity.”
“You have never talked about the War before. You were a pilot?”
“Pilot in the RAF, yes. It sounds very romantic I guess but I was only a bomber pilot.”
“And that’s where you really discovered your secret talent?” I looked to see if she was teasing me. She had a grim smile on her face but it was genuine.
“There was a raid. It was a very bad raid. Most of the squadron were killed and mine was the only aircraft to get back. My, intuition or call it what you like, saved us.”
She nodded. “I’m not afraid of the dark. I love the dark! Partly because that is when the Jackals sleep. Even when I was little, I remember once on holiday my father grabbing my arm roughly, and whispering harshly for me to follow him. We were near a beach and it hurt my arm as we ran to escape from someone. When I turned once, I saw a man chasing us, but I couldn’t see anything about his features or anything.”
“Is it too difficult for you to say anything about how he died?” I asked.
There was a long pause which I did not want to interrupt. “My Dad died in 1972. I was away at boarding school, in England, when I heard about it. I remember the Matron calling me to her office and she gave me a cup of tea. This was something they never did with the girls. I knew something bad had happened. She told me, my father had died. She was really very nice about it but it was hard for me. My mother collected me the next day and took me to Paris. I don’t remember the funeral very well except, smiling faces and black everywhere. My mother was never really interested in his papers, his hobby as she called it, but I had grown up sitting on his lap, in his study, asking lots of questions, and sometimes getting answers. Maman packed all his papers up after the funeral, and put them in a suitcase. I didn’t want it at first, but later I nagged my mother about the suitcase in the attic, and she said I could have it when I was eighteen, although really I think she wanted to burn it. I think she connected it with his death.”
That seemed to be all she was going to say, so I put my arm around her, and we walked around the circuit of the observation deck several times. I noticed she was still stiff with tension, and she glanced towards the new arrivals from the lift, when we passed. Then, suddenly she shook herself loose. “I will be back in a moment,” she said.
“Sure,” I said to her receding back, surprised.
I wondered back to the place where we’d stood when we had been talking. I waited for perhaps ten minutes before starting to worry about her. After hesitating several times I went to look for her. Coming around one of the corners of the platform, I saw Georgina facing away from me, and towards a man it appeared she had been talking to. He was as white as a sheet and was looking from her face, to mine, and then to something in her hand.
“Georgina?” I called.
“Stay away! Wait for me back there.”
“What’s going on?”
“Listen. I don’t need your help!” she said turning to me, but as she did I saw the man dart around the corner, away from us and then I saw the gun in Georgina’s hand.
“Now look what you have done!” she shouted. She seemed incensed for a moment, almost forgetting who I was, but then in a level voice she said. “He is one of the Jackals. He tried to kill me. Follow him. Make sure at least he leaves the Tower. You can do that at least, can’t you?”
I was confused by her anger, and the gun, but did what she asked. I was acutely aware that I too might be a target for the ‘Concilium Putus Visum’. I peered around the corner and could see the same dark-haired man, dressed in a blue bomber jacket, waiting in the short queue for the lift. I quickly pulled my head back, and waited until I heard the lift-doors clank shut. I went and stood in line for the next lift, and when it came I took it down to the second floor. I took the next lift which went the final stretch down to the ground floor. I checked each deck in turn before returning to the top deck. Georgina was standing there at the railings clutching her handbag, which I assumed, now held the gun.
“Where the hell did you get that gun? Did you know he would be here?” I was quite angry with her. Then I saw that her face was white and so were her hands, gripping the railing. To my complete horror I saw that somebody, presumably Georgina, had cut a hole in the safety fence with wire-cutters, big enough to climb through. She was staring into the distance with a look of defiance in her face.
“Don’t stop me!”
I knew she couldn’t possibly climb through before I could take hold of her, so I walked calmly up to her and gripped her arms firmly.
“Georgina. Don’t do that. Let’s talk about this,” I whispered in her ear, not wanting to attract attention. “Let’s go before somebody sees.” I heard her quietly start to weep, and she went limp in my arms. I embraced her once, kissed her, and lead her quickly to the lift door.
“No!” she said under her breath.
“It’s alright. He’s gone. I followed him down.”
When we were down we took a taxi straight to her sister’s flat. I couldn’t see any cars following. Georgina just sat despondently on the sofa while I made her some coffee. I sat down beside her on the sofa and put my arm around her.
“Georgina. Do you want to tell me what all this is about?” I said, after wondering for some time, what was the best approach to get her to talk.
“You wouldn’t understand. I am in terrible trouble. Oh I know you lost your daughter and you are in danger too,” she said touching my hand, “But not as deeply as I am. I wish I could explain it all. But I can’t.”
“It involves the Jackals?”
“Yes. Of course it does,” she said impatiently.
“Okay. No more questions. Do you want anything? Something to eat? Drink?”
“No. I couldn’t eat. Just watch the television or listen to some music and let me curl up beside you.”
Every word seemed to be an effort for her, so although I really didn’t feel like it, I turned on the television, and watched an old movie that had just started. She was still tense for some time, nestled against me, but then I could feel her breathing evenly, and I guessed she was asleep.
Just after midnight my legs had gone to sleep, and I could bare sitting still no longer. I had to risk waking her. “Darling?”
“Um.”
“It’s late. Let me carry you to bed.”
“No. Don’t fuss. I want to wash.” She forced herself to her feet and padded off to the bathroom while I busied myself, tidying up in the kitchen. I followed her into the bathroom and after cleaning my teeth, I found her in the large bed with the sheets pulled around her neck. She smiled at me and I leaned over to kiss her. My hands discovered she was naked under the sheets.
“Hold me,” she said.
As I put my arm around her she turned to me and kissed me, a long, warm and supplicating kiss. I moved gently on top of her, still kissing her.
“No,” she said, so I stopped and pulled away. “Yes,” she said. “Make love to me.”
Sunday dawned long before we awoke. The sun must have risen as usual behind the veil of thin fog that usually covered Paris in those days, and the city must have slowly come to life. When I finally did wake, at first my thoughts were all about what I had to do that Monday, before realising it was Sunday, and then understanding what Georgina had tried to do the previous day. Then I laid there wondering what I could do to make her feel better. I needn’t have worried. When she woke, she seemed her usual perky self. I watched her closely as she quickly climbed out of bed and walk
ed into the shower. I watched her as she dried herself, and asked me, “Coffee?” and I watched her as we sat sipping coffee, watching the early morning news broadcast. I could see nothing in her demeanor to suggest that she had tried to kill herself the previous day.
“Look!” she said, with a sharp slap to my wrist.
I looked at the television, at the news reader, and listened to the rapid French.
“Yesterday there was another murder with the victim apparently squeezed to death. The Gendarmes in Orléans are treating it as the work of a serial killer, and are asking witnesses who were in or near the Avenue de Paris around 1am to contact them. All calls will be treated with the strictest confidence. Now over to our correspondent in Orléans, Paul Guiffrey. Paul. How are the locals reacting to this latest killing?”
“Georges. People are growing increasingly nervous about these murders. They seem to follow a pattern. Always late at night or very early morning, in a heavily built-up area, and around the weekend. People are afraid to go out. Some wonder if it is not a crazy vigilante killer. One lady I spoke to is too terrified to go out.”
“Orléans. The last one was Lyon! It’s coming north! Maybe even to Paris,” I said out loud.
“What makes you think that?” said Georgina, pulling away from my arm around her shoulder, and walking out to the kitchenette.
“Don’t you think so? I mean you just have to look at a map. It’s coming for me!” I laughed. “I guess you think I am paranoid!” I laughed again.
“Oh! We are out of waffles. I want some! Wait here!” She rushed past me, pulling on the afghan coat over her completely naked body and slipping on a pair of high-heels. “Have you some change? I know a little pâtisserie that is open on Sunday mornings.”
“You are not going out like that are you?”
“Why not? Does it excite you?”
“Um hm.” I could swear she was trying to distract me from my question. Just as she passed me, I felt a cold shadow pass over my heart, or perhaps my soul. It was like seeing a wraith walking across the dusty floor of some long-forgotten crypt. I reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Don’t go out. Something bad is going to happen.”
“Why? What is going to happen?” For a moment she looked scared, but then she smiled. “Don’t be silly. I am just going around the corner.”
I let her wrist go and heard the door shut behind her. For a moment I just sat there, thinking about the strength of feeling that I had at these times, when I knew something bad was going to happen, but then I noticed her handbag on the shelf. Thinking this time that it was an opportunity, I carefully unzipped it and peered inside. Sure enough there were the wire-cutters I had been expecting, with yellow plastic sleeves on the handles. She must have planned the whole thing. The gun was there too. Then I noticed a roughly folded slip of paper, out of place among the other neatly arranged make-up cases. I couldn’t resist a quick look. In neat and strangely familiar handwriting was a short note. “Need to visit London for a few days. Have found something fascinating. Catch you later darling. xx BB”
‘BB’, I wondered. Who could that be? I was sure I had seen the handwriting before, and I searched my memory but I couldn’t place it. Then I heard steps outside the door and quickly replaced the note. It was lucky for me that Georgina took so long to do whatever she was doing, before knocking on the door.
“Coming!” When I opened the door, however, she was holding a white envelope with blood-red writing on it. Her eyes were wide with fear. “What is it?”
She pushed past me and I closed the door behind her. She dropped the waffles on the sofa and sat down. “You open it. It’s from the ‘Concilium Putus Visum’.”
“Did they give it to you? Where did you see them?”
“It was under the door. Not there when I left.”
I lifted the envelope to my nose and smelled the surface. “Is it blood do you think?”
“They always write in blood, their own I think. It will turn brown soon.”
I slipped my index finger under the stuck-down edge of the heavy cartridge paper, and carefully slit the envelope open. I read the single paragraph of neat classical script in the centre of the page.
‘Come to Notre Dame tonight at eight. We have some information that you need, to save a man’s life.
Concilium Putus Visum’
I read it out loud to Georgina. She remained silent.
“You are not going to go of course? It’s a trap”
“Of course.” Her answer left some scope for doubt.
“But you’re not going?”
“I will go. They mean you. Why do you think those things happened, or nearly happened at the Eiffel Tower?”
“I don’t know, baby. I have been asking myself that question over and over again. I wanted to ask you but I didn’t want to upset you.”
“I am in a bad place. I am scared. I have done bad things and now somebody wants me to do worse things, to you. And I can’t. And it’s because of you, that I have hope for the first time since I was a little girl.”
I walked over to her, and she stood to face me, her coat falling open to reveal her pretty young body from neck to feet. I put my hands around her delicate waist and kissed her long and lovingly. This didn’t feel like the moment for sex. Her soft vulnerable eyes looked pleadingly at me.
“I want to help,” I said. “Why don’t you tell me who is making you do these things?”
She was silent for a moment. “I will. Soon. Now I am going in the shower. Why don’t you make the breakfast for a change?”
I picked up the paper-bag of waffles and set to work in the kitchen. I checked the fridge and decided on waffles with cream and butter, coffee and orange juice. Putting four waffles under the small grill, I set about working the percolator for the coffee. I had just stood back after boiling the water, and loading the percolator, when I noticed out of the corner of my eye some suspicious movement at the cooker. I leaped over and caught the hot grill as it slid out of its shelf, and lowered it to the cooker top, burning my hands in the process. Two of the waffles slid off gracefully on to the floor. In my pain I tried to catch one, but only succeeded in flipping it over to the shelf of glasses above the work surface opposite, and one of them came crashing down, showing glass all around my feet. I shouted in pain and frustration.
“What happened?” Georgina called from the bathroom.
I ran the cold tap and stuck my hands under it, while I swore under my breath. Georgina emerged and ran over to me.
“Stop!” I shouted. “There is glass all over the floor” She nearly slipped as she jerked to a halt just outside the kitchen doorway.
“I burned my hands trying to save the waffles. I saved two.” I grinned at her through the pain.
“Wait!” she said and returned wearing slippers. She looked funny naked, but wearing big furry slippers. I laughed.
“You stupid boy! What have you done?”
“The grill slid off the shelf. I was watching the coffee, and just saw it out of the corner of my eye. I grabbed it, to lower it to the cooker, and two of the waffles flew off. I tried to grab one but it hit my hand, and hit the glass!” My voice must have sounded hurt.
“Tch!” She had taken a dustpan and brush, and was quickly sweeping up all the glass, along with the two lost waffles.
“It’s started,” I said.
“What’s started?”
“You know. I feel so cursed at times like this.” Then I laughed. Yes, cursed was the best description I had ever thought up for what happened to me. The thought occurred to me, that maybe I had done something terrible when I was a little boy, or in previous life.
“Let’s look at your hands.” She pulled them from under the tap and inspected their rosy red palms. She gently touched with the tip of her finger, a couple of white patches that looked like nascent blisters. “ Keep them under the tap for half an hour.”
“Half an hour! Are you sure?”
“If you don’t want blisters, yes.”
>
Sure enough when I finally turned off the taps, my hands had returned to their normal colour and only one tiny patch looked like it might still become a blister. In the meantime Georgina had put on two more waffles, grilled them, and had fed me two, while I sipped coffee from a cup in her hand.
“You are like a little child,” she said, chiding me. I giggled.
“Seriously though,” I said. “Bad events often start like this, with little things. I feel it now. There is a force in here. It never normally happens with somebody else around though. Can’t you feel it?”
“No. I don’t feel anything. My life is bad anyway though at the moment.”
“It’s nearly lunch time. What should we do today? I don’t feel safe going out.”
“It’s a lovely day. I think we should go out,” Georgina countered. “I just want to go for a walk. Not much. Then maybe a film. I don’t think they will bother us if we are together. Anyway they know I will be at Notre Dame tonight. Why would they bother us now?”
“But you mustn’t go. I am telling you it’s a trap and now I feel even more strongly you mustn’t go!”
“I must go. Perhaps they have some information that will help you,” she replied.
“I doubt it. And even if they do, there will be a price, and it might be a price I don’t want to pay.”
She looked at me for a moment, a curious far-off look in her eye.
“If you are going, then I am coming with you,” I said.
We slipped out of the flat and strolled the tiny back streets of Paris, under the noon sun, and as early afternoon passed, Georgina took to window shopping, while I offered useful comments about her potential purchases.
She was looking at a suit, tailored for a woman, with broad shoulder pads, in a display of clothes by a designer I had not heard of, and I lifted her hair into a cascade above the nape of her neck and kissed it. She looked down at something and I followed her gaze. I scruffy kid about five years old was silently tugging the hem of her dress. She crouched down, and gently ruffled the hair of the little boy. “You are hungry, you poor thing.” He nodded silently, pitifully.
