Don't Turn Out the Lights

by Bernard Minier

  ‘Do I seem in any way unbalanced to you, mentally unstable or neurotic?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘If I tell you that I have good reason to believe that someone is following me, or having me followed…’

  ‘I believe you.’

  ‘That they are having the building watched.’

  ‘It certainly sounds quite serious.’

  ‘It is. You spend your time on the street, opposite my door. I would like you to notify me if you see anyone going up and down the street a bit too often or who seems interested in this building, do you understand?’

  ‘I’m not an idiot,’ he replied good-naturedly. ‘Why do you think someone is having you followed?’

  ‘That’s not your business.’

  ‘Oh yes it is. I told you: I’m not prepared to do just anything for money.’

  She hesitated. In a way, his profession of faith reassured her. If he was not being driven solely by greed, it might mean that he would not sell his services to the first person who came along.

  ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘It all began with an anonymous letter six days ago.’

  He listened to her without moving, just nodding from time to time, unreadable and patient. Because patience was something he knew well; he spent his life on the street waiting for a coin here, a coin there. However, the further she went with her story, the more she saw his eyes narrow with interest and astonishment. From time to time as he listened to certain details she could see a brief flicker of disbelief, but it vanished almost immediately: he’d seen worse.

  ‘That’s interesting,’ he concluded simply when she had finished.

  ‘You don’t believe me, do you, Max?’

  ‘Not yet. But I don’t think you’re crazy. How much?’ he asked.

  ‘One hundred euros to start with. Then we’ll see.’

  ‘See what?’

  ‘The results.’

  He smiled.

  ‘One hundred euros and something to eat and another hot coffee, now, right away,’ he said.

  She laughed for the first time in days.

  ‘Deal.’

  He gave her an intense, probing look and shook his head.

  ‘Christine, you don’t know me, and yet you opened your door to me without hesitation: I could have used the opportunity to rob you or assault you. You’re a pretty woman. And very much on your own, by the looks of it. Why take such a risk?’

  She replied, wearily, ‘I’ve already had my share of bad luck; I don’t think I could have even more. And besides, I know you: for weeks we’ve been chatting nearly every day. I have colleagues I talk to less than you.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Don’t you read the papers? There are people who live alone and invite people like me into their homes, then one night, for no apparent reason, they end up with their throats cut while they sleep.’

  ‘I’ll lock my door after you leave, if that will reassure you,’ she teased. ‘You don’t believe my story, do you?’

  The frankness of his answer surprised her:

  ‘For the time being, I see above all the opportunity to earn a little money fairly easily. I will keep my part of the bargain and then I’ll decide whether I should believe you. And I have no objection to some soup, a hot coffee and a snack from time to time. Deal?’

  She nodded and they smiled at the same time. As if a warm and cosy current had begun to flow between them, she sensed a sudden complicity. It was good to be able to confide in someone, someone who would not judge her, who would give her the benefit of the doubt. For the first time in days she began to feel hopeful again, and she wondered if perhaps her luck was at last beginning to turn.

  ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘If you notice anyone suspicious, come and tell me and describe them to me. In the meantime, if you think the coast is clear and no one is watching my door, put the cup you use for your coins to your left. If, on the other hand, you notice something fishy, put the cup on your right. Is that clear?’

  He nodded and gave a faint smile.

  ‘Cup on the left: coast is clear; cup on the right: danger. Hmm, I like it.’

  She suddenly thought of something and got up.

  ‘Do you know anything about opera, Max?’

  ‘A little,’ he said, surprising her once again.

  She handed him the CD she’d found on the bed.

  ‘What’s the connection between Il Trovatore, Tosca and Madame Butterfly?’

  He examined the case.

  ‘Suicide,’ he answered, after giving it some thought. ‘In Il Trovatore, Leonora takes poison after promising to give herself to the Count di Luna in order to save Manrico. Madame Butterfly commits hara-kiri after Pinkerton abandons her. And Tosca throws herself into the Tiber from the top of a tower in the Castel Sant’Angelo.’

  She was left speechless by his knowledge of opera, but even more so by this revelation. Of course. She should have known. The message was clear.

  ‘Max,’ she murmured as gently as possible, ‘have you seen your children again?’

  A moment of silence, then:

  ‘No.’

  19

  Tenor

  She took out her telephone. She had a second person to call. She took another quick look at Iggy and once again felt close to tears.

  She had gone to fetch her dog. Around his head he now had a ridiculous collar in the shape of a funnel, which prevented him from pulling off his dressing. Kept in place by a splint and a thick bandage, his hind leg was as stiff as a pirate’s peg leg. Frightened and disorientated, the poor animal spent his time shaking himself in order to try and get rid of these instruments of torture, and banging into the corners of doors and furniture as he moved around.

  ‘You know how much I love you,’ she said to him.

  The mongrel replied with a whimper that broke her heart. He gave her a pleading look. As if he were thinking, how can you do such a thing to me? The vet had asked her why she hadn’t come to collect her dog sooner; Christine had stammered that she had family problems, but she could tell she wasn’t terribly convincing. The vet gave her a challenging look and said, ‘How did you say this happened, again?’ She had replied, her voice as diaphanous as an autumn morning, that Iggy had been hit by a car after breaking his lead; there was a hard, sceptical gleam in the vet’s eye, and her cheeks flushed with shame.

  Christine went back over the plan that had been ripening in her brain. Leave nothing to chance. Anticipate. She looked at her mobile, and the number she was about to call. What if his phone was tapped? Well, let’s see: it must be the CIA behind it, love, with help from the KGB – no, wait, nowadays they call it the FSB …

  She walked over to her bedroom window. Max was back at his post, and the cup was on her new ally’s left-hand side: the coast was clear. She put on some jeans, running shoes, a jumper and a black sweatshirt, and she pulled the hood up over her face before putting on her sunglasses.

  In the street she ignored the homeless man and went straight to the nearest Métro station. When she sat down on the train she examined all the passengers one by one. Young faces and old, and most of them vacant … One man in his thirties caught her attention: he had looked at her when she boarded the train, then averted his gaze when she had looked at him in turn.

  Christine got off at the Palais de Justice station. While the long escalator was taking her to ground level, she stood still and turned around, and from the shelter of her dark glasses she studied everyone around her in detail: the young man was not among them. When she reached the top of the escalator she immediately took the other one back down, turning around again to make sure no one was doing the same. Satisfied, she briefly admired the vast tapestry with the unicorn, where LIBERTÉ, EGALITÉ, FRATERNITÉ were embroidered in big capital letters, then she hurried down the last few steps before jumping onto the first train heading in the opposite direction. She got out three stations further along, at Jean-Jaurès.

  Once she was out in the open air, she wove her way through the crow
d milling by the kiosks and the morris column, went round the fountain and the carousel with its wooden horses, crossed the central reservation on the place Wilson and hurried down the rue Saint-Antoine-du-T. She walked as far as a mobile phone shop, entered, removed her hood and her dark glasses, and waited for a salesperson to show some interest in her. Five minutes later, she left with a prepaid mobile, then went into the nearest café.

  She threaded her way among the tables and settled at the back, making sure no one had come in behind her. She looked up the number she wanted to call on her old phone, then dialled it on the new one.

  After that, with the phone glued to her ear, she waited for someone to answer, someone she had thought she would never call again.

  * * *

  Servaz was sweating profusely. All his muscles were saturated with lactic acid. They were burning so intensely that he felt he was on the verge of paralysis. A vision came over him: his corpse lying on the treadmill, and the electronic coach’s voice squealing, ‘Get up! Get up! This is no time to be resting, lazybones!’

  He switched off the programme and reached for his towel. His soaking T-shirt clung to his back and chest and his lungs were making a noise like a bellows. And yet he did feel a wave of well-being come over him. He wondered why he had waited so long to start getting some exercise. The truth was, he had waited until he was forced to: here, exercise was obligatory, as were all the daily chores – it was part of the therapy. In the beginning Servaz had been very reticent to comply with such discipline, but now he appreciated its routine nature, and the benefits he gained.

  He took a quick shower. As he was leaving the former barn that had been made into a gym, he saw Élise wave to him from one of the windows in the main building. His hair was wet and he hurried across the snow-covered lawn in his tracksuit.

  ‘There’s a parcel for you,’ she said, meeting him in the hallway.

  He glanced at the package she was holding. For a split second he was back in the Polish forest. Then something jarred him and he remembered the hotel key.

  ‘Would you like me to open it?’ she asked.

  ‘No, it’s okay. I’ll do it.’

  He took it from her hands. He checked the postmark: posted from Toulouse, like last time. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and she understood he wanted to be alone; she gave him one last look, nodded, and went away.

  He waited until she was out of sight to tear off the paper. The same little box in hard cardboard, roughly eleven centimetres by nine. He took a deep breath and lifted the lid. His gaze went straight to the bottom of the box. A photograph. At first he didn’t understand what he was seeing. Some sort of giant Meccano set. Floating in orbit around the earth, and the earth itself clouded with a cold, blue halo. Huge wings made of solar panels, white cylinders and cross struts, portholes: he was staring at a photograph of the International Space Station.

  That was it. He picked up the print. There was something underneath: a little piece of graph paper torn from a spiral notebook, and a few words written in ballpoint pen:

  Another clue, Captain. Time to make headway.

  He focused on the photograph again. First they directed him to room 117, the room where an artist called Célia Jablonka had committed suicide, and now, very clearly, they were pointing towards outer space.

  What connection could there be between the two?

  He slipped the photograph in his pocket and took out his telephone.

  ‘Charlène?’ he said when she answered. ‘It’s Martin. I have another question for you about that artist you exhibited.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Before the exhibition, did Célia Jablonka show any interest in space?’

  ‘Yes. It was the theme of her previous show. Why? Have you found something?’

  That familiar tingling.

  ‘Could she have met someone during her research?’

  ‘What do you mean, met someone? Célia met loads of people through her work; she considered herself to be both an artist and a sort of journalist.’

  ‘But you don’t know about anyone in particular, that she mentioned?’

  ‘No … I didn’t have anything to do with that exhibition.’

  He thanked her.

  ‘Martin, are you sure you’re all right? Your voice sounds funny.’

  ‘I’m okay,’ he said. ‘But thanks for asking.’

  ‘Take care of yourself,’ she said. ‘A hug from me.’

  He took out the photograph and gazed at it. Space exploration … a sensitive domain, at the crossroads between science and politics. How many people were there in Toulouse and the surrounding area whose work was closely or remotely connected with the space industry? Probably thousands. And Servaz didn’t even know what he was looking for.

  ‘I can’t believe it, it’s snowing again!’ said a familiar voice behind him.

  Servaz turned around. He smiled. The young man in the wrinkled Burberry brushing himself off in the hallway had the slightly chubby face of a kid who is overfond of sweets, with chestnut hair sweeping across his brow and the slovenly look of an adolescent who spends too much time on the computer, or with his video games and graphic novels. And yet at the age of thirty-two, Lieutenant Vincent Espérandieu already had two children – one of whom was Servaz’s godson – and he was married to one of the most beautiful women in Toulouse. The very same woman whom Servaz had just called on the phone and recently dropped in to see.

  ‘Hey,’ said Vincent. ‘Charlène told me you stopped by to see her and ask about that artist who committed suicide. What’s this about? Do you have something new?’

  Servaz looked at him. He reached into his pocket for the little pearl-grey cardboard box that he had just opened, and handed it to him.

  ‘Here. Could you take a look at this? See where this thing was made, and where it’s sold? There’s the make inside.’

  His assistant frowned and took the box without looking at it.

  ‘What is this? An official request? Are you investigating? Are you back among us?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I checked into it. That case is closed, Martin. They concluded it was a suicide.’

  ‘I know. Like the Alègre affair.’

  ‘Except that in the case of our girl, it was Delmas who did the autopsy.’

  ‘I know that as well. And he was categorical: as far as he’s concerned, it was a suicide.’

  ‘Did Delmas talk to you?’ Espérandieu did not hide his surprise. ‘When was that?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. And what if someone drove her to commit suicide?’

  ‘You talked to Delmas?’ insisted Vincent, puzzled. ‘What are you playing at, exactly?’

  ‘What if someone was behind all this?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Hounding, harassing, manipulating…’

  ‘Do you have any proof?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘What the hell is going on, for fuck’s sake! Are you investigating? Don’t you know you’re on sick leave? You’re not supposed to be investigating anything at all!’

  ‘You came all the way here just to tell me that? You could have done that over the phone. I’m not investigating: I’m just checking a few things.’

  Espérandieu shook his head.

  ‘Thanks for the welcome. How are you?’

  Servaz was immediately sorry he had got carried away. Vincent was the only person who came regularly to see him.

  ‘Didn’t Charlène tell you?’

  ‘Yes. She thought you were looking well.’

  Servaz nodded slowly. Espérandieu pointed to the box.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘I got it in the post today. There was this photograph inside.’

  He handed the picture of the space station to Vincent.

  ‘And four days ago I got an electronic hotel key. In an identical box. The key to the room where Célia Jablonka committed suicide.’

  He saw Vincent’s eyes light up like a thousand-watt bulb.<
br />
  ‘So that’s why you started on this investigation, then?’

  Servaz nodded.

  ‘Do you have any idea who might have sent them?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Martin, if anyone finds out—’

  ‘Do you want to help me or not?’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I need to find out whether Célia Jablonka had filed a complaint for harassment, or whether she felt threatened, or whether she spoke to any of her friends: there is nothing in the file. And also whether she had any depressive tendencies, or had already attempted suicide. And I want to know if this sort of box is mass-produced, or manufactured on a small scale, and where.’

  Espérandieu nodded.

  ‘Suppose I do agree to help you, you can’t just go showing up all over the place saying you’re a cop and you’re in charge of an investigation – eventually it will get back to our superiors.’

  ‘He’s right, boss.’

  Servaz swung round in the direction of the voice belonging to the extraordinarily unprepossessing face that had just come in, now emerging from a hood with a fake fur lining. Samira Cheung was the only member of his team who called him ‘boss’. The daughter of a Hong Kong Chinese father and a French-Moroccan mother, she was also the youngest on the team. And quite clearly one of the brightest.

  ‘I’ve been all round the place,’ she said. ‘It’s quite cosy here, you feel like you’re in a retirement home.’

  Servaz had not seen Samira in months. He realised he must no longer be accustomed to her looks because, once again, they shocked him like the first day she had shown up to start work in his department. Although she did have a certain paradoxical charm, something unattractive people often have. Now she took a handkerchief out of her pocket and blew her nose noisily.

  ‘Why haven’t you come to see me earlier, Samira?’

  She gave a twisted smile like a grimace and he saw her blush.

  ‘I heard you weren’t doing too well, so they said,’ she answered in a nasal voice, her nose still in her handkerchief. ‘I didn’t really feel like seeing you in that sort of state. You’re sort of a father figure to me, if you don’t mind me saying so. I haven’t quite worked out my Oedipus complex, know what I mean?’