Don't Turn Out the Lights

by Bernard Minier

  He gave her another keen look.

  ‘He has never found out about us, has he?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Here’s what we’re going to do,’ he said. ‘You go to the police; I’m going to start asking around.’

  ‘Asking around?’

  ‘I have a few contacts at public security. I’ll see if any other women have been experiencing the same thing as you in Toulouse or nearby, and if they were taken seriously, if there were any suspects.’

  He got up, walked over to the desk, tore off a sheet of hotel letterhead and picked up the pen nestling in a little leather portfolio. Then he sat back down.

  ‘We’ll start by putting together a list of all the people you’ve been in contact with over recent months and with whom you’ve had the slightest disagreement. Even the ones you don’t really have any reason to suspect. I’ll see what I can find out.’

  ‘How will you go about it?’ she asked.

  He gave an enigmatic smile.

  ‘You know, I know a lot of people.’

  She gave it some thought and a few names came spontaneously to mind: Becker, the macho bastard who was head of news at Radio Five; Denise; her next-door neighbour. Other names. It wasn’t exactly heartening to realise she had more enemies than friends. Paradoxically, as the list grew longer, her hopes rose: the guilty party was bound to be one of them.

  ‘Well,’ he said, when they had finished, ‘it looks like you have a gift for making friends. Look at these names: I’ll be damned if your tormentor isn’t among them.’

  He was right. She should have started there. All you had to do was think and act logically.

  ‘Tell me: how are you going to find out about these people? I want to know.’

  He gave another of his enigmatic smiles.

  ‘I know a private detective. He owes me one: a few years ago, he got caught while he was illegally investigating my company – industrial espionage, pure and simple. He had been hired by a rival company abroad. I caught him red-handed and, rather than send him to jail, I offered him a deal: if he stopped his snooping, I would not file a complaint, but perhaps one day I would need to call on him. I thought I could use his services for, shall we say, commercial, rather than private, purposes. But never mind.’

  A detective; friends who were cops. Yes, she had been right to call Léo. He was always resourceful, not the sort who gave up easily. She wondered fleetingly how Gérald would have behaved in his place, but then banished the thought. She felt a wave of gratitude come over her.

  ‘Relax,’ he said again in a gentle voice. ‘Everything will be fine.’

  He had got up, and took her empty champagne glass to refill it. He placed it in her hand. Then he walked around her chair and put his hands on her shoulders.

  ‘Let yourself go.’

  ‘Léo…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Léo’s strong, gentle hands kneaded the muscles in her shoulders. As they used to do at times when she was stressed. Relaxing one by one the knots in her neck and upper back, exerting pressure as firm as it was precise. She closed her eyes. She wanted to let herself go. She could feel her muscles getting warm and more supple. Her neck began to relax. She lifted the champagne to her lips. It was good. The little bubbles went straight to her head.

  ‘Do you remember that hotel in Neuchâtel, on the lake, the suite on stilts?’ he said. ‘In the morning, all we could see were sails, birds and the mountains in the distance.’

  Of course she remembered. It was one of the rare weekends they had spent together. She would have liked to stay there for a month, a year – instead of two days.

  ‘Give me some more,’ she said.

  All of a sudden she felt like being drunk. She took a long sip of champagne, and the bubbles tingled her palate and tongue.

  ‘I’ve missed you,’ he said.

  He planted a kiss on her neck, which gave her goosebumps, then another one near her mouth. She turned her head, parted her lips and he slipped his tongue between them. She took him in and they began to breathe more quickly. Before they even knew what was happening, they were on their feet and she had her jeans around her knees, her thighs bare. He slipped one hand into her knickers and she was immediately wet at the contact of his fingers. She spread her legs. She moaned when his fingers caressed her more closely. She wanted to feel him inside her, there, now. She let him go, and tenderly clasped his smooth, hard cock. They moved apart to get undressed more quickly, then once they were naked she passed her hands all over his sides, his chest, his back, his buttocks – and then her hands moved further down and she again caressed his rigid cock. They made love on the bed and she took him, moving rhythmically, their hips gently colliding. She was panting and fluttering her hands from his sides and shoulder blades to his buttocks and hips. She dug her fingers into his hair when he pinned her to the mattress and came.

  She felt a sudden pang of remorse and when he collapsed by her side she knew she’d been betrayed. Not by him, but by herself: by her body. She got up and hurried to the bathroom to clean up. When she came back out and reached for her clothes, he asked, ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m leaving, we shouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘What?!’

  She finished getting dressed. She thought briefly about kissing him or saying something more; then she changed her mind and hurried to the door.

  ‘Go to the police!’ he called, to her back. ‘Christine, do you hear me? Go to the police!’

  She slammed the door. Found herself alone in the corridor. Her head was buzzing.

  She walked quickly along the silent hallway, from shadow to light and light to shadow, the little wall fixtures interrupting the darkness with theatrical effect. A parade of doors, all the same. A fleeting thought occurred to her: how many adulterous couples were behind them? Was she adulterous? Gérald had decided to distance himself from her: did that free her of any obligation of loyalty? She imagined him finding out she had been fucking someone else in a hotel only a few hours after their argument.

  And what about him? Wasn’t he fucking Denise?

  In the lift, she felt her knees go wobbly. A wave of ugly, naked fear washed over her. The fear of losing everything. She felt deeply unhappy. The blood was pounding in her head, and she rushed out of the lift the moment the doors opened.

  A man was standing there. She collided with him, violently. He was extraordinarily small for a man, smaller than her. His head was shaven and he had a strange face – effeminate, she thought in a fraction of a second – but when she rammed into him he hardly moved, and she almost fell over backwards.

  ‘For – forgive me,’ she stammered, her voice betraying anger more than anything else. ‘I’m so sorry!’

  The little man stepped aside with a smile. She caught a glimpse of the tattoo emerging from his collar. A Madonna with a halo, of the kind you see on Russian icons. How strange, she thought, rushing towards the revolving door. The unusual image left an imprint on her brain – the way certain dreams do when you wake up – as she ran across the lobby, pushed the revolving door and fled into the snow, which had started falling once again.

  20

  Operetta

  The female cop looked at her computer screen, then at the wall behind Christine, then at her pen, then her nails, then finally Christine.

  ‘You say you found urine on your doormat: couldn’t it have come from your own dog?’

  Her tone was so obviously, blatantly sceptical that Christine tensed.

  ‘No,’ she replied firmly.

  ‘What makes you so sure?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘I didn’t take my dog out that day. So I don’t see how he could have—’

  ‘You didn’t take him out? Where did he do his business?’

  ‘He has a box for emergencies, when … I don’t have time to take him out.’ The cop gave her a stern look. ‘Listen, let’s not dwell on this for hours, all right? Far wor
se things happened.’

  The woman checked the notes on her screen.

  ‘Yes. Someone got into your place and left a … an opera CD, but they didn’t take anything. This same person called you at the radio station where you work and at your home. You were drugged and undressed at the home of this young woman, Corinne Délia, who is an intern at Radio Five, and then you were taken home unconscious, and woke up there naked. Oh yes, I almost forgot: these people also withdrew two thousand euros from your bank account, but without stealing your bank card. And they, uh, left some anti-depressants at your workplace in order to discredit you.’

  Her gaze went from her screen to Christine. It was a hostile gaze. Not only sceptical but also exasperated.

  ‘You look exhausted,’ she added. ‘Have you seen a doctor?’

  Christine took a deep breath. She was sorry she had come. Calm down. If you throw a wobbly now, it will only confirm what they already think.

  ‘I printed out the messages he sent me,’ she said, placing one hand on the cardboard folder she had picked up at her flat when she stopped for a shower. ‘Do you want to see them?’

  The woman did not say yes or no.

  ‘“He”? So you think it’s a man? Just now you said it was your intern who was behind it.’

  ‘What I meant … I think there are at least two of them.’

  ‘A regular conspiracy, then.’

  The words stung her. She knew what the woman cop was driving at.

  ‘You think I’m crazy, don’t you?’

  Once again the woman answered neither yes nor no.

  Christine put her hands on the armrests.

  ‘Right. Looks like I’m wasting my time here all over again.’

  ‘Stay there.’

  That was an order, no doubt about it. Christine sat back down.

  ‘A few days ago, you came here with a letter supposedly written by a person announcing their intention to commit suicide. It turned out there were no fingerprints on the letter other than your own – not the slightest one – and no postmark.’

  ‘Yes, and moreover, I thought I would be int— questioned by the same person who saw me about the letter.’

  ‘Today you say you went to see Mademoiselle Délia at her house and she drugged you, is that right? You say she filmed a compromising video where both of you are naked, and it was clearly with the intention of blackmailing you?’

  Christine nodded. This was at least the third time she found herself answering the same questions.

  ‘A letter, a phone call, your dog in the dustbin, urine on your doormat, this video … where is the logic behind any of this?’ said the cop. ‘Why would anyone do this? It doesn’t make sense.’

  She took a small key out of her pocket, locked her desk drawer, and stood up.

  ‘Please come with me.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  No answer. The woman cop was already at the door, and went out without turning around. Christine hurried to follow her, thinking that Léo had been way off the mark: coming here had been a mistake.

  A corridor with brick walls, then a corner; Christine saw a man sitting on a cement bench in an alcove lit by translucent squares. Another corridor. The woman cop was walking quickly, greeting colleagues.

  She walked past a photocopier, stopped, and opened the door.

  ‘After you.’

  A little room with brick walls; a table and three chairs. A neon bulb gave off a harsh light. There was no window. Christine’s heart began to beat faster. The woman pointed to the single chair on one side of the table.

  ‘Sit down.’

  She went back out, leaving Christine alone. After a long while, the door opened at last and the woman cop reappeared, together with a second person: the policeman from last time, with his round protruding eyes, thick curly hair and ugly tie. His expression was neutral and he did not even greet her. Christine saw this as a very bad sign and she swallowed. He put a file down on the table and sat opposite her on the remaining chair, to the right of the woman, never taking his eyes off Christine.

  There was a long and very awkward silence, then Mr Poodle (Beaulieu, Lieutenant Beaulieu, she remembered) removed some photographs from the folder and slid them across the table to Christine.

  ‘Do you recognise this individual?’

  Christine leaned closer. Opened her eyes wide. The picture was like a slap in the face.

  Cordélia.

  A close-up of her face: clearly the pictures had been taken with a flash and at very close range, because the pale white light shone on her cheeks and forehead. And there was no way to ignore any of the sinister details. Her left eye was puffed up and almost closed, her eyebrow was swollen, and there was a big bruise veering from mustard yellow to green and black all around the eye. Her nose had doubled in size. There was a huge bruise on her right cheek and her lower lip was split. The skin on her chin was ragged and exposed, as if someone had gone over it with a grater.

  Cordélia had been photographed full face and in profile. Christine swallowed. She could not take her eyes off the pictures. She shuddered. Never before had she seen such naked and unrestrained violence in real life. She repressed a wave of nausea. The plans she had made with Léo not even two hours ago suddenly seemed very far away.

  ‘Oh my God. What – what happened to her?’

  When she looked up, the cop’s eyes were gazing right into her own. He had leaned across the table and was staring at her intensely, now – his two globular brown eyes like those of a sunfish only a few centimetres from her own.

  ‘You ought to know. You’re the one who did this to her, Mademoiselle Steinmeyer.’

  The neon light blinked with a brief buzzing sound and she suddenly saw the two motionless faces across from her lit with a stroboscopic effect. Bzzzz-bzzzz … Their gazes vanished then reappeared a fraction of a second later. Once, twice. Just like the photographs of Cordélia on the table. Every flicker, every fraction of darkness was like a nail driven into her flesh. She struggled against rising panic. She felt drops of sweat pearling on her forehead.

  ‘Bloody neon,’ said Beaulieu, standing up, his movement abbreviated by the stroboscopic effect.

  He went to the light switch and played with it. She scarcely had time to see the female cop’s gaze disappear and then it was there again in the same place: focused on her, expressionless. The man came and sat back down. He no longer looked at all like someone who didn’t find any excitement in his job. He glanced at his colleague, then turned again to Christine.

  ‘Right. Well. She alleges that you offered her a very large amount of money to make love to her – two thousand euros – and she said she went along with it because she desperately needed the money for herself and her baby, and because you are an attractive woman, after all, and she likes doing it with women, or so she declared. But afterwards you wanted your money back, you told her that she had climaxed, and you weren’t in the habit of paying for that. And since she refused and was getting annoyed, you began to hit her, isn’t that right?’

  His words echoed in a room that was silent, apart from the neon, which was no longer blinking but whose light throbbed with a faint buzzing sound; absurd, impossible words.

  ‘That’s ridiculous. There’s no truth in any of that.’

  ‘You did not go of your own volition to Mademoiselle Délia’s house?’

  ‘I did, but—’

  ‘And when she opened the door, she was naked?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you went in anyway?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I told you, I—’

  ‘That letter: you’re the one who wrote it, aren’t you?’ interrupted the woman.

  ‘No!’

  ‘So how do you explain that it ended up in your mailbox?’

  ‘I can’t explain it.’

  ‘We’ve questioned the inhabitants of your building: not one of them has the slightest idea who the author of the letter could be.’ />
  ‘I know, I myself—’

  ‘Your next-door neighbour,’ interrupted the man, ‘maintains that you’re insane. You showed up at her house at three o’clock in the morning, insisting that your dog was in her flat. You forced your way into the home of two elderly people. You searched their flat without their permission, and terrified them.’

  The slight vibration coming from the neon lights was giving her a headache. Or perhaps it was the smell of the detergent.

  ‘I—’

  ‘In fact, your dog was in the rubbish chute, with a broken paw, is that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you put him in the rubbish chute, Mademoiselle Steinmeyer?’ asked the woman cop very distinctly.

  Christine shot her a desperate look.

  ‘No! He was in a rubbish bin next to the chute!’

  ‘Next to what?’

  ‘Next to the rubbish chute.’

  ‘But you said—’

  ‘Listen, I—’

  ‘This was not the first time you have tried to intimidate someone, and have threatened them.’

  He slid a sheet of printed paper across the table to her. Email messages. Christine recognised them immediately:

  Cordélia, you haven’t been answering my emails. I’m forced to conclude that you disapprove of my attitude. That you’re hostile. Cordélia, you know your future is in my hands.

  C.

  Cordélia, I’m giving you 24 hours to reply.

  ‘Mademoiselle Steinmeyer, did you write these emails?’ asked the woman cop.

  ‘No!’

  ‘And yet, they were written on your computer?’ asked the man, growing impatient.

  ‘Yes, but I already explained that—’

  ‘Were you recently let go at your work because of your behaviour?’ asked the woman.

  Christine did not reply. She felt as if a deep abyss had opened up beneath her feet.

  ‘We have spoken to your boss, who is also Corinne Délia’s boss,’ said the man.

  Christine was speechless.

  ‘Did you hear me?’ asked the woman.

  Christine still said nothing.

  ‘It is eighteen forty,’ said the man, rubbing his eyes. ‘From now on, you are in police custody.’