Don't Turn Out the Lights

by Bernard Minier

  He looked at the door. He had come back to the flat. Fuck it. He slipped a jemmy into the space between the door and the doorframe and pressed on it with all his strength. There was a cracking sound; he heard the lock yield, then fall with a clang to the floor on the other side, while the door opened out towards him. He rushed in.

  ‘Christine?’

  No answer. He went into the living room. And saw it right away: her mobile …

  His own rang in his pocket. He answered.

  ‘She’s at home,’ said Beaulieu. ‘Or not far from there. They located her.’

  He looked at the device.

  ‘No, she’s not here. Just the phone.’

  He hung up. And suddenly, he knew. Because he’d been here before. The moment when people slip through your fingers. When things don’t go as planned. He’d lost her. And it was his fault, once again: he shouldn’t have left her alone.

  The email address and the credit card number on the hotel system had led to an impasse; as had the list of guests who had lost their key. The box in which he’d received the clue had been mass produced: whoever was behind it all knew how to cover his tracks.

  Servaz closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.

  Cursed himself.

  He knew he would not see her alive again.

  39

  Pit

  Trees swept by, like ghosts in the mist, on either side of the road. They emerged from the fog and immediately returned to it, like images from a dream that fade with the awakening.

  She thought about the policeman who had slept at her place. Servaz. He seemed a decent sort. She wanted to confide in him. But Léo had explained that given the present state of things, her policeman – however well intentioned he might be – had no evidence, and could not prove anything against his enemy; in other words, no judge would ask for an indictment, let alone preventive detention, on the basis of such theoretical evidence. The cop knew this, naturally. It was out of the question for him to let them take the law into their own hands. For Christine, the problem lay elsewhere: from now on it was her, or the enemy … There was no alternative: an equation with two unknowns.

  She spared a thought for Max/Jorge, whose corpse must be resting at the morgue in Toulouse, and felt a direct injection of anger that was immediately converted into action.

  A yellow house in the mist …

  She could see it now, nestled in the fog-shrouded landscape. The GPS was clear. This was the place.

  She slowed down, shifted into second gear.

  A little house that was neither elegant nor imposing. Just isolated. A garden with a chain-link fence, a kennel, a chalet-style garden shed under a tall scrawny fir tree. Cultivated fields all around, blankets of fog rolling over them. The gate was open. She drove across the gravel and stopped; she reached for the stun gun and the spray, slipped them into the pockets of her sweatshirt, and got out. She instantly felt the damp chill. Through the fog came a faint scent of ploughed earth, cows, and something burning. She left the engine running. The smoke from the exhaust pipe dissolved into the mist. She walked towards the front door, the gravel crunching under her feet.

  ‘Hello, Christine.’

  She recognised the voice. She turned around, holding the stun gun.

  ‘Tsk, tsk, you don’t intend to use that again, do you? Once was enough, thank you.’

  He was sitting cross-legged in the kennel, the top of his head almost touching the sloping roof, his face half in shadow, and the black eye of the barrel of his gun was staring right at her.

  ‘Throw them down, please,’ said Marcus.

  He crawled out of the kennel, stood up, stretched and made a face.

  ‘You really did me over, I have to say.’

  He limped to her across the gravel, and when he was close enough he slapped her. She staggered, took a step back, and lifted one hand to her stinging cheek. She thought what a strange asymmetrical couple they made, he and that beanstalk of a Cordélia.

  ‘That was for my knees,’ he said, looking at her calmly, as if he were twice his actual height. He pointed to the house. ‘Don’t worry, the owners have gone on holiday. I’m the one who opened the shutters.’

  He stepped forward and started frisking her.

  ‘It’s not what you expected, is it?’ He pretended to be surprised as he ran his hands all over her body. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll do things my way, if you don’t mind. I don’t want to see the cops show up here any more than you do. Where is your phone?’

  ‘On the passenger seat.’

  He went round, opened the door, reached for the prepaid mobile, threw it to the ground and stamped on it several times until it was in a carrion-like state, its entrails exposed to the air.

  ‘Good. Let’s go. Get behind the wheel.’

  They set off down the road. Marcus made a quick phone call: ‘I’ve got her.’ For thirty minutes or more, he showed the way: turn right … turn left … keep straight … until they eventually drove up a long straight stretch beneath a tunnel of plane trees, whose gnarled branches met above the road like the arches of a cathedral. There was a tall house at the very end. She slowed down over the last hundred metres, and a house emerged from the fog, slowly coming nearer, cube-like with its two floors of tall, identical windows. Cube-like but imposing: thick walls, double chimneys on either side, and small windows at ground level opening onto cellars she imagined must be vast, deep and very dark. This house, unlike the yellow one, had seen centuries go by; it had watched whole generations grow up and die; it had known many secrets, many deaths and births – this was, oddly, what she was thinking as she drove along the open, barren space, which was bordered by a graceful row of poplars that had replaced the plane trees at the end of the tunnel. There were no vehicles in sight, but there was a corrugated metal garage a dozen or so metres further on.

  ‘Here we are.’

  The front door opened as they were getting out of the car. The woman who stood on the threshold was tall and slim in the pale swirls of mist; Christine was sure she had never met her before and yet, strangely, her face looked familiar. She glanced at Marcus, who gestured towards the entrance with his gun, his hand curled around the smooth black grip. The woman was smiling.

  ‘Who are you? Where is Denise?’

  The woman’s smile broadened. She had big shoulders and the complexion of a sportswoman.

  ‘Hello, Christine. We meet at last.’

  Strains of music rose in the cold air from inside the house. Christine shuddered.

  Opera …

  * * *

  The corridor. An endless passageway leading to a well-equipped kitchen, vast and modern, unlike the corridor which was full of antique furniture and paintings.

  Opera … The music was coming from another room and spread all through the house. It swelled, receded, swelled again, like sails on a ship. Christine got the impression it was flowing directly through her veins.

  Then she was there before her: a dark woman with a handsome face, slightly worn by the years.

  ‘Were you expecting someone else? You must have thought you were so close.’

  ‘Where is Denise?’

  ‘There is no Denise. I’m the one who sent you that email. Is she clean? Did you search her?’ Marcus gave an almost imperceptible nod, his way of informing her that this sort of question was unnecessary: he knew his job, for fuck’s sake. ‘Or rather,’ said the woman, turning back to Christine, ‘Denise has nothing to do with this. Oh, and while I think of it, she is fucking him, your Gérald. She was fucking him long before he started to go cold on you. She put on quite an act for you in that café, didn’t she? Oh, come on, don’t be too hard on her: who could resist Denise? Not someone like Gérald, in any case. Far too weak, far too lazy, far too boring: she’ll tire of him, you’ll see.’

  The woman’s tone was light, but Christine sensed something sinister and threatening underneath.

  ‘Who are you?’ Her voice was still firm. She was almost surprised.

&n
bsp; ‘My name is Mila Bolsanski.’

  The woman cried out, ‘Thomas!’ and Christine saw something move on her right, a door opening, faint footsteps. A small boy came in. Three or four years old. He gazed at her with sad brown eyes.

  ‘And this is my son, Thomas,’ said the woman. ‘Say hello, Thomas. Thomas is Léo’s son.’

  ‘Hello,’ said Thomas.

  ‘Go back to your room, darling.’

  The boy obeyed and disappeared. He did not seem particularly curious. For a fraction of a second, he made her think of Madeleine at the end, when everything seemed to wash over her without leaving a trace. Léo’s son … Christine noticed that Marcus was again aiming his gun at her, now that the child had left the room. She looked at the woman. Where had she seen her before? She sensed that the answer was imminent.

  ‘Come with me,’ said the woman.

  She opened the door to the room behind the kitchen and switched on a light. Christine saw an entire wall covered with an immense photograph representing the earth seen from space. There was a white sofa in front of it and a coffee table with some books on it. Christine saw immediately that they were all on the same subject. She thought about Léo. Then, suddenly, it dawned on her. Mila Bolsanski. Of course: the astronaut. She had seen her face on television a few years ago. The second Frenchwoman in space. If her memory served, the mission had been interrupted; something had happened up there. An accident. She even seemed to recall, now, that Léo had been on that same mission. She realised he had never brought up the subject in her presence, and she shivered.

  ‘Do you hear the music?’ said Mila. ‘Another opera. Götterdämmerung. At the end, Brünnhilde, the former Valkyrie, hurls herself into Siegfried’s funeral pyre. I’ve always loved opera. It’s incredible how many operas are about suicide. But you’ve been clinging too dearly to life, Christine, that’s your problem.’

  Christine looked around the rest of the room. A varnished black piano. Sheet music and, on top, framed photographs. At the back, in front of the picture window, was a very strange fireplace in white marble where a hollowed-out hearth let in glimpses of the fog beyond.

  ‘Opera is the realm of pure emotion. When passion, sorrow, suffering and madness attain such a degree of saturation that words become powerless to express them. Only song can do that. It surpasses the limits of understanding, of logic: it’s indescribable.’

  The music soared, majestic. Christine thought about the little boy. He must hear it from his room, in spite of the thick walls. His toys – Transformers, a red fire engine, a basketball – were scattered across the carpet.

  ‘Do you know what makes a good libretto? It’s simple: the action has to move quickly, and the key moments have to come in succession, all the way to the climax. Which has to be tragic, of course. Musically, the centrepiece is the aria da capo, in three parts – the third being a reprise of the first. It must not, however, spoil the dramatic progression; it’s all a matter of striking the right balance…’

  The soprano’s voice reached for a high note.

  ‘There, do you hear that?’

  ‘Hear what?’ replied Christine, unfazed. ‘That ridiculous crooning? It’s a bit much, don’t you think?’

  She saw a moment of doubt in the astronaut’s eyes, like a spike on an ECG monitor.

  Yes, my dear, you thought you’d broken me, destroyed me, so you’d be able to enjoy your victory. Not this time. This time, it hasn’t gone the way you hoped.

  She saw Mila turn to Marcus.

  ‘Do you have what I asked you for?’

  He nodded, put his gloved hand into the pocket of his parka and brought out a little phial. He looked blankly at Christine through his long blond lashes.

  Christine saw the water jug. And the glass on the coffee table. She saw Mila bend over, pick up the jug, fill the glass halfway. Don’t show them you’re frightened, thought Christine. Then Mila broke the phial above the glass and mixed it in.

  ‘Here. Drink this,’ she said.

  ‘Again? You don’t think this is getting a bit repetitive?’

  ‘Drink,’ said Marcus, waving his gun at her. ‘Hurry up. You have three seconds. One … Two…’

  She hesitated, looked at the glass, lifted it to her lips. It tasted like the vitamin drinks from her childhood, the ones her mother bought at the chemist’s. She drank.

  ‘So, Célia: that was you?’

  Mila shot her an icy look.

  ‘She thought she had a right to Léo, she was clinging. And Léo seemed prepared to leave his wife for her. It was legitimate defence: Léo is mine, he’s the father of my child.’

  ‘But he’s married.’

  Her gaze turned even darker.

  ‘You call that a marriage? I call it a joke. They’re getting divorced, didn’t you know?’ She shrugged. ‘Sooner or later, he’ll come back to me. When he finally understands, when I’m all he’s got. But that ridiculous Célia stood in our way – and you did, too. So I made her life hell. And when she began to act like a crazy woman, losing weight, losing her looks, losing her sense of humour, getting more and more drab and grim-looking … Well, our dear Léo left her. She couldn’t take it. You know what happened after that.’

  Christine nodded.

  ‘Hmm. So now it’s my turn,’ she said. ‘It’s a pity you’ve done all this for nothing. I dumped Léo last month. He would have told you if you’d asked.’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘Why should I lie? In any case, it’s a bit late for turning back, isn’t it?’

  Again Mila looked at her, surprised. No doubt she was expecting Christine to plead with her to spare her life. To start crying.

  ‘And how did you find Marcus?’

  ‘I met Marcus thanks to some friends in Moscow. Very precious friends. Friendships I forged while we were at Star City. Marcus is one of their subagents, as it were, in France. He came here three years ago but he learned French in Russia. He and his friends are very good at going through the trash, finding information, sneaking into people’s places at night, finding out everything there is to know about them, extracting confessions from them, tinkering with locks and computers…’

  With her fingertip she caressed the tattoo on the little man’s neck.

  ‘Marcus is not very curious. He doesn’t ask questions. That is his chief quality. Except questions about his pay.’

  Christine noticed that daylight was fading outside. And the fog was lifting. She could see dark leaves beyond the picture window, and a red glow.

  ‘Marcus and Cordélia: a strange couple, don’t you think? According to what he told me, they met when she was trying to pick his pockets in the Métro. No doubt she thought the little man was harmless. It wasn’t planned, but since Cordélia proved particularly gifted at duplicity and fraud, when I found out that your radio station was looking for an intern, I suggested she apply for the position – with a fake CV, naturally. Your Guillaumot was none the wiser. In all fairness, Cordélia is very good at finding people’s weak spots. Did you know that your boss likes a striptease in the office after hours? Men are all the same.’

  ‘I – I don’t feel very well.’

  It was true. Christine felt as if the entire room was slowly beginning to spin, like a merry-go-round starting up.

  ‘I … What was in that phial?’ Her eyes flickered. ‘You won’t get away with this. Léo suspects something. And that cop, he’ll trace you.’

  There was a smile as thin as a razor blade on Mila’s lips.

  ‘I wrote a diary,’ she said quietly. ‘A fake diary. About what supposedly happened at Star City. About what Léo is supposed to have done to me.’

  She smiled.

  ‘I gave it to Servaz. He’s reading it at this very moment. And when he’s done he will no longer have the slightest doubt about Léo’s guilt.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because, when Léo ends up alone, abandoned by everyone, I’ll go and see him in prison, I’ll reconquer him one day at a time. And he
’ll realise I’m all he has; he’ll realise the strength of my love. And my devotion. Everything I’ve done for him. He’ll open his eyes and he will love me the way he did before … at the beginning.’

  Christine bit her lower lip. Christ, this woman was crazy. Certifiable. She glanced over at Marcus, but he kept his gun trained on her with perfect indifference. He’d been paid. That was enough.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Mila, looking at her watch, then at Marcus.

  She opened a low wooden door in the thick stone wall behind her. Outside, the fog was nearly all gone; only a few banners of mist curled around the base of the trees. On this side, a concrete pergola led from the house to the edge of the woods, supporting Virginia creeper that had become dry and grey in winter.

  ‘Move,’ said Marcus, prodding Christine in the back with the barrel of his gun.

  She stiffened. Took three steps. Stopped.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Move, I said!’

  They reached the forest. The way ahead was scarcely visible. The sun was setting behind the branches and trees that framed it like a cage at the top of the hill, shooting pale rays, red and cold like frozen blood, between the thin black trunks. A little stream shone like a copper sculpture, flowing through a thick spongy carpet of dead leaves.