Don't Turn Out the Lights

by Bernard Minier

  She went back to the living room, put Don Carlos on the stereo (she had gone to FNAC, which did not have the version with Renato Tebaldi, Carlo Bergonzi and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, so she had to make do with Placido Domingo, Montserrat Caballé and Ruggero Raimondi), and listened to the entire opera before going to bed.

  She thought about Léo and that cop. When was he going to make a move? She knew the police needed more proof to corner Léo, but she was in no hurry. All in good time. She also had to take care of Cordélia and Marcus: two witnesses who were far too troublesome. And she had to find a way to respond to these attacks. Was Léo behind them? Yes, that was possible. Christine had asked for his help, she knew that: Marcus had followed her to the hotel despite her clumsy attempts to shake him off. Léo must have realised that Christine was dead – and who was responsible. Perhaps he had eventually put two and two together. She considered the possibility, weighed it up. What could he do to stop her? Nothing. Everything pointed to him. Including the journal, which he knew nothing about. Whether he ended up in prison or not, Léo was hers, he belonged to her. He was the father of her child. He would eventually come back to her. Even if he didn’t know it yet. She would devote her entire life to it if she had to, but he would come back to her. That was all she wanted. And, in the meantime, if he got a bit too close to her house, she would fix it so the cop would catch him. It would mean yet more evidence, absolutely damning evidence, that he was involved. She felt calm now. Her anxiety had left her. Everything was as it should be. She was in control of the situation.

  The opera ended with Act 5, when Charles V’s tomb opens up and his ghost comes out of the darkness to drag Don Carlos with him. (‘My son, the sorrows of the earth are still with us in this place. The peace your heart is hoping for can only be found with God.’)

  She switched off the light and went up to bed.

  At around two o’clock in the morning she suddenly woke up. And scarcely had time to run to the toilet, where she was sick as a dog. She pulled the chain. She was just getting her breath back, wheezing hoarsely, her hair clinging to her sweaty brow, when a second wave welled up inside her. The acrid bile again splattered the porcelain bowl. She threw up, cleared her throat, spat, breathed. Twenty minutes later, she was still crouching on the tiled floor, shivering, her eyes closed and her stomach heaving with convulsions, and she thought she ought to call the emergency services.

  * * *

  Léonard Fontaine sat in his Porsche 911 and watched the lights in the house go off again, after they had come on in the middle of the night, five hundred metres from where he sat. His face was lit only by the glow-worm of his cigarette when he inhaled. He started up the engine and slowly left the rough track that led out to the plane trees, then drove on in second gear without switching on his headlights: moon and stars were visible among the gnarled branches, and lit up the road. The wind had banished the clouds, and the temperature was getting warmer with each passing day. When he was sure he was far enough away he put on the lights and accelerated, gently: the sound of his legendary six-cylinder engine could carry far, and was easily recognisable. If Mila thought her alarm system could protect her, she was kidding herself. Most of these new wireless systems were extremely vulnerable: a simple jamming device could get the better of them.

  No, the danger lay elsewhere: that cop who was following him around. No doubt he thought that Léo hadn’t noticed him. But the little commandant did not realise that the woman he’d run into in his house was the detective he had told Christine about. A competent, proactive professional. Twice a week she came to his house to deliver her report. She had carefully noted the odd postman’s number plate. Now Léo was going to have to manoeuvre carefully. If the cop caught him lurking around Mila’s house, he’d be risking a lot. After all, the policeman seemed convinced he had something to do with Christine’s disappearance.

  41

  ‘Sola, perduta, abbandonata’

  The light in the stairway went out again. There must be a short circuit somewhere blowing the bulb. She changed it. The next day, another bulb went: the one on her desk in the music room. Then again in the stairway, two days later. And one of the spotlights in the kitchen a few days after that.

  In a rage, she hurled a glass and broke it, then called an electrician who, naturally, could only come in two days’ time at the earliest. On the appointed day, he spent a long time checking the switches, the plugs, the fuse box, and the lights themselves. His diagnosis was that everything was normal. She shouted at him and he walked out, slamming the door, refusing to be paid.

  She was sick again the following night. She was about to toss out all the food in the fridge when she realised that Thomas had not been sick. She ate the same thing as him in the evening.

  Two thirty in the morning: terrible cramps in her belly had her writhing in the sheets. She had put a basin by the side of the bed, just in case, and now she threw up into it. An acrid smell wafted all through the room, but she had neither the strength nor the courage to go and empty the basin. She slept very poorly that night, her stomach growling with hunger. She went to work the next morning, exhausted, and dragged her feet all day long, feeling like death warmed up. Several of her colleagues – out of concern, or just the opposite – pointed out that she did not look at all well. She told them to go to hell.

  When she got home that evening, she tested the alarm system, and it immediately shrieked in her ears. She typed in the code. The wailing stopped. She tested it one more time. Again it began to wail. Her mobile rang a moment later.

  ‘Good evening, this is the electronic surveillance centre. Please answer the security question.’

  ‘What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?’ Her favourite film. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘I was just distracted for a moment.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Um … by the way, you haven’t had any other instances of intrusion into the system?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘No, it’s fine, forget it.’

  * * *

  The light bulbs continued to blow. And she went on being sick, in spite of the anti-emetic she took every evening, and the fact that she was ordering dinner online from various restaurants and having it delivered. She finally stopped having an evening meal.

  Every time she flipped the switch and the light failed to come on, it was a blow to her morale. She knew what was going on: someone had decided to wreak havoc in her life the way she herself had done in the case of Célia Jablonka and Christine Steinmeyer. But just knowing this didn’t help. She had to find a way to retaliate.

  Apparently, someone knew how to get into her place in her absence, despite the alarm system.

  She needed help. But neither Marcus nor Cordélia was answering their phone. She had left over twenty messages. One Saturday morning she went to La Reynerie. She rang the bell at 19B. The door was opened by a young man she did not recognise.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is Corinne Délia here?’

  The man studied her.

  ‘She moved – didn’t she tell you?’

  ‘And who are you?’

  ‘The new tenant. And you?’

  She walked away.

  * * *

  On 14 February, Servaz woke with a start at four o’clock in the morning. He had had a dream that he was floating weightless around the earth. He was moving from one module to another, awkwardly waving his arms and legs, but a woman who did not look like Mila Bolsanski but who was Mila Bolsanski – he did not know how he knew this, but he did – was pursuing him, saying things like, ‘Take me, fuck me; right here, now…’ over and over, no matter how politely he explained that no thank you, he was married, he didn’t want to, no thank you, really – and that men, too, had the right to say no, but she went on chasing after him, relentlessly, through the space station. He woke up just as the voice of his mother, who had died thirty-three years earlier, was saying: ‘Martin, what are you doing with that lady?’ He knew the source of his dream: h
e had reread Mila Bolsanski’s journal that evening. And there had been music, too: opera.

  He stayed sitting up in bed for a long time, feeling a great sadness because of his mother’s voice and face. She had been so clear, so alive.

  You never recover from childhood. Who had said that? He got up, went for a shower, then made some instant coffee with the kettle on his desk. Outside, the wind was blowing in the dark. He waited for daylight to appear while he reflected. He’d had a dream. A dream with music in it. An unconscious process had started up during his sleep; it had slowly put the elements in place, elements which until then had not fitted. At seven fifteen, he could wait no longer, and he went down for a real coffee in the common room. A few of the boarders greeted him, others didn’t. He drank his coffee, thinking about what he knew: what had been plain to see, right from the beginning, but which he hadn’t seen. At seven thirty, he left the centre and drove along the little country roads, through an ever-brighter greyness.

  * * *

  Léonard Fontaine was ploughing through the water in the pool almost noiselessly, in the supple, fluid manner of a competition swimmer.

  He was feeling the water glide over his face and back as if along the hull of a sailing boat, when he heard a voice from the edge of the pool.

  ‘Hello.’

  Fontaine stopped swimming. His head emerged from the water and he looked up at the man standing by the pool. He was in his forties and did not seem to be in very good shape, physically. There was something pale and rumpled about him, a sort of weariness that rounded his shoulders a little. He recognised him, but asked all the same:

  ‘Who are you? Who let you in?’

  ‘I rang the bell,’ lied Servaz. ‘As no one answered, I took the liberty of … of walking around.’

  ‘You didn’t answer my first question.’

  Servaz took out his warrant card.

  ‘Commandant Servaz, from the Criminal Investigation Department.’

  ‘Do you have a warrant? Something authorising you to go into people’s houses without permission? Just because there is no fence—’

  Servaz raised his hand.

  ‘I’ve got better than that. I think I know who killed Christine Steinmeyer. Because she’s dead, of course. As you know. But I have at least one bit of good news: I don’t think it was you.’

  Fontaine shot him a look which, for a moment, betrayed how distraught and pained he felt. He shook his head sadly, swam over to the steps, then climbed slowly out of the water.

  * * *

  ‘Follow me.’

  As they went through the French windows, Servaz felt his stomach turn over when he thought of his previous visit and the dog, Darkhan. Now the huge beast came down from the mezzanine but did not seem to recognise Servaz. He went up to his master, who stroked him affectionately on the forehead. ‘Basket.’ Satisfied, the dog went back up to his bed. Wearing an ivory bathrobe which looked soft, thick and comfortable – his initials embroidered on the chest pocket – Fontaine pointed to the sofa and offered Servaz a coffee, then went over to the open-plan kitchen. They didn’t say a word until the coffee was poured and their cups were on the table. Fontaine finished drying his hair then sat on a big pouffe on the other side of the coffee table. Servaz saw a huge scar on his left leg; a jagged outline of shrivelled flesh decorating his calf and tibia in a crescent shape over thirty centimetres from his ankle to his knee. The astronaut put the towel down. He studied Servaz. His pride and strength seemed to have deserted him, and all that was left was sadness and dismay.

  ‘So you think Christine is dead?’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  Fontaine tilted his head. For a split second he seemed about to say something, then merely nodded.

  Servaz took the diary out of his pocket and slid it over.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Mila Bolsanski’s diary.’

  He saw Fontaine’s almost imperceptible reaction at the mention of her name before he put down his cup and reached for the book.

  ‘She claims to have written it while you were staying at Star City,’ explained Servaz. ‘Read it.’

  Fontaine looked at him, surprised, then cautiously opened the diary. He began reading. Servaz saw him frown right from the start. Five minutes later, he had totally forgotten the policeman’s presence and his coffee was getting cold in the cup. He began turning the pages more and more quickly, skimming, lingering on certain passages and skipping others, or turning back to reread.

  ‘This is unbelievable,’ he said finally, closing it.

  ‘What is unbelievable?’

  ‘She went to the trouble to write this … thing. It’s a proper novel! Mila missed her vocation.’

  ‘It didn’t happen like that?’

  Fontaine looked indignant.

  ‘Of course not!’

  Servaz saw a mixture of anger and disbelief on the astronaut’s features.

  ‘Why don’t you tell me your version?’

  ‘It isn’t my version,’ he snapped. ‘There is only one version: what really happened. We may live in a society where lies and distortion of the facts have become practically normal, but the truth remains the truth. Shit.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘It’s very simple, for a start: Mila Bolsanski is insane. She always has been. I don’t know how she managed to pass the psychological tests. Apparently some people who are mentally unstable can do it. And after all, it took me some time, too, to realise she was crazy.’

  He put down his empty cup. Servaz noticed he was left-handed and that there was the clear line of a wedding ring, but no ring on his finger. Instead, there was a tiny circle where the skin had tightened slightly, as if that were the meaning of marriage: a shrinking. Servaz, who had been married for seven years before he got divorced, thought that it wasn’t chance that the ring finger was the least useful.

  ‘The investigation they conducted afterwards revealed that during her adolescence she had a spell in a psychiatric hospital following several suicide attempts. The diagnosis was some sort of schizophrenia, I think. It hardly matters. When I met Mila, she was a beautiful young woman – intelligent, ambitious, captivating. A ray of sunlight. It was practically impossible not to fall in love with her. The problem was that Mila wore a mask: all that cheerfulness, all that energy were just play-acting, a facade. Mila adapts her appearance to what the person opposite her wants to see; she’s very good at that. I eventually realised when I watched her interacting in society: she subtly changed her attitude depending on who she was dealing with. She seemed to have a calm, assertive personality. But in fact it’s exactly the opposite: inside, Mila Bolsanski is empty. She just moulds herself into the shape of others. Becomes a mirror that she holds up to their desires. She immediately understands what the other person is looking for, and gives it to them. I examined the issue after what happened. I read a lot about it.’

  Servaz thought about the book on the night table.

  ‘I tried to understand who she was, what she was. She is one of those manipulative people who are like human traps: in the beginning they are pleasant, extrovert, attentive to others, smiling and generous. They often give you little presents, they’re full of praise for you, they’ll do anything for you, you cannot help but enjoy their company … Of course, this doesn’t mean that everyone friendly is manipulative: the adage about trusting first impressions is absolute rubbish. Good manipulators always make a positive first impression. So how do you go about unmasking them? Over time, that’s the thing. If you belong to their inner circle, if you’re close to them, their lies and flaws will show up sooner or later. Except if you’ve already become too dependent to see the obvious signs, when they do become apparent.’

  Servaz’s eyes met Fontaine’s.

  ‘Mind you, I’m not suggesting Mila is not a brilliant woman: you have to be brilliant to get as far as she has. All through her youth she worked hard to succeed. Mila hates failure. She was always top of the class. At university, when h
er girlfriends were going to parties, having boyfriends or discovering politics, she stayed at home with a thermos and her notes and worked all night long. In her first year of med school she finished top in her year of five hundred students. She was only seventeen! And she got engaged the same year. That’s another aspect of her personality: Mila Bolsanski is terrified by the thought of solitude, she needs someone at her side all the time, someone who admires her, who can reflect a high opinion of her.’

  Fontaine broke off. Servaz thought of the big, isolated house: didn’t that clash with the picture? No. Because there was Thomas. Little Thomas, the adorable blond child, and for him, his mother shone more brightly in the sky than anyone else. Finally a male of the species she could shape over and over again.

  ‘The only problem,’ continued Fontaine, ‘was that the champion of exams and academic ranking did not have much time to devote to her fiancé, and he ended up dumping her. Her first failure. Devastating, for this woman who succeeded in everything. She had trouble accepting it, from what I could tell: I conducted a little investigation. And do you know what? The poor man ended up in prison for raping a minor. The details of the case seemed to establish his guilt, but he never stopped claiming he was innocent. Until the day he hanged himself. In prison. Life is not easy in jail for alleged paedophiles…’

  ‘What makes you so sure he was innocent?’

  ‘The girl who filed the complaint has a police record as long as the Channel Tunnel: theft, extortion, fraud, false accusations, abuse of vulnerable persons. Her adult life has been nothing but a string of attempts to swindle, extort or rob her fellow man. At the time I’m referring to, she was only sixteen and had no police record, obviously. I don’t know how Mila found her, but she must have offered her a handsome amount. Or maybe she didn’t have to: that girl was clearly the sort who would sell her own mother for a few hundred francs.’