Servaz thought of Célia Jablonka and Christine Steinmeyer, how they had ended up in Mila Bolsanski’s sights. He noted in passing that Fontaine must have contacts in the police in order to have obtained that sort of information.
‘Anyway, once she’d punished the fiancé, Mila went on her merry way. Towards success and, so she thought, happiness. She always wanted to be the best. Everywhere. All the time. When she needs to charm, to convince, to establish her influence, Mila puts all her energy into it; afterwards, once she is in control, her heart is no longer in it to the same degree, gradually the mask slips. I watched her change, bit by bit. She couldn’t help but criticise me – direct criticism, she constantly brought up the same things, over and over, increasingly insidious allusions. All of them, or almost all, were unfounded, or greatly exaggerated. She was also increasingly jealous of my marriage, my family; she accused me of having other mistresses … I know: I’m no saint. I like women and they feel exactly the same about me. But I’ve never had more than one mistress at a time, and in my way I have loved all those women: it was never just for sex. I married my wife because I believed she was the one who would make me forget all the others. It turned out she wasn’t.’
He paused.
‘In short: anyone more fragile than I am psychologically would probably end up feeling guilty for all these flaws, and would have wondered what was wrong with them, instead of wondering, the way I did, fairly early on, what was wrong with Mila. I’m not easily influenced, Commandant. When she realised that her usual little games weren’t working on me, she turned almost hysterical. She threatened to call my wife and to reveal everything. When we left for Star City our relationship deteriorated dramatically and I was considering putting an end to it, but I was stuck: I was afraid she would get her revenge by telling Karla everything, that she would destroy my marriage and my family. No matter how I looked at it, I could not see a way out. She had me, and she knew it.’
For a moment the mask of the space hero slipped to reveal a defeated, distraught man – a guilty man, too, as are all men, from birth.
‘And then, there in Russia, she was suddenly the enthusiastic Mila again, or so it seemed: Mila the sunbeam. She made amends, and apologised for her previous attitude. She told me that no one in her life had ever mattered as much as I did, and that was why she had lost control: that sort of sweet talk … She said she would never again behave the way she had. I had nothing to fear, she would never break up my family or separate me from my children. She swore it. I accepted her apology. Once again she was the joyful, impulsive, funny, irresistible Mila she had been in the beginning. All the clouds seemed to have vanished. And when she’s like that, it is very difficult to resist her. I saw her turn back into that wonderful woman who can light up every moment of your day, and I suppose that was all I wanted, basically. I told myself that it had been the stress, the waiting and uncertainty that had made her the way she was when we were in France. I wanted her to forgive me, I felt guilty.’
He rolled his eyes.
‘Oh, I know what you’re thinking: that sure, I was guilty. I was going to break up with her, but later, gently: in the meantime, I would do everything I could to make her stay in Russia as splendid as possible, so she would be happy at Star City. I was a coward, of course; I was lying to myself, I was simply buying time, I was under her influence again. I should have been more careful. She had told me she was taking the pill. So when she announced her pregnancy and said she intended to keep the child, I realised that she had screwed me over. It drove me crazy. I insulted her, I told her that there was no way on earth I would ever recognise the child, I told her I had never loved her and that she could go to hell, along with her kid. It was over between us and I never wanted to see her again, except when I had to, during training. I grabbed her by the arm and threw her out with her belongings. She immediately went to see her Russian teacher.’
He broke off and shook his head, as if the whole story made no sense.
‘I don’t know what she did exactly, but by the time she got there, she had bruises and marks all over her face, and her eyebrow was split. She said I hit her. That it wasn’t the first time. That I behaved violently on a regular basis, intimidating and insulting her. It caused a hellish row; I thought the mission was truly fucked. And my marriage, too. Fortunately, the mission leader wanted to hush up the matter: we’d gone too far with the preparations. Besides, Star City’s reputation might be damaged. They kept us apart and everything went on as before. I understood that if I wanted to go into space I was going to have to keep a low profile until launch day – once we were up there, with the others, she could no longer have any hold over me. That’s where I was mistaken,’ he added, a sinister tone in his voice.
He took a moment to gather his thoughts before he went on.
‘With the same tactics she’d used to soft-soap Sergey at Star City, Mila began to manipulate the astronauts who were already on board the International Space Station, setting us against each other. There were three of us newcomers: the commander Pavel Koroviev, Mila and me. And three already on board: two Americans and one Russian. The International Space Station is like a long tube with compartments, a bit like a submarine, or a giant Lego piece floating in space. The Russian compartments are at the rear: that’s where we slept and spent most of our time, Pavel, Mila and me. We didn’t know what she was saying behind our backs, but we realised something was wrong from the way the others gave us the cold shoulder. In the beginning we had all our meals together in module 3, Unity, which joins the fore and aft sectors. Then little by little, although we didn’t really know why, the tension between us and those already on board increased, and there was more and more friction. We didn’t know that Mila was behind it. She spent a lot of time with the others, she must have been saying things about us, but I know Mila: she would have been clever enough to do it subtly so that the others would not realise a thing, would just view us as two stupid wankers. I was able to get hold of the minutes of the investigation the Russians conducted after the incidents, and the testimonies of the other residents: apparently, those three idiots didn’t realise a thing; they thought they were worming something out of her. She claimed she had only reluctantly confessed to them that Pavel and I were humiliating and harassing her on a daily basis, that we were trying to cut her off from them, and that we spent most of our time denigrating her, ridiculing her and even fondling her: that sort of rubbish.’
He gave a nervous laugh.
‘Pavel Koroviev is the bravest, most upstanding man I know, a pillar of integrity. I’ve never known a man who was more respectful of women. He never got over her accusations.’
Fontaine paused, then continued.
‘We had another discussion about the child up there, Mila and me. She told me it was too late for an abortion, and I repeated that I would never recognise it. She begged me. She was completely crazy. That was the night she made it look as if I’d raped her and went over to the other side with her torn clothing and her face covered with bruises. The medical exams showed that she … that she even had internal lesions, for fuck’s sake! I don’t know how she did that to herself. But even when I began to suspect she wasn’t quite right, no way did I imagine she could be so unhinged as to inflict that on herself. She must have done it while Pavel and I were asleep. After that, the others made such a fuss that they sent up a rescue mission to bring the three of us back down.’
He leapt up from his seat and went to fetch a glass of water. Then he returned and shot Servaz a hard look, with something more than anger on the surface: hatred. The glass in his hand was shaking.
‘They put us in isolation for weeks, and finally the committee of inquiry cleared us, Pavel and me, but we knew that after this, whether we had been victims or not, our careers in space were over, fucked. Particularly mine. After all, Mila was my girlfriend and everyone knew it, and they held me responsible for what happened. Since then, I’ve been representing the Space Agency at cocktail parties; I’m
window dressing – I’m an actor, basically. And I put together my own company. But I miss space. Fuck it, I do. I even went through a sort of depression in the beginning. It’s fairly common with former astronauts: space blues. Some of them sink into mysticism, others cut themselves off from the world, others drown their sorrows in alcohol. It’s hard to accept that you will never go back up there, Commandant. So when, on top of everything, it ends like that…’
Servaz nodded, pensive.
‘When you got here,’ said Fontaine, ‘you said you knew who killed Christine. Were you thinking of Mila?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘How did you find out?’
Servaz recalled the words in Mila’s journal, where she said she used to listen to opera up in the space station. She must not have realised; you can’t think of everything.
‘Because of opera,’ he said.
Fontaine looked baffled.
‘Last night, I had a dream about opera. And when I woke up, I remembered reading in her diary that Mila liked listening to opera.’
‘And … that’s it? What do you intend to do?’
‘Corner her. However long it takes. I need to carry out a search in and around the house, but for the time being, I don’t have enough evidence to convince a judge.’
Fontaine shot him a sceptical look.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Servaz. ‘But believe me, once I’ve got my teeth into something, I’m no more likely to let go than your dog is. And your girlfriend may not know it yet, but I already have my teeth in her calf. The only thing is, I’m going to need a little help from you, Monsieur Fontaine. You’re going to have to give me something, anything, that will enable me to go and see the judge.’
Fontaine’s gaze was riveted on Servaz, piercing and wary at the same time, as if he were trying to read his brain.
‘What makes you think I have what you’re looking for?’
Servaz stood up. He shrugged.
‘You are a very resourceful man, Monsieur Fontaine. And if there’s one role that does not suit a man like you, it is that of victim. Think about it.’
* * *
February was rainy, windy and dreary. Long driving downpours from morning to night. The skies were always grey, unchanging, the roads awash with water, and Mila felt the sadness and despair seep deep into her flesh.
The previous week she had had four cameras installed under the roof to film all around the house. Movement detectors would set them off at the slightest suspicious activity. But the only images recorded were those of her car leaving and coming back. Yet she went on being sick. Night after night. And changing light bulbs that burnt out, inexplicably.
That morning she had weighed herself: she had lost eight kilos in five weeks. She had little appetite. And the lack of sleep was beginning to tell on her. Even playing with Thomas no longer filled her with joy. Sadness clung to her like a spider’s web pearled with rain. She looked at herself in the mirror and saw a ghost: blackish-brown shadows under her eyes, a feverish gaze, her face bony and gaunt, her skin translucent – she looked like Mimi in the final act of La Bohème. She had developed a rash around her elbows and wrists. She bit her nails until her fingers bled. At work, she had screwed up on several cases and forgotten to answer important emails. She’d had a proper telling-off from her boss. And she’d overheard some of her colleagues sniggering vindictively.
That evening, when she came home after picking Thomas up from the nanny’s, all she had was a hot, sweet tea as she watched him eat with relish.
‘What’s the matter, Mummy?’ he asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You look sad.’
She ruffled his hair and forced herself to smile, holding back her tears.
‘No, not at all, sweetie.’
She read to him, waited until he fell asleep, switched off the night light and went to bed, exhausted – but not before checking the alarm system, even if she was ever more convinced that it was serving no purpose. She took half a sleeping tablet, and quickly fell asleep.
* * *
Something struck her forehead. Something cold. That was what woke her up. Plop. A drop of water.
She reached out to find the switch for the lamp, and turned it on. She raised a hand to her forehead. It was wet. Mila looked up and saw a damp spot on the ceiling. She wiped her face with the sheet. The damp spot had already spread over fifty centimetres at least, and at the centre a new drop was forming, like a huge teardrop about to fall.
The upstairs bath …
There was a bathroom on the floor above that was never used, with an old claw-foot bath. Mila had had a new, modern one installed when she bought the house. The pipes upstairs were old, like the bath itself.
Her self-defence gun …
She opened the drawer in the night table and took it out. It only shot rubber bullets, but it made her feel safer. She sat on the edge of the bed, took a deep breath. Her brain was fuzzy (bloody sleeping tablets) and she still hovered between fear and fury. She grabbed her dressing gown from the chair and slipped it on over her nightie, then went up the corridor, past Thomas’s room, to the stairs.
The rain was still streaming down the windows. She found the light switch. Turned it on. Nothing. Shit! Her mind let anger triumph. But there was enough light coming through the skylight for her to climb the steps two by two, with her self-defence gun aimed at the top of the stairs. When she reached the landing, she went down the corridor towards the bathroom at the very end. She had started insulation work and long swathes of glass wool hung from the walls like a gigantic furry animal. She pushed the half-open door in the gloom, and it yielded with a sharp creaking noise.
She flicked the switch. Light … She stepped forward.
And felt the cold water lapping against her toes. The bathroom floor was awash in a good inch of water. She looked over at the bath. It was shrouded in a net of dusty spider’s webs that stretched to the corners of the room, and in them all sorts of dead insects were trapped. The old bath was full, overflowing on every side. Mila walked up to it, splashing through the water; she parted one of the clingy spider’s webs and leaned forward to turn off the old copper tap, which turned round and round in her hand, squeaking: someone had opened it all the way.
She turned around. Her heart skipped a beat, and she had the sudden sensation that her reason was failing her. Whoever had turned on the water had also written on the wall, in enormous red letters:
You’re going to die, you filthy whore.
The red paint (if it was paint) was dripping onto the white tiles, which were covered with a thick layer of dust. Elsewhere on the walls, in thick marker, someone had written:
Whore – Nutter – Crackpot – Sicko – Cow – Crazy – Bitch – Retard – Slag – Tart – Slut – Headcase – Loony – Liar – Monster – Prostitute
The same words repeated dozens of times.
She felt as if she had just been slapped. Her temples were buzzing. Her entire body flushed with heat. Fuck! She rushed down the stairs and into her bedroom. She opened the cupboard, pulled out a suitcase and filled it at random with clothes and underwear. She rushed into the bathroom. Stuffed her sponge bag with anything she could find. Then she ran to wake Thomas: ‘Wake up, sweetie. We’re going away.’ The boy’s eyelids fluttered: ‘What?’ It was three o’clock in the morning according to the big pink and yellow alarm clock that stood on the night table stupidly smiling.
The boy sat up and rubbed his eyelids.
‘We have to leave. Right now.’
Thomas turned over to go back to sleep; she shook him by the shoulder and he sat up again.
‘What? Mummy!’
‘I’m sorry, my love, but we have to leave right away. Get dressed. Quick!’
She could see in his eyes that he was beginning to be frightened. Her tone of voice had upset him. She was sorry she had lost her cool. Thomas was looking worriedly at the door now.
‘Is there someone in the house, Mu
mmy, is that it?’
Mila stared at her son and frowned.
‘Of course not! Why do you say that?’
‘Because sometimes I hear strange sounds at night.’
It came in waves, the feeling of horror. Fear washed over her, and her mind took off like a mad train about to derail. So then, it was true: fucking useless alarm system! She was alone in this huge house with her son, at the mercy of a raving mad psychopath. All you had to do was look at what he had written in the bathroom. She pushed back the duvet.
‘Come on! Quick! Get up!’
‘Mummy, what is it? What is it, Mummy?’
The boy was terrified. She forced herself to calm down, and to smile.
‘Nothing. It’s just that they said it might flood because of the rain. We can’t stay here, do you understand?’
‘Tonight, Mummy? Tonight?’
‘Hush … There’s nothing to be afraid of: we’ll be gone long before that, my angel. But we mustn’t waste any time.’
‘Mummy, I’m scared.’
She took the boy in her arms and held him close.
‘I’m here. You see, there’s nothing to be afraid of. We’ll just go and stay at the hotel while we wait for it to be over, all right? And then we’ll come back.’
She dressed him hurriedly, put on his socks and shoes, then took him downstairs to the living room where she switched on the TV. At this time of night the children’s channels were not broadcasting. She put on a DVD. His favourite: that should work.
‘I’ll go and get the car.’
But he was already absorbed in what was on the screen – or about to fall back to sleep – curled up on the sofa. In the corridor, she reached for her raincoat, then she unlocked the front door and tried the light switch. Well well, this one was working, at least. It was pouring buckets; the countryside was black all around; the corrugated metal garage was a dozen metres away. She never locked it. She would run to the garage through the dark – not exactly a cheering prospect. But she had no choice.
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