Camille

by Pierre Lemaitre

  He is exhausted.

  *

  No plans to transfer or discharge her. Nothing is likely to happen for at least a couple of days, according to the girl on the phone. And I have no intention of hanging around this car park for two days. I’ve waited long enough already.

  It’s nearly eight. He seems to keep odd hours, this cop. He was about to leave and then he suddenly stopped, absorbed in thought, staring out through the glass doors as though he doesn’t see them. Give it a minute or two and he will leave.

  And then it’s show time!

  I turn the key in the ignition, drive to the far side of the car park, a deserted area, being so far from the entrance, next to the perimeter wall and the emergency exit I plan to use as my getaway, God willing. And He better be willing, because I’m in no mood to be crossed . . .

  I slide out of the car, head back the way I came, keeping in the shadow of the parked cars and come to the fire-door.

  Inside. No-one around.

  As I pad down the hallway I spot the little cop, standing with his back to me, brooding.

  He’ll have a fuck of a lot more to brood about soon enough, I plan to launch him into the stratosphere.

  *

  7.45 p.m.

  As he pushes the glass door leading into the car park, Camille remembers the call he got this morning at the police station and suddenly he realises that providence has anointed him Anne’s next of kin. Obviously he is not, but even so he was the first person contacted by the hospital, it is his responsibility to contact everyone else.

  Everyone else? he thinks. Though he has racked his brain, he does not know anyone else in Anne’s life. He has met one or two of her colleagues, he recalls seeing a woman in her forties with thinning hair and huge, tired eyes walking down the street, she seemed to be shivering. “One of my colleagues . . .” Anne told him. Camille tries to remember her name. Charras? Charron? Charroi, that’s it. They were crossing a boulevard, she was wearing a blue coat, she and Anne nodded to each other, exchanged a conspiratorial smile. Camille found it touching. Anne turned back to him. “A complete bitch . . .” she whispered, still smiling.

  He always calls Anne on her mobile. Before leaving the hospital, he tracks down her office number. It is eight o’clock, but you never know, there might still be someone.

  “Hello, you’ve reached Wertig and Schwindel. Our offices . . .”

  Camille feels a rush of adrenaline. For a second, he could have sworn it was Anne’s voice. He feels suddenly distraught because precisely the same thing happened with Irène. One month after she died, he accidentally called his home number to be greeted by Irène’s voice: “Hello, you’ve reached Camille and Irène Verhœven. We’re not able to take your call . . .” Dumbfounded, he had burst into tears.

  Leave a message. He stammers: “Hi, I’m calling about Anne Forestier. She is in hospital and she won’t be able to . . . [what?] to come back to work . . . I mean not straight away, she’s been in an accident . . . it’s not serious, well, actually it is [how to put this?], she’ll call you as soon as she can . . . if she can.” A rambling, incoherent message. He hangs up.

  He feels self-loathing rising in him like a raging tide.

  He turns round, the receptionist is staring at him, she looks as if she is laughing.

  *

  8.00 p.m.

  Up to the second floor.

  To the right, the stairs. Everyone takes the lift, no-one takes the stairs. Especially not in hospitals; people don’t need the hassle.

  The barrel of the Mossberg is just over forty-five centimetres long. It has a pistol grip and fits easily into the large, inside pocket of a raincoat. You have to walk a little stiffly, a little stilted, lumbering like a robot, trying to keep the barrel pressed against your thigh, but it’s the only way. At any moment, you have to be ready to fire or fuck off. Or both. Whatever you do, you need to be accurate. And driven.

  The little cop has gone downstairs, she’s alone in her room. If he hasn’t left the building yet, he’ll hear the blast, at which point he’d better get his arse in gear or he’ll be charged with professional misconduct. I wouldn’t bet much on his future in the force.

  I come to the first floor. A long corridor. I go all the way across the building and take the opposite stairwell. Up to the second.

  The great thing about the public sector is everyone is so overworked, no-one gives you a second look. The corridors are full of distraught families or anxious friends tiptoeing in and out of rooms as though they’re in church, while harried nurses scurry past.

  The second-floor corridor is deserted. Wide as a boulevard.

  Room 224 is right at the other end, ideally situated for those who need a long rest. And speaking of a long rest, I think I can make it permanent.

  I take a few steps towards the room.

  I need to be careful as I open the door, a sawn-off shotgun clattering on the floor of a hospital is likely to panic people, they just aren’t very understanding. The handle turns as quietly as an angel, I take a step across the threshold, shift the Mossberg from one hand to the other, opening the raincoat wide. She is lying on the bed, from the doorway I can see her feet, lifeless, unresponsive, like the feet of a dead woman. I lean a little to the side and now I can see her whole body . . .

  Jesus, the face on her!

  I did a bang-up job.

  She’s lying on her side, asleep, a trickle of drool hanging from her lips, her eyelids swollen shut – she’s no oil painting. Instinctively I remember the expression “to rearrange someone’s face”. It seems appropriate. She looks like a mid-period Picasso. The bandages probably help, but even the mottled colours of her skin. Her skin looks like parchment. Or canvas. Her head is grotesquely bloated. If she was planning a night on the town, she’ll need to take a rain check.

  Stand in the doorway. Make sure the shotgun is visible.

  Let her know I didn’t come empty-handed.

  The door is now wide open to the corridor, but she doesn’t wake up. I go to all this trouble and this is the kind of welcome I get? Usually wounded people are like animals, they sense things. She’s bound to wake up; just give her a couple of seconds. Survival instinct. She’ll see the gun – she and the Mossberg know each other well, they’re practically friends.

  When she sees me with the shotgun, she’ll be terrified. Obviously. She’ll toss and turn, try to sit up against the pillows, her head thrashing about.

  And she’ll howl.

  Given the serious damage I did to her jaw, she won’t be up to much in the way of intelligible conversation. The best she’ll probably manage is “Heeeeehhh” or “Heeeeeppp”, something like that, but to compensate for her lack of clarity she’ll go for volume, a full-throated scream to bring everyone running. If this happens, then before we get down to business, I’ll signal for her to be quiet – shhhh – bring my finger to my lips. Shhh. She will carry on screaming the place down. Shhhh, this is a hospital for fuck’s sake!

  “Monsieur?”

  In the corridor, just behind me.

  A distant voice.

  Don’t turn round, stand stock-still.

  “Are you looking for someone . . .?”

  Usually it’s impossible to get anyone’s attention in a hospital, but show up with a sawn-off shotgun and suddenly you’ve got some nurse eager to help you.

  Glance up at the number on the door like someone who has just realised their mistake. The nurse is closer now. Without turning, stammer awkwardly:

  “Sorry, got the wrong room . . .”

  Keep a cool head, that’s the most important thing. Whether you’re pulling off a heist or paying a visit to a friend in hospital, a cool head is crucial. Mentally, I picture the evacuation plan. Go to the stairwell, up one floor, turn left. Better get a move on, because if I’m forced to turn round now, I’ll have to pull out the Mossberg and open fire, thereby depriving a public hospital of a fine nurse when they’re short-staffed already. I lengthen my stride. But first, lock an
d load. You never know.

  Loading a round into the chamber takes both hands. And the pump action makes a distinct metallic click. Which echoes ominously down hospital corridors.

  “The lifts aren’t that way . . .”

  A dry clack and the voice suddenly breaks off, giving way to a nervous silence. A young voice, at once pure and troubled, shot down in mid-flight.

  “Monsieur!”

  With the shotgun loaded, all I need to do is take my time and be meticulous. Keep my back to her at all times. The rigid line of the barrel is visible through the fabric of my trench coat; it looks as though I have a wooden leg. I take three steps. The flap of the coat flicks open for a fraction of a second revealing the end of the barrel. A brief glimmer like a beam of light, like the sun glinting on a shard of glass. Barely noticeable, barely recognisable, and if you’ve only seen guns in the movies you’re unlikely to realise what it is. Still, you know that you’ve seen something, you hesitate, thinking it might be . . . No, it’s too preposterous . . .

  *

  In the time it takes for the penny to drop . . . the man turns, head bowed, apologises for his mistake, closes the flap of his coat and goes into the stairwell. But he does not go down, he goes up. He’s not running away, otherwise surely he would have gone downstairs. But that stilted way he was walking . . . Very weird. What was that thing under his coat? From a distance, it looked just like a gun. Here? In a hospital? No – she can’t bring herself to believe it. Just time to run up the stairs . . .

  “Monsieur . . . monsieur?”

  *

  8.10 p.m.

  Time to leave. As a police officer, Camille cannot afford the luxury of behaving like some star-crossed lover. Detectives don’t spend the night at the victim’s bedside. He has already made enough blunders for one day.

  And at precisely that moment his mobile vibrates, he checks the screen: Commissaire Michard. He stuffs the phone back into his pocket, turns back to the receptionist and waves goodbye. She winks and crooks her finger, gesturing to him. Camille hesitates, pretends he does not understand, but too weary to resist he trudges back. He already has the parking tickets, what more can she want?

  “You finally off, then? Don’t get much sleep on the force, do you?”

  This is meant as an innuendo, because she smiles, showing off her crooked teeth. To think he wasted his time for this. He sighs heavily, gives a half-hearted smile. He desperately needs to sleep. He has taken three steps when she calls after him.

  “Oh, there was a phone call, I thought you’d like to know.”

  “When was this?”

  “A while ago . . . around seven o’clock.”

  And before Camille has time to ask . . .

  “Her brother.”

  Nathan. Camille has never met Anne’s brother, but he has heard him on her voicemail. Nervous, excitable and young. He is fifteen years younger than his sister, a researcher in some incomprehensible subject – photons, nanotechnology, some field whose very name is meaningless to Camille.

  “And for a brother, he’s not exactly polite. Listening to him, I’m glad I’m an only child.”

  A sudden realisation explodes inside Camille’s head: how would Nathan have known Anne was in hospital?

  Suddenly wide awake, he races round to the other side of the desk. The receptionist does not even wait for him to formulate the question.

  “A man’s voice, he was . . . [Ophélia rolls her eyes] well, he was ignorant and rude. ‘Forestier . . . Yeah, with an F, how else would you spell it, with two Fs? [She mimics his curt, arrogant tone.] What exactly is wrong with her? And what did the doctors say? [Her imitation is beginning to verge on caricature.] What do you mean, they don’t know?’ [Her tone now is shocked, outraged.] . . .”

  Did he have an accent?

  The receptionist shakes her head. Camille glances around. The conclusion will come to him, he knows that, he is simply waiting for the neural pathways to connect, it is only a matter of seconds.

  “Did he sound young?”

  “Not young-young. Forty-something, I’d guess. Personally, I thought he . . .”

  Camille is no longer listening, he is running, jostling anyone in his way. He wrenches open the door to the stairs which slams behind him. Already, he is taking the stairs as fast as his dumpy legs can manage.

  *

  8:15 p.m.

  As soon as he heard my footsteps, he went upstairs, the nurse is thinking. About twenty-two, she has her hair in a skinhead crop and a ring through her bottom lip. On the outside she is all provocation, but inside is a different matter; if anything, she is too soft, too sensitive. She heard the stairwell door bang, but during those few seconds she spent hesitating the man could have gone anywhere – up to the fourth floor, down to reception, through the neurosurgical ward – there is no way of knowing where he went after that.

  What was she supposed to do? She wasn’t sure what she had seen and you don’t go setting off the alarm in a hospital when you’re not sure . . . She heads back to the nurses’ station. The whole idea is ridiculous. Who would bring a shotgun into a hospital? But if it wasn’t a gun, what was it? Some sort of prosthesis? There are visitors who bring giant bunches of gladioli – are gladioli in season now? He got the wrong room, that’s what he said.

  Still, she has her doubts. She did a course on battered women at nursing college, she knows how brutal men can be, she knows they’re quite capable of attacking their wives even in a hospital. She retraces her steps and pops her head around the door of room 224. The woman in the room cries all the time; every time the nurse comes in she is in tears, running her fingers over her face, following the line of her lips. She covers her mouth when she speaks. Twice, the nurse found her in front of the bathroom mirror, though she barely has the strength to stand.

  But still, she thinks as she leaves the room, worried now, what could the man have had under his raincoat? It looked like a broom handle, in the split second when his coat fell open, there was a glint of metal, of cold steel. She tries to think of something else, something that might be mistaken for a shotgun barrel. A crutch?

  This is what she is thinking as the policeman bursts through the doors at the far end of the corridor, the little officer who spent all afternoon sitting with the patient – no more than five feet tall, his handsome face is grave, unsmiling. He rushes past like a lunatic, almost knocking her over, jerks open the door to room 224 and dashes inside. He looks as though he is about to throw himself on the bed.

  “Anne, Anne . . .” he yells.

  *

  The way he’s acting makes no sense, thinks the nurse, he’s a policeman, but you’d think he was her husband. The patient seems very agitated. She shakes her head wildly, raises her hand to ward off the torrent of questions: stop yelling.

  “Are you O.K.?” the policeman whispers over and over. “Are you O.K.?”

  I talk to him, try to keep him calm. The patient lets her arm fall limply by her side, she looks at me. “I’m fine . . .”

  “Did you see anyone?” the policeman turns back to me. “Did someone come into this room? Did you see him?”

  His voice is grim, anxious.

  “Did someone come into the room?”

  Yes, I mean not really, I mean no . . .

  “There was a man . . . he said he’d got the wrong floor, he opened the door . . .”

  The policeman doesn’t even wait for me to finish. He turns back to the patient, looks at her intently, she shakes her head, she seems confused, bewildered. She doesn’t say anything, she simply shakes her head. She didn’t see anyone. She slumps back on the bed, pulls the sheets up to her chin and starts to sob quietly. All these questions are frightening her. The little cop is hopping around like a flea. I need to say something.

  “Monsieur, I’ll thank you to remember that this is a hospital!”

  He nods, but you can tell he’s thinking about something else.

  “And besides, visiting hours are over.”

 
He turns back to me.

  “Which way did he go?”

  I pause for a split second and before I can answer he’s shouting.

  “This guy you saw, the one who said he’d got the wrong room, which way did he go?”

  I reach down, take the patient’s wrist and take her pulse. This is none of my business, what matters is the patient’s welfare. I’m not in the business of reassuring jealous lovers.

  “He took the stairs, over by . . .”

  Before I’ve even finished the sentence, he’s off like a shot, racing towards the emergency door, I hear his feet on the stairs, but it’s impossible to tell whether he is going up or down.

  But the shotgun . . . Did I just imagine it?

  The concrete stairwell echoes like a cathedral. Camille grabs the banister, hurtles down the first few steps. Then stops.

  No. If he were the killer, he would go up.

  He does a U-turn. The treads are not standard size, the steps are about half a centimetre taller than expected; ten steps and you’re tired, twenty and you’re exhausted. Especially Camille with his short legs.

  Panting, he arrives on the third floor, where he hesitates, racking his brain, trying to decide what he would do. Keep going up? No – he would go back into the maze of corridors. Bursting through the doors, Camille crashes into a doctor.

  “What the . . .? Look where you’re going, can’t you!”

  A quick glance reveals a man of indeterminate age, his white coat freshly ironed (the pleats are still visible), his hair quite grey, he is standing frozen, hands in his pockets, flustered by Camille’s frantic appearance . . .

  “Did you see a man go past just now?”

  The doctor takes a deep breath, struggles to recover his dignity and is about to stalk off.

  “Are you fucking deaf?” Camille roars. “Did you see a man go past or didn’t you?”

  “No . . . I, um . . .”

  This is answer enough for Camille, he turns on his heel, jerks the door as though trying to rip it off its hinges, tears back downstairs and into the corridor, he goes right, then left, gasping for breath, there is no-one. He retraces his steps, breaks into a run when he suddenly has a nagging hunch (doubtless fuelled by exhaustion) that tells him he is going the wrong way: the moment such doubts creep in, your pace begins to slacken, in fact it becomes impossible to run faster. As he reaches the end of the corridor where it turns at a right angle, Camille crashes into an electrical cupboard. The door is seven feet high and plastered with lightning bolts and other symbols, all of which mean “Danger of Death”. Thanks for the tip.