by Mark Pryor
And this trip had to be made, his last trip home. Ever.
After wrapping the whore’s body in a blanket and carrying her up to the old woman’s apartment, he’d gone looking for a car. He wandered the residential streets around his home, widening the circle, waiting for the right moment. It took two hours.
She was unloading groceries by the curb, the trunk of her blue Citroën open, bags collecting on the sidewalk beside her. The car keys were still in the lock of the trunk and the front door to her house was open, she must have done that to make carrying the bags in easier, and he thought for a second about taking the car when she was inside. But that wouldn’t work, she’d notice the car missing and alert the police. They’d probably catch him before he left Paris.
So he waited behind a nearby van, watching. She carried the last two bags inside, then came back out and stood behind the car. She stretched up to close the trunk, pausing when she heard his voice.
“Excusez-moi, madame.”
She turned and the Scarab shot her once in the face, shouldering her falling body into the back of the car. He shot her once more as she lay there, then closed the trunk. He took the keys out of the lock and walked to her front door. He listened for a moment, smiling at the silence, then closed the door gently. He turned and walked to the front of the car, climbed in, and drove away.
He spent the night in his old room, the first time he’d done that since he was a child. He didn’t mind the damp smell of the house because the mustiness had always been there. It was stronger now, but that was because the thick stone walls were soaked with memories of the good times he’d had here with his mother. But he’d not dared go in the other bedroom, the one across the hall, because of all the rooms in the small house, that one retained the darkness of his spirit.
In the morning, he left the house before it was light. It was unlikely the police would find this place but if they did, the less time he spent here the better. In the black hours, he walked up to the cemetery and hopped over the low wall. He was curious to see what they’d done to his father’s grave, whether there was any sign of the caretaker’s blood on the ground. But the site had been cleaned up and the grave, now empty, looked the way it had before he’d exhumed those evil-filled bones.
He turned and walked back past his house, turning right on the main street, then left up the winding little road that led to the Port de Castet, an expanse of meadows high above the village split by a gravel track that was used only by those with four legs, and their keepers.
It took an hour to reach the port, and he was breathing heavily by the time the road turned to gravel, leveling out for a few hundred yards before sloping up into the mountains. He moved off the track and began to climb a steep hillock. Halfway up, he stopped to look back at the valley below, where the lights of the villages of Bielle and Bilhères sparkled on the opposite mountainside.
He sat until the sun had risen behind him, warm fingers spreading over his shoulders and back, pulling him out of his reverie. This was their spot, the place he and his mother had come to picnic, to escape the monster in the cold stone house that was out of sight from here. He thought about the conversations they’d had, her halting apologies for . . . what? His life? Yes, the Scarab thought, for the life with his father, the brute. She’d told him, with longing in her voice, of her days working in Toulouse, Pau, Valence, and how she’d met the ugly man who’d been the first to treat her like a lady, the first to make her feel beautiful inside. Oh, the money, she’d laughed, he had so much money back then, and they’d spent it on champagne and laughter. She’d go silent at this point, as she relived so swift a change in the man who’d captured her like an ogre, chained her with a child, and locked her in his dungeon in the Pyrénées. She would stroke the rough head of her petit scarabée so that he’d know it wasn’t his fault, not really, and so he’d know that her love for him was real. But he felt the resentment, too, the anguish that she felt up there, high on a hill, a thousand miles away from her dreams.
He stood and stretched, then walked higher into the mountains until his breath was ragged. Soon he would feel nothing, so now he wanted to feel everything. Pain, pleasure, and the memories that were both, memories that were released in waves by the mountains around him.
When his legs were too tired to go on, when his chest heaved with the pain of breathing, he rested on the tumbledown stones of a deserted hillside barn. And when the well of his tears had dried up, he turned for home.
Chapter Thirty-five
The pages were from a journal, hand-written. They were pasted all over the downstairs walls, both sides of the narrow living room.
“You think he put them up?” Garcia asked.
Hugo held a finger to his lips, then whispered. “Let’s clear the house.”
He went first, his Glock in his hand. The downstairs consisted of just the living space and, behind it, a kitchen and bathroom. Inside the kitchen, to the left, was a small window with three iron security bars, once painted white, on the outside. Next to the window was a door that was bolted shut, and that Hugo assumed led out to the backyard. He checked the fridge while Garcia stuck his head into the small bathroom that sat at the back of the house.
“Anything in there?” Hugo asked.
“A bathtub and a toilet. Otherwise, no.”
Hugo looked around the small kitchen and ran a finger over the counter, the dust soft against his skin.
Garcia joined him. “It doesn’t seem like anyone’s been here, certainly not to live. But no doubt you’ll want to look upstairs.”
“Correct.” Again, Hugo led the way. The stairs were little more than planks of oak, and they creaked with age and disuse. Hugo’s breathing deepened as he neared the top, as if the darkness itself were pressing in on his chest. He paused on the small landing, closed doors either side of him. He chose the one to his right. The handle turned easily, but the door itself stuck in the jamb until he gave it a shove with his shoulder. He swept his gun in a wide arc, eyes straining for signs of movement.
Behind him, Garcia whispered, “I’m turning the light on.”
A weak mist of yellow filled the room, spilling out from an old bulb covered in dust. They moved into the little room, furnished with a double bed, a small side table, and a battered blanket chest at the foot of the bed. A yellow stain on the ceiling told Hugo the roof needed repair. A worn rug covered the floor, preventing Hugo from seeing whether the dust had been disturbed. The bed was a tangle of blankets, damp to the touch, and they might have been there a night or a year.
On the wall was a large, framed photograph. It was in color and showed a line of dancers, chorus girls, high-kicking in unison. Hugo studied the picture and beckoned Garcia over.
“Look at this,” he whispered.
“Comment?” Garcia stooped to look.
“It’s at the Moulin Rouge. I saw this exact photo when I was there.”
“Meaning?”
“No idea,” Hugo said. “Coincidence, maybe. A boy with a picture of pretty dancing girls is nothing new, but it’d be one hell of a coincidence.”
“C’est vrai. Let’s keep going.” Garcia touched his elbow and they moved to the doorway, eyes on the other bedroom. Garcia went in first this time, moving more deftly than Hugo would have given him credit for.
This bedroom was bigger. A king bed sat on a brass frame and dominated the room. To their left, as they faced the bed, was a tall pine armoire and on the other side of the room a door led to what Hugo found to be a bathroom. He cleared it, noting the dry sink and bathtub, as Garcia checked under the bed and opened up the empty armoire.
“If he was here, he’s not now,” Garcia said. They both put their guns away and Hugo started down the stairs, Garcia right behind him.
A sound behind him, no more than a scrape, made the hair on Hugo’s neck stand on end, but his reaction came too late.
“How did you find me?” The voice was scratchy, angry.
Hugo swiveled as he reached for his weap
on, but froze before he could pull it. The Scarab stood on the landing, the end of his .22 an inch behind the capitaine’s left ear.
“Monsieur Villier,” Hugo said.
“You didn’t check the blanket chest,” Villier said, a smile creeping over his thick lips. “And I’m very good at hiding.”
“We noticed,” Garcia said. “Now, do you mind putting that thing away?”
The Scarab gave a mirthless laugh. “I mind. Please, go down stairs, slowly. If either of you try anything, the bald man dies.”
In the living room, Hugo turned to face the Scarab. The man looked tired and unkempt, but his eyes glittered. “What now?” Hugo asked.
Villier ignored him. “I asked you a question. How did you find me?”
“Fingerprints,” Garcia said.
“So soon?” Villier looked surprised. “Les flics are more efficient than I’d thought.”
“Why are you here?” Hugo asked. He wanted to get Villier talking, try to direct them onto safe ground. Not many people looked down the barrel of a gun at a serial killer and lived to tell of it, but the man had let one person live, so Hugo needed to figure out whether this killer might do the same for them. He doubted it, but for now it was the only option.
“This is my house. Why wouldn’t I be here?”
“Fair enough. I’ll ask it another way. Why are you here now? Today.”
“Non. No more questions.” Villier shook his head. “Not from you. Sit on the couch, both of you.” They lowered themselves, watching him intently as he moved to stand beside Garcia, his .22 again behind the capitaine’s ear. “Now, Marston, take out your gun and put it on the floor between your feet.”
Hugo paused. “You know my name.”
Villier’s lip curled. “Mais oui. After all, you know mine so that’s only fair, isn’t it? Alors, the gun.”
Villier watched as Hugo complied, then tapped Garcia’s head with the barrel of his weapon. “Now you.”
“OK, OK,” Garcia said. Hugo didn’t like the note of panic in his friend’s voice.
When both guns were on the floor, the Scarab moved to stand in front of them. “Now kick them to me.”
The guns clattered over the wooden floor and Hugo felt like a lifeline had been cut. “Did you hang the papers? What are they?”
Villier stared at him for a moment, as if wondering whether to answer. Then he nodded. “The salaud who raised me. He kept a diary. I didn’t know until after he’d died. He catalogued all the things he did to me and my mother. The sick bastard got off on hurting us, then got off all over again by writing it down.” He waved his gun at the walls. “Each of those pages details something he did to one of us.”
“Why paste them on the walls?” Hugo asked.
“So I can watch them burn.”
“You’re going to set fire to the house? What would your mother say about that?”
“My mother?” Villier laughed, but again without humor. “She wouldn’t mind.”
“Where is she?” Garcia said, his voice firm.
“Maman?” The black eyes swiveled to look at the capitaine. “My mother is dead. She’s been dead for thirteen years.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. How did that happen?”
Hugo saw Villier’s jaw tense and the man suddenly bristled. “You mean there’s something you don’t know, American?”
“There’s a whole lot I don’t know,” Hugo said, keeping his voice neutral. “A whole helluva lot. You mind enlightening me?”
“Bien sûr,” Villier sneered. “I’ll tell you how she died. Or do you want to guess?”
“Non,” Hugo said. “I don’t want to guess. Why don’t you just tell me?”
“Very well.” The Scarab nodded slowly, a smile spreading over his thick lips. “I did it myself. I killed my mother.”
Chapter Thirty-six
“I don’t believe you,” Hugo said. And he didn’t, because it made no sense and because that smile had been too forced, as if Villier was trying to make himself into a monster just to scare them.
“I don’t care what you believe,” Villier sneered.
“Why would you kill your own mother?” Hugo pressed. Everything he’d assumed about this man told Hugo that he idolized his mother. Killing her didn’t fit the pattern, especially if he’d done it a dozen years ago, when he was little more than a boy.
“You wouldn’t understand. You couldn’t possibly understand, and I have no intention of telling you anything.” The slits that were the Scarab’s eyes shifted as he looked around him. A smile, more genuine and one that Hugo didn’t like, spread over his face. He turned his eyes back to the two men on the couch as he moved toward a desk by the front door. A wooden, straight-backed chair blocked his way so he moved it into the room. He opened a drawer and felt inside, pulling out a piece of paper, a pen, and a safety pin.
He moved back to the middle of the room. He folded the paper into four squares, the gun still in his hand, then ripped one of the squares off, dropping the rest of the paper to the floor.
He looked at Hugo, and said, “I wanted you to live. It’s true, I did.”
Hugo grimaced. “I hope you still do.”
“We’ll see.”
“Why?” Hugo chided himself for his previous reply. Being a smart-ass wasn’t going to win the day, he needed to get inside the man’s head. “Alors, tell me why you want me to live?”
“I like Americans who speak French.”
“No, really. I’m curious.”
“About everything, it seems.” He held Hugo’s eye. “You have come closest to catching me. You are a profiler, you know about behavior and why people do things.”
“Sometimes, yes.”
“Your job, it’s to try and figure it all out in advance so you can catch people like me before they hurt others.”
“That used to be my job, yes. Part of it, anyway.”
“The other part being when you couldn’t figure it out in advance. You’d put the jigsaw together afterward to understand, explain, and capture the killer.”
“Basically, yes.”
Villier smiled. “That’s the part of the job I was going to let you do. Not the capture part, but figure it out afterward and explain it to the world.” He shrugged. “If the world cares.”
“In my experience, the world is fascinated by people like you,” Hugo said. “By what you do and why you do it.”
Garcia shifted beside him and Villier looked at the policeman. “What do you have to say?” Villier sneered. “You just along for the ride?”
“Pretty much. I was looking forward to shooting you once he caught you.”
Hugo groaned inside. Antagonizing Villier was not going to help their situation. He cleared his throat. “Look, I can’t tell the world anything. I have no idea what the hell’s going on. Do you have some kind of plan?”
“Certainement,” Villier said. “You really have no idea, do you?”
“We really don’t,” Hugo said. “And unless you tell me, the world will never understand you.”
“I don’t believe that. If I let you live, you’ll figure it out. But I’m afraid your stupid trick to find out in advance isn’t going to work. I’m not as smart as you, Monsieur Marston, but I’m also not as stupid as you think I am.” He waved a hand to indicate both walls. “You’ve seen this. You know what they are. And you know I killed my mother. I’m guessing you can figure it out yourself, sooner or later.”
“How long do we have?”
Villier raised an eyebrow. “We? Oh, no, I never planned to have two of you left. No, that was never the plan.” He threw the pen and paper to Hugo. “Draw a circle on it. This big.” He held up his left hand, the forefinger and thumb touching.
“A circle? Why?”
“Do it.” He watched as Hugo drew, and then said: “Now throw the pen over here.” The pen landed near his foot and he kicked it across the floor, away from the men on the couch. He moved backward, always watching them, until he reached the desk chair. H
e put a hand on the back and turned it around. “Policeman, come and sit here.”
Hugo exchanged glances with Garcia. He didn’t like Villier’s tone, nor his reference to his friend in such an impersonal way. That didn’t bode well.
“He’s not just a policeman,” Hugo said. “He’s also a husband and a father.”
The Scarab turned his black eyes on Hugo, the eyes of an animal that cared nothing for such connections. He waved the gun at Garcia, who rose, his hands out to his sides. Villier moved, too, his gun shifting between his two captives as the French policeman walked slowly and sat in the wooden chair.
“Hands on your head,” Villier said. When Garcia had complied, it was Hugo’s turn. Villier threw the safety pin at him. “Get up very slowly. Go over to your friend and pin the circle over his heart.” The Scarab’s eyes glittered as he smiled. “And don’t try to be clever. If you have learned anything about me, you’ll know that my knowledge of human anatomy is improving rapidly.”
“Villier, no, this is . . . It’s not right,” Hugo said. “Something else I know about you is that you don’t kill innocent people.”
“Ah, so you recognize an execution when you see one? Don’t they do this where you’re from?”
“No, they don’t,” Hugo said through gritted teeth. He stood in the middle of the room, calculating his chances of getting to the Scarab before the man could shoot them both. He didn’t like the odds. Not yet, anyway.
Villier turned the gun on Garcia and his voice hardened. “Do it now.”
As if in a dream, Hugo drifted toward Garcia, his eyes imploring his friend for forgiveness, for a plan, for any sign of hope. Garcia looked right back at him, and Hugo saw calm in the man’s eyes, acceptance even.
And for the first time ever, Garcia spoke to him in English. “It’s OK, my friend. Do as he says. It’s OK.”
Rage burned inside Hugo, and he knew that if the Scarab let him live, he would track the man down and destroy him, personally. Hugo’s training, years of chasing and catching killers with total dispassion and detachment, all of it had been blown apart by this rat of a man, forcing Hugo to pin a target on his friend’s chest. He did as ordered, leaving his hand on his friend’s shoulder as he straightened.
