by John Brooke
But Pearl’s eyes were always fast on Tommi. The real Tommi?…The true Pearl?
Pearl told Claude Néon it was a dream that would not go away. She feared it for this reason, and couldn’t understand why it would be such a constant part of her life. Which was true. Totally true. We mustn’t lie to the police. Pearl had given Claude the scene but not the context:
One moment, years ago, one vital thing passing from Tommi’s eyes to hers, never to be repeated, always to be sought. The moment was reciprocal. A flash of lasting beauty. From one heart to the other, light is never just one-way. She could never understand it — how it shaped her. But it had. Was she linked forever to the man in the moon who’d been a beautiful boy in the sun?
So confusing, so deep-seated. You can’t tell that to another man. Especially not a cop.
Each man has his own context. Pearl Serein knew that. Any woman does.
This time when she awoke, Pearl was free of Tommi, if not the dream, because a dream crosses lines of death. She made her way back to the light of day. Put herself at the mercy of the police. During the follow-up interrogation, Pearl Serein spoke freely with Inspector Aliette Nouvelle. She sensed they shared a lot where it came to men. And books. Pearl was happy to find another soul who understood her kinship to the conflicted Maid at the crux of The Three-Cornered World. And she made no attempt to conceal her friendship with the youthful Tommi. She even tried to describe that moment on the roof. Or part of it. Tommi’s part. Pearl tried to provide as much insight as she could that might be useful in the reconstruction of the crimes. If they were crimes.
But the inspector was not a man and Pearl kept her dream to herself. She sensed this Aliette Nouvelle might have understood completely, and so she did not tell her of the dream.
It was her dream. And Pearl couldn’t bear to give it up.
Epilogue
All initial police communications focused on the abduction of Willem van Hoogstraten and the concise action on the part of Divisionnaire Norbert Fauré which likely saved his life. When the inevitable search through Tommi Bonneau’s residence uncovered the body of tennis professional Remy Lorentz in a hastily made grave in his yard, the authorities were happy to shift away from problematic heart attacks. The murder weapon — Didier Belfort’s tennis racquet — was found with the body. The fact of Claude Néon’s tennis racquet in Bonneau’s studio coupled with the published photograph of Claude Néon watching Remy Lorentz hit tennis balls was vaguely circumstantial, but only briefly. Forensics quickly left Claude Néon far from the circumstances attached to that gory discovery. The large fingernail-shredded photograph of Pearl Serein also found with the body proved Belfort’s presence in Bonneau’s studio, nothing more. A series of ghostly 8x10 black-and-white faces were intriguing. But you didn’t need an expensive expert from the capital to explain how Remy Lorentz had been dispatched. The office of the procureur saw no need for any follow-up to establish criminal links from Bonneau to the seven deceased lovers — heart attacks would remain the accepted version. A somewhat arcane photographic lighting set-up in Bonneau’s studio was left unexplored.
Inspector Nouvelle considered hauling Anne-Marie back in. But finally didn’t. There was no need. Nor any demand on the part of the court. Apart from Georgette, who even knew of Anne-Marie’s latest romantic misadventure? She had slipped from view — no sign of the old Westfalia van anywhere. Aliette would never see Anne-Marie again. She would hear from sources on the street that she had gone back to Switzerland. But it was never verified, and she would never go to look. It was a fact of life that street people, even beautiful ones, often disappeared.
The inspector wondered if Anne-Marie ever knew about Georgette.
Aliette brought the book Georgette had stolen from Pearl’s bedside table and put it on her pillow. She sat there as a faltering Georgette contemplated those five simple but evocative lines left behind by a despairing Maid trapped in The Three-Cornered World. It was impossible to tell what the old artist’s model made of it. Georgette Duguay, badly battered, died in a hospital bed three weeks after the fact. Aliette Nouvelle was not there for the end, but the nurses said Georgette had been serene. Although Aliette and Pearl discussed the book in the interview process, it was the missing book — Aliette never did return that book to Pearl Serein.
Despite Pearl’s expansive, too often meandering confessions, Aliette realized she did not like this woman much. She sensed she was hiding something very important. A cop can feel it.
No, Aliette did not trust her much at all.
Reinstated Commissaire Claude Néon withheld comment. He was quickly given to understand that no one wanted to hear about his heroics, much less his experience in front of Tommi’s lights.
Willem van Hoogstraten was still in shock, doubting his own words. Willem’s version of Tommi’s deranged confession was patchy at best. And while he (too) eagerly confirmed the fantastical reports of a man demonstrating flips on the tower under the moonlight, none of it helped bring closure to the matter. Chief Magistrate Richand strongly advised Monsieur van Hoogstraten to resist media blandishments. Closure applied to all involved and Willem would surely regret it if he blabbed. In a word: They wanted it over and done.
Inspector Nouvelle did not argue this result. When asked, she held to the official line.
Absent Tommi, absent Rose — who’d gone to the more exciting regional capital to pursue a career in investigative journalism (and a love affair with Norrie), the popular spin wound down. When Cakeface put her mic in front of Pearl Serein, Pearl told her, ‘We follow our vocation. It’s the calling of the heart.’ Thus Pearl announced the opening of an exclusive kindergarten for boys, which would be located on the premises of her magnificent home in the sky — an excellent vantage point from which a young man could develop a crucial overview of how life really worked. Places were limited, the selection process would be rigorous, Pearl Serein was deeply excited.
Cake smiled earnestly, then took her camera elsewhere. Kindergarten didn’t cut it.
But thanks to Cake’s investigations, the parkour phenomenon quickly grew within our town beyond the smattering of disaffected adolescents, much to their displeasure. Such is the nature of the next new thing. Each night the city skyline was dotted with bodies in marvelous motion. This helped us keep a sense of being plugged in to the zeitgeist in the absence of our Pearl.
Apart from a small group of bourgeois parents clustered in the north end who claimed she worked magic with ‘her boys,’ the city soon forgot Pearl’s name. Because (let’s be honest) although fundamental to cultural cohesion, a schoolteacher just isn’t very interesting.
Privately, Aliette Nouvelle still had many questions.
‘Knowing what you know, would you trust her with your child?’
Claude said, ‘I want to be believed, but if I’m not, it doesn’t matter. All I know is that I never felt more alive than that night.’
Aliette asked, ‘Why does it have to be just boys? What does she have against girls?’
Claude said, ‘Maybe I experienced something like it when I was kid. When every street was huge, you know? A little bit of freedom. Invincible. A sense of immortality.'
Aliette mused, ‘But just boys? It seems less than evolved. You know? It goes against that tough, independent streak I thought I saw. No?’
‘Never felt more like a man…never felt more alive,’ said Claude.
‘All the parents say she tells them stories — her boys, I mean,’ said Aliette.
Claude told Aliette, ‘I felt I couldn’t die!’
Aliette told Claude, ‘I felt she was hiding something from me. I wonder what she tells them.’
Claude insisted, ‘I’ve told you everything. There’s nothing more.’
‘There was something not quite right about this woman,’ Aliette insisted.
‘I agree,’ Claude murmured. But he never again mentioned her name.
‘I should not have been so quick to give her the benefit of the doubt…but I’m
not perfect.’
Claude laughed, of course she was perfect! And he dared her to try a run.
With him. Un petit parkour? Come on! They would go together.
But the inspector said she was happy enough with her feet on solid ground.
Yes, Aliette and Claude were sometimes off on different trains of thought. But lovers can do this because the bed they share creates abiding context. The only power game is love. Claude was hers again and (almost) everyone was none the wiser. She listened when he tried to explain his version of that night. She listened and, trained as she was to sort through lies, realized it was something he believed. She sensed he believed it because it tapped intrinsic levels, a deep vein of imagination, the self in embryo (Claude’s self, at any rate), never clearly known, transported by pure energy, or the dream of it, via the heart to an image formed in the core of his brain.
Perhaps not the story of what actually occurred, but certainly the story of Claude.
Bon. So Aliette and Claude had survived their first crise d’amour. Hadn’t they? And they shared a secret. Yes, he could agree they had survived the crisis. And they did share a secret.
So now? What next? How much further could they take it?
But men hate that kind of question. Try a different tack, Inspector.
She ran a finger down his belly…going, going…Claude’s heart was beating!
‘On roule?’ whispered Aliette Nouvelle.
fin
About the Author
John Brooke became fascinated by criminality and police work listening to the courtroom stories and observations of his father, a long-serving judge. Although he lives in Montreal, John makes frequent trips to France for both pleasure and research. He earns a living as a freelance writer and translator, has also worked as a film and video editor as well as directed four films on modern dance. His poetry and short stories have been widely published, and in 1998 his story “The Finer Points of Apples” won him the Journey Prize. Brooke’s first Inspector Aliette mystery, The Voice of Aliette Nouvelle, was published in 1999, followed by All Pure Souls in 2001. He took a break from Aliette with the publication of the novel Last Days of Montreal in 2004, but returns with her in Stifling Folds of Love.
