First Blood

by S. Cedric

  “Yeah, deal,” Vauvert said, still feeling trapped.

  A Sphinx smile came over Girodon’s face. He’s clearly a shrink, Vauvert thought.

  As he was leaving, he turned around and said, “I believe someone is waiting for you.”

  Vauvert looked annoyed.

  “For me? I wasn’t expecting anyone.”

  Then he remembered his appointment with Jeanne Bonnet, the doctor’s accuser. It was scheduled for eleven.

  He looked in the hallway and saw a young woman sitting near the coffee machine. She could not have been anyone else.

  “Shit, she’s more than half an hour early.”

  That was not a good sign.

  33

  What struck him first was how helpless the girl looked. She was slouched in the chair. Her hands were on her thighs, and her eyes were downcast, as though she was wondering if she had picked out the right boots.

  He observed that she was trying to hide her body under layers of oversized clothing: a pale pink sweater that went down to her knees, baggy black jeans, and high boots. Over her sweater, she was wearing a leather jacket, despite the heat in the hallway. On her hands were fingerless angora gloves. She was also wearing sunglasses.

  When she saw him coming toward her, she sank farther into her chair, as though he were a monster who would swallow her.

  Am I that repugnant? he thought.

  Despite her attempt to be invisible, the girl was pretty. She looked more like a teenager than a twenty-five-year-old woman. She had dyed black hair that highlighted a carefully deconstructed cut.

  “Miss Bonnet?”

  “Yeah, that’s me,” she said in a near whisper.

  “I am Inspector Vauvert. I’ll be taking your statement.”

  She got up. She was so thin, paper-thin, Vauvert thought.

  “Follow me,” he said. He wanted to get this over as quickly as possible.

  He led her to the end of the brick-walled hallway and invited her into his office.

  “Have a seat.”

  The girl slumped into a chair and examined her fingernails. She did not take off her jacket or her sunglasses. Vauvert also sat down.

  “You’re going to have to remove your glasses. I would like to see your eyes while we talk.”

  “Yes, of course. Sorry.”

  She did as she was told.

  As he suspected, she had a good reason to keep her glasses on. Her left eye was streaked with tiny red veins, and her cheekbone was swollen and bruised. Vauvert felt a knot in his stomach. It would have taken a particularly violent strike to do that to her.

  “How did that happen?”

  “I fell,” she said. “But it’s nothing, really.”

  Is that so? Vauvert thought. He never understood why people always used that pitiful excuse.

  “Did you fall on something? That’s quite a bruise you have there.”

  “A door. I ran into a door.”

  “Oh, a door.”

  He sighed. The girl sitting in front of him could not even look him in the eye.

  “I’m going to ask you a few questions. You do realize that you are making a very serious accusation against Doctor Levy.”

  “What he did to me was serious,” she answered in a tiny voice. “He tried to assault me.”

  He nodded and explained that the questions were routine. Where did she live? How long had he been her doctor? Had he previously tried anything untoward? They were simple questions she answered carefully. Once or twice, he thought he saw her smile, and his mind started filling with doubts.

  “What did you do that day, before you went to the clinic?”

  “I was home. Why?”

  “I have to write down your schedule. Do you live alone? Were you alone that afternoon?”

  “Um, yes,” she said, pulling on her fingerless gloves.

  She was lying. Why?

  “Do you have a driver’s license?”

  “A driver’s license? No.”

  “You said you went to the clinic by car,” he said.

  “I said that?”

  “Yes. It’s here in the report. So you didn’t go to the clinic by car?”

  “Yes. I mean, I went in a car. Someone dropped me off.”

  “Who?”

  “A friend. It’s not important, is it?”

  Vauvert observed her. The girl slouched even more. She sniffled.

  “When did you have the appointment with Doctor Levy?” he asked, observing her carefully.

  This time, she did not answer right away. It was as though she were expecting a trap. He could see that she was concentrating, that she was thinking more than was necessary. It was clear to him now. Her beaten-down look was entirely fake.

  “You did have an appointment, didn’t you?” he asked.

  “But, well, yes. I mean...”

  “You do know that we will double-check, don’t you?”

  “I don’t remember,” she mumbled. “Maybe I didn’t.”

  “A doctor of that status would have a very busy schedule, wouldn’t he? But he still saw you without an appointment?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long were you in the waiting room?”

  “Not that long. I don’t remember.”

  “Who did you see when you first arrived?”

  “The secretary, as usual. But I...”

  The girl was staring at the desk and shifting in her chair.

  “Why are you asking me all these questions?” she said, a sob in her voice.

  “I’m trying to understand,” Vauvert said. “I remind you that you are filing charges. So you say you saw the secretary first. Did you go see Doctor Levy often?”

  “No, from time to time.”

  “But he saw you anyway?”

  “Yes, that’s it. That’s where he tried to assault me.”

  “What did he do, exactly?”

  “I already told the story.”

  “Remind me,” Vauvert pressed.

  “Well, first he grabbed my arm and squeezed. Then he touched my chest.”

  “Right away?”

  “Yes. I don’t remember that well. It all happened so quickly. He held me against the desk and forced me to kiss him.”

  Vauvert crossed his arms. That was not exactly what she said the first time. He still wanted to withhold judgment until he heard the rest of the story.

  “Miss Bonnet, has Doctor Levy ever done this kind of thing before?”

  The girl shivered.

  Finally, a reaction that isn’t faked. Maybe we’re getting somewhere.

  “Of course not,” she said, blinking. “Why?”

  Because if you are lying, I’d like to understand why.

  “What did he do after kissing you?”

  “He tried to have sexual relations with me.”

  “Yes, but how?”

  “He was holding me against his desk.”

  “Were you on your back?”

  “No. I was sitting on the desk. He had pushed me. He wanted to force me to lie down. I was terrified. He was touching me, and he wanted to take off my panties.”

  “Did he manage to do that?”

  “Yes.”

  “I suppose you fought back.”

  “Of course I did.”

  Vauvert observed her.

  “So he wanted to assault you in his office, in the clinic, while people were sitting in the waiting room a few yards away.”

  The girl’s face darkened. Vauvert guessed that she was clenching her fists, which were pressed against her thighs.

  “Yes. The door was closed. Nobody knew what was going on.”

  “Was the secretary still outside?”

  Jeanne Bonnet thought about that, once again for just a little too long.

  “I think so.”

  “You think so? How did you leave the office?”

  “I got away, and I was crying.”

  “You didn’t see the secretary on your way out?”

  “Well, yes, of course. Now
I remember. She was there.”

  “So she was there while the doctor tried to force you to have sexual relations?”

  “Um, yeah.”

  “I’ve been to this clinic. The secretary’s desk is next to the doctor’s office. How is it that she didn’t hear anything? Didn’t you scream?”

  “I don’t know. I must have tried, but he put his hand over my mouth and whispered that no one needed to know, and if I told anyone, I wouldn’t be believed.”

  “He said that?” the inspector asked. “You didn’t mention that before.”

  “Is it important?”

  “I think it is. Why did he think that no one would believe you?”

  Jeanne Bonnet took several deep breaths.

  “He said that all he’d have to do is say that I’m an addict, that his word would count more than mine.”

  She was looking down at her boots. He was disturbed. He knew that she was lying, but there was something else going on with this girl. There was some tension underneath her victim persona. Maybe it had to do with the black eye. Vauvert could not pin it down.

  When he said nothing, the girl looked up.

  “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  She’s not as dumb as she looks.

  She was shaking. Vauvert continued.

  “I’m not the one who decides. It’s up to you to tell me the truth. After you left his office, how did you get home?”

  “I, um...”

  Jeanne Bonnet put her mask back on. She was trying to manipulate him again, but it was not working.

  “I took the subway.”

  “Oh, the subway?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Because, I don’t believe there is a subway stop near the clinic.”

  “I took a bus and then the subway.”

  “Did you wait a long time for the bus?”

  She shook her head, looking for a new lie.

  “I’m getting tired of this, Miss Bonnet.”

  There, he had said it. He was wasting his time, and he wanted to get this over with. He knew he was not fully focused. His mind was elsewhere. He wanted to be investigating the Loisel missing-person case and looking for Madeleine Reich.”

  “Who took you home?”

  “It’s not my fault,” she said.

  “I don’t understand,” Vauvert said. “What do you mean?”

  “Arnaud Levy is mean. He needs to understand that. Something has to happen to him.”

  “But he didn’t really try to assault you, did he?”

  She shook her head.

  “I need a straight answer. I think you are falsifying a crime, which is punishable by law. Are you sure you want to continue? You may not realize it, but your case will be heard by a judge, and I can assure you that he won’t have any pity for you if he realizes that your testimony is fake. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “So do you really want to file charges?”

  She took a deep breath, folded her hands in her lap, and then unfolded them. She put her sunglasses back on.

  “You’re all the same. My boyfriend is going to kill me when I tell him.”

  “Is he the reason you said the doctor tried to assault you—so he wouldn’t think that you cheated on him?

  This was not the first time he had seen this kind of thing. Sometimes married women had affairs and then accused their lovers of rape so their husbands would not leave them. Sometimes a woman would feel terribly guilty about a sexual encounter and then try to convince herself and everyone else that it was rape. Some women were just looking for attention.

  Certainly there was more to this young woman’s story than she was letting on.

  “Is your boyfriend behind this?” Vauvert asked.

  “You can’t understand,” Jeanne Bonnet said as she stood up. “You’re cruel.”

  “There’s is one more thing,” Vauvert said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Tell the door that did that to you to never to do it again,” he said, tapping his own cheekbone.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

  He hated to admit it, but Virginie had been right. For once.

  34

  Paris

  Eva had pinned pictures on her office wall of Jonathan Reich, Madeleine Reich, Ismael Constantin, and Amina Constanin. It was an old habit that helped her think, just like the maps of France and Paris that were tacked to the opposite wall. Eva was visual. She needed to “see” the case as a whole. When she did that, she was able to get into the minds of killers and literally see through their eyes.

  Sometimes.

  She swiveled her chair around and examined the faces in the photos.

  “How do you know each other? What connects you? How does that poor murdered child fit in?”

  It was all because of the baby, Amina Constantin had said.

  But why?

  Had they killed him together? Was it some sort of horrific human sacrifice? Her blood ran cold at the idea. She knew that there were dozens of infanticides across the country every year. Farmers who turned their rifles on their whole families—including the babies—before killing themselves. Mothers who tossed their children off balconies or down trash shoots. Each time she read about one of these slayings, she shriveled inside, deep down, where her soul was vulnerable.

  She swiveled around again to face her computer screen.

  She opened another case.

  Her case.

  She couldn’t help herself.

  She needed her daily ritual. Like people with obsessive-compulsive disorder who had to wash their hands repeatedly.

  She was no different. She was feeding the part of her that hurt, opening the wound each time. She knew it would swallow her up someday.

  She looked through the documents, the testimonies, the graphs, and the pictures.

  She focused on the photo.

  That photo.

  The one with two white-haired, ruby-eyed girls.

  Her and her sister, Justyna Svärta. Her head was turned to the right, and Justyna’s was turned to the left. Nobody would have been able to tell the difference between them.

  It had been taken twenty-five years before. That was an entire lifetime, without her, without her sister, her double, a part of her soul.

  Every time she looked at that picture, she felt her gut tighten until it hurt. She saw herself in that basement, huddled with her sister. They were six. She heard the ogre coming for them. He wanted their blood.

  She felt around her drawer for her bottle of amphetamines.

  A very distant voice interrupted her.

  “Don’t be so sad.”

  Eva did not turn around. She felt the air around her ripple ever so slightly.

  It had been a long time since that had happened. She thought her hallucinations had gone away.

  “It’s been a long time since you came to see me,” she whispered.

  Then she turned around slowly.

  Her six-year-old sister was sitting cross-legged in front of the door. She was wearing a pale pink dress and white sneakers.

  She looked so real, it rattled Eva.

  Those were the clothes Justyna was wearing the day the ogre found them. The day the ogre found them hiding in the basement and too Justyna in his arms.

  “Why?” she said.

  “Because you are losing yourself,” Justyna said in her little-girl voice.

  A shiver climbed up Eva’s spine. Am I totally crazy? Am I talking to myself?

  “Justyna.”

  The girl smiled.

  “Don’t think about me. Think about him. He knows you are looking for him.”

  Eva swallowed hard.

  “Is he still alive?”

  “Of course. But you’ve always known that, haven’t you?”

  The image in front of her trembled, and the girl vaporized in the shadows. A minute later, she was next to Eva. The ghost—the hallucination—was hugging Eva, w
ho felt her little arms around her.

  She closed her eyes. She was shaking. She smelled a whiff of vanilla and something else, like very old dust. The girl leaned in, and her hair brushed Eva’s chin. The world was spinning.

  “You have a rare skill,” the ghost said. “It is in your blood. There’s nothing you can do about it.”

  Eva shook her head. She was speechless.

  “The first blood was spilled. You know it now. You, more than anyone, know it. Remember what she said. Protect yourself.”

  Eva opened her eyes.

  “What?”

  Justyna had disappeared, along with the smell of vanilla. Had she really been there? Or was it all in her head, in her memories?

  Eva, alone in her narrow office, felt tears gathering.

  She turned to her computer and stared at the picture of the two innocent smiling girls from a former life. The girls they had been, Justyna and she, inseparable sisters who were brutally separated in a time that no longer existed. Now Eva had only her dreams. She was alone. She had to face life alone.

  Protect yourself.

  She cradled her head in her arms for a long time.

  She was trying to calm her heartbeat.

  The puppy is attached to a rope.

  It is terrified. Helpless, it cries and trembles. Its animal instinct tells it what a horrible fate these human beings have reserved for it. It cannot escape.

  Madeleine notices that she, too, is trembling.

  Deep in her chest, where emotions are struggling, something tightens and feels ready to tear.

  She is aware of their eyes on her back.

  They are encouraging her.

  They are impatient.

  She holds the sacrificial knife in a hesitant hand.

  The puppy barks once and then begins trembling again.

  How did she come to this in so little time?

  “You have to do it,” Ismael whispers. “Now.”

  Madeleine nods. Yes, she knows how important this rite of passage is. It will seal everything they have done so far. They have done enough talking. She agreed from the beginning. They all promised to go through with it. And even in this moment of doubt, she is eager.

  The last few months had gone by quickly. Studious days in class and more studious nights, with meetings and experiments. They had been preparing themselves, and she knew they were ready for the next step. They had developed the chants, spells, and gestures and had adjusted and memorized them. They alone could see the secrets hidden inside the common man. They had seen visions that would have petrified anyone else.