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Papa?
[email protected] is now online
Hello my little mouse . . . So, have you decided?
Yes, I didn’t have much time to make up my mind, but I’ve decided to stay as Marianne Berg. This way I avoid the paperwork, the explanations, the interviews with the media. And I get to keep the money. I’m planning a whole new life.
Well, it’s your decision.
Yes.
When will I see you?
I have to get the paperwork out of the way, which will take a day or two. Shall we meet up in Normandy as planned?
OK. I’ll go via Bordeaux, it’s the safest route. Having a daughter who’s wanted by the police makes for a lot of complications that are beyond me at my age.
Your age! You say that as though you really are old.
Don’t try to flatter me.
It’s the best way of making money, flattering people.
That’s true.
Hey, Papa, one thing . . .
Yes?
Maman’s case files. You gave me everything there was, didn’t you?
Yes. I thought I already explained that.
Yes. And?
And . . . it’s just that there was nothing except for that form, the admissions slip. The one I gave you . . . To tell you the truth, I didn’t even know it was there.
Are you sure?
. . .
Papa?
Yes, I’m sure. In fact, it shouldn’t even have been there: your mother was working from home a few days before she went into hospital. She left behind a small box of index cards she always carried with her. I should have given it back to the clinic but I just didn’t think to at the time, and then I forgot all about it. Until you brought it up . . .
But her files, the REAL files, the notes from her sessions, where did they all go?
. . .
Papa, where did they go?
Well, after your mother died I thought they’d been left with her colleagues. I don’t even know what these things look like. Why do you ask?
Because I found something weird among Frantz’s things. A report written by Maman.
About what?
It’s about Sarah Berg. It was pretty detailed. And strange. They weren’t the notes from her therapy session, it was a report to someone called Sylvain Lesgle. It’s dated late 1999. I don’t know where Frantz got hold of it, but for him it must have been a pretty devastating read. And that’s putting it mildly.
. . .
You sure you’ve never seen it, Papa?
Absolutely.
So why haven’t you asked me what was in it?
You said it was about Sarah Berg, didn’t you?
I get it. I have to say, it was very unlike anything Maman would have written.
??
I read it VERY carefully and I can tell you it was anything but professional. It was headed “Clinical Assessment” (have you ever heard of one?). Sounds professional if you skim through it quickly, in fact it’s not badly written, but when you read it carefully, it’s complete bullshit.
. . .?
It’s supposed to be an account of Sarah Berg, but it’s full of meaningless gibberish, psychiatric words and phrases lifted straight from an encyclopaedia or some popular science book. The patient’s biographical notes, aside from the stuff you can find online about her husband, are so sketchy that they could have been written by someone who’d never met her. All you’d need is a couple of facts about her to throw together that pseudo-psychobabble shit.
Oh?
It’s UTTER tosh, but if you don’t know much about the subject, it’s convincing enough . . .
. . .
If you want my opinion (and I could be wrong) the whole thing was made up by someone.
. . .
What do you think, Papa dear?
. . .
Cat got your tongue?
Look, the thing is, I’ve never really understood the way shrinks talk . . . Architecture and public works, that’s more my thing.
Meaning?
. . .
HELLO?
Well, look, my little mouse, I did my best . . .
Oh, Papa!
OK, OK, I admit it was all a bit cobbled together.
Tell me more!
The few details we got from the admission slip told us most of the story: Frantz had obviously spent years planning to avenge his mother’s death by murdering yours. And since he couldn’t do that, he transferred his hatred to you.
Obviously.
I reckoned we could use that as leverage. Hence the idea of the Clinical Assessment. I thought it might be a chink in his armour. And you needed help . . .
But how did Frantz find it?
You were the one who told me he was watching us the whole time. I stacked up a load of boxes supposedly containing your mother’s files. Then I left the door to the hangar open just long enough. . . It took a bit of time to create a bunch of other files for patients with names beginning with B, then I slipped this one in especially for him. I admit that the report itself was a bit, well, rudimentary.
Rudimentary, maybe . . . but VERY effective. The sort of report that would break the spirit of any son, especially one who adored his mother.
Let’s just say it was logical.
I can’t believe it . . . You wrote that?!
I know, it was wrong of me.
Papa . . .
So, what did you do with the thing? You didn’t give it to the police?
No, Papa. I didn’t even keep it. What do you think I am, crazy?
ALSO AVAILABLE
Pierre Lemaitre
IRÈNE
Translated from the French by Frank Wynne
THE NOVELIST KILLS BY THE BOOK
For Commandant Camille Verhœven life is beautiful: he is happily married and soon to become a father
HE’S ALWAYS ONE CHAPTER AHEAD
But his blissful existence is punctured by a murder of unprecedented savagery. When he discovers the killer has form – and each murder is a homage to a classic crime novel – the Parisian press are quick to coin a nickname . . .
AND HE HATES HAPPY ENDINGS
With the public eye fixed on both hunter and hunted, the case develops into a personal duel, each hell-bent on outsmarting the other. There can only be one winner – whoever has the least to lose . . .
BOOK ONE OF THE BRIGADE CRIMINELLE TRILOGY
www.maclehosepress.com
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“Gripping, frightening, intelligent and brilliant . . . Will delight crime aficionados”
MARCEL BERLINS, The Times
“Confirms Camille Verhœven as one the most intriguing protagonists to emerge in crime writing in recent years”
DECLAN BURKE, Irish Times
“Ingeniously plotted, deftly mixing dark and comic scenes, introducing the detective’s team with panache”
JOHN DUGDALE, Sunday Times
“A page-turning race to a grand-slam finish”
LAURA WILSON, Guardian
“Quirky, brutal and not for the faint-hearted, it is crime fiction of the highest class . . . Superbly constructed and executed, it puts Lemaitre very close to Ellroy’s class. If you pick it up, you won’t be able to put it down”
GEOFFREY WANSELL, Daily Mail
ALSO AVAILABLE
Pierre Lemaitre
ALEX
Translated from the French by Frank Wynne
SHE’S RUNNING OUT OF TIME
Kidnapped, savagely beaten, suspended from the ceiling of an abandoned warehouse in a wooden cage, Alex Prévost is in no position to bargain. Her abductor’s only wish is to watch her die.
HE ONLY WANTS ONE THING
Apart from a shaky police report, Commandant Camille Verhœven has nothing to go on: no suspect, no leads. If he’s to find Alex, he’ll have to get inside her head.
BUT ESCAPE IS JUST THE BEGINNING
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Beautiful, tough, resourceful, always two steps ahead – Alex will keep Verhœven guessing till the bitter end. And before long, saving her life will be the least of his worries.
BOOK TWO OF THE BRIGADE CRIMINELLE TRILOGY
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“Moves from read-as-fast-as-you-can horror to an intricately plotted race to a dark truth . . . Alex is about thrills. And as the novel barrels triumphantly towards its unexpected but satisfying conclusion, it’s in this respect that it delivers”
ALISON FLOOD, Observer
“It is quickly apparent that Lemaitre is worthy of all the fuss . . . And Alex herself turns out to be the author’s ace-in-the-hole. By page 200 you may believe that you’re moving to a pulse-raising conclusion. But you will be wrong; in some senses, the novel has only just begun”
BARRY FORSHAW, Independent
“Unlike many novels of this type in which the promise of a sensational premise fizzles out, there is a spectacular plot twist and the tension, along with the body count, mounts ever higher – an invigoratingly scary, one-sitting read”
LAURA WILSON, Guardian
“Harsh, fierce crime writing with a Gauloise tinge. It would not be out of place filmed in black and white by the late, lamented François Truffaut”
GEOFFREY WANSELL, Daily Mail
“Pierre Lemaitre . . . another master of crime fiction destined to become a household name”
ADAM SAGE, The Times
ALSO AVAILABLE
Pierre Lemaitre
CAMILLE
Translated from the French by Frank Wynne
WITH NOTHING ELSE TO LOSE
Anne Forestier was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Beaten beyond recognition at a raid on a jeweller’s, she is lucky to survive. But her ordeal has only just begun.
HE CAN BREAK ALL THE RULES
Lying helpless in her hospital bed, with her assailant still at large, Anne is in grave danger. Just one thing gives her hope: Commandant Camille Verhœven.
TO PROTECT THE WOMAN HE LOVES
For Verhœven it’s a case of history repeating. He cannot lose Anne as he lost Irène. But this time his adversary’s greatest strength appears to be Verhœven’s own powers of intuition.
BOOK THREE OF THE BRIGADE CRIMINELLE TRILOGY
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“Delivering more than its fair share of twists and turns, Camille is also a beautifully nuanced portrait of a most unlikely hero, and one who’s absence – if this truly is the last we’ll see of Commandant Verhœven – will be keenly felt”
DECLAN BURKE, Irish Times
“This original and poignant story is the final instalment in a trilogy that has been a dazzling success . . . Lots of intuition and a sprinkling of police procedure always do the trick”
JESSICA MANN, Sunday Times
“Demonstrates that its predecessors, Irène and Alex, were no flukes . . . A satisfying finis to the trilogy”
BARRY FORSHAW, Independent
“The last novel in the gripping trilogy that encompassed Alex and Irène”
MARCEL BERLINS, The Times
PIERRE LEMAITRE was born in Paris in 1951. He worked for many years as a teacher of literature and now writes novels and screenplays. In 2013 he was awarded the C.W.A. International Dagger for Alex, and again in 2015 for Camille, the second and third books in the crime trilogy featuring Commandant Camille Verhoeven that began with Irène. In 2013 he was also the winner of the Prix Goncourt, France’s most prestigious literary award, for his novel Au revoir là-haut, published in English in 2015 as The Great Swindle.
FRANK WYNNE is a translator from French and Spanish of works by Michel Houellebecq, Boualem Sansal, Antonin Varenne, Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Carlos Acosta and Hervé le Corre. He has been the winner of the Impac Prize, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, the Premio Valle-Inclán and the Scott Moncrieff Prize.
Blood Wedding Page 25
