The Woman In The Fifth

by Douglas Kennedy

  I nodded.

  'And did he inform you about Robson and your ex-wife?'

  'Doug finally did tell me about the rumors going around. He also admitted that he had known about them for the past few months – but felt uneasy about telling me, in case it blew over. I understood – especially as I never told Doug that I knew that, a couple of years earlier, his ex-wife had been sleeping with the college librarian . . . who was also a woman.

  'Anyway, Doug was also unable to accuse Robson of leaking both the story and Shelley's diary to the press. He was coming up for promotion in a few months and, if he crossed Robson, he was finished. Still, privately, he was appalled – and encouraged me to simply disappear. "You start exposing Robson now, and it's going to look like you're trying to deflect responsibility. It's really best if you just vanish."

  'The next day, the Cincinnati medical examiner revealed that Shelley hadn't been pregnant when she killed herself. Within an hour, the family lawyer issued a statement saying that it was medically plausible that her period had been several weeks late – and that the pregnancy test might have been faulty. "Whether or not she was actually carrying Professor Ricks's child," he said, "is less important than the fact that she thought she was pregnant – and that Ricks, upon hearing the news, dropped her and insisted on the abortion . . . a demand which sent her fragile psyche into a downward spiral, eventually resulting in her suicide. Ricks, in essence, murdered this poor young woman."

  'Well, this spin on the story played everywhere – and I decided to take Doug's advice. I got him to go over to my house when Susan wasn't there to collect my passport and laptop. I went downtown to my bank. When I walked in, the manager told me that my custom was no longer welcome here. I said, "Fine by me, because I'm closing my account." I had twenty-two thousand dollars in a savings account. I transferred fifteen of that into a mutual fund for Megan. I took the rest in cash – and grabbed my things at Doug's and got into my beat-up Volvo and left town. Eight hours later I was in Chicago. I found a cheap hotel – four hundred and fifty dollars a week – off Lake Shore Drive. I parked my bags and drove out into the 'burbs and stopped at the first used-car lot I found and accepted three grand in cash for my Volvo. Then I caught a cab back to the subway, returned to the hotel, and began a life of . . . well, nothing, really. My room was shabby, but adequate. It had a lumpy bed, and an old television, and a toilet that flushed, if you were lucky, on the third go. But the management asked no questions, and I paid my weekly bill on time, and didn't ever complain or say much to them during the weeks I was there.'

  'How many weeks?'

  'Six.'

  'What did you do during that time?'

  'I forget.'

  'I see.'

  'It's the truth. I remember sleeping until noon every day and always having breakfast in the same little luncheonette, and never buying a newspaper or magazine because I was afraid of reading something about the case. I never checked my email. I spent a lot of time at the movies. I bought paperbacks in second-hand shops, I drank in down-at-heel bars near the hotel, then watched shit television half the night. I suppose I was in total shock. I never had any sort of emotional highs or lows. I just dragged myself through the day like the walking dead. Until, one evening, I came home from an all-day session at the same multiplex cinema. The night porter on duty told me that a guy had come by that morning, asking for me. "He looked like some sort of process server to me," he said, and added that he was certain to come back very early the next morning, "because that's what those assholes all do".

  'I went upstairs and called Doug. He asked me why the hell hadn't I answered any of the emails he'd sent me, and did I know that Shelley's father had made good on his threat to sue the college? The college, in turn, had decided (at Robson's urging) to sue me for defamation of their public reputation, gross professional negligence and so forth, and had hired a private detective to find me. "If you're calling me, the gumshoe has obviously tracked you down," Doug said. When I explained that it seemed I was about to be served papers, he told me to flee immediately. "Get out of the country now, otherwise prepare to be destroyed in the courts."

  'So I said, "OK, I'll get the next flight to Paris."'

  'And once you got here?'

  'I did manage to get back into contact with Megan – and we actually started a correspondence until her mother found out and put an end to it. I haven't heard from my daughter since then. But after they reached some sort of smallish payoff arrangement with Shelley's dad, the college did decide to drop its threatened action against me. According to Doug, the college's Board of Directors overruled Robson, who wanted me pursued to the ends of the earth.'

  'That man really has it in for you.'

  'Yes. It's not enough that I have been ruined. He won't be happy until he sees me completely crushed.'

  'And if you could be revenged against him . . . ?'

  'I don't want revenge.'

  'Yes, you do. And you deserve it. So does Shelley. Had he not leaked any of this to the press, she would probably still be alive today. So what do you think would be an appropriate payback for all the harm he perpetrated?'

  'You want me to fantasize here?' I asked.

  'Absolutely. The worst thing that could happen to the bastard.'

  'You mean, like discovering that he had a huge collection of kiddy porn on his computer?'

  'That would do nicely. And say you wanted to devise an appropriate punishment for your ex-wife . . . ?'

  'Now let's not get ridiculous here . . .'

  'Go on, it's just loose talk.'

  'If she lost her job—'

  'You'd feel vindicated then?'

  'Why are you playing this game?'

  'To help you.'

  'Help me . . . what? Psychologically?'

  'The talking cure is a good one – especially when it comes to articulating your anger, your grief. But it doesn't fully close the wound.'

  'Then what does?'

  She shrugged and said nothing. Except, 'You need to be on your way now. We will continue talking in three days' time, if that's fine with you.'

  'Of course.'

  'We might even have sex the next time . . . as you might be feeling less guilty about fucking that barmaid. You will definitely tell her to go crying to her husband about Omar's horrible assault on her.'

  'I'm dreading the idea—'

  'You will dread a beating even more. À très bientôt . . .'

  Having now done what Margit had demanded – having spoken to Yanna and hatched my plan with her – I felt strangely calm. Though there was part of me that wanted to go to Mr Beard and make up some story about having to leave town for a few days on 'personal business', I decided to stay put and see just how things played out . . . like someone playing Russian roulette, who was certain it was worth staying in the game because the odds were six to one that he wouldn't get his brains blown out.

  Back in my office later that night, I opened my laptop and went to work. My novel was now over four hundred pages in length. The doubts that haunted the early months of writing had been replaced by a fierce momentum – and the sense that the novel was starting to write itself. This was another reason why I was loath to run away from this small nocturnal cell. Its claustrophobic bleakness had become almost talismanic to me; the place where, free from all outside distraction, I pounded out the words and moved the story on. And I feared if I suddenly left this room, the writing would stop. So despite all the creeping doubts about everything to do with this job, this quartier, I was determined to stay working here until the novel was finished. Then, one day, I'd simply pack up my things and slip away. Until then—

  Why is somebody screaming downstairs?

  The scream was loud, shrill, alarming. It had an almost animalistic intensity – like that of a wild beast caught in a trap and howling in torment. After a moment it fell silent. Then I could hear the same voice engaged in loud supplications, followed by other voices shouting him down, and then . . .

 
The scream this time was agonizing. Pain was being inflicted in a merciless manner. When a further howl pierced the concrete walls of my room, I found myself on my feet and unbolting the door. But as soon as I yanked it open, the howling stopped. I peered downstairs into an empty corridor. I walked down several steps and stared at the door at the end of the corridor on the ground floor. A voice in my head whispered, Are you out of your fucking mind? I dashed upstairs, closed the door and bolted it again, trying my best to secure it quietly. But it still made a decisive thwack when I pushed it home. After a minute, the howling started again. This time, the other voices started to shout, the howls became hysterical, a word – Yok! Yok! Yok! – was repeated over and over again by the man who was screaming. There was further shouting, then one final appalling screech . . . then a deep, eerie silence.

  I sat at my desk, chewing on a finger, feeling helpless, terrified. Don't move, don't move. But if you hear footsteps coming up the stairs, grab your laptop and make a dash for the emergency exit (not that I had any idea where that exit might actually bring me).

  Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes went by. I kept staring at the television monitor. No one appeared on its fuzzy screen. Twenty-five minutes. Silence. Then, suddenly, I heard the downstairs door open and footsteps in the corridor. The front door opened. A man came out into the lane. He appeared short – but it was hard to discern anything about him, as he had the hood of his parka pulled up around his head to conceal his face. He also had a broom in one hand. What the hell is he doing with that? I wondered – until he thrust the broom handle at the camera hanging above the door. I flinched – because the image that appeared on the monitor made it seem like he was jabbing the broom handle directly at me. With the first blow the camera just shook. With the second, he scored a bull's-eye on the lens and the screen went black. Then I could hear whispered voices and low grunts accompanied by the sound of something heavy being dragged along the corridor. The dragging sound stopped, there were more whispers – Were they checking that the coast was clear before hoisting the body? – then the sound of further dragging before the front door closed with a dull thud.

  Don't panic. Don't panic . . .

  But say they come back for you . . . ?

  If I left now, they could be waiting for me outside. I'd see who they were . . . and that would be, at best, unfortunate. If I waited here, at least I'd be sending a signal that I was playing by the rules. I wasn't going to ask questions, go to the cops, make trouble.

  I was desperate to flee. I couldn't flee. But as soon as my watch read 6 a.m., I was gone. Though I wanted to take a long walk by the Canal Saint-Martin to try to calm down, I sensed that it was best to stick to my usual routine, just in case somebody might be watching my movements. So I hung on until 6 a.m., went to the boulangerie and bought my pains au chocolat, then returned to my room, where I found a new note stuck under my door:

  I give you two more days, no more. 1000 euros or I tell.

  I crumpled up the note and shoved it into my pocket. Then I went inside and took a Zopiclone and crawled into bed.

  Up as usual at two. At the Internet café thirty minutes later. But as soon as I walked in, I could tell that Mr Beard knew all about last night. Because he came out from behind the bar and locked the front door, then motioned for me to follow him into a back room. When I hesitated, he said, 'You do not leave here until we have a talk.'

  'Let's talk here,' I said, thinking if some stooges emerged from the back room, I'd have some minor chance of throwing myself through the glass of the front window and getting away with mere major lacerations.

  'It's quiet in the back.'

  'We'll talk here,' I said.

  A pause. I could see him staring out at the street, looking just a little paranoid.

  'What you see last night?' he asked.

  'I saw some vandal smash the television camera.'

  'Before that?'

  'Nothing.'

  'Nothing?'

  'That's right: nothing.'

  'I don't believe you. You opened the door. They heard you.'

  'They heard wrong.'

  'You lie. They heard. They know.'

  'I didn't hear a sound all night. I never left the room all night. The only thing out of the ordinary was the clown who threw something at the camera—'

  'You see his face?'

  'He had a hood pulled up over his head, so it was hard to—'

  'Why you think he broke the camera?'

  'How should I know?'

  'You lie.'

  'Lie about what?'

  'You know what happened. And if the police ask you what you heard?'

  'Why would the police do that?'

  'If the police ask you . . .'

  'I'd tell them what I told you: I heard nothing.'

  Silence. He reached into his jacket pocket and tossed my pay envelope on the floor. I decided not to raise objections to this little act of aggression, and instead played the subservient role demanded of me and leaned over to pick up the envelope. As I stood up again he said, 'They know you heard the screams. They know you left the room – because they heard you leave the room. You don't do that again. Understand?'

  'Yes,' I said quietly.

  I tried to go about my business that day. But as I sat down in a restaurant for lunch, as I took the métro out to Bercy for a screening of Kazan's Splendor in the Grass, as I sipped a coffee afterward in the little brasserie opposite the Cinémathèque, I couldn't help but wonder, Is someone watching me? I kept scanning people near to me to see if I noticed the same reoccurring face. Walking down a street, I'd stop and spin around in an attempt to catch the man tailing me. But I saw no one. Still, I was taking no chances. I resisted the temptation to use a phone kiosk and call the walk-in clinic to get the results of my HIV test – out of the fear that someone would report back to them that I was seen on the phone and, ergo, to the cops. So I decided to go there myself, my apprehension about the result somewhat tempered by everything else that had happened in the past twenty-four hours.

  The clinic was open until eight. I arrived half an hour before closing time. The doctor I had seen was in the reception area as I walked in.

  'What brings you back here?' he asked.

  'I just came by for the test results.'

  'You could have phoned.'

  'I'd rather hear them in person.'

  He shrugged, as if to say, If you insist. Then he turned to the receptionist and told her my name (I was impressed that he remembered me). She riffled around an in-tray until she found the necessary file and handed it to him. He motioned for me to follow him into his office. I shut the door behind us. He settled into his desk chair and opened the file and started to read. I studied his face – in a manner similar to a defendant staring at the foreman of a jury as he returns holding the verdict envelope in his hand.

  'Please sit down, Mr Ricks,' the doctor said.

  'Bad news?'

  'No need to be a fatalist, monsieur. The HIV test came back negative. However, I must inform you that you did test positive for another sexually transmitted disease: chlamydia.'

  'I see,' I said.

  'It is not a serious condition, and can easily be treated with antibiotics . . .'

  'I thought only women got chlamydia.'

  'Think again.'

  He started scribbling something on a script pad.