by Michel Bussi
Forget the last eight months. Forget the last ten days, too, during which time I’ve been writing this notebook. Today is 29 September, 1998. It is twenty minutes to midnight. Everything is ready. Lylie is about to turn eighteen. I will put my pen back in the pot on my desk. I will sit at this desk, unfold the 23 December 1980 edition of the Est Républicain, and I will calmly shoot myself in the head. My blood will stain this yellowed newspaper. I have failed.
All I leave behind me is this notebook. For Lylie. For whoever wishes to read it.
In this notebook, I have reviewed all the clues, all the leads, all the theories I have found in eighteen years of investigation. It is all here, in these hundred or so pages. If you have read them carefully, you will now know as much as I do. Perhaps you will be more perceptive than me? Perhaps you will find something I have missed? The key to the mystery, if one exists. Perhaps . . .
For me, it’s over.
It would be an exaggeration to say that I have no regrets, but I have done my best.
Those were the last words. The next page was blank. Slowly, reluctantly, Marc closed the notebook. He drank the rest of his San Pellegrino. The train would arrive in Dieppe in five minutes. As if by magic, the sleeping guy had woken up and the teenager had removed his earphones.
Marc felt as if his brain was spinning uselessly, like the wheel of a bicycle when the chain has come off. He needed time to think about all this. Most of all, he needed to talk to his grandmother. She had received the DNA test results three years ago; all that time, she had known that Lylie was not her granddaughter. It was obvious, really: she had given her Mathilde de Carvilles’ sapphire ring, after all.
Lyse-Rose had survived, not Emilie. That was the only thing he knew for sure. All the other questions remained unanswered . . .
Who had dug the grave on Mont Terri? Had the bracelet been buried there? Or was it a dog? Or a baby? But which baby? Who had killed Grand-Duc, and why? Who had killed Marc’s grandfather?
And where was Lyl . . .
A scream cut through the silence. The scream of a madwoman.
Malvina!
Marc rushed over and found Malvina curled up on her seat, her skinny body convulsing. Her hand hung limp, like the hand of someone who had just sliced their wrist open. Malvina’s eyes seemed to be begging Marc for help, reaching out as if she were a mountain climber about to fall. He looked down and saw a blue envelope, torn open, and a white sheet of paper laid out on the seat.
Marc understood what had happened. The envelope must have fallen from his pocket while he was struggling with Malvina. She had opened it and read the results. But what would make her scream like that?
Marc picked up the letter from the national police forensics laboratory in Rosny-sous-Bois. It was only a few lines long:
ANALYSIS OF BLOOD SAMPLE COMPARISONS between Emilie VITRAL (sample 1, batch 95-233) and Mathilde de CARVILLE (sample 2, batch 95-234) between Emilie VITRAL (sample 1, batch 95-233) and Léonce de CARVILLE (sample 2, batch 95-235) between Emilie VITRAL (sample 1, batch 95-233) and Malvina de CARVILLE (sample 2, batch 95-236)
And then, below this, the punchline: Results negative.
No family relationship possible. Results 99.9687% reliable.
The sheet fell from Marc’s hands.
So, Lylie was not a blood relation of the de Carville family. Lyse-Rose was dead. It was Emilie who had survived. She and
Marc had the same genes, the same parents, the same blood. Contrary to all his instincts, all his convictions, the desire he felt for his sister was incestuous and wrong. They were monsters, after all.
47
2 October, 1998, 6.28 p.m. Marc walked slowly along the port. The train station was only half a mile from Pollet. The hideous face of a Chinese Dragon scowled from the sky directly above him, as if the creature had ripped apart the clouds just to taunt him. As if his life were not insane enough already . . .
He increased his pace. He could not stop thinking about the DNA test. He couldn’t believe it. How could a simple piece of paper, a pseudo-scientific result, be trusted above his intuition, his instinct?
No, he truly believed what his heart told him: Lylie was not his sister.
Opposite the modest yachts in Dieppe’s port, each politely turning their back to the sea, the streets and bars were packed with people. The kite festival was always accompanied by an orgy of mussels and chips, the famous moules-frites – that could easily rival a Flemish free-for-all. Marc slowed down as he neared the ferry bridge that connected the islet of Pollet to the rest of the town. After pocketing the forensics results, Marc had left Malvina in the train carriage, curled up in the foetal position, apparently in a state of shock.
Long lines of noisy customers were waiting to be seated in the restaurants, but Marc was oblivious to his surroundings. He was too busy trying to suppress the blind rage that was mounting inside him.
No! Lylie was not his sister!
It must be a mistake. Grand-Duc must have got the blood samples mixed up. Either that, or he was lying. Or Mathilde de Carville was attempting to manipulate them by giving them a false set of results. Or perhaps no one was lying, and Lyse-Rose really didn’t share the de Carville blood. Perhaps she was adopted, or her father was not Alexandre de Carville. Even the detective had had his doubts about that. Marc remembered the blue-eyed German who rented out pedalos . . .
He crossed the bridge and walked into Rue Pocholle. He had been coming to Dieppe less frequently – no more than once a month – since Lylie moved to Paris. He reached his grandmother’s house: a façade of brick and flint, just like the other fifteen houses on the street. The front garden was dominated by the Citroën van, as usual, as if the garden had been planted around it. Marc noticed the rust on its front and back wings, the dent in one door. How long was it since anyone had driven that van, if only to move it out of the yard? Although there was no one left to play in the tiny garden anymore.
He rang the bell, and Nicole opened the door immediately. Marc was enveloped by the generous warmth of his grandmother’s body. She hugged him for a long time. Any other day, and he might have been embarrassed; but not today. Finally, Nicole let go.
‘How are you, Marc?’
‘I’m OK.’
His voice said otherwise. Marc looked at the little living room. It seemed to shrink and grow darker each time he came back. The Hartmann-Milonga piano was still in its place, gathering dust between the sofa and the television set, a stack of papers piled up on the keyboard lid. Well, it wasn’t as if anyone played it anymore.
The table was already set: two plates, two linen napkins, and one bottle of cider. Marc sat down. Nicole came and went between the kitchen and the living room, bringing sole fillets cooked in a sauce of mussels and prawns. A good cook, Nicole also knew how to manage a conversation, asking Marc about his studies, telling him about Dieppe, the leaflets she had to distribute, the state of her lungs, a broken gutter (‘Could you take a look at it, Marc?’). Nicole was as enthusiastic and chatty as any other grandmother who missed her loved ones, but Marc replied in monosyllables. His eyes kept wandering around the room, but always returned to the same spot: in the pile of papers resting on the piano, he could see a blue envelope, identical to the one he had brought with him from Coupvray. So, Nicole must have dug out that envelope, the one she had kept hidden from him and Lylie for the past three years.
Who would dare bring the subject up first?
Nicole was telling him about some neighbour who had been hospitalised recently. Marc stopped listening and retreated into his thoughts. So, his grandmother had known the truth for the past three years. She had won her personal battle against the de Carville family. Perhaps she had given Lylie the sapphire ring out of pity for Mathilde de Carville, the way she always gave a few coins to beggars in the street . . .
Marc had mixed feelings about this idea of the de Carville family being reduced to the state of beggars. He was still haunted by the image of Malvina, curled up in shock on t
he train.
Nicole served the cheese. As usual, she had passed on dessert, but had proudly given Marc a Salammbô. Marc had stopped liking the weird green cakes when he was eleven, but had never dared tell his grandmother. It was the cheapest item in the bakery. So, he ate it all up like a good boy while Nicole went on about the town council and the future of the port. Marc gazed at the framed photograph of his parents, Pascal and Stéphanie, above the fireplace. They were standing, in wedding dress and suit, in front of the Notre-Damede-Bon-Secours chapel, under a blizzard of confetti. All his life, this framed picture had hung in the same place, on the same nail. Bittersweet memories.
Nicole brought coffee, warmed up in a pan, and poured it into two cups. She made the first move, albeit a tentative one.
‘So have you heard from Emilie recently?’
‘No. Well, not directly.’ Marc hesitated. ‘I think she’s in a hospital or a clinic or something . . .’
Nicole looked down. ‘Don’t worry, Marc. She’s a big girl now. She knows what she’s doing.’
She stood up to clear away the cups.
Marc thought about what Nicole had just said: ‘She knows what she’s doing.’ Were these just hollow words of reassurance, or was Nicole hiding something?
Marc got up to help Nicole tidy away the dinner things. On his second trip to the kitchen, he stopped in front of a framed photograph on a shelf, sitting between a wooden Oware game and a barometer in the shape of a lighthouse. The picture showed Pierre and Nicole Vitral, walking side by side in front of the Dieppe town hall, beneath a huge banner. The picture was taken in May 1968, when France was in revolt. Nicole and Pierre had both been under thirty. Nicolas, their eldest son, was holding Nicole’s hand, while Pascal was carried on Pierre’s shoulders. Pascal could have been no more than six years old. He was waving a small red flag. Marc looked closely at the faces of his grandfather, his father and his uncle, all of them dead now. He had no real memories of any of them. He tried to keep his voice casual:
‘I’m going to my room for a few minutes, Nicole. I need to take a look at my course notes.’
His grandmother, busy doing the washing-up, did not reply.
Marc’s bedroom was perfectly clean and tidy. Nicole continued to wear herself out, tidying a room in which Marc slept less than once a month. Marc felt as if he were rediscovering his childhood here. His plastic recorder was still on the desk: the one he had lent to Lylie and on which she had played Goldman, Cabrel and Balavoine. The bunk beds were still in the corner. The top bunk had not been slept in for eight years now, since the day Lylie had moved into Nicole’s room. Marc remembered the nights he and Lylie had spent together, how she used to like making up interminable stories. Marc, lying in the bottom bunk, would listen to Lylie’s voice. Sometimes, when she was scared, her arm would reach down to him, and he would sit up in bed and hold her hand until her grip relaxed and he knew she had fallen asleep. Other times, Lylie would stay up late reading. The light would prevent Marc from falling asleep, but he never complained. You can’t ask the sun to stop shining.
Their house was tiny and their family life had been crowded, but Marc felt certain that Lylie would never have swapped it for all the de Carvilles’ presents and luxury. Dragonflies, after all, are like butterflies: they need a cocoon when they are young. At least until they enter the chrysalis stage . . .
Marc shook himself free of his memories and walked over to the wardrobe. He did not have many clothes left here. Nicole had given away everything that was too small for him, apart from his rugby jerseys . . . and . . . and a football shirt, red and yellow, with the name Dündar Siz on the back. Age: 12.
Marc crouched down and began searching through the boxes containing his course notes. What he was looking for ought to be near the top of the pile: notes from the previous year’s course in European Law. It had mostly consisted of learning a series of dates: when the various member states had joined the European Union, treaties, directives, elections, and so on. Marc found the binder he was looking for, and then the page. He had never been a brilliant student, but at least he was well organised. The notes were about Turkey. He remembered paying more attention to the lecture because of that. He re-read what he had scribbled down: the military regime, the coup d’état, the return to democracy . . .
He spent several minutes checking the details. When he had finished, he closed the binder, his hands clammy, his arms covered in gooseflesh. Now he understood what had rung false about GrandDuc’s narrative.
It all fitted.
His grandfather had not died in an accident. He had been murdered. And now Marc had proof. But if that one detail was false, then the whole direction of the investigation collapsed . . .
‘Marc?’
Nicole’s voice rang through the thin walls of the bedroom.
‘Marc? Is everything all right?’
Her question was punctuated by a fit of coughing. Marc forced himself to stop thinking, for now. He put the binder in his backpack and tidied up the other course files. Then, for a few long minutes, he stood leaning against the bunk bed, trying to control his breathing.
Nicole, her voice shaky, asked again: ‘Marc? Are you OK?’
‘I’ll be there in a minute, Nicole.’
The bedroom door opened directly into the living room. The washing-up had been done, and a lace cloth had been placed on the table. Nicole was sitting at the table, in tears. In front of her was the blue envelope.
The DNA test.
The one that Crédule Grand-Duc had given her three years before.
48
2 October, 1998, 11.19 p.m. Marc pulled up a chair and sat facing his grandmother. He retrieved the envelope that Mathilde de Carville had given him, and placed it on the table.
Two blue envelopes. One for each family.
‘I knew Mathilde de Carville had a copy, of course,’ Nicole said quietly. ‘But I don’t think she knew that Grand-Duc had given a copy to me.’
‘You’re right,’ Marc told her. ‘She didn’t know.’
Nicole wiped her eyes with a white handkerchief.
‘What exactly did she tell you?’
Marc had no choice. This was why he had come, after all. He spoke for a long time, describing his visit to the de Carvilles and summarising the contents of Grand-Duc’s notebook, in particular the final pages: the DNA test, the detective’s guilty conscience. He omitted only one thing: the fact that Grand-Duc had been murdered. For some reason, he felt it would be unfair to tell his grandmother this news so suddenly, and abruptly.
Nicole coughed into her handkerchief.
‘Marc, Crédule did not exactly lie in his notebook, but he didn’t tell the whole truth either. The reality was slightly different. Crédule likes to embellish things . . .’
His grandmother’s use of the present tense made Marc squirm.
‘I was there,’ he said. ‘For Lylie’s fifteenth birthday. I remember what happened. The vase that broke in Lylie’s hands, Grand-Duc apologising as he picked up the pieces . . .’
‘Of course. You’re right. But he didn’t write about what happened next.’
Marc went pale. ‘What . . .?’
‘You went out with Emilie, Marc, do you remember? You went to Manon’s house to celebrate, and you didn’t return until after midnight.’
Marc’s hand lay on top of the torn blue envelope. He slid it around the table nervously. Nicole cleared her throat and went on: ‘I stayed here with Crédule. He drank a glass of brandy on the sofa while I did the washing-up. I was crying.’
‘Crying? Why?’
‘Marc, I’m not stupid. Crédule was working for Mathilde de Carville. I had always expected her to ask for a DNA test one day. It was her right. I would have done the same thing, in her place . . . but not like that. That pathetic little deception. A booby-trapped birthday present! Crédule was the only friend we invited to Lylie’s birthday party . . .’
Marc felt increasingly uncomfortable. His grandmother had never confided
in him like this before.
‘When did you guess?’
‘When I saw Emilie’s finger bleeding, and Crédule picking up the broken pieces of glass. It would have been better if he’d come here with a syringe, if he’d at least been honest about it. That was our agreement, from the beginning: I would let him see Lylie, but he had to share all the information he discovered.’
‘But he did that, didn’t he? He gave you a copy of the results . . .’
Nicole’s eyes filled with tears again.
‘Not exactly, Marc. Let me tell you what happened . . . I was crying as I did the washing-up, and then suddenly I came to a decision. I had just rinsed a knife. I used it to cut my little finger. Just a small cut – but enough to make it bleed. I wrapped a dishcloth around my finger, and I gave Crédule a shot glass containing some of my blood. He wasn’t stupid – he understood what I wanted.’
‘How did he react?’
For the first time, Nicole smiled.
‘He was a bit embarrassed, like a child caught in the act. But Crédule isn’t a bad man. He apologised for his behaviour and he told me he would test the de Carvilles’ blood for Mathilde and the Vitral blood for me. And then . . .’
Nicole coughed again. The white handkerchief twisted in her hands.
Marc, embarrassed, said: ‘Nicole, what are you trying to tell me?’
‘You really want to know? Well, it’s not a crime. And I doubt whether Crédule mentioned it in his notebook . . .’
In fact, Marc did not really want to know. Nicole’s tears were running down her face.
‘We made love, that night. While you were out celebrating at Manon’s house. That was the first time . . . since your grandfather died. The only time. Grand-Duc had wanted me for years. He was kind. He was practically the only man who ever came to visit us. He . . .’
‘Nicole . . .’
Marc stood up and clumsily embraced his grandmother, then put a finger to her lips. He could not rid his mind of the memory of Grand-Duc’s corpse.
‘You don’t need to tell me all this.’
