Never Forget

by Michel Bussi

  In the biographical note on Morgane Avril!

  While my computer whirred, I spread out all the pages about Morgane Avril’s life on the bed. Press articles, police notes, interviews . . .

  At last, the arrow on my screen indicated that we were ready to go.

  I feverishly typed in the name.

  Magali Verron

  A dozen results appeared.

  Facebook. Copains d’avant. Twitter. LinkedIn. Daily Motion.

  I picked up a piece of paper. With the first pen that came to hand I drew a line. One column for Magali, one for Morgane. I jotted down the information that I found, then arranged it in order of importance.

  Date and place of birth, schools attended, musical tastes, leisure, countries visited . . .

  Soon the list of words and names filled both sides of the page.

  I searched again until there was no more information available.

  The lines danced in front of my eyes. Surreal.

  Was Fate mocking me?

  15

  A GIRL WITH NO PAST?

  Mona? Where are you?”

  “Jamal? You woke me up! I’m on my way back from Grainval, just approaching Yport now.”

  “O.K., I’ll join you there. I need to talk to you, the sooner the better. Something weird has come up.”

  “Something to do with your serial killer?”

  “More to do with his victims.”

  When I reached the sea wall, a voice called to me.

  “Jamal, I’m over here!”

  Mona.

  She was sitting on a swing in the children’s playground overlooking the beach. A slide. A little climbing wall. A rope bridge. She was swaying gently, as if to dry the neoprene wetsuit that was open to her chest. By her feet she had put a rucksack containing a selection of pebbles that could revolutionise the computer industry.

  As I approached, one detail threw me completely. Mona was wearing my sheriff’s star pinned to her wetsuit. It confirmed my decision: she was the one person I could share my insane theory with.

  I sat down facing her, on the edge of a miniature paddling pool that was only in use when the weather was fine, assuming it ever was around here. A copper fish, which was supposed to spit water into the basin, stared at us with its mouth open and empty.

  “Well?” Mona asked me. “What did you want to show me?”

  I passed her the page, covered on both sides with my handwriting.

  “Look, Mona! Two columns. One for Magali Verron, who died yesterday. One for Morgane Avril, murdered ten years ago. I made a note of everything I could find about them. Listen to this . . . Morgane Avril was a fan of seventies progressive rock bands like Pink Floyd, Yes, Genesis—it was in the police report. That was why she’d been so keen to go to the Riff on the Cliff festival. According to her Facebook page, Magali Verron belonged to some music fan groups. Three, to be precise: Pink Floyd, Yes, and Genesis.

  “Along with a few thousand other fans, right?”

  Mona’s swing squeaked like a plaintive bird. I lowered my eyes towards my page.

  “O.K., I’ll go on. Morgane was into raqs sharqi—”

  “Oh, that’s all the rage. It’s like the Bollywood version of ballroom—”

  “Magali was into raqs sharqi as well.”

  “Like I was saying, it’s all—”

  “A coincidence? Wait for it, Mona; this is just the beginning. Morgane Avril attended the local public schools in Neufchâtel-en-Bray, between 1986 and 2003. I wrote down all the names: Charles Perrault nursery school, Claude Monet primary school, Albert Schweitzer middle school, Georges Brassens high school. Nothing out of the ordinary, and nothing to do with Magali Verron, who grew up in Val-de-Marne, south of Paris. After primary school, in September 2004, she attended middle school in Créteil . . . Guess the name of the school?”

  By way of answer, the swing let out three more cries.

  “Albert Schweitzer!”

  Mona’s swing deviated from its steady rhythm. Ignoring her startled expression, I went on:

  “And here’s another coincidence: Magali attended a high school twenty kilometres from Créteil, at Courcouronnes. And the name of that school was—”

  “Georges Brassens?” Mona guessed.

  “Precisely! I’ve checked, there are less than ten Lycées Georges Brassens in France . . . Including one in Neufchâtel-en-Bray and one in Courcouronnes.”

  “That’s weird, granted, but—”

  I ploughed on before she could finish:

  “Then Morgane and Magali both studied medicine, Morgane in Rouen and Magali at Évry-Val-d’Essonne university.”

  Morgane halted the swing with her foot.

  “Were they related by any chance? Or friends?”

  “No. I found no trace of Magali Verron in any of the articles and files on the Avril case. Besides, Magali was only ten when Morgane was murdered. And she didn’t live in Normandy.”

  The sea wind continued to move the swing which Mona had just got off. A cold wind. She pulled the zip of her wetsuit up to her neck. The star gleamed over her heart. “O.K.,” she said. “You’re right on one point: this can’t all be coincidence. So there has to be some kind of connection between the two girls . . . As far as we can tell, Morgane didn’t know Magali Verron. Magali was ten years younger. She lived in Île de France.”

  She frowned, wrinkling her little nose. Suddenly her eyes flashed with inspiration.

  “On the other hand, even though she was only ten at the time, Magali must have heard of the Avril case and the red-scarf killer. The story might have triggered some form of trauma that made her identify with Morgane, copy her tastes, her hobbies, even down to her choice of middle school, then a high school with the same name as the one attended by Morgane Avril . . .”

  I pulled a sceptical face.

  “And then, ten years later, she gets herself raped, same as Morgane? Simulates strangulation with a Burberry scarf? Throws herself off a cliff?”

  Mona took a deep breath. “Hard to believe, I grant you.”

  I drew closer to Mona. For a moment all I could think of was huddling against her wetsuit and opening the zip, but instead I went on:

  “That’s not all, Mona. It wasn’t only Morgane Avril’s death that Magali Verron copied.” I lowered my voice: “She was born on May 10th, 1993—ten years to the day after Morgane Avril.”

  “Morgane was born on May 10th, 1983?”

  “Yes, at the Fernand-Langlois hospital in Neufchâtel-en-Bray.”

  Mona hiccupped.

  “And where . . . where was Magali Verron born?”

  “Nearly six thousand kilometres away, in the northern suburbs of Quebec . . .”

  I gave Mona time to breathe, a long exhalation of relief, before dropping my next bombshell:

  “I’ll let you guess the name of the suburb . . .”

  Her answer came slowly, as if stuck in her throat.

  “Neufchâtel?”

  “Yes! As incredible as it might seem, she was born in Neufchâtel, a village between Charlesbourg and Loretteville.”

  Every muscle in Mona’s face went slack, as if she had given up trying to make sense of it all. She took a step towards me and pressed her neoprene against my WindWall. The contact felt strange, as if we were two cosmonauts on Mars.

  “Magali Verron didn’t just copy Morgane Avril’s death,” I repeated. “She copied her birth. I’ve checked: in the entire world there are only five villages called Neufchâtel—four in France and one in Canada. Magali Verron arrived in France at the age of seven.”

  “Damn it, Jamal, what the hell’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, Mona. I have no idea. We’re missing something. There must be a rational explanation.”

  Still holding her close, I murmured in her ear: “Copying someone e
lse’s life. Every stage, from start to finish. Their taste in music, dance, the places they went to—like a mirror, but from a distance. A kind of hologram. Hell, it’s impossible!”

  “A serial killer looks for victims who resemble one another, right?” said Mona, trying to apply logic, but without any real conviction. “Maybe the two girls reminded him of his mother, his ex, or some—”

  “But the killer didn’t have to go looking for her, Mona! It’s as if Magali Verron tried to turn herself into his prey, trying to lure the predator—until he found her . . .”

  “Until she finished the job herself,” Mona added. “Until she wrapped the murder weapon around her own neck. The last act of her life.”

  I didn’t reply. For a few seconds I listened to the waves washing over the pebbles, then I gently placed a kiss on her lips and ran my hand over her curves. As my hand went down to her hips, Mona’s breathing quickened. I felt a swelling in the thin pocket of her wetsuit. My fingers explored it until I removed a yellow silk scarf.

  “For my hair,” Mona murmured. “A precaution against the Normandy weather.”

  The scarf slipped through my fingers. Without even thinking about it, I raised my hands and held the scrap of fabric under her chin.

  Slowly.

  “How long would it take you to tie this thing?”

  I brought the silk square to her neck again. A moment later, Mona’s eyes blurred.

  I read the fear in them. A sudden and intense terror, on the brink of the void.

  Idiot!

  I immediately lowered my arms, but the damage was done.

  Her voice was thick with tears.

  “Please, Jamal, don’t play that game—”

  “I’m sorry,” I sputtered. I didn’t mean—”

  She pulled the yellow scarf from my hand.

  “Forget it. I’m the one who should be apologising, it was stupid of me to react that way.”

  She took a moment to look at the fabric in the hollow of her palm.

  “You know what I think, Jamal?”

  “What’s that?”

  “It isn’t possible.”

  She stared at the cliff in front of us, the blockhouse, the sheep, the exact spot where Magali had fallen the previous day, and said it again.

  “It’s impossible for a girl falling from up there to be able to do that. To tie a scarf around her neck.”

  She briskly brought both hands together, then ran them behind her head and rolled the yellow fabric around the back of her neck.

  How long had it taken? Less than a second?

  “It’s not a matter of time, Jamal!” Mona said. “It may be possible—technically. But can you imagine? Doing that while dropping like a stone from the top of a cliff. To focus on tying a scarf while ignoring everything else—it’s impossible, Jamal. And yet I believe you: Magali didn’t have that scarf around her neck at the top of the cliff, but she had it on when she landed at the bottom.”

  “There . . . there must be a rational explanation.”

  “Jamal, you’ve already said that.”

  I fell silent. She was right. None of this made sense.

  And yet . . .

  Mona put the scarf back in her pocket. She sat down on the miniature rocking motorbike on springs and looked at me like a nurse reasoning with an uncooperative patient.

  “To sum up what we know so far, Jamal: in 2004, a serial killer rapes and kills two women, Morgane Avril and Myrtille Camus. Ten years later, a girl dies in identical circumstances. Two hypotheses. First the twisted hypothesis: the girl was recreating every aspect of Morgane Avril’s life, her musical tastes, her schools, her hobbies . . . Even taking her own life in a way that mimicked her death.”

  “And choosing the same date and place of birth as Morgane,” I added. “No way!”

  “No way—we agree. So let’s move on to the second, more logical hypothesis. The killer strikes again, but at random this time—given all that we know about Magali Verron. He chooses his victim, he rapes and strangles her. That’s more or less the police theory, isn’t it?”

  “But that doesn’t fit either! Magali wasn’t strangled, she committed suicide.”

  Mona nodded gently and remained thoughtful for a few moments.

  “Except,” I went on, “I’ve got a meeting with Captain Piroz in less than two hours and, to tell you the truth, Mona, I’m scared shitless. I . . . I look a bit too much like the perfect suspect . . .”

  “They can’t frame you—it’s not your sperm, Jamal! Do you have a record?”

  “No!”

  “You’ve never killed anybody? You’ve never stolen?”

  She rocked gently on the motorbike. In her latex wetsuit, with her hair down over her shoulders, she looked like a Hell’s Angel on a toy Harley.

  “Yes, I stole—to pay for my studies. But I never got caught, I had an infallible method.”

  Her eyes gleamed. She was clearly happy to change the subject.

  “Another one?”

  “I only stole in the summer, by the rivers, in the gorges of the Tarn or the Ardèche. You know, those canoe and kayak highways. I helped myself directly from the tubs where tourists left their papers, watches and mobile phones, particularly in the sites where they left their boats on the shore to jump from the rocks. At the campsite or on the beach, it was impossible to go through people’s bags because everyone keeps an eye on everyone else. But put on a yellow life-jacket and wander among thirty identical canoes—no one pays you any attention.”

  Mona nearly fell off her motorbike.

  “Christ! That’s a brilliant scam! You really did that?”

  She studied every inch of my face.

  “Perhaps . . . I love making up stories.”

  “And the red scarf, did you make that up too?”

  That had slipped out. She had added it automatically. At least, that was what I thought at that moment, that it hadn’t been premeditated.

  My face closed.

  “Damn it, not you too, Mona!”

  “What do you mean, ‘not you too?’”

  “Mona, listen to me, I’m would never joke about stuff like that. That girl was murdered. Raped. I thought you’d knew me better than that, Mona. If I can’t trust you, who can I trust?”

  I looked her straight in the eyes before continuing:

  “If I can’t trust you, who can I trust?”

  She seemed hurt. She got to her feet and tried not to raise her voice as I had done.

  “It’s fine, Jamal. Calm down. I believe you.”

  My heart was pounding. I hadn’t been bluffing. There was no one else I could turn to. It was impossible to face this madness all on my own.

  If Mona left me . . .

  If Mona left me, who would believe me?

  The police?

  André? Christian Le Medef? Denise and Arnold?

  You?

  16

  ONE MORE COINCIDENCE?

  The silence between Mona and me could have lasted an eternity. The riff from La Grange by ZZ Top exploded before she could disappear.

  The alert on my phone! I’d received a message. Irritably, I took the phone from the depths of my pocket.

  “An admirer?” Mona asked curiously.

  She seemed delighted that something had intervened to break the spider’s web in which we had become entangled. I read the message and opted for appeasement.

  “You don’t know how right you are . . .”

  “Young and pretty?”

  “Pretty, yes. But very young.”

  “How old?”

  “Fifteen.”

  Mona stood on tiptoes and looked at me with astonishment.

  “Her first name is Ophélie. She’s a pupil at the Saint Antoine Institute. She was raped by her father. A present for her eighth b
irthday. It had certain consequences. Violence. Behavioural difficulties. Sexual problems . . . No adult, social worker, shrink, or teacher could get to the root of it. But the two of us get on.”

  “She calls you on holiday.”

  “Yes. The Institute has given me a hard time, they say I’m too close to her, that I’m disrupting her therapy—”

  “They’re right,” Mona said “Everybody has his job to do, right? What does the girl want?”

  I held out the phone to Mona to show her the photograph that Ophélie had sent. She was posing pressed up against a tall black guy with a piercing that covered half of one nostril. There was a short message under the photograph. Two words.

  What mark??

  “What does she mean, ‘What mark?’”

  I took back the telephone.

  “It’s a game we play. At the weekend or on holiday, when Ophélie picks up a guy, she sends me a picture of him and I appraise him . . . I grade him, if you like. Along the lines of: ‘Could do better,’ ‘Making progress,’ ‘Out of the question.’ In return, I sometimes send her photographs of my girlfriends . . .”

  Mona, reassured, burst out laughing.

  “And you’re surprised that the social workers at the Institute come down on you like a ton of bricks?”

  I quickly typed in my reply.

  5 out of 20. Lack of imagination. Avoid copying and pasting.

  While I was clicking to send the message, Mona suddenly opened her wetsuit, defying the wind that swept between the sea wall and the beach huts. Her breasts came delicately away from the neoprene.

  “And what mark do I get?”

  This girl was crazy!

  “You want my friend’s opinion, is that it?”

  I zoomed my iPhone in on Mona’s face.

  “It’s gone. Brace yourself. Ophélie is a tough cookie. So far she’s given no more than an average mark to any of my girlfriends.”

  I took a step towards Mona.

  “Get dressed before you catch your death. I’m off, I have to go back to the cops.”

  I pulled the zip so that Mona’s plunging neckline turned into a respectable polo-neck.