Alex (15 page)

There are some things you can’t tell a man, even a policeman, but sometimes Nathalie could really be messy. The place was never tidy, the table never cleared, not to mention the tampons floating in the loo –
ugh
. They weren’t housemates for long, but it was long enough!

“I don’t really think it would have worked out, Nathalie and me sharing.”

Sandrine had placed an advertisement looking for a roommate and Nathalie had got in touch, came round to meet her; she seemed nice. She hadn’t looked slovenly that day – she had been very presentable. What she had liked about the place was the garden and the attic room that she thought looked romantic. Sandrine had not pointed out that at the height of summer, it was like a sauna.

“There’s no insulation, you see …”

The dwarf is looking at her abstractedly, his face like a statue’s. As though he’s thinking about something else.

Nathalie always paid in advance, always in cash.

“This was in early June. I urgently needed someone to share; my boyfriend had left me …”

Sandrine’s personal life irritates the little man: the boyfriend moves in, big love story, and then walks out without even leaving a note a couple of months later. She never saw him again. She’d obviously been signed up at birth for a lifetime of being dumped: first the boyfriend, then Nathalie. This, she confirms, happened on July 14.

“In the end, she didn’t stay long. She met this guy just after she moved in here, so, obviously …”

“Obviously what?” he says, exasperated.

“Well … she’d want to move in with him. That’s normal, isn’t it?”

“Oh …”

Sceptical, as though to say
Is that all?
This guy clearly knows nothing about women, you can tell. The younger one has come back from the laboratory; she heard his siren in the distance. He’s a fast operator, but he still looks as if he’s strolling through life. It’s because he’s got style. And because of the clothes he wears, Sandrine noticed as soon as she saw him: designer labels, top-of-the-range, too. Sandrine could tell at a glance how much his shoes cost: twice her monthly salary. It’s a revelation to her to discover policemen make so much money – you’d never know from the ones you see on T.V.

The officers had a little confab. All Sandrine overheard was the younger one saying: “never seen …” and then “… yeah, he went there too …”

“I wasn’t here when she moved out. I always spend the summer at my aunt’s place in …”

The older one is annoyed. Things aren’t working out the way he wants them to, but that’s not her fault. He sighs and waves his hand as though shooing away a fly. The least he could do is be polite. His colleague gives her a sympathetic smile as though to say
Don’t worry, he’s always like this, stay focused
. He’s the one who shows her the photograph.

“Yeah, that’s him, that’s Pascal, Nathalie’s boyfriend.”

She’s in no doubt about that. And the other picture, the one at the funfair – it’s a little blurred, but it’s obviously them. When
Pascal’s father turned up a month ago, he was looking for Nathalie too, not just his son, and he showed her the same picture. Sandrine gave him Nathalie’s work address. After that, she never heard from him again.

You only have to see the photograph to realise that Pascal isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. Not exactly handsome either. And his clothes – sometimes you wondered where on earth he bought them. O.K., Nathalie might have been a bit fat, but she had a beautiful face and you knew that if she made the effort … But Pascal, he looked … difficult to know how to describe it.

“A bit retarded, to be honest.”

Not very clever is what she means. He worshipped Nathalie. She brought him home twice or three times, but he never stayed the night. Sandrine even wondered whether they were sleeping together. When he came round, Sandrine could see he was all excited, the way he gawped at Nathalie; he was practically drooling, just waiting for the green light to jump her bones.

“Though there was this one time. Just once, he slept here. I remember now, it was in July, just before I went to my aunt’s.”

But Sandrine didn’t hear anything.

“Which is strange, because my room was right under hers.”

She bites her lip, realising she’s just admitted eavesdropping. She blushes, but doesn’t say any more; they’ve got the picture. She didn’t hear anything, and it wasn’t for lack of trying. Nathalie and Pascal must have … I don’t know … maybe they did it standing up. Or maybe there was nothing to hear, maybe Nathalie wasn’t up for it. This, Sandrine could easily understand. I mean, Pascal …

“If it was me …” she says priggishly.

The little one pieces the story together aloud; he might be
small, but he’s not stupid, pretty accurate in fact. Nathalie and Pascal disappeared leaving two months’ rent on the kitchen table and enough money to cover the bills. Then there were all the things that Nathalie didn’t take.

“Things, what things?” he wants to know immediately.

Suddenly he’s all ears. Sandrine didn’t keep any of the stuff. Nathalie was two sizes bigger than her and besides, her taste in clothes was terrible … There is the magnifying mirror in the bathroom, but Sandrine doesn’t mention this to the police – she uses it for blackheads and nose hairs; besides it’s none of their business. She tells them about the other stuff: the coffee maker, the teapot shaped like a cow, the rainwater tank, the Marguerite Duras novels which were all she seemed to read; she had pretty much the complete works.

The younger officer says: “Nathalie Granger … that’s the name of one of Duras’ characters, isn’t it?”

“Really?” the other one says. “From which novel?”

“Um … it’s from a film called ‘Nathalie Granger’,” the young one says, embarrassed.

The dwarf slaps his forehead as if to say
Duh!
, but Sandrine thinks it’s just for effect.

“For collecting rainwater …” she explains as the dwarf points to the large green tank outside. It was environmentally friendly, collecting all that water – the roof of the house was huge; it was a pity really, she’d talked to the rental agent and to the landlord, but they weren’t interested. Talking about green issues seems to irritate the policeman as well, making her wonder what exactly he
is
interested in.

“She bought it just before she left. I found it here when I got back from my aunt’s. She left a little note, apologising for leaving
so suddenly. I suppose the rainwater tank was sort of to make up for that, a surprise present.”

The dwarf finds this funny, “a surprise present”.

He’s standing in front of the window, the net curtain pulled back. It’s true it’s pretty ugly, that huge green plastic tank at the side of the house with the drainpipes running into it. You can tell it’s cobbled together. But he’s not really looking at it. He’s not really listening either, because as she’s in mid-sentence he flips open his mobile and makes a call.

“Jean?” he says. “I think I’ve found Trarieux’s son.”

*

Time is getting on – she has to call her boss back and the young one talks to him again. No mention of an investigation this time, just some mention of taking samples. An ambiguous phrase, since Sandrine works in a laboratory, as Nathalie did. They were both biologists, although Nathalie never liked to talk about her job. “When I’m off work, I’m off work!”

Twenty minutes later, it’s action stations. They’ve cordoned off the street, the forensics team in their astronaut suits have overrun the garden with their equipment – cases, spotlights, plastic sheets – trampling all over the flowerbeds. They measured the rainwater tank and then took ridiculous precautions emptying it. They didn’t want the water spilling on the ground.

“I know what they’re going to find,” the dwarf said. “It’s a dead cert. I’m going to get some kip.”

He asked Sandrine where Nathalie’s old room was. He lay down on the bed fully clothed; she’s sure he didn’t even take off his shoes.

The younger officer stayed out in the garden.

He really is a good-looking guy, and his clothes, his shoes …
Even his manners! Sandrine has tried steering the conversation, making it more personal: this house is so big for a single woman, that kind of thing – but he didn’t take the bait.

She’s convinced he’s gay.

The forensics team emptied the rainwater tank, moved it out of the way and started digging. They didn’t have to dig far before they found the body. Wrapped in the sort of plastic sheeting you buy in hardware shops.

It gave Sandrine a bit of a turn. The police kept her back – I don’t think you want to be out here, mademoiselle – so she went back into the house and looked out of the window; they couldn’t stop her doing that – after all, it is her house. What disturbed her was when they lifted the plastic wrapped body and laid it on a gurney: she knew at once it was Pascal.

She recognised his trainers.

Peeling back the layers of plastic, they leaned over, calling others to look at something she couldn’t see. She opened the window a crack to listen.

One of the officers said: “Oh no, that wouldn’t cause this sort of damage …”

It was at this point that the dwarf came back downstairs.

He positively skipped into the garden and immediately went over to look at the body.

He nodded, obviously pretty astonished by what he was seeing.

He said: “I’m with Brichot: the only thing which could cause that kind of damage is acid.”

It’s an old-fashioned rope, not the smooth, synthetic kind you get on boats, natural hemp and very thick. It has to be to support a cage like this.

There are a dozen rats. Those Alex already knows, the ones that were there at the start, and the new arrivals – she doesn’t know where they’ve come from, how they knew. Together they’ve adopted a siege strategy.

Three or four have taken up positions at one end of the crate; two or three others are on the far side. She assumes that when they decide the time is right, they’ll attack together, but for now something is holding them back: Alex’s energy. She continually screams and swears and taunts them. They know that there is still life in the cage, defiance – they know they will have to fight. Two rats already lie dead on the floor. This apparently gives them pause for thought.

They constantly sniff the blood, rearing onto their hind paws, snouts straining towards the rope. Feverish with excitement, they take turns in gnawing at the rope with their teeth. Alex doesn’t know how they decide whose turn it is to feast on the blood.

She doesn’t care. She has stabbed herself again, this time low down on her calf, near the ankle. She found a clean, rich vein.
The most difficult thing is keeping them away while she wipes the blood onto the rope.

It has already been eaten halfway through. It’s a race against time between Alex and the rope, between which of the two will break first.

Alex keeps the cage moving, swinging it from side to side, making it more difficult for the rats if they should decide to come and call her to account; and she hopes it also weakens the rope.

The other reason for her tactic is that she needs the cage to fall at an angle in order for the slats to break. She rocks it as hard as she can, pushes the rats away and douses the rope again. When one rat comes to gnaw on it, she keeps the others at a distance. Alex is absolutely exhausted, dying of thirst. Since the thunderstorms, which went on for more than a day, there are parts of her body she can no longer feel; they’re numb.

The fat grey rat is getting impatient.

For an hour now, it has been allowing the others to gorge themselves on the rope. It no longer takes its turn feeding. The rope no longer interests the grey rat. Instead it stares at Alex, making loud, piercing shrieks. And for the first time it pokes its head between the slats and sniffs, lips drawn back like a snake.

What works for the others no longer works for him. Alex can scream and swear as much as she likes, but the rat doesn’t flinch, claws digging into the wood to stop itself from falling as the cage rocks wildly.

It clings to the crate and stares at her.

Alex stares back.

They’re like lovers on a merry-go-round, gazing deep into each other’s eyes.

“Come on,” whispers Alex, smiling. Arching her back, she gives the cage all the momentum she can and smiles up at the fat rat above her head. “Come on, Daddy, come on, Mummy has something for you …”

It left him with a strange feeling, his little siesta in Nathalie’s room. Why had he done it? He doesn’t know. The creaking wooden stairs, the landing stripped of its carpet, the porcelain door handle – all the heat in the house seems to rise to this attic room. It feels like a country house, a family home, with guest rooms only aired and opened up at the onset of summer. Closed the rest of the year.

Now, it is being used as a junk room. She seemed not to have much in the way of personality; the place looks like a room in a hotel or a bed and breakfast. A few lopsided pictures on the walls, a chest of drawers with one foot missing propped up with books. The bed is soft as a marshmallow – you sink into it so deeply it’s amazing. Camille sits up, heaves himself onto the pillows, and leaning against the head of the bed, he fumbles for his notepad and his pencil. While the forensics team are clearing the earth from under the rainwater tank in the garden, he sketches a face. His own. When he was young, preparing to study at the École des Beaux-Arts, he did hundreds of self-portraits; his
mother always claimed it was the only real exercise, the only one that allowed one to find “the appropriate detachment”. She herself had painted dozens of self-portraits. Only one of them remains, in oils, magnificent; he doesn’t like to think about it. And Maud was right: Camille’s problem has always been finding the appropriate detachment. He’s always either too close or too detached. Either he plunges in and disappears, thrashing about, almost drowning, or he remains at a careful distance and is doomed to understand nothing. “What’s missing then is the grain of things,” Camille says. On the notepad, the face that emerges is emaciated, the eyes stare vacantly, a man beaten down by adversity.