Alex (22 page)

When she first checked in to the Hôtel du Pré Hardy, she almost turned on her heel and left again. Because of the owner, Mme Zanetti – “but everyone calls me Jacqueline”. It rankled a little with Alex, this pretending to be friends straight off.

“And what’s your name, dear?”

She had to say something, so, “Laura”.

“Laura?” repeated the owner, surprised. “That’s my niece’s name.”

Alex couldn’t see what was so strange about this. Everyone has a first name – hotel owners, nieces, nurses, everyone – but Mme Zanetti finds it particularly startling. This is why Alex took an instant dislike to the woman – the horribly manipulative way she pretends to be connected to everyone. She’s a “people person” and now that she’s getting older, she consolidates her communication skills with an aura of protectiveness. Alex is infuriated by this need in her to be best friends with half the planet and mother to the other half.

Physically, she was once a beautiful woman, but her attempt to cling to her beauty ruined everything. Plastic surgery doesn’t always age well. With Mme Zanetti it’s difficult to put a finger on exactly what is wrong; it looks as though everything has shifted and that her face, while still trying to look like a face, is out of all proportion. It’s a tightly stretched mask with snake eyes sunk into deep hollows, a network of fine lines around lips that have been ridiculously inflated; the forehead is so taut the eyebrows are permanently arched, the jowls pulled back so far they dangle like sideburns. Her staggering mane of hair is dyed jet black. When she first appeared behind the reception desk, Alex had to fight back the urge to recoil; the woman looks like a witch. Having a monstrosity like this to welcome you every
night makes for quick decisions. Mentally, Alex decided to get Toulouse out of the way quickly and head back to Paris. But on her first night, Mme Zanetti invited her into the back room for a drink.

“Come on, dear, won’t you have a little chat with me?”

The whisky is excellent and her private sitting room is pleasant, all done out in a Fifties style, with a big black Bakelite telephone, an old Teppaz gramophone with a Platters L.P. When all’s said and done, Mme Zanetti is pretty O.K. – she tells funny stories about previous guests. And after a while you get used to the face. You forget about it. Just as she has probably forgotten about it. It’s the nature of a handicap; there comes a time when only other people notice.

After the whisky, Mme Zanetti opened a bottle of Bordeaux. “I don’t know what I’ve got in the fridge, but if you’d like to stay for dinner …” Alex accepted, because it was easier. The evening is a long and pleasant one; Alex is subjected to a barrage of questions and she lies reasonably well. The good thing about casual conversations is that you’re not expected to tell the truth – what you say is of no importance. When Alex got up from the sofa to make for bed, it was past one o’clock in the morning. They kiss each other spontaneously on both cheeks, tell each other it’s been a marvellous evening, something that is both true and false. In any case, the time passed without Alex noticing. She’s getting to bed much later than she had planned, utterly exhausted – she has an appointment with her nightmares.

The following morning, she visits the bookshops, has a little nap and sleeps so deeply it is almost painful.

The hotel “comprising twenty-four guest rooms, was entirely renovated four years ago,” according to Jacqueline Zanetti, “call
me Jacqueline, no, honestly, I insist.” Alex’s room is on the second floor. She doesn’t encounter many other guests but hears them rattling around: clearly the renovation did not extend to soundproofing. That evening, as Alex attempts to slip out discreetly, Jacqueline suddenly appears behind the reception desk. It’s impossible to turn down the offer of a drink. Jacqueline is on even better form. She tries hard to be scintillating: laughing and joking and pulling faces; she’s laid on snacks and at about 10.00 p.m., she reveals her plans. “Why don’t we go dancing?” The proposal is offered with a delighted impulsiveness designed to win Alex over, but Alex does not much like dancing … Besides, she finds such places mystifying. “Not at all,” tuts Jacqueline, pretending to take offence, “people just go to dance, honestly.” Persuasive. As though she really believes what she’s saying.

At her mother’s insistence, Alex trained to be a nurse, but deep down she is also a nurse at heart. She likes to do good. The reason she finally accepts is that Jacqueline has put so much effort into presenting her proposal. She laid on supper, talks about some place where they have dancing twice a week – “You’ll see, it’s priceless!” – Jacqueline has always been crazy about dance halls. “Well,” she confesses, simperingly, “I suppose you also get to meet people there.”

Alex sips her claret. She barely even noticed that they sat down to eat, but now it’s half past ten, time to go.

As far as they know, Pascal Trarieux’s path never crossed that of Stefan Maciak, who as far as they know never met Gattegno. Camille summarises the police records.

“Gattegno, born in Saint-Fiacre, went to technical college in Pithiviers where he also did his apprenticeship. Six years later he opens up his own workshop in Étampes and later (he’s twenty-eight by this time) he takes over his former mentor’s garage, also in Étampes.”

The offices of the
brigade criminelle
.

The magistrate came by for what he insists on calling “a debriefing”. He says the word with a pronounced English accent somewhere between affectation and ridiculousness. Today, he’s wearing a sky-blue tie; this is as outrageous as his dress sense gets. He is sitting, expressionless, hands splayed on the desk in front of him, like starfish. He is determined to make an impression.

“From the day he was born to the day he died, this guy didn’t go beyond a thirty-kilometre radius,” Camille continues. “Three kids and suddenly, at the age of forty-nine, a mid-life crisis. It drives him crazy, and eventually, it does for him. No known connection to Trarieux.”

The magistrate says nothing. Le Guen says nothing. They’re
keeping their powder dry; with Camille Verhœven, you never know which way things will go.

“Stefan Maciak, born 1949 to a Polish family, a family of modest means, a hardworking family, a model of French social integration.”

Everybody already knows all this. Reviewing the details of a case for just one person is tiresome, and it’s obvious from Camille’s voice that he’s losing patience. At times like this, Le Guen closes his eyes as though trying to communicate serenity using thought waves. Louis also does this to try to calm his boss. Camille is not a hothead, but from time to time, he can be a little impetuous.

“This Maciak was so socially integrated he became an alcoholic. He drinks like a Pole, which makes him a good Frenchman. The kind that wants to preserve the French national heritage. So he goes to work in a bistro. He washes dishes, waits tables, he’s promoted to head waiter – we’re witnessing a miracle of upward mobility through the downward application of alcohol. In a meritocratic country like ours, hard work always pays off. Maciak is managing his first café by the age of thirty-two, a place in Épinay-sur-Orge. He’s there for eight years and then comes the peak of his social climb, the bistro in Reims where he died in circumstances we’re already familiar with. Never married. Which might possibly explain him falling head over heels when a passing traveller takes an interest in him. It costs him 2,037.87 euros (traders like to be precise), and his life. His career may have been a long hard slog, but his passion was a blinding flash.”

Silence. Impossible to tell whether this signals annoyance (the magistrate), consternation (Le Guen), forbearance (Louis), or joy (Armand), but no-one says a word.

At length the magistrate says: “According to you, there is nothing to connect the victims. Our murderer is killing people
at random. You think the murders are not premeditated.”

“Whether or not she plans them, I can’t say. I’m simply making plain that the victims did not know each other, so there’s no point pursuing that line of inquiry.”

“So why does the murderer change her identity, if not
so she can
kill?”

“It’s not so she can kill, it’s because she
has
killed.”

The magistrate only has to float an idea for Camille to start back-pedalling. He explains.

“She doesn’t really change her identity; she simply changes her name. It’s not the same thing. Someone asks her name and she says ‘Nathalie’, or she says ‘Léa’ – it’s not as if they’re going to ask to see her I.D. card. She changes her name because she has killed a number of men, three as far as we’re aware, though we have no idea of the true figure. She’s covering her tracks as best she can.”

“She’s doing a pretty good job,” snaps the magistrate.

“I concede that …” Camille says.

He says this distractedly because he is looking at something else. All eyes turn towards the window. The weather has changed. Late September. It’s 9.00 a.m., but the sky has gone dark. The thunderstorm lashing the windows has suddenly whipped itself up into a raging fury; for two hours now it’s been wreaking havoc. It doesn’t look like anything will stop it. Camille surveys the damage worriedly. Though the clouds don’t quite have the brooding savagery of Géricault’s “The Flood”, there is danger in the air. We need to be careful as we lead our little lives, Camille thinks; the end of the world will not be some momentous calamity – it could start out just like this.

“What’s the motive?” the magistrate says. “Money doesn’t seem likely.”

“We’re agreed on that point. The sums involved are pretty paltry; if she was in this for the money, she’d plan her moves more carefully, choose richer victims. Trarieux’s father was robbed of 623 euros; with Maciak she got a day’s takings; with Gattegno, she spends the balance on his credit cards.”

“So the cash is just a perk?”

“Possibly. I think it’s a diversion. She’s trying to throw us off the scent by making it look like a robbery gone wrong.”

“What then? A sociopath?”

“Maybe. It’s definitely sexual.”

The fatal word has been said. Now it’s anybody’s game. The magistrate has his own ideas on the subject. Camille wouldn’t put much money on his sexual experience, but he’s been to university and he’s not afraid to theorise on the subject.

“She … if indeed it is a she …”

This has been the magistrate’s shtick right from the start. It’s probably something he does in all his cases: harping on rules, the presumption of innocence, the necessity of relying on hard facts; he positively revels in playing the pedant. When he makes an insinuation like this, reminding them that nothing is proven, he invariably contrives to have a moment of silence so that everyone understands the significance of the subtext. Le Guen nods. Later, he’ll say: “At least we get to deal with him as an adult. Can you imagine what an irritating arsehole he must have been at school?”

“She pours the acid down the victim’s throat,” the magistrate goes on. “If this were sexual, as you maintain, it seems to me she might have other uses for it. Don’t you agree?”

An innuendo. A roundabout phrase. Theorising keeps reality at a distance. Never one to miss an opportunity, Camille says,
“Would you care to be more precise?”

“Well …”

The magistrate hesitates a second too long, Camille pounces:

“Yes?”

“Well, the acid … surely she would be more likely to pour it …”

“… on his prick?” interrupts Camille.

“Um …”

“Or his balls maybe? Or both?”

“Yes, I’m inclined to think so.”

Le Guen stares up at the ceiling. When he hears the magistrate begin to speak again, he thinks, “Seconds out: round two,” and already he feels tired.

“You’re still of the opinion that this girl was raped, Commandant Verhœven; is that your point?”

“Raped, yes. I think she kills because she was raped. I think she’s avenging herself on men.”

“And her pouring the sulphuric acid down her victims’ throats …”

“I’m inclined to think it’s related to unpleasant experiences of giving blow jobs. Such things do happen, you know …”

“Absolutely,” the judge agrees. “In fact more often than one might think. Luckily, not all women who are shocked by the practice become serial killers. Or at least, not like this.”

Astonishingly, the magistrate is smiling; Camille is a little disconcerted. The man seems always to smile at inopportune moments. It’s difficult to interpret.

“In any case, whatever her reasons,” Camille goes on, “it’s what she does. Yeah, yeah, I know, if it is a she …”

As he says this, Camille twirls a finger in the air: the same old song.

The magistrate, still smiling, nods and gets to his feet.

“In any case, whether or not it’s that, there’s been something this girl’s found hard to swallow.”

Everyone is surprised. Especially Camille.

Alex made one last attempt to duck out.

“I’m not dressed for it. I can’t go out like this – I’ve brought nothing with me.”

“You look perfect.”

And suddenly they’re face to face in the living room. Jacqueline is staring at her, gazing deep into Alex’s green eyes, and nods in a mixture of admiration and regret, as though she is seeing a part of her own life, as though she is saying how marvellous it is to be beautiful, to be young, and when she says, “You look perfect,” she really means it, and there’s nothing Alex can say. They take a taxi and before she realises it, they’re there. The dance hall is enormous. Alex finds this in itself depressing – it’s like the circus or the zoo, the sort of place that immediately makes you feel unaccountably sad, but to make things worse it would take 800 people to fill the place and there are barely 150. There’s a band with an accordion and an electric piano – the musicians are fifty if they’re a day. The band leader’s toupee is slipping from the sweat and looks as though it will wind up
down his back. There are a hundred chairs set around the walls; in the centre, on a dance floor gleaming like a new penny, some thirty couples sway to and fro, dressed up as bolero dancers, as wedding guests, as trashy Spaniards, as Twenties Charleston babes. It looks like a broken hearts convention.