Alex (7 page)

“It’s like ‘The Oak and the Reed’, it you prefer.”

Camille preferred.

So he sold up. For three years now he’s been living here on the Quai de Valmy.

He steps into his apartment and Doudouche immediately comes to greet him. Ah, that’s something else. Doudouche, a little tabby cat.

“A middle-aged widower with a cat …” was Camille’s reaction.“It’s a bit of a cliché, don’t you think? Or am I being over the top?”

“I suspect it depends on the cat, doesn’t it?” Louis said.

And that’s the whole problem. Out of love, or a desire to fit in, through unconscious mimicry or a sense of propriety – who knows? – Doudouche has remained incredibly small for her age. She has a sweet little face, bandy legs like a cowboy, and she’s tiny. It’s a mystery so profound even Louis had no theory to propose.

“You think maybe she’s a little over the top too?” Camille said.

The vet was embarrassed when Camille brought the cat in to ask about its size.

No matter what time he gets in, Doudouche wakes up and comes to greet him. Tonight – this morning – Camille just gives her a quick scratch on the back. He doesn’t really feel like opening up. The day has been somewhat overwhelming.

First, the woman being kidnapped.

Then, meeting up with Louis again, especially in these circumstances. It’s as though Le Guen deliberately engineered things …

Camille freezes.

“The bastard!”

Alex climbs into the crate, bows her head, huddles up.

The man puts the lid back on, screws it into place and then steps back to admire his handiwork.

Alex is bruised from head to foot, her whole body shaken by spasms and tremors. Though it feels utterly absurd, she cannot deny the fact that inside the crate she feels somehow more at ease. As though sheltered. She has spent the past few hours constantly picturing what he might do to her, but aside from the brutality of the abduction itself, aside from the beating … It’s hardly nothing – Alex’s head is still throbbing from the
force of the blows – but now here she is, in the crate, in one piece. He hasn’t raped her. He hasn’t tortured her. He hasn’t killed her. “Not yet,” says a little voice, but Alex doesn’t want to listen; as far as she is concerned each second gained is a second gained, every second yet to come is yet to come. She tries to take deep breaths. The man is still standing, frozen – she can see his heavy work boots, the bottoms of his trousers. He is staring at her. “I want to watch you die …” This is what he said; it’s almost the only thing he has said. Is that it? He wants to kill her? He wants to watch her die? How is he planning to kill her? Alex is no longer wondering why, but how? When?

Why does he hate women so much? What is this guy’s story that he could set this whole thing up? Could beat her so brutally? The cold is not too bitter, but what with the exhaustion, the beatings, the fear, the darkness, Alex feels frozen stiff. She tries to shift her position. It’s not easy. She is sitting hunched up, head resting on the arms hugging her knees. As she lifts herself to try and turn round, she lets out a scream. She’s just managed to drive a long splinter into her arm, high up near the shoulder, and has to use her teeth to pull it out. There’s no room. The wooden crate is rough, makeshift. What can she do to turn round? Rest her weight on her hands? Swivel her pelvis? First she will try to move her feet. She feels terror well up in her belly. She starts to scream, shifts this way and that; she’s terrified of injuring herself on the rough-hewn planks, but she needs to move, it’s enough to drive her mad. She thrashes about but succeeds only in gaining a few centimetres. Panic grips her.

The man’s large head suddenly appears in her field of vision.

So suddenly, she jerks back and bangs her head. He has crouched down to look at her. He smiles broadly with his missing
lips. A grim, joyless smile that would be ridiculous if it were not so threatening. From his throat comes a sort of bleating sound. Still no words, he nods as though to say:
Do you get it now
?

“You …” Alex begins, but she cannot think what she wants to say to him, to ask him.

He goes on nodding his head, smiling that moronic smile. He’s mad, thinks Alex.

“You’re c— crazy …”

But she doesn’t have time to say more; he has just backed away, he is walking away – she can’t see him anymore so she trembles even more. As soon as he disappears, she panics. What is he doing? She cranes her neck; she can hear noises coming from a little way off – everything reverberates in the vast empty room. Except now, she’s moving. Imperceptibly the crate has begun to swing. The wood makes a creaking sound. Out of the corner of her eye, if she swivels her body as much as possible, she can see the rope above her. It is attached somehow to the crate. Alex twists her body so as to slide her hand up over her head and between the slats: there is a steel ring to which is attached a thick rope; she grips the huge, tight knot.

The rope shudders and tenses, the crate seems to shriek as it rises, lifts off the floor and begins to rock, to spin slowly. The man appears in her field of vision again, some seven or eight metres away, standing near the wall where, with sweeping movements, he tugs on the rope connected by two pulleys. The crate rises very slowly, and for a moment it seems as though it might topple. Alex doesn’t move; the man stares at her. When the crate is about a metre and a half off the ground, he stops, ties off the rope then goes and rummages in a pile of things next to the gap in the far wall and comes back.

Face to face, at the same height, they can look each other in the eye. He takes out his mobile phone. To take a photograph of her. He looks for the right angle, shifts to one side, steps back, chicks the shutter once, twice, three times … then checks the images, deletes those he’s not happy with. Then he goes back over to the wall and the crate rises again; it’s now two metres from the floor.

The rope now tied off, the man is visibly pleased with himself.

He slips on his jacket, pats his pockets to make sure he’s forgotten nothing. It’s as though Alex doesn’t exist anymore – he hardly glances at the crate as he leaves. Satisfied with his handiwork. As though leaving his apartment to go to work.

He’s gone.

Silence.

The crate swings heavily at the end of the rope. A blast of cold air whirls around her, lapping against Alex’s body, which is already frozen to the marrow.

She is alone. Naked. Trapped.

Only now does she understand.

This is not a crate.

It’s a cage.

“You fucking bastard …”

“Mind your language … ,” “I’ll thank you to remember I’m your superior officer,” “What would you have done in my shoes?” “You should improve your vocabulary, your bad language is getting tedious.” Over the years, Divisionnaire Le Guen tried everything with Camille – or almost everything. These days, rather than rehashing old arguments, he no longer responds. This rather cuts the ground out from under Camille, who now simply storms into his office without knocking and stands glowering at his boss. At best, the divisionnaire gives him a philosophical shrug; at worst, he looks down, pretending to be contrite. Not a word is spoken; they’re like an old married couple, which is something of a no-win situation for two men pushing fifty, both of whom are single. Or rather, neither of whom has a wife. Camille is a widower. Le Guen racked up his fourth divorce last year.

“It’s strange how you keep marrying the same woman,” Camille said at Le Guen’s last wedding.

“What can you do?” Le Guen quipped. “Old habits die hard. I mean I always have the same witness at my weddings – you!” Then tetchily he said, “Besides, if I have to have a new wife, I might as well marry the same one,” whereby proving that when it comes to fatalism, he’s a match for anyone.

The fact that they no longer need to say anything to understand what the other is thinking is the primary reason Camille does not tear a strip off Le Guen this morning. He brushes aside the petty manipulations of the divisionnaire who could obviously have put someone else on the case but pretended there was no-one. It dawns on Camille that he should have realised straight off, but he completely missed it. This is strange; in fact it is rather worrying. The other reason is that he hasn’t had a wink of sleep, he’s exhausted, and he doesn’t have the energy to waste because he has a long day ahead of him before Morel takes over.

It’s 7.00 a.m. Dead beat officers move from office to office yelling to each other, doors slam, people shout, dazed civilians wait in corridors; for the station, this is the fag-end of a sleepless night like any other.

Louis shows up. He hasn’t slept either. Camille looks him up and down. Brooks Brothers suit, Louis Vuitton tie, a pair of Finsbury loafers; sober as always. Camille can’t comment on the socks yet, and besides he knows nothing about socks. Louis looks elegant but, though he’s perfectly shaven, he looks like shit.

They shake hands as if this is just an ordinary morning, as if they never stopped working together. Since meeting up for the first time again last night, they haven’t really talked. Haven’t even referred to the four-year break. Not that it’s a big secret, no, this is about embarrassment, about grief – besides, what is there to say about loss? Louis and Irène were fond of each other. Camille thinks that, like him, Louis felt responsible for her death. Louis did not lay claim to the same grief as Camille, but he grieved just the same. Grief that was beyond words. Deep down both men were devastated by the same tragedy and it left them speechless. Of course everyone had been shaken, but these two should have
found a way to talk. They never did and gradually, though they still thought about each other, they stopped seeing each other.

The preliminary report from forensics is not encouraging. Camille flicks swiftly through it, passing the pages to Louis as he reads. The rubber from the tyre tracks is the most common of all kinds and would be found on five million vehicles. The van, too, is the most common make. As for the victim’s last meal: mixed salad, beef, green beans, white wine … It’s not promising.

They set themselves up next to the big map of Paris pinned to Camille’s office wall. The telephone rings.

“Hey, Jean,” Camille says, “perfect timing.”

“Yeah, and good morning to you too,” Le Guen says.

“I need fifteen officers.”

“No chance.”

“Mostly female officers, if possible.” Camille thinks for a moment. “They’ll be needed for at least two days. Three, if we haven’t found the girl by then. Oh, and one more vehicle. No, make that two.”

“Listen – “

“… and I want Armand assigned to me.”

“O.K., well, that I can do. I’ll send him over now.”

“Thanks for everything, Jean.” Camille hangs up.

He turns back to the map.

“So, what are we likely to get?” Louis says.

“Half of everything I asked for. Plus Armand.”

Camille keeps his eyes fixed on the map. With an arm at full stretch he could just about touch the sixth arrondissement. To reach the nineteenth, he would need to stand on a chair. Or use a pointer. But a pointer would make him look like a priggish schoolteacher. Over the years, he’s considered a number of
solutions. Pinning the map lower down on the wall, spreading it on the floor of the office, cutting it into various sectors and pinning them side by side … He’s never actually implemented any of them, since any solution that compensated for his height would simply make things difficult for everyone else. Besides, just as he has at home or at the mortuary, Camille has a battery of equipment here in the office. When it comes to stools, steps, ladders, Camille is a connoisseur. For files, archives, stationery and technical documentation, he uses a small, narrow aluminium stepladder; for the map of Paris a library step-stool, one of the models with wheels that lock when you step on it. Camille rolls it across and stands on it. He studies the main roads that converge on the site of the abduction. Teams will be despatched to do a fingertip search of the whole area; the question is where to fix the boundaries of the search area. He points to an area, suddenly looks down at his feet, thinks for a moment, then turns to Louis and says: “I look like some douchebag general, don’t I?”

“I’m guessing ‘douchebag general’ is a tautology in your book?”

They banter back and forth but neither is really listening. Each is pursuing his own line of thought.

“But still …” Louis says broodingly, “there’s been no van reported stolen in the past few days. Unless he’s been planning this for months. I mean, abducting a girl using your own van is taking a hell of a risk.”

“Or maybe the guy’s dumb as a box of rocks …”

Camille and Louis turn round. It’s Armand.

“If the guy’s dumb, he’ll be unpredictable,” Camille says, smiling. “That’s going to make things more difficult.”

They all shake hands. Armand has worked with Camille for more than ten years, nine and a half under his command. He is
a terrifyingly gaunt man with a sad face who suffers from a pathological tight-fistedness that has blighted his whole life. Every second of Armand’s life is geared towards saving money. Camille’s theory is that he’s scared of death. Louis, who’s studied just about every subject possible, confirmed that this is a valid psychoanalytical theory. Camille felt proud to be an able theorist in a subject he knows nothing about. Professionally, Armand is a tireless worker ant. Give him a telephone directory for any city, come back a year later, and he’ll have checked every number.

Armand has always felt an unalloyed admiration for Camille. Early on in their careers, when Armand discovered Camille’s mother was a famous painter, that admiration became a fervour. He collects press cuttings about her. On his computer, he has images of every painting of hers available on the internet. When he learned that Camille’s short stature was due to his mother’s inveterate smoking, Armand felt conflicted. He tried to reconcile his admiration for a painter whose work he doesn’t understand but whose fame impresses him, and his resentment for a woman who could be so selfish. He never quite resolved these incompatible feelings; he seems to struggle with them still. But he can’t help it, the moment there’s a mention of Maud Verhœven or one of her paintings on the news, Armand is ecstatic.