Chourmo (12 page)

Fonfon had made me another coffee. I drank another cognac, then the coffee. Then I sat down.

“What are you going to do?”

“Nothing. I won't tell her. Not for the moment. He's dead, it makes no difference. And it makes no difference if she goes through hell tonight or tomorrow. I'm going to check it out. I have to find the girl. And the boy, Mathias.”

“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head skeptically. “You don't think—”

“You see, Fonfon, there's something I don't understand. This kid spent his vacation with Guitou, they went to parties together, almost every night. Why does he say he doesn't know him? In my opinion, Guitou and Naïma had planned to spend the weekend in that studio apartment. Guitou slept there on Friday night, expecting to see the girl the next day. He needed a key to get in, or someone to let him in.”

“Hocine Draoui.”

“That's right. And the Fabres know who Guitou is. I'd swear to it, Fonfon.”

“Maybe the police wanted to keep it secret.”

“I don't think so. If it was anyone else other than Loubet, maybe. He's not as devious as that. If he knew Guitou's identity, he'd have said so. He himself says that identifying the body will help solve the case.”

I knew Loubet well. He was on the anti-crime squad. He'd seen plenty of dead bodies. He'd tackled the most complicated cases and had managed to shine a light into areas that might otherwise have remained dark. He was a good cop. Honest and upright. The kind of cop who thought the police were there to maintain the order of the Republic. To serve the citizen, whoever that citizen might be. He didn't believe in very much anymore, but he stood fast. And when he was in charge of an investigation, anyone who trod on his toes had better watch out. He always went all the way. I often wondered how he'd managed to keep his position. And stay alive.

“Well?”

“Well, there's something that's not right.”

“You don't think it was a burglary?”

“I don't think anything.”

Yes, I'd thought it was going to be a lousy day. But it was worse.

T
he door opened, and I didn't know what to say. In front of me there stood a young Oriental woman. Vietnamese, I thought. But I might be wrong. She was barefoot, and traditionally dressed in a thigh-length scarlet silk tunic buttoned on the shoulder and a pair of short midnight blue pants. Her long black hair was gathered at the side and partly covered her right eye. Her face was grave and unsmiling, and there was a look of reproach in her eyes because I'd rung her doorbell. I supposed she belonged to that category of women who never like to be disturbed, whatever the hour. Right now, it was only just after eleven o'clock.

“I was hoping to talk to Monsieur and Madame Fabre.”

“I'm Madame Fabre. My husband is at his office.”

Once again, I was speechless. I'd never for a moment imagined that Adrien Fabre's wife was Vietnamese. Or so young. She must be about thirty-five. I wondered how old she'd been when she'd had Mathias. But maybe she wasn't his mother.

“Hello,” I managed to say at last. All the time, my eyes were on her, devouring her.

I was being quite brazen. But it was more than the fact that she was beautiful. She was casting a spell over me. I felt it in my body. It was like an electric current. Like when you're walking along the street and your eyes meet a woman's, and you turn around, hoping to see that look a second time. Not even thinking about whether the woman is beautiful, what her body is like, how old she is. Just wanting to see again what she has in her eyes at that moment: a dream, an expectation, a desire. Her whole life, maybe.

“What's this about?”

She'd hardly moved her lips, and her tone of voice was like a door being slammed in your face. But the door was still open. With a nervous gesture, she pushed back her hair, letting me see her face.

She looked me up and down. I was wearing navy blue cotton pants, a blue shirt with white polka dots—a present from Lole—and white espadrilles. I stood there, all five feet eight of me, with my hands in the pockets of a petroleum-gray jacket. Honorine had said I looked very elegant. I hadn't told her what I'd read in the newspaper. As far as she and Gélou were concerned, I was going out to look for Guitou.

Our eyes met, and I couldn't take mine off hers. I didn't say anything. Her face tensed.

“I'm listening,” she said, curtly.

“Wouldn't it be better to talk inside?”

“What's this about?”

She gave the impression of someone who was usually self-confident, but right now she was on the defensive. Finding two dead bodies in your house when you came back from a weekend away didn't exactly encourage you to be welcoming. And for all the effort I'd made with my clothes, my black, slightly curly hair and sallow, almost ashen skin made me look like a wop. Which is what I was.

“About Mathias,” I said, as gently as I could. “And a friend he made on vacation this summer. Guitou. The boy who was found dead in your house.”

Her whole body clammed up. “Who are you?” she asked, stammering as if the words were hurting her throat.

“A relative.”

“Come in.”

She pointed to a staircase at the end of the hall, and moved aside to let me pass. I took a few steps, then stopped at the bottom of the stairs. The stone—a white Lacoste stone—had absorbed Guitou's blood. There was a dark patch on the step, like black crepe. Even the stone was in mourning.

“Was this where you found him?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said in a low voice.

Before making up my mind to leave home, I'd smoked several cigarettes, looking out to sea. I knew what I was going to do, and in what order, but I felt as heavy as lead. Like a little lead soldier waiting for a hand to set it in motion. And the hand was destiny. Life, death. You couldn't escape that hand. Whoever you were. Wherever it led.

In my experience, it usually led somewhere bad.

I'd called Loubet. I knew his habits. He was a hard worker and an early riser. It was eight-thirty and he'd answered at the first ring.

“Montale here.”

“Ah! The ghost returns. This is a pleasure.”

He'd been one of the few to buy me a drink when I was dismissed. I'd been grateful to him for that. Whether or not to toast my departure had been as revealing of the splits within the police force as the union elections. Except that this wasn't a secret ballot.

“I have the answers to your questions. About the boy in the Panier.”

“What are you talking about, Montale?”

“Your investigation. I know who the kid is. Where he's from, everything.”

“How do you know that?”

“He's my cousin's son. He ran away from home on Friday night.”

“What was he doing there?”

“I'll tell you. Can we meet?”

“Sure! How soon can you be here?”

“I'd rather meet you at Ange's bar. The Treize-Coins. OK with you?”

“OK.”

“About twelve, twelve-thirty.”

“Twelve-thirty! What the hell have you got to do before that, Montale?”

“Go fishing.”

“You're a damn liar.”

“That's true. See you later, Loubet.”

I really was planning to go fishing. Fishing for information. Bass and bream could wait. They were used to it. I wasn't a real fisherman, just an amateur.

Cûc—that was her first name and she was indeed Vietnamese, from Dalat, in the south, “the only cold town in the country”—turned to look at me, her eyes again hidden by a lock of hair, which she didn't push back. She had sat down on a couch, her legs folded beneath her buttocks.

“Who else knows?”

“No one,” I lied.

I was sitting with my back to the light, in an armchair to which she'd motioned me. From where I was, her jade eyes were like two slits, dark and shiny. She'd regained her self-confidence. Or at least enough strength to keep me at a distance. Beneath her apparent calm, I sensed her potential energy. She moved like a sportswoman. Cûc was not only on her guard, she was ready to pounce. She must have had a lot to protect since she arrived in France. Her memories, her dreams. Her life. Her life as the wife of Adrien Fabre. Her life as the mother of Mathias. Her son. She'd been very clear about that. “My son.”

I was on the verge of asking her a lot of prying questions. But I kept to the basics. Who I was. My relationship to Gélou. I told her about Guitou and Naïma. How he'd run away, come to Marseilles. What I'd read in the newspaper and how I'd made the connection.

“Why didn't you tell the police?”

“Tell them what?”

“That the young man was Guitou.”

“I just heard it from you. We didn't know.”

I found that hard to believe. “But Mathias . . . He knew him, he—”

“Mathias wasn't with us when we got back on Sunday evening. We dropped him in Aix, with my parents-in-law. He's going to college this year, and he still had a few formalities to take care of.”

It was a plausible story, but I wasn't convinced.

“And of course,” I couldn't help saying in an ironic tone, “you didn't call him. He doesn't know anything about the terrible thing that happened. He doesn't know one of his vacation pals was killed here.”

“My husband called him. Mathias swore he hadn't lent his key to anyone.”

“And you believed him?”

She moved aside her lock of hair. It was a gesture that was intended to make her look sincere. I'd gathered that much from the start.

“Why wouldn't we have believed him, Monsieur Montale?” she said, leaning forward slightly, and looking straight at me.

I was falling increasingly under her spell, and that was setting my nerves on edge. “Because if someone was in your house, Hocine Draoui would have told you,” I replied, more harshly than I'd intended. “That's what your husband said in the newspaper.”

“Hocine is dead,” she said softly.

“So is Guitou,” I cried. I stood up, nervously. It was noon. I had to know more before meeting with Loubet. “Can I use your phone?”

“Who are you calling?”

She had leaped to her feet. She stood facing me, very upright, completely still. She seemed taller, her shoulders broader. I could feel her breath on my chest.

“Chief Inspector Loubet. It's time he learned Guitou's identity. I don't know if he'll buy your story. But I'm sure it'll help him with the investigation.”

“No. Wait.”

She pushed back her hair with both hands and looked closely at me. She was ready to do anything. She'd even fall into my arms if she had to. And I didn't really want that.

“You have beautiful ears,” I heard myself whisper.

She smiled, almost imperceptibly, and placed her hand on my arm. This time, the electric current went through, and it was really strong. Her hand was burning hot.

“Please.”

 

I arrived late at the Treize-Coins. Loubet was drinking a
mauresque
, in a large glass. When Ange saw me come in, he brought me a
pastis
. Old habits die hard. For years, I'd been a regular here, in this bar behind the station house. Away from the other cops, who had their haunts on Rue de l'évêché or Place des Trois-Cantons. Where the waitresses flirt with you to get tips.

Ange wasn't the talkative type. He didn't chase after customers. When the band IAM decided to shoot the video for their new album in his bar, he'd said, “Oh, why my place?” With a touch of pride, all the same.

His great interest was history. He read everything he could get hold of—Decaux, Castellot—and whatever he could find in secondhand booksellers: Zevaes, Ferro, Rousset. Over a drink, he'd fill in the gaps in my knowledge. The last time I'd dropped by to see him, he'd buttonholed me and launched into a detailed account of Garibaldi's triumphal entry into the port of Marseilles on October 7, 1870. “At exactly ten o'clock in the morning.” By my third
pastis
, I'd told him I rejected the idea that history was the only form of destiny. I didn't know what I meant by that, and I still don't know, but it seems right. He'd looked at me in stunned silence.

“We've been waiting for you,” he said, pushing the glass toward me.

“Good catch, Montale?”

“Not bad.”

“Are you eating here?” Ange asked.

Loubet looked at me.

“Later,” I said, wearily.

I wasn't too crazy about the morgue. But Loubet said there was no way around it. Only Mathias, Cûc and I knew that the boy who'd been found dead was Guitou. I didn't like the idea of telling Loubet that I'd met Cûc. He wouldn't have appreciated it, and he'd have immediately rushed off to see her. And I'd promised Cûc I'd give her some time, until after lunch. Enough time for her, her husband and Mathias to concoct a true version of a lie. I'd promised her that much. It didn't cost anything, I'd told myself, though I was a little ashamed, all the same, to have let myself be seduced so easily. But I'll never change, I'm susceptible to female beauty.

I emptied my glass like a condemned man.

 

I'd set foot in the morgue only three times in my career. The icy atmosphere gripped me as soon as we walked through the door into the reception area. You went straight from sunlight to neon. White, pale. Damp. This was what hell was like. Death was cold. Here or at the bottom of a hole in the summertime, it was always the same.

I tried not to think about the people I'd loved that I'd already buried. When I'd thrown the last handful of earth on my father's coffin, I'd said to myself, “There, now you're alone.” It had been hard afterwards, dealing with other people. Even with Carmen, the woman who was living with me at the time. I'd become taciturn. Unable to explain why it was that this man, who wasn't around anymore, had suddenly become more important to me than she was, even though she was there and she loved me. It was stupid, I knew. But my father had been a real father. Like Fonfon and Félix. Like many others. Like I might have been. It would have come naturally to me.