The Returned (25 page)

He turned around to face Anton, the lake at his back. ‘I was twelve years old at the time. Years later I learned that when he told me that, he’d just been diagnosed with dementia. It
took him a long time to go, piece by piece. A body, without a soul.’

They sat in silence for a while, before Eric asked: ‘Will you be going on any outings with our friend Dreyfus today, Anton?’

‘None planned,’ Anton said. The divers would come tomorrow to check the lake bed. Until then, Anton presumed Dreyfus would spend his time handling the power-station crisis. He hoped
Dreyfus would have no more need of his services, and would stop filling his mind with worrying questions.

The day before, late morning, the call had come through from the power station, half a kilometre downstream of the dam. It was experiencing flooding issues and they had no idea how to deal with
them, with no obvious source for the water; asking if there was a chance of leakage from the lake.

Dreyfus had taken Anton along with him.

‘Just back me up,’ Dreyfus said. ‘Whatever I tell them, back me up.’

When they got there it was the switchyard that had been the worst affected, and the transformer arrays. The whole area was flooded and the drainage seemed to be doing nothing. As things stood
Anton knew it was dangerous, that the electricity generation should ideally be shut down, but the issue wasn’t raised by the power station’s chief engineer. As if it wasn’t even
an option.

He listened in to the discussion the engineer was having with Dreyfus and he could tell at once that, for the senior staff at least, the employment situation was similar to that for the dam
engineers.

Do what you’re told. Don’t ask questions.

Dangerous or not, the generators could keep running as long as the water didn’t rise too much further. Tankers were already on their way, and would be able to pump the water out, drive it
through town, and pump it back into the river downstream.

‘We’ll need a phased shutdown tonight,’ the engineer had said. ‘The maximum duration allowed.’

Dreyfus had given the engineer a long look. ‘Is that really necessary?’

‘We’ve already had outages this week. Maintenance is overdue. We’re behind schedule on repairs. We need the time.’

Anton had returned to the top of the dam that night, bristling with questions. And this morning, he still had them buzzing around in his head, eager to escape. But he would keep them inside and
hold on to his job. For now.

Through the control-room windows Anton looked out into the diminished lake, and wondered why Dreyfus had paled at the thought of a blackout.

In the middle of the lake, the steeple of the old village’s ruined church was showing above the water. The image came to him of a thorn, working its way out.

Toni drove to the old house. He kept an eye on the road behind him, still wondering if the police were watching his movements. He’d heard rumours that the investigation
had moved on and there were other men being interviewed about Lucy. Even so, it always paid to be careful.

He’d left Serge in the house with strict instructions to stay out of sight. If that proved impossible – since the prospect of the police showing up there unannounced couldn’t
be ruled out – he’d told Serge to say as little as he could.

‘Who do I say I am?’ Serge asked.

‘When you . . . when you died,’ said Toni, ‘if anyone asked we would say you’d gone to Paris to find work as a mechanic. So tell them you’re back to
visit.’

Serge nodded, while in his head Toni thought about how few people had known Serge was there at all, even before the killings had begun. The story about Paris had been in use long before
Serge’s death. Long before.

He’d known from an early age that there was something
off
with Serge. It had been animals, to begin with. Serge and Toni, hunting together; Serge the loving brother looking out
for Toni, teaching him the basic hunting skills he’d learned from their father. They brought home venison and rabbits, Toni proud that his brother treated him as an equal. Nothing had seemed
wrong on those trips, yet Toni had known how his big brother liked to go out alone sometimes, how he would shoot to wound the animals, bring them down for the real sport he sought.

Once, Serge told him about a deer he’d shot only to discover the animal was heavily pregnant. Serge told him how he’d cut the fawn out, cleared its mouth of gore, then watched as the
animal fought to live, as it stood and cried out. And then, how he’d looked
into
the mother, pulled apart the workings of life itself, peered inside and tried to understand how
something could contain so much power.

‘I felt blessed,’ Serge said. ‘To be so close to it.’

It was the first time Toni had felt the stirrings of unease at his brother’s unusual fascinations. ‘The mother was already dead?’ he asked. ‘When you cut out the
fawn?’

Serge said nothing. Then Toni wondered aloud how long a fawn could be expected to live, without a mother to look after it. ‘All children need their mother,’ said Toni. ‘To keep
them safe.’

‘I know that,’ Serge had said, suddenly angry. ‘Of course I know.’

All children need their mother, Toni thought now, as he drove to the house. But sometimes the mother wasn’t strong enough. He remembered shouting at her, that terrible night. Shouting at
his own mother, seven years ago: ‘Why did you let him out?’

‘He pleaded, Toni,’ his mother said, distraught. ‘He was in a prison. It was killing him. He promised me he wouldn’t do anything, just walk in the forest. He promised
me.’

Toni looked at her with such a lack of respect, with such contempt, that it had haunted him ever since. They had known beyond doubt after the second killing, when he’d come back to the
house in a daze with a blood-caked face, but surely his mother had been suspicious even after the first, just as Toni had been. Their guilt was shared before, but now she alone had let him go. It
was all on her.

He ran to his truck and drove into town. Serge had talked in the weeks he had been locked inside the house, talked of the thoughts that ran through him, the urges and the needs. He had spoken of
the places he would wait, the times he knew would be best, the times that had more power. The turning of the year had been the best of all, Serge had said. When the old year dies, and the new is
born.

Mother and child.

‘My last,’ Serge had sworn. ‘Let me go. It will be the last.’

But it would never be the last, Toni knew.

He had had to work that night, but he’d promised his mother he would be home well before midnight, when he expected Serge to become more restless and harder for his mother to deal with
alone. Toni was true to his word, only to find his mother had been weak. She had given in to her first-born.

As she always had, Toni thought with real bitterness.

The underpass was the second place he’d looked. If he’d gone there first, then he might have been in time to stop it. Instead, as the fireworks continued all around the town, he
reached the base of the steps and saw Serge on his knees, leaning over a body.

Toni ran at him, tyre iron in his hand. As he drew close the sight made him freeze. Serge looked up, almost unrecognizable as the brother he loved, his wild eyes full of a terrible lust, his
mouth and chin coated in blood. Below him the woman lay dead, her stomach pouring with blood from a dozen wounds. Serge’s eyes had just enough time to focus, to recognize his brother standing
over him, before Toni brought the steel down, hearing the crack of his brother’s skull resonate in the tunnel, mingling with the thumps of the fireworks.

He hit him again, wanting it over. Serge lay silent but was still breathing.

As Toni bent down to lift Serge he realized that the woman was breathing too, in shallow gasps. She was unconscious, not dead after all. He stared at her for a few seconds but he knew what
needed to be done.

He took her first and placed her gently in the back of the truck. Then he returned for Serge, throwing his brother in beside the woman. Seeing the severity of his head wound, he wished that
Serge would stop breathing, just
stop
and end this for all of them.

He drove to the hospital. Not wanting to be seen, he left the woman in the road under a street light near the ambulance bays, hoping he wouldn’t have to somehow call attention to her. He
waited in the truck further on, praying. At last the bay doors rolled up; someone noticed the body and ran to it.

Toni drove.

At the house his mother emerged. ‘He did it again,’ he told her. For a moment she was too shocked to speak. It wouldn’t last, and Toni didn’t want to hear it: excuses,
pleas for another chance. ‘Not a word, Mum,’ he warned her. ‘Nothing. We’ve let this go on too long.’

Her tears came. She closed her eyes and bowed her head; Toni took it as a nod, as agreement.

He took a shovel and started to dig. When it was deep enough he threw Serge into the grave. His brother came round as Toni shovelled the dirt onto his face. Serge spat out the soil, dazed and
horrified. ‘What are you doing?’ he shouted. ‘Christ, Toni! Stop it!’

Toni could hear the fear in his brother’s voice, but he said nothing. His mother was inside the house now, but he could see her, watching through her bedroom window.

Toni kept shovelling, remembering Serge as a boy, running through the woods together, curled up inside the house, his big brother’s arms sheltering him from the cold. He remembered the
stories Serge told him, of gods and wild things in the forest.

And he thought of the expression of bestial obscenity as Serge consumed a young woman’s still-breathing body. Toni looked at his brother, lying in the hole he’d dug. Serge called for
his mother, called again and again, but Toni knew what had to be done to a rabid animal. He brought the shovel down hard, twice, three times, sobs pouring from his body until the skull gave way and
his brother, finally, was silent.

Toni’s mother hadn’t spoken to him again. Not really. Not beyond simple requests and instructions. They moved around each other, living separate lives in the same
house, both hollowed out by the deed that had been committed. He soon came to realize, as he relived that night again and again, that what he’d taken as a nod from his mother, as her
permission to do what needed to be done, had only meant she was resigned to Toni’s actions. The rights and wrongs were never discussed and his mother gave up on living.

Everything Serge had done, all the pain, all the terror. All the death. Even with all that, their mother had loved him without question.

But not Toni, no. Not him. His morality had cost him that love, and the price was one he couldn’t bear. Now Serge was back and Toni didn’t dare hope . . .

Perhaps there was a way. A way to make amends.

As he drove up to the house, he saw Serge outside chopping wood. Only when he parked did he see that it wasn’t wood he was hitting with the axe. It was a mobile phone, shattering under
repeated blows.

Toni took a deep breath and walked over. ‘Is it hers?’ he asked.

Serge frowned. ‘What?’

‘Is it Lucy’s phone?’

Serge wouldn’t meet his eyes but he nodded.

‘You should have told me you had it. If it had been switched on, it could have brought the police here.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Serge.

Toni shook his head. His anger was spent, for now. He’d already railed at his brother about Lucy; raged at him all night, triggered by the self-pity Serge had shown.

‘I saw her and I couldn’t help it,’ Serge had said. ‘It’s hard for me.’

Toni had become enraged. ‘It doesn’t matter how hard it is for you,’ he said. ‘You’ve terrorized, tortured,
killed
.’ Toni talked about trust, about
decency to others. He talked about how his mother loved Serge more than him, about how that made him feel. That she loved a monster, and despised a man who tried to do the right thing.

‘I will change, Toni,’ Serge said. ‘I will change. For you. I swear it.’

Serge thanked Toni for promising to look after him, and vowed again and again to change. If only that was all it took, Toni thought, then things would be so much simpler. Too many promises, too
readily given: as many as the wind can carry, his mother used to say.

Toni knew that it was an addiction that Serge suffered from – he could only hope that this time Serge would finally be able to control it, and keep the promise he’d made.

And then, Serge had looked at his little brother, his eyes pleading. ‘How did I die, Toni?’ he’d said. ‘I can’t remember anything about it. How did it
happen?’

Toni froze. Then he looked at his brother and grabbed hold of him. He hugged him tightly. ‘Don’t think of the past,’ he said. ‘There’s only the future. A new life.
That’s all that matters.’

Serge hadn’t asked about his death again.

Toni made Serge gather the pieces of the phone he’d destroyed. Then they went inside, Toni carrying a box of supplies.

‘So,’ said Toni. ‘What have you been doing? Hunting?’

‘A little,’ said Serge.

‘We could go together, if you want? Like old times.’

‘It’s getting late,’ said Serge, oddly wary. ‘Perhaps tomorrow.’

Toni heard a noise from elsewhere in the house.

‘Is someone here?’ He said it too quickly, and with suspicion in his voice. He saw the frown on Serge’s face.
Trust goes both ways
, he told himself.

‘No,’ said Serge, nervous.

The sound came again, and Toni realized where it had come from: his mother’s bedroom. He felt a moment of hope.
Please God
, he thought,
let it be her
. He took a step
towards the door but Serge moved to block his way.

‘What are you doing?’ said Toni.

‘Nothing.’

‘Is it her?’ he said, almost pleading. ‘Has she come back?’

Serge stayed where he was, silent and uneasy. Toni considered just trying to barge past – but if it was who he hoped, she wouldn’t want that. ‘Is it Mum?’ he asked.

Serge nodded.

For a moment Toni was overjoyed. Then he despaired, as he realized why Serge was blocking the way. ‘She won’t see me?’