The Returned (29 page)

The middle-aged woman calling herself Viviane Costa was sitting alone in a room, looking bored.

‘That’s her,’ said Laure, catching the look of surprise on Julie’s face. ‘Do you know her?’

‘I think so,’ said Julie. With so many photographs around Monsieur Costa’s house, it was a face that had gradually seeped into her memory.

‘Who is she?’ asked Laure.

‘Do you think I can talk to her?’

Laure nodded, looking nervous. ‘Be quick, though. This is completely against regulations.’

Julie went inside. The woman’s face lit up when the door opened, then faded back to boredom. ‘Shame,’ said the woman. ‘I thought you were bringing food.’

Julie pulled up a chair. ‘You’re really Michel Costa’s wife?’ she asked.

The woman looked at her and smiled thinly. ‘Yes. I’m Viviane Costa. I suppose you don’t believe me?’

Julie shook her head. ‘No, I do. I do believe you. I was your husband’s nurse. I’ve seen photos of you.’

‘I noticed he kept those. He didn’t forget me.’ She smiled, and there was a hostile edge to it. ‘Wasn’t exactly pleased to see me when I came back, mind
you.’

Julie looked at her. She hadn’t changed at all from the photos. Not one bit. ‘So you’re . . . You’re dead?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ said Viviane. She gave Julie a wry smile, seeming to find the whole situation amusing.

Julie took a breath. It had been in her mind, since Victor had jumped from the window. The oddness of him, his old clothes. He’d always seemed otherworldly. She’d already thought him
a ghost, or a figment of her imagination – one step further wasn’t too much of a push to believe. But she still needed to hear it: ‘And the little boy who was with you? Him,
too?’

‘Yes.’

Julie thought herself a rational person; open-minded but rational. Resurrection from the dead was for those who had faith in something greater, and she had none. ‘But how?’

Viviane shook her head and sighed. ‘That’s a very good question. You would think there has to be a reason, wouldn’t you? I suppose there probably is.’

Julie waited for her to say more, but nothing came. ‘When did he die?’ she asked.

‘Not long before I did,’ said Viviane.

‘And his parents? What happened to them?’

‘Dead, too. All murdered.’

Julie’s heart broke anew for Victor. She’d wondered what trauma he’d faced, and it was worse than she could have imagined. No wonder he hadn’t spoken to anyone. He must
have been terrified.

‘So where is Victor now?’

‘Victor?’

‘I mean the little boy.’

Understanding dawned on the woman’s face. ‘Ah, so you’re Julie? He mentioned you. Don’t worry about him. He has something he wants to do. Perhaps it’s why
he’s here – I don’t know. He’ll come and see you once his work is done.’

Julie nodded. ‘You know that your husband . . .’

The woman smiled. ‘Of course I know. I went to his funeral.’

‘Why did he do that?’

‘He hardly spoke to me when I came back, Julie. All those years, and he hardly said a word.’ The air of smug amusement slipped from Viviane Costa, just for a moment. Underneath, the
emotion was raw grief.

There was a brief knock on the door. Julie turned, to see Laure waving.
Hurry up
.

She had one more thing to ask. ‘When you came back, how did you know? How did you know you were dead?’

Viviane frowned. ‘Well, it didn’t take long to realize.’

Julie struggled to articulate her fear – the fear that had been crouching in her mind for days, if not years, living a half-life in the shadows. ‘Because sometimes . . . I wonder if
I’m . . .’

Viviane broke into laughter as Julie stuttered to a halt. ‘Oh, please,’ she said, sounding bitter. ‘I suppose you could take a leaf out of my husband’s book, because
there’s certainly
one
way to find out.’

Julie went back home. Viviane Costa’s words stayed with her, and kept sounding in her ears.

There’s certainly one way to find out.

For seven years, she’d felt dead inside. The only person she’d made a connection with since then had turned out to be some kind of ghost. And now even he had left her.

As dusk fell, the air in her apartment felt stale and humid. They could do with a storm to clear things. She opened the window as wide as it would go and propped her front door open a little for
some through-draught. Across the hall, the door of Nathalie Payet’s empty apartment was sealed with a criss-cross of crime-scene tape. She returned to the window and looked out onto the grass
below, thinking of Victor when she’d seen him down there that first night, looking up at her.

She found herself crying. He’d given her hope, and the hope had been snatched away. She sat against the window, looking down to the ground, feeling closer to Victor; she moved her legs
over the frame, one at a time, until she was sitting as he’d sat, looking down to where he’d fallen. It didn’t seem so far, she thought. Not so far to fall.

Not so far to find out.

‘Julie?’

She looked up, dazed. It was Laure, standing in the doorway.

‘I . . . the door was open,’ said Laure. ‘I wanted to make sure you were OK.’ She looked extremely anxious, edging slowly into the room, and Julie absently wondered
why.

She looked at Laure, saying nothing.

‘Don’t do it,’ Laure pleaded. ‘Don’t do it.’

Suddenly, Julie understood, and realized where she was sitting: both legs hanging over the window frame. She felt cold, unable to move.

‘Give me your hand,’ said Laure, moving carefully towards her, reaching out.

Julie couldn’t speak. She realized part of her had wanted to do it, had wanted to fall and find out the truth. Either way, maybe she wouldn’t have felt so alone any more.

‘Please, Julie,’ said Laure. ‘I love you. Please.’

Julie pulled her shaking legs inside. She couldn’t look Laure in the eye. ‘Well, if that’s how you feel about it,’ she said, dismissive.

Laure was angry. The grip she had on Julie’s arm was so tight it hurt, as if she were afraid Julie might throw herself out of the window after all. ‘Have you lost your mind? What the
hell were you doing?’

‘Don’t worry,’ Julie said. ‘I wasn’t going to do anything. I just . . . I just wanted to check something. You wouldn’t understand.’ It was bluster, that
was all; and she could see Laure wasn’t buying into it.

Laure stepped past her and shut the window. Then she held her head in her hands, stunned. ‘Christ, Julie. I’m sorry about Victor. But this isn’t the answer.’

‘Oh, fuck
off
,’ Julie shouted, suddenly furious. Laure couldn’t just walk back into her life like this and expect to
know
her. ‘You have the answers, do
you? Are all my problems that obvious?’

Laure’s expression hardened. ‘Well, the next time you make a cry for help, try taking pills. You won’t survive that fall.’

They glared at each other in cold silence. Laure’s radio sparked to life, breaking the tension.

‘Inspector,’ said the voice on the radio. ‘We’ve spotted a boy near rue Saint-Michel, matches the description.’

The hostility fell away from both their faces. Laure lifted the set. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’m on my way.’ She looked to Julie. ‘That’s not far from the
Helping Hand. Maybe he’s heading back.’ Laure moved to the door; Julie grabbed her coat and hurried after her. ‘What are you doing?’ asked Laure.

‘Coming with you,’ said Julie. ‘Or would you rather I stay here alone?’

Toni left Samuel in charge at the Lake Pub and drove home early. It felt so strange, to be going to the old house knowing Serge and his mother were both there. He left the
street lights behind, driving up the forest roads. As he turned onto the rocky track that led to the family home, he knew things would be difficult – but he would make them work. With the
help of his mother and brother, Serge would stay true to his word.

Toni would earn his forgiveness. Whether he could ever earn his mother’s, he didn’t know.

Then he rounded the last corner, and his headlights picked Serge out of the darkness: rifle in one hand, blood on his face and his shirt soaked in red.

Toni’s blood froze in his veins.
No
, he thought.
Not now.

He got out of the car and walked to where Serge stood in the headlights, slow steps taking him to hard truths.

‘Where’s that blood from?’ he asked.

Serge shook his head. ‘It’s not what you think.’

Toni could hardly bear to look at him. ‘Have you started again?’

‘No,’ said Serge. ‘It was just a deer. That was all, Toni. I went hunting and killed a deer.’

‘You can tell me, Serge,’ said Toni. He was almost pleading. He’d only just started hoping that things could be normal again, for his mother to
talk
to him again.
‘You can trust me. I won’t do anything. Tell Mum, too. Tell her I won’t do it again. We’ll find a way through this, but I’ll never do it again.’

Serge frowned, puzzled. ‘Do what again, Toni?’

‘I had to stop you,’ said Toni, begging him to understand. ‘You couldn’t fight it. I see that now. But it’s all in the past. I’ll protect you. Both of
you.’

Serge was staring at him in shock as the realization dawned. ‘What? It was you?’ He looked to the side as if trying to remember, then looked back at Toni, scrutinizing him.
‘You killed me?’ Toni’s eyes went to the ground, in confession. ‘You killed me,’ said Serge. He swept the rifle up, pointing it at Toni’s chest.

Toni looked up again, desolate. He saw the gun and wanted it over. If this was the way it had to end, so be it. ‘Shoot,’ he said. He stepped forward until the barrel was against his
shirt. He leaned into it, challenging his brother to do it. ‘Shoot! Go on.
Go on.
’

Tears filled Serge’s eyes. ‘Toni . . .’ he said, then lowered the gun.

‘Say you forgive me,’ said Toni. The look in his brother’s eyes was burning his soul. Betrayal. Despair. The same look that had stayed in his mother’s eyes in the years
before her death, the accusation there every single day.
Your fault. Your fault.
He couldn’t live with that, not from both of them. ‘If you forgive me, she will,
too.’

Serge turned around and walked away.

‘Say you forgive me!’ cried Toni.

Serge walked on, out of the range of the headlights, into the dark.

Pierre’s day had taken a turn for the worse when Sandrine came to him distressed. She’d noticed the little boy had gone missing, along with the sour-faced homeless
woman. Bad that anyone could go missing, of course; worse though, for the reputation of the Helping Hand, if a child could be stolen so easily from their care.

Sandrine had been in pieces, but there was only so much reassurance he could give her. She blamed herself, blamed the frequent toilet breaks that came with early pregnancy. He packed her off
home for the day. Let her husband deal with the mess.

And so Pierre was alone in the Helping Hand that evening when Victor’s face appeared against the dark sky at his office window, watching him with that unnerving lack of emotion he seemed
to favour. Pierre felt immediate relief, of course, that the boy was safe – reputations were fragile things, after all – but now he regretted having sent Sandrine home. He would much
rather leave the boy to her. There was something about his presence that made Pierre feel deeply uncomfortable, something skirting around the edges of his conscious thoughts. Something he
didn’t want to examine closely.

Pierre forced a smile. All were welcome to the Helping Hand, of course, however unpleasant their company. He went to the door and unlocked it, ushering the boy inside.

‘There you are,’ he said. ‘At last. We were starting to worry.’ He smiled at his own understatement. ‘You really shouldn’t have left like that. Where were
you?’

‘I was dead,’ said the boy, calmly staring at him.

Pierre knelt slowly beside him, stunned that he’d not realized before. Dear God, all this time. All this time, it hadn’t just been Simon and Camille. There had been others right
under his nose, just as he’d thought there would be.

‘What happened to you?’ said Pierre.

‘You killed me,’ said the boy, stating it as simple fact. ‘You killed my parents.’

Pierre stared at him. The discomfort he’d felt around Victor made a terrible sense; he’d blanked the boy’s facial features from his mind, cut them from his memory. He felt
weak, thankful that he was already on his knees. Even so, he had to place his hands on the floor to steady himself. ‘My God,’ he said. ‘My God.’ His mouth was dry.
Judgement, at last: it had been a long time coming. ‘You?’ he said. ‘Forgive me.’ He reached out, and the boy shrank from his hand. ‘No, don’t be afraid. It
wasn’t me who killed you. He lost his mind. It all went wrong. It was supposed to be a warning, that was all, but he started . . . I was trying to protect you. Don’t you
remember?’

The boy’s face took on an expression at last: sheer anger.

‘No,’ he said, glaring at Pierre. ‘You
didn’t
try.’

Pierre felt something, then: a gathering sense of power, all focused on the boy in front of him. Suddenly the lights in the building clicked off. The windows behind the boy overlooked the town,
and Pierre saw the blackout spreading until everything was in darkness.

Victor looked to Pierre’s side.

Pierre could feel it, the presence nearby. Dread filled him. Steeling himself, he stood and turned. Then he saw. His partner in crime, the man who had lied to him, who had killed a family in
cold blood . . . The man raised his gun, aimed it at Pierre’s head.

‘No,’ said Pierre, timid again, terrified, relieved as the gun swung away slowly, pointing elsewhere. Pointing at the boy. An instant, then, while Pierre’s fear held him
immobile, self-preservation winning out over what was
right
. But this was it. This was the time: he was being tested.

‘
No!
’ Pierre shouted. He lunged at the man, grabbing for the gun. They fell, both of them together, and the gun went off. Pierre felt a searing pain in his chest, but he
kept fighting, kept struggling, whatever the cost. The man wanted to kill the boy again, and it was Pierre’s role – his
purpose
– to stop it happening. He had failed
before, failed God and himself.
Not this time.