The Whisperer (4 page)

In her parents’ minds Elisa had gone on living like a ten-year-old girl, with her bedroom full of dolls and Christmas presents piled up around the fireplace. This was immortalized like a photograph in their memory, imprisoned as if by a magic spell.

And even though Elisa had returned, they would go on waiting for the little girl they had lost. Without ever finding peace.

After a teary hug and a predictable emotional outburst, Mrs. Gomes had brought them in and offered them tea and biscuits. She had treated her daughter as you would treat a guest. Perhaps secretly hoping that she would leave at the end of the visit, letting her and her husband return to the sense of deprivation that they had come to find so comfortable.

Mila had always compared sadness to an old cupboard that you’d like to get rid of but which ends up staying where it is, and after a while emanates a certain smell that fills the room. And over time you get used to it and you end up being a part of the smell yourself.

Elisa had come back, and her parents would have liked to shake off their own mourning, and give back all the compassion bestowed on them during those years. Never again would they have a reason to be sad. How much courage would it take to tell the rest of the world about their new unhappiness at having a stranger walking around the house?

After an hour of civilities, Mila had said good-bye, and she had felt as if she had noticed a plea for help on Elisa’s mother’s face. “Now what do I do?” the woman cried mutely, terrified about coming to terms with this new reality.

Mila too had a truth to confront: the fact that Elisa Gomes had been found purely by chance. If her abductor had not felt a need to enlarge the “family” by taking Pablito as well, no one would ever have known what had happened. And Elisa would have remained closed away in that world created for her alone, and for the obsession of her jailer. First as a daughter, then as a faithful bride.

Mila closed the locker on those thoughts.
Forgetting, forgetting,
she said to herself.
That’s the only medicine.

The district was emptying, and she felt like going home. She would have a shower, open a bottle of port and roast chestnuts on the hob. Then she would sit and look at the tree outside the sitting room window. And perhaps, with a bit of luck, she would go to sleep early on the sofa.

But as she prepared to reward herself with her usual lonely evening, one of her colleagues appeared in the changing room.

Sergeant Morexu wanted to see her.

A gleaming layer of damp covered the streets that February evening. Goran got out of the taxi. He didn’t have a car, he didn’t have a driving license; he let someone else bother about taking him where he wanted to go. Not that he hadn’t tried driving, and been rather good at it. But it’s inadvisable for someone accustomed to losing himself in the depths of his own thoughts to sit behind the wheel. So Goran had given up.

Having paid the driver, the second thing he did after setting his size nines on the pavement was to take from his jacket the third cigarette of the day. He lit it, took two drags and threw it away. It was a habit he’d formed when he had decided to give up smoking. A kind of compromise, to trick himself about his need for nicotine.

As he stood there, he met his image reflected in a shop window. He stopped to contemplate himself for a few moments. The untidy beard that framed his increasingly weary face. His glasses and his tousled hair. He was aware that he didn’t take much care of himself. But the person who did had given up the role some time before.

The striking thing about Goran—everyone said—was his long and mysterious silences.

And his eyes, huge and piercing.

It was nearly dinnertime. He slowly climbed the steps. He went into his apartment and listened. A few seconds passed and, when he got used to that new silence, he recognized the familiar, welcoming sound of Tommy, who was playing in his room. He went towards him, but only observed him from the door, without having the courage to interrupt what he was doing.

Tommy was nine. He had brown hair, he liked the color red, basketball and ice cream, even in winter. He had a best friend, Bastian, with whom he organized fantastical “safaris” in the school garden. They were both in the scouts and that summer they were going to go camping together. Lately they hadn’t talked about anything else.

Tommy looked incredibly like his mother, but he had one thing of his father’s.

A pair of huge, piercing eyes.

When he became aware of Goran’s presence, he turned and smiled at him. “It’s late,” he said.

“I know. Sorry,” Goran said defensively. “Did Mrs. Runa leave a long time ago?”

“She left to get her son half an hour ago.”

Goran was annoyed: Mrs. Runa had been their nanny for some years now. She should have known he didn’t like Tommy being left at home alone. And this was one of those little inconveniences that sometimes made the business of getting on with life seem impossible. Goran was finding it difficult to resolve everything on his own; the only person who possessed that mysterious power had forgotten to leave him the book of magic spells before she left.

He would have to talk to Mrs. Runa and perhaps even be a little harsh with her. He would tell her to stay in the evening until he came home. Tommy became aware of his thoughts, and his face darkened. So Goran suddenly tried to distract him, asking, “Are you hungry?”

“I ate an apple and some crackers and I drank a glass of water.”

Goran shook his head, amused. “That’s not a proper dinner.”

“It was my snack. But now I’d like something else…”

“Spaghetti?”

Tommy clapped his hands at the suggestion. Goran stroked his head.

They cooked the pasta together and set the table; each had his own tasks and carried them out without consulting the other. His son was a quick learner, and Goran was proud of him.

The last few months hadn’t been easy for either of them.

Their lives risked unraveling. Goran tried to hold the scraps together and make up for absence with order. Regular meals, precise timetables, established habits. From that point of view, nothing had changed from
before,
and that was reassuring for Tommy.

They had learned together to live with that void, but when one of them wanted to talk about it, they talked about it.

The only thing they never did anymore was say her name. Because that name had left their vocabulary. They used other ways, other expressions. It was strange. The man who was concerned about christening every serial killer he came across no longer knew what to call the one who had for a time been his wife, and had allowed his son to “depersonalize” his mother. She could be a character in one of the fairy tales he read to him every evening.

Tommy was the only anchor that still kept Goran bound to the world. Otherwise it would only have taken a moment to slide into the abyss that he explored every day out there.

After dinner, Goran went and hid in his study. Tommy followed him. It was another ritual. Goran sat in his creaking old chair and his son lay belly down on the mat, resuming his imaginary dialogues.

Goran studied his library. The books of criminology, criminal anthropology and legal medicine were beautifully displayed on the shelves, each one with its damask spine and gold blocking. Others were simpler, more modestly bound. They contained the answers. But the difficult thing—as he was always telling his pupils—was finding the questions. These books were full of disturbing photographs. Wounded bodies, tortured, martyred, burnt and dismembered; all rigorously sealed in shining pages, annotated with precise captions. Human life reduced to a cold study.

That was why, until a short time before, Goran had not allowed Tommy to touch the books in the library. He worried that his curiosity would get the better of him, and that by opening one of those books he would discover how violent life could be. Once, however, Tommy had transgressed. He had found him lying, as he was now, flicking through one of those volumes. Goran still remembered him lingering over the picture of a young woman fished from a river, in the winter. She was naked, her skin purple, her eyes motionless.

But Tommy didn’t seem at all disturbed, and rather than shouting at him, Goran had sat cross-legged beside him.

“Do you know what this is?”

Tommy had considered impassively for a long time. Then he had replied, diligently listing all the things he could see. The tapering hands, the hair in which frost had formed, the eyes lost in who knows what thoughts. In the end he had begun to fantasize about what she did for a living, about her friends and where she lived. Then Goran became aware that Tommy noticed everything in the photograph except one thing. Death.

Children don’t see death.
Because their life lasts a day, from when they get up to when they go to sleep.

That time Goran understood that, however much he tried, he could never protect his son from the evil of the world. Just as, years before, he had not been able to rescue him from what his mother had done to him.

Sergeant Morexu was not like Mila’s other superior officers. He cared nothing for glory, or for having his picture in the paper. That was why Mila expected him to haul her over the coals for the way she had conducted the operation at the music teacher’s house.

Morexu was brusque in his manners and moods. He couldn’t hold an emotion for more than a few seconds. So one moment he would be furious or sullen, and immediately afterwards he would be smiling and incredibly kind. Also, to avoid wasting time, he combined his gestures. For example, if he had to console you, he would put one hand on your shoulder and walk you to the door at the same time. Or he would speak on the phone and scratch his temple with the receiver.

But this time he wasn’t in a hurry.

He left Mila standing by his desk, without inviting her to sit down. Then he stared at her, his feet stretched out under the table and his arms folded.

“I don’t know if you realize what happened today…”

She anticipated him. “I know. I made a mistake—”

“And yet you saved three people.”

The statement froze her for a long moment.

“Three?”

Morexu sat back in his chair and lowered his eyes to a piece of paper in front of him.

“They found a note in the music teacher’s house. Apparently he planned to take another one…”

The sergeant handed Mila the photocopy of a page from a diary. Beneath the day and the month, there was a name.

“Priscilla?” she asked.

“Priscilla,” repeated Morexu.

“Who is she?”

“A lucky little girl.”

And that was all he said. Because it was all he knew. There was no surname, address, photograph. Nothing. Only that name. Priscilla.

“So stop beating yourself up about it,” Morexu went on and, before Mila could reply, he added, “I saw you today at the press conference: it looked as if none of it mattered to you.”

“It doesn’t.”

“For God’s sake, Vasquez! Do you realize how grateful the people you saved should be to you? Not to mention their families!”

You didn’t see the look on Elisa Gomes’s mother’s face,
Mila wanted to say. Instead, she merely nodded. Morexu looked at her, shaking his head.

“Since you’ve been here I’ve never heard a single complaint about you.”

“And is that good or bad?”

“If you can’t work it out for yourself, you’ve got big problems, my girl…That’s why I decided you’d enjoy a few days working with the unit.”

Mila didn’t agree. “Why? I do my job, and it’s the only thing that interests me. I’m used to managing that way. I’d have to adapt my methods to somebody. How can I explain that—”

“Go and pack your bags,” Morexu interrupted, dismissing her complaint.

“Why the hurry?”

“You’re leaving this evening.”

“Is it some kind of punishment?”

“It isn’t a punishment, and it isn’t a holiday either: they want advice from an expert. And you’re very popular.”

Mila’s face grew serious.

“What’s it about?”

“Five abducted children.”

Mila had heard it mentioned on the news. “Why me?” she asked.

“Because it looks as if there’s a sixth, but they don’t know who it is yet…”

She would have liked further details, but Morexu had clearly decided that the conversation was over. He went back to being brusque, merely holding out a file with which he pointed at the door.

“Your train ticket’s in here as well.”

Mila took the bundle of papers and made for the door. As she left the room she repeated the name in her head.
Priscilla
.

T
he Piper at the Gates of Dawn,
1967
. A Saucerful of Secrets,
1968.
Ummagumma
was 1969, as was the sound track of the film
More
. In 1971 there had been
Meddle
. But before that there was another one…in 1970, he was sure of it. He couldn’t remember the title. The cover, yes. The one with the cow. Damn, what was it called?

I’ve got to get some petrol,
he thought.

The fuel gauge was on empty, and the warning light had stopped flashing to settle into a peremptory red glare.

But he didn’t want to stop.

He had now been driving for a good five hours, and had traveled almost six hundred kilometers. And yet putting that remarkable distance between himself and what had happened tonight didn’t make him feel any better. He held his arms stiffly on the wheel. The tense muscles in his neck ached.

He glanced behind him for a moment.

Don’t think about it…don’t think about it…

He kept his mind busy by running through familiar, reassuring thoughts. Over the past ten minutes he had concentrated on the entire discography of Pink Floyd. But over the previous four hours it had been the titles of his favorite films, the players in the last three seasons of the hockey team he supported, the names of his old schoolmates, and even the teachers. He had got as far as Mrs. Berger. What had become of her? He would have liked to see her again. Just to keep
that thought
at bay. And now his mind had got stuck on that stupid album with the cow on the cover!

And that thought had come back.

He had to chase it away. Send it back to the corner of his mind where he had managed to confine it at various times during the night. Otherwise he would start sweating again, and every now and again he would burst into tears, despairing of the situation, even if it didn’t last long. The fear came back and gripped his stomach. But he struggled to stay clear-headed.

Atom Heart Mother!

That was the title of the record. For a moment he felt happy. But it was a fleeting sensation. In his situation there wasn’t much to be happy about.

He turned round again to look behind him.

Then, again:
I’ve got to get some petrol
.

Every now and again a gust of ammonia rose up from the mat at his feet to remind him that he had lost control of himself. The muscles in his legs were starting to ache and his calf had gone to sleep.

The storm that had been beating down on the motorway almost all night was moving away beyond the mountains. He could see its greenish flashes on the horizon, while a voice on the radio delivered yet another weather report. Soon it would be daybreak. An hour before he had come out of a tollbooth and emerged onto the motorway. He hadn’t even stopped to pay the toll. His purpose at the moment was to carry on, to get further and further.

Following the instructions he had received to the letter
.

For a few minutes he let his mind wander elsewhere. But inevitably it kept coming back to that memory.

He had reached the Hotel Modigliani the previous day, at about eleven in the morning. He had done his work as a salesman in town all afternoon and then in the evening, as planned, he had had dinner with some of his clients at the hotel bistro. Just after ten, he had gone back to his room.

Having closed the door, he had loosened his tie at the mirror and, at that moment, his reflection had shown him, along with his sweat-drenched appearance and his bloodshot eyes, the true face of his obsession. That was what he turned into when the desire took hold of him.

Looking at himself, he had been surprised at how he had been so good at hiding the true nature of his thoughts from his colleagues all evening. He had talked to them, listened to their inane chatter about golf and demanding women, laughed at the irritating jokes about sex. But he was elsewhere. He was savoring the moment when, back in his room, the knot in his tie loosened, he would let the lump of acid that was choking his throat rise up and explode in his face in the form of sweat, labored breathing and a treacherous expression.

The true face beneath the mask.

In the seclusion of his room he had finally been able to give vent to the urge that had been pressing in his chest and in his trousers, making him fear that it too might burst out. And yet it hadn’t happened. He had managed to control himself.

Because soon he would be leaving.

As always he had sworn to himself that this would be the last time. As always, that promise was repeated
before
and
after
. And, as always, it would be denied and then renewed the next time.

He had left the hotel at about midnight, at the peak of his excitement. He had started idling: he was early. That afternoon, between tasks, he had made sure that everything was going according to plan, so that there would be no glitches. He’d been preparing this for two months, carefully grooming his “butterfly.” Waiting was the down payment required for any kind of pleasure. And he had savored it. He had checked all the details, because any one of them could expose everything. But that wouldn’t happen to him. It never happened to him. Now that the graveyard of arms had been found, he had to take additional precautions. There were a lot of police around, and everyone seemed to be on the alert. But he was good at making himself invisible. He had nothing to fear. He just had to relax. Soon he would see the butterfly in the driveway, at the spot they had agreed the day before. He was always afraid that they might change their minds. That something would go wrong. And then he would be sad, that rotten sadness that took days to dispel. And what’s worse, you can’t hide it. But he went on repeating to himself that this time too everything would be fine.

The butterfly would come.

He would quickly help her into the car, welcoming her with the usual pleasantries. The ones that help things along, make everything nice, take away the doubts produced by fear. He would take her to the place he had chosen for them that afternoon, turning off into a little side road from where you could see the lake.

The butterflies always had a very penetrating scent. Chewing gum, gym shoes. And sweat. He liked that. That smell was now part of his car.

Even now he could smell it, mixed with the smell of urine. He wept again. So many things had happened since that moment. Things had moved quickly from excitement and happiness to fear and disaster.

He looked behind him.

I’ve got to get some petrol.

But then he forgot and, taking a mouthful of that polluted air, he immersed himself once more in the memory of what had happened next…

He was sitting in the car, waiting for the butterfly. The opaque moon appeared from time to time among the clouds. To dispel his anxiety, he ran through the plan again. At first they would talk. But he would mostly listen. Because he knew that the butterflies always needed to receive what they couldn’t get elsewhere: attention. He played his part to perfection. Listening patiently to his little prey which, by opening up its heart to him, made itself weaker. It lowered its guard and let him move undisturbed into deeper territories.

Close to the cleft of the soul.

He always said just the right thing. He did it every time. That was how he became their master. It was nice to teach someone about their own desires. Explain properly what it takes, show them how it’s done. It was important. To become their school, their training ground. Give a lesson in what is pleasant.

But just as he was composing that magical lesson that would throw open all the doors of intimacy, he had glanced distractedly into the rearview mirror.

At that moment he had seen it.

Something less solid than a shadow. Something you might not really have seen, because it comes straight from your imagination. And he had thought of a mirage, an illusion.

Right up to the fist on the window.

The dry click of the door opening. The hand snaking into the gap and grabbing him by the throat, clutching it. No chance of reacting. A gust of cold air had filled the inside of the car and he clearly remembered thinking,
I forgot to lock it!
The locks!
Not that they would have been enough to stop him.

The man was remarkably strong and he had managed to drag him out of the car with only one hand. His face was covered with a black balaclava. As the man held him in midair, he had thought of the butterfly: the precious prey he had taken such trouble to attract, which was now lost.

And this time he was the prey.

The man had slackened the grip on his neck and flung him on the ground. Then he had lost interest in him and gone back towards his own car.
He’s gone to get the weapon he’s going to use to finish me off!
Driven by a desperate survival instinct, he had tried to drag himself along the damp, cold ground, even though the man in the ski mask would have needed to take only a few steps to reach him and finish what he had begun.

People do such pointless things when they’re trying to escape death, he thought now, in the stale air of his car. Some people stretch out their hands when they’re faced with the barrel of a gun, and all that happens is that the bullet perforates their palm. And to escape a fire some people throw themselves out of the windows of buildings…They’re all trying to escape the inevitable, and they make themselves ridiculous.

He hadn’t thought he belonged to that group of people. He had always been sure that he could confront death with dignity. But that night, he had found himself wriggling like a worm, naively begging for his own safety. He had just managed to limp a few yards.

Then he had lost his senses.

Two dry blows to the face had brought him to. The man with the balaclava had come back. He loomed above him, staring at him with two dead, dark eyes. He wasn’t carrying a weapon. He had nodded to the car and said only,
“Go now and don’t stop, Alexander.”

The man with the balaclava knew his name.

At first it had struck him as reasonable. Then, thinking about it again, it was the thing that terrified him most.

Getting away from there. At the time he hadn’t believed it. He had got up from the ground and staggered to the car, trying to hurry for fear that the other man might change his mind. He had immediately sat down at the wheel, his eyesight still misty and his hands trembling so much he couldn’t start the engine. Then at last his long night on the road had begun. Far from there, as far as possible…

I’ve got to get petrol,
he thought, becoming practical again.

The tank was running on fumes. He looked out for signs for a filling station, wondering whether or not this was part of the task he’d been set the night before.

Don’t stop.

Two questions had filled his thoughts. Why had the man with the balaclava let him go? What had happened while he had been unconscious?

He had had the answers at one o’clock in the morning, when, his mind clear for a moment, he had heard
the noise
.

Something rubbing against the bodywork, accompanied by a rhythmic, metallic beating—
tom, tom, tom—
grim and ceaseless. He must have done something to the car;
sooner or later one of the wheels will loosen and detach itself from the axle and I’ll lose control and crash into the guardrail!
But nothing of the kind happened. Because the noise wasn’t mechanical. But he’d worked that out only later…even if he still wasn’t able to admit it to himself.

At that moment a road sign had appeared: the nearest filling station was less than eight kilometers away. He would get there, but he would have to be quick.

At that thought he turned around for the umpteenth time.

But his attention wasn’t focused on the motorway that he was leaving, or the cars in his wake.

No, his gaze stopped before he got there, long before.

What was pursuing him was not on the road. It was much closer than that. It was the source of the sound. It was something he couldn’t get away from.

It was the thing in his luggage.

That was what he kept staring at insistently. Even though he was trying not to think about what it might contain. But by the time Alexander Bermann turned around to stare straight ahead, it was already too late. The policeman at the edge of the carriageway was gesturing to him to pull over.