Significance (24 page)

Vivier offered the woman milk, sugar, a biscuit?

Took a packet of cigarettes from his trouser pocket and offered her one. She accepted, and holding it to her lips, gazed at his face as he lit it for her.

‘We'll tape this interview if you don't mind,' he said, smiling, then as if to show that actually he didn't care about his job, he didn't care about murders, he was a man and she was a woman, he waved a dismissive hand. ‘It's merely a formality. Nothing to trouble us, no?'

The woman seemed to lap this up.

Vivier pushed the button on the recorder and glancing at his watch, gave the precise time and date, then the names of the three people in the room.

‘Now, we can begin,' he said and made a steeple with his fingers. ‘You say that you have information, Madame Brandieu?'

‘Yes, yes. That's right.'

She became more animated as she spoke. Sabine suspected that the woman lived alone. Or if not alone, then with a family who habitually ignored or dismissed her. Chances were whatever information she had would be useless.

‘And so would you like to begin?'

‘Yes, of course. Let me see now. Last night I was at my window. I have an apartment on the top floor of a building above a restaurant. It has a large window. The flat is modest, and the stairs, oh the stairs! But the window you see, it affords such a wonderful view of the sky.'

Vivier smiled encouragement.

‘I am a clairvoyant and an astrologer. This has been my lifetime's vocation and the stars, you see, the constellations. So from the window I…'

‘The window?'

‘Well, some people think me foolish, but there it is. I spend a great deal of time looking at the night sky.'

Vivier's smile was beginning to appear strained, he nodded for her to continue, but his eyes blinked slowly indicating signs of increasingly weary indulgence.

‘So, there I was last night. Very late. The restaurant had closed for the evening, and I was about to go to bed, but first, as always, I looked up at the constellations. It was a clear night, the North Star was particularly bright, and it was very quiet, no wind to speak of. Then suddenly, below me on the street, I sensed something. Yes, that is it exactly. I sensed something, I had a moment of intuition and so I looked down. And I was right. A movement, a white object that seemed to float and hover in the darkness…'

The woman paused here as if to add some drama to the story. Vivier slid his gaze towards Sabine; she pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes.

‘Go on…' he encouraged.

‘Well, of course at first I could not believe my eyes. I thought it was… well, pardon my foolishness, but there are forces beyond our understanding… by which I mean, I thought it was from the other side. You know, a ghost. I was frightened. Or rather I should say, I felt something; a premonition of evil. The sensation of being near to something inexplicable, a darkness, a cold fire!'

‘I see.'

‘But then I looked again – well, I mean what I saw became clearer. There was a man out there, there on the street by the perimeter of the café. A black man. Of course, I could hardly see his face, him being black and in the darkness…'

The woman nodded to herself as if suddenly seeing some additional relevance in this. She took a sip of her coffee, little finger crooked in the air, as if she supposed that showed good breeding.

Neither Sabine Pelat nor Paul Vivier said anything. It was better not to break the spell at that precise moment. Besides which both of them were now privately considering Montaldo's phone call about the young African a little time ago.

‘Well now, he was facing the café, standing very close to the hedge and as I said there was something white moving through the air in front of him. He is signalling to his compatriots, I thought, he plans to break into my building. But as I looked I saw it was not a simple square of cloth as I had thought, like a handkerchief or a flag, but it was like a body; it had a trunk.' Here the woman indicated with two chopping motions of her hands her own upper body. ‘And it had arms,' she indicated each of her arms in turn. ‘So then of course I knew what it was, what it meant.'

They waited for her to elaborate.

‘Well, it was clear, was it not?' she said, looking in appeal at Vivier.

Her question received only blank, waiting faces. She continued talking. ‘A black man with a symbolic human figure? A cloth shape representing someone. It does not have to be a doll, you know. No, a voodoo fetish can take many forms. And this, you see, was one. He laid it over the hedge very carefully. Then, before running away, he smiled. I saw his teeth glint then. Oh, he was pleased with himself. And that was it, you see, I'd felt its presence. I'm very sensitive to that, you see. Not everyone is.'

Vivier managed to shake his head ‘no' to show that he agreed with her comment that not everyone was as sensitive as she.

‘Hmm,' he said at last, ‘and you believe this man was the murderer?'

‘Of course!'

‘Did you see him with the victim?'

‘No.'

‘Did you see him near the crime scene itself?'

‘No.'

‘Pardon me, Madame, this is interesting, but what shall we say? Somewhat indirect? Before we proceed I would like to ask you to keep this information to yourself for the time being. There is the danger that if leaked this could affect the investigation, and of course there is a need for sensitivity in regard to certain of our fellow men.'

The woman nodded, looking mildly confused.

‘Do you think you could identify the man if you saw him again?'

She assented somewhat vaguely.

‘And this voodoo figure or charm or whatever, what became of it?

She shrugged helplessly.

‘But he left it on the flower border, then fled?'

She nodded.

‘Why didn't you phone the police that night?'

She looked a little ashamed, as if she had been exposed in her poverty and solitude. ‘My phone has been disconnected, sir.'

‘Ah, then perhaps you could have alerted your neighbours in the building and asked them for assistance?'

‘The apartment below mine is empty, and of course after the restaurant closes…'

‘I see.'

‘And I was terrified to leave the building.'

‘Yes, of course.'

‘So I laid a trail of salt, then went to bed.'

Both Vivier and Pelat inhaled breath here as if either of them might enquire what salt had to do with anything, but neither asked it aloud.

‘And in the morning? Did you look out of your window? Was it still there?'

‘It was gone.'

‘I see.'

‘Which proves it really, doesn't it?' she said with a renewed confidence.

Vivier tilted his head to one side in enquiry as a dog might.

‘The object did not have a solid form,' the woman said. ‘It only lasted as long as it needed to. Until its work was done. It's gone. I felt it this morning on waking – the darkness had gone.'

‘As it does every morning,' Vivier said under his breath.

‘I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that,' the woman said.

‘Quite remarkable. That's what I said. And it is, isn't it Mademoiselle Pelat?'

‘Yes, sir. Of course, sir.'

‘Well, we'll look into this. We may be in touch again and of course you might be required to make a statement in court. Now, my assistant will see you out.'

He was still playing the gallant, except that now his unctuous words were dripping so heavily with charm that Sabine Pelat could sense sarcasm and distaste loaded heavily on to his tongue like thick pink fondant icing.

Once the woman had gone, they sat together in his office.

‘So either there is a link between Montaldo's “suspect”,' Vivier indicated apostrophes in the air as he said this last word, ‘and this witness, or we have an outbreak of knee
-
jerk racist stereotyping.'

At that point Montaldo appeared at the door.

‘Lamy is with the man in room two, sir.'

‘Don't let him go to the bathroom unattended.'

‘Sir?'

‘You say he's got writing on his hand?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Well, we don't want him washing that off, do we?'

Montaldo lifted a thumb in the direction of room two. ‘But he had to go for a piss when we got here; he may have washed his hands then.'

Vivier sighed and rolled his eyes. The day promised to be endless.

Love Hurts

Suzette put the groceries away. She was thinking about Florian, piecing together the scraps of everything that had happened the night before and with more clarity the morning's events. She thought about his face as he'd gazed at her. As she had gazed at him. How it had felt when they made love, him moving inside her. The memory vivid enough to make her moan again. She felt the almost fatal pull of greed, she wanted more again, now. To relive it. To step back from this moment into that one again. Addiction.

Addiction or love? Pleasure or fear?

The fear was that this was again just a one off. Her and Florian, casual lovers coming together sporadically, just when it suited both of them. Or rather when it suited him. Herself going along with his desires. Her own needs put mostly on hold. She would bend to accommodate him. She would make a pretence of not caring.

All these strategies of defence were well practised. She was not the sort of woman who was capable of making demands, of setting down rules and ultimatums. Had she always been like this? So weak and needy?

She remembered again him lying on top of her, his face, his expression when he came. So different from her last lover, the cop, who managed to wear a look that resembled hatred when he fucked her, and when he was done, he was done and after a shower was out of there. Pressure of time was meant to be the reason, that and the secrecy.

She would play it by ear. Try to remain cool. Force herself to hide her emotions. She would not reveal herself to Florian, nor Jacques, nor anyone in the bar. Not that it was any of their business, except that, of course, they had seen. And those who hadn't seen would have been told. And they would tease her. Jacques especially. God, the jokes he used to make about her and the cop! About handcuffs and night sticks and the strong hand of the law. Stupid, stupid jokes that embarrassed and wounded her, and even though she begged him to stop, he would not.

So there was that; the sense of everyone around watching them as if she and Florian were characters in a crumby soap opera.

And wouldn't Jacques find it particularly amusing that she'd gone from an affair with a policeman to one with someone who was habitually on the wrong side of the law. Yeah, ha ha.

But again the memory of Florian that morning rose up in her mind, rose up almost tangibly in her body. It was this that made her so foolish and vulnerable. Pleasure derailing her, making her senseless, as much as it increased her physical senses.

Didn't the flat look different today compared to yesterday? The objects in it more brightly coloured, clearer and more alive? Didn't the coffee she'd bought smell fresher, more infused with an essential coffee
-
ness?

And the bread (she broke off the end and nibbled a piece) wasn't it sweeter smelling, crustier on the outside while on the inside it was both lighter and more substantial, if that were possible? And her body, didn't it feel somehow more alive, less weary, less dulled by routine; as if charged through with some spectral electric current?

She hadn't felt like this after the first time she'd slept with Florian. She'd felt disappointed that he didn't seem to want to see her again, but she'd half expected that and so she remained … well … impartial.

But now, Jesus, now she almost felt beside herself with longing. Was the effect one of accumulation; namely a single night is one thing, but two nights raised the game, multiplied it not just by two, but by two thousand? Or was it that it had come out of the blue? Just when she had resigned herself to nothing happening with Florian again, he'd floored her.

And yes, quite literally last night he floored her. She had the bruise on her ass to prove it. The heel of a stray shoe under her, the room dim, not the moment to stop what they were doing. Oh, no.

And that was her trouble really, wasn't it? She'd trade one kind of pain so long as she got the pleasure, no matter how brief it was, or how transient.

She broke off more bread and ate it in small mouthfuls. Sometime ago, ten years or more, she'd briefly dated a man who had been involved in some eastern religion. She could not remember now if it was Hare Krishna or Buddhism, but anyway, he'd left the sect by the time she knew him. Most of what he'd told her about it she had instantly forgotten, except for something he'd said about mealtimes in the temple. The sect ate together, but in absolute silence, they were taught to be reverent towards food. He explained that the majority of people habitually just stuff food in their mouths, barely tasting anything after the first bite, and therefore one should learn to eat much more slowly, allowing time to elapse between each morsel. To be aware, to feel each precious second of life, to absorb every sight and sound. That, he said, was the purpose of life. And it seemed at last, momentarily at least, she now understood this philosophy, and yet she also realised how she was suddenly reliant on Florian to jolt her into this condition of acute physical consciousness.