Significance (25 page)

Hopeless. Helpless. She felt herself falling.

Falling.

But there were worse things. That murdered woman.

That poor murdered woman. It didn't bear thinking about.

Long Memories

The policeman was standing by the reception desk; a slim, tall figure removing his cap as leaning forward he spoke to the receptionist. The light coming from behind him, the yellow glow of the lit dining room. And a smell of meat cooking. The word ‘enquiries' floated in the air.

One word.

A man aged sixty
-
eight, a woman one year younger. War babies. Conceived and born while the world raged and ripped itself to pieces.

The world turned upside down. His mother long dead of a weak heart. His father a Chartist, then later a socialist and a member of the International Brigade. A soldier in the battle of moral right. His father (never mention the name Franco) now ga
-
ga in a Surrey nursing home. Vases of plastic carnations placed at intervals on Formica tables between wipeable leatherette day chairs. Drool wiped from mouths sporadically. A damaged tear duct. The perpetual leak and drip of old age. A sort of bodily revolution. The anarchy of decay. The decay of anarchy.

Her parents, the opposite. Not socialists, agitators for change, but Christians, conformists, the morally righteous. Her father a clerk for the department of health. Her mother a housewife. Both of them driven mad by a life of dull routine, and a pigtailed daughter too clever for her own good. Her parents, now dead, who lived long enough to launch a long regime of objection to everything in her adult life. Guilt left hanging over her like an obliterating cloud.

And now, Hilda and Michael suddenly old. But possessing long memories and the laming evidence of that near fall in Chartres cathedral, the sniggers of their youthful audience still ringing in their ears. The past at their heels.

Looking straight ahead as if drawn by the yellow light, Michael and Hilda Eszterhas walked as quickly as they could past the policeman. They were almost at the end of the hall, when a woman's voice behind them called out.

‘Monsieur et Madame Eszterhas. Excuse me, Mr and Mrs Eszterhas.'

They turned back and saw the receptionist beckoning them, her hand illuminated by the desk lamp to her left, and the policeman in profile, his head bent over so that he could read something on the counter before him.

As they drew closer, the woman spoke again.

‘Sorry to bother you both, but there has been an incident and this gentleman wishes to talk to all our visitors, so as you are here…'

‘Ah, but my husband has hurt his foot,' Hilda said, uncertain as to why or how that might excuse them.

‘It won't take a few minutes,' the policeman said. ‘Perhaps there is a private room?'

‘Yes, yes of course,' the receptionist said.

She led the policeman and the Eszterhas to a small sitting room and offered them coffee. All three shook their heads, no.

‘Perhaps later,' the policeman said.

And the receptionist, nodding, withdrew.

He took their names and home addresses, asked how long they were staying in the area.

‘May I ask what this is about?' Michael snapped in a tone that asserted his right as a free individual to not be interrogated by the state. Or rather in a tone which he hoped projected that, but his voice had jumped an octave and came out broken and strangled.

The policeman was unfazed. ‘Yes, of course. This morning a woman was found dead. We believe she may be a tourist and wonder if anyone knows who she is, or if they saw her last night, or in the last few days.'

Hilda felt a surge of relief, which was followed by a cold blast of shame. For one's selfish heart to be lifted by such news was a dreadful thing. Inwardly she apologised to humanity for her second of inhumanity. There was no God to plead pardon from.

‘The young woman in question was approximately five foot five, slim build, white
-
blonde hair, she was wearing strappy shoes with high heels and a sleeveless white dress with a lacy pattern,' the policeman said, reading from his notebook.

Hilda gasped. Michael turned sharply to look at his wife, and Hilda saw that he had immediately pictured the young woman from the night before just as she had done. The young woman and the American man and his terrible words.

‘You saw her?' the policeman looked surprised.

‘I think so. She was very pretty. Oh, how awful.'

‘Do you know her name, where she was staying?'

‘No, no, no. We were at a café and she was sitting nearby. A striking looking woman of about twenty
-
two or twenty
-
three perhaps. And the dress, yes, I noticed the pattern…' Hilda stopped talking, and lifted her hand which had the effect of creating a waiting silence – a staged moment of expectation, her hand raised and trembling slightly. But in the end no more words came to Hilda.

‘That man…' said Michael, and he reached over and plucked Hilda's hand out of the air and lowered it slowly until it rested between them, ‘…she was talking to a man and he said something vile and outrageous to her. Something like, “I follow strange women and I fuck them”.'

‘No, no, no,' Hilda said, growing more animated. ‘That isn't what he said.'

‘Yes, it was! It was naked aggression, this fashionable brazen talk, language as excrement.'

‘No, Michael, it was peculiar: passive and aggressive at the same time. There was a diametric opposition, the masculine and feminine interplay – now what was it he said, “I let strange women follow me, then I…” well, I needn't repeat it.'

‘Would you excuse me one moment,' the policeman said, and stepped out of the room in order to call the station. He spoke in hushed tones, aware of how the old couple continued to bicker and debate exactly what they'd heard.

Michael was tired and unusually irritable. Hilda was hectoring, determined.

The uniformed policeman re
-
entered the room.

‘Madame, Monsieur, I apologise, but I must request that you come to the station with me to make statements. This is difficult, but we may also ask you to identify the girl.' Seeing their horrified faces and pitying them, he added, ‘If no one else comes forward that is.'

‘But…' Hilda said.

The word was left hanging in the air. Trepidation, defeat, disharmony. It was a word that resisted movement, attempted prevarication, but finally only hovered uselessly between them.

But.

Fishers of Men

Vivier was staring into space, seemingly doing nothing. Much detective work consisted of painstaking evidence gathering. At times it could feel arbitrary, or even worse not arbitrary enough – as when men like Montaldo jumped to easy conclusions. Vivier likened it to casting a net in the ocean and catching everything in it; cod, dogfish, prawns, bass, but not having a clue as to which of these were good to eat.

So far he had reports of a young African who had been brought in for interview. He'd been spotted ‘running away from the crime scene' according to Montaldo. Curiously he had a list of words on his hand, and the words were the medical terms for parts of the mouth and throat. The dead girl had injuries to her neck, but these, according to early reports, were inconsistent with strangulation. Then there was the woman who lived above the Café de Trois and her report of a young black man performing some sort of voodoo ritual with a piece of white cloth of some description. Finally there was the blood
-
soaked boy, who was white and reportedly American or Dutch but, unless he had attempted suicide or self harm after killing the girl, (which was possible, if not very probable) it seemed unlikely it was him. And now he had just received the news that a couple of English tourists had seen the girl the night before talking to another American man, and that man had, apparently, openly threatened her.

No one had reported the young woman as missing. There was still no clue as to her identity, but she had been speaking English, or at least spoke and understood enough of it for her to have a conversation with an American.

There were photographs (still smelling faintly of the chemicals from the darkroom) pinned to the board in his office; several of them were of the prostitute murdered earlier that year, Marianne Sigot – some were old mug shots in which she scowled angrily at the police photographer or stared empty
-
eyed; drugged, drunk or defeated. There were also pictures of her in death. These seemed in some ironic way to show her as becalmed by what had happened to her, as if all her fire and anger had been stripped away to leave a more timid and graceful creature. Photos from the morgue could often look like that, as if it were only a place of rest, the metal table beneath the corpse a silver bed worthy of the grimmest fairy tale.

So far the only photos of the latest victim, if that is what she was – Vivier had to consciously remind himself and the others that nothing was certain yet and they might not have a serial killer on their hands – had been taken at the scene. Her expression was not tortured, her face had not been bruised or mutilated and she was pretty; pretty in that English way; fair with green eyes, soft unsculpted cheek bones, an unlined forehead, a small straight nose. Pretty but not classically beautiful. But then so much of what was taken for attractiveness was created by animation; the way a woman spoke and laughed, the mobility of the face, the eyes that in the act of looking also conveyed expression.

Someone had loved this young woman. No doubt, still loved her.

If it wasn't for the other victim, the police would be looking first and foremost, amongst the young woman's nearest and dearest; her husband or boyfriend or lover, her father or brother. And that may yet be the case. Holidays, despite the promise of nothing but easy pleasure and freedom, were often the cause of petty bickering between lovers and amongst families unaccustomed to spending twenty
-
four hours a day together. Such bickering could turn murderous, the suppressed rage of years exploding in one quick shove off a hotel balcony, one deadly plunge of a carving knife snatched from a kitchen table in the rented gîte.

So it was possible that the man she had been seen with and was overheard talking to was her lover. Until the witnesses arrived, until it was certain that they had seen the victim that night, until statements were taken, little could be done.

Vivier looked at his watch, eight
-
forty. His stomach growled. Loud liquid gurgles. Too much coffee and not enough food. He stood up, pushing the chair backwards with his legs so that it gave a grating squeak of protest on the tiled floor. He fished in his jacket pocket, found a strip of foil and plastic and popped out two square antacid pills, put them in his mouth and ground them between his teeth. No substitute for a relaxing meal, a drink or two then to bed with a book, but they might at least quiet his stomach, drug it into silence.

His mind, however, seemed blank, as if this investigation were an elaborate mathematical theorem which he had carefully chalked up on a blackboard, only for someone else, a caretaker perhaps, to wipe the board clean.

Two sharp raps on the office door, his voice automatically answering, then Sabine Pelat's face appearing.

‘Inspector, the English couple are here now.'

‘Which room?'

‘Room three.'

‘How's their French?'

Sabine lifted one hand, held it out palm downwards, tilted it rudder
-
like and pursed her lips.

Vivier noticed the elegance of the gesture; it was like the hand movement of an Indonesian dancer. Her fingers long and tapered, her skin pale and sallow.

His stomach growled again, he spoke in order to cover up the sound.

‘Alright, I'll be through in five minutes.'

She did not move, but stood there studying his face, frowning slightly.

‘Are you okay sir? You look as if you're in pain.'

Speechless, he shook his head. To admit to being human, to having pain (and feeling pleasure) was more than he could do. Her concern undid him.

Still she lingered.

He shook his head again, this time more vehemently, and flapped a hand at her, shooing her away. Finally she turned and disappeared from view. He gazed at the empty doorway full of longing.

Education

Lamy stood in front of Inspector Vivier studying him closely. He was waiting for the Inspector to speak, to issue orders. What choice did he have but to stare at him, noticing how at the top of his head (Vivier was hunched over his desk) his hair was growing thin, so that in one area, the size and shape of the pullet's egg, the white waxy
-
looking scalp was clearly visible between sparse hairs. Lamy felt a twinge of competitive smugness. His own hair was a thick thatch of light brown, cropped close to the skull, and both his father and his father's father still had fine heads of hair, so he was confident that, like them, he would have no worries about going prematurely bald. It was a small triumph, a consolation for his round punched
-
looking face, his thin mean
-
looking mouth and twisted nose, his inexpressive fair
-
lashed eyes. A triumph also against class and power, against the Inspector's position on the force, against Vivier's intellectualism, his easy road; two parents, his mother who was a schoolteacher and a father with a vineyard in the south and a career as a pharmacist. Unless you'd been in Lamy's shoes you'd never know how it felt to fight for everything you'd ever achieved.