Apocalypse Baby (22 page)

‘Excuse me. I was thinking about what she
said
, not the way she looked.'

‘No problem, Sherlock. You can concentrate on the investigation and I'll just enjoy the décor.'

‘Do you think something terrible has happened to Valentine?'

‘I'd incline to think she's just split. Our Vanessa, the more you might want her in your bed, the more she's really bad news as a mother.'

‘Leaving all her stuff behind?'

‘Leaving pointless items. A book you've finished reading, some cards, an old scarf… you said the kid has an iPod, right? Well, no iPod in the hotel room. And I bet she took a few pairs of knickers with her. She didn't just bring a swimsuit.'

‘So your instinct tells you she took off of her own accord.'

‘My instincts, at the time, were occupied with something else. But common sense advises me she ran out and slammed the door. That cat's better cared for than the kid. I like animals fine, that's not the problem. They'll pollute the planet less than some dumb little teenager… but still, when it's your daughter, when you did a deal over her for some rotten apartment, when she comes back to see you, it would be the least you could do, take her home for a glass of Coke, wouldn't it?'

‘Do you think the mother's lying about anything?'

‘About anything that interests us, no.'

‘So what happens next?'

‘We go to the car pound.'

She guides us on to a road where there's some traffic. She raises her hand and stops a taxi. A black and yellow cab. The Hyena spends some time talking to the driver. From the top of a street running downhill, looking out over the whole city, you can see the sea. It brings a rush of calm. I ask myself why certain landscapes give so much pleasure.

The Hyena settles back in her seat. ‘He doesn't even need his GPS, he knows the way blindfold: he says round here the car pound is one of the few things that works properly.'

‘I'll need to find a hotel afterwards.'

‘We'll go on and take a look at the one Valentine stayed in. It might be OK. You could take a room there. You don't have to, you know, you can come back to Staff's and stay with me.'

Staff must be the blonde Frenchwoman who took us in. I don't even answer, I look out of the window.

She asks: ‘You didn't sleep well?'

‘I'm not used to orgies. And before you say anything, whether it's women only or mixed, doesn't matter, just not my scene at all. I was a bit uncomfortable, yes.'

‘Sorry, I didn't want you to feel awkward… I didn't think it would be so, er, full on… I hope you didn't feel, well, threatened?'

‘No, it just seemed childish to me.'

‘Childish? Oh. Is that what you call it? Pity you don't work in a nursery school, the kids would soon learn to like school, eh?'

She loses some of her good humour when, after queuing for
half an hour behind two French couples who have trouble proving their cars belong to them, she finds that our bill comes to 215 euros. She changes tone, leans her elbows on the counter, and I don't know what she says, but it rises in a crescendo. On the face of the car pound official, there's a succession of expressions: polite refusal, annoyance, incredulity, anxiety, panic, and finally pure terror. He gives her a form without a word, and she walks away, muttering various curses and threats. I follow her. We cross a huge parking lot, far larger and fuller than the car park of a provincial shopping mall the Saturday before Christmas. She carries on for a couple of hundred metres in silence, then turns to me.

‘So this time, you aren't too shocked? I don't exactly have the car's papers. Well I do, but they're not in my name. It's a borrowed car. I was afraid that might cause problems, so I thought the best strategy would be for the guy to want to get rid of me as fast as possible. It worked. I promise you, I don't like that approach any more than you do, but really nothing makes people get the picture better than scaring them a bit.'

‘At two hundred and fifteen euros, you can't be the only one who gets angry.'

‘That's better, you're catching on. It makes a change when you don't moan.'

We go straight to the hotel where Valentine stayed. The Hyena is now bringing out an aspect of her personality that she hadn't shown me before: she's very good at dealing with young men. At first sight, the youth in reception has no intention of giving us any information, he's polite but
firm, and extremely busy. I expect her to grab him by the collar and give him a little ‘mandala to realign his chakras', instead of which she lays on for him a feast of smiles, good humour and friendly insistence. And it works. He interrupts what he's doing, calls the manager, a chambermaid, a waiter and even the night porter. I listen from a distance, a blur of syllables, trying to interpret their body language. I like not understanding what's going on, it makes my bubble more airtight, and it's less upsetting that people aren't paying me any attention. Sometimes she turns to me, and sums up in a sentence or two. That's enough for me.

There's a big staff turnover, many of the people who work here hadn't been hired a week ago. Can't pay very well. As for the others, well, one tourist's much like another, and no, they don't remember the girl who stayed a week. Luckily, the mother left more of an impression on them. The manager remembers Vanessa. He must even have been quite keen on her, because he asks his staff to try and remember. One chambermaid now recalls Valentine: she didn't leave her room much, it was hard to get in to make the bed. The kid was there almost all day long and wanted to bribe the staff so that she could get room service, which was never possible. The kitchen worker snaps his fingers, yes, in turn it's coming back to him. She was always first down for the buffet breakfast, she could put away as many as seven croissants at a sitting, he'd started to keep an eye on her. And apart from that? I watch the tourists walking past, Germans, Japanese, French, Americans, all coming up to the counter. I imagine being Valentine in this hall which is a bit too grand, and full of adult couples or families. She must have felt lonely.

‘Do you want to take a room here? You can take advantage of it, no building works, I asked. And they'll offer us a reduced price.'

‘No, absolutely no way.'

‘Ah, oh well.'

In the street she asks me, ‘So where do you want to go?'

‘Just a normal hotel. I don't like this one, it's depressing. I bet the rooms are cold.'

‘The Argentinian chambermaid was quite clear about it: Valentine only went out for about two hours a day. She must have spent her evenings, her mornings, and most of the afternoons all on her own here. All the stuff about “new girlfriends” and Barceloneta Beach was just made up.'

‘Meaning she was just waiting for her mother the whole time. Sad.'

I don't dare say what's going through my head: it must mean she could have followed anyone who'd deign to spend a bit of time with her. I can easily imagine what it must be like, a whole week in a strange town, with nobody to talk to. Waiting in her hotel room for the night to come. I say, ‘That was a really shitty day, I feel grubby, I hate this.'

‘God, you are negative, aren't you? Is that why you don't have a boyfriend? You turn them off in less than two days.'

‘Nothing to do with it. I've only been a very short time without a partner.'

Except that's not true. It hasn't ever happened to me before to be on my own for so long. It's the job. I don't even like telling potential boyfriends where I work. It seems hard to explain how I spend my life. And it's hard to see how I can start a relationship when one night in two I'm stuck waiting
under some kid's window to see they don't make a run for it, and following them if they do.

The Hyena insists: ‘And you're over thirty-five. For you straight girls, that's your sell-by date.'

‘Oh, it's much better for lesbians, is it?'

‘Like everything else. Old dykes are just brilliant, they have lovely skin, they stay young-looking, they haven't been ground down by a putrid life. With us, thirty-five isn't even the beginning, just the prologue. The peak is when you hit fifty.'

‘So you have a regular girlfriend then?'

‘I'd love to. Fidelity is my utopia. But I'm too attractive to the girls, I can't do that to them. So what about this one as a hotel?'

I hadn't realized we were walking with a destination in mind. She's brought me to a nice little guest house, I look at the rates and find it dear, but I think it's the same everywhere here. She seems to read my mind.

‘You won't find better value. And it's very respectable. I'll leave you here, or do you want to come and have dinner with us?'

‘No thanks. I think I'm… familiar enough with your habits now. I'll be fine.'

‘As you like. But well, we're meeting on the beach. On the sand, the atmosphere will probably be calmer.'

I doubt if the sand will be enough to damp down their ardour and I'm getting ready to reply that I feel sleepy, then I picture myself in my hotel room, all alone in front of the TV, and I realize no, I'd like to have a drink and see the sea. The day's left a nasty taste in my mouth. And her reflections on my
unattached state, my thirty-five years and my negativity have just finished me off. The kind of little sentence, quickly said, that stabs through you like an arrow, letting out a black tide.

‘Can you wait? I'll just take my stuff upstairs then I'll come with you.'

She seems surprised. Pleasantly surprised. Makes a sign to say ‘take your time'.

The group is easy to spot from a distance, sitting on the grass, just above the beach. About fifteen of them, listening to some old techno on a red Discman, patched up with Sellotape and wired to some small speakers that look like they were retrieved from a dustbin.

Around them, people are walking their dogs, families are playing ball, couples lying on the sand are kissing or smoking. Some groups of young Englishmen are drinking beer. None of them comes within ten metres of where we are.

I nod briefly to the ones I recognize and sit in my little corner. I realize quickly that I've installed myself right by the spot for lines of speed, which they come up to take, two by two, off a magazine. They are discreet, but not too bothered. I glance anxiously at the families and strollers round about. No one is paying any attention.

The girls aren't at all inhibited between themselves about yesterday's goings-on. They congratulate each other, pat each other on the back, kiss each other on the neck or put an arm around a shoulder.

There are a few boys in the group who weren't there yesterday. They're sweet-looking, and they too are happy to kiss each other.

The Frenchwoman from the flat, Staff, greets me, as she comes to take a line. She asks me if I slept well, whether I'd like some. I say no. She stays near me for a few minutes, but can't find anything to say to me. I see her again, yesterday giving that resounding slap to her girlfriend. In the end, I'm regretting running away so fast, I'd like to know what they did later. I look at the beach a few metres below us.

‘So, it seems you're a private eye!'

Zoska has crouched down beside me.

‘I didn't see you.'

‘I just got here.'

She yawns, offers me a spliff, which I refuse. She's wearing the same camouflage trousers as before and a black and white T-shirt, very tight-fitting, with Big Sexy Noise written on it. I notice on her forearm a few parallel scars. Her hands are large and white, with elegant fingers.

‘You didn't say you were here on an investigation.'

‘I prefer to be discreet.'

‘So I noticed. But other people aren't. You're going after someone then?'

‘A little girl of fifteen.'

‘Fifteen? Not so little then. It's the average age of the population in this town. And it needs two of you, does it?'

I check that the Hyena is fairly far away from us, and pretend to be someone who's completely on top of her work.

‘It's more practical. A case can take a long time. Sometimes you have to be up all night, other times be in two places.'

‘And you've been doing this a long time?'

‘Two years.'

‘It's a bit like being a cop in the end, isn't it, your job?'

‘Not state employed, not so well paid. But yeah, a bit like it.'

‘And you're happy in your work?'

‘It's not a vocation. Let's say I wouldn't do it if it wasn't for the money. What about you, what are you doing here?'

‘Waitressing. Six euros an hour, on my feet all the time, and these days the customers think they can cut back on tips because of the crisis… so, did you make any progress today?'

‘No, not much.'

She sits up, looks around. I'd like to find a subject to keep our conversation going, because at least when she's there, I don't have to put on a front. But I can't think of anything. She starts to walk off, then throws over her shoulder: ‘I'm going to have a smoke on the beach if you want to join me.'

At that precise moment, something happens, a slight tear inside my chest, or at the back of my neck or maybe a catch in the throat. The way she turns her head, the way she looks straight at me. An invitation, on the edge of being hidden, to which I respond violently. I stand up to follow her. Nothing's happened. Nothing's changed, but a cord has been stretched somewhere, and it's feverishly trying to attach itself to something and make contact.

Around us, the beach is a scene of devastation. Empty beer cans, crisp wrappers, McDonald's cartons, crushed plastic water bottles, fag-ends and greasy papers. The waves are even pushing a Tampax tube on to the sands.

‘Is the beach always in this state?'

‘Since the fine weather arrived, yes. In high summer it's worse.'