Seeking Whom He May Devour (7 page)

Camille said nothing.

“If you were honest with yourself you’d admit it,” Johnstone said. “And you haven’t heard the worst of it yet,” he added.

“Don’t you want to come inside?” Camille asked. “I’m cold, really freezing.”

Johnstone looked up and then got to his feet in a start, as if he had only just noticed how much he had shocked Camille. Camille loved the old bag. He put his arms round her, rubbed her back. As for himself, he had heard so many never-ending folktales about old hags who turn into grizzly bears, which turn into ptarmigans which then became lost souls, that he had long since stopped being worried by barking mad animal superstitions. Humankind has never been entirely rational about the wild. But here, in this cramped little land of France, everyone had lost the habit of the wild. And the thing that mattered was that Camille loved the old bag.

“Come inside,” he said, kissing her hair.

Camille did not switch on the light, so she wouldn’t have to extract words one by one from Johnstone. The moon was beginning to rise, that would be enough for seeing by. She nestled into an old straw-backed armchair, drew her knees up to her chin and crossed her arms. Johnstone opened a jar of preserved grapes, poured a dozen into a cup and handed it to Camille. He drained off a glassful of the preserving spirit for himself.

“We could drown our sorrows,” he suggested.

“There’s not enough alcohol left in that jar to drown a fly.”

Camille swallowed the grapes and put the pips back into the cup. She’d have preferred to spit them into the fireplace but Johnstone did not approve of women spitting into fireplaces, since they were supposed to rise above
the
brutality of males, including their spitting habits.

“I’m sorry for what I said about Suzanne,” he said.

“Maybe she’s read too many African folktales after all,” Camille speculated wearily.

“Perhaps.”

“Do they have werewolves in Africa?”

Johnstone spread his hands, palms upwards.

“They must do. Maybe they’re not wolves, though, but man-jackals, hyena-men.”

“Let’s have the rest,” Camille said.

“She knows who it is.”

“Who the werewolf is?”

“Yup.”

“Tell me.”

“Massart, the man at the slaughterhouse.”

“Massart?” Camille almost shouted. “Why Massart, for heaven’s sake?”

Johnstone rubbed his cheek, not knowing what to say.

“Come on, out with it.”

“Because Massart is smooth-skinned.”

Camille held out her cup like a machine and Johnstone spooned in another serving of grapes in cognac.

“What, you mean no body hair?”

“Have you seen him?”

“Once.”

“He’s got no hair.”

“I don’t get it,” Camille said, obstinately. “He’s got hair on his head like you and me. He’s got a black fringe right down to his eyes.”

“I said body hair, Camille. He’s got no hair on his body.”

“You mean on his arms and legs and chest?”

“That’s right. He’s as smooth-skinned as a choirboy. Haven’t seen it close up, but apparently he doesn’t even need to shave.”

Camille screwed up her eyes the better to picture Massart standing beside his van the other day. She recalled the pallor of his forearms and face, which struck such a contrast with the swarthy skins of everyone else. Well, maybe yes, he might also have no body hair.

“And so what?” she said. “What’s that bloody well got to do with it?”

“You’re not really into werewolves, are you?”

“Hardly.”

“You wouldn’t know one if you saw one walking down the street.”

“No, I wouldn’t. And what
would
tell me that some poor old sod was a werewolf?”

“That’s how. A werewolf is an unhairy man. You know why? Because his wolf-coat is on the inside of his skin.”

“Is that some kind of a joke?”

“Go read the old books written in your own old country. You’ll see. It’s all there in black and white. And there are loads of country-folk who know all the lore. The old bag included.”

“You mean Suzanne.”

“Suzanne.”

“And do they all know about the inside-outside nonsense?”

“It’s not nonsense. It’s the mark of the werewolf. The only mark. He’s got his hair on the inside because he’s an
inside
-out person. At night he turns himself round and his hairy coat reappears.”

“Which makes Massart nothing more than a fur coat worn with the silk lining on the outside?”

“If you like.”

“What about the teeth? Are they reversible too? Where does he store them during the day?”

Johnstone put his glass down on the table and turned to face Camille.

“Look, Camille, there’s no point getting excited. And I’m not bloody well responsible for any of this. It’s the old bag who’s saying it.”

“You mean Suzanne.”

“Suzanne.”

“Of course,” Camille said. “I’m sorry.”

She stood up, took the grape jar and poured the last dregs into her cup. One grape after another soon soothed stiff muscles. They’d been preserved by Suzanne. In her backroom at Les Écarts she had a still where she made spirits – her “fire-water”, she called it – in quantities way above the maximum allowance for vine growers. “I don’t give a toss for any bloody maximum allowances,” she said. Nor did she give so much as a tinker’s fart for all other allowances, exemptions, taxes, quotas, insurance policies, safety guidelines, sell-by dates, communal burdens or parish meetings. Buteil, her farm manager, made sure the business did not wander too far from the bounds of legality and Watchee dealt with veterinary health. How could a woman like that, Camille wondered, a woman who could stamp on social norms as easily as she would barge through
a
barn door, how could she believe in something that came so close to being collectively acceptable? She screwed the cap back on the jar and paced up and down, clutching her cup. Unless Suzanne, by dint of standing up to the rules of the collectivity, had ended up creating her own order of the world. Her own order, her own laws, her own explanations of how the world worked. While everyone else went chasing after a monster animal, marching to the same drummer, in thrall to the same idea, she, Suzanne Rosselin, stood her ground as the undying opponent of whatever is unanimously agreed. She defied consensus and used a different logic – no matter whether it was good logic or bad, just so long as it wasn’t the same as everybody else’s.

“She’s crazy,” said Johnstone to sum up, as if he had been following Camille’s train of thought. “She’s living in her own world.”

“So are you. You live in the snow with your bears.”

“Except that I’m not crazy. Maybe I should be, but actually I’m not. That’s the difference between me and the old bag. She doesn’t give a damn. She doesn’t even give a damn about stinking of lanolin.”

“Leave off about the smell, Lawrence.”

“I’ll not leave off about anything. She’s dangerous. Think of Massart.”

Camille passed her hand across her face. He was right. If Suzanne was off the wall with her werewolves, that was her affair. You can be crazy whatever way you want. But pointing the finger at someone else was quite another kettle of fish.

“Why Massart?”

“Because he’s smooth-skinned,” Johnstone repeated patiently.

“No, that won’t do,” Camille said. “Apart from the hair. Forget the bloody hair. Why do you think she’s getting at him? He’s quite like her – a loner, out on his own, and unloved. She ought to be on his side.”

“Quite. He’s a bit too much like her. They plough the same furrow. She has to get rid of him.”

“Stop thinking grizzly bears.”

“But that’s how things work. They’re a pair of fierce competitors.”

Camille nodded.

“What did she tell you about Massart? Body hair aside.”

“Nothing. Soliman came in and she shut up. Didn’t learn anything more.”

“You picked up a fair bit all the same.”

“More than enough.”

“What’s to be done?”

Johnstone came closer to Camille and put his hands on her shoulders.

“I’ll tell you what my father always said.”

“OK,” Camille said.

“
Steer clear and keep your trap shut
.”

“Sure. And then?”

“We stay shtumm. But if by any mischance people outside of Les Écarts got wind of the old bag’s claim, then it’d be a bad lookout for Massart. You know what people did to suspected werewolves, not more than a couple of hundred years ago, in your country?”

“Tell me. Might as well know it all.”

“They sliced them open from neck to crotch to see if the hair really was on the inside. By then, it was a bit too late to say sorry about the mistake.”

Johnstone gripped Camille’s shoulders.

“It mustn’t go one centimetre beyond the fence of her sodding farm,” he impressed on her.

“I don’t think other people here are as brainless as you imagine. They wouldn’t jump on Massart. They know perfectly well that the killer is a wolf.”

“You’re right. In normal times you would be completely right. But you’re forgetting one thing: this is no ordinary wolf. I saw its bite marks. And you can believe me when I tell you that this is one hell of a beast, Camille. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.”

“I believe you,” Camille whispered.

“And I won’t be the only person who knows that for much longer. The lads aren’t blind, they’re even quite knowledgeable, despite what the old bag says. They’ll catch on soon enough. They’ll know they’re dealing with something out of the ordinary, something they’ve not seen before. Do you see, Camille? Do you see the risk? Something not normal. So they’ll be afraid. And that’ll be their downfall. Fear will make them believe in idols and burn loners at the stake. And if the old bag’s gossip gets around, they’ll hunt down Massart and slice him open from throat to crotch.”

Camille gave a taut nod. Johnstone had never said so much in one go before. He wouldn’t let go, it was as if he was trying to protect her. Camille felt his hands warm on her back.

“That’s why we absolutely must find the animal, dead or alive. If they find it, it’ll be dead, and if I find it, it’ll still be alive. But until then, mum’s the word.”

“What about Suzanne?”

“We’ll go and see her tomorrow and tell her to keep her trap shut.”

“She doesn’t like being told what to do.”

“But she likes me.”

“She might have told someone else already.”

“I don’t think so. I really don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because she thinks the inhabitants of Saint-Victor are fuckwits one and all. I’m different because I’m a foreigner. And also she told me because I know about wolves.”

“Why didn’t you say anything on Wednesday evening when you got back from Les Écarts?”

“I thought the trackers would raise the beast and that all this would be forgotten. I didn’t want to demolish your view of Suzanne for nothing.”

Camille nodded.

“She’s a nutcase,” Johnstone said gently.

“I’m fond of her all the same.”

“I know.”

X

NEXT MORNING AT
seven-thirty Johnstone kick-started his motorbike. Camille was hardly awake, but she got on the pillion, and slowly they covered the two kilometres to Les Écarts. Camille held Johnstone by the waist with one hand, and in the other she held the empty grape jar. Suzanne did not supply grapes in alcohol unless you brought the old jar back. That was the rule.

Johnstone turned left up the stony path leading to the shack.

“Police!” Camille yelled, shaking Johnstone by the shoulder.

Johnstone signalled that he had seen, stopped the engine and dismounted. He and Camille took off their helmets and looked at the blue van parked at the farm, just as it had been the other day, with the same two
gendarme
s, the tall one and the medium one, going from the vehicle to the building and back again.

“Shit,” Johnstone said.

“Bloody hell,” said Camille. “Another savaging.”

“God almighty. This isn’t going to settle the old bag’s nerves.”

“You mean Suzanne.”

“I mean Suzanne.”

“If only it had happened somewhere else.”

“The wolf does the choosing,” said Johnstone. “Not chance.”

“He chooses?”

“Sure he does. He starts off sniffing around until he finds the right place. Somewhere easy to break into, somewhere far from other houses, and where the dogs are kept on the chain. So he comes back for more. And he’ll carry on coming back. If he makes a habit of it, it’ll be easier to corner him.”

Johnstone laid his helmet and gloves on the motorbike seat.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go check the gashes. See if they’re the same.”

Johnstone shook his long fair hair like a waking animal, which he often did when he was in difficulty. Camille thrust her clenched fists deep into her trouser pockets. The path smelled of thyme and basil and, to Camille’s mind, of blood. Johnstone reckoned that it smelled most of all and as always of lanolin and rancid piss.

They shook hands with the medium policeman, who looked worn and overwhelmed.

“Can I see the wounds?” Johnstone asked him.

The
gendarme
shrugged. “Nothing may be touched,” he said as if by rote. “Nothing may be touched.”

But at the same time he waved them on in with a weary flap of his arm.

“Careful,” the policeman said, “it’s not pretty. Really not.”

“Sure it’s not pretty,” Johnstone said.

“Did you come for the grapes?” he asked, seeing the empty jar in Camille’s hand.

“Sort of,” Camille said.

“Well, it’s not the right time for that. Not the right time at all.”

Camille wondered why the
gendarme
said everything twice. It must take a lot of time to say everything in duplicate; you could waste half the day as easy as pie. Whereas Johnstone who scarcely articulated one third of his sentences saved a great deal of time. But it could also be argued that he was wasting his time too. Camille’s mother used to say that time wasted is time gained.

She looked up towards the sheep-pen, but this morning neither Watchee nor Soliman was standing guard. Johnstone was already inside when she entered the low building. He turned, looking as pale as a sheet in the gloom, and held out both hands to stop her coming in any further.