Significance (22 page)

‘We need to talk,' he said, and recognising the phrase as one uttered more usually by people in the midst of a disintegrating love affair, he added, ‘about the case. Catch up.'

‘Of course. Coffee will be another few minutes.'

Her eyes went back to the book. He had been dismissed.

In his office, he had no sooner sat down than the phone on his desk began to ring.

‘Sir?'

It was Montaldo, his voice sounding hollow and strained, as if the speaker were in pain which, given Montaldo's recurrent boils, he probably was.

‘I'm on rue d'Troville, with a suspect.'

‘A suspect?'

‘Yes sir, he was running away from the crime scene.'

‘When?'

‘Eleven forty
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six, sir.'

‘Quarter to twelve?' Vivier's voice was dripping with incredulity. ‘He must have been running very slowly.'

‘No, sir. Sprinting. Very fast. Very fit. Powerful.'

‘Yes, yes. But apart from the fact that he was running what else do you have on him?'

‘He's a foreigner, sir. African. Black as.'

‘And?' Again his voice filled with weary sarcasm.

‘There's writing on his hand, on the palm. It's English I think, and when I questioned him about it he kept saying it was Latin for throat or something. The girl was strangled, wasn't she, sir?'

Vivier's interest was piqued. ‘Hmm, maybe you'd better bring him in. Don't arrest him as yet; just issue him with an invitation to assist with our enquiries.'

There was silence on the other end of the line, or not quite silence, but wordless and slightly strained, slightly squeaky breathing.

‘Montaldo?'

‘Sir?'

‘You haven't arrested him, have you?'

‘No, but… ah… we did cuff him.'

‘Then perhaps you'd like to uncuff him?'

‘Right, sir.'

‘Does he have ID?'

‘No, sir. Says his papers are back at the hotel.'

‘Well, that's reasonable enough. How's he dressed?'

‘Ghetto, sir.'

‘Meaning?'

‘Tracksuit, trainers, like they all wear.'

‘Athletes?'

‘No, ah…' Montaldo seemed to stop and consider his choice of words. ‘Black youths, sir.'

‘Alright, get on with it.'

Vivier replaced the receiver just as Sabine Pelat appeared at his door with a mug of coffee in each hand, and the paperback tucked under one arm. Vivier noticed how the book pressed against one breast making it rise an inch or so higher than its partner.

He directed his gaze more pointedly at the book itself. ‘You're not wasting police time, are you, Pelat?'

She put the cups on the desk, took the book from its warm spot and placed it on the far end of the desk.

‘Downtime,' she said. ‘It helps me think.'

He raised an eyebrow. Sabine Pelat's work record was exemplary. If reading a trashy novel for a few minutes while she waited for coffee to percolate helped her think, then who was he to split hairs?

‘That was Montaldo. Thinks he has a suspect.'

‘Really?'

‘Don't get too excited, seems Montaldo caught some jogger a few streets from the crime scene, hours after the death, but in possession of black skin and curly hair.'

‘Oh.' They exchanged looks. Montaldo had been reprimanded more than once for his use of racist language, his reactionary views.

‘But, he did say that the man had some weird writing on his hand and that when questioned about it he said it referred to the throat.'

Sabine thought about this, absorbing the information as she sipped her coffee. ‘It could be nothing. What did the words say?'

‘Don't know, it wasn't in French.'

‘Generally,' she said, ‘they stick to their own kind.'

‘Who?' Vivier was startled, he had an uncomfortable feeling that perhaps even Sabine Pelat was capable of racism.

‘Serial killers. If that's what we're dealing with. They select their victims from the same race as themselves. Blacks kill blacks. Whites, whites.'

‘With no deviation?'

‘Possibly, but as a general rule.'

‘I see, and according to profilers they select similar types of victim – have you seen photographs of the women Ted Bundy killed?'

Vivier looked at Sabine Pelat's face as he asked this and waited for her answer. If her hair was loose she would fit Bundy's type; long glossy dark hair in a centre parting, a well
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formed heart
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shaped face, large doe
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like eyes, a wide sensuous mouth. Though Sabine did not smile as readily as those twelve or thirteen American college students Bundy had strangled and bludgeoned to death, and she was a little older.

‘I think so, though I may have, possibly – sometime in the past.'

‘Well, they all look remarkably like one another and each in their turn also resembled Bundy's first love – a girlfriend who dumped him and whose rejection he clearly had trouble getting over.'

‘Christ, he must have been stupid.'

‘Bundy? How do you mean?'

‘To not see the difference between one woman and another.'

‘Well, he was clearly insane…'

‘Didn't he go to the electric chair?'

‘I believe so.'

The phone rang again. Vivier picked it up and listened to the young sergeant on desk duty.

‘Nutter?' he asked, narrowing his eyes at Sabine Pelat, as he said it. In response she raised her eyebrows questioningly.

‘Alright. I'll send someone now.' He replaced the receiver and turned his attention to Sabine again. ‘Someone's come in off the street claiming they know who the murderer is. It's a woman, so would you mind?'

‘No problem, sir.'

Vivier swallowed the coffee in two gulps, closed his eyes as he felt the hot liquid fall down his gullet and pictured a weird internal waterfall. His throat. The girl's throat.

Initial reports from forensic did not suggest obvious manual strangulation – there was some bruising and swelling, but the hyoid bone was unbroken. Pelat hypothesized a carotid takedown; an attack of such simplicity and effectiveness that the victim passed out from a lack of oxygen to the brain in a matter of seconds. Six months before, Vivier might have asked if that was something she'd gleaned from one of her murder mysteries, but he had learned to hold his tongue – Pelat was not stupid, not gullible.

And the victim had been wearing panties; not a thong, but a style that rose high over the buttocks and were a bit like the shorts Kylie Minogue had worn in a recent video and ad campaign. Familiarity with pop music's idols and particularly their bottoms and how they chose to clothe them was not usually at the forefront of Vivier's mind, but a few months ago someone, no one knew who, had stuck up a picture of the aforementioned princess of pop's pert and meagerly clad rear end on the staff notice board in the corridor outside the canteen. The women members of staff had been outraged and it was swiftly removed. It did however spark a debate about exhibitionism, female sexuality, freedom of choice and vulnerability, including mention of the Muslim veil and French policy; the ironies of tolerance and self
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determination and faith.

Again, according to reports, the girl had not been sexually assaulted, but this did not mean sex wasn't the motive – sexual satisfaction could be achieved by more indirect means than simple penetration. According to Freud some adults got frozen in the development of their sexuality, were perpetually stuck at the point of looking or displaying, and while they might masturbate to images of the opposite sex, they might actually fear them. Freud also mentioned some men's fear of full congress because of what is known as the vagina dentata – the vagina with teeth.

La Petite Mort

Aaron in bed. A drugged sleep. Scott had given him a sedative. Bright spots of red turning dirty brown
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burgundy on his bandaged hands. Marilyn and Scott had stood over him, watching him. As if they were afraid he would evaporate. Or as if they willed him to evaporate, to go out of focus, to fade, leaving only the warm bed and the tangled bloodstained bandages strewn over it like abandoned ribbons.

Scott and Marilyn standing side by side, inches apart, afraid to touch one another, as if they did not deserve that comfort.

Scott troubled by secrets. The old memory of himself as a child standing as now by the side of his sleeping brother. And last night too, his words to the young woman, his bottled up anger and desire. Then forgetting to remove the keys from the door. Forgetting perhaps to even lock it.

How does one forget? Is there, in truth, no forgetting? Only the work of the subconscious artfully spinning reality into the form it desires. The reptile brain viciously, heartlessly achieving its selfish needs by any means possible.

‘I think you should tell them,' Marilyn said. ‘They should know. They'll see his hands; the cuts won't have completely healed by then.'

‘No, it'll only worry them. Christ, you know what my mother is like; she'll be on the first flight over here with her first aid box.'

‘Will they blame us?'

‘Yeah, I guess so. Maybe they won't let us bring him again. Won't trust us or him, or France or whatever.'

‘Oh.'

Marilyn and Scott each considered the words he'd just spoken. To be blamed was one thing; that sat heavy in the heart. They had tried, but failed. And yet what a punishment they might be given for this failure. To be no longer trusted with Aaron. To be deprived of this burden. To be free.

And there was Marilyn's secret too. A beautiful, but still troubling secret. The baby. No real outward sign yet. Her breasts a little fuller than before. A thickening of her waist, so that she had begun to leave the top button of her jeans and skirts undone and to favour the loosest dress she had brought. She longed to see a more visible bulge, a great dome ballooning out. She would be a sort of walking miracle. Not really, of course, and yet for her, for Scott too, this new life they had made was magical.

Unless.

Unless whatever was wrong with Aaron was genetic, could skip over individuals and generations like a girl's feet skipping over hopscotch tiles, landing here, missing there; and then?

Marilyn shivered.

‘Hey,' Scott said, and at last put his arm around her shoulder, and she gratefully slotted herself in against his body. ‘You cold?'

‘No. Yes, just a little, I guess.'

He rubbed her arm.

‘I'm sorry,' he said.

‘For what?'

‘For all of this. For dragging you into this. I'm sorry he's the way he is. I'm sorry I'm not a better person. I'm sorry I'm not like you.'

‘Like me?'

‘Yeah, you.'

He kissed her. A peck on the forehead, then he ducked his head away again even as she tilted her face, her mouth up to meet his.

‘But you're a good person,' she said.

‘No, I'm not. I'm lousy.'

‘Scott!'

This last word was spoken loudly. Aaron whimpered in response, or so it seemed.

They watched the sleeping young man again. Angelic, as all innocents are when asleep.

‘Come on. I'm exhausted, let's see if we can get some shuteye too.'

‘It's only seven o'clock,' Marilyn said, but allowed herself to be led from Aaron's room and into theirs. Light poured in through the white muslin curtains, light that seemed to fill the whole space illuminating everything equally. As if the room were some glass aquarium and they were creatures who ate, drank and breathed light. Marilyn, uncertain if she actually wanted to sleep right now, uncertain of the wisdom of it, as she might not sleep later, went and stood in front of the small desk under the window, her notebook upon it, a poem half written, her uncapped pen lying across the page.

Should she write or sleep? Forgetting for an instant Scott in the room behind her until a hand, or the tips of his fingers really, gently, almost imperceptibly, drew the hair from her neck in order to kiss the tender skin there.

‘Oh. That's nice,' she said, sighing.

His other hand reached around the front of her, his warmth against her back, his mouth warm and wet, opening and closing on her skin, consuming her. Then his hands, one snaking under her blouse, wriggling into her bra, cupping her breast, the other on her belly, its palm with fingers splayed pressing her against his body. Then him taking backward steps, drawing her with him to the bed, then the tumble, the tumult.

‘We shouldn't,' she said at one point, but by then they had already gone too far.