Significance (54 page)

It was just getting light, must have been the first glimmer that woke him, either that or another of
his bad dreams, those dreams where he was falling. The recurring nightmares he suffered since he was a child that had got worse after he watched the live coverage of the twin towers on 9/11, and even worse after he'd begun his relationship with Henri. Gerhardt knew why; guilt, fear, shame.

But he was in a buoyant mood as he walked down the tree
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lined street, and he remained so even after Proust deposited a large glistening turd on the pavement. He had a plastic bag in his pocket and did not mind the ritual of picking up after the dog, did not mind apart from the warmth of it in his hands through the plastic. There was a bin beside a house nearby and Gerhardt quickly lifted the lid and threw the bag in.

He headed for the short cut, an upward
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sloping lane with a few steps that led straight into the park. Usually he'd go through the park and out by its main entrance to the bakery for fresh bread then home again.

He was a good distance away from the turning into the lane when he saw Proust disappear. There was nothing unusual in that, but what was strange was the sudden tug on the leash as the dog pulled harder and the cord rubbed against the brick wall. Taken off guard before he knew it the plastic device that held the lead jumped out of his hand and skittered away along the pavement.

‘Proust!' he yelled, then raced to try to catch the flailing lead and its clattering handle, which flew out of sight before he was even six feet away.

‘Ficken!'
he hissed and stopped running. He ran a hand through his hair, shook his head in frustration then continued on towards the lane. It sloped gently up, then there were four concrete steps. Proust was standing at the top of these steps and barked as soon as he saw Gerhardt.

‘Good boy,' Gerhardt called and the dog gave another sharp yap. The dog did not wag his tail, but stood squarely on all four legs. The end of the lead with its rectangular box lay on the first step and the nylon cord was curled and draped elaborately over all of the steps, spelling out the journey of circles the dog must have made.

‘Good boy,' Gerhardt said again and quickly stooped down to recapture the lead before the dog took off again. He pressed the button that caused the line to rewind, so that the dog would not be able to run out of sight again as easily. He had often thought that Proust could run into the road given such freedom.

‘He knows not to do that,' Henri had said, laughing at Gerhardt's utter ignorance when it came to animals.

Gerhardt had never been allowed pets as a child. His mother thought them dirty, his father, a quiet and profoundly good Lutheran pastor in a conservative town near the Swiss border, claimed to be allergic. Henri, on the other hand had grown up on a smallholding with dogs and geese and ducks and goats and cats.

The dog barked again. There was definitely something different about the sound and the way the animal was standing there waiting for him. Gerhardt wondered if the dog wasn't finally going to go for him with his sharp little piranha teeth.

‘Good boy. Good boy,' he said soothingly as he drew near and bent to stroke the dog's bony silky head, its long back. He felt around the collar to check that the metal clasp was still attached. He always worried about losing the dog, about it becoming hurt in some way. Henri would not forgive him.

Then he saw her. He should have seen her straight away but he had been so focused on the dog that somehow he missed her. Or perhaps he had seen her but something in his mind had refused to transform the tangle of red hair, the pale battered flesh, the torn dress into a human form. He'd seen her in the corner of his vision down there by the side of the path, weeds growing up behind her, camouflaging her.

And it was only just getting light.

The dog gave another sharp yap, as if they were having a conversation and the animal was winning the point. ‘See?' it seemed to be saying. ‘See, I told you, but you wouldn't listen.'

She was lying so still. He could not bear to look at her.

Gerhardt moved back and down, pulling the lead hard. On the next step he stumbled a little but righted himself. He turned and hurried back to the street, the dog now running a little ahead of him again, straining at the short leash so that its breathing was rasping and laboured.

Once he was on the street, Gerhardt stopped and clapped one hand over his mouth – a theatrical gesture that was entirely natural and unplanned. He hadn't brought his phone with him, just enough cash for the bread. He felt he should stay where he was, stop other people from going up the path, but how could he inform the authorities if he did that? There was no one else about on the street and on his way he'd seen hardly a soul. He could run home and call from there. Or find a payphone? Or go to the police station itself, which was not very far?

Proust was skittish, running around his legs, tugging at the lead, first one way then another. He couldn't concentrate while the dog was doing that so on impulse he scooped him into his arms and was rewarded by a warning growl, an indignant wriggle and a nipped finger. Roughly he half dropped, half threw the animal down.
Another yelp – piqued this time, but the dog stood squarely on all four legs, trembling, but not hurt. Thank God.

He remembered there was a payphone less than ten minutes walk away, on the crossroads outside a closed
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down garage. He hurried there, his mind racing, his stomach hollow. He found that his fingers were trembling badly as he fumbled with the coins, the receiver. He dialed the emergency number and kept worrying that his small change would run out before he had said all he had to say. In his agitation he had forgotten that such calls are free.

He was precise with the details he gave of the road, the lane, the position of the body, but when asked for his name he told them it didn't matter; they said it did. He said his name was Jansson. They said they must have his full name. He might have said ‘Moomintroll Jansson,' as that is where his imagination had flitted in this abrupt construction of a lie, but he remembered another name in the nick of time. ‘Mats Janssen,' he said, inflecting it with the seesaw sound of a Scandinavian, knowing of course, that his accent would never pass as a Frenchman's.

He had been reading Tove Jansson's children's books that summer, persuaded to do so by his older sister, Anna, for their brew of innocence and darkness she'd said, though he'd been unconvinced.

He spelled out the name. ‘M
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A
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T
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S J
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A
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N
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S
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S
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O
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N' and promised to go and stand by the entrance to the lane until the police and ambulance came. That done, he walked quickly away from the phone kiosk, leaving a pile of coins on the ledge there, silver coins like those abandoned by Judas.

When he got home, Henri was still asleep. He closed the back door quietly, undid Proust's lead and returned it to its drawer, slipped his feet out of
his sandals and put coffee on the stove, then sat on the edge of the settee frowning darkly. Proust retreated to his basket, turning in a circle many times before finally settling down with a sigh and closing his eyes to sleep.

To See a Whale

It seemed that he had only just put his head on the pillow when the phone rang. He flung his arm out, blindly groping for the light switch, knocking over the glass of milk he had meant to drink before he went to sleep. The phone continued to ring as he wrenched himself upright and, blinking at the darkness, he found the lamp, turned it on, then lifted the receiver.

‘Vivier,' he croaked, his voice heavy with sleep.

It was her voice on the other end of the line. ‘Sir?'

‘Yes.'

He swung his legs out from under the warm bed covers and surveyed the damage created by the falling glass. On the floor by his bed, lying open as he'd left it, was an expensive monograph on Albrecht Durer. Milk sat on the surface of the glossy page in a large opaque pool. The picture illustrated was a superb silverpoint drawing of a man's head and shoulders. Above the folds of his cloth cap was the man's name, Caspar Sturm. Behind him there was a lightly sketched shoreline and turreted buildings and an empty cloudless sky. It was like a photograph in its composition. One could imagine these two men, artist and artisan, standing facing one another as Durer made the drawing, the mild fresh air between them somehow palpable in the drawing.

The spilled milk was like a film of mist occluding the past. Vivier had been reading the book the night before, gazing at this drawing from 1520, then turning back several pages to read the text. Durer had gone to the swamps of Zeeland because he had heard of a great whale beached there, but it was gone before he had a chance to see it. However the swamps were malarial and Durer contracted a fever, after which he never quite recovered. Eight years later he was dead.

‘Another body has been found,' Sabine said. Given the time of day, the words were not unexpected.

Vivier lifted the book and turned it on its side so that the liquid ran off it onto the varnished floorboards, then he set it open on the bed beside him.

‘How much do we know? When did this come in?' he said, and pulled a wad of tissues from the pack he kept in a drawer, dabbing them gently over the page, knowing even as he did so that the book was ruined.

‘A member of the public rang emergency services at six minutes past six. Reported a dead woman on the lane between the park and rue Cordier.'

He stopped dabbing the page.

‘I'm on my way. Get another car around to the park side of the lane too. How soon can you get there?'

‘Five minutes, I'm in my car, sir.'

‘Alright…'

Sabine was about to hang up when he added, ‘Listen. No sirens. Got that?'

‘Yes sir.'

Hotel Rooms

On the seventh day, Elise, the chambermaid at the Hotel Eden in Belle Plage, had been about to gleefully miss room six from her routine again due to the ‘Do not disturb' sign on the door. On previous days she had chosen to take a fifteen
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minute ciggie break on the roof of the hotel among the sheets and towels on the washing line, instead of cleaning the room. She was meant to tell her boss, Teri if she missed a room so that she could make the time up doing something else – chopping onions in the kitchen or cleaning the toilet in the bar. Yeah, like hell! And no one had caught her skiving up on the roof yet, and she had developed a sort of proprietorial relationship with it – it was her space, no one else's. Teri grew herbs and tomatoes up there and she often took one of the small cherry
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red fruits and popped it whole into her mouth. Mine.

Outside room six she hesitated, thinking things over, judging the chances of overdoing her disregard, of getting caught. Seven days was a full week and there might be a new guest due. She stared at the door gauging probability, thinking longingly of her sojourn beneath the blue sky, the cigarette long overdue. She thought about the spoilt bastards inside the room with their bad French and lousy tips, their filth and wet towels and stained sheets. She had come to hate the clientele, because she hated her work. Her only comfort was getting one over on them, on Teri, on the world.

She gazed at the door, the cardboard sign,
Ne pas déranger.
Her gaze dropped to the floor. Movement. A thin grey trail of movement. Ants. A single file of them, busily streaming into the room. She leaned over, studying them more carefully. A column of them going in, another coming out. An army of brainless, thoughtless workers. This was not good.

She knocked on the door, then unlocked it with her master key and peered in. Still occupied, she knew that at a glance. Perfume and lotions on the table in front of the glass. A hair brush, dryer and straighteners. A pretty cotton dressing gown had been thrown limply over the bed. A suitcase on the folding stand and inside the wardrobe several dresses and other items had been carefully hung up. No men's clothes to be seen. An English newspaper in the bin under the table along with a couple of grubby cotton wool balls. She followed the line of ants with her eye. Under the door, along the wall, up the side of the chest of drawers. Tramp, tramp, tramp. Over the top and into a pretty ceramic bowl. To the over
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ripe fruit there.

‘Hello?' she called, knowing that there was no one there. The bathroom door was open and she could see it was unoccupied. She picked up one of the perfume bottles, read the label and sniffed it. Issey Miyake. Slightly grapefruity and peppery. She dabbed a little on each wrist and behind her ears. Nice.

She looked at the clothes in the cupboard. Very nice clothes. Nothing worn or scruffy. British size 10. Elise was bigger than that, a 44, which would be a 16?

She opened the drawer in the bedside table nearest her: nothing. Then walked around to the other side. Nothing but a piece of silver foil from inside a cigarette packet. She sat on the bed thoughtfully and brought her wrist to her nose to sniff the perfume again. Her eyes were drawn to the suitcase.