The Ninth Life of Louis Drax (24 page)

     —What do you mean, ‘it wasn’t fair what happened’? That’s a bit of an understatement, don’t you think? She looked at me: a long, narrow look.

     —There are different versions of that story, Dr Dannachet. The version I heard from Francine didn’t tally with the one Natalie told my son. Not at all. She told me – and frankly I never doubted her – that Natalie and Jean-Luc had a relationship, and that–

     There was a sharp knock at the door, and it opened swiftly. Detective Charvillefort entered, looking pale and serious.

     —Excuse me, she said. —I have to speak to Madame Drax urgently. Dr Dannachet, would you mind if we used your office for a moment? In private?

     It was bad timing, and I was annoyed. I’d felt that Madame Drax was about to tell me something important. Something that I might not like, but maybe needed to know. I stepped outside into Noelle’s reception area. Noelle was in a talkative mood, clearly fascinated by what was going on.

     —The poor boy, she said. —All this fuss, it can’t be easy for him.

     —He’s in a coma, I reminded her.

     —Yes, but even so.

     Realising she wasn’t going to get any information out of me, she proceeded to tell me about her family and their small triumphs. Her younger grandson had just won a swimming medal. I congratulated her. Her older grandson was nearly at the top of his class. Her elder son had just been promoted. I congratulated her again. She thought her daughter-in-law might feel ready to get pregnant again, now their future was looking more secure. I made what I thought were the right noises, but I could barely concentrate on a word she was saying. Just then a terrible wail came from my office, followed by a dead silence and then another wail. Noelle and I looked at one another as we strained our ears for clues. You could just make out the quiet murmur of Detective Charvillefort’s voice.

     Then the door opened, and Detective Charvillefort stepped out.

     —Could I take some tissues? she asked.

     Noelle handed her the box in silence.

     —What’s happened? I asked. But she just gave me a distressed look and went back in.

     Five minutes later both women emerged from the room. Madame Drax seemed to be having trouble walking. Her face was streaked with tears, her eyes wild. When Detective Charvillefort offered her hand for support, she grappled for it and then clutched it as though she were drowning.

     —I have to take Madame Drax to Vichy, said Detective Charvillefort quietly. —Georges Navarra will be in touch with you very shortly, Dr Dannachet. I think you know what it’s about.

     And they were gone.

What happened over the next twenty-four hours remains in my memory as a blur of images and conversations, fragments of an anxiety dream I once had but from which I have yet to recover. I mean, really recover, as in heal, forget, forgive, understand, move on. A strange smudge of time whose colour in my mind is the colour of a bloody evening sky, an unhealthy sunset that puts the lid on a day of vexation.

     Soon after Detective Charvillefort and Madame Drax senior had left, Georges Navarra turned up looking uncomfortable. He held his body oddly, as though trying to be formal. Which I soon realised he was. When Noelle showed him in he coughed – the kind of cough you make to break the silence rather than to clear your throat – but said nothing. I stood to greet him and shook his hand. Finally he spoke. I was to accompany him to the police station in Layrac for questioning, he said. Noelle, who had been filing some papers in my cabinet, gave a little hiccup of surprise. Excusing herself, she left hurriedly, leaving me alone with Navarra.

     —I’m sorry, he said.

     I had known, fatalistically, that it would be only a matter of time. But like any theoretical notion that takes sudden, concrete form, the reality of it shocked me. I wasn’t being charged with anything, Navarra reassured me. But there was ‘an issue’ that needed to be cleared up. Concerning the letters. The graphologist’s report had arrived; it indicated that it was I who had written the two letters purporting to be from Louis Drax: one to Madame Drax, and one to myself.

     —It was done in innocence, I told him. —I mean, when I did it, I wasn’t aware. Do you understand what I’m saying? I did it in a state of physical unawareness.

     Georges looked at me blankly for a second, before his face creased in worry.

     —I don’t think you’d better say any more for now, Doctor, he murmured. —Let’s just get you to the station.

     On the way out, I told Noelle to phone Sophie in Montpellier and tell her I was being questioned. Then I had second thoughts, and told her not to. Then third thoughts. —But don’t alarm her, OK?

     Noelle winced and gave me a look of indignant despair. It was all too much for her to cope with. She reached for her moisturiser.

     We left the clinic. As Navarra drove slowly down the white gravel drive, I saw the gardener, Monsieur Girardeau, surveying the lavender border; as we passed, he plucked a head of lavender and crushed it between his fingers, pensively, then brought it to his face to smell. How I envied him in that moment. When he spotted me in the car as we drove past, he smiled and waved.

     —I have to admit I’m surprised, Dr Dannachet, said Navarra, changing gear. —That was quite an act you put on, when you called me about the first letter.

     —It wasn’t an act. Look, this may be hard for you to grasp, but I wasn’t aware of what I was doing. If it was me, I mean. Which still has to be proved, doesn’t it? Look, I have a history of sleepwalking. But I mean, why would I write a threatening letter to myself? That’s what I can’t fathom.

     —Sleepwalking, eh? said Navarra. He drove for a while in silence, thinking this through.

     —But what about Drax? I asked him eventually. —Surely you’re still looking for him?

     —No, he said. —No need now, is there?

     He turned left on to the road to Layrac, then speeded up to overtake a tractor loaded with logs.

     —Of course there is! He’s still on the loose, isn’t he?

     —As a matter of fact, no, he said, turning to look at me as he drove. A sharp, searching look. —Pierre Drax has been found. That’s why Detective Charvillefort had to fetch his mother. She’s taken her to Vichy to identify him.

     —He’s been found? But surely that’s good news! Surely that–

     He interrupted me. —It’s a body we’re talking about. Pierre Drax’s body.

     I watched his neat, intelligent profile as we drove on in silence. There seemed nothing more to say. Pierre Drax was dead. Ergo he was not stalking anyone. Was not writing any letters. Was not–

     Finally I said, —Suicide?

     —I have no idea, he said. —And for now, nor does anyone else.

Layrac police station was small and sleepy, with notices flapping on the notice-board and an air of controlled ruin. In an interview room, Navarra told me, in a stiff, official way, that the police graphologist had identified that the handwriting was written by a right-handed person with their left hand.

     —Unfortunately both the CCTV tapes relating to those days have gone missing, he said slowly. Then he stopped and sighed, lowering his voice. —Would you like to speak to your lawyer, Dr Dannachet, or do you think you might be able to lay your hands on them?

     I could see he wanted to help me, but I didn’t know how to let him; what was the etiquette of my situation? Should I just blurt out the truth? That yes, I had taken the tapes because I knew I had written the letters. But that I had written them in my sleep, guided by Louis? Perez would back me up; he’d said as much in Lyon that night. But could I trust Perez to react the same way sober? Had he even remembered my visit? Might it not be better just to sit tight, talk to my lawyer? Stalled by my own indecision, I said nothing, until Georges Navarra sighed and excused himself, saying he would leave me to think about things. At one point I heard a dog barking; I looked through the small window and saw Natalie with Jojo; she was walking along the corridor on the arm of a policewoman. She looked red-eyed and broken, smaller and more fragile than ever. I remembered the thinness of her body against mine – skin and bone – and a lump came to my throat. Then the sudden hot jab of tears. I wanted to call out to her, but I knew I couldn’t. What would I say? They would have told her about finding her husband’s body, I supposed. And they would have told her that I had written the letters, perhaps asked if she wanted to press charges. She’d think I was sick. Unless like Perez, she believed it was Louis communicating. Surely she would.
I think my son’s a kind of angel
. Did she realise I loved her? Couldn’t she feel it?

     See Louis as just another case, Meunier had warned me.

     But I hadn’t been able to. Then a thought struck me. Philippe must have seen something odd in Louis, for him to warn me off in the way he did. I’d suspected that it was because he had fallen for Natalie. But what if it was something else? I had to speak to him.

—You need to take some time off, said Guy Vaudin, breezing into the interview room and planting his hand firmly on my shoulder. —I spoke to Navarra. I’m sorry, Pascal. I honestly had no idea you were under so much pressure. And with Sophie going off to Montpellier  ...

     He didn’t need to clarify to me that in his mind, I was having a breakdown.

     —It’s not what you think, I protested. But I knew it was hopeless.

     —Navarra told me your theory. The sleepwalking story. But I’m sorry, I don’t buy it, Vaudin said, sighing heavily. —I admire your work, but you’ve taken a wrong turn here. It’s unprofessional in the extreme. Look, I’ve got a lot on my plate at the moment. Can’t stop and talk. But why don’t you just take a few days’ holiday and write the whole thing up when you get back? Get a bit of perspective on it.

     Jacqueline was my next visitor. She arrived with a bag of black grapes and planted them before me. She’d met Vaudin in the street outside and he’d told her about our conversation.

     —Louis made you do it, she announced, selecting the best grape and handing it to me with a tin ashtray for the pips. She watched me eat it as though supervising medication. I felt like a grateful invalid.

     —But Guy – I began.

     —She snorted. —You know what Guy’s like. He just wants a quiet life.

     —Tell Natalie, I said. —Natalie will believe it. Do it, Jacqueline. Please.

     She smiled, but looked doubtful. —Of course, she said, quickly, plucking another grape from the bunch and handing it to me. It was as dark as blood. —The more people who think the same thing, the better. In the meantime, I’ve been busy. Sophie called me from Montpellier. She’d heard from Noelle. She was quite distressed. I got the feeling she was torn between staying in Montpellier and coming back. What should I tell her, if we speak again?

     I understood Sophie’s decision to get away from the situation. If she came back now, what would she be coming back to? The same man she had left. A man hopelessly, if uncomfortably, in love with Natalie Drax. The truth was that despite myself, despite all the instincts which urged reason, I had succumbed to something that was out of my control. I hadn’t changed. And didn’t want to.

     —Tell her I’ll be fine. I just wanted her to know what was happening, that’s all. I thought about Natalie. About the letters.
Stay away from men. Bad things will happen. Insulin. Chloroform. Arsenic. Sarin gas. Lupin seeds
.

     Louis had made me prescribe his mother poison. A disturbed child with an Oedipus complex, Perez had said.

     Louis Drax, in his coma, wanted his mother dead.

     But why? What sort of child would want to punish the mother who loved him? Wish to do further harm to a woman so devastated by circumstance that it was a wonder she was still intact?

     After Jacqueline had left I finished off the grapes and arranged the pips on the table in a series of concentric circles. This activity was strangely soothing, and banished all thought.

Gustave picks up a big pine branch with clumps of pine cones on and lights the end with a match till the pine needles are all fizzing with fire and he holds it up in the air and waves so burning sparks come down and you cough from it.

   
Children need an adult they can trust
. That’s what Maman says. But who? And how do you know?

     —Ever seen a torch like this before?

     —No. It’s cool.

     He’s holding my hand like Papa used to do. He’s slower than Papa though, because he’s got a limp. He’s all broken and thin from being hungry all the time, if you pushed him he’d fall over, he isn’t any stronger than a boy who’s only nine. If we had a fight I might win, I might even kill him by accident. That kind of thing can happen, trust me. Someone gets in a rage and they don’t know what they’re doing and they’re sorry afterwards but then it’s too late.

     It’s dark and you can hear an owl hoot, and smell burning from the forest that’s on fire and you can see a red bit glowing if you look down where the hill is, just where we lit our bonfire, far away but maybe moving closer because fire spreads just like a flood, except it can go uphill and water can’t, unless it’s a giant tidal wave called a
tsunami
that can devastate a whole region e.g. several Caribbean islands. And while I’m walking along with Gustave, holding his hand that you can feel the bones in, I’m beginning to understand something. I need to tell Dr Dannachet because if you feel the danger coming you have to tell an adult, one that you can trust. But he’s gone and I don’t hear his voice any more. He used to be there, just like in another room, or underwater with the monster tube-worms. But he’s gone like a star goes. Papa once told me about stars, there are shooting stars and you might be able to see them but they’re not really there, it’s just the light that’s left behind after they’ve vanished that you’re seeing. But sometimes you see a star really vanish. You can stare and stare at it, and then you blink or you look away just for a second, and it’s gone. I must’ve blinked or looked away and that’s how Dr Dannachet disappeared, and the others too, Maman and the nurses. What’s happened to l’Hôpital des Incurables? Maybe if I wanted to go back and tell Dr Dannachet the thing I need to tell him, I couldn’t. I can feel the danger getting nearer and I’m scared.