The Woman in the Fifth (42 page)

'Is there anything I can do?' I asked.

'Stop trying to sound magnanimous . . . when I know you must be gloating now that your nemesis . . .'

She broke off, crying. I said, 'Susan, I want to talk to Megan.'

'Megan's very upset right now. The news about Gardner's crime . . . it was everywhere. All the kids at her school . . . well, you know how horrible children can be.'

'Will you tell her I want to speak to her?'

'All right.'

'Please ask her to send me an email if she wants me to phone her back. And if you need money or anything . . .'

'Are you still in Paris?'

'That's right.'

'Working?'

'Not at the moment.'

'Then how can you have money?'

'I did have a job . . . nothing much . . . but I've saved a bit. So if things get tight . . .'

'I can't deal with this . . .
you
. . . right now.'

Then, 'I will tell Megan you called.'

The line went dead.

You've just overheard all that, haven't you? You must be very proud of your handiwork. Another dead man to add to the tally of my adversaries you've rubbed out. And you expect me to be pleased . . . when all I can really feel is sheer overriding guilt.

Stop, stop. You need sleep. Deep restorative sleep. Take pills. Take whisky. Take whatever you can. Just get back to the hotel and hide under the blankets until day breaks and you can flee everything.

So I returned to my grim room in the Le Normandie. I repacked my bag. I set the alarm on my portable radio for five fifteen a.m. I took pills, I climbed into the damp, saggy bed. I clutched the pillow against me. I kept hearing Margit say, 'You can't leave now.'

You know, don't you? I'm abandoning you come morning and there's nothing you can do to stop me getting on that train. Spook me all you want. Follow me spectrally to London. I'm still leaving. This is over.

The pills did their stuff. I conked out. When the radio snapped on seven hours later, I jumped up, certain that she was in the room with me. Did that mean she inhabited my unconscious as I slept?
She watched me sleep, didn't she? Just as she was standing nearby as I sat in that plywood cubicle, overhearing my conversation with Susan. And now she was plotting to get Susan and . . .

It's morning. You've slept. The train leaves in just over two hours. Go get the disk. Go to the station. Vanish. And this will vanish with you. '
Faith is the antithesis of proof
. ' She told you that as a way of playing with your head. The cut on your hand? You cut your hand, acting out this delusional fantasy. The concierge is right: you've lost it. Get the disk. Get the train. Find a sympathetic doctor. Get some pharmaceuticals to end this phantasmagoria in which you've been living. Get back to Planet Earth.

I stood in the tiny shower and turned my face up toward the enervated spray of water. I dressed quickly and was out the front door by five forty. The streets were empty, though a few stallholders in the market on the faubourg Saint-Denis were taking deliveries from assorted vans. I turned up the rue des Petites Écuries, rolling my suitcase behind me, stealing a quick glance at the shuttered Internet café.
Au revoir, Mr Beard . . . and fuck you too.
I reached my former place of work. I stopped at the top of the alleyway and peered down. Light was just breaking in the sky, casting a gray-blue tint on its cracked cobbles. No one could be seen lurking in the shadows. I turned back to the street. Empty, deserted, even devoid of cars. I checked onlooking windows. All shuttered or curtained. No one peering out at me. The coast was clear.

OK
, here we go. Start counting and promise yourself by the time you reach sixty you'll have come and gone.

One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand, four-one . . .

I reached the front door and looked up and saw that the video camera had been prized off its bracket. Probably taken by the cops as evidence.

I had my key at the ready. I opened the door.

. . . nine-one-thousand, ten-one-thousand, eleven-one-thousand
. . .

Inside, the corridor was empty, some police tape hanging limply in front of the steel door at the far end; a door now open. But I didn't stop to inspect what was in this once-forbidden zone. I left my bag by the front door and dashed up the stairs, second key at the ready. I unlocked the door.

. . . seventeen-one-thousand, eighteen-one-thousand, nineteen-one- thousand, twenty-one-thousand . . .

My desk had been turned upside down, the emergency door pried open . . . the escape route that I never had to use. The cops had also pulled up much of the linoleum, but they hadn't seen the small crevice above the emergency exit where I had secreted the disk.

. . . twenty-three-one-thousand, twenty-four-one-thousand, twenty-five-one-thousand . . .

I crossed the room and reached up into the crevice. My fingers touched the disk, but they now couldn't gain purchase around it.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I tried to pry a finger to one side of the disk in an attempt to push it forward, then started digging at it with my key.

But just as I started to edge it forward, something happened.

There was a large
bang
behind me as the office door slammed. And this was immediately followed by the sound of the lock being turned twice.

I dashed across the room and started yanking on the door handle. It wouldn't give. I inserted my key and attempted to turn the lock. It wouldn't budge. When I tried to pull the key out and start again, it remained frozen within the lock. I yanked and yanked on the key, jiggling it madly from side to side. It wouldn't give. I kicked the door, two, three, four times.
It wouldn't give . . . it wouldn't fucking give . . .

Then I heard another sound. A loud
whoosh
– followed by an explosion of hot air from the one ventilator shaft in the room. But this wasn't just an overcharged blast from the heating system – as the air which blew out quickly turned into a gray toxic cloud. Within seconds, the room was fogged in, a sulfuric stench enveloping me, singeing my eyes, my lips, my nose, my lungs. I clawed my way through the cloud to the emergency exit. It was already starting to fill up with smoke, but after about ten steps I hit a pocket of fresher air. The corridor was so narrow I kept hitting my elbows off its sides as I ran toward its end.

But when I reached it, I didn't run into a door that would lead me to some sort of freedom. I just hit a wall. A flat brick wall, against which I crashed. I fell down, stunned. The smoke billowed into the tunnel. All fresh air vanished. I began to choke, to gag, to spew blood through my nose. The cloud thickened. My lungs now felt scorched. I pitched over on to the dirt floor. I continued to gag, to vomit. And I screamed, '
Margit! . . . Margit! . . . Margit!'

Nothing happened . . . except that breathing became impossible.

'
Margit! . . . Margit! . . . Margit!'

My voice was stifled now, my vision fading. And somewhere within all the vaporous confusion, there was one pervading thought:
So this is what death is . . . a slow choke to black
.

'
Margit! . . . Margit! . . . Mar . . .
'

My voice was fading. I coughed, I sputtered, I heaved. I should have panicked because death was near. Instead, I began to surrender to asphyxiation. The panic was replaced by a weird calmness: a sense that dying – even in such appalling circumstances – was the most natural of progressions. You're here. You're not. And everything beyond this smoke-filled room simply continues on.

But the moment I accepted that death was nothing strange, the strangest thing happened.

The door burst open and a fireman dashed in. He was wearing a gas mask and carrying a spare in his hand. He grabbed me and slung the mask over my face. As the rush of oxygen hit, he said two words, 'Lucky man.'

I
SPENT THE
next five days in hospital. My condition – I learned later – was initially listed as 'serious, but stable'. No burns, but I had suffered severe smoke inhalation and there were worries about the lasting effect on my lungs. My eyes had also been badly singed by the toxic fumes. For the first forty-eight hours they were covered with saline compresses until the inflamation died down. I was also attached to a respirator until the pulmonary specialist ordered a further set of X-rays on me and then decided that, though they had received a scorching, the damage to my lungs would be repaired in time.

'But don't even think about getting on a plane for the next six months,' he told me. 'Any change in cabin pressure could seriously damage the entire pulmonary system, with fatal consequences. You will simply have to stay put for a while, and consider yourself fortunate to have survived such an incident.'

Everyone who attended me in hospital told me how fortunate I was. The police too. Even Coutard – who came by to see me once I was taken off the respirator. As became quickly apparent, his reasons for seeing me had little to do with enquiring after my health.

'Providence was with you,' he said, pulling up a chair next to my bed. 'The fireman who rescued you told me that if he had arrived three minutes after he did, you would have definitely died.'

'Lucky me, then.'

'It's not uncommon to feel depressed after such a close escape. But I'm certain the doctors here can give you something for that as well.'

'I'm fine, under the circumstances.'

'We've charged someone with the arson and attempted murder. I think you know him: a Monsieur Delik who works at the Internet café on the rue des Petites Écuries?'

'A guy with a beard and a less-than-sunny disposition?'

'The very gentleman. We have reason to believe that he attempted to burn down the building on the order of Monsieur Sezer – who, as you may remember, is still in custody for ordering the murder of Monsieur Attani over a bad debt. Sezer was your landlord and your employer . . . though he never let on that he was the boss behind that charming establishment where you played night watchman. Delik ran the Internet café after his predecessor, Monsieur Kamal Fatel, was found murdered on the Périphérique. Monsieur Delik has confessed to killing Monsieur Fatel over a dispute about a kilo of heroin that seems to have gone astray while in Fatel's possession. Delik was promised half-ownership of the café if he would eliminate Fatel, whom Sezer thought was also trying to muscle in on several of his enterprises.

'Now Delik still refuses to admit responsibility for setting the fire that nearly ended your life. He also adamantly denies locking you in that room and turning on the heating fan full blast and pouring sulfur on to the fire that was started near the generator which runs the building's ventilation system. But a bag of sulfur was found at the Internet café. He continues to deny knowledge of its existence. But who else would have put it there?'

I can tell you exactly who put it there.

'The bag was three-quarters empty – and the sulfur used in the fire exactly matched that found at the café. So
voilà
, we have definitive proof that he was the arsonist. You should consider yourself fortunate that some anonymous woman – a passer-by – phoned the
pompiers
after seeing smoke rise from the top floor of the building. That woman turned out to be your savior,
monsieur
.'

'Did she say who she was?'

'Not at all,
monsieur
. She simply reported the fire and hung up. Another of your phantom women, no doubt.'

No, just my one and only phantom woman.

'We also believe that Delik was responsible for destroying your room. Quite a mess he left there.'

'You were snooping around my room?'

'We were alerted to the fact that your room was ripped apart—'

'By whom?'

'
Monsieur
, it was located next door to a crime scene. Our officers had to return to the place where Monsieur Omar died for assorted administrative reasons, and discovered your
chambre de bonne
in upheaval. Naturally we investigated . . . because we were curious as to why someone would want to so destroy the room of a rather poor writer. And by "poor" I am referring to your financial state, not your literary abilities . . . though we did commission a translation,
en français naturellement
, of the first chapter of your novel, just to validate your claims that you are a novelist.'

'Is that legal?' I asked, my voice hoarse, barely audible.

'You should be pleased,
monsieur
. You have become a translated writer. Many would kill for the chance . . . though that might be a wrong choice of words under the circumstances.'

'Did you like it?'

'Ah, this proves that you are a true writer. Always concerned about public reaction. Yes, I found it very . . .
interesting
.'

'So you didn't like it.'

'How can you discern such a thing?'

'Because, despite rumors to the contrary, Americans do understand irony.'

'But your first chapter was . . .
fascinating
. Most fascinating. The day-to-day rhythms of American suburbia. The conservative father, the crazy mother, the sensitive son. Most original . . . and I do presume there are certain autobiographical elements that—'

'You've made your point. Thanks.'

'
Monsieur
, you take me the wrong way. I would have continued reading . . . but that would have meant hiring the translator to deal with the subsequent chapters and as the book is terribly long . . . over six hundred pages so far, and your hero is still not out of university. I presume it's what the Germans call a
Bildungsroman, ja
? It certainly has the heft of a
Bildungsroman
—'

'"Heft" is also a synonym for "ponderous".'

'Again, you misread me. But literary criticism is not the object of this conversation. Rather, it's piecing together the narrative of your life on the rue de Paradis. So having ascertained that,
yes
, you were writing a book and had this very strange job – about which you initially lied to us – we were still curious as to why your room was torn apart. Given that several of your associates—'

'They were never my associates.'

'So you say. But given that many of the people with whom you
associated
– both personally and professionally – were also involved in the sale of illegal substances, we naturally wondered if you yourself were hoarding a kilo or so of—'

'I never,
never
had anything to do with . . .'

I started to cough and sputter; the agitation causing me to suffer shortness of breath; my mouth tasting of burnt phlegm. Coutard stood up and handed me the glass of water on the table by my bed. I sipped it and struggled to keep the water down. Coutard watched me impassively. When the spluttering subsided he said, 'There is also the question of the twenty-eight hundred euros we found in the pocket of your jacket. Wrapped up in several plastic bags. An intriguing way of carrying money.'

I tried to explain how I had saved all that money, how it was kept hidden in a hole beneath the sink in plastic bags, and how it was the only money I had in the world, so were he to 'impound' it . . .

'You will be on the street?' he asked.

'I won't be able to live. Because I have nothing.
Nothing.
You can run a credit check on me, search for bank accounts. You'll find zilch. That twenty-eight hundred is my entire net worth.'

Silence. I noticed that he had a Zippo lighter in between his right finger and thumb and he was clicking it open and shut. The man was desperate for a cigarette.

'You will get your money back . . . because it has no real bearing on our investigations. Your bags and clothes were clean. We found nothing in your room . . . though I am still intrigued as to why it was pulled apart.'

Because she's a mad bitch, that's why.

'It's a strange
quartier
. . .' I said.

Coutard allowed himself a little smile.

'Of this I have no doubt. Just as I also know that you are a man of remarkable naiveté to have fallen into a job like that.'

'It wasn't naiveté, Inspector. It was indifference to what happened to me.'

'That's another definition for "nihilism". But in your case, the nihilism is mixed in with tendencies toward delusion.

Or have you finally accepted that Madame Kadar is dead?'

'Yes, I know now that she is truly dead.'

'Well, that is an improvement. Did your near-death experience somehow convince you that there is a considerable frontier between temporal life and the underworld?'

'Something like that, yes.'

'And all that extraordinary knowledge you had on Madame Kadar's long-forgotten life? Can you now explain to me why you had amassed such detailed information?'

'Does it matter anymore?'

Click, click, click
as he opened and closed the Zippo again.

'I suppose it doesn't,' he said.

A wave of tiredness hit me. I slumped against the pillows on the bed. Coutard took the hint and stood up.

'The doctors say you will be discharged in a few days. What will you do then?'

'Find a new place to live and try to finish my novel. That's the only reason I was in the office that night, to retrieve the disk that I had left there . . .'

'Yes, I had read that in the statement you gave Inspector Leclerc yesterday.'

'Did he also tell you that if you had given me back my laptop, I wouldn't have had to return there for the disk . . . ?'

Click. Click. Click.

'The laptop was part of an ongoing investigation,' he said. 'Had you had a disk in your room . . .'

I did have a disk in my room. But she took it when she trashed the place. To panic me. To force me back to the office so she could lock me in and set fire to the place and leave me no option but to cry out for her help. Whereupon . . .

'When can I get the laptop back?' I asked.

'In time.'

'Might I, at least, get a copy of the novel transferred to a disk?'

'In time.'

I shut my eyes. I said nothing.

'We will, no doubt, be in touch,' Coutard said. 'We will naturally need your new address once you are discharged from here . . . so we will know where to contact you when the laptop is ready to be returned.'

And to know where to keep tabs on me.

'Fine,' I said.

'You're a free man now,' Coutard said.

I am not free.

They kept me in hospital for a further five days. Leclerc came by on the final day with a copy of a statement for me to sign – a reiteration of my story of how I had been locked into the office as the fire started, and how I had been in the employ of Monsieur Sezer who had always kept the nature of the activities in the building a secret from me.

'This will lend weight to the accusation that he ordered Delik to destroy the building and yourself at the same time.'