Talking to Ghosts Read online

Nadia, Souad. Regardless of the photographs, he knew that these two women were alike. Mother, daughter. Daughter, mother. From a distance their fates seemed to merge. The father would have to talk.

  Her name was Nadia Fournier. As far as her neighbours knew, she had no job apart from part-time work as a cleaner for a company called Société Aquitaine de nettoyage industrielle, known as S.A.N.I., based in the Bruges industrial estate near the Quartier du Lac. The rent on her house on the rue Arago was €600 a month out of a total monthly income of €800 including benefits. They would have to go through her bank statements to work out how she managed to make ends meet. Now that was what you call making a living, thought Vilar. They didn’t have much to go on, and this would have to open up some leads. Probably as many paths as a jungle.

  He looked back at the picture. There was something bitter about Nadia’s smile, and Vilar wondered whether she had been involved in drugs or prostitution.

  The autopsy report confirmed the cause of death as strangulation. None of the blows to the head or face had been fatal, though they had been brutal and had caused multiple fractures. She had been punched and kicked: there were bruises to the stomach and legs. The body had been moved post mortem. Toxicology came back negative for drugs. No sign of recent sexual activity. There were other tests still to come back.

  Canvassing the neighbours had turned up no boyfriend and no regular visitors. Nadia lived as a recluse. She was kind and polite, she could be helpful, but she was a loner. She didn’t really have a routine, but that was because she worked evening shifts, leaving when her son got home from school and coming back around 11.00 p.m. They questioned almost everyone in the street, but only five or six of her close neighbours even knew the woman they were being asked about, and none of them had much to say. A Madame Huvenne, Nadia’s next-door neighbour at number 36, kept an eye on Victor when he was left home alone at night. When he was younger, she used to have him over to her house for dinner, it relieved her loneliness, she being a widow whose own children had moved away and did not seem to care. She had nothing else to add. When his mother was at work, Victor never went out to hang around with friends. She knew this for a fact. She would telephone sometimes just to make sure, something Nadia had asked her to do. The boy always answered. Said he was doing his homework, watching television, playing video games.

  Victor worked hard at school, was rarely absent, and seemed to have no particular problems at what was considered a problem school. He had friends, they came to his house, he went to theirs. They even checked out a few boys with whom he had had run-ins, but it proved to be nothing more than pushing in the playground or when school was letting out. Though he was not much of a talker, Victor clearly knew how to win respect. No-one gave him any grief. His mother attended parents’ evenings, she was quiet and soft-spoken, attentive and undemonstrative.

  Vilar leaned back in his chair and reflexively lit another cigarette only to stub it out as soon as he felt the sickening smoke catch in his throat. Mentally, he recapped: the crime scene showed signs of a struggle, yet there were no fingerprints. Nadia had been beaten before being strangled. One thing seemed obvious: she knew her killer. It was unlikely an intruder had crept through the garden in broad daylight, stolen fifty euros and murdered the occupant. Besides, there was no sign of forced entry.

  It was possible to imagine a scenario where a neighbour came around, made a pass at this pretty dark-haired woman and refused to take no for an answer. Nadia opens the door, surprised to see him there at that hour, the man insists, forces himself on her, she screams, he lashes out then strangles her to shut her up. They would have to investigate. Every hypothesis would have to be investigated. Even the possibility that it might be a serial killer. The case would have to be cross-referenced against any open homicide cases.

  Vilar found himself juggling theories that seemed to multiply like coloured balls, to slip through his fingers, rolling across the floor and disappearing under the furniture. He had no talent for juggling and he felt ridiculous here, alone in the middle of this empty circus ring.

  Then there was Victor to account for. This model schoolboy did not fit any of Vilar’s scenarios: by rights the kid should have been a delinquent, having been left to his own devices night after night and probably suspecting what it was his mother was really up to – she was hardly a devoted parent and had probably been on the game: O.K., that was just one more speculation, but speculation was all they had to go on right now. Victor’s family life was the sort of thing that could screw up even the calmest, most well balanced child. Vilar had seen level-headed kids warped by less terrible childhoods who grew up to be vicious as pit bulls, kids who had never had to deal with murder. But not Victor. This kid did his homework. Teachers praised him at parents’ evenings. He was a real role model. Did he watch wildlife documentaries at night, all alone, while his mother was out working? The boy was too good to be true. It didn’t fit, it made no sense.

  How could a boy of thirteen remain so calm in such circumstances? How could a teenager, in this day and age, resist the magnetic pull of the great wide world? Or was the elderly neighbour lying?

  Vilar shook his head, sighed. He turned the pages of the file without reading them. This reality was clearly more complicated, more personal. More violent, perhaps. Both of the women in this family were dead; he would have to make do with father and son. An imperfect, pagan Trinity in which death was the Holy Spirit.

  He closed the file, got to his feet and went to get a telephone directory. He dialled the number for S.A.N.I., rummaging in his desk for cigarettes. A voice answered. Vilar gave his name and rank, explained what he wanted, and was transferred to some middle-manager who sounded excited to be talking to the police. The man said he could be free that afternoon, but Vilar insisted that they meet as soon as possible. He would be there around 11.30 a.m. That gave him an hour to get there. After he hung up, he called Daras, got her answerphone and left a brief message explaining what he planned to do.

  In the corridor he bumped into Pradeau on his way to prepare for the interviews in the stabbing incident. The key witnesses were scheduled to make statements that afternoon. One of the attackers had already been identified as Jonathan Caussade, who had a rap sheet for minor drugs offences and assault with a knife. Bingo.

  “He lives with his mother in Cenon. I’ve got a plain-clothes unit keeping tabs on him. Should we bring him in, or wait until we can collar all three?”

  Pradeau was talking quickly, gesticulating, sweating. Vilar tried to focus on the question. His first thought was to say he didn’t give a toss, but he was backed into a corner, Pradeau was staring at him, waiting for a response. Vilar sighed.

  “I don’t know … Maybe wait until the two guys are together. Apparently they’re inseparable. You can pick the girl up later, wear her down. Charge her with failing to report a crime – that should put the wind up her. Ask Daras what she thinks, it’s her call.”

  “Pull in both guys at once? Things might get a bit lairy.”

  Vilar tried to think of something to say, his brain humming with an inchoate tension that felt like grief. He pictured the photograph of Nadia, remembered the smell of the body. He felt something well in his chest. He struggled for a little breath to say:

  “Maybe, but it buys us time and it simplifies things. This way we don’t have to stress over it. We build a watertight case and we bang them up, that makes things easier for the procureur’s office. You go in mob-handed and take them down, job done.”

  Pradeau nodded and stood aside. Vilar heard him ask how the Bacalan case was going and he shrugged.

  As he was pulling out of the car park, his mobile rang. Awkwardly, he turned onto the boulevard, trying to extract the phone from his jacket pocket and change gears in the heavy, fast-moving traffic, the fumes thick and rank in the sweltering heat.

  “Hey, it’s Morvan.” The voice on the other end was distorted by heavy static.

  Vilar’s heart leapt. He told Morvan that the line w
as bad, that he was driving.

  “Listen, my battery’s about to die … Shit! Can you hear me?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Don’t worry. Give me a call tonight at my place, I’ve got—”

  The line went dead. Behind him, someone leaned on their horn. Vilar had slowed to a crawl; he saw a shadowy figure behind a steering wheel throw up his hands, but did not have the energy to give him the finger. A bit further on, he wound down the window, stuck the blue light on the roof, turned on the siren and floored the accelerator. He could feel a knot in his stomach as he headed towards Bruges and the S.A.N.I. office, oblivious to the traffic left in the wake of the siren’s wail.

  3

  During the four days he was in hospital, Victor slept a great deal. Most of the time he lay on his belly, his face pressed into his pillow to muffle his sobs, sometimes his body was wracked with little spasms, like dogs when they sleep. He was stripped to the waist, and his back glistened with sweat, even at night when the sweltering heat of the day was tempered by a cool breeze. Sometimes when he woke, he looked around him, and each time he struggled to work out where he was, to identify the nurses and doctors who were forever popping in on one pretext or another, chattering brightly, bustling around him, their actions precise or offhand. Victor did not acknowledge their presence.

  Commandant Vilar came to see him every day, and would settle himself in a heavy vinyl chair, a notebook in his lap. Victor watched him in silence, more thoughtfully, perhaps, as the visits dragged on, listening as the policeman gently asked him to describe everything he could remember so that they could arrest the man who had killed his mother, so they could stop him doing it again, so they could punish him, do you understand, Victor? One day he even used the word “retribution”, and the boy looked at him intently, his black eyes glittering more than usual as Vilar explained the word and then talked about justice, about sentencing, about prison. Maybe you saw him hanging around – maybe you didn’t realise you’d seen him, obviously, because if we always knew what was going to happen … Maybe your mother mentioned him, do you remember? When she went out to work nights, and she left you alone, did anyone babysit you? Maybe she had a boyfriend? Was he blond, or tall, or fat or dark-haired with brown eyes? Maybe he had a limp or wore glasses. Vilar went on talking to himself, trotting out his theories, a rogues’ gallery he repeated each day, each time embroidering a little more, with each visit the monologue grew like some fantastical tree that every night sprouted new branches. But after a while the boy would turn and stare at the poplar trees, swayed by the breeze so that they disappeared from view, letting the policeman’s theories founder under the weight of his silence.

  Then Vilar asked an almost pointless question whose answer he felt he already knew:

  “Where was she when you found her? Was it you who put her on the bed?”

  Finally the boy looked him in the eye. For a long time, without blinking, mouth half open. He nodded almost imperceptibly.

  “Why?”

  “So she’d be more comfortable.”

  Victor’s voice guttered out in a hoarse croak that brought tears to his eyes.

  “That’s good,” Vilar said. “You did good.”

  Some nights the staff heard the boy’s screams and found him huddled at the foot of the bed, his eyes wide with terror, sometimes they found him roaming the corridors, the needle from the I.V. drip still embedded in his arm. He would mumble incoherently, talking to the walls, to the air, to the darkness that was mapped out with night lights. They would lead him back to his room, try to reassure him, fuss over him for a while, cooling his fevered brow with cold compresses. Once they arranged a visit from a psychiatrist, who managed to elicit no response from Victor beyond the blank, weary gaze he turned on everything, the trembling lips wet with spit. The psychiatrist suggested he draw some pictures, but the pen just sat there, clutched in the boy’s lifeless fingers. Afraid he might have fits, the doctors prescribed sedatives. Finally, they decided there was nothing more they could do for him.

  The morning the nurse told him he was being discharged, that the police inspector was coming to fetch him, Victor got up without being asked, washed himself and even splashed on some cologne they didn’t realise he had brought with him. Afterwards he sat on his bed and waited, ignoring the little boy in the next bed who kept asking where he was going, whether his parents were coming to collect him.

  “Hey, what kind of car your parents got? My dad’s got a Merc. Well, actually, he’s my stepdad.”

  Tethered to a drip, the kid squirmed in his bed like a cat slowly strangling itself. He had a split lip and several missing teeth and so could not speak clearly.

  “I gotta cranium trauma thing, but it’s not serious, the doctor said. Soon as it’s cured I’m going home, I got rabbits to take care of. I’m not letting them bastards keep me in here. Hey, you listening?”

  Victor turned and looked at the little kid in his great big bed, at the shifting shapes beneath the sheets as his limbs twitched endlessly. The boy stared back at him, head tilted because one of his eyes was red and swollen shut, ringed with blue-grey bruises. The bruising made him look like a little old man. At that moment Vilar arrived, and Victor walked over to the kid and held out his hand. The astonished boy shook it, his mouth half open and twisted.

  “Don’t take it anymore,” Victor said softly.

  “It’s only ’cos I do dumb things,” the kid said. “Maman says I need to learn to behave, but I can’t help it.”

  Victor turned suddenly on his heel and left the boy with his hand in mid-air, his good eye spinning in its socket trying to follow him. As Vilar opened the door for them to leave, they heard the kid’s faint voice behind them:

  “My name’s David. David Boulet.”

  He said something else, but by then they were out in the corridor and Victor, three metres in front of Vilar, was walking too quickly to hear.

  In the car park the sun was waiting for them, and Victor squinted and looked down to avoid the blinding glare from the windscreens. As soon as the policeman opened the car door, the boy jumped in and curled up on the passenger seat. As Vilar reversed, Victor stretched out his hand towards the blue police light sitting on the dashboard.

  “Can we turn it on?”

  “So you can talk now? Well, that’s something.”

  “So, can we?”

  “Do you know where we’re going?”

  Victor started looking at the car parked next to them.

  “You’ve probably got a good idea, haven’t you?” Vilar said. “When someone dies, something has to be done with the body, right? Your mother had funeral insurance. Did you know that? Did she ever mention it?”

  The boy shook his head. His face was impassive, the deadbolt of his eyebrows drawn into a frown.

  “We’re going to the church, Victor. Your mother wanted to be cremated.”

  They drove in silence though the sweltering city, bleached almost white in the sun. Victor screwed up his eyes so much that he had to close them for minutes at a time, or shield them with his hand.

  There were only three cars outside the crematorium, even counting the gleaming hearse, and aside from two undertakers there was no-one in the chapel except a stocky man with cropped grey hair who rushed to greet Victor and Vilar, holding out a fat stubby hand. His name was Bernard, he was the social worker who would be looking after Victor from now on.

  The coffin began to roll towards the furnace and the boy got up to touch the wooden box as it stopped, stroking the pale wood while his lips mouthed words no-one else could hear, then the coffin juddered again and Victor let it glide beneath his hand and disappear behind the navy blue curtains. He did not take his eyes off those curtains during the cremation, but stood motionless, ramrod straight. From time to time he swayed a little and Vilar felt the urge to jump forward and support him. An hour later, one of the crematorium staff appeared, carrying an urn, and turned to the policeman and the social worker, uncertain who should t
ake it. Vilar jerked his chin towards the boy.

  The undertaker hesitated, then handed Victor his mother’s ashes. The boy placed the urn on his knees, letting his hands trace the curved surface: it was hot. He hugged it to him and began to cry quietly, his sobs echoing in the huge, bare, empty chapel.

  After a moment the social worker came over and said it was time to go, that there was no point in staying. Victor asked what time it was, and when the man said “nearly twelve”, he glanced around him in surprise, his eyes puffy, then got up, clutching the urn to his chest, and followed the social worker. In the car park Vilar handed the boy a card on which he scribbled something.

  “That’s my name and a number where you can reach me if ever you need to talk. If I’m not there, leave a message. Call me, and I’ll be there. I won’t let you down, have you got that? In a few days you’ll have to appear in front of a judge who will talk to you about what happens next, about where you’ll be living. Everyone will look out for you.”

  Victor took the card and studied it, then turned and looked at the policeman, who was standing to attention. He carefully folded the card and slipped it into his pocket.

  *

  It was a long single-storey building ringed with flowerbeds and shrubs, set in a small park full of mature trees. Bernard told Victor to take the red sports bag which was packed with some of the things that officers had collected from his house. The boy hunkered down in the middle of the car park and, creating a sort of nest among his clothes, he carefully slipped the urn into the bag.

  “I don’t know exactly what’s in there,” Bernard said. “But in a couple of days we can go back and pick up the rest.”

  The boy picked up the bag, one side of it bulging from the urn, and slung it over his shoulder, waiting for Bernard to lock the car. The social worker led him into a lobby and went to the caretaker’s office to pick up a key.

  “I’ll show you to your room, and afterwards I’ll give you the guided tour. You’ll see. It’s not so bad here.”