Talking to Ghosts (12 page)

And on the bed, hugging her knees, sat a dark-haired girl, about five years old, maybe six. Her black hair fell across her face and her eyes shone in the half-light. She stared at the two grown-ups curiously, without apparent fear. Snot had dried on her upper lip, and her eyes were wet with tears.

“It's O.K.,” the girl with orange hair said. “Maman is here. It's all fine, sweetheart.”

The girl got off the bed and trotted over to her mother and allowed herself to be picked up, made a fuss of, closing her eyes, a vague smile on her lips. Vilar looked away as they kissed and cuddled. Then the girl broke off and put the child down.

“Are you hungry? Maman will make you breakfast.”

“Are you taking the piss?” Vilar said.

Carole Picard turned as though she had forgotten he was there.

“Are you taking the piss?” he said again, his voice choking at the back of his throat. “I don't think you have quite understood the situation, mademoiselle.”

He managed get the words out, but the effort left him breathless, almost trembling with rage.

The girl drew herself up to her full height, she looked defiant.

“Are you going to stop me making breakfast for my kid? Is that it? What right have you got? Is there a law against a mother giving her daughter something to eat?”

She didn't see Vilar's hand coming. He grabbed her under the chin and slammed her against the wall, banging her head.

“Now listen, you little slag: you better calm down, and quick, because
you're about to make me seriously angry. You leave this little girl alone, locked in a room with a potty, while you go and get off your head in the flat next door, and to listen to you, you'd think you were the perfect mother! Are you planning to make breakfast sitting on a bin bag in that shit-tip of a kitchen? And all the hi-fi gear next door, I suppose that's her Christmas present? Don't take me for a mug, or I swear I'll deck you. The way I see it, the only reason you gave birth to this kid was to be rid of the weight, and you've treated her like an animal ever since.”

He said all this in a low growl, his hand still squeezing her neck, oblivious to the fact the young woman was having difficulty breathing. The little girl rushed to her mother, hugging her legs, wailing with terror.

Vilar felt hands on his shoulders, on his arms, pulling him away, forcing him to let go, he heard voices, among them Daras' telling him to cool it, not to manhandle a witness. He took a few steps back, out of breath, and roughly shook off the hands of the others still holding him. Daras handcuffed Carole again and she was led away by two officers.

“Michel! Call the
procureur
's office and the
brigade des mineurs
. Tell them you're bringing in a child. And get me a car.”

She pulled up a chair and sat down close to the little girl who was still standing, petrified and silent, in the middle of the room amid the forest of legs of the motionless and now silent police officers.

“We'll look after you. Your maman has to come with us so we can ask her some questions. What's your name?”

The little girl looked at the gun one of the policemen was still holding.

“Could you give us some space, please?” Daras said quietly to the policeman, jerking her chin towards his weapon.

The man left without a word. Daras brushed a lock of hair from the girl's face.

“What's your name, sweetie?”

“Manon.”

“And how old are you, Manon?”

“I'm five.”

A female officer came in, taking off her cap.

“I can take care of her, if you like. We've got a free car. They'll give her something to eat back at the station. I've worked with them before.”

Daras started to explain to the little girl what was going to happen. Vilar left the room, his head buzzing and filled with cotton wool. He crossed the landing and went back into the living room where his colleagues were collecting the spoils of their search: fifty grams of weed, a dozen rocks of crack, two hunting knives and an Astra revolver with no ammunition. The five suspects were sitting on the sofa, they did not move, did not speak to each other, did not look at anything, seemingly indifferent to what was going on around them. Only Carole Picard looked up and shot at Vilar a look filled with hatred to which he responded with a shrug.

He found himself suddenly useless and drained. He went out onto the landing and started down the stairs, dazzled by the solid slab of sunlight carved by the door onto the street.

“Pierre!”

Daras' voice. Vilar kept walking, squinting as he came into the harsh sunlight. It was almost 11.00 a.m. He fumbled in his pockets for cigarettes, but he had left them at home. He saw a
gendarme
standing nearby light up and was going over to bum one when Daras' voice caught up with him.

“Here,” she said, holding out a pack of cigarettes.

She was smoking herself. He was surprised, and gave her an ironic smile.

“You've started again?”

“Too right. Bought them last night. I'm allowing myself a cancer break.”

“Not a bad idea. That way you get used to the beast and you won't be so shaken when it shows up.”

“Yeah, and then what? Shit …”

They smoked in silence. Daras calmly turned her face towards the sun.

“Is that it, then? Have you calmed down?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. You should have let me put the fear of God into that bitch. Maybe she might start to understand.”

“You understand everything, do you?”

Vilar shook his head, flicked his cigarette into the distance.

“What about the kid she kept locked up, do you think she understands? What are we supposed to tell her?”

“Her mother …”

“Mother? I'm not sure the word really applies.”

Daras blew the smoke far out in front of her and looked him in the eye.

“As I was saying, the mother said that one of the guys had a thing about the kid, which is why she kept her locked up while …”

“While she was getting her leg over in the neighbours' apartment. Model fucking parent. Why don't we give her a medal?”

Daras looked around and sighed, tight-lipped. The muscles in her cheeks twitched.

“I never said she was a model parent, I'm not stupid. But she's still the girl's mother, and I don't suppose she got to be a mother all by herself. Did you stop to think about the father?”

She was standing close to Vilar, talking into his face. He stared back defiantly.

“She told us everything, because she's terrified of her child being taken into care. The father was her boyfriend at university. She wasn't exactly an innocent, a bit of a rock chick, and the guy was immature. When he found out she was pregnant, he was thrilled. Refused to let her have an abortion, threatened to leave her if she did. She believed him, she kept the baby. The little fucker showed up to the maternity ward just once. She never saw him again. He went back to his parents in Brive. A practising Catholic, with a degree in politics and a clean-cut image. He'll probably be a cabinet minister before he's thirty. After he left, the girl fell out with her parents and she had a tough time bringing up her kid. That's the story. I'm not sure your macho morality lessons are appropriate.”

Vilar shook his head.

“The kid was locked up all by herself. She was scared stiff. There's no excuse for that.”

“I'm not making excuses. I'm just telling you how it is. We're police officers, not judges. Especially not in cases like this. We collared three fuckwits who stabbed and killed a random stranger. That's what we're paid for. But when it comes to her child, it's not my job to judge that girl – and it's not yours.”

Vilar was about to say something, but Daras put a hand on his arm:

“You have to stop losing it every time you come across some kid who's had a tough life, otherwise one of these days you won't be able to do your job at all.”

An officer came over and said they were taking the suspects down to the station. Daras checked her watch, swore under her breath, she had a ton of paperwork to get through that would probably keep them busy well into the evening.

Minutes later the police cars that had cordoned off the street since dawn had disappeared. Two officers stayed to keep an eye on the forensics team as they gathered up the evidence.

Caussade quickly confessed to the stabbing, but justified his actions because the victim, Kevin Labrousse, had been slow to give him a cigarette. Besides, he said, he had been up all night drinking. When asked if he had been aware that his actions might have fatal consequences, Caussade did not seem to understand the question, and when Pradeau, who was leading the interrogation, rephrased it, he sighed peevishly and said he had no idea.

Caussade's answers were an object lesson in studied weariness. All these questions “were making his head spin”, he said. It was not his doing, he said, it was “fate”. At this, Pradeau kicked the chair out from under him.

“You're the one who murdered him,” he yelled, “not ‘fate'!”

“Yeah, yeah, alright, fine!” Caussade grumbled. “No need to get all worked up, it's not going to bring the guy back. It's not like I wanted to kill him, I couldn't give a fuck about him. Look, I was off my face, it just happened. Too late to fix it now.”

Carole Picard and Marc Chauvin claimed that there was nothing they could have done, that it all happened so quickly, and when asked why they did not report Caussade – who, after all, had killed a man who had never done him any harm – they both insisted it was a matter of loyalty – one of the few values they clung to – and besides, they said, they didn't grass. Chauvin was panicked about the possible repercussions, but a man's death barely seemed to touch him, it was something remote, abstract, it was meaningless. Like something in a video game. Neither expressed remorse or even a whit of compassion.

The
procureur
was kept regularly informed, and towards 11.00 p.m. the three accused were taken to the cells to appear before the court first thing in the morning.

The officers quickly headed towards the underground car park, each of them finally alone but done in. Engines roared into life, tyres squealed, and a procession of vehicles sped up the exit ramp, like gangsters making a getaway.

The first thing Vilar did when he got home was turn on his computer. Morvan had sent him an email an hour earlier: they needed to meet up, he had something to show Vilar, he could not talk on the phone. “It's not exactly a lead, Pierre, don't get your hopes up, but it's interesting, we need to talk,” the former
gendarme
had written. Vilar sat for a long time staring at the two-line message on the screen, as though somehow more information would appear by magic. He felt as though he were on a slow merry-go-round watching familiar faces flash past, a dizzy feeling keeping him rooted to his seat.

Not a lead, no. The best Vilar could hope for was a snake-infested field of brambles, and maybe a few old footprints, all but worn away.

*

The following morning at 7.30 a.m. he called at the home of Thierry Lataste, the man in the Mercedes who had been dating Nadia Fournier when she died. Posh area, nice, two-storey middle-class house, a pretty wife called Mireille who could not hide her panic when he showed his warrant card and asked to speak to her husband. Without even
asking what it was about, she stepped aside to let him in. Lataste appeared from the kitchen, holding a large mug and wearing a pale suit over a bottle-green polo shirt. He was about to leave for work, he said.

“Well, then, you'll need to call and tell them you'll be late.”

“Would you mind telling me just exactly what …”

Lataste had said the words a little too brashly, setting his cup down with a faint clink on a glass table and stepping forward in the hope of intimidating this interloper. Vilar sized him up: early forties, not bad-looking, and, as the head of a property advisory office, probably used to being obeyed, even feared, but now, behind the arrogant facade, he looked nervous. He glanced furtively at his wife who stood, frozen, leaning against the banister, staring at Vilar as though an exterminating angel had come to call.

“I believe you knew Nadia Fournier?”

Lataste shook his head.

“She worked for S.A.N.I., the industrial cleaners. You know them?” Lataste again glanced at his wife who was staring at him intently, willing him to answer but terrified of what he might say.

“Ah yes, I do vaguely recall someone of that name. A dark-haired girl. We sometimes ran into each other if I was working late. And?”

“Perhaps you might prefer to …”

“No, no, we can talk here … There's not much to tell anyway, I have nothing to hide.”

Mireille Lataste suddenly seemed to emerge from her daze and took a few steps up the stairs. From the floor above came the sound of children chattering.

“I'll leave you to it,” she said weakly. “You can tell me about it later. I'd rather give you some time to think about your version of events, it might make it a little less hard on me.”

Vilar wanted to hurt them, and he did not wait for the woman to reach the top of the stairs before saying, “You know Nadia is dead?”

Lataste's wife stopped, but did not turn.

“How would I know that?”

“It was in the papers, it made the local news.”

“I don't take much interest in the local news. I never read the paper.”

“You've got a short memory,” his wife interrupted. “We were watching T.V. together the other night, you got home early for once. They even showed her picture. A pretty girl, as I remember. I made a point of mentioning it.”

She came back downstairs and planted herself directly in front of her husband.

“Why are you lying?”

“I don't think there's much point me staying,” Vilar said. “I'm not going to get any straight answers.”