‘You are from Quebec?’
Julia groaned, inwardly. She answered, in English:
‘I talk like a lumberjack from Chicoutimi, don’t I?’
‘Please. Your French is…’ The smile persisted. ‘Charming. But I speak very good English. So it is not remotely necessary. But thankyou.’
Julia sat back and was quiet, trying not to be insulted, trying not to feel anything selfish: she was in the middle of Annika’s shock and horror. But that was the problem of being an only child: the selfish reaction, it was conditioned and immediate, and Julia was always on the watch for it, in herself.
She gazed at the metronomic smearing of the rain on the windscreen, and the brief glimpses of other cars, shooting past them on the narrow country roads. It was only fifty kilometres to Mende but the drive would take an hour, in this weather, on these circuitous roads.
A memory returned, importunate, like a meek child knocking timidly at the door: a memory of herself and her father and mother, driving in the rain, the snow and rain of Ontario: watching lonely snowflakes settling on the car window, trusting her father’s driving, absorbed by the way the flakes were beaten and crushed by the wipers, dissolved.
Julia recalled the way she felt safe and privileged yet sad: the only child, alone in the too-big back-seat of her parents’ SUV; it was a family vehicle, all the seats were meant to be filled, but she had no brother to argue with, no sister to play with. So she sat upright in the middle of the empty space. Importantly. Talking to the adults. Precocious and garrulous and selfish, like so many only children.
And also lonely.
The Peugeot was quiet now, this was truly a morbid business. Yet Julia felt the urge to converse. She found silence – when she was on her own – quite soothing and enriching; but silence between people she could not bear. It made her feel lonely, again.
A question recurred. Why was Annika going to identify the body? She and Ghislaine were not married, they were just friends – and ex lovers. Surely he had someone else, someone related? Hadn’t there been a mention of children, or siblings? Nephews maybe?
Julia knew it might be an insensitive inquiry, but she couldn’t help it: she was intrigued as well as horrified by the whole scenario.
‘Annika?’
The Belgian woman didn’t even turn to face her questioner. But she answered, coldly:
‘Oui?’
‘Ghislaine has no other family?’
‘No.’ Annika’s reply was curt, and barely softened by her continuance: ‘There is a sister but she is in America. No one else.’
‘But I thought… I thought he had kids from a -’
‘No children!’ Annika’s composure had fractured, momentarily; and now she turned: ‘Nothing like that. He was alone.’
Then the studied calmness returned, like the older woman had neatly zipped her unwanted emotions into a bag, and dropped this bag disdainfully in a bin. Julia noted that Rouvier, in the front passenger seat, had turned to observe this female exchange. His frown was not unhappy, it was the frown of curiosity. Professional and clever.
Julia guessed he was very senior in the Lozère police force: because she likewise surmised there weren’t many murders, out here on the moors and the steppes of France’s loneliest departement. So any such crime would attract the most senior policeman.
The lights of suburban Mende glowed fizzydrink orange on the rain blurred horizon. Rouvier spoke quickly and quietly with Annika. Julia tried to listen in, even as she tried to pretend she was not listening out of politeness; she definitely caught the phrase – prepare yourself.
For what? How had he died? Who murdered him?
The shock of the situation kicked in, once again, or maybe for the first time properly. Julia felt a shiver of fear run through her. Murdered.
Now they were in Mende the car was actually speeding up: emancipated by these empty urban motorways, which were virtually deserted at this time of night – and in this type of weather. They slashed through rainy Mende, jumping amber lights, their police siren howling in a satisfying way.
She watched the sights of her adopted and temporary hometown flee past the windows. The cathedral, the museum, the Hotel Lion d’Or. Why did every French town have a Hotel Lion d’Or?
And then the hospital. Julia had never visited Mende hospital before, but it was just like any hospital. It could have been a hospital in Toronto.
‘Par là… je connais bien la route.’
Doors opened, nurses passed, old people lay on trolleys, staring grimly at nothing: people cuckolded by their own bodies, betrayed.
The four of them took an enormous steel elevator to the basement. Again Julia felt the absurd urge to fill conversational silence. What could she say: Hey, isn’t this a big elevator?
She said nothing. Shut her eyes. Tried not to think of what they were about to see. Would she even see anything, would they allow her in as well? Ghoulishly, Julia wanted to observe the body. She had never seen a murdered person. She desired the unique experience even as she despaired at her own heartlessness. Poor Annika. Poor Ghislaine.
The French being spoken was urgent, but whispered, like they were in church, as they walked the long corridor to the mortuary; Julia asked herself why people always whispered in the presence of the dead. The dead, she thought, are also deaf.
A wide door swung open, automatically. As they crossed the threshold, a man in light blue rubber gloves came over, briefly smiled at Rouvier, scanned the other faces, and met Annika’s eyes with his own. She nodded.
He motioned: this way.
It was all happening very quickly, Julia had expected more of a palaver, a prologue, some polite and ritual ablutions. But this was brisk French efficiency, verging on harsh un sentimentality. The four of them filed through a wide overbright room, full of trolleys and the shapes of bodies under plastic sheets.
Now they paused, but only for a fraction of a second, and then the doctor pulled the top of the plastic sheet down to the neck.
It was Ghislaine’s face. He seemed almost calm. The eyes were shut, with just a smudge of blood on the nose. The skin was ghastly pale, but the relaxation of death gave the professor, oddly, a more youthful appearance. No longer straining and posing; the absurd hair was tousled, like a young man’s hair, actually unkempt. It looked better that way.
What a horrible horrible pity. A huge engulfing wave of sadness and pity nearly knocked Julia down, she steadied herself, gripped her feelings. Poor Ghislaine, why had he died? How? Who?
‘Oui. C’est lui,’ Annika had spoken; she had identifie le corps. The doctor went to pull the sheet back, but Annika reached out a dignified arm and gripped his wrist.
‘Non, laissez-moi voir -’
She wanted to see the rest of the body. The doctor threw an anxious glance at Officer Rouvier, who hesitated – and then nodded, discreetly.
The doctor pulled back the sheet. They stared.
And they flinched.
Ghislaine had been almost ripped apart. That was the only description: he had been cut up with such savagery it was practically a dismemberment. The blood was splattered on the underside of the plastic sheet; so much blood was smeared on his wounded corpse he looked like he was tattooed red and purple, all over.
Whoever had knifed him to death had done it with wild anger, lust even. Slashing his arms and legs, plunging a knife into the groin – several times, cutting and slashing. Seeing the corpse was like looking at disgusting pornography. Bestiality.
Lost in her own thoughts, Julia only now realized, Annika was sobbing.