After the Crash (36 page)

Marc found himself leaning against a skip in Rue Pocholle. At the
end of the street, illuminated by the weak moonlight, he saw two
cats facing each other, their fur on end. He wondered if they were
the same cats that Lylie had chased when she was seven years old. It
was possible. The same cats, but eleven years older.

Marc felt strangely calm: much calmer than he had felt a few
minutes, or even a few hours, earlier. Suddenly, he could see what
he had to do next. The news of Lylie’s pregnancy had forced him
to jettison all superfluous thoughts. The mystery of the two DNA
tests could wait, and so could the murder of his grandfather. Right
now, Marc cared only about one thing: Lylie, lying alone in a hospital room in Paris, pregnant, a child in her womb.

Their child.
Marc walked towards the only working street lamp in Rue
Pocholle. He had tried to call Lylie five times, but there was still no
answer. He knew that calling any more hospitals would be pointless. They had to respect their clients’ desire for anonymity. And
Lylie would have asked for anonymity, of course.
Once again, Marc resigned himself to leaving a message on Lylie’s
phone, leaning against a lamp post like a drunkard serenading the
moon.
‘Lylie, I know. Nicole told me everything. I’m so sorry I didn’t
realise. Where are you? I have to be there, with you. I promise I
won’t try to change your mind. I’m not going to lie to you – I haven’t found out anything more in the investigation. All I have is my
intuition, and you already know what I believe. I know that’s not
enough for you but wait for me, Lylie, please. Ask me to come and
I’ll be there. Ask me, I’m begging you. I love you so much.’
The phone message flew off into the cloudless night.

The two cats were squaring up to each other now, both hissing, as if
they were about to fight to the death. And yet this was just a game:
the same game they played every night over so many years.

Marc sat down on the pavement. He knew this street like the
back of his hand. One day, Lylie had fallen off her tricycle here, at
the very spot where he was sitting. It wasn’t serious, just a graze.
She’d bled a little, over the pavement, but the blood had been
washed away years ago by the rain.

Marc closed his eyes.
A child. Their child.
He felt angry. Not with Lylie, but with life. With the way things

One of the first-floor windows opened, and someone yelled out
at the cats. Marc didn’t know who it was; they must have moved
here recently. One of the cats ran off. The other one stood there for
a few seconds, then trotted towards Marc. Marc held out his hand
and the cat rubbed against it. He wondered how many times this
old tomcat had been stroked by Lylie.

Of course, Marc understood why Lylie felt an abortion was necessary. It had nothing to do with her age, or worries about money,
or how a baby would affect her career. It was simply that Lylie
did not want to give birth to a child born of an incestuous union.
Unless her identity could be proved, definitively, Lylie would never
risk bringing a monster into the world.

Lylie smoked a cigarette on the balcony. She knew it was wrong, but
she didn’t care. Just one cigarette. Well, three in fact. The girl with
the red hair and yellow teeth was not stingy with her fags. She’d
given Lylie the whole packet.

Lylie listened to Marc’s message. She replied with a text. There
was no possibility that Marc would find her. It was better like this.
She had to do this alone.

It would be madness to keep this child. Lylie knew, more than
anyone, how hard it was to live without an identity. How could she
possibly inflict such a punishment on her own baby?

In the palm of her left hand, she held the Tuareg cross Marc had
given her. The fingers of her right hand typed out the long message
she sent in four parts:

I will have to stay here all day tomorrow. The doctors say they need
to run some more tests for the anaesthetic. Maybe it’s just a ruse to give
me more time to think about it . . .

Anyway, the operation will not take place until the day after tomorrow. But please don’t worry about me. I have made the right decision.
Everything will be all right.
Take care of yourself.

In his bedroom, lying on his childhood bed, Marc read the message. Straight away, he tried to call her back. She wasn’t answering.
He read through the message again and again. Only one sentence
seemed to matter: ‘The operation will not take place until the day
after tomorrow.’

So he had one more day to discover the truth. Marc took this as
a sign. All was not yet lost.
He stared at the bunk bed above his. As he lay there, an idea
germinated in his mind. Only one thing was certain: all of the elements in this case were somehow connected. The murder of his
grandfather, the murder of Grand-Duc, perhaps other murders that
he didn’t yet know about . . . and Lylie’s true identity.
Crédule Grand-Duc had found the solution. He had discovered
it just before he was murdered. He had been planning to go to the
Jura mountains, to Mont Terri. That made sense. After all, that was
where everything had begun. Perhaps it was fated to end there too.

At 4 a.m., Marc got up and put on a sweater. What did he have to
lose? He had no other leads. He walked carefully through the darkness, towards his grandmother’s bedroom.

‘Marc?’ Nicole said sleepily.
‘Does the van still work, Nicole?’
Nicole rubbed her eyes and glanced at the alarm clock on her

bedside table. ‘Umm . . . yes . . . I think so. I don’t use it much
anymore. And the last time I drove it, there was . . .’
‘Are the keys still in the middle drawer in the living room?’
‘Yes. But . . .’
‘Thanks. Don’t worry . . .’

‘Be careful,’ Nicole wanted to say, but her words were lost in a
coughing fit. She held a handkerchief to her mouth. She knew she
would not get any more sleep that night.

The van started at the first attempt. Marc had driven it several
times, but only for short distances. He was usually the one who had
moved it out of the garden recently. Nicole had taught him exactly
how to manoeuvre it out of this tiny, confined space, navigating by
means of the letterbox and the neighbours’ left-hand shutter. There
were only inches to spare on either side.

The Vitrals’ Type H Citroën van was one of the last of its kind to
be made in France. Pierre Vitral had bought it in 1979, and Citroën
had stopped production two years later. Pierre had chosen the longest model, very similar to the type of van bought by butchers in the
1970s; orange with a red, flattened nose that made it look like a big
dog, two round headlights for eyes and wing mirrors on metal stalks
for ears. Her big bow-wow, Lylie called it. The big, lazy bow-wow
that slept outside and filled the entire garden.

Pierre had converted it himself with the help of his cousin, who
was a car mechanic in Neuville. This same cousin still carried out
repairs on it occasionally, so it was in good condition, considering
its age and the 200,000 miles on its clock. And besides, Marc had
no choice: he had to believe the van would hold together, in spite
of its dented bodywork, the broken windscreen wipers, and the
bonnet that did not close properly.

He checked his watch: just after four. Dieppe was sleeping.
He drove through a ghost town, watched over by the kites that
moved in the wind high above. The Citroën was noisy, but at least
it worked. Marc didn’t want to count his chickens though: there
were still nearly 400 miles to go. Marc had consulted the map
before he started, and decided to avoid Paris. He had written his
route down on a piece of paper: Neufchâtel-en-Bray, Beauvais,
Compiègne, Soissons, Reims, Châlons-en-Champagne, Saint-Dizier, Langres, Vesoul, Montbéliard, Mont Terri. He reckoned it
would take him about ten hours to reach his destination. If all went
well.

Marc drove alongside the port. All he had to do now was go up
Boulevard Chanzy and he would be on his way out of Dieppe. The
streets were deserted. At the end of the boulevard, Marc passed the
train station. For some reason his eyes were drawn towards it . . .
and spotted a girl asleep on a bench.

The Citroën came to an abrupt halt. Well, at least the brakes
worked.
And so did the horn.
Malvina de Carville awoke, startled, and instinctively reached
for one of the stones she had brought with her from the beach. She
stood up, then recognised Marc, sitting behind the steering wheel
of an orange-and-red van. He wound down the window.
‘You’re not going to stone my old van, are you?’
‘Just give me back my gun!’
‘Don’t worry, it’s in my pocket. I’m keeping it warm for you. Get
in!’
Malvina’s eyes opened wide with disbelief. ‘You want me to help
you sell chips?’
‘I’m going somewhere that might interest you. Get in!’
Without letting go of the stone in her hand, Malvina moved
closer. She gave the van a sceptical once-over.
‘Don’t tell me you’re planning to drive to Mont Terri in this? It’s
a death-trap!’
Marc absorbed this verbal punch, trying not to think about
whether it might have been deliberate.
‘You’ve never been there, have you? I bet you’re dying to see it.’
Malvina dropped the stone. ‘You have no idea how right you are.’
Marc opened the passenger door and she clambered inside.
‘God, what a mess this thing is! I bet we won’t even make it to
Paris . . .’
‘Piss off! Anyway, we’re not going via Paris.’ He handed her the
list of towns that they would pass through.
‘I’ve never even heard of most of these places,’ she said. ‘You’d
better hope we don’t break down. I think you’re crazier than
I am.’
For the next ten minutes, they drove in silence. The road hugged
the valley of the Pays de Bray, tracing long curves over the landscape.
Marc said: ‘Sorry we didn’t invite you to dinner last night.
Another time, maybe?’
‘Don’t worry about me, I can look after myself. I made friends
with a few local guys.’
Another ten-minute silence. They were nearing
Neufchâtel-en-Bray.
‘So what are we going to do at Mont Terri?’ Malvina asked.
Marc shrugged. ‘It’s a sort of pilgrimage.’
Malvina looked at him curiously. ‘And the idea just came to you
tonight? I thought the case was solved. What else is there to say
after that stupid DNA test? Dragonfly is your sister. Are you’re just
upset because you’re fucking her.’
Marc braked suddenly.
Malvina, half-choked by the seatbelt, said: ‘If you’re going to do
that every time I have a dig at you, we’ll never get there.’
A
dig
? Marc was going to have to sit through ten hours of this
shit.
‘I’m sorry about the seatbelt,’ he said. ‘I forgot to bring the
booster seat.’
Malvina pretended to laugh. ‘This isn’t going to be boring at
all, you’ll keep me amused with all your excellent jokes,’ she said
sarcastically.
After another silence, Marc said: ‘So you believe that stupid
DNA test?’
‘God, no!’
‘Good. Then we’re in agreement.’
‘It’s total crap,’ Malvina said. ‘I always knew Grand-Duc was on
your side. Because he felt guilty. And because he liked your grandmother’s tits . . .’
This time, Marc did not hit the brakes, but he did think seriously
about leaving Malvina by the roadside. He probably would have
done, except he needed her. He had to be patient: Malvina would
be useful. She had already given him information, without being
aware of it, when she talked about Grand-Duc’s feelings of guilt.
And that was just the start . . .
They were silent for almost an hour, until they reached Beauvais.
The road sped past, empty and monotonous. Malvina leaned forward, and the stiff, dusty seatbelt scraped her ear. ‘I’m guessing your
radio doesn’t work?’
‘Nope. But the cassette player should be OK. Look in the glove
compartment and you’ll find the tapes we used to listen to when we
were young.’
‘You’re kidding!’ Malvina laughed. ‘Cassette tapes? Do those
things still exist?’
Malvina opened the glove compartment. ‘What does a tape look
like?’ She turned towards Marc, her eyes sparkling with mischief.
She spent a few minutes looking through the cassettes, then put
one in the player, without showing it to Marc. A brutal guitar riff,
mixed with the sound of a police siren, filled the van’s interior. ‘La
Ballade de Serge K’. A lonely man’s night-time drive.
Marc recognised the album as soon as he heard the first chord.
Poèmes Rock
.
‘Demain, demain. Demain comme hier,’ sang Charlelie Couture
in his nasal voice.
‘I had a feeling you’d choose that one,’ Marc said.
‘I didn’t want to disappoint you.’
Marc smiled. They were entering Beauvais. Even at five in the
morning, it was a pain to drive through. They kept having to stop
at traffic lights that appeared to have been designed by a sadistic
government employee so that any motorist obeying the speed limit
would always hit a red light.
‘You’re right,’ Marc said, between two traffic lights. ‘
Poèmes Rock
is the best French rock album ever written, in my opinion.’
‘Really?’ said Malvina indifferently. ‘I only know one song. But
unfortunately it’s not a CD, so we can’t just skip to it.’
‘What do you listen to normally?’ he asked her.
‘Nothing.’

As they left Beauvais, the first side of the tape came to an end,
and Malvina turned it over. Finally, she would get to hear the song
she knew. She turned the volume as high as it would go. The van
vibrated as Charlelie Couture sang:

Like a plane without wings,
I sang all night
Yes, I sang all night
For the one who didn’t believe me . . .

Even if I can’t take off,
I will go all the way to the end
Yes, I will play all night
Even though I know I can’t win