Irene (40 page)

Just as he feels the tremor of heavy boots pounding on the wooden steps behind him, just as the shadowy figures of the R.A.I.D. officers fill the doorway, Camille turns his head and, through the shadows fitfully illuminated by flashes of blue light, he sees a cross that seems to hover in the air and on it, a small, dark, almost shapeless figure, its arms spread wide.

Monday, 26 April, 2004

Dear Camille,

A year. One year already. Here, as you can imagine, time is neither swift nor slow. Here the time that trickles in from the outside world is so deadened once it reaches us that we wonder whether it passes for us as it does for others. Especially as my position is less than comfortable.

Ever since your lieutenant chased me through the woods in Clamart and shot me in the back in a cowardly fashion, causing irreparable damage to my spinal cord, I am confined to the wheelchair from which I write this letter.

I have become inured to it. Indeed, there are times when I am grateful, since my condition affords me privileges other inmates are denied. I receive greater care and attention than others. I am not expected to perform demeaning chores. It is a small blessing, but in here, every little thing counts.

In fact, I am much better than I was at first. I have settled in, as they say. My legs may be useless, but my other faculties are in perfect order. I read, I write. In short, I live. And, gradually, I have carved out a niche for myself. Indeed I can say that, contrary to what one might expect, I am envied. After so many months in hospital, I finally
arrived in this establishment to discover my reputation had preceded me, something that ensured me a certain grudging respect. Nor is that the whole story.

It will be a long time before I go on trial, though it scarcely matters to me since the verdict is a foregone conclusion. Actually, that is not quite true. I am looking forward to the trial. Despite the law’s interminable delay, I am confident that my lawyers – you cannot imagine how the vultures squeeze me dry – will finally succeed in securing publication of my novel which, given all that has been written about me, is bound to get great publicity. It is destined to be an international bestseller whose sales can only be enhanced by a protracted trial. In the words of my editor – that mangy cur – it will be good for business. We have already had offers for the film rights, which will give you some idea.

I felt it only right, while I await the next flurry of articles, features and profiles, to take a moment to pen you a few words.

Despite my precautions, events did not unfold as perfectly as I had hoped. This is regrettable, given that I came so close. Had I simply adhered to the timetable (one that I drew up, I acknowledge), had I been a whit less confident about my plan, I would have disappeared as I intended the moment your wife breathed her last, and I would now be writing to you from the little paradise I had planned, and would still have the use of my legs. It appears, after all, that there is some justice. That must be a comfort to you.

You will note that I speak of my “plan” rather than my “masterwork”. I have no further need of that pretentious verbiage that served only to further this plan, those grandiose delusions in which I never for a moment believed. Making you believe that I was “charged with a mission”, “swept along by something greater than myself”, was no more than a novelistic trope. And not, I’ll
grant, the most original. Happily, I am nothing of the sort. Indeed I was somewhat surprised that you embraced the idea. Once again, psychological profilers have proved their mettle and once again they have been found wanting. No, I am an eminently pragmatic man. And humble, too. In spite of my creative urges, I was never under any illusion about my talents as a writer. Nonetheless, borne along on the wave of scandal and the horrified prurience that violent tragedy arouses, my book will sell millions, it will be translated, it will be adapted; in the annals of literature, it will endure. These are things I could never have attained through my talents alone. I simply sidestepped the obstacles in my path. I shall have earned my fame.

As for you, Camille, the future seems less certain, if you will forgive my saying so. Those close to you know what sort of a man you are. A man far removed from the Camille Verhœven I described. In order to comply with the rules of the genre, I felt obliged to flatter, to indulge in a little hagiography. Readers expect such things. But in your heart of hearts, you know that you are no match for the character I created.

Neither you nor I are the people others imagined us to be. Perhaps, after all, we are not as different as we might like to think. In a certain sense, did we not both kill your wife?

I will leave you to ponder that question.

You remain, Sir,
my
humble servant,

P. Buisson

Irène
was my first novel. Since I owe almost everything I am to literature, it felt natural to begin by writing a novel which was a homage to crime fiction. In fact, I made this the subject of my novel, since
Irène
is the story of a killer who re-enacts murders ripped from the pages of crime novels.

I began with Emile Gaboriau’s
Le Crime d’Orcival
, one of the great precursors to the detective novel. And having paid my debt to history, I decided it was impossible to begin Camille Verhœven’s investigation with anything other than
The Black Dahlia
(1987), James Ellroy’s masterpiece. There is crime fiction before Ellroy, and crime fiction after. Knowing the man himself is a great admirer of Hammett and Chandler, I took the liberty of taking inspiration from him.

American Psycho
was a tremendous shock to the reading public. Bret Easton Ellis raises so many moral questions with such intelligence, such skill. Though not considered a crime novel, this defining work deftly addresses readers’ ambiguity towards the very violence which is an essential “pleasure” of crime fiction. Yet many criticised the visceral brutality in
American Psycho
, as though the purpose of such fiction is to exorcise our hyper-violent societies, but to remain within “reasonable limits”.

Laidlaw
, by William McIlvanney, was among the most devastating revelations for me as a reader. Laidlaw is a haunting,
wounded figure and the backdrop to his investigation of Jennifer Lawson’s murder is a novel of great social and political depth. I was privileged to meet McIlvanney recently, and it brought tears to my eyes.

John D. MacDonald’s ground-breaking
The End of the Night
, following four murderers all the way to the electric chair, is a dazzling and utterly original achievement. In
Irène
, the false trail it inspires is a mark of my genuine admiration.

Sjöwall & Wahlöö’s
Roseanna
is a novel with few peers: a slow, deliberately measured book in which, though nothing seems to happen, the reader is held spellbound. Evoking it within the pages of my own book, I pay tribute to Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, two truly great writers.

These acknowledgements would not be complete without acknowledging the debt I owe to Christopher MacLehose, who, in publishing my work, has brought me to an international readership.

And my sincere thanks to Frank Wynne, an outstanding translator, to whom this book, and all the others, owes much. This novel rather more than the rest.

PIERRE LEMAITRE, 2014

PIERRE LEMAITRE
was born in Paris in 1956. He worked for many years as a teacher of literature before becoming a novelist. He was awarded the 2013 Crime Writers Association International Dagger for
Alex
(MacLehose Press, 2012), and for his literary novel
Au-revoir là haut
he is the 2013 winner of the prestigious Prix Goncourt.

FRANK WYNNE
is a translator from French and Spanish. His translations include works by Michel Houellebecq, Marcelo Figueras’
Independent
Foreign Fiction Prize-shortlisted
Kamchatka
, and
Alex
by Pierre Lemaitre.