He wondered with a stab in his heart if people made the same gesture when they spoke of Céline. But the caretaker’s voice brought him back to the small-town cemetery of Cassis, where he stood before the graves of a ruined family.
‘If that’s all you need . . .’
‘Oh, yes, you’re right. I’m sorry, Monsieur . . .?’
‘Norbert. Luc Norbert.’
‘I apologize for taking up so much of your time. You’re probably about to close for the night.’
‘No, the cemetery stays open late in the summer. I’ll come and close the gate later on, when it’s dark.’
‘Then I’ll stay here another minute, if you don’t mind.’
‘As you wish. If you need anything, I’ll be here. Or just ask anyone in town. Everybody knows me and they can show you where I live. Good evening, Monsieur . . .’
Hulot smiled and decided to give him something in exchange.
‘Hulot. Inspector Nicolas Hulot.’
The man accepted the confirmation of his guess without any particular expression. He simply nodded as though it could not have been otherwise.
‘Ah, Inspector Hulot. Well, good evening, inspector.’
‘Good evening to you, and thank you very much.’
The caretaker turned and Nicolas watched him go. The woman dressed in black was filling her vase with water from a tap near the chapel. A pigeon roosted on the roof of the toolshed while a seagull soared high above in the sky. Beggars of the earth and the sea who shared the refuse left by man.
He looked back at the gravestones, staring at them as if wishing they could talk, while an avalanche of thoughts went through his mind. What had happened at that house? Who had stolen Daniel Legrand’s disfigured body? What was the connection between a crime from ten years ago and a ferocious killer who destroyed his victims in exactly the same way?
He headed towards the exit. As he went down the walkway, he passed the grave of the boy who had drowned. He stopped for a moment in front of the grave and looked at the boy’s photo. A dead boy with a lively face, smiling in the black-and-white image, which had probably been retouched for the occasion. He bent down and read the dead boy’s name. His eyes took in the words and Nicolas Hulot suddenly could not breathe. He heard the rumbling of thunder and the words swelled to fill the entire surface of the gravestone. In one very long instant, he understood everything. And he knew the identity of No One.
Without really noticing, he heard the echo of steps approaching on the concrete. He thought it might be the woman dressed in black, returning to her son’s grave.
Immersed in his thoughts, possessed by the excitement of his discovery, his heart was beating as heavily as a drum. So he never noticed the lighter beat of the step that came up behind him. He did not notice until he heard the voice.
‘Congratulations, inspector. I never thought you would make it here.’
Inspector Nicolas Hulot turned around slowly. When he saw the gun pointed at him, he realized that, as the shadows of evening were lengthening, his good luck for the day had run out.
FORTY-FOUR
When Frank awoke it was still dark outside. He opened his eyes, and for the millionth time he was in an unknown bed, in an unknown room, in an unknown house. This time, however, it was different. His return to reality didn’t mean that he had to spend another day with the same thoughts as the day before. He turned his head to the left and in the bluish light from the lampshade, he saw Helena asleep beside him. The sheet only partly covered her and Frank admired the form of her muscles under her skin, the chiselled shoulders that ended in the smooth line of her arms. He turned on his side and moved closer to her, like a stray dog cautiously approaching food offered by a stranger, until he could smell the natural perfume of her skin. It was their second night together.
The night before, they had returned to the villa and climbed out of Frank’s car almost fearful that abandoning that small space might change something, that what had been created inside the car might evaporate when exposed to air. They had gone inside the house furtively, without making a sound, as if what they were about to do was not within their rights but achieved by force and falsehood.
Frank had cursed that uneasy feeling and the person who was the cause of it. There had not been any food or wine, as Helena had promised. It was just the two of them. Their clothing fell to the floor with the certainty of a promise kept. There was another hunger and another thirst to satisfy, ignored for far too long. There was an emptiness to fill, and only then did they realize how immense it was. Frank lay back on the pillow, closed his eyes, and let the images run free.
The door.
The stairs.
The bed.
Helena’s skin, unlike any other, touching his, finally speaking a familiar language.
Her beautiful eyes veiled in shadow.
Her frightened look when Frank had taken her in his arms. Her voice, a sigh on her lips brushing his.
Please don’t hurt me, she begged.
Frank’s eyes were wet with emotion. Words hadn’t helped him. Helena couldn’t find the right ones either. There was only the sweetness and fury with which they sought each other, needed each other. He had taken possession of her body as gently as he possibly could, wishing with all his might that he could go back in time and change the course of things. And, as he lost himself in her, he realized she had given him the power to do exactly that, and she could do the same for him. They would erase the suffering, if not the memory.
The memory . . .
He had not been with a woman since Harriet. Part of him had gone into suspended animation, leaving only his primary vital functions, the ones that allowed him to eat, drink, breathe and roam the world like a robot made of flesh and blood. Harriet’s death had taught him that love cannot be reproduced on command. One can’t just decide to love again. Nor can one just decide never to love again. It takes more than simple willpower, however strong. One needs the blessing of chance, that unique conjunction of elements that thousands of years of experience and discussion and poetry have not been able to explain. Only try to describe.
Helena was an unexpected gift of fate. A surprise. Like the amazing discovery of a single blade of grass growing amid scorched rocks and barren earth. It did not yet mean a return to life, but it was a small, softly murmured promise. A possibility to be cultivated in the throes of hope and trepidation, not happiness.
‘Are you asleep?’
Helena’s voice surprised him as he was sifting through their recent memories, vivid as freshly printed photographs. He turned and saw her outlined against the light of the bedside lamp. She was watching him, leaning on her elbow with her head in her hand.
‘No, I’m awake.’
They moved closer and Helena’s body slipped into the hollow of his arms with delicious ease. Frank again felt the miracle of Helena’s skin against his. She put her face on his chest and breathed in.
‘You smell good, Frank Ottobre. And you’re handsome.’
‘Of course I’m handsome. I’m the average man’s answer to George Clooney. But what was the question?’
Helena’s lips on his were confirmation of the question, as well as its answer. They made love again, with that lazy sensuality that summoned their bodies, still half-asleep, with a desire more emotional than physical. And their love made them forget the rest of the world, as only love can.
But the journey had a price. Afterwards, they lay in silence, staring at the white ceiling that hung over them a lot less than other presences they could feel in the amber light of that room – presences that would not go away if they merely closed their eyes.
Frank had spent the entire day at police headquarters working on the No One investigation. As the hours had passed and he watched every possible clue oscillate between nothing and absolute zero, he had tried to seem active and concentrate as his mind wandered.
He had thought of Nicolas Hulot following a lead so threadbare that their anxiety showed right through it. He had thought of
Helena, held prisoner by unforgivable blackmail and an equally unforgivable jailer in that impenetrable prison with its open doors and windows.
Frank had returned to Beausoleil that evening and felt rewarded to find her in the garden, like a traveller who comes to the end of his pilgrimage after a long, tiring walk in the desert.
Nathan Parker had called from Paris a couple of times while Frank was with her. The first time he had moved discreetly away, but Helena had stopped him by grabbing his arm with surprising force. He had listened to her conversation with her father, which consisted mostly of monosyllables, while her eyes gleamed with a terror he feared would never go away.
Finally, Stuart had come to the phone and Helena’s eyes had lit up as she spoke to her son. Frank had realized that Stuart was her lifeboat, her way of escape. He also knew that the way to her heart passed directly through her son. It was impossible to have one without the other. Frank had wondered whether he would be capable of following that path, and a wave of foreboding swept over him.
Helena placed her hand on the scar that ran across the left side of his chest, a pink area of skin that stood out against his tan. Helena could feel that it was different, skin that had grown afterwards, part of a suit of armour. It was meant to protect against harm, like all armour, but inevitably it had also prevented the gentle touch of a caress.
‘Does it hurt?’ she asked, running her fingers over it gently, tracing the outline.
‘Not any more.’
There was a moment of silence and Frank felt that Helena was touching their scars and not just his.
We’re alive, Helena. Beaten and imprisoned, but alive. And outside there’s someone shouting who is trying to dig us out of the rubble. Hurry, I’m begging you. Please hurry.
Helena smiled and the light in the room grew brighter. She turned and climbed on top of him as if to declare a personal conquest. She bit his nose gently.
‘What if I bit it off? George Clooney would win by a nose.’
Frank pushed her face away with his hands. Helena tried to resist, and her mouth left his nose with a sucking noise. ‘With or without a nose, I’m going to have a lot of trouble imagining my life without you.’
A shadow passed over Helena’s face and her grey eyes turned the colour of a knife blade. She took his hands from her face. Frank tried to imagine the thoughts behind that shadow.
‘What’s wrong? I didn’t say anything so bad. I didn’t ask you to marry me, you know.’
Helena buried her face in his shoulder. Her tone declared their brief, light-hearted moment over.
‘I’m already married. Or at least I was.’
‘What do you mean, you were?’
‘You know what the world of politics is like, Frank. It’s show business. Everything’s fake, it’s all fiction. And like in Hollywood, anything’s possible in Washington, as long as it isn’t made public. A man with a career can’t have the scandal of an unmarried daughter with a baby.’
Frank kept silent, waiting. He felt Helena’s warm, damp breath caress him as she spoke. Her voice came from somewhere on his shoulder, but it sounded like it was coming from the depths of a well.
‘All the moreso if the man is General Nathan Parker. So officially, I’m the widow of Captain Randall Keegan, killed during the Gulf War with a wife in America expecting a child that wasn’t his.’
She raised herself to the position she had been in before, her face against his. There was a smile on her lips but she looked into Frank’s eyes as if a pardon could only come from him. Frank never knew that a smile could hold so much bitterness. As Helena described her situation, it was almost as if she were speaking about someone else, someone she both pitied and despised.
‘I’m the widow of a man I saw for the first time on our wedding day and never saw again, except in a flag-draped coffin. Don’t ask me how my father got him to marry me. I don’t know what he promised in exchange, but I can imagine. It was to be a marriage by proxy, long enough to create a smokescreen, followed by a simple divorce. Meanwhile, an uncomplicated career, an endless red carpet. And you know the funny thing?’ Frank waited, silently. He knew very well that the funny thing would not be at all funny. ‘Captain Randall Keegan died in the Gulf War without firing a single shot. He fell heroically during unloading operations, hit by a Hummer with failed brakes. One of the shortest marriages in history.’
Frank did not have time to answer. He was still absorbing this further demonstration of Nathan Parker’s treachery and power when his mobile phone on the table started to vibrate. Frank managed to grab it before the ringer went on. He looked at the time. Time for trouble.
‘Hello?’
‘Frank? It’s Morelli.’
Helena, lying next to him, saw his face contract.
‘What is it, Claude? Something bad?’
‘Yes, Frank, but not what you think. Inspector Hulot was in a car accident.’
‘When?’
‘We don’t really know yet. The French traffic police just informed us. A hunter who went out to train his dogs found his car at the bottom of a ditch off a side road near Auriol, in Provence.’
‘How is he?’
Morelli’s brief silence was eloquent. Frank felt anguish tear at his heart.
No, Nicolas. Not you, not now. Not in this God-awful way when your life seemed like a pile of shit. Not like this, bad boy.
‘He’s dead, Frank.’
Frank gnashed his jaws so hard that he could hear his teeth crunch. His knuckles turned white on the phone. For a moment, Helena thought he might crush it in his hand.
‘Does his wife know?’
‘No. I haven’t told her. I thought you’d want to.’
‘Thanks, Claude. Good thinking.’
‘I would have preferred not to get that compliment.’
‘I know, and I thank you, on Céline Hulot’s behalf as well.’
Helena watched him go over to the armchair where his clothes were scattered. He pulled on his trousers. She got out of bed, covering her breasts with the sheet. Frank didn’t notice that instinctive gesture of modesty – nudity was still not natural for her.
‘What happened, Frank? Where are you going?’
Frank looked at her and Helena could read the bitter pain on his face. She watched him sit on the bed to put on his socks. His voice came to her from behind the shield of his scarred shoulder.
‘I’m going to the worst place on earth, Helena. I’m going to wake a woman in the middle of the night to tell her that her husband is never coming home.’
FORTY-FIVE
It rained during Nicolas Hulot’s funeral. The sky had apparently decided to interrupt the beautiful summer weather and pour down the same tears that were being cried below. It was a steady, uncompromising rain, as steady and uncompromising as the life of an ordinary police inspector. Now, unwittingly perhaps, he was collecting the only reward he might have desired while he was still alive: to be lowered into the same earth that held his son, to the accompaniment of words written only to console the living.
Céline was standing by the grave next to the priest, her face frozen in a mask of pain as she witnessed the reuniting of her husband and son. Her sister and brother-in-law, who had rushed in from Carcassonne at the news, were beside her.
The funeral was private, in accordance with Nicolas’s wishes. Nonetheless, a small crowd had gathered at the Eze cemetery. From where Frank was standing, on the side at a slightly higher elevation, he could observe the people surrounding the young priest conducting the burial service, his head uncovered despite the rain. They were friends and acquaintances and inhabitants of Eze, and all of them knew and appreciated the character of the man to whom they were bidding a final farewell. There were also some who had come just out of curiosity.
Morelli was there, and Frank was moved by his profound expression of grief. Roncaille and Durand had come, representing the Principality authorities, as well as all the Sûreté personnel who were not on duty. Frank saw Froben oppos
ite him, his head also uncovered. In addition, Bikjalo, Laurent, Jean-Loup and Barbara, along with many of the staff of Radio Monte Carlo, were there. Even Pierrot and his mother, off to one side.
The few reporters present were kept outside by security guards, although they were not really necessary. The death of a man in a car accident was far too commonplace to be of real interest, even if it was the inspector of the No One case who had recently been removed from the investigation.
Frank looked at Nicolas Hulot’s coffin. It was being slowly lowered into the grave, dug into the earth like a wound, accompanied by a mixture of rain and holy water like a joint blessing from heaven and earth. Two attendants wearing green raincoats and holding shovels started to fill the grave with earth.
Frank stood there until the last shovelful. Soon the ground would be smoothed over and someone who worked there would place a marble slab on top, like the one next to it. There would probably be an epitaph saying that in some way, Stéphane Hulot and his father, Nicolas, had found each other. The priest said the final blessing and they all crossed themselves. In spite of everything, Frank could not manage to say the word Amen.
The crowd began to disperse straight away. Those closest to the family said a few words to the widow before leaving. Céline saw Frank as she was embraced by the Merciers. She greeted Guillaume and his parents, received the hurried condolences of Roncaille and Durand, then turned and whispered something to her sister, who left her alone and started walking towards the cemetery entrance with her husband. Frank saw Céline’s graceful figure approach him with her calm step and reddened eyes, which she refused to hide behind dark glasses.
Without a word, Céline sought refuge in his arms. He felt her weep silently on his shoulder, as she finally granted herself the relief of tears, which could not reconstruct her small, shattered world. After a few moments Céline pulled away and looked at him. Incandescent grief shone in her eyes.
‘Thank you, Frank. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being the one to tell me. I know how difficult that must have been for you.’