“At what age precisely did your son begin raping Alex?”
She makes a terrible fuss. No surprise there.
“Madame Prévost,” Camille says, smiling, “don’t take me for a fool. In fact I advise you to do everything you can to help me because otherwise I’m going to make sure your son’s banged up for the rest of his natural life.”
Threatening her son has the desired effect. She doesn’t care what happens to her, but no-one touches her son. Even so, she sticks to her guns.
“Thomas loved his sister; he would never have touched a hair on her head.”
“We’re not discussing her hair.”
Mme Prévost is impervious to Camille’s humour. She shakes her head; it’s hard to know whether this means that she doesn’t know or that she refuses to say.
“If you were aware of what was happening and you allowed it to continue, you are guilty of accessory to aggravated rape.”
“Thomas never touched his sister!”
“How do you know?”
“I know my son.”
They’re going round in circles. This is impossible: there’s no charge, no witnesses, no crime, no victim, no executioner.
Camille sighs and nods.
Thomas comes into my bedroom. He comes nearly every night. Maman knows.
“What about your daughter? Did you know her well?”
“As well as any mother knows her daughter.”
“That sounds promising.”
“I beg your pardon—”
“No, nothing.”
Camille takes out the slim case file.
“The autopsy report. Since you knew your daughter, I assume you know what’s in here.”
Camille puts on his glasses. Meaning
I’m dead on my feet, but here goes.
“It’s a little technical. I’ll translate.”
Mme Prévost hasn’t batted an eyelid since she got here. She sits ramrod straight, her very bones stiff, her every muscle tensed, her whole body an act of resistance.
“She was in a terrible state, your daughter, wasn’t she?”
She stares ahead at the partition wall. It looks as if she’s holding her breath.
“According to the pathologist,” he goes on, leafing through the report, “your daughter’s genital area showed signs of acid burns. I’m guessing sulphuric acid. What people used to call vitriol … These were deep and extensive burns. The clitoris was entirely destroyed – it seems to have been a form of female circumcision – the acid melted the labia majora and the labia minora and penetrated deep into the vagina. The acid was poured directly into the vagina in sufficient quantities that it mutilated everything. The mucous membranes were almost entirely destroyed, the flesh literally dissolved, leaving the whole genital area looking like magma.”
Camille looks up at Mme Prévost, stares hard at her.
“That’s the phrase the pathologist used: ‘a magma of flesh’. All this would have happened long ago; Alex would have been a young girl. Does it ring any bells?”
Mme Prévost looks at Camille; she is deathly pale, and her head shakes like a robot.
“Your daughter never spoke to you about it?”
“Never!”
The word bursts out like a gust of wind, the sudden crack of the family banner.
“I see. Your daughter didn’t want to bother you with her little problems. It probably just happened: someone poured half a litre of acid into her vagina and she just came home as usual as if nothing had happened. A model of discretion.”
“I don’t know.”
Nothing about her has changed: not the expression, not the posture, but her voice is solemn.
“The pathologists pointed out something else that’s curious,” Camille goes on. “The whole genital area was profoundly affected – nerve endings destroyed, the natural orifices permanently fused and disfigured. Your daughter would never have been able to have normal sexual relations. To say nothing of any other hopes she might have had. But, as I was saying, the curious thing …”
Camille stops, drops the report, takes off his glasses and sets them down in front of him, folds his arms and stares hard at Alex’s mother.
“… is that the urinary tract was crudely ‘patched up’. Because obviously this was a life-threatening condition. With the flesh fused together, she would have died within hours. According to
our pathologist, it was botched, brutal: a cannula forced through the meatus to open up the urinary tract.”
Silence.
“According to him, the result is nothing short of miraculous. And an act of butchery. That’s not how he puts it in his report, but that’s the gist.”
Mme Prévost tries to swallow, but her throat is dry; she seems about to choke, to cough, but no, nothing.
“Now obviously he’s a doctor. I’m a police officer. He makes observations; my job is to draw conclusions. And my theory is that this had to be done quickly. To make sure Alex didn’t have to go to hospital. Because they would have asked a lot of awkward questions, like the name of the man who had done this – I’m assuming it was a man – because the extent of the injuries was such that it could not have been an accident, it had to have been deliberate. Alex, brave little girl that she was, didn’t want to make a fuss; you knew her, it wasn’t her style, she was discreet …”
Mme Prévost finally manages to swallow.
“Tell me, Mme Prévost, how long have you worked as a nursing assistant?”
*
Thomas Vasseur bows his head. He has listened to the conclusions of the autopsy report in complete silence. He is now staring at Louis, who has been reading the report aloud, and when Vasseur does not react, he asks:
“Anything you’d like to say?”
Vasseur spreads his hands.
“It’s all very sad.”
“So you know about it?”
“Alex had no secrets from her big brother,” Vasseur says with a smile.
“In that case, you’ll be able to explain exactly how it happened, won’t you?”
“I’m afraid not. Alex mentioned it in passing, that’s all. I mean it was very private … She was very evasive.”
“So there’s nothing you can tell us about it?”
“I’m sorry.”
“You have no particulars … ?”
“None.”
“No details?”
“No.”
“No theory?”
“Well, I suppose … maybe someone got a little annoyed. Very annoyed.”
“Someone … you don’t know who?”
Vasseur smiles again.
“No idea.”
“So you think ‘someone’ got angry … About what?”
“I couldn’t say. That’s just what I gathered.”
It’s almost as though, until now, he’d been testing the water and has finally decided that he likes it. They aren’t being aggressive, these policemen, they’ve got nothing against him, no hard evidence – all this is written on his face. Besides, provocation is in his nature.
“You know … Alex could be a pain in the neck sometimes.”
“How so?”
“Well, she could be stubborn. She threw tantrums, you get the idea.”
And since no-one reacts, Vasseur can’t be sure he’s made his point.
“What I mean is, with a girl like that you’re bound to get angry. Maybe it was not having a father, but there was a side to her that was … defiant. Deep down, I think she had issues with authority. So sometimes, when the mood took her, she’d say ‘no’, and you couldn’t get a thing out of her.”
It almost feels as though Vasseur is reliving the scene rather than recounting it.
“That’s what she was like. Out of the blue, for no reason, she’d kick off. I swear she could really get on your nerves.”
“Is that what happened?” Louis asks in a faint, almost inaudible voice.
“I don’t know,” Vasseur says carefully, “I wasn’t there.”
He smiles at the officers.
“All I’m saying is that Alex was the kind of girl this sort of thing eventually happens to. She’d be pig-headed, stubborn … Eventually you run out of patience …”
Armand, who hasn’t uttered a word in the past hour, is rooted to the spot.
Louis is white as a sheet; he’s beginning to lose his composure. With him, this takes the form of an exaggerated formality.
“But … we are not talking about a common or garden spanking here, Monsieur Vasseur! We are talking about committing cruel, barbaric acts on a child who was not yet fifteen and who had been pimped out to adult men!”
He stresses every word, articulates every syllable. Camille can see how upset he is. Once again Vasseur, who is still perfectly composed, has got the better of him and he’s determined to rub his nose in it.
“If your theory about prostitution is correct, I’d say it was an occupational hazard.”
This time, Louis is flummoxed. He glances round for Camille. Camille smiles at him; he has seen it all and come through it. He nods as though he understands, as though he agrees with Vasseur’s conclusion.
“And did your mother know?” he says.
“About what? Oh, that – no … Alex didn’t want to worry her with her little problems. My mother had her fair share of problems … No, our mother never knew.”
“That’s a pity,” Camille says. “She would have been able to offer advice. Being a nurse, I mean. She would have been able to take emergency action.”
Vasseur simply nods, adopts a hurt expression. “What can you do?” he says resignedly. “We can’t rewrite history.”
“So when you found out this had happened, you didn’t want to press charges?”
Vasseur looks at Camille in surprise.
“But … against whom?”
What Camille hears is “But, why?”
It is 7.00 p.m. Night drew in so stealthily that no-one has realised that for some time now the interview has been taking place in a half-light which makes everything seem unreal.
Thomas Vasseur is tired. He struggles to his feet, as though
he’s just spent the night playing cards, puts his hands on his hips, arches his back and heaves a sigh of relief, stretching his stiff legs. The officers remain seated. Armand looks at the case file to give an impression of calm. Louis cautiously brushes the desk with the back of his hand. Camille also stands up; he walks to the door, then turns back and says wearily:
“Your half-sister Alex was blackmailing you. Why don’t we pick up from there, if it’s alright with you.”
“No, sorry,” Vasseur yawns. His expression is apologetic: he’d like to help, would be happy to oblige, but it’s not possible. He rolls down his shirt sleeves.
“I really have to get home now.”
“You could just call …”
Vasseur waves his hand as though refusing to stay for one last round.
“Honestly …”
“You have two options, Monsieur Vasseur. Either you sit down and answer our questions, which should only take an hour or two …”
“Or … ?” Vasseur puts his hands flat on the table.
Head bowed, he looks up, the heavy-browed stare of a movie hero about to pull a gun, but here it falls flat.
“Or I arrest you, which allows me to keep you in custody for at least twenty-four hours. We’d probably be allowed to hold you for forty-eight hours – the magistrate is a big fan of victims; he wouldn’t have any problem letting us keep you a little longer.”
Vasseur stares, wide-eyed.
“Arrest me … on what charge?”
“It doesn’t matter – aggravated rape, torture, procuring, murder, acts of barbarism, whatever you like, personally, I don’t
give a toss. But do say if you’ve got a preference …”
“But you’ve got no proof! Of anything!”
He explodes. He’s been patient, very patient, but that’s all over now. The police are abusing their authority.
“Fuck you! I’m out of here.”
At this point, everything happens very quickly.
Vasseur says something that no-one catches, grabs his jacket and before anyone can move he has dashed to the door, flung it open and has one foot outside. The two uniformed officers standing guard in the corridor immediately intervene. Vasseur stops, turns back.
“I think,” Camille says, “that perhaps it would be best to arrest you. Let’s say for murder. Alright with you?”
“You’ve got nothing on me. You’re just busting my balls, that’s it, isn’t it?”
He closes his eyes, prepared once more to tough it out, shuffles back into the office. He’s realised he’s fighting a losing battle.
“You have the right to make one telephone call to a relative,” Camille advises him, “and to see a doctor.”
“No, I want to see a lawyer.”
Le Guen informs the magistrate about the arrest and Armand takes care of the formalities. It’s always a race against time since
police custody is limited to twenty-four hours.
Vasseur does not object to anything; he wants this over and done with. He needs to square things with his wife, blame everything on these arseholes. He agrees to remove his shoelaces, his belt, lets them take his fingerprints, his D.N.A. – let them take what they want – all he cares about is that this is handled quickly. He refuses to speak while he waits for his lawyer. He will respond to administrative questions, but otherwise he’s not saying anything; he is waiting.
And he calls his wife.
“It’s work – nothing serious, but I can’t get away right now. Don’t worry. I’ve been unavoidably detained.”
In the circumstances, the choice of words seems unfortunate; he tries to think of something, but he’s not prepared, he’s not used to having to justify himself. So having no excuses, he adopts an overbearing tone that clearly says: stop bugging me with these trivial questions. On the other end of the line there is embarrassed silence, a refusal to understand.
“I already told you, I can’t get away right now!” Vasseur shouts. He can’t help himself. “You’ll just have to go on your own.”
Camille wonders whether he hits his wife.
“I’ll be home tomorrow.”
He doesn’t say what time.
“Right, I have to go now … Yeah, me too. Yeah, I’ll call you later.”
It is 8.15 p.m. Vasseur’s brief arrives at 11.00, a forceful energetic young man none of them has met before, but he clearly knows his stuff. He has half an hour in which to confer with his client, tell him how to behave, advise prudence, prudence at all costs, and wish him luck – because without seeing the case file, in thirty minutes there’s not much more he can do.
Camille decides to go home, shower, change. A few minutes later, the taxi drops him outside his place. He takes the lift; Camille has to be utterly exhausted to decide not to take the stairs.