Arab Jazz (26 page)

He pauses, spent. Seven summers later and still the same bitterness. Everything ruined. Not yet thirty-five and already completely at sea, lost, his lifeblood drained. But Rachel doesn’t have time for sympathy.

“So he’s like a professional manipulator?”

“Yes, you could say that. In fact all he was doing was applying the rules. Jehovah must come before everything. He was sort of like the head of a team in a vast company. And we were the sheep, getting fleeced but ultimately not minding. We were content with that. Like, for seventy hours each month we had to go around handing out copies of
Watchtower.
And we did it, we went along with it. Three times a week I hung around the train station in Niort to recruit new unfortunate members . . .”

“Did you know Laura?”

“I came across her early on. She left home on her eighteenth birthday, so only about six months after I joined. From then on we were forbidden from mentioning her name. As if she’d never existed. We talked about her a bit behind closed doors, but after a while that was it. She was pretty, as I remember, and kept very much to herself. I don’t think I ever said a word to her.”

“Her father didn’t say anything? Didn’t ever bring her up again?”

“No.”

“Do you remember seeing Vincenzo Vignola behave violently?”

“No. His tongue was his weapon. He killed you with words, that’s all.”

“I’ll rephrase my question. Can you imagine him killing someone?”

“No. Can you tell me what’s going on? Your colleague mentioned a crime when we were messaging, but didn’t go into any detail. Is it Laura? Has something happened to her?”

“Yes. Do you think her father would be capable of that?”

“Vincenzo Vignola killing his daughter . . . No, I can’t see it . . . No . . . But . . . I don’t know why I’m telling you this . . . I’m not sure he’d particularly mind if somebody else did . . . The man is . . . what’s the word . . . cold. Just thinking about him makes me shudder. Right, that’s enough—anything else you want from me?”

“No, thank you . . . Actually, wait! A purely personal question, if you don’t mind?”

“Fire away.”

“What’s the significance of your username: potterlover666?”

The ex-Witness smiles.

“Potter is because of Harry Potter. We weren’t allowed to go to the movies. But the most forbidden films of all were the Harry Potter ones. All that irrational, magical Hollywood stuff caused too much friction with the fantastical world that we had to inhabit, with its own cast of demons. So: potterlover. And then 666—the number of the beast—for good measure. To remind myself that I’ve picked my side: the demons. You know, when I left the Witnesses I was overcome by a powerful need to transgress, to prove to myself that I’d really escaped. The first meal I had was blood sausage, some good old
boudin noir
.”

“
Boudin?
”

“Yes, I had to eat some blood, another thing that was strictly forbidden.”

“Blood? You mean like for transfusions?”

“Yes. It’s illegal to let any foreign blood enter your body. In any way whatsoever . . . It’s strange, you know, all this talk of forbidden things. I can picture him now, Vignola. And five years on, hard as it is to admit, I’m still scared of him.”

32

Vincenzo Vignola has stopped in his tracks. A police car is parked outside his house and the
commissaire
who questioned him the day before is repeatedly ringing the bell. He had just stepped out for a walk to get his thoughts straight after sending Ruben off with the consignment of Godzwill. And now the police are badgering him again. Luckily he has his wallet, credit card, and cell on him. Maybe not that luckily as all he has to do is withdraw some money or make a call and they’ll locate him right away.

Jeanteau gives up ringing the doorbell, returns to the police car, says something to the officer at the steering wheel, and sets off on foot. Vignola waits for a bit, then heads down a perpendicular street on the double. Five minutes later, he’s at a Crédit Agricole cash machine. He takes out two thousand dollars—the maximum amount—before crossing the road to a
tabac
where he buys a telephone card. On his way out he switches off his cell phone, takes out the SIM card and deposits them in two separate bins.

He has to get to Paris via the back roads. The police will definitely be monitoring the station in Niort and arrivals into Montparnasse, but not much else. He’ll take a bus to Poitiers, the train to Orléans, then another to Étampes, and eventually the RER C into Paris. To Susan. He’s fully aware that she’ll ditch him. He knows it with every inch of his being, but he does want to be with her one last time. And perhaps his innermost dream? To die by her hand. On his way to the bus station he finds a public pay phone and dials the number he knows by heart. Susan answers on the second ring, listens to his account of the latest developments, then suggests a new rendezvous point now that the Concorde Lafayette is no longer a safe option. He recalls a café in porte de Clignancourt near a Kingdom Hall where he did a temporary placement the year before. A heavy weight is crushing his chest. Vincenzo lets out a sentence that he never thought he’d hear himself say.

“Susan, do you still love me?”

“Of course, Vincenzo! Would I be flying across the ocean tonight if I didn’t?”

“You’ll never leave me, will you?”

“Never. I’ll be with you till the end, my love. See you tomorrow. I’ve got to run to the airport now . . .”

“Alright, Susan . . . See you tomorrow.”

A quarter of an hour later, the fugitive arrives within sight of the bus station. Two policemen are patrolling it. They are visible from a mile away. Vignola manages to get on the bus for La Crêche, the next station to the northeast. From there he’ll take a TER train to Poitiers. The last thing he sees in Niort is the MAIF head office, the place where he’d be working today if once upon a time he had not met Mathilde and careened into this parallel world in which he has built his life and his modest empire. Yet he has no regrets. He feels that he’s done everything required of him in the service and defense of Jehovah.

Auchan shopping center, Courtepaille bar and grill, Castorama DIY shop, Monsieur Meuble furniture store, Total service station. Corn fields. Cows. He thinks about Susan. He can’t bring himself to resent her. She has destroyed him, and she ordered his daughter’s murder. But somehow he wants nothing other than to see her and rest his head on her shoulder, to breathe in her scent. As if that would fix everything, erase it all. As if it were possible to return from beyond, to the time he abandoned his status as an elder and became one of the “left behind,” a member of that multitude who will remain dust for eternity, never to see the kingdom of Jehovah.

33

Meyer, Le Gros, is slumped in his chair, black boots on his black desk, champing down furiously on some green chewing gum. Three-day beard. A telephone is ringing but no one is picking it up. It’s Rachel’s. After fifteen seconds, and since neither of the other two officers present seem in a hurry to answer it, Meyer gets up, walks across the open-plan office, and picks it up.

“Lieutenant Meyer.”

“Good morning, Lieutenant. Does anyone ever pick up at your station? I was about to give up! This is Commissaire Jeanteau from Niort—is Lieutenant Kupferstein not around? I tried her cell phone but it went straight through to her voicemail.”

“She’s gone out. Leave a message with me and I’ll pass it on.”

“Tell her to call me back urgently. Her suspect has done a runner.”

Meyer can’t keep himself from blurting out.

“Vignola!”

“Yes, Vignola. Did she mention him to you?”

“Yes, of course . . . Obviously. Don’t worry, I’ll pass on the message. Goodbye, Commissaire.”

Meyer is sweating. He’s not so thick that he doesn’t realize he’s just made a mistake that Enkell will not forgive him for. He knows what he and Benamer will do to him. He has to play for time. Distract them. Lie, but without burning his fingers this time.

One text and forty-five minutes later, and Le Gros is sitting with the
commissaire adjoint
of the eighteenth arrondissement on the Montmartre funicular. He tells him about Jeanteau’s telephone call, omitting the part about how it was him who mentioned Vignola’s name. Benamer senses the error, says nothing, and divvies up the tasks.

“We’re entering the cleanup phase. You take care of Haqiqi; I’ll deal with Sam and Vignola.”

“But he’s disappeared.”

Aïssa Benamer closes his eyes for a second, lets out a gentle sigh, continues.

“Right, let’s start with the easiest part: your brother does the
brocanteur
. He’s got him under his thumb—it’ll be easy. Just stay with him from start to finish. Make sure he does the job properly. It’s got to look like a junkie did it, alright, not some clown tripping his balls off on acid.”

A steely look from the green-eyed Kabyle.

You and your brother are going to be payback for me and Enkell. A little treat at the end of this fuck up. Whoever’s covering your back, they won’t be able to do a thing for you . . .

When they get to the foot of that overblown wedding cake of a church that takes pride of place at the top of Montmartre, they go their separate ways.

Meyer heads for the alleyway that crosses the garden downhill from the Butte before joining up with rue Muller. Instead of going back to the police station he decides to blow off some steam on the
brocanteur
. That fuckwit who thinks he’s in the clear because he’s been putting up his idiot brother for months. That meddling bastard who gets off on the secrets of the killer under his roof and who thinks he can get away with it. He’ll get his dose of pain. Even though Benamer’s instructions mean he’s getting off lightly. Junkies don’t torture people to death. They kill with knives, sure, but they do it quickly. After turning the shop upside down for a couple of hundred dollars, if they’re lucky. On rue de Clignancourt, Meyer smiles. By the time he has reached rue Labat he is laughing to himself. It’s been a while.

In the area at the back of the second-hand shop, Raymond—wearing a vest of dubious cleanliness and tracksuit bottoms of indeterminable color—is sitting on the foam mattress that has served as his bed since his return to Paris from Alsace three months earlier. The
brocanteur
, sitting opposite him, slams down a nine of spades and declares in bellicose fashion: “War!” Someone knocks on the window pane. Tock, tock . . . tock. The code. Georges gets up, crosses the main room, opens the glass door and finally the padlock on the metal gate.

“Hey Le Gros, how are you doing? What’s new? We were playing cards while we were waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“You know, just waiting.”

They cross the dimly lit room jam-packed with shelves and tables loaded with all manner of objects from the ’50s and ’60s. There are several lamps and fans which take on a sinister personality in the half-light. Francis Meyer knocks into a safe lying on the yellowed linoleum floor.

“Fucking piece-of-shit junk shop!”

“Piece-of-shit junk shop? Oh, that’s nice! How long have I been putting up your little bro in my piece-of-shit junk shop?”

His voice is frosty.

“Shut it, you!”

The two men reach the room at the back. Raymond is about to reel off the standard formalities, but sees his brother’s face and keeps quiet. One of those decisive moments in a murder when a dramatic change occurs. A glimpse of eternity. Killing as a metaphysical act.

TIME

IS

SUSPENDED

Francis—arms crossed, motionless—positions himself between the door and Georges. On the other side, Raymond’s right hand is gripping a Laguiole knife that’s appeared as if from nowhere, all his senses on alert.

“But why? Why? I’m your friend. I’ve always helped you. I’ve always been on your side, both of you. Why? Why?”

Georges desperately attempts to catch the eye of either one of the brothers. No point. He’s moved over to the other side now. Beef, mutton, chicken, something like that. He’s left the human race, and his incessant pleading doesn’t affect the brothers any more than the cries of a piglet would upset a butcher in an abattoir.

“A junkie murder. No screwing around this time,” Francis tells his brother.

“Okay, no problem. Random knife wounds. Stomach, neck, chest, and an accidental one to the heart to finish?”

“There you go—perfect.”

Georges used to love listening to Raymond talk about his murders. He always wanted to know more, reveling in the detail. How did you tie up his wrists? And the duct tape over the mouth—does it have to go right around? How many knife wounds? And where? That one in the warehouse, did you strangle her when you were coming, was that it? Now it’s his turn. He knows it. He knows it just like he knows that all his feeble strength has left him. Georges has never been much of a fighter. Just good at taking pleasure in the suffering of others, by others. He’s not capable of saving his own skin. He slowly slides to the floor, curls up in the fetal position, and lets out a long, unintelligible groan, the timeless lament of the condemned man facing death. Raymond delivers a kick to the small of his back. Not too hard; just enough to make him unfold himself. Quick as a flash he spins him around and stabs him in the stomach first. A scream. The second blow of the knife goes to the neck, then the chest and heart. It takes all of nine seconds, by which time Francis—having slipped on his leather gloves—has started trashing the place, tipping out jars of Nescafé and powdered milk, packets of biscuits, emptying everything. The fury of a drug addict looking for anything to pay for his next hit . . . Really got to be a stupid junkie to burgle Georges the
brocanteur
. Job done.

All over within five minutes, and the crime scene is perfect. Raymond looks up at his brother, his eyes gleaming.

“See, I did just as you said. One, two, three, four. Stomach, neck, chest, heart. Are you happy with me? Are you?”

“Yes, Raymond, you did well.”