The Kills: Sutler, the Massive, the Kill, and the Hit (34 page)

He gave a brief description of his first encounter with the boy, and allowed the investigators to interrupt. When he answered questions he made sure that he appeared thoughtful, and made allowances for interpretation. Between them the group explored the inconsistencies that rose between the three versions: Nathalie, Martin, and Ford.

‘He stayed on the coach, and said nothing about where he’d been. I later saw bruises and scratches down his side when he was changing, and he asked me to keep quiet because Nathalie wasn’t comfortable with him climbing on his own. He said he’d made a promise to her.’

About Martin: ‘Nathalie told me about the project, and Eric let me know some of the tensions. I think his interest in the project was sincere. Martin was clearly his tutor, and Eric worked for him, as you’d expect. I didn’t see anything that looked otherwise. In private, I think he wasn’t impressed by Martin, he didn’t have much respect for him. I think he found Martin hard work. They bickered in the way that people bicker when they’ve spent too much time together.’

About Eric’s interest in him: ‘I didn’t have any idea. The last time we spoke, as I’ve said, I was waiting for a bus and I wasn’t paying much attention, and he was annoyed with me. I really didn’t catch what he was talking about. He was looking forward to leaving, but it didn’t sound like he had an immediate plan. I think he was going to meet his mother. We had a couple of drinks, just tea, then he left, he seemed frustrated, but nothing out of the ordinary. When I paid the bill he came back, and that’s when he approached me. It wasn’t much, but I wasn’t expecting it. I think it was obvious that I was surprised and that I wasn’t interested.’

‘This is when he kissed you?’

‘That’s a misunderstanding. He didn’t kiss me. I’m not sure what it was, but he stepped close. He had one hand on my hand. It wasn’t like a formal goodbye. It was intimate. I was surprised. It was strange, he just quickly stepped up to me. I think it was just a moment where he forgot himself. I don’t know what it was, but we were both embarrassed. It happened out in the open, in the market. The misunderstanding came when I was speaking with Nathalie.’

About the notebooks: ‘He told me that he had a code for writing in his diary. I’m not sure what it was, but he showed me how the code worked, and took down some numbers of mine from an account number. My luggage was interfered with on the way to Istanbul, I had some things stolen and I lost those numbers. Which is why I contacted Nathalie. I assumed he’d turn up. That his disappearance wasn’t anything significant.’

Ford managed to keep his attention away from the notebooks.

When the conversation turned to his own affairs he tried to maintain his command, but immediately began to feel uncomfortable.

Mathews was curious about what he’d said last night, about a friend? A business?

‘I deliver cars for a company based in Koblenz. I used to have my own company, but that ended a while ago. It ended badly – business debts.’

‘You were specific about a company breaking up.’

Ford sighed, a little manufactured perhaps, but not ingenuous. ‘I don’t like to go over this. I lost my business. I was made bankrupt, which caused – do I have to go over this? My partner took control. It was a long time ago – and sometimes, when I drink, it doesn’t seem so distant.’

The men’s expressions remained fixed, and Ford could not tell if they saw through him, or saw instead a man disappointed in business, in life. Someone so used to failure that he wore it with resignation.

7.3

Before collecting Eric’s belongings, Anne met with the Dean of Undergraduate Studies. He appreciated her visit, he said. He
appreciated
how difficult this must be. The man spoke in a clearly prepared monologue: the tutor that her son was travelling with has been disciplined, he is no longer teaching, and his companion would also not be invited to return to the faculty to teach. The announcement of this decision lay in the hands of the disciplinary board, and these things usually took their time: but they would not return. It was hard to understand how such a thing could happen, and he felt deep regret that this had occurred.

‘Eric is old enough to make his decisions. I know that. When he asked about the trip, it wasn’t to ask permission. It was something he wanted to do.’

The dean appeared uncomfortable. ‘So you will visit the project? You will go to Magazin?’

Anne shook her head and lightly whispered, ‘No.’

The dean looked to the door and held a question to himself. ‘I’m glad,’ he said, beginning to rise, ‘that we were able to meet.’

She wasn’t sure that she wanted to take the boxes. Now, more than before, it seemed pointless. Who would wear these clothes? Who would listen to this music?

His bedroom looked out at the mountains, the tiny detail of so many trees foregrounded by snow, the chair lift, the stanchions, and the long bunker-like restaurant at the top. She had seen photographs of this view, perhaps from a postcard he’d sent her, when in the summer it was greener, or greyer. Had he even seen it with snow? She imagined he would have kept his room similar to his room at home: ordered, smart, the poster of a climber on the wall, the course books lined in alphabetical order. She imagined that having to share a room would have been an agony. The boy whose room it was now stood beside the door and looked down at the carpet, and she was grateful that he looked nothing like her son. She found it hard not to look at the bed, unmade, the quilt drawn over the mess of sheets. Eric would have kept everything in place. The room had a shiftless disorder, although it was not untidy; something hurried about its appearance. He would have kept it in better order.

Uncertain how to leave the room she wished the boy well with his studies, and the boy, breathless, nodded as she spoke. ‘This is strange,’ she apologized. ‘I don’t mean this to be so strange. I’m so sorry.’

Four students walked with her to load up the car, and she felt ridiculous following after them, redundant.

After clearing the dormitory Anne drove to Lyon. The two men from Colson Burns would be completing their interview, and she agreed to wait at Nathalie’s apartment on the understanding that they would call her as soon as they had any information.

Nathalie had set aside a bottle of wine with a few of Eric’s belongings, a book, some photographs and DVDs, along with a note saying that Anne should make herself comfortable, and that the DVDs contained small videos of Eric taken from the trip. Most of the photographs were of Nathalie and Eric, pictures from restaurants, a photo of Eric standing with bags, distracted; Nathalie featured in each photo, hugging him in some, or sitting beside him and leaning into him so that their company looked easy and companionable. Anne felt a pang at how beautiful Nathalie appeared in these photographs, and felt a great sense of waste. She imagined scenarios, situations of how Eric might be living, of where he might be spending his days, but could not believe them.

She settled in front of the TV with a glass of wine and played through the DVDs one by one, pausing and freezing the image, replaying to catch his voice. She returned to one specific sequence of Eric setting up a camera, a bright blur of sunlight then darkness while his hand twisted the lens, and suddenly his face as he stared directly into the camera. So serious, so focused. Anne caught the image and sat close to the screen to assess his expression, scanning back and forward and back to measure how happy he was. This was important. She wanted the film to tell her that he was happy, and she examined the footage until she found a smile. He was talking with someone off camera, a conversation lost to the wind, when his expression suddenly brightened – and there, at that moment, she could see that he was happy, and she imagined that he was talking with Nathalie, but along with the smile came one word, spoiled by the wind, but clearly one short word.
Tom
. She replayed the moment. The smile, then one word: Tom. It was Tom. Without doubt. He was smiling at Tom. She replayed the image, frame by frame, and watched how this smile burst from him, how he couldn’t help himself. She recognized him in these images, not only though the simple surfaces and sounds, but as someone who was deeply familiar to her, known and loved, as if this was something she had forgotten. She recognized his complicated expressions, his swift shifts of mood, how his mind always, just always, seemed busy, so that worlds of thought could be operating all in one instant, you would never know – and she realized, while watching his reaction to this man, that after finding the computer files she had thought of him as someone different, and she had allowed this knowledge to change him into someone she did not understand. In this footage, she found the same person she had always known, that smile, so instant, so given, and so familiar, wasn’t that just like him? It was always funny how seriously he took himself, how you could ask him a question and see him think, how you could watch him consider the possible answers. And didn’t he always break away with a smile? She could recall this trait from his childhood, how he could never make a choice, how he always pondered as if the idea of making any choice was just too difficult, and then, decision made, he would laugh.

She replayed the footage in real time and reacquainted herself with her son.

She exhausted herself examining the DVDs and decided to return to Grenoble that night. Although the weather remained foul with a storm pushing from the mountains into the plains, she was determined to make the journey.

In the car she could smell Eric’s clothes, musty, unaired; the cardboard boxes gave off an odour of something long forgotten, ignored. The stink of stored clothes soured her stomach. Her first husband had left the house with the clothes he was wearing, money, and nothing else. A year later she had cleared away his belongings, a task which took almost no time, as there were no photographs, few keepsakes, only bundles of clothes, as if he had deliberately lived provisionally, spent his life waiting to disengage. This, she understood, was different: despite Eric’s love for order, he’d left too much behind, too many pieces – she drove carefully, a little hesitant, intimidated by the traffic, and realized that she wanted this over. She wanted the investigation to stop. She wanted an end, some kind of mercy. The entire enquiry was built on an idea about her son that she no longer wanted to consider.

At nine thirty the promised storm broke and snow began to fall, wet and heavy, mesmerizing as it zipped over the windscreen, the wind picking white whorls in a black sky. Anne drew off the motorway and waited for the call from Colson Burns. She waited on the hard shoulder, hazard lights blinking, the snow quickly thickening and limiting her view. The car shuddered as traffic passed on the motorway. When the call came it brought only disappointment.

‘There’s nothing,’ they said. ‘He admits to being in Narapi, but his information adds nothing new. He delivers cars for a dealership in Koblenz. He was helpful but this gives us nothing. We showed him the notebooks, and he apologized for not being able to meet you; he’s leaving early tomorrow morning. We’re checking his information now, but much of what he says tallies with what we already know.’

Anne had trouble starting the car. The engine turned, slow and cold, resistant, and when it finally started it gave a feeble tremble. As the traffic passed the wind seemed to batter harder, rocking the car, and she could not see clearly enough to turn back onto the motorway. She drove along the hard shoulder at a timid pace, but the traffic would neither slow nor make room for her to merge into the lane. Where the hard shoulder ended at roadworks and a bridge she stopped the car, alarmed that she was trapped, she could not now move forward, and was locked into place by the passing traffic. She spoke out loud, leaned her head against the steering wheel, hands gripped either side, whispering,
I-don’t-know-what-to-do, I-don’t-know-what-to-do. Somebody, tell me what to do
. She thought to abandon the car, thinking it better to brave the weather than wait to be hit.

She called her husband. Woke him, and managed, until she heard his voice, to keep herself calm and then immediately began to cry. She heard him panic, tried to draw herself in, then quickly explained her situation. ‘I’m trapped on the hard shoulder. I can’t turn. I’m stuck. I don’t think they can see me. I don’t know what to do.’

She listened to his voice, how he came out of sleep, worried for her, advised her to stay with the car, to keep calm, to stay on the phone. ‘Wait,’ he said, ‘and the traffic will clear. Keep talking to me.’

Why had she come alone? Why had she insisted on this trip? What had seemed important, a necessary step, she understood to be completely beside the point. She had told strangers facts about her son, facts she had not spoken over with her husband. Facts which had seemed huge, transformative, which were now a small part of a larger picture.

‘I want this to stop,’ she said. ‘I can’t do this. I can’t. I don’t want them to investigate him any more. It’s too soon. It’s all too soon. It’s too fast. I want them to stop. I want this to stop. I want you to call them. I want you to ask them to stop.’ Colson Burns were the wrong people, the wrong approach. What had they achieved? What had they discovered? What was their purpose except to regurgitate the same facts, strike the same bruise, insist day after day on her son’s absence? I want this over. I want this to stop. I want to talk with you about Eric.

7.4

Late in the evening, Anne received a second call from Mark Mathews telling her to come directly to the Hotel Lux. He gave directions, and told her the room number. She readied herself for the discussion.

Mark Mathews waited for her in the lobby. He stood as she came through the door, and with an air of intimate care he guided her through to the guest lounge. He had news, he said, she should sit down.

Anne took a chair at one of the small tables and asked if he had spoken with her husband. The man paused and said no.

‘Tell me what you have, but there is something we need to discuss,’ she said, collected now, determined that this was the right decision. Heat from a small radiator hit her legs and she changed her position so that she faced the man, appeared ready for news, although, in truth, she wanted to tell him that she’d had enough. She’d practised on the way in, refining the words:
You’ve done excellent work. Thank you. I’m very grateful for everything that you’ve done. But I don’t feel that this is helping. I’m sorry,
she would say,
I think this is too soon. I want you to stop what you are doing. Immediately. I do not want this to continue
.