The Returned (18 page)

Then the distrust seemed to slip away, replaced with a deep melancholy. Simon nodded. ‘I went to the town graveyard today,’ he said. ‘I saw my own grave. I suppose I have to
believe.’

‘And? You think it can just happen to anyone?’

‘Maybe for Him . . .’ said Simon, looking at the crucifix. ‘But I’m nobody.’

‘Don’t be so sure. Perhaps you’re not just anyone.’ Pierre stepped forward and put his hand on Simon’s shoulder – on the
herald’s
shoulder.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’m sure it will all become clear soon. I won’t leave you on your own. I won’t abandon you. There is a reason you’re here.
It is the reason we are
all
here.’

‘Tell me,’ said Simon. ‘Tell me the reason.’

Pierre smiled. ‘I will,’ he said. ‘In time.’
When it is all ready
, he thought.
When the end approaches
. And in that, he had total faith.

Julie hoped she hadn’t been too distracted to do a good job. Whatever else was happening, she owed it to her patients to try her best and leave her life outside their
door. Normally that was easy, as her life consisted of little more than surviving.

Today, though, it had seemed to take forever for time to roll around. Her thoughts were mainly with Victor. Was he OK, alone in the apartment? Why had he run away in the first place – or
had he been abandoned? Why wouldn’t he talk to her? She’d bought him some paper and colouring pencils before getting the bus home, but she’d been unable to pick any toys for him.
She had no idea what he would like, not yet.

It was good that she had him to think about, though. Without him, she would have been thinking of nothing but the attack on the barmaid and the thought that
he
might still be out there.
The man who had tried to kill her.

Through the bus window, she saw a man walking past. Just a guy, but with a hooded top, his face obscured. Adrenaline hit before she’d had a chance to reason with herself. It was just
another random man, nothing to fear, but her heartbeat grew rapid and her breathing became panicked. She was on the verge of hyperventilating. Her first few months out of hospital had been exactly
like this, she remembered. It was a bad sign. But she’d learned ways to deal with her anxiety, techniques that she brought into use now. Gradually her breathing slowed and she managed to
settle her nerves.

When she got back to her apartment the door lay open.

Victor
.

She stared at the door in shock for a few seconds, the self-recrimination hitting hard. How could she have left him by himself? Anything could have happened! She went inside, hurriedly checking
the rooms. Victor wasn’t there. Had he gone? she thought. Gone, just as mysteriously as he’d turned up?

She went to shut the front door and heard a noise from the hallway. A curious sound, one she couldn’t work out. A regular thud. She went back inside her apartment and grabbed a pair of
scissors from her desk, then went out into the hall. She listened.

‘Victor?’ she said, hopeful.

The noise came again.

Slowly, she went down the stairs, scissors in hand, her grip on them tightening with each step.

With two flights to go before the ground floor, the noise stopped. She continued, treading as quietly as she could, until she reached the bottom of the stairs. She looked around.

Nobody. The area was deserted.

Without warning the lights flickered and died. Only the dregs of the street lamps outside reached in here. She stood motionless, hoping for the lights to come back, waiting for her eyes to
adjust.

She sensed something: a presence behind her in the gloom. As she turned, the lights flickered on, and off, unable to lock in, but she could see him standing there.

The man who’d attacked her, seven years before. Back then, she’d somehow blocked all memory of his face, unable to give the police any useful description, but she had no doubt who it
was standing a few metres away from her.

He was back. Seven years ago he’d all but killed her; her life since then had been an oversight, a technicality that he’d come to correct.

He came at her, his speed and strength astonishing. One hand gripped her wrist, trying to wrestle the scissors off her, as his other hand covered her mouth.

‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘No need for tears. Shh. Shh.’

She felt him wrench the scissors from her grasp, saw him turn the point towards her, bringing the tip closer, closer to her stomach.

‘It’s over,’ he said. ‘It’s over.’

Closer.

She closed her eyes, powerless.

Then suddenly the man’s grip on her vanished and she felt instead a small cold hand wrap around her own. She heard a voice, one she’d heard just once before. Victor.

‘Put it down,’ said Victor gently. ‘You’re safe now.’

She opened her eyes. He was holding her hands, with a strength far beyond that of a child. She looked down to where he held them stationary, preventing them from moving any further. Her own
hands: with the scissors still in them, turned towards her stomach.

She stared at the scissors for a moment before dropping them. Her attacker had never even been there, she realized. It had all been in her mind. Victor had saved her from herself.

‘You’re safe now,’ said Victor again. He stroked Julie’s hair. She wrapped her arms around him, sobbing in dry heaves, and knew that he was right.

Thirty-five years ago, a small boy sat under the sheets of his bed while his brother told him of all the monsters he knew.

Outside the sheets the room was in darkness. Dressed in their pyjamas, they both held torches, casting their shadows against the white coverings. His brother was nearly eleven, two full years
older than him, and his list of monsters seemed endless.

‘Have you heard of Damien, the Devil’s son?’ his brother said. The boy shook his head, midway between terrified and thrilled. ‘He steals children. Steals them from their
homes and buries them in boxes in his garden.’

The boy wrote it down in his notebook. ‘He plants them? Do they grow?’

‘He doesn’t plant them, idiot. He keeps them there and trims off pieces when he’s hungry. He’ll cut off their toes and fingers and boil them for a snack. He’ll take
their eyes as dumplings for a stew.’

‘Don’t they scream in the boxes?’ asked the boy. ‘Don’t they scream for help?’

‘No,’ said his brother, grinning. ‘Because the first thing he does is cut out their tongues.’

The door to the bedroom opened suddenly, and both boys jumped.

‘OK, you two,’ said his mother. She walked over and pulled the sheet away. ‘Time for bed.’ She saw the nervous expression on his face, and frowned at the older boy.
‘You haven’t been scaring him again?’

‘He asked me to!’ said his brother, looking at him to confirm it.

His mother looked at him too. He nodded.

‘Just because he asks, doesn’t mean you should do it. Now, come on. Get to your own room. I’ll check on you in a minute.’

His brother went, complaining; when he’d gone, the small boy’s mother looked at him and smiled. ‘Are you OK?’

He nodded. She took his notebook and glanced through it, shaking her head. He had taken down the details of six monsters already, and drawn little sketches. He had titled it ‘
MONSTERS AND HOW TO AVOID THEM
’. So far he had gleaned only one piece of advice from his brother on the avoiding part: be silent.

‘You know,’ said his mother, ‘I’m sure you can think of better ways to spend your nights than worrying about monsters.’

He looked at her, and thought how lucky he was to have the most beautiful mother in the world, the most loving. And the bravest.

‘What if the monsters come?’ asked the boy. ‘I need to know how to fight them.’

‘Well, you don’t need to worry,’ she said, smiling. ‘We have an agreement. Monsters just aren’t allowed here. Now, lie down.’

He reached across to the little bookshelf next to his bed and pulled out his favourite:
The Fairy of the Woods
. It had been his mother’s when she was his age; that was why he
loved it so much. He offered the book to her. ‘Read to me? I’m worried I’ll have nightmares.’

Gently, she shook her head. ‘It’s too late for a story,’ she said. ‘And I’ll just be in my room next door.’ She took the book from him, and held it up for him
to see. The Fairy of the Woods smiled out at him from the cover, a promise of safety. ‘And whenever I’m not here, you’ll always have the fairy.’

‘Does she really exist?’

‘Of course,’ she said, putting the book back in its place. ‘If ever I’m gone, she’ll look after you until I come back.’

‘But how will I know it’s her?’

She smiled. ‘You’ll see her, and you’ll just know. Now, it’s time to sleep.’ She kissed his forehead, then left him with the night light on in the corner; slowly
rotating, it projected jungle animals across the ceiling and walls. He didn’t think he would sleep easily, but he drifted off soon enough.

Then he woke suddenly. The sound that had woken him had been brief, deep and loud. He sat up. The sound came again, quickly followed by his brother’s worried voice.

‘Mum!’

He heard his brother’s door open, heard feet run on wood. Then he heard his brother scream in fear: ‘
Mum!
’

His brother screamed again but it was cut off by that same deep sound he’d heard before, and he suddenly understood what it was.

Gunfire.

The monsters had come.

Be silent
, he thought. He stood and walked towards the wardrobe, his breathing rapid. He stepped inside.

One of them came into his room. The boy gasped when he saw the figure, thin and dark, a man wearing a balaclava. He felt the urine flow down his leg, stream down and out under the base of the
wardrobe door.

The man heard his gasp and saw the liquid. He turned his gaze to the wardrobe and stepped towards the boy’s hiding place. ‘Don’t let him see you,’ the man whispered.
‘Stay where you are, whatever happens. I’ll come for you later. You’ll be safe.’

A different voice, a
darker
voice, came from outside the room: ‘Where are you?’

The boy felt his panic rise. He thought of his mother and brother. He started to sob.

‘Calm down,’ whispered the man in the room desperately. The boy knew his sobs were loud, that they would give him away, but he couldn’t stifle them. ‘You know what to do
when you’re scared? Imagine yourself somewhere else, somewhere you’ve been happy. Imagine yourself there, and sing your favourite song. Sing it in your head.’

Be silent
, the small boy thought, and he tried to do what the man had told him. He thought of the beach at Toulon, his mother’s birthplace, where they’d had their last
holiday as a family. His father had taught him a song, then – an old one, with nonsense words but a tune that he’d thought he must always have known, it was so simple. He sang the song
to himself. He concentrated on the words, how the music should sound, the tenor of his father’s voice; it was enough to calm his sobbing and let him stay quiet.

Then the other monster came into the room, huge and fat, cold eyes visible beneath the balaclava.

‘What are you doing?’ the monster said to the thin man. ‘Who were you talking to?’

The thin man didn’t reply, but the fat one sensed something and turned his head to the wardrobe. He started to raise his arm, and on the end of that arm the monster wore a gun.

‘He’s just a child,’ said the thin man. ‘He’s just a
child
.’

The small boy watched as the monster’s gun fired its bullet. He felt it strike his chest; felt the warm blood trickle down him, then pour.

Then the boy felt nothing, for a long, long time.

Julie had woken early, lying on the sofa with her head on Victor’s lap and his hand on her hair. She sat up to find him asleep, the first time she’d ever seen him
like that. He was still sitting upright, propped against the arm of the sofa; carefully, she moved him across and laid him down, then covered him with a blanket. She watched for a few moments, but
he didn’t stir. She went to the kitchen to make breakfast.

When she heard Victor’s cry ten minutes later, she hurried to him.

‘What’s wrong?’ she said. ‘Was it a nightmare?’

He didn’t speak. He just put his arms around Julie and held her tightly, trembling.

‘You’re safe,’ she said. ‘I’m here.’ Under his breath Victor seemed to be humming. Julie could make out a simple tune. She wondered if she’d heard it
before, but she couldn’t place it.

There was a sudden scream from the hallway. Victor let go of her and looked fearfully at the apartment door, then back to Julie.

With trepidation she stood and went out to the hall. Nathalie Payet’s door was open. Inside the apartment stood a woman with her hands clamped to her face, staring further in; the woman
turned and looked at Julie, terrified, then looked back inside.

Julie stepped slowly across the hall and into the apartment. She looked to where the woman’s gaze was directed. Nathalie Payet lay on the rug in her living room. She was motionless,
surrounded by a wide red pool. Julie could see the vicious wounds to her stomach.

The wounds where, even now, her five cats lapped at the blood.

Julie retreated back into the hall, breathing fast, back into the safety of her own apartment. Then she turned every lock on the door and ran to Victor. She held him close.

Together, they were safe, Julie knew. They would protect each other from the monsters in the world.

Claire had woken before dawn that morning. For the first time in two years she had looked at the empty space in her bed and wondered if she could – maybe – take her
husband back. In some ways it would simplify the situation, and dear Lord it needed simplifying. Jérôme’s suggestion that they move had sounded like the right thing to do, but
she’d been suspicious that his motives weren’t all about what was best for Camille.

When she caught herself looking at the bed and thinking of Jérôme beside her again, she realized that she was rationalizing the decision she had already made. She wanted to move.
Yes, it would be better for Camille. Better and safer. Yes, Léna would be angry, but she would come to understand. And Jérôme?