4:01 P.M.
Martial hesitates. He should do it straight away: go up to the room, pile clothes into a suitcase. The police will be here soon, that is now certain. He should yell at Sopha to get out of the pool, so they can make their escape. Get a head start. At least.
But Sopha is having fun. For the first time since they arrived at the hotel, she has made some friends. She jumps into the pool with her Dora armbands. The other kids are ranged around her, like a court around a queen. Sopha laughs. A very small, long-haired blond boy, his skin tanned the color of caramel, whispers something into her ear. Sopha splashes him and bursts out laughing.
Martial feels a pang.
Don’t go all soft. He needs to move! Get Sopha out of the pool.
Escape.
Don’t ruin everything. Not now.
4:03 P.M.
On Rue du Général-de-Gaulle, the police van powers along the embankment, crushing the leaves from the tree heliotropes and the purple flowers of the beach morning glory. Morez presses down on the accelerator. The cars coming the other way swerve to one side. This time, Aja has given up on diplomacy; she has ordered that Martial should be interrogated immediately, joyfully sacrificing the peace of the Athena resort. In addition to the police van, which is driving at top speed towards the hotel, the captain has summoned officers from the Saint-Paul and Saint-Leu stations. Four other vehicles, with more than twenty officers, are now converging on the area. The objective is to cut off Saint-Gilles completely; to block all roads out of the town, in case the arrest does not go smoothly.
Who can predict how Bellion might react?
Ignoring the jolting of the van, Aja, sitting in the passenger seat, rereads, one last time, the analysis supplied by the forensics lab in Saint-Denis. The documents confirm that the blood Christos collected from the sheets, the carpet and the bed belongs to Liane Bellion. The samples were compared to information sent by the Keufer laboratory in Deuilla-Barre, where Liane Bellion had had her blood taken previously. But it was the results of the test on the knife found in Rodin’s chest—received fifteen minutes ago—that triggered the decision to arrest Bellion. In addition to the Creole’s blood, the knife blade was also stained with that of another person: Liane Bellion.
One weapon. Two victims.
One culprit.
To narrow down the investigation further, there were very clear fingerprints on the knife’s handle.
Martial Bellion.
In Avenue de Bourbon, Morez slams on the brakes, raising a cloud of dust. The Hotel Athena is located straight ahead, between the Aqua Parc and the nightclub district. Aja regrets not having locked up Bellion the previous day, when he was giving her his spiel at the station. Two officers spent all morning rummaging through the rubbish at the Ermitage and they did not find a single trace of Liane Bellion’s clothes. So it must have been her body that Martial was transporting in the laundry cart. Aja feels sure that he is a man who was overtaken by events: in all probability, he stabbed his wife without premeditation, during an argument, out of jealousy perhaps, in a fit of rage, maybe even because of the kid . . . And then he panicked . . . And killed someone else: an inconvenient witness.
In cold blood, this time.
God only knows what he might be capable of.
4:05 P.M.
It’s hard, running in flip-flops.
Papa is holding my hand too tight. He’s going to rip off my arm, pulling at it like that. I never wanted to leave the pool in the first place.
“Papa, slow down, you’re hurting me!”
“Hurry up, Sopha.”
Papa leads me behind the hotel towards the place where our holiday car is parked.
“Papa, you’re going too fast.”
I’ve almost lost a flip-flop. I sort of did it on purpose, but Papa doesn’t care, he just keeps dragging me along by the arm. There’s gravel between my toes now. I stop and scream. Papa doesn’t like that.
“Sopha! Come on! I’m begging you.”
It’s strange, Papa isn’t shouting. He’s speaking almost in a whisper, as if he’s frightened, as if there’s an army of ogres running after us. His big hand crushes mine. He forces me to follow him, hopping on one foot. I complain as much as I can, but Papa isn’t listening.
The car is there ahead of us. Papa opens it with the remote control, but he doesn’t slow down. The concrete hurts my feet. I shout, louder than before and have a tantrum—I’m good at that—until Papa lets go of my hand.
He suddenly stops. At last.
But it’s not because of my shouting.
He stares at the car as if there’s something wrong with it, as if someone’s stolen one of the tyres, or the steering wheel. His voice trembles.
“Quick, Sopha, get in.”
I don’t move. I’m intelligent—Maman always says that. I already know how to read nearly every word there is.
Like the ones written in the dust on the side window of the car:
Anse dé Cascade
Tomoro
4 P.M.
Be ther
Bring the gurl
I don’t really get it. I would like to read the letters one more time, to try to understand. Or at least to remember what it says.
But I don’t have time. Almost straight away, Papa rubs them out with his hand, leaving big, dirty streaks behind.
“Get in, Sopha. Quickly.”
I have never heard Papa speak to me like that before. He seems so serious and I’m a bit scared, but I do what he says. I climb into the back, onto my car seat.
Why did Papa wipe away those words, as if I wasn’t supposed to read them?
Who was supposed to read them? Who wrote them?
Papa?
Maman?
Just before the engine starts, I hear yelling behind us.
4:08 P.M.
Aja is the first one to enter the lobby of the Hotel Athena, followed by Morez. Christos watches the action from a distance.
Naivo springs up from behind his counter like a jack-in-a-box. Less than three seconds later, Armand Zuttor also appears. The manager is wide-eyed, the hair on one side of his head sticking up like a hedgehog, the hair on the other side plastered to his face, as though he’s just woken from a siesta. Aja does not even glance at him. She barks orders:
“Morez, upstairs, room 17. Christos, come with me to the garden.”
The lift doors open. Eve-Marie gasps: “Don’t walk on the . . .”
The three bastards in uniform and combat boots pay no attention as they tramp across the tiles, muddying the corridor all the way to the door of room 17. They lean against the immaculately clean wall opposite the door, then smash open the latch with a kick.
The door explodes inward.
The wet boots vandalize the carpet.
“No one in here!” yells Morez into his walkie-talkie. “He’s gone, Captain!”
“Shit!” Aja curses.
She looks around the hotel garden. In front of her, the frozen tourists look like inflatable dolls abandoned by the side of the pool. Without her even giving the order, the officers disperse, searching the hotel and its grounds for any kind of hiding place. All of them except Christos.
Leaning against the trunk of a palm tree, the second lieutenant just stares at the bar and gives Gabin a questioning look. The barman shrugs. He’s sulking, probably wondering if he should find a new place to work, with all this going on.
Christos frowns, signifying his insistence. Gabin is not as skilled at mime as he is at mixing cocktails, but he does his best. He waves his arms. With a little mental effort, one might see in this an imitation of a Papangue,27 or a tec-tec,28 or maybe even a butterfly. Something with wings, anyway.
Christos gets the gist. Bellion has taken off.
4:10 P.M.
Martial drives fast. He goes up Avenue de Bourbon, then takes Rue du Général-de-Gaulle. Saint-Gilles rushes past in a long, thin ribbon, between the lagoon and the forest. To leave the resort, he must get on the A-road, while avoiding the port, which would take him straight past the police station; he therefore has no choice but to drive along the backstreets of the housing developments, half of which are dead ends. It’s like being caught in a labyrinth.
Another kilometer. Martial brakes suddenly and stifles a curse. The only bridge over the gully that will take him to the A-road is blocked. A tight row of cars stretches ahead for two hundred meters.
Martial swears.
Just the usual traffic jam or a police blockade? It hardly matters. There is no way he is going to get himself trapped in a line of cars. He has to find another way across.
U-turn. The Clio’s tyres screech.
He goes back down Avenue de Bourbon the other way, then abruptly turns right, three hundred meters before the Hotel Athena. The track that runs alongside Ermitage beach for two kilometers is just about passable, as long as he doesn’t run into the red beach train that carries people to and from the lagoon at a snail’s pace.
To the south, the track joins La Saline-les-Bains. Martial forces himself to believe that he still has a slight head start on the police. In a cloud of ochre dust, the Clio passes the Aqua Parc, the identical buildings of the Village de Corail, the bars and clubs of Mail de Rodrigues. Bicycles swerve out of his way. Women queuing outside the ice cream van cough as the vehicle speeds by. Bare-chested men, towels hanging from their shoulders, yell insults at him. Martial is aware that his escape is not exactly discreet. He won’t get far at this rate.
And yet, he has no choice.
Dust flies into the Clio through the open window. In the back seat, Sopha cries.
“It’s hurting my eyes, Papa.”
Martial closes the window. Logically, he ought to continue heading south alongside the beach, go through La Saline, and then join the Route de Saint-Pierre after the Trou d’Eau beach. Saint-Gilles is a maze of streets with only three exits: the A-road that runs along the coast, heading north and south, and the D100 B-road that climbs towards the island’s interior.
Back on tarmac, he is able to drive faster again. The crowds on the beach flash past like multicolored dots between the twisted trunks of the casuarina trees.
I’ll be able to get through to the south, Martial forces himself to hope.
“Papa, don’t drive so fast!”
In the rear-view mirror, he sees Sopha clinging on to her seat belt. Terrified. As if her father was some stranger, driving her towards Hell.
Suddenly, a kid emerges from a villa. Six years old. Barefoot. A bodyboard under his arm. He freezes like a rabbit, panic-stricken.
Martial slams on the brakes. Sopha screams. The kid bolts, disappearing into the courtyard behind the guétali.29
Sweat is pouring down Martial’s back. For a moment, he thought it was Alex.
He is going crazy. This mad dash is awakening all his demons.
He’s hesitant to start driving again. His head feels like it’s about to explode. He covers it with his clammy hands. Then he makes his decision. The Clio moves forward a meter, under the shadow of the gate, sending the pink gravel of the colonial villa’s driveway spattering out from under its wheels, then suddenly reverses.
“Papa, what are you doing?”
Martial does not reply. He is aware, now, that he is entering the lion’s den. Summoned by Captain Purvi, the police of Saint-Leu and Saint-Paul are bound to be heading towards Saint-Gilles. Their first reflex will be to park their vans by the side of the road and block access south and north along the coast.
So he has only one hope left. Going into Les Hauts. Driving towards the mountain.
And then . . .
4:14 P.M.
“A rental car!” Morez shouts.
The policeman is running from the car park behind the Hotel Athena. He takes a second to catch his breath, then adds:
“A grey Clio! You can’t miss it. There’s an ITC Tropicar sun visor in the front window and the rental company’s sticker on the back window.”
“O.K.!” Aja yells back into her walkie-talkie. “All the roads are blocked, he won’t get far. Go and join your colleagues at one of the roadblocks on the coastal road exiting Saint-Gilles.”
The captain prowls the hotel’s lawn, barking out orders. The Saint-Gilles officers, with the exception of Christos, follow her around like a squadron of bodyguards. At the poolside, some of the tourists are getting dressed. Others remain glued to the spot, only their necks twisting round as they follow the movements of the police, unwilling to miss a single moment of the show. The children have all taken refuge in their parents’ laps, except for a little boy with long, blond hair who seems to be defying adult authority.
Aja meets the little surfer kid’s eyes for a second. Suddenly she freezes, the walkie-talkie suspended close to her mouth.
“No! Change of plan. The priority is to close off the road to Les Hauts. Issindou, Minot, are you still at the end of Avenue de la Mer? Go wait at the roundabout of the D100. We’ve got the coast road covered. Bellion’s bound to take the road to Maïdo, either to head towards the calderas or to reach the Route des Tamarins. Be ready, for God’s sake. I’d bet my life that he’s heading inland!”
She catches her breath, then forces herself to speak in a calmer voice.
“Be careful, lads. I know this is a double-murder case, but don’t forget there’s a child in the back seat of that car.”
4:15 P.M.
“Papa, I feel sick!”
I’m not lying this time. I really want Papa to stop the car. He’s driving like a mad person. He’ll end up running someone over. Or missing a turn-off. I’m tired. I’m scared too. I want to go back to the hotel. I want to go back to the pool.
I want to see Maman.
I do understand. I know I talked about ogres, but I’m not stupid. Papa drove away just when the police arrived, when he heard the sirens. I’m sure this has something to do with Maman. In the pool, the other children were saying she’s dead, so I splashed them. I didn’t want to cry in front of them so I started to laugh. But they kept saying it, staring at me and pointing their fingers across their throats.
“Your dad killed her!”
I didn’t cry, I didn’t let them see my tears. I just pulled a face and said, “That’s a load of rubbish! How would you know, anyway?”
“My mum told me!”
The tallest one, the one with the long hair, seemed very sure of himself. Well, maybe he wasn’t that tall. But maybe he was right anyway.
As if Papa can read my thoughts, he turns around to face me.
“Look, Sopha, look at the mountain over there. That’s where we’re going, up into the clouds.”
“To see Maman?” I ask.
4:16 P.M.
Martial does not reply. He continues to wind through the backstreets of the Ermitage—Allée des Songes, Allée des Cocotiers, Allée des Dattiers. All lead down to Avenue de la Mer. After that, he has to get through the roundabout that leads to the N1 and the D100.
And then he’ll be free . . .
He accelerates again; they need to get through before the road is blocked off.
“Papa, is it true? Has Maman gone up to the clouds?” “No, Sopha, of course not.”
“So, Papa, why are you—”
“Not now, Sopha!”
Martial raises his voice, and then feels bad immediately afterwards. He can’t concentrate. He is haunted by a doubt, a feeling that grows stronger as he moves away from the sea.
He’s not going to make it.
The police are communicating by phone and walkie-talkie, in real time. They are bound to have a description of the Clio and they must already have cars blocking the main roads out of Saint-Gilles. Including the one that leads inland.
The Clio yields to a Toyota. Martial lowers his window again. He can hear police sirens, quite clearly now, a few blocks away at most.
“Papa, can we go back to the hotel?”
He realizes that he has no chance of winning this game of hide-and-seek. His rental car could hardly be any more conspicuous. The police will have no trouble closing the net around him.
“No, Sopha, no. Not the hotel. I . . . I’ve got a surprise for you.”
He is talking gibberish, anything to make Sopha quieten down so that he can think of a solution.
Should he park here and continue on foot? But that would be ridiculous—the police would almost certainly spot the car. And with Sopha, he wouldn’t get a hundred meters.
“I don’t want a surprise, Papa. I want to go back to the hotel.”
Behind him, Sopha kicks her feet against Martial’s seat.
“I want to see Maman! Do you hear me? Maman!”
Another siren howls over the housing development. Brief and piercing, like a ship’s horn. Martial must find a way out, and reassure Sopha, and gain himself some time. He can’t let himself be taken, or everything will be lost.
He cannot fail.
And to succeed, he must not hesitate to sacrifice anything that is holding him back.
“I’m going to take you to see something amazing, Sopha. Paradise. Did you ever imagine that you would see paradise?”
27 A local bird of prey, and the island’s only predator.
28 The Réunion Island equivalent of a sparrow.
29 A kiosk-like building typical of the architecture of Réunion villas.