4:13 P.M.
Hello, Martial,” repeats Graziella. “It’s been a long time.”
As Martial walks towards the black 4x4, Graziella takes off her cap and places it on the hood. Freed from the khaki canvas, her long, light chestnut hair cascades down. Her dark skin, from her eyes to the bottom of her face, is etched with white stripes. Thin canals dug into the clay by her tears.
Graziella has been crying. Her voice is harsh, cynical, as if to push aside all pity.
“I was sure you’d find a way to get here.”
Martial stops a meter away from her. He is holding Sopha’s sleeping form in his arms once more. He speaks quietly so as not to wake her:
“I came, Graziella. With Sopha. Alone. I kept my promise. Where is Liane?”
“Take it easy, Martial. We’re here, the two of us, to come up with a fair solution. There’s no need to hurry or get angry.”
Martial takes a step forward. He stares at his ex-wife.
“Tell me she’s alive, Graziella. Tell me right now, or . . .”
Graziella sits down on the embankment of black rock. She did not choose this location by chance. The riprap shelters them from the eyes of other visitors to L’Anse des Cascades, and the noise of the waves makes it impossible for their conversation to be heard more than five meters away.
“You understand now, Martial. Responsibilities. Family. That fear in your gut. Please, introduce me to your daughter.”
“She’s asleep. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of her. What do you want?”
Graziella looks around. Twenty meters away, a Zodiac is bobbing on the waves, moored to the trunk of a screwpine. She raises her voice again to drown out the sound of the swell.
“I want us to find a fair solution, I’ve already told you. All debts must be paid, Martial, even if it’s years later. There is no alternative, if we want the ghosts to leave us in peace. If you didn’t want to see them, why did you come back to this island with your wife and daughter?”
Martial almost yells, as if raising his voice might somehow break the clinical calm of his ex-wife.
“Because those ghosts only exist in your head, Graziella. They went with you when you left the island.”
“No, Martial. They stayed here, at the Athena, at Boucan Canot, at the Cap Champagne. They were sleeping. You woke them up by coming back.”
She stares, in turn, at the ocean and the waterfalls, then looks Martial straight in the eye.
“Did you really think you could escape your past?”
Martial staggers slightly. The weight in his arms is becoming almost unbearable, but he doesn’t want to give in. He must buy himself some time, in order to protect Sopha. He thinks about the phone calls received the day after they arrived on the island.
“It’s important that you came back to pay your debt, Martial. When you buy your happiness on credit, sooner or later you have to pay it back. One life for another. The life of your daughter for the life of my son. Then we’ll be even.”
Graziella continues in the same neutral tone of voice, like a judge listing the facts of a case.
“You thought about calling the police. Perhaps you even met with them discreetly. But what could you say? Ask them to provide you with a bodyguard? How could they possibly charge me on the basis of some anonymous threats? And what policeman would ever take your word for it without at least investigating the case first?”
The menacing voice on the telephone, heard one week before, continues to echo in Martial’s head.
“Josapha has had the right to a fair trial. There were years of investigation. It’s too late for an appeal, Martial. If the police come anywhere near me, or ask me even a single question, I will execute your daughter.”
The same cold voice that announces triumphantly now:
“I was certain you wouldn’t take the risk. Parents who’ve been threatened with the death of a kidnapped child might take a gamble by calling the police. They imagine that the abductors’ objective is the ransom money, not to kill their child. But for you, Martial, there was no question of probabilities, only deadlines; how to delay the execution and continue to hope . . .”
Martial says nothing. He thinks about Liane’s visit to the police station in Saint-Benoît. She almost told the cops everything that morning. He was waiting in the car. He’d made her promise not to mention their name. There was no proof against Graziella, and God only knew what she might do in retaliation if the police began to investigate.
“I know you,” Graziella says now. “You must have wanted to run away, but all the flights were booked, weren’t they? Or you’d have had to pay a fortune for a connecting flight, which was way beyond your means. We are responsible for the weight we put on the scales: if you hadn’t married a penniless girl, maybe you’d be far away by now. But you couldn’t escape your sentence any longer. Imprisoned here on the island. Without any protection. The executioner could strike at any moment. So this time, you did pay close attention to your child, didn’t you, Martial? You didn’t leave her alone on the beach by the lagoon. You worried about her. You did your duty as a father. You behaved impeccably, like a prisoner hoping to negotiate an early release for good behaviour.”
Don’t say a word. Play for time.
Occasionally, Graziella glances over at the Zodiac.
“Such a good boy . . . But you were planning your escape. I have to congratulate you, Martial. You tried to slip into a mouse hole that I hadn’t spotted. It took me a while to understand your strategy. Liane disappearing suddenly, and you setting it all up so that you would be suspected of having murdered her. Two minor wounds, a few drops of blood scattered around the room, nice and obvious. So you borrow the cleaning lady’s cart, making sure you’re seen by several employees. Liane leaves her room without being seen, alive of course, while everyone imagines that you are transporting her dead body. All the evidence, all the clues, point to you as the killer. The police have no choice but to hold you in custody and to place Sopha under judicial protection. Two days later, Liane reappears, a few hours before the departure of your flight. She was just having a fling with someone, she will explain. The police apologise to you, free you, and the three of you fly back to France. It was a complicated plan, but a good one. You and your wife are no fools, Martial.”
“Actually, the plan was all mine,” says Martial. “To start with, Liane wouldn’t agree to it. She didn’t want to leave Sopha alone with me.”
Graziella lifts her eyes up towards invisible shadows, beyond the waterfall.
“But then, to your great misfortune, she did listen to you. You forgot one detail, Martial: the ghosts are always wary. I was watching you the whole time. Liane had the opportunity to admire several touching family portraits on the walls of my house in Saint-Pierre. When you left her in the hotel car park and she got out of the laundry cart, a Malbar in a khaki baseball cap was waiting for her. And he kindly suggested she get into his Chevrolet Captiva.”
This time, Martial can’t restrain himself:
“If you’ve done anything—”
“Take it easy,” Graziella interrupts, holding up her hands. “Don’t try to pin this one on me, Martial. You’re the one who tried to help your wife escape. You failed. You knew the rules. Punishment. Solitary confinement. Poor Liane—it’s not her fault, when you think about it. The only thing she can be blamed for is meeting you. Do you realize you’ve dug a grave for your entire family all by yourself?”
Martial moves back a meter or so, and leans against the trunk of a screwpine to reduce the strain on his arms. He has to protect Sopha from this madwoman for as long as he possibly can.
“And you killed that guy in the port in Saint-Gilles? Rodin?”
“That’s your fault, Martial. Entirely your fault. If it wasn’t for your stupid plan, that kaf would still be alive. He turned around at the wrong moment, just as I was putting Liane in the boot of my car. You provided me with the murder weapon, it was in Liane’s bag: a knife with her blood on the blade and your fingerprints all over the handle. I was more hesitant to kill that old woman whose house you were staying in. I saw your little Sopha in the streets of Saint-Gilles, disguised as a boy. A boy, Martial! A boy of Alex’s age! As if you, too, had realized that you had no choice but to exchange one life for another. The rest wasn’t too complicated. I followed her. I hid about ten meters from the house. A few minutes later, the old lady turned up. Imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t stopped her, if she’d found you in her house? You’d have been forced to put a knife in her neck yourself to keep her quiet . . . I’m right, aren’t I? Would you rather have sacrificed your daughter?”
Graziella looks at her ex-husband and goes on:
“No, of course not. But, once again, you make out that nothing is your fault. Can I ask you something, Martial?”
Martial has managed to create a makeshift, uncomfortable seat for himself by leaning against the pyramid of roots attaching the trunk of the screwpine to the ground. He chooses not to answer. A few more seconds gained. Graziella continues:
“I wonder exactly when you realized your plan had failed. That first night, I suppose. Liane was supposed to call you, to tell you everything was all right, that she’d found a hiding place as you’d planned, so that you could then perform your pantomime for the police . . .”
Graziella pauses for effect.
“But she never did call you, did she?”
In spite of himself, Martial remembers his gathering terror after reporting the supposed disappearance of his wife to the Saint-Gilles police. No phone call from Liane that evening. Then the murder of Rodin. Then the message written on the window of his rental car. Tomoro . . . be ther. How could the cops possibly understand how a guy willing to let himself be accused should completely change his attitude only a few hours later?
It was impossible.
Martial clings on to three words.
“Where is Liane?”
Graziella gives a reassuring smile.
“She’s still alive, Martial. At least for a little while. It’s nice and warm where she is. She’s tougher than I expected.”
Suddenly the smile freezes.
“Enough talking, Martial. I don’t care whether your wife survives or not. She was just bait to lure you here with your daughter. Wake her up now. Set her down on the ground. Let’s get this over with.”
Martial tries to think as fast as he can. It’s already a miracle that Sopha has not heard Graziella’s confession and threats. Is his ex-wife really capable of murdering a little girl as cold-bloodedly as she killed two inconvenient witnesses?
His eyes plead for mercy.
“Please don’t mix Josapha up in this, Graziella. She has nothing to do with our adult problems. She’s . . .”
For the first time, a scowl of anger deforms Graziella’s face.
“Oh no, Martial. No. Our problems are certainly not just about adults. Have you calculated how old Alex would be today? No, I bet you haven’t. He would be sixteen. A handsome young man. I’d be worrying about his grades. I’d have found the best lycée for him: European, he’d be studying applied arts, engineering science. Maybe I’d have gone back to France to give him the best chance of getting into a good university. Wake up your daughter, Martial. She must give me back the life she stole.”
Martial thinks about risking it all, grabbing his ex-wife by the throat and throttling her until she tells him where she has imprisoned Liane.
Too late.
Graziella has anticipated Martial’s every reaction. Without warning, she takes a small black revolver from under her kurta.
“A Hämmerli,” she tells him. “Swiss. Very expensive. They assured me it was the quietest gun on the market. Believe me, nobody will hear the gunshot over the sound of the waves.”
She aims the gun at him.
“Put her down, Martial. Put the kid on the ground or I’ll shoot.”