Today, I am crossing the Pont des Arts.
Alone.
Want to kill
Like the straw that broke the camel’s back, I would like to be the one who fastens the last padlock to this bridge, the padlock that finally makes it collapse into the Seine.
Convicted: 19
Acquitted: 187
www.want-to-kill.com
The fifteen soldiers deployed around the airplane appeared to be following a choreography directed by the head of security, with a simple hand movement, from behind the large airport window.
Marianne didn’t even glance at him as she hung up the phone. Papy’s words continued to echo through her head, mingling with those of Vasily Dragonman, a few days before.
Was it possible to erase a child’s memory? To bury a trauma? To stop that trauma growing bigger, taking root, eating away at a life?
Why not?
The brain of a three-year-old child was like plasticine to be moulded. Why shouldn’t this child forget that his parents were dead, murdered in front of him, since that memory was unbearable and a fairy godmother was ready to wipe it away with a wave of her magic wand?
Yes, that child believed that Angie was his Maman. Angie had manipulated him, in order to save him. Gouti had been her instrument, her accomplice. Angie had simply used the oldest trick in the book, opposing one truth with another, Amanda against Angie, an alternative that was already so complicated for his little brain. Two loving mothers, that was already too many, the best way of making him forget that the third was no longer there to bring him up, making him forget that she had died in front of him, forget the trace of the bloody hand print that his father had left on the car door. Making him forget that rain of sharp glass, and—soon afterwards—forget this ordinary rain too.
Under the frowning eyes of Security Man, Marianne gripped the cuddly toy in her hands.
Angie had wanted a child, more than anything. Angie would be a good mother. Malone would grow up happy, with her.
Angie had not killed anyone.
Angie had become her friend for this reason: so that Marianne would understand that she wanted to save the child. Because Angie was his only chance.
Angie had only accepted Zerda’s plan—swapping the two kids—so that she could get rid of him more easily, when the time came. Alexis Zerda had been incapable of imagining how far a mother would go in order to protect her child. So two mothers, both wanting the same kid . . . You stood no chance, Alexis! The first one, Amanda, put two bullets in his chest with a gun that the second, Angie, had given to her.
The head of security seemed to have decided to put an end to this stand-off. He wiped his forehead, made a brusque hand gesture to tell the flight attendant with the painted nails to leave, and placed himself in front of Marianne.
“So, Captain? Are we going in or not? It’s a woman and a kid. They’re not armed. So what the hell are you waiting for? You were the one who gave the order not to let this plane take off!”
JB, still immobile behind them, accompanied by Bourdaine and Constantini, looked like he was keeping score.
Marianne did not respond. She suddenly felt dizzy. The airplane standing on the runway. The men in uniform encircling it. This bald dwarf barking at her. The stoical rigidity of the two soldiers. The flight attendant’s rictus smile. As if everything around her had frozen, except for the yapping of Security Dog.
“Don’t you understand? If you block one take-off, you block them all! I’ve got four flights waiting behind this one! For God’s sake, there are over a dozen armed men on the runway. We can storm the plane in seconds.”
“Calm down,” said the captain, almost reflexively. “We’re talking about a child and his mother.”
The dog kept barking.
“Then why go to such extremes? Why keep this plane on the ground and delay all air traffic for twenty minutes?”
He was trying to defy the captain, pitting his authority against hers, his sense of legitimacy against hers, his physical power against hers if necessary. The intimidation dance of the dominant male.
Marianne didn’t even deign to look at him. Instead, she turned to the flight attendant with the red smile and the fiery hair.
Putting a friendly hand on her shoulder, Marianne reached out with her other hand, to let the woman know that the captain was entrusting her with the most delicate part of this entire operation.
The attendant’s hand closed. It was soft, even if she still didn’t understand what was expected of her.
In a raised voice, so that everyone could hear, Marianne explained the situation to her.
“The kid forgot his cuddly toy. He can’t leave without it.”