The Islanders Read online

  There was not much difference between the place he had just left and the city streets he was now treading. The only exception was that here, the dead were living. Olivier had the impression of flicking through a family album, a series of black and white photos that brought back no memories. Rue des Chantiers seemed to go on forever, as if he was walking against a treadmill. He stopped three times for refreshments in bars along the way. Between pit stops, he repeated to himself: ‘Scoot, take off, get the hell out.’

  It was Jeanne who opened the door to him. Evidently all was not well. From inside the flat, he could hear Rodolphe yelling.

  ‘Who is it? … Who is it?’

  ‘Olivier.’

  ‘Ah, about time too! Just the person I want to see!’

  Olivier took off his coat in the hallway.

  ‘What’s up with him?’

  ‘The police came.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They found Roland’s body, a guy out walking his dog in the woods. They put out a photo and a shopkeeper recognised him. He told them Roland had bought a pair of shoes and that he was with a blind man. He remembered the two of them very clearly because they were both legless. He gave a perfect description of Rodolphe.’

  ‘Shit …’

  Rodolphe appeared in the doorway. He was like a lump of jelly in the hands of a Parkinson’s sufferer.

  ‘You can say that again! Shit, shit, shit! The game’s up for me now, isn’t it?’

  ‘Stop shouting! Let’s not stand here.’

  Jeanne moved them into the living room. Olivier opened the bottle he had just bought and offered a glass to Rodolphe, who shrugged it away. Olivier knocked back his drink. He felt strangely calm and collected.

  ‘Were you here, Jeanne?’

  ‘No, I was out doing the shopping.’

  ‘What did you say to them, Rodolphe?’

  ‘What do you think I said? We were seen together in ten different places that day, I could hardly deny it!’

  ‘Did you tell them he came here?’

  ‘Of course I did! Someone might have seen us; how the hell should I know? I said he came home with me, I gave him some money and he left straight away. That’s it. But they’ve called me in for questioning tomorrow and you can bet they’ll put the heat on me. They’re not stupid, they know what they’re about. But if it goes too far, there’s no way I’m carrying the can for this!’

  ‘There’s no need to get worked up, Rodolphe, I understand completely. If, like you say, it goes too far, I’ll do the right thing.’

  ‘Oh you will, will you? And why should I believe you? I’m not just going to sit there and let you frame me! You’re not landing this on me – I won’t stand for it!’

  ‘You’ve got me all wrong, Rodolphe. I’ve got nothing against you.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got plenty against you! And you, Jeanne, what have you got to say for yourself? Huh?’

  ‘I’m thinking, all right?’

  ‘Oh, she’s thinking! Here, give me something to drink, that’ll help me “think” too.’

  ‘You’d be better off keeping a clear head. You’ve got yourself in enough of a state as it is. This is all ridiculous anyway. If you stick to what you’ve already said, nothing’s going to happen.’

  ‘Yeah, right! I’m the last person who saw him alive. You think they’re going to let me go, just like that?’

  ‘And how exactly would you, a poor blind man, have dragged him into the forest several kilometres from here, in the middle of the night, strangled him and then walked home again? No one’s going to believe that.’

  Rodolphe said nothing. He rubbed the end of his nose and frowned. Catching Jeanne’s eye, Olivier gathered it would be best to leave the two of them alone. She was used to dealing with her brother, and having Olivier there would only wind Rodolphe up. It was for the best anyway, he was tired and wanted only one thing: to lie down on Jeanne’s bed.

  With his head on the pillow and his hands folded over his stomach, he could hear their voices through the dividing wall without making out the individual words. From time to time Rodolphe’s rose up a notch, but Jeanne’s steady, constant, almost hypnotic murmur calmed him down again. She was like a horse-breaker patiently taming a skittish beast. The fact was Olivier felt completely detached from what was happening. He was surprised at himself, but it was true. What Rodolphe might or might not do made no difference to him. He had been in the same frame of mind since first thing that morning. It was the same at the church, the same at the cemetery and the same in town. Exhaustion. He was all too familiar with the particular brand of weariness that follows the euphoria of drunkenness, a weariness that leaves you stranded on the line, anaesthetised to the point you can no longer tell friend from enemy, hot from cold, being from nothingness. What on earth did he have to be afraid of? We’re all innocent when we’re asleep.

  *

  He had a long white beard that tickled his navel. Madeleine was furiously digging a large hole in the sand which the waves kept filling in again. She was naked, she had eyes like a fly and she kept bailing out the water between each flood of foam, cursing to herself. He kept telling her, ‘It’s deep enough, Madeleine!’ but she wouldn’t listen, she kept digging, digging …

  ‘Olivier?’

  Jeanne’s face appeared as a white patch in the middle of his dream, which whorled away like the curls of smoke from the cigarette she held to her lips.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘I’m not sure, three or four o’clock. Rodolphe’s calmed down. Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Probably, yes.’

  ‘I’ve managed to convince him to stand by his story. He’s agreed on one condition: you have to leave.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I don’t want you to.’

  ‘Let’s go together.’

  ‘We can’t. I know what he’s like. He’ll blab everything to the police.’

  ‘What then?’

  Jeanne took a long puff on her cigarette. As the end glowed red, it lit her fingertips, her mouth and the end of her nose. The ashes fell onto her skirt. She swept them off with the back of her hand. Set in a surround of silence, every little detail seemed deeply significant.

  ‘I don’t think it was you who killed Roland.’

  ‘Well, who was it, then? … Rodolphe?’

  ‘He’s sick enough to have stitched you up. He hates you.’

  The thought had not even crossed Olivier’s mind. He had been so convinced of his own guilt when he lost his memory that there had been no room for doubt. For the last five days, he had put himself in a murderer’s skin, and now he had to reconsider everything. It was absurd, but the idea he might be innocent irked him.

  ‘How can we be sure?’

  ‘You had no reason to strangle Roland, but he did.’

  ‘When you’re having an alcoholic episode, you’re capable of anything, you know.’

  ‘So is Rodolphe, and that’s when he’s stone-cold sober.’

  ‘But why not just shop me to the police that morning? Why help us dispose of the body? It doesn’t add up.’

  ‘For fun, for his own twisted pleasure, and also because he’s scared of me now. He knows I’m capable of anything too. He’s spun a web and got himself trapped in it. He’s trying to find an amicable solution. You leave and he keeps his mouth shut.’

  ‘Fine, so why don’t I go and you follow on afterwards?’

  ‘He’ll never leave us alone. He and I have always been at loggerheads. Sooner or later it was bound to come to this. For years he’s had a hold over me, smothering me. I don’t think I can put up with him another twenty-four hours. I didn’t care before – I just let him drag me down a little further every day. And then you came back. I want to live, Olivier, I want to live with you. Chances like this don’t come around twice.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Rodolphe is the only suspect.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He has a long history of depression. Right up until l
ast year he was seeing a psychiatrist who could confirm he has a tendency towards paranoia … and suicidal thoughts.’

  ‘Ah, I see …’

  Olivier was coming back to earth, this earth where people live a little and die a lot. Exit Rodolphe! Jeanne’s gaze was clear; no one could have guessed what she was plotting beneath that pale brow. It was almost something to admire. He stood up, went straight to the chest of drawers and pulled out a bottle of he no longer knew what. He had gone back to his little habits, stashing bottles all over the place so he could always be sure of having one to hand.

  ‘Right. And how are you planning to go about … committing your brother’s suicide?’

  ‘I don’t know, something simple, obvious. The window, maybe.’

  ‘The window?’

  ‘Yes. We’ll leave it wide open, he’ll try to shut it, and one of us will come up behind him and push him.’

  ‘Who’ll push him?’

  ‘It would be better if you did it.’

  ‘Uh … I’m not sure what to say to that. Why me?’

  ‘Because I won’t be there.’

  ‘It gets better and better! Listen, Jeanne, I love you, I adore you, but you have to admit—’

  ‘I’m not trying to wriggle out of it, Olivier. Listen to me. He has to be home alone for his suicide to be believable. Right now, you pack up your things and tell Rodolphe you’re going – he’s won. You go back to your mother’s. Half an hour later, I’ll go out to pick something up from the shops. On my way past, I’ll drop you the keys. You come back over here. He’ll be in the living room with Countdown on; you know how he turns the volume right up. You open the window of the dining room and wait for him to come over. You push him out, turn off the TV, go home, locking the door behind you, and you sit tight. Simple as that.’

  ‘Simple as that … it’s pure madness!’

  ‘Olivier! He’s got you in the palm of his hand. It’s you who could end up going to prison instead of him. We have no choice!’

  ‘But why does it have to be right now, tonight?’

  ‘Because he’s scared, because he’s due to be questioned tomorrow, because he’s guilty!’

  ‘I’ll never be able to do it.’

  ‘Of course you will! You have to believe that you can because otherwise it’s all over for you and me, because of him! Think how unfair that would be. We deserve another chance. This is the final test.’

  ‘Jeanne, Jeanne … Why is there death everywhere we go?’

  ‘So that we can live, Olivier. That’s just the way it is.’

  Olivier could still feel Rodolphe’s clammy, limp handshake on his skin.

  ‘It’s probably better this way. Goodbye.’

  The blind man said nothing. His nostrils twitched. He waited for Olivier to slam the door behind him before his breathing returned to normal.

  Olivier felt he was going back to square one, back to this flat he thought he would never set foot in again. It required an enormous effort to force himself not to think about anything, to live each minute without worrying about the last or the next. His gaze settled on the bottle of Ballantine’s but he refrained from unscrewing the cap. It contained all the courage he was lacking, but the situation demanded total lucidity. Unless … unless he picked up his bag and coat and took the first train or plane out of here. He seized the bottle and knocked the whisky back so quickly he almost choked. It was like a bomb going off in his stomach, a mushroom cloud rising to his brain and nuking all possibility of intelligent thought. It was exactly what he was hoping for. There were three short knocks at the door. He opened it with tears in his eyes. Jeanne looked like a faded watercolour.

  ‘Are you all right? … Here’s the key. Wait ten minutes for his programme to start … I love you.’

  Olivier had just enough time to close the door and run to the sink. He threw up a yellowish liquid that burned his gullet but did him good, as did the water on his face. Now he felt empty, calm, cold. He changed his leather-soled shoes for a less noisy pair with rubber soles. He was ready to go. Just as he was about to close the door behind him, he realised he had forgotten his keys and ran back inside, cursing himself. There was no one on the stairs. The key turning in the lock made a slight click-clack but it merged with the sound of the TV, which was audible from the landing. Standing motionless in the dark hallway, Olivier got his breath back and ran his tongue over his cracked lips. He felt as if he was being held on a leash with a collar digging in around his neck. He approached the shaft of light on the threshold of the living room, and gently pushed the door. All he could see of Rodolphe was the top of his head and his fingers tapping on the arm of the chair. Olivier hugged the wall, inching towards the dining room.

  ‘Six letters? … Six letters as well. Over to you, Monsieur Menoux.’

  ‘Zombie.’

  ‘Monsieur Bismuth?’

  ‘Zombie as well.’

  ‘Great. Zombie: according to West Indian folklore, a corpse said to have been raised from the dead and manipulated by witchcraft. An apathetic or slow-witted person.’

  Olivier was about to cross over into the dining room when Rodolphe suddenly stood up. He paused for a moment as if unsure where to go, all the while facing a petrified Olivier head-on. Eventually he went to pour himself a drink from the trolley beside the TV before returning to his armchair. The whole thing lasted only a minute or two, long enough for Olivier to see his whole life flash before his eyes.

  ‘One hundred and eighteen plus sixty-three times seven …’

  All human thoughts had deserted Olivier’s brain. He proceeded mechanically towards the window, sliding one foot in front of the other like the Horse Guards. His hands reached the catch and flung back both panes. A gust of icy air rushed in, so cold it was as if it had teeth. Olivier took three steps back and stood at attention.

  ‘What’s … Is someone there? … Who’s that?’

  Rodolphe was on his feet again, the draught lifting one flap of his dressing gown.

  ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘Consonant … vowel … consonant …’

  ‘Damn it!’

  Rodolphe came closer and closer … there was a shadow of doubt on his contorted face. His ears, nose, the pores of his skin were all on high alert. Olivier held his breath, as tightly wound as a spring. The blind man’s nostrils twitched as he passed fifty centimetres in front of him. It must be the whisky he could smell, but seeing as he had just had a glass himself … He opened his arms to the darkness like a bloated Christ and tried to pull the window closed, his belly touching the cast-iron guard rail. Olivier jumped forward, arms outstretched, eyes shut. He heard a kind of mooing followed almost immediately by a dull thud, and pressed his back against the wall.

  ‘Well done, Monsieur Bismuth! Spot on!’

  The black butterflies fluttering beneath his eyelids turned bright yellow when he opened his eyes. He would never be able to shut them again. He crossed the room, turned off the TV, rushed out of the flat, turned the key twice in the door, crossed the landing and double-locked himself in. His ears were completely blocked up. The only sounds he heard came from within, glugs, fizzes, blubs … He sat down on a chair facing the wall and turned on the radio, eyes wide, body tingling with boiling blood.

  ‘I did it … Jesus, I did it!’

  He had done it. Jeanne arrived at the same time as the police, who parked their van beside a group of four or five people gathered at the foot of the building. Madeleine, who was of course one of them, saw Jeanne coming a long way off and lunged towards her.

  ‘Oh, Mademoiselle Mangin, it’s awful! Your poor brother!’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He’s … I saw the whole thing! I was looking out of my window and all of a sudden I saw something falling, just like that, bam! Right before my eyes! It was me who called the emergency services, not five minutes ago. My God!’

  Jeanne pushed two or three onlookers out of the way. Two officers were kneeling beside Rodolphe. His eyes were
staring up at the empty sky and a bubble of blood was forming at the corner of his mouth. His right leg was jerking.

  ‘Please, Madame …’

  ‘I’m his sister. Is he …’

  ‘No, but it’s not looking good. Francis, call an ambulance.’

  ‘What happened?’

  Madeleine elbowed her way to the front to chime in again.

  ‘I saw the whole thing! He fell like a stone, right before my eyes! Not five minutes ago!’

  ‘Is anyone else at home?’

  ‘No. He was alone when I went out about twenty minutes ago.’

  ‘Francis, Gérard, stay here and wait for the ambulance. I’ll go upstairs with the lady.’

  Jeanne climbed the stairs followed first by the police officer and second by Madeleine, who would not stop saying ‘My God’.

  Jeanne breathed a little more easily when the key turned twice in the lock.

  ‘Do you lock it when you go out?’

  ‘No – he does. My brother’s a very anxious person.’

  The three of them entered the flat. The dining-room window was wide open and the wind was billowing the curtains. Jeanne went to shut it, but the police officer stopped her. For the time being, they were not to touch anything.

  ‘Who does this white stick belong to?’

  ‘My brother. Rodolphe’s blind.’

  ‘Ah … so it was an accident?’

  ‘I doubt it. Rodolphe has been blind since birth. He’s very independent.’

  Shame – the cop would clearly rather have gone with his own neat hypothesis. He took a cursory look around the room before the ambulance siren was heard blaring.

  ‘Here they are. I imagine you’d like to go with your brother?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Can I close the window? It’ll be freezing later.’

  ‘Yeah, go ahead.’

  Out on the landing, the officer briefly took down Madeleine’s statement and had to tell her three times he had no further need of her. Jeanne did not need anything either; nobody required her services. Disappointed, Madeleine watched them go downstairs but could not bring herself to do the same. It couldn’t just end like this! She planted her finger firmly on Olivier’s doorbell.