Franck Thilliez - Syndrome E

At these last words from the inspector, Lucie sipped her drink, eyes shining with fatigue. In the subdued light, Sharko’s features softened. The sound of music, low and simple, faded into the background. Everything in this place fostered a sense of calm and seduction. Lucie took a photo from her wallet and laid it on the table.

“I haven’t introduced you to my two little treasures. Who I miss terribly. Today more than ever, I realize I’m just not ready to be so far away from them.”

Sharko picked up the photo with a tenderness Lucie had never seen in him before.

“Juliette on the right and Clara on the left?”

“Other way around. If you look closely, you’ll see that Clara has a slight defect in her iris, a black spot that looks like a tiny vase.”

The inspector handed back the picture.

“What about their father?”

“He ran out a long time ago.”

Lucie sighed, her hands around her glass.

“This case is very hard, Inspector, because it’s not Clara or Juliette I see when I look at this photo, but Alice Tonquin, Lydia Hocquart, and all those other frightened little girls. I can see their faces, their terror. I hear their screams when they attacked those poor animals.”

“We all have our ghosts. They’ll go away when we crack this case. When all the doors have finally closed, they’ll leave you in peace.”

A silence. Lucie nodded, staring into space.

“And how about you, Inspector? Have you left any doors open in your life?”

Sharko twisted his wedding ring.

“Yes… There’s a very, very big door I’d like to close. But I can’t seem to do it. Maybe because deep down, I don’t really want to.”

Lucie put down her glass and leaned forward. Her lips were just inches away from those of the man she was dying to kiss.

“I know what door you mean. And I might be able to help you close it.”

Sharko didn’t answer immediately. Part of him felt like pulling back, getting up, disappearing, but the other part struggled to keep him there.

“You really think so?”

She leaned farther forward and kissed him on the mouth. Sharko’s eyelids had lowered; his senses went numb, as if everything inside him had suddenly shut down.

He opened his eyes.

“You do know there’s probably no future in what’s maybe about to happen?”

“Personally, I think there is. But for now, let’s at least give the present a chance.”

He hadn’t seen a woman naked since the death of Suzanne, and it almost made him feel ashamed. The slim, scented body glided through the shadows and came to press against his. The greedy, delicate hands finished unbuttoning his shirt, while fire roiled deep in his belly. He let her take the lead, but Lucie could feel a tension, an impalpable hold that prevented the man in front of her from letting go completely.

“Is something wrong?” she whispered into his ear.

“It’s just that…”

Sharko pulled out of her embrace and slipped nimbly toward the center of the room. He turned over the chair near the bed and put away the O-gauge Ova Hornby locomotive, with its black car for wood and coal, in the drawer of the bedside table. He also put away the box of candied chestnuts. Then he went back to his partner and kissed her passionately. A bit too roughly, he pushed her back onto the bed. Lucie let out a little laugh.

“That train was too much. You really are an odd—”

Their mouths found each other again, their moist bodies slammed together. Sharko deftly turned off the lights as their hips rolled in the sheets. Despite the drawn curtains, light from outside spread over the bed, suggesting the forms that pleasure combined. A landscape of flesh, hollows, valleys, gave the impression of sinking beneath the fury of an earthquake. Lucie bit the pillow, in the grip of her orgasm; Sharko turned her over, with the tender violence of a she-wolf lifting her young, and plunged onto her, breathing hard. The tears, the screams, the faces of the dead, the Lydias and Alices became blurred, submerged by their sensuality. The seconds pulsed like electrical charges on the skin. In the tension of his burning muscles, Sharko stiffened, the veins in his neck bulging. And as his teeth clenched, as his movements took fire, he stared at the center of the room.

She was still standing there, feet together, hands hanging down at her sides.

And for the first time in his life, Sharko saw Eugenie cry.

The instant seemed an eternity. The inspector’s eyes clouded up as well, while the woman beneath him moaned.

And in the magic of his senses in ecstasy, the little girl smiled at him.

She raised her small hand and gave him a friendly wave.

On the verge of tears, Sharko answered with the same gesture.

The next moment, Eugenie walked out without looking back. The door closed silently behind her.

And Sharko finally let himself feel pleasure.

Sharko awoke with a start: his telephone was vibrating on the nightstand.

He detached himself from the warm body he held tightly against him and rolled onto his side.

At the other end of the line was Pierre Monette. He’d found the origin of the key Philip Rotenberg had entrusted to Lucie: it opened a locker in Montreal’s main train station. The Canadian policeman arranged to meet him there at noon, after he attended to some other business.

The inspector hung up and turned back to the woman sharing his bed. With the tips of his fingers, he caressed her back. Her skin was so soft, so young, compared with the thick shell that had turned him into a street cop. So many roads separated the two of them… Delicately, he buried his face in her blond hair and became intoxicated one last time with the blend of perfume and perspiration.

He couldn’t lie to himself anymore: he wanted her. Since they’d first met, he had never really been able to banish her from his mind. Quietly, he got up and went off to shower. While he ran the water, while he looked at himself in the mirror as he dressed, he searched for Eugenie. He remembered with surgical precision the small hand movement she had addressed to him the night before. And those tears running down her childish face. Could it be that Eugenie was happy? And that she would finally leave him alone?

No, no, he couldn’t believe it. He was ill, suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, which required him to take medicine until the day he died. Things just didn’t happen like that. Not in real life.

After swallowing his morning pill, he returned to the bedroom. Lucie was sitting at the far end of the bed, gazing at him steadily.

“Someday, will you tell me what those pills are for?”

As if he hadn’t heard, he walked up and kissed her.

“We’ve got work to do. Breakfast, a visit to the nuns, then the train station. Sound good to you?”

He briefed her about the locker key. Lucie stretched, got up, and suddenly threw herself against him.

“I felt happy last night, and that’s something that hasn’t happened to me in a long time.” She smiled. “I don’t want it to end.”

Sharko put his hands on her back, which he massaged with a tenderness that surprised even him. He spoke into the hollow of her ear, also in a half sigh.

“We should think all this through. Agreed?”

Lucie sank into his eyes and nodded.

“Someday I want to come back here and experience this country other than through a waking nightmare. I’d like it if it could be with you.”

Regretfully, she gently detached herself from him. She wished that instant could last an eternity. She knew how fragile their relationship was, and she’d already begun thinking of the return to France. The business of life threatened to separate them without their even realizing it.