Andrew Crumey: The Secret Knowledge

“You did nothing wrong.”

“Or if they made a mistake. How can they be so sure it was Pierre?”

“You make it harder for yourself, Yvette.”

“No,” she says with sudden firmness, as if startled out of a daydream. “I’ve had enough of everyone trying to spare my feelings, treating me like a child. We were going to be married, he chose me as his wife.”

“So you say…”

“It’s true, Gilberte, and in my mind I’m his widow.”

“In mind but not in fact.” Gilberte’s voice hardens with determination, the solidarity of a family that has resolved to close itself against disaster, intrusion, scandal. “His parents’ wishes are final. I came in kindness to bring you these gifts from them, but what you say makes me doubt your gratitude. They have no obligation to you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“They would prefer no further communication.”

“I’m to be shut out?”

“You were never let in. You claim there was an engagement but there is no evidence of it, and Pierre’s father would in any case not have given permission.”

Yvette can barely feel the blow but she is aware of it, like witnessing an assault by one stranger on another. She feels pity of an abstract kind.

“I must leave,” Gilberte says.

“I agree.”

“I have other visits to make. Pierre had so many friends.”

“Not all of them good. That’s why he was murdered.”

Gilberte rises brusquely. “Enough of this.”

“But are the police still investigating? Why have they not come back to interview me again as they said?”

“The inquiry is no longer your concern.”

“How can you possibly say that? You don’t care, do you? None of you care. You simply want this terrible thing to go away — so you tell me to go. I won’t be silent!”

“You know nothing, Yvette, and anything you say will only cause further anguish. If you try to spread rumours there will be consequences.”

“Get out of here, damn you!”

Madame Courvelles re-enters just as Yvette is getting to her feet, the cousin stepping back in anticipation of being struck. The scene is undignified, ghastly. “Calm yourself!” Madame Courvelles cries as she rushes to embrace her daughter, both sobbing while Gilberte excuses herself and leaves.

The funeral, in Yvette’s mind, was the wedding she and Pierre had planned, their union. Either she, too, is dead, or else the man is alive. Both possibilities exist for her with equal force and reality because around the incident in the park so much doubt adheres, obscuring truth, demanding faith. In the following days there is no further word from Pierre’s family, from the police, or from anyone, as if all would prefer the couple never to have existed.

Leaving the house alone, intending to take some air, Yvette is met by the eyes of a brown-suited man coming along the pavement from the other direction who neatly raises his hat with a nod, as if he knows her and has the right to acknowledge it. She finds the gesture rude and unwelcome, fixes her line of sight ahead, but the man addresses her as she passes.

“Mademoiselle Courvelles.”

She stops, turns and looks at him, silently demanding an explanation.

“You have my sincere condolences. Pierre was a fine man.” The stranger must be only a few years older than she, but has a look of maturity and worldliness.

“You knew Pierre?”

His eyes roll in sad affirmation. “We were intimately acquainted. My name is Louis Carreau.”

It means nothing to her. “Are you a musician?”

“A music lover but no expert. Pierre’s circle was wide, it is not surprising if he never mentioned me. Though he spoke often of you.”

She feels herself blush, and for the first time in weeks is aware of a smile on her lips.

“He loved you very much, mademoiselle. He told me… I shouldn’t mention this.”

“Tell me, please.”

“He spoke of wanting to be with you forever.”

Tears are in her eyes. “He is.”

Carreau nods sorrowfully. “I suppose so.”

Yvette can see he has the air of knowing more than he says. “What else did Pierre speak about?”

Monsieur Carreau suggests they walk together. “Pierre’s interests were so varied, a conversation with him could be about art, philosophy, history.”

“Or life,” she recalls. “That most of all. The sheer joy of being in the world.”

“Yes, mademoiselle, he had such hopes and ambitions, which is why I find the recent circumstances so mystifying and distressing.”

They have reached the small gated garden that was her intended destination, but she continues past the entrance, still unsure of the man accompanying her. “I, too, am mystified, why anyone would do such a terrible thing to him.” Carreau halts beside her; she sees pain on his face, its suddenness inexplicable. “You do know what happened, don’t you?”

“I know what is asserted, mademoiselle, and that is what I find so incredible.”

“That he was murdered?”

Carreau’s expression alters once more. “You mean they didn’t tell you?”

“What are you talking about?” She feels almost the same foreboding she experienced on the day it happened.

“I spoke carelessly, forgive me, it is of no consequence…”

“What should they have told me? I knew they were hiding something!”

Carreau looks skywards as though wishing reassurance of the earth’s solidity. He speaks reluctantly, regretful both of the subject matter and of being forced to share it. His eyes when he levels them are so replete with earnest sympathy that he has the look of a professional mourner. “I have a friend in the justice ministry, I asked him to examine the papers relating to the case. There were witnesses to what happened. Mademoiselle, Pierre was not murdered…”

“My God, he’s alive?”

Carreau shakes his head. “It was by his own hand.”

She feels herself stagger; Carreau reaches to support her but quickly withdraws his arm when she shakes free. “Get away from me, you madman, or I shall call for help.”

“I simply tell you what I know.”

“This is all lies.”

“You knew the family were concealing a fact more painful than the death itself, now you understand what it is. I am sorry to have brought you news of which you would have been better to have remained ignorant. I should bid you goodbye.” He raises his hat again with the same polite self-assurance of his earlier introduction and is about to step away when Yvette, her thoughts restoring themselves to order, restrains him.

“How can they believe Pierre shot himself?”

“It is what the investigators have concluded, though they naturally wish to preserve the dignity of a high-ranking family.”

“But it was only minutes after he proposed marriage to me.”

Carreau’s brow furrows in shared puzzlement. “He asked you that very day? Then the improbable becomes surely impossible.”

Yvette’s mind is racing. “We have to tell the police.”

“It would not be a good idea.”

“Or your friend in the ministry. Don’t you see, Monsieur Carreau, there has been a terrible error, the police have got it wrong, he couldn’t have done what they say.”

Carreau sighs. “I’ve seen the papers, mademoiselle. I will not describe to you the detail with which one witness related what he saw, but I can tell you there is no doubt.”

“He saw Pierre die?”

“He saw him point the gun between his eyes and pull the trigger.”

Yvette covers her face.

“The witness saw the weapon go off, the wound it made. Death was instantaneous.”

She is not too distraught to recognise the flaw in the story. “Where is this witness? Why should we believe him?”