“It’s for the game,” she explained, not quite able to conceal her annoyance. Then she corrected herself, like a bad actress whose attention had wandered trying awkwardly to get back into character. Nassim started to cry. He had a lump in his throat and a great weight in his stomach.
“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” she said, genuinely taken aback to see the child in tears. “Why are you crying?”
“I want my maman,” he said again, clinging to Tiphaine’s exaggerated kindness.
“I’m right here, my darling. Come sit on my lap.”
Her voice flowed like a nauseating liquid, a foul syrup that sticks to everything and leaves its tacky mark everywhere. She held out her arms to him, convinced he was going to throw himself into them and snuggle up. Nassim wiped his damp cheeks and managed a feeble smile.
“No, I’m okay now.”
“Hey, don’t make me beg. Come give me a hug.”
“I’d rather read a comic,” he said, remembering she’d wanted to do that the last time she’d babysat. Tiphaine’s face lit up with surprise and satisfaction. She beamed at him.
“Great idea!” she said. “Go find the one you want to read and we’ll sit together in the living room.”
He shot off like an arrow.
Tiphaine went into the living room and sat down to wait for him on the sofa facing the bookshelves. She looked around the room, as if not really seeing the shapes and colors of the room, lost in thought, recalling all the different periods of her life. Vanished realms. She was diving into the past to escape the present. Her eyes focused on the shelves, and without thinking she began to decipher the titles on the spines as if they were a coded message, an initiatory, subliminal path ironically recalling the defining events of her life.Stranger Than Truthby Vera Caspary.The Woman Next Doorby Barbara Delinsky.The Strangerby AlbertCamus.The Great Secretby René Barjavel.Regretsby Joachim du Bellay.Lost Illusionsby Honoré deBalzac.Journey to the End of the Nightby Louis-FerdinandCéline. Her eye fell on an unmarked spine, a book that stood out because of its unusual dimensions. It was bright green, sandwiched betweenThe Pleasures of Crimeby Jacqueline Harpman and“J” Is for Judgmentby Sue Grafton. Tiphaine frowned. A flash. The glimmer of a memory. An indistinct image. A feeling of suffocation. Intrigued, she stood up and bounded over in two steps to the bookshelf, took hold of the book, and pulled it out. It was a folder. Strangely familiar. Where had she seen one that looked exactly like this one?
She opened it and began flicking through the documents inside.
Chapter 48
The moment she heard that her neighbor had taken her son, Nora called the police, who took the report of a missing child very seriously. Two investigators were at the school gate within ten minutes, one bald, the other bearded. In the meantime, Nora tried to reach Tiphaine on her cell phone, without success: her call was declined before it went to voice mail. She was in a state of panic bordering on hysteria.
There was no time for discretion. She summed up the situation to the two officers, leaving nothing out: the amicable relationship she’d established with her neighbors; the favors Tiphaine had done for her when she’d needed someone to fetch her son from school; her brief dalliance with Sylvain. Her husband’s jealousy and its consequences; Tiphaine discovering what had happened, and now undoubtedly filled with resentment toward Nora and her family, which was why Nora was so distraught to discover her son was with her. And, finally, the fact that Gérard had not been seen since the previous Friday, after his visit to the Geniots.
After listening to the distraught mother’s account, the officers were in no doubt that the situation was sufficiently serious to launch a search operation. They asked for details about the child—photos, what he was wearing, and so on—which Nora gave them with the help of the school principal, who was quite mortified by the turn of events.
The information was transmitted to the central police station. The two officers then headed straight for rue Edmond-Petit, following Nora in her car. As soon as she turned into the street she saw Tiphaine’s car. She parked on the opposite sidewalk, where parking was prohibited, then ran to the Geniots’ front door, heart thumping, ready to fling herself at her neighbor and tear out her eyes.
The two officers told her to stay calm and let them deal with it. They rang the doorbell...No answer. Nora began pounding on the door with all her might, yelling Tiphaine’s name and pleading with her to open up. Beardy admonished her sharply and Baldy tugged her arm to get her away from the house.
“You have to break down the door!” she screamed at them.
“You have to remain calm, madame,” Baldy said. “We’ll do exactly what is required. It doesn’t help for you to get all worked up like this. We’ll get a search warrant and—”
“Are you insane? We don’t have time for paperwork. I want my son back!”
“That is precisely what we are trying to accomplish, madame. But there is a procedure to follow,” Beardy replied, as his colleague tapped on his phone’s screen and put it to his ear. Nora thought she was going to lose her mind. Her son was inside, just a few feet away from her, grappling with a crazy woman out for revenge for her husband’s infidelity. God knows what she was capable of, what she might tell him or do to him, how she might hurt him.
“How long is this going to take?” she wailed, stamping her foot impatiently.
“The case file is already on the examining magistrate’s desk. We’ve asked for it to be dealt with as a matter of urgency, so we can go in right away. It won’t take long.”
Nora covered her face with her hands, feeling desperate and powerless. Through her fingers she saw Tiphaine’s car parked a little farther up the road. An idea struck her.
“Hang on a moment.” She ran over to her own house, rummaged in her purse for the key, and inserted it hurriedly into the lock. As she went inside, immediately followed by the two officers, she called out her son’s name. When they heard Nassim answer his mother in a tiny voice, all three froze. A moment later Nora burst into the living room like a Fury, Baldy and Beardy at her heels.
The moment Nassim saw his mother he ran over and jumped into her arms. She held him as if they had been apart for years.
“Nassim!” she cried, patting him anxiously, as if to check that nothing was missing. Then she turned to Tiphaine. “Are you out of your fucking mind? The next time you get anywhere near my son, I’ll tear your guts out.”
Tiphaine opened her eyes wide, apparently bewildered by Nora’s unexpected and irate entrance.
“Nora, what is wrong with you?” Only then did she seem to become aware of the presence of the two police officers. “But...what on earth is going on?”
