Woman in the Fifth

I reached work. I bolted the door behind me. I drank coffee all night and kept my eyes glued to the screen. An image kept filling my head: the seven-year-old Margit being frogmarched out by the cop. No wonder she tried to cut her throat after the death of Zoltan and Judit. How much tragedy can one person bear? How do you get up in the morning and negotiate the day, knowing that you have twice lost — in horrible circumstances — the people closest to you?

My admiration for her had increased sevenfold. But so too had my unease with her cut-and-dried solutions to things: ‘You must kill Yanna’s husband.’

No, I must dodge Yanna’s husband and somehow hope the police work out who really killed Omar and get my passport back and …

Vanish.

Because now — after Sezer’s threats and Margit’s warnings about the inevitable — I knew that I had few choices open to me.

But I couldn’t just disappear right now. Not with my movements being so closely observed, and with my passport in the pocket of Inspector Coutard.

Say the cops followed me here tonight? How would I explain that one? ‘Fess up — ‘All right, I do have a job‘ — and hope whatever they found downstairs wasn’t so gruesome that … ?

You can work out that one once they’ve arrested you. And maybe getting arrested is the safest option going right now.

But if they arrest you, they can pin everything on you. And they will. Better to tough it out, get the passport returned, and skip town.

You could buy false documents … and be elsewhere tomorrow.

And be on the run for the rest of my life? And never see my daughter again? And always be looking over my shoulder? And …

You’ll never see your daughter again. And you’ll always be looking over your shoulder … unless you kill Yanna’s husband.

You’re talking melodrama. If I flee to the States …

You’ll still never rest easy. Get rid of him.

Shut up.

You know you can do it.

Says you. Look what happened when Omar was silenced. His dirty little secret — with which he attempted to blackmail me — was still whispered into the ear of Yanna’s husband. So if I kill Yanna’s husband, then I also might as well kill Sezer and Mr Tough Guy and Mr Beard … since they all could still get me … all could want me dead.

When 6 a.m. came, my brain felt fried. My all-night anxiety had left me feeling as if I had overdosed on Dexedrine or some other form of high-octane speed. As I walked down the stairs to the front door, the entire grubby concrete hallway seemed to blur and take on a certain strange liquidity, as if it could form another shape or dimension around me. I hoisted the bat, holding it against me the way a soldier on inspection might keep his rifle crossed against his chest. At the patisserie, the Algerian guy behind the counter gave me a scared look when he saw the weapon.

‘It’s just a precaution,’ I told him. ‘Just self-defence in case they try to get me.’

‘Monsieur, do you want your pains au chocolat, comme d’habitude?’ he asked.

‘You see them, you tell them I used to be a pinch hitter on my high-school baseball team, so I really know how to swing one of these—’

‘Monsieur, please. There is no need to …’

That’s when I realized I was brandishing the bat and also talking in English.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ I said, switching back into French. ‘Very overtired. Very …’

‘No problem, sir,’ he said, handing me the usual bag with the pains au chocolat.

‘Don’t know what’s wrong. Don’t—’

‘Two euros, sir,’ he said, still proffering the bag.

I threw five on the counter and took the bag and headed off.

‘Don’t you want the change?’

‘I want sleep.’

Did I sound spooked, maybe a little insane? Absolutely. But I knew that things would all look a lot better after eight hours of sleep.

Actually, things wouldn’t look better at all.

I turned the corner into the rue de Paradis. I reached my doorway. I punched in the code and went up to my room. I passed the toilet. It was still sealed off with police tape, forcing me to always use the toilet on the upper floor. I opened my door, leaned the bat against a wall, undressed, climbed beneath the sheets and—

There was a loud pounding on the door, followed by one uttered word, ‘Police!’

I blinked and looked at the bedside clock: 6.23 a.m. Great. I’d been asleep for maybe ten minutes.

‘Police!’

More heavy knocking. Part of me wanted to play dumb and hope they’d go away and let me sleep.

‘Police!’

I was about to say something, but the door burst open and two uniformed officers came charging in. Before I knew it, they’d forced me to put on a pair of pants and a jacket and had handcuffed me and frogmarched me downstairs and into a car that had now pulled up in front.

Ten minutes later, I was in the commissariat de police of the Tenth arrondissement, sitting in front of Inspector Leclerc. My hands were no longer cuffed behind my back. Instead, one of my wrists had been chained to the metal chair where I had been placed … and the chair itself bolted to the floor. The two arresting officers had brought me in here, attached me to the chair and left me to my own devices for around twenty minutes. Then Leclerc arrived, carrying my baseball bat in one hand.

‘Good morning, Monsieur Ricks,’ he said, sitting down behind his desk. ‘I presume you know what this is?’

‘Why am I here?’ I asked.

‘Please answer the question.’

‘A baseball bat.’

‘Very good. And I presume you also know that we just found this bat in your chambre.’

‘Can you search somebody’s place without a permit?’

‘Answer the question, monsieur. Is this your bat?’

‘I’m answering no questions until I know why I’m here.’

‘You don’t know why you’re here?’ he asked, studying my face with care.

‘No idea.’

‘Do you know a Monsieur Attani?’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘He runs a bar on the rue de Paradis — a bar where you have been seen to drink on several occasions.’

I tensed. Leclerc noticed this.

‘Do you know his wife, Madame Yanna Attani?’

I felt a sweat break on my forehead. I said nothing.

‘I take your silence to mean—’

‘I know her,’ I said.

‘Then you must also know Monsieur Attani?’

‘We’ve never been formally introduced.’

‘Even though you were formally introduced to his wife. In fact, word has it that you were intimately acquainted with his wife … that Monsieur Attani was made aware of your intimate acquaintance upon his return from Turkey a few days ago, and was heard publicly to say that he was planning to kill you. So … were you aware of these threats?’