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?”
“Madame Tiphaine Geniot?” asked Beardy.
“Yes, that’s me . . .”
“I gather you were not authorized to fetch Nassim from school today . . .”
“What are you talking about?” She turned to Nora. “Really, Nora, we agreed—”
“We never agreed anything,” Nora shrieked, almost hysterical.
“That’s not true,” said Tiphaine, feigning outraged surprise. “Nassim, didn’t we agree I would pick you up today?”
Still huddled in his mother’s arms, the little boy began to sob.
“What has she done to you, my darling?” Nora said, furious and fearful at the same time.
“I haven’t done anything to him,” Tiphaine said, appearing more and more appalled by the turn events were taking. “You’re the one scaring him with your screaming.” She knelt down in front of Nassim. “Wasn’t it agreed I would get you from school today?”
She looked into his eyes: cold, hard, implacable. A look filled with loathing and menace; a barely veiled threat. For the first time in his life, Nassim sensed he was in danger. Terrified, the child simply nodded, hiccupping with sobs.
“Don’t cry, Nassim,” said Tiphaine in a voice so gentle it was like a caress. “It’s just a misunderstanding between your mommy and me. Everything is going to be fine, I promise.”
“Liar!” roared Nora. Now it was her turn to kneel down in front of her son. “What’s gotten into you, Nassim? You know perfectly well I was coming to fetch you.”
The boy stared at his mother in distress, his eyes filled with tears.
“Calm down, madame,” said Baldy. “You’re frightening your son.”
“Nassim, answer me, please,” Nora said, ignoring the officer. “There was never any question that Tiphaine was picking you up from school, was there?”
“Nora, this is absurd!” exclaimed Tiphaine, before the boy had a chance to answer. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Let him speak,” Nora barked back at her. She turned to her son and held him by the shoulders, as if about to shake him like a plum tree. “Say it, for heaven’s sake, say that it was me who was coming to fetch you. Have you lost your tongue?”
“Madame!” interrupted Beardy. “There’s no point in getting all worked up like this. Your son’s been found, safe and sound. We’ll call off the search.”
All of a sudden it dawned on Nora that in under five minutes the situation had turned against her.
She was losing all credibility. It was as if she were actively furnishing evidence of Tiphaine’s trustworthiness.
Now she was the monster. Nassim was standing in front of her, clearly terrified by her behavior, when she was the one who was meant to be protecting and reassuring him.
She froze, seeming to become aware of her son’s ordeal, and felt her anger melt away.
She stood up and hugged him tightly to her again.
“Forgive me, my darling . . . I was so worried. You weren’t in school, and I never agreed anything with anyone about picking you up. And certainly not Tiphaine! It was me picking you up today, do you understand?”
Nassim hugged his mother like a drowning man clinging to a life buoy, his body racked with huge sobs.
“Nassim, are you all right?” The boy continued to cry, his face buried in his mother’s neck. “Nassim, darling, answer me.”
Baldy nodded and pursed his lips. “Well, I think we can leave you now.”
Nora whipped around as though she’d heard a shot. “What about her?” she asked, gesturing at Tiphaine with a scornful nod. Baldy lifted his shoulders as though to express his impotence.
“There’s nothing we can charge her with. We found the child safe at home. I don’t see what she could be guilty of.”
Nora flinched as though she’d received an electric shock. She put Nassim down with awkward haste and strode over to the two police officers.
“You’re not going to do anything? You’re just going to let her go?”
“My colleague has just explained to you that we have nothing to hold against Madame Geniot,” said Beardy, sounding a great deal firmer than his colleague. Nora felt like an insect caught in a spider’s web: the more she struggled, the more she found herself tangled in a psychological trap.
She turned to Tiphaine and said, “Don’t ever come near me or my children again.”
“That will be tricky, I only live next door,” said Tiphaine with a wry smile, not missing a beat.
“That’s not my problem,” replied Nora, with an assertiveness that surprised her. “And incidentally, I’d like my front-door key back.”
Tiphaine raised a disdainful eyebrow. Without saying a word, she went to the dining room, where she had left her jacket, plunged her hand into one of the pockets, and pulled out a set of keys. She removed one and held it out to Nora, who grabbed it, her eyes lit up with a glint of hatred.
“Stay away from me, Tiphaine. It’ll be better for everyone.”
“You’re saying that to me? That’s rich coming from you.”
“Calm down, ladies,” said Baldy. “Sometimes people say things they later regret.” The two women eyed each other for a few more seconds, each prepared to force their enemy to be the first to look away.
And then, unexpectedly, it was Tiphaine who gave up and turned away.
Nora was surprised and relieved. What Gérard had told her just before he died, and what she’d seen in the file folder, filled her with dread.
Her neighbor scared her. She didn’t feel safe here anymore.
Her relief didn’t last long. Suddenly, the presence of Tiphaine in her house and the feelings she inspired in her made her think of Gérard’s file.
The possibility that her neighbor might have found the precious document—thus providing clear evidence that Gérard had come over to Nora’s house after leaving the Geniots, not to mention everything that had happened after—petrified her.
Panic blurred her clarity of thought. She had to make sure the file folder was still in its place.
But she also had to avoid drawing Tiphaine’s and the cops’ attention to the living room, and especially the bookshelf.
It was time for everyone to leave. Her nerves on edge, she turned to the officers and thanked them for their help.
They inquired solicitously as to how she was feeling, wanting to be sure that she was okay before they left.
Nora reassured them she was fine. Tiphaine got up to go as well.
She put her jacket on and headed for the front door with the police officers.
All three left the house at the same time.
As Nora pushed the door closed behind them, Tiphaine nodded goodbye to the police officers.
She was about to go into her own house when she turned around to them and said, “I have no idea what she told you, but the woman’s lost her grip on reality.
I’m not sure she’s capable of looking after her own children.
You saw what a state she put her son in. ”
The two men nodded in agreement and got into the car.
Nora shut the front door and went into the living room, where she saw, with relief, that the folder was still in its place.
She felt herself flush with a kind of retrospective horror—she had not even realized she had left such damning evidence in plain sight.
What incredible luck Tiphaine hadn’t seen it.
She had to be more careful in the future, find a more discreet hiding place.
Nora reached for the folder to put it somewhere safer.
But as she took it down she realized immediately that it was unusually light, and there was no sound of rustling pages inside.
Another shock, much worse this time, because there was no getting away from it.
She knew what had happened. She felt it in her hands, the emptiness, the nothingness, the absence.
Even so, the physical evidence didn’t correlate in her mind, like a theory so absurd it can’t be proved. Shaking from head to foot, Nora practically ripped it open to check the contents.
Her body felt as empty as the folder she was holding in her hands.