The Switch

PART TWO

  mercredi

  Wednesday

  14:05

  Brrrrrrrrrr . . . brrrrrrrrr

  The front doorbell roars through Lily’s body.

  She breathes hard though the crack at the side of the bathroom door, watching as the dining room shutters smash against their hinges in the wind. For a moment she thinks she hears a stifled cry from inside the apartment. She stops inhaling until the pain in her chest is too much to bear.

  Silence.

  It stretches far too long.

  Two shots ricochet on metal, rocketing her forward.

  Her lungs tighten as another shot from the hallway blasts her with the stamina to throw herself out of the bathroom. She clenches the razor against her body with explosive courage.

  The outside hall echoes with screaming, shouting and the cracking of footsteps on the stairs.

  Louder and louder.

  She screws her eyes shut.

  Escape.

  The fire exit.

  Madame Briac would return to collect her from the main road.

  She pictures the back route from the fire escape.

  Catching sight of the terror moulded in grey on her face in a dressing mirror, she flings open the French windows in the master bedroom.

  She looks down at the nettles and an assortment of bins.

  Wide, spiky, metal struts beneath her feet – her bright green Converse covering the widest of the gaps, the struts digging into the sole of the shoes. The framework of the fire exit rattles with every hurried step, her hand dragging on the rusting rail.

  The staircase gives with the weight of another body.

  Lily shrieks, not daring to look up. Jumping past the open window of the ground floor apartment, she hits the concreted yard harder than she expects, hardly noticing the razor dropping from her hand. She knocks into a crate of glass bottles as she stumbles under a group of trees. Cars stream across the road bridge ahead. The path curves away towards the Rue de la Bastille, disappearing under the bridge. Nettles prick at her legs and her stride becomes heavy.

  Someone launches themselves from the fire exit, pushing into her from behind.

  Lily follows her glasses headlong.

  She opens her eyes against dry earth and reaches out into blurred vision, extending her fingers until they ache over weeds and stones.

  She finds her glasses. She holds the scratched lenses to her face and, ankles stinging, brings herself upright, dragging her feet over a tree root. She sways, bringing the dust of her fingertips to her mouth to scratch away the dirt.

  She catches sight of a longhaired youth in a mustard yellow T-shirt disappearing through the foliage.

  His running beats into the distance.

  She turns.

  Gold glints from Madame Claude’s vulgar gawp. The elderly woman steadies her, brushing her down with leathered hands, exhibiting concern without using words. She tugs at Lily’s elbow as if to lead her back to the apartment block.

  ‘Non,’ Lily fires, pointing towards the bridge. ‘Non, merci, Madame.’ She pins her glasses to her face, as Madame Claude’s dismayed features come into focus.

  ‘Arrêtes-là!’

  A new voice and simultaneous striking of feet on the fire escape.

  Lily will not look up.

  She will run.

  ‘Stop! Attention!’

  The raw strength of the man’s call penetrates as she runs under the void of the road bridge – the noise following her into the smell of urine and discarded alcohol, forcing her legs work to harder. The traffic noise rushes. Her adrenalin pushes her up a hard-mudded path, turning her back on herself as she reaches the top.

  She cannot tell if he is chasing still.

  The paved footpath finally eats away at her legs and she drops to the ground.

  Car passengers point her way.

  As the vehicles and buses clear with the changing of the lights, she sees the youth in the mustard yellow T-shirt staring into her.

  Now she sees his face.

  Thierry turns his body away from her and hangs over the wall looking in the direction of the apartment block. The sirens of ambulances and police cars merge in an ear-splitting collaboration. They pass and he falls away from the wall to meet her.

  ‘You OK?’ he says.

  The grit cuts like shards of glass into the whites of her eyes as she tries to focus on the smooth features of his face. ‘Maybe,’ she replies, her chest heaves as she looks up from the pavement. ‘You heard the shooting. Someone’s following.’ Her nose presses against the graffiti logo on his yellow T-shirt as he lifts her to her feet. They are alone on the pavement as the traffic snakes past and car passengers stare.

  ‘They won’t come on the bridge,’ Thierry says. ‘Hear the sirens? Too much going on up here.’

  ‘Thank God,’ she says. Her fingers tremble as she straightens her glasses.

  He bows forward. ‘But we still have to run.’

  ‘Who are we running from? Why were they shooting?’

  ‘No matter,’ he says, abruptly.

  Her eyes widen. ‘No matter? How can you say that!’

  He flicks his hair from his eyes and winces.

  She looks at the red sodden dressing on his arm.

  ‘You haven’t got a sling,’ she says.

  ‘It got in the way.’ He pulls the twisted bandage from his pocket. She helps him to wrap it around the dressing.

  ‘Who did this to you?’ she demands.

  He puts his hand over her mouth before she can speak. ‘Just know you’re involved,’ he says, turning on an aggressive look killing her feelings of sympathy for him.

  She fights free. ‘Tell me why we have to run,’ she says.

  ‘Because you’re with me now.’

  ‘I’m not with anyone,’ she says, incensed. ‘Tell me why you texted Camille to be careful.’

  He backs off, skin rippling at the sides of his mouth. ‘Marc-Olivier is in trouble.’

  ‘So.’

  He glares.

  ‘Why do you care? Is it for the shooting? Did he shoot at Didier?’ she demands.

  The emotion leaves Thierry’s already drawn face.

  She lowers her voice. ‘They’re after you too. Is that it?’

  ‘It’s not simple.’

  ‘You’re running away. You said as much.’

  ‘I’m not running away. I’m going to the police.’

  Her exasperation boils over. ‘Briac is the police.’

  Thierry spits, his face bound up with pain as fresh blood seeps through the bandage.

  ‘You saw,’ he says. ‘Briac is far too close to everything.’

  ‘Too close to be told why someone attacked you? Too close to the shooting at the Bar Tabac? Too close to the drugs dealing?’

  ‘What does it matter to you?’

  Now his hands are on her shoulders and he eyeballs her. She loses balance, smashing her back against the wall.

  ‘What does it matter to Marc-Olivier?’ she retorts.

  ‘It matters,’ he barks.

  He turns as a bus rumbles over a series of service plates. He pulls her away from the brick.

  ‘Now we have to go,’ he says.

  He pays for bus tickets and leads her to the nearest seat.

  Her head thumps with anger and fear. She scrapes her fingernails into her hair. Her eyes are closed.

  ‘I have to contact my group,’ she whispers. ‘They’ll be at the Eiffel Tower.’ She feels her shaking legs rubbing against the coarse weave of his jeans.

  He doesn’t reply.

  The bus jolts her eyes open, and within minutes they draw up to the façade of the Gare du Nord. People climb on and they crowd her, hanging their sweaty bodies over her head. Thierry grips his arm as he retrieves a phone from a pouch on his belt.

  She nods her gratitude and reads off the telephone number scrawled on the back of her hand.

  ‘Allo, c’est bien Madame Kite?’ Lily’s voice tra
ils away.

  ‘Lily, is it you?’ the voice of Mrs Kite replies, anxiously.

  ‘I’m on my way, Mrs Kite,’ Lily says, searching for a road name.

  ‘How long will you be? We’re at the front of the queue for the lifts.’

  ‘How far to the Eiffel Tower?’ she asks Thierry.

  ‘About three kilometres, a little more,’ he says, with disinterest.

  ‘Can I meet you in about thirty minutes?’ Lily tells Mrs Kite.

  ‘I’ll wait at the kiosk. Mr Kite and Mireille will take the others.’

  Lily hangs up.

  ‘The bus will take me there, won’t it?’ she asks.

  Thierry shrugs. He holds his arm again, gripping at the wound pad.

  ‘You’ll get better,’ she says, flippantly. ‘You’ll be OK to bang the drums in the band with Laurent the next time.’

  ‘And Didier?’ he shouts in her face.

  She recoils, humbled. ‘You mean the boy who was shot?’

  He winces. ‘Oui. Didier.’

  She watches his face.

  Nothing.

  ‘No wonder Madame Claude’s behaviour was volatile,’ she says.

  ‘Pah,’ he says. ‘The grandmother.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  A man standing above her pushes his briefcase into her shoulder as he makes his way towards the bus exit.

  ‘Nothing,’ Thierry grunts.

  Lily’s insides roll. ‘You know Didier . . . he—’

  ‘He . . . what?’ Thierry’s cheek turns to the window as he speaks. Sweat dribbles on his forehead. He hunches his body.

  She will not finish her sentence unless he looks at her.

  She taps him on the shoulder.

  He spins angrily.

  ‘The boy Didier is still unconscious,’ she says.

  Lines furrow Thierry’s wet brow and he looks as if he’s going to be sick. He reaches for the back of the seat in front to help him to his feet. She stands with him.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she cries.

  He pushes through the bodies to the doors as if his life depends on it. The bus nears a stop and he hits the button.

  ‘Off,’ he says, pulling at her top. ‘You have to come with me.’

  ‘We can’t. You’re going to the police, and I have to be—’

  He directs her to the pavement and marches her along. He breaks into a run. ‘We're going back this way,’ he says. She feels a bruising ache in her right arm. She stares up at the clock face on the front of the Gare du Nord.

  Two forty-five.

  They enter the echoing departure hall. He leads her between its pillars. Through a drifting haze of tobacco smoke.

  ‘I don’t want to be here,’ she says. ‘I need to go.’

  He looks behind, avoiding her eyes, and doesn’t answer. His face is blue, as if he is drowning in fear.

  14:46

  The departure board rolls as they slide underneath, and he changes his hold to lead her by the wrist around the back of a stone pillar.

  He expels. His cheeks regain colour. He cranes his head to her ear, brushing his damp hair across her face.

  ‘Now things change. With Didier . . . and I need more time to think,’ he whispers. ‘I need to breathe.’

  She tips her head and her eyes follow the tear in his T-shirt. The cut-throat razor she dropped from the fire escape is fastened next to his mobile in his jeans belt.

  She points to it but he lifts her chin. ‘You’ll wait with me,’ he says, pulling at her hair.

  She rips herself away, shocked at his aggression, staring at the blood-shot around his pleading eyes. ‘I don’t want to. I don’t want to be any part of this,’ she shouts.

  A couple stepping by turns to question their argument but takes no more notice as Thierry brings his arm around her.

  He clips at Lily’s hand, taking hold of two of her fingers.

  ‘But you are part of this. You are involved. And you must listen,’ he says, staring searchingly into her eyes. ‘Your camera—’ His grip tightens and she squeezes back. ‘I need it . . . I switched the memory card with mine.’

  She scoffs. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. When did you switch the memory card?’

  ‘At the school,’ he says. ‘When I took your pictures at the railway bank.’

  She reaches her free hand to an empty back pocket . . . remembering . . . realising he could be telling the truth.

  ‘I don’t have the camera,’ she says, patting at her jeans pockets and showing an empty palm close to his face. ‘I fell. You know I fell.’

  He relaxes his grip.

  ‘What’s on the card in any case?’

  ‘Pictures . . . and a film from another day at the Bar Tabac,’ he says as if she should know what he is talking about. ‘I took it a week ago when they were there. Everyone knows I have it now. When the police see it, it will put them all in prison.’

  ‘Well it won't will it because you haven’t got it, have you! You gave it to me!’ He moves towards her and she baulks. ‘I’m not going back for it. If that’s what you’re thinking. You’ll need to go and get it yourself before everyone else does. You may be too late.’

  He appears defeated and she takes a chance.

  Passers-by turn as he grunts in pain. Lily stops squeezing his fingers and slides away around the back of the stone pillar.

  ‘People care about you, strangely,’ she shouts.

  Her ankles twinge as she dodges the travellers and their suitcases. She hears someone shout and the echo of squabble breaks out. A man in a greater hurry jostles her heavily from behind. The man knocks into her without apology – she sees only a black polo shirt and a neck red and peeling under his tight-shaved greying hairline.

  Outside, people bank up to climb on the number 42 bus to the Champs de Mars (Tour Eiffel).

  She meets the line, fumbling for her bus ticket. She prises it out of her pocket. She hides, flanked against the bodies of strangers and their assortments of shoulder luggage. She huddles with them until she meets the step into the bus. She doesn’t dare to look out for Thierry.

  A police car draws up in front of the bus. The bus moves off and she sees what looks like the figure of Monsieur Briac running into, then emerging from the station and striding over the pavement.

  She looks down to hide her face from him.

  She keeps herself standing. Her arms and legs tensed, she hangs on to a rail and counts the dropped sweets around her feet. A stabbing pain rushes up her spine. Her side and her buttock are numb from the fall. She contorts her body. The pain eases. She looks for a seat.

  Through the dividing glass of the rear section of the bus, the light refracts on the accentuated whites of the eyes of the man in the black polo shirt. He strikes her with a crazed look that shatters all her thoughts.