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Histoires De Luna

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Fontainebleau


At five in the afternoon on a Saturday in mid-September, a woman in shorts is waving, trying to stop the cars. She has a T-shirt over her head to protect herself from the sun, her bra’s undone and she’s wearing a pair of scruffy flipflops.

Watching her as he pulls the patrol car over on the provincial roadside, the police major is mentally classifying the woman in shorts as ‘freaked out'. After seventeen years of service, and several hundred alcoholics, drug addicts and loonies, all calmed down by hook or by crook, 'freaked out' he could distinguish at a glance. And that woman is freaked out, no doubt.

The two officers get out of the car and the woman in shorts crouches down, mumbling something. She is exhausted, dehydrated, the younger officer gives her the bottle of water that they keep in the door-shelf, ignoring the disgusted look of his colleague.

At this point the words of the woman in shorts become more intelligible. 'I’ve lost my sister ...' she says, '... her husband and the kid.' Her name is Stéphanie Moulin, and that morning she’d gone on a picnic with the family in the park at the equestrian centre a few kilometers away. They’d had lunch early, and she’d fallen asleep, lulled by the breeze. When she woke up, her sister, the husband and the baby were gone.

For hours she’d gone around in circles trying to find them, without any result, until she was walking on the roadside, close to sunstroke and completely lost. The senior officer, now shaken somewhat in his certainties, asks why she hadn’t called her sister or the husband on the phone. Stéphanie says she did, but just got the click of the answering machine, until the batteries of her mobile had run out. The senior officer is now looking at the woman with less scepticism. During his service with the flying squad, he’d totted up a good collection of women or husbands who’d disappeared taking their children with them, even if it had never happened that someone had left her sister in the middle of a field. Not alive, at least.

Back at the starting point, it's late, there’s no longer anyone around, all the other picnickers have gone home, and the car of the woman’s brother-in-law is standing solitary on the roadside not far from a check tablecloth with leftover food on it. At this point, the two cops call the central operations room in Paris to raise the alarm, so launching one of the most spectacular search operations witnessed in recent years.
 
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Velut Luna said:
Fontainebleau


At five in the afternoon on a Saturday in mid-September, a woman in shorts is waving, trying to stop the cars. She has a T-shirt over her head to protect herself from the sun, her bra’s undone and she’s wearing a pair of flip scruffy flipflops.

Watching her as he pulls the patrol car over on the provincial roadside, the police major is mentally classifying the woman in shorts as ‘freaked out'. After seventeen years of service, and several hundred alcoholics, drug addicts and loonies, all calmed down by hook or by crook, 'freaked out' he could distinguish at a glance. And that woman is freaked out, no doubt.

The two officers get out of the car and the woman in shorts crouches down, mumbling something. She is exhausted, dehydrated, the younger officer gives her the bottle of water that they keep in the door-shelf, ignoring the disgusted look of his colleague.

At this point the words of the woman in shorts become more intelligible. 'I’ve lost my sister ...' she says, '... her husband and the kid.' Her name is Stéphanie Moulin, and that morning she’d gone on a picnic with the family in the park at the equestrian centre a few kilometers away. They’d had lunch early, and she’d fallen asleep, lulled by the breeze. When she woke up, her sister, the husband and the baby were gone.

For hours she’d gone around in circles trying to find them, without any result, until she was walking on the roadside, close to sunstroke and completely lost. The senior officer, now shaken somewhat in his certainties, asks why she hadn’t called her sister or the husband on the phone. Stéphanie says she did, but just got the click of the answering machine, until the batteries of her mobile had run out. The senior officer is now looking at the woman with less scepticism. During his service with the flying squad, he’d totted up a good collection of women or husbands who’d disappeared taking their children with them, even if it had never happened that someone had left her sister in the middle of a field. Not alive, at least.

Back at the starting point, it's late, there’s no longer anyone around, all the other picnickers have gone home, and the car of the woman’s brother-in-law is standing solitary on the roadside not far from a check tablecloth with leftover food on it. At this point, the two cops call the central operations room in Paris to raise the alarm, so launching one of the most spectacular search operations witnessed in recent years.
Click to expand...
This is beautifully written.
 
Velut Luna said:
Fontainebleau


At five in the afternoon on a Saturday in mid-September, a woman in shorts is waving, trying to stop the cars. She has a T-shirt over her head to protect herself from the sun, her bra’s undone and she’s wearing a pair of flip scruffy flipflops.

Watching her as he pulls the patrol car over on the provincial roadside, the police major is mentally classifying the woman in shorts as ‘freaked out'. After seventeen years of service, and several hundred alcoholics, drug addicts and loonies, all calmed down by hook or by crook, 'freaked out' he could distinguish at a glance. And that woman is freaked out, no doubt.

The two officers get out of the car and the woman in shorts crouches down, mumbling something. She is exhausted, dehydrated, the younger officer gives her the bottle of water that they keep in the door-shelf, ignoring the disgusted look of his colleague.

At this point the words of the woman in shorts become more intelligible. 'I’ve lost my sister ...' she says, '... her husband and the kid.' Her name is Stéphanie Moulin, and that morning she’d gone on a picnic with the family in the park at the equestrian centre a few kilometers away. They’d had lunch early, and she’d fallen asleep, lulled by the breeze. When she woke up, her sister, the husband and the baby were gone.

For hours she’d gone around in circles trying to find them, without any result, until she was walking on the roadside, close to sunstroke and completely lost. The senior officer, now shaken somewhat in his certainties, asks why she hadn’t called her sister or the husband on the phone. Stéphanie says she did, but just got the click of the answering machine, until the batteries of her mobile had run out. The senior officer is now looking at the woman with less scepticism. During his service with the flying squad, he’d totted up a good collection of women or husbands who’d disappeared taking their children with them, even if it had never happened that someone had left her sister in the middle of a field. Not alive, at least.

Back at the starting point, it's late, there’s no longer anyone around, all the other picnickers have gone home, and the car of the woman’s brother-in-law is standing solitary on the roadside not far from a check tablecloth with leftover food on it. At this point, the two cops call the central operations room in Paris to raise the alarm, so launching one of the most spectacular search operations witnessed in recent years.
Click to expand...

Smells of foul play now, doesn't it? The suspense is palpable here already. We know so little. The truth may surprise us! Great start to this story! :)
 
The last time


The rainstorm has dressed the living room window in a cascade of pearls, the traffic lights in the evening twilight refract in a kaleidoscope of colours. All of a sudden there’s a flash of a single color, a colour I know all too well. I see in the street a police car approaching, the doorbell rings again and again, and so does my cell phone rings. Fuck!


'Has the squad car arrived?'

'Yes, fuck it!' I say, furious.

'I tried to tell you, but you didn’t answer the phone.'

'I was in the shower. And I'm late for a dinner. So I'm sorry, but tell your colleague to go back where he came from.'

'And don’t you want to know why I've called you?'

'No.'

'I’ll tell you all the same. I need you to come and take a walk in the Park of Fontainebleau.'

'What's there?'

'I don’t want to spoil the surprise.'

'You’ve already given me one.'

Snort.

'Doctor ... I'm on leave. Maybe you don’t remember.'

Roux’s tone now becomes serious.

'I've never asked for anything all this time, have I?'

'Never.' I admit.

'I’ve never done anything to call you back to work ahead of time, or to persuade you to stay late?'

'No.'

'So you cannot deny me a favour.'

'Like hell I can’t.'

'I really need you, Corinne.'


From the tone I understand that it’s true. I remain silent for a few moments. I'm put it in a corner. Asshole.


'Is it really necessary?' I ask.

'Absolutely.'

'You won’t tell me what it’s all about?'

'I don’t want to influence you.'

'Nice of you, Doctor ...'

'Then? Yes or no?'


It's the last time, I think.

'All right. But tell your colleague to stop buzzing me.'


I hang up, and stand gazing at the phone, then I tell my friends that I won’t be at the dinner.

I put on a pair of frayed jeans and an Angry Birds sweatshirt, clothes I don’t ever wear at work, I choose them deliberately.

I take my keys off the table and I make an automatic move to check I’ve got the holster fastened to my belt, but encounter only emptiness. The gun’s in the armoury since the day of my hospitalization. The feeling is very unpleasant, like tripping over a step that’s not there. I recall the last time when I made a move to grab the weapon, and the emotion triggers the attack.


Immediately my lungs seize, the room is filled with moving shadows, screaming shadows crawling over the walls and the floors, shadows on which I can’t fix my eyes, they’re always just beyond my field of vision, I can only glimpse them out of the corner of my eye. I know they aren’t real, but I feel them with every fibre in my body. I'm scared, blind, total terror takes my breath away and chokes me. I try the edge of the table with my hand, I hit it deliberately with the back of my hand. The pain explodes into my fingers, shoots up the arm like an electric shock, but it wears off. Again and again I hit, and now the shock reaches my chest, like a defibrillator on a stopped heart. I’m reeling, swallowing as much air as possible, then I pull myself together with a gasp. The shadows disappear, fear dissolves in an icy sweat on my neck.


I'm alive, I'm alive. I keep repeating, kneeling on the floor, until it seems to me that the sentence makes sense. Now I take control of my breath for a few minutes. It's been days since the last panic attack, weeks. They started immediately after I was discharged from the hospital. I was told it could happen, it was only to be expected after what had happened to me, but when they told me I was just expecting a little jitters and insomnia. The first was like an earthquake, the second even stronger. I’d fainted for lack of air, I was convinced I was about to die. The attacks were frequent, a noise or a smell could trigger one, like the smell of smoke.


The hospital psychologist has left me the number to call. I haven’t talked to anyone about what was happening to me. I’ve made my way in a man's world, many of them would have preferred to see me carrying a tray of coffee instead of a gun. I’ve learned to hide my weaknesses from everyone. And then, somewhere inside, I think I deserve it – it’s a punishment for the Disaster.
 
Velut Luna said:
The last time


The rainstorm has dressed the living room window in a cascade of pearls, the traffic lights in the evening twilight refract in a kaleidoscope of colours. All of a sudden there’s a flash of a single color, a colour I know all too well. I see in the street a police car approaching, the doorbell rings again and again, and so does my cell phone rings. Fuck!


'Has the squad car arrived?'

'Yes, fuck it!' I say, furious.

'I tried to tell you, but you didn’t answer the phone.'

'I was in the shower. And I'm late for a dinner. So I'm sorry, but tell your colleague to go back where he came from.'

'And don’t you want to know why I've called you?'

'No.'

'I’ll tell you all the same. I need you to come and take a walk in the Park of Fontainebleau.'

'What's there?'

'I don’t want to spoil the surprise.'

'You’ve already given me one.'

Snort.

'Doctor ... I'm on leave. Maybe you don’t remember.'

Roux’s tone now becomes serious.

'I've never asked for anything all this time, have I?'

'Never.' I admit.

'I’ve never done anything to call you back to work ahead of time, or to persuade you to stay late?'

'No.'

'So you cannot deny me a favour.'

'Like hell I can’t.'

'I really need you, Corinne.'


From the tone I understand that it’s true. I remain silent for a few moments. I'm put it in a corner. Asshole.


'Is it really necessary?' I ask.

'Absolutely.'

'You won’t tell me what it’s all about?'

'I don’t want to influence you.'

'Nice of you, Doctor ...'

'Then? Yes or no?'


It's the last time, I think.

'All right. But tell your colleague to stop buzzing me.'


I hang up, and stand gazing at the phone, then I tell my friends that I won’t be at the dinner.

I put on a pair of frayed jeans and an Angry Birds sweatshirt, clothes I don’t ever wear at work, I choose them deliberately.

I take my keys off the table and I make an automatic move to check I’ve got the holster fastened to my belt, but encounter only emptiness. The gun’s in the armoury since the day of my hospitalization. The feeling is very unpleasant, like tripping over a step that’s not there. I recall the last time when I made a move to grab the weapon, and the emotion triggers the attack.


Immediately my lungs seize, the room is filled with moving shadows, screaming shadows crawling over the walls and the floors, shadows on which I can’t fix my eyes, they’re always just beyond my field of vision, I can only glimpse them out of the corner of my eye. I know they aren’t real, but I feel them with every fibre in my body. I'm scared, blind, total terror takes my breath away and chokes me. I try the edge of the table with my hand, I hit it deliberately with the back of my hand. The pain explodes into my fingers, shoots up the arm like an electric shock, but it wears off. Again and again I hit, and now the shock reaches my chest, like a defibrillator on a stopped heart. I’m reeling, swallowing as much air as possible, then I pull myself together with a gasp. The shadows disappear, fear dissolves in an icy sweat on my neck.


I'm alive, I'm alive. I keep repeating, kneeling on the floor, until it seems to me that the sentence makes sense. Now I take control of my breath for a few minutes. It's been days since the last panic attack, weeks. They started immediately after I was discharged from the hospital. I was told it could happen, it was only to be expected after what had happened to me, but when they told me I was just expecting a little jitters and insomnia. The first was like an earthquake, the second even stronger. I’d fainted for lack of air, I was convinced I was about to die. The attacks were frequent, a noise or a smell could trigger one, like the smell of smoke.


The hospital psychologist has left me the number to call. I haven’t talked to anyone about what was happening to me. I’ve made my way in a man's world, many of them would have preferred to see me carrying a tray of coffee instead of a gun. I’ve learned to hide my weaknesses from everyone. And then, somewhere inside, I think I deserve it – it’s a punishment for the Disaster.
Click to expand...


Wow... that's quite a panic attack :eek:

A punishment for the Disaster? :eek:

:popcorn:

:D
 
La Solle


I would like to call Roux back and tell him to go to hell. I'll do the minimum, just as much as good manners require, then I’ll come home and I write my letter of resignation. Then I can think calmly about the rest of my life.

The storm, meanwhile, has burst and seems to be shaking the world. I put on my K-way jacket and go downstairs. The young constable is outside in the rain, he gives me a military salute.

'Get in or you’ll be soaked.'

'Agent détective Aubert Maximilian, Doctor Corinne Carrel'

I sit beside the driver, I’m aware that the neighbors are observing the scene from behind their net curtains. They don’t know what my job is.

It's like coming home, the car smell, the reflection of the signal light on the wet glass, the radio docking station, the photos of wanted persons stuck on the sun-visor as if they were the faces of long-missed family members. Am I really ready to give it up? The officer activates the siren, and flows into the street traffic.

'Cool it! We’re not in a rush.'

'I’ve orders to make it as soon as possible, Doctor.' but he obeys.

He’s smart, with a nice scent of aftershave.

'You’re new?'

'I finished my training last month, Doctor, after a year’s voluntary military service Doctor, I understand you’re the deputy of Doctor Roux, in Homicide?'

'Don’t call it Homicide, or everyone will think you’re a “penguin”, that’s just the name they use in TV shows. It’s Section 3 of the Anti-Crime Squad, okay?'

'My apologies, doctor.'

'How come they’ve sent you out alone?'

'Normally I travel around with a senior colleague, but I volunteered for inquiries. We were on duty, my colleague and I, and we found Stéphanie Moulin today.'

'Assume I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.'

'To tell the truth, I didn’t make any inquiries. I went to the house, and was put on guard duty.'

'The family's house?'

'Yup. If the husband or wife had absconded they’d have taken something, but nothing had gone.'

'Have the neighbours said anything?'

'Nothing useful, just a lot of gossip.'

'Where are we going?'

'The inquiry is being coordinated at the riding school in Fontainebleau Park. There’s us, the Gendarmerie, the Forensics Team, the C.R.S. [Compagnie Républicaine de la Sécurité], and a lot of civilians who are just playing games. Rumours are flying around.'

'Rumours always fly around.'

'There was some activity three hours ago. An off-road vehicle set off up to la Colline du Corbeau, Crow Hill, taking some officers and a magistrate, Doctor D'Alembert. Do you know him? '

'Yup.' (And I don’t like him, he's ambitious, with that name, only wanting publicity, all too happy to get in the newspapers.)

'How far is the hill from the picnic-site?'

'Two kilometres through the woods but ten by road. The memo’s on the dashboard.'

I read it. There are also photographs of the missing persons taken from Facebook. Laure Béjart, née Moulin, the wife, hair dyed black and messed up, she’s too old for it and wears it badly; Martin Béjart, the husband, middle-aged, grey hair, sharp eyes; Luciole, the girl, with a pair of bottle-bottom glasses, long hair, more or less blonde, bright eyes, very thin, so she looks much younger than the eighteen years indicated on the card.

'If they’ve got to Crow Hill - I think there’s a good view from there - they’ve got a long way. And no-one has seen them, right?'

'So far as I know.'

The rain’s started bucketing down and the traffic’s slowed, but with the light flashing we get to the turning into Fontainebleau Park in less than half an hour. There’s a whole parade of squad cars, C.R.S. vehicles, ambulances, more and more of them along the drive to the equestrian center, the Hippodrome de la Solle. There are mobile studios of two television channels obstructing the road, with satellite dishes pointed at the sky. There’s even a field-kitchen with dense smoke billowing up, only the stalls and shooting-galleries are missing.

'Here we are, doctor, Dr. Roux is awaiting you in the operations room.'

'You’re saying he’s here already?'

'Yes, doctor.'

'Okay, you go ahead, we’ll do it quicker.'


I hear the neighing of horses from the stables, I have a sensation of being beyond time, and feel the tension that is lingering all around.

The building is located behind the grandstand, guarded by two uniformed officers who greet Aubert with a nod and ignore me, mistaking me for a civilian. On the front door a handwritten sign:
POLICE NATIONAL – ENTREE INTERDITE.​

In the room a dozen uniformed and plainclothes officers sit at four large desks phoning or talking through the radio. Roux is standing in front of a map spread out on one of the desks. He is a man of short stature, in his sixties, with grey hair carefully combed back. His shoes and trousers are covered with mud up to his knees.

The agent sitting at a desk near to the entrance rises suddenly,
'Doctor. Carrel!' he exclaims, giving a military salute.
I don’t remember this agent’s name, only the initials 'Argo 03' that he used when he was on duty at the control centre. All present stare at me for a moment, interrupting their conversations. I make an effort to smile, and gesture with my hand, urging everyone to get back to work,

'Carry on please.'

Argo shakes my hand,

'How are you Doctor? We’ve missed you.'

'I haven’t missed you.'

Argo returns to his radio and the buzz of conversation resumes. From what they’re saying it seems they’ve placed roadblocks on all routes. Strange: that’s not the usual procedure in the event of someone disappearing.

Roux approaches, pats my shoulders gently, looking into my eyes. His breath stinks of cigarettes.

'I’m glad to see you, Corinne. Really.'

'Thank you Doctor.'

I reply, thinking he seems rather aged and tired, with deep, dark rings under his eyes, and a long beard.

'What's going on?'

'Curious?'

'Since I'm here ...'

'Soon you will see,'

he says, taking my arm and pushing me to the door,

'We’ll find a car ...'

'Mine is waiting at the entrance with the driver.'

'No, we need a jeep.'

We go out and Aubert snaps to attention.

'Can you drive an SUV? Get one and come back here.'

Roux commands.

While Aubert runs towards the entrance to the small garden in front of the building, Roux lights a cigarette in defiance of the prohibition sign.

'We're going to Crow Hill?' I ask.

'I try not to say anything. You’ll get there just the same.'

'You suppose I shouldn’t have talked to the driver?'

'I’d rather you hadn’t.'

'And what is there?'

'You’ll see it with your eyes.'

The off-road vehicle approaches, stopping near the garden gate.

'About time!'

'We’re in a hurry?'

'Yes, in an hour or less it won’t be pleasant.'

'Because?'

'I guess you’ll find out for yourself.'

Roux opens the door. I don’t move to get in.

'I’m seriously thinking of returning home, Doctor. I never liked riddles even as a child.'

'Liar. You want to do another job.'

'It’s my intention.'

'You're really decided?'

'I couldn’t be more so.'

'We'll talk later. Come on, get in.'

Resigned, I slide into the back seat.

'Good.'

says Roux, taking his place.
 
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