Spectacle(80)

“Imagine having furniture carved by the Dark Artist?” Nathalie made a face. And then she remembered something. “Oh goodness. The ornate wooden table in the Mirabelle vision. Finely made, medium-dark wood, decorative work on the corners. He—he must have created it himself.”

She felt guilty for having thought the details unimportant at the time.

“Practice for what he did to those young women,” said Simone, knitting her brow. “But not anymore.”

How delightful it was going to be to walk the streets again, Nathalie thought, and not wonder if there was malice in nearby footsteps or ill intent in the heart of every man who passed by.

The waiter came with their “celebratory meal,” as Simone put it. Nathalie broke off a piece of her éclair and offered it to Christophe. She tried to ignore the tingle her limbs felt as he took it from her. “So whoever killed him dispatched of him in the river the same way. On purpose. Who? Why?”

Christophe finished chewing and then spoke. “He wants credit for it, which makes me think he—the Dark Artist’s killer—knew about the murders. Or at the very least, observed him disposing of the victim and executed some justice of his own. Rope isn’t hard to find near a river.”

Nathalie crossed her arms. “I wish I saw more. Stupid fog.”

“What you saw is enough to pull everything together,” said Christophe in a kind voice. “Speaking of which, I’ll relieve Mathieu of his duties on my way out. Nathalie, I’m very happy to say that you no longer need protection.”

“‘Mathieu,’” Nathalie began, imitating Christophe, “‘you needn’t follow Mademoiselle Baudin any longer. While she thanks you for your service, I’m pleased to inform you that she doesn’t need you anymore. Because the Dark Artist is dead.’ Oh, I like the way that set of words feels on my tongue.”

Christophe bit into a cube of bleu cheese. “As soon as I get back, I’ll dispatch a team to the residence of one Damien Salvage to verify. Paris will know who the Dark Artist is in no time.”

“I’ll be buying a few copies of Le Petit Journal tomorrow,” said Simone with a wicked grin. “I look forward to that headline. The Dark Artist, Unmasked and Killed! Or DEAD: The Dark Artist, Damien Salvage!”

“Well…” said Christophe, holding up his hand, “there’s a good chance this won’t make it into the papers yet.”

Nathalie stared at him. “You’re going to let people continue to think the Dark Artist is alive, even once you confirm that it’s him?”

“The chief investigator will make that decision, but possibly. He may want to withhold that from the public until they investigate the matter of who killed him. Several days at most, I’m sure.”

Nathalie glanced at Simone, whose horrified expression no doubt mirrored her own. Another day of fear in the city, another day of selling newspapers, another day of morgue visitors. And another, and another, as long as the police deemed necessary.

“It’s … an unfortunate truth of the business,” said Christophe. They spoke for a few more minutes as he drank the rest of his coffee. Then he excused himself, putting enough money on the table for all of them. He said a warm good-bye and departed.

Nathalie sat back a moment watching her fellow Parisians. At the café, on the street, going by in an omnibus, walking in and out of shops. When she’d learned about the Insightfuls, she’d thought there were two kinds of people in the world: those who had magic and those who didn’t. But it was really two other kinds of people: those who knew what was really going on and those who didn’t.

As to which were the lucky ones, she couldn’t say.





38


Nathalie wrote a descriptive journal entry that night. The vision. The bodies at the morgue. The conversations with Simone, Christophe, and her mother. Maman was so relieved about the Dark Artist news that she held Nathalie a good long time and wept.

Some element of the day, or possibly the next day, would be forgotten. It was like flipping over a tarot card and wondering what it would be, or going to a hypnotist and wondering what she’d say. Some piece of reality would be extracted, removed by a clumsy, invisible surgeon. Eventually some part of this, something she wrote down with such a clear head, would seem foreign.

Indeed, the next morning she discovered which passages might well have been written in Chinese or Russian or Greek.

The memory loss this time was the vision itself.

Bitterness burned through her as the realization sank in. Why couldn’t it be the vision of Agnès that she forgot? No, no. That one stayed with her. Fragments of the vision passing through her head whenever they pleased, day or night. That was the one she needed to forget most of all. Instead she would carry it for the rest of her life, a sack of bricks tethered to her soul.

Nevertheless.

Nathalie ran her finger along the journal’s spine. She was grateful to be spared at least one distressing memory, even if it wasn’t the one that haunted her most.

Did it mean something more?

To forget the very thing that the gift bestowed … was this a sign that her gift might be ending?

Several hours later she shared these thoughts with M. Patenaude. She went to tell him that, with the Dark Artist gone, she was eager to do the morgue column again. (She was also eager to see how Maurice Kirouac, unaware that was the Dark Artist when he’d done today’s report, described him.) He was pleased to hear it and said she could resume the following day.