Invisible Armies

Chapter 25

Laurent is back in the flat when she returns, packing with military efficiency, folding his clothes so neatly the creases could draw blood, assembling his possessions so they inhabit the minimum possible volume in his pack.

"Where have you been?" she asks.

"A long walk down the Embankment. You?"

"The other side. South Bank."

"We probably passed each other."

"Are you going to take me to visit Montreal after we get settled in New York?"

He shrugs. "If you like."

"Visit your family?"

"Montreal's nice in summer. But the winters are brutal."

"It's Sylvain, isn't it?"

He drops a shirt, and in that moment she knows it's all true.

"What's Sylvain?" he asks.

"Your old name. Your real old name."

"It says Patrice on the birth certificate."

"But it says Sylvain on your birth certificate, doesn't it?"

"Where have you been?" he demands. "Who have you been talking to?"

"Why do they call you Voice? Is that your other name?"

He looks at her, this time genuinely puzzled. "What? Who?"

"You don't know, do you? Justice International. That's what they call you in the reports they send back about you. Voice. I guess it's a code name. I don't know why they bother. They didn't give me a code name."

"I don't understand what you are saying," Laurent says, he says, approaching her, his expression gentle and concerned.

"But why did you make the bomb? So it went off, I mean. They didn't want you to. Did you hate Angus and Estelle that much? Or did they change their mind?"

He puts his hands on her shoulders and shakes her gently. "Start making sense. Please."

"I don't understand how you could do it," she says. "I'm impressed, I mean, to live a lie like that, for such a long time, to betray all the people who trusted you, who," she starts to cry, "who loved you, that can't be easy. I guess you're real tough, huh? I guess you're so tough it doesn't mean anything to you."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he says. Convincingly. But not near convincingly enough.

"I know what you did." She has to fight to get the words out of her sob-clogged throat. "I know what you're doing. Drug tests at Kishkinda. Scaring us out of India. Setting us up. Tracking down the foundation. The bomb, you killed, you murdered Angus and Estelle. Cold blood murder. How could you? How could you?"

"Who have you been talking to?"

"What does it matter?"

"Danielle. Who told you all this? It's not true. Who told you?"

"Don't lie to me. Don't you think you've lied to me enough? You might as well stop now. Start telling the truth just for a little fucking variety, why don't you?"

Laurent grabs her by the arms, turns, making her spin with him, and pushes her back, forcibly sitting Danielle down on the couch. He releases her, pulls a chair up, and sits very close to her, his legs inside hers, their knees touching, and waits for her cries to subside. He looks intensely worried, for her, not himself. She feels an urge to lean forward, throw her arms around him and weep on his shoulder, and the wave of shame and rage she feels at this, realizing that even now some part of her wants this liar, traitor and murderer to console her, helps strengthen her, moves her from despair to cold fury.