Blood Wedding by Pierre Lemaitre

Véronique says. “I’ll make some coffee.”
    “I really ought to get going.”
    “It’ll only take a minute, really.”
    Véronique wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, attempts another smile.
    “It’s so stupid . . .”
    Sophie decides she will give herself fifteen minutes and then she will leave, regardless.
    From the kitchen, Véronique says:
    “He’s been calling me non-stop for the past three days. I’ve tried everything. I even unplugged the telephone, but that’s not very practical given that I work from home. And I can’t bear just letting it ring. So, from time to time I go out for a coffee. He’ll get bored in the end, but he’s a weird guy. Clingy, you know the type . . .”
    She sets the cups on the coffee table in the living room.
    Sophie realises that she has had too much wine. Everything has started to spin slowly, the posh middle-class apartment, Véronique, everything starts to blur and then Léo’s face, the carriage clock on the mantelpiece, the empty wine bottle on the table, the child’s bedroom as she steps inside, the huddled figure under the duvet, the clack of drawers opening and closing and the silence as terror takes hold. Objects dance in front of her eyes, she sees the passport she stuffed into her jacket. A wave washes over her, everything gradually goes dim, fading to black. From far away she can just hear Véronique’s voice asking: “Are you alright?” It seems to come from the bottom of a deep well, it echoes. Sophie feels her body go slack, then crumple and there is only darkness.This is another scene she can remember perfectly. Even today, she could describe every last detail, even the wallpaper.
    She wakes to find herself lying on the sofa, one foot dangling on the floor, she rubs her eyes, searching for a flicker of consciousness, now and then she tries to open them but feels something within her that resists, that wants to remain asleep, far from everything. She is so tired, so much has happened since this morning.
    Eventually, she props herself up on one elbow, turns to face the room and slowly opens her eyes.
    At the foot of the table Véronique’s body lies in a pool of blood.
    Her first reaction is to drop the kitchen knife in her hand, it clatters ominously on the floor.
    *
    It is like a dream. She gets to her feet and staggers. Instinctively she tries to wipe her hand on her trousers, but the blood has already dried. She slips on the crimson pool slowly spreading across the floor, but manages to steady herself on the table at the last minute. She reels for a moment. She is drunk. Without realising, she has picked up her jacket and is trailing it behind her like a leash. Like the wire from a bedside lamp. Hugging the walls, she makes it to the hallway. Her bag is there. Once more, her eyes blur with tears, she snuffles. She crumples and sits down heavily. She buries her face in the jacket now wrapped around her arms. She feels something on her face. Raising her head she notices that she trailed her jacket through the blood and has just smeared it on her face . . . Wash your face before you leave, Sophie. Get up.
    But she does not have the energy. It is all too much. She lies back on the ground, her head close to the front door, desperate to drift back to sleep, desperate to do anything but have to face this reality. She closes her eyes. Then suddenly, as though a pair of hands haslifted her up by the shoulders . . . Even today she cannot say what happened, but she finds herself sitting up again, then standing. Staggering, but upright. She feels a brutal determination welling in her, something animal. She goes back into the living room. From where she is standing, she can see only Véronique’s legs, sprawled half under the table. She moves closer. The body is lying on its side, the face obscured by the hunched shoulders. Sophie comes closer still and leans down: the blouse is black with blood. There is a deep wound in the middle of the belly where the