I find looking through the lens puts things in perspective. People are very trusting of photographers. They don’t mind if you stop in the middle of a busy street, or look up to the sky, or sit in hotels, or outside cafés, hiding behind your camera lens. It was in a park that I took the image. Trees remind me of my start in life. I find the woods seductive. It was lucky the sun was shining. If it hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have seen the gleam of the silver drawer handle discarded on the grass, left in the park like unwanted litter. You need the eye to recognise how something small can be central to a perfect picture.
In the centre of the handle, there was an exquisite mirror. It was tiny, but it caught the sunlight, splintering the beams into a display of colour. Picking it up, I polished it clean. I knew straight away what I was going to do with it. I could see the photograph before it happened. I laid the handle on the grass facing upwards. When I leaned over, I saw my miniature self reflected in the mirror, a tiny person. I had my back to the sun, with my shadow looming like a giant, the miniature me caught inside the handle.
I am good with details. My memory is better than most, mainly because I’m prepared to face up to things, including the dark and ugly parts of life. Some people don’t believe babies can remember things. I don’t agree. I recall the first time the witch stuck the nappy pin into me, stabbing it into my upper leg. I imagine my young leg was nice and fat. I remember the sharp pain, and my wail. If I looked shocked, she would have liked that. She took joy from my pain, my reactions, part of her pleasure. Sometimes I was my own worst enemy, deciding not to show my weakness, withstanding the suffering with barely a grimace. The more I did that, the more she persevered. I soon switched tactics, screaming like a lunatic, giving her all the satisfaction she needed.
There are some parts I don’t recall, but those I’ve lost are re-created in my mind’s eye. The imagination is a powerful tool, often better than memory. While imagining, you can slow things down, look around and see who else is watching. When I imagine the witch plucking me from my mother’s arms, before burning her, I see him there too. He is standing back, lurking. I was the witch’s gift to him. A replacement for the girl left burning in the woods.
The witch said she followed my mother alone, that he had no part in it. He would have wanted her to think that way. I was groomed for his sexual satisfaction, so I knew him better than she did.
In the Grimms’ tale of Hansel and Gretel, the witch helps the boy put meat on his bones, nourishing him to be devoured. That’s how I see my early life, like the caged Hansel, being fed for someone else’s needs. Some say the stepmother and the witch in the fairy-tale were one and the same, but in both roles she was evil, first in the abandonment, convincing her husband to leave the children in the forest, and second, in her cannibalistic desire to eat the boy.
In my case, he took me before the witch thought I was ready. He smelt the release of pubescent blood. She didn’t like that, blaming me for encouraging him. She called me a slut, like my mother, too attractive for my own good, kicking me out of the bloodied bed.
The witch could change like the weather, and, like the pain she inflicted, I became suspicious of her kindness, the side of her that drew you in with false flattery. Once she had you hooked, she ripped you apart. A sick game, mocking my stupidity for thinking that somewhere among the horror, she occasionally cared.
H?TEL SAINT CHRISTOPHE, PARIS
ONCE THEY LANDED at Charles de Gaulle airport, Kate rang Charlie and was relieved to hear him happy at the other end of the phone. A part of her felt guilty about being away, not because of the work but because she knew she had other reasons for being there.
Walking towards the taxi rank at the airport, they discussed Ian Morrison’s opinion on the depth, trajectory and intensity of the wounds found on the bodies of Rick Shevlin and Pierre Laurent.
‘I can understand his difficulty connecting the two, Kate, especially basing his comparisons on visual images.’
‘But at least he said there was a strong possibility of the same type of knife being used.’
‘It’s building up a picture, I guess, and not a pretty one.’
Soon they were speeding away from the airport, through the suburbs and industrial areas on the outskirts of Paris. Kate had been to the city a number of times, but it was Adam’s first visit. The drive into the centre would take them at least half an hour. Initially, she was happy to keep her silence, watching the Parisian world race by, but finally she said, ‘I can’t believe you haven’t been to Paris before.’
‘I doubt I’ll get much of a chance to turn into a tourist.’
‘You have a packed agenda for us, and I’m assuming it doesn’t include sightseeing.’
‘You assume right, Kate. We’ll be meeting Inspector Girardot at the H?tel du Maurier, where Pierre Laurent’s body was found –’ he looked at his phone ‘– in less than an hour, then on to Police Headquarters for a review of the case files. After that, we’ll call at the art college where Pierre was a student. There’s a teacher who knew him well. That should be interesting. Sometimes people give information more freely with the passing of time. They don’t feel as threatened.’
‘Just as well we had something to eat on the plane.’