An Accident in August (2003) by Laurence Cossé

Author:Laurence Cossé [Cossé, Laurence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781609451301
Publisher: Europa Editions
Published: 2012-10-14T21:00:00+00:00

The sound of a door opening startled her. She must have fallen asleep. The Peugeot started up, and bounced along what must have been a forest road. Then it picked up speed, moving more smoothly. Again Lou reflexively pressed her head or her feet against the walls of the trunk when they went around bends. She didn’t like it in this car, she was sliding too much. She had lost all track of time.

It occurred to her that at that very moment there might be dozens of people like her locked in the trunks of cars. People who’d been kidnapped, or who were hiding. It made you wonder if cars hadn’t been designed for that very purpose.

Dead people, she thought. She could feel the blood pounding in her left index finger, where she’d cut herself. Of course the Indian could kill her. It would be in his interest, once he’d got what he wanted. He would be eliminating a spiteful witness, and he’d be able to pocket all the loot.

I’ll throw myself on the journalist, thought Lou, defiant. I’ll ask him for help. I’ll scream.

She had no illusions, the Indian must have calculated how she’d react. He must have thought through their departure in detail, and all the rest. She had a spasm, and vomited—nothing came out, just some acid phlegm she had to swallow. She was overcome with despair.

In the end, she could see she was paying for an entire chain reaction of brutal occurrences. One brutal occurrence leading, inevitably, to the next one.

Prince Charles had behaved like a brute toward Diana, marrying her only to betray her. The princess had gotten back at him, and then some, by scorning him in public. She was a quick learner, in no time she was the one who had grabbed the whip by the handle and was calling the tune. She spared no one, neither her husband nor her in-laws. As time went by she was seen with pathetic playboys: she really did seem determined to make that stuffed shirt Windsor crowd bite their own stiff upper lips.

But in Paris she was caught in the web of men who make brutality their profession. The paparazzi were ruthless with her. She had not tried to hide the fact she hated them. Monsieur Paul was not fussy about details either, with his brutal use of the accelerator, in his brutal Mercedes, and look how he had just missed Lou . . .

And she had been afraid, brutally afraid, of being dragged through the newspapers and on television, a modern circus act for a brutal world.

Until the mechanic came along with his blackmail. Like I’d have it any other way, babe. He knew the editorial staff of the magazine that had the highest circulation in France would be on his side.

Modern-day brutes, thought Lou. But running away from the scene of an accident, isn’t that brutal behavior as well? Failure to assist a person in danger?

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