Free After the Crash by Michel Bussi Page B

possibly her little sister too. But, supported by her family and an army of shrinks, she would probably
have recovered, the way people do.
    Except that she was the sole eyewitness, the only living being to
have seen Lyse-Rose in Turkey, during the first two months of her
life. Perhaps the only two months of her life.
    Is a six-year-old girl capable of recognising a small baby? Or of
distinguishing it from another baby?
It was a question worth asking.
Against the affirmations of the Vitral grandparents, Malvina was
the de Carvilles’ sole asset, the only one capable of identifying LyseRose. Léonce de Carville should have protected her; he should not
have allowed her to testify; he should have thrown the police out of
his home. He had the means to do it. Malvina should not have had
to answer questions; she should have been left alone, sent far away
from the turmoil to a special retreat filled with attentive childcarers and happy children. Instead of which, Malvina had to testify,
over and over again, in front of judges, lawyers, police, experts.
For weeks on end, she was shuttled from office to hearing room,
from waiting room to courtroom, constantly surrounded by sinister-looking men in suits and muscled bodyguards. To protect her
from journalists, of course.
Malvina systematically repeated the exact same words to every
person she saw:
‘Yes, this baby is my little sister.’
‘I recognise her. She is Lyse-Rose.’
After a while, her grandfather didn’t even have to encourage her
to do it anymore. She grew certain of what she was saying; she no
longer had any doubts. She could not possibly be mistaken.
The clothes she was shown were Lyse-Rose’s. It was her face that
she recognised. Those were her cries that she heard. And she was
ready to swear it – before the judge, on the Bible, on the life of her
favourite doll. At only six years old, she was strong enough to stand
up to the Vitrals.
Since then, I have watched Malvina grow up. Well, perhaps that
is the wrong term. Let’s just say that I have watched her grow older,
becoming an adolescent, then an adult. I have seen the madness rise
within her.
That girl scares me, I can’t deny it – I believe she ought to be in
a psychiatric hospital, closely watched at all times – but there is
one thing I have to acknowledge: she is not to blame in the slightest for what happened to her. Her grandfather, Léonce de Carville,
bears all the responsibility for that. He knew what he was doing. He
deliberately used his own granddaughter. He knowingly sacrificed
her mental health, against the advice of all the doctors and the pleas
of his own wife.
And, what’s worse, it did him no good at all.
Because Léonce de Carville made another mistake, perhaps even
more serious than the first.

9
2 October, 1998, 9.43 a.m.
    Lylie had not moved in the last thirty minutes. She was sitting on a
marble balustrade on the Esplanade des Invalides. The cold of the
stone was seeping into her legs, but she wasn’t really bothered by it.
It was a cold, dry day. Across from her, the dome of Les Invalides
could hardly be distinguished from the almost monochrome white
sky.
    A dozen rollerbladers were practising in front of her, indifferent
to the weather. Almost as if they were trying to impress her.
The Esplanade des Invalides is mostly used to practise speed,
slaloming and jumping. The rollerbladers had put down two lines
of plastic orange cones, and they were racing one another over a
hundred yards. It was like a modern version of a medieval joust,
with the fastest, or the last one standing, winning the heart of the
watching princess.
Lylie liked watching the rollerbladers: their speed, their laughter,
their shouts. The noise and the movement helped her to stay calm.
This wasn’t easy, as everything in her life seemed to be in a state
of flux. She thought again about Grand-Duc’s notebook. Had she
been right to give it to Marc? Would he read it? Yes, of