Chapter 9

"But he… he seemed so alive." Hazar shook his head, staring down into his glass of beer. His eyes had a slightly distant look, as if his mind was lost, tossed somewhere on a swollen sea of thought. "He just can't be dead. It's, it's ridiculous. That's what it is. Ridiculous."

"You wuss." Freeh sneered, throwing back his head as he downed a glass of beer. "It's just a body… Meine Güte. It was wimps like you that made us lose the War."

"Yeah." He pulled his lips tight, a lump forming in his throat as he poured himself another beer. "Yeah," he repeated hoarsely, "and we're all crushed about—"

His voice broke off abruptly as the door opened. The butler—a tall, balding Englishman in a suit with hideous yellow stripes charging down the front—came into the room, bearing a tray of tea. He was a grave, supercilious sort, and his arrival was accompanied with uncomfortable silence and nervous glances, like a mother entering a room full of hitherto gossiping teenage girls.

"Your tea, sirs," he announced coolly.

Freeh and Hazar, beers in hand, exchanged awkward looks as the tea was set on the table.

Hazar waited for the door to close behind him before he said, "So, what did you think about earlier?" He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "You know. The imposter."

"Preposterous." Vogel snorted, as if to make his point.

"Yeah, well. You'd say that, wouldn't you? All of us would." His voice was strained. "We can all try to deny it, can't we? But you know as well as I do what's going on. One of us five was out there. Got shot. A sixth man was watching. Saw. Popped in, took their place. It could be any of us."

"I don't know what you mean." The General shifted in the chair uncomfortably. The room seemed warm all of a sudden, and his fingertips found his collar, pulling at it nervously.

"The kid has a point." Vogel leaned back a little, relaxing into the sofa. He reached back and took a bottle of whisky from the table. The light from the fireplace flickered eerily through the amber glass. "But maybe some mug simply got a hold of the list. Happened to have it when he was shot. That doesn't mean one of us is—is just pretending. And why'd he do a dumb thing like that?" Crossing his legs, he folded his hands in his lap and stared down at them for a long moment, seemingly absorbed. "Just give me one reason."

"Maybe… maybe they want to get in here." He swallowed. "They want us dead."

/

When Tintin entered the parlour, he was entirely conscious of the conversation his entrance had broken off. Wishing he'd stayed behind the door to eavesdrop, he sat in his normal chair, listening to the idle chatter of the three men—Vogel, Hazar, and Freeh—as a halting conversation began. They talked about women and pretended to act like they weren't watching eachother backs and silently accusing eachother of murder. He bore it for a little while, flipping through the paper and acting interested in the junk that was in there, but it quickly got too much. He just needed peace and quiet. Some time to think.

As fate would have it, Snowy was in the room and started vying for Tintin's attention, so peace and quiet was out of the question. For about a minute he subjected himself to tug-of-war and doggy dribble, until he finally gave up and collapsed on his bed, his head hanging off the edge, his eyes randomly tracing the tiny scratches in the hardwood floor, as if they made up some sort of map that would all come together if he just looked long enough.

What a day, he thought. He felt so confused. About the murder. The bodies. And… he had to admit it… Odette.

He wasn't sure how he felt about her. What he thought. Of course he knew that she could have murdered Sebastian. She killed her husband. But… it just didn't seem to add up.

Lost in thought, it wasn't until the smell of tea wafted towards him that he even realised the it was there.

It took a few moments for his brain to compute from where in the room the smell was coming from. He straightened up, heaving his body off the mattress, and looked around. On the end table, opposite his bed, was a tea tray. He slowly walked towards it, looking it over— the set was white china, complete with tea pot, milk, sugar, and two cups.

Two? he thought, puzzled.

Snowy trotted over to him, tongue lolling out of his mouth, and peered at Tintin, trying to catch his eye. I'll forgive you for ignoring me if you feed me, his eyes said. The boy chuckled, dropping him a sugar cube. "There, that's for you, mon petit ami," he said, grinning as he listened to Snowy's satisfied crunches.

The thought entered his mind that the tea was poisoned—like in China—but he didn't entertain the thought for long. It didn't seem likely, for some reason. Nestor would know if somebody was making tea in his kitchen. And just didn't seem likely that the murderer, whoever he or she was, would go to such extreme measures, so soon.

"But then who brought this in here?" he asked Snowy, putting his hands on his knees and bending down to face the dog. "Who brought this in here, eh? Probably the Captain. You think?"

Snowy peered up at him, giving Tintin what the boy interpreted to be a very intelligent, knowing look. In reality, it was a plea for another sugar cube, but Tintin failed to realise that. Ignoring the request, he begun to pour himself a cup of tea.

There was a knock at the door. Dusting off his hands, Tintin made his way to the door, fully expecting to see the Captain standing there. But when it opened, it was Odette.

His breath seemed to catch in his throat; he wasn't sure what he was supposed to say. "Mademoiselle," he said, respectfully.

Looking slightly flustered, she held out his clothes, neatly folded in a pile in her arms. "I came to return your—"

"But—you don't have to!" He looked slightly horrified. "Who told you to do that?"

"Er… the Captain suggested that I go talk to you about it."

Tintin looked at her for a moment, chewing her lip. "Wait… the Captain told you to talk to me about it? Just now?"

"About… er… two minutes ago."

He glanced at the tea tray on the table behind him. Dragging a hand over his face, he took a deep breath and shrugged at Odette. "I don't know what he was thinking. You can have those as long as you like. Keep them, for all I care. But… er… I have some tea here… would you care for a cup?"

He'd expected her to look sceptical, but she just cocked her head a little to the side and said, "In here? Or do you want to go downstairs?"

She's asking me? "Well… er… which do you prefer?"

Odette looked over his room, almost inspecting it, and then nodded shyly. "In here is… is fine."

"Good." For some reason, he felt relieved. He didn't want to go back downstairs—not yet. "That's what I was thinking, too. Come on in."

/

Vogel reclined further back into his chair, watching as Schuuring and General Freeh conversed in German. The fact that he couldn't understand what they were saying really bothered him. True, he felt excluded, but it wasn't that that he minded. No, it was the fact that they could be plotting his death right in front of him, and he wouldn't know it. It was that that he minded.

"Look. You know English, don't you?"

They glanced up at him, confused. "Yeah?" Hazar said, after a pause. "We all do."

"So let's talk in it, alright?" He kept his voice monotone, but his body language spoke volumes. He took another step closer, menacing.

"Feeling left out, are we?" Freeh sneered, his voice sickly-sweet.

"I don't care about that. I just don't want to have to kill you," he replied smoothly.

Hazar looked away from him in disgust, his eyes fixed on the cigarette between his fingertips. "You'd just convince the government to do it for you," he muttered.

Vogel froze. His lips contorted, twisting speechlessly, until he finally hissed, "You just say that again."

Sneering, Hazar repeated it. "I said, you'd just convince—"

He sidestepped Vogel's blow just in time. But he couldn't stop the man's hand from grabbing onto his shirt. He was trying to pull Hazar closer, to ram him in the face, but instead only managed to rip the collar of his shirt. His entire shoulder was bare.

When Hazar saw the ink lettering on the skin underneath exposed, his body seemed to go numb.

/

"So where in Belgium are you from?" Tintin asked. He and Odette had made their cups of tea and were sitting on two pillows, placed on either side of the tea tray, which, in turn, was placed on the floor. Snowy was curled up next to him, snoring lightly. It was a perfect scene. He could already see it in some little children's book: the boy and girl, not able to picnic due to the rain, were sitting on pillows in their parent's bedroom, drinking water in chipped china cups and nibbling on jelly rolls. Only add 10-plus years, and real tea and china, he thought. And two murders. And a horrible blizzard. And the girl has killed her husband. Besides that, it's straight out of a children's book.

"I'm from Bocholt," she replied. "You've probably never heard of it."

Come to think of it, he remembered that name on the list of names. It hadn't really meant anything to him then. It was just another name. But now he suddenly remembered the town, Bocholt. He'd been there, a couple times. He might've even run into Serge and Odette. The thought made him strangely happy, though he couldn't exactly tell why. Maybe it was just nice to think of her as a normal person, who could live a normal life. Not a convict, potentially guilty of three murders.

"Actually, I think I've been there."

"Have you? It's minutes away from Germany. Practically on the border." A wistful look flitted across Odette's face, and she hung her head, just a bit. "Serge… I mean, my husband… he and I were both from there."

The mention of her husband made seem to constrict inside, and suddenly he had no idea what to say. She's obviously upset about this. Move on. Keep the conversation going. "It's a beautiful place." Feeling like this wasn't good enough, he quickly added, "I've been there three or four times, at least. You must speak flawless German."

"We were fluent. We probably spent more time in Germany than Belgium," she admitted.

"My first trip to Germany, I was being chased by gendarmes the entire time." He chuckled, and glanced down, drumming his fingers against the side of his teacup. "I picked up some interesting words there, let me tell you. Can't say I ever got the hang of it, though. People say it's just like English, but…"

"How many languages do you speak?"

"Snakes…" He ran a hand through his hair, exhaling. "Er, French, of course; English, American—they really are different—, Spanish, Flemish, Russian, a little Chinese—"

"Ne—nevermind," she interrupted quickly. "Don't worry. I get the picture."

He laughed again, more softly this time, but didn't say anything.

"I just realised, I'm the only one who understands you when you're upset," Odette said quietly, breaking the short silence that had ensued.

He looked up from his cup of tea, his expression quizzical. "How do you mean?"

"You speak in French whenever you're upset. As far as I know, none of them understand it."

"True. Except for the Captain… but he just barely knows it." Tintin shrugged, and then chuckled fondly. "Just enough to buy whisky from the grocer."

They laughed, and her laugh was a good sound. After Odette's attempted suicide only this morning, it was relieving to hear her happy. And besides, she had a good laugh. It was low and sweet, rich; almost indulgent. It was unlike a lot of women's, such as, say, Castafiore, whose laugh was akin to a parrot screeching.

Done stirring his tea, he tapped the rim of the cup with the spoon, and then set it down on the table with a sigh. "What you saw—you know, with Hazar—that almost never happens."

"I'm not surprised." She shrugged. "You don't seem like the kind of person who'd do that often. And I knew what you were saying. You weren't upset for yourself; you were only trying to protect your friend."

He grinned a little. "You read my mind."

They sat in contended silence for a little while longer, until Odette asked, suddenly, "How long have you known him?"

"The Captain?"

She nodded, taking a sip of tea.

"Two years," he replied.

She raised her eyebrows, choking down the tea. "Two years, and you're this close?"

"Well, we have almost died for eachother a billion times. That helps a little. Bonded by trauma, if nothing else." His tone was jesting, but he stared down into his tea for a moment, and seemed to sober. "We saved eachother," he admitted, after a moment. "The Captain… when I found him, he hadn't been sober in years. He… he'd been through a lot. I helped take him away from all that. Odette, he was so—so angry, and bitter, and hurt. And just lost, really lost. All he could do was just… just drown himself in more booze. Just try to kill the pain."

"And you?" Odette asked, softly, when the silence began to stretch.

Tintin sighed. "I'd been through a lot, too," he admitted, shrugging. "At some point, doing what I do… it just drains your soul. You can't see people dying left and right and stay normal, especially not when you're a reporter, when you're supposed to be objective. Having the Captain was the only thing that kept me together, you know? I didn't drink, of course, but if I'd kept on going the way I was, I would've, if I reached his age. Which is a pretty big 'if'." His finger swirled around the tea in his cup, and after a moment, he put it aside, crossing his arms and leaning against the foot of the bed. "I was a slave to reporting. To the adrenaline, excitement, whatever. It was my drug. It distracted me, made life worth living, took away all the… I don't know, it took my mind away from what happened when I was…was…" Without warning, his voice broke off raggedly. Biting his lip, his gaze wandered to the floor; he didn't seem to want to continue.

She waited for him to expound on what exactly had happened, but he didn't. Instead, after a moment, he just finished, "I did all that stupid stuff because I really had nothing to live for. You know, I had nothing to lose. But… then… it was like I suddenly had a dad. It was… just to know somebody actually…"

"Cared?" she finished.

He looked at her, almost startled, as if realizing for the first time that she was there. Biting his lip, he nodded slowly, leaning back further against the bed frame. And then he straightened up, his head cocked quizzically. "You know—you know, Odette, I just realised—have we been speaking English this entire time?"

Odette paused thoughtfully, tapping a finger against her chin. "Yes… yes, I think so."

"Sacrebleu…" Groaning, Tintin slapped his forehead. "My one friend who speaks French, and I talk to her in English. What an idiot!"

In French, she said, "Well, we could start now."

He got to his knees, hands clasped beseechingly, and asked, also in French, "Mademoiselle Odette Bienvenue, will you do me the honour of conversing with me in our native tongue?"

"But of course, Monsieur Tintin…Tintin…" She looked at him for a long moment. Her expression slowly became sheepish, and she stammered, grinning lopsidedly, "I just realised—I don't, er, seem to know your last name."

Tintin grinned cheekily. "How's this: if the storm hasn't let up by Christmas, it'll be your present. Happy Christmas."

"Your name?" Her jaw slackened as she feigned being taken aback. "What kind of stupid present is that? Doesn't everybody know your name?"

"Not a soul," he said sombrely.

"What about the Captain?"

"I'll tell you on Christmas Eve."

"Ooh!" She flicked a sugar cube at him, still pretending to be offended, but barely able to stifle her laughter. "Cheeky little blighter!"

He laughed, scooting backward. Grinning, she reached forward and playfully shoved him a little. The movement made the shoulder of her dress slip down, just a little. That was when he saw the tattoo.

He could barely see any of the ink. Just enough to read the top half of the letters.

Meminit Non ut Mundus.

Tintin could feel his entire body slowly start to go numb. It started from his head and slowly crept down to his fingertips, freezing him as it went.

"You have his tattoo," he said, weakly.

Her laughter slowly dwindled away as her own gaze drifted to her shoulder. He could see the blood drain softly from her cheeks, replacing the previous glow with a deathly pallor.

The list, he thought. Her name was on the list.

Of course he'd known. But it really hit him. She and the dead man had the same tattoo. They were connected.

"Do they have it?" He reached forward, more harshly than he had intended, and gripped her shoulder. She winced, as if the tattoo had been a bruise, and tried to back away. He didn't let her. "Do the others have it?"

He could see the conflict on her face, but after only a few moments, honesty won out. She hung her head and nodded.

"Right." Getting to his feet, he opened the door, gesturing for her to go. "We're going downstairs, Mademoiselle. Now."

Author's Note: I know I've been mingling light-hearted and serious moments for these last two chapters, but have no fear, I'll be focusing more on the plot more. Unless, of course, you prefer light-hearted moments...? Vox populi, vox Dei, as they say. It's for these sorts of situations that reviews are so incredibly helpful.

And so incredibly wanted.

Let me know, either way. And thanks for reading! Man, I just now realised I've never said that before. Well, here it is again: thank you.