Message from Beyond the Grave

Javert shook his hands, throwing off the water he just used to wash away the blood. And he was well aware of the irony that he washed his hands in the river Seine. The river that almost would have taken his own life away, if it had been his choice.

"What is this, are you my guardian angel now?" he asked, over his shoulder, not quite daring to fully look Valjean in the eyes.

God, was all this really happening? It felt like hours, since they´d escaped from Gareaux´s house. But Javert knew that it was probably more like minutes. The perception started to elude a man when he went through something as traumatic as this. Seeing his old mentor die, by the bullet of an assassin, who was most likely sent by the same people who wanted him, Javert, dead.

What was wrong with this world? Javert ran a hand through his hair. He didn´t understand anymore. How could it come so far in only a few days?

"I´ve seen the man who did this." Valjean told him, gravely, and Javert swirled around. "From far away. He was gone before I could catch up with him. But I think I´ve seen his face."

For a moment Javert could barely believe what he heard.

"Would you recognize him?"

Valjean nodded.

"Good. Because I want this son of a bitch, you hear me? I want him to pay for this."

He knew he was glaring, like the devil himself. A dangerous look, frightening for most. But all Valjean did was look at him, and allow him to breath, to get over his anger. His grief.

"I´m sorry about your friend." he told him.

And Javert nodded. Nothing more. "Before he died … he told me there was a conspiracy." he forced his mind into a less destructive order. "Some … very powerful people, who helped to actually ensure this revolt. He said they poisoned Lamarque, moved troops. I wouldn´t be surprised if they even supplied the revolutionaries with weapons and gunpowder. To make sure as many as possible would die at those barricades."

"My god." Valjean breathed, totally shocked at this idea. "Whhho would do something like that?"

Javert sighed. "He didn´t know any names. But he knew it had to be someone very high. In the military. The police." He threw Valjean a poisonous glance but the other man didn´t make a comment about this. "Maybe even the city." Javert finished. "Maybe someone close to the mayor." At this he looked at Valjean with more care. "You were mayor once." he recalled. "You must know these things."

Valjean skipped back a little, uncomfortable under Javert´s stare, as if he had to be afraid of being caught telling a lie, even now.

"Who could do something like that?" the former inspector asked. "Who´d have the authority to give these kind of orders?"

"Ahm …" Valjean´s eyes looked about, as if searching for help along the abandoned riverbank. "That depends on the order." he attempted an answer to this interrogation. "There are certain executive orders that require the seal and the hand of the mayor only. No one else could do this. But usually, if this is possible, things are done with minimal effort. To elevate efficiency and quantity. If something can be done without the mayor having to sign it by hand, a simple stamp or seal would be enough. And that is something everyone in the mayor´s office could get his hand on, if they know how."

Javert nodded. "Except for the order to eliminate someone." he mused, more to himself than to Valjean. "I´d say this would be strictly limited to the mayor´s hands only." He halted, thinking again. "But a signature can be faked of course."

"To … eliminate someone." Valjean repeated, aghast. "You say that as if this sort of order is totally normal … for the mayor of a city."

Javert regarded him, a little surprised. But then he smirked. "No." he said. "Of course you never even heard of that. Never had to entertain the mere idea. Right, Monsieur Le Maire?"

"Of course not, Javert." Valjean burst out. "It´s murder."

"It´s called taking someone out." the former police man informed him, but seeing the expression in the other man´s eyes, he felt ashamed after all. He´d never fully approved to these things, but had accepted them as necessary evils, in the line of duty. Things that could not be but still were right. He lowered his gaze, realizing something.

"Sometimes these things are done …" he attempted an explanation. "For the best of the country … and its people."

"How can murder serve the best interest of the people, Javert?" Valjean objected, fiercely. And Javert gave him a warning glare, to not to approach this any further. But of course the old con could not stay away from this thin ice.

"Did you ever do this?" he demanded to know. "Did you ever … execute such an order?"

Javert glared even more now. "No." he rasped, and instantly lowered his gaze. "But I know people who did."

Valjean´s strength, gained by his anger over this scandal, vanished. "Oh my god." he breathed, swaying a little. But as soon as it had started it stopped, and the life long fugitive looked back at his life long pursuer. "And now it is you, who is the target of this order." he stated, as if he´d just remembered this fact. "Must feel strange to be on the other side all the sudden."

"What do you think, Valjean?" Javert hissed, spitting out the name as if it were something poisonous. "What do you think?"

But Valjean didn´t seem to be effected by his old foe´s anger. All he did was hold Javert´s flashing gaze, with little more than a sigh. "I think we should make a plan." he said, as if that question had been for real. "Because now every man of the guard will be looking for you. Not just some hitmen. Everyone. You are a convicted murderer now. And believe me. There are not many places on earth where you can hide."

"I don´t intent to hide." Javert replied. "I want them to pay."

"You can´t make anyone pay, if you don´t know whom to hunt."

"I might know how to find out a name." the former inspector announced, already turning away from Valjean.

"How?" the other man asked, but Javert didn´t turn back to him.

"I need to go back to that pharmacy." was all he said, leaving the river behind, knowing of course that Valjean would follow.

...

In his sickbed Marius looked so pale, as if there was no blood running through his veins any longer, and for a moment Cosette was sure, that his open eyes were dead, that he had died, just before she arrived and no one had noticed it yet. Her breath stopped at this thought, her heart ready to break. No, please. Fate couldn´t be that cruel.

But then he blinked, his eyes stayed closed for a moment, before they opened again to a distance so far away, Cosette could only guess it.

He hadn´t noticed her yet. And for an instant she was uncertain if she should dare to enter, and disturb his solitude. As if this was something treasured that only belonged to him, and disturbing it would be a violation, far worse than love allowed it. Just like her father´s solitude had been his own in all these years.

But even if she could have stayed here, unseen by him, eventually choosing to leave him alone, too scared to trespass into his world, the baron didn´t allow it.

"Marius." the old man spoke, gently but firm, and Cosette jumped at the unexpected sound of this quiet voice beside her. "Here´s someone to see you." he told his grandson.

Cosette´s heart started racing as Marius slowly turned his head, towards the voice. And without her noticing it, her feet started moving.

His eyes found her, but there was no change. He still looked as far away and withdrawn as he´d looked all this time before. Not even her smile seemed to reach him. The only reason why she knew he recognized her, was this little glimpse of pain that was shown in his eyes. The pain of recognition.

She sat down, on the bed beside him and cupped his cheek, gently caressing it.

"It´s me, Marius." she spoke, hoping, praying for a sign that he was still with her. Still the one she´d fallen in love with. That his love for her hadn´t died in his illness. "Please." she begged. "Please, I´m here now. You will be fine again." Tears began to blur her vision. "I promise."

The tear dropped out of her eye, sucked off by the already damp cover of the bed. "Please, Marius."

If he would only say her name, say anything at all. But he didn´t. Couldn´t. Even though she saw that he was trying. But in the end he couldn´t speak. Only look at her with this oh so painful gaze of his. And then it was his tears who joined the sweat in his pillow. And all Cosette could do, was hold him, until it would be over.

...

"Monsieur le Secrétaire." Gisquet spoke, surprised, and Talbert turned around, posing as confident as possible. He knew what the police prefect wanted to ask, even before he spoke it out.

"What are you doing here?"

Talbert sighed, deeply. "I came here as soon as I heard. The death of an respected officer like Gareaux surely is worth a high priority investigation." He faced Gisquet. "You being here personally at this hour, proves it."

"Of course it is." the prefect agreed at once, and shook his head, sadly. "I still can´t believe Javert really did this. I´d thought him capable of many things but this …"

"You already know the name of the murderer?" Talbert was genuinely shocked, for different reasons than the prefect might think, but still.

"He was seen by the servant." Gisquet nodded. "And by the police men who chased him."

"You caught him?" Talbert was concerned, only for a moment. Until a familiar voice spoke up behind him.

"Not yet." Moreau stepped closer, joining them. "But we will. He can´t run forever. Monsieur le Secrétaire." he bowed as if greeting him respectfully, and Talbert mirrored the mocking gesture, in front of the prefect.

"Monsieur Gisquet." he addressed him again. "Please, do everything you can to find this man."

"I will assign my best men." Gisquet promised and Talbert nodded.

"You will have the mayor´s support. Everything you need. You just need to ask." Before Gisquet could address anything right away, Talbert excused himself, pretending to need fresh air, and walked out. He waited a few minutes, at the door, knowing that he wouldn´t be alone for long. And sure enough, Moreau joined him, a short time later.

"What happened?" Talbert demanded to know, without any transition. "I thought you had it all covered."

"Javert happened." was Moreau´s brusque answer, and Talbert could hear the "I told you so", when he added: "He´s still here. Still investigating."

The secretary ran a hand over his chin, smoothing the beard, as he always did when he was nervous. He nodded, trying to hide his tension in front of this man.

"Might have left the city my ass." Moreau growled, and Talbert gave him a sharp glance.

"Watch your words."

"I did everything you asked me to do. I even made sure that Javert being here would not interfere with our goal."

"And you did well." Talbert had to give him that. "Having someone to blame for this, was actually better than a nameless murderer on the run. Especially when it is Javert."

"But he escaped. Someone helped him."

Talbert halted, almost believing that he must have heard wrong.

"Impossible."

But Moreau´s gaze told him clearly, that he could indeed believe it.

"The man doesn´t have any friends." Talbert recalled, as if the mere idea was ridiculous. "And right now every police man on the force knows that it would be suicidal for their careers and lives to even sympathize with him. So who on earth should be stupid enough to help him?"

Instead of answering him, Moreau stepped closer, leaning in patronizingly. "Maybe you don´t know as much about your target as you claim you do."

Talbert, usually a man that knew the desk to be his fighting arena, stared into those arrogant eyes, and wished nothing more than to punch one of them to a heap of blue mousse.

"He can´t evade us forever." he stated, matter of factly. "We will find him, and shoot him down like a rabid dog."

"You don´t even know where to look for him. He´s still evading you, still fighting you. And now he has help."

This time Talbert was not giving a response, and in his lack of a reaction to work with, Moreau took the next best approach. "Maybe you should talk to your contractee." he suggested, and finally Talbert couldn´t control himself any longer.

"I don´t need to talk to him." he hissed at the man before him. "I don´t need to talk to anybody. I need you to do your job right."

"And I need to know what we´ll do if I can´t." Moreau replied, not the least intimidated. "Because I don´t wanna go to prison for this. And I don´t wanna die either."

"None of us will go to prison." Talbert hissed, fed up with this. How often did they have to go over this? "We are acting for the good of the country."

"I am." Moreau stated, visibly testing Talbert´s position. He probably hoped to catch the secretary in a lie, that he was not as dedicated to their cause as he was. But Talbert would not do him the favor. This man had no idea what he was talking about.

"And right now, Javert is a danger to this country." he went on, as if this interjection had never happened. "So would you please go out there and find him?"

Moreau didn´t say anything. He only glared, visibly having so much more to say. But eventually he nodded.

...

It was strange to come back here, to this place. When he´d been here the first time, it had only been to not to be rude, after the baron had been so generous. One quick errand on his way home had turned into something so strange, Valjean could barely believe it was really happening. Was he really here now, in the middle of the night, and with Javert on top of this?

How? How had all this happened so fast? Was he really working with the man he´d been running away from all these years? Valjean didn´t understand. Was this real? Or was he trapped in a bad dream? Maybe he´d died of shock after bringing Marius home, and was now living in purgatory. Or maybe he´d fallen ill from all the filth he´d walked through that night. Maybe he was lying in a fever dream.

But the images were too clear for a dream, the night´s air too cold to not to be real. And the ache in his back and legs were still so current, it just had to be real. When one was dead, he didn´t feel pain. And neither did he in a dream. At least not as far as Valjean remembered.

They reached the pharmacy – the back door, which had served them as their escape path – and Valjean tried the handle. It didn´t open.

"It´s locked." he told Javert and got shoved aside before he´d even finished.

"Stand guard." Javert instructed him, kneeling down busily, and Valjean threw a brief glance over his shoulder. The street was abandoned so far. When he looked again, the former inspector was busy picking the lock, right here before his eyes. Valjean believed to dream after all.

A moment later the door was open and Javert vanished inside. What else could Valjean do but to follow him?

"I didn´t know you could pick a lock." he spoke, quietly, while Javert lit a candle. And how did he know where to find it?

"There are many things about me that you don´t know." he mentioned, while he waited for the little flame to catch and grow larger.

"No, of course not." Valjean felt a little embarrassed. "I mean … you only hunted me all these years. We never came together, to just … talk."

At this Javert looked up, over the flame of the candle, and his eyes seemed to burn too, in the shadows that seemed so much darker now, in the bright light of the candle.

"And what would we possibly talk about?" he asked, one brow twitching. "24601."

Being addressed like that again, sufficiently silenced Valjean, which was probably exactly what the other man had intended. Javert turned away from him, illuminating the room. He spotted another candle and lit it too.

After that his gaze fell down, to the ground, and the blood that was still there. To one spot in particular. Valjean noticed that this time the shadow over his face was not from the lack of light in here. But before he could say anything, the former inspector tore his eyes away from the floor and demanded:

"Come on now. Start searching this place already."

Valjean was still not sure though. "For what?"

"A note, a ledger. A notebook. A letter carved in stone for all I care. Just something that tells us who is behind all this. Gareaux said she´d keep something, to prove who this man was that she saw that day."

Valjean watched Javert scanning the room with his eyes, briefly, before he turned to the little corner that was the kitchen and started to search the drawers.

"Who was this woman?" Valjean dared to ask, looking about himself. There was a small bureau on the wall, but except for the lowest drawer which contained old clothing, all the drawers were stacked with paper bags and bottles, some empty, some filled with powder or liquid. All of them neatly labeled.

"Except a pharmacist, I mean." He threw a glance over his shoulder, to Javert. "How did you know her? I mean … you did … know her. You said …"

"That doesn´t concern you." was the harsh response, and Javert marched through the room, through the door that obviously led to the bedroom.

"I was just trying to make some conversation." Valjean closed the drawer. "No need to get snippy."

Javert didn´t answer. He probably hadn´t even heard it. Valjean could hear him rummage in the other room. The bedroom of a woman he had known.

Why did this idea startle Valjean so much? Maybe because Javert had never seemed to be one that socialized much. If he did it at all. And a woman even. He claimed not to care about her, but the gaze he´d thrown at the blood spoke otherwise. And so did Javert´s own words, back at Valjean´s house. He´d called her an angel. That she´d saved his life. She had meant something to him. So why did he deny this now? Valjean couldn´t understand this mindset. How could a man be so cold? Surely not even Javert could be made of stone, could he?

And then, all the sudden, the sounds of Javert´s searching stopped, and Valjean heard paper, faintly rustling. Instantly he was in the door. Javert sat on the bed, a piece of paper in hand, staring at it.

"What did you find?"

Javert didn´t answer, he just kept staring at the paper, so Valjean crossed the room – two steps, and he was beside him – to see for himself.

It was a drawing. A man´s face, rough but recognizable. As if it had been drawn from memory. The man was blonde, had intense eyes, thick eyebrows and a beard that covered only his chin. Rough at best but if Valjean would have to find this man in a crowd, he was sure he could.

"Who is this?" he asked, but Javert shook his head. In his lack of another clue he turned the page around, taking a desperate chance that this would bring anything new. And he was surprised, just like Valjean, to indeed find something there. On the back were scribbled notes, single words, half sentences, that looked as if they were once pieces of a conversation.

"Seems she did a lot from memory." Valjean mentioned, watching the other man´s reaction closely. And hadn´t he known him for that long – the long periods of avoiding him, didn´t seem to matter in this regard – Valjean would have missed the little heave of breath Javert took in, as he turned his face to stone once again, in his effort to suppress whatever reaction this comment had caused in him.

He didn´t value the comment with a response. Instead he visibly turned back to the notes, reading through them, as if focusing on this, was the hardest thing in the world, something that required all his attention.

Valjean craned his neck, to read it too. It wasn´t much, and cryptic at best. But this woman, whoever she´d been had done her best to summarize what she´d heard.

unknown visitor: ... they (?) got Périer ... dead (killed) ...

le Officier: ... heard he died of Cholera ... (lie?)

will find us too ... criminals (?) ... ways to find things from nothing ... found him, could find us

Lamarc (?) as good as dead ... committed kids ... death as sign

... poisoned him too slow ...

faster would raise questions

men ready?

Of course. ... hope your friends will appreciate efforts ... as promised

... will show their gratitude ... make sure the one responsible for the

counterinsurgency won´t live

... tries to get his position back ... won´t be able to resist ... play right into our hands

Most of those words didn´t mean anything to Valjean. It indeed sounded as if whoever this man – an officer of some sort – had been talking to, was plotting something. Something that would indeed lead to those battles at the barricades. Friends? Someone to show appreciation? So whoever these men had been they´d been hired by someone? Was that it?

Valjean tried to make heads and tails of this. This name at the beginning. Périer. He´d heard it before. A banker, wasn´t it? He´d read about him in the Moniteur once or twice. Not the kind of person that would make it to his top ten favorites in the world. If it was the same man, he´d been murdered, as it seemed. By someone … Someone who was at those people´s tail. Trying to stop them?

Valjean sighed. It was all so unclear. Out of the context, these words could have meant anything. There were no names to help them understand it any better. No places. No dates. Nothing. And he doubted that this woman had known much more about what she´d written down.

And yet, something among those words seemed to tell Javert something. Enough to startle him into looking up, tensed, all the sudden.

"What?" Valjean asked. "What is it?"

Javert didn´t answer. He just jumped up, and rushed out of the room. "Come." he ordered, already at the front door. Valjean could only hurry to catch up.

"Where are we going?"

Javert peeked out, checking the street. He glanced back at Valjean, only for a second, just long enough to answer his question.

"We need to save a life."

And with that he was gone. Valjean, once again, had no choice but to follow.