by Vargas, Fred
‘I’m listening,’ said Louis, picking up the kettle, now cool, and sprinkling a few drops on Bufo.
‘Why don’t we go and talk about that in the grounds? There are a lot of staff here, and as you found out this morning, anyone can just walk in. Your pet will be better off outside too. I like you, Kehlweiler, at least for the time being, and I will tell you about Marie and the dustbins, just between ourselves. Pauline is the only other person who knows about it. Other people may have found out though, Marie was less discreet than she thought. It’ll interest you.’
Louis stood up, sat back down to pick up Bufo and got up again.
‘You can’t bend your leg?’ asked Darnas. ‘The left one? I saw you were limping when you came in.’
‘Yes. I did my knee in during a particularly nasty investigation. It was after that that Pauline left.’
‘And you think that was the reason?’
‘I thought so. But now I’m not sure.’
‘Because when you set eyes on me, you told yourself that Pauline doesn’t set too much store on physical appearances? Well, well, now, you could be right. But let’s keep things separate, like we said.’
Louis moistened his hand, picked Bufo up, and both men went out into the grounds.
‘You really are rolling in it, aren’t you?’ said Louis, looking at the size of the pine forest.
‘Yes, I am. But look, this is what I wanted to talk about. About five years ago, this man came to live in our village. He bought a big villa, an ugly one, as ugly as this spa building, which is saying something. Nobody knows where his money comes from, he works at home. Nothing out of the ordinary at first sight, seems sociable enough, plays cards, talks loudly. You can’t miss him at the Market Cafe, he’s there every day, for a game, a big solid chap, all of a piece. Blanchet, his name is, René Blanchet, pushing seventy perhaps. Not very interesting then, I’d have nothing particular to do with him, except that he’s got it into his head that he wants to be our next mayor.’
‘Ah.’
‘He’s got time, another five years before the election, anything could happen. People like him. He’s a sort of local anti-immigrant campaigner. Port-Nicolas for the Port-Nicolas residents and no one else, which is a bit odd, considering he’s an incomer himself. But it goes down all right with some folk round here, as you can imagine.’
‘And you don’t like him?’
‘He bad-mouths me. René Blanchet mutters during his card games that the thalassotherapy centre brings foreigners into Port-Nicolas: Dutch, Germans, and worse, Spanish, other Latins, and worst of all, rich Arabs. Getting the picture now?’
‘Yes, indeed.’
‘And you are German yourself?’
‘Partly.’
‘Well, he’ll nose that out before long. He’s a dab hand at sniffing out foreigners.’
‘I’m not a foreigner, it’s just that my father is German,’ Louis said, smiling.
‘Well, for René Blanchet, you’ll be German all right, you’ll see. I could find ways to get him out of town, I have the means. But it’s not my style, Kehlweiler, believe it or not. I’m waiting to see what he’s up to, and I keep my eyes open, because things wouldn’t be nice in Port-Nicolas with him in charge. Better by far to have the smooth conger. And it was because I was keeping an eye on him that I discovered our dear old Marie was doing the same thing. That is to say, she was going through his dustbin after dark.’
‘On behalf of the mayor?’
‘Well, well, now. Here we put the bins out once a week, on Tuesday nights. And for the last seven or eight months, Marie was taking René Blanchet’s dustbin bags home, looking through them, then putting them back, tied up again, nobody the wiser. And next day, Marie would trot off to the town hall.’
Louis stopped and leaned against a tree trunk. He stroked Bufo automatically with one finger.
‘And the mayor’s afraid Blanchet is looking for some way to discredit him, before his term of office is up? Has Blanchet got something on him?’
‘Possibly, but you might also think the opposite. The mayor could be trying to find out more about Blanchet – what he’s up to, where he’s from – and hoping to pick up enough from the dustbin to sabotage him as a candidate when the time comes.’
‘Right. And if Marie was surprised by René Blanchet while she was going through his rubbish, he might have killed her?’
‘And if Marie had learned too much about the mayor from Blanchet’s dustbin, he might have killed her?’
The two men fell silent.
‘Dirty business,’ said Louis at last.
‘Dustbins are never very glorious.’
‘What about the Sevrans? What do you think of them?’
‘Apart from their ghastly pit bull, I have nothing but good to say about them. She’s impressive, beautiful rather than pretty, you probably noticed, and very reserved, except when her children are home, she changes completely then, much more fun. I think she’s bored to death here, frankly. Sevran is a pleasant enough companion, he’s intelligent, amusing, open, but there’s a big problem with his wretched machines. He’s mad about levers, pistons, gears, he goes all over the place finding his blessed typewriters, but then he does make his living from them. He’s a genuine collector, and he does good business with them, he deals, buys and sells, and that’s what they live off, believe me. He’s one of the big specialists in the country, European reputation, people come from all over. Lina has no interest in the machines, and he loves them too much. So, naturally, she’s going to be fed up. I’m just throwing that out, because in my case, I’d prefer it if Pauline was interested in machines for instance, rather than in you.’
‘Let’s keep things separate.’
Darnas looked up and scrutinised Louis’s face.
‘You’re examining me? Something wrong?’
‘I’m getting an idea, estimating the degree of risk.’
Darnas screwed up his small eyes and looked hard at Louis without moving. Finally he nodded and stirred the pine needles on the ground with his foot.
‘Well?’ asked Louis.
‘The danger is not negligible. I’ll have to think.’
‘So will I.’
‘Right, goodbye for now, Kehlweiler,’ said Darnas, holding out his hand. ‘Rest assured that I shall be following you closely, both on this case and regarding Pauline. If I can help you with the former and hinder you in the latter, it will be with the greatest pleasure. You can count on me.’
‘Thanks. And you have no idea what Marie might have found in the bins?’
‘Alas, no. I saw her doing it, that’s all. The mayor will be the only other person who knows, or possibly Lina Sevran. Marie was her nanny too. But before you get any information from either of them, you’d need to spend a number of hours in the cafe.’
‘Does Lina Sevran go to the cafe?’
‘Everyone does. Lina’s often there, watching her husband playing billiards or meeting her friends. It’s the only place to go for a chat in winter.’
‘Thanks,’ Louis said again.
He went towards the gates, dragging his leg, and could feel Darnas observing him from behind his back: he must be wondering whether or not this man with a limp was in with a chance. At any rate that was the question Louis was asking himself. He shouldn’t have seen Pauline again, that was clear. She hadn’t changed, except for place and surname, and now a slight sorrow was chasing round inside his head. And she had run away from him. Not surprisingly, considering he had behaved like a clumsy oaf. The most annoying thing about it was that he liked Darnas as well. If only he had killed Marie, that would be very convenient, of course. Darnas had been pretty keen to provide him with avenues to explore, useful ones in fact. A fine rain began to fall, which pleased Bufo. Louis did not hurry. He almost never did. He breathed in the scent of the pine trees, brought out by the moisture in the air. The smell of pines was very good, he wasn’t going to think about Pauline all day. He could do with a beer.
XVIII
THE HEALTH SPA was quite a distance from the market cafe, and Louis was walking slowly along the empty narrow road, as a cold shower began to drench the grass verges. His knee hurt. Seeing a milestone, he sat down on it with Bufo for a few moments. For once, he was trying not to think. He wiped the moisture off his forehead with his hand, and then looked up to see Pauline standing in front of him. Her expression did not look conciliatory. He struggled to get to his feet.
‘Stay sitting down, Ludwig,’ said Pauline. ‘You were the one who played silly buggers, so you can just stay where you are.’
‘OK. But I don’t want to talk.’
‘No? Then what the fuck were you doing in my place this morning? Coming in like that, talking like that. Who the hell do you think you are?’
Louis watched the grass grow wetter. Best to let Pauline have her say when she was angry, simplest way for it to settle down. In any case, she was completely in the right. And Pauline did have her say, for five long minutes, tearing strips off him with the energy she could put into a four hundred metres race. But at the end of the race, you have to stop.
‘Have you finished?’ asked Louis, looking up. ‘Fine, OK, I absolutely agree, you’re right in every respect, no need to say any more. I just wanted to call on you, no serious intention, and it wasn’t necessary to shut your door on me. Just a call, nothing else. Now it’s over, all right, no point shouting for hours about it, I don’t intend to bother you any more, I give you my word of honour as a German. And Darnas isn’t a bad chap. Not bad at all, and in fact better than that.’
Louis stood up. His knee hated damp weather.
‘Are you in pain?’ Pauline asked sharply.
‘It’s just the rain.’
‘You haven’t been able to get your leg fixed?’
‘No, spare me the sympathy, it stayed this way after you left.’
‘Loser!’
And off she went. Honestly, said Louis to himself, it wasn’t worth her while to have come after him. Still, if she’d shouted at him, she had good reason. He could do with a beer.
Marc appeared in the distance, on a bike.
‘I hired this for the day,’ he said, as he came to a stop by Louis. ‘I like cycling. It’s all over with the woman?’
‘Totally,’ said Louis. ‘Our relations are strained to the point of non-existence. The husband’s very interesting, I’ll tell you about him.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To get a beer. See what the cops are up to in the cafe.’
‘Get on,’ said Marc, pointing to his luggage rack.
Louis thought for a nanosecond. He used to be able to ride a bike. He’d never been carried before. But Marc was already turning the bike round in the right direction, and there was clearly no hurtfully condescending purpose in his proposal. He was just offering to help, that was all. Marc wasn’t like him, he never hurt anyone.
Marc braked five minutes later in front of the cafe. On the way he had had time to shout through the wind and rain, telling Louis that after abandoning the lord of Puisaye for a while, he’d hired a bike to take a look round the village, and opposite the supermarket he’d found a fantastic thing. A machine about four metres high, an immense and magnificent mass of iron and copper, very intricate with levers, discs, cogwheels, pistons, and all for absolutely no purpose. And as he was standing looking amazed at this strange machine, a local man came past and showed him how it worked. You turned a handle at the bottom, and the big machine went into action, every single part moving, all the way up and all the way down again, and for what? ‘You’ll never guess,’ Marc had shouted over his shoulder. ‘All that for a lever to come down on a roll of paper and print off: “That’s quite possible. Souvenir from Port-Nicolas.” And this chap said, “You can take the paper, it’s for you, it’s free, and there are about a hundred and one other mottos.”’ After that, Marc had turned the handle several times, made the big machine shudder from head to foot, and been rewarded with many maxims and souvenirs of Port-Nicolas. Things like ‘You’re getting warm. Souvenir from Port-Nicolas’ or ‘Don’t overdo it. Souvenir from Port-Nicolas’, ‘Why not? Souvenir from Port-Nicolas’, ‘Good idea. Souvenir from Port-Nicolas’, ‘Why so much hatred? Souvenir from Port-Nicolas’, ‘No, getting colder’, and various others he couldn’t remember. It was a unique machine. By the time of his last try, Marc had grasped the point of it: you had to make up a question in your head, then consult the oracle. He had hesitated between ‘Will I get my medieval accounts finished in time?’ which he found too footling, and ‘Is there a woman somewhere who will fall in love with me?’, but he didn’t want to know if the answer to that was no, so he had finally opted for a question which didn’t commit him to anything: ‘Does God exist?’ ‘Know what it replied?’ Marc added, as he came to a stop outside the cafe, still astride the bicycle. ‘“Rephrase the question. Souvenir from Port-Nicolas.” And guess what! This marvellous and pointless machine was constructed by Sevran, four years ago. It’s got his name on it: L. Sevran 1991. I’d love to have created something like that, an enormous and totally futile object that gives vague answers to silly or formulaic questions. Ah, look, wishful thinking, eh? The cops are here.’
‘Right, let’s wait for them. Or no, never mind the beer, let’s go over to Sevran’s. Since you mentioned him, and since the cops are slow off the mark, let’s go and talk to both the Sevrans before they get there. Off we go, on your bike.’
XIX
THE SEVRANS WERE just sitting down to lunch. When lina saw the two men arriving, soaked to the skin and apparently determined to stay, she had no choice but to set out two extra plates. Louis introduced Marc, who suddenly had but one thought in his head: keep out of the way of the pit bull if it came into the room. He could think straight in front of ordinary dogs, but a pit bull, and one that ate the toes of corpses, made him go weak at the knees.
‘So,’ said Sevran, sitting down, ‘it’s still about the dog, is it? You want an address? You’re going to get one for your friend?’
‘I’ve made up my mind. But I wanted to talk to you before . . .’
‘Before what?’ asked Sevran, serving each of them with a ladleful of mussels.
Marc hated mussels.
‘Before the police get here. You didn’t see them in front of the town hall this morning?’
‘What did I say?’ said Lina. ‘I told you that dog would get us into trouble.’
‘I haven’t seen anyone,’ said Sevran. ‘I’ve been working on my latest typewriter, an 1896 Lambert in very good condition. Are the cops after Ringo? This is taking things a bit far, isn’t it? Has he done something to you, or what?’
‘He’s made it possible to reconstruct something very important. It was thanks to him that we know now that Marie didn’t simply fall, down on the rocks. She was murdered there. That’s why the cops are here. I’m sorry, this must be unhappy news for you both.’
Lina looked unwell. She glanced at Kehlweiler while gripping the table, as if she didn’t want to faint in front of everyone.
‘Murdered?’ she said. ‘Murdered? And it was the dog –’
‘No, no, the dog didn’t kill her,’ said Louis quickly. ‘But, and I’m afraid this is not easy to say . . . he must have been on the beach right after the murder, and I’m really sorry – he bit off one of her toes.’
Lina didn’t cry out, but Sevran jumped up and went to clasp his wife’s shoulders, standing behind her chair.
‘Calm down, Lina, calm down,’ he said. ‘Can you explain please, Monsieur . . . sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.’
‘Kehlweiler.’
‘Please explain yourself, Monsieur Kehlweiler, but be quick, Marie’s death was a terrible shock for us, she helped bring up my wife and the children, so you will understand that it’s upsetting for Lina to talk about her. What’s this all about? Where does the dog come into it . . .?’
‘I’ll be as quick as I can. Marie was found down on the beach, barefoot, you know that, the
tide had washed away her boots. And, something that wasn’t in the papers was that her left big toe was missing. They thought it might have been the seagulls. But the toe had been lost before the tide came up. So somebody must have killed her on the Thursday night, and one of her boots slipped off. The murderer finished the job on the rocks and went back to find the missing boot. But in that time, the dog must have come along and bitten her foot. The murderer can’t have noticed, because it was getting dark, put the boot back on the foot and it was another three nights before Marie was found.’
‘But how do you know all that?’ asked Sevran. ‘Are there some witnesses?’
He was still gripping Lina by the shoulders. The meal was forgotten by everyone.
‘No, no witnesses, just your dog.’
‘My dog? Why him? He’s not the only dog running around the village, for heaven’s sake.’
‘No, but he’s the only one who excreted the bone, on Thursday night, before 1 a.m., on the Place de la Contrescarpe, in Paris.’
‘I can’t make head nor tail of this,’ said Sevran.
‘I found it there, and followed the trail down here. I’m sorry but it was your dog. As it happens, he was very useful. If it hadn’t been for him, nobody would have suspected a murder.’
Suddenly, Lina gave a cry, wrenched herself free from her husband, and ran out of the room. They heard a loud clatter outside, and Sevran rushed out in turn.
‘Quick, quick,’ he cried to them. ‘She adored Marie!’
They caught up with Lina fifteen seconds later. She was in the courtyard behind the house, facing the growling pit bull. Lina was holding a rifle. She leaned back, shouldered the gun and took aim.
‘Lina, no!’ cried Sevran, running towards her.
But his wife didn’t even turn round. Teeth clenched, she fired two shots and the dog convulsed and fell bleeding to the ground. She threw the gun down on the dog’s corpse without a word, her jaw trembling, and went back inside, not deigning to glance at the three men standing round.
