by Vargas, Fred
‘Where’s he from? Do we know that at least?’
‘Northern France somewhere, near Calais.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
‘It’s what he says.’
Louis frowned in turn.
‘So, to get back to Marie,’ he started again.
‘Yes, I know,’ said the mayor. ‘If he did catch her poking in the bin . . . Then if he killed her . . . It would be my fault, I don’t need you to tell me. But I can’t believe that someone in Port-Nicolas would be a murderer, not even him.’
‘Chevalier, get this into your head, somebody did kill her. And did Marie find out anything about you? Something Blanchet might have used to attack you?’
‘If I knew that, Kehlweiler, I wouldn’t have gone looking.’
‘How do you imagine he might do it?’
‘How do I know? He could invent anything. Embezzling money, cheating, having half a dozen mistresses, a secret life, forty illegitimate children . . . Plenty of things. Anyway, Kehlweiler, when are you planning on leaving? When you’ve seen Guerrec?’
‘Logically, yes.’
It was impossible to tell whether Chevalier was looking relieved or not.
‘But in fact, no,’ Louis went on.
‘Don’t you think he can handle it? Guerrec’s pretty good. What would keep you here?’
‘Three things. I could do with a beer.’
Chevalier shrugged. He went back into the bar with Louis. The place was still full, this was a special day, the cops were in town. People were differently distributed now, as they moved around chatting. Marc had returned and was sitting between Lina and Pauline. He was hesitating. If he had been Pauline, he would have married Sevran rather than Darnas – but each to his own – although Sevran had rather low-slung buttocks and sloping shoulders, a body more womanly in a way, which was uncommon, and which, according to Marc, should be taken into account. But still, let’s be generous, you hardly noticed, and Sevran was showing signs of anxiety, which in Marc’s view gained him some bonus points out of solidarity. The engineer was coming and going between the counter and tables, bringing drinks over, picking up glasses, doing Antoinette’s job, interrupting now and again his disquisition on the history of the Remington typewriter company, his fair-skinned but lined face alternating between open happy smiles and fleeting anxious frowns whenever he looked at Lina. Paradoxically, Darnas, who looked rather like a turtle made of boiled sugar that had stuck to the bottom of the saucepan in places, seemed far more virile than the engineer. He was smiling peacefully, as he listened to Sevran, his big hands resting on his thighs, and he shook them now and again as if to get rid of something – melted sugar, Marc thought – while casually noting, with his bright brown eyes, every movement in the cafe and of all those who had taken refuge there. Lina, tall and indeed rather beautiful, with shapely, sometimes startling lips, who certainly worried Marc more than somewhat, was exchanging occasional remarks with Pauline across his shoulders. Marc had to lean forward to let them talk. He drank a mouthful to compensate for his silence. In half an hour, he hadn’t managed to exchange a single word with Pauline and felt cornered. Marthe would have said that it was plain silly to sit between two women, you can’t talk to one without turning your back on the other, ridiculous, you should sit opposite them. Louis motioned to him to come over.
‘So. What’s the answer?’ Louis asked in a low voice.
‘I’ve thought it over. I’d prefer to sleep with Pauline, but she’s not interested in me.’
‘Marc, don’t start pissing me off. St Matthew, I mean.’
‘He’ll be here tonight. Twenty-one minutes past ten, Quimper station.’
Louis gave a brief grin.
‘Excellent. Go back to your chat, and listen to everything they say while I’m with Guerrec.’
‘I don’t know how to chat. I’m hemmed in.’
‘Sit facing them, that’s what Marthe would say. Sevran,’ Louis said out loud, ‘fancy a game of billiards?’
Smiling, Sevran accepted at once. The two men went towards the back of the room.
‘French or American?’ asked Sevran.
‘American. I can’t concentrate enough for three balls. I’ve got forty thousand balls running around in my head, it’ll be good for me.’
‘Me too,’ said Sevran. ‘To be honest, I was beginning to feel fed up. I didn’t want Lina to be left alone after what happened at lunchtime, and the best thing was to bring her here. But I’ve got my blessed machine waiting for me, I’d have preferred to be dealing with that, to help me forget about my dog. Still, it wasn’t the right moment. Lina looks as if she’s feeling better already; your friend is distracting her. What does he do for a living?’
‘He’s a historian. He just does the Middle Ages.’
‘No kidding?’
‘No kidding.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought medieval historians looked like that.’
‘I think he feels the same. He can’t reconcile his two halves.’
‘Oh, so what does he do in the middle?’
‘He goes crazy, he makes sparks, or he laughs.’
‘Ah. Tiring, I should think. You start, Kehlweiler. Go first.’
Louis aimed and pocketed the 6 ball. With one ear he listened to what was being said at the bar.
‘Right,’ Guillaume was saying, ‘why are we all so puzzled? We don’t know who killed Marie? So you could just ask the big machine, couldn’t you, engineer?’
‘And you know what it’ll tell you?’ called someone from the other end of the room.
‘Hear them?’ said Sevran, laughing. ‘They’re on about my big machine, that big monstrosity I built near the campsite. Have you seen it? It gives out little messages. I would never have thought they’d take to it. I was hoping for a little local scandal, but after a few months’ distrust, they really got fond of it. My machine can answer any question you like. People come a long way to consult it – worse than a goddess. If I’d made it so you had to pay to turn the handle, we’d have made a fortune in Port-Nicolas, I’m not joking.’
‘Yes,’ said Louis, watching Sevran’s shots – the other man was as good a player as himself. ‘Marc told me about it, he’s already asked it any number of questions.’
‘Your turn. But the machine nearly caused big trouble. One night,’ he said, lowering his voice, ‘this guy asked it if his wife was cheating on him and the stupid machine thought it was funny to say yes. He took the message for holy writ, and he nearly wiped out his supposed rival.’
‘And what if the machine was right?’
‘No, it wasn’t,’ said Sevran, laughing again. ‘The poor wife had to go through hell to get the machine to change its mind. Oh, we had a drama on our hands, I’m telling you. And not the only one. Some people have become real addicts. Any little problem, and off they go, to turn the handle. My machine has got beyond my control now, I’m not joking.’
‘What did you want then, when you made it?’
‘Just to build something, to construct something useless. I wanted to construct a monument to the glory of machinery. And to celebrate the pure beauty of machinery. I wanted it to serve no useful purpose, the only point of it would be that it functioned, that it worked, and you could say when you looked at it: “It’s working!” Glory to pure function, the ridiculous and the pointless. Glory to the lever that pushes, the wheel that turns, the piston that slides, the roller that rolls. What for? Just to push, turn, slide and roll.’
‘And then in the end, the useless machine turned out to be useful for something, didn’t it?’
Louis, distracted by the engineer’s conversation, was relaxing and potting ball after ball. Sevran, leaning on his cue, was smiling and forgetting about the death of his dog.
‘Exactly! A factory of unsatisfied questions. I assure you, people come from two hundred kilometres away to consult it. Not to look at it, Kehlweiler, but to consult it.’
Louis won the first frame. Sevran asked for a retu
rn match, after they’d had a quick drink. The customers at the bar had gradually gathered round the pool table to watch. People were coming and going, making comments, and asking the engineer about the machine, and what it would answer now. It was still raining hard outside. At about five o’clock, Louis just had the 7 ball to pot.
‘He’s stuck on the 7,’ said a voice.
‘Always the last one,’ said another. ‘That’s the trouble with pool. At first you’ve got balls everywhere, you have to be cack-handed not to get them in. And then afterwards it gets harder, and you find out it’s worse than you thought. But with French billiards, you know from the start if you’re useless.’
‘French billiards is harder, but it’s more straightforward,’ said another voice. Louis smiled. He had just missed the 7 for the third time.
‘What did I say, the 7 won’t listen to him,’ said the first voice.
Sevran aimed and pocketed the 7 after a double cushion.
‘Well played,’ said Kehlweiler. ‘It’s almost five. Do you have time for the decider?’
Lina had come to join the spectators sitting on a bench near the billiard table. Sevran glanced at her.
‘I’m going back to Lina,’ he said. ‘I’ll pass the game on to whoever wants to play.’
Sevran sat down by Lina and put his arm round her shoulders, scrutinised by Marc, who always watched how other men dealt with women. He thought he wouldn’t have put his arm there, but there, more comfortable. Darnas wasn’t holding on to Pauline at all. Pauline could take care of herself, it seemed. Louis now took on the skipper of the Belle de Nuit, Lefloch. He was an easier opponent. The big trawlerman could hold his own, but better against a nor’wester than on the new green baize. Antoinette reminded him to watch out for it, and not to put glasses on the edge, for the love of God.
‘The cops are here,’ said Marc suddenly.
‘Carry on,’ said Louis to the trawlerman. ‘Don’t look round.’
‘Is it you they want to talk to?’ asked Lefloch.
‘Apparently,’ said Louis, leaning across the table, one eye half shut.
‘Well, you brought it on yourself now. What René said back then makes sense, doesn’t it? Sow the storm and reap the whirlwind, see.’
‘If that’s true, it’ll be a good year.’
‘Aye, maybe, but Port-Nicolas is none of your business, is it?’
‘You go out into the Irish Sea, don’t you, Lefloch?’
‘That’s different. I’m a deep-sea fisherman, got no choice.’
‘Right, then, it’s the same for me, it’s a kind of deep-sea fishing. We do the same job, I’ve got no choice either, I follow the fish.’
‘That so?’
‘If he says so,’ Sevran intervened.
‘Well, OK then,’ admitted Lefloch, scratching his cheek with his cue. ‘If it’s all the same thing, I’ll not argue. Your turn.’
Inspector Guerrec had come into the games room and was watching the match with no show of impatience. Lefloch’s cheek was blue with chalk where he had rubbed it, and Louis, who had now been playing for an hour and a half, had damp locks of hair falling over his forehead, his shirt had come untucked from his trousers, and his shirtsleeves were pushed up to the elbow. Seated or standing, glasses of Muscadet in their hands, cigarettes in their mouths, a dozen or so locals, men and women, were still surrounding the billiard table, but began turning their attention from the game to the police from Quimper. Inspector Guerrec was a very small man, thin-faced with sharp features and hooded eyes, fading blond hair, cut short and receding. Louis put the cue down across the table and shook hands with him.
‘Louis Kehlweiler, pleased to meet you. Do you mind if we finish the game? I’ve already lost one.’
‘Go ahead,’ said Guerrec, without smiling.
‘Forgive me, one of my ancestors was a gambling man, it’s in my blood.’
Ah, thought Louis, this cop is clever. He’s not flinging his authority about, he’s waiting, he goes round obstacles, he doesn’t allow himself to get irritated by trifles.
Ten minutes later, Louis had beaten Lefloch, promised him a return match, put on his sweater and jacket, and followed the policeman outside. Guerrec took him over to the town hall. Louis realised that he was sorry to leave the steam-filled cafe, with its smell of sweat and cigarette smoke. The place had got under his skin and among the huge number of cafes strung out in his memory, this one had inexplicably taken its place among the very closest to his heart.
XXIII
IT WAS WHILE he was talking to the police inspector, who was a prudent man, not unpleasant, but not wildly amusing either, that Louis found the screw of paper in his left-hand jacket pocket. Guerrec was explaining to him that Diego, Diego Lacasta Rivas, was Spanish: of his life before the age of fifty, when he had started to work for Sevran, nothing was known. They were going to have to alert the Spanish authorities, which did not please him greatly. But to disappear without leaving any traces, Diego must have had some good reason, no doubt shared with Marie, who had continued to expect him back. Who knows whether he might indeed have come back? And even killed Marie? As he listened, Louis had put his hand in his pocket and found the paper, screwed into a ball, something that shouldn’t have been there, because he had passed the twist of newspaper with the bone in it over to Guerrec. He unfolded it, without interrupting the inspector.
‘Kehlweiler,’ said Guerrec, ‘are you listening to me or not?’
‘Read this, inspector, but try not to get your fingerprints on it, it’s already covered with mine.’
Kehlweiler passed Guerrec a small piece of crumpled paper, torn along the edge. The short lines had been typed.
There was a couple
in the Vauban cabin,
but nobody’s letting on.
What are you waiting for
wasting your time
missing the 7?
‘Where did this poem come from?’ asked Guerrec.
‘From my pocket.’
‘Go on.’
‘I can’t tell you any more. Someone must have slipped it into my jacket just now at the cafe. It wasn’t there when I went into the bar at three o’clock.’
‘And where was your jacket?’
‘Near the billiard table, hanging on a chair to dry.’
‘And this paper was crumpled up?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s all that about missing the 7?’
‘It’s a billiard ball, number 7. I tried to pot it three times towards the end of the game, without succeeding.’
‘It’s not very well written.’
‘But clear enough.’
‘A couple,’ Guerrec muttered. ‘If there was some clandestine couple that night in the cabin, Marie might have surprised them, and one of them might have killed her. It’s possible, we already had a case like that in Lorient, four years ago, recent as that. But . . . why this anonymous note? And why doesn’t the writer name the couple? Why send it to you? And why in the cafe? Why this business with the 7 ball? What’s that all about?’
‘A dog in a game of skittles,’ said Louis softly.
‘A whole lot of pointless questions,’ said Guerrec as if talking to himself, and shrugging his shoulders. ‘This takes us into the twisted world of anonymous letter writers, their weird motives, their roundabout methods, against all logic . . . Greed, cowardice, violence, weakness. Same thing, six years ago in Pont-L’Abbé, recent as that. Still, the tip-off could be about something real.’
‘The Vauban Cove cabin would be well chosen for an assignation. It’s got a roof, it’s remote, the risk of being seen is minimal.’
‘Even if you knew that Marie Lacasta regularly went gathering shellfish in the bay?’
‘She would surely have been unlikely to go into the cabin, because of its reputation. Those old stone huts, people only use them to take a leak or to meet someone secretly, everyone knows that. They were doing it four thousand years ago, recent as that, everywhere in the world. Bu
t perhaps, that Thursday, Marie, for once, took a look inside. And then one thing led to another.’
‘But what about whoever wrote this note? He was there too?’
‘That would make a lot of people on a murder scene the same evening. I don’t believe in that kind of coincidence. But he might know that a couple met regularly in the cabin. When he heard about the murder, he might have put two and two together, and suggested it to us. He’s not speaking openly, because he’s frightened. You saw what it said: “nobody’s letting on”. Either the writer is exaggerating, or one of the couple is dangerous, or possibly just an influential person you wouldn’t want to cross. So nobody does let on.’
‘Why was it sent to you?’
‘My jacket was accessible and it was a good way to reach you.’
‘A couple,’ Guerrec murmured again. ‘A couple. What kind of tip-off is that? The world’s full of them. Setting a watch on the cabin wouldn’t work, they won’t go back there. Questioning people won’t get us anywhere, just spread panic and we’d learn nothing. What we need is the writer of the note. Fingerprints . . .?’
‘He wouldn’t have risked leaving any. That’s why he, or she, screwed up the paper.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘You couldn’t keep gloves on in the cafe without people noticing. To slip the paper into my jacket, the simplest thing was to screw it into a ball, and hold it in a handkerchief or a closed fist and let it drop into the pocket. It’s very small. You could easily hold it in your hand, just letting your arm swing casually.’
‘He saw you losing on the 7, so he must have gone out after that. When was that?’
‘Right at the end of my game with Sevran, before five o’clock.’
‘Then he comes back in, the note already typed, swinging his arm casually. Who did you see coming and going then?’
‘I can’t possibly give you a rundown of all their coming and going. I was concentrating on my game with Lefloch, and I don’t know many of the locals yet. There were plenty of people in the bar and around the billiard table. They were waiting for you to appear. People went out, hung about, came back.’
