by Vargas, Fred
‘“Don’t panic. Souvenir of Port-Nicolas.” See what I mean? See how infuriating it is. Don’t panic, but what else can you do?’
‘You can wait. I don’t have an answer to any of the questions you asked me. I don’t understand the Marie Lacasta business, I fear I understand only too well the case of Pauline, and as for the file marked “M”, we’ll wait for your hunter-gatherer friend. Something new has turned up, a snide note that someone put in my pocket when we were in the cafe. There was a couple in the Vauban cabin and nobody’s letting on about it, stuff like that. Not you, by any chance?’
‘Why would I put something in your pocket? Take the risk of touching your filthy toad? Lose a chance to talk? You must be kidding. Tell me more.’
The two men walked slowly back towards the hotel. As Louis explained to Marc about the screw of paper, he kept looking at his watch.
XXV
AS SOON AS Mathias arrived at the hotel, Kehlweiler took the folder from him and shut himself up in his room.
‘For the past half-hour I haven’t been able to get a complete sentence out of him,’ Marc told Mathias. ‘Did you look inside the folder?’
‘No.’
Marc had no need to add: ‘Are you sure you didn’t?’ because when Mathias said yes or no, he really meant yes or no, no need to look further.
‘You’re a noble soul, St Matthew. I think I might have risked taking a peep.’
‘I didn’t have a chance to put my soul to the test, because the folder was stapled. I’m off to see the sea.’
Marc wheeled his bike to accompany Mathias down to the beach. Mathias didn’t pass comment. He knew that Marc, even when he was on foot, liked to have a bicycle to push whenever he had a chance. It acted as his horse, the noble charger of a medieval knight, a peasant’s old nag, or a Sioux brave’s warhorse. Marc noticed that despite the cold, Mathias’s feet remained stubbornly bare in his sandals, and he was dressed as ever with the utmost simplicity, cotton trousers held up with a rustic piece of string, and a sweater next to the skin. But he didn’t comment either. No one would ever change the hunter-gatherer. At the slightest opportunity, Mathias took the whole lot off. If people asked him why, he just said he felt imprisoned in clothes.
Wheeling the bike, taking quick steps to keep up with Mathias, who had immensely long legs, Marc described the local situation while Mathias listened in silence. Marc could have given him a five-minute outline, but he liked detours, nuances, digressions, fleeting impressions, traceries of words, all the ornaments of speech which Mathias simply called chatter. Marc was now launched on what he called the dark squares on the chessboard: Lina Sevran’s melancholy state, her two fatal shots at the dog, the inscrutability of the mayor, the hulking presence of René Blanchet, Marie’s little hands poking about in the dustbins of the old brute, the disappearance of Spanish Diego, the poem denouncing some couple in the Vauban cabin, Kehlweiler’s stricken face when he had asked for his yellow folder, the ruins of Louis’s old love affair, Darnas’s lively intelligence locked into the body of an ape with delicate fingers, when Mathias suddenly interrupted him.
‘Hush!’ he said, grabbing the crossbar of the bike to stop Marc in his tracks.
Mathias was standing stock-still in the dark. Marc made no objection. He could hear nothing for the sound of the wind, nor could he see or feel anything, but he knew enough about Mathias to be aware that he was on the alert. Mathias had a way of using his five physical senses as captors, sensors, decoders and much else. Marc would willingly have marketed Mathias instead of those expensive inventions that pick up sound waves, detect pollen, read infrared signals and other complex things, the functions of which Mathias would have performed perfectly without costing a sou. He maintained that if the hunter-gatherer put his ear to the ground in the desert, he would be able to hear the Paris–Strasbourg express, although it was hard to see what use that would be to anyone.
Mathias let go the bike.
‘Run!’ he said to Marc, who saw Mathias rush off into the night, without understanding what they were chasing. Mathias’s animal capacities – primitive, according to Lucien – always disconcerted him and cut short his constant talking. He dropped the bike to the ground and ran after the crazy prehistorian, who was moving silently and faster than him, taking no notice of the nearby cliff edge. He caught up with him two hundred metres further on.
‘Down there,’ said Mathias, pointing to the shingle beach. ‘Go and see to him, I’m going to look around – someone else is here.’
Mathias disappeared at speed, and Marc looked down at the seashore. A dark figure was lying there, someone who must have had a bad fall, of six or seven metres. Holding on to the rocks to make his way down, he wondered whether someone might have pushed this person from the path. Reaching solid ground, he ran over to the motionless form. He prodded it gently, his face tense, found a wrist, and felt for a pulse. It was beating slightly, but the man wasn’t moving, not even moaning. Marc on the other hand felt the blood rushing to his temples. If someone had pushed this person over the edge, it must have happened only a minute ago, in a few rapid movements which Mathias had heard. When Mathias started to run, it must have prevented the murderer finishing off the job and now Mathias was after him. Marc didn’t give the runaway much of a chance. Whether he lay low or plunged ahead, it was unlikely he would escape the primitive hunter, and illogically enough Marc felt no fear on Mathias’s behalf, although Mathias was as vulnerable as the next man, after all, and didn’t have thirty thousand years of accumulated strength, contrary to what one might think. Marc didn’t dare move the head of the man on the ground, in case of damaged vertebrae. He knew just enough to know he shouldn’t do anything. But he had managed to push aside the man’s hair, and to fumble in his pocket for his cigarette lighter. He had to strike it several times before he recognised the youth whom Darnas had described as an inveterate dreamer, the young seventeen-year-old who’d been in the cafe a while back, sitting with the pale-faced buddy of the priest. He wasn’t sure of this one’s name – was it perhaps Gaël? When he touched the boy’s hair, Marc had felt wet blood, and now, his stomach in cramps, he was squeamishly stretching his hand away from his body. He would have liked to go and wash it in the sea, but dared not leave the young man.
Mathias called softly to him from the top of the path. Marc climbed back up the seven metres of rocky slope, hauled himself over the edge and immediately wiped his hand on the wet grass.
‘It must be Gaël,’ he whispered. ‘He seems to be alive so far. You stay here, I’ll run for help.’
It was only then that he saw that Mathias was holding on to someone in the dark.
‘Do you know who this woman is?’ Mathias simply asked.
No need for the lighter. Mathias was holding Lina Sevran in an armlock.
‘The engineer’s wife,’ said Marc in a sinking voice. ‘Where was she?’
‘Not far away, hiding in the trees. I heard her panting. Don’t worry, I won’t hurt her.’
Lina Sevran was neither moving, crying, nor speaking. She was trembling all over, as she had been at midday when she shot the dog.
‘But hurry,’ said Mathias.
Marc ran for his bike, jumped on and pedalled quickly towards the village.
He burst into Kehlweiler’s bedroom, without knocking. Louis was not asleep, and looked up from a mass of papers spread out on his table, old documents from the yellow folder, covered with notes and drawings. Marc, as he drew breath, thought he looked the way he had earlier, like a Goth from the Danube basin, ready to do battle with the Huns. For a second, there flashed into his head a mosaic in Constantinople, of the fine head of a barbarian, dark locks falling over a pale forehead.
‘Where’ve you been?’ said Louis, getting up. ‘In a fight?’
Marc looked down at himself. His clothes were muddied and wet from the rocks and there was still blood on his hand.
‘Hurry!’ he said. ‘Phone for help. It’s that young Gaël, he’s at the bot
tom of the cliffs, he’s bleeding. Just after the wooden cross. Mathias is there.’
Five minutes later, Marc was on his way back, dragging Louis along with him as fast as he could.
‘Mathias heard something,’ Marc said.
‘Don’t walk so fast and don’t talk so fast. You didn’t hear anything?’
‘I’m not from primeval times,’ said Marc, speaking more loudly. ‘I’m a normal, civilised, educated person. I can’t see in the dark, I can’t hear anyone blink, I can’t smell the micro-pheromones of sweat at twenty metres. But Mathias can still hear the aurochs thundering past the caves at Lascaux, so you can imagine. If he was in the Sahara, he’d be able to hear the Paris–Strasbourg train, it’s very practical.’
‘Calm down, for Christ’s sake! So Mathias has good hearing, but what happened?’
‘What happened? Well, he dashed off and we found Gaël, at least I think it’s him, he’d gone over the edge, further along, and while I went down to take a look at him, Mathias went charging after his prey.’
Louis stopped short on the path.
‘Yes,’ said Marc, ‘I didn’t have time to tell you everything. Mathias caught Lina Sevran, who was hiding nearby.’
‘My God! What have you done with her?’
‘Mathias is holding on to her, don’t worry.’
‘Could she get away from him?’
Marc shrugged.
‘Back home, Mathias is the log-carrier. Without damaging them, mind, because he likes wood. I only carry little dustbin bags. Look, there are flashing lights, the emergency services have got here.’
Louis heard Marc draw a deep breath of relief.
Mathias was still standing on the clifftop, holding Lina in a stranglehold, with one hand. Down below, men were busy around Gaël’s body.
‘What’s the news?’ asked Marc.
‘Don’t know,’ said Mathias. ‘They took down a stretcher and first-aid stuff.’
‘What about Guerrec?’ said Marc. ‘We’ll have to call Guerrec.’
‘I know,’ said Louis, looking at Lina. ‘But we don’t have to do that this minute. We have time for a few words. Bring her over here, Mathias.’
Mathias gently propelled Lina away from the edge of the cliff.
‘Guerrec will be along soon,’ Louis said to her.
‘I didn’t push him,’ murmured Lina.
‘Why did you say “push”? He could just have fallen.’
Lina dropped her head, and Louis raised it again.
‘He just fell,’ said Lina.
‘No, he didn’t. But you know who pushed him and you almost said it. Gaël is from round here, he knows these cliffs like the back of his hand. Why were you hiding in a corner?’
‘I was out walking. I heard a cry, and I was scared.’
‘Mathias didn’t hear any cry.’
‘He was further away.’
‘There was no cry,’ said Mathias.
‘Yes. Gaël cried out. I was scared, so I took shelter.’
‘If you were scared, you wouldn’t have been out walking alone at night. And when you hear a cry like someone falling, you run to help, don’t you? No reason to hide, either way. Unless you pushed him.’
‘I didn’t push him,’ Lina repeated.
‘Then you saw someone else push him.’
‘No.’
‘Lina,’ said Louis, more gently still. ‘Guerrec will be along very soon. He’s a cop. A man falls off the cliff thirteen days after Marie’s death. We find you here, hiding in the trees. If you can’t find something better to say, Guerrec will simply do his job as a cop.’
Marc looked at the other three. Lina was still trembling, and Louis no longer looked like a Merovingian Goth.
‘Well, what about you?’ Lina spoke again. ‘What job are you doing? I know who you are now, the mayor’s wife told me. I don’t see that you’re any different from Guerrec.’
‘Well, I am. You’d do better to talk to me.’
‘No.’
Louis signalled to Mathias who took Lina to one side. She was trembling, but gave the impression of being quite removed from events, and that didn’t fit.
An hour later, the scene was deserted. The Fouesnant gendarmes had been and gone, Guerrec had arrived and then left to take Lina Sevran home. Gaël had been transported, unconscious, to hospital in Quimper.
‘I could do with a beer,’ said Louis.
The three men had gathered in Kehlweiler’s hotel room. Marc wouldn’t go to fetch the beer, because Louis had put it in the bathroom with Bufo. Louis fetched three bottles. Marc contemplated the neck of his bottle.
‘Lina Sevran,’ he said softly, pressing the bottle against his eye, ‘was sleeping with Gaël. That was the couple in the cabin. Marie surprised them. So she kills her. Why?’
‘Fear of a divorce,’ said Mathias.
‘Yes, she needs the engineer’s money. Then afterwards she kills her fragile toy boy, to keep him quiet.’
‘Come away from that bottle,’ said Louis. ‘If she was sleeping with Gaël, why not wait till the engineer was in Paris? Why go and freeze in an uncomfortable cabin at five o’clock, when you could have a nice warm bed at eight?’
‘There could be reasons. She was there when Gaël fell. And she shot the dog.’
‘I’m thinking of that,’ said Louis.
‘What did she say to you?’
‘I didn’t talk to her about the cliff or the dog. I talked to her about her first husband. He died falling off a balcony, remember?’
‘An accident, surely?’
‘A fall, like Gaël’s. As a way of committing murder, it’s simple and perfect.’
‘And what did she say?’
Louis shrugged his shoulders.
‘She said she didn’t push him either, same as with Gaël. And she trembled more than ever. It seems she’s still horrified by that business. I asked her about Diego Lacasta, who had changed from being as brave as a bullfighter in her defence one day, to becoming mute as if he had been struck dumb a week later. She confirmed that, and she added, even, that Diego always seemed to have suspected her. Before the accident, he was friendly and liked chatting with her, and he had ferociously defended her during the police inquiry. And then there was a sudden change in his attitude, he clammed up, he looked as if he didn’t trust her any more. She says that without the constant support of Marie, Sevran and the children, she wouldn’t have survived.’
‘Does she know where Diego is?’
‘No, but she must be pleased to be rid of him. He weighed on her like some old dumb ghost.’
Marc blew into his bottle.
‘And the dumb ghost has disappeared too,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Louis.
Louis paced round the small room and went to stand by the window. It was past two in the morning. Mathias was dozing on one of the twin beds.
‘We need to know who the couple was,’ Louis said at last.
‘You think there really was one?’
‘Yes. Once we know that, we’ll be able to tell whether that’s something solid or just a distraction. And whether the writer of the poem was simply a sneak, or a murderer providing a red herring for us. There must be someone who can tell us who Gaël’s girlfriend was.’
‘Darnas?’
‘No. Darnas guesses, but he doesn’t know. We need someone who snoops on everyone for his own advantage.’
‘The mayor?’
‘Chevalier isn’t the sharpest knife in the box, but he’s not a sewer rat. If he had his own sources of information, he wouldn’t have to resort to going through his rival’s dustbins. No, I’m thinking of that arsehole Blanchet.’
‘He won’t want to help you.’
‘Why not?’
Louis turned round. He stood still for a few seconds, then picked up his jacket.
‘Are you coming?’
‘Where are you going?’ asked Marc sleepily.
‘To Blanchet’s, where do you think?’
; Marc took his eye away from the bottle. He had a red mark now around his eye.
‘At this time of night? Are you mad?’
‘We’re not here to preserve the man’s beauty sleep. Two murders, that’s enough. There’s some kind of purge going on in this village.’
Louis looked into the bathroom, decided against taking Bufo, gathered up some papers from the table, and stuffed them into his inside pocket.
‘Hurry up,’ said Louis. ‘You don’t have any choice, because if I get punched on the jaw by Blanchet while you’re snoring away in the hotel, you’ll torture yourself with guilt until the end of time, and that will stop you working on your Middle Ages.’
‘Blanchet? You suspect him? Just because you don’t like the way he looks, because he looks like he pisses vinegar?’
‘You think it’s normal to piss vinegar? You think you know something about the way he pisses?’
‘Oh, give us a break!’ shouted Marc, standing up.
Louis stood facing Marc and examined him calmly. He pulled Marc’s collar up, pushed back his shoulders and lifted his chin.
‘Right, that’s better,’ he said. ‘Try to look dangerous. Come on, dangerous, we’re not going to spend all night there.’
Marc felt sorry he’d come. He ought to have stayed in his nice cosy thirteenth century, in his house, in his bedroom, in Paris. This Merovingian Goth was completely crazy. Nevertheless, he tried to look dangerous. If he’d been a man, it would have been easy, oh, come on, he was a man, just as well.
Kehlweiler shook his head.
‘Think of something nasty,’ he insisted. ‘Not food or the toad, something on a grand scale.’
‘Simon de Montfort and the massacre of the Albigensians?’
‘If you like,’ sighed Louis. ‘Yes, that’s better, almost credible. The whole time we’re there, think about that Simon chap. And bring him along,’ he added, pointing to the sleeping Mathias. ‘He could be useful.’
XXVI
LOUIS KNOCKED SEVERAL times at Blanchet’s front door. Marc was on edge; little muscles were twitching all over his back. Every aspect of the massacre of the Albigensians went through his mind, he was gripping his beer bottle, one finger wedged in its mouth. Mathias had asked no questions, and was standing in the shadows, a giant in sandals, unmoving but ready for action. A sound came from behind the door. It opened slightly, on to the security chain. Blanchet was in his dressing gown.
