by Vargas, Fred
Sevran stroked Lina’s hair, while Lina, still supported by Louis’s arm, did not turn her head.
‘Later on, I found out they were going to clear the land to build right on the spot. They would start digging and find the body. So I needed a big idea to avoid disaster. That’s when I thought up the machine. I needed something heavy enough that no one would think of moving it for a hundred years, but something that would be able to stand up, without digging big foundations.’
‘Spare us the technical details, engineer.’
‘Yes . . . yes, something that might seem attractive to the mayor, so that he would move the planning permission for the building. I sweated blood making this blessed machine, and nobody will be able to say it isn’t unique in the world –’
‘No, they certainly won’t,’ said Louis. ‘It’s worked very well up to now. But it would be better to dig Diego up, and take him somewhere else, it would be more –’
There was a sudden cry in the night, then another, weaker, more strangled. Louis looked up around him.
‘It’s Marc,’ he said. ‘Wait here, Sevran!’
Holding his knee, Louis ran back into the wood, and found Marc where he had left him, with the suitcase and rucksack.
‘Some miraculous fountain,’ said Louis, rubbing his knee. ‘Quick, better go back, it should have worked.’
A hundred metres away, they heard a thud.
‘That,’ said Marc, ‘is the sound of a prehistoric hunter falling on his prey. No need to hurry, he could fell a bison.’
At the foot of the machine, Mathias was pinning the engineer to the ground, his hands behind his back.
‘In my view,’ said Marc, ‘you shouldn’t leave Sevran too long like that, he’ll be crushed.’
Louis put his arm round Lina’s shoulders. He did so instinctively, since he thought she was about to fall over.
‘It’s all over,’ he said. ‘He wouldn’t have had time, because Mathias was watching. Right, Mathias?’
‘As you thought,’ said Mathias, who was now sitting astride Sevran’s back as comfortably as on a rolled carpet, ‘as soon as you were out of sight, he pulled out a gun. He put it into his wife’s hand and pressed it against her head. He didn’t have much time to fake a suicide, so I had to move quickly.’
Louis undid the straps of the rucksack.
‘OK,’ he said, ‘you can let the beast go. Pull him upright and tie him to the machine, and then, if you will, please go and fetch Guerrec.’
Louis stared at the engineer through the darkness. Marc didn’t trouble to look at Louis’s face, he was sure he had the expression of the Goth from the Danube, the one on the mosaic.
‘So, Sevran, you want us to get some answers from your machine of death?’ said Louis in a low voice, addressing the engineer as ‘tu’. ‘Why did you kill Thomas? To get Lina, and with her the unique collection of typewriters her husband owned? Go on, Marc, turn the handle.’
Without knowing why, Marc turned it, and the whole mass of metal began to vibrate. Marc went to fetch the little message; by now he had done it so often that he knew exactly where to put his hand, even though it was dark.
‘How you did it, you’ll have to tell us. Some trick to make him lean over the railing, I suppose, to see you down in the courtyard, calling up to him. How did Diego find out the truth? Go on, Marc, keep turning. He understood in the train, by looking at you in the mirror over the luggage rack. You can see everything in it, people’s faces and even their hands if they’re sitting in the space for four, if you’re behind them. That’s a detail one might forget. You think you’re fine in the train, all by yourself, but the whole carriage can see you in the mirror. I know, I spend my time watching people. And what kind of expression did you have on the way home? Turn it, Marc, make the machine spit out the truth. Did you look like the devastated friend you had appeared to be in front of the police? Not at all. You were smiling, you’d won, and Diego saw it. But why did he keep quiet, the brave matador? Because he originally thought Lina had killed her husband, and that you were just her accomplice. To accuse Lina, whom Marie had cared for since her childhood, would be terrible for Marie. And Diego loved Marie, he didn’t want her to find out. But with the pair of you after your marriage, he changed, and one night Diego found out that Lina hadn’t been involved, that she knew nothing about it. How did he do that? Turn, Marc, keep turning. I don’t know, you will have to tell us what he came across. A conversation with Lina, a letter perhaps, some sign that made him understand. Diego realised then that you had acted alone, and he had no reason to keep quiet any more. So he confronts you. You take him off somewhere to have a chat, you’ve been friends for so long. Still, Diego is worried and takes his rifle. But he can’t hold his own against you, sentimental Spaniard versus steel machine: nothing must get in the way of your levers and pistons and gears, all well oiled with ambition, all clanking and tapping away to prove your power. You killed him and buried him here. But why did you kill Marie, poor old Marie who went on hoping her Spanish husband would return, as she went out to gather her shellfish? Because Marie was going to move house! Lina wanted her to move in with you. But that house move could be a problem. What if Diego had left some clues? Of course you’d already searched their house, but does anyone ever know what secret hiding place a couple may have? You get in your car to go to Paris, just like every other Thursday night, you park it somewhere, you stop off at Marie’s place, and you take a look. She hasn’t gone out after winkles, she is crying her eyes out in Diego’s den, where she’s packed everything up in boxes, she comes and goes in the empty room, she pushes furniture that holds memories and what does she find? Where? You may tell us, perhaps a few pages rolled up inside the old umbrella by the door. I say umbrella, because he wouldn’t put it in a box, and there was an umbrella there, I checked. I see it like that, a simple hiding place, you’ll know. She reads it, she knows. You get hold of Marie, you knock her unconscious, you carry her away, you finish her off in the cabin or in the wood somewhere, and you lug her down on to the beach. It doesn’t take more than ten minutes. Finding her lost boot and putting it on makes you lose another ten. You leave for Paris, and that’s when the drama starts. The animal drama that your mechanical mind couldn’t have foreseen. Your dog leaves his shit on a grid round a tree. Nice, that, don’t you think? Basic intestinal nature intrudes, to ruin the stainless-steel perfection of the turbines. In future, you’ll know not to take nature for granted, and you won’t take the dog. Then the cops turn up here, that wasn’t in the script, but you set your machinery going, and you divert them, by using your mechanical know-how. You accuse Gaël and Jean, you slip a note in my pocket. Well played, engineer, you slowed me down, and my mind was on other things just then. But I’ve found out about your Virotyp 1914.
‘A very unusual machine, the top can be taken off, and fixed to a little carriage, and that makes it a portable typewriter. So portable that it can be carried in a large pocket, and with some skill, which you have in spades, you can type a note with your hand inside your coat. How? How do you see the letters on the disc? You type blind? Precisely, that’s what you do, because there’s a Braille version of the Virotyp, made for men blinded in the Great War. That’s the one you own, a very rare machine. I went and read up about it in Rennes, in the book by Ernst Martin, the collector’s Bible, the one you have on the sideboard in your kitchen, I’d noticed it, you see, because it’s a German book. Your Virotyp was an idea of genius. As everyone had seen, you stayed all afternoon in the cafe. You couldn’t possibly have typed the note, you are free of all suspicion, perfectly protected by the secrets of the marvellous machine. I told Guerrec that myself. In fact, you typed your message on the spot, in your pocket after playing the 7 ball. You put your coat back on after the game. Then it was easy, just grab the paper with a handkerchief, crumple it, and drop it into my jacket. When you got home, you put the movable piece back on the base of the Virotyp. You’ll permit me to go and take another look at it, I hope, it inter
ests me, I admit, I’d never heard of it. Which is what you bargained for, because who on earth would know that? Who would imagine that an ancient typewriter could be put in a coat pocket? But because it was puzzling me, I went to consult some books, I sometimes do a bit of research, you shouldn’t think the world is full of idiots, that’s a big mistake. Then you pushed Gaël over the edge, although you had no connection with Gaël at all, he was just a cog in your revolting machinery.’
Louis stopped talking and stretched his arms. He looked at Marc and Mathias.
‘Stuff this for a lark, as Marthe would say. Let’s finish it off. Lina followed you, when you went out to find Gaël. If she followed you, it was because she suspected something. And if she suspected something, her fate was sealed. You let suspicions pile up against her. Jean’s arrest didn’t seem to be in the bag, Guerrec didn’t seem too keen, this morning by the church, since the man was weeping desperately over his friend Gaël. So it was Lina who would have to pay, before she cracked. You must have done all you could to stop her talking. I presume you went for the simplest method: you threatened to harm her children. So Lina kept her mouth shut, she was paralysed with fear. She’s been afraid ever since I arrived with my story about the dog. Good evening, Guerrec, I’m just finishing with this man, then I’ll pass him on to you. What’s the news on Gaël?’
‘Coming round,’ said Guerrec.
Guerrec seemed relieved, he had grown attached to the young lad.
‘Just listen to the end,’ said Louis. ‘I’ll tell you the beginning later. Lina got frightened because of the toe in the dog’s mouth. Because on Thursday nights, the dog knows you are about to leave, and it follows you everywhere. Any dog would be the same, even your pit bull, but I’ve spent too long with my toad to have thought about that at first. But Lina knows. The idea festers. If the dog ate Marie’s toe on Thursday night, it must mean you, Sevran, were nearby, the dog wouldn’t have left your side the night you get the car out of the garage. The idea keeps on growing, it chokes her, she starts thinking about her first husband and Diego, the whole scenario comes out of the shadows, she panics, she thinks she’s going mad, she can’t act normally. She is so scared, and so silent, that she lays herself open to all kinds of suspicions. She watches you, she follows you. From that point, she’s doomed, and we, like fools, follow the trail you laid, for a day too long. When I got back this evening, with the secret of the Virotyp, I knew I’d got you, but I didn’t have any evidence. Just Lina’s total ignorance of the typewriters, which didn’t count. Or my evidence from the dog. He had excreted one bit of truth and he gave me something else post-mortem. The dog didn’t like Lina, he wouldn’t ever have followed her to the cove. With fragile bits of evidence like that, and with Lina refusing to talk because she was protecting her kids, she was cornered. So I had to create some evidence. Tonight, when I saw you forcing her to provide proof of her guilt, with the possibility that you would fake her suicide afterwards, you offered me a way. I came back from Quimper as fast as I could, when I heard she was planning to escape today. If Lina ran away, it would be too risky for you, so you would certainly want to eliminate her. And yet, I suppose, you loved her enough to take her from Marcel Thomas? – unless it was more that you wanted his machines, that’s possible. I brought you out here for you to fake the suicide in the only moment when I left you alone, by running over to Marc, you couldn’t choose the time or place, but there’d be no witnesses. And you know now that Mathias had been placed ready. I’d never have taken the risk without being sure he could jump you at the critical moment. You are one piece of shit, Sevran, I hope you’ve understood that, because I haven’t the heart to go over this again.’
Louis returned to Lina and took her face in his hands to see if her terror had passed.
‘Let’s pick up your bag,’ he said, ‘and go.’
This time Lina said something. Or rather she said yes by nodding her head.
XXX
LOUIS SLEPT IN until ten o’clock.
Then he picked up Marc and Mathias to go to Blanchet’s house.
Since Louis had referred to him as a Sioux warrior, Marc was intent on looking the part, without going over the top. For once, when he fitted the appearance of his boots, it would have been a pity not to play the game. Mathias was also smiling, the annihilation of the former member of the milice had pleased him, though Louis’s description of him as having the ‘hands of a gorilla’ had rather shocked him. No one had more sensitive fingers for uncovering fragile prehistoric remains and the tiny flint tools of the Magdalenians. Mathias hadn’t combed his hair that morning, and he ran his hands through his blond thatch. He was prepared to admit to himself, however, that he wouldn’t greatly have minded putting his sensitive fists together to knock Blanchet over the head.
But no one had to do anything of the kind.
‘I’ve come to pick up my order,’ said Louis.
Blanchet had everything ready. He passed over without a word two old briefcases tied with string and a small cardboard box, then his door closed.
‘Shall we go to the cafe before we leave?’ asked Marc, who was holding the box.
‘Give me till this evening to round everything off,’ said Louis. ‘And I need to see Pauline. I’ll just say hello, then we’ll go.’
‘OK,’ sighed Marc. ‘Well I’ll just take my medieval accounts to the cafe and you’ll find me there.’
Louis went off to find Guerrec. Marc put his pile of papers on a table which Antoinette cleared for him, and began a game of table football with Mathias. Louis had said there was no need for secrecy any more, they could tell anyone anything in the cafe, and nothing could have helped Marc to relax better than that. Mathias raised no objection to Marc’s elaborate explanations. Mathias acted the perfect gent. He waited as Marc talked, while continuing to play, watched by all the fishermen, the clerks from the town hall and old Antoinette, who kept an eye on the number of glasses of white wine being drunk. It meant Mathias won every game, but Marc’s ego wasn’t dependent on the tiny football.
Louis came to the cafe at about one o’clock. Sevran, after a fit of rage during the night so alarming that a doctor had been called, had agreed to be questioned in the morning by Guerrec and, trembling with hate and scorn, had thrown him scraps of information, like meat to a dog.
It didn’t bother Guerrec to be constantly called ‘you pathetic little man’, as long as he got the information he wanted. To get Marcel Thomas to fall from the balcony, Sevran had used a simple method. He had come back to the house, once Diego was asleep in the hotel. Thomas was waiting on the terrace, they had made an arrangement between them. Lina had never taken any interest in typewriters, except for one unique model called the Hurter, simply for the childish reason that it was supposed to be impossible to track down. Nobody had ever possessed a Hurter. Sevran had got hold of one, and they thought he would give it to Lina for her birthday, a very special gift, a secret between the two enthusiasts. Sevran had brought along this heavy machine, wrapped it in a blanket and attached it to a long leather strap which he threw up to Thomas. ‘Put it round your wrist to secure it.’ Thomas buckled it round his wrist and began to haul the machine up, and when it was about two metres above the ground, Sevran leapt up, hung on to it, and pulled. Thomas fell over the edge and Sevran finished him off by banging his head on the ground. He cut off the strap round his wrist and was already out in the street before Lina rushed on to the balcony. The typewriter was damaged, a detail he vouchsafed, but it was actually a big old Olympia from the 1930s. The Hurter, no, you pathetic little man, he had never found one. And if he did, he certainly wouldn’t tell anyone.
Louis took the mayor – it was aperitif time – into the back room and stood warming himself at the fire. The mayor listened to Louis’s account, and a few movements appeared below the surface of the pool. The carp were stirring.
‘What exactly does it mean, “non-aligned”?’ Louis asked.
Chevalier shifted from one foot to another, twisting
his hands.
‘Look here, Chevalier,’ said Louis, who had ended up calling everyone in the village ‘tu’, ‘if you want to do me a favour now and then, take a little time in bed in the morning, or over your cognac at night, whatever you like, I don’t mind, and think about the Piss-master for instance, and try to draw your political conclusions, not too non-aligned, for a change, and that will make me feel better, but it’s up to you. I’m going to do you a favour now, I’m giving you the entire file Blanchet had compiled about you.’
Chevalier looked worried.
‘Yes, of course I’ve read it,’ said Louis, ‘I’ve read it and I’m leaving it with you. It’s pretty well researched. Blanchet was good at digging the dirt, like I told you. Your scandals are rather negligible, non-aligned so to speak, nothing too serious, and they don’t interest me, but yes, they could have cost you the town hall, that’s quite possible. I’m giving it all to you, you can read it, burn it, and clean up your act. I’m giving you everything, nothing left out, you have my word. You don’t believe me when I say that, Chevalier?’
Chevalier stopped writhing, and looked at Louis.
‘Yes, I do,’ he said.
Louis put a large file into the hand the mayor held out, and his arm dropped under its weight.
‘Heavy, eh?’ said Chevalier, with a nervous grin.
He leafed through it, and the carp started bumping into each other in the depths of the pond. They were seriously bothered, the carp, and it showed. A little more readability appeared on the surface.
‘Thank you, Kehlweiler. I will think of you perhaps, but in the evenings. Don’t count on me to start being an early riser.’
‘That’s OK,’ said Louis. ‘Not before midday, if we ever need to talk to each other.’
Louis came back to the bar, and asked Antoinette for the telephone. She gave him a disc – that was how the phone worked then in the Market Cafe – and brought him a beer without his having asked for it. Details like that let you know a cafe has entered your soul.
