by Fred Vargas
Alexandra had been questioned for three hours.
In the late afternoon, it was Juliette’s turn.
‘Juliette doesn’t look too happy,’ Marc observed to Mathias between courses.
‘Leguennec upset her,’ Mathias replied. ‘He didn’t believe an opera singer could be friends with someone who runs a café.’
‘Do you suppose he’s irritating everyone on purpose?’
‘Maybe. At any rate if he wanted to wound her, he managed that.’
Marc looked at Juliette who was tidying away glasses in silence. ‘I’m going to have a word with her,’ he said.
‘No point,’ said Mathias. ‘I’ve already tried.’
‘Well, maybe I’m not going to say the same things,’ said Marc, catching Mathias’ eye for a moment.
He got up and began making his way through the tables to the counter.
‘Don’t worry,’ he murmured to Mathias as he went past, ‘I’ve nothing clever to say to her. But I’ve got a big favour to ask her.’
‘You do what you like,’ said Mathias.
Marc put his elbows on the counter and gestured to Juliette to come over. ‘Did Leguennec upset you?’ he asked her.
‘It’s not serious, I’m used to it. Did Mathias tell you?’
‘Just a word or two-that’s a lot for Mathias, you know. What did Leguennec want to know?’
‘It’s not hard to guess. How come a famous singer finds time to talk to someone whose parents were provincial shopkeepers? So what? Sophia’s grandparents looked after goats, like everyone else back in Greece.’
Juliette stopped fussing about behind the counter.
‘To tell the truth,’ she said with a smile, ‘it’s my own fault. Because he was putting on his act of the policeman who doesn’t believe you, I started justifying myself like a child. I said that Sophia had these grand friends in circles I would never move in, but they weren’t the kind of people you could have a nice quiet conversation with. But he went on looking as if he didn’t believe a word.’
‘It’s just their policy.’
‘Perhaps it is, but it works. Because instead of thinking, I started saying really stupid things. I showed him my books, to prove I can read. To show him that all these years of being on my own, I’ve read and read, thousands of pages. So he looked at the bookshelves and he did begin to accept that I might have been a friend of Sophia’s. What a stupid bastard!’
‘Sophia said she hardly ever read anything,’ said Marc.
‘That’s right. And I didn’t know anything about opera. So we exchanged ideas and discussed things up in my study. Sophia was sorry she had missed the boat with reading. I told her that sometimes you read because you’ve missed some other boat. It sounds silly, I know, but there were some evenings when Sophia would sing while I played the piano and others when I would read while she smoked her cigarettes.’ Juliette sighed. ‘The worst thing was that Leguennec went straight off and asked my brother, to see whether by chance all those books belonged to him! As if. Georges only likes doing crosswords. He’s in publishing, but he never reads a word, he looks after distribution. Mind you, he’s pretty good at crosswords. Anyway, there it is: if you keep a café, you don’t have the right to be the friend of Sophia Siméonidis, unless you can prove to them that you’ve torn yourself away from your Normandy farm and brushed all the mud off your boots.’
‘Don’t get worked up,’ said Marc. ‘Leguennec’s getting up everyone’s nose. Can I have a glass of something?’
‘I’ll bring it to your table.’
‘No, on the counter please.’
‘What’s the matter, Marc? Are you upset too?’
‘Not exactly. I want to ask you a favour. You know the little house in your garden?’
‘Yes, the one you saw. It’s nineteenth-century, must have been built for the servants, I suppose.’
‘What’s it like inside? Is it in good condition? Could someone live in it?’
‘Why, d’you want to get away from the others?’
‘Tell me, Juliette, is it habitable?’
‘Yes, it’s properly maintained, it’s furnished. It’s got everything you need, electricity, water and so forth.’
‘Why did you kit it out?’
Juliette bit her lip.
‘Just in case, Marc, just in case. I may not be on my own for ever. You never know. And since my brother lives with me, a little place where one can be on one’s own if necessary … Does that seem silly? Are you laughing?’
‘Not at all,’ said Marc. ‘Have you got anyone in mind for it at the moment?’
‘No, you know I haven’t,’ said Juliette with a shrug. ‘So what is it you want?’
‘I’d like you to offer it to someone else. Tactfully. If you don’t mind. For a small rent.’
‘To you, or Mathias? Or Lucien? The old policeman? Aren’t you getting on with each other?’
‘No, no, it’s not that, we’re fine. It’s Alexandra. She says she can’t go on staying with us. She says she and her son are in our way, that she can’t settle in and I think, most of all, she wants a bit of peace and quiet. She’s started looking for places in the small ads, so I thought …’
‘You don’t want her to go too far away, is that it?’
Marc fiddled with his glass. ‘Mathias says we ought to keep an eye on her. Just until this business has been sorted out. If she could use your cabin, she could be on her own with her son, and at the same time she’d be quite close.’
‘That’s what I mean, close to you.’
‘No, Juliette, you’re wrong. Mathias really thinks it would be best if she’s not left alone.’
‘Well, it’s all the same to me,’ Juliette cut him off briskly. ‘I don’t mind at all if she moves in with the child. If it’s to help you, yes, that’s fine. Anyway she’s Sophia’s niece. It’s the least I could do.’
‘You’re very kind, Juliette.’
Marc kissed her on the forehead.
‘But she doesn’t know?’ asked Juliette.
‘No, of course not.’
‘So how do you know she’ll want to stay near you? Have you thought of that? How are you going to get her to accept?’
Marc looked gloomy. ‘Can I leave it to you? Don’t say it was my idea. You’ll find some good reason.’
‘You’re asking me to do your dirty work?’
‘I’m counting on you. Don’t let her go away somewhere else.’
Marc went back to the table where Lucien and Alexandra were stirring their coffee.
‘He kept on asking where I went last night,’ Alexandra was saying. ‘What’s the point of trying to explain to him that I didn’t even take in the names of the villages. He didn’t believe me, and I don’t care.’
‘Was your father’s father German too?’ Lucien interrupted.
‘Yes, but what has that got to do with anything?’
‘Was he in the Great War? Did he leave any papers or letters or anything?’
‘Lucien, for God’s sake, can’t you control yourself?’ asked Marc. ‘If you must talk, can’t you find some other subject? Try and you’ll see, you might find something else to talk about.’
‘OK,’ said Lucien. ‘Are you going driving again tonight?’ he asked after a pause.
‘No,’ said Alexandra smiling. ‘Leguennec confiscated my car this morning. Pity, because the wind is getting up. I love the wind. It would be a nice night for driving.’
‘I don’t get it,’ said Lucien. ‘Driving round for no reason and going nowhere. Frankly I don’t see the point. Could you keep going all night like that?’
‘All night, I don’t know. I’ve only been doing it for eleven months every now and then. Up to now, I’ve always given up at about three in the morning.’
‘Given up?’
‘Yes. So I come back. Then a week later I start again, I think it’s going to help. But it doesn’t.’
Alexandra shrugged, and pushed her hair back behind her ears. Marc would have
liked to do it for her.
XXI
GOODNESS KNOWS HOW JULIETTE MANAGED IT, BUT THE FOLLOWING day, Alexandra moved into the garden house. Marc and Mathias helped to carry her luggage. With the help of this distraction, Alexandra relaxed a bit. Marc, who was knowledgeable about that kind of thing and could easily spot the signs, had been watching the shadows of some secret sorrow reflected in her face. He was glad to see them fade, even if he knew that the respite might only be temporary. During the respite, Alexandra proposed that they say ‘tu’ to each other and that they call her Lex.
Lucien, rolling up his floor rug, to take it back upstairs, muttered that the line-up of forces on the battleground was getting more and more complex. The Western Front had tragically lost one of its major players, leaving only a doubtful husband behind, while the Eastern Front, already reinforced by Mathias in Le Tonneau, was now being augmented by a new ally, accompanied by a child. The new ally had originally been marked out to occupy the Western Front, had temporarily stopped in no-man’s-land and was now deserting it for the eastern trenches.
‘Has the Great War really turned your brain?’ Marc asked, ‘or are you carrying on like this because you’re sorry Alexandra is leaving?’
‘I’m not carrying on, as you put it,’ said Lucien. ‘I’m rolling up my rug and I’m commenting on the present state of affairs. Lex-she said to call her Lex-wanted to get out of here, and yet she’s staying very nearby. Very near her Uncle Pierre, very near the epicentre of the drama. What’s she after? Unless that is,’ he said, straightening up, with the rug under his arm, ‘the whole Operation Eastern Base was dreamed up by you.’
‘Why would I do that?’ said Marc, defensively.
‘To keep an eye on her or to keep her within reach, take your pick. Personally I’d opt for the second. Anyway, congratulations. It seems to have worked.’
‘Lucien, you are really getting on my nerves.’
‘Why? You want her, that’s perfectly obvious. Well, look out, you’re going to get hurt again. You’re forgetting that we’re still up shit creek, and when that’s the case, you might slip. You have to go slowly, step by step. Certainly not go haring ahead like a madman. Not that I disapprove of a poor guy in the trenches having a bit of a distraction. Not at all. But Lex is too pretty, she’s too touching, and she’s too intelligent to be written off as a mere distraction. You’re not just going to have a bit of fun, you’re running the risk of being in love. That way madness lies, Marc, madness.’
‘What do you mean madness, you no-brain soldier?’
‘Because, you no-brain worshipper of courtly love, you suspect, just as I do, that Lex and her little boy have been chucked out or abandoned. Or something like that. So like an idiot knight on a white horse, you imagine that there’s a vacant place in her affections and that you can move in. Big mistake, let me tell you.’
‘Look, idiot of the trenches, I know more about empty hearts than you do. And I can tell you that the emptiness takes up much more space than when it’s occupied.’
‘You show remarkable lucidity for someone who stays behind the front line,’ said Lucien. ‘You’re not entirely stupid, Marc.’
‘Does that surprise you?’
‘Not at all. I’ve done a bit of snooping.’
‘I’m not installing Alexandra in the garden house next door because I want to pounce on her. Even if she does attract me. And who wouldn’t be attracted?’
‘Mathias for one,’ said Lucien, raising his finger in the air. ‘Mathias is attracted by the beautiful and brave Juliette.’
‘And you?’
‘As I told you, I move slowly and I observe. That’s all. For the moment.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Maybe you’re right. It’s true that I’m not totally without feelings, or the urge to help. For instance, I suggested to Alexandra that she could keep my rug for the cabin if she wanted to. Answer: she couldn’t care less.’
‘Naturally. She’s got other things to think about than your rug, even without problems of the heart. And if you really want to know why I’d rather she stays close to here, it’s because I don’t like the turn of mind of Inspecteur en chef Leguennec, nor of my godfather, if it comes to that. They go fishing together, those two. Lex has been called in again for more questioning, the day after tomorrow. So I think we should be around, just in case.’
‘Oh, you really are the knight in shining armour, Marc. Even if you don’t have a horse. And what if Leguennec’s not entirely wrong? Have you thought of that?’
‘Of course I have.’
‘And?’
‘And it bothers me. There are some things I’d like to have cleared up.’
‘And you think that’s going to happen?’
Marc shrugged. ‘Why not? I asked her to come over here once she’s settled in. With the rather ignoble thought at the back of my mind that I might ask her some questions myself about the things that bother me. What d’you think?’
‘That’s bold and possibly painful, but the offensive could be an interesting one. Can I sit in on it?’
‘On one condition: that you stuff a flower in your rifle and say nothing.’
‘If it sets your mind at rest,’ said Lucien.
XXII
ALEXANDRA ASKED FOR THREE LUMPS OF SUGAR IN HER BOWL OF TEA. Mathias, Lucien and Marc listened to her as she told them how out of the blue-Juliette had said she was looking for a tenant for the garden house, that Kyril’s room was lovely, that the house itself was beautiful and full of light, that she could breathe easily in it, that there were plenty of books to read if she couldn’t sleep, that they could see the flowers from the windows and that Kyril liked flowers. Juliette had taken Kyril off to the restaurant to make some pastry. The day after tomorrow, Monday, he would go to his new school. And she would go to the police station. Alexandra frowned. What did Leguennec want with her now? She had told him everything she knew.
Marc thought this was the moment to launch the bold and painful manœuvre, but it didn’t seem such a good idea any more. He got up and sat on the table to give himself confidence. He had never been very good at sitting normally on a chair.
‘I think I know what he wants from you,’ he began, rather weakly. ‘I could put some questions to you, if you like, to give you a bit of practice.’
Alexandra raised her head with a start. ‘You want to question me too now, do you? So that’s what you all think, is it? You don’t trust me? You think I’m hiding something? Because of Aunt Sophia’s money?’ She had stood up. Marc took hold of her hand to stop her. The contact gave him a frisson in the pit of his stomach. Yes, he had certainly been lying to Lucien when he had said he didn’t want to pounce on her.
‘No, no, that’s not it at all,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you sit down and drink your tea. I could ask you in a friendly way the kind of thing Leguennec will ask brutally. Why not?’
‘I don’t believe you,’ said Alexandra. ‘But I don’t care, if you want to know. Go ahead and ask your questions, I’m not afraid of you or the others, or of Leguennec, I’m not afraid of anyone except myself. Go ahead, Marc. Settle your troubled mind.’
‘I’m going to cut some slices of bread,’ said Mathias.
Alexandra, her face showing strain, was leaning back on her chair and tipping it up.
‘Never mind,’ said Marc. ‘Don’t let’s bother.’
‘That’s my brave soldier,’ muttered Lucien.
‘No, go right ahead,’ said Alexandra. ‘I’m ready for your questions.’
‘Courage, soldier,’ whispered Lucien, walking behind Marc.
‘OK, then,’ said Marc in a dull voice. ‘OK. Leguennec will certainly ask you why you arrived here at just this moment, setting the investigation in motion again, and leading two days later to the discovery of your aunt’s body. If you hadn’t turned up, the case would have sat in the files, and everyone would have thought your Aunt Sophia was on some Greek island. And without a body, there’s no death, and
without a death, there’s no inheritance.’
‘So what? I already told you. I came because Aunt Sophia suggested it to me. I needed to leave home. It wasn’t a secret from anyone.’
‘Apart from your mother.’
The three men all turned round towards the door where, once again, Vandoosler was standing, having come silently downstairs.
‘We didn’t invite you down,’ said Marc.
‘No,’ said Vandoosler. ‘You don’t often invite me down these days, but it doesn’t stop me intruding, you will observe.’
‘Oh, go away,’ said Marc. ‘What I’m doing is difficult enough as it is.’
‘Because you’re setting about it in a stupid way. You want to forestall Leguennec? To undo the knots before he gets there, and free the young lady? Well, if that’s your plan, at least do it properly. May I?’ he said to Alexandra, sitting down beside her.
‘I don’t seem to have any choice,’ said Alexandra. ‘If I have to, I’d prefer to be questioned by a real flic, even if he’s bent, as you keep telling me, than by three pretend flics whose motives are more doubtful. Except for Mathias’ decision to cut some bread, which is a good idea. Go ahead, I’m listening.’
‘Leguennec telephoned your mother. She knew you were coming to Paris. She knew the reason. Heartbreak, we call it, a sort of shorthand. Too small a word for what it stands for.’
‘You know all about broken hearts, do you?’ said Alexandra, who was still frowning.
‘Oh yes,’ said Vandoosler slowly. ‘Because I have caused some in my time. One rather serious one in particular. Yes, I do know about heartbreak.’
Vandoosler ran his hands through his black and white hair. There was a silence. Marc had rarely heard his uncle speak so simply and seriously. Vandoosler, his face calm, was quietly drumming his fingers on the table. Alexandra was watching him.
