by Nell Goddin
What would happen to Valerie?
Well, it wouldn’t do. He couldn’t allow it. She might already be headed to the gendarmerie! And then a horde of people would descend on his farm, poking their noses where they didn’t belong. He knew all along those people had been looking for an excuse to take him away—and she was going to give it to them. They’d put him in that same hospital where they had put his mother, and they didn’t let her out even though she’d begged to come home.
He chewed on his knuckle, breaking the skin and sucking on the trickle of blood.
They would find her.
And he would go to jail. He was not at all confused about that. He knew they would never understand, would never be able to grasp what he and Valerie had meant to each other all these years.
He would have to take care of it, and he had better act quickly.
Achille went out, banging the door behind him, squinting into the sun. He trotted to the tool shed and picked up a hatchet. Bourbon moved beside him, watching.
He unlocked the door to the bunker. Valerie was lying on her back, with her feet up against the ceiling.
“Hello,” she said.
That gave him pause. She had not greeted him like that in months; she’d had been silent or else singing that nonsense that grated on his nerves so. But Achille was not changing his mind now. It was better for her this way.
She had lost her grip on sanity, anyone could see that. And if an animal went crazy, what was the humane thing to do?
Put it down.
Put her down.
But the blood: he would have to do it outside, where the rain would wash away the evidence.
He left the house, whistling for Bourbon. His body felt tense. Muscles were twitching in his calves and along the sides of his neck.
To calm himself, Achille started to go to his cows, to walk in among the herd and feel their animal warmth, but in the driveway he stopped. He stood remembering one of the times they’d taken his mother away. How he’d stood in that same spot, watching, not saying anything, afraid they would take him too. She was humming, his mother, and the memory of that tuneless sound was enough to make Achille want to scream just to block it out.
But he did not scream. He had years of practice being quiet, as the neighbor no one could object to. He had taught Valerie to be quiet too, though it had taken quite a while for her to understand.
This was bad.
“Come on, Bourbon!” he called, climbing over the gate to the west pasture. The dog sped towards him and sailed through the boards of the fence, looking like a thoroughbred in a steeplechase. Achille laughed.
He didn’t want to kill her. He was no murderer. But on that Tuesday afternoon in May, he was not seeing any other way. Once it was done, all the gendarmes in the département could come to search his farm, and there would nothing to find.
It would be unpleasant, but many things in life are unpleasant. And once it was over, he could concentrate on the girl in Salliac. He would be patient with her, go very slowly, and maybe all the talk in Castillac would die down. They would let him alone.
If only that foreign woman had stayed away. She shouldn’t go poking around in other people’s business, she just shouldn’t.
* * *
The day Molly had been dreading had come: the Australians were leaving, going all the way back to Sydney, and it was time to say goodbye to little Oscar. She knew that if she were going to make a real go at this gîte business, she couldn’t be getting so attached to every child who came to stay at La Baraque. Clearly she would need to develop a way to keep them, if not at arm’s length, then not quite so close to her heart.
“Mum!” shouted Oscar, raising his chubby arms when he spotted her walking towards him. Ned and Leslie were packing up their car, and all three watched Oscar crawl over the grass and then pull himself up on Molly’s leg.
“You know you’re going to be walking very soon,” she said, scooping him up. “You’ll be running all over the place, getting into all kinds of wicked trouble!” Stifling a sob, she leaned her forehead on his head, smelling his baby smell one last time. “I will miss you very much,” she said, her voice a little shaky.
She managed to pull herself together to have a last chat with Ned and Leslie about their trip home, then hugs all around, and the family was in the car and moving away down rue des Chênes. Molly ran straight in the house to her bedroom, threw herself on the bed, and sobbed.
She cried about probably never seeing Oscar again. She cried about how hard it was to say goodbye to anyone she cared about. She cried about the babies she wanted but did not have, about how lonely it was living alone, about every other thing that had given her a moment’s sorrow over the last few years. She cried about her artichoke seedlings dying because she forgot to water them. She cried over not making the tiniest bit of progress in finding poor Valerie Boutillier. She let the sound and emotion pour out, wailing without holding anything back.
And then she was done. She cocked an ear, listening for Wesley Addison, having completely forgotten she was sharing her house. Her face looked as though a grenade had gone off nearby, but the tears did make her feel better. Until her thoughts drifted back to Valerie.
She considered throwing herself back down on the bed and crying some more, but that felt too much like giving up. She pulled out the thin file Ben had given her, and settled in to read it through once more.
23
It was regrettable, certainly. But Achille had thought and thought and could see no other way.
He had plans for next Monday market day in Salliac. He hoped to make a giant step of progress with the girl. He didn’t know her name, but he had firmly decided that she was the one, she would be his. Not next week—no, it was going to take patience. This time, he didn’t want to force her, he wanted the girl to climb up on the tractor of her own free choice. He was ready to invest some time getting to know her and smoothing the way. As much time as it took, he wasn’t afraid of running out of patience.
But he couldn’t manage it with this new fear blossoming in his chest. Thanks to that meddling woman, that Molly Sutton, the gendarmes from Castillac were about to descend on his farm and start searching. They could show up any minute!
Valerie had to go.
The way he saw it, he owed her that much.
Achille knew very well that if he merely unlocked the padlock and opened the door, did not tie Valerie but walked away so that she could get away—he would soon hear the blare of the gendarme’s siren and find himself shackled and in custody. He knew he would never be able to make them understand. He had no illusions about that.
In a way, the whole thing was very simple. That’s what Achille kept telling himself as he went about the morning milking in the pouring rain. As he made his breakfast and then took Valerie a jug of fresh milk and three eggs scrambled in butter.
It’s very simple.
He had lived in the country his whole life; he knew how to kill animals. He never liked it, it wasn’t a part of farming he enjoyed, but he had killed countless cows and hogs over the years, and chickens too when he was a teenager and his mother had kept poultry for awhile during one of her lucid phases. His father used to take him hunting and they shot wild boars and doves, although he did what he could to get out of those days with his father—because what Achille wanted was not to shoot the animals, but to trap and and keep them, which his father did not understand.
Valerie would pose no difficulty, technically speaking. He could probably do it when she was asleep and she would barely even know what was happening.
But he would know. And thinking about how he would feel afterward gave him a sick feeling in his belly that wouldn’t go away. Confusingly, the idea of Valerie gone filled him with both overwhelming relief and unendurable sorrow.
So, not so simple after all.
The rain was really coming down, so hard he could barely see the trees bordering the field towards the Renaud’s farm. He sat in the kitchen looking
out of the smudgy window thinking about how to do it. It felt wrong to use a method of killing he used for farm animals on a woman he had loved, even still loved. But on the other hand, he was comfortable with those methods, felt confident with them.
A razor blade had a lot of advantages…but so messy. He wanted it to be quick, as quick as possible, so quick she didn’t have time to register what he was about to do.
He didn’t want to do it. He was not a murderer.
But sometimes you had to do things you didn’t want to do, isn’t that what his teachers and his father had told him over and over?
And thanks to that snooping foreigner, he had better hurry.
* * *
On Wednesday Molly picked up her notebook and climbed on her scooter, planning to spend some hours continuing the survey because she didn’t know what else to do. Trying to be methodical about it, she rode through the village and turned in the driveway to the farm next to Labiche’s.
The farmhouse was small and tidy. Molly heard roosters crowing. As she parked and looked towards the house, she saw two heads looking at her out the window.
On Wednesday afternoons school let out early, which explained why the boy, running out of the house with a wide grin on his face, was home.
“Well, hello, mighty warrior of the forest!” she said, recognizing Gilbert from the market.
“How did you learn to speak French?” he asked.
“Oh, you can tell I’m not a native?” she said, smiling.
Gilbert’s mother came outside, wiping her hands on her apron. “Bonjour, Madame,” she said to Molly, her expression not nearly as welcoming as her son’s.
“Bonjour, Madame,” answered Molly. “I met your son at the market last week. The wild greens made a delicious salad!” Madame Renaud said nothing, so Molly quickly delivered her genealogy spiel as she opened her notebook and got out her pen.
“Ah,” the woman said, looking a fraction less suspicious. “My husband’s family name was Renaud. My family were the Tisons. Almost no one left on my side of the family now. Well, I’ve got that cousin who went to America. Barely ever hear from him now.” She glared at Molly as though it was her fault. “You are American, I take it?” she said.
“I am. Although I don’t plan to move back. I’m quite happy here in Castillac.”
“What about your family? They don’t mind?”
“I don’t have much family left,” said Molly. “No, it’s all right—my parents died some time ago, and my brother and I aren’t especially close. That’s life, right?”
The boy had walked around behind his mother, and was looking at Molly intently.
“Hey!” he said suddenly. “Want to see the hens? Maman and I raise chickens. Mostly for the eggs but of course we eat them when they get too old to lay.” Gilbert looked hopeful. “I’ll show her, Maman, you can go back inside.”
But Mme Renaud turned to her son and put her arm around his shoulders, giving him a brittle smile.
Gilbert looked crestfallen.
Molly was trying to decipher the obvious tension but she had no clue what it was about.
Mme Renaud talked for another moment about some relatives that had moved farther south, but Molly had trouble paying attention. Gilbert had ducked out from under his mother’s arm and then had circled back behind her again. He was staring at Molly, his eyes wide and communicating something. But what?
“Oh, I see you have such a nice potager,” exclaimed Molly. “Would you mind showing it to me? I’m just getting started on mine, and honestly, I’m way behind schedule. I see your spinach has been producing for quite some time, is that right?”
In Molly’s experience, gardeners liked to talk about their gardens. She did, anyway. Mme Renaud was reluctant, but walked over to the fenced potager and pointed out the greens, naming each variety in turn, though she seemed to take no pleasure in talking about it.
The potager was lovely. Orderly rows of lettuce looked like jewels in the sunshine, bright green alternating with crimson and purple and dark green, all sparkling from a shower that had come and gone just before lunch.
Maybe the boy is just bored? Hi mother isn’t much fun to be around, that’s for sure. On the dour side.
Impulsively, Molly said, “Hey Gilbert, there’s a meadow behind my house that’s absolutely brimming with all kinds of plants I can’t identify. Maybe you’d like to come over for lunch one day and you could give me a lesson?” Molly looked at Mme Renaud, asking her permission with her expression.
“I don’t believe so, no,” snapped Mme Renaud. “Madame Sutton, I don’t know how things are over in America. I’ve never been there and, frankly, I have no desire to go. I see on television that people are killed just going to the cinema. Here, we do things differently. I’m sure you’re very nice but I am not going to allow my child to visit your house by himself. You’re a stranger to us, and a foreigner on top of that…No.
“Come along, Gilbert, go into the house. I have several chores remaining for you before it’s time to play.” And with that, Mme Renaud put the death-grip on Gilbert’s shoulder and marched him inside without another word to Molly.
Gilbert turned his head just before going through the door, and Molly thought his face looked positively anguished.
Shaking her head, she climbed back on the scooter and rode to the next farm on the road, feeling less optimistic about her search the farther she went.
Meanwhile, Gilbert sat down on a kitchen stool as his mother informed him that he was no longer going to be able to sell greens at the market, if she couldn’t trust him to stay away from people they did not know and did not want to know.
“But I do want to know her!” he protested. “She’s like the only person in the whole village who solves any crimes!” With a flash of perception, he wondered if that’s why Molly had been here, working a case, and the genealogy business had just been a cover.
“Well, solving crimes is not your job, Gilbert,” his mother said firmly. “Your job is to make sure the crimes don’t happen to you. And that means sticking with people you know and trust, do you hear me?”
“Oui, Maman,” said Gilbert dejectedly.
“We will skip the market entirely for the foreseeable future. It’s spring, the garden is producing nicely and we have everything we need right here. Just attend to your studies and play outside when you have extra time.”
Yesterday, in his worry and discouragement about what to do about Valerie, he would have said that he didn’t think his situation could have gotten any worse, but it just had. For a brief exciting moment, he thought he would be able to take Molly to the henhouse and tell her everything. He could practically taste the relief that telling her would have brought.
And now…now what?
24
“Hup, ho!” Achille said. He shoved the handle of the hatchet under his belt and picked up the thick rope. “It’s a beautiful day,” he said. “Let’s go for a little walk in the woods.” His voice sounded normal even though he felt like everything inside—his brain, his stomach, his heart—was shaking and on the point of breaking down.
Valerie got up and allowed him to tie the rope around her waist. “A walk in the woods,” she repeated.
“A walk in the woods, yes.”
She stood with her hands dangling down at her sides, watching him tie the ropes. She used to watch everything he did with such interest, her eyes so intelligent and curious. But no longer. She barely seemed to register that she saw anything at all. He led her out of the bunker and through the farmyard, heading for the pasture and then the woods.
And her gait had gotten strange. She no longer walked beside him in a regular way but jerked one way and another, not trying to get free but as though she could no longer understand the logistics of the rope and being tied to him.
He felt impatient and angry at her for making him have to do this.
All he wanted on this lovely May day was to take care of his cows, and daydream about the girl at the Sall
iac market. All he wanted was a simple day, uncomplicated, to plan and daydream while he went through the calming routine of his chores.
He did not want to walk in the woods, he did not want to take a hatchet to her neck, he didn’t want to, he didn’t want to.
They climbed a low hill, Valerie getting tangled in bushes several times along the way. Achille pulled her roughly along.
I’m not a murderer, he said to himself, as he looked keenly at her neck, planning where to aim the chop.
Valerie stood still. She closed her eyes and lifted her chin, looking as though she were preparing herself, resigned to whatever was going to happen.
Achille slid the hatchet out of his belt. He took good care of his tools and he knew the edge was sharp, but he flicked it with his thumb anyway, nearly cutting himself.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, raising the hatchet over his head.
Valerie did not move or open her eyes. It was perfect, really—if he aimed just right, she would be gone quickly. But Achille let the hatchet fall from his hands. It bounced once and lay on a pile of damp leaves, glistening in a shaft of sunlight.
She was his Valerie.
He wasn’t ready. He couldn’t simply butcher her like she was an October hog.
Dejectedly, he led her out of the woods and back down to the root cellar. She began to sing her nonsense again which made the muscles in Achille’s neck spasm. He thought of Molly Sutton and the poison she was spreading about him in the village, and he knew he was going to have to find a way to finish the job.
He just wasn’t ready.
Not yet.
* * *
“I know that look,” Frances was saying as she carried their lunch plates out to the terrace at La Baraque. “You’re working on something. I can tell. It’s that Boutillier person you were talking about at the dinner party, isn’t it? Spill it, girlfriend. You know you want to.”
