by Nell Goddin
“No, Monsieur,” stuttered Gilbert. “I was just out looking for greens, you know, to sell at the market. And I must have fallen asleep…”
“Greens? What greens were you finding hidden down in the leaves on my property? You think I don’t know what you’re doing? You think I don’t know who sent you?”
His large hands squeezed Gilbert’s wrists painfully as he pulled the boy back to his farm.
“What? Nobody sent me!” protested Gilbert, but he could see his neighbor did not hear what he was saying, and in fact didn’t plan on listening to him at all.
36
Maron spun his chair away from his computer screen and rubbed his hands over his face. He had been working long hours since the discovery of Erwan Caradec’s body but had little to show for it. Florian Nagrand placed Caradec’s death sometime Saturday, though he hadn’t been discovered until Monday morning. His body had not been moved so he had been killed in the alley where he was found. There was no weapon and hence no opportunity for fingerprints. A forensics team had come from Périgueux and they had found a few clothing fibers that were not from the clothes Erwan had on, but that meant little—they could have been acquired in casual contact such as brushing against someone on the street or a hug. Though who would want to hug Erwan Caradec, Maron could not say.
He and Perrault had found no eyewitness, nor anyone who heard anything. They had no ideas for a motive, no suspects, no evidence, no leads.
Here it was the end of Thursday. Time to go home to his apartment, cook a little skirt steak he had gotten at the butcher’s that morning, sauté some mushrooms, pour himself a glass of his favorite Pecharmant to go with it…but there would be no satisfaction in it, not with this wretched case hanging over his head.
Oh, how he missed the days when Dufort had all the responsibility. And to think how he had grumbled, not liking being bossed around. Being bossed around turned out to be infinitely more preferable to this…this inability to let a case go because the success or failure lay completely on his head. This feeling that if the case did not come to some kind of resolution, he would feel such shame it would be a struggle to walk down the street without wanting to hide.
Impulsively Maron grabbed his cell and called Nathalie, the manager of La Métairie, and asked her if he could take her to dinner that Saturday night. She sounded surprised but agreed to go, and Maron patted himself on the back for salvaging his mood by taking action. He stood up, trying to think of some kind of direction he could give Perrault before leaving for the day when the station phone rang.
It kept ringing.
“Perrault!” he called out, but got no answer.
She is entirely too independent, he thought. She could at least let me know where’s she’s gone off to. He picked up the phone himself. “Chief Maron,” he said, even though technically he was only the officer in charge and did not have the title of Chief.
Howling on the other end of the line.
“Hello? Slow down, Madame, I can’t understand a word you’re saying…what?…Your son is missing? Can you tell me your name please?”
Maron’s body became more and more rigid as he stood at Perrault’s desk, listening to Madame Renaud’s sobs. His back got ramrod-straight, his thighs tense, the muscles in his face hard.
“Madame,” he broke in finally. “Yours is the poultry farm just out of the village, on route de Canard? I will come immediately.”
They hung up and Maron called Perrault’s cell. “Thérèse! Where have you been? I need you to meet me at the Renaud farm…Yes, that’s the one…Her son Gilbert is missing…No, it hasn’t been long at all, he was at school today. I’ve heard from her before, she sees abductors hiding in every bush. He hasn’t been gone more than a few hours and she’s hysterical. I expect the boy is just off playing and lost track of time, but we can go have a look around and maybe that will calm the mother down…yes…on my way now.”
Maron strode to the door and wrenched it open as though the doorknob was the source of his difficulties. He decided not to take the police vehicle but chose the scooter instead, and drove quickly through the village.
As a child Maron had heard the story of the boy who cried wolf, but he didn’t think of it as he made his way to the Renaud farm. He tended to shut down when anyone got very emotional. And he did not pause long enough to consider that even a person who overreacted time and again, getting dramatically upset when nothing was actually the matter—that even a person like that might not be overreacting this particular time.
* * *
It was dark. The kind of dark you get in the country, without any glow from nearby cities to brighten the sky. There was cloud cover and no moon, and so the blackness was complete.
Gilbert sat on the concrete floor of Achille Labiche’s barn, crying off and on. An iron ring was set into the floor and he was chained to it, a tight leather belt around his small waist, with the chain linked right to a metal loop on the belt. He could see no way to pry off the loop with his fingers and the buckle was locked with a padlock.
The barn floor was cold and he shivered, even though the night wasn’t chilly.
He could see the door to the root cellar, where he guessed Valerie was. But he was afraid to call to her, afraid that Monsieur Labiche might come back. And he did not want to imagine what Labiche might do to him if he made him madder than he already was.
Labiche had dragged Gilbert out of the woods and straight to the barn. Gilbert hadn’t screamed because he was too afraid, and he knew he was too far away for anyone to hear anyway. It was possible his mother might, if the breeze was blowing the right way and she was standing outside in the exact right spot…but the last thing Gilbert wanted to to was alarm his mother, though he knew that when he didn’t come home, she would be…he didn’t want to think about it.
Monsieur Labiche had muttered about Gilbert being a spy, sent by Madame Sutton. Gilbert would have thought that hilarious, or even felt pleased to be thought so dangerous, if he were not so scared. Chained to Labiche’s barn floor, it was terrifying to understand that the man thought him such a threat. He had thought Labiche was going to kill him right then and there, once they reached the barnyard. At least he guessed Labiche was thinking about it, judging from the fiery look in his eye.
But then Labiche had done the evening milking and brought Gilbert a mug of milk, still warm.
Maybe at least he isn’t going to kill me right away, otherwise why waste the milk?
The chain between his belt and the iron ring was fairly long, so Gilbert could stand up and even walk around a little bit. If he leaned against the chain, he could see out of the room he was in, out to the long milking stand with troughs, the drains, everything very modern and not what he was used to.
He tried to figure out how to communicate with Valerie. He wanted her to know about the note he had left on the station door, not having given up hope that someone had seen it, that someone would finally come to save her.
And now him.
All he had wanted to do was free Valerie Boutillier, and now he was as trapped as she was.
He cried a little, letting waves of self-pity wash over him, his shoulders shaking. But when the waves stopped, he sat up straight and wiped his eyes on the back of his hand. Valerie had survived like this for seven years. He could do it too. He wasn’t going to die—he’d fight back if Labiche tried anything. And eventually—somehow—he would find a way to get free, and run straight to the root cellar and let Valerie out. Then he would sneak her into the woods and away from Labiche forever, and the two of them would run home and use Maman’s cell phone to call the gendarmes.
He should have gone to the station and just told them, he thought. He should have told Madame Sutton at the market.
I’m never keeping a secret again. No matter what.
37
Achille sat at the kitchen table eating canned lentils and sausage he had heated up in a saucepan. Usually he scraped his meal onto a plate but that night he ate straight fro
m the saucepan with a big spoon, his hands trembling.
During the evening milking the herd had been restless and skittish, as though a wolf were lurking in the woods with his eye on them. But Achille knew there was no wolf. There was only Molly Sutton and the gendarmes, and he was afraid.
He did not want the boy. The boy was the last thing he needed now. His plan for weeks had been to get rid of Valerie—quickly, painlessly—and then Aimée could come to the farm. He had spent countless hours on the plan and believed it was solid. He wondered if Aimee might be able to learn how to make cannelés herself and they could eat them together at dawn before he did the milking.
The plan was simple: Valerie out, Aimee in. No room for any boy.
Plus, Achille knew Mme Renaud would be hysterical, and he did not want to be the cause of it.
He tucked his quaking hands into the bib of his overalls and went out into the field. Bourbon trotted at his heels. He found the herd and walked in among the cows, patting their flanks and smelling the sweet, earthy fragrance of manure. But nothing he did would stop the trembling of his hands, or the insistent voice that said do it do it do it so that the words were the rhythm track under every step he took.
* * *
Maron arrived at the Renaud farm at about seven o’clock, a few hours from sunset. He wanted to wait for Perrault but squared his shoulders and knocked on the farmhouse door.
“Officer Maron!” Madame Renaud shouted as she opened the door. “You see? You see what time it is now and Gilbert still not home?” She tapped the face of her watch. “I tell you, I knew something like this was going to happen. I felt it coming for years! People—”
“Madame Renaud,” said Maron, trying to make his rough voice sound gentle. “Madame Renaud, please, I need to ask you some questions.”
She glared at him and started to say more but then closed her mouth and nodded.
“How old is Gilbert?”
“He’s only nine,” said Mme Renaud, bursting into tears.
Inwardly Maron cursed Perrault for not being there already. “Hey now,” he said awkwardly, “it’s only been a few hours. The likelihood is that he’ll turn up, probably out in the woods with his mates, something like that—”
“No! People told me I was over-protective, but now here’s the proof that I was not. It’s a dangerous world, Officer Maron, a dangerous world. We should be out looking for him right now! Have you organized search parties? Why are we standing here doing nothing when my little boy has been abducted?”
Maron took a deep breath. He felt like slapping Mme Renaud but was not close to giving in to the impulse. “What was Gilbert wearing when you last saw him?”
Mme Renaud tore at her hair and looked up at the ceiling. “I can’t tell you that!” she wailed. “I’ll say one thing—that American woman, Molly Sutton, she might know something about this! She was over here just a few days ago, sticking her nose where it didn’t belong. She actually invited Gilbert over to her house, if you can believe that!”
Maron cocked his head. “Do you know Madame Sutton?”
“No, I don’t know her. Never been introduced. That’s why I’m saying it was strange. It was suspect behavior! Who goes over to someone’s house they’ve never met and invites their child over? Something’s not right about that, Officer Maron, you know I’m speaking the truth!”
A knock on the door and Maron let in Perrault.
“Bonsoir, Mme Renaud,” said Perrault, reaching out to touch the woman’s arm.
Mme Renaud was swept away by another gust of tears.
“Her son, Gilbert, nine years old. Missing since…what time did you last see him, Madame?” asked Maron.
“It was around four-thirty, I believe. I wasn’t hanging around glued to my watch! But he came home from school as usual and did his chores. I haven’t seen him since.” She dropped into a kitchen chair and looked mournfully at Perrault.
“We’re talking about a few hours?” said Perrault, shooting Maron a look.
“Oh, sure, minimize it!” accused Mme Renaud. “What does she know, an old chicken-farmer! I’m telling you right now, something is wrong, my child is missing, and you need to get going, get searching right away! I don’t care what your rules are, do you want to serve the citizenry or stand around twiddling your thumbs? You know as well as I do that the first hours after someone is missing is the best time to find them!”
“Any places he likes to go?” asked Perrault, chastened at having been caught out. “Was he upset about anything, a fight with one of his friends, struggling in school, anything like that?”
“No, no, no,” said Mme Renaud. “Gilbert’s a good boy. Does his work and stays out of trouble. I keep him right here on the farm and he does his chores and his homework and doesn’t get into any trouble.”
Another fountain of tears. “And she was asking about my relatives for some reason. Nosy,” she said emphatically to Maron.
Perrault looked at him questioningly.
“Molly Sutton,” he said. “Came here a few days ago for some reason.”
Perrault looked back to Mme Renaud. She wanted to comfort her, to put her arms around her and tell her it was all going to be okay. But first, Mme Renaud was the kind of woman who did not accept comfort from another woman—she wanted to lean on Maron, she wanted Maron to fix the problem, Maron to listen to her wailing.
And second, even though two hours wasn’t a worrisome amount of time to be missing, Perrault had no idea whether it was all going to be okay or not.
38
The following day was no easier for Achille. When he took the boy some breakfast, he noticed his tear-stained cheeks, and the sight made him feel sick to his stomach. He never wanted the boy! And his thoughts were so fractured and jumping around that he could not think of a single plan for what to do with him.
He kept having ideas—fantasies, really, and he well knew it—such as giving the boy some medicine that would make him forget he was ever in Achille’s barn. Forget that he was a spy, trying to ruin everything for his neighbor who had never done anything to him.
Achille kept to himself, he had never made any sort of trouble for the boy. Why had the youngster turned against him like this?
Well, first things first. With great effort, Achille pushed the problem of the boy out of his mind. It was time to deal with Valerie.
Time to cross at least one problem off his list.
Achille’s hands weren’t trembling now. He went to the barn, to the back room where he kept his tools, and found a crowbar. It was heavy and lightly oiled, without a speck of rust. Achille’s father had taught him how to take care of things. He always said a man’s got to do what needs to be done.
Achille went back outside and strode towards the root cellar, Bourbon trotting beside him. It was the middle of the morning, a drowsy time at the farm, sunny and warm. The air full of bees. Smells of rot and earth and animals.
Right as he put his hand on the door-handle of the root cellar, it struck him: If Valerie is gone, there was nothing to stop him from simply letting the boy go. He hadn’t realized it before, but now he saw that this was a classic “kill two birds with one stone” situation. Because if there was no Valerie, there was nothing for anyone to see. Gilbert could run back over the hill, meet up with Sutton, the gendarmes, or anyone at all. He could tell them any old story about what he had seen—and if they came to look, what would Achille care?
There would be nothing for anyone to find, and they would think the boy was making it all up. Achille would fill the root cellar with potatoes and empty crates. It would mean waiting until things calmed down to bring Aimée home, which would stretch his patience. But surely if they came looking and found nothing, any suspicion would blow over quickly. If only he hadn’t lied to Sutton, he thought, for the ten thousandth time, his mind running in circles trying to come up with an excuse he could make.
But it’s not time to worry about that now, he thought. This is Valerie’s time.
“Hel
lo,” said Valerie, when Achille stepped into the root cellar, holding the crowbar behind his back.
Her eyes were boring into him. She seemed more alert than usual.
“Good morning!” said Achille. “I was wondering if you would like a short walk. It’s warm and the sun is out.”
It would be so much easier to just do it here, he thought. But I need for it to happen outside, where it will rain.
Valerie did not answer but lay down on the mattress and rolled over, her back to Achille. He got out the rope and tied one end to his belt. “Valerie? My girl?” he said, his voice breaking imperceptibly.
Somewhere way down deep, he hoped she would roll back over and grin at him, the way she used to. The hope was such a tiny flicker that it almost went by without his noticing it.
“Valerie?” he said softly, tightening his grip on the crowbar, his eyes darkening.
“Oh, all right,” she said, swinging herself up and standing next to him so that he could tie her to him.
He lay the crowbar on the mattress. Valerie looked at it, then into Achille’s face, searching.
“You’re not singing today,” he said.
“No,” said Valerie.
Achille picked the crowbar up and led her, stumbling, out of the root cellar. She blinked and raised her hand up against the sun. The warmth felt terrifically good against her skin after the dank dampness of the root cellar; she could practically feel the nourishment of the rays spreading through her whole body.
“I am tired of the dark,” she said quietly. “If I am very good and quiet, could I come back to the house?”
“We’ve been over this,” said Achille. “How many times have I agreed to that, and then you come and start shrieking?”
“That was before.”
“I know it was before. It was before I told you that the root cellar was where you were going to stay for the rest of your life because you wouldn’t stop singing and shrieking.”
