the Somme.”
The chauffeur did not seem to be in any hurry. With his elbows on the cafe table, he was doing a crossword, his attention completely focused on the grid of the puzzle. Alex paid his check and went into a post office next door to the hospital. He could no longer keep an eye on the hospital gate, but it would be strikingly bad luck, he thought, if the doc were to up and leave in the next fifteen minutes or so.
He thumbed through a phone book in search of Lafargues. Lafargue is a common name, and there were pages of them. But not so many without an “s” on the end and with just one “f.” And Lafargues who were doctors were, of course, even rarer. In department 78 there were just three. One lived in Saint-Germain, another at Plaisir, and the third in Le Vesinet. The right Dr. Lafargue had to be one of them. Alex noted down all three addresses.
Back at the cafe, he made sure that the chauffeur was still there. When noon approached, the waiter started setting up the tables for lunch. He appeared to know the chauffeur well, because he asked him if he would be eating lunch today.
Roger replied in the negative: the boss had to get to Boulogne as soon as possible, and they would leave the moment he got out of the operating room.
Sure enough, the surgeon soon appeared. He got into the Mercedes, and the chauffeur slid behind the wheel. Alex followed their car. They left the center of Paris and made for Boulogne. Tailing them was not difficult, for Alex knew where they were headed.
Roger parked in front of a private clinic and was soon back to his crossword. Mistrustful of his memory, Alex wrote down the name of the street on a piece of paper. It was a long wait. He paced up and down at a nearby intersection, trying not to draw attention to himself. Then he sat down in a little park and went on waiting without ever taking his eye off the Mercedes. He had left his own car door unlocked so he could start up as quickly as possible should the doctor suddenly appear.
The surgery planning meeting lasted just over an hour. Richard barely unclenched his teeth the whole time. He was sickly pale and hollow-cheeked. Since Eve’s session with Varneroy, he had been on automatic pilot.
Alex had gone into a cafe for a fresh supply of cigarettes when Roger, spotting Lafargue in the clinic lobby, got out and opened the rear door of the Mercedes. Alex returned to the Citroen CX and followed once more, hanging back a good distance. Once he perceived that they were clearly headed for Le Vesinet, he peeled off. There was no point in risking being spotted when he had Lafargue’s address in his pocket.
He went over there later on. Lafargue’s place was impressive, though the bounding wall hindered any clear view of its facade. Alex inspected the neighboring houses. The street was deserted. It was not a good idea to stay too long. He noticed how many windows were shuttered. Le Vesinet had been abandoned for August. It was four o’clock, and Alex hesitated. He intended to investigate the surgeon’s house that same night, but didn’t know what to do in the meantime. For lack of a better plan, he decided to talk a walk in the forest of Saint-Germain, which was very close.
He returned to Le Vesinet around nine and parked the CX a good way away from Lafargue’s street. Night was beginning to fall, but you could still see. He climbed a wall surrounding a nearby house to get a look into Lafargue’s grounds. Sitting astride the top of the wall, he was pretty well camouflaged by the dense foliage of an abundantly spreading chestnut tree. From far off he was invisible, and if anyone should happen to come walking down the street he could retreat even farther in among the branches.
He took in the lawn, the pond, the trees, the swimming pool. Lafargue was dining al fresco, in company with a woman. Alex smiled. This was a good beginning. Were there perhaps children? Not likely, for they would be eating with their parents. They could be away on vacation, of course. Or they might be toddlers and already in bed. But Lafargue was about fifty, so his children, if he had any, should at least be adolescents. There was no chance of them being in bed at ten o’clock on a summer evening. What was more, no lights could be seen in the house, either on the ground floor or upstairs. A garden lamp gave off a rather feeble light in the vicinity of the table at which the couple were sitting.
Satisfied, Alex got off his perch and dropped to the sidewalk. He grimaced, for his still tender thigh could not yet take such shocks. He returned to the CX to wait for full darkness. He was nervous, and he began chain- smoking. At ten-thirty, he made his way back to the Lafargue place. The street was as empty as before. A car horn hooted in the distance.
He followed the bounding wall along till, at the end of the property, he came upon a large wooden crate containing spades, rakes, and other tools belonging to the municipal roadworkers. He climbed up on it, hauled himself onto the top of the wall, got his balance, and, judging the distance, jumped down into the grounds. Crouching in a clump of trees, he waited; if there was a dog, it wouldn’t take long to make its presence felt. No bark came. Alex appraised the shrubs near him, then proceeded along the wall. He was looking for reliable footholds susceptible of helping him back up over the wall on his way out. Near the pond was a mock grotto made of concrete that served as nighttime shelter for the swans. It was built up against the wall and was three or four feet tall. Alex smiled and checked it out: it would be child’s play to go this way over the wall back into the street outside. Reassured, he went farther into the grounds, passing the swimming pool. Lafargue and his companion had gone inside, and the immediate surroundings of the house were deserted. Strips of light filtered through closed shutters on the second floor.
Soft music came from the windows. A piano. It was not a recording, because the playing kept stopping and going back. On the other end of the house were more lighted windows. Alex melted into the wall, seeking to disappear in the ivy that covered the front of the building. Lafargue was leaning on one of the balustrades on the second floor, looking at the sky. Alex held his breath. Several minutes passed like this, until the doctor at last closed the window.
Alex dithered for a long time: should he chance entering the house or not? Yes, he decided, because he needed to reconnoiter, at least a little, so as to know where he was treading when he came back to kidnap the surgeon’s wife.
The house was large, and light was coming from every upstairs window. Lafargue must sleep in a separate room from his wife. That did not surprise Alex: everyone knew that bourgeois married couples don’t always sleep in the same bed!
Clutching the Colt, he climbed the steps and turned the front-door knob. There was no resistance; very gently, he pushed the door inward.
He took one step. There was a large room to his left and another to his right; before him was a staircase. The woman’s bedroom was upstairs to the right.
A bourgeois woman like her didn’t get up early. The bitch would lie in bed every morning. All Alex would have to do was watch for Lafargue to leave and then run up and take her by surprise while she was still asleep.
He closed the door silently behind him, darted just as silently across the grass, scrambled up onto the grotto, and tumbled over the wall. It was perfect. But no! There was a hitch. Okay, the lackey of a chauffeur would leave with his boss. But what if there was a maid? It would be a disaster if he ran into some old biddy there to do the housework!
Alex reached the Paris ring road, still taking care to obey all the rules of the road. It was midnight by the time he got back to his little house in Livry-Gargan.
Early the next morning, he returned to Le Vesinet. On tenterhooks, he watched Lafargue’s house, quite convinced an extra domestic would soon arrive. He had to snatch Lafargue’s wife without witnesses. The surgeon would then surely capitulate when confronted by the choice: give me a new face or I’ll kill your wife. But if someone happened to see the abduction, a domestic of one sort or another, a gardener, anybody at all, they would immediately call the cops, and Alex’s great scheme would be a dead letter.
Alex was lucky. Lafargue did employ a maid. But Lise had gone on vacation two days earlier. Of the five weeks the doctor allowed her in the year, she took three in the summer, when she went to her sister’s in the Morvan, and the rest during the winter.
