Tarantula

Viviane’s ankle in your attempt to catch her and stop her screaming.

As for Alex, he had taken off without hesitation and vanished into the shrubbery. Viviane was still thrashing wildly. You had to get out of there fast. You raced straight ahead. The guy was hard on your heels. But he had just eaten a heavy meal, and you had no trouble losing him. Alex was waiting for you with the bike at the other end of the village.

For the next few days you were very nervous. The guy had seen you, first near the frites stand and then in the field behind the inn, in the split second it took you to decide which way to run. But you were not from the village, which was a good way away from your home, and little by little your fears evaporated. You left for England the next week and returned only in late August. And, after all, it wasn’t the first time you had run into trouble with Alex.

Mygale had searched for a long time. He knew your approximate age. He had a rough idea of your face. He never told the police: he wanted you for himself. He combed the whole region in widening circles, covering every village. He spent hours at factory gates and outside high schools, watching.

Three months later, he spotted you in a cafe opposite the high school in Meaux. He followed you, spied on you, studied your habits. Until that late September evening when he fell upon you in the forest.

He knew nothing of Alex’s existence; he couldn’t have. That is why he is here in front of you now, exhausted, at your mercy…

Richard was stunned. Kneeling, Eve held the Colt with both hands and aimed it at him. Her arms were straight, and her index finger whitened as she pressed on the trigger.

“I am going to kill you.” She chanted the words in a monotone.

“Eve, I didn’t know! It’s not fair!”

Nonplussed by this incongruous remorse, she let her guard down for a moment. Richard was watching, and he saw it. His foot crashed into the young woman’s outstretched forearms. She dropped the weapon and cried in pain. He leaped up, snatched the Colt, and charged into the room where Alex was chained up. He fired twice. Alex collapsed, hit in the neck and in the heart.

Richard went back to the passage, leaned over and helped Eve back to her kneeling position, then he knelt down himself and held the Colt out to her.

Eve struggled to her feet, took a deep breath, set her feet wide apart and carefully brought the tip of the Colt’s barrel to Lafargue’s temple.

He stared at her, and his gaze betrayed no feeling at all. It was as though he wanted to project an indifference that would allow Eve to put aside all pity; as though he wanted, with his cold and impenetrable eyes, to be Mygale once more.

Eve saw Richard reduced, destroyed. She dropped the Colt.

She went up to the ground floor and ran out into the grounds, pulling up short, out of breath, at the front gate. It was a fine day, and reflected light danced on the blue water of the swimming pool.

Eve retraced her steps, went into the house, climbed the stairs. In her room, she sat down on the bed. The easel was there, covered with a piece of cloth. She tore it aside, and for a long time contemplated the vile portrait of Richard as a transvestite, the wine-ravaged face, the wrinkled skin: Richard as a ruined whore.

Very slowly, she walked back down to the cellar. Alex’s body still hung from the chains. A large pool of blood had formed on the concrete. She raised Alex’s head, and for a moment held the gaze of his dead eyes. Then she left the prison.

Richard still sat in the passage, his arms dangling by his sides, his legs rigid. A slight tic animated his upper lip. She sat next to him and took his hand. She let her head fall onto his shoulder.

Her voice was barely audible.

“Come on. We can’t leave the body here like this.”

About the Author

Thierry Jonquet was born in Paris in 1954. An exponent of the French noir influenced by post-May 1968 politics, Jonquet became one of France’s best-known crime writers. He died in 2009.

Copyright

A complete catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library on request

The right of Thierry Jonquet to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Copyright © 1995 Editions Gallimard

Translation copyright © 2002 by Donald Nicholson-Smith

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, dead or alive, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

First published as Mygale in 1995 by Editions Gallimard, Paris

First published in this English translation as Mygale in 2002 by City Lights Books, San Francisco

First published in the UK in this edition in 2011 by Serpent’s Tail

First published in the UK as Tarantula in 2005 by Serpent’s Tail, an imprint of Profile Books Ltd

3A Exmouth House, Pine Street

London EC1 R 0JH

www.serpentstail.com

ISBN 978 1 84668 794 5

eISBN 978 1 84765 763 3

Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Bookmarque Ltd, Croydon, Surrey