The Three Evangelists

Sophia?’

‘That’s both childish and naive as a defence, young lady. A police inspector doesn’t listen to that kind of talk, if he has pinpointed both the motive and the means. Especially since you haven’t seen your aunt for ten years. That doesn’t quite fit the picture of an affectionate niece. OK, let’s go on. You had a car in Lyon. Why did you come by train? And why, the day before you left, did you take the car to the garage and ask the garage owner to put it up for sale, saying that you thought it was too old to take all the way to Paris?’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Your mother told me that you had sold your car. I telephoned all the garages in your district until I found the right one.’

‘But what’s wrong with that?’ cried Marc suddenly. ‘What are you on about? Leave her alone, for heaven’s sake!’

‘Look, Marc,’ sighed Vandoosler, looking up. ‘You wanted to help her rehearse for Leguennec? That’s what I’m doing. You want to play the policeman, and you can’t even take the first set of questions. I know what she really will be up against on Monday. So shut up and listen. And you, St Matthew, can you tell me why you are slicing the bread as if you were expecting twenty people to dinner.’

‘To make me feel comfortable,’ said Mathias. ‘Anyway Lucien eats the slices. Lucien likes bread.’

Vandoosler sighed again and turned back to Alexandra, whose tears were welling up as her anxiety grew. She wiped her eyes with a tea towel.

‘You’ve already done all that?’ she asked. ‘You’ve made all those phone calls, asked all those questions. Is it such a crime to sell your car? It was clapped out. I didn’t want to risk driving it all the way to Paris with Kyril. And anyway it brought back memories. I got rid of it. Is that a crime?’

‘Let me pursue the same line of reasoning,’ said Vandoosler. ‘The week before that, let’s say on the Wednesday, you leave Kyril with your mother, and you drive to Paris in your car, which isn’t, by the way, as clapped out as all that, according to the man at the garage.’

Lucien, who was as usual pacing round the table, took the tea towel out of Alexandra’s hands and replaced it with a handkerchief.

‘It wasn’t very clean,’ he whispered.

‘… not as clapped out as all that,’ repeated Vandoosler.

‘I told you, the car brought back memories!’ said Alexandra. ‘If you can understand why people run away, you can surely understand why they might want to sell their fucking car!’

‘Yes, indeed. But if these memories were so painful, why didn’t you get rid of the car sooner?’

‘Because… because you think twice about dumping the fucking memories!’ cried Alexandra.

‘A word of advice, Alexandra. Don’t say “fucking” twice to a policeman. With me, it doesn’t matter. But on Monday don’t do it. Leguennec won’t react, but he won’t like it. Don’t say “fucking” to him. Anyway you should never say it to a Breton, the Breton gets to say it to you. That’s the rule.’

‘So why did you call in Leguennec in the first place?’ asked Marc. ‘If he isn’t going to believe a blind word anyone says, and if he doesn’t like people saying “fucking” to him?’

‘Because Leguennec is a good officer; because he’s a friend; because it was on his patch; because he will pick up all the possible clues for us; and because at the end of the day I’ll be able to do what I want with the clues. I’m talking about me, Armand Vandoosler.’

‘So you say,’ cried Marc.

‘Stop shouting, St Mark, it won’t get you to heaven, and stop interrupting me. I’ll continue. Alexandra, you gave up your job three weeks ago, because of your plan to leave Lyon. You sent a postcard to your aunt with a star on it, and a rendezvous in Lyon. The whole family knows about the old affair with Stelios and they all know what a star would mean to Sophia. You get to Paris in the evening, you intercept your aunt and you tell her some story about Stelios being in Lyon, you take her off in your car, and you kill her. Right? You dump the body somewhere, in Fontainebleau forest, for instance, or Marly forest, whatever, in some remote spot, so that she won’t be found too quickly-because that will make it harder to date the time of death and alibis will be hard to disprove. And you go back to Lyon the next morning. Days pass, nothing in the papers. That’s fine, it’s what you wanted. But then you start to get anxious. The spot is too remote. No body, no inheritance. It’s time to come back again. You sell the car, you take care to explain that you would never take it to Paris, and you come up by train. You make sure somebody notices you, by sitting stupidly in the rain with the little boy, without even going to the nearest cafe for shelter. You certainly don’t want anyone to think that Sophia disappeared voluntarily. So you make a fuss, and the police enquiries start up again. You borrow your aunt’s car on Wednesday night, you go off to fetch the corpse, taking great care to leave no traces in the boot of the car-and that’s a painful task, you need plastic bags, protective material, various grisly details-and you transfer it to an abandoned old car in some street in a low-class district. You set it on fire, so as to destroy all trace of the handling, the transport and the plastic bags. You know that Sophia’s little good-luck stone will survive the fire. It had already survived the volcano that spewed it up. So, the job is done, the corpse is satisfactorily identified. You don’t officially borrow the car your uncle offers you until the next day. And then the story is that you just want to drive round in the night, without any special purpose. Or perhaps you wanted to cover up for the night when you were driving with a very precise purpose, just in case somebody saw you. And one more thing. Don’t look for your aunt’s car. It went off to the forensic lab to be examined yesterday morning.’

‘Yes, I know, you don’t have to tell me,’ Alexandra interrupted.

‘They’ll examine the boot, the seats and so on,’ Vandoosler went on. ‘You must have heard of the kind of thing. You’ll get it back when they’ve finished with it. There we are, that’s all,’ he said, patting the young woman’s shoulder.

Alexandra sat quite still, with the vacant look of one who is surveying a scene of total disaster. Marc was wondering whether he should kick his bloody godfather out of the house once and for all, take him by the shoulders of his impeccable grey jacket, punch him in his beautiful face, and push him out of the window.

Vandoosler looked up and met his eyes, ‘I know what you’re thinking, Marc. It would make you feel better, I’m sure. But save your breath and leave me alone. I can be useful, whatever happens, and whatever they pin on her.’

Marc remembered the murderer whom Vandoosler had allowed to get away, against all the rules of justice. He was trying not to panic, but the scenario that his godfather had outlined was perfectly plausible. Very plausible even. He suddenly heard once more Kyril’s little voice saying that he wanted to have supper with them because he’d had enough of the car. Had Alexandra taken him with her the previous night? The night she had gone to fetch the body? No, surely not, it was too awful to contemplate. The child must have been thinking of some other journey. Alexandra had been driving round at night for eleven months.

Marc looked at the others. Mathias was crumbling a piece of bread. Lucien was dusting a shelf with the dirty tea towel. And he was waiting for Alexandra to react, to explain, to start shouting.

‘It makes a lot of sense,’ she said at last.

‘Yes, it makes sense,’ Vandoosler agreed.

‘You’re crazy, say something else!’ Marc beseeched Alexandra.

‘She’s not crazy at all,’ said Vandoosler. ‘She’s very intelligent.’

‘But what about the others?’ said Marc. ‘She’s not the only one who would inherit Sophia’s money. There’s her mother…’

Alexandra clenched the handkerchief in her fist.

‘Her mother’s out of it,’ said Vandoosler. ‘She hasn’t budged from Lyon. She’s been to her office every day, Saturdays included. She works part time and fetches Kyril from school every afternoon. Cast-iron and checked.’

‘Thank you,’ breathed Alexandra.

‘Well, what about Relivaux?’ asked Marc. ‘He must surely be the one who stands to get the most, isn’t he? And, what’s more, he has a mistress.’

‘Relivaux’s not looking too good, that’s true. Quite a few night-time disappearances since his wife vanished. But he didn’t do anything to try and find her, remember. No body, no inheritance.’

‘Oh, come on. He knew she’d be found sooner or later.’

‘It’s possible,’ conceded Vandoosler. ‘Leguennec isn’t letting him off the hook, don’t worry.’

‘And what about the rest of the family?’ asked Marc. ‘Lex. Who else is there in the family?’