‘For crying out loud! It won’t help Alexandra one bit. And what earthly reason would Leguennec have to suspect us?’
‘No problem,’ Lucien intervened. ‘Three unoccupied men in their mid-thirties in a chaotic house. See? Not very respectable neighbours, are they? One of them takes the lady out, then brutally rapes her and sets fire to the car to cover his tracks.’
‘What about the postcard, then?’ shouted Marc. ‘The postcard with the star and the appointment? Did we send that too?’
‘It does complicate things a bit,’ Lucien conceded. ‘Let’s imagine that the lady had talked a bit about Stelios, and about the card she received three months ago. To explain her fears and to persuade us to dig under the tree. Don’t forget that, we did dig up her garden.’
‘As if I could forget that damned tree.’
‘Well,’ Lucien went on, ‘to lure the lady out of her house, one of us used the same rather crude trick, met her at the Gare de Lyon, took her somewhere else and so forth.’
‘But Sophia didn’t say anything to any of us about Stelios!’
‘Maybe not, but see if the police care. They would only have our word for it, and that wouldn’t carry much weight if we were already looking bad.’
‘Oh, that’s just perfect.’ Marc was trembling with anger. ‘Perfect. My godfather has such brilliant ideas. OK- what about him? With his record, and his fantastic adventures in the police force, and with women, he might fit the bill. So what do you think,
Vandoosler shook his head.
‘No, think about it. Old men of sixty-eight don’t suddenly start going about raping people. If they were like that, they’d have a bit of form already. Any policeman will tell you that. But men in their thirties, living on their own, and a bit peculiar with it, well, who can tell what they might get up to?’
Lucien burst out laughing. ‘Priceless!’ he said. ‘You really are priceless,
‘I don’t see the joke,’ said Marc.
‘That’s because you are pure in heart,’ said Lucien, patting him on the shoulder. ‘You don’t want to have a stain on your escutcheon. But your image is not what’s at stake here. It’s just a matter of creating a diversion. Leguennec can’t prove anything against us. But by the time he runs a check on us, where we’re from, what we’ve done, etcetera, etcetera, we’ll have bought another day, and he’ll have had two of his men tied up for hours for nothing. That’s at least one we can put across the enemy.’
‘I still think it’s stupid.’
‘No, I bet Mathias finds it funny-don’t you Mathias?’
Mathias gave a brief smile. ‘If you want to know, I couldn’t care less,’ he said.
‘We could have the police on our backs, thinking we might have raped Sophia, and you couldn’t care less?’ asked Marc.
‘So what? I know I’ll never rape a woman. What anyone else might think is of no consequence, because I know the truth.’
Marc sighed.
‘The hunter-gatherer is wise,’ suggested Lucien. ‘And what’s more, since he’s been working in
‘Eating, that’s all you think about, that and the Great War,’ said Marc.
‘Let’s eat,’ said Vandoosler.
He came up behind Marc and squeezed his shoulder. It was the same kind of touch his uncle had used ever since he was a small boy when they had had a row, a gesture that meant ‘Calm down, young Vandoosler, I’m on your side, don’t get so worked up, you’re too jumpy, calm down.’ As he felt this quick squeeze, Marc felt his anger subside. Alexandra had not been charged with anything, at least, and that was what the old man had been working on for the last four days. Marc glanced at him. Expressionless, Vandoosler was sitting at the table. Love him or hate him, it was hard to decide. But he was his uncle, and Marc, despite all his protests, trusted him at heart. Well, for some things, anyway.
XXIV
NEVERTHELESS, WHEN VANDOOSLER CAME INTO HIS BEDROOM, WITH Leguennec at his heels at eight o’clock the next morning, Marc started up in panic.
‘I’m just off,’ Vandoosler said. ‘I have to go with Leguennec. Just do the same as yesterday, it’ll be fine.’
Vandoosler disappeared. Marc remained in bed, rubbing his eyes, with the feeling that he had narrowly escaped being charged with something. His godfather had not been asked to wake him in the morning. The old man was losing it. No, that wasn’t it. It must be that he was anxious to accompany Leguennec and was asking Marc to keep watch during his absence. The godfather obviously hadn’t told Leguennec all that he was up to. Marc got out of bed, took a shower and went down to the ground floor. Mathias, who had been up since some godforsaken hour, was already putting logs in the woodbox. He was the kind of guy who got up at dawn when nobody had asked him to. Marc, still feeling dazed, made himself some strong coffee.
‘Do you know why Leguennec came round?’ he asked.
‘Because we don’t have a phone,’ Mathias told him. ‘He has to come over if he wants to talk to your uncle.’
‘I see. But why so early? Did he say anything to you?’
‘Not a thing,’ said Mathias. ‘He looked like a Breton worrying about a gale warning, but I expect he often looks like that, even when there isn’t one. He just nodded to me and went straight upstairs. I think I heard him grumbling about houses with four floors and no phone. But that’s all.’
‘We’re going to have to wait,’ said Marc. ‘And I’m going to have to sit at the window again. It’s not a lot of fun. I’ve no idea what he’s hoping for. I just see men, women, umbrellas, the postman, our neighbour Georges and that’s about it.’
‘And Alexandra,’ said Mathias.
‘What do you think of her?’ said Marc hesitantly.
‘Adorable.’
Both satisfied and jealous, Marc put his coffee cup and a couple of pieces of bread on a tray, took it all upstairs and pulled up a high stool to the window. At least he wouldn’t have to stand up all day.
This morning it was not raining. It was a perfect June day. With luck, he was in time to see Lex take the little boy to school. Yes, just in time. She went past, looking a bit sleepy, holding Kyril by the hand: he seemed to be telling her all sorts of things. As before, she did not glance up at their house. And why should she, Marc asked himself once more. Anyway, it was better that way. If she had seen him perched on his stool, eating his breakfast, it would hardly have been to his advantage. Marc couldn’t see Relivaux’s car. He must have left very early. An honest fellow going to work, or a murderer? The godfather had said that the murderer in this case was a real killer. A killer like that would not be as colourless as Relivaux, and a lot more dangerous. The idea was much more scary. Marc didn’t think Pierre was made of that kind of stuff; he didn’t feel at all frightened of him. Mathias, now, he would make a perfect killer: tall, solid, unflappable, a man of the woods, with silent and sometimes weird ideas, a secret opera-goer-yes, Mathias would make a perfect suspect.
Time passed with thoughts like this, and it was suddenly half-past nine. Mathias came in to give him back his pen. Marc told him that he could imagine him as a killer and Mathias shrugged.
‘How’s the look-out going?’
‘Zero,’ said Marc. ‘The old man’s lost the plot and I’m going along with his crazy ideas. It must run in the family.’
‘If you’re going to stay there all day, I’ll bring you some lunch before I go off to the restaurant.’
Mathias closed the door quietly and Marc heard him go to his desk on the floor below. He shifted on the stool. He would have to bring a cushion in future. For a moment, he imagined himself imprisoned there for years, looking
