As Lucien didn’t reply, Marc glanced across at him. The dope was fast asleep again.
‘Lucien!’ Marc shouted. ‘Come on, look lively!’
But there was nothing to be done. Once he had decided to go to sleep, you couldn’t wake him if he didn’t want you to. Same as with the Great War. Marc put his foot down even harder.
He braked to a halt in front of number 12 allee des Grands-Ifs at one o’clock in the morning. The big wooden gate to Sophia’s house was closed. Marc hauled Lucien out of the car and propped him up.
‘Atten-shun!’ he shouted at him.
‘OK, OK, don’t shout so loud,’ said Lucien. ‘I’m awake. I always wake up if I know I’m really needed.’
‘Hurry up,’ said Marc. ‘Give me a leg-up like the other time.’
‘Take your shoe off then.’
‘Good grief, Lucien! We may be too late already. Just help me up, never mind the shoes.’
Marc put his foot on Lucien’s linked hands and hauled himself to the top of the wall. He had to make an effort to get astride it.
‘Your turn,’ he said. ‘Bring that dustbin over, and stand on it and grab my hand.’
Lucien found himself alongside Marc, astride the wall. The sky was cloudy and it was pitch dark. Lucien jumped down, with Marc behind him. Once on the ground, Marc tried to find his bearings. He thought of the well. He had been thinking about the well for some time. The well, water. Mathias. The well, the place where so many medieval crimes were committed. Where was the fucking well? Over there, a pale patch. Marc ran towards it, with Lucien behind him. He couldn’t hear anything, no sound except his own footsteps and Lucien’s. He was beside himself with fear. Frantically, he pulled away the heavy planks across the coping. Shit, he hadn’t brought a torch. Anyway, it was ages since he had owned a torch. Two years? Yes, about two years. He leaned over the coping and called Mathias’ name.
No reply. Why was he so sure about the well? Why was he not going to the house or the wood behind it? No, he was absolutely certain it had to be the well. It’s easy, it’s clean, it’s medieval, and nobody ever finds out. He lifted up the heavy zinc bucket and lowered it gently down. When he heard it touch the surface of the water, far below, he wedged the chain and put one leg over the coping.
‘Make sure the chain stays in place,’ he told Lucien. ‘Don’t move away from the goddamn well. And, whatever you do, take care. Don’t make a sound, don’t alert her. Four, five, six corpses, she’s past counting. Give me the rum.’
Marc began the descent. He was scared. The well was narrow, dark, slimy and cold, like all wells. But the chain was strong. He thought he had gone down about six or seven metres when he felt the bucket, and icy water on his ankles. He let himself slide in up to his thighs and his skin almost burst with the cold. He felt the inert mass of a body against his legs and wanted to scream.
He called him, but Mathias didn’t reply. Now that Marc’s eyes were used to the darkness, he lowered himself further into the water, up to the waist. With one hand, he felt the body of the hunter-gatherer, who had allowed himself to be tipped into the well, like a complete cretin. His head and knees were still above water. Mathias had managed to press his long legs against the walls of the well. It was lucky the well was so narrow. He had succeeded in wedging himself in place, but how long had he been in this freezing water? How long had he been here, sliding, centimetre by centimetre, downwards, till he was swallowing that black water?
He couldn’t haul Mathias to the top if he was a deadweight. Mathias would have to be able to hold on.
Marc wrapped the chain round his right arm, and pressed his legs against the bucket, confirmed his grip, and began to pull Mathias up out of the water. He was so big and heavy. The effort was exhausting. Gradually Marc managed to pull him clear, and after a quarter of a hour’s effort, Mathias’ head and shoulders were resting on the bucket. Marc held him up with his leg, by bracing it against the wall, and with his left hand managed to pull the bottle of rum out of his jacket pocket. If Mathias still had some life left in him, he certainly wouldn’t like the cooking rum. He poured it as best he could into his friend’s mouth. It was going everywhere, but Mathias spluttered. Not for a second had Marc allowed himself to think that Mathias would die. Not the hunter-gatherer. Marc gave him a few clumsy slaps and tipped more rum into him. Mathias groaned. He was coming up from the depths.
‘Can you hear me? It’s Marc.’
‘Where are we?’ asked Mathias in a croaking voice. ‘I’m freezing. I’m going to die.’
‘We’re in the well? Where do you think?’
‘She pushed me in!’ stammered Mathias. ‘She hit me and pushed me in. I didn’t hear her coming.’
‘I know,’ said Marc. ‘Lucien is at the top. He’s going to pull us up.’
‘He’ll rupture himself,’ muttered Mathias.
‘Don’t worry about him. He’s good at front-line jobs. Come on, drink this.’
‘What the fuck is this stuff?’ Mathias was almost inaudible.
‘It’s cooking rum for cakes, it’s Lucien’s. Is it warming you up?’
‘Have some yourself. This water’s paralysing.’
Marc swallowed a few mouthfuls. The chain around his arm was biting and burning into his flesh.
Mathias had closed his eyes again. He was breathing, that was as much as you could say for him. Marc whistled and Lucien’s head appeared in the little circle of light far above.
‘The chain!’ said Marc. ‘Start hauling it up, but very gently, and whatever you do don’t let it go down again. If it jerks, I’ll have to let go.’
His voice sounded echoing and deafening in his ears. But perhaps his ears were frozen.
He heard a clanking sound. Lucien was releasing the chain, while holding on so that Marc did not fall lower. Lucien was a trooper, alright. The chain started to go up, slowly.
‘Pull it up link by link,’ Marc called. ‘He weighs as much as a bison.’
‘Has he drowned?’ Lucien called down.
‘No! Haul away, soldier!’
‘What a bloody shambles!’ came the reply.
Marc was holding onto Mathias by his trousers. Mathias kept his trousers up with a thick cord which was handy to grip on to. That was the only advantage that Marc could see for the time being of Mathias’ rustic habit of holding his trousers up with string. The hunter-gatherer’s head banged from time to time against the walls, but Marc could see the parapet approaching. Lucien heaved Mathias out and laid him on the ground. Marc climbed over the parapet and let himself fall to the grass. He unwound the chain from his arm, pulling a face. The arm was bleeding.
‘Take my jacket to put round that,’ said Lucien.
‘Did you hear anything?’
‘No, but here comes your uncle.’
‘He took his time! Slap Mathias on the face, and rub his limbs. I think he’s lost consciousness again.’
Leguennec was the first to arrive, at a run, and knelt down by Mathias. He did have a torch.
Marc got up, nursing his arm, which seemed to have turned to stone, and went to meet the six policemen.
‘I’m sure she’s hiding in the copse,’ he said.
They found Juliette ten minutes later. Two men brought her over, holding her by the arms. She appeared exhausted, and was covered in scratches and bruises.
‘She…’ panted Juliette. ‘I ran away…’
Marc rushed at her and grabbed her shoulder.
‘Shut up!’ he shouted at her. ‘Just shut up, d’you hear!’
‘Should I stop him?’ Leguennec asked Vandoosler.
‘No,’ whispered Vandoosler. ‘There’s no danger. Let him alone. This was his discovery. I suspected something like this, but…’
‘You should have told me, Vandoosler.’
‘I couldn’t be sure. But medieval historians have special ways of thinking. When Marc gets his mind in gear, he gets straight to the answer. He takes it all in, important stuff and rubbish, and then all at once he goes for it.’
Leguennec looked at Marc, who was standing stiff and pale, his hair soaking wet, and still gripping Juliette’s shoulder with his left hand, covered in shining rings, a large hand close to her throat and looking dangerous.
‘What if he does something stupid?’
‘He won’t do anything stupid.’
