The Body in the Vestibule

even if he did get in touch with the police, they'd assume it was another one of her 'fancies.' By now, Tom knew she wasn't in Avignon, but would the incredible idea that she had been kidnapped occur to him? Yet what else? That she had simply run away? Women did it all the time, and sure, she'd had her moments when driving alone in the car. How easy it would be to just keep on going to, say, sunny California instead of Shop and Save.

Still, Tom would know she hadn't run away. And Tom would start moving heaven and earth to find her.

Now what next? Christophe's uncle had botched it, so here they were, Plan B, in a cold, drafty farmhouse somewhere hi the Cevennes, which she knew was considerably southwest of Lyon and very sparsely inhabited. She didn't need a lecture from d'Ambert the younger. The Leblancs had already related the rise and fall of the area. It had been a prosperous center of the silk industry in the eighteenth century, then in the nineteenth and twentieth had become an empty landscape. First the silkworm disease attacked, and when that crisis had passed, competition from foreign silk and artificial textiles finished the job. Phylloxera destroyed the grapevines and a fungus killed the chestnut trees. Not exactly the luckiest place to live in France. People left in droves. Christophe couldn't have picked a better place to take her. Now the question was, what did he intend to do with her?

It was as if she had spoken aloud.

“You present a curious problem,' he said, pulling a chair uncomfortably close to hers and lovingly stroking the gun with his left hand. 'I do not mind to eliminate an adult. You have had a taste of life, although madame is not such an old lady, bien sur.' So polite, these French teenagers, even when engaged hi major crime.

He looked straight into her eyes. His own were puddles of amoral sincerity. 'The problem is the baby. I cannot in good conscience kill him. Who knows what he may accomplish? A cure for SIDA? Overthrow the Republic?' If Faith had had any doubts about the basic immaturity of Chris-tophe's level of moral development, they vanished as quickly as socks in the wash.

He stood up. 'Yet it is difficult to imagine how I can keep you here for, how long? Five, six months?' He directed a studied and impersonal look at her body. She could just have easily been a car he was considering buying, a piece of saucisse, or a painting in Valentina Joliet's gallery. She was amazed at the accuracy of his appraisal, then remembered all the little d'Amberts and accouchements he would have observed. She didn't say anything. There was nothing to say.

“It just needs some thought. I will keep you alive until your time comes, then kill you and take the baby to a priest. These details can be worked out.' He sounded very definite. Still, he wasn't going to do anything immediately and the relief she felt was genuine at last. Four and a half months was a long time. She ought to be able to get away by then. She had a sudden vision of her delivery on some lonely Cevennes mountaintop with the maniacal Christophe waiting to cut the cord and her throat. She placed her hand on her abdomen to reassure the baby—and herself. It wasn't going to happen. The boy had to go to school, for goodness sake. He couldn't disappear to play midwife for the next few months.

“Fortunately, I will be taking the bac soon and then school will be over. Until then, I'll think of something.' Faith was horribly afraid he would. 'And, of course, if you try to escape or do anything else so very foolish, I will have to forget about the child and you both will die.”

He seemed genuinely sorry. It was chilling. All this concern for the unborn. His early years with the Marist fathers, an unconscious desire for his own rebirth, the stir- rings of paternity? She'd hate to be the one to spoil the two or three good apples left in the barrel, but there were limits.

He seemed almost cheerful, having gotten the unpleasantness out of the way, and turned in a typically French manner to the demands of the flesh. 'I am very hungry, and tired, as you must be also. First, I think food. Then sleep. Tomorrow, we will take a trip to get provisions and I must find a phone. I am afraid you will not be in a position to see the beauty of the countryside, however. Now, s'il vous plait, the kitchen.”

Bearing the lamp aloft hi one hand, he nudged her toward the door with the gun firmly clenched in the other. The kitchen was large and when they entered, the light was reflected in the soft copper burnishings of the pots hanging on one wall. Like the other room, it had a stone floor, and without the fire, it was very cold. There was a gas stove next to the sink, stone also. It appeared that the early inhabitants of the region had simply walked into their backyards and constructed whatever they needed from the mountains of rock there. She dismally noted the tap over the sink. There was running water. So she could rule out giving Christophe a quick shove at a well.

“Open the closet over there. I think it is where Danielle keeps supplies.”

The closet was full of baskets and boxes that once contained potatoes, onions, and other vegetables, judging from the shriveled evidence. The shelves were stacked with brightly colored pottery and, in one corner, they found a few dusty cans of what turned out to be corn kernels.

“Ah, metis. My friend Benoit was sent last summer to practice his English with a family in Iowa, do you know it? All he ate was mais. It was some kind of farm and he did not go well there. His parents are cochons.”

Faith doubted that Benoit was descended from porkers, but she got the message. All this farm talk was increasing her hunger and the corn in the can was calling to her as succulently as a fresh cob plucked from the stalk, raced to a pot of rapidly boiling water, cooked for four minutes, and consumed immediately, dripping with butter, salt, and, in Faith's case, pepper. She was salivating.

“They must have a can opener. I'm sure it's safe to eat if they were here last summer.' She tried to steer him away from a potential diatribe on the inevitable shortcomings of the older generation and back to the matter at hand.

“Bien sur, and here is a packet of pates. I understand you are a good cook. See what you can do with this.”

She couldn't do much, but shortly after, when she dug into the macaroni and corn, she decided it was one of the best meals she'd ever tasted.

Christophe had lighted some more lamps and a pair of candles that were on the kitchen table. He'd found a bottle of wine and sat holding a full glass up to the flame, regarding it intently. The light cast ruby flickers on the gun by his plate. Maybe he'd get drunk. Faith took a sip of the water. The situation was very intimate—and unreal.

It didn't seem the moment to ask why he had killed the clochard in the first place —the question that was at the front of her mind. Was it for kicks? If so, then what was Marie talking about and how did his uncle figure in all this? Obviously tonton had been the person impersonating poor Bernard. Did Marie know? She wasn't going to mention Marie, though. Faith didn't want to let Christophe know how much she knew, which, after she'd learned he'd murdered the clochard, was not much.

She ate some more pates a la Fairsheeld. Even after assuaging the initial sharp pangs of starvation, the mixture tasted surprisingly good. All she had to do was add some pieces of slightly charred red peppers, a hint of garlic, some summer savory, and maybe a round of warm fresh chevre on top. . . .

She opened her mouth to speak. After all, what could it hurt?

“Christophe, I don't understand. I know the clochard was a violent man.' She recalled the scene she'd seen only a week or so ago from the apartment window. 'Had he been threatening you in some way?'

“Bernard? No. Do you think an old drunk like that could frighten me? Cretin! He was stupid and nosy.”

Not what she would categorize as the best possible defense for justifiable homicide. She decided to ferme-la. Her colloquial French was increasing by leaps and bounds and she desperately hoped she'd be able to display it for Tom.

Time went by. Christophe poured himself another glass of wine. It was producing no discernable effect. He lit a cigarette and Faith noticed the pack was almost empty. She hoped he had more. She didn't want him to be forced to quit now, however beneficial that might be to his health and hers. Irritability from nicotine withdrawal might just send him over the edge. But at the moment, lazily blowing smoke toward the ceiling and sipping his wine, he seemed at peace with the world—the world that appeared to owe him a living. She regarded him for some time in silence.

But there were simply too many questions.

“So, where were you when I came downstairs and how did you get him away so quickly?”