Irene (13 page)

“Where are you?” Camille asked, irritably.

“Porte de la Chapelle.”

“What the hell are you doing there?”

“Paying a little visit to Séfarini.”

Camille knew Gustave Séfarini – he ran a “multi-client advisory service”. He advised gangsters about easy targets in exchange for a small consideration. In the planning stages of major crimes, Séfarini did location scouting and his talents had earned him a reputation; he was the archetypal gentleman thug. After twenty years in the game, his police record was almost as pure as his love for his disabled daughter Adèle. He doted on the girl and his selfless devotion to her was touching – if such a word could apply to a man who had spent twenty years organising armed robberies that had left four people dead.

“If you’ve got a minute, it would be useful if you could stop by.”

“Is it urgent?” Camille checked his watch.

“Yes, it’s urgent, and I don’t think it will take too long.”

Séfarini lived in a little house overlooking the Périphérique; its filthy front garden juddered constantly under the twin assaults of the eight-lane motorway and the
métro
line that ran directly beneath its foundations. From the state of the house, and the beat-up Peugeot 306 parked outside, you had to wonder where Séfarini’s money went.

Camille walked right in as though he owned the place.

He found Louis and his host in the 1960s Formica kitchen, sitting at a table covered with a wipe-clean tablecloth whose pattern had long since been worn away, sipping coffee from Duralex mugs. Séfarini did not seem particularly happy to see Camille. Louis, for his part, did not react, but went on toying with a mug whose contents he clearly had no desire to drink.

“So, what’s going on?” Camille said, pulling up the only empty chair.

“Well, as I was just saying to our friend Gustave here,” Louis said, staring hard at Séfarini, “it’s about his daughter, Adèle.”

“Oh, yes,” said Camille. “Where is Adèle, by the way?” Séfarini gestured to the first floor with a mournful glance, then looked down at the tablecloth.

“I was just telling him,” Louis went on, “that there have been rumours.”

“Uh-huh,” Camille ventured warily.

“I’m afraid so … Gossip is a terrible thing. I was just telling our friend that we’re worried about Adèle. Very worried.” Louis shot Camille a look. “There’s been talk of inappropriate behaviour, of abuse, of incest … Though I hasten to add that we lend no credence to these persistent rumours.”

“Of course not …” Camille was beginning to see where Louis was going with this.

“But even if we don’t believe them,” Louis said, “Social Services may take a different view. After all, we know Gustave, we know he’s a good father, but what can they do? They’ve had letters.”

“Letters like that can screw up a man’s whole life.”

“You’re the ones trying to screw me!” Séfarini shouted.

“Now, now, Gustave!” Camille said. “When you’ve got children, you need to learn to mind your language, fuck’s sake!”

“So, anyway” – Louis’ voice was sorrowful – “I was in the area and I thought, why don’t I pop in and have a quiet word with Gustave, who, by the way, is friends with Lard-ass Lambert … And, I was just explaining to Gustave, Adèle would have to be taken into care. Until his name was cleared. I mean, it’s no big deal, it shouldn’t take more than a couple of months. I’m not sure they’d get to spend Christmas together, but maybe if we put in a good word …”

Camille’s antennae began to quiver.

“Come on, Gustave, why don’t you tell Commandant Verhœven everything. I’m sure there must be something he can do for Adèle – right, boss?”

Camille nodded, “I’m sure we can sort something out.”

During this exchange Séfarini’s dim intellect had been working overtime. He kept his head down, but his brow creased and his
eyes darted about as he racked his brain.

“Go on, Gustave, tell us about Lard-ass Lambert …”

So Séfarini told him all about the hold-up in the Toulouse shopping centre that had taken place on the same day Manuela Constanza was murdered in Tremblay-en-France. Hardly surprising … after all, he was the one who had spotted the loopholes in the security system, drawn up the plans and managed the operation.

“Why should I care about any of this?” Camille said.

“Because Lambert wasn’t there. I know that for a fact.”

*

“Lambert must have had a motive for confessing to a crime he had nothing to do with. A pretty powerful motive.”

Standing on the footpath beside their cars, the two men stared out at the bleak landscape. Louis’ mobile rang.

“That was Maleval,” said Louis when he had hung up. “Lambert’s been out on parole for the past two weeks.”

“We have to move fast. We have to move now.”

“I’m on it,” Louis said, keying a number into his phone.

Rue Delage, number 16, fourth floor, no lift. How would his father manage a few years from now, when Death began to prowl? It was a question that often occurred to Camille and he always shrugged
it off, clinging to the hope – the fantasy – that it would never come to pass.

The stairwell smelled of wax polish. Camille’s father had spent his whole life in a dispensary that smelled of drugs and medicines, his mother smelled of turpentine and linseed oil. Camille distinguished his parents by their smell.

He felt sad and weary. What did he have to say to his father? Was there anything to be said, or was it enough to watch him live his life, keep him close like some talisman whose true purpose will forever remain mysterious?

After his wife’s death, Camille’s father sold their apartment and moved to the 12th arrondissement, near Bastille, where he discreetly and conscientiously cultivated the manner of a modern widower, a subtle combination of structure and solitude. His father opened the door and, as usual, the two men embraced awkwardly. Their awkwardness was due to the fact that, contrary to the norm, this father was still taller than his son.

*

A peck on the cheek. The smell of
boeuf bourguignon
.

“I bought a
bourguignon
…”

His father was a master at stating the obvious. They sat opposite each other, sipping an aperitif. Camille invariably sat in the same spot, set his glass of fruit juice down on the coffee table, folded his arms and asked, “So, how have you been?”

“So,” said Camille, “how have you been?”

The moment he stepped into the room, Camille had noticed a copy of
Le Matin
lying on the floor next to his father’s armchair.

“About the article, Camille” – his father nodded to the newspaper – “I can’t tell you how sorry I am …”

“Don’t worry about it”

“The reporter just showed up. I tried to call you.”

“I’m sure you did, Papa, don’t worry, it doesn’t matter.”

“… but your phone was engaged. And we got talking and he really seemed to like you, so I wasn’t suspicious. I’m going to write a letter to his editor! I’m going to demand a right of reply!”

“Don’t be silly, Papa, there’s nothing in the article that isn’t true. The most he could be accused of is a skewed point of view. Legally speaking, a right of reply is very different. Honestly, let it go.”

He almost added, “You’ve done enough damage already,” but bit his tongue. His father seemed to sense the reproach.

“I’m sorry … This whole thing is bound to cause trouble for you …” he muttered and fell silent.

Unsure whether his father was apologising for the trouble his thoughtlessness had caused or for being gullible enough to be taken in by the reporter, Camille simply smiled and changed the subject.

“So, I hope you’re planning to stick around to meet your grandson?”

“You really seem determined to wind me up …”

“It’s not me, it’s the ultrasound … And if you’re going to be angry just because we’re having a boy, you’re not much of a father.”

“No,” his father protested, “I’m happy. I’m happy for you both. It’s just that – I don’t know why – but I got it into my head that I was going to have a granddaughter. Maybe it’s because it’s been so long since there’s been a woman in my life.”

Camille had a sneaking suspicion that there
was
a woman in his father’s life. For some years now, he had been going out more often, he would go away for several days and was always evasive about the reasons for these trips. Camille had long since assumed his father was seeing someone.

“What are you going to call him?” his father asked.

“We’re not sure. We talk about it, argue about it, we make up our minds and then change them …”

“Your mother named you after Pissarro. And she loved the name long after she stopped loving the artist.”

“I know,” Camille said.

“We’ll talk about you later, first tell me how Irène is.”

“I think she’s getting bored, being stuck at home.”

“It’ll be over soon … I thought she looked tired.”

“When?”

“She dropped by last week. I felt ashamed. Given her condition, I should have been the one to make the effort, but you know me, I never seem to get out of here. Anyway, she just popped round unannounced.”

Camille pictured Irène struggling up the four flights of stairs, stopping at every landing to catch her breath, hands clasped over her swollen belly. Her impromptu visit was more than it seemed; it was a message to him, a reproach. By visiting his father, she was supporting Camille, while he had not been supporting her. He wanted to call her straight away but realised that he didn’t want to apologise, he simply wanted to share his pain, to tell her how he felt. He loved Irène more than life itself, and the more he blundered and failed to show that love, the more it pained him.

The polite ritual followed its usual course until Camille’s father, with feigned casualness, said:

“Kaufman … do you remember Kaufman?”

“Pretty well, yes.”

“He came to see me a couple of weeks ago.”

“Must have been quite some time since you saw him last.”

“Yes, I only saw him once or twice after your mother’s death.”

A vague, almost imperceptible shudder ran through Camille. The sudden panic he felt was caused not by the mention of one of his mother’s artist friends – a man whose work he had always admired – but by the tone of his father’s voice. There was something embarrassed, something forced about his studied indifference.

“So, what did he want?” Camille said encouragingly, seeing his father dither.

“Listen, Camille, if it were up to me, I wouldn’t even mention it. But he insisted I talk to you.” His father’s voice rose as though defending himself against an accusation.

“Go on.”

“I’d say no, but it’s not entirely my decision to make … Kaufman is giving up his studio. His lease isn’t up for renewal, but the place is too small for him – he’s working on large canvases these days.”

“And …”

“And he asked if we were planning to sell your mother’s.” Camille had always feared this moment would come, but perhaps because he so dreaded the idea, he had grown used to it.

“I know what you’re going to say, and—”

“No,” Camille interrupted him, “you don’t know.”

“Alright, then, I don’t. But I can guess. In fact I told Kaufman, you would never agree to the idea.”

“But you brought up the subject anyway …”

“I’m talking to you about it because I promised him I would! And, anyway, I thought, given the circumstances …”

“What circumstances?”

“Kaufman is offering a fair price. With a baby on the way you might be thinking of moving, getting a bigger place, I don’t know …”

Camille was surprised by his own reaction.

Monfort was a hamlet, the last vestige of a village that had once stood on the edge of Clamart forest. These days, the area was ringed by housing developments and grandiose mansions and the forest no longer felt like the untamed wilderness Camille had known when he had gone there with his mother as a child. The studio was the old gatehouse of an estate which, through the mismanagement of a succession of heirs, had gradually disappeared until all that remained was this lodge. His mother had knocked through all the partition walls to create one big space and Camille had spent long afternoons there watching her work, in the swirling fumes of paint and white spirit, sometimes sketching on a little table she had set up for him next to the wood stove which, in winter, radiated a heavy, sweet-smelling heat.

The studio itself had little charm. The walls were whitewashed, the terracotta tiles on the floor wobbled underfoot and the glass roof through which light streamed was covered in grime for much of the time. Now, once a year, Camille’s father would air the place; he would try to dust, but he would quickly lose heart and sit in the middle of the studio like a castaway, gazing around him at these few relics of a wife he had loved dearly.

Camille remembered the last time he had been there. Irène had always wanted to see Maud’s studio but, sensing his reluctance, had not insisted. Then one day, passing near Monfort as they drove back from a weekend away, Camille had suddenly asked: “Do you want to see the studio?”

In fact, as they both knew, it was Camille who wanted to go there, so they made the detour. To ensure the place was secure and the garden kept tidy, Camille’s father paid a small stipend to a neighbour who nevertheless evidently did not do much. Camille and Irène stepped around the clumps of nettles and, with the key
that had been kept under the flower pot for years, opened the door, which creaked dully.

Stripped of its furniture, the studio seemed bigger than ever. Irène poked around casually, merely glancing at Camille if she wanted to turn over a canvas or take a painting to the large picture window to see it in the light. Camille simply sat, unwittingly, in the very spot where his father sat when he came here alone. Irène commented on the paintings with a precision that surprised Camille, and stared for a long time at one of her later works, a composition of dark reds hurled onto the canvas with a sort of fury. She was holding it at arm’s length, and Camille could only see the back of it. In her large, open hand, Maud had written in chalk “Savage Pain”.