She Who Was No More (5 page)

‘There’s a car overtaking you,’ said Lucienne.

‘Yes. I’ve seen it.’

The glare of its headlights seemed to fill the car with a golden dust, so thick that you were tempted to brush it aside
with your hand. The car passed, cutting in too soon. A Peugeot. Half blinded, Ravinel swore. In no time the Peugeot had shot ahead growing visibly smaller every second. Then it rose up on the horizon, thrusting its two tusks of light into the sky. Couldn’t have been doing a kilometer less than a hundred and ten an hour. It was just at that moment that the engine spluttered, then faded out. Ravinel tried the starter, but it was no good. The car was still rolling and instinctively he drew across to the side of the road, put on the brake and switched off his headlights.

‘What on earth are you doing?’ Lucienne asked aggressively.

‘Can’t you see? The engine’s conked out. Probably the carburetor.’

‘Clever of you!’

As though he’d done it on purpose. And so close to Le Mans. At a place where there was quite a bit of traffic about even at this time of night. He got out of the car with a tight feeling in his chest. A sharp little breeze drifted through the leafless trees. Every sound carried with extraordinary distinctness. He could hear the buffers telescoping as the locomotive bumped into a line of trains, then its puffing as it slowly towed them away. A driver was hooting at every bend in the road. As he lifted the hood, Ravinel had the sensation of being hemmed in by people on every side.

‘Bring me the flashlight.’

She brought it, peered under the hood at the hot engine smelling of oil and gasoline.

‘You’d better be quick.’

But Ravinel had no need of advice. He got to work at once. He had to dismantle the carburetor—he felt sure that was
where the trouble was. The important thing was not to lose the screws. They were small enough! And his and Lucienne’s whole future depended on them. Just one of those tiny bits of metal lost, and… Sweat broke out on his forehead and his eyes smarted. Sitting on the running board, he carefully laid the parts of the carburetor out in front of him. Lucienne paced up and down in the middle of the road.

‘You’d do better to help me.’

‘Perhaps I had. It might go a bit quicker. To think that—’

‘To think what?’

‘Don’t you realize that the first motorist who passes may ask what the trouble is?’

‘And if he does?’ He picked up the feed line.

‘He might want to lend a hand, and then…’

He was busy blowing through the feed line to clear it. He blew so hard it made his temples throb, and that was all he could hear. When he stopped she was still speaking and he just caught the words:

‘…the police.’

What the devil was she driveling about? Ravinel wiped his eyes and looked at her. She was afraid. Not the slightest doubt about it—she was scared stiff. She got her bag out of the car. He sprang to his feet and, with the feed line still between his lips, he mumbled:

‘Look here! You’re not going to clear out?’

‘Listen, you fool!’

A car. Coming from Le Mans. It was on them before they knew where they were. In the glare of its headlights they felt absolutely naked.

‘In trouble?’ asked a cheery voice. ‘Anything serious?’

They could just make out the outline of a large truck. The driver was leaning out of the cab, the glow of his cigarette plainly visible.

‘No,’ answered Ravinel. ‘It’s all right now, thanks.’

‘Because, if the little lady’d like a lift…’

The man laughed and drove on. Lucienne slunk back into the car, racked by emotion. For his part Ravinel was so furious he’d almost forgotten his fear. She may often have treated him as though he were a boy, but that wasn’t the same thing as calling him a fool in that tone of voice.

‘You can keep a civil tongue in your head. In fact the best thing you can do is to keep your mouth shut altogether. If we’re in a tight spot it’s your doing just as much as mine.’

Had she really been intending to make off? To walk back to Le Mans, leaving him on the road? As though, by so doing, she could wash her hands of the whole affair!

Lucienne said nothing. She was sulking. It was obvious from her attitude that she wasn’t going to lift a finger to help him. He could fend for himself. It wasn’t any too easy. To reassemble a carburetor in the dark, with only a flashlight which never threw the light quite where you wanted it. More than once he almost dropped a screw. But, strangely enough, his anger helped him. He had never felt so competent.

At last he got back into his seat and pressed the starter. The engine started and turned over sweetly. He could have driven on then and there, but he didn’t. Out he got again, and, taking one of the cans out of the trunk he emptied it into the gas tank. Quite unnecessarily. It was only bravado. And he took his time about it too! With quite leisurely movements he put the empty can away, locked up the trunk, and got back into the car.

It was half past twelve when he let in the clutch. He drove fast. Not so much on account of the delay as because of a new feeling inside him. He was not far from being delighted. Lucienne had been scared. Not as she had been in the bathroom earlier. This was quite different, real panic. Why? The risks were much the same all along. Anyhow, whatever the reason, something had suddenly changed in their relations. It was she who had quailed. And he wouldn’t let her forget it. Not that he would ever refer to it openly. He would just give her a meaning look when she spoke in her domineering voice.

They overtook an oil truck. They were now crossing the rich Beauce corn-lands. The sky had cleared and was now dotted with stars. What had she been thinking about when she had snatched up her bag? About her skin? About her career, her position in the world? For of course she had a position! Sufficient at any rate to enable her to despise him when she felt like it. A traveling salesman! Oh yes. He’d know it for a long time. He was considered a good enough man in his way, but not very subtle. Wasn’t he? Perhaps a lot more than he was given credit for!

Nogent-le-Rotrou. An endless, winding, echoing street. A little bridge over a sheet of black water. A notice
Attention—École
, but Ravinel ignored it. There were no schools at night. He swept up the slope which led back onto the plateau. The engine was purring beautifully.

Nom de Dieu!
Gendarmes. Three or four of them. A Citroën drawn up diagonally half barring the road. Motorcycles standing on the grass shoulder. The whole scene was as flat as a picture, bathed in the crude glare of his lights which made everything look a bit yellow—the faces, the shoulder-belts and even the
boots. Arms were waved. There was nothing for it but to stop. Once again, as in the bathroom, he felt like being sick. He put the brake on hard, automatically, throwing Lucienne forward. She groaned. When he switched off his headlights everything went dark except a flashlight which was trained, first on the hood, then onto their faces. A head surmounted by a kepi peered in through the window. The gendarme’s eyes were only a few inches from Ravinel’s.

‘Where are you from?’

‘Nantes… Traveling salesman.’

Ravinel hadn’t lost his head. Traveling salesman sounded respectable. Perhaps it might save him.

‘Did you overtake a medium-sized van somewhere near Le Mans?’

‘I might easily have. But, you know, one doesn’t notice.’

The gendarme’s eyes inspected Lucienne. As naturally as could be, Ravinel asked:

‘Gangsters?’

The gendarme threw a cursory glance into the back of the car, then switched off his flashlight.

‘They’re carrying an illicit still. The excisemen are on their track.’

‘A funny trade to choose,’ said Ravinel. ‘I’d sooner have mine any day.’

The gendarme moved off and Ravinel slowly drove past the row of men. Not till he was comfortably past did he accelerate.

‘That time, I thought we’d had it,’ he muttered.

‘So did I.’

Her voice was hardly recognizable.

‘Of course they may have taken my number.’

‘And then?’

It didn’t matter. Not in the least. It wasn’t part of the plan to conceal that nocturnal journey. In a way, it would be just as well if his number had been taken. If necessary, the gendarme could give evidence that… Still, there was one snag—the presence of a woman in the car. But would the gendarme be likely to remember a detail like that?

The clock on the dashboard moved on patiently. Three o’clock. Four. The lights of Chartres were far behind to the southwest. They were approaching Rambouillet. The night was as dark as ever. That had been taken into account in fixing the date. But there was much more traffic about now. Milk trucks, peasants with handcarts, a mail truck. Ravinel had no time now for thinking. He watched his road with hard eyes. Versailles. Some street cleaners about; otherwise the town was still asleep. Ravinel’s shoulders sagged with fatigue. He was thirsty.

Ville-d’Avray… Saint-Cloud… Puteaux… Buildings everywhere, but still no lights in them. Lucienne hadn’t budged since the gendarme incident. She wasn’t asleep. She simply stared straight in front of her through the misty windshield.

Another stretch of black water—the Seine. And soon the first villas on the outskirts of Enghien. Ravinel’s house was near the lake at the end of a little dead-end street. As he turned into it, he went into neutral, switched off the engine, and let the car glide noiselessly, on its own momentum, to its destination. When he got out, his hands were so stiff he fumbled with his keys. Having unlocked the gate, he pushed the car in and hastily closed it again. The house was on the right, on the left, the squat well-built garage which looked more like a little fort. A sloping path led past a clump of bushes to a low shed.

When Lucienne stepped out of the car she staggered and only steadied herself by clutching at the handle of the door. So stiff was she that she had to flex her knees one after the other to bring her legs into action. She had the sulky, forbidding look on her face which belonged to her black moods. Ravinel was already opening one of the rear doors of the car.

‘Lend me a hand.’

The bundle was intact, except for one corner where a shoe was visible. The leather had buckled in the water. Ravinel took one end, Lucienne the other.

‘Ready?’

She nodded, and together, with bent backs, they carried the thing down the path which, beyond the clump of bushes, was flanked by a row of espalier pear trees. The shed was really a washhouse or
lavoir
. A tiny stream entered at one end and broadened into an artificial pool which was maintained at a fair depth by a dam. Running down to the edge of the pool was an inclined board on which the clothes could be scrubbed. After passing over the dam in a miniature waterfall, the stream flowed on in a wide curve down to the lake.

‘The flashlight.’

Lucienne took command once more. The bundle was unrolled on the tiled floor of the lavoir. Lucienne did the work while he held up the light. The body rolled over, a shapeless mass of wet, crumpled clothing. The hair had dried somewhat. Beneath it Mireille’s features were twisted into a horrible grimace. It only needed a push now. The body rolled onto the inclined board, slid down it, and splashed into the pool. With her foot, Lucienne gave it a jab to make it sink.

She then gathered up the canvas, groping in the dark, as Ravinel had already switched off the flashlight. It was twenty past five.

‘I’ve just got time,’ she muttered.

They went into the house and hung up Mireille’s hat and coat in the hall. Her handbag they left on the dining-room table.

‘Hurry up,’ urged Lucienne whose cheeks had regained a little color. ‘The Nantes express is at six four. I mustn’t miss it on any account.’

When they got back into the car, Ravinel had for the first time the feeling that he was a widower.

Ravinel walked slowly down the steps of the Gare Montparnasse. At the entrance to the station he bought a pack of cigarettes. Then he went over to Dupont’s.
Chez Dupont tout est bon
. That’s what the neon sign said in sickly pink letters, glaring through the wet dawn. Through the windows he could see a row of backs at the long bar, on which stood an enormous percolator with all sorts of valves, handles, and gauges, which a waiter was polishing, yawning as he worked. Ravinel chose a seat behind the door, sat down and tried to relax. It wasn’t the first time he’d been there at that hour. Far from it. Again and again, after driving through the night, he had made a detour and stopped there so as not to get home too early and wake Mireille up. It seemed just the same today, only…

‘Black, please. And three croissants.’

He felt like a convalescent. He was conscious of his ribs, of his elbows, of his knees, of every muscle. At the slightest movement a wave of fatigue went through him. His head seemed to be packed with some hot, throbbing substance which pressed on his eyeballs and drew the skin taut over the bones of his face. He was tempted to go to sleep then and there in the warm steamy atmosphere of the café. But he mustn’t. For the most difficult part was still to be done. He had to discover the body.

This overpowering sleepiness—he hadn’t bargained for that. Yet he saw that it might serve his purpose. Everyone
would think that he was stunned with grief. He got his money ready on the table, then dipped one of the croissants into the coffee, which had a nasty acrid taste, like bile. Thinking things over, he decided that the gendarme incident was quite unimportant. Even if the man remembered that there was a woman in the car, there was an easy answer. A hitchhiker. A woman he didn’t know from Eve. She had thumbed a ride as he was leaving Angers, and he had put her down at Versailles. No one could possibly connect her with Mireille. And who would think of inquiring about a woman passenger on the early morning train to Nantes?

Even if she came under suspicion for a moment, they’d go no further than checking her alibi at the estimated time of death. As for Ravinel, he had been in Nantes all the time, and he could bring forward twenty or thirty persons to prove it. His movements could be verified almost to the hour. There wasn’t a single gap long enough to matter.

Wednesday, November 4th. The post-mortem would certainly establish the date and no doubt make a fairly accurate guess at the time. Wednesday, the 4th. What had he done? Passed the evening at the Brasserie de la Fosse. And the next morning… But what was the point of going over all that? That’s what Lucienne had said when they parted.

They were bound to find it was an accident. A sudden attack of giddiness. Mireille had fallen into the stream. There was the question of her clothes, of course. That wasn’t so good. A woman doesn’t do her washing dressed for going out. But she didn’t need to be washing. There are plenty of other reasons for going into a lavoir. To bring in some clothes that had been hanging up to dry, for instance. In any case nobody was going
to probe that far. And if they preferred to regard it as suicide, he’d no objection. The two years were up. The insurance company couldn’t refuse to pay.

Ten to seven. Time to be going. He couldn’t face the last croissant. The other two had been difficult enough. On the pavement, he hesitated. Cars and buses were streaming in all directions. Crowds of workmen and clerks from the suburbs were pouring out of the station. The shuffle of feet, the sound of tires. A nasty day, with a low, leaden sky. The desolate look of early-morning Paris.

Come on! He’d got to go through with it.

The car was parked near the ticket office, outside which was displayed a huge map of France, showing the railway network. It was like an open hand, with lines running radially from the center. Paris-Bordeaux, Paris-Toulouse, Paris-Nice. Life lines, fate lines. Life, fortune, destiny… But meanwhile there was a job to be done! Ravinel tore himself away, backed the car out, and drove off, mentally running through all the things that had to be seen to. He must notify the insurance company as soon as possible. He must send a telegram to Mireille’s brother, Germain. Then there’d be the funeral. No higgledy-piggledy affair—Mireille wouldn’t have liked that. He was driving like an automaton. He knew every street by heart, and there wasn’t yet much traffic about… She wasn’t what you’d call religious, Mireille, but she used to go to church all the same. To High Mass, generally, for she liked the music. Besides, people wore their best clothes, and she liked that too. And during Lent she never missed one of Father Riquet’s sermons over the radio. Even when she didn’t quite understand what he was saying, she could always enjoy
his beautiful diction. And then, he’d been in a concentration camp…

The Porte de Clignancourt. A glow of pink in the east—the sun was trying to pierce through the clouds… Suppose there was such a thing as the soul, after all. Suppose the dead could look down on us… If Mireille did that, she’d know he hadn’t acted from malice. No, that was ridiculous! And to think that he hadn’t got a single black suit to wear! He’d have to get one dyed. Meanwhile he could get one of the neighbors to sew a crêpe band on his sleeve. So many things to think about! And there was Lucienne calmly waiting at Nantes. It wasn’t fair… Ravinel stopped thinking, as he was having trouble with an old Peugeot just ahead of him which wouldn’t let him pass. By the time he’d succeeded in getting by, he was at Epinay and he had to slow down.

‘Remember! You’ve just arrived from Nantes and you don’t know your wife’s dead,’ he said to himself. That was the most difficult thing of all.
He didn’t know
…

Enghien. He stopped at a tobacconist’s.

‘Good morning, Morin.’

‘Good morning, Monsieur Ravinel. A bit late today, aren’t you? It’s generally earlier than this when I see you pass.’

‘Held up by the fog. Quite thick at Angers.’

‘Can’t think how you do it—driving all through the night.’

‘You soon get used to it… Give me a box of matches. Anything been happening here?’

‘Good heavens no. Nothing ever happens at Enghien.’

Ravinel left the shop. It couldn’t be put off any longer now. If only he hadn’t been all alone! How much easier it would have been if… Hallo! There was old Goutre. That was a stroke of luck.

‘How are you these days, Monsieur Ravinel?’

‘So-so. Jogging along. But I’m glad I’ve run into you. I was wanting to see you.’

‘What can I do for you?’

‘It’s that lavoir of ours. I’m worried about it. One day it’s going to fall on our heads.’

‘What? That shed at the end of your garden?’

‘Yes. If you’ve got a moment to spare you might have a look at it now. Only last weekend, my wife was saying—’

‘The thing is, I’ve got to get to the yard.’

‘Come on. The yards can wait for you. And we’ll have a glass of Muscadet. There’s nothing like starting the day on Muscadet. And I’ve some pretty good stuff. I get it direct from the grower, who’s a friend of mine.’

Goutre allowed himself to be persuaded. He got into the car.

‘But I mustn’t be long. Tailhade’s waiting for me…’

They had only a few hundred yards to go, past villas of fussy architecture. Nothing was said. When Ravinel drew up in front of Le Gai Logis he gave a toot on his horn.

‘Don’t get out. My wife’ll come and open the gate.’

‘She may not be up yet.’

‘At this time of day? Go on! Most of all on a Saturday.’

He tried to smile, gave another long toot.

‘The shutters are still closed,’ remarked Goutre.

Ravinel got out of the car. ‘Mireille!’ he called.

Goutre got out too.

‘Funny! I told her I was coming. I always let her know when I can.’

Ravinel opened the gate. The clouds were thinning out, leaving transient streaks of blue.

‘St. Martin’s summer,’ sneered Goutre.

Then he added:

‘You’re letting your gate rust, Monsieur Ravinel. It badly needs a coat of red lead.’

A newspaper was stuck halfway into the mailbox that was perched on one of the gateposts. When he pulled it out, a postcard came with it.

‘Hallo! Here’s my card,’ he muttered. ‘Mireille can’t be here. Must have gone to see her brother. I hope nothing’s wrong. He hasn’t been in good shape since the war.’

He walked up to the house.

‘I’ll join you in a moment. Just going to take my things off. You know the way.’

There was a musty smell in the house. He switched on the hall light, which was fitted with a pink silk lampshade that Mireille had made herself, with the aid of instructions she had read in a magazine. Goutre remained standing on the lawn.

‘Go on,’ Ravinel called out. ‘I’ll catch up with you.’

He loitered in the kitchen so as to allow Goutre to get there first. He heard him saying:

‘Fine endives you’ve got here. You’ve got green thumbs all right, I must say.’

Ravinel followed him leaving the front door open. He lit a cigarette to help him keep his composure.

Goutre had already reached the lavoir. He went in, and Ravinel stopped dead, incapable of advancing another step. He could hardly breathe.

‘Monsieur Ravinel…’

Goutre was calling him. In vain Ravinel tried to make his legs move. They wouldn’t. What was he to do? Shout
for help? Burst into tears? Goutre reappeared standing in the doorway.

‘I say, have you seen this?’

At last Ravinel’s limbs were released. He ran forward. ‘What? What is it?’

‘Good heavens, you don’t need to take it like that. It’s not beyond repair. Look at this.’

He led Ravinel in and pointed to a beam. With his foot-rule he scraped the wood and it fell in powder.

‘Rotten. Rotten right through. We’ll have to take it out altogether and put a new rafter in.’

Ravinel stood with his back to the water. He hadn’t the courage to turn round and look.

‘Yes… I see… Quite rotten…’ he stammered lamely.

‘Then there’s this board…’

Goutre turned. Not so Ravinel. He went on gazing at the roof, the rafters of which seemed now to be turning like a huge wheel. A sickening feeling—he thought he was going to faint.

‘The cement’s all right,’ went on Goutre, quite naturally, ‘but the woodwork. What can you expect. Everything wears out in time.’

The fool! With an immense effort Ravinel turned round. He dropped his cigarette. The stream was in front of him, almost at his feet. He could distinctly see the pebbles on the bottom, a rusty hoop of a barrel, a little straggling vegetation, and the edge of the dam over which the water trickled, catching the light as it fell. Bending down, Goutre was sticking the blade of a pocketknife into the wood. When he stood up again, he threw a glance round, and he too looked right down into the pool, at which Ravinel was staring as though hypnotized. It
cost him an effort to tear his eyes away. Then he gazed all round him, at the field opposite covered with scanty grass, at the boiler, in front of which some cinders had fallen onto the bare cement floor, the floor on which they had only a couple of hours earlier unrolled the canvas.

‘Your cigarette.’

Goutre picked it up and handed it to him. He looked thoughtful and kept tapping his thigh with his foot-rule.

‘What I ought to tell you,’ he went on, looking up, ‘is that you need a new roof altogether. But, as a matter of fact, in your place I’d simply patch the thing up.’

Ravinel was once more staring at the pool. Even admitting that the stream was strong enough to carry the body along—and he wouldn’t admit that it was—it couldn’t possibly have taken it over the dam. It was no more than a trickle.

‘Twenty thousand francs might well see you through. But you were quite right to call me in. It’s high time something was done about it. If that was to come down on your good lady’s head!… But what’s the matter, Monsieur Ravinel? You’re looking that queer…’

‘Nothing. Just fatigue. I’ve been driving all night.’ Goutre took measurements and made notes on an old envelope with a carpenter’s pencil.

‘Let’s see… Tomorrow’s Sunday… Monday I’ve a job to do at Vérondis’… Tuesday… Will it be all right if I send a man round on Tuesday? I suppose Madame Ravinel will be here.’

‘Yes… At least I don’t know… Perhaps not… It all depends. I’ll drop in on my way and let you know.’

‘Right.’

Ravinel would have liked to throw himself down on his bed,
close his eyes and think things out. There must be something to be done. If only he could understand what had happened! It was inconceivable. Absolutely inconceivable. And here was this man at his elbow who calmly filled his pipe, commented on the lettuce, and inspected the pear trees, nodding approvingly.

‘What do you treat them with? Smoke? No? You may be making a mistake there. Does them a lot of good. Only yesterday Chaudron was saying to me… No, it wasn’t yesterday. It was Thursday…’

Ravinel almost bit through his lips. He would have liked to go down on his knees and beseech Goutre to go away.

‘I’ll be back in a second.’

He must have one more look at the lavoir, though the place was as bare as a barn. After all there were hallucinations which made you see things that weren’t there. Why shouldn’t there be others which had the opposite effect, which made you blind to things which were staring you in the face? A bleak ray of sunshine was now shining right into the lavoir, lighting up the bottom of the water still more clearly. Yes, he could see every stone, and they looked as though they had never been disturbed. Perhaps they had been to the wrong house and left the body in another lavoir, in all respects identical with this one, in some nightmare country which he would never find again…

Goutre would be getting impatient. Bathed in sweat, Ravinel hurried up the path. He found the builder sitting in the kitchen, going on with his calculations.

‘No hurry, Monsieur Ravinel. I’ll get this worked out, now I’m at it. I was thinking of using a concrete beam, but on second thought…’

Ravinel suddenly remembered the Muscadet he had promised the old man. Of course! That’s why he was in no hurry to go!