The Three Evangelists (16 page)

‘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,
Monsieur le Commissaire
?’

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,
commissaire.
Your hints to Leguennec are just hilarious.’

‘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
Le Tonneau,
he has started to learn to cook. Since I am neither wise nor pure, I propose we have something to eat.’

‘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 out of the window, sitting in a specially comfortable armchair for a pointless vigil, with Mathias his only visitor, bringing him food on a tray. Relivaux’s cleaning lady arrived at ten o’clock, letting herself in with her own keys. Marc picked up the thread of his convoluted thoughts. Kyril had olive skin, curly hair and round limbs. Perhaps the boy’s father was fat and ugly, why not? Dammit. Why did he keep thinking about him? He shook his head and looked out again at the Western Front. The little beech tree looked rather healthy. It seemed glad it was June at last. Marc somehow could not manage to put the tree out of his thoughts, but he seemed to be the only one to feel concerned. Still, he had seen Mathias stop at the Relivaux gate the other day and glance in. It had looked as if he was observing the tree. Or rather the foot of the tree. Why was Mathias so secretive about everything he did? Mathias knew masses of obscure stuff about Sophia’s career. He already knew who she was, when she had come round that first time. He knew a lot of things and he never talked about them. Marc promised himself that when Vandoosler let him leave his post, he would go and take a look at the tree. As Sophia had done.

He saw another woman go past the house. He noted: ‘10.20 a.m. A lady went past looking busy with her shopping basket.’ He had decided to note everything down, so as not to get too bored. He looked down at the paper and added: ‘in fact it wasn’t a basket, it was a string bag.’ A string bag: what an old-fashioned sort of thing that was, something you saw in the country, or being carried by old ladies. When did people first start carrying string bags? The idea of looking that up cheered him a bit. Five minutes later, he was writing again: ‘10.25: a thin man is ringing Relivaux’s doorbell.’ Marc started. Yes, it was true: a skinny-looking man was ringing the bell at the Relivaux house, and it was not the postman or the meter reader or anyone local.

He got up, opened the window and leaned out. That was a lot of effort for a small reward. But Vandoosler was attaching such importance to this surveillance job. Marc felt that he had gradually become persuaded in spite of himself of the significance of his mission, and was starting to take every little thing for a key event. So he had pinched a pair of opera glasses from Mathias’ room-evidence that Mathias must have been serious about opera. He focused the little glasses and took a good look. Yes, a man. Tall, thin, balding, with a teacher’s briefcase, a respectable, light-coloured coat. The cleaning lady opened the door and from her gestures, Marc understood that she was saying
Monsieur
was not at home, that the visitor would have to come back some other time. The thin man seemed to be insisting. The cleaning lady repeated her negative gestures, and accepted a card which the man had taken from his pocket and on which he had scribbled something. She shut the door. Right. A visitor for Pierre Relivaux. Should he go and see the cleaner? Ask to see the card? Marc wrote a few notes on his piece of paper. When he looked up again, he saw that the man had not gone away. He was standing by the gate looking undecided, disappointed, and as if he was trying to make up his mind. What if he had been asking for Sophia? In the end, he went off, swinging his briefcase. Marc leapt up, rushed downstairs and ran into the street, catching the man up in a few minutes. Since he had spent so long at his window, he was not going to let the first likely customer escape, even if it led nowhere.

‘I’m a neighbour,’ Marc said. ‘I saw you ring the bell. Can I help?’

Out of breath from running, Marc was still clutching his pen. The man looked at him with some interest and even, Marc sensed, hope.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I wanted to see Pierre Relivaux, but he wasn’t there.’

‘Try again this evening,’ Marc said. ‘He’ll be back at about six or seven.’

‘Apparently not. His cleaner said he was away for a few days and she didn’t know where he was going, or when he’d be back. Maybe Friday, maybe Saturday. She couldn’t say for sure. It’s very inconvenient, because I’ve travelled from Geneva.’

‘If you like,’ said Marc, who was anxious not to let his first minor incident fizzle out, ‘I could try to ask around. I’m sure I could find out where he’s gone.’

The man hesitated. He looked as if he was wondering why Marc was so concerned with his affairs.

‘Have you got a phonecard?’ Marc asked.

The man nodded and followed him, without making any serious objection, towards the phone box on the corner.

‘We don’t have a phone,’ Marc explained.

‘Ah,’ said the man.

Keeping an eye on his companion, Marc asked directory enquiries for the number of the police station in the 13th
arrondissement.
It was a piece of luck that he had brought his pen. He wrote the number on his hand and called Leguennec.

‘Can I please speak to
Commissaire
Vandoosler, he’s my uncle, it’s urgent.’

Marc thought that the word ‘urgent’ was a key word that worked like magic if you wanted the police to help you. A few minutes later, Vandoosler was on the line.

‘What’s going on? Have you discovered something?’

Marc realised at that moment that he had discovered nothing at all.

‘No, I don’t think so. But ask your Breton policeman where Relivaux has gone, and how long he’ll be away. He must have had to inform the police that he was leaving.’

Marc waited a few moments. He had left the door of the phone box open so that the man could hear what he was saying, and he wasn’t looking surprised. So he knew about Sophia Siméonidis’ death.

‘Still there?’ said Vandoosler. ‘He went on official business to Toulon this morning. We checked with his ministry, it’s genuine. It’s not clear when he’ll be back, it depends on how his negotiations there go. He could be back tomorrow, or it could be Monday. The police can contact him if necessary, via the ministry, but you can’t.’

‘Thanks,’ said Marc. ‘What about you?’

‘They’re working on the father of Relivaux’s lady friend, you remember, Elizabeth? Her father has been in jail for ten years for multiple
stabbing of the supposed lover of his wife. Leguennec is wondering if violence runs in the family. He’s called Elizabeth in, and is questioning her now to see whether she takes after her father or her mother.’

‘Perfect,’ said Marc. ‘Tell your Breton friend that there’s a gale warning for Finistère. That’ll distract him if he likes storms.’

‘He knows already. He said “All the boats in harbour are tied up. But they’re waiting for another eighteen that are still at sea”’.

‘Right,’ said Marc. ‘See you later.’

He hung up and returned to the thin man. ‘I’ve found out where he is. Come with me.’

Marc was determined to get the man into the house, and find out what he wanted with Pierre Relivaux. It was probably something to do with his work, but you never knew. For Marc, Geneva conjured up images of boring administration.

The man followed him, still with a slightly hopeful expression, which Marc found intriguing. He sat him down in the refectory and after fetching some cups and putting the coffee on, took the sweeping brush and knocked hard on the ceiling. Since they had started using this way of calling Mathias, they were careful always to bang on the same place so as not to make marks all over the ceiling. The broom left little dents in the plaster and Lucien said they ought to tie a rag on top of it with string, which they still had not done.