Dog Will Have His Day (16 page)

‘But why did he lie? You don’t think it was the mayor that bashed in the old woman’s head?’

‘You can think anything you like, we don’t know any of the people here. There could be a quite simple explanation for him covering up. You could think he hadn’t imagined any link between the missing toe and a murder, since he couldn’t possibly have known that the toe had travelled all the way to the Place de la Contrescarpe, or that I would find the dog shit before the tide came in.’

‘All right, but don’t go so fast, it makes me jumpy.’

‘You want me to speak more slowly?’

‘No, that makes me jumpy too.’

‘What doesn’t?’

‘No idea.’

‘Well, keep up at the back then. All the mayor could have known this morning was that one of his local residents had died on the rocks, and that seagulls had probably pecked off one of her toes. Note that he doesn’t tell that bit to the press, and why? Because Brittany lives off tourism and Port-Nicolas is a modest little place as you can no doubt see. He has no wish to draw attention to the greedy seagulls in his village. And as well –’

‘I’m thirsty, I need some water.’

‘God, you’re annoying. Go and get something to drink, you don’t need my permission.’

‘What if your toad leaps out at me? I saw him move just now.’

‘You go and burgle the town hall like Robin Hood and you’re scared of Bufo?’

‘Too right I am.’

Louis got up and went to fetch a glass of water from the basin.

‘And as well,’ he went on, holding out the glass, ‘this guy turns up in his office and brings out old Marie’s missing toe. It isn’t the toe that bothers him, although it does intrigue him, it’s the guy. No politician, and especially a senator, however blameless his record, likes to see me prowling around his patch. These people have friends, and friends of friends, agreements, pacts, and they prefer not to meet “the German”. That’s what he said to me in the bubbles that came up to the surface of his pond.’ Louis pulled a face.

‘He called you that?’ asked Marc. ‘He knows you?’

‘Knows what they call me, yes. I could do with a beer now, what about you?’

‘Yes,’ said Marc, who had noticed that Louis would suddenly say ‘I could do with a beer’ at regular intervals.

‘In short, Chevalier could have been lying to stop me hanging about any longer in his little port,’ said Louis, opening two bottles.

‘Thanks. And he might have opened the post without reading it. You open a letter, glance over what’s inside, leave it for later, go on to the next. I do that. The pages weren’t crumpled.’

‘That’s possible too.’

‘So what do we do now?’

‘Tomorrow the cops will arrive, and open the murder investigation.’

‘So that’s it? We go home? We can follow what happens by reading the papers?’

Louis didn’t reply.

‘What?’ said Marc. ‘We’re not going to stay here and watch, are we? You can’t keep an eye on all the cases in France, can you? You’ve made your point, they’re going to investigate it. So what’s keeping you?’

‘There’s this woman I know here.’

‘Oh shit,’ said Marc, opening his arms wide.

‘As you say. I’m just going to say hello, and then I’m off.’

‘Say hello? And you never know where that will end, don’t count on me to wait for you, hanging around on my own, what’s more, like some poor sod who hasn’t got anyone to say hello to. No thanks.’

Marc drank a few mouthfuls from the bottle.

‘She means a lot to you, this woman?’ he went on. ‘What did she do to you?’

‘None of your business.’

‘All women are my business, let me tell you. I observe other people, that’s how I get my education.’

‘Nothing to educate you with here. She left me after I did my leg in, and I find her here with a fat husband who runs a health spa, “thalassotherapy” if you please. I want to take a look. And say hello.’

‘And then what? Say hello, talk to her, get her back? Push the husband into the mud bath? You know that won’t work. You turn up like a long-lost nobleman, and you’ll get chucked into the moat like a peasant.’

Louis shrugged.

‘All I said was I wanted to say hello.’

‘Would that just be “hello” or “hello, whatever possessed you to marry this bloke?”? It’ll end in tears, Louis,’ said Marc, standing up. ‘When you’ve lost a woman, my motto is brace up and run away, or brace up and have a good cry, or if you prefer, brace up and commit suicide. Or you can try and love someone else. Or indeed back to square one, run away, whereas here you are, going in there to stir it up, and I’m taking the train home tomorrow night.’

Louis smiled.

‘What?’ said Marc. ‘That makes you laugh? Perhaps you weren’t as keen on her as all that. You look as cool as a cucumber.’

‘It’s because you’re getting worked up enough for two. The more anxious you get, the calmer I become. You’re very good for me, St Mark.’

‘Don’t push it. You’ve already used my right leg without asking, as if it was your own, that will do. You can find plenty of nice people who’ll lend you their legs for nothing. So if you’re trying to exploit my natural anxiety, just for your own advantage, well, it’s disgusting. Unless,’ he added after a silence and few more mouthfuls of beer, ‘you feel like passing on your advantage to me afterwards, we could discuss that.’

‘Pauline Darnas,’ said Louis, walking round Marc, ‘that’s her name, she was very sporty, she used to run the four hundred metres.’

‘See if I care.’

‘She’s thirty-seven now, too old, so she does the sports reports for the local paper. She goes into the paper two or three times a week, she knows a lot about the people round here.’

‘Stupid excuse.’

‘No doubt. You have to have some stupid excuse to hide a wicked thought. And then I want to take a look at the guy as well.’

Marc shrugged and risked looking through the neck of his empty bottle. Incredible what you can see if you press an empty bottle to your eye.

LOUIS MANAGED TO
get up at about nine o’clock. He wanted to hurry, say hello, get it over, the sooner the better, because he couldn’t resist doing it. Marc was right, he should have avoided it, never see her face again, not take a closer look at the husband, but it was no use, he had never been wise enough to let things lie, he always wanted to stir it up. So long as he didn’t start a row, one of those compressed rows that drive people to distraction, things would be fine. So long as he didn’t act like a sarcastic bastard. It would all depend on the expression on her face. The whole thing would in any case be sad and depressing. Pauline had always been interested in money, she’d have got worse over the years, and it would be a sorry sight. But that was exactly what he wanted to see: a sorry sight, Pauline vegetating among her banknotes and fishy sauces, sleeping with that little man, eyes tight shut, Pauline unglamorous, unmysterious, caught in the toils of her worst failings. And when he’d set eyes on that, he wouldn’t have to give it any more thought, one box ticked. Marc was wrong, he didn’t want to sleep with her, but to be able to judge how much he
didn’t
want to sleep with her.

But watch out, he said to himself as he left the hotel, no cold-hearted picking of a quarrel, no vindictive sarcasm, too easy, too crude, get a grip, behave properly. He was surprised not to see any police car in front of the town hall. The mayor must still be asleep, and would in his dozy way be calling the cops during the morning, which would give more breathing space to the murderer. The face of the old woman on the rocks, of the sleeping mayor, of Pauline in bed with that guy, the face of a town full of no-hopers. Watch it, Louis, no picking quarrels.

He went up to reception in the thalassotherapy centre, pulling himself up to his full one metre ninety, conscious of standing very straight, and asked to see Pauline Darnas, her new name. No, he wasn’t a customer, he wanted to see Pauline Darnas. She didn’t see people in the morning? Right, would you have the goodness to tell her that Louis Kehlweiler would like to have a word?

The secretary passed on the message, and Louis sat down in a nauseating yellow armchair. He was pleased with himself. He’d done things politely, conventionally. He would say hello, and go away with the newly tarnished image of the woman he had once loved. The cops would soon be at Port-Nicolas, he wasn’t going to spend the night here, in this luxurious entrance hall where there was nothing of any beauty. Hello and goodbye, he had other things to do.

Ten minutes passed and the secretary came over. Madame Darnas couldn’t see him, and asked him to excuse her, and to call some other time. Louis felt all his good manners evaporating. He got up too fast, almost falling over because of his damned leg, and headed for the door where the notice ‘Private’ had been annoying him for some time. The secretary ran to her office to telephone, and Louis went into the forbidden private apartment. He stopped on the threshold of a large room where Monsieur and Madame Darnas were finishing their breakfast.

They both looked up, but Pauline immediately dropped her gaze. At thirty-seven, you couldn’t count on a woman having completely lost her looks, and Pauline hadn’t. She wore her dark hair cut short now, which was the only difference Louis had time to register. The man stood up, and Louis found him quite as ugly as he had hoped when he had seen him briefly at lunchtime. He was short, fat, though less so than in the photo, his skin was very pale, almost green, his brow was low, his cheeks and chin shapeless, his nose nondescript, his eyebrows enormous, above his rather lively brown eyes. These were his only striking features, but those eyes were narrowed right now. Darnas was also hesitating, looking at the man who had burst into his apartment.

‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘that you have very good reasons for ignoring my secretary’s message.’

‘Yes, I do have reasons. But I doubt whether they are very good.’

‘Well, well, now,’ said the little man, inviting him to sit down. ‘It’s Monsieur . . .?’

‘Louis Kehlweiler, an old friend of Pauline’s.’

‘Well, well, now,’ said Darnas again, sitting down in turn. ‘Would you like some coffee?’

‘Yes, please.’

Darnas leaned back comfortably in his large chair and looked at Louis, with an air of being highly amused.

‘Since we obviously have similar tastes,’ he said, ‘let’s skip the formalities and cut to the chase, the reason for your intrusion, what do you think?’

To tell the truth, Louis was far from expecting this. He was used to taking the initiative, and Darnas was getting a clear advantage. This did not altogether displease him.

‘That will be easy,’ said Louis, looking up at Pauline, who was still sitting tensely on her chair, but was now prepared to meet his eye. ‘As your wife’s former boyfriend, former lover, I should make it clear, in all humility, a lover who was abandoned after eight years, I’m telling you this while keeping my temper, and having found out she lived here, I wanted to see how she was doing, what her husband was like, and why and for whom she had let me nurse my sorrows these past years, just ordinary questions anyone would ask.’

Pauline stood up and left the room without a word. Darnas twitched his big eyebrows.

‘Of course,’ said Darnas, pouring a second cup of coffee for Louis, ‘I hear what you’re saying, and I quite understand that Pauline’s refusal has upset you, that is perfectly legitimate. You can consider those questions between yourselves, you will be more comfortable without me. Please excuse her, your arrival must have been a surprise, and you know her, a very sensitive nature. In my view, she’s not as keen as all that to show me off to her former boyfriends.’

Darnas had a very girlish, high-pitched voice, and he appeared to be as naturally calm as Louis, without affectation or effort. From time to time, he would slowly shake his large hands as if he’d burnt himself, or got them wet and was shaking water off them, or as if he wanted to shake his fingers into place, an odd gesture that Louis found strange and interesting. He always watched what people did with their hands.

‘But why did you suddenly decide to turn up here in mid-November? Was there some other reason?’

‘I was going to tell you. That is the second reason for my visit, the more respectable one, the first one naturally being more vile and vindictive, as you have noticed.’

‘Of course. But I do hope that you intend no harm to Pauline, and as for any harm you might do me, we’ll see about that in due course, if necessary.’

‘Yes, of course. So here’s the second reason. You’re one of the wealthiest men around here, your spa attracts plenty of people of both sexes, and lots of gossip, you’ve been here almost fifteen years, and what’s more, Pauline works on the local paper. You might therefore have something of interest for me. I’ve been following a little object all the way from Paris, and it’s led me to the death of Marie Lacasta on the rocks in Vauban Cove, about twelve days ago. Officially described as an accident.’

‘And according to you?’

‘Murder.’

‘Well, well, now,’ said Darnas, shaking his hands. ‘Tell me about it.’

‘Marie Lacasta can’t have meant much to you, can she?’

‘You’re wrong. What makes you think that? I liked the woman, on the contrary, she was quite sweet, and not stupid. She came to our garden every week. She didn’t have a garden herself, you see, and she missed it. So I let her have a little allotment inside our grounds. She could grow her spuds or peas or whatever. It didn’t bother me, I don’t have time to do any gardening, and the customers at the spa aren’t going to go and hoe vegetables when they come out of the pool, no way, they’re not the type. We saw her often, she brought Pauline vegetables for soup.’

‘Pauline? Makes soup?’

Darnas shook his head.

‘No, I do the cooking.’

‘And does she still run? Four hundred metres?’

‘Let’s keep things in separate compartments,’ said Darnas in his girlish voice. ‘You can have your tête-à-tête with Pauline to talk about that, and you can tell
me
about this murder. You’re right, I know everyone here, obviously. So tell me what’s going on.’

Louis wasn’t bothering to keep it secret. Since the murderer had taken care to disguise the murder as an accident, it would be better to overthrow the whole structure at once, quickly, put it about, make a big fuss. Force the murderer to take a different direction from the course he was on, the only hope of getting something to appear: pure common sense, as solid as an old bench. Louis explained how things now stood to Darnas, who still looked as ugly as ever, thank goodness, but whose company pleased him greatly, after all, why bother hiding the chain of events that had brought him to Port-Nicolas? The toe, the dog, Paris, the rubber boots, the tide, his talk with the mayor, the opening of an investigation. Darnas shook his fat fingers two or three times during this recital, but didn’t interrupt at all, not even to say ‘well, well, now’.