Ripley Under Water

Chapter 1

Tom stood in Georges and Marie’s bar-tabac with a nearly full cup of cafe express in his hand. He had paid, and Heloise’s two packs of Marlboros bulged his jacket pocket. Tom was watching a slot-machine game that someone else was playing.

The screen showed a cartoon motorcyclist hurtling into the background, the illusion of speed given by a forward-moving picket fence on either side of the road. The player manipulated a half-wheel, making the cyclist swerve to pass a slower car, or leap like a horse to hurdle a fence that had suddenly appeared across the road. If the motorcyclist (game-player) didn’t hurdle in time, there was a silent impact, a black and gold star appeared to indicate a crash, the motorcyclist was finished and so was the game.

Tom had watched the game many a time (it was the most popular he had ever known Georges and Marie to acquire), but he had never played it. He somehow didn’t want to.

“Non-non!” From behind the bar Marie’s voice sang out over the usual din as she contested some customer’s opinion, probably political. She and her husband were left-wing no matter what. “Ecoutez, Mitterrand …”

It crossed Tom’s mind that Georges and Marie didn’t like the influx of people from North Africa, however.

“Eh, Marie! Deux pastis!” That was fat Georges with a somewhat soiled white apron over shirt and trousers, serving the few tables, where people drank and occasionally ate potato chips and hard-boiled eggs.

The jukebox played an old cha-cha-cha.

A silent black and gold star! Spectators groaned sympathetically. Dead. All was over. The screen flashed its silent, obsessed message, insert coins insert coins insert coins , and the workman in blue jeans groped obediently in a pocket, inserted more coins, and the game began again, motorcyclist in tip-top shape, zooming into the background, ready for anything, neatly dodging a barrel that appeared in his lane, smoothly jumping the first barrier. The man at the controls was intent, determined to make his man come through.

Tom was thinking now about Heloise, about her trip to Morocco. She wanted to see Tangier, Casablanca, maybe Marrakesh. And Tom had agreed to go with her. After all, it wasn’t one of her adventure cruises requiring hospital visits for vaccines before departure, and it behooved him as her husband to accompany her on some of her jaunts. Heloise had two or three inspirations a year, not all of which she acted on. Tom wasn’t in the mood for a holiday now. It was early August, Morocco would be at its hottest, and Tom loved his own peonies and dahlias at this time of year, loved cutting a fresh two or three for the living room almost daily. Tom was fond of his garden, and he rather liked Henri, the handyman who helped him with big jobs, a giant when it came to strength, though not the man for some tasks.

Then there was the Odd Pair, as Tom had begun calling them to himself. He wasn’t sure they were married, and of course that didn’t matter. He felt they were lurking in the area and had their eye on him. Maybe they were harmless, but who knew? Tom had first noticed them a month or so ago in Fontainebleau, when he and Heloise had been shopping one afternoon: a man and woman who looked American and in their mid-thirties, walking toward them, eyeing them with that look Tom knew well, as if they knew who he was, perhaps knew his name, Tom Ripley. Tom had seen the same look a few times at airports, though rarely, and not lately. It could come after one’s picture had been in the newspapers, he supposed, but Tom’s hadn’t been in any newspapers for years, he was sure of that. Not since the Murchison business, and that had been about five years ago—Murchison, whose blood still stained Tom’s cellar floor, and which Tom said was a wine stain, if anyone remarked on it.

In truth, it was a mixture of wine and blood, Tom reminded himself, because Murchison had been hit over the head with a wine bottle. A bottle of Margaux wielded by Tom.

Well, the Odd Pair. Crash went the motorcyclist. Tom made himself turn away and took his empty cup over to the bar counter.

The male of the Odd Pair had dark straight hair, black round-rimmed glasses, and the woman light brown hair, a slender face and gray or hazel eyes. It was the man who stared, with a vague and empty smile. Tom felt that he might have seen the man before, at Heathrow or Charles de Gaulle airport, giving him that I-know-your-face look. Nothing hostile, but Tom didn’t like it.

And then Tom had seen them once cruising slowly in their car down the main street of Villeperce at midday when he was coming out of the bakery with a flute (must have been Mme Annette’s day off or she’d been busy with a lunch), and again Tom had seen them looking at him. Villeperce was a tiny town, several kilometers from Fontainebleau. Why should the Odd Pair have come here?

Both Marie with her big red smile and balding Georges happened to be behind the bar just as Tom pushed his cup and saucer away. “Merci et bonne nuit, Marie—Georges!” Tom called and gave a smile.

“Bon soir, M’sieur Reepley!” cried Georges, one hand waving, the other pouring Calvados.

“Merci, m’sieur, a bientot!” Marie threw at him.

Tom was almost at the door when the male of the Odd Pair walked in, round glasses and all, and seemingly alone.

“Mr. Ripley?” His pinkish lips again wore a smile. “Good evening.”

“Evening,” said Tom, still on his way out.

“We’ve—my wife and I—may I invite you for a drink?”

“Thanks, I’m just leaving.”

“Another time, maybe. We’ve rented a house in Villeperce. This direction.” He gestured vaguely north, and his smile widened to reveal squarish teeth. “Looks like we’ll be neighbors.”

Tom was confronted by two people entering, and had to step back into the bar.

“My name’s Pritchard. David. I’m taking courses at the Fontainebleau business school insead . I’m sure you know of it. Anyway, my house here is a two-story white one with garden and a little pool. We fell in love with it because of the pool, reflections on the ceiling—the water.” He chuckled.

“I see,” Tom said, trying to sound reasonably pleasant. He was now out of the door.

“I’ll telephone you. My wife’s name is Janice.”

Tom managed a nod and forced a smile. “Yes—fine. Do that. Good night.”

“Not too many Americans around here!” the determined David Pritchard called after him.

Mr. Pritchard would have a hard time finding his number, Tom was thinking, because he and Heloise had managed to keep it out of the telephone book. The outwardly dull David Pritchard—nearly as tall as Tom and a bit heavier—looked like trouble, Tom was thinking as he walked homeward. A police officer of some kind? Digging up old records? Private detective for—for whom, really? Tom couldn’t think of any active enemies. “Phony” was the word Tom thought of in regard to David Pritchard: phony smile, phony goodwill, maybe phony story about studying at instead . That educational institution at Fontainebleau could be a cover, in fact such an obvious one that Tom thought it might be true that Pritchard was studying something there. Or maybe they weren’t man and wife but a CIA pair. What would the USA be after him for, Tom wondered. Not income tax, that was in order. Murchison? No, that was settled. Or case abandoned. Murchison and his corpse had disappeared. Dickie Greenleaf? Hardly. Even Christopher Greenleaf, Dickie’s cousin, wrote Tom a friendly postcard now and then, from Alice Springs last year, for instance. Christopher was now a civil engineer, married, working in Rochester, New York, as Tom recalled. Tom was even on good terms with Dickie’s father Herbert. At least, they exchanged Christmas cards.

As Tom approached the big tree opposite Belle Ombre, a tree whose branches leaned a little over the road, his spirits rose. What was there to worry about? Tom pushed open one big gate just enough to slip through, then closed it with as gentle a clang as he could manage and slid the padlock home, then the long bolt.

Reeves Minot. Tom stopped short and his shoes slid on the gravel of the forecourt. Another fence job for Reeves was in the offing. Reeves had telephoned a few days ago. Tom often vowed he would not do another, then found himself accepting. Was it because he enjoyed meeting new people? Tom gave a laugh, short and barely audible, then continued walking toward his front door with his usual light tread that hardly disturbed the gravel.

The light was on in the living room, and the front door was unlocked, as Tom had left it forty-five minutes ago. Tom went in, then locked the front door behind him. Heloise sat on the sofa, poring over a magazine—probably an article on North Africa, Tom thought.

“Ello, cheri—Reeves telephoned,” Heloise said, looking up, tossing her blonde hair back with a swing of her head. “Tome, did you—”

“Yes. Catch!” Smiling, Tom tossed the first red and white packet to her, then the second. She caught the first, the second hit her blue shirtfront. “Anything pressing concerning Reeves? Repassant—ironing—bugelnd?”

“Oh, Tome, stop it!” said Heloise, and used her lighter. She inwardly enjoyed his puns, Tom thought, though she would never say so, would hardly permit herself to smile. “He will telephone back but maybe not tonight.”

“Somebody—well—” Tom stopped, because Reeves didn’t go into detail with Heloise, ever, and Heloise professed to be uninterested, even bored, with Tom’s and Reeves’s doings. It was safer: the less she knew, the better, Tom supposed Heloise thought. And who could say that wasn’t true?

“Tome, tomorrow we go and buy the tickets—to Maroc. All right?” She had tucked her bare feet up on the yellow silk sofa like a comfortable kitten, and now she looked at him calmly with her pale lavender eyes.

“Y-yes. All right.” He had promised, he reminded himself. “We fly first to Tangier.”

“Oui, cheri, and then we go on from there. Casablanca—of course.”

“Of course,” Tom echoed. “Right, dear, we’ll buy the tickets tomorrow—Fontainebleau.” They always went to the same travel agency there, where they knew the staff. Tom hesitated, then decided to say it now. “Darling, do you remember the pair—the American-looking couple we saw in Fontainebleau one day—on the pavement? Walking toward us, and I said later I thought he was staring at us?

Dark-haired man with glasses?”

“I think—yes. Why?”

Tom could tell that she did remember. “Because he just spoke to me in the bar-tabac.” Tom unbuttoned his jacket and shoved his hands in his trouser pockets. He had not sat down. “I don’t care for him.”

“I remember the woman with him, with lighter hair. Americans, no?”

“He is, anyway. Well—they’ve rented a house here in Villeperce. Remember the house where the—“

“Vraiment? Villeperce?”

“Oui, ma chere! The house where the pond water is reflected on the ceiling—in the living room?” He and Heloise had marveled at the oval moving like water itself on the white ceiling.

“Yes. I remember the house. Two-story white, not such a pretty fireplace. Not very far from the Grais’, is it not? Someone with us thought about buying it.”

“Yes. Right.” An American acquaintance of an acquaintance, looking for a country house not too far from Paris, had asked Tom and Heloise to accompany him while he inspected a couple of houses in the vicinity. He had bought nothing, at least nothing near Villeperce. That had been more than a year ago. “Well—to the point, the dark-haired man with glasses intends to be neighborly with me or us, and I’m not having it. Just because we speak English or American, ho-ho! Seems he’s connected with insead—that big school near Fontainebleau.” Tom added, “How does he know my name in the first place, and why is he interested?” Lest he seem too concerned, he calmly sat down. Now he faced Heloise from his straight chair with the coffee table between them. “David and Janice Pritchard, they’re called. If they manage to telephone, we’re—polite, but we’re busy. All right, dear?”

“Of course, Tome.”

“And if they have the nerve to ring the bell, they’re not to be let in. I’ll warn Madame Annette, you can be sure.”

Heloise’s usually clear blonde brow became thoughtful. “What is the matter with them?”

The simplicity of the question made Tom smile. “I have a feeling—” Tom hesitated. He did not usually talk to Heloise about his intuitions, but in this case he might be protecting her if he did. “They don’t look normal to me.” Tom glanced down at the carpet. What was normal? Tom couldn’t have answered that question. “I have the feeling they’re not married.”

“And—so what?”

Tom laughed, and reached for the blue pack of Gitanes on the coffee table, lit one with Heloise’s Dunhill lighter. “True, my dear. But why are they eyeing me? Didn’t I tell you, I think I recall the same man, and maybe the pair, staring at me at some airport not long ago?”

“No, you didn’t,” said Heloise.

He smiled. “There’ve been people before this we didn’t like. No great problem.” Tom got up, walked around the coffee table, and pulled Heloise up by the hand that she extended. He embraced her, closed his eyes, and enjoyed the fragrance of her hair, her skin. “I love you. I want to keep you safe.”

She laughed. They loosened their embrace. “Belle Ombre looks very safe.”