Ripley Under Water (2 page)

“They won’t set foot here.”

Chapter 2

The next day, Tom and Heloise went to Fontainebleau to buy their Royal Air Maroc tickets, as it turned out, although they had asked for Air France.

“They are closely connected,” said the young woman in the travel agency, a new employee to Tom. “The Hotel Minzah, double room, three nights?”

“Hotel Minzah, that’s correct,” Tom said in French. They could stay a day or so longer, if they were enjoying themselves, Tom was sure. The Minzah was said to be the best in Tangier at present.

Heloise had gone to a nearby shop to buy shampoo. Tom found himself glancing at the door during the long time it took for the girl to write out the tickets, and realized that he was vaguely thinking of David Pritchard. But he didn’t really expect Pritchard to walk in. Weren’t Pritchard and mate busy getting settled in their rented house?

“Have you been to Maroc before, M’sieur Ripley?” asked the girl, looking up at him with smiling face as she stuffed a ticket into its big envelope.

Did she care, Tom wondered. He smiled back politely. “No. I’m looking forward.”

“Open end. So if you fall in love with the country, you can stay on a while.” She handed him the envelope with the second ticket.

Tom had already signed a check. “Right. Thank you, mademoiselle!”

“Bon voyage!”

“Merci!” Tom walked toward the door, which was flanked by two walls of colorful posters—Tahiti, blue ocean, one small sailing boat, and there—yes!—the poster that always made Tom smile, at least inwardly: Phuket, an island off Thailand, as Tom recalled, and he had troubled to look it up. This poster also showed a blue sea, yellow beach, a palm tree leaning toward the water, bent by years of wind. Not a soul in sight. “Had a bad day—or year? Phuket!” might be a good come-on, Tom thought, enticing any number of holiday-makers.

Heloise had said she would wait for him in the shop, so Tom turned to his left on the pavement. The shop lay on the other side of the St. Pierre church.

And there—Tom could have cursed, but he bit the tip of his tongue instead—before him, walking toward him, was David Pritchard and his—concubine? Tom saw them first, through the thickening flow of pedestrians (it was midday, lunchtime), but within seconds the Odd Pair had focused on him. Tom looked somewhere else, straight ahead, and was sorry that his airline ticket envelope was still in his left hand, visible on their side. Would the Pritchards notice it? Would they cruise the road past Belle Ombre, explore the lane to one side of it, once they ascertained that he was absent for a while? Or was he worrying too much, absurdly? Tom trotted the last meters toward the gold-tinted windows of Mon Luxe. Before going through the open door, he stopped and looked back to see if the pair was still staring at him, even drifting into the travel agency. Nothing would surprise him, Tom told himself. He saw Pritchard’s broad shoulders in his blue blazer just above the crowd, saw the back of his head. The Odd Pair were, apparently, passing the travel agency by.

Tom entered the perfumed air of Mon Luxe, where Heloise was talking with an acquaintance whose name Tom had forgotten.

” ‘Ello, Tome! Francoise—tu te rappelles? Friend of the Berthelins.”

Tom didn’t, but pretended to. It didn’t matter.

Heloise had made her purchase. They went out, after an au revoir to Francoise, who Heloise said was studying in Paris and also knew the Grais. Antoine and Agnes Grais were old friends and neighbors, who lived on the north side of Villeperce.

“You look worried, mon cher,” said Heloise. “The tickets are all right?”

“I think so. Hotel confirmed,” said Tom, slapping his left jacket pocket, from which the tickets protruded. “Lunch at L’Aigle Noir?”

“Ah—oui!” said Heloise, pleased. “Sure.”

That was what they had planned. Tom loved to hear her say “sure” with her accent, so he had stopped reminding her that “surely” was correct.

They lunched on the terrace in the sunlight. The waiters and the headwaiter knew them, knew that Heloise liked Blanc de Blanc, fillet of sole, sunlight, salad probably of endive. They talked of pleasant things: summer, Moroccan leather handbags. Maybe a brass or copper pitcher? Why not? A camel ride? Tom’s head swam. He’d once done it, he thought, or had that been an elephant in a zoo? Suddenly to be swayed upwards yards above the ground (where he’d surely land if he lost his balance) was not to his taste. Women loved it. Were women masochists? Did that make sense? Childbirth, a stoic tolerance of pain? Did all that hang together? Tom bit his lower lip.

“You are nervous, Tome.” She pronounced it “nervuse.”

“No,” he said, emphatically.

And he made himself look calm for the rest of the meal, and on the drive home.

They were to leave for Tangier in about two weeks. A young man called Pascal, a friend of Henri the handyman, would come with them in their car to the airport and drive the car back to Villeperce. Pascal had done it before.

Tom took a spade to the garden and did some weeding by hand as well. He had changed into Levis and the waterproof leather shoes that he liked. He chucked the weeds into a plastic sack destined for the compost, then began deadheading, and was at this when Mme Annette called to him from the French windows on the back terrace.

“M’sieur Tome? Telephone, s’il vous plait!”

“Merci!” He snapped the clippers as he walked, left them on the terrace, and picked up the telephone in the downstairs hall. “Hello?”

“Hello, I’m—is this Tom?” asked a voice which sounded like that of a young man.

“Yes.”

“I’m phoning from Washington, D.C.” Here there was an ooey-ooey interfering sound as if from under water. “I’m …”

“Who is phoning?” Tom asked, unable to hear anything. “Hang on, would you? I’ll take it on another telephone.”

Mme Annette was using the vacuum cleaner in the dining area of the living room, sufficiently distant for a normal telephone conversation, but not for this one.

Tom took the call upstairs in his room. “Hello, back again.”

“This is Dickie Greenleaf,” said the young man’s voice. “Remember me?” A chuckle.

Tom had an impulse to hang up, but the impulse did not last long. “Of course. And where are you?”

“Washington, D.C, as I said.” Now the voice was a bit falsetto.

The faker was overdoing it, Tom thought. Was it a woman? “Interesting.

Sightseeing?”

“Well—after my experience under water, as you remember—maybe—I’m not in good shape physically for sightseeing.” A falsely merry laugh. “I was—was—“

There was some confusion here, almost a cut-off, a clicking, but the voice resumed.

“… was found and resuscitated. As you see. Ha-ha. Old times are not forgotten, eh, Tom?”

“Oh, no, indeed,” Tom replied.

“Now I’m in a wheelchair,” the voice said. “Irreparable—”

Here came more noise on the line, a clatter as if of a pair of scissors or something larger falling.

“Wheelchair collapsed?” asked Tom.

“Ha-ha!” A pause. “No. I was saying,” the adolescent voice continued calmly, “irreparable damage to the autonomic nervous system.”

“I see,” said Tom politely. “It’s been nice to hear from you again.”

“I know where you live,” said the youthful voice, hitting a high note on the last word.

“I suppose so—since you’ve telephoned,” said Tom. “I do wish you the best of health—recovery.”

“You should! Goodbye, Tom.” The speaker hung up, hastily, perhaps to cut short an irrepressible giggle.

Well, well, Tom thought, realizing that his heart was beating faster than usual. Due to anger? Surprise? Not fear, Tom told himself. What had sprung to his mind was that the voice might be that of the female companion of David Pritchard. Who else was it likely to be? No one that he could think of, at the moment.

What a lousy, gruesome—prank. Mentally sick, Tom thought, the old cliche. But who? And why? Had that been an overseas call or a pretense at one? Tom wasn’t sure. Dickie Greenleaf. The beginning of his troubles, Tom thought. The first man he had killed, and the only one he regretted killing, really, the only crime he was sorry about. Dickie Greenleaf, a well-to-do (for those times) American, living in Mongibello on the Italian west coast, had befriended him, shown him hospitality, and Tom had respected and admired him, in fact, perhaps too much. Dickie had turned against him, and Tom had resented that, and without planning too much Tom had picked up an oar and killed Dickie one afternoon when they had been alone in a small boat. Dead? Of course Dickie had been dead these many years! Tom had weighted Dickie’s body with a rock and pushed it out of that boat, and it had sunk, and—well, in all these years Dickie hadn’t surfaced, and why should he now?

Frowning, Tom walked slowly about his room, staring at the carpet. He was aware that he felt a bit nauseated, and took a deep breath. No, Dickie Greenleaf was dead (that voice hadn’t been like Dickie’s anyway), and Tom had stepped into Dickie’s shoes and clothing, had used Dickie’s passport for a while, but even that had soon come to a stop. Dickie’s informal will, written by Tom, had passed inspection. Therefore, who was showing the audacity to bring the matter up again? Who knew or cared enough to look up his past association with Dickie Greenleaf?

Tom had to yield to his nausea. Once Tom thought he might be going to be sick, he couldn’t repress it. It had happened before. Tom bent over the raised seat of the toilet. Fortunately only a little liquid came up, but his stomach ached for a few seconds. He flushed the toilet, then brushed his teeth at the basin.

Damn the bastards, whoever they are, Tom thought. He had the feeling that two people had been on the line just now, not both talking, but another listening, hence the mirth.

Tom went downstairs to hang up the telephone and encountered Mme Annette in the living room, carrying a vase of dahlias, whose water she had probably changed. She wiped the bottom of the vase with a dishcloth before she set it back on the sideboard. “I am going out for half an hour, madame,” Tom said in French to her, “in case anyone rings.”

“Oui, M’sieur Tome,” she replied, then went on with her activities.

Mme Annette had been with Tom and Heloise for several years. Her bedroom and bath were on the left side of the house as one approached Belle Ombre, and she had her own television set and radio. The kitchen was also her domain, approached from her quarters via a small hall. She was of Normandy stock, with pale blue eyes and lids that drew down at their outer corners. Tom and Heloise loved her, because she loved them, or seemed to. She had two great friends in the town, Mmes Genevieve and Marie-Louise, also housekeepers, and the three seemed to rotate their TV evenings at the house of one or another on their days off.

Tom got his clippers from the terrace, and put them into a wooden box that lurked in a corner for such items. The box was more convenient than walking all the way to the greenhouse at the back right corner of the garden. He took a cotton jacket from the front closet, and made sure he had his wallet with his driving license in it, even for this short journey. The French were fond of spot-checking, using non-local and therefore merciless policemen. Where was Heloise? Maybe up in her room, choosing clothes for the trip? What a good thing Heloise hadn’t picked up the telephone when the creeps had rung! She surely hadn’t, or she’d have come immediately into his room, puzzled, asking questions. But then, Heloise had never been an eavesdropper, and Tom’s business affairs didn’t interest her. If she realized that a telephone call was for Tom, she hung up right away, not hastily, but as if without thinking about it.

Heloise knew the Dickie Greenleaf story, had even heard that Tom was suspected (or had been), Tom was sure. But she made no comment, asked no questions. Certainly she and Tom had had to minimize Tom’s questionable activities, his frequent trips for inexplicable causes, in order to placate Jacques Plissot, Heloise’s father. He was a manufacturer of pharmaceuticals, and the Ripley household partly depended upon his generous allowance to Heloise, who was his only offspring. Heloise’s mother, Arlene, was even quieter than Heloise about Tom’s business. A slender and elegant woman, she seemed to make an effort to be tolerant of the younger, and was fond of giving Heloise, or anybody, household tips about furniture care, and, of all things, economy, thrift.

These details ran through Tom’s head as he drove the brown Renault at moderate speed toward the center of town. It was nearly 5 p.m. This being Friday, Antoine Grais might be home, Tom thought, though maybe not quite, if Antoine had put in a full day in Paris. He was an architect, and he and his wife had two children in their early teens. The house that David Pritchard said he had rented was beyond the Grais’ house, which was why Tom turned right at a certain road in Villeperce: he could tell himself he was going by the Grais to say hello or some such. Tom had driven through the comforting main street of the town, with its post office, one butcher’s shop, one bakery, and bar-tabac, which was about all Villeperce consisted of.

There was the Grais’ house, just visible behind a handsome stand of chestnuts. It was a round house, shaped like a military turret, now prettily overgrown, almost, by climbing pink rose-vines. The Grais had a garage, and Tom could see that its door was closed, meaning that Antoine hadn’t arrived as yet for the weekend, and that Agnes and maybe the two children were out shopping.

Now the white house—not the first in view but the second, Tom saw through some trees, on the left side of the road. Tom shifted to second gear. The macadam road, on which two cars could just comfortably pass, was now deserted. There were few houses on this northern side of Villeperce, and the land was more meadow than farm field.

If the Pritchards had rung him fifteen minutes ago, they were probably home, thought Tom. He might at least see if they were lounging in the sunshine in deckchairs by the pond, which Tom thought was visible from the road. A green lawn in need of cutting lay between the road and the white house, a flagstone path went from the driveway to a few steps which led up to the porch. There were also some steps on the road side of the porch, on which side the pond lay. Much of the property lay behind the house, as Tom recalled.