‘But what could I do?’ Sophia asked. ‘The police would have laughed at me.’
‘Very true,’ said Vandoosler.
‘And I didn’t want to alarm my husband.’
‘Quite right.’
‘So I was waiting until… I knew these young people better.’
‘But how can we help, without arousing your husband’s suspicions?’ asked Marc.
‘What I was thinking,’ said Sophia, ‘was that you might pretend to be workmen. Checking on buried electricity cables or something. Anything that would explain digging a trench, one that runs under the tree, of course. I’d pay you extra for some overalls, and to hire a van and tools.’
‘I’m on,’ said Marc.
‘Sounds do-able,’ said Mathias.
‘Well, if it’s about digging trenches,’ said Lucien, ‘I’m all for it. I’ll send a sick note to the school. It’ll take a couple of days.’
‘Can you face watching your husband’s reaction when they turn up proposing to dig their trench?’ asked Vandoosler.
‘I’ll do my best,’ said Sophia.
‘Won’t he recognise them?’
‘No, I’m sure he won’t. He’s taken absolutely no interest in them’.
‘Perfect,’ said Marc. ‘It’s Thursday today. We need a bit of time to organise the details. We’ll be knocking at your door on Monday morning, first thing.’
‘Thank you,’ said Sophia. ‘It’s funny. Now we’ve arranged all this, I’m sure there’s nothing under the tree.’
She opened her handbag. ‘Here’s the money,’ she said. ‘It’s all there.’
‘What, already?’ said Marc.
Vandoosler senior smiled. Sophia Siméonidis was an unusual woman. She was timid and hesitant in manner, but she had brought the money with her. Was she so sure of persuading them? He found that interesting.
VIII
ONCE SOPHIA HAD LEFT, NO-ONE KNEW QUITE WHAT TO DO, AS THEY all paced around the big room. Vandoosler senior preferred to take his meals upstairs. Before leaving the room, he looked at them. The three younger men were standing, oddly enough, each one in front of one of the tall windows, gazing into the dark garden. Standing like that, each framed in an archway, they looked like three statues with their backs to him. St Luke on the left, St Matthew in the middle, St Mark on the right. Each of them turned to stone in his niche. Strange figures and they made strange saints. Marc had crossed his hands behind his back and was standing stiffly, legs apart. Vandoosler had done a lot of stupid things in his life; but he loved his godson. Not that there had ever been a christening.
‘Dinner time,’ said Lucien. ‘I’ve made some pâté.’
‘What kind?’ asked Mathias.
They had not moved, but were speaking to each other while still staring into the garden.
‘Jugged hare. A good dry pâté. I think it will taste fine.’
‘Hare? That’s expensive,’ said Mathias.
‘Marc shoplifted it this morning and delivered it to me.’
‘Terrific,’ said Mathias ironically. ‘Takes after the old man. Why did you pinch it, Marc?’
‘Because Lucien wanted one and it cost too much.’
‘Oh, of course, naturally,’ said Mathias. ‘Tell me something. How come your name is Vandoosler like his, if he is your mother’s brother.’
‘Because my mother wasn’t married, dickhead.’
‘Let’s eat,’ said Lucien. ‘Why are you badgering him?’
‘I’m not badgering him, I’m just asking him a question. And what did Vandoosler do to get thrown out?’
‘He helped a murderer escape.’
‘Oh, of course,’ said Mathias again. ‘And what sort of name is that anyway, Vandoosler?’
‘Belgian. It should be written Van Doos-l-a-e-r-e. Too complicated. My grandfather came to France in 1915.’
‘Aha,’ said Lucien. ‘Did he fight in the war? Did he leave any letters, or documents?’
‘No idea.’
‘You ought to do some digging,’ Lucien remarked, without leaving his post by the window.
‘Well, for the time being,’ said Marc, ‘we have to dig a hole. I don’t know what we’re getting ourselves into.’
‘Big trouble,’ said Mathias cheerfully. ‘Just for a change.’
‘Let’s eat,’ said Lucien. ‘We can make believe we haven’t a care in the world for now.’
IX
VANDOOSLER WAS ON HIS WAY HOME FROM THE MARKET. HE WAS gradually taking over the shopping duties. He didn’t mind. On the contrary, he liked strolling through the streets, looking at other people, listening in to conversations, joining in, sitting on benches and chatting about the price of fish. Old police habits, reflexes of a one-time seducer, and of a lifetime’s wandering. He smiled. This new district was to his taste. So was the new lodging. He had left his old quarters without a backward glance, content to be able to make a new start. The idea of beginning afresh had always attracted him more than the notion of carrying on indefinitely.
Vandoosler stopped as rue Chasle came into sight, and reflected pleasurably on this new phase of his existence. How had he got there? By a succession of accidents. When he thought about it, his life seemed like a coherent whole, yet it had been made up of sudden impulses, inspired by the moment and melting away in the long run. Grand ideas, serious plans, yes, he had had those once. None of them had ever come to anything. Not one. He had always seen the firmest resolve melt at the first request, the most sincere commitments fade on the slightest of pretexts, the most passionate pronouncements fail before reality. That was the way it was. He was used to it now, and couldn’t really feel regret. You just needed a little self-knowledge. His moves had often been surefooted and even brilliant in the short run, but he knew he would never make a middle-distance runner. This rue Chasle, with its curiously provincial air, was just right. Another new beginning. But for how long this time? A passer-by stared at him. He was probably wondering what Vandoosler was doing, pausing on the pavement with his shopping bag. Vandoosler had no doubt that the passer-by would have been able to tell him exactly why he himself lived there, and even to predict his own future. Whereas he, Vandoosler, would have found it hard even to sum up his life so far. He viewed it as a great web of incidents, events, investigations, successful or not, opportunities seized, love affairs, a remarkable series of events, none of them lasting very long and leading in too many directions to make a single summary possible, and thank goodness for that. There had been some damage, to be sure. Inevitably. You have to put off the old to find the new.
Before going into the house, the ex-commissaire sat down on the low wall on the other side of the street. A ray of April sunshine is always worth stopping for. He avoided looking towards Sophia Siméonidis’ house, where three municipal workers had been digging a trench since the day before. He looked over to the other neighbour. What was it that St Luke called it? The Eastern Front. What an obsessive he was. Why did he care so much about the Great War? Well, each to his own poison. Vandoosler had made some progress on the Eastern Front. He had gathered some scraps of information here and there. The neighbour on that side was called Juliette Gosselin, and she lived with her brother Georges, a strong, silent type. Well, that was the story. For Armand Vandoosler, nothing was ever taken at face value. Yesterday at any rate the neighbour in the east had been out gardening in the spring sunshine. He had exchanged a few words with her, just to see. He smiled. He was sixty-eight years old and needed to be circumspect. He had no wish to be rebuffed. But it cost nothing to fantasise. He had made a close study of this Juliette, who seemed pretty and energetic, about forty years old, and he had concluded that she would not be at all interested in an ex-flic. Even one who was considered good-looking, though he had never been able to see that himself. Too thin, too angular, not enough purity of line for his own taste. He would never have fallen for someone who looked the way he did. But other people had, rather often. That had been quite useful when he was in the police, not to mention in private life. But Armand Vandoosler did not like his thoughts to take him in this fateful direction. That was twice in a quarter of an hour. Probably because he was changing direction yet again, changing his home and the company he kept. Or maybe it was because at the fish shop he had seen those little twins.