He shifted to move his basket into the shade. Thereby closer to the Eastern Front. Why the devil did his thoughts have to take him back there again, to the old bruise? He had only to look out for the next-door neighbour and think about the fish he had bought for the three workmen on the other side. He felt the old bruise once more. But dammit, he wasn’t the only one. True, he had been at fault. Especially towards Lucie and the twins, whom he had abandoned one fine day. The twins were three at the time. And yet he was fond of Lucie. He had even said he would stay with her always. And then in the end, no. He had watched them walk away from him on the station platform. Vandoosler sighed. He slowly moved his head back, pushing his hair out of his eyes. The little ones would be twenty-four now. Where were they? Oh God, what a mess, and what a fool he had been. Were they far away or near now? And Lucie? No point thinking about that. Never mind. Love affairs: there are plenty to choose from. It’s not important. None are any better than the others, absolutely not. Vandoosler picked up the basket and walked over to the neighbouring garden, Juliette’s. Still nobody around. What if he tried a bit harder? If his information was correct, she ran a little restaurant called Le Tonneau, a couple of streets further down. Vandoosler knew perfectly well how to cook the fish, but where was the harm in going to ask for a good recipe?
X
THE THREE TRENCH DIGGERS WERE SO EXHAUSTED THAT THEY ATE THEIR fish without even noticing that it was sea bass.
‘Nothing at all!’ said Marc, helping himself to a drink. ‘Absolutely nothing. Unbelievable. We’re filling it in again now. We’ll have finished by this evening.’
‘What did you expect?’ asked Mathias. ‘A corpse? Did you really think that’s what we would find?’
‘Well, after all the build-up…’
‘Well, don’t build it up any more. We’ve already done too much imagining. There was nothing under the tree, full stop, end of story.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Vandoosler, in a blank voice.
Marc raised his head. He recognised that tone. When the godfather sounded like that, it was because he had been thinking of the past.
‘Absolutely,’ said Mathias. ‘Whoever planted the tree didn’t dig very deep. A metre or so down, the layer of earth was undisturbed. It was a sort of platform, dating from the late eighteenth century, same as the house.’
Mathias brought from his pocket a fragment of clay pipe, blocked up with earth, and put it on the table. Late eighteenth century.
‘There you are,’ he said. ‘For the archaeologists among us. Sophia Siméonidis can sleep in peace. And her husband didn’t react at all when he was told workmen were going to dig up his garden. He can’t be a man with a guilty secret.’
‘Maybe not,’ said Vandoosler. ‘But at the end of the day, you haven’t found the explanation for the planting of the tree.’
‘Just so,’ agreed Marc. ‘No explanation at all.’
‘Oh who cares about the tree?’ said Lucien. ‘It must have been some practical joker. We’ve got our three thousand francs and everyone’s happy. We’ll fill it in and tonight by nine o’clock we’ll be in bed. I’m worn out.’
‘No,’ said Vandoosler. ‘Tonight, we’re going out.’
‘Commissaire,’ said Mathias, ‘Lucien is right, we’re dead on our feet. You go out if you like, for us it’s kip.’
‘You’ll have to make an effort, St Matthew.’
‘Stop calling me St Matthew.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Vandoosler, shrugging, ‘but what does it matter? Matthew, Mathias, Lucien, Luke, same difference. It amuses me. I’m surrounded by evangelists in my old age. Where’s number four? Nowhere. A car with three wheels, a chariot with three horses. I find that funny.’
‘What’s so funny?’ asked Marc irritably. ‘Is it heading for the ditch?’
‘No,’ said Vandoosler. ‘Because it never goes where you expect it to, or where it ought to go. It’s unpredictable. And that’s funny, isn’t it, St Matthew?’
‘Oh, please yourself,’ said Mathias, pressing his hands together. ‘But that won’t make me an angel.’
‘Forgive me,’ said Vandoosler, ‘but an evangelist and an angel are not the same thing at all. However, let’s forget it. Tonight there’s a drinks party at the neighbour’s. The Eastern Front. It seems she likes partying. I accepted on behalf of us all.’
‘Drinks party?’ said Lucien. ‘No thanks. Plastic cups, vinegary white wine, nibbles on paper plates. No way. Even when we’re down on our luck, or especially then, no way. Three-horse chariot or whatever. Either a grand reception or nothing at all. No compromise, no middle way. In the middle way I lose my bearings, totally.’
‘It’s not in her house,’ said Vandoosler. ‘She runs the restaurant down the road, Le Tonneau. She would like to offer you a drink. Nothing objectionable there. I think this lady, Juliette of the Eastern Front, is worth looking at, and the brother is in publishing. Who knows, that could come in useful. And what’s more, Sophia Siméonidis and her husband will be there. They always come. It would interest me to take a look.’
‘Sophia and our other neighbour are on friendly terms?’
‘Yes, very.’
‘Collusion between the Eastern and Western Fronts,’ announced Lucien. ‘We’re being caught in a pincer movement. We’re going to have to make a sortie. Oh well, plastic cups or not…’
‘We’ll make up our minds this evening,’ said Marc, rather rattled by his godfather’s changes of heart and peremptory commands. What was his game? A distraction? An investigation? The investigation was over-before it had begun.
‘We told you, there was nothing under the tree,’ he said. ‘Forget the night out.’
‘I don’t see the connection,’ said Vandoosler.
‘I’m sorry, but you see it very well. You want to go on looking for clues. And it doesn’t matter where, or who with, so long as you can go on sniffing around.’
‘What’s your problem?’
‘Don’t start inventing something that doesn’t exist, just because you threw away something that did exist. We’re off now, to fill in the hole.’
XI
IN THE END, VANDOOSLER SAW THE EVANGELISTS ARRIVE AT LE TONNEAU at nine o’clock that evening. The trench had been filled in, their clothes had been changed, and they presented themselves with smiles and freshly combed hair. ‘Volunteers reporting for duty,’ Lucien whispered in the commissaire’s ear. Juliette had prepared a meal for twenty-five people and had closed the restaurant to customers. And in fact it became a good night out, since Juliette, as she circulated among the tables, had told Vandoosler that his three nephews were attractive, and he had passed the message on, with embellishments. This had immediately changed Lucien’s view of his surroundings. Marc had been touched by the compliment and Mathias had no doubt appreciated it in silence.
Vandoosler had told Juliette that only one of the three was really his nephew, the one in black, gold and silver, but Juliette was not one for technical or domestic intricacies. She was the kind of woman who started to laugh before the end of the joke. This made her laugh a good deal, which appealed to Mathias. A very pretty laugh. She reminded him of his elder sister. Juliette was helping the waiter to serve the dinner and rarely sat down herself, by choice more than necessity. By contrast, Sophia was demureness itself. From time to time she looked at the three diggers and smiled. Her husband was sitting beside her. Vandoosler’s gaze lingered on this man and Marc wondered what he hoped to discover there. Vandoosler often looked as if he was discovering something. Police tactics.