Fred Vargas - The Three Evangelists

‘It’s true,’ said Marc. ‘I thought you were just going out for a pee.’

‘Well, that too,’ admitted Vandoosler.

‘I see,’ said Marc.

‘So,’ Vandoosler went on, ‘when Leguennec requisitioned the car the next day and said he had found these hairs, it made me laugh. I had proof that Alexandra was not responsible. And proof that somebody had gone to the car, after me, in the night to put this bit of evidence in the boot to implicate the niece. And it couldn’t have been Gosselin, because Juliette said he only came back at Friday lunchtime. And that’s quite true, because I checked.’

‘But for Christ’s sake, why didn’t you say anything?’

‘Because I was operating outside the law and I needed to keep in with Leguennec. And also because I wanted the murderer, whoever it was, to know that his plan was working. I wanted to let out as much rope as possible, and to see where the beast would go if it was let free without being tied up.’

‘Why didn’t Leguennec take the car in on the Thursday?’

‘He did waste some time, that’s true. But cast your mind back. We didn’t think it was Sophia’s body until quite late on that day. And the initial suspect was Relivaux. It’s simply not possible to think of everything, impound everything and so forth on the first day of an investigation. Actually Leguennec knew he hadn’t been quick off the mark. That’s why he didn’t charge Alexandra. He wasn’t absolutely sure about those hairs.’

‘But what about Gosselin?’ asked Lucien. ‘Why did you tell Leguennec to bring him in for questioning, if you knew he was innocent?’

‘Same idea. Let things run their course. And see what the real murderer would do. You have to leave murderers free, so that they make some mistakes. You will have noticed that I allowed Gosselin to get away by warning Juliette. I didn’t want him to be questioned about the ancient history of the attack in the dressing-room.’

‘That was him?’

‘Must have been. You could tell, from Juliette’s face. But not the murders. In fact, St Matthew, you could go and tell Juliette that she can tell her brother now.’

‘d’you think she knows where he is?’

‘Yes, bound to. I guess he’s somewhere in the south of France, Nice, Toulon or Marseille, ready to be off across the Mediterranean at a word from her, with false papers. You can tell her about Sophia Siméonidis too. But everyone should be very careful. She’s still alive and still out there somewhere. But where? I’ve no idea.’

Mathias tore his eyes away from the black and white photo on the polished table and went out quietly.

Marc felt weak and shattered. Sophia dead, Sophia back from the dead.

‘When the dead awaken,’ murmured Lucien.

‘So,’ Marc said slowly. ‘It was Sophia who killed the two theatre critics. Because they were both so vicious about her, because they were destroying her career? But things like that don’t happen, do they?’

‘With singers, who knows, anything’s possible,’ said Lucien.

‘She killed them both?… And then later someone found out… and she preferred to disappear rather than face arrest?’

‘Maybe not somebody,’ said Vandoosler. ‘It might have been the tree. She was a killer but at the same time, superstitious, anxious, perhaps living in fear that one day she would be found out. Maybe the tree that appeared in her garden so mysteriously sent her over the edge. She thought it was a threat, a blackmailer perhaps. She got you to dig underneath it. But the tree wasn’t concealing anything or anybody. It was just there to send her a message. Did she receive a letter? We don’t know. But she must have chosen to disappear.’

‘But then all she had to do was stay disappeared. She didn’t need to burn someone else in her place!’

‘She certainly meant to stay disappeared. To have people think she’d gone off with Stelios. But when she planned her flight, she’d forgotten all about Alexandra. She only remembered too late, and knew that her niece would think it impossible she had vanished without telling anyone, so would surely start enquiries. So she would have to provide a corpse, in order to be left in peace.’

‘And Dompierre? How did she know he was asking about her?’

‘She must have gone to earth in her house in Dourdan. She saw Dompierre coming to visit her father’s house. She must have followed him. But then he wrote her name.’

Suddenly Marc cried out. He felt frightened and feverish. He was trembling. ‘No! No!’ he cried. ‘Not Sophia! Not Sophia! She was beautiful. It’s horrible, it’s too horrible.’

‘The historian cannot close his ears to anything,’ said Lucien.

But Marc had left, telling Lucien to get stuffed with his history, and had run out into the street with his hands over his ears.

‘He’s over-sensitive,’ said Vandoosler.

Lucien went back up to his room. To forget. To work.

Vandoosler remained alone with the photograph. His head was aching. Leguennec must be checking homeless people in various sectors of Paris. He was looking for a woman who had disappeared on June 2. When Vandoosler had left the station earlier that afternoon, there was already a trail that looked promising: an old woman called Louise, who lived under the Pont d’Austerlitz, who refused to move out of her little archway, furnished with cardboard boxes, and who was well known for her outbursts at the Gare de Lyon. Apparently she had gone missing a few days ago. It seemed likely that the beautiful Sophia had tempted her away, and that she had been incinerated in the car.

Yes, he had a headache alright.

MARC RAN A LONG WAY, UNTIL HE COULD RUN NO MORE, AND HIS LUNGS were aching. Panting for breath, with his sweat-soaked shirt sticking to his back, he sat down on the first milestone he found. Dogs had pissed all over it. He didn’t care. His head was ringing as he sat there with his hands squeezing his temples, and trying to think. Sickened and distracted, he was trying to calm down sufficiently to get his thoughts in order. He must avoid stamping his foot as he used to over the plastic balls. Or letting tectonic plates wander round his head. He would never manage to clear his brain, sitting on a stone that stank of piss. He needed to walk, slowly, just to walk along. But first he needed to get his breath back. He looked around to see where he was. On the avenue d’Italie. Had he really run that far? He got up carefully, mopped his brow and went towards the nearest Métro station: Maison-Blanche, the white house. That reminded him of something. Ah yes, the white whale. Moby Dick. The five-franc coin nailed up in the refectory. That was typical of the god-father, playing games, when everything was ending in horror. He must go back up the avenue d’Italie. Walking with careful steps. Get used to the idea. Why didn’t he want Sophia to have done all this? Because he had met her one morning, in front of the gate? And yet Christophe Dompierre’s dying accusation was there, blindingly clear. ‘Siméonidis S’, even if the S was the wrong way round. Marc suddenly froze. He started walking again. Stopped. Went into a café for a cup of coffee. Took up his walk again.

It was nine that evening by the time he got home, with an empty stomach and a heavy head. He went into the refectory to get himself a piece of bread. Leguennec was there, talking to his godfather. Each of them had a deck of playing cards in his hands.

‘There’s this old clochard, Raymond, hangs around the Pont d’Austerlitz,’ Leguennec was saying. ‘He’s a pal of Louise’s. He says a la-di-da lady came to find her about a week ago, on a Wednesday. He’s absolutely sure it was a Wednesday. This woman was well dressed, and when she talked, she kept putting her hand to her throat. Spades.’