Thierry Jonquet - Tarantula

Eve retraced her steps, went into the house, climbed the stairs. In her room, she sat down on the bed. The easel was there, covered with a piece of cloth. She tore it aside, and for a long time contemplated the vile portrait of Richard as a transvestite, the wine-ravaged face, the wrinkled skin: Richard as a ruined whore.

Very slowly, she walked back down to the cellar. Alex’s body still hung from the chains. A large pool of blood had formed on the concrete. She raised Alex’s head, and for a moment held the gaze of his dead eyes. Then she left the prison.

Richard still sat in the passage, his arms dangling by his sides, his legs rigid. A slight tic animated his upper lip. She sat next to him and took his hand. She let her head fall onto his shoulder.

Her voice was barely audible.

“Come on. We can’t leave the body here like this.”

Thierry Jonquetwas born in Paris in 1954. An exponent of the French noir influenced by post-May 1968 politics, Jonquet became one of France’s best-known crime writers. He died in 2009.

A complete catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library on request

The right of Thierry Jonquet to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Copyright © 1995 Editions Gallimard

Translation copyright © 2002 by Donald Nicholson-Smith

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, dead or alive, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

First published as Mygale in 1995 by Editions Gallimard, Paris

First published in this English translation as Mygale in 2002 by City Lights Books, San Francisco

First published in the UK in this edition in 2011 by Serpent’s Tail

First published in the UK as Tarantula in 2005 by Serpent’s Tail, an imprint of Profile Books Ltd

3A Exmouth House, Pine Street

London EC1 R 0JH

www.serpentstail.com

ISBN 978 1 84668 794 5

eISBN 978 1 84765 763 3

Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Bookmarque Ltd, Croydon, Surrey