At supper, during which the teacher did not appear, Maxime Ribotton (who didn’t want to lose his new topic of conversation) started talking again about sadistic child killers and the things he and his father would like to see done to them. Patrick told him sharply to be quiet. Hunched over his plate, Nicolas ate the scalloped potatoes the cook had fixed to help the hikers get back their strength. To show their appreciation at the end of the meal, Patrick suggested that they all shout, ‘Hip, hip, hurrah!’ three times, and Nicolas shouted along with the others.
Then he asked Patrick if he could sleep in the office on his last night. Patrick hesitated before giving his permission, and Nicolas understood that it was because of the telephone. He went upstairs to bed before the others did, without saying good-bye to them and without anyone noticing except Hodkann, who hadn’t taken his eyes off him all evening. But Nicolas had never returned his gaze.
No one, apparently, was aware that he was leaving.
Fifteen minutes later, Patrick came up to see him and said they’d be hitting the road early the next morning. He should get a good night’s rest. Did he want a pill to help him out? Nicolas said yes, swallowing it down with a sip of water. It was the first time he’d ever taken a sleeping pill. He knew you could die if you took too many at once. During the time when they moved and his father was gone for so long, Nicolas had looked all over for the bottle his father used, but he must have taken it with him, or else Nicolas’s mother had locked it away in a drawer.
Patrick sat down on the edge of the bed, as if to talk to Nicolas, but couldn’t find the words. No one would ever again be able to find any words to say to him. Patrick was reduced to the same meager gestures as before, the hand squeezing Nicolas’s shoulder, the sad, affectionate little half-smile. Patrick didn’t dare say ‘It’ll be okay’ again, probably sensing how hypocritical it would be. He sat quietly for a minute, then stood up. He had gathered together Nicolas’s new things, the ones he’d bought for him at the store, and had put them in a plastic bag he placed at the foot of the bed, ready for the morning. He turned out the lights and left. Nicolas remembered his own bag, carefully packed a week earlier for his trip to ski school. The police must have found it in the car trunk, must certainly have searched through it. He wondered if they’d managed to open his little safe, and he wondered what they’d found there.