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Ten to three. The Café du Carrefour in Moudiret is no longer serving cooked meals, so Cyril settles for a pâté sandwich and a lager. The beer is insipid and the pâté tastes of something metallic with a hint of vomit thrown in. But he’s too preoccupied to complain so he sits munching mechanically, getting a grip on himself as he reviews the confusion of the last twenty-four hours. Tries to anyway, but the grip won’t hold; whatever he gets of himself drips between his fingers like slime. Do it! What did Auguste mean? Do what? Normally their conversations are clear. He can be cryptic at times, hide one meaning behind another, leaving Cyril to figure out for himself what the best course of action is, but there’s never been such a mystifying message as that. And it wasn’t advice but an order, bursting out with the force of a sudden terror surging up from nowhere in a nightmare.
He’s in a state. He’s been in a state since Pico dropped him, threw him away like yesterday’s news. He shouldn’t be, he knows that – a good gendarme is one who doesn’t let his emotions rule him. If Pico notices, he won’t hesitate to draw the obvious conclusion: that Cyril can’t cope with being rejected, assigned to a secondary role, and therefore isn’t fit to be promoted. Because no matter how far you rise, there’ll always be someone above you to rub it in that you’re nothing, you’re worthless, someone to force you over the arm of a chair and thrash you till you bleed. A good gendarme is one who takes the rough with the smooth, but Cyril took enough rough to last a lifetime before even reaching his teens. Surely he can’t be expected to take any more?
He must keep himself under control. He managed all right last night. He went back early, and simply being with Gabrielle made everything right again. At one point she said he looked upset and asked him what the matter was, but he put it down to the heat, the complications of work, and she was too busy with her upcoming trip to pursue it. He didn’t mention Sophie, naturally. He didn’t mention the murder at all – no point bothering her with that, not when her mind was full of cousin Francky’s shoes and Aunt Ursula’s coffee machine. This morning they made love, the last time for three weeks, slow and soft and sweet, and he wanted it to last forever, wanted not to have to go back to Venturi.
He thinks about their honeymoon. They rented a chalet on a campsite by the coast and strolled to the beach at night and spoke about the future. Soon she’d graduate, and with the promotion he was confident of getting, they’d have a good, steady income. Once they were both settled in their careers, they could think about having a baby. There’s nothing wrong with his present post, but he knows he’s capable of better. He’s thinking of doing a degree in criminology. Gabrielle said he should. One day, she said, he’ll be right at the top, more respected even than General Pico, and she’d be there at his side, happy and proud to be married to such a man.
Will any of that happen if Pico turns him down in favour of Praud?
He should have taken the day off. He could be with her now, helping her lug that suitcase, seeing her off at the airport. Instead he’s floundering in a wilderness of uncertainty.
Another dispute this morning. He couldn’t help it. Just seeing Praud brings out the worst in him. What’s more, Bondy was there, Magali Rousseau too. He mustn’t let them see him like that. What if they report it to Pico, corroborate the slander already put about by Ronan Praud? It was bad enough letting Sophie see – she didn’t say it, but yesterday she was shocked. Not that she’ll go squealing to Pico, he can be confident of that, but he must be careful all the same. Reputations are easily hurt and rumours easily spread. He reaches into his pocket, takes out his epaulette, and unfolds it on his thigh. For a minute or two, he strokes it with his fingers. Then he puts it back and returns to his sandwich.
After the spat with Praud, he went for a drive through the blackened landscape of the fire, then got out and walked. It was like a different planet, uninhabitable, the few remaining trees seared and dead, their branches clutching the sky like skeletal fingers. He came to the charred shell of L’Ophrys, reduced to an eerie scar in the midst of devastation. He walked back to his car in the midday sun, noticing tufts of wiry grass poking up through the soot. He took some comfort in that. No matter how bad it gets, one day similar timid shoots always sprout through the ruins of your soul.
After the walk he got back in his car and drove to the swanky villa outside Moudiret where Gino Escarola lives. It was easy enough to gain access. The death of a friend, express condolences, talk about this and that. But Escarola has dealt with enough gendarmes to read their intentions well. Seibel’s death had come as a bombshell, he said, it was devastating, they practically grew up together. Getting into scrapes. Valentin’s phrase came back to him and Cyril asked what sort of scrapes, but got no proper answer. Teenage stuff, said Escarola, you know how it is. Cyril didn’t. He never got into scrapes himself except the ones imagined by his father. Or not imagined most of the time – his father didn’t need excuses to get out the belt. And the third Musketeer, said Cyril that would be Eddy Ferrucci perhaps? Escarola scoffed, asked him where he got that from. ‘Young Bondy?’ he said, then laughed. ‘What are you listening to him for?’
Smooth as a slithering snake, and just as crooked. Oh, the talk was pleasant, even friendly, but Cyril came away with nothing. Escarola talked like a politician. Hearty, affable, eloquent, every word taking you anywhere except where you want to go. Anecdotes, jokes, irrelevance, digressions, bombast – Escarola knew every trick in the book.
‘Sniffing for something, are you?’ he said when Cyril moved onto the topic of Cameroun. ‘I wish I could oblige.’
Cyril doesn’t know precisely what he is sniffing for. Anything that will get him back into Pico’s good books. After leaving Escarola, he sent a message to Pico saying it might be time to interrogate Ferrucci directly. Pico replied he’d come to Venturi this afternoon to discuss it.
With a grimace, Cyril finishes the sandwich and takes a swig of beer to get rid of the taste. He pays at the counter and goes outside to his car. The beer and the heat make him feel woozy, and for a moment he sits at the wheel, gripping it tight.
‘Do it!’ he shouts. Then he puts the car into gear and drives away.
