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He slept. That’s the fact of the matter. Anyone can sleep, can’t they? It happens all the time, any time. Power naps, daydreams, moments of switching off – those are absences too. Perhaps his lasted only a few seconds. Not even worth mentioning.
Cyril feels much better as he drives towards Moudiret, mind, body, and soul. A temporary lapse. Over now. Why did he even tell Gabrielle? Now he’s got her all worried and upset.
It’s written down, sent to General Pico, and that makes it official. Will Pico interrogate him? Sleeping, you say. Very convenient. Just when Captain Praud was murdered. No, of course he won’t. Pico trusts him.
He remembers anyway, remembers clearly now. By an effort of will, retracing movements the way you do when you’ve lost your phone or your keys, he retrieved the hours and minutes and put them together. The morning’s sex with Gabrielle (when he should already have been at work) became the study of Eddy Ferrucci’s assets in Cameroun; that mournful walk through the scenery of the fire became the investigation of arson; and the absence – what to make of the absence?
Before writing it down, he checked. There it was in the thicket – puke. And that’s when his memory brought it all back into focus: the dizziness as he got out of the car, the need to lie down, get out of the heat, the taste of bile in his mouth. He’d staggered up to the thicket and puked the remains of that pâté sandwich. Then he made a bed of leaves in the shade and slept. Simple as that.
Even so it took him a while to be convinced, despite the physical evidence, and even now a nagging doubt remains. I had an absence. As if it’s something that comes to you like a headache or a cold. But an absence takes you away. That’s the frightening thing. When you have an absence, you’re nobody and nowhere. Yet you don’t cease to exist, so you have to be somebody somewhere. But who? Where? Doing what?
They went to a restaurant afterwards. He wasn’t hungry but he had a glass of Perrier and Gabrielle had an omelette and they talked. Argued, accused, justified, held hands, swore they loved each other, cried. He told her – she’d never heard the full story before – about the day he tried to kill himself, and the hook came out of the beam and there was Auguste. She told him about the Mami Wata who grabbed her ankle and pulled her down, pinned her to the seabed till her breath ran out. He said he wasn’t fit to be a gendarme. He said he was going to resign. She told him not to be silly – he wasn’t the problem, but Sophie. The Mami Wata. The temptress. If you don’t look out, she said, that woman will destroy you. It brought to mind the lie he’d told to get where he is now; not just a lie, a whole statement falsified, invented, which Sophie could report to Pico anytime she wants. But he didn’t say that to Gabrielle. There are some things it’s better for her not to know.
And what of Auguste? Has he been playing with Cyril all along, setting him up to teach him some sort of lesson? Making him think it’s all good, he’ll overcome his past and be a success, the modern day hero of Verdun, when in fact it’s the opposite?
As he turns up the drive to Escarola’s house, Cyril decides that this is the ultimate test: come away empty-handed again and Auguste is treacherous; make a significant breakthrough and the future is bright – his great-grandfather is there, offering care and support, leading him ever onward.
He rings the bell. A light comes on in the hall. The door is opened by a man about his own age, with flabby cheeks and dull, insolent eyes. ‘Yes?’
‘Captain Eveno, Judicial Police Officer. I’d like a word with Gino Escarola.’
‘He’s not here.’
What? Can this be right? Cyril’s heart plummets. ‘And you are...?’ he asks.
‘Axel. His son.’ From inside the house comes the small of marijuana.
‘Where’s your father?’
‘Toulon. He’ll be back tomorrow. I’ll tell him you called.’
He closes the door. Cyril turns away. Nothing. The message couldn’t be clearer. What goes up must come down. The irresistible rise of Cyril Eveno turned out to be resistible after all. Flipped around by a constellation of dark, vengeful forces and sent plummeting back to earth. Great-grandfather, why hast thou forsaken me?
Forsaken? I was never with you! Sucker! “Judicial police.” That’s a good one! Who the hell are you trying to kid? It took you this long to see? You don’t belong where you are, you’re -
Wait. There was something in the hall. A few feet behind on the floor. A shopping bag, orange, that’s right. And a logo. The silhouette of a woman. He’s seen that logo before. He turns back.
‘What now?’ The son is surly, impatient.
‘That bag.’ Cyril points behind him. ‘Where’s it from?’
‘A clothes shop in Moudiret. Milady. My wife went there today. Why?’
Now he remembers. The back of a book in his grandmother’s house, that very same silhouette. Milady de Winter. The dastardly, scheming villain in The Three Musketeers.
