Robert Stirling’s cologne wafted towards Blake as he was led from his cell to a room further along the corridor from the one he had been in yesterday. After the stale odours he had been living with for the last twenty-eight hours, his nostrils twitched as Robert came closer. He smelt of London, of cool Britannia, of mango and leather. Blake shook hands with a tall man in his late thirties, with thick dark hair and a deep summer tan. He was wearing a white-collared shirt with a light brown jacket, designer jeans and leather boots. Blake’s first thought was, I can’t afford him.
‘Elizabeth has told me a lot about you,’ Robert said.
‘Elizabeth speaks very highly of your work,’ Blake replied, wondering if they had their opening lines around the wrong way.
Standing before a solicitor, Blake felt suddenly like bursting into tears. He must be some sort of fool to have dragged this man away from his yacht and his friends, to have proven himself (not for the first time) to be an unreliable tenant. Despite all this, he realised the necessity of putting on a brave face. This was one of Elizabeth’s colleagues; a man they would doubtless invite to their wedding, a man whose opinion Elizabeth valued highly.
‘Thanks for coming,’ Blake said. ‘I know I am interrupting your holiday. I’m in a bit of a situation.’
Robert shrugged, as if to say ‘it’s nothing.’ His tone however, was immediately businesslike.
‘I have had some experience with the French law. While you are being detained, I am not allowed access to your files. Nor do I have the right to be present when you are interviewed. By the way – they don’t tell you this, but during this initial period before charges, you are only obliged to answer questions relating to your identity – I hope you haven’t told them anything else?’
‘Well…’ said Blake. ‘I didn’t know that…’
Robert shook his head. ‘Not a good start. We’ll have to go over everything you’ve said. They are holding you on suspicion of the murder of Michel Genet, late of Piégon. This crime is said to have occurred on the evening of Wednesday, 27 June.’
Blake felt his resolve begin to crumble. His head dropped into his hands. It was somehow worse hearing the charge from an English lawyer. All night he had allowed himself to think that he was merely trapped in that ridiculous Sartre play, No Exit, stuck in a room in hell. Eventually, the curtains would fall and he would be allowed to leave.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Not really,’ Blake replied.
‘I knew Michel Genet. A fine fellow. What could you have possibly done to make them think you had something to do with his death?’
‘I’ve been writing a novel and I based a character on Michel. I’ve only written the draft of the scene, but he gets killed one night while he is alone in his house.’
Robert lifted his pen and asked Blake to go over everything that had happened since he arrived in Piégon. ‘Everything,’ he repeated.
Blake spoke of his visits to Genet’s house; his friendships with Louis and with Birna (leaving out a few delicate facts); the novel he was writing, the research he’d conducted, the places he’d visited. Occasionally Robert asked a question, particularly in relation to the plot of his novel. ‘Can you go over the part about the poisoning by photocopier toner one more time? I mean, isn’t it a powder?’
Blake replied with a sigh. ‘I read this article about how the photocopier was a silent menace, because carbon black – the chemical name for photocopy toner – is carcinogenic. Office workers, legal secretaries and schoolteachers are exposed to its invisible fumes. And there’s another chemical – styrene – that can affect the central nervous system and lead to illnesses. Polyester resin is also toxic. My idea was to somehow get the toner into a liquid and have it swallowed. I’m not even sure if it could work. I didn’t get around to trying it out.’
‘You force me to ask this,’ said Robert, looking at him sharply. ‘You didn’t kill him, did you?’
‘Of course I didn’t!’
‘Okay.’
‘What evidence can they possibly have against me? I really don’t understand why I am here. Unless someone read my story and tried to act it out…’
‘Blake,’ Robert said. ‘Who has read your story?’
‘I might have mentioned some of the details to Birna and Louis, but I honestly don’t think I’ve said much. I don’t even have a hard copy. No printer, you see. Or toner,’ he added. ‘I sent Elizabeth the opening chapters in an email last week. We haven’t talked about it yet…’
There was a knock at the door.
Robert stood up to speak briefly to the policeman who was waiting outside. He was fluent in French – that was something at least.
‘Our time together is up,’ Robert said when he came back into the room. ‘They can only keep you for one more day. Beyond that… Well, let’s just hope it doesn’t get that far. If it does, you’ll be brought before the juge d’instruction, the magistrate who leads the inquiry. I’ll get some advice. In the meantime, you have the right to speak to a friend or relative. Your situation is serious. You’re going to need to find out how you can finance your defence. I can represent you for the moment at least – the French allow this because I have an address here. Elizabeth will be worried about you. Call her. I will try to get you out of here today, but otherwise I will be back tomorrow. I am hosting a dinner party tonight in Bandol.’
As Blake was escorted back to his cell, he realised that this half-hour consultation had been no febrifuge. He felt like a cancer patient before his specialist, who having just pulled down a CT scan, wishes him the very best of luck and shakes his hand, without quite looking him in the eye.