1:05 P.M.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
Christos shakes his glass of punch, making the ice rattle like some jingle from a radio show.
“So?”
The employees of the Athena are all sitting on grey plastic imitation wicker chairs in a semicircle around the bar where Christos is standing. The only ones missing are Eve-Marie Nativel, the cleaning lady, and Tanguy Dijoux, the gardener, who went to take the Jourdains to the airport. Actually, it’s a little strange that he’s not back yet, thinks Christos. It wouldn’t take two hours to get back from Saint-Denis.
The wall that encircles the garden protects them from the high sun with its shadow. Behind them, in the baking heat, a few tourists laze about in deckchairs, far enough from the pool not to be splashed by the children, who are taking turns diving in.
Armand Zuttor is sitting at a distance from everyone else—both guests and employees—under the shade of a palm tree, his chair leaning against the trunk.
“So?”
Christos reads the seven names again. Quietly. Slowly. Pronouncing each syllable as if he were giving dictation to a class of illiterates.
Mohamed Dindane
Reneé-Paule Grégoire
Patricia Toquet
Aloé Nativel
Joël Joyeux
Marie-Joseph Insoudou
François Calixte . . .
or Françoise . . .
Clink. Clink. Clink.
“Never heard of any of these good people?”
Zuttor looks at his watch wearily, as if he were keeping a record of how many minutes his employees have spent at this interrogation.
On a bank holiday, too.
Christos turns back to the bar and pours himself another glass of punch.
“What, none of them? Come on, Réunion is hardly Australia!”
Gradually, the protective shadow being projected by the wall is moving towards the swimming pool. Christos hasn’t planned this, but he hopes that it might help loosen a few tongues. Those who don’t reply will risk having to bake in the sun.
Gabin Payet, sitting on the chair directly in front of the second lieutenant, is the first one to feel the heat. Finally he speaks:
“It was a long time ago, Christos. Nearly ten years. Lots of hotels have sprung up since then. With hundreds of beds. Thousands of Creoles who have changed the sheets, served breakfasts, collected the towels. They work for a few weeks, a few months, and then they’re off.”
Naivo Randrianasoloarimino, who still has another couple of minutes in the shade, adds:
“And they all have the type of Réunion surname very common around here. You know, Hoarau, Payet, Dindane . . .”
Christos grabs the ball.
“But Nativel . . . Are there so many Nativels on the island?”
Gabin, soaked with sweat, his flowery shirt sticking to his brown skin, suddenly stands up. He goes behind the bar, uncaps a Perrier, drops an ice cube and a slice of lemon into a glass, and returns to his seat without a glance at the other employees.
“She’s Eve-Marie’s niece.”
Christos breaks into a grin.
At last, the connection between the past and the present. Eve-Marie Nativel is the main witness against Bellion, the only one who can testify to whether or not Liane Bellion emerged alive from room 38 of the Athena.
“So, what do you want to know about her, Prophet?”
“Everything. Just spit it all out. I’ll work out what’s important and what’s not.”
“Won’t take long. There’s not much to say. I worked at the Bambou Bar at the time. Aloé was employed as a waitress at the Cap Champagne, at the other end of the Boucan Canot beach. She was cute. Really cute, in fact. A pretty little island girl, you know the type. The guests liked her. So did Martial Bellion.”
The shadow of the wall has moved further away. Now, all the employees are sweating in the tropical heat. Only Armand Zuttor remains in the cool, beneath his palm tree. Not that this prevents him from looking extremely unhappy. Christos has no desire to speed up the interrogation and spare them all heatstroke.
He drains his punch and asks Gabin:
“So, you knew from the beginning that Martial Bellion wasn’t just a tourist but a Zoreille who’d gone back to France? We could have saved ourselves a lot of time if you’d mentioned that earlier.”
“No one asked me.”
“We might have caught Bellion earlier,” Christos continues. “And then maybe Chantal Letellier would still be alive.”
“How was I supposed to foresee that? You’re the one who’s the prophet.”
The second lieutenant does not rise to the bait. Aja will deal with Gabin later. He pieces together the scraps of information the barman has given him, and then says:
“O.K. So, Aloé Nativel . . . How much did Bellion like her?”
“She was his mistress,” the barman replies, placing his Perrier on the armrest of his chair. “Aloé was just Martial’s type.”
“Before or after his separation from Graziella Doré?”
“Years after . . . They got divorced in 1999, and Aloé wasn’t hired to work at the Cap Champagne until 2002. She was only eighteen. A sweet girl, and a smart cookie too. She was the eldest of five or six kids. And she was totally smitten by little Alex. His mother, the restaurant’s boss, spent a lot of time working. The waitress spent more time with the kid. He used to play between the tables on the terrace.”
“And Martial Bellion? When did he come onto the scene?”
“He used to come and fetch Alex twice a week from the Cap Champagne. Aloé was there. Little Alex told his dad about his new girlfriend. Bellion wasn’t stupid—Aloé Nativel had two qualities that were especially attractive to him. She wore very short skirts that didn’t cover up her pretty little arse, and she could take care of a kid who was a bit of a burden for a single father like him.”
“She didn’t have someone already?”
“Yeah, she did. Some guy who worked out of the port in Pointe des Galets, but he was at sea more often than he was on land. Aloé Nativel was like Super Nanny! A top-class babysitter that Bellion would invite over to his house whenever he could. He’d put her up for the night, feed her dinner, then fuck her brains out.”
While Gabin drinks the last of his Perrier with a satisfied sigh, Christos tries to assess the possibilities suggested by Gabin’s revelations. Zuttor looks as if he’s falling asleep behind his Ray-Bans. Naivo is on his feet, handing out glasses of water to the Athena’s employees. The second lieutenant does nothing to stop this, preferring to concentrate on his conversation with Gabin.
“Was Aloé Nativel present the night Alex drowned?” The barman shakes his head.
“No idea. I didn’t go to bed with them. You should ask her aunt.” Christos curses inwardly. Eve-Marie Nativel appears not to be working today. According to the other employees, she has another client on Mondays, cash in hand. No one knows the client’s name. Eve-Marie does not have a mobile phone. To contact her, Christos will have to wait until she gets home, in Kartié Carosse, around 6 P.M. at the earliest.
For fuck’s sake.
“So what happened to Aloé?”
“Nothing good. First she was made redundant, like everyone else, when the Cap Champagne closed. And, after Alex died, Martial Bellion had other things to worry about, and he certainly didn’t need a babysitter any more. Aloé went back to her sailor.”
“And?”
“According to the rumours, he dumped her too. The last I heard, which was at least five years ago, she was working as a whore in Saint-Denis, near the old bus station. I’m not sure I’d even recognise her now if I saw her.”
Christos registers this information in silence. He doesn’t know why, but Aloé’s fate makes him think about Imelda’s girls, Joly and Dolaine. About Nazir and his zamal too. On this island, if you fall either side of the ridge line, you almost always end up in trouble. Windward or leeward. You either stay in the shade or you spend your entire life getting burned.
The second lieutenant shakes the remains of the ice cubes in his glass one last time.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
The countdown has begun. He has to find Eve-Marie Nativel before 6 P.M. If her testimony isn’t solid, then the whole case will collapse. Liane Bellion might have been alive when she left room 38 . . . And if she’s not dead, then the charges against Bellion make no sense, despite the bloodstains and the fingerprints on the handle of the knife.
Christos decides to stop formulating theories. It’s all becoming too complicated. If he has time, he will call Imelda to keep her up to date and ask what she thinks. He turns to Gabin for one final question:
“I don’t suppose you remember his name, do you, Aloé Nativel’s sailor boy?”
“I do, actually. I still see him from time to time. A short, stocky guy. He delivers crates of beer to the clubs in the area. He’s called Mourougaïne Paniandy.”
“Paniandy? He’s a Malbar?”