8

Someone was trying to turn the handle of the communicating door. They were trying to open it. Betty hoped that Mario couldn’t hear it, because she wasn’t certain enough yet.

Laure, next door, didn’t insist, and the bell soon rang at the end of the corridor. She was calling the bellhop or the chambermaid. There were footsteps, a murmuring.

‘Are you scared?’ asked Mario, his eyes close to hers.

She hesitated, aware she was risking all she had and, trying to smile, answered:

‘No.’

He clasped her more tightly to him and both stopped listening out. It was only much later that he whispered:

‘I have to drop by Le Trou.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘You’re not allowed to. The doctor said …’

‘The doctor knows nothing about women.’

She rushed towards the chest of drawers, towards the wardrobe.

‘Would you like me to wear a dress instead of my suit, for a change? You haven’t seen me in a dress yet.’

She would need a drink on arrival, because she felt dizzy.

She still managed to put her clothes on very quickly and led him outside. Ignoring the lift, they went down the stairs hand in hand, as if they were stepping down from a town hall or a church.

‘I have never felt so joyful in my life. And you?’

‘I am happy.’

It wasn’t yet entirely true. He must still be thinking of room 55, above them, and the forty-eight-year-old woman who found herself alone there.

‘Where do you live?’ asked Betty.

‘Above the joint. It’s a former farmhouse. The upstairs is under the eaves.’

The night concierge watched her go past in amazement.

She was alive! She had got over it! She had found a way out!

Already, she was taking ownership of the car, inhaling its smell.

‘I don’t want whisky tonight but champagne. Don’t worry, I won’t drink too much.’

The car accelerated. The concierge and the doorman exchanged glances. The bell rang on the concierge’s desk.

‘Yes, Madame Lavancher … They have just left, yes … They didn’t speak to me … Sorry? … What? … At this hour? … But that’s not possible … Of course, if you wish … Right away, Madame Lavancher …’

His head lowered, he went to join the doorman.

‘I need you to come up with me to collect the luggage from room 55.’

‘Is she leaving?’

‘Apparently. I think I understand what’s happening. It’s that little slut she brought us a few nights ago who …’

What was the point of explaining? The doorman too had seen them.

‘You’d better go and fetch her car.’

The receptionist emerged sleepily from the little office where he napped when things were quiet.

‘What is it?’

‘A departure. Number 55.’

‘Madame Lavancher?’

‘Yes.’

‘Should I prepare her bill?’

‘She didn’t say anything about it.’

The receptionist, embarrassed, watched the two men enter the lift and automatically began to look for the file for room 55.

They had to go up to the room twice, and outside the sound of a car boot opening and closing could be heard, then the car doors.

‘You don’t have a length of rope?’

‘There’s one in the chef’s van.’

Too bad for the chef. They’d sort it out with him in the morning.

Suitcases were strapped to the roof. Laure came down the stairs, walking a little stiffly.

‘Tell Monsieur Raymond to send my bill to Lyon.’

He was the manager.

‘Very good, Madame Lavancher. I hope you plan to return?’

She looked at him without replying, and shook his hand.

‘Goodbye, François.’

She knew them all and called them by their first names. The long lobby was empty, lit only by a few lamps and, at the far end, behind a glazed door, the dining room was in darkness.

‘Goodbye, Charles. Goodbye, Joseph.’

They were at a loss for words. She got into the car, paused to light a cigarette, and started up the engine while the porter was still reluctant to close the door.

‘Are you taking the N7?’

He had the impression that, in the dark, she was smiling at him. The door slammed. Gravel crunched under the tyres of the car as it went through the gates and vanished into the night.

It was only a week later, on leafing through Le Progrès de Lyon, that Guy’s mother learned that one of her neighbours had been found dead in her apartment. In an emotionless voice, she said to the friend who was having tea with her:

‘Did you know that Madame Lavancher is dead?’

‘The professor’s widow?’

‘She was found dead this morning, in her bed, by her cleaning woman.’

‘I thought she’d left Lyon long ago. Didn’t she live in Paris?’

‘In Versailles, but she’d kept on her apartment here and would come back every so often.’

‘What was wrong with her?’

‘The newspaper doesn’t say.’

‘But she wasn’t old.’

‘Forty-nine.’

Madame Étamble remembered something. It was to Versailles that Guy had gone to have a conversation with his wife. If Betty had been in her right mind, would she not have leaped at the chance she was being offered?

It was best this way for everyone, especially for Guy, who was still young, for Antoine and for his wife too, who would no longer have felt at home in the evenings on the third floor.

‘I used to run into her from time to time. She was a tall woman, always quite pale, but I had no idea she was ill.’

How could Madame Étamble have guessed that, ultimately, Laure Lavancher had died instead of Betty?

It was one or the other.

Betty had won.