70

IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON AND the house in the hills above Pélissanne was silent, with just an occasional stop-start shivering and cranking from the old fridge in the kitchen, and the slow ticking hum of a ceiling fan. Out on the back porch, where Marina nursed a rum and Coke and smoked her last cigarette, it was a different story. The sun might have slipped behind the ridge, leaving the house and garden in shadow, but the heat stayed on, still and heavy, the slope of garden and surrounding trees alive with the insistent drilling buzz of insects.

It had been a long day, spent clearing the house, packing suitcases, and burning anything that could be burnt in the salon’s open fireplace. Nothing to be forgotten, her sister had said, nothing to be overlooked. The house to be left as clean as they’d found it. And all the time, whenever an opportunity presented itself, Marita had grumbled on about the car. In police custody. With whatever they’d left inside. And their fingerprints all over it.

‘Just as well they dabbed the cousins then,’ Marina had told her, ‘and not us.’

But Marita would have none of it. They’d made a mistake, and it was Marina’s fault, and she knew that her elder sister would hold it against her for as long as she could. One more thing to blame on her. It had only stopped when Marita went upstairs for a rest, and Marina was left to supervise the fire in the hearth.

Now, sitting on the terrace, she was hungry and bored. And down to her last cigarette. There wasn’t much left to drink either – just a splash of rum, no Coke, no wine, no coffee, no milk. And the fridge and cupboards as good as empty. Which made the drifting scent of a neighbourhood barbecue all the sharper.

As well as the hunger and boredom, Marina also had to acknowledge a growing sense of dissatisfaction; the thought of leaving the mainland for the family farm in the hills above Corte was not one that filled her with any great delight. When they’d first arrived on the mainland, the end of their adventure had seemed just a vague and distant prospect. But now that it was so close – a day or two away at the most – Marina felt a strange and unexpected sense of loss.

The truth was, she didn’t really want to go home. She was enjoying it here, and there was nothing much for her in Tassafaduca. It was different for Marita, of course; she had the children, her husband (soon to be released from prison), and the farm to run. But for Marina there was nothing more to look forward to than the full-time care of their increasingly frail but demanding parents, playing second fiddle to her elder sister, and a weekly visit to Corte for the market. Hardly the kind of future to set her pulse racing.

As she sat there on the porch, Marina wondered whether Mademoiselle Virginie might set something up for her. Some kind of job at the house in Marseilles, like Tomas and Taddeus. A housekeeper perhaps, someone to keep the place in order. Or maybe she’d just split. Go her own way. Find a new life. As she stubbed out her cigarette, she decided she wouldn’t be taking the ferry home. Somehow she’d give Marita the slip and . . .

‘I’ve had an idea.’ It was Marita.

Marina’s heart leapt. Her sister had come down from her room, out onto the porch, and she hadn’t heard a sound.

‘Merde alors! You scared the life out of me . . .’

Marita chuckled, and pulled up a chair.

‘You should be on your guard, petite.’

Marina always hated that diminutive ‘petite’, but she knew that when her sister used it, it meant she was in a good mood. Their earlier contretemps appeared to have been forgotten.

‘Idea?’ Marina asked, noting that Marita had re-dyed her hair, back to its original dull black.

‘How to dump the bodies. And get out of here. Get home.’

The first two propositions were of interest. The third was not.

‘How?’

‘We hire a taxi. Tonight. For a trip to Marseilles.’

‘And the women?’

‘In the boot.’

Marina considered this.

‘What about the driver?’ she asked. ‘Won’t he have something to say about it?’

‘That’s the beauty of the plan. We kill him too, soon as he gets here. Put him in the boot with the women. Then we drive to Marseilles, dump the car and walk away. By the time they’re found, we’ll be back on the farm.’

Oh, no, I won’t, thought Marina.

Instead she said, ‘We’ll need to find the right kind of taxi.’

Marita frowned.

‘The right kind of taxi?’

‘Driver, I mean. The right kind of driver. A weed . . . a twig of a man. Not like that carpenter guy in Marseilles. Getting him up on that saw table, remember? Someone we can lift easily, toss in the boot. And we don’t want some muscle-bound gorille to deal with either.’

Marita started to nod.

‘Makes sense,’ she said. ‘And better make sure it’s not a Citroën either.’

‘Which means,’ replied Marina, ‘that we’d better check them out. Take one in to town, another back. Choose the most suitable. Which is just as well. I need to get some cigarettes. And whisky, too, if you want a drink. You finished your last bottle.’

‘A drink would be good,’ said Marita. ‘You got a number?’

‘In the kitchen drawer. Loads of cards.’

‘Okay. But no hanging around. There and back. And Pélissanne, not Salon.’