Little hand on the 8, big hand on the 8
There were eight hundred and fifty meters between the Manéglise school and Place Maurice-Ravel, in the center of the Hauts de Manéglise housing estate.
Eight hundred and fifty meters across which she had to carry Malone home single-handedly.
He remained still in her arms for the first two hundred meters, then he became more agitated, kicking and punching Amanda in the chest and back, until she stopped, put him down, and yelled at him. She yelled very loud, too loud, and he collapsed in tears. Then she had to hoist the child over her shoulder again, calm and trembling now.
Eight hundred and fifty meters, and a bystander would have thought the Tour de France was about to go through the village.
Amanda had the impression that every single inhabitant had decided—on the same day and at the exact same time—to swarm out onto the sidewalks: the drinkers from the Carreau Pique bar, smoking their cigarettes outside; the Vivéco’s customers—babysitters, mothers, people off work and people without work—who’d all chosen to do their shopping that morning; the park-maintenance boys, who’d been repotting petunias on the Route d’Epouville roundabout since the crack of dawn; the old women on the bench on the Route du Calvaire, who looked as if they’d been there all night.
Amanda didn’t care. Screw them. Screw them all, the inhabitants of this village of the living dead, this open-air hospice. She’d hated them all ever since she was sixteen. Just like she hated the mothers who’d surrounded her outside the school, looking so pleased, so thrilled, to see a mother who was worse off than them, relieved to see misfortune falling on someone else, allowing them to reassure themselves in the light of Malone’s hysteria.
Did you hear the way he talked to her?
“You’re not my mother.”
I swear, if my child said that to me . . .
Screw those chattering magpies and screw the vultures at the mayor’s office and the parrots in the streets. She’d grabbed hold of Malone and turned back towards home because she’d realized that the man talking with the headmistress was a cop. And not just any cop.
The rumors had been circulating outside the school, even before Malone had his tantrum. Rumors are good that way, like the morning news: informing you, and everyone else, of the latest catastrophe about to strike you down.
The cop was there because a corpse had been found at Cap de la Hève. And everything suggested that the corpse was that of the school psychologist who came to Manéglise every Thursday to talk to certain kids.
Amanda turned onto Rue Debussy.
The estate’s cul-de-sacs formed a labyrinth of deserted streets where she would, at last, be left in peace. Everyone worked, leaving their houses early, getting back late, and going off for the weekend. The people who lived here were not really inhabitants, in fact; they were more like permanent guests at a hotel where all they did was sleep, a hotel that they’d had to buy with thirty years of debt, a hotel where they had to clean everything themselves, look after the garden, make breakfast, change their own sheets and unblock their own toilets.
Malone was sobbing quietly now, and clinging to her neck. He didn’t feel as heavy in this position. Amanda even liked the coolness of his tears running down the back of her neck, the feel of his cuddly toy’s fur against her skin, the rhythm of Malone’s heartbeat echoing hers.
She’d be home in less than five minutes.
Safe and sound.
Or apparently so. Inside her head, her thoughts were flying all over the place.
What should she do next?
Stay alone in the house? As if nothing was happening.
Dimitri would return at noon, as he did every day.
Should she talk to him? Make a decision together. The right decision. If there was one . . .
Dogs barked, invisible behind hedges. Little dogs pretending to be watchdogs, probably. As if every inhabitant of this maze had bought their own personal Minotaur. Each villager barricaded inside his own home, tuned to Radio Village. The people of Manéglise talked to their neighbors. News of Vasily Dragonman’s death would have spread across the village at the speed of a postman or a baker’s van. A journalist had already posted an article about it on grand-havre.com, along with a photograph of a circle of ashes on Cap de la Hève and punctuated by an army of question marks in only three sentences. They knew Who, they knew Where. But they still had to find out Why and By whom.
Malone breathed softly against her chest, his body as limp as his toy’s. Asleep, maybe. Amanda turned onto Rue Chopin. Their house was at the end of the cul-de-sac, seventy meters away. She cut straight through the empty parking lot, without changing direction or slowing down, without turning her face to the window of Dévote Dumontel’s house opposite. The high-pitched yapping of another dog, somewhere behind her, sounding like an alarm.
Vasily Dragonman. Burned to death. Good news, obviously.
Alive, he was a danger to them.
But now he was dead, wasn’t the threat even worse?