Trespass. Part 13

But he wasn't a stupid man. He would surely have considered what might be done about concealing the bungalow from view. Even discovered advantages in its being there: told himself that the woman who lived in it might be able to work for him and look after the house when he was away. And then he would have gone back to look at the mas again...

It was the scalding middle of the day. The cicada orchestra had reached a discordant pitch. Bees hara.s.sed the lavender. Kitty thought that it was really time to go to sleep again, to wait out the heat, wait to think clearly in the relative cool of the evening. But the idea of waiting pa.s.sively for Veronica to deign to return to her made her cross and sad. Better, she decided, not not to be here when Veronica came back. Better to climb back into her car and set out on her mission: Kitty Meadows, Private Detective. to be here when Veronica came back. Better to climb back into her car and set out on her mission: Kitty Meadows, Private Detective.

Kitty's attachment to her small Citroen a car she felt to be right right for her short body, her modest aspirations was at its least affectionate in very hot weather. The car had no air-con. Kitty tried to combat the stifling atmosphere with the breeze from the open windows and with the soaring voice of k.d. lang, given blissful escape by the Citroen's dusty ca.s.sette player. for her short body, her modest aspirations was at its least affectionate in very hot weather. The car had no air-con. Kitty tried to combat the stifling atmosphere with the breeze from the open windows and with the soaring voice of k.d. lang, given blissful escape by the Citroen's dusty ca.s.sette player.

Kitty sang along with k.d. This music, this hard, s.e.xy voice kept her buoyant as far as Rua.s.se. Then she turned the music off. She knew that from here, she wasn't certain of the road to La Callune, and needed quiet in which to try to remember it. As the road out of Rua.s.se began to climb and the landscape of the Cevennes encircled her, she felt again the thrill of the idea of Anthony Verey's death. Here, among rock and precipice, among impenetrable forest, his body could lie undiscovered for months or years. She imagined him hanging, face downwards, his slim ankles in their silk-cashmere socks snagged forever by a tangle of roots, his hair slicked down by rain, hooded by snow. She imagined all the creatures that would come and peck at his flesh, digest it and evacuate it: Anthony Verey turned to dung.

She knew she was on the right road when she pa.s.sed the sandwich stall, La Bonne Baguette. La Bonne Baguette. So here she slowed, waiting for the turning to the village of La Callune to come into view. So here she slowed, waiting for the turning to the village of La Callune to come into view.

The overgrown driveway to the Mas Lunel lay higher up, beyond the village, and Kitty found it without difficulty. On her left, exactly as she remembered it, was the bungalow. She let the car slow down, wondering if she might risk stopping and talking to Lunel's sister. But the bungalow appeared closed and shuttered, so she drove on.

The handsome, yellow-painted mas now came into view. Kitty drew the Citroen into some shade and stopped. She sat absolutely still in the car, looking and listening. The shutters of the house were closed, but there was someone at home Monsieur Lunel, himself? because Kitty could hear the dogs barking in their pound and an old brown Renault 4 was parked near the front door.

On her right, below the scrubby lawn, was a tall stone barn, also handsome in its dilapidated way. She didn't remember this in the way that she remembered everything else, but now she thought that Anthony would surely have had plans for it as a garage or a pool house. There was nothing here, he would have realised, that couldn't be altered in its use altered in its use, nothing that couldn't be made to serve his needs. Only the bungalow. He'd seen the bungalow and walked away. But surely she wasn't wrong; the place was beautiful and the problems of the bungalow could be overcome. Anthony would have come back.

Kitty wiped the sweat off her face, ran her hands through her short hair and got out of the car. Something surprised her right away: a foul stench in the air. This, she thought, hadn't been there last time. The air had smelled of the perfumed maquis. maquis. Now, it had been vitiated. She wondered, did pockets of industrial pollution from factories at Rua.s.se reach even as far as here, when the wind was right? Or was the smell carried by something else? For the first time since setting out, Kitty felt mildly afraid. Now, it had been vitiated. She wondered, did pockets of industrial pollution from factories at Rua.s.se reach even as far as here, when the wind was right? Or was the smell carried by something else? For the first time since setting out, Kitty felt mildly afraid.

She nevertheless walked boldly towards the house and knocked on the closed front door. As the dogs caught her scent, they began tearing at the sides of their cage. Her fear of them was tempered by pity for their plight. She wondered what Lunel would do with them when the house was sold.

n.o.body came to the door. Kitty stood still, looking round her. The stench was strong here and seemed to come from the dog pound. She moved to the right, towards a window whose shutters were not quite closed and, s.h.i.+elding herself from her own reflection, looked in. She could see only fragments of the dark s.p.a.ce inside: a kitchen table, a tin basin piled up with dirty was.h.i.+ng...

Then she heard a movement behind her, turned and gaped as she saw Lunel, a few metres from her, pointing a shotgun at her.

She raised her arms, thinking as she did so: Now I'm going to die because of Anthony Verey. There's no end to the things he asks of the world. No end. No end.

'Monsieur Lunel...' she began.

'Qui etes vous? Que faites-vous ici?'

He kept the gun held high, but Kitty saw that his hands which held it were trembling. And he was out of breath, his thin chest rising and falling behind the stock of the gun. He could kill her by accident in the next few seconds.

She summoned a voice to ask him calmly in French to put the gun away, but he didn't move it. He told her he was defending his property, defending it night and day. It was only when she said the word 'Verey' that she saw his expression change. Slowly, he lowered the gun.

'Verey?' he said. 'The Englishman?'

'Yes,' said Kitty. 'I came with him to visit your house.'

'His sister. That it? You're his sister?'

'No. I'm only a friend. But I just came to ask you-'

'Missing, they say he is. Have they found him?'

'No.'

'Why are you here? He never came back here. He came the one time, when you were all there. Ask the agents. The agents can verify it: he came here just that once.'

Kitty nodded. 'Thank you,' she said politely. 'That's all we were wondering; whether anyone else had seen him on Tuesday. We knew he was very interested in your house, so we thought-'

'Come inside. Use my telephone. You can call Madame Besson. I'm not lying. I never saw Verey again. I would have been willing to sell him this place on very good terms. I wouldn't have been greedy. Look at me. You can tell I'm not a greedy man. And I was talking to my sister about what was to be done with the bungalow...'

'Yes. Did you get anywhere with this? Has your sister agreed to sell the bungalow?'

'Not yet. But she will agree. I wanted to tell Verey that that it could all get sorted out. I expected him to come back, but he never did.'

'You're absolutely sure about that? He didn't come here on Tuesday afternoon?'

Lunel shook his head. 'He never came back,' he said. 'I swear it on my life.'

Kitty now realised that the sweat on her was making her cold. She walked away from the shadow of the house, into the suns.h.i.+ne.

'I'm very sorry, Monsieur Lunel,' she said, 'for disturbing you. I had no right to walk onto your property, but I expect you can understand that we're very very worried...'

'He crashed his car, Madame,' said Lunel. 'That's what I think. You English drive on the wrong side of the road. So how do you know which way to steer?'

Kitty smiled. But even in the sun, she was s.h.i.+vering. She longed, now, for the heat of her car, longed to be miles from here. She knew that Private Detective Kitty Meadows would have found a way to look round the house to see if any clues were buried inside it. But she didn't feel capable of going with Lunel into that darkness. She only wanted to be gone.

She held out her hand and Lunel hefted the gun over his shoulder and took it. She said goodbye and Lunel opened his mouth, as though to say something else, but closed it again, and walked away from Kitty, in the direction from which he'd appeared. Kitty watched him go, then went fast towards the car. She wished she had a bottle of vodka in it. She was in shock and knew she shouldn't be driving until she recovered.

As she opened the car door, she rea.s.sured herself that she could stop in La Callune. There would be a cafe there. She would sit quietly and sip a vodka and tonic until she felt ready for the long drive home. She tumbled gratefully into the driver's seat. She was about to close the car door when she saw something glinting in the gra.s.s underneath it. She looked down at this and saw that what she'd thought was a shard of gla.s.s was in fact a piece of cellophane. She stared at it. Then, realising what it was, she picked it up. It was a sandwich wrapper from the roadside stall, La Bonne Baguette. La Bonne Baguette. Kitty closed the car door, glad of the warmth which spread round her, and slowly examined the wrapper. Just visible on its label were the words Kitty closed the car door, glad of the warmth which spread round her, and slowly examined the wrapper. Just visible on its label were the words fromage/tomate. fromage/tomate.

Kitty put the sandwich wrapper into her glove box and started the car.

It took her three turns to manoeuvre it round. The sweat on her hands made the hot steering wheel sticky. She'd drawn level with the bungalow before she realised that she was driving on the wrong side of the road.

She swerved and corrected. Her eye was caught by the sight of a solitary flowered overall, pegged to the bungalow's was.h.i.+ng line and moving gently in the rising breeze. Mistral, she thought. It'll come soon, the wind that dries the rivers and yellows the leaves before their time, and lingers...

Audrun didn't know why, but all her dreams during this time were happy.

Was it because the thing she'd been waiting for was over? She didn't think so, because it wasn't wasn't over not yet, not quite. It was now inevitable, but there was still one more act to be played out. And then, it would be over: it would be at an end. over not yet, not quite. It was now inevitable, but there was still one more act to be played out. And then, it would be over: it would be at an end.

Here they were, anyway, these dreams of past happiness: of going on a bus to the seaside with Bernadette, singing songs all the way, eating oysters from a tin plate on the quayside, seeing the immensity of the ocean.

And the best dream of all: her dream about the day just the one in all those years when Raoul Molezon had been waiting for her when she came out of the underwear factory. She'd almost walked right by him because she never expected him to be there, but he called her name and she stopped. He took her to a cafe and bought sirop de peche sirop de peche for her and beer for himself. He said to her: 'I've been noticing something, Audrun: you're becoming a beauty. Your mother must have looked just like you look now when she was young.' for her and beer for himself. He said to her: 'I've been noticing something, Audrun: you're becoming a beauty. Your mother must have looked just like you look now when she was young.'

A beauty.

Her, a beauty?

She'd felt like crying. Perhaps she had cried. Cried over her sirop de peche sirop de peche in the cheap cafe because Raoul Molezon had said a wonderful thing. in the cheap cafe because Raoul Molezon had said a wonderful thing.

Then, she told him that the factory was poisoning people. The underwear was made of rayon. As you st.i.tched, you had to pull and stretch the rayon, like skin, and in this skin was a chemical called carbon disulphide which had a bad smell and which could give you eczema and boils or even make you go blind.

And Raoul Molezon had said it was a tragedy that she should be working in such a place, but Audrun could never remember what she'd replied; it seemed to her that there was nothing she could have said, then or ever.

But now she was dreaming, not about the factory or the spots that broke out on her hands and round her nose from the carbon disulphide in the rayon, but only about that moment when Raoul called her a beauty.

Dreams like that refreshed you. You woke in the mornings, not aware of the weight of everything that was wrong, but on the contrary, feeling hospitable towards the day, curious to see what it would bring. And this feeling of optimism could last well into the afternoon; last, sometimes, until the daylight began to fade.

And then, somehow, it vanished. Audrun would look up at the darkening sky behind her wood and feel her hopes for the future flying away.

She'd try to distract herself with the TV. She loved old American crime movies, with terrifying soundtracks. She loved hospital dramas. But best of all, she loved programmes imported from j.a.pan, where people did the strangest things: they rode horses backwards, they somersaulted through rings of fire, they ate tarantulas, they walked on stilts through snow. Or sometimes they just lay on the ground, not moving, looking up at millions of cherry trees in bloom. And then Audrun would remember Aramon once cutting a branch of white blossom and putting it into her arms and kissing her cheek when she said: 'I'm a princess now. Am I?'

Days pa.s.sed and the river fell. No rain came.

Below La Callune, where the river calmed, the campsites began to fill up. Lessons in kayaking were offered. Tourists put on yellow life jackets, yelping as the frail kayaks bounced and swivelled in the eddies. Barbecue smoke tainted the evening air. Loud music came and went on the ever-changing winds.

Sometimes, Audrun wondered whether the surveyor would re-appear, but there was no sign of him, and she didn't care now, because all of that the question of boundaries and markers was irrelevant, or would be soon.

For the time being, she avoided Aramon. Sometimes, she glimpsed him trudging off to work on the wrecked vine terraces, noted how he staggered, how his health was failing, day by day. But she didn't go up to the house.

She saw a Dutch family arrive with Madame Besson to look round the Mas Lunel, but they didn't stay long. Their children were terrified of the dogs and kept screaming. The family drove by her bungalow with their faces pointing straight ahead and never turning to look back. And an article in Rua.s.se Libre Rua.s.se Libre informed her that property prices were now beginning to fall. 'You see?' she said in her mind to Aramon. 'Those sums of money were daydreams.' informed her that property prices were now beginning to fall. 'You see?' she said in her mind to Aramon. 'Those sums of money were daydreams.'

Then, Aramon arrived at her door one evening at that time of day when the beneficial effect of her dreams was running out and he was pale and could hardly speak. She told him he looked as though he'd seen a ghost and he said: 'I have have seen a ghost. Come and look in the barn.' seen a ghost. Come and look in the barn.'

She followed him there. He went ahead, trying to make little galloping steps that soon got him out of breath. She understood that his heart and lungs wouldn't let him run any more.

The heavy doors of the barn were open and they went in. It was dark in there, with the daylight going, but Aramon picked up a flashlight from a shelf and shone it onto the chaos which had acc.u.mulated in the huge barn over all the years.

'Look!' he said. 'Look there!'

Something stood there. It was a big, bulky shape, draped with sacking, half concealed by a clutter of old farm utensils, crates, boxes, cement bags and broken domestic tools which had been piled on top of it.

'What's that that?' said Aramon. 'How did that that get here?' get here?'

Audrun stared blankly.

'There!' Aramon yelled. 'There! Are you blind?'

He walked forwards and lifted some of the sacking so that Audrun could see what was underneath. It was a car.

She moved silently towards it. Aramon watched her reach out, as if about to touch the metal of the bonnet, but then she withdrew her hand. She turned her face towards Aramon and said: 'Whose car is it?'

'I don't know,' he said. 'I don't know...' but then he began to snivel. 'I don't know how it got there, Audrun. I swear. And I swear on my life that I never hurt anybody...'

'What d'you mean?' said Audrun. 'What are you talking about?'

He broke down into tears of anguish. He came to her and it was as if he was asking her to put her arms round him and console him, but she held herself apart and said: 'Tell me what you've done.'

'I don't know know!' he cried. 'I get these blackouts. I wake up in different places. I swear this is the first I've seen of this car, but it could be his, couldn't it? How do I know? I've never laid eyes on his f.u.c.king car! I thought they came in the agent's car, didn't they? Didn't they?'

'The first time,' said Audrun. 'The agent brought them the first time, but then, the second time, who knows...'

'How did a car car get into my barn? Jesus Christ! I'm going mad. You have to help me, Audrun. You have to help me!' get into my barn? Jesus Christ! I'm going mad. You have to help me, Audrun. You have to help me!'

Out of her overall pocket, Audrun took a handkerchief (one that had belonged to Bernadette) and gave it to Aramon. He buried his face in it.

'I suppose you killed him, did you?' said Audrun. 'You got in one of your rages and you killed the foreigner because he wouldn't buy the mas, like you killed that wh.o.r.e in Ales long ago?'

'No!' sobbed Aramon. 'Why would I do that? I only saw him that one solitary time...'

'You know that's not the truth,' said Audrun.

'It is is the truth! I called Besson. She confirmed it. She said he only came here once.' the truth! I called Besson. She confirmed it. She said he only came here once.'

'Once with her. And then the second time... on his own. I saw you with him.'

'No! He never came back. I would have remembered. Mary Mother of G.o.d, I would have remembered!'

She let him cry. She went boldly to the car and uncovered more of it and they both saw that the bodywork of the car was black.

'G.o.d forgive you, Aramon,' she said. 'You killed that poor man. You shot him and tried to hide the car in all this clutter.'

'No!' he sobbed. 'No!'

Aramon let himself fall down. He just collapsed and lay in the dust of the barn floor with his face in his hands. His legs swivelled, like the legs of a baby, trying to crawl.

Audrun stood over him and said: 'Is the body inside?'

'I don't know...' he keened. 'Take this away from me! Tell me this isn't happening! Take this away!'

She pulled the sacking off the car windows, dislodging a wooden sieve and a pyramid of discoloured Tupperware containers. She peered inside the car, but it was too dark to see much.

'We'd better call the police,' she said.

He seemed to convulse then, and sat up in the dust and begged her, begged her on their mother's soul not to do that.

'We have to,' she said. 'What else can we do?'

'I'll get rid of it,' he sobbed. 'I know places in the hills. I'll push it off a crag. I'll do it at night. Please, Audrun. Please...'

She ignored all this and went back to peering in the car window, s.h.i.+elding her vision from the reflected flashlight.

'Turn the torch off, Aramon,' she snapped.

He grovelled for the flashlight, picked it up and dropped it and it went out and the true darkness of the barn surrounded them. Wrapping her hand in a piece of sacking, Audrun tried the handle of the car door, tugging hard at it, but it wouldn't yield and in the next second an ear-splitting sound came from the car the burglar alarm and its indicator lights began a frantic blinking on and off.

Aramon's crying turned to screaming. He put his hands to his ears. He looked like a madman, thras.h.i.+ng about there in the dust.

The gyrations of his body dislodged a clutch of ancient rakes and pitchforks leaning against the wall, and they fell on him, one by one, like the bars of a cage pinning him to the earth.

She lifted the rakes away from him and found the torch and got its beam to come on and she helped Aramon to his feet. Her hand on his arm felt how thin his body had become. She led him out of the barn into the falling night. The burglar alarm on the car went suddenly silent. Audrun closed the barn doors.

Aramon stopped crying as they made their way up to the mas. The dogs began keening as they approached. Audrun led him into the kitchen and turned on the bar of fluorescent light above the table. She sat him down on a hard chair and poured him a shot of pastis and filled the gla.s.s to its brim with cool water from the kitchen tap.

He drank gratefully. His face was muddy with tear-stained dust. Audrun sat beside him and talked to him, quietly, like Bernadette used to talk to them when she scolded them as children, with no need to raise her voice.