The Blue Room Read online

  ‘I’d talk to him now and then about my business. Besides, he was the only one who knew of my difficulties with Andrée.’

  ‘So you admit that there were problems?’

  ‘Her letters worried me.’

  ‘Isn’t that rather an understatement, given what you admitted to Mani?’

  ‘Let’s say that they frightened me.’

  ‘And you came to a decision? That’s what you wanted to talk to Vincent about? It so happens, Monsieur Falcone, that while you were talking with him, your sister-in-law was out doing her shopping, and Françoise was upstairs cleaning the rooms.’

  ‘It’s like that every morning. When I walked into the café, Vincent wasn’t there either. I heard the clinking of bottles in the cellar and saw the trap door open behind the counter. My brother was bringing up the day’s wine, and I waited for him.’

  ‘Without telling him you were there?’

  ‘I didn’t want to interrupt him. And I had time to wait. I sat near the window and thought about what I would say to Garcia.’

  ‘You’d come to ask for your brother’s advice, but you’d already made up your mind?’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘Explain yourself.’

  ‘I expected Garcia to hesitate, because he’s a cautious man who retreats easily. Which meant that it was a toss-up for me.’

  ‘You were gambling with your future and that of your family?’

  ‘Yes. If Garcia could be convinced, I would sell. If he refused to risk the venture, I’d stay put.’

  ‘And your brother in all this?’

  ‘I wanted to let him know how things stood.’

  ‘Without any witnesses, not even your sister-in-law, so that, aside from Vincent and you, no one can tell us about that conversation. You’re very close to your brother, aren’t you?’

  Tony remembered the time when he used to take his little brother to school along muddy or frozen roads. They wore heavy pea-jackets. In the winter it was dark when they left home and still dark when they returned. Tired, Vincent often dragged his feet in their hobnail shoes and had to be tugged along. Tony would keep an eye on him from a distance during play time, and back at La Boisselle, waiting for their father, he was the one who made his brother’s bread-and-butter snack. But such things, such simple things, cannot simply be explained with words: one must have personally experienced them. And Diem had not.

  Vincent was certainly the person with whom he felt the closest bond of understanding, and Vincent in turn appreciated the way he did not lord it over him as the older brother. Speaking Italian to each other was another tie between them, linking them to the days when, as children, they spoke only that language with their mother.

  ‘Vincent, I’m afraid that if I stay, I’ll never have any peace.’

  ‘She didn’t say anything to you, this morning?’

  ‘We weren’t alone in the store. I expect I’ll get another letter in two or three days, and God knows what will be in it!’

  ‘How will you explain things to Gisèle?’

  ‘I haven’t thought about that yet. If I tell her that there are no opportunities to expand my business in this area, she’ll believe me.’

  They had had a vermouth together, talking across the bar counter, and when a delivery man had arrived with some bottled lemonade, Tony had headed out of the door, which was still standing open.

  ‘It’s in God’s hands!’ Vincent had called after him.

  Diem found it hard to believe that the brothers had talked things over so matter-of-factly; perhaps it was because they had experienced so much misfortune, even when they were little children.

  ‘He didn’t try to dissuade you?’

  ‘On the contrary, he seemed relieved. He’d been unhappy about my affair with Andrée from the start.’

  ‘Go on with your schedule on that day.’

  ‘I spent hardly any time at Ambasse, which was just a small winter fair. After handing out a few brochures, I went on to Bolin-sur-Sièvre, where I had an appointment with my customer.’

  ‘One moment. Did your wife know his name?’

  ‘I don’t remember telling her that.’

  ‘When you went off on your rounds, didn’t you let her know where you’d be, in case she had to contact you?’

  ‘Not necessarily. For the fairs, it was easy, because I always went to the same cafés. When I visited farms, she had a general idea where I was and could telephone around for me.’

  ‘You didn’t mention Poitiers to her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because nothing was definite yet, and I didn’t want her worrying for nothing.’

  ‘It never occurred to you simply to confess the truth and tell her how worried you were about your affair with Andrée Despierre? Since this affair was over, according to you, wouldn’t that have been best? You never considered that?’

  No. An absurd, foolish answer perhaps, but it was the truth.

  ‘At Bolin-sur-Sièvre I had lunch with my customer, Dambois, who has a good-sized farm, and I finished the repair job by two o’clock, so I wasn’t in a rush when I drove off to Poitiers.’

  ‘How had you set up your appointment with your friend Garcia?’

  ‘I’d written to him the previous Saturday to let him know I’d pick him up after work. Garcia was my foreman when I worked at the main warehouse. He’s about ten years older than I am, with three children, including a son at the local lycée.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I was quite early. I could have visited the assembly workshop, but I’d have had to talk to everyone I knew there and I didn’t have the heart. The factory is two kilometres from the city, on the Angoulême road. I went on to Poitiers and went to see a newsreel.’

  ‘At what time did you leave the cinema?’

  ‘Half past four.’

  ‘When did you leave your brother that morning?’

  ‘A little before ten.’

  ‘In other words, most unusually, from ten in the morning until half past four, no one, not your wife or anyone else, knew where to reach you?’

  ‘It never struck me that way.’

  ‘Suppose your daughter had had a serious accident … Well, let’s get on with it! You went to wait for Garcia outside the factory gate.’

  ‘Yes. My letter had interested him. We considered going to the café across the street, but we’d have known too many people there. Since Garcia had his motorbike with him, he followed me into Poitiers as far as the Brasserie du Globe.’

  ‘So no one knew you were there, either? Not even your brother?’

  ‘No. Garcia and I exchanged news about our families, after which I explained my offer to him.’

  ‘Did you tell him why you wanted to leave Saint-Justin?’

  ‘Only that it had to do with a woman. I was aware that he had money set aside and that he’d spoken several times about setting up on his own. I was presenting him with a complete package: house, shed, equipment, plus an already thriving business and customer base.’

  ‘Was he tempted?’

  ‘He didn’t give me a definite answer, wanted a week to think about it. Above all he had to discuss it with his wife and oldest son. What bothered him the most was having to leave Poitiers, especially because of the boy, who had friends there and was doing well at his studies. I pointed out that there was a good school in Triant. He shot back, “With a fifteen-kilometre roundtrip, unless we board him there!”’

  ‘How long did this discussion last?’

  ‘Until about seven. Garcia invited me to dinner, but I told him my wife was waiting.’

  ‘If Garcia had taken you up on your offer that following week, what were you planning to do?’

  ‘I’d have asked the company to make me a representative in the north or east, in Alsace, for example, as far as possible from Saint-Justin. And they’d have done it, because they value my work. One day, perhaps, I might have set up on my own again.’

  ‘You’
d have left your father alone out at La Boisselle?’

  ‘Vincent is close by.’

  ‘Would you like to take a short break, Monsieur Falcone?’

  ‘May I open the window?’

  He needed air. He had felt suffocated right from the start of this interrogation, which appeared quite banal, but there was something threatening and unreal about having to speak so precisely about things rooted in a tragedy that was never mentioned.

  ‘Cigarette?’

  He took one and stared out at the street, at the windows and wet roofs across the way. If only this were the last time! But even if Diem never mentioned it again, he would still have to start all over in court.

  He sat down heavily.

  ‘We’re almost at the end, Falcone.’

  With a sad smile, he nodded at the magistrate, in whom he thought he sensed a certain compassion.

  ‘You came directly home to Saint-Justin? Without stopping anywhere?’

  ‘Suddenly, all I wanted was to get home to my wife and daughter. I think I drove very fast. Normally it takes about an hour and a half to cover the distance, and I did it in less than an hour.’

  ‘Had you had anything to drink with Garcia?’

  ‘He had two aperitifs, I had a single vermouth.’

  ‘As with your brother.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You drove past his place. You didn’t stop to tell him how your appointment had gone?’

  ‘No. Anyway, at that hour the café was always crowded, and Vincent would certainly have been busy.’

  ‘It was dark out. You saw the lights of Saint-Justin in the distance. Did you notice anything?’

  ‘I was surprised to see all the windows of my house lit up, which we never did, and I felt sure something awful had happened.’

  ‘What did you think that might be?’

  ‘My daughter …’

  ‘Not your wife?’

  ‘The way I saw it, Marianne was naturally the most fragile, the most at risk of an accident.’

  ‘Without trying to drive your car to the shed, you left it some twenty metres from the house.’

  ‘Half the village was gathered in front of our gate, so I knew it was bad.’

  ‘You had to make your way through the crowd.’

  ‘It made way for me, but instead of looking at me sympathetically everyone was angry, glaring at me, and I didn’t understand. Didier, the fat blacksmith in his leather apron, even stepped in front of me with his hands on his hips – and spat on my shoes.

  ‘While I was crossing the lawn, I felt threatened by the muttering behind me. The door opened as I reached it, and I knew the gendarme standing there, I’d often seen him at the market in Triant. “In there!” he barked at me. He pointed to the door of my office.

  ‘I found Sergeant Langre sitting at my desk. Instead of calling me Tony, as he always did, he said nastily, “Sit down, you bastard!”

  ‘That’s when I shouted, “Where’s my wife? Where’s my daughter?” And he said, “Your wife? You know as well as I do where she is!”’

  He fell silent. He couldn’t get the words out any more. He was not upset, but uncannily calm.

  Diem stopped questioning him; the clerk studied the tip of his pencil.

  ‘I just don’t know, Your Honour, it’s so mixed up … Langre told me at some point that Marianne had been taken away by the Molard sisters, so I stopped worrying about her.

  ‘Then he yelled at me, “Admit it, you knew and you didn’t expect to find them alive! Fucking foreigner! You sonofabitch!”

  ‘He’d stood up, and I saw he was just itching to hit me. I shouted again, “Where is my wife?”

  ‘“In the hospital at Triant,” he snapped, “as if you didn’t know!”

  ‘Then he looked at his watch: “Only, by this time, I doubt she’s still alive. We’ll know soon. And where were you, all day long? Hiding, eh? Didn’t want to see it! We were wondering if you’d come back or if you might have run away.”

  ‘“Did Gisèle have an accident?” I asked. He said, “Accident? That’s a good one! You killed her, that’s what you did! And were careful not to be around when it happened.”’

  By this time, the lieutenant had driven up.

  ‘What does he say?’

  ‘He’s playing the innocent, as I expected. Champion liars, these Italians. To listen to him, he hasn’t a clue what happened here.’

  The lieutenant was no less hostile than the sergeant, but he tried to stay calm and professional.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Poitiers.’

  ‘What did you do all day? We tried to reach you just about everywhere.’

  ‘At what time?’

  ‘From 4.30 on.’

  ‘What happened at 4.30?’

  ‘Dr Riquet telephoned us.’

  Tony suddenly lost control of himself.

  ‘Lieutenant, tell me exactly what’s happened! Has my wife had an accident?’

  Then Lieutenant Joris had looked him in the eye.

  ‘Are you playing games with us?’

  ‘No, I swear, on my daughter’s head and I’m begging you, tell me how my wife is! Is she alive?’

  Joris looked at his watch, too.

  ‘She was alive until forty-five minutes ago. I was at her bedside.’

  ‘She’s dead?’

  He could not believe it. The house was full of strange noises, heavy footsteps upstairs …

  ‘What are all these men doing in my house?’

  ‘Searching, although we’ve already found what we were looking for.’

  ‘I want to see my wife.’

  ‘You’ll do as we tell you. As of this moment, Antonio Falcone, you are under arrest.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I’m asking the questions here.’

  Collapsing into a chair, he put his head in his hands. Still without knowing exactly what had happened, he had then been obliged to tell the police about his entire day from the moment he had awakened.

  ‘You admit that you were the one who brought home this pot of jam?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Had your wife asked you to?’

  ‘No. She’d asked me to buy some sugar and washing powder. It was Andrée Despierre who gave me the jam that Gisèle, it seems, had been expecting for a fortnight.’

  ‘Did you come here directly from the grocery store?’

  The package at the post office … The replacement piston …

  ‘Is this the same pot of jam?’

  They thrust it at his face. The pot had been opened, and a large amount of jam was gone.

  ‘I think so. The label is the same.’

  ‘You personally handed it to your wife?’

  ‘I put it on the kitchen table.’

  ‘Without mentioning it?’

  ‘I didn’t see the need. My wife was busy getting laundry off the line.’

  ‘When were you last inside your shed?’

  ‘This morning, shortly before eight, to get my van.’

  ‘You took nothing else from there? You were alone?’

  ‘My daughter was waiting for me in front of the house.’

  All that was so recent – yet so long ago! The entire day, going here and there, was becoming unreal.

  ‘And this, Falcone: you recognize it?’

  He looked at the tin, which he knew well, since it had spent the last four years sitting on the top shelf in the shed.

  ‘That looks like mine, yes.’

  ‘What’s in it?’

  ‘Poison.’

  ‘Do you know what kind?’

  ‘Some arsenic or strychnine. That’s from the first year we lived here. Where the shed is now, that used to be landfill, where the butcher dumped his rubbish. The rats had got used to coming around, and Madame Despierre—’

  ‘Wait. Which? The old lady or the other one?’

  ‘The mother. She sold me the same poison she sells all the farmers. I don’t remember any more if
it’s …’

  ‘It’s strychnine. How much of it did you mix with the jam?’

  Tony did not go crazy. He did not scream or howl, either, but he did clench his teeth so fiercely that one of them cracked.

  ‘At what time, normally, would your wife have had some of the jam?’

  He heard himself reply, as if from a great distance.

  ‘Around ten o’clock …’

  Ever since they had moved to the country and she began rising early, Gisèle had made herself a mid-morning snack. Before Marianne had started school, they had eaten one together, the way they still had a snack when she came home in the afternoon.

  ‘So you knew!’

  ‘Knew what?’

  ‘That she would be eating jam at ten o’clock. Do you know what a fatal dose of strychnine is? Two centigrams. And you probably know that ten or fifteen minutes after ingestion, the poison takes effect with the first convulsions. Where were you at ten o’clock?’

  ‘Just leaving my brother’s place.’

  ‘Well, your wife was lying on the kitchen floor. She remained alone in the house, without help, until your daughter came home from school at four. So she lay dying for six hours before anyone could come to her aid. Very well organized, don’t you think?’

  ‘You mean she’s dead?’

  ‘Yes, Falcone. I believe you know all this already. After the first crisis she probably felt some relief. That’s what Dr Riquet thinks. I don’t know why she didn’t immediately call for help. Later, when the convulsions returned, they would be relentless until the end.

  ‘Coming home soon after four, your daughter found her mother lying on the floor in a state I would rather not describe to you. Hysterical, the girl ran in terror to pound on the door of the Molard ladies. Léonore came here to see for herself and called the doctor. Where were you at 4.15?’

  ‘In a cinema in Poitiers …’

  ‘Riquet diagnosed poisoning and sent for an ambulance. It was too late for a stomach pump; all they could do was sedate her.

  ‘Riquet also called me and told me about the pot of jam. While waiting for the ambulance, he’d nosed around the kitchen. Bread, a knife, a cup with the remains of some café au lait and a plate with smears of jam were still on the table. He tasted the jam with the tip of his tongue.’

  ‘I want to see her! I want to see my daughter!’