‘Get in,’ I say.
We sit at the back of the café, away from the other customers. I look at the small plastic menu without really seeing it.
‘The omelettes are good,’ Jean-Claude suggests.
They might be, but I’ve had enough eggs lately. I order the plat du jour and a beer; I need something to steady my nerves.
‘So,’ I say.
He sets down the plastic menu. ‘I hear Arnaud had a visit from the police.’
‘That’s right.’
Jean-Claude waits a moment, then continues when I don’t say anything else. ‘I respect a man’s right to protect his property as much as anyone, but Arnaud goes too far.’
I can’t argue with that, but Arnaud wasn’t the only one at fault. ‘How’s Didier? No unexplained gunshot wounds, I hope?’
‘Didier’s an idiot. He gets worse when he’s had a few beers. Hopefully he’ll outgrow it.’
‘I wouldn’t put money on that.’
That earns a wry smile. ‘Don’t worry, he won’t cause any more trouble. I’ve had a word.’
The look on his face suggests it wasn’t gentle. I take a drink of beer, to give myself something to do. Jean-Claude still hasn’t touched his wine. He seems ill at ease as well, and despite myself I’m starting to feel curious.
‘What do you know about my brother?’ he asks.
Here it comes, I think. ‘Not much. They don’t really talk about him.’
‘But you know he’s Michel’s father? And that he got involved in a few … well, let’s say business schemes with Arnaud?’
‘I’ve heard something about it.’
‘Then did you know that Louis is missing?’
Bizarrely, my first thought is one of regret: I knew coming here was a mistake.
‘No,’ I say.
Reaching into his pocket for a leather wallet, he takes out a well-creased photograph and sets it in front of me on the table. In it he’s standing beside a green pick-up truck with a younger man, taller and not so heavily built. Jean-Claude’s hair is plastered to his head and his face and chest look wet. He’s wearing a strained smile as the other man laughingly holds up an empty beer glass to show the camera.
‘That’s Louis. His sense of humour’s rowdier than mine.’ Jean-Claude’s tone is somewhere between exasperated and fond. ‘He disappeared eighteen months ago. Supposedly went off on some business trip to Lyon and never came back. No one’s seen or heard from him since. Not me, none of his friends. Nobody.’
There’s something about the other man with him in the picture that strikes a chord, but I can’t place it. Then I do. He has on the red overalls that I’m wearing. I instinctively glance down at myself. Jean-Claude nods.
‘They’re an old pair he kept at Arnaud’s. He said he didn’t want to take the pig smell home with him.’
At another time I might take that as an insult. I slide the photograph back across the table. ‘Why are you telling me all this?’
‘Because I want to find out what’s happened to him. And I think Arnaud knows more than he claims.’
He breaks off as the food arrives. Glad of the chance to collect my thoughts, I pick at the plate of steak and frites in front of me. Under other circumstances I’d welcome the change from pork, but I’ve lost my appetite.
‘What makes you think Arnaud knows something?’ I ask, far from certain I want to hear the answer.
Jean-Claude mops up the oil from his omelette with a piece of bread. Talking about his brother doesn’t seem to have affected his appetite.
‘The business trip was connected with one of the schemes he’d dreamed up with Arnaud. I don’t know what, because Louis liked to play his cards close to his chest, but I’m certain he was involved. And Arnaud’s story doesn’t add up. Has he told you that Louis asked Mathilde to marry him because he got her pregnant?’
I nod, reluctant even now to give too much away.
‘No disrespect to Mathilde, because she’s a good woman. But I know my brother, and believe me he isn’t the marrying kind. Most of the rest of it I could accept, but the idea of him suddenly doing the decent thing and proposing to Mathilde? No way. Louis puts Louis first, always has. If he was going to leave town because he got some girl into trouble, he’d have done it years ago.’
‘Maybe he wanted the farm,’ I say, repeating what Arnaud told me. Belatedly I remember that I wasn’t going to say anything.
Jean-Claude snorts. ‘Right, because it’s such a goldmine. Look, all Louis wanted was to screw around and make money, the easier the better. He wasn’t interested in owning a farm, and certainly not a struggling one that’s mortgaged to death. If Arnaud wasn’t so up his own arse he’d realize no one in his right mind would want anything to do with the place.’
‘Then why would he lie?’
‘That’s the question, isn’t it?’ He looks across at me, chewing a piece of omelette. ‘Maybe it suits him for people to think Louis shafted them and ran out on Mathilde. I don’t know and Arnaud won’t talk about it.’
‘Have you asked him?’
‘Of course I have. At least, I’ve tried. He ranted on about Louis and warned me not to bother them again.’ His expression darkens. ‘Michel’s my flesh and blood as well, but Arnaud won’t even let me see my own nephew. He keeps them all buried away in that place, and what sort of life is that for a child? Or his daughters, come to that. He’s always tried to keep them on a tight rein, especially Gretchen. Not that I blame him with that one. She’s had half the town’s boys sniffing after her at some time or another. I sometimes think …’
‘What?’ I ask, when he doesn’t continue.
But he only shakes his head. ‘It doesn’t matter. The point is that ever since Louis went missing Arnaud’s cut the farm off from town completely, and why do that if he doesn’t have something to hide?’
‘Maybe because of people like Didier.’
I don’t mean to defend Arnaud, but the situation doesn’t seem as one-sided to me as Jean-Claude makes out. He finishes his omelette and wipes his mouth with a paper napkin.
‘Maybe. I’m not making excuses for Didier. But Arnaud acts like he’s under siege. He’s always had a chip on his shoulder, but barbed wire and man-traps?’ Jean-Claude gestures at my foot with his knife. ‘And please, don’t insult us both by pretending that was an accident. I never actually believed the rumours about the traps before, but Christ! Why would you stay there after something like that?’
He seems genuinely puzzled, but that’s a door I’m not about to open. ‘I still don’t see what you want from me.’
‘Like I said, Arnaud knows more than he’s saying or he wouldn’t have bothered making up that bullshit story. You’re living on the farm, you could look around, ask questions. Maybe see if the old guy, Georges, has seen or heard something he hasn’t told anyone about. Find out what Arnaud’s hiding.’
Spy on them, in other words. It puts me in an awkward position, but I’m more distracted by something else Jean-Claude’s said: he keeps them all buried away. He was talking about Arnaud’s family, but it’s another image entirely that comes to my mind.
The crumbling patch of concrete in the barn.
I push my plate away, the food almost untouched. ‘If you’re so convinced he’s lying why don’t you go to the police?’
‘You think I haven’t? I tried the local gendarmerie and the National Police in Lyon, for all the good it did. Without proof, they don’t want to know. They said Louis is a grown man, he can do what he likes.’
It takes me a moment to realize what that implies. Rural areas of France like this come under the jurisdiction of the gendarmerie: the National Police only operate in cities. There’s only one reason I can think of why Jean-Claude would have approached both, and I seize on it.