He went over there later on. Lafargue’s place was impressive, though the bounding wall hindered any clear view of its façade. Alex inspected the neighboring houses. The street was deserted. It was not a good idea to stay too long. He noticed how many windows were shuttered. Le Vésinet had been abandoned for August. It was four o’clock, and Alex hesitated. He intended to investigate the surgeon’s house that same night, but didn’t know what to do in the meantime. For lack of a better plan, he decided to talk a walk in the forest of Saint-Germain, which was very close.
He returned to Le Vésinet around nine and parked the CX a good way away from Lafargue’s street. Night was beginning to fall, but you could still see. He climbed a wall surrounding a nearby house to get a look into Lafargue’s grounds. Sitting astride the top of the wall, he was pretty well camouflaged by the dense foliage of an abundantly spreading chestnut tree. From far off he was invisible, and if anyone should happen to come walking down the street he could retreat even farther in among the branches.
He took in the lawn, the pond, the trees, the swimming pool. Lafargue was dining al fresco, in company with a woman. Alex smiled. This was a good beginning. Were there perhaps children? Not likely, for they would be eating with their parents. They could be away on vacation, of course. Or they might be toddlers and already in bed. But Lafargue was about fifty, so his children, if he had any, should at least be adolescents. There was no chance of them being in bed at ten o’clock on a summer evening. What was more, no lights could be seen in the house, either on the ground floor or upstairs. A garden lamp gave off a rather feeble light in the vicinity of the table at which the couple were sitting.
Satisfied, Alex got off his perch and dropped to the sidewalk. He grimaced, for his still tender thigh could not yet take such shocks. He returned to the CX to wait for full darkness. He was nervous, and he began chain-smoking. At ten-thirty, he made his way back to the Lafargue place. The street was as empty as before. A car horn hooted in the distance.
He followed the bounding wall along till, at the end of the property, he came upon a large wooden crate containing spades, rakes, and other tools belonging to the municipal roadworkers. He climbed up on it, hauled himself onto the top of the wall, got his balance, and, judging the distance, jumped down into the grounds. Crouching in a clump of trees, he waited; if there was a dog, it wouldn’t take long to make its presence felt. No bark came. Alex appraised the shrubs near him, then proceeded along the wall. He was looking for reliable footholds susceptible of helping him back up over the wall on his way out. Near the pond was a mock grotto made of concrete that served as nighttime shelter for the swans. It was built up against the wall and was three or four feet tall. Alex smiled and checked it out: it would be child’s play to go this way over the wall back into the street outside. Reassured, he went farther into the grounds, passing the swimming pool. Lafargue and his companion had gone inside, and the immediate surroundings of the house were deserted. Strips of light filtered through closed shutters on the second floor.
Soft music came from the windows. A piano. It was not a recording, because the playing kept stopping and going back. On the other end of the house were more lighted windows. Alex melted into the wall, seeking to disappear in the ivy that covered the front of the building. Lafargue was leaning on one of the balustrades on the second floor, looking at the sky. Alex held his breath. Several minutes passed like this, until the doctor at last closed the window.
Alex dithered for a long time: should he chance entering the house or not? Yes, he decided, because he needed to reconnoiter, at least a little, so as to know where he was treading when he came back to kidnap the surgeon’s wife.
The house was large, and light was coming from every upstairs window. Lafargue must sleep in a separate room from his wife. That did not surprise Alex: everyone knew that bourgeois married couples don’t always sleep in the same bed!
Clutching the Colt, he climbed the steps and turned the front-door knob. There was no resistance; very gently, he pushed the door inward.
He took one step. There was a large room to his left and another to his right; before him was a staircase. The woman’s bedroom was upstairs to the right.
A bourgeois woman like her didn’t get up early. The bitch would lie in bed every morning. All Alex would have to do was watch for Lafargue to leave and then run up and take her by surprise while she was still asleep.
He closed the door silently behind him, darted just as silently across the grass, scrambled up onto the grotto, and tumbled over the wall. It was perfect. But no! There was a hitch. Okay, the lackey of a chauffeur would leave with his boss. But what if there was a maid? It would be a disaster if he ran into some old biddy there to do the housework!
Alex reached the Paris ring road, still taking care to obey all the rules of the road. It was midnight by the time he got back to his little house in Livry-Gargan.
Early the next morning, he returned to Le Vésinet. On tenterhooks, he watched Lafargue’s house, quite convinced an extra domestic would soon arrive. He had to snatch Lafargue’s wife without witnesses. The surgeon would then surely capitulate when confronted by the choice: give me a new face or I’ll kill your wife. But if someone happened to see the abduction, a domestic of one sort or another, a gardener, anybody at all, they would immediately call the cops, and Alex’s great scheme would be a dead letter.
Alex was lucky. Lafargue did employ a maid. But Lise had gone on vacation two days earlier. Of the five weeks the doctor allowed her in the year, she took three in the summer, when she went to her sister’s in the Morvan, and the rest during the winter.
So the whole morning went by, and still no one had shown up at the Lafargue place. Somewhat reassured, Alex raced back to Paris. It occurred to him that perhaps Lafargue did not go to work every day. If he took a day off during the week, Alex needed to know it right away. He decided he could ask the people in Lafargue’s office at the hospital about this; it would be easy to make up some rigmarole.
The chauffeur was waiting for his boss, as he did every day, on the café terrace across the street from the hospital. Alex, who was dying of thirst, had ordered a draft beer at the bar. As he brought it eagerly to his lips, he saw Roger leap to his feet. Lafargue was standing in the parking lot hailing his driver. The two men conferred briefly, then Roger gave the car keys to the surgeon and walked off muttering to himself in the direction of the nearby metro station. Alex was already at the wheel of his Citroën CX.
Lafargue drove like a man possessed. He did not head toward Boulogne. Alex, in great alarm, saw him veer off toward the ring road and the highway.
The prospect of a long-distance tail did not thrill Alex in the least. Without taking his eyes off Lafargue’s car, he mulled things over…Lafargue has kids, he thought. That was it: they must be on vacation, and he has just received some kind of bad news. Maybe one of them has been taken ill, and he has to go and see them? Otherwise, why should he have left work earlier than usual and sent his flunky home? Could the bastard have a mistress? Yes, more than likely. But would he just suddenly go off and see her in the middle of the day? This was crazy!
Lafargue continued at top speed, weaving between the other cars. Alex kept up with him, sweating with fear at the thought of a spot check by the national security police at a toll booth. But before long the Mercedes was off the turnpike and barreling along a winding country road without significantly slowing down. Alex was almost ready to give up the chase, feeling sure he was about to be spotted. But Lafargue did not so much as glance in his rearview mirror. Viviane was having another of her crises, and, true to his word, the psychiatrist had telephoned. Richard was fully aware of how this visit to his daughter—the second in a single week—was going to affect him. He also knew that this evening, back at Le Vésinet, he would not ask Eve to call Varneroy. After what had happened the last time, that was now impossible. But how, then, was he going to find consolation?