When the old Greek had gone downstairs again, Marc looked at Lucien, who had flopped into a battered armchair with his legs stretched out in front of him, fiddling with his press cutting.
‘Half an hour?’ he cried. ‘You’re doing bugger all, you’re dreaming of your war diaries, there are masses of things to copy out, and you think you’ll be away in half an hour?’
Without stirring, Lucien pointed to his rucksack. ‘In my bag,’ he said, ‘I have two-and-a-half kilos worth of laptop, nine kilos of scanner, some aftershave, spare underclothes, heavy-duty string, a duvet, a toothbrush and a baguette. Now do you see why I wanted to take a taxi from the station? Get your documents ready, I’ll scan anything you like, and we can take them back to the house with us. See.’
‘How did you manage to think of all that?’
After what happened to Dompierre, it was foreseeable that the flics would want to stop anyone else copying the archives. To anticipate the actions of the enemy, my friend, is the secret of successful warfare. The official order will come soon, but we’ll be out of here. So get a move on.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Marc. ‘I’m very jumpy just now. So are you, in point of fact.’
‘No, I get carried away, in one direction or another. It’s not the same.’
‘Is all that stuff yours?’ asked Marc. ‘Is it valuable?’
Lucien shrugged. ‘It’s on loan from the university. I’ve got to give it back in four months. Only the cables belong to me.’
He laughed and switched on the machines. As they copied the documents, Marc started to breathe more easily. Perhaps there wouldn’t be anything to find in them, but the idea that he could consult them at his leisure, in his medieval study on the second floor was comforting. They copied most of what was in the file.
‘Copy the photos,’ said Lucien with a wave of his hand.
‘Do you think so?’
‘Yes, send them through.’
‘They’re all just of Sophia.’
‘No general view of the company on parade, or after their dress rehearsal?’
‘No. Just Sophia. I told you.’
‘OK, we won’t bother.’
Lucien wrapped his machines in the old duvet, and tied it all up firmly with string, leaving one long end. Then he opened the window and lowered the fragile bundle carefully to the ground.
‘Every room has an outlet,’ he said, ‘and where there’s an outlet there must be some kind of surface underneath. This one is the yard with the dustbins in, which is better than the street. It’s reached the ground now.’
‘Someone’s coming up,’ said Marc.
Lucien let go of the string and closed the window without a sound. He returned to his armchair and took up his nonchalant pose once more.
The policeman came in with the satisfied air of one who has just shot a brace of pheasants.
‘It’s forbidden to make copies of anything or to consult any of these papers,’ said the policeman. ‘New orders. Bring your things and leave this room.’
Marc and Lucien obeyed, grumbling, and followed him. When they went into the sitting-room, Mme Siméonidis had laid the table for five. So they were expected to stay for dinner. Five, thought Marc, the stepson must be coming too. It would be good to set eyes on him.
They expressed their thanks. The young policeman frisked them before they sat down, and emptied the contents of their bags, which he turned inside out and examined every which way.
‘Alright,’ he said. ‘You can pack it all up again.’
He left the room and went to station himself in the hall.
‘If I were you,’ said Lucien, ‘I would stand in front of the door to the archives until we leave. We might go back up again. Aren’t you taking a bit of a risk, officer?’
Looking annoyed, the policeman went upstairs and posted himself right inside the archive room. Lucien asked Siméonidis to show him the way to the yard with the dustbins and retrieved the bundle, which he stuffed back inside the rucksack. Dustbins seemed to be looming large in his life just now.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said to his host. ‘All your originals are still up there, I give you my word.’
The son arrived rather late to take his place at the table. A slow-moving, plump forty-year-old, Julien had not inherited his mother’s anxiety to appear indispensable and efficient. He smiled nicely at the two guests, but looked unprepossessing and indeed rather pathetic. This seemed a pity to Marc. He felt sorry for this so-called useless and indecisive character, stuck between his busy-busy mother and his patriarchal stepfather. Marc was easily impressed when people smiled nicely at him. And after all, Julien had cried when he heard about Sophia. He was not ugly, but his face was rather puffy. Marc would have preferred to feel distaste or hostility for him, or at least some more convincing emotion, to turn him into a murderer. But since he had never seen any murderers, he told himself that a malleable person, dominated by his mother and smiling sweetly, might very well be the type. Shedding a few tears was neither here nor there.
The mother might also be the type. She was fussing about, far more than was necessary to serve the meal, and was more talkative than necessary trying to make conversation. Jacqueline Siméonidis was tiring. Marc took in her neat chignon, her busy hands, her artificial voice and manner, her stupid insistence as she served everyone with their chicory and ham, and thought that this woman might stop at nothing to acquire more power, and more capital to help resolve her son’s precarious finances. She had married Siméonidis-out of love? Because he was the father of a famous singer? Because that would help Julien get on in the theatre? Yes, either one of them might have a motive for killing, and possibly a good opportunity. Not the old man though. Marc watched him cutting up his food with firm gestures. His authoritarian ways would have made him a perfect tyrant, if Jacqueline had not been well able to defend herself. But the patent distress of Sophia’s father ruled out any suspicion they might have. Everyone could agree on that.
Marc hated ham and chicory unless it was very well cooked, which was not often the case. He watched Lucien wolf it down, while he toyed with the bitter slimy vegetables that nauseated him. Lucien had taken a leading role in the conversation, which was now turning to Greece in the early twentieth century. Siméonidis was replying with short answers, and Jacqueline was showing an exaggerated interest in everything.
Marc and Lucien caught the 22.27 train home. Siméonidis took them to the station, driving fast and competently.
‘Keep me informed,’ he said as he shook their hands. ‘What’s that in your bundle, young man?’ he asked Lucien.
‘A computer with all we need on it,’ said Lucien, smiling.
‘Well done,’ said the old man.
‘By the way,’ Marc said. ‘It was the file for 1978 that Dompierre looked at, not 1982. I thought I should let you know, in case you find something we missed.’
Marc watched the old man for a reaction. It was offensive of him, a father doesn’t kill his daughter, unless he’s Agamemnon.
Siméonidis did not respond. ‘Keep me informed,’ was all he said.
The journey back took an hour, during which neither Marc nor Lucien spoke. Marc was thinking that he liked being in a train late at night, and Lucien was thinking about the war diaries of Frémonville senior, and how he might get hold of them.
XXX
GETTING BACK TO THE HOUSE AT ABOUT MIDNIGHT, MARC AND LUCIEN found Vandoosler waiting for them in the refectory. Exhausted and incapable of classifying the data he had collected, Marc hoped the godfather was not going to keep them up too long. Because it was obvious he was expecting a report. Lucien, on the other hand, was in fine form. He had carefully unloaded his rucksack, with its twelve kilos of equipment, and poured himself a drink. He asked where the Paris phone books were.