But he wasn’t convinced. He began to mutter to himself, nothing she could make sense of, and to distance herself from it, she went to the window. Still the same bleak January, under the same grey canopy of sky. A car was pulling up, slipping into the residents’ parking area, though it wasn’t a familiar vehicle. The woman who emerged was a glacially beautiful blonde in a black suit. It might have been Catherine’s Service instincts; might have been her drunk’s paranoia. Either way, bells rang loud and clear.
She said, “Perhaps we should get you out of the way, David.”
River had half-expected a hut constructed from fallen branches and moss, but after ten minutes Victor, as his name turned out to be, led him out of the woods and onto a road, and soon after that they were turning down a lane towards a row of modern cottages, with breezeblock walls and aluminium window frames. Rain was pelting down now. While he waited for Victor to unlock the door, River looked down the valley towards Angevin, and its bridge, its church tower, the houses climbing its small collection of streets, all seemed to have huddled closer for shelter. From this perspective it was clear that Les Arbres hadn’t been part of the village at all. Not even an outpost, but a walled-off enclave. Whatever had gone on there would have been gossiped about in the bars, but the reality would have been as solid and graspable as the smoke Les Arbres had become.
Victor had had trouble with River’s name. “This is what you are called?”
“I’m afraid so. I mean yes. Yes, River.”
Victor didn’t actually say
The house was small, but untidy. A portable TV occupied a low table in the centre of the sitting room, and magazines, mostly TV schedules, were scattered about. An overflowing ashtray sat next to an overflowing ashtray, and most other surfaces displayed bruised-looking ornaments: plaster figurines of what were probably saints, though might have been sinners; a number of glass animals. One corner was given over to outdoor equipment: rubber boots, fishing poles, a variety of nets and snares. Victor carefully laid his waterproof over these, sneaking a sly glance River’s way as he did so. River thought he could smell a cat, but it was hard to tell. Perhaps Victor had been smoking one. He took his own jacket off, more for politeness than anything else. It didn’t feel much less damp in here than outside.
Victor deposited the morning’s spoils on the kitchen counter, next to a handy array of knives and cleavers.
“I make tea.”
“Do you have coffee?” said River.
“Tea. You are English.”
“Thank you,” River said. He wasn’t much of a tea drinker, but that didn’t sound like it would lend itself to straightforward translation.
They drank tea in the small kitchen while rain battered the windows, and the dead rabbit stared reproachfully at River, and Victor smoked a succession of hand-rolled cigarettes, each no fatter than the matches he used to light them.
“You know Les Arbres?” he asked.
“I was looking for someone. Bertrand?”
“A young man, he look like you. I think that was his name, yes.”
“Can you tell me anything about him?”
“Tell you about your friend?”
“I didn’t really know him,” River said.
“You are cousins, maybe?”
“We might have been,” River said, thinking this would make things simpler: a man seeking his long-lost cousin.
“Les Arbres, there were people there. Eighteen, twenty? A number like that. All of them men.”
“How long had they been there?”
“Many many years. Vingt-trois, vingt-quatre.”
“So . . . ” River thought of the dead man on the bathroom floor, whose passport claimed him twenty-eight. “Were there children?”
“At one time, I think. Then not.” Victor placed a level palm two feet from the floor, then slowly moved it upwards. “You know?”
Children grew.
The man in the café had spoken of a commune, but Victor thought there had been no women there. Didn’t sound like much of a commune to River, who was pretty sure the concept involved sex. An all-male community didn’t rule that out, of course, but the presence of children cast a disturbing light. But what would that have to do with a murder attempt on his grandfather? He said, “Were they French?”
Victor shrugged. “French, yes. But Russian too, I think, or Czech. An American. Maybe some English. They did not mix in the village.”
“But went to the café sometimes? Le Ciel Blue?”
“Sometimes, bien sur. There is the marché, the market. People stop at the café afterwards. It is natural.”
“Who was their leader, do you know?”
“Leader?”
“Somebody must have been in charge.”
“I do not know about leaders. Probably they were communiste. All equal, you know?”
“And what about the fire? Does anyone know how that started?”
“The fire, it was deliberate. They are all gone, and then it burns.”
“At the same time?”
“On the same day, yes. In the afternoon, their cars, they leave towards Poitiers. And soon after, the fire starts. There is much activity, many fire trucks, lots of noise.”
