Fatale - Jean-Patrick Manchette [16]
“I want—I want to leave,” she said to Lindquist.
The realtor looked at her impatiently, not understanding and making no reply. Aimée walked around him and crossed the orchard on the diagonal. She ran into Sonia Lorque, who tried to take her arm. Aimée stamped her foot on the grass, pulled free of the blonde-haired woman, and hastened towards the end of the paddock. The cries of the mother had ceased after an injection from Sinistrat. Behind the tables with their tablecloths and unopened bottles, women in gaily colored clothes were all weeping. As she went through the open gate, Aimée was striding firmly, almost running.
She covered a kilometer before fully collecting herself. She was still trembling a little. She looked out for a roadside distance marker. The sky was clouding over. After a while she found what she was seeking: a stone marked BLÉVILLE 3.5 KM. She kept on walking, rubbing her arms. She was wearing a flower-patterned silk dress that came down to just below the knee and a white wool jacket with her shoulder bag slung across her chest. It began to rain, just a little at first but then heavily. In a few minutes the young woman was soaked and her curls all gone. An ancient black Renault 4CV came along, its wings dented and dappled with dull orange paint. The car braked, and water sprayed across the crumbling roadway. At the wheel was Baron Jules. He opened the door and signaled to Aimée to come over. She did so without thinking about it. The man got out of the 4CV and went around to open the front passenger door. He held it open as Aimée stood immobile.
“I won’t eat you,” said the baron.
Aimée got into the car. In the confined interior she was obliged to pull her knees up high, exposing them. She pulled at her dress to cover them once more. Baron Jules was back behind the wheel. The 4CV set off again.
“The baby died,” said Aimée.
“What’s that you say?”
“A baby died. Not the one being baptized. Another baby. Belonging to a peasant woman. He vomited and then died.”
“Calm yourself,” said Baron Jules. “Take deep breaths.”
He speeded up while on the highway, then slowed and turned into a narrow, graveled minor road running straight across fields of stubble. The suspension of the 4CV was very poor and its wiper blades very worn. Through the rain clusters of trees and an oddly spiral church steeple could be vaguely discerned. They reached a hamlet. Baron Jules braked and drove the 4CV through a white double gate, which was open, and down a broad drive. The whitewash on the gate was flaking badly. Beyond lay a very large garden and a kind of manor, a tiny manor burdened down with Lilliputian pepper-pot and pinnacle turrets. The garden had once been in the French manner but had clearly not been kept up for many years. With a squealing of tires on gravel, the 4CV drew up before a double staircase flanked by a pebble-dash balustrade.
“I want to go home,” said Aimée. She shook herself. “I don’t feel well. Take me back into town.”
“You’ve had a shock,” said Baron Jules. “You need to drink something. You need to dry off. You’ll catch your death of cold.”
The man got out of the car and went up the steps. Aimée got out too and followed him. They passed through a dim hall and entered a vast, very cluttered room with bow windows giving onto both the front and the rear of the residence.
“I have some calvados, and I must have the rest of a bottle of fairly decent scotch,” said the baron. “And perhaps you would like some tea?” Aimée nodded. “I’ll make tea. And let me find some towels so you can rub yourself down.”
The man left through a small white door. Aimée took a few hesitant steps in the enormous room, which must have measured at least sixty or eighty square meters. It was crowded with sideboards, tables, cupboards, seats, sofas, knickknacks, and large cardboard boxes bearing such legends as BLACK AND WHITE and HÉNAFF LUNCHEON MEAT—JACK TAR’S TREAT. The pale paint