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He’d obviously been dragged from the course of his morning routine. His hair was damp from the shower, and he hadn’t finished buttoning his shirt, but I fancied he looked more presentable than I did. He, at least, had slept. The memory of that sleep still lingered round his heavy-lidded eyes, and the way he looked at me was unconsciously intimate.
“I’m sorry,” I began, speaking French from instinct. “I shouldn’t have bothered you, this early.”
“It is no problem.” He fastened the last few shirt buttons. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
“My friend is dead.” To my dismay, I felt the tears come burning up behind my eyes. I blinked them back, determined not to cry, but Armand saw them anyway. He stepped quickly away from the door, muttering a soft recrimination that was, I gathered, directed at himself.
“I didn’t think,” he said. “I’m sorry. That was the young boy yesterday, who fell, yes? I didn’t realize—” He broke off, stiffly. “It must be very difficult.”
I nodded dumbly, and took the chair he offered me. He didn’t sit behind the desk, but pulled a second chair across the carpet, facing mine, and sat so that his knees were only inches from my own. His dark eyes gently searched my face. “You have not slept.”
He had dropped the formal manner of address, and used the more familiar “tu” instead of “vous.” It was not a change that the French made lightly, signifying as it did a deepening of one’s relationship. At any other time I might have noticed, and been flattered, but today it scarcely registered.
“No,” I said, “I couldn’t sleep. Too many thoughts.”
“I understand. Myself, I’ve worried many times about Lucie playing near that wall. I was afraid that such an accident might happen.”
“But it wasn’t an accident, that’s just it.” I took a breath and squared my shoulders. “Someone pushed him.”
He stared, incredulous. “What?”
“I…I’m not sure who did it, but I think I do know why, only the police wouldn’t listen. They were very polite, and all that, but they wouldn’t listen.” My voice was bitter, laced with more emotion than I’d heard in it for years. “Somebody pushed Paul.”
He studied me. “You saw this happen?”
“No.”
“Then how can you be sure?”
I sighed, and looked away. “It’s a long story.”
“I have time.” He smiled, faintly. “Have you eaten, yet?”
“Yes,” I lied.
“Well, I have not. So I will find François, and while I eat my breakfast you will tell me this long story of yours. All right?”
It didn’t take as long as I’d imagined, after all. I’d finished talking by the time he pushed his plate away. We had moved into the sitting room, to the same dining table where we’d shared our first meal on Saturday. Across the table from me, Armand lit a cigarette in contemplative silence. He smoked a yellow-filtered brand, I noticed. But then, so did half the population of France.
“Your cousin is in danger, you think?”
“I don’t know what to think,” I answered honestly. “I only know that Paul was trying to help me find him. And now Paul’s dead.”
“Like Didier.” He lowered his gaze to the tablecloth in brow-knit concentration. “So this is why you asked so many questions about Didier, last time we met.”
“Yes.”
“You might have told me then, that you were worried for your cousin.”
“It’s not the sort of thing one drops on strangers, is it?” I replied. “And anyway, you seemed so sure that Didier could not have known Harry.”
“I’m not perfect,” he said quietly. “And I’d hardly call us strangers, you and I.” He lifted his eyes, then, and I met them squarely, aware that in the hard pale light of day I must look something less than human. “You have told this to the police, you said?”
“Every word.”
“And they did not think it serious.”
“Yes, well,” I shrugged, “that’s why I’ve come to you. I thought, perhaps, if you could talk to them, a man of your standing…”
