Читать книгу Fresh Water for Flowers - Valérie Perrin - Страница 27

Philippe Toussaint is dead. The only difference between him and the deceased in this cemetery is that I do occasionally pay my respects at their graves.”

“Philippe Toussaint is in the phone book. Well, the name of his garage is in the phone book.”

It has been more than nineteen years since anyone has spoken his first name and surname aloud in front of me. Even in the speech of others, Philippe Toussaint had disappeared.

“His garage?”

“I thought you would want to know, that you’d looked for him.”

I’m incapable of responding to the detective. I haven’t looked for Philippe Toussaint. I waited for him for a long time, which is different.

“I noticed that there’d been some movement on Mr. Toussaint’s bank account.”

“His bank account . . . ”

“His current account was emptied in 1998. I went to check on the spot where the money had been withdrawn, to find out whether it was fraud, identity theft, or Toussaint himself who had withdrawn that money.”

I feel chilled from head to toe. Every time he says his name, I want him to shut up. I want him never to have entered my house.

“Your husband hasn’t disappeared. He lives a hundred kilometers from here.”

“A hundred kilometers . . . ”

And yet, that day had started off well: Nono’s arrival, Father Cédric, Elvis singing at the window, good humor, the smell of coffee, the men’s laughter, my ghastly dolls, the dust to remove, the cloth, the warmth in the stairs . . .

“But why have you been investigating Philippe Toussaint?”

“When Madame Bréant told me he’d disappeared, I wanted to know, to help you.”

“Monsieur Seul, if there’s a key in the door of our cupboards, it’s so that no one opens them.”