‘You have to leave,’ she says in a low voice, crouching down beside me. ‘My father thinks you’re still at the lake. You need to go before he comes back.’
Even now I’d been hoping she’d reassure me I’d nothing to worry about, that it was a misunderstanding. I start to get to my feet again but she pulls me back down. She’s just a shadow herself, her face all but invisible in the dark.
‘Not yet. Give him a little longer to get out of sight. Here, put this on.’
She pushes something at me. I can’t see it but I recognize it by touch as my boot.
‘I found it on the path,’ she whispers. ‘That’s why I thought you’d be here.’
‘Where’s Gretchen?’ I ask, blindly trying to pull on the boot. My foot is slick with blood but too swollen for it to fit.
‘With Michel.’
‘What did she tell your father?’
‘Never mind. Take these.’ Mathilde presses something else into my hands. Keys and what feels like a small roll of money. ‘It’s not much but it’s all I have. And you’ll need this.’
She passes me something thin and flat. It takes me a moment to realize it’s my passport.
‘You’ve been in my rucksack?’ My thoughts are still sluggish, but I can’t see how she’d have had time to go up to the loft.
‘Not tonight. I took it the first time you went into town.’
I don’t know which shocks me more, the fact she took my passport or that I never noticed it was missing. ‘Why?’
‘Because I didn’t want you to leave without telling me. I have a favour to ask, but now we need to go. Are you ready?’
Favour? ‘I can’t get the boot on,’ I say, more confused than ever.
‘Do it later. We have to hurry.’
She’s already ushering me from behind the statue. I’ve no choice but to carry the boot, the rough ground gouging into my bare foot.
‘Careful,’ she says, steering me away from a patch of shadow. At first I don’t know what she means, then I make out something hard-edged hidden in it.
So much for Arnaud not setting traps near his statues.
But Mathilde seems to know where to tread as she hurries me back to the track. I limp along as fast as I can, fresh hurt coming from my foot each time I set it down. The clouds covering the moon are shredded, allowing a sickly light to dapple through. I risk a glance towards the lake, but can’t see Arnaud.
‘What favour?’ I ask, keeping my voice low.
There’s enough light to see her tuck her hair behind her ear in the familiar gesture. I can’t make out her face but I can sense her agitation.
‘I want you to take Gretchen with you.’
‘You what?’
‘Shh, just listen.’ Mathilde grips my arm, her voice low and hushed. ‘I have to get her away from here, and she’ll go with you. I know it’s a lot to ask but I don’t expect you to support her. I’ll send more money, as much as I can.’
‘Jesus, Mathilde …’
‘Please! I could have told the police about the drugs in your rucksack.’
Of course she’d know, I think, too stunned to feel shocked. I was feverish for three days. A stranger: did I really expect her not to search my things to see who she was looking after? The only surprise is that she let me stay anyway.
Unless she had her own reasons.
The overhanging leaves cast a shadowplay on Mathilde’s face as moonlight breaks through the clouds. The track comes to life around us. Past the wood, the vine field is thrown into sharp relief, the rutted track clearly etched on it like lines drawn in charcoal. I think I see a flicker of movement on it as Mathilde urges me to walk faster.
‘Hurry, we—’
The sudden crack of a gunshot rings out. It comes from behind us, the direction of the lake, and we both flinch as it’s followed by a second. Mathilde pulls me off the track.
‘Down here!’
The trees close in like a tunnel as she leads me down the fork to the sanglochon pens. Branches whip at me as I run just behind her, favouring my cut foot, and then we’re in the ammoniac stink of the clearing. The full moon shines overhead like a beacon, picking out the sows slumped asleep like hairy bolsters. Hoping they don’t wake, I limp behind Mathilde. I expect her to head towards the wood at the far side, but instead she goes to the cinderblock hut.
‘In here,’ she pants, pushing open the door.
There’s no time to argue. I hurry inside and the light is cut off as both halves of the stable door swing shut. The reek of offal and old blood closes in around us. It’s pitch black and our laboured breathing sounds too loud in the enclosed space. There’s no window, but as my eyes adjust I see chinks of light seeping through gaps in the mortar. Mathilde brushes past me and peers through one.
‘Is he there?’ I whisper.
‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’
I go to look for myself, and there’s a muted clinking as my shoulder brushes something. I give a start before realizing it’s the chain hanging from the pulley. Groping in the dark to quieten its swaying, I feel my way around the stone slab standing in the middle of the hut. I press my face against one of the chinks in the rough wall, blinking as my breath huffs away dirt and sand. The small crack doesn’t allow much of a view, and the clearing is already darkening as another cloud covers the moon. But there’s no sign of Arnaud.
‘If he’d seen us he’d be here already,’ Mathilde murmurs. At least the hut’s walls won’t let our voices carry: Arnaud would have to be right outside to hear us. ‘He must have been shooting at shadows.’
‘Then let’s go.’ I’m already regretting coming in here. I move towards the thin line of light leaking around the door, but Mathilde reaches out to stop me.
‘Not yet.’
‘Why? Shouldn’t we go while he’s still at the lake?’
‘He could be on his way back by now. We could walk right into him.’
She’s right, but I’m loath to stay where we are. The cinderblock walls might stop a small-calibre bullet, but if Arnaud guesses we’re in here we’ll be trapped.
‘What about the woods on the other side of the clearing? Can we get out that way?’
‘No, it’s too dangerous. There’s no path and my father laid traps in there as well.’
Oh Christ. I try to think. ‘So what do we do now?’
‘We wait. In a few minutes I’ll go out and see if it’s clear.’
‘What if it isn’t?’
‘Then I’ll tell him you slipped away while he was at the lake. Once he’s gone to bed I’ll come and get you.’
Mathilde sounds as calm as ever. For an instant I feel a sudden fear that she might bring her father here, but of course that’s ridiculous. She wouldn’t be doing all this if she meant me any harm. I have to trust her.
I lower myself to the floor as she takes another look outside, hoping I’ll be able to get my boot on. My foot feels raw and swollen. I brush the dirt from it and give an involuntary gasp as I catch the torn flesh.
‘Are you all right?’ Mathilde asks.
I nod before I realize she can’t see me. ‘It’s just my foot.’
‘Here, let me.’
There’s a rustle as she crouches down. Her hands are cool on my skin as she gently feels my foot in the darkness. I draw in a breath as she probes something tender.
‘You’ve reopened some of the wounds and gashed your instep. Have you anything to bind it with?’
‘No.’
‘Never mind. I’ll help you get your boot on.’
Her hair brushes against my arm as she starts to work the boot over my foot. ‘Why do you want Gretchen to leave so badly?’ I ask, trying to ignore the discomfort. ‘Because of what’s in the lake?’
There’s the smallest of pauses. ‘That’s one reason.’
So she does know about it. I feel a sense of unreality that we’re having this conversation. I wish I could see her but she’s just another shape in the darkness.
‘What
happened to Louis, Mathilde?’
She continues trying to ease the boot onto my foot. For a moment I don’t think she’s going to answer. When she does her voice is quiet and resigned.
‘I found out I was pregnant while he was in Lyon. I was going to tell him when he came back. I had a little money, so I hoped I could persuade him to take us away somewhere. Gretchen too. She was … fond of Louis. But I should have known she’d tell my father. There was a scene. He and Louis fought …’
I flinch as the boot slips home. ‘So then your father drove his truck into the lake?’
‘He wanted to get rid of everything that showed Louis had been at the farm. He came straight here from Lyon. It was night, so no one knew he was back. Afterwards … we just pretended nothing had happened.’
I feel her hands fall away from my boot as though her mind’s already elsewhere. I reach down and start to fasten the laces as she gets to her feet.
‘What about the body?’ The truck’s cab was empty, but now I can’t help but think about the crumbling patch of concrete in the barn again.
‘My father brought it down here.’
‘Here?’
‘For the sanglochons.’
It takes a moment for her meaning to sink in. Jesus. Horrified, I look around the blackness of the small hut, remembering the stunned sow being hauled off the floor, the sound of the blood spattering into the bucket. Something Arnaud said suddenly takes on an awful significance.
Pigs eat anything.
‘How much does Gretchen know?’ I ask.
‘I don’t know.’ Mathilde sounds weary. ‘She was dazed and hysterical afterwards, and she’s never spoken about it. Ever since she was a little girl, Gretchen’s been able to block out anything she doesn’t want to think about. As though it never happened.’
I’ve seen that for myself. But the memory of Gretchen’s bizarre amnesia is swept away by a far worse thought. I’ve been assuming that Arnaud killed Louis.
Maybe he didn’t.
My foot hurts when I stand up, though not so much that I won’t be able to run if I have to. I peer out through the chink in the wall. What I can see of the clearing in the leprous moonlight is empty.
‘Your father didn’t kill Louis, did he?’ I ask, without turning round.
There’s the briefest of pauses. ‘No.’
‘Gretchen’s sick, Mathilde. She needs help.
‘Sick?’
‘You can’t keep on protecting her. Even if she didn’t mean to kill Louis, sooner or later she’s going to hurt someone else. Or herself.’
‘No, you don’t understand,’ she says, as though she’s explaining to a child. ‘Gretchen didn’t kill Louis. I did.’
Something cold uncoils in my stomach. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Louis was beating my father. Hurting him.’ Her voice is flat, as though all the emotion has been drained out of it. ‘When Gretchen tried to stop him he punched her. Hard, in her face. So I picked up a spade and hit him.’
The crook on Gretchen’s nose, I think, numbly. I turn towards Mathilde. I can barely see her in the darkness, but she’s so close we’re almost touching.
‘If it was an accident why didn’t you go to the police?’
‘I can’t go to prison.’ For the first time since I’ve known her she sounds scared. ‘It’d be hard enough for Michel, but I couldn’t leave Gretchen alone here. Not with my father.’
‘Why not? I know she’s your sister, but—’
‘She isn’t my sister. Gretchen’s my daughter.’
There’s a second when I think I must have got it wrong. Then I realize. Arnaud? The foul air in the hut seems to congeal around us.
There’s a soft movement as Mathilde brushes at her cheeks.
‘I was thirteen. My father told my mother the baby was some boy’s from town. He said they had to pretend it was theirs to protect my reputation. Then he told the school I was ill and kept me at home until Gretchen was born. No one ever questioned it. After that it was as though she really was their daughter.’
‘Couldn’t you have told someone?’ I say, appalled.
‘Who? My mother must have known, but she wasn’t strong enough to stand up to him. And when she died who else was I to tell? Georges?’
‘Does Gretchen have any idea?’
‘No!’ Her sudden vehemence takes me aback. ‘She mustn’t, not ever. I won’t let him destroy her life as well. I told him if he ever touched her I’d kill him. The only time he tried, I pushed him so hard downstairs he was bedridden for a month.’
She says it with cold satisfaction. It makes her sound like a different woman from the one I know. Or thought I did.
‘What about Michel? Is he …?’
‘He’s Louis’s. But my father regards him as his own. He always wanted a son, an heir to leave the farm to. Daughters aren’t the same, not even Gretchen. I think that’s why …’
‘Why what?’ I ask, when she falls silent.
I hear her sigh, as though she’s drawing breath from a long way away. ‘After my mother died, there was another baby. A little girl. My father never let me see her. He told me she was stillborn, but I … I thought I heard her cry.’
The farm is like a macabre set of Russian dolls, I think. Each time I’m convinced I’ve reached the last secret there’s another, even uglier, inside. ‘For God’s sake, how can you stay here? Why don’t you leave?’
‘It isn’t that easy.’
‘Yes, it is! You pack your things and go! He can’t stop you!’
‘I couldn’t leave without Gretchen.’
‘Then take her with you!’
‘Haven’t you been listening?’ she flashes, again giving a glimpse of the emotion dammed up behind the façade. ‘What do you think I was doing with Louis? She won’t leave her father. At least, not with me.’
So now we’re back where we started. I turn away and look outside again, as much to give myself time as anything. Torn clouds pass over the moon. The small section of clearing that’s visible looks harmless and tranquil, but all around it the trees form a wall of impenetrable shadow.
‘Now you see why I have to get Gretchen away from here,’ Mathilde says from the darkness. ‘I don’t care how or where. Anything’s better than this. She’ll go with you.’
I’m grateful it’s dark in the small hut so I don’t have to face her. It’s a sign of her desperation that she’s still trying to persuade me to take her daughter after all this. Or maybe she hopes I’ll feel obliged now she’s confided in me. Either way it makes no difference.
‘I can’t. I’m sorry.’
I hear something behind me. Turning, I see the thin light around the door blocked out as Mathilde passes in front of it, and then there’s another sound. Only faint, barely more than a whisper: the soft scrape of steel on stone. And I suddenly remember the butchering knife that Georges picked up from the slab.
‘Will you reconsider?’ Mathilde asks from the darkness.
The moment seems to hang. I remember the hammer that also sits on the slab. There’s a muscle twitch that might be the start of my hand moving, then a noise comes from outside. It’s quickly stifled, but there’s no mistaking it.
A child’s whimper.
There’s a flurry of movement and moonlight floods into the hut as Mathilde wrenches open the door. As she rushes out I see her hands are empty. I hurry after her, half-expecting to find Arnaud waiting with his rifle.
But it isn’t her father who’s standing outside. It’s Gretchen.
She’s clutching Michel to her like a shield. Her hand is clamped across his mouth, pinning him as he struggles. There’s no need to ask how much she’s heard.
Mathilde falters. ‘Gretchen …’
‘It isn’t true. You’re not my mother.’
‘No, of course not.’ Mathilde tries to smile.
‘Papa didn’t do those things. I don’t believe you, you’re lying!’
‘That’s right. I was making it up.’ Mathilde
holds out her hands. ‘You’re hurting Michel. Here, let me—’
‘Stay away!’ Gretchen backs off. Michel twists his face away from her hand and begins to wail. Mathilde takes a step towards her.
‘I only want to—’
‘Stay away from me!’
Still holding Michel, she turns and runs. Ignoring the pain in my foot, I overtake Mathilde as she chases after her, but Gretchen has already reached the sanglochon pen. She hoists Michel into the air above the boar’s enclosure.
‘Get away! I mean it!’
Mathilde stumbles to a halt next to me as Gretchen holds Michel poised over the fence. The boar is nowhere in sight, but the baby’s howling has disturbed the sows in the next pen. Their agitated grunts add to the commotion.
‘Come on, Gretchen, you don’t want to hurt him,’ I say.
‘Shut up!’ she yells, her face blotched and wet with tears. ‘You don’t care about me, you’re as bad as her!’
There’s movement in the pen behind her. The boar’s snout appears in the cave-like entrance of its shed. Small, mean eyes regard us from under the heavy flaps of its ears.
‘Gretchen, please listen to me!’ Even in the moonlight Mathilde’s face is ashen. ‘I’m sorry—’
‘No, you’re not! You’re lying! Papa didn’t do that! My mother’s dead, you’re not her!’
Behind her, the boar has emerged. It begins to pace, watching us.
‘You’re frightening Michel,’ Mathilde says. ‘Give him to me, and then—’
‘No!’ Gretchen shouts, and with a squeal the boar charges. It thuds into the fencing, and as Gretchen recoils I lunge forward. But she sees me and thrusts Michel towards the enclosure again. ‘Get away!’
I back off. The boar butts against the planks, enraged. The baby is wailing, legs kicking in the air.
‘No!’ Mathilde’s hands have gone to her mouth. ‘Don’t, please! You don’t want to hurt Michel, he’s—’
‘He’s what? My brother?’ Gretchen’s face slowly crumples as Mathilde says nothing. ‘It’s not true! I don’t believe you!’
Beginning to sob, she hugs Michel to her. Thank God. Beside me, I can feel the tension ebb from Mathilde.
‘Come up to the house,’ she says as she steps forward. ‘Let me take Michel, and—’