Murder on the Ile Sordou by M. L. Longworth Page A

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    Maxime and Cat-Cat Le Bon had toyed with the idea of not putting in a swimming pool when they renovated Locanda Sordou. They thought the whole idea of it idiotic, with the sea surrounding them; budget was a concern too, and toward the end of the renovations they had started using up their money and had little left for a pool the size and quality a hotel like Sordou would need. In the end an investor—a colleague of Clément Viale’s—stepped in with 50,000 euros, which enabled them to add a pool, pool house, and bar, and buy the necessary lounge furniture from B&B Italia.
    The Le Bons had both grown up privileged, and their first swims had been at family vacation homes on the sea, in Deauville. And so one of the first things they had installed, before the renovations had even begun, was a small ladder that led from the flat rocks in the beach’s harbor down into the sea about five feet below. The flat rocks provided perfect, natural areas to recline, and the ladder made it feel like the Mediterranean was one big swimming pool, which, compared to the Atlantic, it was.
    Marine had climbed down the ladder and swam close in, where she could see down to the seafloor. But Antoine swam far out, and when she was tired she climbed out and stood on the rocks watching him, with her hand shielding her eyes from the sun. She didn’t like the idea of his swimming alone, but she was too afraid of the sea, and its black depth, to venture out with him.
    They had been out there all morning, alternating between reading, talking, and swimming when it got too hot. She waved to the Americans, who were sitting on the next cliff over, Mr. Hobbs fishing and Mrs. Hobbs sketching. She bent down and pulled her watch out of her beach bag; it was almost 1 p.m., and time to head back in for lunch. She waved out to Verlaque and he began swimming toward her.
    â€œIf I got you some goggles,” he said as he swam up to the cliff’s edge, “I think you’d enjoy swimming in the sea more.” He swam over to the ladder and pulled himself out. Marine was always amazed that despite her boyfriend’s love of good food and wine, and his ample girth, he rarely seemed out of breath after swimming, or running. “When you do a lot of sports when you’re young, it stays with you,” he had explained. Marine’s sports had been walking to the library when she was a young girl, and then walking around Paris’s sixth
arrondissement
where she had studied law.
    â€œPerhaps,” Marine called out, as she sat on the rock’s edge and dipped her feet into the cold sea.
    â€œTime for lunch?” Verlaque asked once he was out and was toweling off his hair.
    â€œYes,” Marine replied. “And I predict that Sylvie will be a no-show, and that boy, Brice, will be there, and starving.”
    â€œI think you’re right,” Verlaque said. “It would be hard to have a son, wouldn’t it?”
    Marine looked over at Verlaque, surprised. “You mean instead of a daughter, or just a child in general?”
    â€œNo, I think as opposed to a daughter.”
    â€œOh, I don’t think I was easy to get along with at fifteen.”
    â€œEasier than I was, or any other boy,” Verlaque said, picking up his newspapers, which he had held down with a rock. “I’d be terrified to have a son, actually. My parents did such a botched job on Sébastien and me.”
    â€œBut that’s just it,” Marine said. “It wasn’t your fault, being a boy. It was your parents’ botched job, as you call it, at raising you, and your brother.”
    Verlaque laughed. “Now there’s a piece of work, eh? My brother, Parisian real estate mogul who dines every night alone.”
    â€œYou don’t know that for sure.”
    â€œYes, I do,” Verlaque said. “Reports from acquaintances tell me that Séb has