Vertigo by Pierre Boileau Page B

that.
    Flavières pressed on the spring of the lighter, and watched the thin tongue of flame for a moment before blowing it out. The metal was warm in his hand. No, Madeleine’s motives were not everyday ones. He had approached the problem too crudely, trying to boil everything down to simple cause and effect. He wouldn’t make that mistake again: he would purify himself, cauterize himself with red-hot needles, until one day he would be worthy to fathom the mystery of Pauline Lagerlac. In the end it would no doubt come to him in a flash. He picturedhimself a monk, kneeling down on the beaten earth which formed the floor of his cell; but it was not a crucifix to which he raised his eyes, but Madeleine’s photograph, the one he had seen on Gévigne’s desk.
    He rubbed his eyes, wiped his forehead, and asked for the bill. Hell! They knew how to sting you in this place!… Never mind. No recriminations. They weren’t allowed: it was part of the punishment. He went out. It was quite dark now, except for a narrow band of stars between the tall houses. Sometimes a car passed, its lights dimmed and shaded. Flavières couldn’t make up his mind to go home. He dreaded the telephone call which told him the body had been found. And he wasn’t sorry to impose still more fatigue on this body of his which he held responsible for such a catastrophe. He walked at random in a sort of dizzy abandon. He would keep watch till dawn. It was a question of dignity. Of something else, too: where Madeleine had gone she might be in need of a friendly thought. Little Eurydice!
    Tears welled up into his eyes. He tried hard to form as it were a concrete picture of nothingness, so that he could keep her company at least for her first night there. The nearest he could get to it was Paris in the black-out, and he had to make the best of that. Yes, it was good to wander through those shadows. The land of the living was far away. Here were only the dead, solitary figures slinking through the streets, haunted by the bright days of long ago, tortured by a remembered happiness. Some stopped for a moment to look down at the dark river licking its banks, then slunk on again. Were they preparing themselves for the Day of Judgment? What was it the waiter had said?
    ‘They’ve broken through at Liège.’
    Flavières sat down on one of the seats on the quay, and threw his arms over the back. Tomorrow he’d go away… His head swayed; he shut his eyes; he had just time to formulate the thought:
    ‘You’re going to sleep after all. Shirker!’
    He slept with his mouth wide open like a tramp spending the night on a bench in a police station. It was much later when he was woken up by the cold. He groaned. He had cramp in his right leg, and walked away, limping in the bleak daylight of early morning. Shivering and with a parched mouth, he felt ghastly, and took refuge in a café that was just opening. The wireless was blaring away, announcing that the situation was confused and that the infantry were engaged in plugging up a few breaches. He ate a couple of croissants dipped into his coffee, and took the Metro home.
    He had hardly shut his door when the telephone rang.
    ‘Hallo! Is that you, Roger?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I was right, you know. She’s killed herself.’
    It was better to say nothing. He stood listening uncomfortably to Gévigne’s breathing. He seemed to be blowing right into Flavières’ ear.
    ‘I was told last night,’ he went on at last. ‘An old woman found her at the foot of a church tower at Saint-Nicolas.’
    ‘Where’s that?’
    ‘North of Mantes… A little village of nothing at all between Sailly and Drocourt… I can’t take it in.’
    ‘What was she doing out there?’
    ‘Wait a minute. I’d better tell you everything. She threwherself from the top of the tower and crashed in the churchyard. The body was taken to the hospital at Mantes.’
    ‘Poor chap. It’s awful for you. Are you going?’
    ‘I’ve just come back. Of