The Blue Room (Penguin Modern Classics) by Georges Simenon

Author:Georges Simenon [Simenon, Georges]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-02-16T05:00:00+00:00

‘I suppose you burned these notes and those that followed?’

No. He had torn them into little pieces that he then threw into the Orneau. Swollen by the rains, the brownish water swept along tree branches, dead animals and all sorts of debris.

‘My experience tells me that you will soon change your tune. You seem to have answered with complete candour on every other point. I would be astonished if your lawyer did not advise you to take the same attitude with regard to these letters, which would allow you to tell me about your state of mind late in October.’

It was impossible. His state of mind changed every hour. He tried not to think, and felt Gisèle watching him with curiosity – perhaps even worry. She no longer asked him, ‘What are you thinking?’ but would remark, as if tired, ‘You’re not hungry?’

He had no appetite. Three times, at dawn, he had gone to pick mushrooms in the meadow between them and the blacksmith’s, at the highest spot, near the big cherry tree. He had sold several tractors, including two to the agricultural cooperative at Virieux, which leased them to small farmers, and they had also ordered a reaper-binder for the coming summer, for the same purpose.

It had been a good year, and he would be able to pay off a significant part of what he owed on the house.

‘We’ve arrived at 31 October. What did you do that day?’

‘I went to see a customer in Vermoise, thirty-two kilometres away, and I worked for part of the day on his broken-down tractor. I was having trouble finding where the problem was and had lunch at the farm.’

‘Did you return via Triant? And stop to see your brother?’

‘It was on my way, and I usually chat with him and Lucia for a moment.’

‘You never spoke to them of your apprehensions? Or a possible – perhaps probable – change in your circumstances?’

‘What change?’

‘We’ll come back to that. You went home and had dinner. After which you watched television, one you’d bought two weeks earlier. That is what you told the police inspector from Poitiers, whose report I have in front of me. You went upstairs to bed at the same time as your wife?’

‘Of course.’

‘You were unaware of what was happening that night, less than half a kilometre away?’

‘How could I have known?’

‘You’re forgetting the letters, Falcone. You’re saying they don’t exist, true, but I am taking them into account. The next day, All Saints, you went off to church at around ten o’clock, holding your daughter’s hand.’

‘That’s correct.’

‘So you went past the grocery store.’

‘The shutters were closed, as they are on Sundays and holidays.’

‘The upstairs ones as well?’

‘I did not look up.’

‘Does your indifference mean that you considered your relationship with Andrée Despierre at an end?’

‘I believe so.’

‘Or, if you did you not look up, wasn’t it because you already knew?’

‘I didn’t know.’

‘Several people were standing on the pavement in front of the shop.’

‘People gather every Sunday on the square before and after high mass.

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