“What are you talking about now?” She sighed wearily.
“I checked. My client lived at number twenty-eight, not number twenty-six as I first thought. That’s the house where he hanged himself.”
“Great,” Nora said coldly. “Thanks for letting me know.”
Gérard ignored his wife’s chilly tone and turned his head to the house next door with a smirk.
“Poor guy...if only he’d known.”
Chapter 16
Once again, Gérard felt very dispirited on the journey home. Nora had been distant and cold, deliberately showing her antipathy to him while being gracious to her neighbor. And when that idiot had gone home and the children had run into the house—in other words, when he’d found himself alone with her for two minutes—she’d dismissed him unceremoniously, indifferent to his obvious desire to reestablish a cordial relationship with her. He’d apologized, hadn’t he? What more did she want?
Feeling bruised by his wife’s obduracy, his self-esteem wounded, Gérard clenched his jaw as he recalled the conspiratorial smile Nora had exchanged with her neighbor. Who was that guy? He looked like your standard-issue suburban liberal, a schmuck who’d scented a potential lay when he saw a single woman with two kids show up next door. An asshole who clearly hadn’t wasted any time before getting friendly with her. And she, of course, was completely oblivious, always convinced that people were only motivated by good intentions. She was so naïve.
Or maybe he was the one being naïve. Maybe Nora was completely aware of the lecherous motivation of her bastard of a neighbor and actually liked it. He pictured Nora’s body in her neighbor’s arms and let out a cry of sheer rage. The very idea of another man touching her, or even just going near her—merely laying eyes on her—was unbearable. His chest tightened with fury. It felt like he’d been stabbed with a white-hot dagger to the heart.
It hadn’t taken her long to flaunt her availability in front of the first person who came along, and that guy was certainly making the most of it. It was so obvious they were having fun—you just had to see the way they smirked at each other in front of him, in front of everyone, not even thinking about whether it might upset the children. Gérard felt so alone, betrayed, scorned to the depths of his being, his love for her sullied. He was such a fool. The elevated image he had of his wife, the esteem in which he’d held her, the way he’d been so sure she was not like other women, that this kind of thing would never happen to them.
But she’d left him, after all they’d built together, all their memories, intimacy, affection, contentment. Eighteen years. Eighteen years together, swept away in a few days, packed up in boxes and pitched into a moving truck. The things she’d left behind in the house—his home!—had lost all depth, shape, color, smell. There was nothing left. Everything was now a kind of transparent gray, glassy and flat.
Impersonal.
She’d gone, leaving behind nothing but a void.
Clutching the steering wheel, Gérard stifled a sob of despair, overwhelmed by the urge to burst into tears. What was stopping him from crying? He was alone now, alone in his body, his heart, his soul, cut off from the watchful eye and soothing presence of the woman he still adored. Her absence racked his body every hour of the day and night. There was no respite. Every moment was torture.
The whole thing had come out of the blue, with absolutely no warning—no revealing details or clues that might have allowed him to parry the mortal blow she was about to deal him. Maybe he’d have been able to reason with her, talk her out of it. He might have persuaded her to give up this insane project by reminding her of her priorities—the children, the family.Theirfamily. But no, she hadn’t given him a chance. When she left, she proved that everything they had built up together over so many years had lost all meaning for her.
It was beyond belief.
She had to wake up. She had to realize her mistake, recognize the appalling stupidity of what she’d done. She was going to come to her senses and return to their house. It might take a little time, but it would happen, he was sure of it. Hell couldn’t last forever. It would all come to an end one day. Sure, not right away, it would take time for her to overcome the shame and deal with her wounded pride, but the day would come, it had to. And when it did, he’d welcome her with open arms, make a thousand promises, forgive her for everything, and pretend it had never happened. He was tired of living like a hermit, being on his own when she was just a few miles away. So near and yet so far. She and the children. His engine, his motivation, the reason he needed to get up in the morning to go to work, to play the role of father, lover, citizen.
That was why he had to do everything he could to see her, to spend time with her, to make her understand he wasn’t angry with her, she could come back whenever she wanted, he wouldn’t talk about any of it, or ask any questions. To make her understand how he’d changed.
How much better things would be from now on.
But for that to happen, for him to be able to show her he wasn’t the same man anymore, they had to see each other! How was he going to make her realize the immensity of her error if not in person, in flesh and blood, palpable? He had to find the words to convince her. Words were his forte; he knew how to use them better than anyone. He didn’t doubt for a moment that, given the chance, he’d be able to make her see everything differently.
What he had to do now was assess the situation, weigh up the enemy threat, and get organized. He needed to know who exactly he was dealing with. He pulled over to the side of the road, switched on his blinkers, and checked to see if there was any oncoming traffic. Then he swung the car around and drove back to the end of Nora’s street. He parked the car far enough away that she wouldn’t spot it, and walked the rest of the way, taking long strides, his eyes fixed on Nora’s house, ready to duck behind the hedge in case she suddenly appeared. There was no reason for her to be going out at this time of day, but it was better to be cautious and prepared for any eventuality. He mustn’t be seen. What he wanted to do would take only a few seconds; it would be extremely dumb to mess it up.
He didn’t slow his step when he reached number 26, but hunched down so he couldn’t be seen from the living room window, and kept going till he reached number 28. When he arrived at the front door he stood up straight and read the names on the doorbell.
What he saw left him speechless.
Tiphaine and Sylvain Geniot—Milo Brunelle.
Brunelle. The same surname as David Brunelle. The man who’d hanged himself. The foxglove poisoning. Could this Brunelle be his son? Yes, he remembered now David Brunelle mentioning he had a seven-year-old son.
The memories came back in waves: the atmosphere in his client’s cell that night, the man’s extreme agitation, his palpable anxiety, how desperate he’d been to go home and pick up his son, who was being looked after by a neighbor while he accompanied the police down to the station. Gérard frowned as he tried to remember. David had become increasingly distressed as he realized what he was being accused of and heard the circumstances of Ernest Wilmot’s death. That was when he’d mentioned a neighbor who had gifted them the pot of purple foxgloves the police had found on the deck. A neighbor who was, he said, the only person he knew capable of transforming a simple plant into a dangerous weapon.
The same neighbor who was looking after his son. Who was none other than Milo Brunelle.
It was all coming back to him now.
Eight years after the affair, David Brunelle’s son was still living in the house where his father had hanged himself. The horror.
Baffled, Gérard tapped the names of Tiphaine and Sylvain Geniot and Milo Brunelle into the Notes application on his iPhone. The most pressing question that needed answering was the nature of the relationship between the Geniots and Milo and, ultimately, David Brunelle.
