Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 78076 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78076 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
“What about the old woman? What did she tell you?”
He sighed. “Nothing interesting. Of course her great-nephew is a saint. He comes here two or three times a week, does the shopping, sometimes takes her out to a restaurant on Sundays. He’s very polite, and it’s completely impossible that he shot the man in the kitchen.”
“So, just like normal,” I said.
The families of the worst criminals always had the nicest things to say about them. They were well-behaved, obviously serious, honest, and fine, clean-cut guys. My own mother wouldn’t speak about me so highly. I had no doubt that she thought highly of us, her five children, but if someone came to interrogate her, the first things she would tell the investigators would be questionable anecdotes from when we were teenagers or how difficult it was to raise four boys so close in age. Then she would go on about the fact that I didn’t call often enough, which made me ungrateful that she’d spoiled me too much.
“She admitted she sometimes has friends over, but says it’s because he likes to enjoy the garden,” said Adam.
“A group of nature lovers. Why don’t they join a gardening club while they’re at it?” I asked sarcastically. “Well, she’s not going to tell us. Shall we go talk to the girl together?”
“It’d be my pleasure.”
We climbed up the narrow staircase. There was a uniformed policeman standing on the landing who nodded at me.
“What’s she doing?” Adam asked.
“No idea. I closed the door, and she hasn’t tried to escape,” the police officer told us.
Adam knocked on the wooden door, but there was no response. We exchanged a look, and he knocked again.
Still nothing.
“Robin? It’s Lieutenant Leonard, can I come in?”
Silence.
Adam shrugged and then tried to turn the handle. It was locked.
He lost his patience and knocked a little more forcefully. “Robin? Open up, please.”
My colleague and brother-in-law started to panic a bit. Had she collapsed? Was she in shock? The policeman on duty went to fetch a screwdriver, and I got the knob off in no time.
We quickly ran into a problem. Our witness had disappeared.
Exactly how she did it was pretty clear from the open window. By looking out of it, it was easy to see that you didn’t need to be an accomplished acrobat to get out onto the roof of the little covered walkway in the garden below and then to slide down into the garden on one of the pillars.
“What did you say her name was?”
Adam flicked through his notebook.
“Robin. Roxane Robin.”
The name seemed vaguely familiar to me. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I’d heard it before.
“Let me guess. About 5’1”, blonde hair up in a ponytail, wearing faded jeans and a black t-shirt?”
“Yes, how did you know?”
“I have two pieces of bad news for you. The first is that our witness has escaped. The second is that the forensic team hasn’t arrived.”
25
FINN CHAPTER 2
Roxane
I was tearing down the highway in the south of France. Driving in a convertible, my hair blowing in the wind, I could almost have believed I was in a Cardigans video, but zigzagging between families in minivans and tourists’ campervans is slightly less glamorous than driving through the desert.
The longer I drove, the less anxious I felt. Somewhere before Aix-en-Provence I actually started to enjoy this impromptu trip.
I refused to think about what had happened that afternoon and the possible consequences. What scared me wasn’t the fact that I’d seen a dead body—even if I’d rather not have—it was that I was a witness to a murder. Even worse still, I saw the killer, and there wasn’t any doubt about his identity. I knew for certain that if I were to say anything on the matter, he would do the same to me as to that poor guy with the mullet. Did I really want to die with a bullet between my eyes and my brain splattered over some unsuspecting old woman’s kitchen cupboards?
Absolutely not.
And it was a safe bet the guy with the MacGyver hairstyle, lying on the cold kitchen tiles in Madeleine Barale’s house, hadn’t wanted to, either.
Don’t Stop Me Now by Queen was playing over the radio, and I turned up the volume to sing along with Freddie Mercury. Gradually, the lyrics infused themselves into me, and I believed I was invincible.
It was at that moment a sports car passed me. Its driver, in his twenties, with perfect hair and wearing sunglasses, was the stereotypical guy who wants to show off, even though there’s nothing under the hood. He glanced at me briefly and sped up, but not to speed away. No, the noise from his engine was perfectly calculated to send me a message.
He was provoking me.
Had he sensed that I could never say no to a challenge? Did he want a race? Well, he was going to get one.