2
Juliette was laying the table for dinner. It had just gone eight o’clock and Roland was late, as usual. The children, Ludivine and Corentin, were watching a cartoon. It was the only thing Juliette could find to keep them quiet. The last few days’ stormy weather and heavy atmosphere had been driving them up the wall. Wafts of the beef bourguignon bubbling on the stove were coming from the kitchen. It was a dish that could easily be reheated, she had told herself as she shopped, already anticipating that her husband would be held up at work. She had gone to buy the ingredients on her way home from the special school where she taught French. She liked her job, in spite of its challenges. While she waited in line at the butcher’s, the sound of a police siren had taken her back ten years, to when she first met Roland.
It was chance that had thrown them together. Juliette was living in the tenth arrondissement at the time. One night, she had returned from the opera to find her flat had been burgled. Shock quickly gave way to panic and fear. She called the police, who told her to come and make a statement the following day or later in the week. Instead, she set off immediately, leaving the door to her flat wide open and falling off its hinges. She practically ran to the police station and arrived in a state of disarray, it having dawned on her en route that another thief might seize the opportunity to steal what little she had left: two pairs of jeans, three dresses and the bag she took to school. She was twenty-five and just starting out in her career. A junior officer took her into a small glass-walled room. It was past midnight and the man’s tiredness was showing. He began tapping out Juliette’s statement on an old typewriter in a perfunctory manner. Having expressed her surprise at the antiquated equipment – those were her exact words, ‘Your equipment really is antiquated’ – she met with a blank reaction and was forced to rephrase her remark, suddenly smiling and genial, having almost forgotten why she was there.
‘That’s some knackered old kit you’ve got there. I never thought I’d see one of those things again.’
Smiling half-heartedly, the officer replied weakly, ‘The computer’s broken.’
She was reeling off her name and address when a police lieutenant stuck his head round the door to have a word with the officer. She heard his voice before she saw his face; its tone was warm but firm. He was asking for a report that his subordinate had not yet finished. While the officer mumbled his excuses, Juliette turned round to look at the man he was speaking to. He was standing right behind her, almost touching her. Flustered, unprepared for the encounter, she straightened in her chair. Looking up at him, she met his gaze searing deep into her eyes. And then he was gone. Under interrogation by Juliette, the junior officer told her the man in question was Lieutenant Desfeuillères. She made her way home soon afterwards feeling strange, wondering if she had imagined that voice and the look he had given her, which she couldn’t get out of her mind. Nothing else about him had stood out. If someone had asked her to describe what he looked like, she wouldn’t have known where to start.
‘What can I get you?’
The butcher shook her from her daydream. She stammered two or three words before pulling herself together.
‘I’ll have eight hundred grams of stewing steak, please.’
The young man behind the counter, who could barely be eighteen, had not been working there long. He had a nice manner with the customers and took his role seriously. He made Juliette laugh; he was a joker. He could have been one of her students. She had only been served by him two or three times when he started trying to flirt with her, but he did the same to everybody. ‘Looking gorgeous today, Madame.’ After the second time he told her his name: ‘I’m Mohamed.’
‘Anything else for you?’
Le flic. Nowadays she called Roland ‘the cop’. The junior officer had warned her that burglars were very rarely caught. There was no need for her to come back to the station. They would write if there was any news. Nevertheless two weeks later, naturally having heard nothing, Juliette returned ‘just on the off-chance’, as she told the officer manning the front desk. He was preparing to turn her away when Lieutenant Desfeuillères appeared. If chance had brought them together the first time, their next encounter could only be the work of fate. The lieutenant recognised Juliette at once and invited her into his office.
‘I’ll look after Madame,’ he told the officer. And the rest was history.
It was after nine when Juliette heard the key turn in the door. By now she was furious. The children had eaten. She was on the verge of putting them to bed, but knew how much Roland loved to be welcomed home by them. The sight of the two kids running at his legs instantly made him happy.
‘Bedtime!’ Juliette announced emphatically, in a tone that admitted no protest. However, the soon to be nine-year-old Ludivine was intent on staying up to give her father a goodnight kiss.
‘He doesn’t care!’ Juliette spat without thinking.
Before she knew it, Ludivine was in tears. Her younger brother took advantage of the distraction to race towards the front door.
‘Papa!’
Ludivine scurried after him, her tears suddenly dried and her face lit up.
‘Did you find the murderer? Go on, tell me, Papa!’ the little boy asked, while his sister let herself be scooped up in the arms she would have liked all to herself. ‘Do you still love me?’
The children went off to bed, taking their excitement with them. The apartment felt quiet and empty in their absence. Juliette was at the end of her tether. She no longer found the kids’ nightly performance amusing. She picked a book off the shelves at random and made for the living room. Passing her husband, she nodded towards the kitchen.
‘There’s a beef bourguignon on the stove. Serve yourself.’
Roland grabbed her by the arm.
‘Aren’t you going to give me a kiss?’
Juliette dropped the book.
‘Stop it.’
Roland wouldn’t let go. He tried to pull her towards him for a hug. She held back.
‘Let go.’
Her face dropped. She looked up at her husband, afraid. He suddenly realised what was going through her mind. He had seen so many battered wives at the station. He was overcome by a mixture of shame and anger. How could she believe such a thing? He had never even raised his voice at her let alone dreamt of raising a hand to her. Something between them had just snapped. They both felt it without yet understanding it. Roland pulled his hand away sharply, as if he had accidentally touched a scorching hotplate. His tiredness was written on his face; it had been a long day, which had started early.
He had sweated in his suit. The slight bulge of a burgeoning gut showed through the damp white shirt. He got away with carrying a bit of extra weight because he was tall: six foot, and proud of it. He was, or rather had been a good-looking man in his day. Now only his black hair seemed to have escaped the ravages of age. Tonight it was messy and greasy. Juliette couldn’t help passing a critical eye over the man she had been so in love with, and wished she could love still. She no longer saw in the cop who stood before her the sexy, self-assured man who had taken her into his office ten years earlier. ‘How can I help?’ he had asked with a smile on his lips and that warm voice she had come back to hear again.
Juliette picked
