Moon in a Dead Eye Read Free Page A

horse’s mouth, without even having to ask. The neighbours crossed paths almost every day, running errands for each other and sharing restaurant and shopping tips. Martial and Odette’s superior knowledge of the area made them seem pleasingly like trailblazers, the old hands of Les Conviviales. Piecing together what they had gleaned from all these conversations, they now knew that Maxime had spent his career selling greenhouses all over Europe; that Marlène had danced at the Paris Opéra in her youth; that before coming here they had lived in Orléans and that their son, Régis, was an exceptionally gifted lawyer destined for high office in the near future.
    ‘He’s always been able to pick things up just like that!’
    Whatever the topic of conversation, Marlène always found a way to turn it to her genius progeny, so that her audience ended up despising the man without ever having met him.
    Yes, they were a bit showy, with their clothes, their car and their furniture, but their hearts were in the right place and they were good fun, him especially. He was a real charmer, using and abusing his magnetic smile. He always had a joke up his sleeve and seemed at ease in every situation. In other words, a true salesman. As for Marlène, for all her fragile bird-like demeanour, she was no spare part. She knew her role like the back of her jewellery-laden hand, scolding her husband when his jokes went too far, acting the dizzy blonde when it suited her and always laughing in the right places. All in all, they were pleasant company. No one said they had to be intellectuals. As neighbours went, theywere just fine; Martial and Odette could have done much worse. Going their separate ways the previous evening, the two couples had agreed to make a joint visit to a nearby château which was supposed to be very beautiful. Luckily they had not fixed a date for the outing, for which Martial was now thankful. A dinner a month was about enough socialising for him. Plus, it was one thing getting on well as neighbours, quite another to turn that into a friendship.
    ‘Martial?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘I was thinking it might be time to get a new dinner service.’
    ‘What for?’
    ‘For having people over, obviously!’
    ‘Like who?’
    ‘Like the Nodes, for starters. We’ll have to return their invitation. There’s a little shop under the arches. We could head over there now.’

    Monsieur Flesh always carried tons of things on his belt: keys, a mobile phone, a torch, pepper spray, a knife; he was a walking hardware shop. He was leaning against the gate smoking a cigarette and staring intensely at the empty sky. Martial slowed down as he drew level.
    ‘Morning, Monsieur Flesh! Beautiful day, isn’t it?’
    ‘Very nice, yes. Oh, there’s a new person coming, a woman.’
    ‘A woman on her own?’
    ‘Yes. Next week.’
    ‘Right … Well, have a good day, Monsieur Flesh.’
    ‘And you, Monsieur Sudre.’
    Sunshine was streaming through the windscreen. After all those months of grey, their eyes struggled to adjust to the riotof colour, as though emerging from a dark tunnel into bright daylight. Odette put on her sunglasses. Her mouth twitched with irritation.
    ‘Something wrong, Odette?’
    ‘No, nothing … Bit strange to have a single woman coming, isn’t it?’
    ‘Not really. She might be a widow.’
    ‘Yes, that’s true, she might be …’

Standing in front of the bathroom mirror wearing only his underpants, Maxime was striking toreador poses. Chest puffed out, belly sucked in, fists clenched beside his hips, he held his breath for long enough to tell himself he still looked pretty good for a man of his age. Then he slowly exhaled, not entirely convinced. As his muscles relaxed, the skin sagged on his hunched skeleton like an oversized garment. He shrugged his shoulders and began to shave.
    ‘Here, at least …’
    All of this was down to a heart scare, a teeny tiny one, but a warning sign. The doctor had told him he had the