This Night’s Foul Work

XLVI

FRANCINE NEVER GOT UP BEFORE ELEVEN. SHE LIKED TO LIE FOR A LONG time under her blankets in the morning, when all the night-time creatures were back in their holes.

But a sound had bothered her last night, she recalled. She pushed back the old eiderdown – that would have to go as well, with all the dust mites that must be living under its yellow silk – and looked round the room. She immediately discovered what it was. A sliver of cement blocking a crack under the window had fallen out and was lying in fragments on the floor. Daylight was visible between the wall and the wooden surround of the window.

Francine went to take a closer look. Not only would she have to block the hateful crack up again but she would have to think. How and why had the cement fallen out? Could some creature from the outside have pushed its snout into the crack, or tried to break in by knocking the wall? If so, what could it be? A wild boar, perhaps?

Francine sat back on the bed, with tears in her eyes and her feet lifted well off the floor. If only she could go to a hotel until the flat was ready. But she had done her sums and it would be far too dear.

She wiped her eyes and put on her slippers. She’d lived for thirty-five years in this tumbledown old farm, so she’d manage for another two months. She didn’t have any choice. She would have to wait, counting the days. She cheered herself up with the thought that it would soon be time to go to the pharmacy. And this evening, after blocking up the hole, she’d go to bed with her coffee and rum and watch another film.