Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 133, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 811 & 812, March/April 2009

Georges did. As soon as she said she wouldn’t mind a stroll, Weasel had been off. Greyhounds on a track don’t run that fast.

It’s so nice to be able to take a walk, while I’m still able. He remembered the sad little smile she’d shot him, as she patted his arm. I’ll be in a wheelchair next year, Georges.

That’ll be good, though, won’t it? I’ll be able to push you round the lake. In fact, I’ll run.

Will you? Will you, Georges? Her laugh suddenly became happy and girlish, and for a moment he saw how she must have looked sixty years ago. You’ve no idea how exciting it’d be for an old woman to feel the wind in her hair again.

You bet, he’d promised, and he meant it.

“Jean-Paul thought fetching things and looking after her beneath him,” he told Marcel and Irene.

It wasn’t because he sneered at him, or called him names behind her back, that Georges despised the nephew. More the way he scowled at having to trek upstairs to fetch her cardigan because her legs weren’t up to it, or screwed up his face when she forgot things. Georges scuffed his foot. He knew all about forgetting things, and saw how much it embarrassed Madame Morreau, being dependent on someone else to put it right. Especially someone who resented doing it...

“I don’t think he was even sorry that she died.”

Georges had never encountered sudden death before, so he couldn’t be certain. But that look on Weasel’s face when the doctor signed that piece of paper—

“I wish I could put a name to that expression,” he said, but his parents were back poring over their plans, discussing colour charts and debating whether the floor tiles in the bathrooms would be better white or cream. To them, the incident was closed. But for Georges, the misgivings wouldn’t go away, and though the winter gales came lashing in from the Atlantic, bending the pines around the lake and causing them to hiss like angry snakes, his mind remained on aniseed and ruffled hair. On cardigans that smelled of lavender, and happy, girlish giggles.

People imagined Madame Morreau was as well-heeled as the other guests, but Georges knew otherwise. Her suits were quality, but seconds, he’d seen the crossed-out labels. Also, her petticoats had worn thin, her stockings were darned, and her shoes, although good quality and polished to a shine, were almost through to holes. And even he, who didn’t understand figures very much, knew that red ink on a bank statement was bad news. Which is why he thanked her so politely for the candy every year, and refused a tip for carrying her bags. She’d had to really scrimp and save for her fortnight at Les Pins, and go without a lot of things to pay for her nephew to come with her. He knew all this, because he’d read it in her diary.

And her diary said nothing about heart attacks and seizures—

“Oh, Georgie. You’ve let the paste go hard.”

Paste? Then he remembered why he was up this blooming ladder. Sticking fresh wallpaper on No. 21. “It’s not right, Mum.”

“Not now it isn’t, love. It’s set like concrete in this wretched bucket.”

“I don’t mean the glue. Madame Morreau.”

But by the time he’d trundled down the ladder, both his mother and the tub of paste were gone, and he’d painted the whole of the first-floor corridor and was halfway through emulsioning the ceiling in Reception before it dawned on him.

“You said pillows,” he said, laying down his brush.

“No, I didn’t, love. I said windows. Can you wash the windows when you’re done? Only Suzette’s gone and got herself pregnant, and God only knows who the father is. But the point is, I don’t want her up a stepladder, not in her condition.”

“You said she died snuggled into her pillows,” Georges said, except she couldn’t have. Madame Morreau never used a pillow, stacking all four neatly in a pile beside the bed, and that’s where she used to rest her diary when she’d finished writing up her day. On the pile of pillows, with her specs. “She liked to sleep flat,” he added. For her neck.

“Suzette?” Irene looked confused. “Anyway, the thing is, the hotel inspector’s coming down to view the new extension, and I would really like to have the whole place looking its best for when he comes. Sparkling from roof down to the cellar!”

Georges tried to imagine the roof sparkling, but couldn’t. “Madame Morreau had a good heart.”

“Indeed she did, love. She was kind and patient, just like you, and I know you were fond of her, Georgie, but you have to accept that her poor old heart was simply worn out with age.”

Was it? All night he couldn’t sleep for worrying, because who could he tell? Who’d listen to the ramblings of a daydreaming handyman who couldn’t spell and couldn’t add up, either?

Who would believe a man who crept in people’s rooms at night?