We took Simone inside and sat her down on her favorite sofa. Nazari stayed within touching distance. The uniform worked as a pacifier. Older people can often be reassured by a uniform. As the world becomes stranger and more out of their control, the forces of order increase in importance. We told her about the suspected link between the attack on Gilles and the trail bike thugs. Nazari put a hand on her shoulder and the shoulder softened and visibly relaxed. Madame had no problem with Nazari staying over. I framed it as a safety precaution. We didn’t try to pretend that the police were officially involved, but the uniform helped.

The other thing was that Simone wasn’t fazed that Nazari and I were together. I told her in a matter-of-fact way and asked if she had a room with a bigger bed. Vaugeois swept her gaze back and forth between Nazari and me like a searchlight. She looked pleased. “Of course I have a proper bed for you.” She got practical. She was concerned with dinner. Everything else could wait until after dinner. The menu was complicated. There was a duck involved.

At the table, I struggled with the duck. It was like arm wrestling an anaconda. Neither Simone or Nazari had any issues with it and I figured it was something you had to learn as a child. Like tap-dancing or the piano or riding a unicycle, or like people who walk around with things balanced on their heads. Luckily it came with potatoes, which I know how to eat.

I asked Simone about her husband Gilles’ hobbies and interests. “Ma’am, you had mentioned his interest in local history.”

“Oh yes. Gilles was endlessly interested in the history of our region and this town.” She shot me a benevolent look, and daintily forked a morsel of pink duck flesh into her mouth.

“What kind of things was he interested in?”

“It changed all the time. You have to understand, we’re not in America, Tom. Human beings have lived in Europe for more than forty thousand years. This is what Gilles was always saying. He would say that written history is just the tip of the iceberg.”

But in any case, what I was trying to achieve was a sort of profile of Gilles Vaugeois before the sharpened tip of a screwdriver had entered the frontal lobe of his brain. Because, there must have been a reason why Vaugeois was a threat to whoever was behind all of this, and I didn’t know what it was. So I was interested to know what Vaugeois was into, what he was known for and what had made him a person of interest within the community. And everything that I was hearing pointed to Gilles being a kind of brain. An academically inclined smart guy with the right social background for hobnobbing alongside the likes of the mayor and his cronies.