We dug out the tunnel for around an hour before I decided it was enough. Then we rolled the bodies in and piled them up. Daniel had a sack of lime powder for the vegetable garden. He poured it all over the corpses. Nazari said it would reduce their smell. We pushed the rubble over them again. I figured that would do for at least a couple of days. I wasn’t expecting a long-term solution. They were dug in deep enough to maintain an even sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit. Which wouldn’t stop the processes of putrefaction but wouldn’t speed it up either. And the lime might help. I figured we’d have a good forty-eight hours before things started to get ugly.

It was time to make the van disappear.

Chapter Fifty-Four

Nazari knew a place.

A golf course under development out of town. The money had run out, or someone hadn’t paid someone else. Or maybe an important guy had quit, she wasn’t sure, in fact nobody was. Rumors were thick, facts thin. In any case for now it wasn’t a golf course, just a big construction site.

She drove her Peugeot, I took the Renault van.

Meanwhile, Daniel was cleaning up at Brumaire. He was taking care of blood spots in the drawing room and whatever loose ends remained. We all agreed that Madame and Monsieur Vaugeois should not be disturbed, in as much as that was going to be possible.

By the time we hit the road it was full-on morning. People were around, going to work, going to school, dropping each other off. They craved coffee, or tea, and vitamin supplements and powders. Still they yawned in their cars. After the rain and cloud, morning brought sunshine. It had been a productive evening and I felt fine.

We drove for something like twenty minutes before she pulled into a secluded picnic spot around a bend. The picnic table was on a grassy hill looking down on a country club. Tennis courts were set into bucolic green areas, bordered by strips of trees. I figured the dream was to pair up the country club with the golf course.

The spot was mid-way up the hill. I rolled the window down. She was out of the Peugeot and pointing. “Keep going up and you’ll see it in a minute. I’ll wait for you here.”

I nodded and gave the van some gas. Crested the hill and the golf course development was right there, stretching out on the plateau. It was a big construction site, an ambitious plan. There were Caterpillar diggers and other machinery, abandoned the way crustaceans abandon their shells. The whole area was torn up. Didn’t look anything like a golf course. I scanned for cameras and didn’t see any, but I put up the hoodie anyway.