Patrick looks around and finds one of those transparent sheets that protect the parquet when walls are being repainted. He thinks technique and effectiveness. He unrolls a fair amount on the concrete floor of the garage. He starts cutting into the insulating tape at the wrists with his Leatherman, taking care not to damage the Voltaire armchair, but he’s already thinking about the best way of getting rid of it.

Frozen, Manuel still hasn’t stirred, and isn’t even trying to wipe the sweat running down his neck, bathing the back of it.

“You have to help me now.” Patrick has grabbed Saïd bodily – too bad about the blood – and is trying to push him onto the tarpaulin. He’s struggling. “Fuck, Manuel! Help me…”

Manuel finally looks at his friend and clicks into motion, like a large obedient puppet. Together, they lay the limp body on the plastic sheet. Patrick holds the head so it doesn’t knock against the ground and lays it down gently, letting his fingers slide behind the curly-haired neck – a living man’s consideration, an excuse. He’s the one who folds the tarpaulin over the pulped face, the red swellings, the twisted body. He wonders whether he should empty his pockets and check … check what?

“Manuel, the insulating tape, next to you.”

He obeys, unrolls the tape and crouches to secure the sheet around the body.

“Wait.”

Manuel stands up, looks like he’s thinking again, and lights a cigarette. Between them, Saïd’s body is lying under the thick plastic and smudges of blood are sticking to the opaque grey. Manuel is thinking about the series he sometimes watched with Séverine in the evenings, a series in which the cops always find the culprit. It’s no longer a tic that’s making his face twitch but a violent trembling that seizes his body. He shakes his head like a stubborn animal.

“What are we doing?”

Patrick pretends not to understand, opens his arms and shrugs, as if to say Have you got a better idea?

Manuel walks across the garage, his back to the scene, then comes back. He sniffs and finally wipes the trails of sweat with his T-shirt. He crushes his cigarette in a jar of turpentine and persuades himself that he doesn’t have a choice. He takes a deep breath. “The decorative pond.”

The two men no longer look at each other. They won’t speak any more. Right now, they must act quickly and efficiently. Their minds are working overtime; they get down to work.