The One They Sent

Aimé said nothing more. He had given everything he had in those four words, like a man who pushes a door open with all his strength and then stays slumped against the frame, out of breath.

I asked him questions until six o'clock. Marc, was that Marc Verlinde? The notary? The man in the photo, on the mantelpiece? Was the key his? Not Thomas, what did that mean? Not to give it to Thomas? Or that it wasn't Thomas, in the boat? Or something else again, something I couldn't even imagine? He looked at me with his pale-water eyes, his mouth trembling, and nothing more came. He didn't even play. In the end he rested his head against the back of the armchair and fell asleep all at once, like a child after a tantrum.