An Official Killing

Chapter 6

6Unbeknownst to almost everyone in Castillac, Maxime Coulon had more than one ex-wife. When he had been at the university in Rennes over twenty years earlier, he had met another young student, fallen passionately in love, and married her without telling his family or any of his friends from Castillac. Noelle, his new wife, had immediately become pregnant, but unfortunately the couple fell just as quickly and passionately out of love before the child was born. Noelle left for Laval before she was even showing, and they had had no further contact beyond the logistics necessary for completing the divorce.

Though Noelle was so indifferent to Coulon that she never had the slightest desire to see him again, their child, now a young man, was understandably curious about his father. His mother either refused to give him any information or had none, and so Daniel spent some time online devoted to finding out about his father, and easily identified him as the mayor of Castillac, a small village in the southwest that no one had ever heard of.

It’s hardly surprising that a son might want to track down his biological father—no reason to raise an eyebrow. And the fact that the son had also seen where Coulon lived and correctly surmised that he was comfortably well off, plus the additional fact that Daniel was in need of funds sooner rather than later—all in all, it was no mystery why Daniel Coulon was having breakfast that Friday morning at the Café de la Place in Castillac. He was dressed in worn jeans and a T-shirt that had seen better days, but at least he had managed to shave and shower at the hostel in Périgueux before making his way to his father’s village. His hair was cut with a nod toward a mohawk; no matter how little money he had, he always kept his hair neat, even if it meant offering to clean up the barbershop in trade for a cut.

Daniel had ordered the Spécial, and was trying to formulate something to say when his father answered the door. Should he come right out with it, and identify himself as his son? Or would the door slam in his face? How best to play on the man’s guilt for never even bothering to ask after him, much less meet him?

Difficult questions, thought Daniel, sipping his orange juice and watching a pretty young woman walk by. He felt himself go a little off-kilter, just thinking about the way his father had behaved towards him. How could he never have had a moment’s curiosity to meet his own son? That thought, which for years had repeated on an endless loop in Daniel’s mind, felt like a burning hole in the center of his chest, a wound that never healed.

The prospect of getting rejected again was a frightening one. Maybe I should invent some other reason to run into him, and get to know him a little before introducing myself, he wondered, biting into his croissant.

The problem with that plan was that it would take time, and time was another thing, in addition to money, that Daniel did not have nearly enough of.