Chapter Forty-OneThe boy hadn’t said a word when Achille brought him a jug of milk and a blanket. A cement floor is cold even in May. But the boy had not said thank you or bonjour or anything at all, but just looked at him without expression.
Achille thought about the little frog he had kept in his room when he was a child, and how it had clung to the stick he had put in the jar and stared at him with its big eyes. In only a day the frog’s color had gotten dusky and dull and even a child could see it was doing poorly.
Achille had let the frog go, even though it had taken all his will to do it. But the boy?
He knows about Valerie. And he will tell.
Achille had no doubt that the boy would tell, and no delusion that anything he could say or do would induce the boy to keep quiet. He was a
