By the time Helen returned to Cap d´Agde and home, Sandy was waiting for her. She had called ahead and he was waiting outside the store when she drove up and he climbed into the car to kiss her. Only a few minutes later, in her apartment, she had put her cases away, they had taken their clothes off. They made love passionately and with a degree of closeness they had seldom achieved.
Helen murmured into his neck. “Oh, thank you. I needed you so much.” His hug returned her feelings.
“Okay,” he said. “Debrief me. Tell me everything and don´t leave out what comes next.”
They were interrupted by the appearance of the orange cat, who jumped on the bed between them and delivered a lecture of great importance to Helen before settling down close to her.
As she rubbed the cat´s ears, Helen told Sandy about their breakfast meeting and the call from Schellen. Sandy asked her for more details about the terrible afternoon the day before, holding her as she again shivered and sobbed through her horror and fear.
Afterward, she said, “I thought I´d gotten past that. Guess I hadn´t.”
“Not your everyday business trip, you know. How do you feel about Johannes´s theories?”
“Pretty good, I guess. I´m pretty sure Dumont is only a front in this. He´s a fairly decent guy, Sandy. I´ve never warmed up to him, perhaps because he´s the one who brought Theo´s name into the thing, but it doesn´t appear to be his fault, except for letting himself be a tool.”
“More like him being the screw instead of the screwdriver.”
“Whatever. I do think he´s not the guy I need to worry about.”
“Who is?”
“Oh, Schellen, or maybe Sauter, as Johannes says. One of them, anyway. I really made someone mad with that stuff about not letting Sauter bid and then throwing him off the site. Whoever it is, he may be the kind of guy who holds grudges.”
“Somebody is.”
Helen sat up beside him, stroking his chest and belly. “Look, I´m going to call Johannes and see what he learned from Dumont on the way to Geneva. Then…”
Sandy reached for her and drew her to him, taking control over her breast and bringing her across his body.
“Oh,” she said. “Yes. Later.”
Later, Helen stood on the balcony with her telephone, silhouetted against the view of Sète in the setting sun. Sandy went home for a change of clothes. After a time, dressed and more relaxed, Helen walked to Sandy´s store through the early evening sun, reveling in the peaceful bustle of the resort as all sorts of people, clad or unclad, went about their ways. Outside the gates, she walked along the avenue du Bagnas, her long, light shift swayed by the gentle breeze.
To celebrate, Sandy drove them to Sète for dinner at a restaurant overlooking the Vieux Port and the ocean.
“So?” Sandy raised his eyebrows as they were served a good bottle of wine at a table overlooking the quai.
“So, Johannes says that, on the way back to Geneva, Dumont agreed to cooperate fully in his investigation. That´s the basic good news.”
“And?”
“Well, on the other side, it seems Dumont doesn´t know much. He was told to ask Rummy about Theo, about whom he knew nothing at the time.”
“Isn´t he an awfully good boy?”
“That´s what Johannes said. Anyway, Sauter – not Schellen – also told him to ask Werner Siegmann – he´s the site manager for Hoch und Tiefbau on the Freiburg job – about taking laborers and crafts at non-union rates.”
“How does Sauter get away with telling Dumont what to do? Doesn´t Dumont work for Schellen?”
“Well, he was seconded to Sauter for a while, and I guess Dumont felt that he was somehow obliged to at least act as a messenger.”
“Or, he was paid to.”
They ordered magret du canard grilled over grape vines, with boiled potatoes and fresh mange tout peas. And another bottle of wine.
Helen continued her report. “And, then, Schellen got him to deliver the Sauter proposal to me. When he gave it to me, I made a point of writing on the envelope ‘Received – and the date – Not opened´ in his presence. And I gave it back to him. I didn´t want anything to do with it.”
“Where is Schellen in this?”
“Beats me.” Helen said. “Maybe he´s been in Athens all this time. If he´s not the villain, he´s sure been right on the edge of it all. He sure hasn´t been on top of Dumont´s activities. I expect we´ll find out about that on Tuesday.
“But Johannes told me Dumont was very clear that, when the re-bar accident and the ladder thing went down, he was determined not to have anything more to do with the monkey business. He says he told Schellen that he wanted nothing to do with the project and asked to be transferred to another project.”
“Schellen said…?”
“Schellen said no. He wanted Dumont on the project but told him not to take any further orders from Sauter.”
“Did Dumont threaten to go to the police?”
“Apparently not. Johannes says Dumont just shut his mouth and decided to call me, get me up there. It seems that Sauter came into Dumont´s office when he was talking to me, but our recording of that call doesn´t really indicate that Sauter could have drawn any obvious conclusions from what he said.”
“He may not have needed to. Sauter, or whoever, may have just decided to get rid of Dumont.”
“That´s even scarier than what I was thinking, Sandy. I thought Sauter may have found some notes or something to indicate Dumont´s intention…”
Dinner arrived and they put the discussion on hold until coffee and brandy.
When they came back to the issue, Helen said, “There really isn´t much more, Sandy. Johannes is going to do some research between now and Tuesday, and he hopes he´ll find something in the official company records – either Schellen´s or Sauter´s – that will give him more to work on. But it looks as though… Oh, I forgot. When they got back to Geneva, Schellen had arranged for his lawyer to be there and assure that Dumont got loose as quickly as possible. Schellen really seems to have gone the extra mile for him, even though he couldn´t be there.”
“Good sign.”
“Well, yes. But it´s better that you and I are going to Orange tomorrow. I can put this aside for a while. And then we can spend the weekend on the beach.”
“Well, I have to work Saturday; Astrid´s doing Beach Patrol.”
“That´s okay, just as long as you´re in my bed every night until I have to go back to Geneva.”
“Sure hope you don´t get bored.”
“Haven´t yet,” she said with a grin, slipping the strap on her shift off her shoulder and letting it droop.