Moon in a Dead Eye Read Online Free Page B

his neighbour’s ear. Martial could not stand people sharing these sorts of secrets with him. They brought out the same feelings of shame and disgust as when he saw his first porn magazine. Thankfully, Odette and Marlène chose that moment to come out onto the deck and Maxime pulled away with a wink, holding a finger to his lips.
    ‘We all know women like to gossip, but look at the men! Martial, have you seen the time?’

    For the past week, Odette had been trying her hand at exotic cuisine, cooking anything and everything as long as it originated from the other side of the world. Distance seemed to be a key ingredient in the recipe. On the menu that evening was that dish Mexicans went wild for, chicken cooked in chocolate. She had spent most of the afternoon making it. Martial sat back while Odette served him, keeping his mouth shut. It looked like
coq au vin
, but smelt like a dessert. He took a mouthful. Though his taste buds had had a few days to adjust to their culinary world tour, his tongue was immediately on fire.
    ‘Don’t you like it?’
    ‘No, I do! It’s just very hot …’
    ‘Maybe I put a bit too much ginger in.’
    ‘No, it’s fine.’
    ‘What were you talking to Maxime about?’
    ‘This and that … animals.’
    ‘What about the widow?’
    ‘Come on, Odette, why are you so set on her being a widow?’
    ‘Why shouldn’t she be? Anyway, Marlène agrees with me.’
    ‘And what does that prove?’
    ‘Women can sense these things.’
    ‘Oh, right! Look, I really couldn’t care less. We’ll soon find out one way or the other.’
    ‘We will, won’t we?’

    Martial woke up with a start in the middle of the night. It was not a nightmare, more a sense of having forgotten something important, like turning off the gas or a switch … something vital … It had something to do with the dunes at Wissant … At least, he thought it did … His throat raging, he got out of bed to fetch a glass of water and was amazed, looking down, to see his erect penis straining the fabric of his pyjama bottoms. In the kitchen, he swallowed one of Odette’s pills with his water.

Léa took one last walk around the house before turning off the lights and going into her room, where she fell back on the bed, arms outstretched.
    ‘My final resting place …’
    She had never pictured it like this. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Madeleine had always been generous towards her, but with this bizarre gift she had ensured her dreadful taste would live on after her death. That said, Léa would not have been at all surprised if this unlikely inheritance (the house and a comfortable pension) had been somewhat cynically arranged by the family of the deceased, all too happy to see the back of the
very
personal assistant to the owner of Lomax pharmaceuticals. Madeleine would have signed anything at the end. It was only right to provide for a faithful … employee. Perhaps if she had pressed the solicitor to look more closely at the will, Léa might have got more out of it, but what was the point? There was nothing else she needed now.
    Good old Madeleine … Perhaps she might have preferred to end her days here herself, rather than in her mansion on Paris’sAvenue de Wagram. She liked the simple things in life: going for walks, watching TV, eating stews … That was pretty much all they had done together for the last few years, yet they were both contented. Each of them had looked back at her own life and realised that past a certain age, independence begins to feel like a trap. What they had never amounted to love, but the arrangement they had come to many years before had fostered a tenderness that was something like it.
    Léa rolled onto her side. She felt acid rising in her throat. It must have been those red-hot fritter things Madame Sudre, Odette, had served.

    She had been a little taken aback to find the four of them on her doorstep. The removal men had only just left and she had barely had time to get her