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friend of his, Rodolphe Dugain got me a little apartment in Gosier as well as this job. It was the job—the responsibility, the right to be in charge—that really saved me from going mad. Or perhaps just the fact of getting out of the house. I was never meant to be a hausfrau.” She added, “I grew up among boys—three older brothers.”
    “You saw Dugain often?”
    “From time to time he would come and see me.”
    “You played Monopoly?”
    She glanced briefly at Anne Marie and the knowing, worn face softened. “I’ve no illusions about men, West Indian or European, here or anywhere else.”
    “Spoiled and selfish?”
    “They give little and they always want something in return.”
    “That’s what they say about us.”
    “My ex-husband—his love of me, his love of the children is selfishness—a very subtle, very cruel form of selfishness, despite the exterior of perfection.”
    “What did Dugain want from you?”
    “Not Monopoly.” Madame Théodore breathed on the cigarette; the tip glowed. “No bed, no sex. He wasn’t getting it. He knew he never would and so he never asked.” She inhaled. “Perhaps that’s why we became friends. He needed to be admired by intelligent women, and without quite knowing why, I got to like him, I got to know his faults …”
    “A womanizer?”
    “He liked to think so.” Madame Théodore shrugged. Smoke danced in her eyes, causing them to water. “Rodolphe did something my husband never learned to do. Rodolphe listened to me.” She brushed at her watering eye, caught in the cigarette smoke. “Unlike my husband, Rodolphe Dugain was not perfect. Far from it and, believe me, I found that very, very reassuring.”

19
Hospital
    “Bouton makes my flesh creep.”
    The sensation of heaviness in her belly had grown. She should never have eaten the octopus and now Madame Théodore’s coffee had only made things worse. Anne Marie felt angry and unhappy. She also felt helpless. Her feet were wet and she had started sneezing again. So much for the vitamins.
    The tang of ascorbic acid lingered at the edges of her tongue.
    Lafitte did not reply. He parked the car at the back of the hospital, near the concrete tonsure of the helicopter pad. It was late afternoon; to the west, the last streaks of color were being drained from the overcast sky. The rain had stopped but puddles in the tarmac threw back the reflection of the hospital lights.
    “Bouton must be a zombie.”
    “He does a good job,
madame le juge
. You know that. Given the woefully small sum he’s paid for each autopsy, you should be pleased he’s a zombie. Only two qualified pathologists in the
département
and the other doctor refuses to do anything for the
parquet
.”
    “A zombie.”
    “A motivated zombie.”
    Anne Marie glanced at Lafitte and silently wished Trousseau were with her. Trousseau never pretended to be reasonable.
    The damp tarmac was carpeted with flame tree blossom.
    They stepped through the sliding doors of the main entrance,to be met by the cold, antiseptic smell of the building. One or two patients shuffled aimlessly about the foyer. They all wore identical tartan slippers.
    Anne Marie followed Lafitte down the two flights of stairs into the basement. Her shoes were silent on the rubber floor. She had difficulty keeping up with her companion.
    “It’ll soon be over,
madame le juge
,” Lafitte said and grinned over his shoulder.
    They came to the hospital morgue.
    The grey door was not closed. Lafitte waited for her. Anne Marie brushed past him, not bothering to knock.
    “Ah,
madame le juge
.” Dr. Bouton stood up as she entered the room. Light twinkled in the steel frames of his round glasses. He held out his hand, which Anne Marie shook with neither enthusiasm nor warmth.
    It was a small, windowless laboratory. Most of the floor space was taken up by two tables made of dull, glinting steel, each with a perforated surface. At the end of each table was a sink. Above each table hung a