Read Online The Madonna of Notre Dame by Alexis Ragougneau, Katherine Gregor - Free Book Online Page A

manufacturing date: 1958. Then, with equal meticulousness, surrounded by a silence that was penetrated only by the sound of his breathing, and the faint ticking of the clock in the kitchen, he started taking the entire device apart.
    A little before eight p.m., he put the two final pieces down in front of him. The entire alarm clock lay before him, in separate parts.
    He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt. In the combination of daylight and lamplight, he saw that the red splotches had settled on his wrists and elbows. He could also feel them spreading under the table, on his calves, and up to his knees in this curious mixture of burning and itching he hadn’t felt before. For the first time that evening, he looked away from his alarm clock and let his eyes linger on the photo propped up against the wall. Two boys, one about seven years old, the other perhaps ten, were standing with their arms around each other, staring into the lens, in a posture that evoked soccer players prior to a match. As a matter of fact, there was a ball on the ground, waiting for one of them—either the younger, small and dark, looking like a sickly chick, or the elder, blond and straight like wheat—to animate it with a powerful kick. The decor resembled that of a public school or an old-fashioned boarding school, with its pavedcourtyard surrounded by a high wall and, in the background, the corner of a single building whose only visible opening gave a glimpse of a stained glass window.
    Once again, he put his hand into the shoe box and took out an old-fashioned-looking mercury thermometer. Still staring at the black and white photo, he slid the metal tip under his tongue and waited, motionless, in the fading light of the day that was slowly giving way to the cold, clinical glow of his reading lamp. Finally, he took it out of his mouth and read it: it was over a hundred and four. He placed the thermometer on the edge of the table.
    Without a sound, without a sigh, Father Kern began putting his Bayard alarm clock with its 1958 mechanism back together.

    Claire Kauffmann was hanging on to the roof strap. Her knees, which she kept close together, swayed left and right whenever the car swerved, and, with her left arm, she clutched against her chest the bag containing the Notre Dame file.
    As they pulled up to a red light, Landard backtracked brusquely and the engine of the Peugeot 308 roared as he swerved to the right into a bus lane and drove toward the Seine without touching the brakes. He crossed Pont de Saint-Cloud at full speed. In the back seat, handcuffed and huddled against Gombrowicz, the blond angel sometimes looked at the road and sometimes into Landard’s eyes, which he could see in the rear-view mirror.
    “Do you really think it’s necessary to drive like this, captain? We’ll easily be there before nine p.m. to start the search.”
    Landard turned on another burst of siren as they approached the bridge exit. “It’s for the sake of the young man’s mom,madame. I wouldn’t like her to miss the start of her movie because of us. With a bit of luck we’ll get there just after the news, while the commercials are on.”
    The magistrate rolled her eyes to the sky while the policeman stared at his suspect in the rearview mirror. “I bet your mom enjoys watching TV, doesn’t she, Thibault? I bet she saw you come out of the cathedral on the one o’clock news. She must have thought, ‘But that boy, there, with handcuffs and a jacket over his head, that’s my boy!’ Then she’ll have watched the eight o’clock news just to make sure. Tell me, Thibault, do you think your mom will have recognized you despite the jacket over your head?”
    Landard turned and repeated his question while looking his suspect straight in the eye. Gombrowicz, whose hamburger and fries were slowly finding their way back up, against all digestive logic, unclenched his teeth to admonish his superior. “Putain! Keep your eyes on the road, Landard, before you