His feet were in a cardboard box on whose side could be read the word “VITTEL.” His hands were cuffed tightly behind his back. A wide piece of white adhesive tape covered his mouth. Sweat ran slowly and regularly down the very black skin of his face, and dark haloes had begun forming under his armpits. In a corner of the room, a hi-fi system played jazz and American popular music rather loudly: the automatic changer played Charlie Parker, Frank Sinatra, the Dizzy Gillespie big band, Ray Charles, etc., in succession. At times, Stanley seemed to shiver. At one moment, violent trembling seized his left leg. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply; the trembling stopped; he opened his eyes again and sighed. After passing through Larchant, Terrier turned into the narrow, badly paved road that led to Stanley’s weekend house. A few hundred meters down, he pulled the two right-hand wheels up onto the shoulder. The low branches lashed against the body of the Estafette.
