"L'affaire Bob"(the Bob Case).
The title occupied almost the entire front page of my newspaper.
"L'affaire Bob...," I read again. Those two words had a strange yet captivating ring. Could they be talking about Bob's secret mission? But then, if they were, he would've told me everything about it before handing the reports to the press. The case written in today's papers must have been about someone else.
Since I hadn't heard of it before, I was quite curious to read and know more about it. Usually, most of Le Populaire's articles would simply be a summary of an investigation I have either worked on or heard about from my colleagues, so reading about one I did not know a single detail from was always an exciting experience. Whenever that would be the case, I would analyze each step or procedure the detectives made, to see if anyone would present new and ingenious techniques I could always sneak and use later on.
A jerk move? Not really. If one wanted to learn and progress, reading about other's experiences and mistakes was a must.
Placing my coffee mug over the desk, I directed my attention back to the paper in between my hands and started skimming through the story.
The article began with: "The fifties become the bloody years."
"Days after the attack in Lyon, a man was found dead streets away from the Champs-Elysées. Although bloodstains covered the victim's shirt, there were no signs of knife cuts or any kind of fighting injury in his chest."
I frowned at this. The phrasing of that paragraph sounded wrong, different than the ones I used to read. Could it be the first article of a newly recruited journalist?
If it was, I had to tell Le Populaire to edit this apprentice's writing. It was strange and discursive, not in the least concise and accurate.
My gaze traveled to the next few lines.
"The man, originally from England, was part of a private detectives' association.
His wife, Mrs. Smith, says she stayed at home and wasn't with her husband, Bob, during the incident..."
When I read that name, my hands began to shake.
"So the article was indeed about Bob," I thought bitterly.
But it was not in the least what I had suspected it to be. That article had taken an unimaginable turn.
But-- It couldn't be! Bob, that stupid, full-of-life Bob couldn't be gone. I had known him since we were children. We had grown together, graduated together, and even joined the same private detective's association. From the start, our love for mysteries and adventures had brought us closer.
Always apart, but never at heart.
That was our motto, our rule. But how could this still be true when one's heart stops to function and its beat dies forever?
A single tear slipped from my eye and rolled down my cheek. But I felt nothing. Not the wetness on my face, not the pulse in my ears.
And not even the pain in my heart that broke me and urged me to crawl in a corner and cry myself out.
Emptiness. That was all. That was everything I felt.
And through my currently foggy mind, a few thoughts tried to resurface.
"You have to find the clues," I heard Bob's words again. "Something horrible will happen...."
I was a fool to have felt nothing coming. Yes, something horrible was going to happen.
Or rather, had happened already.
And I sensed, for my greatest misfortune, that something more horrible was yet to come.
***