Doorknobs

     The door handle to one of the houses on on of the 'ruelles' off Avenue du Minervois had been snapped off.  The house belonged to the mother of Delphine, the woman in white.

     The door led to a second apartment attached to a larger house, rented out on a seasonal basis.  The violence with which the door had been forced had caused the handle to break off.  The owners, an ex-pat couple, were furious, and also discomfited.  The gendarmerie in Peyriac was as uninterested as if the apartment door had been left open and there had been a theft.

     While there was a garage adjoining, no car could have struck off the doorknob, which was recessed.  The doorknob had served for several years, and ought to have served for many more.  To have destroyed it someone would have had to push down swiftly, and with great force.  Whoever the attempted burglar was, it was not one of the young men normally suspected of pilfering.  The forcing of the door was not the act of a petty criminal trying to commit a crime of opportunity, but of someone more menacing, someone operating from a conviction without conscience.