CHAPTER FOUR

M'sieur Fauchelevant, grey-haired patriarch, patron saint to every poor person who came across his beneficent path, loving father, prize-winning gardener, paragon of virtue and escaped convict was staring.
The rotund apple of a man bobbing before him with a paper clutched in one over-sized perfumed hand seemed unaware of his victim's sudden dead silence.
If he had been the observant type he would have noticed a blank paleness stealing across Fauchelevant's features. A kind of disbelieving shock accompanied by a glassy stare that would have made the smelliest dead cod proud.
"….one would suppose that a poor fisherman would be able to pursue his picturesque and romantic task without the indignity of state official's bodies turning up in his path. Really, M. Fauchelevant! I have a mind to write to the paper about this,,,'
Fauchelevant nodded vaguely. "He must have already been mad…" he said. "After all, he let me go." He nodded to the little man with the air of one who has summed up matters quite to his satisfaction, and walked briskly away.

xxxxx

Valjean walked back to his house with a brisk, un-hurried stride. He even hummed a little, something he had not done for many months. He took the steps two at a time, surprised Cosette pretending to dust in the hallway, and breezed through into the kitchen where he set about gathering together vegetables for lunch.
Five potatoes. –mmmhmmm- Two onions. –pompompom- three bunches of oregano –diddlepom- and a couple of bright orange carrots.
It was true then, he thought to himself calmly. It was all over. Finally.
He began to chop, the blade of the knife making an easy rhythmical noise against the chopping board.
And he wasn't distressed at all. Why should he be? Nothing to do with him –Pompompom-
Pot. Water. Vegetables.
More chopping.
Nothing at all to do with him. Just madness in the night and a bridge coming together in the inexorable way these things have.
More chopping.
Something large and wet dropped onto the chopping board.
"Papa!" Cosette… in the doorway. More chopping. Something else splashed on the board. Was there a leak in the roof? "You're… crying!"
Ah. That was it. Valjean half-turned and offered her a reassuring smile. "It's nothing my dear. Just these onions."
Perhaps it was something in his face, for Cosette nodded and left the room. She didn't even pause to point out that the chopping board was covered in the mutilated remains of five perfectly healthy potatoes.

xxxxxx

When had it sunk in? Valjean didn't know. For a while, he'd tried to believe that he was relieved. That he'd only been out looking for the Inspector to end the horrible sense of apprehension hovering over him like a flaming sword.
But somehow his thoughts kept on returning to that night. And the idea of the Inspector disappearing from his doorstep to reappear in the Seinne terrified him.
He paced the floorboards that evening, up and down and up again, trying to understand why he couldn't sleep for dreams of drowning bodies. Trying to work out why the words 'public servant… irreproachable record… Point au Change…' revolved in his head over and over again.
Three times he returned to bed, swearing that he had finished with it. No more… I am free! Why argue?
Three times he found himself on his feet again, pacing.
Why? What could have driven the inspector from the house of the man he had so relentlessly pursued and sent him tumbling towards the Seinne? How did that happen?
Valjean knew many people who were possible suicides. He knew a few more who would do the world a great favour by taking a late-night stroll and bath. But of all the people in France, the one man who was least likely was surely Javert.
His head hurt.
"Putain de merde." Valjean realized he was grinding his teeth. "What the hell were you thinking??" A small voice at the back of his head pointed out nervously that it wasn't a fantastic idea to swear at the Inspector. Another smaller voice added that it didn't think Valjean should call Javert 'tu' either.
Valjean ignored them. After spending more time chained to a bench in Toulon than he cared to remember, he had become intimately acquainted with his inner voices… his demons and his angels. He had never been able to turn them off again, but sometimes…
Just sometimes, they weren't worth listening to.
"Javert?" He planted his feet and glared up at the ceiling. "What the bloody hell were you thinking??"
He never knew where it came from, but at that moment he saw in his minds eye the thin shadow he'd fought so long to avoid. That rough charcoal sketch, only half done by an artist in too much of a hurry, eyes and chin the only details treated with care. The head seemed to be turned in his direction, and suddenly Valjean knew that every half-formed suspicion was true.
It had been because of him.
Surprisingly, his first reaction, the first feeling that chased after the shock was pure fury. How dared Javert do this to him?? How dared he shirk his responsibilities and leave all the guilt to fall on Valjean's shoulders? The insufferable nerve of the man!
He had done it on purpose. Yes, Valjean could see it now. Javert was sitting somewhere in hell - or possibly in heaven, he grudgingly allowed – chuckling at the ultimate trick he'd played on his old foe. The trump card that no one could beat.
"You just had to win, didn't you?" Valjean shouted furiously, not really caring whether Cosette heard him or not. His voice had reverted to the old burr, deserting his carefully polished accents for its home country. "You had to have the last laugh! Couldn't let me be, no, you had to go one better and leave me with all the guilt! You calculating bastard!"
Every imprecation he knew, he flung Javert that night. Patiently and methodically he covered the Inspector's parentage, occupation, personal defects, and sexuality. His voice rose and fell again, sometimes booming like the thunder and then hissing like an over-excited teapot.
Finally he stopped, his chest heaving madly. "Damn you, Javert." His voice was reduced to a whisper. "Damn you." He slumped to the floor, exhausted.
The thought entered his mind that one day he would have to try to remember what he had said so he could confess it to the priest. No doubt his conscience would help… sometime after midnight for a week.
It was all the Inspector's fault, anyway.
In the darkness of his room, Valjean was surprised to realize that he really was angry. After everything he had done for the stupid big …. – his mind bit it's tongue out of a sense of economy. No need to bother the priest any more than he was already going to – it was the height of ingratitude to then pass all the responsibility back onto Valjean's shoulders while the Inspector swanned merrily off into the afterlife!
Just for once Valjean had been looking forward to ending it, finishing the loose ends of his life and making good all his wrongs. He hadn't wanted to return to prison… but he had wanted peace. It had been a long time since he had known peace.
And Javert had to ruin it all. Instead of the knowledge that he had finished his tasks, Valjean was going to be left with the guilt of his pursuer's death on his conscience.
Valjean snatched a half-empty cup off the floor and flung it at the wall. As the murky brown liquid slowly dribbled down the whitewash, a thought dawned on him, sudden and stunning in clarity.
"My God. That's what I did to him!"