The Lying Down Room (Serge Morel 1)

by Anna Jaquiery

  Outside the Jardin des Tuileries, protesters waved banners and signs, railing against Sarkozy’s plan to kick hundreds of Roma out of the country. It certainly wasn’t something to be proud of, Morel thought. His father would no doubt accuse him of being sentimental, but Morel believed in the principles set out in the post-Revolution Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. He believed in the ideal that men were born and remained free and equal in their rights. His mother had believed in it too. For her, France had meant a new beginning, away from her war-torn country.

  Morel wound his window down and bought a ham sandwich and a bottle of water from the roller-blade boy. He found himself wishing the car had air-conditioning. Maybe he should have it fitted. But something – maybe his ingrained resistance to change – held him back, which was why year after year he never got around to it.

  ‘Face it, you don’t like to admit you’re living in the twenty-first century,’ Lila liked to say.

  She had a point.

  That morning he had made an effort and sat down with his father for breakfast. They had passed each other sections from the paper and Morel had refrained from taking the bait, as his father commented on what he read. With half the city on strike, there was plenty for him to get riled about.

  ‘Is it another socialist government they want? So we can be as backward as the Russians?’ he grumbled.

  For an educated man, he talked a lot of rubbish.

  Like Sarkozy, Morel Senior believed that getting a job was just a matter of trying harder. Man creates his own misery, we all have the destiny we deserve. It was one way of looking at things.

  At least the political commentary was better than the usual sniping about the breakfast table – whether the right kind of cutlery was being used; whether the butter had been taken out early enough to have softened; whether the toast was overdone. Morel sighed. There was no escaping the fact that meals had become difficult. Too much of what was said was trivial and grating, and not enough about the things that mattered.

  He scanned the angry faces on the footpath as though he might recognize someone. Most of them were young. A flash of red hair, long and loose, and his heart constricted. Was it her? Mathilde appeared everywhere, but it was unlikely to be her in this crowd.

  The traffic crept forward and Morel wedged the Volvo into a narrow opening. Two days earlier thousands of people had taken to the streets to protest against the president’s plan to raise the pension age. He wasn’t making too many friends these days.

  Morel became impatient, pushed his way between two cars, narrowly missing a mirror. One of the drivers whose car he was trying to get past hollered something at him about an old man driving a tank. Morel pretended not to hear.

  After remaining stuck in his car for half an hour, while enduring a talk show about the merits of the Dukan Diet – why was he even listening to this drivel? – Morel gave up and parked the car on the wrong side of the river. It took him forty-five minutes to walk the rest of the way, and he arrived at the Quai des Orfèvres drenched in sweat and irritable. When he reached the fourth-floor office, only Lila was in.

  She looked up from her desk. She was wearing a white singlet and jeans, and black lace-up shoes. Her dark hair was tied into a long ponytail. Her fringe pushed to the side with a clip. She seemed to find the sight of him amusing.

  ‘Sleep in, did we?’ she asked when he walked past her desk.

  ‘You may not have noticed but there’s mayhem out there.’

  ‘I know. I walked in.’

  ‘That’s nice. Where are the others?’

  ‘Marco’s here, he’s just at the coffee machine. Jean is reporting to Perrin on the burglary.’

  ‘Any news from Vincent?’

  ‘He called, wants you to call him back.’

  ‘How did he sound?’

  Lila paused. ‘It’s hard to say.’

  Marco walked in with a coffee and Morel immediately recognized the smell of the foul brew from the machine in the hallway. Marco raised a hand in greeting.

  ‘I want to take another look at Isabelle Dufour’s place,’ Morel said. ‘I feel like we’re missing something. Lila, you and I will go over it together once more.’

  ‘When are we going to do that?’

  ‘How about now?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Want me to come with you?’ Marco asked.

  ‘No thanks,’ Morel said, pretending not to notice Marco’s disappointment.

  The phone rang and Lila answered. While she dealt with the call, Morel stepped into his lair. It was exactly as he had left it. Everything in its place. Even the cleaning staff that came in to vacuum at night had strict instructions to leave Commandant Morel’s territory alone.

  He knew there were people within the division who thought him a snob. It wasn’t just the antique screen, but also the clothes he wore. Then there was his lack of propensity for after-work drinks and small talk.

  Morel wasn’t exactly swamped with invitations and his social diary was as lean as a Buddhist monk’s. But he wasn’t losing any sleep over it.

  ‘I’ve just got a couple of calls to make and I’m good to go,’ Lila called out. ‘Five minutes.’

  ‘Fine,’ Morel said.

  He would have liked to soothe his irritation by adding a humming-bird to his growing paper column, but instead he opened the Dufour folder.

  The folder was in his hand when he and Lila stepped into Isabelle Dufour’s apartment for the second time. It was midday and, judging by the silence, most of the building’s occupants were out for lunch or having a snooze. Morel would have liked to join them. The two hours he’d had the night before hadn’t quite done the trick.

  ‘Busy night, then?’ Lila had asked, looking him up and down.

  Morel slipped on a pair of gloves. ‘Something like that.’ Isabelle Dufour’s body was at the undertaker’s, awaiting burial. But somehow her presence lingered. The silence was filled with the things Morel had learned about her over the past few days. A woman with four children, three of whom lived away from Paris. A son who seemed cold-hearted and self-absorbed, obsessed with his career. Morel was no stranger to obsession and he would pursue an investigation relentlessly until the truth was unearthed. But he did not see himself as central to his work. No one was irreplaceable. Whereas Jacques Dufour was a true narcissist, convinced of his own essential place in the world.

  Isabelle Dufour had, at least, developed a bond with her daughter-in-law. It had been obvious, during their interview of the Dufours, that Anne had cared about her husband’s mother.

  ‘Want to divide the work up?’ Lila said. She stood before him expectantly with her arms crossed. Morel noticed the room’s staleness. The muffled sounds of traffic from the street below.

  ‘You take the bedrooms and I’ll go through the living and dining area,’ he said.

  ‘Yippee. I get the fun stuff.’

  Morel watched Lila disappear down the hallway towards the two bedrooms, one of them Isabelle Dufour’s and the other a guest room which couldn’t have had much use, before turning to the task at hand.

  Everything in the main living area was as Morel remembered it. A crocheted blanket lay on one of the two brown sofas. Dufour had probably placed it on her knees or around her shoulders while watching television. A TV magazine. There were no books. A basket on the table held balls of blue and grey wool and several pairs of needles. She had been knitting something, a child’s sweater by the looks of it. It was almost finished. Morel wondered whether it was meant for one of her grandchildren.

  The furniture was elegant. A console table with light, turned legs. Undoubtedly Louis XVI, Morel decided. It was a period he liked, with its emphasis on straight lines and flat surfaces and refined use of detail. The walnut and rosewood commode with a marble top was undoubtedly of the same period. Morel Senior had an almost identical one in his room. Morel pulled the drawers open. What he found inside the top drawer made him pause. A ladies’ gold watch with a broken leather s
trap and a jumble of bead necklaces. Black-and-white family photos taken during a skiing holiday. A lace handkerchief and a sewing kit. How lifeless one’s possessions became after death, Morel thought. In any case there was nothing there that might help progress the investigation.

  He closed the drawers and turned back to the room. While the furniture was stylish, all the knick-knacks were a different story. Their only common denominator was an absence of good taste. Porcelain dogs and clowns. A globe with a snowman that produced snow when you shook it. All things that could have been picked up at a jumble sale. Of the four cushions lining the two sofas, no two matched. One had a tapestry cover, the other a crocheted outline of a house. Two depicted animals, one a horse and the other a Dobermann. They were all equally ugly.

  He slid the balcony door open and went out. After the silence of the flat, the noise from the traffic below was an assault. The balcony was bare. There were no plants, not even a chair to sit in. Clearly, Isabelle Dufour had not been a gardener. There was a cafe opposite and a newsagent. From her balcony, Dufour would have been able to see anyone coming from across the street.

  Why had she opened her door to a stranger? Maybe because she felt safe in her building. She had no reason not to.

  Morel went back inside and slid the door shut. He turned to find Lila standing near him. It gave him a start.

  ‘Nothing in the main bedroom.’

  Slowly and methodically, they went through the guest room, the kitchen and bathroom, before reconvening in the living room.

  It had been a discouraging search, Morel thought. He could see Lila felt the same. It was time to go.

  Before leaving, he took one last look around. As his eyes swept the room, the stereo caught his eye, mainly because it was such a dated and clunky model. One with a tape deck and radio included. Nowadays even the cash converters didn’t bother with these. Someone, maybe Dufour’s son or daughter-in-law, had bought her a cheap CD player as well. Morel wondered why Isabelle Dufour had bothered keeping the old system but then again, she might have found it hard to part with something she’d had for so long.

  Without thinking, he went up to the tape deck. He pushed Play. Nothing happened. He tried the CD player.

  Sound blasted from the speakers into his ears and he recoiled, immediately turning the volume down. The slow and solemn opening was devastatingly familiar.

  ‘Do you think it was left there intentionally?’ Lila said as they headed down in the lift.

  ‘Unless it was left behind because someone forgot to take it back.’

  ‘Or maybe it’s just a coincidence,’ she said mournfully.

  Morel shook his head. This was the second time in two days that he was hearing Fauré’s Requiem. It could not be accidental.

  ‘Not a coincidence. But the question is, what is it supposed to tell us? What is it for?’

  ‘Beats me.’

  ‘Come on. There’s a reason behind it,’ Morel said.

  ‘Is the music part of the ritual? Did Dufour have to sit through it before she was drowned?’

  ‘Or while she was drowning. Or being dressed and laid out on her bed,’ Morel said.

  Lila rubbed her arms and crossed her legs. ‘Shit. You know, I can deal with the stabbings and shootings, the normal stuff we see every day.’ She caught Morel’s eye. ‘You know what I mean. But this is different. I told you, we’re dealing with a freak.’

  ‘A methodical freak,’ Morel said. ‘Someone who likes to do things a certain way, tidy and organized. Someone who thinks things through.’

  Back in the office, Jean told Morel that Vincent had called again. Morel went straight to his desk and dialled his number. Vincent answered on the first ring.

  ‘It’s me,’ Morel said. ‘Is everything OK?’ He realized as soon as he’d said it that it was a stupid thing to say to a man whose wife was dying of cancer.

  ‘I wanted to say I’m sorry I haven’t been around. I even forgot to call yesterday . . .’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, there’s nothing more important than what you’re doing now. No one expects you to come in when you’ve got Sylvia to look after. How is she?’

  There was a sigh at the end of the line, followed by silence. For a moment, Morel believed he could hear Vincent crying. He felt powerless. This wasn’t something he was equipped to deal with.

  ‘Tell me what I can do to help,’ he said.

  ‘That’s the thing,’ Vincent said, his voice unrecognizable. ‘There’s nothing you or anyone can do. We’re alone in this.’ He then seemed to make an effort to speak. ‘She’s running out of time. We’re looking at days, maybe a week if we’re lucky. They’re telling me she should be hospitalized but she really wants to be at home for the little time she’s got.’

  ‘Bloody hell, I’m so sorry, Vincent. And the girls?’

  ‘The girls are heartbroken.’

  ‘Look, I’ll drop in later, I—’

  ‘Thanks, but please don’t,’ Vincent said.

  Morel waited. Wondering whether he should insist.

  ‘Sure, I understand,’ he said finally. ‘Just take as much time as you need. You know we’ll do anything to make this easier for you.’

  After he hung up, Morel looked up to see Jean, Marco and Lila standing there. For a while, no one said anything.

  TWELVE

  When Lila opened her eyes and saw it was just after 6 a.m., she felt cheated. What was the point of having a day off if you couldn’t sleep in? What were you supposed to do at 6 a.m.? Especially if you were waking up alone.

  She’d been out late, dancing at a Cuban club where, with the right dose of alcohol and dim lighting, she could convince herself that she moved like a Latin goddess. For close to an hour she’d been trapped in the arms of a sweaty Argentinian who’d flicked his fingers and paced around her with the intensity of a matador facing off a bull. It had been a laugh. She’d come home dripping with sweat, feeling like she’d managed to shake off the disquieting image of Isabelle Dufour’s corpse. That hideous make-up and the cheap wig. Coupled with the virginal nightdress and clean white sheets, it added up in Lila’s mind to a form of sexual violation as brutal as rape.

  She couldn’t articulate this clearly. Which was why she hadn’t shared her thoughts with Morel or anyone else.

  If only she’d brought the quick-footed Argentinian home. Around about now she might be getting a healthy dose of attention. The sort that might help her go back to sleep. Alone, though, there wasn’t a hope in hell she would. She was buzzing, feeling like she did sometimes coming out of a club in the early hours of the morning, high from the pumping noise and closeness of bodies, her stomach clamouring for food.

  Only it was hours ago she had got home and now she really should be fast asleep. Something had nudged her and woken her up despite her intense tiredness. What was it? Like an urgent reminder in her ear. Something to do with Isabelle Dufour.

  She got up to go to the toilet and brush her teeth. In the dead-end street below a Chinese man, one of the workers at the Happy Dumpling restaurant, was dragging a rubbish bin. He seemed to be making a point of going slowly, making sure that everyone in the street would hear it. He unlocked the rear entrance to the restaurant and disappeared inside, taking the bin with him. A skeletal cat followed at a watchful distance and sat on its haunches, waiting for scraps.

  ‘Forget it, pal. You’re wasting your time,’ Lila said out loud. ‘People are having a hard time of it these days. There’s no room for charity.’

  She thought about getting back in bed but she needed to eat something. She could barely remember what she’d had the night before but she was fairly confident none of it included solids. In the fridge she found a family-sized pot of strawberry yoghurt past its expiry date and she sat at the table with the pot and a spoon. One of two teaspoons in her drawer and a parting gift from the former tenants, a couple of American students who’d moved back to the States. They’d also left three plates, two bowls, two forks and a knife.

  Th
ere was no coffee left, Lila remembered. Great. Six o’clock on a Saturday morning and no coffee. She turned to the crossword book on the table and tried to pick up where she had left off. But her mind kept drifting. She remembered Anne Dufour’s face, closed, alert, as though trying to identify distant sounds.

  Morel had told her not to make it personal, as if it was something she could choose. She knew to trust her instinct. Anne Dufour was scared. She had the helpless air of a woman left with no options. Lila wished they could get her on her own. She might open up then.

  Jacques Dufour was not a nice man. Lila didn’t pick him as a murderer, but she wanted to dig deeper into his life. A man like that was bound to have dirty secrets. Who knows, she thought. I might get lucky. If I could nail him somehow, it might help shift the balance of things in the Dufour household. Maybe Anne Dufour would start smiling again, once in a while.

  She could still see his face. Vain. Cruel. Convinced of his own power and superiority. How had he behaved towards his mother, Lila wondered. Had Isabelle Dufour spoilt her son? Was she responsible for the fact he was such an arse-hole? Was any mother responsible for the way their children turned out? Lila thought of Isabelle Dufour’s apartment and wondered. She remembered every object, every painting and rug in that house, the same way she could list everything she had seen at Jacques Dufour’s lavish home.

  According to the concierge, he had visited his mother four times in eight years. Lila could picture him, pacing the apartment, looking at his watch and trying not to look bored.

  ‘Jacques Dufour. It’s people like you that make the world a shitty place,’ she said to herself. She got up and dropped the yoghurt pot into an overflowing rubbish bin and the spoon into the sink. A dirty plate sat in it from two days earlier when she’d warmed up a ready-made lasagne.

  She looked at her crossword clue again. In the street below she heard a single plaintive miaow, then another. Soon it became a series of calls, an ongoing lament that made Lila feel like someone was scraping the inside of her skull with sharp claws. She looked at the ceiling. Cobwebs of dust hung from the corners. She needed to vacuum the place sometime.