‘I need to get out of here,’ she said to the walls. The thing that had nudged her was back, a memory that hovered in the back of her mind. Maybe if she talked to Morel, she would remember. She picked up the phone and tried his mobile number. It rang eight times before going to a recorded message.
‘Morel. Pick up the phone. It’s important.’
She hung up and swore. Where the hell was he?
She dialled his number again. No answer.
‘Shit.’ Lila hung up. She took her pyjamas off and pulled on a grey T-shirt and a pair of jeans. She would get coffee first, then go to the pool and swim a few lengths. Think carefully about what she remembered about the Dufours. Maybe it was nothing.
Though that seemed improbable, Lila thought as she jogged down the stairs. Her beating heart told her that she was on to something.
The swimming pool was busier than she’d hoped. While the desk attendant scanned her card, she saw through the glass people swimming two or three to each lane. She’d hoped for a lane to herself, where she could pound the water till exhaustion overcame her. This was the only way she knew how to exercise, by reaching her limit then surpassing it, until there was no feeling left.
Once she had changed into her blue one-piece swimsuit she looked for a lane that was not as busy as the others. She picked one that had just a single swimmer, a man with a powerful back and strong arms whose butterfly stroke came across as a warning for others to keep away.
Perfect, she thought. This was someone unused to having to share his space. With a bit of luck it would piss him off to have her in his lane and he’d leave.
With the goggles on, everything receded. Feet and wet floors and the smell of chlorine, the shrieks of children and repeated instructions by swimming coaches. Everything except the underwater sound of her breathing and the water’s movement where her body flew.
Freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke. And back to freestyle again. Normally she could keep this up indefinitely. But today was different. After twenty-five minutes she stopped to catch her breath. She stood at the end of the lane, waist-deep in the warm water and leaned her elbows on the concrete. Looked at the families coming in with small children, loaded with bags. Coming to the pool seemed like a major expedition. The time it took to get the kids changed and unload bags filled with towels, goggles and toys.
On the seats a boy sat in his swimming trunks, alone. His fringe was too long but he did nothing to push his hair out of his eyes. An old man wearing a white polo shirt and tight white shorts went over to him. Lila could see him speaking intently to the boy, whose face betrayed nothing, not even polite interest. There was something wrong with the whole scene. Lila realized what it was. The old man was leaning far too close, his face inches from the boy’s.
Before she knew what she was doing, she’d pulled herself out of the water and hurried, dripping, to where they were.
As she got near the old man looked up. He immediately scurried away.
‘Everything OK?’ she asked the boy. ‘Do you know that man?’
The boy shook his head.
‘What did he want?’
The boy was growing uneasy. Time to shove off, Lila, she thought. Before someone starts wondering what you’re doing. She gave the boy a quick smile which she hoped seemed reassuring and walked over to where her towel lay on a chair. She’d swum half the distance she’d normally swim but she wasn’t in the mood for it any more.
Once she was dressed, she dialled Morel’s number again.
‘Pharisee? Remind me what that means?’ Morel said.
‘It refers to many things. A member of an ancient Jewish sect, for one.’
‘Surely it has a capital P?’
‘A minute ago you didn’t know what the word meant. Now you’re assuring me it has a capital P.’
‘Look, never mind, just put it down.’
‘I’ll look for another word, it’s all the same to me.’
‘Please, just put it down,’ Morel said.
His father complied with the air of a man acting under duress. Morel watched his father count his points. He tried to remember whether the old man had always played games like this, with such avidity, as though he were scoring points against the whole world. Then he remembered that the two of them had never done this together before.
‘What are you working on these days?’
‘Me?’
‘Do you see someone else in this room?’ his father said.
‘I have this one strange case,’ Morel said.
‘And?’
‘A man and a boy, knocking on people’s doors and talking to them about God.’
‘Doesn’t sound like much of a case.’
‘We have one victim. Though it isn’t clear how she died, and whether these two are involved. There are a number of things that point to a link.’
His father said nothing. Morel wondered how long a game of Scrabble might last.
‘You ready to put a word down?’ his father said.
Morel put down the word ‘tube’ and his father laughed.
‘Is that it?’
‘How about a snack?’ Morel said.
‘We ate breakfast an hour ago.’
‘Coffee, then. Would you like another coffee? I’m having one. You think about your next word and I’ll be right back,’ Morel said. He needed to get out of the room.
When he came back with his cup, his father pointed to the board.
‘I’ve done my turn. It’s yours now. Try to do something a bit better this time.’
Morel looked down at the board, then at his father. ‘Very funny.’
‘What? What’s funny?’
‘Your word. FXUTJS. Now why don’t you put down a real word?’
There was a pause, a silence that lasted less than ten seconds but seemed to fill the room. When Morel looked up at his father he saw an expression there he’d never seen before. He looked like a man who has come to an intersection and doesn’t know which way to turn.
Morel could not look at the old man’s face now. Instead, he watched Morel Senior’s hand move across the board and pick the letters up, one by one. It seemed to take a very long time.
‘Yeah, OK. I was just mucking around. I wanted to give you a fighting chance,’ he said.
While Morel struggled with how to respond, the phone rang and he reached for it, grateful for the interruption.
‘Morel speaking,’ he said, while his father walked out of the room.
‘It’s me. Lila.’
‘Why are you calling this number?’
‘I wouldn’t have to if you bothered answering your mobile phone.’
‘Shit. I left it in the car. Sorry.’
‘Yeah well. We need to talk. Can we meet somewhere? I can come to your place if you like.’
‘No need,’ Morel said quickly. He suggested they catch up over lunch. He gave her the name of a bistro in Neuilly and heard her snort.
‘I hope you’re paying,’ she said, before hanging up.
‘I was picturing something fancy but this is OK,’ Lila said.
They were sitting in a booth, in an Italian restaurant. The tablecloths were red and white checks and the walls decorated with trellis and fake vine. Andrea Bocelli was belting out that tune that people seemed to like so much. Lila didn’t get it. Already the tables were filling up with families, all very presentable, even the children with their neatly combed hair and good manners.
Morel opened a menu. Lila looked him over. He was dressed in jeans and a blue collared shirt. She wondered whether she had ever seen him wearing jeans before. It didn’t make any difference. He wore denim the way he wore a suit. His clothes still had that look of having been pressed just moments before he put them on. He was clean-shaven and sharp. Good cheekbones, eyes slightly slanted, reminding her that he was part Asian, though most people never saw it. Dimples when he smiled. Not her type exactly, but she knew plenty of women who would think differently. Looking him over, she realized all of a sud
den how she must look. She’d had about three hours’ sleep and the T-shirt she wore had a rip at the collar and a stain at the centre where she’d spilt a takeaway coffee earlier.
‘I hope I didn’t interrupt anything this morning,’ Lila said.
Morel thought of his father’s confusion over the word he’d put down. The old man had said he didn’t want to play any more and retreated to his room. Morel had escaped to his until it was time to meet Lila.
‘Not at all.’ Morel pretended to skim through the menu but he knew it by heart, having come here so often over the years.
‘What do you feel like?’ Morel asked.
‘I’ll have the gnocchi and a Coke.’
‘OK.’ He gestured to one of the waiters hovering around the tables and placed their order. When the waiter had left, Morel turned to Lila.
‘So what is it you want to tell me, that couldn’t wait till tomorrow?’
‘I was thinking about the Dufours,’ she said.
‘What about them?’ Morel pulled open a packet of bread-sticks and bit into one.
‘Something stayed with me. Remember the cross we found in Isabelle Dufour’s hands?’
‘What about it?’
‘It had those stones embedded in each arm of the cross. I remember thinking it was quite pretty, as far as these things go . . . Remember?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, Anne Dufour, the daughter-in-law. She was wearing a cross around her neck when we went to interview them the first time. She wasn’t flaunting it, in fact it was quite discreet, tucked away beneath her buttoned-up shirt. But when she leaned forward to pour more coffee, I noticed it.’
‘Lots of people wear crosses.’
‘It was the exact same one. Wooden, with those blue stones. How many of those have you come across?’
Morel leaned forward and Lila moved back slightly, her eyebrows raised.
‘What’s so special about it?’ he asked.
‘Well, I did a Google search, to see whether I could find it. And it finally came up.’ She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket. It was a colour print-out of the cross, with a brief description under it. Morel looked at it, then at Lila.
‘It’s an Orthodox cross,’ she said triumphantly. ‘It’s not immediately obvious, with this one. But it definitely is. And it occurred to me that we should visit the Orthodox churches – starting with the Russian Orthodox Church in Rue Daru. Maybe someone there has seen our two guys.’
Morel looked at the print-out. ‘Nice work, Lila.’
‘And another thing,’ she said, looking pleased. ‘Remember how Dufour’s son was about to head off to Geneva for two nights, when we interviewed him?’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, he left without a bag. You’d think a man would have an overnight bag at least, if he was going to be away from home for two nights.’
‘He could have had it in the car. He might have put it there earlier.’
‘I think we should ask his wife, don’t you?’
‘Yes. I’ll be interested to see what she says.’
The food came and they ate in silence. Ten minutes later Lila had cleaned up her gnocchi while Morel’s fettuccine lay mostly untouched.
‘Coffee?’ Morel asked. Lila shook her head.
‘I’m too full.’
He called for the bill and paid.
‘Thank you,’ Lila said.
‘You did say it was on me.’
‘Well, I knew you’d want to pay, being the perfect gentleman.’
‘And you the perfect lady.’
‘Ha ha.’
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s walk.’
They headed towards the river. A barge heaped with coal was making its way down the Seine. An elderly woman in a suit was walking a poodle along the pathway. They passed a couple of joggers. The river seemed to mark the divide between past and present. On this side, Neuilly with its elegant architecture; on the other a skyline of office and apartment blocks. Across the water, the Great Arch of La Défense framed a taciturn sky. The design of the Danish architect Johann Otto von Spreckelsen looked more like a cube than the triumphal arch it was meant to be, Morel thought. Either way it didn’t add much to the high-rise office district.
‘When we go back to the Dufour house we can ask the daughter-in-law about the cross,’ Morel said.
‘It may be nothing.’
‘Or not. This is a woman who supposedly wasn’t religious.’
They stood there much longer than necessary, observing the river’s turmoil, a deep wedge carved by the passing boat.
‘I’d better get going,’ Morel said.
‘Me too,’ Lila said. ‘See you on Monday?’
‘See you on Monday.’
Morel accompanied her to the Métro station and watched her jog down the stairs. Then he turned around and slowly walked back home.
THIRTEEN
When Morel arrived at work on Monday morning he found Marie Latour and Irina Volkoff waiting with Jean in the office. Morel was never under-dressed but he was glad he’d remembered today to wear a tie. It was a dark-red Nino Cerruti which Solange had bought for him two years ago, before they’d become lovers. Jean introduced him to the two women.
Morel noticed them give him the once-over. They both smiled. Visibly, he’d passed the test.
The same was perhaps less true of Jean. Morel saw Marie Latour examine Jean’s snakeskin boots and the stud in his left ear. She was probably wondering what he was doing out of handcuffs.
‘Thank you for coming in,’ Morel said. ‘We really appreciate it. We can call you a taxi when you’ve finished here. We’ll try not to keep you here any longer than necessary but we’re keen to get as clear a portrait as possible of the man who came to your house. And the boy, too.’
‘Why?’ said Irina Volkoff. ‘I thought we’d already done that. Why do you need more?’
‘Because we’ve had other complaints since you provided the testimony,’ Morel said, keen not to give away too much. There was no point worrying them when he still had so little to go on.
He called Marco over.
‘Is Madame Guillou on her way?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Marco said.
‘Well, perhaps we’ll proceed without her. I don’t want to keep these ladies waiting,’ Morel said. He moved closer to Marco, out of earshot. ‘Get her on the phone now or find her; either way I want to know where she is,’ he said quietly.
He turned back to the two elderly women. They couldn’t have been more different. Marie Latour was short and plump, with a round face. Irina Volkoff was the opposite, angular and tall. Watchful and silent where Latour was chatty and eager to please.
Morel turned to Marco. ‘Do you want to drive these ladies? I’ll be with you shortly.’
‘The illustrator is expecting you,’ Morel told the two women.
As per custom, the composite sketch would be worked out at the Quai de l’Horloge, where the judicial identity section in charge of all the technical and scientific analyses was located. It was only a hundred metres or so from the Criminal Brigade headquarters. A short stroll, but given the witnesses’ age, Morel did not consider asking them to walk.
Two hours later Morel had a sketch in hand that the two women had agreed on. He passed copies on to Lila, Marco and Jean.
‘Marco, I want you to go back to the women’s neighbourhoods again with this, talk to everyone you and Jean spoke to last time. In case it helps jog someone’s memory. Lila, you run the composite by all the organizations we’ve listed, including the Orthodox ones.’
‘I’ll go with her,’ Jean said. ‘I can spare a couple of hours.’
‘Thanks. And wherever we can send a scan by email, let’s do it. Save some time,’ Morel said.
He looked at Marco. ‘Did you make contact with Guillou?’
‘No. She’s not at home.’
‘Let’s try again in an hour’s time. If we don’t hear from her I’d like to get someone down ther
e.’
Marco nodded. Morel watched him gather his things and head out, while Jean and Lila drew their chairs together and began looking at a very long list of religious institutions.
Things were picking up slowly. It wasn’t what you’d call real progress but at least they now had a clear picture of the person Morel wanted to talk to.
He intended to go over the evidence once more, starting with the photos of the Dufour crime scene, the testimonies by the three widows and the interview with the Dufours.
He looked at his watch. Maybe he’d grab some lunch first.
Instead of getting his sandwich at the usual place he found himself driving across the bridge to a narrow street off the Boulevard Saint-Michel. Just a quick drive, he told himself, knowing he should be back at his desk, focusing on the case.
He slowed down and looked out of his window, scanning the street numbers. He’d known for a long time now that Mathilde lived here and he’d made a point of staying well away from this part of town. He didn’t want her to know he had tracked her down. Mathilde, he suspected, would not find this endearing.
He was dreaming of her on a regular basis. He had come to expect it when he went to sleep. He took it as a sign, of what he wasn’t sure.
He parked across the street from her building. While he waited, he opened the Dufour folder and started looking at the photos of her apartment. He looked up often to see whether Mathilde had appeared.
After a few minutes he rolled the window down to get some air. He felt bruised from the relentless heat. Maybe after this case was closed he would take a holiday. Away from the crowds, a place where he could wake up to the chirping of birds.
He thought of his father. Should he try to talk to him about what had happened with the Scrabble game? Maybe he had simply been confused. Morel promised himself to raise it if it happened again.
Thinking of his father reminded him that he still hadn’t spoken to his sister Maly. He would try calling again and maybe drop by if he couldn’t get through. He knew she was home most evenings.
He thought about Isabelle Dufour and about what Paul had told him. Could there possibly be a link between the dead woman and Paul’s little lecture on religious revivalism in Russia?
The Lying Down Room (Serge Morel 1) Page 9
