First he called Perrin. Thankfully, the call went straight to answerphone. Perrin must be on the phone or in a meeting. Morel left a brief message and promised to call again soon. Then he called Antoine Nizet on the mobile number the police attaché had given him.
‘Sorry to trouble you at night like this,’ he said.
‘Not at all. How is the investigation going?’
‘Slowly. I need a favour.’
‘Absolutely.’
He explained about Quercy’s folder and the man’s research into land-grabbing activities in Cambodia.
‘You want to know if he was killed because he was looking into things he shouldn’t have been.’
‘That’s right. I want to be able to rule this out.’
‘Have you talked to Sarit?’
‘No.’ As he said it, Morel realized that he had meant to raise it with the Cambodian. But Sarit had been so adamant that a foreigner must be responsible for Quercy’s death that Morel wasn’t sure he would get much help from him.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Nizet said. ‘I’ll talk to a few people and get back to you. It’s tricky, though. It requires tact. And even then, I’m not sure anyone will speak to me.’
‘Whatever you can do, I’d appreciate it,’ Morel said. ‘One more thing: I have a list of paedophile suspects, which Quercy’s colleague Kate O’Sullivan provided. One of the names was highlighted. Thierry Gaveaux. I thought I’d start there.’
‘OK. Let me know how that goes.’
Afterwards, Morel rang his younger sister. He hoped Adèle would answer. Last time, his father had picked up the phone and not even recognized his voice. The old man had hung up. Morel had had to call back.
‘Adèle?’
‘You’re going to owe me when you get back,’ she said, by way of greeting.
‘It’s been difficult, has it?’
‘Difficult doesn’t cover it.’
‘I’ll be home in a couple of days,’ he said, though he had nothing to base this hope on. ‘How is he?’
‘Some days I don’t even know him anymore. Other days he’s the same exasperating man we both know.’ She paused and Morel could sense her unhappiness. He heard a long, shaky sigh at the other end of the line.
‘How can someone so intelligent, so cerebral, turn into this?’ she said. ‘I know it’s a stupid thing to say because Alzheimer’s can happen to anyone. But I really find it hard to accept that it’s happened to him. You know he and I had trouble getting on. I don’t even know how much I like him. But one way or another, he has been a source of stability in my life. Do you know what I mean? He was always so imposing and strong.’
‘I do know what you mean.’ Morel wasn’t sure what else he could say. Just then he heard a drawn-out whimper in the background. ‘What was that?’ he asked, startled.
‘Oh. There’s something I haven’t told you.’ He thought she sounded guilty and quickly realized why. ‘We got a puppy yesterday.’
‘What?’
‘We thought it would be good for Dad.’
‘Who’s we?’
‘Maly and I. We went to the dog shelter. We knew the moment we set eyes on this puppy that it was the right thing to do. It felt like fate. Especially with Maly’s baby coming any day now.’
‘That makes no sense, Adèle. What has the baby got to do with the dog?’
‘It feels right, Serge. It really does.’
Morel could picture his two sisters plotting in his absence. Egging each other on, building up the courage to do something they both knew he would oppose.
‘I don’t want to look after a dog. So who’s going to do it once I return and you move back into your place?’
‘Augustine says she’s happy to help. She also thought it was a good idea.’
Augustine was Morel’s cleaner, who had worked for the family ever since Serge was a boy. She had become a vital presence in their lives. Even before Morel Senior’s illness, she had come in regularly to cook and clean for father and son.
‘Where does the dog sleep?’ Morel asked.
‘Never mind where he sleeps,’ Adèle said. ‘What does it matter?’ and Morel suddenly pictured the dog spread out on his bed where Adèle slept in his absence.
She piped up again before he had a chance to protest.
‘I’d better go,’ she said. ‘I’m taking Dad and Descartes for a walk.’
Descartes?
‘What kind of name is that for a dog? And what breed is it?’ Morel asked, but the line had gone dead. He shook his head.
One more call to Lila, Morel thought, and then he would switch off for the night. Maybe do some origami.
The conversation with Lila was brief. Morel updated his colleague on the investigation and told her about the phone call with Hugo Quercy’s mother.
‘She sounds delightful,’ Lila said. ‘By the way, someone called here for you. She said she would call back.’
‘Did she leave a name?’
‘She just said to let you know Mathilde had called. But that it wasn’t urgent.’
It was a good thing Lila couldn’t see Morel’s reaction. He sat down and rubbed his eyes. Why the hell had Mathilde called? The last time they’d met, she’d been clear about not wanting to have anything to do with him. Could she be in some sort of trouble?
‘Did she leave a number?’
‘No. Sorry.’
There was a pause.
‘Anything else I should know about?’ Morel asked.
‘Not really. We’re helping narcotics with a case. And Perrin is insufferable.’
‘He’s under pressure.’
‘Don’t I know it. The minister is still on his back. And I think he’s pissed off because you’re not here.’
‘It was his idea to keep me here in the first place,’ Morel said.
‘Well, all I can say is that he’s being a bigger arsehole than usual. Which is saying something, right?’
Thierry lay on his back, wishing he hadn’t made his Pad Thai noodles so spicy. Marlene always warned him against eating too much chilli, and for once she was right. His stomach hurt and he couldn’t sleep.
It wasn’t just that, though. He hadn’t heard from his friend since Tuesday. On Wednesday Thierry had logged on and waited for an hour for Bruno to come online. Not hearing from him had made him irritable all evening. Even Marlene had noticed.
Thierry turned to look at his wife. Marlene was snoring gently. Her face had an oily sheen from the expensive cream she applied each night. He looked away and quietly got out of bed.
In the study, he turned on his laptop. It was hot and stuffy in here, unlike in their bedroom where Marlene kept the air conditioning on most of the time. He logged in to the chat room.
There was no sign of Bruno. No message from him either. Not that Thierry had expected one at this time of night. Yet he felt surprisingly empty. The uncomfortable thought came to him that Bruno was perhaps the only true friend he had, the only one he could really talk to.
To console himself, he thought of his girl. That afternoon, he’d managed to sneak out of work again. They’d met in the same room where they’d got together earlier in the week. It looked like the sheets hadn’t been changed since and Thierry was tempted to complain; after all, he paid more than the room was worth. But he knew better than to draw attention to himself.
She had been so pliant. He’d asked her to smile and she had, timidly raising her eyes to his. He’d taken photos. It wasn’t very wise, of course. What if someone found them? But how could he resist, when she looked so sweet and desirable lying there, posing the way he asked her to?
Thinking about her made Thierry restless. He found his phone and looked at the photos he’d taken. After a while, he got up to lock the door.
PART 4
THURSDAY 29 SEPTEMBER
TWENTY-SEVEN
It was still dark when Morel woke up with a start, convinced that someone was banging on the door. He got up and silently padded over the carpeted floo
r to peer through the peephole. There was no one there. He opened the door and looked down the corridor. Nothing.
His heart was beating wildly. He’d been in the middle of a dream where his father called for him, over and over again. His voice had sounded unnaturally shrill, and angry, but Morel could tell that his father was afraid. However hard he tried to reply, to reassure him, he couldn’t make himself heard. Now he was awake, other images came rushing in. Hugo Quercy’s frightened widow. The stained carpet in the cheap hotel room. Quercy’s naked body on the gleaming metal tray.
He needed to compose himself. He sat down at the desk and took a notepad and pencil from the drawer where he had stored them. He started drawing, gradually replacing the jumble of voices and images in his head with an idea that had been taking shape for some time. The design would involve a musician sitting cross-legged and playing the roneat, the Khmer xylophone. His mother, a lover of traditional Cambodian music, would have liked that.
Maybe he could address it the way Eric Joisel had, by shaping the entire composition from a single piece of paper. Would he be able to pull it off? Joisel was an origami artist and something of a genius. Each of his designs had been whole, perfect, with a lightness of touch that Morel could only dream of achieving.
It was nearly a year now since Joisel’s death from lung cancer. Morel felt privileged to have met the man once, at an exhibition in Paris. Now, as he began sketching his plans, he thought about the genial, bearded individual he had spoken with. They had shared a cigarette outside the exhibition centre before parting ways. Joisel had wished him luck.
Two hours later, he set his pad and pencil aside. He showered and got dressed. This morning he would have his breakfast elsewhere; he needed to stretch his legs and clear his head. He called Sarit’s mobile and left a message to tell him where he would be, so the Cambodian could pick him up later. He walked towards a French cafe he remembered from his last visit. Hopefully it was still there, unchanged. The croissants had been as good as anything he’d ever had in Paris.
Some of the side streets were flooded and he stuck carefully to the footpath. Even so, his shoes and socks soon got wet. It was still early but everywhere there were signs of activity. Tuk-tuk drivers called out to him. Children passed a ball to each other, knee-high in muddy water. He turned off Sihanouk Boulevard into the narrow lane where the bakery stood. Past houses concealed behind high gates and barbed-wire fences. Security guards watched him go. They didn’t look like they’d be much of a deterrent. Further down the street, the houses gave way to shops and stalls and neglected-looking apartment blocks. Laundry hung from makeshift poles slung across balconies.
He found the cafe as he remembered it. He ordered a croissant and a black coffee. Several tables were occupied, though most of the clients stood by the counter, waiting for their takeaway orders.
He chose a table outside and picked up a copy of the Phnom Penh Post that someone had left behind. A waitress arrived shortly afterwards with his order. There was still plenty of time before Sarit was due to pick him up. Two young Cambodian women sat next to each other at the table beside his, wearing dresses that clung to their slim bodies. They exchanged languid words in Khmer and played with their iPhones. Morel turned his gaze back to the street, where the recent downpour cast a gentle glow across the golden rain trees. A tangle of wires hung above them, and behind, lush green plants sprouted from fissures in the walls. Morel ate his croissant, enjoying his solitude and the sensation of an unexpected cool breeze against his skin.
Once he’d finished, he set aside his plate and coffee cup and began reading carefully through the papers he’d brought with him. The land eviction documents, and material Adam Spencer had given him relating to the NGO’s activities.
The scope of Kids at Risk’s work was truly impressive. It was ambitious, and it seemed to be working. As Adam Spencer had said, what stood out were the NGO’s training and education programmes. Those who’d benefited from them went on to train and teach others. Throughout the material, there was a sense of hope allied with pragmatism that was energizing.
Morel picked up the green folder again. Experts and leading NGOs seemed to agree that land grabbing was Cambodia’s biggest problem, the number one obstacle to a stable, prosperous future. Despite the fact that Pol Pot had abolished private property in the 1970s in favour of a utopian communist model. Despite the fact that, not so long ago, Hun Sen’s government had reinstated formal land titles for millions of people who had lost their land.
It wasn’t enough. In the face of greed and corruption, the land titles were nothing but scraps of paper, easily scattered in the wind. A number of NGOs estimated that half of Cambodia’s arable land had now been handed out to private companies. A huge amount in a country that still depended on agriculture. Among the people who had been forced off their land, many had tried to fight the move. Some had paid with their lives.
After a long while, Morel put the papers down and drank his coffee, which had gone cold. He rubbed his eyes. No wonder Quercy had been consumed by this.
He looked at his watch. Sarit was late.
Morel gathered the papers to put them back in the folder. He glanced at the documents as he returned them to the pile. One of them made him pause. He looked at it more carefully.
‘Bloody hell,’ he said.
He scraped his chair back and got up. Just then a car pulled up to the kerb outside the cafe. Sarit looked disgruntled. He wound down his window and gestured for Morel to get in.
‘An accident on the road,’ he said. ‘We are going to the NGO offices, yes?’
‘Yes. But first we need to talk. Park the car and join me for a coffee.’
Morel pushed the folder towards Sarit.
‘What do you know about this?’
Sarit flicked through the documents and looked up at Morel.
‘What is it?’
‘A folder belonging to Hugo Quercy, with articles and personal notes he took about the land evictions. He’d obviously been working on this for a while. He’d been talking to people about their troubles.’
Morel fought to remain calm and to ignore the blank look on Sarit’s face.
‘What was Pran suggesting yesterday,’ he continued, ‘when we talked about this issue? You and he were thinking the same thing. What was it?’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’
‘Is it possible Hugo’s research got him into trouble with the authorities? Because he was looking into things he shouldn’t have been, stirring up trouble?’
Sarit gave Morel a smile that meant nothing. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about this. I would like to help you.’
Morel stood up. ‘OK. Fine. Just know that I intend to go to your superiors with these same questions. I will talk to everyone in your department. So think about what you want to do and say. This is a murder investigation and I will dig deep to find out the truth.’
He didn’t wait for Sarit to answer. Instead, he walked out of the cafe and onto the street. Sarit had no choice but to follow.
Neither Kate nor Julia were in the office. Only a few of the Cambodian staffers were around. Adam Spencer was at his desk, talking on the phone. Seeing them, Adam mouthed an apology, and Morel signalled for him to take his time, that he was happy to wait. He was surprised to hear Spencer speaking in fluent Khmer. After a few minutes, he put the phone down.
‘Sorry, that was important. Please sit down,’ Adam said.
‘Where is everyone?’ Morel asked.
‘A couple of our local staff called in sick. The others are out in the field. They should be back soon.’
Morel took a seat across from Adam. Sarit remained standing. They hadn’t said a word to each other on the way here.
‘Do you think we could talk somewhere a little more private? Hugo’s office, perhaps?’ Morel said.
Adam looked confused.
‘There’s no need for that, I would think. Besides, I thought we covered everything yesterday.’
Adam frowned. ‘Hugo’s dead. So is Chhun. Uncomfortable is putting it mildly.’
Morel dropped the green folder onto Adam Spencer’s desk.
‘Yesterday, someone dropped this off for me. At my hotel. There are printouts in there that have Saturday’s date on them. Which means Hugo had the folder until then at least. I think whoever gave me the folder got it from Hugo Quercy’s house on Sunday night.’ He leaned forward. ‘Is there anything you want to tell me?’
Adam’s face had gone pale. Morel stared at him. Yes. He should have guessed.
‘Is there something I need to know, Adam?’
‘OK. Listen. I was at his house that night. I took the folder. I don’t even know why I did it. The only reason I was there was because I wanted something personal, you know, to remember Hugo by.’ He was rushing his words, as if it was the only way to get them out.
‘So you were at the hotel. You knew he was dead. Did you kill Hugo, Adam? Did the two of you have a fight?’
‘Yes. I mean no,’ Adam said, his voice breathless. ‘I went to his room at the hotel. He’d called earlier, you see. Said he was taking some time away from home. That he had some things to sort out but could I drop by after for a drink. He didn’t fancy being alone, I think. I said that was fine.’
‘What time did he suggest you drop by?’ Morel asked. The whole story seemed unlikely.
‘He didn’t. He said he would send me a text once he was free.’
‘What time did he do that?’
‘He didn’t.’ Adam swallowed. ‘I went anyway.’
‘Why?’ Morel pushed. ‘Didn’t it occur to you that he might have changed his mind? That he might have decided to go to bed instead? Or maybe he had someone else with him there and you’d be walking into something private?’
‘I didn’t think any of those things,’ Adam stuttered. ‘I should have. But he’d said come over for a drink, and I wanted to, so . . .’ He didn’t finish his sentence but Morel could see it now. Hugo had said he didn’t fancy being alone. Adam, sitting alone in his flat, hadn’t either. Hugo had been the nearest thing he’d had to family.
Death in the Rainy Season Page 17
