The Snakes

by Sadie Jones

‘Mum –’

  ‘Go-away-I-want-him,’ said Liv, blinking like a stroke victim.

  Bea clenched and unclenched her fists. ‘He’s not here,’ she said. ‘He’s dead.’

  There was a glass of water by the bed. She handed it to her but Liv shook her head. Anti-anxiety drugs would suppress her respiratory system but they would be unlikely to kill her.

  ‘What have you taken?’ said Bea. ‘Just Valium?’

  Liv focused on Bea. Her face was dead, but behind her eyes, she was all movement inside herself, like a wasp in a glass.

  ‘You hate me,’ she said.

  ‘Drink some water,’ said Bea. ‘We have to go to the police station.’

  She helped her mother sit upright. ‘Can you stand?’ she said.

  She got her up, and walked her to the open window. Liv, a graduate of countless yoga classes, breathed deeply in, through her nose, staring without focusing at the trees. Bea watched her. She could easily have pushed her from the window. Everyone was waiting downstairs.

  ‘Have you eaten anything?’ she asked. Of course she hadn’t. She didn’t eat at the best of times. ‘You need to eat.’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ said Liv.

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘It’s impossible for a boy to have a beautiful mother,’ said Liv, swaying.

  ‘What?’

  Bea stepped back sharply. She was knocked breathless by a pain in her head. She left Liv standing at the window and went into the bathroom. It felt as if two forks were being pressed into the soft skin of her temple. She had to put her hands up to check there was nothing there. She circled her fingers over the jabbing pain. It was alarming. It wasn’t like a headache, or any pain she’d ever known. She rubbed at her head. With half-closed eyes, she felt for the tap, and turned it on. Distraught sister dies of brain haemorrhage, she thought, as she splashed water on her face. She reached for a towel. The pain had gone. She hung up the towel, and went back to the bedroom. Liv was standing where Bea had left her, crying.

  ‘You can’t be late for the police,’ said Bea.

  ‘Don’t push me around.’

  ‘Come on.’

  She told her to undress, and called down to Dan to bring her suitcase up to them.

  ‘You all right up there?’ said Dan.

  ‘On our way,’ said Bea.

  Holding her breath, she helped Liv undress, and into the shower, and turned away while she washed. When Liv came out of the shower she handed her one of the new towels, tugging off the label, which dug into her fingers. Coming back to herself, Liv looked disdainfully at the towel in her hands as if she could smell the supermarket on it.

  ‘What’s this?’ she said.

  ‘A towel.’

  ‘It’s ghastly.’ With sudden petulance she threw it to the floor. She began to cry again.

  Bea picked it up. She held her mother’s tiny wet, naked body in her arms, patting it dry. She thought it was fine, comforting her mother. She must remove herself, like a nurse, and be detached, because it was the right thing to do. Patiently, she dried her soft skin with the new towel, and helped her dress again.

  ‘There’s no point taking pills,’ slurred Liv, tears dribbling. ‘They don’t make any difference. Nothing does.’

  Philip Roche was waiting by the front door, still in his jacket, and sweating.

  ‘There you are,’ said Griff as Liv and Bea came down. ‘All right, let’s go.’

  ‘We’ll see you later,’ said Bea. ‘Good luck.’

  Bea felt strong, but disconnected, still frightened by the pain in her head. She wondered how far she could go, in this new world of compromise with her soul, before she broke.

  ‘Was your mum OK upstairs?’ said Dan at her side.

  She didn’t know how to answer him.

  ‘Bea?’

  ‘She’s fine,’ she said, knowing he could hear her rage in her voice, unable to contain it.

  Griff tucked Liv safely inside the enormous rented SUV, and got in beside her. He switched it on, just as a police car turned, sharply, into the driveway. It crackled to a halt. It was bright blue, with yellow chevrons on the bonnet, which shone garishly against the dark green of the bushes and trees. Griff got out of the car again.

  ‘What’s this now?’ said Griff. ‘Are they coming to get us? I thought we were going in ourselves.’

  ‘That was the plan,’ said Roche.

  Two uniformed gendarmes got out of the police car and looked around at the faces.

  ‘Madame Durrant?’ said one of them.

  ‘Yes. Me,’ said Bea, in English.

  ‘What’s going on?’ said Griff.

  The officer consulted a piece of paper. ‘Monsieur Durrant? Daniel Durrant?’

  Roche trotted briskly over to them. ‘Good afternoon. My name is Philip Roche, I represent the family. What can we do for you?’ he said.

  The three of them talked, quietly.

  ‘What the bloody hell is going on?’ said Griff.

  ‘Just a moment,’ said Roche. He left the two policemen, and went over to Dan and Bea.

  Arun stood next to Griff, solicitous, as Griff glared, and Liv inside the car stared blankly ahead.

  ‘They want you to go with them,’ murmured Roche, bending his head towards them as if he were consulting with a client in the dock.

  ‘They’ve spoken to us already,’ said Dan.

  ‘They should have called first,’ said Roche. ‘They lack the tea-and-sympathy approach we’re used to in Britain.’

  ‘We’re not used to anything,’ said Bea. ‘It’s a first for us.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I said, what the hell is going on?’ said Griff, with Arun at his side.

  ‘Look, there’s nothing sinister about it,’ said Roche to Dan and Bea. ‘But it’s best if you go along.’

  ‘In our car?’

  ‘They want to take you in theirs.’

  ‘Why?’ said Dan quickly.

  The policemen waited, handcuffs dangling from their belts.

  ‘We can ask questions later,’ said Roche.

  Bea and Dan got into the police car as the SUV with her parents and the lawyers drove away. One of them said something to her.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said, could you put your seat belt on?’

  Red-faced, she fumbled with it. Dan had already fastened his, subjugated, and betraying nothing.

  ‘Off we go,’ said one of the gendarmes cheerily, as if they were off for a trip on a scenic railway. He switched on the car radio and tinny Europop accompanied them out, and onto the road.

  14

  Being in a room with a gun was disturbing. More so because the gun was in a shoulder holster slung casually on the back of a chair. Bea could see the textured butt poking out, drawing her attention, as if it had a power of its own. It was close enough for her to reach out and touch it if she wanted, because the room was small. Dan was in the cubicle next door. The last she’d seen of him was with his eyebrows raised at her, questioning, as having been to the gendarmerie they were politely separated.

  The two detectives had introduced themselves as investigating officers Major Matheo Dufour and Adjutant Nino Luis. It was Nino Luis’s gun. He was on the chair with the holster hanging behind him. He was unshaven, in a T-shirt and hoody. She could imagine him in Nice or Marseilles, cornering immigrants on the night-time docks. Dufour was tall and fair, with a wedding ring and white trainers. Beyond the thin partition she could hear blurred sounds of printers and phones ringing, voices.

  ‘OK, what else?’ said Dufour, as if they had been talking earlier. ‘Alex. Was he OK?’

  ‘He was – all right,’ she said. ‘He was lonely.’

  The curiosity and interest of the detectives was like a distorted copy of her own job. She told them about Alex’s drinking, but that he’d said he wasn’t using drugs – and she believed him. She told them how playful he had been, and about the snake traps up in the roof. There was a knock on the partiti
on, and Dufour leaned out to talk to someone. Luis looked up from his pad, and Bea smiled politely. He smiled back, but then kept his eyes on her. He didn’t look away. She couldn’t work out if it was a sexual thing or to gain power, then thought they were the same. Uncomfortable, enduring, she wondered if the British police did the same thing to women, and knew immediately they must. Luis stared at her unselfconsciously, with his legs apart and his gun hanging by his bare arm. Dufour finished his conversation and sat down again. Luis went back to his pad.

  ‘Was your brother homosexual?’ said Dufour.

  ‘What?’ said Bea. ‘Why?’

  ‘Is it a difficult question?’

  He was pushing for answers suddenly, not drawing them out.

  ‘Do you know something else?’ she said. ‘Do you know what happened?’

  ‘Tell me about his relationships,’ said Dufour, ignoring her questions. ‘Men or women? Did he sleep around?’

  Bea kept silent and counted to ten in her head. It was a tactic she sometimes used in sessions, to shift the balance of power.

  ‘I hadn’t seen my brother for almost two years,’ she said, ‘I told you.’

  In the corner, Luis scribbled on.

  ‘Alex was a fag, wasn’t he?’ said Dufour.

  He used the word pédé. She’d only heard it said in films before, never in real life.

  ‘If you use words like that, I’m leaving,’ she said. ‘I’m here voluntarily.’

  There was silence.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t think Alex was gay,’ she said. ‘As far as I know he wasn’t very sexually active.’

  ‘Do you know where he went at night?’

  ‘I’ve told you, we only got here a few days ago.’

  ‘Do you know what methadone is?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Why of course?’

  ‘I work in mental health, in London. I’ve worked with addicts.’

  ‘Are you an addict?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was he prescribed methadone?’

  ‘Not that I know of –’

  ‘Did he have a dealer here?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did he have a prescription for diazepam?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘No. My mother does.’

  ‘Your mother?’ That stopped him. ‘Why?’ The way he asked it was more gossipy than professional.

  ‘She’s neurotic,’ said Bea.

  ‘You don’t sound sympathetic.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Did your brother use any of these medications?’

  ‘No.’ She corrected herself. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Did Alex ever mention a bar called Chez Janine?’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Did he mention it to you? Chez Janine.’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  Then, as if a bell had rung at the end of a lesson the two officers rose from their chairs and politeness returned. Dufour shook out his shoulders.

  ‘OK. Thank you Madame, we’ll be in touch.’

  Nino Luis opened the door for her, and smiled.

  ‘Goodbye,’ she said, in English, looking directly at him.

  ‘It’s much more difficult for us, after the first forty-eight hours,’ said Dufour. ‘We’re doing what we can.’

  ‘But why has it taken this long? Why hasn’t somebody told us what’s happening?’

  He smiled ruefully, surrendering all the power he had assumed while questioning her. He became boyish. ‘You have to talk to my boss about that,’ he said.

  ‘Capitaine Vincent?’ she said.

  ‘He’s the boss.’

  They escorted her to the stairs. She couldn’t see Dan, or her parents, or either of the lawyers, anywhere, as she passed through the desks of men. She almost ran down the stairs, and left the gendarmerie alone. On the pavement she texted Dan. Are you out yet? But she couldn’t wait, she wanted to get away. Walking fast, she passed low, stuccoed garden walls, then wrought-iron gates to courtyards, and narrower streets lined with parked cars, and then the shopping streets and cafes. She stopped and texted Dan again. Are you still in there? I’m in town. Call me.

  Keeping the phone in her hand, she arrived at a square with a plane tree growing on a raised grass triangle, and the chairs and tables of two different cafes grouped around. She felt like an escapee. She checked her phone again. She decided to get a Coke, for the sugar, and scanned the chairs for a spare seat feeling jittery and strange. The smell of the gendarmerie was still in her nose, the questions, and the closeness of death. A bicycle sped past.

  ‘Attention!’

  She jumped back. The cafe was busy. There were two young women at the nearest table, laughing. Their voices rose above the hum. Someone put water down for a dog. A man jogged a waiter’s elbow and spilled coffee on the tray. Bea walked to an empty table and sat down. She saw the JCB hitting Alex’s car as he lay sleeping across the front seats, knocking it, crushed, from the road into the field of young crops. She saw it swinging on chains in the empty afternoon like a hanged man. She ordered a Coke. She got a text from Dan.

  Out now, where are you?

  In a café, she texted back, and told him where. You OK?

  Yeh. You?

  Yes, she answered. See you in a minute. XXX

  Yeh. He added hearts. Red ones.

  He’d bothered with emojis. She pictured him doing it, fresh out of the interview room, on the pavement with the armed soldiers behind him, and she experienced one exquisite moment of joy, and then her father called.

  ‘Bea! Where are you?’

  ‘In a cafe.’

  ‘What? For Christ’s sake, this isn’t the time to go AWOL.’

  ‘I’m not. I’m waiting for Dan.’

  ‘Isn’t he out yet?’ He was shouting. She was sure everyone around her could hear every word. ‘Come to Chateau – what is it? Hold on,’ he yelled. ‘Arun?’

  She could hear Arun’s voice in the background.

  ‘Chateau L’Orée des Vignes,’ said Griff. ‘I’ll send a car.’

  ‘We don’t need a car.’ The thought of it annoyed her, and then made her want to cry. As if he could make a difference to anything. Ordering cars. Staying in nice places.

  ‘Get a taxi then,’ he said. ‘It’s out towards Meursault. Come right now. Now. L’Orée des Vignes, yes?’

  ‘Got it.’

  He hung up.

  They left the city in a taxi as the sun was setting, holding hands, quietly delirious with distress and exhaustion. An afternoon in the gendarmerie, and then they were to have a five-star dinner.

  ‘This is so nuts,’ said Dan.

  ‘Batshit,’ she answered.

  ‘I suppose we have to eat.’

  ‘We’ve got all that food in the fridge,’ she said. ‘We did all that shopping. I hate throwing food away.’

  ‘I know, babe.’

  The taxi took them up the winding lane to the Chateau L’Orée des Vignes. Flares lit the driveway, leaded turrets gleamed against the blue night sky. They got out, and climbed endless shallow steps.

  ‘What is this, Versailles?’ said Dan in awe. He’d taken a module on the Baroque. The scale and grandeur, then and now, were so foreign as to be almost alien.

  ‘It looks like a Disney movie,’ said Bea, dismissively, and he felt rebuked.

  She plucked at her shirt. ‘I think I actually smell.’

  ‘Shh!’ said Dan.

  They stepped inside. A man in livery approached, exuding disdain.

  ‘I need to go to the loo and sort myself out. I’ll see you up there,’ said Bea, and deserted him, her Adidas slapping as she ran across the gleaming floor.

  ‘Monsieur?’ The waiter could barely be bothered to open his lips. A mile away, from behind a golden desk, the receptionist looked on.

  ‘Mr Adamson?’ said Dan. ‘Griff Adamson. We’re meeting him for dinner?’
/>   Like a magic wand, Griff’s name transformed the waiter into a warm and deferential companion.

  ‘Monsieur,’ he suggested. ‘Come with me.’

  They went up a mirrored staircase, across a ballroom to an enormous terrace restaurant, and the waiter bore him proudly to Griff’s table, a white linen circle surrounded by other white circles in the dusk, all candlelit. Griff, Arun, Roche and Liv were already seated.

  ‘There you are,’ said Griff.

  Roche and Arun nodded, and Liv said, ‘Hello,’ like someone had a gun to her head, and then looked at Griff, as if it was him.

  ‘Bea’s – she’ll be out in a minute,’ said Dan, feeling awkward. He wished he had stopped for a wash, too, and wasn’t in a T-shirt.

  ‘No problem,’ said Griff. ‘Sit there. Drink?’

  It was as if they were celebrating something. Dan sat down and reached for a bottle of mineral water but a waiter snatched it up, and poured him a glass, smugly.

  ‘Will you have some wine? A beer?’ said Griff.

  Nobody else spoke. Before Dan could ask for a beer, red wine was poured into his long-stemmed glass. He thought of Alex sloshing wine into the smeary tumblers at Paligny. He’d been transported from one off-kilter reality to another, from the cops’ insinuations in that concrete barracks, to this ancient terrace over a gauzy view, and reflections of candle flames in porcelain and glass.

  ‘So, where’s Bea?’ asked Griff impatiently.

  ‘Freshening up,’ said Dan.

  More silence. Arun looked perfectly relaxed, and Roche was studying the menu. Dan wiped his palms on his shorts. People in silk and suits and diamonds were filling up the tables. A string quartet began to play. Lights shone, fan-shaped, up the walls behind him. The sky above was purple-blue, and the distant village glowed with illuminations. It was a rich man’s view, but the rich man wasn’t interested.

  ‘Arun, order some canapés and whatnot,’ said Griff, getting up. ‘Dan, come with me.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Arun, picking up the tasselled menu as Griff left the table.

  He assumed Dan would follow, and he did, careful not to bump into any chairs as he picked his way. He joined his father-in-law by the balustrade at the terrace edge. It was darker here. There was a sweet smell in the air, drifting up from the valley below.