The Snakes

by Sadie Jones

  ‘Here –’ Out of breath, he searched for the English word. ‘Yes, it’s OK. You call my capitaine, if you want. He is here soon.’

  Bea took the papers. She couldn’t focus on them. Smudged words and photocopies, biro writing in little boxes.

  ‘OK?’ he said. ‘This is Officer Janssens.’

  The fatter one nodded. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I’ll get the stuff.’

  He went, and Lecuyer stood next her, smiling reassuringly. Ignoring him, she took out her phone and dialled Griffs number and told him what was happening. For once he didn’t meet her with demands and rage. He was calm.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I see. Let me know what happens.’

  Janssens came back inside, carrying two white plastic cases.

  ‘OK,’ said Lecuyer. ‘Your brother’s bedroom, please.’

  ‘Up here.’

  They jogged up the stairs ahead of her, side by side. She showed them the room and they went in and closed the door.

  After a moment, she went back down again and sat at the reception desk, alone. She did not think that she had ever felt so alone. It was like Dan was being torn from her, and the pull from Alex’s room held her tight, and the feeling of being torn and pulled got stronger. Dan was further and further away. Panic rose up. She gave herself an order. She ordered her terror to stop and closed the door on it. There was no danger. Dan was innocent and strong. They weren’t in America with trigger-happy cowboy cops, or some shadowy uncivilised place; this was Europe. Home from home France. Better than home France. He wasn’t going to disappear; there were rules and procedures, and she must trust in that. She put him from her mind.

  She could hear the two men moving around in her brother’s room above her. She waited, listening, gaining strength, and then she went upstairs. The door was half open, their shapes moved back and forth. She knocked. Lecuyer poked his head out.

  ‘Would you like some coffee, or some water?’ asked Bea.

  ‘Coffee!’ he said. ‘Thank you very much!’

  ‘What are you looking for?’ she made her voice casual.

  ‘Information.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s normal.’

  ‘Normal?’

  ‘With a murder.’

  ‘What?’ Bea said.

  ‘A murder,’ he said again, and hesitated, thinking she hadn’t understood. ‘After a murder,’ he said in French.

  She didn’t respond. It felt as if her mind stopped, as if her pulse had stopped, and she had no need to breathe.

  ‘OK.’ He shut the door in her face.

  Of course she knew. Of course she had known. She went slowly down the stairs, feet landing slowly, step after step. A murder. She pushed the heavy fire door and went into the kitchen and the door swung closed behind her. It was dark and warm. Murder. Nobody had said it. Alex had died, and for five days, there had been a vacuum. Now it showed itself. Murder. The word rang. It wrote itself on her eyes. Murder. It was a Trojan Horse. Childhood fears and teenage thrills. Red letters, painted backwards on a mirror. Screaming. A newsreader’s voice. A man appeared in court today charged with one count of. Charged with. Murder. A man has been found dead. A man was found murdered. A thirty-seven-year-old man has been found dead in his car. Her brother Alex had been murdered. She washed out the aluminium coffee pot under the tap, fingers swiping the ridges on the rim. As she opened the new bag it tore a strip like a cuticle down the side, and spilled coffee grounds onto the floor. She tried to pick it up with kitchen paper, and felt the little dots in the creases of her palms. She rinsed the filter and filled it, and packed down the coffee with the back of a spoon and turned on the gas. With white noise in her mind, she found some biscuits and put them on a tray. Shock, reaction. Shock, reaction. Shock. Murder. Murder. Murder.

  She heard a car on the gravel and peered out through the tiny kitchen window, then went to the front door, her phone loose in her hand. The newly arrived car was unmarked, parked neatly next to the white van. Capitaine Vincent, trim and tidy in his ironed jeans and loafers, locked it, with a little pip.

  ‘Bonjour,’ he said, putting on a suit jacket as he came to meet her.

  She was beyond politeness, she couldn’t find it in herself to pacify or appease. ‘I’m sick of speaking French,’ she said. ‘Can we speak English?’

  ‘I prefer French,’ said Vincent.

  ‘Fine. Fine,’ she said. ‘Why have they taken my husband in?’

  ‘It’s normal.’

  ‘It’s not! Two men are searching Alex’s room. Who is accused of what?’

  ‘May I come in?’ he said.

  She let him into the hall and followed in the wake of his lemon-smelling aftershave.

  ‘I’m sorry it looks this way,’ he said.

  The rage she felt was dull, like boredom, it had no edge of nerves.

  ‘“Looks”? Can I say, this whole –’ she gestured ‘– thing, it’s just –’ the only word she could think of was merde. ‘It’s just shit,’ she said, in English. ‘It’s just total fucking shit.’

  She smelled scorched coffee from the pot she’d left on the cooker.

  ‘Something burning?’ said Vincent.

  ‘Hold on.’

  She went into the kitchen. It was bubbling around the seam, and the smell mixed with melting rubber.

  ‘Fucking shit,’ said Bea. ‘Shit.’ She switched off the gas and took hold of the black handle with a tea towel, and poured the thick, burnt coffee into the cups.

  ‘Can I help you?’ asked Vincent, in the doorway behind her.

  ‘No,’ said Bea. She stopped fumbling with the slippery coffee cups, and the stupid plates, and turned to face him. Her pain welled up. ‘He said murder,’ she said. ‘That one upstairs.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why didn’t anyone tell us? No one’s said anything.’

  He didn’t answer. She thought she would begin to scream, but instead, she just shook her head, picked up the tray, and went past him. He held the fire door open for her. She took the coffee and biscuits upstairs, and Vincent followed. At Alex’s door he leaned past her shoulder, and knocked.

  ‘Al-lô?’ he said cheerfully.

  Lecuyer opened the door, and took the tray, smiling. ‘Thanks a lot!’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Vincent and went inside.

  They closed the door on her. She heard them talking. She had the impression Vincent was reprimanding them, but she couldn’t be sure. She wouldn’t listen at a closed door. She went downstairs again and checked her phone. There were no texts from Dan. Vincent came out of Alex’s room and down the stairs.

  ‘It’s kind of you, to make them coffee,’ he said. ‘They’re working very hard.’

  ‘I don’t care about them. I’m just being civilised,’ said Bea.

  ‘I understand,’ he said.

  She opened the desk drawer and took out Alex’s notebook with the blue cloth cover and handed it to him.

  ‘What’s this?’ he said, taking it.

  ‘You’re investigating a murder,’ she said.

  Above them, they could hear things being moved in Alex’s room.

  ‘Alex made notes in there,’ she said. ‘People’s names, and numbers. It might help.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘And what about the farmers, the Orderbrechts?’

  He had a knack of appearing deaf. He opened the notebook and looked down at Alex’s handwriting.

  ‘Do you know who they are?’ she said. ‘Or are you just looking at the family?’

  He looked up. ‘Which family?’

  ‘Mine.’

  ‘You say the family, as if they are not your family. Why is that?’

  ‘I’m trying to be dispassionate,’ she said, looking for the French ‘impartial’ but her mind wouldn’t behave, just normal thinking was like trying to talk over a crowd.

  ‘I can’t discuss details with you,’ he said.

  ‘Do you know who did it?’

  She knew it was a stupid question. She felt him staring at her.


  ‘Do you?’ she said again. Her throat felt narrow, like being choked.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he said.

  ‘Who did it?’ Her lungs had gone. She couldn’t move to get the air in.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Capitaine Vincent.

  He helped her to the chair behind the desk. She leaned forward, sick to her stomach. She shut her eyes but saw Alex, dead. She smelled blood. She saw the crumpled car.

  ‘Calm down,’ he said. ‘Calm down.’

  She thought there was nothing more upsetting than being told to calm down. She nodded. She bit her lip and breathed through her nose. She forced herself better, and sat up. His hand had briefly touched her shoulder. Now he stood back, separate and respectful.

  ‘OK?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry.’

  ‘No, it’s OK. It’s normal.’

  He looked down at the guestbook, lying on the desk. ‘Is this the hotel register?’

  She nodded, wiping tears she hadn’t known were there. Vincent spun it round and opened it and flicked through the pages, shaking his head slowly. Bea, leaning back, recovering, began to feel embarrassed. She could see Alex’s disguised writing, upside down, and the different names in different colours. She began to blush.

  ‘No passport details,’ said Vincent.

  ‘It’s not really a register,’ she said.

  ‘The register is on the computer?’

  ‘I don’t know the password,’ said Bea. ‘Dan might know.’

  ‘We can take it?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  Capitaine Vincent studied the pages silently. Bea stared at the floor, feeling idiotic. The Prices of Hull! said Alex’s voice loudly and she wanted to smile, her mood soaring, reckless. Vincent closed the book with a snap.

  ‘So there were no visitors since March?’

  ‘There were hardly any visitors,’ she said. ‘Ever.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The hotel needs work.’

  He frowned. ‘So who are all these people?’ He waved his hand over the visitors’ book, wafting lemon aftershave.

  ‘We made them up.’

  ‘Why?’ said Vincent.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Bea. ‘It was a joke.’

  ‘A joke?’

  ‘Yes. A prank.’ She used ‘blague’ first, then ‘farce’, which seemed more appropriate.

  ‘A practical joke?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, that’s better, a practical joke,’ she said.

  ‘To trick who?’ asked Vincent.

  ‘It wasn’t a trick,’ she said. ‘We weren’t trying to fool anybody.’

  He looked at her in silence.

  ‘Did your brother have his catering hygiene certificates in order?’ asked Vincent.

  Bea laughed. It just burst out. She wasn’t normal. She needed to control herself.

  ‘Is that funny?’

  ‘No. I’m sorry.’

  He looked slowly around the hall, then behind the desk and swung the room keys with his index finger to read the black letters scrawled on the varnished board.

  ‘Gluttony?’ he read. The English lying clumsily on his tongue. ‘Lust. Wrath.’

  ‘It was sort of a joke of Alex’s,’ said Bea, also in English.

  ‘Another joke?’ He was inscrutable.

  ‘Yes. How long are they going to keep Dan? What do they want with him?’

  He shrugged. ‘Excuse me,’ he said.

  He went outside, leaving the front door open, and put Alex’s blue notebook in the car, then he made a phone call, standing on the driveway, and then another. Bea sat at the reception desk in the swivel chair, as he talked on the driveway. She texted Dan but got no response. The two detectives came down the stairs, together, with all their equipment. They were as companionable and cheery as before. They didn’t say anything to her as they passed, but talked to Vincent for a few moments, outside, then Lecuyer came back in and unplugged the computer.

  ‘Ooph!’ he said, lifting it, the cord and plug with its adaptor socket dragging on the floor behind him.

  He put it in the van and they all stood talking again. They seemed to be enjoying themselves. Bea got up, and ran up to Alex’s room.

  Everything was different. The air had changed. There was no trace, no feeling of him left. The overhead light was on. A side table stood abandoned on the rug. His clothes were heaped on a chair, T-shirts, jeans, all piled together. Books that had lain about naturally were now in a stack, and the duvet bunched in the middle of the mattress.

  She heard Vincent coming up the stairs and wanted to shut the door and sit against it, so he could not come in, but it was too late. He stood in the doorway and watched her pick up the duvet, shake it out, and lay it straight. She went to the window and opened it, then she turned back to the room.

  ‘They’ve moved everything,’ she said in English. ‘What do you want?’

  In a rage, she kicked the pile of books, noisily, to the floor. Some of them landed open, crushing pages.

  ‘That’s not like me,’ she said.

  She knelt and tidied them again, just for something to do and to get control of herself.

  ‘Madame,’ said Vincent, ‘I assure you, we are doing everything we can. We are working very hard to discover what happened to your brother.’

  He came further into the room.

  ‘May I?’ He gestured to the chair.

  He was waiting for her permission. She got up from the floor and picked up Alex’s clothes. Then she sat on the edge of the bed, with them on her lap.

  ‘Thank you.’ Vincent sat down, crossing his legs and brushing something from his jeans.

  The worn cotton T-shirts in her arms were comforting and agonising. It felt too intimate to hold them, empty, and not hers, and losing life every second, but she didn’t want to let go of them.

  ‘Do you know the story about the elephant and the blind men?’ he said.

  She looked up at him, too surprised to answer.

  ‘Do you know it?’ he said.

  She did, but he was going to tell it to her.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Three blind men are asked to describe an elephant, yes? The first blind man, he holds out his hand and feels one of the elephant’s long tusks. “You want me to describe it?” he says. “An elephant is long and hard, like a pipe” – or something like that.’

  Bea studied him, completely absorbed.

  ‘And the second man, he is holding the elephant’s tail. He says, “No, no! An elephant is not like a pipe at all, an elephant has bristles, like a brush.”’

  He was gesturing and closing his eyes, as if he were discovering an imaginary elephant. She put Alex’s clothes down on the bed, next to her.

  ‘And the third man,’ said Vincent, ‘who is touching the side of the elephant, he says, “You are both wrong, an elephant is definitely big and flat, like a wall.” So they can’t agree, and they argue, because each one is sure he is right.’ He looked at her eagerly. ‘OK?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bea.

  ‘I don’t remember the end, I think the King comes and explains to them – it doesn’t matter, you see, to me, this story is like investigating a crime. We have the witnesses, the evidence – all of these elements. Each one is a small part. My problem is to put them together. That is my job. But for the family, it is different. They are angry. They want to have answers and know everything.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s hard,’ he said. ‘People want explanations. For me, when I see the whole story, I find the guilty man, and then it’s finished.’

  ‘Justice,’ said Bea, looking down.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Justice. Peace, maybe.’

  She wondered if she ever would feel peace again, or if there could be such a thing as justice for Alex. She didn’t think so. Vincent was looking at her. He thought she’d feel better if she talked to him, but he didn’t know her.

  ‘Did you study philosophy?’ she asked.

  ‘Me?’ he
smiled, suddenly boyish. ‘No. I went to music college. In Bordeaux.’

  ‘Music?’

  ‘Yes, and I am in a rock band with my brother, Félix. We play covers, and some of our own songs, too.’

  ‘Do you write songs?’

  ‘No, no, but Félix does, and he sings.’

  ‘What does Félix do? His work I mean.’

  ‘He’s an engineer. Three kids already. I’m just the guitarist. You know –’ He began to play air guitar but stopped, embarrassed to have forgotten himself.

  There was an awkward silence.

  ‘That sounds cool,’ said Bea, to help him out.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘It’s not serious.’ He brushed off his spotless jeans again.

  ‘But it’s good. Your job is very serious,’ said Bea.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘I am the group leader of an SR. We are the elite in the gendarmerie.’

  ‘There’s a version of that story I like,’ said Bea, ‘where the men aren’t blind –’

  ‘But they are blind.’

  ‘No,’ said Bea.

  ‘Yes, they are.’

  She looked away from him at the invaded room. She had read the Hindu version of the story, the Jain, and the Buddhist. The Christian telling, like his, was a children’s story. The one she liked best was the poet Rumi’s, and even that had been warped by time and telling, and the Islamic heart of his work altered by western sentiment and soundbites. Rumi’s story was a short parable. There was no king and no fight; no wise men, or blind men, just ‘a crowd of Hindus’ who bring an elephant into a dark room. Nobody in the crowd knows what an elephant is, but each has their opinion. The sensual eye is like the palm of the hand, she remembered, it has not the means of covering the whole beast. She tried to remember the last line. We are in a clear sea, but we choose only to look at the foam. She felt the calming pull of it. She looked around the room and thought about the things in it, and how limited they were: herself and Vincent, and then the objects; the bed she sat on, the chair, table, window. She looked harder and seemed to see places where the police had walked, and hand prints, the airplane tracks left by their searching eyes. The room felt very small, and she did, too. It was tempting to fall into rage, and easy to cling to the myth of resolution.

  ‘I’m sorry about before,’ she said. ‘You have your job to do.’