The Lying Down Room (Serge Morel 1) (13 page)

He thought about her attacker. He had held her underwater, watching her life ebb away. To what purpose?

And why hadn’t Guillou fought back? She was a battler. There had been nothing to show that her hands might have been tied. A toxicology report would soon reveal whether she had been
drugged. Right now none of it made sense to Morel. And it bothered him that she may have given up without a fight.

He had let her down, by not taking Dufour’s death seriously enough, but there had been so little to tie the two women together. A bunch of pamphlets. Still, he berated himself for being
slow on the uptake. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

The trouble was that he couldn’t see the motive. What was the link between Isabelle Dufour and Elisabeth Guillou? Why had they been killed?

He studied the photograph before him. Elisabeth Guillou’s body lay under the covers just as Dufour’s had. In her hand she held a plain silver cross. For a minute, standing at her
bedside, Morel had felt uneasy, as though she might all of a sudden sit up and berate him for intruding upon an old woman in the privacy of her bedroom. He remembered the way she had examined him
in his office, her intense scrutiny. Dead, she seemed smaller than he remembered.

Morel had searched for a sound system and found a CD player in Guillou’s living room. In the player he’d found a copy of Fauré’s
Requiem.

Morel spread the other photos on his desk. Lila walked over to him and looked at the display.

‘We just got back from the morgue. Martin confirmed what we already know – that Guillou died the same way Dufour did. No signs of bruising yet, though.’

‘OK. He wasn’t too painful?’

‘One of these days I’m going to wipe that smug smile off his face and knock his teeth out.’

‘Do you want me to take it up with his office? I will, you know. I can’t do anything about the other complaints against him, it’s outside my jurisdiction, but if he’s
harassing you—’

Lila rolled her eyes. ‘I can handle Richard Martin,’ she said. ‘We’ve got more important things to attend to.’

Together they looked at the photos of Guillou’s home. Unlike Dufour’s cluttered flat, Guillou’s house was a study in minimalism. There was a lot of empty space. The surfaces
were bare. No magazines, nothing that pointed to how she might have occupied herself or the things that interested her. The only family photographs on display were on a side table in the living
room. The garden was tidy. There was a trampoline, presumably for the grandchildren to play on when they visited.

Morel and Lila had delivered the news to Guillou’s son at the accounting firm where he’d worked.

It was the part Morel disliked most about his job. But it could sometimes reveal a great deal about a victim’s life. Take Guillou’s children. The son’s expression had been one
of mild regret, while the daughter had become hysterical. No doubt due to the shock of seeing her mother in that state. Morel wondered what her reaction might have been otherwise.

It was important to note these things, but at the same time he was careful not to over-analyse them. People did not always express their sadness in obvious ways.

He thought about Perrin. After calling Morel to tell him that Guillou was dead, he had turned up at her flat minutes after Morel, his face dark with anger.

‘How did this happen?’ he’d said. ‘I thought you were going to find those guys. Now we’ve got a fucking double homicide on our hands. Jesus Christ! Do you know how
this makes me look?’ He jabbed a finger at Morel. ‘I. Want. Results.’ Then he’d stalked out of the flat before Morel could say anything.

Numbers. These days it was all about the statistics. The trouble was that there weren’t enough people to get the results they wanted at the top. With thousands of jobs being cut across the
police force, everyone was complaining these days of being under-resourced. In some of the outer suburbs, stations were even shutting down at night and over the weekends due to lack of
staffing.

Yet another Sarkozy pledge that had been broken. He’d promised in the lead-up to his 2007 election to tackle crime through increased policing. What had happened to that brilliant idea?
Police numbers were steadily dwindling, while crime was ramping up.

‘Are you still with me?’ Morel realized he’d stopped listening. Lila moved into one of the chairs across from Morel’s seat and crossed her legs.

‘You know, I’ve been thinking. What if there are others?’ she said. ‘Other women who haven’t bothered to complain to us just because two guys knocked on their door.
I mean, why would you?’ She looked at Morel. ‘I hate to say this, but maybe Perrin is right. We need to go public and see whether anyone else can tell us anything about these
guys.’

‘If we do that we’ll have every woman over the age of fifty panicking,’ Morel said. ‘And the press will be on our back. We need to be able to focus on the job.’

Lila looked doubtful. ‘If you say so.’

Morel rubbed his eyes and gathered the photos to return them to the folder.

‘We need to proceed as tactfully as possible,’ he said, thinking of Perrin.

Tactfulness was not high on Lila’s list of concerns when she rang the bell at the Dufour home. For a start, she would ask Anne why her husband hadn’t taken a bag on
the overseas trip he’d been about to embark on when Lila and Morel had interviewed him. Her guess was that he hadn’t gone quite so far and that, where he’d been, he hadn’t
needed too many clothes. There must be a girlfriend Anne knew nothing about. Or maybe she did. Maybe she welcomed a break from her odious husband.

While Lila waited for someone to appear, she rehearsed her lines mentally. The door opened.

‘Do you mind if I come in?’

Lila could tell by Anne Dufour’s face that she did mind, but she couldn’t come up with a good reason not to let the policewoman in. She opened the door wider and turned back into the
house. Lila followed her, thinking that she must clarify the matter of the wooden cross with the blue stones.

‘Can I offer you anything?’ Anne Dufour asked her.

‘No thanks.’

She looked relieved. She seemed a great deal more composed than the last time they’d met. Her make-up was perfect. There were no traces of black eyeliner and mascara running down her
cheeks. She was dressed up too, in a two-piece linen suit and black heels.

‘A lunch date?’ Lila asked.

The other woman gave a vague smile but didn’t answer. ‘What can I do for you, then?’ she asked. She sat on the sofa and looked up at Lila, who remained standing.

Now Lila could take a closer look at her she saw there were dark shadows under her eyes. She looked thinner than the last time Lila and Morel had visited. On the inside of her wrist there was a
mark that looked a lot like a burn. Anne Dufour caught Lila’s look and pulled at her sleeve.

‘Is your husband home?’ Lila asked.

Anne Dufour shook her head. ‘He’s away.’

‘Another business trip?’

‘Yes.’

‘Does your husband always travel without luggage when he goes away?’

Anne Dufour’s expression told Lila all she needed to know. She had a look on her face that said this was something she was used to.

So Jacques Dufour was a cheat. Well, what a surprise, Lila thought.

‘How did your mother-in-law’s funeral go?’ she asked.

Anne Dufour shrugged. ‘Well, I guess.’ She emitted a strange, mirthless laugh. ‘As well as these things can go.’

‘How is your husband coping?’

‘With what?’ When Anne Dufour looked up at her, Lila wondered for the first time whether she was on medication or whether she’d been smoking a joint.

‘With his mother’s death, Madame Dufour.’

‘Oh. That.’

‘Have you seen any changes in his behaviour?’

‘No.’ Anne Dufour looked at Lila as though she’d suddenly woken up. ‘Why are you here anyway? I thought you got everything you needed from us last time.’

Lila decided on a direct approach. ‘I wanted to make sure you were all right,’ she said.

‘I didn’t know that was part of your duties, as a police officer.’

‘It isn’t. I also have a couple of questions I’d like to ask.’

‘Ask away.’

‘Have you heard of someone called Elisabeth Guillou? She may have been a friend or an acquaintance of your mother-in-law’s.’

Anne Dufour shook her head. ‘No. But I wouldn’t know if she was. I never met any of her friends.’

‘Can you tell me about the cross we found in her hand?’

Anne Dufour shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. What kind of cross?’

Lila was running out of patience. ‘The same one you were wearing the last time we came to speak to you and your husband,’ she said. ‘The Orthodox cross.’

The transformation was astonishing. Lila watched as Anne Dufour went pale and started trembling. Her fingers went shakily to her throat and she dropped her voice to a whisper.

‘I can’t talk about that,’ she said.

‘What is it you’re afraid of?’ Lila asked, more gently this time.

‘I’m a Christian, you know. Before I married Jacques, I used to attend church every week.’ She spoke in a hurried voice, so quietly Lila had to strain to hear. ‘Jacques
hates the whole idea of it. Which is why I never – but my mother-in-law was interested in these things. She and I spoke of God and she wanted to understand. One day we were out together and
we bought the crosses. It didn’t even mean much. I mean, neither of us is – was – Orthodox or anything,’ she said, becoming confused about which tense to use.‘We just
thought they were beautiful and that it would be nice to wear them together.’

Her face was so drained of colour Lila worried she might faint.

‘I never wear it, I usually keep it hidden from Jacques. But after Isabelle died I put it on, under my clothes so Jacques wouldn’t notice. As a sort of tribute to her, so I could
still feel her near. I thought no one would see it, not under my shirt.’

‘Where did you buy the crosses, Madame Dufour?’

‘Does it matter? It was at an exhibition. In May.’

‘Which one?’ Lila asked. She wasn’t sure why she was even asking, she was more preoccupied with how to lessen Anne Dufour’s agitation.

‘An exhibition on Holy Russia. At the Louvre.’

‘OK.’

Anne Dufour tugged at the buttons on her jacket. Without thinking, Lila placed a hand on the other woman’s arm.

‘I can help you,’ she said in a low voice.

Anne Dufour looked at her carefully. Then, with visible effort, she pulled herself together. She got up from the sofa. She seemed unsteady on her feet.

‘I don’t believe in self-pity. And besides, there are people with far bigger problems than mine.’

Lila nodded slowly. ‘You’re right. Still, I believe in the power to change things when they make us unhappy.’

Anne Dufour managed a forced smile.

‘That’s very uplifting.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I’m sorry but I have to go now. Was there anything else?’

Lila hesitated. But it was clear she had done all she could. ‘No.’

Lila walked to her car. She heard the door close softly behind her. Why did she fancy that it was closed reluctantly, as though the person on the other side secretly yearned to open it wide
again?

With her eyes cast downwards, Anne Dufour turned and slowly walked back to the living room.

‘Is the nosy bitch gone?’ her husband said.

‘Yes,’ she said.

She stood still and waited for what was to come. Only her galloping pulse betrayed the terror in her heart.

The day of his return is mild and sunny.

A rich, earthy smell rises from the muddy ground. On either side of the dirt road, fields of corn extend beneath a rain-washed sky. Long-stemmed sunflowers turn their faces to the light. In the
distance, he can see a green tractor lumbering down a track through the fields, like a corpulent bride bearing down the aisle. Otherwise, the road ahead of him is deserted.

Time has always been unhurried here. On the surface, it seems like nothing changes. But if you dig deeper you begin to see the cracks.

Now Armand has been away so long he sees only the tranquil, rural landscape he once knew so well. So much of it is familiar. The buzzing of bees on a sleepy afternoon. An overturned wheelbarrow
in the shade of a willow tree. He can almost taste his childhood. The raw texture and smell of milk, brought home at dawn from the farm, straight from the cow’s udder. The milk was poured
from a bucket, still warm. Bits of hay floating on the surface. As a child he didn’t mind the dirt. He’d drink the milk to the last drop regardless of what it contained, and feel it
trickle through his bones, making him stronger.

It took him a surprising amount of time to find his way back here. Paris to Rennes was easy enough; you just had to follow the signs. In Rennes he stopped for coffee and a sandwich, which he had
on a park bench overlooking a children’s play area. There were few people about. A cool wind blew across the square and he wished he’d brought something more substantial than the thin
cotton shirt he was wearing.

As a student, he used to drive from Rennes back to his village most weekends. He never thought to look at the map this time. Surely he could still do it with his eyes closed. Only after taking
the wrong exit twice did he admit defeat. He stopped at a village very much like the one he was looking for and asked for directions. The young girl he spoke to had no clue but the restaurant owner
had a cousin who lived there and gave him detailed instructions. She looked like someone he knew, someone he might have gone to school with.

He didn’t say much, just smiled and thanked her. It’s funny, when he is with César he can talk to God himself, but without the boy he feels lost.

It is exactly as he remembers it. If anything it is smaller and quieter than it was twenty years ago. There is still a bar, a post office and a church. That pretty much sums it up. You have to
travel twenty kilometres to find the nearest supermarket and shops. Last time he checked, five years or so ago when he was curious enough to study the latest census, the head count was 522. From
memory, two-thirds of these were sanctimonious old biddies whose curtains twitched every time he walked down the street. They tended to stay put from the day they were born till the day they died.
But most of their children would have moved on because there was nothing for them here.