The Lying Down Room (Serge Morel 1) (5 page)

With Vincent gone, and Jean stretched, he was going to have to bring in reinforcements. It was ridiculous to carry on with just Marco and Lila. However good Lila was, she was just one person.
And he still wasn’t convinced that Marco was up to the task.

Along the embankment, couples strolled or sat enlaced on benches, caught up in themselves. A Bateau-Mouche chugged along the Seine, the deck crammed with tourists, turning their faces towards
the sun or taking pictures. Such innocent pleasures. Morel envied them. When was the last time he’d taken a break? Was it February, or March maybe? With a woman he’d been introduced to
at a party two weeks earlier. They’d driven past Orléans into the Loire region and stayed in a B&B near Chambord. They’d found themselves in a room with a four-poster bed,
thick carpets and a fireplace. You couldn’t have asked for a more romantic setting, but by the second day they’d run out of things to say to each other and driven back, cutting their
vacation short by two nights.

Unsurprisingly, he hadn’t heard from her since.

Hundreds of people milled around Notre-Dame. It didn’t stop the pigeons from flocking to the square, waiting for the scraps they knew would come their way. Morel moved away from the birds
to eat. Once he’d finished his sandwich, he took a piece of paper from his pocket, a square pale blue sheet, and spent a leisurely four and a half minutes folding it into the shape of a
crane. As a base, he used his hardback biography of the origamist Eric Joisel, which he carried with him everywhere.

He’d seen Joisel’s work up close, in 2005 at an exhibition of fifty eminent origamists from around the world. The French artist’s work had made the biggest impression. It was
like nothing Morel had ever seen. He had gone twice and the second time he’d run into Joisel himself. Chatted with him for several minutes with a goofy grin on his face like some awestruck
teenage fan.

While he worked at the bird, he listened to the chatter around him, fragments of a dozen different languages floating across the sultry afternoon air.

Once he’d finished the crane, he briefly entertained himself by guessing where people were from. The busty woman in the tight white jeans and Versace T-shirt was Russian, the man with the
gold signet ring and hair spilling from his shirt front, gesticulating with his hands while talking on the phone, was Lebanese. He looked remarkably like a man Morel’s younger sister
Adèle had dated, one of a string of seductive and unreliable men in her life. There was no mistaking the Americans, in their sensible gear. Their voices carried above everyone
else’s.

It was time to go back. Morel stood up and brushed any remaining crumbs off his suit. He took one last look at the river and at the light reflecting off the windows of the graceful stone
buildings on the opposite embankment. Paris was always beautiful but in the summer the city always seemed dusty and tired to him. Not so much eternal as middle-aged and beginning to show its
age.

Still. Though he complained about the place, it was in his bones. He had lived here since the age of seventeen. Sometimes it appeared to him in his dreams, like one of his paper structures. An
origami city, infinitely complex and delicate in its undertaking.

Morel took another look at the crane and frowned. It was sloppy work. He crushed it into a tight ball and threw it into a nearby bin along with his sandwich wrapping.

Back in the office, Morel retreated behind his Chinese screen and opened the folder Jean had left on his desk. It contained the transcripts of his interviews with Marie Latour
and Irina Volkoff. Alongside these he placed his notes from his morning meeting with Elisabeth Guillou.

The description of the man was almost identical across the three sets of notes. He was described as being of average height and slim build, with cropped, light brown hair and brown eyes.
Clean-shaven and well-dressed. He was polite and spoke like an educated man.

Morel saw that the description of the boy was not so straightforward. He was generally described as being tall and thin, with longish black hair that obscured his eyes. All three women agreed he
was dressed as a typical teenager, with oversized jeans and a cap.

From then on, the descriptions diverged significantly. Marie Latour said the boy had a limp while Irina Volkoff said he had no trouble walking at all. Latour said the boy seemed ill at ease
while Elisabeth Guillou, for one, had been troubled by his arrogance. Volkoff had called him handsome while Latour and Guillou both said he looked unhealthy. According to Latour, the boy was barely
fourteen, while Volkoff thought he must be around eighteen, an adult.

Morel typed out as detailed a description as he could, using the transcripts, and printed out a copy. He walked over to where Lila and Marco were sitting.

Drawing nearer, Morel saw that Lila had pulled together a list of at least a dozen religious organizations. A couple of names appeared at the end of the list. One of these surprised him. He
should have thought of his old friend.

‘Don’t even think of giving me anything else to do,’ she told him. ‘I’ve got my hands full.’

‘What have you come up with?’ he asked.

‘Some of the main organizations including the Association of Protestant Churches. I’ve also dug up the names of a couple of experts. Maybe there’s a short cut there, someone
might be able to direct us so that we’re not wasting our time trawling through hundreds of listings.’

‘That all sounds good.’

He turned to Marco. ‘Before you meet up with Jean, can you take this description back with you to Dufour’s building and run it by the concierge and the tenants. Get hold of the
cleaning woman too. I just want to make absolutely sure they haven’t seen these two guys lurking around there. Maybe if we give them some specifics they’ll remember
something.’

‘OK, I’m on it,’ Marco said.

‘Run it by the newsagent’s and the cafe as well. Don’t come back and tell me that you got nothing.’

‘I’ll do my best, boss.’

Morel nodded. ‘OK. And Lila, don’t worry about calling this guy,’ he said, pointing to the name he’d recognized on her list. ‘I’ll do it myself.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ she said.

For the rest of the day, Morel made a reasonable effort at tackling the paperwork piled high on his desk. He ran through the notes on a sexual assault case which Jean and
Vincent had worked on and that was going to court in the next week, and on the warehouse burglary.

It was nearly four when he finally pushed his other work aside and returned to the Dufour case. He spread the crime-scene photos before him. Then he stood up and crossed over to Lila’s
desk again. She sat with her headphones on, staring at the screen. He had to touch her shoulder to get her attention. She took her headphones off and turned to face him.

‘I’m just going over the crime-scene photos. I’d like you to take a look as well.’

Though the police photographer had been there, nothing beat Lila’s powers of recollection. No one else on his team had that. Perfect recall.

‘What sort of person are we looking for?’ he said. It wasn’t really a question but Lila answered anyway.

‘No idea,’ she said. ‘Except that he’s a freak.’

‘Well that narrows it down.’

‘You know what I mean. The whole business of giving her a bath, actually washing her hair or making her wash it, before drowning her. Then laying her out like that—’

‘I know. It seems oddly personal, doesn’t it? Almost loving . . .’

‘Funny way of showing affection, don’t you think?’

Morel looked at her, deep in thought.

‘By the way,’ she said, ‘I called Dufour’s son.’

‘And?’

‘He’ll be home if we come early tomorrow, before 8.30. They’ve just come back from London. He has an important meeting here, apparently, and then he’s off again. To
Geneva. I reminded him that his mother had died and asked whether he might not be just a tad interested in the circumstances of her death.’

Morel could imagine what the exchange had been like.

‘What did he say to that?’

‘He said he’s only away for forty-eight hours. And that the trip couldn’t be postponed,’ Lila said. ‘Either way, he didn’t sound overwhelmed with
grief.’

‘People have funny ways of expressing their grief,’ Morel said absently.

‘Or maybe he’s an arsehole who is too busy with his big-shot career to care much whether his mother is dead.’

‘Let’s just wait and see, and try to be courteous when we meet him, shall we?’

‘Whatever you say.’

The sun was still high in the sky when Morel decided to call it a day and go home. He grabbed his car keys and his wallet and shut the window behind his desk.

Walking across the bridge, Morel found his body ached with tension. He took deep breaths and tried to focus his thoughts on something other than the painted face and inert body of an old woman,
lying stiff in her bed under crisp, laundered sheets, as though she’d already been laid out for burial.

Through the soles of his shoes he could feel the heat of the day begin to loosen its hold on the concrete footpath. But still there was no let-up in the evening’s temperature, not a whiff
of air or even a passing breeze to send a brief and welcome chill up his spine, through his sweat-stained shirt. He reached the street where his car was parked, hoping the traffic wouldn’t be
too bad on the way home. He needed a drink.

As he unlocked the door, his phone began to ring. It was Richard Martin.

‘Morel?’

‘Martin. How are you?’ Morel said.

‘As well as can be expected,’ the pathologist said cheerfully. ‘I enjoyed your detectives’ visit this morning. Lila Markov is looking as magnificent as ever.’

‘Surely you’re not calling just to tell me that,’ Morel said, dropping his bag in the passenger seat and climbing into the car.

‘No. There’s something I thought you might want to know. I examined Isabelle Dufour again this afternoon. You know I like to take another look at the body before we hand it over to
the family. In case I’ve missed anything.’

‘Go on.’

‘I found bruises on her upper arms. There are clear finger patterns on both sides. There’s no doubt about it. Someone gripped both her arms hard. It looks to me like she was held
down for several minutes at least, I’d say, for the marks to be so apparent.’

‘They weren’t there before?’

‘You know that’s not uncommon with bruises,’ Martin said. ‘Sometimes they don’t show up till a day or so later, well after death.’

Morel had learned this from previous cases he’d worked on, but it still amazed him. The body releasing clues long after the heart has stopped beating.

‘I’ve got to go,’ Martin said. ‘But I wanted to let you know.’

After he’d hung up, Morel closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the seat. For a while, he didn’t move.

Slowly, he sat up again, opened his eyes and started the car. He rolled his window down to let in some air.

Isabelle Dufour had been killed. By someone who’d lingered, who’d prepared her with more care than the most attentive of undertakers. Was it meant as some sort of macabre joke? Or
was it in fact, in some deranged way, an act of love? Were they dealing with someone who was unbalanced or someone meticulously rational?

Morel had no idea. But as he began nudging his way out of the narrow space he’d carved out for his Volvo, negotiating his exit inch by inch, he felt a familiar tingling down his spine that
always came with the beginning of a new murder investigation.

It took him forty-five minutes to drive home. A truck had run a man over at Place de l’Etoile. Now it blocked Avenue de la Grande Armée, one of twelve arteries
leading off the roundabout and the one Morel needed to take to get home. The victim was pinned beneath one of the truck’s wheels. Stuck in his stationary car, Morel found he was close enough
to make out the man’s features. His face seemed devoid of expression. Maybe he was unconscious. Morel hoped so, for his sake. He debated briefly whether to get out, but there were already a
couple of police officers on the scene. In the distance he could hear the wail of a siren, drawing nearer.

What had the man been thinking, crossing the busy roundabout? Maybe he had decided his time had come. Morel could think of more convenient, tidier ways to go. If it were him, he knew he would
not want to make a public display of himself.

As he waited in his car for the traffic to inch forward, he saw the ambulance stop near the entrance to the roundabout with its flashing blue lights and the letters
SAMU de Paris
written across the front. A man and a woman got out and jogged to where the victim lay. They started working on the body. The usual gaping crowd of onlookers waited at a distance to see the
outcome.

‘Need any back-up?’ Morel called out, thrusting his badge through the car window. The officer closest to him, in his twenties, looked like he might be about to throw up.

‘Thanks, but more people won’t make a difference. We’re good,’ he said, his pale face telling a different story.

Morel nodded. The car ahead of him moved, and he followed, indicating towards his exit.

He thought of the pathologist’s call as he drove with the window rolled down, breathing in the pungent blend of diesel and dust that tainted the distinctive scent of the horse chestnuts
along the boulevard. The residential buildings around here were stately and the streets quieter than the bustling lanes of the Châtelet, the Latin Quarter and its surroundings, the heart of
Paris where he spent his days. At the end of a working day he tended to welcome the contrast, though tonight as he drove past a popular bistro where couples leaned towards each other over drinks he
found himself drawn to the bustle and cosiness inside, wishing he were a part of it. Waiting at a traffic light on Avenue de Neuilly, he looked up at a high-ceilinged apartment where shadows moved
against the glow of a lamp, and tried to imagine what went on behind the stone building’s well-preserved walls.

It was getting dark by the time he parked outside his childhood home. He let himself into the house. The lights were off downstairs but up in his father’s room he could
see the flicker of the television set.