The Lying Down Room (Serge Morel 1) (25 page)

‘I think I understand,’ Lila said. She was thinking about Anne Dufour and the constant fear in her eyes. A woman who lived like she was always under scrutiny.

‘It’s like she was always in the room with him,’ Fourmond was saying.

Lila’s skin crawled, as though something was moving up her back. The teacher looked at her and shrugged his shoulders.

‘I can’t really tell you more than that. I’d be sorry to hear he was in trouble, though. Let me know if I can be of any further use.’

‘You’ve been a great help already,’ Morel said.

The teacher stood up and stretched out his hand.

They followed him outside and Fourmond watched them get into the car and waved as they drove off.

Once they were back on the road that led to Charles’s house, Morel turned to Lila.

‘What do you think?’ he said.

‘I think Charles has a lot of explaining to do.’

Charles was in his driveway, about to get into his car, when Morel and Lila drew up to the house. The man they saw was different from the one they’d interviewed the day
before. He looked defeated.

‘We came by earlier but you weren’t here,’ Lila said accusingly.

‘Yes, I had to drop my boys off at school and my daughter at my mother’s. She’s sick. And now I have to go into work.’ Suddenly realizing they were here to see him, he
said, ‘What do you want now?’

‘This won’t take long,’ Morel said. ‘Do you mind if we go inside for a moment?’

‘What for?’

‘Well, for one thing I thought you might want this back.’ Morel handed the photograph over. ‘I believe your friend Armand may have borrowed it from you when he dropped
by.’

Morel saw Charles hang his head. What a contrast, he thought. He wondered what had happened in the short time since they’d spoken to him last.

‘Come in, then,’ he said.

Morel and Lila looked at each other before following him inside.

Despite the clutter the living room looked desolate. Charles perched on the end of a sofa while the two detectives sat opposite him. For twenty minutes they’d listened to Charles and not
said a word. When he finished there was a silence. He looked up at them.

‘It might sound sordid to you but the simple truth is we loved each other.’

‘How often did you two – get together?’ Morel asked.

‘Fuck, you mean?’ Charles gave a bitter smile. ‘We call ourselves liberal and progressive but funny how difficult we find it to spell it out, when two men sleep
together.’

‘Two boys,’ Lila said.

‘We were young, but we were not children,’ Charles said, looking her in the eye. ‘What happened, happened naturally. We were more than ready.’

‘So. How often did you have sex, and when did it stop?’ Morel asked.

‘A dozen times, maybe. Then one day Armand’s mother caught us.’

Lila glanced at Morel. ‘How?’

‘It was stupid, really. We should have known better. I was over at his house, I’d walked him home. Normally I didn’t linger, she made me uncomfortable. But she was out.’
Charles bit his lip, remembering the scene. ‘We were just fooling around. I think it excited Armand, to be doing it right there in his mother’s living room. He pulled my shirt off and
kissed me. One thing led to another and eventually we both had our pants down. He was on top of me when she walked in.’ His face turned red, as though he was reliving the moment. ‘It
was horrible. She didn’t yell or even say anything. She just looked at us. We were both terrified, fumbling with our clothes and rushing to get them back on. All the time she was quiet. But
the way she looked at us . . .’

He didn’t finish his sentence. He was far away, experiencing the same terror and humiliation all over again.

‘And then?’ Lila prodded.

‘And then nothing. I left in a hurry. The next day Armand didn’t return to school. He didn’t come back all week. I realized shortly afterwards that his mother was keeping him
out of school. I didn’t hear from him again. Not till he came back.’

‘Did you try to contact him?’

Charles hung his head. ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

Charles’s head shot back up. ‘What was I supposed to do? I was frightened of her and what would happen if it got out. What Armand and I had been up to.’

‘But you loved him. Didn’t it occur to you that he might need you?’ Lila said, a sharp edge to her voice.

‘I was sixteen,’ Charles said.

‘Did your parents find out?’

‘No.’ A slight hesitation in Charles’s voice.

‘But your mother suspected, didn’t she?’ Lila said.

Charles nodded. ‘I think she knew all along. I don’t know why she chose to keep quiet about it. Maybe she didn’t want to face it. Or she hoped it would go away.’

‘What happened when Armand returned to school?’ Morel asked.

‘It was like we had never been friends. Armand never once spoke to me. He barely looked my way. I tried to approach him a couple of times but he would walk away from me every time. So
after a while I gave up.’

‘What happened to him, Charles?’ Morel asked.

Charles shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘All I know is that when he came back to school, he was a different person.’ He looked at them in turn.
‘Whatever happened while he was away, it changed him radically. The way I saw it, the Armand I knew no longer existed.’

They watched Charles drive off, late for work. Then they both got into Morel’s cherry-red car. It occurred to Morel that the whole village must be aware of their
presence. The Volvo wasn’t the sort of car that went unnoticed.

‘What now?’ Lila said. She looked thoughtful.

They sat in silence for a while thinking of the things they had just heard. All of a sudden Morel felt drained.

He started the car and drove out of the village.

After several minutes Lila looked at him. ‘Weren’t you supposed to turn off back there?’ she asked.

‘We’re taking a little detour,’ Morel said.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Have you ever been to Saint-Malo?’

‘What?’

‘I thought we might stop there before we go back. Never mind if we’re running a bit late.’

‘You’re kidding, right? Perrin’s expecting us to brief him this afternoon. He’ll be furious.’

‘Then what are we waiting for?’ Morel said.

They reached Saint-Malo in less than an hour. The town was overrun by tourists. They were everywhere, filling the cafes and restaurants and walking in groups through the
cobble-stoned streets, talking and laughing loudly. What a contrast to the Saint-Malo he remembered, Morel thought. Quiet and self-contained.

After a twenty-minute wait they were shown to a table at a restaurant where they ate mussels in a white-wine sauce and grilled sardines, with a carafe of Muscadet. All around them people were
speaking English, Italian, Russian – everything but French.

‘I haven’t been here in years,’ Morel said. The tension in his shoulders made his back ache and he stretched, willing his muscles to relax.

‘It looks like all of Europe is here,’ Lila said. She had finished her drink and poured another. For a while neither of them spoke.

Morel gulped the last of his Muscadet. He looked at Lila. The sun emerged briefly to light up her face, and her eyes were sparkling from the wine. She gave him a questioning look and he shook
his head.

‘Let’s go for a walk,’ he said.

They left the jammed town centre and headed towards the walled jetty, curving into the harbour like some giant prehistoric tail. A man and a boy were fishing from it, a bucket at their feet. In
a state of quiet watchfulness, oblivious to everything but each other and any sign of life at the end of their fishing rods. Morel thought of his father, cooped up in his bedroom in the same
dressing-gown he’d been wearing for at least the past decade.

I must bring him here
, he thought. Maybe when this case was over he could take a few days off and he and his father could rent a place up here. Bring plenty of books and good wine. Take
walks along the beach and read. Eat well. His parents had always loved to eat out.

Morel breathed in and out, letting the events of the past weeks ebb from him like the water below. Slowly the tide was going out, leaving clumps of seaweed in its wake. The air smelled of fish
and sea and the rain-soaked clouds that were threatening to spill even as they stood there with their faces looking out to the distant horizon.

‘I’m so glad we did this,’ Lila said after a while.

He had almost forgotten her presence but now he looked over at her and found himself glad she was there with him.

They stayed for a while longer, watching the boats. A pair of red and yellow canoes out on the horizon. A giant white cruise ship. A yacht was coming into the harbour, its sail tugging at the
mast in cheerful surrender. The clouds that had threatened to open up went on their way and the sun came out quietly again. The sky was a cool and watery shade of blue, the wind frisky, ruffling
their clothes.

‘This is almost like being on holiday, isn’t it?’ Lila said.

Morel looked at her again. She was wearing her Puffa jacket and jeans again but she appeared like a softer version of herself, standing there with her elbows up on the parapet, her hair blowing
about her head. Her cheeks and the tips of her ears were pink and her eyes clear when she met his gaze.

‘Being almost on holiday seems to suit you,’ he said. ‘You look different.’

Lila looked carefully at him, as though she were trying to figure him out, then she laughed.

‘What?’

She moved closer and with her hand brushed some dirt from his suit. It would have come from the wall which they had been leaning against. He fished in his pocket for a handkerchief. For a minute
he remained absorbed, rubbing at a stain that wasn’t there.

She grinned at him.

‘What?’ he said again, annoyed now.

‘You. You still look exactly like you.’

Charles looked at his watch. He would probably still make it to his meeting. Either way, it didn’t matter.

The kids had been clingy that morning. There had been whining and tantrums and in the end he’d had to shout. At his mother’s house, and at school, they had insisted on multiple hugs
before he left.

Maybe it wasn’t just that their mother had been gone for a week. Maybe they were worried about him. Chloé, the eldest, had always acted as though she was the parent. Ever since she
was four or five. It made him sad at times to think that she felt she needed to look out for her parents. It should be the other way round. It should be him making
her
feel safe, guarding
her against anything harmful that might come her way.

He didn’t want to think about Armand, but driving to Rennes in slow traffic he found the conversation with the police had brought everything back. It was like an avalanche. A road sign
warned him to slow down to forty kilometres an hour. He passed orange traffic cones and workers in sleeveless shirts and Day-Glo vests.

It is a story he knows by heart. He has played it in his head over and over again, as though somehow he might discover a way to change the outcome. If not that, then at least he might learn to
live with it better. There is still that hope.

Armand is fifteen, Charles is a year older. Fourteen months and two days older, Armand likes to say. He says it half jokingly but the truth is that he is always this literal. Charles knows it
and accepts this is part of who Armand is. This is the strange thing. He can accept most things about Armand. Why is that? Is it because Armand is everything Charles isn’t? Armand seems
oblivious to what people think. He doesn’t seem to need anyone’s backing. This is probably what draws Charles to him. Later, there is something else too: Armand’s neediness, which
Charles finds both repellent and attractive.

When Charles asks, ‘How long is it we’ve been best friends?’ Armand is prepared with an answer. Three years, eight months, six days. He could add the hours, minutes and seconds
but Charles places a finger on his lips and that shuts him up.

At school they are always together. When the bell rings they catch the bus back to the village. The last two kids to get dropped home. The ones who live furthest from the school. Armand
doesn’t get invited to other children’s houses and, besides, his mother wouldn’t allow him to go. As for Charles, he is more popular. But he turns down invitations and
doesn’t tell Armand about them. They spend long afternoons at Charles’s house, listening to music and making up games that most of the other boys in their class would probably find
childish if they knew. Hiding deep in Charles’s closet, they are on their way. The closet, like the one in the Narnia tales, is a doorway into other worlds. In the dark, Armand’s face
is grave and composed. With his arm around Charles’s shoulder he gives life to a cast of characters that make Charles forget everything else but this cramped corner in the cupboard with its
jumble of old toys and discarded clothes.

They never play at Armand’s house. Armand’s mother doesn’t let her boy out of her sight, except when he is with Charles. It isn’t clear why that is but Charles suspects
it is snobbery on her part. It’s because Charles’s parents own the nicest house in the village.

Armand’s fear is something other people will never understand. Armand’s mother possesses a presence that will live beyond the grave. She has a way of knowing things she can’t
possibly know. Things that are never spoken out loud. She burrows into Armand’s head and sniffs around in there for anything she might be able to use against him.

Charles’s father has a boat moored in Saint-Malo. One weekend they offer to take Armand sailing with them. To everyone’s surprise, Armand’s mother agrees to the trip.

The weather is unbelievable. They sail out of the harbour with just the right amount of wind to carry them through. There are no clouds in the sky and it is warm enough to sit out on deck and
enjoy the sunshine. Charles is wearing the sailor shirt that Armand gave him for his birthday. Armand is wearing a frayed shirt and jeans that he has outgrown. The cuffs stop above his ankles and
the sole is coming off one of his shoes. Charles’s mother has suggested she hand over his old clothes to Armand as he is now bigger and taller than his friend, but Charles has pleaded with
her not to. He knows Armand is too proud to accept any cast-offs from them.