Death in the Rainy Season Page 3

‘That’s a real pity,’ the girl said.

  ‘Yes, it is.’ He looked at her and saw that she was gazing at him, as though she wanted to say something more. He held her eye and as he did so felt a sharp stab of regret. He might be letting go of a great deal more than the peace and solitude he had been looking forward to.

  As he headed back to his room, he held up the piece of paper he’d skimmed through earlier and read it more carefully this time. His thoughts turned to a man he’d never known, whose brutal and unexplained death was now his responsibility to solve.

  In his room, Morel took off his shoes and poured himself a shot of cognac before putting a call through to Lila. Lila was the youngest officer in his team at the criminal brigade, and the brightest. She was also the most difficult member of his team, and as such Morel would never leave her in charge in his absence. He had appointed Jean Char instead, who, despite being stuck in a time warp with his fascination for black leather, motorbikes and the heavy metal band Deep Purple, could be counted on to run a tight ship.

  When Lila answered after the first ring, the tone of her voice, gruff and short-tempered, made him smile.

  ‘You haven’t improved your phone manner,’ he said.

  ‘How sweet of you to call. Missing me already?’

  ‘Funnily enough, no.’ With a glass of cognac in one hand and the phone in the other, Morel sat back on the bed and leaned against the pillows. Whoever had come in to turn down the bed had also moved his origami animals from the desk to his bedside table, as if they were soft toys he might want nearby before going to sleep.

  ‘I thought you might be getting bored on holiday,’ Lila said.

  ‘I just got a call from Perrin.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’

  ‘You’re not surprised.’

  ‘Not really. He’s been flapping about the building like a deranged bird.’

  ‘That makes sense.’ Morel brought her up to speed on what Perrin had told him. Given how little he knew, it only took a minute.

  ‘I was hoping you could do me a favour,’ he said when he’d finished.

  ‘Go on. Wait, just a moment.’ He heard her say a few words to someone, something about leaving her damned stapler alone. He wondered who she was berating this time.

  ‘I want to know as much as I can about the victim before I get involved,’ Morel continued. ‘His name is Hugo Quercy. I’d rather not go into this completely blind.’

  ‘Who will you be liaising with in Phnom Penh?’

  Morel gave her the French police attaché’s name.

  ‘So do you think you’ll be staying for longer than you’d planned?’ she asked.

  ‘I have no idea.’

  After Morel hung up, he poured himself another cognac and got undressed. Sitting on the edge of his bed, he finished his drink and looked around his room, which he had grown so very fond of in such a short time. He would have to return to Phnom Penh in the morning, by the first available flight. Even if his involvement in the investigation remained brief, he would probably not return to Siem Reap until the next time he visited Cambodia.

  Whichever way he looked at it, his holiday was over.

  PART 2

  TUESDAY 27 SEPTEMBER

  SIX

  Paul heard the gate slide open and a car pull into the driveway. Moments later, he heard a key in the front door. Brisk steps down the hallway. He recognized Mariko’s purposeful walk. He couldn’t remember her leaving. Where had she gone? Not to work, presumably. He didn’t know what time of day it was, but surely it couldn’t be evening yet. He thought hard and remembered this was Tuesday. Mariko’s market day. She loved the local market, where she could talk to vendors in fluent Khmer and haggle over prices.

  He had no idea how long he’d been sitting here in the kitchen. No memory of getting out of bed or of making the coffee which now sat before him, murky and cold. He was aware only of a great, numbing stillness.

  ‘Paul?’

  With an effort, he turned to look at his wife. She stood before him with the car keys in one hand and her shopping basket in the other. He found himself thinking, absurdly, about the village outside Barcelona where he’d bought her that basket, many years ago. A trip they’d taken together, without Nora. He saw there were shadows under her eyes; there were lines around her mouth too that he didn’t think he’d noticed before. But she looked strong and purposeful, her skin glowing from her early morning excursion and deeply tanned against the spotless white of her sleeveless T-shirt. She was wearing tight denim shorts, rolled up above the knees like a woman half her age.

  ‘Will you get ready for work now?’ he said.

  ‘I’m not going to work. I’m staying here with you.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me.’

  She gave him a strange look.

  ‘Why are you sitting here naked?’ she asked. ‘Has the maid seen you like this? What about Nora?’

  He knew people didn’t always warm to her. They mistook her brusqueness for a lack of sensitivity. For him, her bluntness had always been part of the attraction. At least with Mariko you knew where you stood. Though he wasn’t sure what to make of the look she gave him now, a silent assessment that was aeons away from the compassion he so desperately needed.

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t really know,’ he said. For the life of him, he couldn’t answer her question. Couldn’t remember anything about the past hour or two, however long it was she had been gone.

  ‘Never mind. You can get dressed now,’ she said in French.

  Like her academic achievements, against which his seemed infinitely paltry, language was a measure of the great divide between them: she spoke French like a native, while he had never been able to get anywhere with Japanese. In the early days, when he’d struggled to communicate with her in her mother tongue, she’d quickly told him not to bother.

  She put the basket down and moved closer, before pulling out a chair and sitting opposite him. He saw now that the make-up around her eyes was smudged. She must have forgotten to wash it off before going to bed last night. He wanted to rub it clean, but his arms refused to move. His hands seemed to weigh a ton in his lap. Mariko sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. She’d worn it short for years, but now she was letting it grow. Just recently, it had grown enough for her to be able to tie it back.

  He felt her hand on his shoulder. This was pathetic; he needed to get up and get dressed. What was the point of falling apart? He couldn’t have another breakdown. How many more times would Mariko put up with his paralytic bouts of depression? An affliction he’d learned long ago was a part of him, to be accepted and managed as well as was possible. But it took its toll. The last long episode had exhausted him, and had exhausted his wife too. I must keep it together. Besides, falling apart would not alter the fact that his best friend, Hugo, was dead.

  Another voice inside his head was telling him to let go, to release everything that was inside him. But he was able to ignore it. When others were around, he was always acutely aware of how he might come across, and how he might be judged. Nothing horrified him more than the thought of being exposed, every thought, every detail of his existence bared.

  Even in the depths of his despair he felt ashamed now his wife was in the room.

  Mariko squeezed his shoulder, as if she knew what he was feeling.

  ‘You’re shivering,’ she said matter of factly.

  Because it’s cold, he wanted to say. But he knew that was the wrong answer. This was Phnom Penh. It only got cold when you woke up in the middle of the night and the air conditioning was set too low. Cambodia is warm to hot, he recited in his head. Warm to hot, all year round. An annual monsoon cycle, with alternating wet and dry seasons. In the dry season, when the temperature climbed into the high thirties and the air was gritty with dust, you could build up a sweat just by standing still. Mothers squatted in the shade and fanned their listless babies. At street corners, idle men stood or squatted, smoking and conversing. They watched you go past with dull expressions
in their eyes. A hazy indolence replaced the usual bustle.

  As for the rainy season, it was a celebration. The earth was made fertile again. The rains meant a fresh start.

  He was lost in his thoughts, thoughts of this city, which Hugo had brought him to, and taught him to love. But remembering where he was didn’t help. He rubbed at his thighs and arms, nursing his sadness and shame.

  ‘You can’t stay like this,’ Mariko said firmly. ‘Come on. Let’s get you dressed. I’ll make you some breakfast and another coffee. They need you at the hotel. There are about five missed calls on your phone. I checked.’

  ‘Problems?’ he said, hardly recognizing his own voice.

  ‘What do you think?’

  He identified the tone. He had heard it regularly in the old days when they’d tried to run the hotel together. How often he’d been impressed by her efficiency. People respected her.

  Now she was grabbing hold of his arms and encouraging him to stand up, as though he’d lost the use of his legs and needed assistance. Her arms, slender as they were, felt strong, like a man’s embrace.

  ‘You can’t stay like this, Paul. Get up.’

  ‘I can’t.’ For a brief moment, they remained in this ridiculous position, Paul sagging, Mariko bearing the brunt of his useless body. Then she released him and he slumped back on the chair. Mariko picked up her handbag and left the room. He heard her steps down the hallway. She returned moments later. She filled the jug and soon the water started heating. A minute later, Mariko turned the radio on and he recognized the BBC, though he couldn’t focus on what the presenter was saying.

  Kate had delivered the news about Hugo. In person. He and Mariko had been about to have dinner. He hadn’t expected Kate, and was about to offer her a drink when he’d taken a proper look at her face, shocked at what he saw. She was barely recognizable. It was the first time he’d seen it, the way grief can rearrange a person’s features. The horror and anguish of that moment. Once Kate had left, Mariko had pushed him into the bathroom and got in with him before shutting the door in Nora’s face. On the other side, his sixteen-year-old daughter cried and banged on the door, demanding to know what was wrong.

  In retrospect, it would have been better to tell her than to leave her alone like that, imagining the worst. Though surely, the worst had already happened.

  Later that night, they had come to get him. Asked him to identify his friend’s body. At this hour? he’d asked. We waited for the widow, they said, but in the end she couldn’t do it. She asked us to call you. A policeman with a prosthetic leg, smoking cigarette after cigarette, never making eye contact. And an older man, who’d introduced himself as a doctor.

  He had expected it to be difficult but he hadn’t been prepared, not really. It wasn’t so much the sight of Hugo’s body that upset him, though that was bad enough. What made him want to flee was the room. More like a cupboard than a room, actually. There was nowhere to stand once the tray holding Hugo’s corpse was pulled out. The air con was on, creating a rasping noise, but there still didn’t seem to be any air and he’d felt himself becoming agitated, struggling to breathe.

  ‘Come on, Paul. This really won’t do.’

  Mariko was back, gripping his arms again. She was beginning to sound exasperated. She had always been on good terms with Hugo, but more than once Paul had detected impatience, or a stiffness in her manner whenever Hugo was around. Before they’d met, he’d never had a friend like Hugo. He had thought – and perhaps hoped a little – that Mariko was jealous of their closeness. But jealousy had never been part of her nature.

  Moments ago he’d been shivering but now he was sweating. Too hot or too cold. His body couldn’t seem to make up its mind. This time he let Mariko pull him towards the bedroom. He sat on the edge of the bed while she fetched some clothes. With tremendous effort, he pulled on the underwear and socks, the shirt and shorts she gave him, and resisted the urge to lie down and close his eyes.

  Somehow, the act of getting dressed dragged him out of his torpor so that suddenly the immensity of his loss struck him with all its might. He could see his friend’s face; he could even see in vivid detail the way he walked and laughed and told a story. His enthusiasm had been contagious. Tears ran down Paul’s face and he made no effort to hide them.

  ‘You’ll be OK,’ he heard Mariko say, with a sigh that could have been sadness or irritation. Before he knew it she was sitting by him and turning his body so that she could hold him in her arms. Her unexpected kindness pierced through whatever defences had kept him together until now and he began to sob.

  ‘Ça va aller,’ Mariko repeated, in a firm voice. You’ll be fine.

  From where he sat, with his wife’s arms tight around his body, breathing in the familiar, musky scent of her skin, he could see the shifting sky outside his window, a mass of gathering clouds. He thought about the birds. They were so noisy here. It was part of what he had found so foreign and delightful when he’d first moved to Phnom Penh. Their constant chatter heralded a new existence, full of promise and hope. But now they were mute, and all he could hear was the sound of his own ragged breathing. Around him, there was only silence.

  SEVEN

  Morel took the first available Cambodia Angkor Air flight out of Siem Reap. He dozed lightly during the short journey. When he opened his eyes, the plane was circling over Phnom Penh. From the air, it remained just as he remembered it, a nondescript city of red-tiled roofs and low-lying greenery, though a few high-rise buildings had gone up since his last visit. Through the rain-spattered window, Morel could make out fishing boats, as tiny and insignificant as matchstick models.

  His parents had come here as newly-weds, his mother wanting to show her French husband the place where she came from, and perhaps also wishing to make amends to her family for marrying so hastily and without ceremony. Morel imagined they would have been dismayed when they’d found out about the register office wedding in Neuilly. Mey hadn’t wanted the pomp and expense of a Khmer ceremony. Given her father’s ministerial position, it would have been a grand affair.

  ‘My sister behaved poorly,’ his mother’s older brother and last remaining sibling told him when the two had met – what was it now? Seventeen years ago? It had been Morel’s first trip to Phnom Penh. He’d wanted to meet his uncle, knowing his mother had wished it. ‘Why would you bring that up now?’ Morel had said, unable to hold his tongue. It had seemed a petty thing for his uncle to say after all those years. They hadn’t met since.

  The plane landed and the passengers, subdued by the early-morning start, made their way across the tarmac by foot. Inside the airport building they collected their luggage, while a dozen bored-looking officials watched from behind their counters. The flight from Siem Reap seemed to be the only one in.

  Morel had no trouble picking out the French police attaché from the handful of people waiting outside the terminal. Antoine Nizet greeted him with a firm handshake. He almost clicked his heels.

  ‘Welcome to Phnom Penh,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry you had to cut your holiday short.’

  ‘It can’t be helped,’ Morel replied.

  The French attaché was tanned and fit, with a square jaw and cropped hair. A stiff, conventional man with a military bearing. Morel had met his type before. But he also knew from Lila, who had dug into Nizet’s background without being asked to, that Nizet spoke fluent Khmer and had four children with his Cambodian wife.

  They shook hands and Morel followed him to his car – a white Land Rover that looked like it had just been washed, it was so shiny and clean.

  ‘I hope you didn’t go to all that trouble with the car for my sake,’ Morel said, to make conversation. Nizet didn’t respond and Morel wondered whether the embassy man resented his presence here.

  Nizet took Morel’s suitcase and lifted it into the boot as though it weighed nothing.

  ‘Get in. I’ll fill you in while we’re driving,’ he said.

  During the drive into the city, Nizet provided a bri
ef summary of Hugo Quercy’s death and outlined the investigation to date.

  ‘I’m assuming the family has called for a rogatory commission?’ Morel asked, referring to a legal request to examine witnesses or seek information about a case in another country.

  ‘There was talk of a rogatory commission but it’s gone away. My feeling is that, until they know exactly what happened, the family would rather keep a low profile with this,’ Nizet said.

  ‘In case it turns out the minister’s nephew was a closet paedophile, or dealing drugs?’ Morel said. Nizet gave him a wary look.

  ‘It pays to be careful,’ he said slowly. ‘In this country, they’re quick to dismiss a foreigner’s death by calling it a suicide or blaming it on drugs. Anything as long as it doesn’t cast a stain on the Khmers themselves, or make them lose face in any way.’ He added, ‘I heard you were from here. Maybe I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know?’

  ‘Any idea what might have happened?’ Morel asked, ignoring the question. He looked out his window at the traffic light, counting down the seconds till the light turned green, though to many drivers here green or red seemed to make little difference.

  ‘It’s hard to say,’ Nizet replied. ‘It looks like he may have known his attacker. There’s no sign of forced entry. Maybe they got into an argument and things went downhill from there.’

  They moved slowly through heavy traffic. Morel stared ahead. Each time he returned to Phnom Penh, the drive from Pochentong Airport into the city seemed to have become worse. When he’d first visited, nearly two decades ago, there’d been nothing to look at but fields and the drive had taken less than half the time. Now the road was crammed with large SUVS, motorbikes and tuk-tuks, all competing for space. Lane divisions were universally ignored.

  ‘Did any of the staff or guests at the hotel happen to see Quercy with someone?’ Morel asked, watching as a motorbike passed them carrying a family of four. One boy was wedged between his parents; the mother had her arm around a baby. Only the driver was wearing a helmet.