The Lying Down Room (Serge Morel 1)
Page 29
Pran had no time for superstition. He gave a dismissive snort.
‘You’d better go then.’
Sarit nodded, but made no move to leave the room. He knew he should, but he didn’t feel much like questioning an impressionable young employee who was probably too terrified to provide a sober account of what she’d seen. Someone – presumably the victim or the murderer – had hung a sign on the door asking for the room to be cleaned and she’d walked in, found the dead man and started screaming.
What irritated him was the certainty that she would be spinning stories in her head and to others about the victim’s departing soul. He knew from experience that his people could be matter of fact about flesh and blood, but spirits were another matter.
Sarit resisted the urge to rub at his leg, just below the knee. Though it was five years since he’d lost the lower half of his leg to a traffic accident, an ancient pain took hold of him, as though that part of him still lived as more than a distant memory.
It must be the rain, he thought, looking out the window.
Sarit looked at the corpse one more time. It would take hours to clean up the mess. Days for the hotel staff to get over this and get on with their work. Beyond these considerations, he didn’t waste any time thinking about the dead man – who he was and why this had happened to him. He didn’t think this case would occupy him for much longer. Antoine Nizet, the French police attaché from the embassy, was already on his way. Nizet, an energetic sort of man, would likely want to immerse himself in the investigation. Officially just as an observer, but who knew, maybe more? The thought that this could end up being someone else’s problem cheered Sarit up somewhat.
‘Well, well, well,’ Pran said, and Sarit turned his gaze to the pathologist, who was holding up the dead man’s driving licence. He’d pulled the victim’s wallet from his pocket and he read now from the ID card in his hand.
‘The victim’s name is Hugo Quercy The room’s booked under Jean Dupont. Which means that, unless he was just visiting someone who was staying here last night, there’s a possibility Quercy checked in under a false name. And another interesting fact: he lives just five minutes from here. So what was he doing in a hotel room?’
The two men exchanged a look. Pran snorted.
‘He was probably caught with his pants down, what do you think?’
Moments later Pran’s face changed. He had pulled a folded piece of paper from the man’s wallet and opened it up to see what it contained. Now he handed it to the police chief, whose smile froze as he scanned the document.
‘Looks like this could be more complicated than you and I thought,’ Pran said, turning his eyes away to look at the dead man.
Outside, thunder erupted like a prolonged drum roll. Rain pelted the half-open window as though someone were hurling handfuls of stones at it. The wooden shutters banged against the window frame. Pran swore and stepped widely to reach the shutters with one hand without leaving more bloody footprints on the carpet than he needed to. With the window shut, Sarit became aware of how stale the air was.
He frowned. As far as he was concerned, this was a straightforward business. It was personal, a settling of accounts between barang. Westerners. Still. The contents of that piece of paper Pran had found gave the affair a new, unwelcome slant.
Sarit thought again about the imminent arrival of the French police attaché and looked at the paper in his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, he folded it and slid it into his pocket.
Pran looked at him. ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’
‘It is not relevant information and will only complicate things,’ Sarit said. He held Pran’s gaze until the older man looked away, shaking his head.
The police chief turned his head to stare out the window, waiting for Pran to finish the job. Pran had come at Sarit’s request. Without him, the body would never have been examined. Thankfully, he was a practical man. He did not speculate about the soul’s journey after death.
Through the rain, lightning flashed and thunder boomed. The river was a deep brown. Water would be filling the drains, Sarit thought. It would be running, swift and deep, beneath the city’s footpaths. The thought of all that water made him unsteady, like the ground was brittle beneath his feet.
Gradually, as the rain intensified, everything blurred, until the world outside the window lost its familiarity and only the stark, gruesome scene inside the room remained.
THE LYING-DOWN
ROOM
Anna Jaquiery is of French-Malaysian descent and grew up in Europe and Asia. She has worked as a journalist in several countries, starting out as a freelance reporter in Russia. She is currently based in Melbourne with her husband and two sons. The Lying-Down Room is her debut novel – and the first in a series to feature Chief Inspector Serge Morel. The second, Death in the Rainy Season, is out now.
Follow Anna on Twitter @AnnaJaquiery
First published 2014 by Mantle
This electronic edition published 2015 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-4472-4442-4
Copyright © Anna Jaquiery, 2014
Cover images: Street with lamp: © Matthew Pugh / Arcangel Images
Silhouette in blue light: © Lee Avison / Arcangel Images
The right of Anna Jaquiery to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The extract from page 157 of ‘Twilight of the Idols, or How to Philosophize with a Hammer’, pp. 153–230, in Aaron Ridley (ed.), Translated by Judith Norman, Nietzsche: The Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols. And Other Writings that appears here is reproduced with kind permission of Cambridge University Press. Copyright © Cambridge University Press, 2005
The Liturgical Psalter © 1976, 1977, David L. Frost, John A. Emerton, Andrew A. Macintosh
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, organizations and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Macmillan does not have any control over, or any responsibility for, any author or third party websites referred to in or on this book.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Visit www.panmacmillan.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.