Death in the Rainy Season

by Anna Jaquiery

  As far as a change of scenery went, he couldn’t have asked for a better setting. Siem Reap, with its ancient temples, always acted as a balm on his soul, even if the town had changed dramatically since he’d first fallen under its spell.

  He had got up early to visit Ta Prohm before the hordes. From 5 to 5.50, he’d wandered happily through the submarine stillness of his favourite temple, marvelling at the tree roots spreading like tentacles over the lichen-covered ruins. At ten to six, he’d sat beneath a banyan tree and watched the sun rise. All around him the jungle was coming to life. For a while, he listened to the chatter of monkeys, whose enquiring faces peered at him through the trees, until the first tourist groups appeared. That was his cue to leave.

  He had three days left in Siem Reap. Enough time to enjoy a few sights and the cave-like privacy of his room, before catching a flight back to Phnom Penh. He would stay away from the better known temples like Angkor Wat and the Bayon. Nowadays, a visit to those sites was equal to a shopping expedition at the Galeries Lafayette on the first day of the winter sales. You had to elbow your way in. Ta Prohm, immensely popular since people had begun identifying it with Tomb Raider and Angelina Jolie, had been the one exception to his rule and he’d been lucky to manage some time alone there.

  Morel’s thoughts were shattered by the sound of someone jumping into the pool. The loud splash made him sit up. There was a man in the water, a large and red-faced Belgian. Morel had encountered him at the restaurant on his first morning in Siem Reap and they had exchanged a few words. He was travelling with his wife, who resembled him in every way except for an enormous pair of breasts that seemed to propel her forward as she walked.

  The Belgian thrashed the water with vigorous strokes. Morel caught a glimpse of his hairy back and skimpy red Speedos as he reached the end of the pool nearest to where he sat. It was hard to conceive of a less graceful creature.

  Morel wiped the sweat from his brow and stood up. Time for lunch.

  The last time he’d been in Siem Reap, eighteen months ago, this hotel hadn’t existed. Now there were dozens of others like this one that advertised themselves as ‘boutique accommodation for the discerning traveller’, or words to that effect. This place, run by an elusive Frenchman, held sixteen rooms artfully surrounded by vegetation. The rooms branched off from a dining room set at the centre of an artificial pond. You had to step across boardwalks to get anywhere. At this time of year, half the rooms were empty. Morel had caught just a glimpse of the owner, an emaciated man in his forties, who smiled vaguely in his direction but made no attempt at conversation.

  Perfect, Morel thought.

  Since his arrival in Siem Reap, four days earlier, Morel had fallen into a daily routine that suited him. Most mornings, he woke up before dawn and meditated for thirty minutes, a habit instilled in him by his mother as a child but which he rarely practised as an adult, so strangely suited was it to his life. Yet whenever he returned to Cambodia, no matter how long it had been, he took it up again, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. If his acerbic younger colleague Lila could see him, sitting cross-legged on the floor with his hands resting on his knees, palms facing upwards, he would never hear the end of it.

  For Morel, the practice of meditation had nothing to do with religion. Just as for his mother Buddhism had been a way of life rather than an act of faith. A way of framing one’s existence. Order and ritual in everyday life meant balance, and balance provided a degree of serenity.

  After meditation, he would shower and dress before heading out to meet his driver. Vath took him where he wanted to go and could always be found in the exact same spot where Morel had last seen him. He seemed quite content to sit and smoke endless cigarettes while he waited, however long it took.

  Once Morel returned from the temple visits, he would have breakfast. He would drink his coffee the Cambodian way, sweetened with condensed milk, while watching dragonflies hover over the lotuses. He might go for a swim then, and lie by the pool for a while.

  After lunch, it was usually time for a nap. Before his arrival, he hadn’t realized just how exhausted he was. He fell asleep by nine each night, and every afternoon still managed an hour-long nap, full of strange and complicated dreams. Then, often accompanied by the sound of rain pelting against the boardwalks, Morel spent an hour or two folding paper. Outside his window, a vista of glistening palm fronds screened him from any guests who might walk past. So far he had successfully made a tokay gecko, a pelican and a rooster. He was also sketching a dragonfly. He hoped to reproduce the delicate pattern of the wings, not dissimilar in composition to the overlay of stones on some old-fashioned walls.

  Now, there was hardly anyone in the restaurant. For the third day in a row, Morel ordered a beer and the fish amok. While he waited for his lunch, he looked around to see who else was there. Only a thin, balding man with a bowling ball of a head that looked like it would sit better on a larger body, eating alone, and a young couple with flushed, happy faces. Morel had guessed that they were on their honeymoon. They seemed to spend most of their time in their room and during meals rarely ate, preferring instead to mooch over each other with dreamy expressions on their faces.

  Morel drank his beer and watched the dragonflies. How perfect, their ability to hover with the most imperceptible of tremors in their wings. He was so caught up in his observation of them that he didn’t notice the balding man’s lingering gaze as he walked past him on his way out of the restaurant.

  FOUR

  The gate slid open and the French embassy’s police attaché, Antoine Nizet, drove his motorcycle into the courtyard. His wife came down the steps as he stepped off the bike, followed closely by two of their boys. The youngest, stark naked, ran towards his father the minute he caught sight of him. Nizet scooped him up into a bear hug.

  ‘You’re smelly!’ the boy pronounced, rearing back.

  ‘I’ve been working out. It’s a good smell.’

  ‘Yuck.’ The boy tried to wriggle away but Nizet gripped him tight. The boy’s squeals, half disgust, half delight, filled the air.

  ‘Shall I pour you a drink?’ Nizet’s wife said, smiling.

  ‘A drink would be nice.’

  She was very pretty, and still young. Twenty years younger than him, in fact. He thought they made an attractive couple. He kept himself in good shape. Twelve hours a week at the gym, on average. And he ran most mornings, while it was still dark and relatively cool.

  He followed his wife and children inside the house. The older boys were in their rooms, doing homework. The younger two immediately returned to the cartoons they’d been watching. Nizet’s wife handed him a glass of wine. He took it and followed her into the bedroom. He locked the door and sat down at her dressing table. She came up behind him and started massaging his back and shoulders. For a while, neither of them said anything. He closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh.

  ‘A French man has been killed,’ he told her in Khmer. He didn’t usually talk about his day but this was big news.

  She stopped kneading his shoulders. He saw in the mirror how the news had shocked her.

  ‘Who? Someone we have met?’

  ‘You don’t know him.’

  ‘Did you?’

  Nizet hesitated.

  ‘A little.’

  He thought about his last encounter with Quercy. And every encounter before then. The two of them hadn’t exactly hit it off.

  Sarit had called him that morning, from the hotel room where Quercy’s body had been found. Nizet had driven over straight away. On the way there, he’d thought about the days and weeks ahead and how busy he would be. He would have to liaise between the embassy and the local investigators. Something he was good at. And he knew Sarit, who was in charge of the investigation. The Cambodian cop was competent but it was fair to say he wouldn’t exert himself.

  Nizet hadn’t anticipated what happened next. He’d always known Quercy was a privileged upstart but it had come as a surprise to find out jus
t how lofty his connections were. The man’s uncle was France’s Minister for the Interior. Now they had decided to bring in some senior French policeman to oversee the investigation.

  It wasn’t welcome news. But there might be an opportunity in it for him, who knew? One thing about Nizet: he wasn’t the defeatist kind.

  He drank the rest of his wine and took his clothes off before stepping into the shower. He adjusted the temperature so that the water scorched his skin.

  When he came out of the shower, his wife was standing where he’d left her. She’d wrapped a sarong around her body and her shoulders were bare. He turned her around and ran his hand across her smooth brown skin. But it was his own body he was intensely aware of. His muscular thighs and the hard expanse of his chest, which he shaved. It looked better that way.

  ‘I have to go out again tonight,’ he said.

  His wife sighed. ‘Too much work. Poor you.’

  ‘I know.’

  She undid her sarong. Absently, he reached for her breasts. In the background, he could hear the high-pitched, manic voices of cartoon characters. One of his boys shrieked with laughter. He let his hands drop by his side.

  ‘Another drink would be nice,’ he said.

  ‘Now?’ She raised the sarong to her chest.

  ‘Please.’

  FIVE

  After lunch, Morel went back to his room. He took off his shoes, shirt and trousers, and lay on his bed. He closed his eyes and listened to the rain drip on the leaves outside his window, an afterthought following the morning’s deluge. Or the prelude to a late-afternoon flood. This was the season when the rains came and went according to their own schedule. The shifting light and perpetual mugginess could make you lose track of time.

  For a moment, he stared at the white ceiling. Happily, there was nothing urgent on his mind. He fell asleep, flat on his back, with his hands loosely folded on his stomach.

  An hour later he woke up. There were voices outside his room and at first he thought that perhaps they were heading straight to his door. But after a while they faded, and the silence closed in again, like a warm bath.

  He looked at his desk and at the neat pile of square paper sheets lying there, waiting for him to bring them to life. He hesitated a moment before turning away and putting fresh clothes on.

  The lobby was deserted. He walked across it and stepped into the damp heat. There was no one about save for a few dazed-looking tourists. This was siesta time, clammy bodies taking refuge in rented rooms, making love or sleeping, waiting for the afternoon torpor to lift before venturing out again.

  Morel walked on and found himself near the river. He could hear the shouts of children. Further on and through the trees he caught a glimpse of naked brown bodies leaping through the air before landing in the water with a mighty splash.

  There were plenty of newly painted facades, places with names he didn’t recognize. The number of hotels that had sprung up since his last visit was dispiriting. He walked till the rain started again and ducked into a Thai restaurant, the name of which he recognized from his guidebook. Over tom yam soup, he read the day’s edition of the Phnom Penh Post. Once he’d finished his dinner, he returned to his hotel.

  By now the temperature was cooler and there were couples walking arm in arm, slowing to look at menus posted outside restaurants before making their minds up about where to eat. Music and laughter spilled from the cafes and bars. He didn’t linger. Back in his room the bed would be turned down and the air con set at the right temperature. There was a bottle of Otard waiting on his desk and it was three-quarters full.

  As he made his way across the lobby, the receptionist approached him. The same young woman who greeted him each morning when he returned from his excursions covered in sweat and red dust. He had noticed her on the day he’d checked in. It was unusual, in this country, to see a female receptionist.

  ‘I saw you this morning. You must work very long hours,’ he said to her in Khmer.

  ‘Long hours,’ she repeated, correcting his pronunciation. She was visibly amused by his accent. ‘One of my colleagues is sick and they asked me to stay later today.’ There was a warm glow to her cheeks, and when she smiled he noticed that her teeth were evenly spaced, except for a gap between her incisors that suited her, lending character to the perfect lines of her cheekbones, forehead and nose. Her hair, smooth and black, was tied into a bun. She wore a short-sleeved, translucent white blouse and her hips, wrapped in a long, tight skirt, were impossibly narrow.

  Now she looked at him with dark eyes that were almost black. When she spoke again, her elocution was tidy and prim, as though she were giving him a lesson on how Khmer should be spoken.

  ‘Someone has called for you, from Paris,’ she said. ‘They left a message.’

  ‘What sort of message?’ Morel asked. He didn’t want any message from Paris.

  ‘They said it was very urgent,’ she replied.

  She handed him the piece of paper on which she had written the caller’s name, and immediately Morel’s image of his room and the cognac receded and was replaced by something a lot less inviting: the jowly face of Superintendent Olivier Perrin. His stomach turned as though he’d eaten something well past its use-by date.

  He decided he didn’t want to take the call in his room – it would be too much like inviting Perrin in to sit on the edge of his bed for a drink and a cosy after-dinner chat – and so he dialled the number from reception under the woman’s bright gaze. Perrin answered on the first ring, as though he’d been waiting by the phone.

  ‘It’s me,’ Morel said curtly, unable to disguise his irritation.

  ‘I hope you’ve made the most of your holiday so far,’ the familiar, gravelly voice said. The man seemed impossibly near.

  ‘I have, thank you,’ Morel said. ‘But I’m assuming you haven’t called me just to ensure I’m enjoying myself.’

  ‘No. Sorry to disappoint. There’s a small matter I need you to look into. Have you read the fax?’

  ‘What fax?’ Morel asked. This was one of Perrin’s many irritating habits: his tendency to act as though he’d provided information when he hadn’t.

  ‘The one I sent ten minutes ago.’

  Morel looked at the young woman standing before him. At the word fax, she’d promptly turned to the machine behind her desk and lifted a single sheet of paper from it. She now handed it over to him. Morel skimmed it and his heart sank.

  ‘I appreciate this, Commissaire, but there’s no need to keep me abreast of this sort of thing while I’m on holiday,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t try to be smart. There’s a dead Frenchman in Phnom Penh and I need you to find out what happened to him. Sounds like someone lost the plot there. I’m told the victim was beaten so badly only his ID made it possible to identify him.’

  ‘Where did it happen?’ Morel asked.

  ‘In a hotel room.’

  ‘Since when do we get involved when a French citizen is killed outside of France?’ Morel asked, half knowing the answer. There was a good reason why Perrin had been ‘told’ about the murder, despite the fact that he was sitting 10,000 kilometres away from Phnom Penh.

  ‘Since the dead citizen is the nephew of a minister,’ Perrin said.

  ‘What minister?’

  ‘Our very own Interior Minister. Your boss and mine.’

  Morel sat down and wiped the sweat from his forehead. The pretty receptionist sat before him, pretending to be engrossed in whatever was on the computer screen before her. The badge on her white shirt told him her name was Mey. It had been his mother’s name.

  ‘So what do you expect me to do?’ Morel asked.

  ‘I expect you to find out who did it. If we leave it up to those monkeys in Phnom Penh who call themselves police officers, the investigation is doomed before it’s even started. And don’t try to tell me they know how to do their job and they can handle it. I know what it’s like there.’

  Morel smiled in exasperation. After a moment’s silence,
Perrin spoke again, sounding distinctly grumpy.

  ‘Well? Can I count on you then? Antoine Nizet is the cop at our embassy there. He’ll be able to help you with anything you need. The locals know we’re getting involved. None of it is official, of course,’ Perrin said, in a self-important tone that made Morel roll his eyes, ‘but let’s just say that talks have taken place at the highest level to ensure that we have full access to everything they get their hands on. My guess is they’ll be welcoming you with open arms. You shouldn’t have any trouble,’ Perrin added. ‘If you do, though, let me know and I’ll knock a few heads about.’

  ‘You are aware that I am on leave?’

  ‘I know and I’m sorry,’ Perrin said, sounding cheerful. ‘It can’t be helped. No one can do this job better than you. After all, Phnom Penh is your second home, right? You know the place, you know the language. You’re bloody perfect for it. You can take a break as soon as this is done.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Don’t bloody hmm me. What are you going to do, Morel, once you get off the phone?’

  ‘I’ll go climb a few trees and see what I come up with.’

  ‘What?’ Perrin barked.

  ‘Well,’ Morel said, ‘isn’t that where monkeys can generally be found?’

  After he hung up, he thanked the girl. She made no attempt to hide her curiosity.

  ‘Not bad news, I hope?’ she said. Her waist was so small, he’d likely be able to circle it with his hands. She looked exactly as she had in the morning, with no indication that she’d been on her feet for the past ten hours.

  ‘It is, I’m afraid.’ Morel picked up a foldout map of Siem Reap from the counter and absent-mindedly began fanning himself with it. ‘It looks like my holiday is over.’