The Snakes Page 17

  ‘That’s better,’ said Griff, breathing deeply.

  ‘Yes,’ said Dan, his anxiety receding under the sedative of comfort. He had been wrong, it wasn’t strange to be here after the day they’d had. It was the perfect place to be.

  ‘Funny, what shock does to the brain,’ said Griff.

  Dan waited for him to elaborate.

  ‘Some things seem important, and then – others.’ He gestured, a disappearing into the air. ‘D’you know what I mean?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘You poor bastard.’

  Dan’s mind went blank. He couldn’t think what Griff meant.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Griff asked.

  ‘… Yeah?’

  ‘I suppose you’re used to it.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Police stations,’ said Griff.

  Dan began to laugh, but stopped himself. He didn’t like to offend, Griff meant well. Then he wondered why he was worrying about offending Griff, when he was the one who should be offended.

  ‘No, not really,’ he said. ‘And we were all in there.’

  ‘Not as long as you.’

  ‘They couldn’t find me an interpreter,’ said Dan. ‘They had to call the university.’

  Griff wasn’t listening. ‘How’s she doing?’

  ‘Bea?’

  ‘Obviously.’

  It was touching he asked. Fatherly, Dan thought, surprised, feeling a strong need to confide in him.

  ‘A lot of the time she’s just, like, normal,’ said Dan. ‘You can’t think about it all the time.’

  ‘It’s too much,’ said Griff. It didn’t usually show that he was in his seventies. It did now, in the visible working of his mind. His face was mobile. He rubbed his eyes. ‘Roche says a post-mortem – autopsy, whatever you call it – is a fairly standard thing. He says they wouldn’t have the full results yet, but they must know the cause of death.’

  ‘But they haven’t told you?’

  ‘No. They haven’t. It’s bad enough’, said Griff tightly, ‘without being kept in the dark.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  Bea always said her father’s generation didn’t have the language to express emotion. Dan put it differently: they were tough old bastards. It was not unenviable.

  ‘What do you think happened?’ he asked carefully.

  Griff seemed irritated. ‘How do I know? But Roche thinks the whole thing could get quite long and drawn out. We won’t be able to have a funeral. That’s what Liv can’t stand. One of the things.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Dan again, at a loss to imagine how either of them must feel. He had seen parents grieve the death of children twice before. For something people called ‘unthinkable’, it seemed to happen a lot. The first was a younger cousin who had drowned, and the second a school friend who had been knifed. Dan knew the best thing was to keep quiet. There was nothing to say.

  ‘Fucking French!’ said Griff, out of nowhere. There was rage in his small, gleaming eyes and gathering in his voice. ‘Today was outrageous. I recorded everything. I won’t stand for it.’

  ‘You recorded it?’

  ‘I record all my meetings.’ He tapped his pocket. ‘Inappropriate questions. Personal insinuations. Badgering. We’re going to sort them out.’

  Dan believed him. ‘Good.’

  ‘And I just don’t want to get involved.’

  ‘Involved?’

  ‘Everyone gets into it, don’t they? The authorities.’ He said the word with contempt. ‘This will just bring them all out again, like flies on shit. Government agencies. The fucking press. Whomever. They’re all connected. Delving into my affairs. They’re like sharks. Vibrations in the water, see?’ He held up his hand, fingers shaking to demonstrate. ‘And they all come round. I do too well for myself one year – vibration in the water. Alex goes into the Priory, vibration in the water. Round they come. Circling. Seeing what they can take. You saw it today in the paper. They smell blood or money, and they come after you.’

  Dan didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Look,’ said Griff, ‘I’m retired, virtually. I’ve got about half the money I used to. Less than. I’m downsizing. Sold off a lot of property. I’m old news. What do they want with me?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Dan, transfixed.

  ‘I just want some peace,’ said Griff. ‘I just want to feel safe, and secure, and have my family feel safe and secure. That’s all I want.’

  ‘I understand.’

  Griff had relieved himself of a burden. He softened. Tiredly, he looked around, and Dan, looking with him, seemed to see what he saw, feel as he felt; protective of this precious world. Griff turned back to him, and looked directly into his eyes.

  ‘You know I’ve got nothing to hide,’ he said.

  ‘No. Sure,’ said Dan uncomfortably.

  He looked away from the old man’s face across the terrace, and, like a divine intervention, there was Bea. She was being trailed by the same waiter who’d escorted him. In her shapeless cotton skirt, T-shirt and flat shoes, she was markedly worse dressed than anybody else. She looked for him and their eyes met. They were the youngest people there. And the poorest. They were easy to spot. She smiled at him, and it felt as though she were taking his hand. She was an anchor chain, pulling him from the deep, the trail of humble crumbs that would take him home.

  ‘Hurrah,’ said Griff, ‘there’s St Bea. We can eat.’

  Bea hadn’t seen her mother and the two lawyers sitting silently at the big table, she just saw Dan. He came towards her and she kissed him.

  ‘Still smelly?’ he said.

  ‘Not so much.’ They sat down next to each other, with Roche on her other side. ‘I hate him summoning us like this,’ she whispered, ‘it’s just medieval, and my mother is completely high.’

  ‘Poor lady,’ Dan whispered back. ‘Maybe being here will take everyone’s mind off things,’ he said. ‘It’s gorgeous.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Bea, because he meant well. The hotel wasn’t gorgeous, it was probably a Relais & Châteaux. She imagined the upstairs; patterned carpets in the corridors. Pillow menus. Dan wasn’t to know it was trying to be something it wasn’t, like the recorded string quartet playing classical hits on a loop, and everybody staring at everyone else as if there were movie stars wandering about, instead of just retirees on wine tours. Their waiter came to the table and Bea smiled at him, to make up for her nasty thoughts.

  He stood over Liv with his silver pen poised.

  ‘Liv?’ said Griff.

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ said Liv.

  Bea felt hatred. She didn’t care about the pretentious hotel, or Griff using his money to swab the blood, it wasn’t those things that were making her like this, it was Liv. She turned away to focus on the terrace. Lavender in pots. Shoes. When that didn’t work, she looked up, and tried to find a moon.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ said Liv, loudly, to Griff. She gestured wildly and the waiter had to step back to avoid her jerking hands.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ snapped Griff. ‘I hate room service, it stinks up the place.’

  People turned to look. He and Liv drew attention, a combination of personal power and money; one lent force to the other, the result was magnetism.

  ‘Why don’t you order, Liv?’

  ‘No.’ Liv’s reedy voice was a counterpoint. ‘You’re incredible. How can you?’

  The waiter, caught between them, pretended to be deaf.

  ‘Roche!’ barked Griff. ‘What will you have?’

  The waiter scuttled to Roche’s side, but Roche, who had been looking at the menu for half an hour, panicked.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Griff, ‘hasn’t anybody made up their minds? Bea? Dan?’

  ‘I’ll have a steak,’ said Dan promptly. He hadn’t understood the menu but he’d had time to think.

  ‘How d’you want it cooked?’ prompted Griff before the waiter could ask. ‘Come on!’
>
  ‘I’m going up.’ Liv pushed back her chair. ‘Griff. Key.’

  ‘Wait!’ commanded Griff.

  Bea could feel the whole restaurant watching them. It was like her childhood, the awful discomfort of being visible when her natural state was to observe.

  ‘Dan!’ barked Griff. ‘Your steak?’

  ‘Just give me the key,’ said Liv, getting up unsteadily, with that blind look she had, demonstrating her pain.

  ‘Medium?’ said Dan.

  ‘Right!’ boomed Griff. ‘Good. Getting somewhere. Does anyone want anything to start?’ He looked around the awkward faces.

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Liv, holding the back of her chair.

  Dan, thinking she was going to fall, jumped up, and pushed past Bea to steady her.

  Instantly, she fell into his arms, and pressed her cheek against his chest. She was light and feeble, and he had to hold her up.

  Bea stared at the sight of her mother in her husband’s arms. Everybody stared, even the waiter. Had there been a photograph taken, the waiter would have been in it, gawping like a single man who had stumbled onto a dance floor full of couples. Griff was the first to turn away.

  ‘Philip?’ he said, as if nothing was happening. ‘I’m picking up the bill,’ he laughed, to cover his fury. ‘Can we – just – get on with it? Please.’

  ‘I –’ Philip flicked through the menu with quivering fingers. ‘I’ll have some fish. The bouillabaisse,’ he said.

  Tenderly, Dan helped Liv into her chair. She gripped his hand in thanks. He took his seat and turned to check on Bea; her face was still.

  ‘Bea?’ said Griff. ‘What will you have?’

  ‘I’ll have a herb omelette and a salad, please.’ She said, automatically.

  Dan thought it was the first time he’d ever seen her in these surroundings, and was disturbed how much it felt like her natural habitat. Only a girl born with a silver spoon in her mouth would show her disapproval of luxury by ordering off-menu.

  ‘No hair shirts on the specials?’ said Griff.

  Dan laughed. He stifled it immediately, but felt Bea’s eyes on him.

  ‘Great! How difficult was that?’ Griff looked at the waiter. ‘And a steak for me. Medium rare, but not too rare. Not bloody. All right? And some chips. And something green for the table. Whatever. Thanks.’

  ‘I’ll have the same,’ said Arun, unobtrusive.

  ‘Will that be everything?’ said the waiter, too scared to leave.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ said Bea, and smiled.

  The waiter escaped, gratefully. The strangers at the other tables turned back to their own affairs. Griff looked around at his companions as if he were inspecting disappointing troops.

  ‘If we don’t do normal things, it makes it worse,’ he said.

  ‘It can’t be worse,’ said Liv flatly.

  ‘Do you think it’s easy for me?’ Griff snapped.

  ‘May I say something?’ asked Arun, his clean tenor rolling out to reach them, at the perfect pitch. ‘If I may?’ he smiled.

  Arun had lived in England nearly all his life, his Indian origins were barely detectible in his public-school speech, except for the extreme accuracy of his locution, and a certain, particular kindliness.

  ‘I can’t imagine what you’re going through,’ he said, and paused. ‘Truly. I can’t. My oldest friends. And it would be presumptuous of me to claim I could possibly know how hard this must be. But, if you’ll permit me, I would like to say one thing.’

  Griff and Liv were captivated, both gazing on him as though he were bringing them a present.

  ‘Despite these difficulties,’ he said, ‘or perhaps even, if I may, because of them, I am honoured you have asked me here. Thank you. And I promise you, I’ll do everything I can to help you. I cannot apologise enough, if I speak out of turn. And it may seem very strange to raise a glass in these circumstances. But I do. I raise my glass to you all.’ He raised his water glass and held it out to Liv, first, and then to Griff. ‘As your friend, thank you.’

  Liv picked up her glass, her bony wrist flexing. Griff raised his, and so did Dan. Everyone drank. They murmured, a kind of toast. Bea, who had always thought Arun did everything for money, found herself picking up her glass along with them. His kindness shamed her.

  ‘You should be bloody grateful, Arun,’ barked Griff, ‘on the per diem I’m paying you.’

  He, Arun and Liv laughed hugely, full of easy emotion. Bea bowed her head. Roche, the newcomer, smiled along, feeling his way.

  ‘We were two hours in there,’ said Liv. Her tears were flowing again.

  ‘We’ll sort them out,’ said Griff. ‘I said I would.’

  ‘No, we must do everything we can to help them,’ said Liv, suddenly determined. ‘The captain was really nice, I thought, and rather charming. We need to find out who knows somebody. Philip, do you know the commissioner, or somebody like that?’

  She was still slurring her words, and drank more wine, growing more vivacious and imperious. She talked on, demanding responses to disconnected ideas, mentioning diplomats she’d met, and politicians. Then she stopped, as suddenly broken as she had been suddenly commanding.

  ‘Enough,’ she said dead-eyed. She stood up.

  ‘Yes, up you go,’ said Griff, as meek as a lamb. ‘Arun?’

  Arun escorted her from the table. Dan half rose, politely, as she left, and so did Roche. They all said goodnight – except Bea. It shocked Dan that she could be so pitiless.

  When she had gone, they ate.

  ‘Mission accomplished,’ said Griff, as he pushed away his plate. ‘Down to business.’

  He hailed the waiter, raising his hand like a paddle at an auction.

  ‘Roche, come with us. Fill me in.’

  It was half past ten.

  Escorted by the night manager, Griff, Arun, Roche, Bea and Dan passed the gilded doorways of conference rooms and empty chairs. Tapestry runners crossed the polished floors to doors that opened into empty lifts.

  ‘Let’s just go,’ said Bea.

  ‘No,’ said Dan. He walked ahead, to join Griff.

  They arrived at a pair of painted doors. The night manager stepped aside. The tiny private room was airless and highly decorated with plaster and curlicues, like a millefeuille.

  ‘This’ll do,’ said Griff.

  They went inside. Bea sat down on a low, silk sofa, and Dan sat next to her.

  ‘Roche? Let’s have it,’ said Griff.

  ‘Right,’ said Roche. He opened his briefcase. ‘As you already know, we have applied for what is known as “access”. When the juge d’instruction receives the police file from the section de –’

  ‘Boring,’ Griff raised his voice a notch. ‘Speak English. Look. All I want to know is, one: what do the police know? Two: when will we get Alex back?’

  ‘If you’ll take a look at this,’ said Roche, fiddling with his iPad, ‘we at Roche, Crowe, St Johnston –’

  ‘Jesus fucking Christ, put that away!’ shouted Griff, his impatience weaponised by grief. ‘Tomorrow it will be four days since my son’s death, and all these gendarmes are doing is harassing his family. Was it an accident? Was it suicide? What happened to him?’

  Philip Roche blinked and gaped. He had two successful offices, in Paris and London. He employed fifteen people. A good proportion of his clients were grieving the recent deaths of family members, but was not used to being shouted at. Plucked from his routine at the whim of a notorious man, he’d been promised a huge fee but been paid, so far, nothing.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ pushed Griff, leaning into his face.

  ‘The French inquisitorial approach can seem personal –’

  ‘No. Shut up. Next. What happens now?’

  Roche fumbled with his iPad. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  Bea was dry-eyed with exhaustion. The chandelier glared behind her father’s head as he towered over Roche, who glanced at his briefcase like it contained a gun he c
ould not reach to defend himself.

  ‘There was definitely a hold-up, immediately after the accident,’ he said. ‘But –’

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Realistically,’ said Roche, ‘it could be weeks before our application for access comes through.’

  ‘No,’ said Griff, like training a dog.

  ‘Until then, the SR are not obliged to tell us anything.’

  ‘No. What now?’

  ‘I honestly can’t tell you.’

  ‘Wrong answer!’

  ‘When we have insight into their thinking –’

  ‘I don’t give a rat’s arse about their thinking! Are they as incompetent as this in Paris?’

  Seeking dignity, Roche got to his feet and walked up and down, clutching his iPad.

  ‘I’ve put in a request to the juge to speed up the process,’ he said. ‘I can try to speak to Capitaine Vincent’s superior –’

  Griff lost control. ‘WHAT HAPPENED TO MY SON? WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM? WHY DON’T YOU FIND OUT? WHY WON’T ANYONE TALK?’ His bass voice broke, and whistled in his throat.

  Roche, agape, didn’t answer. It was easy to forget Arun was still there. Now, he got up from his chair and touched Roche’s arm. Very quickly, he shepherded him out, and closed the door behind them both.

  Griff stood rooted, snorting like a bull but with nothing to charge at. Blood tinged with blackness swelled in his face. The door remained closed. The air was stifling. Bea got up from the sofa. She went to him. He grasped her hand, painfully.

  ‘Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,’ he said. ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered.

  ‘We were a family and now we’re not any more. We’re the wrong number. It’s all wrong. I can’t cry. I can’t.’

  He was almost a foot taller than her. Her hands were lost in the grip of his. Dan stared at the spectacle, the monstrous size of the man, the small, calm quietness of his wife, imprisoned in his hands.

  ‘It’s all right,’ whispered Bea. ‘Whatever you’re feeling.’

  ‘Don’t try your fucking therapy on me,’ Griff hissed, eyes closed.

  ‘Shut up,’ she said sweetly, ‘I’m not. Here, sit down, now.’

  Without exerting any force, she moved him. He sat down, heavily, on a yellow throne-like chair. A waiter knocked and entered.