The Books of the Dead Read online

  Or at least—since she sensed possible objections rising in her own mind—that was how she felt now, on this couch, with her legs stretched out and her head resting on a cushion. How delightful to lie still! How wonderful it was to rest somewhere soft and come to grips with her abstract thoughts …

  When Alan came into the séjour ten minutes later, she was fast asleep.

  Chapter Six

  After the revelations during her drink with LouLou, Rachel could hardly wait to have lunch with Giles. It had been her general experience that the only thing people liked better than talking about themselves was talking about other people, and having learned all about Giles and Laurent from LouLou, Rachel had high hopes that she would learn all about LouLou and Laurent from Giles. The three days until their lunch hours aligned kept her on tenterhooks.

  At last, on Friday, they met in front of the entrance to the Bibliothèque at one in the afternoon. “Where to?” She squinted against the sun and tried her ruse again. “I saw a place over on Rue Chabanais …”

  “No.” Giles jerked his head to the right. “We’ll go to Le Louvois. They have a good red.”

  Rachel trotted behind his long steps, thinking how much she disliked people who told you what you were going to do rather than asking you what you wanted to do. At least LouLou had presented Le Bijou as an alternative rather than a foregone conclusion. She reflected for a moment on the silences and suppressions demanded by undercover detective work.

  Fortunately, Le Louvois did have a good red. She forgave Giles a little.

  “Alors,” said Giles after the waiter brought their plates. “You asked about my novel.” He knifed out some of his salmon rillettes and began to spread them on a piece of bread. “Well, what can I tell you? On paper, it’s a work in progress, but in my mind it’s complete. That is”—he popped the bread into his mouth—“its purpose is complete.” Rachel waited. She knew he would tell her the purpose. “It’s going to tell the real story of what it’s like to be a man in France today. What it’s like to be given just enough to know what you deserve, but not enough to be able to achieve what you deserve.” He chewed another mouthful. “Of course, this would be too banal if expressed realistically. So I work through metaphor. The metaphor of the shell. My hero wears the shell of a lobster, an image of the crustacean extrusion that every man wears in one form or another to protect himself against life’s disappointments.”

  Oy, Rachel thought. But she nodded and smiled.

  “But enough about me and my work.” He placed his hands flat on the tablecloth and leaned back. “We should talk about you! I want to hear everything about you.”

  Rachel took a deep breath. She was going to get to use her legend. “Well, I—”

  “Just a second.” Giles held up a hand. “I’m sorry, I don’t want you to—that is, I want to—it’s very important to me that you understand something right from the start. I might have given you the impression that I’m some amateur, pecking away at a computer as a hobby. I’m not. I’m a novelist. I’m simply employed as a librarian at the moment, to support my real work.”

  “Okay.” Rachel nodded. “Well, I—”

  “Not that I use a computer. I need to be more physical. I use a typewriter. An IBM Selectric, in fact.”

  “Hmm. So I—”

  “The same kind as Hunter Thompson.” He looked at her penetratingly, then added, “And Ernest Hemingway.”

  Rachel saw that she would not be using her legend. Nor would she be learning anything about LouLou’s connection with Laurent. She was doomed to a lunch spent listening to this man offer a flood of clichéd allusions and information about himself. Well, she thought, if she could turn the flow in the right direction, she could still get something out of it. She put her elbows on the table and rested her chin in her hands, widening her eyes slightly.

  “Is it difficult, being a novelist?”

  It was almost too easy. Giles stopped, preened himself for a moment, stroked his beard thoughtfully, then said, “It isn’t simple. Art is a cruel taskmaster.”

  “And being a novelist who’s working as a librarian? Surrounded by so many books, is it hard to keep them from leaking into your own writing?”

  “Oh, no.” She could see him relaxing into the role of author explaining to acolyte. “In fact, the combination adds something. I sometimes come in early and write in the lounge, and I can feel the juxtaposition of old writing and fresh ideas giving the work a more piquant edge.”

  “Gosh!” Rachel gave a wide smile. “And what good luck being surrounded by librarians! You have a ready-made readership there in front of you.”

  Giles snapped up straight. “I don’t discuss my work with my colleagues.” His mouth was a thin line between moustache and his beard. She had hit the right nerve. She was getting somewhere!

  She filled her voice with surprise. “But I thought all writers loved an audience!”

  “No. One wants the correct audience. There’s no point in reading to those who wouldn’t understand.”

  She shook her head as if amazed at his self-control. “I don’t think I’d be able to resist sharing. I’d be tempted to leave a page or two out, just to see what they thought of it.”

  Giles was a better actor than LouLou; his face didn’t change at all. But Rachel saw his hand shake a little as he raised his glass to drink, and when he put it back down, spots of red dotted the flesh above his beard. “I would never leave my work where it could be read by just anyone. Who wants the affirmation of the ignorant?” Great line, Rachel thought. Maybe he did have talent after all.

  “Very sensible.” She grinned conspiratorially. “So you have a secret life.” She made her tone speculative, gently leading. “I wonder if any of the others do, too … Maybe LouLou is a showgirl on the weekends.”

  “No, she’s a witch on the weekends.”

  “Excuse me?” Rachel hadn’t expected to lead him there.

  “She’s a witch.” Giles shrugged. “Well, she belongs to a coven. Out in Vincennes on Monday nights. But I think all they really do is sit around talking and then cast a few spells. No child sacrifice, unfortunately.” He laughed raucously at his own joke, but then, for the first time, his face softened. “I shouldn’t laugh. I think it makes her feel strong, after—”

  After what? After what? Rachel yelled inside, but she tried to speak calmly. “After what?”

  For one terrible moment Giles looked at her closely, and she thought he was regretting his revelations. But he must have seen something in her (or wanted to be known as a source of inside knowledge, Rachel reflected later), because after that pause he just lowered his voice. “About a year ago—the novel was only in the outline stage—LouLou was assaulted while she was walking home. Near Les Halles.” He looked at her, and Rachel understood. Until its recently begun renovation, Les Halles had been one of the most notorious areas of Paris. Her face must have revealed what she was thinking, because Giles said, “She wasn’t … But it was by a man. It affected her very badly; she was very traumatized.” That explains LouLou’s drink and her posture, Rachel thought. One to seem tough, the other to avoid being noticed. “She started carrying a knife in her bag, and she took a different route home every day,” Giles shook his head. “But she had a lot of therapy, and after a while it began to help.” Rachel wondered how he knew all this, but then he said, “She and I, we used to talk. I was … we used to talk.”

  Rachel had no need to put fake emotion into her voice. “That’s terrible. It’s really awful.”

  “Oui, mais … It’s not the worst of it.” He stopped again, and again she feared he wouldn’t continue. But he did. “A few months ago, a man who used to work here, the assistant head of the department, he began to be very kind to LouLou. She was much better by then, and he, well, he started wooing her. Fils de putain. Little gifts, listening carefully when she talked, always ready to help but keeping a respectful distance. And then after a while he swore he loved her; he told her he adored her. She was afraid, of
course she was, so she denied him for a long time. But at last she gave in. And she … transformed. You could see the love shining off her.” He paused, and Rachel held her breath. What happened? “As soon as he saw that glow, he dumped her. He did it in the lounge, in front of me. Told her he’d been wrong about her, didn’t want to be with her now that he’d had some time to see what she was like. He said he found her plain and boring and too repressed.” He closed his eyes. “Enculé.” He opened them again. “After that, she—” He held up a hand and closed it into a fist. “With everyone, men and women. I try to speak to her now, and she acts like I’ve set out to injure her.” Taking a drink, he looked at Rachel. “You see? My metaphor, the shell, is well chosen.”

  Rachel watched him. Although the last comment had returned him to his usual narcissism, she could see a change in his face, a small crack in the fatuousness. “What a terrible thing to do,” she said softly. “I’m so sorry.”

  Giles shrugged. “Eh, bien, he ended up dead. In that resto you mentioned before, in fact. In a toilet stall. So one can’t say there isn’t any justice.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Wow,” said Magda. “You might have to change your opinion about his writing skills.”

  “Yeah, I might.” But Rachel was willing to bet Giles’s novel was nothing like the tale he’d told at Le Louvois. She knew his type from her creative writing workshops: their work was good only when they weren’t paying attention. For a moment she felt a little melancholy for him. Then she remembered the many times he’d cut her off during their conversation, and her sympathy evaporated.

  Magda took a sip of her smoothie. They had met in the Exki café near the Saint-Lazare train station, a short walk from Magda’s apartment. The Exkis were a recent addition to Paris, and one Rachel entirely approved of. Their food arranged in tidy rows, their bright, well-scrubbed interiors, even their tables made of some gleaming varnished wood, soothed her. In an Exki, all was orderly and even. In an Exki, the world became a manageable place.

  Magda broke her reverie. “So it was requited love in LouLou’s case. Or at least, allegedly, briefly requited love. Christ, what a shitty trick to pull.”

  “More than shitty.” Rachel shook her head. “According to Giles, Laurent destroyed her emotionally. I believe it. She certainly seems to hate men now.”

  “Okay, so she’s our prime suspect.” Magda pulled a small hardcover pad from her bag and flipped it open. POSSIBLES, she wrote, underlining it heavily. Then she wrote LOULOU in block letters on the line beneath.

  “Mmm.” Rachel squirmed.

  “No?”

  “I just feel Giles is more plausible.”

  “Did Laurent break his heart, too?”

  Although Magda was being sarcastic, Rachel took the question seriously. “In a way, yes. Being a writer is central to how writers understand themselves. Giles said it himself: he might work in a library, but as far as he’s concerned he’s an author, not a librarian. He thinks being a writer makes him special. So when Laurent showed that in fact he wasn’t a writer, or at least not a very good one, it was a huge blow.” She had a flash of insight. “And he kept the novel hidden. That suggests he already suspected it wasn’t much good, or was scared it wasn’t. And having your secret fear confirmed is even worse than simple humiliation.”

  Magda’s pen hovered over the pad, but then she put it down. “I don’t know. I don’t think that reaches the level of what Laurent did to LouLou.”

  “Well, that connects here, too. I think Giles is in love with LouLou. At the very least, he’s extremely fond of her. When he talked about her, he went all”—she wriggled again—“tender. And Laurent really did a number on LouLou. Wouldn’t you want to kill someone if they did that to me? And we’re just friends.”

  “Yes, I’d want to, but I wouldn’t.”

  Rachel felt obscurely insulted.

  Magda continued, “I just can’t see a man in this day and age killing over a woman’s honor, or over some wounded authorial pride. Whereas LouLou … she was severely psychologically damaged. It would hardly be surprising if she reacted violently.”

  “I just can’t believe that. She’s angry, but she also has some kind of residual feelings for Laurent. And we know women are less likely to be killers. Whereas a man, and an author’s amour propre … Graham Greene said there’s a splinter of ice in the heart of every writer.”

  “And someone else said hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

  They sat scowling at each other until at last Magda sighed heavily, picked up her pen, and wrote Giles’s name next to LouLou’s. Then, as if nothing had passed between them, she said, “What about Dr. Dwamena? Did you find out anything significant there?”

  “She’s mostly in her office. The only real interaction I’ve had with her was when she showed me the stacks.”

  Magda nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense. It’s going to be harder to get info on the boss. Well”—her tone became brisk—“I’ve got to go home for a Skype appointment with another supplier, so I guess that’s all for now. But things are winding down with my preparations, so next week I can start poking around for more useful information.”

  What could be more useful than on-the-ground reports about our two best and only suspects? The irritation that had popped up at Magda’s refusal to kill for her grew stronger. This wasn’t the first time Magda had suggested she was of more practical use than Rachel could be. But whereas Rachel would normally have snapped something back, this time she didn’t say anything. She was feeling a little guilty about not telling Magda she was going straight from their meeting to report to Capitaine Boussicault.

  * * *

  The capitaine listened patiently until she finished her report and flipped her notebook shut. Then he said only, “They seem to have no problem talking when it’s to a colleague.”

  “Well, not Dr. Dwamena.”

  “No, but the other two were very informative with you. Good work.”

  Rachel straightened in her chair. “Thank you.” She felt an urge to add “sir,” but held back.

  “De rien.” His expression became parental. “But remember, please, that these were unusual opportunities. You are not supposed to be seeking suspects out. You’re supposed to—”

  “—observe and report,” Rachel finished.

  He smiled. “Exactly. And even if Dwamena is less forthcoming, a lot can be learned just from observing her. What you overhear can be even more important than what you elicit.” Done with his sermon, he turned back to her report. “And you say neither Morel nor Fournier wanted to go to Chez Poule?” Rachel shook her head. “Of course, it’s hard to know if that’s significant or not, without knowing whether they used to go there when Laurent was alive. Is it bad food or bad memories that keeps them away?” He smiled at his own joke. Rachel joined him. “Well, I’m not sure it’s very important, but it might help if we knew whether their reluctance to go there only began after the murder. I’ll send Didier over on Monday to talk to the owner again. Good lead. Again.” She looked modestly down at her lap. “Right, well, I must go to a briefing about heroin dealers in Porte de la Chapelle. Feel free to contact me before next Friday if you hear anything else that seems interesting.”

  At seven in the evening the Mètro was relatively empty, and Rachel had two seats to herself. She leaned against the window. Briefly, she replayed Boussicault’s moments of approval in her head. It seemed she had a knack for police work. What’s more, Boussicault didn’t argue or dismiss her out of hand. He listened, and when he had a concern, he expressed it warmly and politely. There was something to be said for being part of a team rather than one end in an ongoing tug-of-war.

  If only she could do something to be more useful! Okay, she told herself, he’d told her again that she was only supposed to observe and report, but he’d also been as impressed by her initiative as she’d thought he would be. So why not show some more? She remembered what he’d said about sending his brigadier over to the restaurant aga
in on Monday. But he’d asked her to join the investigation because civilians wouldn’t talk to the brigadier but they would talk to her. So why didn’t she go over to Chez Poule and see what the people there would tell her? And she’d do it before Monday, which would move the investigation along faster. Besides, she pointed out to herself, she could do with getting a better sense of the scene of the crime herself. She had been too flustered to pay attention when she was there the previous time. And she knew Magda would want to see the place, too.

  She was interested in this, she realized. After all those weeks of struggling with the hymns, she had almost forgotten how it felt to do something fulfilling.

  Yet—she could never let a feeling go unanalyzed—this couldn’t really be because she was bringing justice for Guy Laurent’s lost life. She had to confess to herself that no matter what her abstract principles were, she was finding it difficult to be on fire for justice for Laurent specifically.

  Unbidden, a vision of that afternoon’s Exki café came to her. She saw its orderly counters, its bright light. She remembered her favorite supermarket, the Monoprix where the wine stood on the shelves in organized plenitude, where someone had arranged the fruit and vegetables into neat pyramids and piles. Solving a murder, she suddenly understood, was ordering the world. But it was also something more … She groped inside herself until at last she grasped what she felt. It was doing right. How often in the world did one have the chance to perform an action that was absolutely to the good, that absolutely righted a wrong? She thought of the hymns, precisely intended to offer and glorify hope in a debased world. Detection did the same, only more concretely. If successful, it was a demonstration that ugliness did not always win.