The Front Seat Passenger (2 page)

Second message: ‘Sylvie? … It’s me, Laure, Sylvie! … Where are you? … Are you in the loo? Well, anyway, you’re not there. Listen, since it’s Saturday evening and you said Fabien was away this weekend, I’d really like to go to a movie, so if you want to, it’s six o’clock now. See you later. Love you.’

Third message: ‘This is an urgent message for Monsieur Fabien Delorme. Could you please ring Dijon University Hospital? Your wife has been in a serious road accident. The number to contact us on is …’

He played the tape three times. Three times he heard Gilles snivelling about being on his own, Laure repeating her invitation and Dijon Hospital giving out their number, which he eventually wrote down on the corner of an envelope. He didn’t for one moment think it was a joke or a case of mistaken identity. He didn’t call straightaway. His first reaction was to light a cigarette and go and smoke it naked by the open window. He had no idea what on earth she could have been doing in a car in Dijon, but he was certain of one thing, Sylvie was dead – it was as certain as the wind now ruffling the hair of his balls. He flicked his cigarette butt down five floors onto the roof of a black Twingo.

‘Shit … I’m a widower now, a different person. What should I wear?’

Ever since the train had left the Gare de Lyon, a little Attila had been climbing all over his mother, pulling her hair and wiping his horrible chubby, sticky little hands on the knees of the other passengers. Fabien was not the least interested in the rapeseed-yellow, apple-green and boring blue countryside passing before his eyes. Sometimes in the tunnels he came face to face with his own reflection, like two rams ready to charge at each other.

They had never had children. To Fabien children were just receptacles that you constantly had to empty and fill. They clung to you for years, and as soon as they took themselves adults, they reproduced and ruined your holidays with their offspring. And Sylvie could barely stand her best friends’ children for more than an hour. If they ever had one of them over, as soon as they were gone, she cleaned and vacuumed to erase all traces of their
presence, then sank onto the sofa, sighing, ‘That kid is such hard work.’

They were only interested in each other. Their love was the only thing that counted and they indulged it like an only child, until they smothered it. Today, Fabien realised how obnoxious their happiness had made them to other people. It was a real provocation. Little by little they had created a void around themselves. No one invited them out any more. They were kept at a distance, a bit like the bereaved. Everyone knows that excessive happiness is as off-putting as excessive misfortune.

It was at that point that Sylvie fell pregnant. Whilst waiting for her to come out of the clinic, he went to buy flowers. It was Valentine’s Day. The abortion went smoothly. It was as if she had had a tooth removed, nothing more. But something else must have grown in its place, something that didn’t like Fabien, because from that day on they didn’t make love any more. Well, that’s to say, only very rarely, after a drunken party or instead of playing Scrabble on one of those interminable February Sundays.

The annoying brat finally earned himself a smack on the bottom, whereupon he let out such a high-pitched wailing that the poor woman was obliged to drag him into the corridor by his arm. Not easy to raise a child on your own. It was obvious to Fabien that she was a single mother. He could always spot them. The way they and their child behaved like an old married couple, that mania for apologising for everything, and the way they let themselves go. Lank hair, no make-up, leggings bagging at the knee. The beautifying effect of motherhood? Hardly! It was no
surprise that they found themselves dumped. Although the lot of their nonexistent partners wasn’t any more enviable – washing their socks in the basin, handing over the child support, eating out of tins. This was the liberated generation …

Three minutes’ stop at Dijon station. That was probably the amount of time he would have devoted to the city had he not had to go to the hospital. The succession of picture postcards going past the taxi window did not resonate with him. Pictures for a Chabrol film: restaurants, lawyers’ offices, more restaurants. He agreed with the taxi driver that it was all the same, whether on the left or on the right. He always agreed with taxi drivers, barbers, butchers, whoever he happened to be speaking to, and that was probably how he had survived.

At reception they asked him to wait a moment and someone would come and get him. He sat down on one of the moulded red plastic chairs that lined the bilious green walls. If he were ill, what he would find most humiliating would be hanging around the corridors in pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers. He found that as repulsive as the leggings and trainers combination favoured by the young, or the intolerable shorts and baseball cap outfit of American tourists. ‘All this time ahead of us, we might as well be comfortable. The Adidas view of eternity.’ After much reflection he had opted for smart casual – tweed jacket over a cashmere jumper, grey trousers and polished oxblood brogues. The man who was coming towards him wore a crumpled poor-quality beige suit and did not look like a doctor.

‘Inspector Forlani.’

‘Gérard,’ added Fabien, reading the name from the man’s identity bracelet.

Forlani came out with a tangled explanation from which the word ‘sorry’ buzzed like a fly. It must be terrible to do a job that made you say ‘sorry’ so many times. He would certainly not last long in the police. Fabien wanted to ask him if he liked his work, but he told himself it wasn’t the time and, anyway, the policeman wasn’t giving him the chance.

‘If you wouldn’t mind following me to the morgue. I’m so sorry …’

The inspector walked the way he talked, in hurried little bursts, throwing anxious glances over his shoulder, as if he feared Fabien would try to escape. The brown paper case from a cream cake was stuck to his left heel. It reminded Fabien of one of those paper fishes from April Fool’s Day.

‘Monsieur Forlani?’

‘Yes?’

‘You’ve got a cake paper stuck to your left shoe.’

‘A what?’

‘A paper stuck to your shoe.’

‘Oh, thank you.’

Hopping on one foot, he removed the paper from the other shoe, looked around for a waste-paper basket, then crumpled the paper in his hand and put it in his pocket with a shrug of the shoulders.

They passed several canteen trolleys pushed by bored-looking West Indians. Fabien wondered what he would have for lunch; he was hungry. The morgue was right at the other end of the hospital, near the bins. Forlani turned back to Fabien and paused for a moment. ‘Here it is.’

He sounded so serious that Fabien couldn’t suppress the
beginnings of a smile. The inspector was like a dwarf on tiptoes. As he pushed open the door, they had to stand aside to let two women pass, one young, the other a bit older, both very pale. The room was reminiscent of an office canteen – vast, with white tiles, glass and chrome. Forlani spoke to two men in short white coats. They glanced briefly at Fabien and pulled the handle of a sort of drawer. Sylvie slid out of the wall.

‘Is this your wife?’

‘Yes and no. It’s the first time I’ve seen her dead. I mean, the first time I’ve seen a dead body. It’s not at all like a living person.’

Forlani and the men in white coats exchanged looks of astonishement.

‘It’s very important, Monsieur Delorme. Do you recognise your wife?’

Of course he recognised Sylvie, but not the smile fixed on her face.

‘Yes, yes, it’s her.’

‘Right. Do you know what her final wishes were?’

‘Her final wishes?’

‘Yes, whether she wanted to be buried or cremated?’

‘I’ve no idea … I imagine like everyone she didn’t want to die at all.’

‘OK, we’ll sort that out later then. Don’t worry, we’ll look after everything.’

‘I’m not worried. I trust you. It’s my first time; I don’t know what to do.’

‘We understand, Monsieur Delorme, we understand. If you’d like to follow me, I have some questions to ask you.’

They went back the way they’d come, still at the jerky pace of
the inspector. Fabien felt as if he were watching a film in reverse. Had they not stopped by the coffee machine, he could have gone back in time to before his visit to his father, and found Sylvie fresh and elegant. He wouldn’t have been surprised. Since the previous evening, nothing much surprised him.

‘Sugar?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘So, Monsieur Delorme, you weren’t aware your wife was in the area?’

‘No, she didn’t tell me she was coming here. I thought she would be at home.’

‘In Paris, 28 Rue Lamarck?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Monsieur Delorme, where were you this weekend?’

‘I was visiting my father in Ferranville, in Normandy. I helped him clear out his attic. There was a car-boot sale.’

‘You went on Friday and came back on Sunday evening?’

‘Yes.’

‘You had no idea your wife had come to Dijon?’

‘No, we don’t know anyone here. At least, I don’t.’

Forlani was taking notes in a brand-new 12.50-franc notebook, the price sticker still on it. The cap on his biro was chewed and the stem bent outwards so that he could bounce it on the edge of the table as he was thinking. What was it he was not saying?

‘Monsieur Delorme, do you know if your wife was having an affair?’

‘An affair?’

‘Whether she had a lover?’

‘A lover? What’s that got to do with it?’

‘Your wife wasn’t alone in the car.’

‘Ah.’

‘She was with a man who also died in the accident.’

‘But just because he was in the car with her doesn’t necessarily mean …’

‘Of course not, Monsieur Delorme, but the evening before they went to an inn where they were well known because they’d been there several times. Le Petit Chez-Soi. Have you heard of it?’

‘Le Petit Chez-Soi? No. That’s a horrible name, don’t you think?’

Clearly Forlani had no opinion about the name. He simply made a face as he waved his biro like a rattle.

‘I bet they have lamps made from wine bottles with tartan lampshades.’

‘I couldn’t say, Monsieur Delorme. Perhaps, perhaps they do … Tell me, do you have a car?’

‘No, I don’t drive.’

‘Do you mean that you don’t have a driving licence?’

‘That’s right. I hate cars. With good reason now, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Yes, indeed … In that case I won’t detain you much longer.’

‘Before I go, I’d like to know a bit more about how the accident happened.’

‘Of course. Well, it was on Saturday evening, about eleven thirty, dry, straight road, at the bottom of a hill. The car must have been going quite fast. It crashed into the security barrier on the right and fell into a ravine. Your wife and the man who was driving were coming back from a restaurant in Dijon, but they
hadn’t drunk much. Perhaps the driver was taken ill, or perhaps he had to swerve to avoid an oncoming vehicle? There were tyre tracks from another car. They’re being investigated.’

‘What was he called, my wife’s … lover?’

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘Perhaps I know him; affairs often develop between friends. And also, we’re sort of related now.’

‘I can’t tell you, Monsieur Delorme. The man is also married.’

‘To one of the women we passed as we went into the morgue?’

‘Well … yes. You should go home now, Monsieur Delorme. We’ll keep you informed.’

‘You’re right … Oh, sorry, I’m so clumsy!’ He had just spilt the remains of his coffee in the inspector’s lap. The inspector rushed off to the toilets, leaving his brand-new notebook and chewed pen behind on the low table.

His wife’s lover was called Martial Arnoult and his wife was Martine, residing at number 45 Rue Charlot, in the third arrondissement in Paris.

Martine Arnoult, 45 Rue Charlot. Paris, 3rd arrdt
. The first thing he did when he got home was to note the name and address on the white board in the kitchen underneath
brown shoe polish, batteries (4), pay electricity bill
. He didn’t really know what he would do with it. Probably nothing. He had just collected the information like picking up a stone on a beach. The kind of thing you chucked in the bin when you got back from holiday. Then he had slept straight through for fifteen or sixteen hours.

But tomorrow wasn’t another day. Sylvie was still dead. In the street and in the supermarket, everyone continued with their lives as if nothing had happened. A warm summer was forecast, the cashier’s sister had just had a little girl. Someone dropped a bottle of oil.

Fabien bought the brown polish, the batteries, eggs and some strong chorizo. He would do the cheque for the electricity as
soon as he got home. Hello, goodbye, everything was incredibly normal. He was torn between the desire to shout out, ‘Hey! Don’t you know? Sylvie is dead; I’m a widower!’ and the bitter pleasure of being in possession of a secret: ‘I know something that you don’t and I’m not going to tell you what it is.’

In the flat, Sylvie’s presence could still be felt everywhere. It was not just because of the familiar objects dotted about, but it also felt as if she had left behind a little part of herself in every molecule of air she had breathed. It was like watching invisible hands on the keyboard of a pianola. Fabien fried himself two eggs, with onions, tomato and chorizo. That was what he always cooked when he ate on his own. Sylvie couldn’t bear strong chorizo. He loved it and could happily have eaten it for lunch and dinner every day for the rest of his life. Now his delight in it was ruined.

He went over in his head all the household tasks and other duties that he had never undertaken and quickly felt overwhelmed. He poured a large Scotch to make himself feel better. But it wasn’t just the tasks. It was the loss of all their little routines – evenings in front of the telly, going to the market on Saturday morning, family birthdays, trips to the museum. In short, everything he had detested up until the day before yesterday. This revelation had a strange effect on him; he was even going to miss their petty little squabbles. He helped himself to another glass, fuller than the first one. He hadn’t thought of what he would miss. Until now he had considered widowhood a sort of honorary bonus, like a rosette to pin on his lapel. Of course, it had been a long time since they had been in love, but he hadn’t hated Sylvie; there had been a sort of tender complicity between them.