The Returned (17 page)

The pub wasn’t open yet, but the front door was unlocked so she walked in. There was a guy she hadn’t seen before sitting at the bar.

‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘Is Toni here?’

The man jumped. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

He looked in his mid-twenties. A little rough around the edges, but in a good way. She threw him a smile. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.’

‘No, it’s fine,’ he said, smiling back, but his smile was awkward. Shy, Léna thought. Shy, but cute. ‘I’m his brother. Serge.’

‘I didn’t know he had a brother. You don’t look alike.’ By which she meant:
You’re not two metres tall and built like an overweight tank.
But she liked
Toni enough not to voice that.

There was a yell from the back of the pub. Toni’s voice. ‘Shit.
Shit
.’

‘He sounds happy,’ said Léna. She nodded farewell to Serge and headed to the source of the voice: the toilets.

‘It stinks in here,’ she said. All the sinks were blocked, filled with murky water. On cue, one bubbled.

Toni was on the floor in one of the cubicles. The toilet bowl, like the sinks, was full, and Toni was mopping up the overspill. He looked up at her. ‘Hey, Léna,’ he said,
sounding defeated. ‘Don’t get too close. I don’t know what’s wrong. The plumber can’t come until tomorrow, says there are problems all over the place. Maybe the sewers
are blocked, but I hope not.’

‘Whoa, Toni. Don’t tell me you’re not going to open up?’

‘We’ll open on time,’ he said. ‘Fingers crossed. We have the disabled toilet working still, somehow. For now. At least it’ll not be a busy night, huh? There’d
be one hell of a queue.’

Léna nodded. ‘Yeah, good luck,’ she said, then moved things on to the reason she’d come. ‘Toni, remember that strange guy who came in yesterday? Dark hair. I was
talking to him.’

He shrugged. ‘Vaguely.’

‘Do you know him? Had you seen him before?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘You sure? Any idea where he lives?’

The toilet bowl bubbled, effluent sloshing onto the floor with a stench that made Léna retch.

‘Shit shit
shit
,’ yelled Toni, and Léna wondered if he was swearing or just describing what was bubbling up around him. He looked at her with eyes that had just had
enough
. ‘I don’t know, OK?’ he snapped.

‘Calm down. Just tell me if he comes back?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Oh, and Toni,’ she said, smiling. ‘You never said you had a brother.’ She winked. For whatever reason, Toni looked horrified.

With no luck at the pub, Léna went round to Adèle Werther’s house and waited a while. The pub wasn’t due to open for another hour – plumbing
disasters aside – and with the only option being to head back home she was in no hurry. She sat and thought about Frédéric and Camille. About the promise she’d made to her
sister. The promise she’d broken.

Adèle turned out to be a dead end too. She didn’t seem to know who Léna was talking about, and she’d acted a little odd. Other stuff on her mind, Léna
supposed.

Léna thought about heading over to Frédéric’s house, then decided against it. By the time she got back to the Lake Pub, it had been open for half an hour. Toni had
pulled off a miracle, it seemed; there was no hint of the stink, although every door and window was wide open and the air was full of a mixture of harsh artificial scents.

‘Your brother not around, Toni?’ she asked.

Toni gave her a strange look before he answered. ‘Other things to do,’ he said. He sounded odd too, just like Adèle.

Everyone
was fucking odd today, Léna thought. ‘Toilets good to go then?’

At least that got a wry smile from him. ‘No, but they’ve stopped backing up. I got the ladies’ cleaned, but the gents’ is a disaster area. I’ve sealed it
off.’

‘Like a crime scene,’ joked Léna, but what little sense of humour Toni had seemed to desert him. His smile vanished.

‘I’ve put an out-of-order sign on them both until the plumber finally gets a look,’ he said. ‘We still have one working toilet, so we’ll play it safe. But like I
told you, expect queues.’

She sat and drank slow beers, fending off friends, especially Frédéric. Right now she just wanted some time to try and sort out her head. Frédéric, for all his good
points, was a distraction she didn’t need.

‘Coming out for a smoke?’ he asked.

‘I don’t want company,’ she said. ‘Just leave me in peace, OK?’

‘What’s up? Is it because of your dad?’

‘Leave me alone for a bit, huh?’ she said. ‘I’m just not in the mood.’

He got the message and left her to it, going outside alone for his cigarette. Five minutes later, Léna’s blood froze. Frédéric was coming back in, and who was trailing
behind him?

Camille. In new clothes, made-up with lips the colour of blood, and a knowing grin on her face.

‘So you were hiding your cousin?’ said Frédéric, teasing.

She shot Camille a look.
What the fuck?

‘Hi, Léna,’ said Camille, acting oblivious. ‘You were right about this place. It’s great!’

Camille leaned close enough to whisper in Léna’s ear: ‘I’m Alice. Your cousin. Simple, huh?’

It deserved another harsh look, and Léna gave it. Fuck, it wasn’t just that Camille was out in public, a huge risk for them all. It was that she was
here
, the one place
that Léna could call her own. Somewhere to get a little space, a little peace, and now
she
swanned in as if everything was completely normal . . .

‘What would you like?’ asked Frédéric.

‘Same as you,’ said Camille.

‘You two look so similar,’ he said, gazing at Camille intently. ‘You know, when I first saw Alice, I thought, well, Christ . . .’

‘Tell me,’ said Léna, unable to keep the anger from her voice. ‘
What
did you think?’

Frédéric shrugged.

Léna turned to Camille. ‘Do my parents know you’re here,
Alice
?’ she said.

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Like hell. They wouldn’t let you out. You’re only fifteen.’

‘You’re fifteen?’ said Frédéric.

Léna wondered if the disappointment she heard in his voice was really there, or if she was just thinking the worst of him. ‘I think you should go home, Alice,’ she said.
Camille was staring daggers at her.

‘Or what?’ she asked.

‘Or I’ll call and tell them to come and get you.’

‘Come on, Léna,’ said Frédéric, trying to diffuse the situation. ‘Give her a break.’

‘You stay out of this, OK?’ said Léna. She gave him a look that immediately shut him up.

‘You want me to go?’ said Camille. ‘Want me to leave you and the
boys
in peace?’

‘Exactly.’

They tried to stare each other down, but it was Camille who finally backed off. She stormed out. Léna saw the upset on Camille’s face, and she couldn’t help but feel guilty.
But fuck her, really, she thought – it had been Camille’s stupid idea to come here, so she had nobody to blame but herself.

Frédéric looked at Léna, exasperated. ‘What’s your problem with her?’

Léna couldn’t talk to him. Where the hell would she even begin? She stood and went to the ladies’ loos, ignoring the out-of-order sign. It was empty and clean, that was all
she wanted. She looked at herself in the mirror.

Frédéric trailed in behind her, unwilling to let it go. ‘What’s going on?’ he said. ‘Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?’

She burst into tears: sudden, brief – she didn’t know whether it was rage or misery that caused them. Then she put her hands on Frédéric’s neck and pulled him
close, kissing him hard. She pushed him away again and they looked at each other, a deep need in their eyes. Then they were kissing, kissing, and she was pulling at his shirt, hunting for the
buckle on his belt, undoing it, wanting him with a desperation that bordered on pain. Anything, anything to make her feel normal again, just for a while.

Frédéric was equally frantic. He unbuttoned her shirt and pulled it off. He lifted her onto the sink unit; then, suddenly, he stopped.

‘What?’ said Léna.

‘What’s that?’ he said, looking at the reflection of her back in the mirror behind her. She turned to see. The wound on her back had grown. Reddened, weeping, it was at least
ten centimetres long, running down her spine.

She pushed him away. Before he could touch her again, she did up her clothes and ran, leaving a confused Frédéric staring after her.

Pierre was arranging additional supplies for the basement storeroom;
specialist
supplies, of the type that could arouse the interest of the police if he wasn’t
careful. It was necessary, but he felt uneasy about dealing with the kind of people who arranged these things. The medical supplies had been relatively easy, but defence was a different matter
– and the Helping Hand needed to be able to defend itself, if it became the refuge Pierre thought it might.

He looked up and saw Simon through the window, walking up the road to the Helping Hand. He smiled to himself. He hadn’t been certain that the young man would turn up, but he realized that
he should have had faith. He vowed that his faith would be total from now on. He went out to meet him. ‘You found us OK?’ he said, smiling. Simon still had that expression of distrust,
but Pierre hoped there was a hint that it was thawing.

‘Yeah,’ said Simon. ‘I decided I might stay for a few days after all. I’m sorry if I seemed ungrateful before.’

‘That’s fine,’ said Pierre. ‘I’m sure you had your reasons to go, but I won’t pry.’

Simon looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘I had some things to think about,’ he said. ‘Some things to come to terms with.’

‘But you’re here now,’ said Pierre. He took Simon’s hand, shook it firmly, and gestured towards the main building. Pierre was proud of it, even if the paint was starting
to peel here and there. It had been his persistence that had led to the church and the town hall funding its construction, fifteen years ago. The outbuildings nearby were older, and had been left
as they were. They sufficed, and had meant that the budget for the work could be spent on some of the more unusual elements Pierre had insisted on. The sturdy metal window shutters that could be
deployed as protection, for example. ‘Welcome to our little refuge!’ he said. ‘Follow me. I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping.’

As they walked towards the entrance, Pierre was certain the skin of his fingers was tingling where he’d touched Simon. Some kind of harbinger, Pierre knew. Some kind of
herald
.
Simon and Camille must be the messengers of God’s will, and he didn’t think God would mind the pride he was feeling, now – that Pierre Tissier, of all people, should be chosen to
help them. He thought of the captain’s warning for him to contact the police if Simon should reappear. A laughable idea.

They went inside. The dormitory was low-ceilinged but long, with sixteen simple beds. ‘Here we are,’ said Pierre. ‘Any bed you like. They may not look that comfortable, but
appearances are often deceptive. You’ll sleep well.’

‘It looks fine,’ said Simon. His eyes drifted up to look above the door, to the carved crucifix that had once hung in the vestry of the old village church, the church that had been
drowned when the dam collapsed. Pierre had been there in the aftermath. It had changed him, of course. He had started that year on a precipice, involved with evil men for whom crime was a calling.
Pierre had little to offer the world, and had thought such a life might be his calling, too. And then one Sunday morning, the dam had failed.

The mournful wail of the sirens had filled the town, and fear gripped everyone as they heard the sound of distant collapse, the roar as the lake broke free. Panic, people running to high ground,
thinking first of themselves as the weak struggled.

Pierre’s first instinct, too, had been to protect himself; the urge to help slowly crept up on him as he saw the need others had.

By the time the water reached the town it was a spent force, a slow river carrying with it debris that told of horrors elsewhere. As one, the people around him looked towards the old dam far
upstream, wreathed in impenetrable mist, and their thoughts were the same:
the village
.

It took twelve hours before any kind of outside help was to reach the area; until then it was the volunteers from the town who braved their way up treacherous roads, Pierre foremost among them.
They waded through deep, cold mud that threatened to suck them down with every step. Pierre saw two men lose their lives that day, trying to help others. He had been the first to enter the ruined
church; he came out in tears, with a fierce grip on that crucifix. Forty had died in the church alone, trapped and drowned in the building that was now a tomb.

The dead were everywhere.

They found fifteen villagers alive. Ten of those died from their injuries before they could be taken to safety. Five survivors, in all. Five who would have perished, if the volunteers had not
come.

Many would lose their faith because of such appalling loss, but Pierre emerged with a determination. He had been a part of the darkness in the world for so long, and now he would
fight
the darkness.

Yet the worst was still to come. Driven by his new determination, he had been involved in committing a sin that overshadowed all that came before, a sin that took him to the brink of total
despair. His greatest misstep of all, a terrible crime born of the disaster itself. Born of the anger that followed it.

But God’s plan, weaving and complex, was always at work.

For while the collapse of the dam had shown him it was time to become a better man, it was only once he had fallen completely that he could start to rise. To let the old Pierre die, and the new
be born.

‘Rebirth,’ he found himself saying.

Simon looked at him, puzzled.

Pierre looked back up at the crucifix. ‘Do you believe in God?’

‘Not really, no.’

Pierre smiled knowingly. ‘But you believe in resurrection, don’t you? I know I do.’

Simon looked at Pierre with narrowed eyes.
He understands
, thought Pierre.
He understands that I know
.