The Returned (34 page)

He thought about his friends. None that could be described as close, but he had some all the same, not just the people he worked with day to day. He was always vaguely shocked by the fact. Since
his mum had died, though, what else could he do? Talk to people. Drink with them, even. He’d moved out of the old house, into an apartment, and discovered he didn’t always mind company.
It seemed almost like blasphemy, now, that he’d sought any kind of comfort away from his family, but it was how he’d coped for the last three years.

By forging some kind of life for himself.

More whisky, he thought. Then there was knocking at the door. He walked over and unlocked it. It was the police, two of them.

‘Are you closed?’ said the first officer.

‘The power’s down,’ Toni said. ‘What else can I do? Besides, I heard about the looting.’ He watched their eyes for any reaction as he spoke. They shared a look, but
didn’t take the bait.

‘Can we come inside for a minute?’

Toni waved them through, wondering where this was going.

‘So you’re hitting the bottle?’ said the first officer, nodding towards the bar.

Toni looked across to where he’d been sitting. One glass, half-full. And the bottle beside it? Hell, wasn’t it almost empty? He hadn’t thought it would look quite so damning.
‘Not much else to do but worry,’ he said. ‘I was serious about the looting.’

The second officer nodded dismissively. ‘Yeah, yeah. We’ve had some reports. Nothing bad.’

‘Yet,’ said Toni. Grim, he walked back to his glass – might as well finish the bottle now there was so little left.

‘It’s weird, though, Toni,’ said the first officer. This was Michael, Toni thought – not exactly a regular, but a familiar enough face in the Lake Pub. ‘Everything
just feels . . . pent up. Like the town’s waiting for something to happen.’

The other one laughed. ‘Yeah, the fucking power to come back on.’

Toni shrugged. ‘I know what you mean,’ he said, and took another drink. His comment had been aimed at Michael. There
was
a feeling of something about to happen. There was
thunder in the air, his mother would have said.

‘Anyway,’ said Michael. ‘Shame you’re closed. We were hoping to be able to ask more than just you.’

‘Ask what?’

‘We have a picture of the guy who attacked your barmaid.’

Toni felt his blood freeze. Michael held up a sheet of paper. For a moment Toni was expecting a clear still from CCTV, but instead it was a photofit. ‘Look familiar?’ said Michael.
‘Lucy managed to give us a description when she woke up.’

Toni had to stop himself staring at the officer.
Woke up?
‘They told me she . . .’

‘Yeah,’ said the second policeman. ‘I heard the doctors had the same look on their faces. She pulled through.’

Toni found himself glad at the fact that Lucy was OK. She would be fine. Everything would be fine. Then he looked again at the picture the man was holding out to him.

It was Serge. Clear as day.

‘Ever seen him in the bar?’ said Michael.

‘No idea,’ said Toni, reminding himself to breathe. ‘I have a lot of customers.’

‘Put it up inside for when you get to open again,’ said Michael. ‘Call me if anyone knows him. And go easy on the alcohol.’

Toni nodded, pulse racing.

It would only be a matter of time. For all the isolation he and Serge had experienced, it had never been complete. People had known Serge. That was why the story about Paris had been necessary.
They’d noticed when he wasn’t around.

And they would notice the picture.

He waited for the police to have safely gone. He took his keys, and knew he’d had too much to drink. That he shouldn’t even consider driving.

Then he drove back up the mountain all the same.

In the bowels of the hospital the lights in the unattended morgue flickered and failed, then came back, the harsh white glinting sharply off the metal doors, their latches all
firmly closed. There was silence. Then a slow, steady pounding began, growing in intensity. One door shook and strained with each beat until at last the latch gave. The chamber door swung wide.

Simon Delaître crawled out from the cold metal slab, shielding his eyes from the light. He turned to look at where he’d come from. Icy water slopped from the chamber like afterbirth,
pooling on the floor.

Naked, he walked out of the morgue into a hallway and stumbled upon a locker room. He punched one of the locker doors, first denting it; then, with a second punch, breaking the lock open. There
were clothes inside, too small for him. He moved to the next locker, then the next; on the fifth try he was satisfied with what he found, and started to dress.

In the hospital above him, Lucy Clarsen suddenly opened her eyes and smiled. Her room was empty, for once; Alcide back at work, the doctors with more pressing demands on their time. She’d
been dreaming again – although
dream
wasn’t exactly what it had been, more a waking vision. This time she knew the dreams had meaning. It all came back to her: everything that
she’d been unable to remember since she’d first woken. Her smile grew fierce.

She got off her bed, the lights flickering and then failing again and again. She walked along the deserted corridors in her hospital gown, searching. At last she saw him, the man in borrowed
clothes.

She reached him and held out her hand.

‘Come with me,’ she said to Simon.

As she took his hand in hers, the lights across the hospital failed completely. There were cries from corridors and rooms where no natural light reached, anguish from staff whose equipment
failed them; deep in the basement there was cursing as the generators refused to restart.

The two walked calmly to the entrance and out of the hospital. And as they left, the building came to life once more.

They made their way to the Lake Pub and broke in around the back, then Lucy led the way upstairs to the room she used to live in.

‘The pub’s closed,’ said Lucy. ‘No one will find you here.’ Some of her clothes were still in the room. She looked through them and dressed. ‘Are you
hungry?’ she asked.

Simon shook his head.

‘Liar,’ she said, smiling.

‘I’ve eaten enough,’ he said. He sounded irritable. ‘I can’t stay here.’

‘What will you do? Go and see Adèle?’

Simon looked at her, astonished. ‘How did you know? Who are you?’

She stepped towards him. ‘Your guardian angel,’ she said. Then she kissed him eagerly, and he responded. She pushed him hard to the sofa, his eyes wide at the strength in her.

Each of them had as much desperate need as the other, all thoughts gone except sheer lust. Their desperation grew; she took him inside her, feral glints in their eyes. They fucked until they
both came, gripping each other fiercely. Her face calmed at last, then looked pained.

‘What is it?’ he said.

She looked at him, distraught. ‘What happened to you? Why did you want to die?’

‘I didn’t want to die,’ he said, almost pleading.

‘But I saw you do it,’ she told him. ‘
I saw you.
’

Laure got home after an exhausting shift. She had news for Julie, news which she didn’t really want to pass on.

It had been an insanely busy day. Bad enough that they’d been trying to speak to every resident in town, but they were short-staffed, some officers ringing in early to say that they were
doing what so many of the population seemed to be considering – getting out of town until the power was sorted out.

Those with no intention of going were the old, the isolated; those without family nearby, or indeed any family at all. Some of the doors that opened to her that afternoon had revealed
frightened, suspicious faces; soon enough, reports of looting had started to filter through.

Amazing how short a time it took for people to revert to that kind of behaviour, Laure thought. Cynicism was something which working on the force had a habit of nurturing, of course, but when it
came to how low people could sink, and how fast, it was hard to be cynical
enough
. Civilization was only three meals away from anarchy, wasn’t that the saying? And yes, desperation
and hunger made for a bad situation, but the reality of it was worse. All it took was the
fear
of hunger, and everything could go to pieces in an instant.

The moment she opened the door of her house and stepped inside, the thought of looters hit her square between the eyes.

Instinct
. Instinct was telling her someone else was inside. She put her hand to her gun, and took three quiet strides to her left to get a clear view of the kitchen.

Then she relaxed.

‘You scared me,’ she said.

‘I decided to take you up on your offer,’ said Julie. Beside her was Victor, tucking into a banana.

‘Good,’ said Laure. She was genuinely pleased to see them there. ‘So you kept your keys?’

Julie nodded, and Laure thought she could see a smile in Julie’s eyes. Not that Julie would have let that smile creep down and pop out on her mouth, of course, but Laure took some hope
from it.

‘Yeah,’ said Julie. ‘I don’t throw anything out. With the power down, I was cooking on the stove we used in Belfort. Remember that?’

Laure nodded. She smiled, but found herself overcome and unable to reply. It wasn’t just that Julie remembered that weekend, or even that she’d made the first real reference in seven
years to the life they’d had together. It was that Julie’s smile had actually broken through as she’d spoken.

‘Come on up,’ Laure managed to say, and she headed for the stairs.

Julie followed after her, leaving Victor eating in the kitchen. ‘You’ve redecorated,’ she said.

‘Well, I painted. I had to do something with my time.’ She threw Julie a grin to make sure she wouldn’t take that as some kind of jibe. ‘You can sleep in my room, if you
like?’

‘I’ll sleep in here with Victor,’ said Julie, pointing to the spare room with the sofa-bed.

‘It’s up to you.’ The mention of Victor reminded Laure that, with the boy still downstairs and out of earshot, now would be the time to bring up the news she had. ‘Julie,
something’s happened.’ She reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded printout. It was the photofit that Lucy Clarsen had produced of the man who’d stabbed her. ‘The
barmaid who was attacked pulled through. She gave us this description of the attacker. We need to know if you recognize him.’

Julie stared at the still-folded paper in Laure’s hand.

‘You don’t have to look now,’ said Laure. ‘Not unless you’re ready.’ Julie had never produced more than the vaguest description of the man who’d
attacked her, having little clear memory of his face. Laure could see the indecision in her eyes.

Julie took the paper and unfolded it with unsteady hands. She gave it the briefest of looks before handing the paper back, giving a small nod.

‘You’re safe here,’ said Laure. She put her hand on Julie’s arm. Julie stepped towards her and put her head on Laure’s shoulder, and let Laure hold her.
‘You’re safe,’ Laure said again.

Léna woke feeling better than she’d felt in a long time.

It wasn’t just that her wound had improved, or that she’d slept well. Or that she didn’t have a hangover for once, or the dry ache of too many cigarettes the night before. She
felt better because she had some distance from the mess that was her family, and from Frédéric. She could pretend, for a while. Pretend that things were simple.

She got out of bed, and looked around for the clothes she’d thrown over the top of her hospital gown when she’d absconded. They were on the floor in one corner of the room, but
filthy from her fall in the underpass. Worse, the hooded top she’d been wearing had a long stain from the wound on her back, dried and crusted into the fabric.

She heard the sound of axe on wood from outside. She went to the front door. Serge was out there, chopping logs for the stove. She watched him, suddenly grateful that he’d brought her
here. Peace and quiet, away from the chaos.

Holding a log on the chopping block steady with his left hand, Serge brought the axe down. His aim was off, the axe glancing down the side of the log; he snatched his hand out of the way just in
time.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ he said, bending down to retrieve the log. Then he saw her, watching him from the doorway with a smile.

‘Don’t let me stop you,’ said Léna.

‘Sorry, did I wake you?’

‘It’s all right,’ she said. The guy was awkward around her, and she found it endearing. A refreshing change from the wary distrust that Frédéric always seemed to
exude. ‘Can I borrow some clean clothes?’

Serge nodded, setting down his axe, gathering the logs he’d already chopped. ‘I’ll see what we have,’ he said, coming inside. ‘There’s stuff in the attic, I
think. I won’t be long.’

She wandered through the kitchen, opening a door to a room she hadn’t entered before. Around the wall were dead animals, stuffed with varying degrees of success. She smiled at an owl that
had a ludicrous expression on its face. She stepped into the room, seeing the knives, the tools, the equipment. This was a hunter’s lodge, she thought, kitted out for taxidermy and butchery.
She wondered which brother did what.

‘You shouldn’t be in here,’ said Serge from behind her.

Léna turned to see the unease on his face. She pointed to the stuffed animals. ‘Are these yours?’

‘No, my brother’s.’ He was holding out some clothes. ‘Here,’ he said.

Léna took them. ‘Thanks. Whose are they, your ex’s?’

‘My mother’s.’

‘You sure she won’t mind?’

Serge looked to the floor. ‘She died,’ he said.

Léna’s turn to feel awkward. She looked through the clothes and found a simple blue cotton dress she thought would fit. She went to remove her hospital gown, and saw the way Serge
was watching her, embarrassed but fascinated.

‘Turn around,’ she said, enjoying the guy’s discomfort. When he complied she took off the gown. ‘The stuff you put on my back really worked,’ she said as she pulled
the dress on. ‘The pain’s gone completely.’