Theory of Remainders (19 page)

As he pulled up in front of the hotel on the Place des Belges, Roger stood outside the brasserie giving a two-fingered salute to a man just taking his leave. By the time Philip parked and came over, the visitor had disappeared. Monsieur Bécot was right: people in Yvetot wanted nothing to do with him.

“So you still have friends in this town?”

“Oh, yes,” Roger replied. “Old connections, you know. Ancient. That was a school chum from about a hundred years ago.” He clapped his hands together. “So, how did it go? Tell me everything.” He steered Philip into the brasserie, toward a table with two beer glasses, leftovers from his last meeting.

“I think I’ll switch to whiskey,” Roger told the waiter. “Something tells me I’m going to need it.” He turned to Philip. “And you? Ah, I forgot. Monsieur doesn’t drink.”

Roger downed his glass in two gulps and ordered another. “I’m ready. Speak. What was it like seeing Morin again, after all these years?”

“Unnerving.”

“I can imagine.”

Philip gave him the overview, describing Morin’s behaviors, his fixation on order, the play with languages, his apparent illness. Then he pulled the digital recorder out of his jacket pocket.

“If you want specifics, I have them right here.”

“Aha,” replied Roger with satisfaction. “I should have known that the American eye for technology would prove useful.”

For the next twenty minutes the two men sat hunched over the device. Philip found it instructive to listen again, wincing as he heard his own botched moves. Morin had been cleverer than he’d expected.

“One thing is certain,” Roger said when they finished. “Morin’s English is extraordinary. Better than mine, and I spent two years in New York. I must say, I find that rather annoying. He learned it just from books, did he?”

“Language is apparently one of his obsessions.”

“Along with railroads and geography. Not to mention history—all this nonsense about the Germans and their roadblocks.”

Philip gave him a look. “You mean it’s not true?”

Roger shrugged. “It could be. After all, the Germans were crawling through this area.” He gestured away from the table, designating all of Normandy. “But why such strange little details? Where did he say the roadblocks were? Sorquainville, Malamare, and some other godforsaken village? Sorquainville is on a side road in the direction of Fécamp.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, to the north. “I’m not even sure where the others are located. But I’m pretty confident none of them made it into the history books. I suppose he wanted to show off, demonstrating his command of the map of France. Total gibberish if you ask me.”

Philip ran his fingers through his beard. “I don’t know. People always have some reason for what they say.”

“Now you’re speaking like Élisabeth.”

“Well, it’s true. People don’t speak nonsense.”

Roger folded his arms across his chest. “She has this theory that I don’t actually know what I want, especially right after I tell her explicitly. She says I don’t know my own mind, that I’m always of divided opinions.” He raised his eyebrows. “And she has offered to formalize this division surgically. I believe the technical term for the operation is castration.”

“I’m not kidding, Roger.”

“I’m not sure she was, either. Still, I don’t go in for all this talk about hidden selves. It smacks a bit too much of ghost stories, or religion. In fact, it turns us all into potential patients for you lot!”

Philip tipped back in his chair and clasped his hands over his stomach. “Tell me, how often do you do the drive between Yvetot and Fécamp?”

Roger’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you ask?”

“How often?”

“I don’t know. Four or five times a week.”

“I see,” he nodded. “You know the road pretty well by now, don’t you?”

“Of course. I’ve driven it for years. I could do it with my eyes closed.”

“Do you get tired of it?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Not really. If you’re trying to point out stresses in my life, it’s not going to work. The truth is, I find the drive relaxing. I think about all sorts of things. Work I have to do. Vacation plans. Or, well, to be perfectly honest, women.”

“And before you know it, you’ve arrived in Yvetot. Is that right?”

“Precisely,” he smiled smugly.

Philip leaned forward, planting his elbows on the table. “So tell me: While your mind is busy wandering through trysts and real estate transactions, who’s driving?”

“What?” Roger’s smile weakened.

“You heard me. You said you don’t pay any attention to the road. Your imagination wanders, and before you know it, you’ve arrived at your destination. What became of the thousand decisions you made along the way—where to turn, when to slow down, how long to wait at the intersection? That’s not even counting all the tweaks of the steering wheel, each one crucial to keeping you on the road.”

Roger scowled.

“Once you stop to think about it,” Philip continued, “you have to accept the obvious conclusion: while you are occupied with your daydreams, someone else is at the wheel.”

The same thing happened, he asserted, in all speech and actions. Most of our behaviors are performed without conscious thought, the result of multiple drivers, each with his own style. The trick was to identify these different logics. From there, Philip began to lay out the repetitions he’d detected in Morin’s speech. Certain themes had bubbled up to the surface, along with linguistic oddities that were every bit as strange as the physical tics. Even the occurrence of foreign phrases seemed orderly, appearing at moments of stress. Repetition was no guarantee of a meaningful pattern, but it was a start.

“That’s all well and good,” Roger said. “But I don’t see where it leads.”

“I’ve been thinking about that. We need to gather as much information as possible. It’s hard to predict what will be useful, but an obvious step would be to review the police and court records.”

“If you can get them.” Roger reflected for a moment. “I suppose another idea would be to talk to Father Cabot.”

“The priest?”

“That’s right. The same one who bungled my mother’s funeral. He’s a bit of a dunce, I’m afraid, but in these small towns there’s little that escapes the ears of the clergy. The highway to heaven is the Church, after all. And the confessional is its tollbooth.”

Philip shook his head. “A priest won’t breach confidentiality. Besides, I gather that the locals aren’t eager to help me out.”

“So I hear,” Roger said. Philip looked up in surprise. “Yes, that’s right—word gets around. Local ties never die out, you know, and I have my sources.” He poked with his finger to punctuate his point. “You’re right that people aren’t keen to have this old business dredged up. And who can blame them?” He paused. “But Father Cabot is a different fish. First of all, he’s not from Yvetot. And he can get a bit too chatty.”

“All right. I’ll give him a try.”

“Will you be needing me?”

“Not right away. I don’t want to take you away from your work.”

“Well,” Roger said, “given the state of the market right now, that’s not much of a problem.” He gave a sheepish grin. “But I do have one client who’s heartbreakingly attractive. And recently divorced. I don’t think she can actually afford anything, but I’m going to drive her around for a few showings. Maybe we’ll finish around dinner time. And then—”

Philip reached across the table, covering Roger’s hand with his own. “You should call Élisabeth, Roger. That’s what you should do.”

Roger’s smile vanished and he drew his hand away. “I know. I know.” He looked annoyed. “Life is full of things I
ought
to do. I just don’t manage to get around to them often enough.”

It was late when the two men parted, and Philip walked back to the hotel by way of side streets. Yvetot was different in the chocolaty shadows of night. Quiet and suggestive. Streets curled off into darkness, alleyways opened where least expected. The town had the wrinkles and folds of a brain.

Roger’s philandering troubled Philip. It bespoke a fear of closeness but also the need for attachment. Élisabeth’s fate was to be cast away, reeled in, and cast away again, in endless repetition. Didn’t this ambivalence also explain Roger’s move to Fécamp? It buffered him from Yvetot, while allowing him to maintain connections on his own terms. So much for the insouciance of the past. Now Roger’s charm had turned cautious. In many ways, he was no longer the same person as before.

Of course, who was? Not Philip. Even Édouard Morin had changed—still a bundle of peculiar behaviors, but somehow stronger, cannier. His time in custody had given him the chance to develop a protective carapace.

No one had been immune to the passage of time. When Philip considered his own arrival in France nearly thirty years ago, after his parents had died, he recalled the sensation of imminence, of promise. He’d begun learning, expanding, taking risks, meeting people. Soon he’d founded a family of his own. But that past lingered in his memory like a dear old pet shoddily stuffed, with patches of fur dropping off and the mount coming loose. After Sophie’s death Philip had grown circumspect. In the end, his childhood caught up with him, and he heard his father’s voice in his head.
Don’t be showy. Keep a low profile
. What did you expect, his father would have said. Philip had dared to raise his head, and this is where it got him.

When he entered La Cauchoise to collect his room key, Monsieur Bécot nodded toward the dim lobby.

“You have a visitor, Monsieur Adler,” the old man said.

Hervé Legrand reclined in an armchair, his legs stretched out, crossed at the ankles, his hands clasped. The fingers of a doctor, Philip noted. Perhaps he’d brought a scalpel along.

Hervé uttered a
bonsoir
as he came to his feet, standing a full head shorter than Philip. He extended his hand, a taut smile on his lips. He looked tired, a virile growth of stubble darkening his cheeks.

“
Hair-vay
,” Philip said. He saw the other man flinch at the pronunciation, but he didn’t bother correcting it. “You just happened to be passing through, I take it?”

Hervé issued a small chuckle, barely a catch in his throat. “No, no. I made a special trip to see you. I’ve been waiting for some time.”

“I was out with Roger.”

Hervé frowned. “How nice.”

“What can I do for you?”

There were no other clients in the lobby of the old hotel, but Monsieur Bécot remained alert and attentive at the reception desk.

“It’s such a pleasant evening,” Hervé said. “Why don’t we step outside?”

The Place des Belges was nearly vacant, rimmed by a few parked cars. The lighted windows of restaurants shone from beyond the trees, but most of the shops were now shuttered. Hervé lit a cigarette, drawing in a deep breath and releasing the smoke in a thin stream. “Look, Philip. We’re grown men. I want to be direct with you.”

“That sounds good.”

“I know you’ve had your meeting with Édouard Morin.”

“I must say, I’m impressed with how well everyone keeps tabs on me.” Philip chose his words carefully. This wouldn’t be a good time for his French to falter.

Hervé took another long drag. “It was a long time ago, Philip. I know this is not what you want to hear, but the best thing would be to forget about it. Let go of what you cannot fix.”

“I’ve tried that. It hasn’t worked. Not for me.” He watched Hervé size him up, could see him calculating his next move.

“I’m sure you’ll appreciate that I can’t have you dragging my family through your problems. Margaux, most of all, shouldn’t have to deal with these stories.”

It was a clever choice. She was the last one Philip wanted to hurt. Because he didn’t like having to agree with Hervé, he introduced a wedge. “Tell me, did Yvonne send you?”