Theory of Remainders (31 page)

Philip’s body tingled with an energy he barely recognized, and now he bore down on Édouard, entangled with Suardet. Grabbing him by the shoulders, spinning him around, he thrust the man against a pilaster in the wall with a solid thunk of bone. Now, at last, was his chance. Now, at last, he’d let this dog of a man know how it felt. One blow was all it would take, the skull caught between a fist and a column of cement.

On Morin’s stunned face understanding bloomed. There was no hint of fear. Instead, his lips parted and he lifted his chin, turning slightly to the left and closing his eyes. It was a look of acquiescence.

“Adler,” cried Suardet in protest, but it was no longer needed. Philip had released Morin, roughly but without striking. He stumbled backwards.

Footsteps thundered in the hall. Attendants were on their way.

He helped Yvonne to her feet, one arm looped around her waist, the other under her arm. A line of blood trickled from her lip. Her blouse gaped open, the top button torn. Édouard struggled to free himself from Suardet, and she glowered at him in silent triumph, her eyes as dark as pits.

Back in the parking lot, Philip guided her, seating her in the car, and locking them in. He had no idea what to do next, where to go, and his fingers jittered as he tried to insert the key into the ignition. Yvonne seemed dazed, a strangely satisfied look on her face.

The scene from the ward was a blur. Morin had assaulted her, and then Philip himself had responded with violence. In nearly thirty years of professional practice, he had seen his share of brutal confrontations, but not once had he participated in one.

His job was to remain detached, to keep his perspective. Only from a distance would he be able to see the patterns. But every time he found himself with Édouard Morin, the iron bands around his heart loosened, making room for passion.

He looked up the hill at the hospital—a calm, implacable building. Was anyone injured? Wouldn’t Suardet have to call the police?

And what was he to make of Morin’s weird submission as Philip had raised his fist—like an animal accepting its own sacrifice?

He turned to Yvonne, the sphinx sitting in the seat next to him. He had planned the meeting with Morin down to the last detail, knowing how he would struggle to keep the lid on his own emotions. But in fact it was Yvonne—the one who had banished the past from her life—who had finally allowed her well-tailored present to split apart. This was his fault. He was the one who had forced her into the confrontation. If he hadn’t pushed, perhaps she would have soldiered on to the end.

He wondered now about her cold demeanor on the drive out. Her calm. Her determination.

“What happened in there?” he asked.

“You weren’t getting anywhere with him,” she replied, staring straight ahead. “I saw an opening. And I took it.”

“You were supposed to wait, to—”

“There was no sense in waiting,” she countered. “He was thrown off-balance.”

“Because of the language?”

She turned to him. “Because of me.” She paused. “The mother of his victim. But it’s not just that. It’s more general.” She looked at her hands as if they were sullied. “It’s women he can’t abide.”

Philip leaned back in his seat and drew a deep breath, trying to assemble the pieces of a thought. It took two or three tries before he managed to construct the next question. “Was this your plan all along?” he said.

She leveled a hard look on him. “No. That was not my plan.” She reached down and opened the flap to her messenger bag, dug through the papers, and withdrew a pair of long-handled shears, the blades glinting in the dusk. An image leapt to Philip’s mind: paper dolls. She’d brought the scissors from her office.

“If you must know,” she stated flatly, “
this
was my plan.” She let the scissors drop back into her bag. “It turns out I didn’t need them.”

He stared. At one point in his life he’d thought he knew this woman. But now everything was slipping from his grasp. Morin’s languages, Yvonne’s actions, his own conduct, even Roger—it had all veered out of control. Everything was misfiring, hitting beside the mark.

“Don’t tell Hervé,” she said, her eyes fixed on the windshield. “Or Margaux.”

Of course he wouldn’t tell. But Hervé would find out on his own, wouldn’t he? After which Margaux would hear, and then all of Rouen, all of Yvetot. He’d seen the communications network in action. It would start in minutes and reach the most remote outposts of central Normandy in a matter of hours.

However, thirty minutes later, when he pulled up at the curb in Mont-Saint-Aignan, the Legrand house appeared undisturbed, sedate, like every other structure on the block. In the dusk, Hervé’s green Mercedes slept out front, and through the front window he saw Margaux splayed on her belly in front of the TV, kicking her feet together in the air. So Suardet hadn’t even called.

Before letting her go, Philip pulled out a tissue and dabbed away the blood that had dried at the corner of her lips, cupping his left hand against her cheek. She licked away the remaining trace of red and waited for his assessment.

“Better,” he murmured.

After climbing out of the car, she walked to the house without turning back. The front door opened and closed. Moments later a light went on in an upstairs window. The TV continued to play. Nothing else changed.

Yvonne had assailed Édouard Morin, cutting him with words better than she could have with a blade. She provoked an attack, and Philip himself had hurled Morin against a wall. But no one had found these events worthy of reporting. Had Suardet elected to spare Yvonne? For Hervé’s reputation? For his own?

There were no good explanations, or if there were, they eluded him now. Meanwhile, other images had staked a claim on his mind: he and Yvonne were now bound by a secret. He imagined her body, remembering how he’d grasped her in Suardet’s conference room, drawing her away, one arm around her waist, the other around her back, pressing her to him, her blouse open. It had felt like an embrace.

He pulled the Smart Car onto the curling road that led toward the darkened center of Rouen, barely able to steady his hands on the wheel.

How little we know, he thought, even about those we love. A small number of individuals will translate murderous impulses into action, but can anyone predict who will cross that line? Not Philip. Not even after all his years in the profession. Countless times he’d been called upon to give expert testimony about the mentally ill, usually to answer some variation of a simple question: is this person a danger to himself or others? Sometimes his response was easy to formulate. Sometimes not. And sometimes he got it wrong.

But Yvonne? There was a darkness inside her he’d not suspected. He’d misunderstood, miscalculated. Now he imagined her at her desk, finishing a string of paper dolls and studying the shears in her hands, opening and closing them as she admired the blades. Then she’d have tucked them into her bag.

The shadow of the cathedral loomed to his left, and Philip drove on, curving through the roundabout. Then another familiar building appeared: Hervé’s clinic, lights still blazing. He slowed to contemplate this sign of Hervé’s success, this monument to his ability to produce life where nature had failed, and he felt a swell of jealousy. What wouldn’t Philip give to experience fatherhood again—even if just for a day, an hour?

The main door of the clinic opened, and out strode a well-dressed fellow, a touch of swagger to his step. Yes, Philip thought, like that man, right there.

He blinked and leaned into the windshield. It was Roger.

His first impulse was to stop and call out. But what was Roger doing here, of all places, visiting a man he professed to regard with contempt? Philip rounded into a side street and cut the engine, watching while his brother-in-law sauntered up the walk. As Roger arrived at his BMW, a frown formed on his lips, and he plucked a narrow card from under the windshield wiper. Then he rolled his eyes and tore the citation in half, letting the pieces flutter to the ground. He climbed into the car, revved the engine, and pulled away.

First Yvonne, and now Roger. Was nothing as it appeared?

He started out after the BMW, pushing the Smart Car to keep pace as they entered the countryside. Roger’s distant taillights vanished over hills and around curves, appearing for brief moments. In Yvetot, as Philip arrived at the Place des Belges, Roger was just walking across to the brasserie. And when he entered the restaurant himself, just moments later, his brother-in-law was already seated, draining a glass of wine.

“Sorry,” Philip said. “Have you been waiting long?”

Roger shrugged with what might have been exaggerated nonchalance. “Half an hour? But don’t worry—I had good old Saint Émilion to keep me company.” He patted the open bottle and refilled his glass.

Philip’s shoulders tightened. Should he challenge this lie? What did it mean that the visit with Hervé was to be kept a secret? He watched Roger pour himself another glass, but his gestures seemed suddenly wooden, his expression too fixed. It was as though Philip had stepped to the right or the left, only to discover the edge of a mask.

He, too, could play a role. As they ate, Philip eased into his report about Morin, charting a careful path. While Roger listened and drank, Philip recounted the meeting, expressing in detail the digressions, the excursions into other languages, the obsession with even and odd, the references to places and people. But he also edited, skipping over the lewd questions, the gestures and twitches. Most of all, he trimmed the culmination—Yvonne’s verbal attack, and Morin’s physical response. That news didn’t need to get back to Hervé right away.

As he concluded this cautious summary, Roger downed his last glass and gave his head a heavy shake. “Bullshit,” he grunted.

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s a load of rubbish. The languages, the accents, all the dodges.” He stumbled over the last word, slurring it. “Sure, you can read something into it if you want. But at some point you have to take things at face value.”

Was this meant to provoke him? “You’re drunk, Roger. You drink too much.”

“Of course I do.” He made a flourish with his hand. “And you drink too little. It all evens out. But being drunk doesn’t make me wrong. You’re reading tea leaves, and you know it.”

Philip chafed. “You don’t need to tell me about projection. After Sophie’s death, every back alley looked like a dumping ground. Every bulge in the earth became a makeshift grave.
Maybe there
, I’d say.
Or there
.
Or there
.”

“But you’ve just proved my point. You turn nothing into something.”

“Is it projection to find headless poultry in your hotel room?” He didn’t add: or to discover your brother-in-law consorting with the enemy?

Roger turned somber. Yes, the slaughtered rooster was a real problem, and he’d come up with a solution. It would be best to give Yvetot a little breathing room, to take a break from La Cauchoise, at least for a couple of nights. He proposed putting Philip up at Anne-Madeleine’s. Since the funeral, the house was empty and quiet. No one would even know he was there.

No one, Philip thought, except for Hervé. He considered balking, but then decided to play it out. Whatever was afoot, he’d have the advantage of knowing more than Roger thought. Besides, once word got out about Yvonne’s attack on Morin, it might not be so bad to have a buffer.

It was late when they left the brasserie and drove out to the old Aubert home on the outskirts of town, a hulking presence set back from the street at the end of its gravel drive.

Soon they were inside, clicking on the lights. Roger left the shutters closed. “No need to advertise our presence,” he said, his voice echoing off the walls. He gestured about the shadowed living room. “Make yourself at home. As much as you can, anyway. You can pick up your bags at La Cauchoise tomorrow.”

He clattered about the kitchen. A few canned goods stood in the pantry. Bedding would be in the linen cupboard upstairs.

“Anything else I can do for you?” he asked with a yawn, handing over a house key.

It felt like a leading question. No, no, he said: Roger had done quite enough. And Philip locked the door behind him.