About Eric’s interest in him: ‘I didn’t have any idea. The last time we spoke, as I’ve said, I was waiting for a bus and I wasn’t paying much attention, and he was annoyed with me. I really didn’t catch what he was talking about. He was looking forward to leaving, but it didn’t sound like he had an immediate plan. I think he was going to meet his mother. We had a couple of drinks, just tea, then he left, he seemed frustrated, but nothing out of the ordinary. When I paid the bill he came back, and that’s when he approached me. It wasn’t much, but I wasn’t expecting it. I think it was obvious that I was surprised and that I wasn’t interested.’
‘This is when he kissed you?’
‘That’s a misunderstanding. He didn’t kiss me. I’m not sure what it was, but he stepped close. He had one hand on my hand. It wasn’t like a formal goodbye. It was intimate. I was surprised. It was strange, he just quickly stepped up to me. I think it was just a moment where he forgot himself. I don’t know what it was, but we were both embarrassed. It happened out in the open, in the market. The misunderstanding came when I was speaking with Nathalie.’
About the notebooks: ‘He told me that he had a code for writing in his diary. I’m not sure what it was, but he showed me how the code worked, and took down some numbers of mine from an account number. My luggage was interfered with on the way to Istanbul, I had some things stolen and I lost those numbers. Which is why I contacted Nathalie. I assumed he’d turn up. That his disappearance wasn’t anything significant.’
Ford managed to keep his attention away from the notebooks.
When the conversation turned to his own affairs he tried to maintain his command, but immediately began to feel uncomfortable.
Mathews was curious about what he’d said last night, about a friend? A business?
‘I deliver cars for a company based in Koblenz. I used to have my own company, but that ended a while ago. It ended badly — business debts.’
‘You were specific about a company breaking up.’
Ford sighed, a little manufactured perhaps, but not ingenuous. ‘I don’t like to go over this. I lost my business. I was made bankrupt, which caused — do I have to go over this? My partner took control. It was a long time ago — and sometimes, when I drink, it doesn’t seem so distant.’
The men’s expressions remained fixed, and Ford could not tell if they saw through him, or saw instead a man disappointed in business, in life. Someone so used to failure that he wore it with resignation.
7.3
Before collecting Eric’s belongings, Anne met with the Dean of Undergraduate Studies. He appreciated her visit, he said. He appreciated how difficult this must be. The man spoke in a clearly prepared monologue: the tutor that her son was travelling with has been disciplined, he is no longer teaching, and his companion would also not be invited to return to the faculty to teach. The announcement of this decision lay in the hands of the disciplinary board, and these things usually took their time: but they would not return. It was hard to understand how such a thing could happen, and he felt deep regret that this had occurred.
‘Eric is old enough to make his decisions. I know that. When he asked about the trip, it wasn’t to ask permission. It was something he wanted to do.’
The dean appeared uncomfortable. ‘So you will visit the project? You will go to Magazin?’
Anne shook her head and lightly whispered, ‘No.’
The dean looked to the door and held a question to himself. ‘I’m glad,’ he said, beginning to rise, ‘that we were able to meet.’
* * *
She wasn’t sure that she wanted to take the boxes. Now, more than before, it seemed pointless. Who would wear these clothes? Who would listen to this music?
His bedroom looked out at the mountains, the tiny detail of so many trees foregrounded by snow, the chair lift, the stanchions, and the long bunker-like restaurant at the top. She had seen photographs of this view, perhaps from a postcard he’d sent her, when in the summer it was greener, or greyer. Had he even seen it with snow? She imagined he would have kept his room similar to his room at home: ordered, smart, the poster of a climber on the wall, the course books lined in alphabetical order. She imagined that having to share a room would have been an agony. The boy whose room it was now stood beside the door and looked down at the carpet, and she was grateful that he looked nothing like her son. She found it hard not to look at the bed, unmade, the quilt drawn over the mess of sheets. Eric would have kept everything in place. The room had a shiftless disorder, although it was not untidy; something hurried about its appearance. He would have kept it in better order.
Uncertain how to leave the room she wished the boy well with his studies, and the boy, breathless, nodded as she spoke. ‘This is strange,’ she apologized. ‘I don’t mean this to be so strange. I’m so sorry.’
Four students walked with her to load up the car, and she felt ridiculous following after them, redundant.
* * *
After clearing the dormitory Anne drove to Lyon. The two men from Colson Burns would be completing their interview, and she agreed to wait at Nathalie’s apartment on the understanding that they would call her as soon as they had any information.
Nathalie had set aside a bottle of wine with a few of Eric’s belongings, a book, some photographs and DVDs, along with a note saying that Anne should make herself comfortable, and that the DVDs contained small videos of Eric taken from the trip. Most of the photographs were of Nathalie and Eric, pictures from restaurants, a photo of Eric standing with bags, distracted; Nathalie featured in each photo, hugging him in some, or sitting beside him and leaning into him so that their company looked easy and companionable. Anne felt a pang at how beautiful Nathalie appeared in these photographs, and felt a great sense of waste. She imagined scenarios, situations of how Eric might be living, of where he might be spending his days, but could not believe them.
She settled in front of the TV with a glass of wine and played through the DVDs one by one, pausing and freezing the image, replaying to catch his voice. She returned to one specific sequence of Eric setting up a camera, a bright blur of sunlight then darkness while his hand twisted the lens, and suddenly his face as he stared directly into the camera. So serious, so focused. Anne caught the image and sat close to the screen to assess his expression, scanning back and forward and back to measure how happy he was. This was important. She wanted the film to tell her that he was happy, and she examined the footage until she found a smile. He was talking with someone off camera, a conversation lost to the wind, when his expression suddenly brightened — and there, at that moment, she could see that he was happy, and she imagined that he was talking with Nathalie, but along with the smile came one word, spoiled by the wind, but clearly one short word. Tom. She replayed the moment. The smile, then one word: Tom. It was Tom. Without doubt. He was smiling at Tom. She replayed the image, frame by frame, and watched how this smile burst from him, how he couldn’t help himself. She recognized him in these images, not only though the simple surfaces and sounds, but as someone who was deeply familiar to her, known and loved, as if this was something she had forgotten. She recognized his complicated expressions, his swift shifts of mood, how his mind always, just always, seemed busy, so that worlds of thought could be operating all in one instant, you would never know — and she realized, while watching his reaction to this man, that after finding the computer files she had thought of him as someone different, and she had allowed this knowledge to change him into someone she did not understand. In this footage, she found the same person she had always known, that smile, so instant, so given, and so familiar, wasn’t that just like him? It was always funny how seriously he took himself, how you could ask him a question and see him think, how you could watch him consider the possible answers. And didn’t he always break away with a smile? She could recall this trait from his childhood, how he could never make a choice, how he always pondered as if the idea of making any choice was just too difficult, and then, decision made, he would laugh.