An Episode of Remnants.

Content Warnings

• Discussion of death
• Description of corpses
• References to sex
• Depictions of sexual desire
• Implications of sexual acts
• References to acts of violence, implied to be motivated by homophobia, specifically at a protest
• Brief discussion of homophobia in 1960s/70s Paris
• Mentions of ‘red scare’ and implications of fear of communism
• Mention of a nazi collaborator
• Implications of violent death

Transcript

SIR

Apprentice? Where— I left you here, I— 

[SAND TRICKLES ASIDE] 

SIR

There you are. There you are. 

I found something for you. Here. 

It’s a snail shell, small and delicate. The inside is soft, smooth, almost like the surface of a pearl, but the outside has ridges, running perpendicular to its perfect swirl… 

[WHOOSH] 

APPRENTICE

Billy brushes his finger across the snail’s shell. It’s his favourite kind, its body milky beige instead of muted grey, the shell pale yellow with a dark stripes of brown that swirl along the its contours. They never get as big as the grey ones with their brown mottled shells. 

He sits back, watches the shell rise a few hairs from the ground. The snail’s foot swells and its soft body unfurls, face obscured at first, emerging uneven, one stalk higher than the first. It seems to look right back at him. Billy wonders what it sees. Does it know he is a creature? Or does he seem like a strange, discoloured part of the landscape? 

His mother calls his name. He lightly strokes the snail’s shell again, marvels as its features contract in response, then clambers down the rocky garden to the kitchen door. 

‘You better not be coming inside in those nasty boots.’

‘Sorry,’ says Billy. He moves to take them off but his mother shakes her head. 

‘Go fetch your dad from the shed, first,’ she says. ‘And tie your laces!’

Billy nods and takes off from the kitchen doorway, skipping down the rough concrete steps to the yard. The tarmac is worn and cracked, broken away entirely in places, leaving squares and triangles of dirt and grit that fill with water every time it rains. 

The shed is a large outbuilding, made mostly of corrugated steel. Inside, the light rain sounds immense, echoing off the walls. Tin buckets gather drips that fall from holes in the rusted roof. Billy’s father’s work is arranged in islands to avoid the leaks, half-built chairs and chest of drawers cowering together like herd animals in a storm. 

His father is at the back. He has his weight on his good leg, the other one kicked out to the side, standing like an old horse. The shoe on this foot is wedged in place with folded paper, stuffed along his wooden ankle. The leg itself is a thing of beauty, Billy thinks. His father made it himself. 

Right now, he has a piece of wood trapped in a vice, pares it down with a rasp. The sound is like tearing paper, only louder, more crisp. 

‘Dad,’ says Billy. ‘There’s soup.’ 

Billy’s father glances up from whatever he is working on. For a moment, he does not seem to recognise Billy; his eyes are unfocused, a brows knitted together, and then at once, he sees him, and his expression softens like butter in the sun, into a smile. ‘Ah, good. Tell her I’ll be there just as soon as I’m done roughing out this table leg.’

[WHOOSH] 

Billy’s mother lays his old trousers on top of yesterday’s newspaper, sketches out their shape with a round nub of chalk. 

‘But they’re too small,’ says Billy. 

‘Yes, but you like the fit, didn’t you?’ 

Billy nods. 

‘So I’ll take the pattern from here, and once I’ve mapped out all the pieces, we’ll size them up to fit your new measurements. Or maybe a smidge larger. You are growing an awful lot at the moment.’ 

‘Sorry,’ says Billy. 

His mother laughs. ‘It’s good to grow. Before you know it you’ll be a strapping young man, like your dad was when I met him.’ She has moved on from tracing the shape of the trousers. She takes her seam ripper, which looks to Billy like a tiny little scythe, and rips the thread that binds the fabric together. Each strip she lays down on the paper, roughs out its shape again, before tossing the fabric aside. They land in her basket of scraps. Tthey were trousers only a moment ago they’re suddenly something just rags. 

Billy sits patiently as his mother adjusts the size of her homemade pattern to match his measurements, then cuts it free with her big fabric sheers. The fabric for his new trousers is laid out of the floor by the fire, a soft, warm, brown wool. His mother pins the pattern in place, optimising its layout by instinct, then chalks its outline, leaving a margin of an inch either side. 

‘Can’t you just make it up?’ Billy asks. 

‘What do you mean?’ 

‘If you’re making clothes, do you always need to have an old one to copy, or can you just make it up from your imagination?’ 

Billy’s mother hums. ‘Why? Is there something you want to make?’ 

‘No. I was just wondering.’ 

‘You can, but it’s more difficult. Using an old garment means you can be more or less sure that whatever you’re making will be functional. If you invent something new, there’s a chance you’ll mess up. I can show you how to draft a pattern from your imagination next time, if you like. For now, would you like to cut these pieces free for me whilst I work on drafting you a new shirt? Don’t forget to leave the seam-allowance!’ 

‘I won’t,’ said Billy, taking the shears from his mother, marvelling at his reflection in the blade. 

[WHOOSH] 

Billy is sweating as he hefts the old chest of drawers out of the back seat of his car and onto the bedsheet he’s laid in the yard. It’s massively heavy, even with its old drawers removed. 

‘What in God’s name is that?’ Asks his father. 

‘It was on the side of the road,’ says Billy. 

‘Kindling then?’ 

Billy laughs. ‘No. I think I’d like to fix it.’ 

His father frowns. He runs his hand along the chipped surface. ‘It’ll take a lot of work. You’d just as quickly make a new piece as repair this one, if it’s a new chest of drawers you’re after.’ 

‘The wood is mahogany,’ says Billy. 

His father has clambered into the back of the car, inspecting the drawers. ‘Theses are very damaged,’ he says. ‘And there’s water staining on the back.’ 

‘You think it’s a waste of time, then?’ Billy asks. 

His father emerges from the car, shaking his head. ‘Not if it’s what you want to do, I suppose. Wouldn’t be my priority, but you’re not me, are you?’  

[WHOOSH] 

Billy watches the old wood drink the oil he’s just spread on it. His muscles ache from days of careful work, sanding off the old finish, reinforcing the broken structure of the seat, chiseling damage out of the wooden frame of this old chaise longue and filling it in with scraps of wood with almost matching grain. Now it is all stained, the repairs are nearly invisible, and this finishing oil makes the whole thing sing. The wood laps it up, hungry, turning from slick and shiny to just bright enough to catch the light. 

Billy is unsure, yet, if he’ll finish it with varnish. There was varnish on it when it came to him, and it is in the spirit of the piece that he should varnish it again, but there’s a beauty to the wood when it is left like this. Something soft and tactile and vulnerable. He knows, in the back of his mind, that he probably will varnish it in the end, but for now he admires the softness of the thing under his fingers, the beauty of the wood, exposed like this. 

Billy hears the familiar three-beat rhythm of his father’s approach; good leg first, then the bright tap of his birch branch cane, then the slight drag and shuffle of his wooden leg. A booming knock on the workshop door. ‘Son,’ he says, a little breathless. ‘Your mother says you ought to come in now. She’s made soup. It’s getting late.’ 

Billy looks up from the chaise, sees his father in the doorway, and for a moment it is like looking through a window. He sees himself in his father’s place, half his height, wide eyed as he looked at the mass of furniture pieces in various states of completion. For a moment, he imagines he is his own father, looking back at himself, smiling, encouraging him to watch him at the lathe. 

‘I’ll be there in a minute,’ Billy says, turning back to the chaise, his eyes stinging. 

‘Alright lad,’ says his father. ‘Alright.’ 

[WHOOSH] 

Billy chews his fingers as the delivery men heft the pieces of the massive, ornate bed from the back of the flat-bed truck and onto the wheeled pallet they have waiting in the driveway. His father grabs his shoulder, shakes it lightly. ‘You did a beautiful job with this, boy.’

Billy nods. He helps guide the pieces up the massive stairwell, into the old house’s huge, master bedroom. The place has been restored since Billy last saw it. The wooden floorboards gleam, and the walls are bright with fresh paint. He was worried the new owners were going to strip the place of all its personality. Half the places he drops his restored furniture these days are glass-box monstrosities, furniture that looks like a child’s drawing of itself. 

But the owners here have paid respect to this old place whilst still dragging it into the 20th century. The curtains are unquestionably modern, patterned with multi-coloured polkadots, and there’s a bright red plastic phone on the table Billy will move to the bedside once the bed has been reassembled. But the curtains are a classic cut with pink-fringed pelmets. The ties are bright orange, but they’re finished with heavy tassels. The phone does not look incongruous on its lime-green doily, which feels in conversation with the table’s slender, cabriole legs. 

‘Bit of a circus,’ says Billy’s father. 

Billy laughs. ‘It’s not what I’d have done, but I like it,’ he admits. 

His father chuffs. ‘Youth is wasted on the young.’ 

The parts of the bed have all been set on the floor, and Billy and his father get to work assembling them. The piece’s piece de resistance is the headboard. Billy’s mother helped him with the design. To match the curtains, the fabric is pink and orange, but he chose velvet so it would still speak to the gorgeous, dark stained oak of the bed frame. The quilted section is fastened in place with hundreds of tiny brass studs, each one hammered carefully in place. It took hours, and Billy spent the process alternately convinced he’d hate the thing and adore it. Now it’s done, he finds himself somewhere in between. Satisfied, but aware this is not what would have spoken to him, even if it is what the client requested. 

When the frame is assembled, Billy enlists one of the handymen who is working on another area of the house to help him drag the new mattress in from the next bedroom. He’s tall and broad, the workman. As they heft the mattress from the ground, their hands touch, callouses brushing unfamiliar callouses. Billy is, for a moment, breathless, and then they’re shifting the mattress together. 

‘All your work?’ asks the workman. 

‘Well. I mean, my father helped with some of the structural stuff, and my mother with the headboard, but all the finishing was me.’ 

The workman whistles. Billy looks at the hair sticking to the sweat on the back of his neck, the pain smeared on his cheek, the stubble cutting through it. His mouth is dry. He thinks about linseed oil soaking into the surface of wood, how it acquires the same sheen on this workman’s skin now. He turns; it catches in the light. Then he’s gone. 

Billy stands silently over the bed for a moment, willing himself to move. He can’t manage it until his father comes in with two mugs of tea. 

‘You about done?’ he asks.

‘Ah, yeah, nearly.’ 

Billy bundles the bedspread he made to match the headboard from the large, cloth bag he brought it in. The effect is incomplete with a duvet and pillows beneath, of course, but this is as complete as Billy will ever see the thing. He stands back, arms crossed. 

‘What do you think, dad?’ he asks. 

His father hums. ‘I’d have built them something new, out of walnut. Or maybe cherry.’ 

Billy snorts. ‘Right. But what do you think?’ 

‘Marvellous work, as always,’ says his father. His tone is nonchalant, but when Billy looks at him, his eyes are gleaming. 

[WHOOSH] 

‘I’m not saying that you should rush into anything,’ says Billy’s mother, as they wind their way through the crammed paths between the furniture this warehouse is filled with. ‘I just worry, that’s all.’ 

‘I want to make sure I’ve got something to offer a girl before I start looking for one,’ says Billy, leaning over a tattered sofa. The seat is almost completely rotten away. He tests the structure of the thing with his hands; fairly solid but it will need some repairs. ‘I can’t tell if this one is worth saving.’ 

Billy’s mother hums. She gives the sofa a soft kick. ‘I don’t think it’s old enough, even though it has good bones.’ 

‘Yeah. The shape of it is very mid-Victorian but from the way it’s been upholstered, I’m guessing it’s just a 20s piece imitating the style. I can’t find any brand marks and it doesn’t look like anyone’s work I know.’ 

‘Not worth it, then,’ says his mother. 

They wander away from the sofa. 

‘You know, yo’ve been able to afford to move out for a while now and that’s more than enough for most girls. Besides; when I met your father, he was penniless. Love doesn’t care about those kinds of things, if you find the right kind of love.’ 

Billy hums, stopping next to an undamaged table. From the shape of its legs, he guesses it was once on an old ocean liner. He gets under it, finds its maker’s mark, and an old stamp. ‘Do you think people would be interested in a piece from the Carpathia?’ he asks. 

‘Hmm. She did rescue the survivors from the Titanic, but she wasn’t very luxurious. Can you tell when it’s from?’ 

‘Probably that kind of era. I don’t know enough about ships, but I’m guessing it had a refit some time recently, from the look of it. The structure is good. I’d just need to take off the finish, restain the top, and it’d be ready to sell.’ 

‘It’ll take up a lot of space in the workshop if you can’t shift it quickly.’ 

‘Yes,’ Billy agrees. He takes out his notebook and makes a note of the lot number anyway. ’To be honest, mum, I think I’d like to wait a bit longer before I start looking for a wife. I’ve got my trip to France planned for next summer. Carting myself off to Europe is hardly a good foundation for a new relationship.’ 

‘Your father shipped off to war three days after you were born, Billy,’ says his mother. ‘We made it through.’ 

‘That was different. He didn’t have a choice.’

‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder,’ his mother continues.

‘Mum,’ Billy protests.

‘I know I’m being pushy, but you’re twenty six, now. I want you to be happy.’ 

‘I am happy,’ Billy sighs. He runs his hand across the table’s surface, feeling its pock marks and imperfections. He imagines his cheek pressed against it, as it had been pressed against a plastic table two weeks ago in the kitchen of a man whose name he didn’t know. He swallows, tries to swallow the thought along with his spit, but he can’t wholly wash it down. 

‘There’s more to life than furniture,’ says his mother.

Billy tries to smile, but can’t quite manage it. 

[WHOOSH] 

Billy pushes his sunglasses onto the top of his head. Foolish of him to have assumed the weather in France would be more or less exactly the same as it had been back home; this summer feels far hotter than what he’s used to. He can feel his shirt sticking to his back. This tiny shop filled with furniture is warm, the air thick with the smell of old polish and dust. Everything is crammed inside haphazardly, chairs stacked on top of one another, lamps perched on upturned tables set askew atop worn and weathered shelves. 

Some of the pieces are naked and worn, hundreds of years old and looking every one of them. Others have been painted or modified, dragged into the 1960s apparently against their will. Some of the repairs and remodelling is sympathetic to the original pieces, but overwhelmingly, they are not. 

‘You’re a dealer?’ comes a voice, in English, heavily accented. Billy looks up. It’s the man who had been counting cash at the counter at the front of the shop. He presumes him to be the owner.

‘A restorer,’ says Billy. 

‘Ah. English?’ 

‘Oh. No, no, Welsh,’ says Billy. 

‘Ah, oui! Au Pays de Galles! We are Gauls in France, same blood in our veins, oui?’ 

Billy grins. ‘Yeah, of course.’ 

‘Hmm. Welsh restorer, rare on two counts, oui? What brings you here, to Paris?’ 

‘Trade is pretty slow, back home. I have a few clients in England, some in Wales, but I don’t know. People think old furniture is worthless, right now. They all want new things.’

‘Ah, oui. It is the same in France, though I think probably less so. Many of these pieces, they could benefit from some compassion, I think.’ 

‘Compassion?’ 

‘This is not the right word? Love and care, yes? Respect?’ 

‘Oh, no, it is the right word, I just…’ Billy caresses a spindled table leg. ‘Like I said, most people aren’t interested in that sort of thing, at the moment. It’s good to hear you say it. That’s all.’ 

The owner hums. ‘Yes. Much of this, it is taken from homes destroyed in the war, no? It is good that it finds new places to live, of course, but I dream sometimes that it will find a life like the one it was designed for. Yes, a lot of this stuff, it is, ah, how you say? Not good?’ 

‘You mean it’s junk?’ Billy asks, with a laugh. 

‘Yes, if you like, I suppose, yes. Junk. Yes. Some of it is not so, though. Some of these pieces, they are designed for grand homes. Compassion, that is what they need to sing again.’ 

Billy’s mind trips over the word ‘sing’, catches on it, like thread on a loose splinter. He looks at the owner again. He is leaning against a stack of chairs, the line of his body speaking to their saber legs. His shirt is open at the neck, one, two, three buttons left unfastened, exposing his collarbone, and the hair on his sternum.

‘Jean,’ says the owner, reaching out his hand.

Billy takes it. ‘I’m Billy.’ 

[WHOOSH] 

‘If money is the problem, your father and I will pay for your ticket home,’ says Billy’s mother, her voice crackling down the phone line. Pierre stirs on the bed beside Billy, blinking in the early morning sun. Billy puts a finger to his lips. 

‘We don’t mind spending the money,’ Billy’s mother continues.

Billy cringes with guilt. ‘It’s not that, mum, I’m just really busy. I told you they’ve asked me to work on the whole library in that house, near the Sarbonne? It’s months of work.’ 

Against the pillow, Pierre grins. He reaches out, traces a line over Billy’s hip. Billy rolls his eyes, swats Pierre’s hand away. 

‘They surely can’t expect you to keep going over Christmas!’ 

‘No, no, they don’t, but if I come home that’s weeks away, and I really want this finished before February.’ 

‘I just hate to think of you alone, that’s all. My poor boy.’ 

‘I’m not alone, mum, I have loads of friends here. I told you, Jean’s already invited me to his place on the day of, and I’ll ring you in the morning. I promise.’ 

Billy’s mother hums. ‘Well, alright.’ 

Billy bids his mother goodbye as Pierre crawls into his lap, grinning like a cat. ‘Oh non, mon petit chou chou, alone for Noelle.’ 

‘Shut up,’ Billy laughs, shoving Pierre lightly, not intending to shift him away. 

‘It is a shame I cannot keep you here over Christmas. Such wonderful gifts I might give you.’ Pierre plants a kiss on the inside of Billy’s thigh. 

‘I think your wife would probably be upset,’ says Billy. 

Pierre shrugs, nuzzling against the front of Billy’s boxers. ‘She will not mind. She is a very modern woman. Perhaps this can be a gift for her too.’ 

Billy laughs, knotting his fingers into Pierre’s hair. ‘I’m afraid I have no interest in your wife.’ 

Pierre sighs. ‘This is not the point, chou chou; you are a work of art. They should hang you in the Louvre.’ 

‘Oh stop it.’ 

‘Non, I shall not, I will say it loud enough for all of Paris to hear! Billy Jones is a masterpiece, just as any Monet, see the beautiful curve of his—’ 

Billy covers his mouth. Pierre presses his tongue against Billy’s palm. 

‘You’re incorrigible,’ says Billy. 

‘Eugh,’ says Pierre, ducking free of his restraint to grin, resplendent. 

‘What?’ 

‘How you say this word. So English.’ 

‘I’m not English,’ says Billy. 

‘I know this, but sometimes you sound it. You have to work on your French; this is why you should stay here for Christmas, not go to Jean’s. I will have you work on the library and go through your verbs with you, and we can work on you… pronunciation.’ 

Billy slumps onto the pillow. 

‘Quoi?’ asks Pierre. 

Billy shakes his head. ‘I wish you wouldn’t say stuff like that.’ 

‘I would have you all the time, if I could, you know this, why not say it out loud?’ 

Billy presses his eyes shut. ‘Because it’s not what we are.’ 

Pierre climbs over Billy, pressing his hands into the pillow, pinning him there. Billy thinks about vices and lathes; oil soaked into wood. Pierre presses kisses to Billy’s throat. Every one whispers ‘be quiet; don’t say it’, but Billy has to. 

‘I should go. I need to finish your library.’

‘I know,’ says Pierre. ‘But not yet. It is hardly dawn. Ignore the clock which says it is noon. Madeleine will not return until this evening. I have you myself until then.’ 

Billy sighs, closes his eyes. ‘Alright.’ 

[WHOOSH] 

Billy wakes, sore and sticky. The sound of a shower running nearby is a siren’s call, lifting his body from the bed without him needing to consider it. He does not bother with his clothes, grabbing the blanket from the end of the bed instead. He palms the ornate mouldings of the foot-stand, wood painted white, darkness peering through on the ridges of its swirls, like the pattern on a snail’s shell. Everything in this apartment is beautiful, dropped right out of the late 1700s, perfectly preserved. If it weren’t for the magazines spread across the table by the window, Billy might’ve believed he stepped back in time. 

He follows the sound of the shower, admiring the ornate occasional table in the hall, dressed with a champagne flute of dried lavender. A few flowers have fallen from their bushy swell and lie crisp on the table’s dusty surface. 

A little ways down the hall, closer to the sound of the water, there is a painting. A haystack at sunset, its form rendered with blurry precision. A Monet. 

The shower shuts off; pipes gurgle. A moment later, Benoit emerges in a cloud of steam, hair dripping wet, naked but for a towel slung loose around his hips. There is a bruise on his ribs, still pink but turning purple in places. The shape of a boot. Kicked into him hours earlier, at the protest they ran from, gasping. 

‘You like it?’ asks Benoit. 

Billy drags his eyes from the bruise, back to the painting. ‘Is it real?’ 

Benoit laughs. ‘No, but I don’t blame you for asking. My mother was a forger of exceptional skill.’

‘My mother used to steal patterns for clothes,’ says Billy.

‘Then we have something in common,’ says Benoit. ‘I don’t know how many of my mother’s paintings are out there. They are all almost perfect, but there are tells, in there, if you know what to look for. Most people don’t.’ 

‘What are the tells?’ Billy asks. 

Benoit shrugs, hands slipping under Billy’s blanket, thumbs resting on his hips. ‘That looks bad,’ he says, the pad of his thumb scuffing across the still-raw graze on Billy’s side. 

‘So do your ribs,’ says Billy. 

Benoit shrugs. ‘It’s not so bad.’ He pushes the blanket back from Billy’s shoulders. 

‘Ah, don’t, I’m disgusting,’ says Billy.

‘Should have joined me in the shower.’ 

Billy sighs as Benoit kisses his collarbone. ‘I would have, but you killed me dead.’ 

‘Funny. You look alive to me.’ 

‘Trick of the light. I am a corpse, a ghost, a dead thing.’

Benoit traces the outline of Billy’s mouth. His fingers are exquisitely soft; fingers that have only turned pages, not wood. Billy runs his hands over Benoit’s still-damp shoulders, slender and soft. He has never worked a day in his life. Billy marvels in the untrained beauty of him, the neatly trimmed hair that leads from his navel, disappearing under the soft, plush towel still slung around his hips. Terrible that’s still there. 

‘Are you looking for places I might need repairs?’ Asks Benoit. 

‘What?’ 

Benoit shrugs. ‘You’re looking at me the way you look at furniture.’ 

Billy feels himself blush, says nothing. 

Benoit laughs. ‘Don’t worry. I’m smart enough to know it’s a compliment.’ He traces the line of Billy’s jaw. ‘God, I have been thinking about this for a long time.’ 

‘Really?’ 

‘Yes. Since you gave the tour of Pierre’s library.’ 

‘That was three years ago.’ 

‘I know, and you didn’t even glance at me.’ 

‘In my defence—’ 

‘You don’t need one.’ 

‘But really, Benoit, I— I was distracted.’ 

‘By Pierre, or the shelves?’ 

Billy laughs. ‘Both, I think. Both.’ 

‘When I saw you yesterday I knew I’d have to have you. And then the counter protesters came, and I thought, god. We’re going to die and I’m never going to fuck this man, and I almost died right there and then before they reached us.’ 

Billy laughs, lets himself be pushed against the wall, the back of his head against the fake Monet. He can feel the wooden frame pressing against the top of his spine as Benoit sinks to his knees. ‘My god,’ he whispers. 

[WHOOSH] 

Billy mouths his cigarette. Benoit was supposed to meet him here an hour ago, but there is no sign of him. When Billy had spoken to him on the phone, the conversation was strange, confusing. He wasn’t talking sense, seemed afraid someone was listening in. Absurd as it was, Billy agreed to meet him under the bridge as soon as Benoit got back to Paris, so he could explain. So where is he? 

Billy’s first thought is that he’s found a way to be in trouble with the law. They’ve made big progress over the last few years in terms of visibility, but it’s not safe for either of them to be out, particularly not as Benoit’s main home was still in Milan, not in Paris. He could get the train without anyone needing to check his passport, but he preferred to fly, so there was always a chance that if a rumour got out, he might be stopped, pulled aside. It was one thing to be gay, another to be a protestor, and as much as Billy joined in with marches, he got the sense that whatever Benoit was involved in was on a much grander scale than all of that. 

For Billy, the way they were oppressed, it seemed a matter of taste. Being gay in France had not been strictly illegal for centuries, but had gone out of fashion. This was not new furniture, but something old whose bones were still good, and just needed modernising for the present moment. That was all. The marches, the protests, all of that, it was an act of restoration.

He’d heard all kinds of rumours about Benoit; that he was a secret communist in bed with the USSR; or that he’d he’d helped smuggle people out of the USSR; or that he was a covert agent and was really born in Moscow; or that he was a covert agent that was being sent into Moscow. The only rumour Billy knew for sure was true was that Benoit’s mother had been a Nazi collaborator. Not straightforwardly, of course, but she had sold them paintings, slept with their officers. 

Ever since Billy had known Benoit he’d been trying to find his father. They had not spoken about it at length, but Billy is sure that the reason he’s so desperate to find him is because needs to prove to himself his father was not one of those men. Benoit’s mother is long gone, though, dead and buried for years, now. Murdered. Struck over the head in a house which did not belong to her. 

Her death seemed to lend validity to the idea that some of the many rumours about Benoit might be true, even though not all of them could be. He was involved in something, even if nobody could agree on what.

A sound across the Seine; someone calling Billy’s name. Billy narrows his eyes, looking across the water. He sees a man; is it Benoit? He’s running, like he’s about to leap into the river. 

Behind Billy, shoes crunch on the ground. He turns, but before he can see anything, there is a loud, sharp crack. 

Swirls on Benoit’s fingertips; the scrolls on the legs of a chair; the pattern on a snail shell. 

And nothing. 

[WHOOSH] 

SIR

No? 

It will not stir you, even to protest? No?! You will not even speak to blame yourself for this? 

No?

Fine. 

There will be something else, someone else. 

I will try again. 

[END]