The Panda Theory: Shocking, hilarious and poignant noir. Pascal Garnier

       The Panda Theory

      He was sitting alone at the end of a bench on a deserted railway platform. Above him, a tangle of metal girders merged into the gloom. It was the station of a small Breton town on a Sunday in October – a completely nondescript town, but certainly Brittany, the interior anyway. The sea was far away, its presence unimaginable. There was nothing picturesque here. A faint odour of manure hung in the air. The clock said 17.18. Head bowed, his elbows on his knees, he examined his palms. Hands always get dirty on trains, he thought. Not dirty exactly, but sticky, especially under the nails, with that grey grime that comes from others who have touched the handles, armrests and tables before you. He raised his head again, and, as if spurred by the surrounding stillness, stood up, grabbed his bag, walked a few metres back up the platform and took the underpass to the exit. No one crossed his path.

      He used his teeth to tear open the plastic wrapper of the tiny tablet of soap then washed his hands thoroughly. The washbasin had two taps, which meant that he had to switch between the freezing water from the left and the scalding water from the right. He didn’t intend to look in the mirror but couldn’t help catching sight of himself as if he were an anonymous passer-by in the street. The waffle towel, staple of cheap hotels, was little bigger than a handkerchief. He looked around the room as he dried his hands. A table, a chair, a bed and a wardrobe containing a pillow, a moss-green tartan blanket and three clothes hangers. All made of the same imitation wood, MDF with a rosewood veneer. He flung the towel onto the brown patterned bedspread. The room was stifling. The radiator had just two settings, on and off. He had once disposed of a litter of kittens by shutting them in a shoebox lined with cotton wool soaked in ether. The miaowing and scratching had not lasted long. His bag sat at the foot of the bed like an exhausted dog, the handles flopping by its sides, the zip tongue hanging out. He yanked the curtain back and flung open the window. Still that manure smell. A streetlamp cast a pale glow over half a dozen lock-up garages with corrugated-iron doors of the same indefinable colour. Above it all, the sky, of course.

      And, of course, the bed was soft. The frosted-glass lampshade overhead, clumsily suggesting some sort of flower in bloom, failed to brighten up the room. He switched it off.

      ‘Do you know anywhere round here to have dinner?’

       ‘On a Sunday evening? Try the Faro. It’s the second left as you go down the boulevard. I don’t know if they’re open though. Do you want the door code in case you come back after midnight?’

      ‘No need. I’ll be back before then.’

      The receptionist was called Madeleine, or so the pendant round her neck informed him. She wasn’t beautiful, but not ugly either. Somewhere between the two. And very dark-haired; there was a hint of a moustache on her upper lip.

      A few dark shops, like empty fish tanks, lined the street. A car passed in one direction, two in the other. There was no one on the street. The Faro was more of a bistro than a restaurant. Apart from the owner, sitting behind the counter with a pen in his mouth, engrossed in some calculation, it was empty.

      ‘Good evening. Are you open for dinner?’

      ‘Not tonight.’

      ‘Ah, well, in that case I’ll have a Coke. Actually, no, a beer.’

      Off his stool, the man barely measured five foot four. Stocky with bushy hair, he resembled a wild boar but with doe eyes and long curling lashes. The man pulled a beer, gave the counter an automatic wipe, and placed the drink on the bar.

      ‘I usually do food, but not tonight.’

      ‘Too bad.’

      The owner stood awkwardly for a moment, his eyes lowered, busying himself with his cloth, and then returned abruptly to his stool behind the till.

      Other than the four brass lamps illuminating the bar, the rest of the bistro was in total darkness. Probably because there weren’t any other customers. You could just make out the tables and chairs and, in the back room, children’s toys: a pedal tractor, building blocks, Lego, an open book, sheets of paper and scattered felt tip pens.

      He didn’t touch his beer. Perhaps he didn’t really want it.

      ‘Were you after food?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘My wife does the cooking. But she’s in hospital.’

      ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

      For a moment, the only sound in the bar was the fizzing of the beer’s froth.

      ‘Do you like salt cod stew?’

      ‘Yes, I think so.’

      ‘I was about to close. There’s some left, though, if you like.’

      ‘That sounds great.’

      ‘Well, take a seat. No, not here, come through.’

      The back room erupted suddenly in a blaze of lemon-yellow fluorescent light. The two men picked their way over the pedal tractor, the building blocks, the Lego bricks and the brightly coloured children’s drawings.

      ‘You can sit there.’

      He sat down at a table covered with a daisy-patterned apple-green oilcloth, facing a huge television.

      ‘I won’t be a sec,’ said the owner. Before leaving the room he pressed a button on the remote. The TV screen spewed a stream of incoherent images and gurgling sounds, like blood bubbling from a slit throat.

      … BUT THE FINAL DEATH TOLL IS NOT YET KNOWN. IN NORTHERN IRELAND …

      ‘Bacalao!’

      The owner placed two plates heaped with salt cod, potatoes, peppers and tomatoes on the table along with a bottle of vinho verde.

      ‘Bon appétit!’

      ‘Thank you.’

      … THE PARENTS HAVE ISSUED A MESSAGE TO THE KIDNAPPERS. INTERVIEWED EARLIER …

      ‘My wife, Marie, makes it, but I’m the one who taught her. I’m Portuguese, she’s Breton. All she could cook was pancakes. She still makes them. You’ve got to make crêpes in Brittany! Are you a Breton?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘I thought not.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘A Breton downs his glass in one. But you haven’t.’

      ‘Is it serious?’

      ‘What? Not being a Breton?’

      ‘No, your wife.’

      ‘No, it’s a cyst. She’s tough. She’s never been ill before. I drove her to the hospital this morning. The