We have not yet reached that point.
The president picks up the report from the ministre de l’Intérieur. It is agonizing to realise just how powerless he is. Scanning the report, the president nods, initiate the O.R.S.E.C. civil emergencies plan, yes, he has no choice, better safe than sorry . . .
He has to make a decision.
At 07:16 hours, the president gives the order to evacuate every kindergarten in Paris.
Every last one.
Three hundred and forty-nine schools. Forty-five thousand children.
Instantly, the military machine roars into life: shouted orders, footsteps echoing in the corridors, telephones ringing, people calling from one office to another. Guard patrols have to be organised, schools cordoned off, vehicles requisitioned, hundreds of soldiers dispatched, because it is not simply a matter of preventing people entering the schools, they have to have the resources to collect the children, ferry them to local sports halls, community centres, provide supplies and first-aid posts – it is a colossal undertaking. And they have less than two hours. It seems all but impossible but, within minutes of the president lighting the blue touchpaper, every branch of the military and the police force will be working at top speed. And they can do this.
But before that, there is something that is even more important than the evacuation: communication. This morning, Parisians will wake up to something akin to a state of war, fire engines and army trucks will be roaming the streets of the capital and they will be informed that their children are in danger from unexploded bombs . . . It is not difficult to image the reaction, in parliament, the opposition parties will be haranguing, demanding explanations. Is the prime minister really saying that one man can hold the entire country to ransom? It beggars belief! Precisely the sort of situation the prime minister relished when he was a member of the opposition: a government unable to ensure the safety of French children! A government caving in to the demands of a lone terrorist! Shameful! “The Government’s abject cowardice is matched only by its utter incompetence!” – he savoured such slogans when he was still in opposition.
Now that he is prime minister, it is different.
He consults with his advisors, listened to his ministers, considers his personal position. He makes decisions. The prime minister will be first to speak, he will hold his fire until afterwards, when . . .
Then suddenly, things fall apart.
The O.R.S.E.C. plan is abandoned, crisis talks are called off, political statements are forgotten. Everything is cancelled because Camille Verhœven has telephoned, his message reaches the Élysée Palace at the speed of light.
Exactly four minutes ago, a pale, exhausted Garnier finally talked, his voice faint and hoarse, Camille was forced to lean close to hear what he was saying. Already dead on his feet, the confrontation with his mother has left him visibly shattered.
“The second bomb . . .”
Camille leaned closer, unable to decipher the words, something that made him feel queasy, like a torturer unable to understand the whimpering of his victim. At that moment, the mobile phone in his pocket vibrated. Camille muttered “shit!”, contorting himself to remain in the same position while fishing his phone from his pocket: a test message from Anne: Spent the night all on my own . . . very sad. The contrast is shocking.
“Sorry, what?” Camille says, hearing the words “I am . . .”
Garnier whispers into his ear:
“. . . because I am a decent guy.”
Camille recoils in shock.
“You’re a decent guy? I have to say that’s not the phrase that come to mind . . .”
Garnier sways, almost falling from his chair, Camille leans towards him again.
“Don’t both looking,” Garnier whispers. “The school . . .”
At last, something new, Camille stuffs the mobile into his pocket without replying. Garnier’s bluff is finally yielding to the brutality of the situation. A shudder of relief courses through Camille right to his fingertips.
“What is it Jean? There’s no bomb, is that what you’re telling me?”
He grips the man’s neck as he speaks.
“No, no . . . there is . . .” Jean mumbles. “But not in Paris.”
And so everything is put on hold, the O.R.S.E.C. plan, the mass evacuations. The authorities reconsider their position.
The bomb is in a kindergarten somewhere in the provinces.
This is a catastrophe.
“Sixteen thousand nursery schools,” announces the minister “Two million children. It simply cannot be done.”
They have considered the problem from every possible angle, but short of creating mass hysteria, there is no way to tell every head teacher in the country: “Some lunatic has planted a bomb in a school, it could be yours, we have no way of stopping him, so you all need to evacuate your schools and get as far away as possible.”
Like the prime minister, the ministre de l’Intérieur is a pragmatist.
“Including parents, grandparents and relatives, we would have three million adults to deal with.”
Especially since panic would spread to the population in general, since there would have to be a press statement explaining that this is merely the beginning, that there are five more bombs that cannot be located.
Nor is it possible to launch an inspection of every school, it would take months.
What makes it even worse is that no-one can be sure whether or not Garnier is telling the truth.
There is only one solution: wait for 9.00 a.m.
It is sickening.
Police officers, politicians, experts all slump into their chairs and contemplate the ability of modern democracies to withstand attack.
As Basin said to Camille: “People assume that terrorism is sophisticated. Actually, it’s not.”
8.15 a.m.
Lucas, Théo, Khalidja, Chloé, Océane and the other children hold hands and head down to the far end of the playground. It took weeks, no, months, to get funding from the local council, but Madame Garrivier is persistent. She dreamed of having a little vegetable garden, but good Lord, she had to plead, cajole, pester, just for a lorry-load of topsoil and a few stones! Now, finally, she has achieved her goal. A few months ago, the little plot was prepared. The children planted tomatoes, runner beans, flowers, they love working here. As does Mme Garrivier: her father was a farmer.
The children are four years old. On average. Because Maxime is barely three, while Sarah is about to turn five.
The school has six classrooms.
A total of one hundred and thirty-four pupils. But Mme Garrivier’s class – twenty-two pupils – are the ones most directly concerned, because their classroom is right above the spot where Jean planted the bomb. This is not to say that others will not be affected, but this will bear the brunt of the damage.
In fact, the classroom will literally disintegrate. It will take no more than a second or two. There will be a neat hole in the ceiling, as though a cannonball was fired, as the supporting walls are rocked by the force of the blast, a whole section of the roof, like a huge black bird, will take wing, glide a short distance and crash into the vegetable garden.
Fire will take hold and, in less than an hour, the whole building will be reduced to ashes.
Jean set the bomb to go off at 9.00 a.m. precisely. From his point of view, it was a wise decision, since at that moment, all the pupils will be in class, except Madame Garrivier’s, who are working in the vegetable garden.
8.30 a.m.
Camille stares at Jean. He is torn between bitterness, rage, violence, but it is all futile.
The young man is shattered, he has not had a moment’s respite, he will not say anything, he will stand his ground. Camille knows this; he has stood his ground against the “experts”. Even the duty psychologist is reduced to spouting platitudes. Camille has quickly skimmed the profile written by an expert who spent an hour with Jean, who did not utter a word: anxious, introverted, shows good emotional control. Fat
lot of help that is, thought Camille.
“There’s one thing I find surprising,” Camille says. “In your case file, it says that you used to babysit for people on the estate. Several people mentioned this. They say you were a natural with kids. The parents were thrilled. They all said so.”
Jean warily raises an eyebrow.
“I’m serious,” Camille says. “You don’t fit the profile of someone who plants bombs in nursery schools.”
A shadow flickers across Jean’s face.
“Are you a child murderer, Jean?”
Jean swallows hard.
“You’ll see . . .”
8.53 a.m.
The past hour has felt like the calm before the storm. Not that people are idle, the police and the military continue to work furiously, like a losing football team refusing to surrender, battling on until the final whistle blows. Officers are still combing through Jean Garnier’s past, trying to identify the school where he planted the bomb. The main problem is that local councils do not inform all and sundry every time they authorise repair works on buildings in their district. There is no central database, so they make do as best they can, telephoning municipal offices in major cities, sending emails and faxes that are greeted with sublime indifference, since they can hardly use the subject line: Please reply A.S.A.P., there might be a bomb in your local school. That would simply trigger panic and terror. To the bureaucrats receiving these emails, it hardly seems urgent to advise the ministry about public works carried out a month, three months ago, so they leave it until next week.
Time ticks on.
In the vast halls of the ministries, in opulent offices overlooking lush gardens, beneath the gilded pomp of the Republic, people hold their breath. Every possible scenario has been envisaged, but with only minutes to go, whether police officer or president, minister or civil servant, picturing a bomb devastating a hundred four-year-olds is harrowing and heartrending.
As the hour strikes, an eerie silence reigns; they feel as soldiers do before the order to charge: the urge to attack, to be done with this, even if it means death. Yet nine o’clock passes, nine-fifteen: nothing, Jean is still shackled to his table.
Camille has gone back to his office. Feverishly he rereads the case file, Louis’ notes, scribbling over everything in reach.
9.21 a.m.
Offices begin to bustle once again, no-one dares to entertain a feeling of relief, time continues to tick away. Camille is still poring over the case file. The half hour strikes, the minister’s office has been informed, the préfet has telephone twice, the juge is pacing up and down like a first-time father outside the delivery room. Finally, they accept it: blessed relief, like Armistice Day.
Jean, for his part, is sweating.
His eyes, which were fixed, staring, now dart from the table to the door. Something has gone wrong.
Camille arrives and smiles.
“So tell me, Johnny, this day of reckoning, was it meant to be today or tomorrow?”
Beads of sweat run from Jean’s eyelids, nervously he tries to wipe them away. He simply says “I don’t understand . . .” He seems distraught, though as Camille studies him, he cannot quite describe what he is seeing. A curious mixture of confusion and detachment.
This bomb has not gone off. It does not mean that there are no others, but everyone agrees that this time, at least, the danger has passed.
Badin thinks it was probably a defective shell.
Everyone is now searching for the next bomb.
The interrogation begins again, the countdown is reset to twenty-four hours.
If there really is another bomb.
Blackmail or genuine threat? This is the real question.
“And it’s also the trap,” says Camille. “We end up chasing round looking for bombs that we know are statistically unlikely to explode . . .”
He is right. It is paradoxical, but Jean’s threat is all the more effective because of this uncertainty: the authorities are left with the choice of haring around searching for bombs they have a vanishingly small chance of finding, or of doing nothing, of waiting and succumbing to the fear that one of them will explode, causing terrible loss of life, and they will not have lifted a finger.
There are two schools of thought.
Those who believe that Jean Garnier planted one shell in order to make his threat seem credible and that there is no longer anything to fear. And those who cannot decide, who vacillate and change their minds from moment to moment, who would like to be certain, but cannot be.
Between these two camps, or rather outside them, are Camille and Louis.
10.00 a.m.
Marcel, the park warden, is opening the iron gates of square Dupeyroux. He always checks his watch beforehand. In a petty act of rebellion for being a lowly council worker, he takes great satisfaction in opening a minute or two late every day. The lock on the gates is broken and, though Marcel has filled out the requisition and maintenance forms, it is useless, the maintenance crew refuse to show up. So at night, when he closes the gates, he simply uses a piece of cardboard to wedge them shut. No-one has noticed yet. It would be safer to get the lock repaired, because if the drug dealers notice, the park will be swarming after dark, the local residents will protest, the council will get in a lather and he will get it in the neck.
By the time Marcel completes his first tour of inspection, there are already people sitting on the benches.
He glances at a thicket of shrubs. Some weeks ago, he noticed a hole where someone has been crawling through, he checked the area but found nothing, no syringes (he has nightmares about needles because of the children). Nothing but the steel hatch that leads down to the substation. Time was, he went down once or twice a month, for eleven years he dutifully checked and never found anything. Eventually he got bored, and besides, these days he suffers from arthritis and crippling back pain, so he has no desire to clamber down and scout around bent double, thank you very much. In any case, city maintenance crews check it three or four times a year. If there were anything to see, they would find it.
Marcel turns abruptly. He has “eyes in the back of his head”, or at least, this is what he tells the children so they will be afraid of him. If someone steps on the grass, he may not see it, but he senses it. This time, it is a little girl. Marcel draws his whistle at lightning speed, the girl freezes, rooted to the spot.
10.15 a.m.
Without even realising, Camille has found himself outside the loop.
Jean Garnier has been handed back to the interrogation team; Camille does not expect anything will come of it.
“The Garnier case is mostly about the Rosie Garnier case,” he said to Louis.
Louis thought for a fraction of a second and then agreed.
Since the early hours, they have been going through everything about the case with a fine-tooth comb, interview records, dates and times, but they have focussed most of their energies on Rosie’s file, because she is the key to this whole affair. Not that she was the mastermind behind her son’s plans (they are too sophisticated, she would never be capable), but Camille cannot quite accept that she is simply Carole’s murderer. Certainly, Rosie fits the profile of an impulse killer, someone who acts unthinkingly. That night, in a fit of anger, she took the car and lay in wait for hours, her fury steadily mounting, so that, the moment she saw Carole, the red mist descended: she mowed her down and drove off. She was so irrational that it did not even occur to her to leave the car anywhere but in her own lock-up.
This was the official version of events.
The entire case rested on this single unintentional oversight. The investigating magistrate was overwhelmed by his caseload, the detectives were satisfied they had Rosie Garnier in custody: everyone accepted this account. In fact, it will form the basis of the defence argument by her lawyer, Maître Depremont, a striking female barrister with a faint accent (German? Dutch?), capable of turning anyone to jelly. Camille looks at her hand, her wedding ring, he assumes she marr
ied a Frenchman. A perfect oval face, high cheekbones, eyes of a green seen nowhere else in nature. The moment she looks at you, you are lost. Camille telephoned her last night and asked her to come in for a chat. It was three o’clock in the morning, but she looked absolutely flawless. The interview did not last long, she had nothing much to say: as far as she was concerned the murder committed by Rosie Garnier was an instinctive act, she is planning to plead diminished responsibility. Which is certainly true, though perhaps not the whole story.
“Alright, thank you, maître,” Camille said, not even troubling to ask any questions.
“I don’t think she knows much,” he said to Louis later. “And there’s no point trying to probe any deeper, she’ll just claim duty of confidentiality and all that shit. It was a complete waste of time.”
Louis has been spending his time trawling the internet, printing out dozens of pages for Camille to read.
Housing: Rosie is scrupulous in paying her rent, she has comprehensive insurance, the apartment is a testament to her obsession with cleanliness.
Bank statements: Rosie does not earn much, yet she has modest savings – not much, but she saves.
Social security: Rosie is in rude health, rarely takes sick leave and is not taking any medication.
Local authority: she has repeatedly applied for social housing, her requests have always been declined, but she is not discouraged, she simply fills in another form. She has never applied for benefits – she suffers from the futile pride of modest people.
Employment history: in her time with her current employer, she has never been promoted and will likely remain at the bottom of the ladder until retirement, she does not apply for internal vacancies, has never requested a transfer, she is stubbornly deskbound. Has no ambition . . .
11.00 a.m.
Rosy and John Page 7