The First Fingerprint

by Xavier-Marie Bonnot

  “Gia il mio cor fremebondo

  s’ammansa in quest’amplesso e si rinsensa.”

  De Palma was sitting at his desk, on the second floor, to the left out of the lift, last door on the right, beyond the photocopier and the coffee machine. The murder squad.

  “Tuoni la Guerra e s’inabissi il mondo

  se dopo l’ira immensa

  vien quest’immenso amor!”

  Slumped in his chair, his muscular legs stretched full length beneath his desk, he was killing his last hour on station duty by flicking again and again through his bumper school exercise book, in which he noted down everything, from the smallest to the most significant details of the investigations he was conducting.

  One exercise book a year. An old-school policeman’s habit which he had inherited from a grumpy old commissaire when he had started out on the force.

  “Mio superbo guerrier! Quanti tormenti,

  quanti mesti sospiri et quanta speme

  ci condusse ai soavi abbracciamenti!

  Oh! Come è dolce il mormorare insieme: te ne rammenti?”

  Before the end of November, the book had been filled by a case which had been obsessing him for months. A murder: Samir, aged seven, raped, then his throat slit with an industrial cutter. In cold blood. And no-one had heard a thing, of course. He had been found at the end of August, in the rubbish chute of a ten-story block of flats in the La Castellane housing estate, far off in the northern suburbs of Marseille.

  De Palma had stood for a long time in silence in front of that child’s body, wound in a bin-liner, its eyes half-closed, its throat agape. He had taken little Samir’s cold hand, leaned over his puffy face, holding his breath to stop himself from vomiting, and had spoken to him tenderly, the way you speak to a child who cannot go to sleep in the dark: “I’ll get whoever did it. Trust me, kid. I always get them. I’m the best. I’ll make him eat his fucking mother.”

  Duriez, director of the regional police department, had told Commissaire Paulin, the head of the murder squad, to put de Palma on to the case because he was an ace. Since which time the affair had grown in importance: young Arabs were crying out for justice, the Maire wanted the police to be irreproachable, and Duriez had put him under immense pressure by declaring to the press, with his hand on his heart: “I have no doubt that this case will be solved in the very near future.”

  De Palma ran through the details of the Samir case for the umpteenth time. Occasionally he frowned as he examined a telephone number jotted in the margin, or a name followed by a question mark. His intense dark stare, as sharp as a facetted sapphire, darted out from his angular face, then faded again in an instant before returning to its journey through the tiny handwriting which went off in all directions, like rapacious weeds, across this great hunter’s pages of memories.

  “Quando narravi l’esule tua vita

  e i fieri eventi e i lunghi tuoi dolor,

  ed. io t’udia coll’anima rapita

  in quei spaventi e coll’estasi nel cor.”

  De Palma would soon celebrate twenty-five years on the force. Five had been spent at 36 quai des Orfèvres, the holy of holies of the national police; the next twenty at the regional police department in Marseille. That made twenty-five exercise books. His retirement day was approaching slowly but surely, and with it the great emptiness of his future life.

  He would not be celebrating that.

  He looked up from his exercise book and peered around. The desk opposite was immaculately spick and span. Its occupant for the past six months was Lieutenant Maxime Vidal, a tall, dark lad who was as dry and thin as a capital I, and who smiled innocently in all circumstances. He had left the office at about 6:00 p.m. just like any other young officer who still had some kind of life outside of his job.

  De Palma’s gaze strayed over the white walls, lingered for a moment on the empty chair in front of him, then went back up to the gray metal ring hanging from the wall. He tried to remember various faces, but none came to him.

  “Venga la morte! E mi colga nell’estasi

  di quest’amplesso

  il momento supremo!”

  The décor was no longer quite what it had been since the false ceiling collapsed on to the heads of the officers in the Murder and Organized Crime Squads. It smelled of wet paint, enamel, fresh plaster and wallpaper paste. A heavy, heady, glycerophtalic smell still hung in the air.

  De Palma sat up on his chair, stretching his arms to waken the network of muscles that covered his solid bones, then he cracked his resin-brown fingers. The night before, he had had bad dreams. A quarter of a century in the force had no doubt driven him somewhat crazy, maybe semi-paranoid, and definitely insomniac. But he had gone to bed early, with the firm intention of snoring like a sawed log so as to recover from all those long nights spent looking at night-birds dressed up to the nines in the flashy bars on Carré Thairs.

  Around 2:00 in the morning, fatal crime scenes burst into his mind without any warning. Always the same images of lacerated bodies, faces with eyes rolled upward, guts torn open, corpses blue under the striplights in the morgue. Women and men of all sizes, all colors, going in and out of the morgue’s drawers, mechanically, like the staging of some modern play.

  And then children. Many too many children. Like night-watchmen, the lifeless faces of the little dead invaded his sleep and kicked him awake pitilessly, asking again and again for impossible justice. The image of his brother, a close-up of his fine, soft eyes, had finally replaced all the others.

  He had spent a couple of hours on the balcony, staring into the night, listening to the murmurs of his sleepy neighborhood. His wife, Marie, had hated this quartier more than anything. It was the ugliest part of the eastern sprawl of Marseille, and one of the poorest too, despite its lovely name which filled your mouth like a zest: La Capelette. He had always lived there.

  Marie had left a month ago.

  His policeman’s salary had allowed him to buy a spanking-new three-bedroom flat on boulevard Mireille Lauze, in a leafy, “classy” cluster of buildings, named Paul Verlaine Residence by its inspired promoters: three cubes of compressed concrete, each of four floors, built over a stretch of what were once gardens of the convent of the Holy Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Apparition. The rest of the park was now occupied by a psychiatric hospital and a nursing college. On summer nights, when the nice and normal slept with their windows open, lugubrious howls tore through the purring of the televisions, providing a strange ground bass of human suffering to this theater of shadows.

  “Già nella notte densa

  s’estingue ogni clamor,

  già il mio cor fremebondo

  s’ammansa in quest’amplesso e si rinsensa.”

  Capitaine Anne Moracchini pushed open the office door and slipped her head of long brown hair through the gap. She flicked back her locks gracefully and gave de Palma a wicked look.

  “You doing overtime, Michel? We’re going for a drink at Le Zanzi. Want to come?”

  “No thanks. I’m going to have a quiet evening at home. Tomorrow, if you want.”

  “Come on now. You’re not going to play at being dark and mysterious again?”

  “Oh yes I am,” he answered, forcing himself to smile. “I’ll take you to dinner tomorrow.”

  “I can’t tomorrow.”

  “Some other time then?”

  “You’re not trying it on with me, are you? Watch yourself, Michel, I might end up taking you seriously.”

  De Palma liked Capitaine Moracchini. First of all, he respected her for what she was: a police officer of rare qualities. She was the only woman on the squad. All the boys had more or less had a go at her, including Duriez, the big boss, and Paulin, the squad’s head. Every one of them, except de Palma, who had never betrayed the slightest sign of physical attraction, even though her supple, slim body, as gentle as it was dangerous, provoked waves of desire in him which he sometimes had trouble controlling. As far as he knew, she had not had a serious relationshi
p with anyone since she had divorced a dentist in Vitrolles two years before on the grounds of their political incompatibility.

  “Goodbye, Michel. See you tomorrow.”

  “Goodbye, my lovely,” he answered, slipping his exercise book into the top drawer of his desk.

  When he was alone again, de Palma repeated to himself the oath that he had sworn to Samir’s body. He had now to go back to La Castellane. His plan was in place, he would just have to wait two more hours before putting it into action. Instinctively, he checked the cylinder of his Bodyguard and went out into the city, with no special destination in mind and just one desire: to get this case over and done with as soon as possible—along with that “Otello” air which he could not get out of his head.

  “Venga la morte! E mi colga nell’estasi

  di quest’amplesso

  il momento supremo!”

  It was verging on hot for a December night. He drove along the old port, with his window open, the smell of fuel and dry seaweed in his nostrils, then cruised up La Canebière, which was crammed with headlamps coming toward him and Christmas decorations—the same for last twenty-five years—forming two lines of light, one yellow and one white, leading toward the Reformed church. At the far end, he turned right in front of the church and went back up rue Thiers. It was dark and deserted, except for a pair of tatty transvestites who swiveled their hips grotesquely every time a car drove past. They were two black whores who used to work for the Beau Jacques and were now looking out for a pimp. Their previous one had been dug out of a blockhouse in Les Goudes the previous month, with his cute features full of lead. An occupational accident, so to speak. Case closed.

  At the top of rue Thiers, he turned into the empty outskirts of La Plaine. Driving steadily in second gear, his arm leaning heavily on the car door, he surveyed the bars that were still open, now spewing out their clientele of students and dole boys. He almost pulled in to attract the attention of the small groups forming around the crouched figures of dealers. No reaction. Snatches of a blues song drifted out from a weary-looking club. The quavering notes rose up among the red lights of the belvedere only to rest in the branches of the nettle trees which the mischievous mistral had decked with plastic bags. As he passed in front of Les Nuits Bleues, he spotted Serge Pugliesi, or “Petit Serge”—the bent policeman’s godfather—sounding off, crotch forward, arms outstretched, waving his hands with their five fingers and six rings in the stinking atmosphere of his local bar.

  He drove swiftly down to the town center again, taking boulevard Salvator, then the bus lane along rue de Rome toward place La Castellane. His instinct told him that Samir’s killer was still right there, in the heart of the estate, and maybe in the very same block. Several clues backed up this hypothesis. He had been cruising round the neighborhood for days, each time in a different car so as not to be spotted in such a vertical microcosm.

  Samir had been murdered at 6:00 p.m. At that time of day, no-one could wander around the estate without being noticed by the kids, who acted as lookouts at its entry points. Samir had probably been a lookout too. Not one of the few witness statements he had so far managed to gather made mention of seeing a stranger in La Castellane. This was his only chance: he had to make the witnesses talk.

  “At any price,” he said aloud.

  One way or another, he had to break through the law of silence which governed the small world of drug pushers. He had to rid himself of that feeling of impotence and guilt which rose from his guts.

  He accelerated. His life had a meaning once more. A quarter of an hour later, he was on boulevard Barnier. He parked in traverse des Transhumants and then walked over to the huge La Castellane housing estate.

  A red light was glowing from the tops of the tower-blocks, refracted by the dampness of the cold air. At the entry to the estate, he spotted the group of kids who kept their eyes on any comings and goings. As de Palma walked by the group, he picked out the youngest of them, then went around the block to return to his car without drawing attention to himself. He started up and drove off into the night.

  This kid’s name was Karim. He had heard it during the questioning after Samir’s murder. Karim lived in the same block as the victim, and had been his best friend. “Like a brother,” he had said. De Palma had sensed that the boy was hiding something, that he had been silenced by a terror which was indefinable, invisible, but definitely there. He had seen it from the way he squirmed in his chair during questioning, from the way he filled up all the silences which the police imposed on him, and from his disturbed gaze when he had been shown photographs so as to identify the deceased.

  Ten minutes later, de Palma had reached the Commissariat of the third arrondissement: a concrete fortress, stuck there like a bad joke at the gloomy entrance of the Parc Bellevue housing estate. Everyone called it “Félix-Pyat.” Half of the population was Comorian and the other half Slavic. It was dangerous. With a sea view for those on the top floors.

  Every time de Palma went there, he reminded himself that the Third World was not necessarily several hours’ flight away from Marignane airport. Félix-Pyat, with its smell of ozone, its façades eaten away by poverty, its walls towering over car parks full of decaying motors and gutted washing machines, exactly conveyed all of the failings of society. It was a pitiless zone amongst the blind zones of a great city.

  Outside the Commissariat, a plain-clothes team was waiting for it to be 9:00 p.m., their asses parked on their Safrane’s bonnet. The Brigadier arrived and tossed that night’s equipment on to the back seat: truncheons, rifles and rubber bullets, walkie-talkies, Maglites. The men exchanged a few inaudible jokes. Then the Brigadier spotted de Palma.

  “So you’ve come to see how the job’s really done.”

  “Where are you going with that Safrane?” de Palma retorted. “Do you reckon you’re going to catch any hoodies in that thing? Wake up, use a Solex. That way, they won’t spot you so fast.”

  De Palma went inside the Commissariat, gave a friendly wave to the officer who was fighting off sleep behind the switchboard, and walked round to the other side of reception, through the debriefing room, shaking a few hands on the way and glancing at the filthy plexiglass cages which seved as cells. Pell-mell, they contained everyone who had been picked up by that day’s patrols. Drunks who were already snoring, two young dealers looking like beaten dogs, a huge tramp in a once-white, blood-stained shirt, who was pacing up and down, slapping his forehead and mumbling: “fuck, cunt, fuck, cunt, fuck …” as if it were a mantra. There was an acrid smell: sweat, bad breath and anxiety, mingled with the smoke of Gitanes and Marlboros.

  In the staff room, separated from the debriefing room by a row of gray metal cupboards, an old boy was doing his crossword while waiting for the change of shift. On a wobbly shelf, a portable TV was spilling out the late-evening program on the most popular channel. To general indifference.

  De Palma went up the stairs at the far end that led to the first floor, taking them two at a time, then pushed open the door of the North Sector. For the first time that evening, a friendly hand was laid on his shoulder.

  “Good day, Baron. Are you here on a visit? Is your old lady in the family way? Or are you just here to see how the real fucking police do the business?”

  De Palma leaned his cheek toward his old friend, Commandant Jean-Louis Maistre, or “Le Gros,” as he was called.

  “What about you? Have you told those assholes that they can forget about all those nights when you used to be a Parisian?”

  “Forget it, Baron, they’d never forgive me.”

  Maistre was short, direct, as furry as a demon, with hair like a raven’s wing, sparkling eyes, frowning brows and a dimpled chin. His pronounced nipples, heavy thighs and fighter’s hands made him look like a ox. And yet, he was a man whose great sensitivity made him suffer terribly for not looking as he really was. His physique meant that he could never carry off the uniform of a mild commandant of public safety.

  He dragged his
friend into his office, closed the door and sat down with a sigh. De Palma watched as he carefully removed from a top left-hand drawer a bottle of Four Roses and two mustard glasses decorated with Achille Talon cartoons.

  “Have a drink, Baron, then tell me why you’re here.”

  “I’ve come to ask you a favor.”

  “Again!”

  Maistre poured two large shots of bourbon, clacked glasses with the Baron, then knocked down his dose in one, with a grimace.

  “I’m still on the Samir case,” de Palma said. “I think I’ve now got the right idea about La Castellane. But I’ll need you.”

  “When, this evening?”

  “What do you think? In six months’ time?”

  “Take it easy. I’m on duty till 4:00 a.m.”

  “I know. But then you’re free!”

  “Yeah … free to go and sleep.”

  “No, free to come with me on a little trip to La Castellane.”

  “Baron, I’m your friend, you know that, but this time you’re definitely out of your tree. What the hell do you want to do in La Castellane at 4:00 a.m? With the cold coming on as well. They’ll all be home with their mothers.”

  “Do you want to be in on the arrest of the century, or don’t you?”

  “Calm down, Baron. Don’t get carried away.”

  Maistre and de Palma met when working together at quai des Orfèvres, at the end of the ’70s. After five years, de Palma asked to be transferred to Marseille, and Maistre then followed so as not to lose his friend. He had not immediately liked the city. He had even hated it for quite a long time. This pure-bred Parisian had not at all appreciated the shabby quartiers in the center, their grandiloquent inhabitants, or the haughty and secretive bourgeois heights overlooking the town. Marseille had given him the impression of being like an over-made-up slapper, with her skin wrinkled from the midday sun, a tart of an Artemis offering her heavy dugs to the highest bidder.

  Surreptitiously, like a rare opium, the city had taken Maistre over. When he would go back up to the capital to see what was left of his family, he felt bored out of his skull. He missed Marseille. He could not have explained why. Yet it was a fact. The city would not now let go of him, it was forever on his heels, like a jealous mistress.