Water from the shower splattered against the tiles.
“What?”
“Let’s explore the Canada lead first. The more I think about it, the more I believe we might pick up the trail of those little girls in the archives. And if nothing pans out, we’ll try going after the Legion. So—do you need a visa?”
“I have a passport. That’s usually enough, but sometimes not, from what I could make out online. But it would make things easier if we had an international letter rogatory.”
Sharko’s mouth was pressed against the locked door. From the other side, he could hear Lucie soaping herself up. He couldn’t stop himself from picturing her naked. It gave him an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“Fine…We have good relations with the Canadians; they train our behavioral analysts. We also have all the contacts we need over there. I’ll take care of that for you at Violent Crimes. Do you know if there are any direct flights from Lille to Montreal?”
“Yes, but— Ow! I got soap in my eye. Wait a minute!”
Sharko smiled. Rustle of the shower curtain. Then the woman’s voice once again:
“Aren’t you coming with me?”
“No. You get the next TGV. I’ll take care of sending the info to your boss—don’t worry about that. We’ll get you e-tickets for Quebec.”
“What about you?”
“I’m going to see Leclerc about the list of humanitarian groups in Cairo at the time of the murders. It’s possible the killer is on that list of names.”
Suddenly the door opened. Lucie was wrapped in a large towel, her hair and ears covered in foam. She smelled of vanilla and coconut. Sharko jumped back a step; he felt strange.
“Why are you trying to keep me at a distance?” she asked in a hard voice.
Sharko clenched his jaws. He gently wiped away some foam from Lucie’s temples and abruptly turned around.
“Why, Inspector!”
He disappeared down the hall, without looking back.
40
Everything had sped up for Lucie since leaving L’Haÿ-les-Roses. She had only a few hours to do what would normally have taken someone two days. Her plane was scheduled to leave at 7:10 that evening from Lille-Lesquin airport. The administrative services where Sharko worked had taken care of her arrangements as if by magic: paperwork, travel authorization from the higher-ups, e-tickets sent to her in-box. The Boeing would land at 8:45 p.m. Quebec time. A room was reserved for her at the Delta Montreal, a three-star hotel located between Mount Royal and the Old Port, a short walk from the archives. She had just printed out the international letter rogatory, which had arrived only moments before via e-mail. Strictly within the confines of the investigation, they were allowing her four full days on site. Four days was a lot of time to look through old documents. They’d been liberal.
As Lucie was returning home, she thought of Sharko’s last words to her on the train platform at Bourg-la-Reine: “Take care of yourself, kid.” The words had echoed in the hollow of his throat like pebbles rattling against each other. They had shaken hands—thumb above for him, smiles exchanged, 2–0—then, like the first time, Sharko had walked away, shoulders hunched, without turning around. With a pinch in her heart, Lucie had stared for a long time after his broad silhouette as it disappeared anonymously into the stairway.
After a stop in the bathroom, she packed her bag with the bare minimum, stuffed it in the trunk of her car, took out the trash, and headed for the Oscar Lambret Medical Building. She was more excited than ever. Canada, an international case…for her, the “little lady cop” who just a few years before was filling out forms in police headquarters at Dunkirk. Somewhere in there, she felt proud of her rise in the world.
Lucie entered the hospital room with two black coffees bought from the vending machine. Her mother was still there, faithful at her post. She and Juliette were playing with the gaming console. Coloring books lay open on the bed. The little girl gave her a wry smile. She was beaming, and her skin had finally regained the honey color children of her age should have. The doctor had officially announced that she’d be discharged the next morning. Lucie hugged her child in her arms.
“Tomorrow morning? That’s wonderful, darling!”
After a ton of kisses, Juliette went back to her game, all cheerful. Lucie and Marie stood at the doorway to the room, coffees in hand. Lucie took a deep breath and blurted out:
“Mom, I’m afraid I have to ask you to watch Juliette for at least four more days—four days and nights, I mean. I’m really sorry. This has been a really difficult case and—”
“Where are you off to now?”
“Montreal.”
Marie Henebelle had a gift for making you feel guilty with a look.
“Going abroad now? Nothing dangerous, I hope.”
“No, no. I just have to search through some old archives. Nothing very exciting, but somebody has to do it.”
“And of course that somebody is you.”
“You might say that.”
Marie knew her daughter too well; she knew that even if Lucie were going off to face the devil himself, she’d claim she was just out to pick mushrooms. She jerked her chin interrogatively at a gray stuffed animal, a hippopotamus.
“Your ex came by.”
“My ex…You mean Ludovic?”
“Have there been others?”
Lucie remained silent. Marie looked sadly at Juliette.
“You should have seen how much fun those two had together. Ludovic spent two hours here with her. He was going home, and he said that if you want to call him, you can. You should.”
“Mom…”
Marie seized upon Lucie’s gaze and didn’t let go.
“You need a man, Lucie. Someone to get you settled down, who can bring you back to reality when you need it. Ludovic is a good boy.”
“Yeah, the only problem is I don’t love him.”
“You never gave yourself time to love him! Your twins spend more time with their grandmother than with their mother. I’m the one watching and raising them. Does that seem normal to you?”
Ultimately, Marie was right. Lucie thought again about Sharko’s view of the job: a devouring monster that ultimately spat out ruined or damaged families.
“After this case, Mom. I promise I’ll slow down and think about it.”
“Think about it—right…Like after the last case. And the one before that, and before that…”
Her eyes were filled with reproach, along with a kind of pity.
“It’s too late for me to remake my daughter. You’re set in stone, missy, and it takes a pickax to change anything in that hard head of yours.”
“At least I know where I got it from.”
Lucie managed to wrest a half smile from her mother, who caressed her cheek with her hand.
“Don’t worry about it. Let me just make a quick stop at the house. What time do you have to leave here?”
“Five at the latest. Just enough time to get to the airport and check in.”
“That leaves you three short hours to spend with your daughter. Good lord, you’d think we were in the visiting area of a prison!”
41
After dropping Lucie off, Sharko had sped to Nanterre. The young female detective had left a burning trace in his mind, an indelible presence that he found he couldn’t erase. He could still see her, wrapped in a towel, covered in foam, in his bathroom. Who would ever have thought that someday a woman would shower where Suzanne had once showered? Who would have thought that the sight of a semi-undressed body could once again make his heart race in his chest?
For now, he paced back and forth in his boss’s office. Lucie was far away, and his mind was on other matters. He was yelling at Leclerc, who was seated at his desk.
“We can’t just keep our mouths shut like this. Others have gone after the Foreign Legion before us.”
“And they all got shot down. Péresse and the boss feel the same way. You need to forget about your shortcut and get
me something concrete. Josselin is willing to assign two investigators from Criminal to retrace Mohamed Abane’s steps from the moment he left his brother’s. That’s the only legal recourse we’ve got.”
“It’s going to take forever and it’ll get us nowhere. You know it as well as I do.”
Leclerc stretched his chin toward an express pouch lying in front of him.
“As I said on the phone, before you make the shit hit the fan bypassing Péresse, I got hold of the list of humanitarian groups who were in the Cairo area. We’ve got a few names, especially the mission leaders. But the thing that’s really interesting is the SIGN conference itself. Have a look…”
Martin Leclerc’s face was somber, closed off. He shuffled some papers needlessly and took care not to meet Sharko’s gaze. The chief inspector picked up the file and started reading:
“A Smile for the World’s Orphans, around thirty people. Planet Emergency, more than forty. SOS Africa, sixty…I’ll spare you the best ones…” He squinted. “March 1994, annual meeting of the Safe Injection Global Network. More than— More than three thousand persons from all over the world! WHO, UNICEF, UNAIDS, a ton of NGOs, universities, doctors, scientists, health professionals, people from industry…More than fifteen countries. But—what the hell am I supposed to do with this?”
“March 1994 was the month and year of the murders, wasn’t it? We’re waiting for a detailed list of SIGN participants, which we should have later today. At first glance, it looks like between a hundred fifty and two hundred Frenchmen.”
“Two hundred…”
“As you see, we’re a long way from combat boots and flak jackets here. So let the Legion go for now—we’ve got enough on our plates as it is, with Canada, these lists, and the Abane investigation.”
Sharko leaned on the desk.
“What’s with you, Martin? We used to go at these things like bloodhounds, and today you’re burying it all under lists of names. Once upon a time, you would have been all over this.”
“Once upon a time…” Martin Leclerc sighed. His fingers clutched a sheet of paper, which he crumpled and tossed into the wastebasket. “It’s Kathia, Shark. I’m losing her.”
Sharko absorbed the blow, but deep down he’d been expecting it for several days now. Kathia and Martin Leclerc had always symbolized the very image of a stable couple, who had weathered so many storms that nothing could split them apart.
“It started with the Huriez case, didn’t it? Why didn’t you say something?”
“Because it is what it is…”
Sharko recalled every detail. One year earlier, cocaine smuggling near Fontainebleau. One of the small fry in the network gets pinched, Olivier Hussard, twenty years old. Kathia’s godson…She asked her husband to intervene, use his influence to get a lighter sentence. But Martin Leclerc was inflexible, faithful to the standard of his office.
Sharko had blamed himself. Carried away by his own demons, he hadn’t noticed anything wrong with his chief. He was the analyst who was supposed to recognize behavior patterns.
“I had a right to know, Martin.”
“You had a right to know? And what piece of shit rule gave you the right to know?”
“Our friendship, that’s all.”
A heavy silence fell over the room. In the distance they heard the roar of a motorcycle.
“I went to see the boss, Shark. Day before yesterday.”
“What? Don’t tell me you—”
“Yes. After this case, I’m resigning. I can’t hold on for eight more years, waiting for retirement with my guts in a knot. Not without her. She’s been staying at her sister’s for the last few days, and it’s driving me insane. And besides, can you see me growing old alone, like—”
He stopped short. Sharko stared at him.
“Like me, you mean?”
Leclerc took refuge in his stacks of papers, which he piled up, moved around, piled up again.
“You’re being a pain in my ass, Shark. Get out!”
The inspector detached himself from the desk, dazed. His eyes were slightly teary. Leclerc couldn’t imagine how badly his words had stung. Sharko clenched his fists.
“Do you know what your leaving means for me? For the few years I still have to go?”
Leclerc banged on the desk with his fist.
“Yes! Yes, of course I know! What do you think?”
This time, Leclerc stared his subordinate right in the eyes.
“Listen, I’ll do everything I can so that—”
“You’ll do nothing. If you leave, I’m gone, and you know that perfectly well. No one’s going to want an old, damaged cop. Not even in a closet somewhere. It’s as simple as that.”
Leclerc looked at his friend and shook his head.
“Please don’t hold a knife to my throat. It’s hard enough as it is.”
Shoulders stooped, Sharko finally headed for the door. He turned around when his hand was on the knob.
“When I lost my wife and daughter, you and Kathia were there for me. Whatever happens and whatever you decide, I’ll accept it. And now, you should go tell Josselin that I’m going home early to get some rest, because I’m hearing voices on all sides.”
42
The highway rolled by. Long, monotonous, endless. Sharko had just passed Lyon, heading due south toward Marseille. Windows open, radio blasting. His cell phone was sitting in front of him, next to the steering wheel.
“The worst part is that I have no idea how to help him. Go see Kathia? That’s not the answer. I feel like I’m swimming through molasses.”
“What’s that mean, ‘swimming through molasses’?”
Sharko glanced over at the passenger seat.
“It means straining, working hard for nothing, turning around in circles. Exactly like what I’m doing now.”
Eugenie was playing with a lock of her hair, twisting it around her fingers. She put on her most vixenish look.
“By the way, did you notice how much Lucie looks like Suzanne?”
The inspector almost choked. That kid certainly had some unpredictable reactions. He shrugged.
“She looks about as much like Suzanne as your jar of sauce looks like a locomotive.”
“To you, I mean. She looks like Suzanne to you…And to your heart of stone as well. I know. It’s getting all warm in there.”
“You’re raving.”
“That’s right, I’m the one who’s raving…Lucie has gotten to you—that’s why you want to protect her. Canada is far away.”
The inspector’s cell phone started vibrating.
“I like Lucie. I hope things work out for the two of you.”
“You’re out of your mind, kiddo.”
He answered the call. It was one of his contacts at Central Intelligence.
“Have you got the info?”
“What do you think? The current commander of the Legion is a colonel by the name of Bertrand Chastel. Guy’s got quite a pedigree.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Career legionnaire, belonged to the most prestigious combat units. Commander of the Second Parachute Regiment in Lebanon, then Afghanistan. Then he changes hats, becomes head instructor in Guiana, develops some new kind of training program and forms a super-elite squad. The guy seems to get off from living on the edge. The kids sweat blood under him, and most of them come out of it with their heads rewired for battle, if you get what I mean. Back in France, he spends three years at DGSE before returning to his first love and taking over the First Foreign Regiment, then the Fourth, then the Recruitment Corps two years ago.”
The acronym immediately set off an alarm in Sharko’s head. DGSE: General Directorate for External Security.
“A stint in secret service in the middle of his career as a legionnaire? What was he doing there?”
“You think it’s spelled out in black and white? All this stuff is top-priority defense secret. He knows some real movers and shakers, including most members of the Consulting Committee for Def
ense Secrets. We’re in the upper echelons here, Shark, and in the upper echelons there are a lot of locked boxes. When you open them, you get Pandora’s boogie jumping in your face. I’m not sure what it is you’re looking for, but I can tell you right now this guy is untouchable.”
“That’s my business. Is he in Aubagne these days?”
“Yes. I called with some bogus excuse to check.”
“Terrific. Thanks, Pops.”
“Meanwhile, we never had this conversation and I don’t want to know what you’re up to. But watch your back all the same.”
Sharko hung up. He threw a vindictive glance to his right. Eugenie had finally beat it.
He turned down the volume of the car radio, which was jangling his nerves. After the flatness of the countryside came valleys, mountains, and rivers. Valence, Montélimar, Avignon. The foothills of Provence. The temperature rose, and sun cooked his flesh through the windshield. Sharko’s throat was dry, not because of lack of water but because of Henebelle. Eugenie was right. That diminutive blonde had given his fossilized innards a real shake-up. Something was heating up in his chest, his belly, and his loins. Everything felt tangled in knots, and it hurt. It hurt because there shouldn’t have been anyone other than Suzanne. Because he was fifteen years older than Lucie, and through her eyes he could see all the flaws that had destroyed him and his family. The relentlessness, the absences, and that need to track down Evil, true Evil, until you found yourself with your back to the wall, shattered and exhausted. There was no way out of that pursuit. No closure or satisfaction.
The day was already coming to an end. Eight hours of driving behind him…eight hours to think, in part, about his plan of attack.
It was pure suicide, and he knew it.
No matter, he’d already been dead for quite a while. He’d already died so many times.
He left the Autoroute du Soleil—the Sunshine Highway—and continued another thirty miles or so on Highway A52, exiting at Aubagne. He briefly spotted the buildings of the Foreign Legion recruitment center along Highway A501. Long white containers, with perfect lines and a rigor that was purely military. A few minutes later, he turned onto Route D2, then onto a road that led him to a sentry box manned by a corporal on guard duty. White kepi, red chevrons, spotless uniform. Sharko presented his police ID.
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