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The Awkward Squad

Page 20

by Sophie Hénaff


  They kicked off the evacuation by grabbing Dax’s elbow. The lieutenant had howled as if they were beating him to a pulp: “Police brutality! Police brutality!” Passersby turned to stare and some tourists started taking photographs, and in the end the lackey’s walkie-talkie spluttered into action. One of the bosses upstairs must have ordered them to let the striking dogs lie, in case the general public started taking an interest.

  After that, Évrard and Dax observed the comings and goings without interference, always keeping one eye on Chief Buron’s window.

  Évrard, throwing herself into the mission and her disguise, was trying to maintain the solemn air of the unjustly treated, dispossessed police officer, even though Dax and his constant look of enthusiasm were not making her job any easier. The upper branches of the horse chestnut on the embankment below, which tickled the top of her head at the slightest breeze, were also making it hard to concentrate. But despite these various obstacles, nothing escaped the notice of the indifferent, bluffing lieutenant. She was using her cell phone’s hands-free kit to communicate with Capestan, who was positioned out of sight on a bench in place Dauphine. She had put headphones over the earpiece to make it look like she was listening to music, and the commissaire’s free minutes meant they could stay in constant contact.

  Dax clamped the post of his HUNGER STRIKE placard between his knees to free up his hands, then fished out a sandwich the size of an encyclopedia from his yellow-and-gray knapsack. When he unwrapped the silver foil, a strong waft of cold meat filled the fresh autumn air.

  “Want a bite?” the young lieutenant offered his partner for the day. “It’s got ham, chicken, bacon, and pastrami. My mother made it for me. She really knows how to make a good snack. A little dollop of mustard, and no lettuce at all. That way the bread doesn’t get soggy. Then she puts a layer of paper towels beneath the foil to stop it tasting all metallic. Want some?”

  Évrard declined with a smile, and Dax started in on the beast with visible glee. The guard came up to him, plainly irritated.

  “I thought you were on a hunger strike?”

  Dax nodded vigorously, his mouth full, and tried to reply when a stream of crumbs dropped from his sizable maw. He gathered them up promptly, damned if he was going to let such a good meal go to waste. Évrard picked up the placard in embarrassment:

  “I’m taking over for a couple of hours. He’s on a break.”

  “You’re doing shifts? You’re taking a lunch break during a hunger strike?” the officer asked snidely.

  “That’s right,” Évrard confirmed, with the tight-lipped Dax nodding in agreement.

  “Do you take us for idiots?”

  There was only one thing for it: if they were to keep their credibility and avoid losing their observation post, they had to turn this accusation on its head. Évrard summoned as much bitterness as she could and played the passive-aggressive card:

  “No. You are taking us for idiots. So we’re falling in line. And we’re taking a disciplined approach. Isn’t that the key to good police work? That way the bosses up there will reinstate us—a normal squad for normal officers.”

  She didn’t want to lay into the guard too much, but she said her piece to stay in character. During her little speech, Évrard had taken out one of her earphones, to make it more realistic. In the other, she was aware that Capestan was listening in the distance, following the exchange with amusement.

  A small flash of light from the chief’s window caught Évrard’s attention. Buron was pacing back and forth at his window, eventually stopping for a few minutes and giving the lieutenant an exaggerated wave. She waited for the guard to go away before informing Capestan:

  “Buron says hi.”

  She heard the commissaire’s voice in her left ear:

  “Do you get the feeling he’s greeting you, surprised to see you, or trying to irritate you?”

  Évrard thought for a moment before facing the facts:

  “I think he’s trying to irritate me.”

  A hundred yards away, Capestan wondered yet again what Buron was after, and whether he knew he was being watched. Sitting on her bench by the pétanque area that dominated place Dauphine—that delightful, leafy haven in the shadow of the Palais de Justice—the commissaire was soaking up the view at the same time as organizing the rotation schedule for her teams. As she kept one ear on Dax and Évrard, with the other she enjoyed the sounds of the game of pétanque that was under way: the dull thud of the steel boules, the muted rolls on the sand and gravel surface, the curses, the jibes, and the issuing of urgent advice. They were having fun, but they wanted to win, too. One game after another, whatever the weather.

  Capestan never stopped scouring the surrounding area from her vantage point. A man crossed the square. He had dreadlocks that made him look like an octopus taking a nap. Another young man cycled past a bit farther away. He had a green helmet and Bermuda shorts.

  The commissaire sat bolt upright. It was the Squirrel. He was perched on a bicycle, the very same one that Merlot was supposedly staking out. It didn’t matter. They had found him, and this time they could not let him get away. He was heading toward the entrance of the police judiciaire. Capestan grabbed the mic for her hands-free and warned Évrard:

  “The kid I chased with Torrez is coming up on your left. Green helmet. Tail him, too. He’s our primary target.”

  The bike had barely left her sight when Capestan’s second telephone rang. She picked up. It was Rosière:

  “Hi, Anne? You’ll never guess!”

  “Buron’s on the passenger list?”

  “No. At least we’re not sure—it hasn’t arrived yet. But we have something better: on June 2, 2005, a court in Miami made the ferry company pay damages to the survivors. To celebrate, the French chapter of the Shipwreck Survivors Association organized a party in Boulogne. And we have a video. We checked the event against Torrez’s time line and found that it coincides with the date of Marie Sauzelle’s murder.”

  “We need to watch that. We don’t have a video player at the Innocents, where might—”

  “Oh yes we do,” Rosière said with delight. “We’ve got a video recorder, DVD player, Blu-ray, flat-screen . . . I’ve even called up CanalSat to get cable. Shall we wait for you?”

  “Yes. Let me contact Orsini to get him to relieve me here, then I’ll be with you.”

  Capestan hung up and raced through her contacts for Orsini’s number. She couldn’t help but smile—honestly, cable TV?

  Dax made the most of his break from tailing duty to swing home and take a shower. Once he’d put on a fresh set of clothes, he sank his fingers up to the second knuckle in a pot of ultrastrong hair wax, then rubbed the substance across his palms and applied it evenly to his wet locks. He combed his short hair to one side and topped off his handiwork with a quiff. Pleased with the result, he smiled at his reflection in the wardrobe mirror and then washed his hands thoroughly. “If you want a nice girl, you need to wash your hands like a nice boy,” his mother would often say. Dax’s hands were always gleaming: the day that nice girl came his way, he would not need to find a sink. He dried them carefully on the spotless white hand towel, then put the finishing touch to his toilette by dousing himself in cologne. Dax liked to smell good. He could never understand guys like the ones they’d been following. Biking makes you sweat. Anyway, that kid must have relations in high places. He sauntered into number 36 without having to show his papers. HQ was like home to him.

  40

  The answer would be in the video. Capestan pressed PLAY. A few black streaks wiggled across the snowy-white screen, then the color appeared and the picture eventually settled down. Rosière and Lebreton fell silent over on the sofa. They could hear the tape whirring in the video player.

  The commemoration was an open-air event. On a wide, raised area of ground someone had erected a wooden stage with a giant screen on top. Long trestle tables ran down each side. The ones on the right were lined with benches, while those on the left
served as a kind of buffet, with cardboard trays of neatly arranged petits fours. One end of each table had towers of plastic cups surrounded by jugs of wine, bottles of soda, and cartons of fruit juice. It was hardly a chic garden party at the Élysée, but it was late afternoon and the sky was still blue, and the guests were greeting each warmly.

  A man in a suit stood up on the stage and tapped the microphone. He mouthed a few words as he looked searchingly at the sound guy. Some loud feedback cut through the atmosphere, causing the scattered groups of the congregation to turn to the stage as one.

  The static video camera was facing the raised area and had the stage and the screen in its shot. The man in the suit blushed and, hunched over the microphone, started speaking, the speakers only kicking in after the third or fourth word: “. . . My dear friends, may this year be about remembering . . .”

  “There!” Rosière exclaimed. “Bottom left—the old lady with the curly hair!”

  It was indeed Marie Sauzelle. But still no Buron, which put Capestan’s mind to rest. She did not want to see the chief’s tall, slightly droopy figure. She was scanning the crowd feverishly, hoping against hope not to find anything. Suddenly another figure, more upright than the one she was looking for, caught her eye. She pointed at the screen to alert Rosière and Lebreton. They waited for the man to turn around to confirm it. There was no doubt.

  “Valincourt,” Lebreton said.

  “What’s he doing there?” Rosière added. “Look . . .”

  Marie Sauzelle went up to Valincourt, greeted him, and stood next to him. They exchanged a few words, all the while watching the man on the stage. “After months of research, the committee I represent has managed to produce a film that pays homage to the victims of the shipwreck . . .”

  Valincourt straightened. He was no longer listening to his neighbor.

  “. . . and as we play the slideshow of photographs, could I please ask you to pay your respects in absolute silence . . .”

  The opening notes of the “Étoiles du cinéma” theme rang out and a series of people’s faces started crossfading on the screen while the man read out their names.

  “So cheesy . . . ,” Rosière muttered.

  Lebreton shook his head, while Capestan’s attention shifted back to the bottom left of the screen. Valincourt was as tense as a tightrope. Marie took out a hankie and started dabbing her eyes, then all of a sudden she froze and stared at the big screen. Then at Valincourt, then back at the screen, and finally Valincourt again. The tribute reel lasted a few more seconds before the last picture faded into a black background.

  Marie turned square-on to the divisionnaire and began speaking to him animatedly. He made a gesture of denial and placed a hand on the old lady’s shoulder, appeasing but authoritative, too. She nodded, but she did not look wholly convinced. All the same, she let herself be ushered toward the buffet, and they disappeared offscreen. Shortly after, the video cut out.

  “I wonder what Sauzelle said to him that made him react like that,” Capestan said as she switched off the TV.

  She ejected the cassette and returned it to its plastic box. With the help of this one video, they could now be certain about several things. The commissaire listed them: Valincourt, like Marie Sauzelle, was part of the Association, which meant they had both traveled on the Key Line Express, the boat on which Yann Guénan had been a crew member. All three of them had definitely crossed paths. Most important, Sauzelle had met the divisionnaire just before her death.

  “I think we can drop Buron,” Rosière said. “We’ve got ourselves another crooked officer . . .”

  Capestan nodded vigorously, not afraid to show her relief. With a newfound optimism, she darted toward the stack of folders on her desk. She came back to the sofa and spread copies of the Guénan file across the coffee table. The three of them almost bumped heads as they scoured the list of signatures. No mention of Valincourt.

  “But he was there for Marie Sauzelle, and as for Maëlle Guénan, there’s no doubt whatsoever—we saw him at the scene,” Capestan said.

  “We’ve found our culprit!” Rosière crowed.

  “No, no, hold on,” Lebreton said, trying to calm everyone down. “He was carrying out an investigation and he happened to know at least one of the victims. To go from there to concluding he committed the murders . . .”

  “Wait, Louis-Baptiste,” Capestan said. “He knew the victim but, more important, he never mentioned that fact. Not in the case notes at the time, nor when I visited him. He explicitly said that the first time he’d met her was when she was dead. There’s forgetful, and then there’s . . .”

  Lebreton leaned back heavily in his armchair and crossed his legs. The commandant was never one to rush to hasty conclusions.

  “Perhaps. We need to establish the reason for his silence. On top of—”

  “Oh, all your official IGS nonsense is getting on my nerves!” Rosière shouted. “Come on, the guy’s guilty as sin!”

  “All right, all right, don’t lose your temper, Eva. What do we do now?” Lebreton asked, smiling in spite of himself.

  “We shift our tail to Valincourt. Same profile, same approach,” Capestan said.

  “We’ve got enough on him to pay a courtesy call, surely?” Rosière said greedily.

  “No, it’s too early,” the commissaire said, applying the brakes. “We don’t have enough incriminating evidence to bring him in.”

  “Are you joking?”

  “No. We’ve got no formal evidence, no DNA, no fingerprints . . . Just a few coincidences.”

  “That hasn’t stopped us in the past . . .”

  “Yes, but this is Valincourt we’re talking about. The man’s got more stripes than a zebra. If we go for him head-on, we’ll only get a bloody nose, like with Riverni. We need a motive and we need to be prepared. We need to know everything about the divisionnaire before we attack.”

  Finding the murderer was one thing; catching him would be another.

  41

  There was a palpable enthusiasm in the Commissariat des Innocents. The investigation was gathering momentum.

  Merlot, feet up on his desk, had wedged his considerable girth between the arms of a swivel chair, which was putting up a noble but short-term resistance. With the receiver in one hand and a glass of whisky in the other, he was doing his best gentrified-Marlowe impression as he wrangled with every HR manager the police judiciaire could throw at him.

  “Indeed, mon ami, the very same Valincourt as he who commands the brigades centrales! I would not be chivying you if this were a matter of meager importance. Ah, the usual little snapshot if you will: parents, marriage, children, qualifications, previous postings, what he has for breakfast, and his favorite brand of underwear. Mum’s the word, eh?” he guffawed, like a Freemason bumping into an old pal at the lodge. “How does a bottle of Napoléon cognac sound for a little ‘incentive’?”

  Lebreton pinned a sheet to the wall with details of the surveillance rotation schedule. Évrard was still keeping an eye on the Squirrel while Orsini was in charge of Divisionnaire Valincourt. The commandant then untangled the headphones of his hands-free kit so he could call up everyone from the inquiry to ask the all-important question: “Did you know this man outside his role as a detective?” Midconversation he made his way calmly to the terrace, where he stood gazing across the rooftops of Paris in the direction of the voice in the distance.

  Lewitz had gone down to the parking garage along with Rosière, who had made arrangements for a vehicle that was more suitable for stakeouts than the brigadier’s bright-yellow Laguna. The capitaine had then returned to the apartment without Lewitz, giving him a bit of time to break in his new toy. Dax, fresh from his shower, was back at his computer screen, fingers on keyboard, gaping at her like a schoolboy waiting to take dictation. The commissaire knew it was in her interest to choose her words wisely.

  “Merlot’s in charge of Valincourt’s civil status and general bio. So I’d like you to dig up his telephone records:
landline and cell phone. We’re looking for a call to one of these,” she said, handing him a Post-it with Maëlle Guénan’s numbers. “I’d also like details of credit card transactions, in particular for the purchase of a set of knives.”

  “More likely to buy a murder weapon with cash,” Rosière pointed out, walking toward the commissaire with the journal in her hand.

  “True, but you never know.”

  “Shall I check out his online identity, too?” Dax said.

  “Do you really think old Geronimo’s on Facebook? Maybe he’s got a Twitter account to share his latest gags, too?”

  Capestan ignored Rosière and her typical sarcasm.

  “Yes, I’d be interested in his digital footprint, too. Do whatever you think is necessary, Dax, but remember we don’t have much time.”

  The lieutenant gave Capestan a salute and revved up his computer with a toothy grin.

  Two hours later, dripping with sweat, he summoned the troops.

  “I’ve got everything!”

  Capestan, Lebreton, and Rosière flocked to his station. A carefully stacked pile of printed sheets was looming in front of the hacker. He grabbed the top one and handed it to Capestan, then doled out the rest:

  “Statements for his IKEA card, Fnac card, Bizzbee card, Sephora card . . .”

  The commissaire became increasingly disconcerted as she took delivery of these documents and scanned their contents, each one more breathtakingly useless than the last. Rosière, too miffed this time to tease him, turned to the lieutenant:

  “Dax, do you honestly see the divisionnaire going around with a Sephora card? They sell cosmetics!”

  “Yeah, why not—I’ve got a Sephora card.”

  “Capestan asked for credit cards, not loyalty cards.”

  “Ah. Must have missed the ‘credit’ part. Still, I’ve got plenty of info on Valincourt,” Dax protested.

  “Although apparently not the right Valincourt, unless the divisionnaire goes by the name ‘Charlotte’?”

 

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