Under Garibaldi’s attentive gaze, he hung up and sat in front of his computer screen to wait impatiently for the response.
When the list arrived, he looked at it intently. Nobody had access to the whole process, just to one part. Even Pichon had been deleted from the list because he was not currently working, as the protocol required. Pichon couldn’t have so many accomplices—it didn’t fit. There was a possibility that Pierre-Gabriel had discovered the treasure trove but not told the whole truth. He shared part of the situation to Garibaldi, who was under professional secrecy.
“Watch your back for a programmer at a high level who also works from the inside. It would be very simple to have a back door.”
This left only the second option: Pierre-Gabriel. Henri Pichon had been in a coma since last—
“Fuck!”
Maillard leapt on the phone for the third time that morning.
“Please get in touch with La Pitié-Salpêtrière and ask about Henri Pichon’s current state.”
Soon his secretary announced that Monsieur Pichon had awoken from the coma on Saturday, that yesterday he had a completely normal day, and that it was very possible he would be discharged from the hospital shortly.
Maillard hung up.
“He made his move,” said Maillard, pensive, supposing that Pichon had preventively deleted all the evidence of his dirty work without knowing it had been discovered. When he got back to work, if he did, he would probably be back to his old tricks. Inspector Lenoir’s report made it clear that Pichon was not extravagant and that he lived to work—for a few years, he hadn’t even had a girlfriend. It was just work to home, home to work. Given this information, it seemed correct to assume that the diversion of funds had not been designed for his personal gain but as a game, a game that didn’t really affect anyone.
Hunting him down was a matter of time and patience.
Half an hour later, Maillard was wrapping up with Garibaldi.
“Send me your invoice. If anything new crops up, I’ll give you a call and we’ll reopen the case.”
Maillard knew it wasn’t necessary to ask for discretion. At the professional level at which they both worked, it would have been an insult.
“I’m at your service. This isn’t just anybody. He has the romantic side of the gentleman thief but adapted to our modern times.”
“Speaking of, what’s the touch of romantic humor you mentioned at the beginning of your report?”
Garibaldi smiled a mysterious, sympathetic smile. The romantic programmer, pirate, and gentleman thief—he’d taken a liking to Henri Pichon. He took out his computer and started it up on the conference table.
“As you know, programming routines are called tasks. Well, since 1995 your programmer’s routines have been called Tash, in all uppercase letters. At first I thought it was a typo, but seeing the repetition of some numbers in the comments of the explanation of each routine, I couldn’t resist the temptation to investigate further.”
“And?”
“It’s wonderful. Nine hundred and forty-six romantic dedications. More than one per week for seventeen years. I’ll show you.”
“Sure,” said Maillard, calmly calculating the year in which his daughter had come to do that assignment for high school. An assignment overseen by Henri Pichon, under his orders.
31
The redheaded giant said good-bye to Jean-Philippe, greeted his secretary politely, then walked straight to the elevator. It was twelve thirty. He would eat something at the bistro at the station before catching the train. Nobody was expecting him at home—he was a bachelor, and a few months ago his aged cat had departed from this world.
The bell rang, announcing the imminent opening of the doors. Garibaldi instinctively verified whether it was going up or down and entered the large carpeted space surrounded by mirrors. He was alone, and he pressed the ground floor button and looked at his shoes. Probably the only part of his body that wasn’t disproportionate.
“He finished his meeting,” said the transparent voice of Maillard’s secretary over the phone.
“Thanks for letting me know. I’m in a meeting right now, and I don’t know whether I’ll have time to go. Don’t say anything to him; it wasn’t important. I’ll call back as soon as I get a chance. Thanks.”
Morgane Duchène hung up, picked up her briefcase, and shot out from her office on the fourth floor. She’d called Maillard earlier, knowing he was in a meeting with Garibaldi, and had asked his secretary to give her a ring as soon as he was free.
She took the stairs and arrived panting on the first floor, where they normally held internal training sessions. There was little going on at this time of year. She quickly entered the elevator hall, indicating to other staff in the arriving car that she was going up. They made signs that they were heading down. They left and she stayed where she was, catching her breath.
Only one of the digital indicators was decreasing, now pointing at the eighth floor. She’d catch him in a few seconds. Morgane pushed the “Down” button energetically and concentrated on what she was going to do. At this time, it was possible that Garibaldi wouldn’t be alone in the elevator. People were starting to go out for lunch.
The bell rang, and the doors started to open. She saw right away that Garibaldi was alone, all by a quirk of fate. She rushed in, tripping on an imaginary obstacle and landing in the arms of the giant with overly red hair. All the documents in her briefcase fell on the soft carpet, and he tore her jacket as he attempted to catch her.
“I’m sorry, I tripped on something,” she said, looking into his eyes as the doors closed.
“Don’t worry, but I think you’ll have to buy a new jacket,” answered Garibaldi, putting her back on her feet without any apparent effort. Then he stooped down to collect her scattered papers.
She crouched down beside him, and they collected the papers together. They stood up as the elevator reached the ground floor. Contact had been made. Now it was time to secure everything.
Together they went out to the lobby as she examined the tear in her jacket.
“Good thing I wasn’t wearing just the blouse today,” she said, giggling.
“You’re right. It could have been problematic, depending on which part was torn.”
Morgane looked at him incredulously. He had said it obliviously, like someone analyzing a situation that had nothing to do with him. He was like a six-foot-five child. She wondered how he would have reacted if her blouse had torn, exposing her breasts. He probably would have said, “Thirty-four C.”
She changed her tactic.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you before. You don’t work at the bank, do you? I would remember you.”
“Yes, people usually remember me. I’m an external consultant—it’s the first time I’ve come here.”
“Where are you from?”
“I’m from somewhere else, not Paris.”
Morgane didn’t know if this guy was rude, dumb, or both. She lost her patience. She’d send him packing and get the information elsewhere.
“If it’s a state secret and you don’t want to tell me, up to you. Have a nice day.”
She turned to leave.
“No, no. It’s no secret, it’s just that people don’t usually ask me those kinds of things. I live and work in Poitiers.”
“It’s a very nice city, but that twang in your accent isn’t from there.”
“I’m of Italian origin.”
“Why don’t you invite me out to lunch and tell me more about yourself?” interrupted Morgane, glancing at him enthusiastically.
“The thing is, I was going to catch the next train and have a quick bite at the station bistro.”
“OK, I’ll get out of your hair. You probably have someone waiting at home, and you’re in a hurry.”
She again turned to leave.
“Nobody’s waiting for me. My cat died a few months ago, and now I’m alone. It’s just that I always find it difficult to change my plans. But I’ll gladly accept your invitation. Well, my invitation. Sorry, I mean—I’ll gladly invite you to lunch.”
32
“Nice to see you. I thought you were back at work,” Tash said to Valérie when she arrived at the hospital.
“Yes, but today I’ll be late. I came to get my cell phone. Yesterday I lent it to Henri so he could be in touch with you, but I think he spent the night online. My battery died. By the way, he’s no longer on this floor—he was moved yesterday because he no longer needs intensive care.”
“So what are you doing here?”
The doctor appeared through the doors at the end of the hallway and walked along the corridor toward them.
“Good morning, mesdames, how are you today?” he asked, giving Valérie a quick kiss on the lips.
“Some of us better than others,” answered Tash, glancing at Valérie with a smile. She added, “Collecting your phone, I see.”
“Henri Pichon is in a consultation with the osteopath. If everything goes well, we’ll discharge him tomorrow or the day after. There’s no need for him to stay in the hospital any longer.”
Tash’s face lit up; Henri was fully recovered. These last few days she’d been reading a lot about the coma, his state, the discharge, the aftereffects. Apparently it was difficult to diagnose how long the affects of the injury could last. In Henri’s case, there were no internal injuries, although the edema hadn’t appeared spontaneously—it could only have been caused by the accident. But the part that scared her the most was the potential psychological impact. She knew that what she found online was about the most severe cases, but it had been impossible to find any statistics on the subject. How many people emerge from a coma without psychological damage?
She decided to ask the doctor about it.
“It’s hard to give an opinion now,” he replied. “He has an appointment this afternoon with the psychologist and will have more consultations over the next few weeks, both physiological and psychological. It really hasn’t been a complicated case, and there is no visible internal damage, but this does not mean there hasn’t been any. It’s not like when you break your leg, for example. There we have everything under control: the healing of the bone, the muscle rehabilitation, and the ways of dealing with the possible effects. The brain is more complex. Aftereffects may appear weeks or even years later. There are cases in which the patient has become a true psychopath,” he concluded, clawing the air with his hands and making a Frankenstein face, chuckling at his own joke.
But since the two women weren’t amused, he added right away, “Those cases are few and far between, and I doubt Henri Pichon will have any complications. It’s a clear-cut case, or we wouldn’t discharge him so soon. The only thing we have to be aware of is post-traumatic psychology, his minor amnesia related to the accident. It’s very common—the subconscious refuses to remember the cause of the trauma, but the problem is there, and sometimes it continues to worry the conscious part and can create minor psychological disorders. But that’s why we have specialists who will follow up with Henri and prepare him in case it happens.
“I recommend meeting with him and telling him all together how the accident happened, step by step in detail, sharing what you all felt at the time and during the days following. This is called group therapy, and it can be of help to everyone involved—he’s not the only one who may suffer post-traumatic episodes. Remember how badly you felt during the first few days before he woke up?” he reminded Valérie with a serious look.
“Etienne has already been to two sessions, and it seems like he’s doing fine,” answered Valérie. “When Henri gets out, we can all meet at the site of the accident and talk about it.”
“Great idea. Now let’s see if our patient has finished his consultation.”
“I have to leave you, or I’ll get to the office so late it will barely have been worth going,” said Valérie, giving the appropriate kisses to each of them.
Tash had to wait until two that afternoon until she was allowed to see Henri Pichon. It was Monday, and the radiology department had a traffic jam. Today they took off Henri’s bandages, and the doctor wanted to take a final scan.
At last, they let her in. Henri was in a double room alone, lying in bed with the sheets up to his chest, dressed in the usual green hospital gown. It was evident he’d lost a lot of weight in the last few days. His face looked tired; his skin was grayish; he had plenty of stubble; and his unwashed hair stuck to his head, combed down on the right. But his eyes were smiling.
Her first sensation was a slight dizziness that forced her to hold on to the edge of the bed. She didn’t know whether to attribute it to not having had lunch yet, the emotion of seeing Henri in broad daylight instead of the half-light of the previous days, or his extraordinary similarity to her husband on the previous night—he’d been in bed with a cold, and the funky hairdo really synced it, except the glasses were missing.
“Are you all right?” asked Henri, sitting up.
“Yes, I’m sorry. It’s the excitement of seeing you, and maybe that I haven’t eaten. How are you?”
“Tired. But now they’re going to bring me a few toiletries, and I’m sure after a good shower I’ll feel a lot better.”
At that moment, a plump nurse appeared with a bag of toiletries.
“Are you going to be able to do it alone, or do you want a hand?” she asked mischievously.
“I think I’ll manage,” he answered, smiling.
“We’re going to leave him alone for a little while,” said the nurse, looking at Tash.
“I’ll go down to the cafeteria to get a bite to eat.”
Henri smiled at them as they stepped out.
Tash went straight to the cafeteria and ordered a vegetarian sandwich and a bottle of mineral water. She was perplexed and amazed by what she’d just seen, Henri and Pierre-Gabriel had a slight similarity, perhaps accented by Henri’s hairdo that morning and Pierre-Gabriel’s tiredness yesterday, but it was obvious.
Now she understood why she’d felt so attracted to Pierre-Gabriel when she returned to Paris. Both men were programmers. When she met Pierre-Gabriel, he was working in the same offices where she had met Henri, and, in fact, he had worked with Henri. She hadn’t seen Henri since he was living with his much younger girlfriend.
On her way back to the room, Tash saw an attractive, slim man in the hallway, wearing his green hospital gown with surprising grace. He was well shaven with much better hair, and he looked at her and smiled as she approached.
Tash shuddered from head to toe, her hand searching for her amulet reflexively. She didn’t find it because he had it, and he was holding it out in front of her.
She threw her arms around his neck and gave him the second most passionate kiss he’d ever been given—the other was seventeen years ago.
33
Jean-Philippe stepped out of the hospital elevator and was going to push open the door ahead when he stopped suddenly. Through the little windows on the door, he saw Tash throw her arms around a man in a gown and give him the most passionate kiss of the century. The man held her tightly.
Jean-Philippe gazed at them for a while until they left the hallway. Then he turned and took the stairs, ignoring the elevator and its open doors. A wide smile of satisfaction lit up his face.
Everything could be kept in the family—there was no longer any reason to trace the pennies. He couldn’t very well understand what was happening, what Pierre-Gabriel had been doing in his daughter’s life for the past ten years. The only obvious thing was that her relationship with Henri dated back seventeen years, the same as his relationship with Morgane. But they seemed very close now. It wouldn’t be complicated to convince his daughter’s lover to give him a sizable slice of the pie. He didn’t doubt f
or one instant that his prodigious mind would find a weak spot in this passionate relationship.
He considered his daughter with Henri, the nephew of Maurice Lambert, and found it funny. Lambert had perhaps even been aware of the romance, since he was still alive at the time.
Jean-Philippe thought of his son-in-law: that bastard could go to hell with his castle, his stables, his horses, cows, and fields. When he inherited them, it would be because he was an only child and an orphan, and the sole other person left was his grandmother, who was holding on to her life, properties, and deeds like a dog with a bone.
Jean-Philippe had to be patient. He’d done well by going to the hospital. He hesitated between waiting or going back to talk to Pichon that same night, if his health allowed. He decided he would do it later, after Henri was discharged, as he’d have to think carefully about what he was going to propose. Now he had to sort out other things, such as retrieving and eliminating the evidence. The most important being the programming lists that Pierre-Gabriel was working with.
One thought led to another, and his victorious smile gave way to worry. What if Pierre-Gabriel also had a copy of the temporary files with the account numbers? Or maybe he was Pichon’s accomplice. He remembered that ten years ago, his daughter met his son-in-law because Pierre-Gabriel was doing an internship at the bank, overseen by Henri Pichon. The fact that he was still at the offices of La Défense, reading between the programming lines, did not mean that he wasn’t planning something. Jean-Philippe didn’t like Pierre-Gabriel, but he had to recognize that he was a shrewd professional.
He called a taxi as soon as he stepped onto the street.
34
“He’s here,” said Morgane, slipping back into the shadow of the vending machine.
Pierre-Gabriel turned his head calmly, watching as Maillard left the elevator and strode toward his glass office.
The Penny Thief Page 9