Stick Together

by Sophie Hénaff

  “Right, but – ”

  “Why don’t you ask him yourself! You’re talking about him like he’s dead. Jacques! Jacques!”

  The widow was off again, pursued by an endless wave of commiserations and blurry faces. Rosière was pushed aside so she gave up, her heart heavy.

  She was sure that one day she was likely to end up surrounded by strangers who knew more of her life story than she did, and that it would drive her mad with vulnerability. She had a fresh pang as she saw the mass of people swallow up the widow she had just conned, even if she would remember nothing of it. All that to find the killer of a husband she thought was still alive and whose presence she still felt.

  Lebreton watched his colleague come back, sashaying along as she plumped up her fiery barnet. As outraged as he was, he had to admit that the discovery of the victim’s true identity marked a giant leap forward.

  12

  The café was in the outskirts of the town and looked like an abandoned roadside diner. Its broad terrace, which probably came alive in the summer months, was now just a crude stretch of concrete covered in murky puddles and strewn with litter. In one corner, a stack of white plastic chairs was gathering rainwater, bird droppings and dead leaves. The pergola, devoid of vines, resembled a rotary clothes airer. Even the surrounding landscape, fashioned with warmth and languor in mind, showed the wintry side of a coin that usually faced the other way. Évrard and Merlot exchanged a glance before pushing open the door.

  A vast room with a tiled floor and walls clad in a suspect white render was cut in half by a long bar – one side for the restaurant, the other for the café and its weekly belote tournament. All eyes centred on the new arrivals as the conversation died out and playing cards were laid flat on the tables. It was like walking into a Western.

  With all the humility of Richard the Lionheart addressing a vanquished people, Merlot proclaimed in his customary baritone:

  “Oh, I love happening on little bistros like this – the provinces do them so well! No doubt they’ll have the finest pastis on tap.”

  He swaggered straight to the counter and addressed the barmaid, who looked like she was only too familiar with braggarts of his sort.

  “Two Ricards, please . . .” he said, before nudging the man next to him, turning to his colleague and adding: “And for Madame?”

  It turned out “Madame” wanted a Ricard too. She wondered how many billion years it would be before banter of this sort would cease to generate solidarity among the men propping up the bar.

  “Any chance of signing up for the tournament?” Évrard asked as she poured a centimetre of water into her pastis, causing it to go cloudy and take on its pretty yellow hue.

  The pre-dinner cards tournament was more a formality than anything else. Now that the first few rounds were over, the losers were still playing other games at other tables, and would carry on until closing time. Among the most fervent competitors were the staff members from Jacques Maire’s furniture workshop. The bookkeeper, in particular, who, according to the guy at La Provence, was a competent employee but a mediocre card-player and an even worse drinker. He would have plenty of info., and Évrard and Merlot had been charged with extracting it, even if it meant giving him “several skinfuls”, as Rosière had so delicately recommended.

  To this end, the best strategy involved losing game after game, because traditionally in belote the defeated player must do the honourable thing and buy a drink for the others. A fight to the defeat. Évrard felt a cold sweat on her back at the prospect of downswings and busted hands. In the casino, losing was almost as addictive as winning – like the adrenaline rush you get when you peer into an abyss. Not for money . . . Never again would she play for money.

  Focus on the cards. When there are no stakes, the sheer enjoyment of playing takes over. Whipping out the right trump at the right moment, forcing someone to up their bid, getting a four-card trick, discarding your tens or banking ten points off the final trick. The sensation that comes with gathering your cards, scraping them across the baize, and placing them in a perfect rectangle in front of you. The cheeky glance at the empty space in front of your opponents where their chips ought to be.

  Yes, in those circumstances, winning was good, important even. Évrard was going to have to force herself to hold back.

  “Got to ask Monsieur,” the barmaid said, ramming open the cash register to insert Merlot’s crumpled note.

  The so-called Monsieur had a large moustache and a small envelope in which participants were placing a tariff of eight euros per pair, after which he noted down the players’ names on a big piece of squared paper, arranging the games as and when people arrived. He ushered them to a table in the corner, next to a grubby window that almost entirely obscured the dark sky outside, casting a perfect reflection of the room with its strip lighting.

  As she sat down, Évrard wondered how such a gloomy place could give off such a comforting atmosphere. Was it the green felt on the tables, or the full glasses placed in the corners? Perhaps it was simply the presence of a good twenty or so people, chatting happily, in the centre of this complete wasteland where only cars had seemed to pass, without a single pedestrian troubling the pavements.

  Merlot had to push his chair as far back as possible to accommodate his prominent belly. His arms needed to be at full stretch for his hands to reach the table. He stroked his bald pate with a satisfied motion before swivelling his entire body round, the stiffness of his neck suggesting that for some time his only exercise had been restricted to the elbow department.

  “Come come, my friend, some opponents, for heaven’s sake!” he blared at the organiser.

  There would be a succession of challengers over the course of the tournament. Their objective was to keep an eye on the bookkeeper’s team and stay in as long as they did so they would be eliminated at the same time. Then they could, as naturally as anything, offer to keep them company until closing time, a feat they managed in spite of Merlot’s apparent determination to sabotage the games. He was an extraordinarily bad player. He had assured Évrard that he had a command of basic tactics, but once again, in his inimitable way, he had vastly overestimated his abilities.

  Waving his cards around for all to admire, Merlot chatted gaily with Jean-Marc, the bookkeeper, having already plied him with four rounds, the effects of which meant he was beginning to confuse his clubs and diamonds himself. If her opponent started playing as badly as her partner, Évrard was going to find it all the more difficult to let him win.

  “Remind me what’s trumps again?”

  “Spades,” Évrard said.

  As it was ten seconds ago, she thought to herself. The bookkeeper was asking for updates with the regularity of a Swiss cuckoo clock. It gave her an urge to bash his beak the next time it popped out.

  “Who bid?”

  “You did.”

  “How much?”

  “A hundred and thirty.”

  How could this guy have been in charge of anyone’s accounts? He was incapable of concentrating for more than four seconds at a time. Not after all this Ricard, at least.

  “A great man left us this morning,” Merlot said, with the authority of one well qualified to hand out such praise. “He will be a huge loss. It is rare to encounter men of his calibre, real captains of industry, these days.”

  Évrard thought “captains of industry” was perhaps overstating it, what with the furniture workshop probably not nudging the C.A.C. 40 index, but for now she was looking at her third ace of spades – perfect for sinking the other team – and she felt torn.

  “We’ll miss him, good old Jacques,” said Karim, the bookkeeper’s partner, with heavy eyes and a grave expression.

  “What’s trumps again? Hearts?” Jean-Marc asked before paying his own tribute. “A saintly man! We’ll be signing on by the end of the week, but still, a saintly man!”

  “No, spades are trumps. You’re rambling, Jean-Marc, that’s the Ricard talking. Don’t bore our friends wit
h all that.”

  “Come on, Karim, you know as well as I do – the workshop’ll be shut in a month without the boss. Who pulled a spade?”

  There was no aggression in Jean-Marc’s tone, he was simply speaking his mind, but his partner was wriggling in his seat. The showing-off struck him as inappropriate. Both men spoke with a strong Provençal accent, drawing out the syllables and pronouncing the “e” sounds, even the silent ones. Évrard’s instinct for mimicry had meant that she was now singing the end of each word, too. She spoke up before Karim could divert the bookkeeper away from any further indiscretions.

  “Anyone else going to bid again? Have you had any visits?”

  “Hmm . . . No. What’s trumps again?” the bookkeeper said, looking around the table for clarification.

  How was it possible to be so bad, Évrard lamented. During the tournament, the level had been fine, but these two . . . No wonder they had progressed so far: none of the others had persevered long enough to defeat them. They were so rubbish that it stopped being fun. For once, though, the pair seemed to be putting the tourists in their place. This was their chance to be local heroes, and the thought was giving the bookkeeper a big head and the urge to show off. For the police officers, that presented a great opportunity.

  “Nice finesse!” Évrard said approvingly, even though the man had just forgotten that the ace of clubs was down and that he now led with his ten. “Don’t they say that if you want to know the future of a business, you should ask the bookkeeper?”

  “Damn right, young lady! And let me tell you, if the boss hadn’t come along every month with his own money, we’d have filed for bankruptcy long ago!”

  Own money. To what tune? Where from? Was the workshop a front for money-laundering? Évrard felt they had struck on a crucial piece of information.

  “Substantial sums?”

  “Jean-Marc, it’s spades, concentrate, will you, instead of banging on. You’re holding everyone up with all this talk,” Karim said, growing all the more irritated by these direct questions.

  “C’mon, Karim, you telling me we wouldn’t be underwater without the boss’s bucks? When a shop sells fewer pieces than it has employees, it’s simple maths. Let’s be frank – big Jacques, God rest his soul, was clueless when it came to spending his lucre! That workshop’s a public service, not a business.”

  “Yet it seemed to be flourishing.”

  “A bottomless pit. But the boss was a man of means, so . . . The kids don’t want to take it on, and the widow, well, she’s running on empty. As for us . . .”

  So at least his employees had no interest in killing Jacques Maire. But why did he go chucking money away like that? Was it some sort of mafia racket?

  “Wasn’t there a Serge Rufus who was supposed to be taking over the business? Or ensure it stayed afloat? I’m sure I heard some mention of that . . . Help me out, friends, you know the chap I mean!”

  No, Merlot’s friends did not know the chap in question. They raised their eyebrows, and Jean-Marc took the chance to ask for another look at the last trick, which had already slipped his mind. Merlot took out the crumpled e-fit, half-nibbled by the rat, from his inside pocket and flattened it out on the table for his opponents to see.

  “And him? He might look a little outlandish in this picture, but perhaps this fellow was in line to take it on? Ever spot him lurking about?”

  The two players shook their heads. It was starting to smell policey; they would struggle to glean anything more. Time to call it a night. Évrard, free at last, cut Jean-Marc’s ace with the last trump that he had forgotten to count, and played her hand, which defeated anything her opponents might have.

  “You’re inside,” she said with a sigh of relief.

  “Are you sure it was your turn?”

  13

  In his new capacity as inter-service liaison officer, Lieutenant Basile Diament, Varappe Division, had been given a minuscule, windowless office at the end of a corridor one floor beneath the attic at number 36. Once the lieutenant had managed to manoeuvre his two metres and 120 kilos behind the desk, the room only seemed smaller. He was like Gulliver in the land of the Smurfs. Only no-one wanted to have lunch with this particular Gulliver, who had gone three weeks now without a banquet.

  He would be back soon. A friendly colleague had reassured him that it was just to make a point. No big deal. It would not be for ever. Just do this job and rejoin the fold.

  The guy better be right.

  Basile Diament had not spent years busting his balls only to wash up in an office narrower than his shoulders. He had put up with too much crap, grinding out each promotion with gritted teeth so he could fold up his uniform, to crack now. Not now he had reached the B.R.I., the holy grail, the elite squad he had trained for day and night, including weekends, always thinking that every extra second of graft would help him stand out from the next person. Having landed grants for his studies and made his mother so proud, Lieutenant Basile Diament was not about to give up because of this minor speed bump. It was only a warning. Nothing but a warning. He would have to toe the line and bounce back, just like at the start.

  The start. He thought back to his first day on patrol, when he had pulled on his uniform, fastened his buttons, buckled his belt and straightened his cap. An outfit that confirmed him as a soldier of the Republic, an embodiment of law, order and security, for everyone. He had walked down the street, shoulders back, with the sense that he was part of something greater than himself: in these clothes, he represented the nation; an offence against him was an offence against the whole of France. And if he himself was at fault, then the entire nation would suffer from his dereliction. Basile Diament was keenly aware of what he stood for and the faith people placed in him. He was there to defend them.

  In the armoury, along with all his colleagues in blue, he had grinned from ear to ear when he was handed his service weapon. His weapon. He had tested its weight in his fingers, ejecting and replacing the clip, checking the safety catch before sliding it into his holster. Each motion guided by the thousands of images he had gobbled up from T.V. He was mimicking the pros, even though officially he was becoming one. The officer in charge of the armoury handed him a piece of paper to sign.

  “Just don’t go selling it to your pals in the banlieues,” he had said with a sneer as he stowed away his clipboard.

  What pals? What banlieues? His mother had worked all hours of the day to keep them within the Périphérique, and luckily enough she managed it. Basile had grown up on rue de Belleville in Paris’s twentieth arrondissement. His mother, a white woman from the Ardèche, had married his father, a West Indian, and the two of them had had a son together, a good Parisian half-blood.

  First posting: border police.

  His ranking from his examinations meant he had little choice in the matter, but it was nearby and he was happy. The young Diament had taken up his post. In uniform and in an airport to boot, life seemed limitless, as expansive as Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle itself.

  Before long, thin men with glazed looks started arriving. Hoping for asylum, they presented their poorly forged documents that did not stand up to Diament’s scrutiny. He had to tell them no, to try to explain. As if they were not tired enough already. He would point them towards an area on the far side where they could wait, before they were told no again.

  Diament did not go in for politics. He had no opinions and knew that decisions were made on high because the people at the top were aware of the bigger picture. Diament just said no. But he often got the feeling that he was the only person not to derive pleasure from it.

  At times, the young policeman wondered whether his skin colour had played a part in this posting. Whether it might have been deemed the safest way to judge how far his loyalty stretched. Whether the powers-that-be were afraid that his half-caste status inevitably made him into a brother, an accomplice, as if gangs formed with the help of a Pantone colour chart. In his team, there were a couple of second-generation guys of North Afri
can origin. Were they going through some kind of initiation ceremony too? That said, the police now recruited from a far wider range of backgrounds. Things had changed.

  Some things. Perhaps not his white working-class pals.

  Every morning, Diament ignored the mocking looks as he opened his locker. The disparaging remarks and the jokes – of course you’ve got to be able to take a joke. We’re all on the same side, right? Right, guys? These men – just a handful of loudmouths, really – were scraping the barrel in terms of intelligence, leaning hard on the one quality that afforded them any importance whatsoever. They were white – that was all they had going for them, so they wore it on their sleeves, buffing it up, massaging it to make up for their piddly frames. Basile Diament’s height spared him any direct confrontation, not to mention the need to talk back. He would shut his locker, check the final button on his uniform, and leave the changing room. He kept to his path.

  His mother had warned him about this from an early age: “Until you’re thirty, don’t react to anything, my boy. No-one makes wise decisions until they’re at least that age. Play the game until you’re thirty, then take the time to think and speak. Before that, it’s just too tedious.”

  Diament had put up a defence made of steel and concrete. The structure was sound, albeit with a bit of flexibility. Enough to weather strong winds or withstand the odd tremor. But one day the first bolt would come loose and the whole thing would come crashing down. Not anytime soon, he hoped.

  He returned to his booth, with its bulletproof window, and sat on his stool.

  *

  Instinctively, the thin man came towards him. A flicker appeared in his eyes when he saw the officer; not a roaring fire, more like the last gasp of a match. No. No, Diament begged inside. Don’t let hope creep up on you. My colour means nothing. Not to you, at least. Only to them.

  In his bedroom at night, Basile cried often, to release the pressure, to wash away the memory of those faces that had reached the end of the road, but were still so far from arriving. They would have left again already. In the space of a few hours, they would remake a journey that had taken them so many months and so much grief. For a moment or two, Basile would let his tears flow with theirs. He had been a traitor to both factions.