Stick Together

by Sophie Hénaff

  “No, I don’t think so,” Capestan said, thinking back to her last call and the near conclusion of the case. “But there’s no harm trying.”

  Rosière was using a knife to dislodge some melted cheese from one of the plates, before turning back to the dishwasher.

  “And when are you going to question the son?” she asked.

  Fair point, and one that Capestan did not want to answer. She had been appended to this investigation because of a link that she was stubbornly refusing to exploit. Her private life would not be subjected to the schemes and hopes of her superiors or her colleagues.

  She did not want to “question” Paul. And she was too keen to see him again to hold out for a chance encounter.

  The silence from the direction of the dishwasher reminded her that Rosière was there.

  “When I’m ready, Eva. Not before.”

  15

  Alexis Velowski set down his tray and the still-folded newspaper on the bedside table. He plumped his two big pillows before meticulously laying them against his headboard. He kicked off his slippers and lifted the corner of his duvet before sliding back into bed to indulge in his favourite morning pastime – breakfast in bed. He loved this moment of peace and quiet in his bedroom, with its exposed beams and small window tunnelled into the thick walls that looked out on a patch of sky and the tip of a bell-tower. A thin layer of condensation served as a reminder that it was nicer to be inside than out. After years of trauma and bitter struggle, he had finally managed to salvage a degree of serenity, however fragile.

  Alexis took a glug of tea and bit into his tartine before returning his cup to the saucer in the middle of the tray. Then he slowly unfolded his broadsheet, the Lyon daily Le Progrès.

  He started by flipping through the national and international sections, made a brief foray into the T.V. listings, then glanced at the death notices as he took another bite. The third one down made him freeze.

  “The Nagging Memory Association regrets to announce the cruel death of Alexis Velowski. The funeral will take place at the Église Saint-Paul on December 8. No flowers, no wreaths and no friends.”

  A cold sweat chilled him to the core of his pyjamas. December 8 was today. Velowski turned to his alarm clock. Six twenty-seven.

  He had to react, quickly. Forget the fear that was pinning him to his bed and move. Fast.

  He leaped up, spurred by an adrenaline rush that sent his muscles into overdrive and set his brain alight.

  Be methodical. A bag.

  In the bottom of the wardrobe, he found his ultra-lightweight black nylon rucksack. He slid in two T-shirts, two sets of boxer shorts, the key and his manuscript.

  He darted into the bathroom and haphazardly gathered up some toiletries that he shoved into a sponge bag. If he survived until his next shower, he would buy anything that was missing. He put on a pair of black trousers, some socks and his trainers, then pulled a jumper directly over his pyjama top, all as quickly as possible.

  Holding the bag in his left hand, he grabbed his parka from the coat rack. More out of instinct than anything else, he stuck a fistful of Quality Street into his pocket and opened the front door, shutting it behind him. It was only after taking a few steps downstairs that he realised he had not even given his Vieux-Lyon apartment a farewell glance.

  Église Saint-Paul. The address suddenly struck him.

  His building was opposite it. Right opposite.

  He was still two floors from the main entrance. His heart pounding, Velowski stopped for a quick moment on the landing. He could feel each beat pulsating in his ears, marking the passing seconds. He could not stay – too dangerous. He could not leave, either – also too dangerous.

  What was his least risky option?

  His instinct for survival was pointing towards leaving. Flight. But that was his inner caveman, the same way a reptile would react. That was not a decision.

  Alexis was boiling hot. In Lyon, in winter. December 8. The Festival of Lights. The Holy Virgin Mary would only have eyes for those thousands of candles today; the beacons celebrating her would be commanding all her affection. All she would hear would be the vast, collective prayer of the city’s dwellers – the voice of a wretched sinner begging her for mercy with his dying breath would never receive her unending compassion. He would die without forgiveness.

  Not today. He could not die today. Not yet. The timer on the light ran out. He stared at the dark hole of the staircase. Go for it, hurtle down it, make your move.

  After a brief hesitation, he gathered himself, listened intently, then made his descent.

  At the last turning, he leaned over the banister and peered into the entrance hall below. The bins had been taken out and the area by the mailboxes was clear. There was no blind spot from where he was standing – it was safe for him to go down the final few steps. Six forty-three.

  Do people murder this early?

  Maybe his killer would still be in bed.

  He had to take his chance. He had to leave now.

  Velowski clenched the handle of his rucksack again and again. By squeezing the strap in that way, his hand seemed to be thinking on his behalf, as if his arm was rejecting the bag. Should he hide it? Yes. Yes, hiding it was the best option. In the cupboard with the electricity meter would work – that would be quick and safe for a while, because the E.D.F. guy came round to take the reading only last week. Not the cupboard in the downstairs hall – too obvious, the first in line. Also a bit too big – it used to be a set of toilets. Alexis ran back up the stairs, opened the bag, took out the key, then closed it, stashing it to the left of the meter. He listened. Nothing.

  He went back down and gently opened the heavy door of his Renaissance building. Alexis scanned the peaceful place Gerson. Cars parked under bare trees, wobbly flagstones, and the walls of the squat church plonked on the broad pavement. A few metres below to his left was the fence protecting the railway that linked the old-fashioned Gare Saint-Paul to the leafy suburbs of western Lyon. Few trains, no noise. The only nod to commerce in the square – a part-café, part-theatre – perched at the top of some stairs, would not be waking up before evening. Alexis was alone in this forgotten space. He could not see anyone. He stepped forward.

  The door slammed heavily behind him.

  “Hello, Alexis.”

  Velowski jumped and wondered if the pain he felt was a heart attack. Or just fear. He tried to pull himself together, to force his face into something resembling composure.

  “I’ve been waiting for you. I kept it all. I’ll give you everything.”

  “I know, Alexis.”

  16

  At this early hour, out of the dead of night but before the start of the day’s bustle, the flagship that was number 36 was steering through calm waters. With just a few people on the bridge, silence reigned supreme, enjoying the few short minutes it had left. The only activity came from the coffee machine as it delivered plastic cups into tired, pre-programmed hands that bore them away down deserted corridors. Capestan had already drained hers before knocking on Buron’s door. She knew it would not be easy to get the archive material from him, especially the stuff from Lyon. The directeur was not about to burn a favour for the sake of her squad, especially not on a case that was supposedly closed. From their base on rue des Innocents, they were not meant to cause trouble. Their job was to do their duty as and when, as discreetly as possible.

  Nevertheless, Buron welcomed her with his door wide open, offering her a dry smile and his usual patriarchal bearing. After the customary greetings, he invited her to sit down, before installing himself behind his desk.

  “So how’s the latest arrival getting on, that little D’Artagnan? As immortal as ever?”

  “No, remember he’s not immortal, he’s more of a time-traveller . . .”

  “Yes, of course, completely different!” Buron said with a guffaw, picking up a few papers.

  “It is actually, because it means he arrived directly from the seventeenth century, wit
hout sticking around for the intervening four hundred years. He just woke up again in 1982.”

  “Right,” Buron said, giving up his research and crossing his hands on his desk, “I can see he’s much better.”

  Capestan just shrugged. At times, Henri had the nostalgic look in his eyes of the permanent exile, one who cannot feel at home in any land. Even though he was not really from the seventeenth century, he still displayed the symptoms – he was alone, out of kilter, out of place, with no friends or family to anchor him in the now. He had made his own reality.

  For a police officer, Capestan attached little importance to the notion of truth. If a man told her he was a woman, she believed them. When a compulsive liar tried to improve their lot with a burst of delirium, she would listen. And if someone wanted their former glory to well up in the present, she saw it as cause for admiration. Establishing the truth held no interest if it simply meant turning up as the rational party and clodhopping through people’s dreams and imagined selves, before leaving with perfect, boorish indifference.

  “After all, maybe he really has travelled through time,” Capestan said.

  An expression of surprise that bordered on disgust passed over Buron. He pulled himself together, however, and contemplated the commissaire with resignation. He still did not follow her logic, and this he found distracting.

  “Typical,” he said, swatting the unimportant issue to one side. “On to more serious matters, Capestan. What brings you here? I don’t have all day.”

  This was Buron’s way of saying no. Systematically no.

  “The link between Melonne and Rufus must date back to the start of the 1990s. You may not remember, but before joining the B.R.I., Rufus spent some time in Lyon, teaching at Saint-Cyr . . .”

  “Yes, vaguely. What of it?”

  “I would love to have access to the Lyon archives from that time, to look at the cases he was in charge of. I imagine there’s a whole load of them, but if we find Melonne’s name in one of them – ”

  “Really? Really, Capestan? I’m going to have to call up Lyon, ask for a favour and become indebted to the entire local brass, just so you can have a random gander at several thousand files in the hope that a name jumps out.”

  “Yes, really, Monsieur le Directeur. I would really appreciate it.”

  “You’re winding me up, commissaire.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  Buron suppressed a smile and brought his notepad closer. He unscrewed his pen lid and noted down the request.

  “Fine. I’ll see where my mood takes me. Anything else?”

  “Without wanting to take the mick . . .”

  “Naturally . . .”

  “Since Crim. and the B.R.I. have wrapped up the case, I would be more than keen to take receipt of everything they have kept for their sole usage: recent financial records, that sort of thing. And Rufus’s Antigang file; all his files, in fact. That way we can close all the doors.”

  “Hmmmyes . . .” Buron murmured, still writing.

  “And finally, thinking in terms of the street sign and war memorial. If you come across any other peculiar murders from now on, here or elsewhere, perhaps you could let us know?”

  Buron nodded.

  “I came up with all this by myself, would you believe. But for now, nothing to report,” he said by way of conclusion, pushing down on his desk with his huge hands to stand up.

  Capestan got to her feet as well. As he accompanied her to the door, she returned to the subject of Henri Saint-Lô.

  “You know his employment start date is 1612?”

  “Yes, his file went missing during a transfer in the 1980s. Whenever we asked him about his first post, he replied ‘Musketeer to the King’. One day, some joker had the bright idea of making it official.”

  Buron pouted in irritation, then pushed his glasses up onto the top of his head before continuing:

  “The mystifying powers of bureaucracy took care of the rest . . .”

  “He must be in line for a major bonus for long service.”

  The directeur smiled as he considered the sum. Ever the good manager, he thought the funniest jokes were the free ones. As for Capestan, she was not overly worried about Saint-Lô’s salary – there were certain levers in the H.R. engine room that not even the mighty Buron could pull.

  A flashing light on the directeur’s enormous desk indicated that he had an incoming call. Buron stepped towards it, picked up the telephone and pressed a button.

  “Yes?”

  He listened for a few seconds, still looking at Capestan.

  “It’s just been found? . . . Right. Get the Rhône préfet on the line, please. He’s a friend. I have a favour to ask him. Thank you, see you shortly.”

  The directeur hung up and turned to Capestan, arching his eyebrow like someone about to play a winning hand.

  “You asked for something weird and something from Lyon, commissaire. Consider this two for the price of one.”

  The red velvet of the banquette was almost fraying in the spot where Saint-Lô came for breakfast every morning to partake as discreetly as possible of his piece of bread and half saucisson. In the lavish old mansion that now housed the Musée Carnavalet, he loved nothing more than admiring the “Procession of the Catholic League”, a painting by François Bunel the Younger. Even though he was little enamoured of the League, the crowd on the paving stones of Paris stirred his emotions.

  On the canvas to the right, a paunchy monk reminded him of his mucker Capitaine Merlot. He was friendly with Merlot. A lively camaraderie was developing between the two, what with their shared appreciation for hearty chinwags and unsophisticated wines. The apartment at rue des Innocents was warm enough, and the troops less prone to bickering than usual. In place of ambushes and scandalmongering, there was action and fraternity.

  Soon it would be ten o’clock. Saint-Lô could tarry no longer – he had to honour his monthly meeting with Professor Stein. Yet again he would spout freely about his childhood: the stud farm, the fencing, the hours of reading, the threshing, the death. And the constant sensation that the man of science was trying to corner him.

  “Such a fine work,” he sighed, standing up and fitting his broad-rimmed hat to his head.

  17

  A new murder, this time in Lyon. The compass really was pointing south. Buron had secured them a “friendly visit”. They had needed to act fast. Capestan and Torrez had left on the first T.G.V., leaving Lebreton in charge of the subsequent departures. The team only had two days to carry out their research and discover any overlaps between the three cases. They would need all hands on deck to get everything done.

  In the area between the carriages, Capestan and Torrez took it in turns to call hotels, each of which laughed in their face. A room? On December 8? They’d have to pray for a miracle. Millions of visitors were descending on the city for the Festival of Lights. In the end, they managed to find four. Lebreton would have to deal with the rest.

  The taxi they had hailed at Gare de la Part-Dieu dropped them at the entrance to place Gerson, next to Église Saint-Paul. Capestan felt a sharp pang of nostalgia digging into her stomach. She took a deep breath and gazed at the familiar façades to calm herself. She settled the fare. Torrez, who was getting nervous now they were about to encounter a new set of colleagues, potential victims of his unbridled bad luck, stood next to his commissaire. She buttoned up her black coat and hitched the strap of her big leather bag over her shoulder. With his hands thrust into the pockets of his sheepskin jacket and his walking boots firmly planted on the ground, the lieutenant seemed adamant that he would not move an inch before she did. She looked at him and smiled.

  “Let’s go. He was right about it being weird.”

  They ducked under the police tape without anyone coming up to check their I.D. As they approached the officers hard at work around the body, the group appeared to swell, subside, then gradually reform, like a shoal of anchovies before the jaws of a shark. Torrez’s shadow f
illed them with terror.

  “You’re a national celebrity, José,” Capestan said to her partner.

  “I worked hard to make it this far,” the lieutenant said, his voice struggling to disguise the dejection beneath the joke.

  “Don’t worry. At least we’ll have plenty of space to make our observations.”

  Before reaching the corpse, Capestan went over to one side to greet her opposite number from the Lyon police. Torrez stayed put, as upright as a flagpole in the middle of his temporary wilderness.

  “Good morning. I’m Commissaire Capestan, we – ”

  “Yes, hello, we were told. Commissaire Pharamond,” the man said. He was about fifty, his greying hair in good need of a brush, but there was a spark in his eyes despite the rude awakening of the fanfare and flashing lights.

  They exchanged a cordial handshake. Pharamond pointed at the body lying in an empty parking space.

  “Strangulation, according to our preliminary findings. My view is it happened early this morning, because it’s impossible to get a space here before the nightclubs along the waterfront close.”

  Capestan smiled.

  “Now that’s what you call on-the-ground knowledge.”

  Pharamond agreed with a modest smile.

  “We found his wallet on him, with money inside. Alexis Velowski. He lived in the building just above. Neighbours told us which floor. No keys in his pocket. We called up a locksmith, and that’s how we found the newspaper announcing his death.”

  Capestan nodded.

  “He didn’t have his keys?”

  “No, no keys, and the door was simply slammed shut with a set inside . . . Either he forgot them on his way out, or he had another set that the killer ran off with.”

  “If he read the newspaper, he must have been distracted and rushing.”

  “Yes. Although as you’ll see, he took the time to pocket some chocolates,” Pharamond said with a teasing tone.

  Her curiosity piqued, Capestan turned to Torrez and asked him to join them, before they both headed over to the corpse, which the rest of the officers abandoned quicker than a croupier burning a card.