Stick Together

by Sophie Hénaff

  “You know, my kids, they’re not mine. I can’t. Came from a donor. Doesn’t mean they’re not mine, though.”

  “Of course, I wouldn’t doubt it for a second,” Capestan said with a gentle smile.

  The room with its floral curtains hummed with conversation, morning greetings and the clinking of cutlery on plates. Every time the waitress opened the door to replenish the buffet with fresh fruit juice, yoghurt or thermoses of boiling tea, the thrum of the dishwashers and the water urns escaped the kitchen. The smell of coffee and toast dominated the others. Torrez lined up the crumbs lying on the tablecloth. As was often the case, despite his cursed aura and taciturn nature, he was in a chatty mood in the presence of his partner.

  “And I’m in no doubt about you,” he said. “But there’s still one thing, you know . . . It’s like that guy in L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue . . . You can do all the about-turns you like, but in the end, nothing changes. You can’t help where you’re from. Same way you can only be a father if you produced the seed, even if you take off when the baby’s three months old. It all boils down to your D.N.A. and where you were born – these are the only two things that can’t be contravened. People treat the rest as though it doesn’t matter, and you’ve got to prove yourself in a way you’d never expect anyone else to.”

  Maybe Torrez was right. Not definitely, but Capestan still smiled as she handed him a tartine, which he accepted with extreme gratitude.

  The commissaire saw things differently – she only believed in merit.

  *

  One hour later, Capestan was waiting for Commissaire Pharamond underneath the clock at Gare de la Part-Dieu, where the team were about to board the train back to Paris. She saw him hurrying towards her from the other side of the station. He stopped in front of her to catch his breath and handed her a thick, yellow, cardboard envelope.

  “Here, I ran off a copy of an interesting case for you. You’ll find at least two of the victims in there – Commissaire Rufus and Velowski. The third must be in there too, but you never know.”

  Capestan looked at the file, resisting the powerful urge to pop open the elastic bands there and then in front of her opposite number. So there were two, maybe three of her men lurking in the same case. Lyon, 1992. The link they had been waiting for.

  “Thank you, commissaire. And we can return the favour straight away. We found a bag. This bag. It contains a manuscript. Hope you don’t mind, but I made a copy of it.”

  Pharamond stared at the bag, his eyes bulging out of his skull.

  “What on earth? Where did you find it?”

  “In the E.D.F. cupboard at Velowski’s building.”

  “Wow, that’s amazing!”

  He unzipped it and grabbed the thick wodge of paper, which he flicked through with his hairy hands.

  “Let’s not get carried away,” Pharamond said. “We still don’t know who’s got jurisdiction. There’s every chance the case will be taken away from us . . .”

  “Yes, we might well be taken out of contention in favour of the B.R.I. or Crim. Let’s see how things pan out. In the meantime, thanks for your valuable cooperation,” Capestan said.

  “Likewise, commissaire. Delighted to have worked alongside you.”

  Capestan smiled and held out her hand, then went to join her colleagues who were huddled on the platform. Without uttering a word, she flicked open the envelope so she could at least read the heading of the case.

  “Lyon – August 4, 1992 – Armed robbery at Minerva Bank – Two dead, three wounded.”

  Heavy stuff. No doubt whatsoever now that the case would be taken away from them.

  Just as they were starting to get some answers.

  Torrez filled the kettle, returned it to its base, and clicked the button. While it came to the boil, he positioned the butter right next to it so it would soften, looked out six bowls and laid them on the kitchen table, which was already equipped with a box of cereal, a bottle of milk, knives, spoons and serviettes rolled up in a personalised napkin ring for each family member. He slid three slices of pain de mie into the toaster and popped a teabag into his wife’s bowl. The water was now ready and he poured it in immediately, since his wife liked it when it had had a little time to cool down so she could drink it straight away.

  Then he filled a baby bottle with 240cl of water and counted out eight scoops of milk formula. He gave it a shake, ran it under the cold tap for a moment, and placed it on the highchair. Next he took out the three slices of bread and replaced them with three others. After that, he grabbed the packet of kibble for the rabbit and went over to Casillas’s cage. It was still open. Torrez let out a sigh. Either the animal had been especially cunning, or his children had been especially disobedient. He called out in his booming voice so the whole apartment could hear:

  “Where’s Casillas?”

  “Real Madrid!” his eldest son called out, barely suppressing his laughter.

  Torrez sighed again and watched as his brood flooded into the kitchen, planting kisses on his cheek and tipping back their chairs. He sat the youngest in her highchair, got her started on her bottle, then made sure everyone had enough milk, toast and hot chocolate. As ever, his coffee would have to wait.

  First he checked that the children had brushed their teeth properly after wolfing their breakfast. All this time, his wife had been finishing getting herself ready between sips of tea. Now she kissed him goodbye and ushered the flock into her car before depositing them at their various schools and nurseries.

  This left Torrez to tidy the kitchen, bedrooms and bathroom, sorting everything out and airing the whole house. Then at last he could savour his coffee in a moment of peace and quiet. Inevitably, he thought back to that scene in the film “A Special Day” where Sophia Loren, wearing some ghastly blouse and pleated stockings, gathers up the laundry her family had so carelessly discarded. The only difference being that he, unlike Sophia, was blissfully happy.

  Once his coffee was down the hatch, Torrez unfolded the ironing board, pulled up the laundry basket, filled the iron with water and plugged it in, then cracked his knuckles. He set down the chess clock he had located in a specialist shop and waited for the iron to heat up before making a start. When the light came on, he grabbed a shirt. Practice makes perfect.

  20

  Curled up on her white leather sofa in her swanky rue de Seine pad, Rosière was gazing at the transparent cover of the manuscript from Lyon. She scratched behind Pilou’s ears. The dog relished any opportunity to lie up beside her. She steadied herself for a moment before diving into what promised to be a decisive piece of evidence in what she had nicknamed the Three Chaps Inquiry.

  As the resident seasoned novelist, Rosière had been designated the task of combing through this 650-page clue. She was Capestan’s secret trump card. The commissaire knew they had precious little time to work on the Velowski case before it was palmed off to Crim., no matter how much progress they made. With the means number 36 had at their disposal, if they got their scalpels into the file about the armed robbery in Lyon, they would leave the squad at rue des Innocents flailing in their wake.

  Capestan had therefore concluded that if no-one came knocking for the manuscript, then there was no reason to give it to them. And if no-one divulged the existence of the manuscript, then no-one would come knocking. The now-dismissed team in Lyon would not provide all the information, full in the knowledge that Capestan already had it and no doubt believing that departments in one area of jurisdiction would cooperate seamlessly.

  Rosière took a breath and set to work. The heat-sealed cover, no doubt courtesy of some high-street printing shop, resisted a little. What did Alexis Velowski have to say that required such a doorstop? Would she come across the other victims in there? Would it be any good?

  *

  Rosière was on page 102 when the opening notes of Vivaldi’s “Spring” resounded through the house. With a furrowed brow and her eyes more narrowed than ever, the capitaine was trying to decipher the meani
ng of the words in front of her. It was not very clear.

  The melodic tones were quickly followed by the yapping of the dog, who had leapt towards the door like a bullet to make it known that there were people inside, and fierce ones at that. The capitaine was starting to tire of the Vivaldi doorbell, not least because the dog now barked at all four of the seasons whenever she took him to a shopping centre. It must be Lebreton coming to fetch her. Rosière stood up with an effortful “humpf”.

  The commandant was waiting patiently at the front door with his hands in his trouser pockets. They had time for a coffee, after which they would go straight to a meeting where they hoped to find out what these men had in common.

  Rosière, swathed in a fuchsia wrap dress and a long-sleeved white cashmere cardie, with golden mules on her feet, opened the door, letting the dog pounce headfirst into Lebreton’s knees.

  “Hi, Louis-Baptiste, I’m almost ready. Will you have a coffee while I get my stuff together?”

  “Hi, Eva. Sounds perfect.”

  He followed her into the vast hallway, through the sitting room, then the dining room, finally arriving in the kitchen, where Lebreton perched on a chrome barstool as Rosière talked him through an endless array of capsules in a smart wooden box. The commandant picked one out at random and a few seconds later Rosière was placing a steaming cup on the marble counter in front of him.

  “Stay there and give it your best George Clooney for a couple of mins. I’m going to get my bag and his lead. One second.”

  Something struck Lebreton about the house, but he could not put his finger on it. He glanced around the decor. Everything seemed to be in order. What was it then?

  Rosière came back down and, accompanied by Pilote, who was running in circles ahead of them, they went outside. It was only when they were on rue de Seine, garlanded with its bright arches of lights, where a few notes of “Jingle Bells” spilled out of every shop, that Lebreton realised what had been bothering him: Rosière, the queen of Christmas decorations at rue des Innocents, had not hung up a single one in her own house.

  No-one was coming home this year.

  *

  The whole commissariat was abuzz with a curiosity worthy of a screening of “Maya the Bee”. Lewitz was walking around with his arms full of photocopies of the dossier. Évrard was cleaning the whiteboards and humming to herself. Dax, Lebreton and Saint-Lô were arranging the chairs, while Rosière carried on reading the manuscript and Merlot helped himself to a glass of something or other. Orsini, sitting with his legs crossed, hands folded on the pad of paper in his lap, was already staring blankly at the boards. Torrez, who would not emerge until the very start of the meeting, was still ringing round to find out where the golden paint from the war memorial had been bought.

  As for Capestan, she was standing pensively at the window, which was criss-crossed with the contents of a snow can that left a sort of shooting-star effect. They now had the background and the link, there was no doubt about that. A story about a gang, which meant that the B.R.I. or the B.R.B. would definitely be interested. Capestan had no intention of sharing the case with anyone herself. They were in open competition and she was personally involved, so she had every reason to keep shtum. An important decision needed to be taken and the commissaire wanted to buy herself enough time to think things through. One page in the dossier had flipped her view of the investigation on its head. She had removed it from the version that Lewitz had photocopied for the team.

  Consider all the possibilities. Do not shatter everything until you’re sure.

  Capestan gazed at the Fontaine des Innocents sparkling with frost. The people outside were mere bundles of wool and fur flitting hurriedly from shop to shop, their shoulders hunched up to their ears. Out they came with presents that for now seemed indispensable, but which in two months would be entirely forgotten. Logos embossed on paper bags paraded past the noses of the homeless onlookers. The trees at McDonald’s with their white lights were making the biggest contribution to the square’s fairy-tale feel. Soon the Christmas market would set up shop, with its uniform seasonal specialities displayed in a myriad of tiny, fleetingly charming huts. Where did they spend the rest of the year? Is there some Christmas-market-hut park, where the feckless reindeers drink to Santa Claus’s health while he’s chilling out back in Lapland?

  There was nothing for it. Capestan could not mention this page to the team. Not yet. Even if the missing sheet would be noticed in a second flat.

  At her back, the silence that so often accompanies impatience made her aware that the squad was in position and that the time had come to talk about this armed robbery. Évrard had even muted the music she usually left playing under her breath.

  From his stool in the corridor, Torrez waved at her discreetly. First things first:

  “Have you found something, José?”

  “Yes. I’ve got a buyer for the paint, three days before in an arts and crafts shop in Avignon. Matches the e-fit that I scanned and sent over to them. As for the death notice in Le Progrès, that was done over the telephone – no joy there.”

  “Payment?”

  “Prepaid card. Honestly, let’s not get bogged down – it’s clearly the same killer.”

  “Agreed,” Capestan said, picking up the black marker pen and writing a heading in block capitals. Lyon – August 4, 1992 – Armed robbery at Minerva Bank – Two dead, three wounded.

  Lewitz was caught off-guard by a sneeze, before blowing his nose with all the subtlety of the lead trombonist in a village brass band. He wiped the offending area with a tissue before saying:

  “Nice choice doing it in the middle of the summer holidays – good for a getaway!”

  “Same in terms of police numbers, too,” Capestan bounced back. “Which brings us back to our first stiff: Serge Rufus. He was first on the scene, with a new recruit and two interns in tow. Pretty much zero experience, then. But he did a decent job, since he arrested one of the two gunmen, the dangerous one who had shot the victims.”

  Capestan replaced the lid on the marker.

  “Let’s go back to the robbery, though: in the middle of the morning, two men in ski masks carrying automatic pistols burst into the Minerva Bank by the waterfront in Lyon’s sixth arrondissement. The first runs behind the counter and stuffs money into a bag, while the second holds the two bank clerks at gunpoint, along with the four customers present at the time. Once they’ve loaded up the cash, the first guy goes to find the manager, probably to get him to open the vault. That’s where we meet Alexis Velowski: in his office, the crook kills two people right in front of him. Velowski was completely traumatised. He went on to stand as a witness in the trial before spending six months in a care home with depression. The killer then went back into the bank lobby, but the alarm had been sounded, which is why Rufus is there with his measly back-up. The second gunman, the one who just kept watch, managed to get away.”

  “Jacques Melonne?” Rosière said.

  “You may well ask. The description doesn’t fit: build, voice, height, eye colour. The witness statements from the customers and the staff don’t really pair up with the police officers’ version. There was the ski mask, plus the tension, and of course the speed – it can’t have been more than fifteen minutes from the moment it started to the time of arrest. Jacques Melonne’s name appeared in the list of possible accomplices because he was a vague acquaintance of the gunman from before, but he wasn’t their favourite candidate.”

  “The likelihood looks a little different now,” Lebreton said, his Roman nose red and swollen with a winter cold.

  A good half of the team was lugging the virus around and the bins were overflowing with scrunched-up tissues. Sniffing could be heard at regular intervals, with varying levels of restraint.

  “Absolutely. Here we have our three cases rolled into one: Rufus the policeman, Velowski the witness, Melonne the runaway.”

  “In a game of ‘Happy Families’, the missing member has to be the . . .” Évrard said,
before trailing off.

  “. . . the killer. Precisely. We can assume we’re looking for the gunman who fired the shots. He’s taken out the person who arrested him, the person whose testimony sent him to the clink, and the person who fled never to return. He came back for revenge . . .”

  “. . . or maybe in Melonne’s case, to recover the money too,” Évrard said, tugging at a strand of her wavy blonde hair. “Have we had any info. on transfers from the Swiss bank accounts since the murder?”

  “No, no info. The vaults of Geneva do not open easily,” Orsini said. “Especially when we don’t have a motive or any authority, of course.”

  “Of course,” Capestan said with a nod, looking the capitaine in the eye.

  She thought back to the absence of any pictures at Velowski’s apartment. He felt guilty. About what? Cowardice? Complicity?

  In the sitting room, their words were in sync. with the flashing of the Christmas lights. The crackling fire punctuated their sentences now and then, lending them a depth that had not been intended.

  “Our killer could well be the driver too, no?” Lewitz said in his nasal voice. “Who’s the driver?”

  “There wasn’t one.”

  “Are you kidding? No driver in a hold-up like this? Were they planning on getting away on their children’s scooters?”

  “No, in a car – it was parked down the road.”

  “Parked? Not turning around? These guys were confident, weren’t they.”

  “Maybe they couldn’t find a driver or didn’t want to split the loot with another member. There weren’t any drivers in the list of their frequent associates,” Capestan said.

  Lewitz’s point was not completely irrelevant. The commissaire made a mental note to look into it after lunch.

  She was still hesitant about revealing what she had read. Not there in the middle of a meeting. That said, she did not like keeping secrets from her colleagues. Who would she talk to? Who would hold their tongue? Could she rely on the team? Could they stick together if they didn’t trust each other?