by Michel Bussi
Vasily waited, disappointed by Marianne’s failure to react. The captain seemed to be suddenly immune to his charms when he was dangling proof under her nose.
“It’s not that simple, Mr. Dragonman. We would need an official complaint to conduct such an analysis, a letter rogatory ordered by a judge.”
The psychologist raised his voice then. If charm wasn’t going to work . . .
“And you’re going to hide behind Article 36b of the code of good conduct, are you? Don’t you understand? What do you think I’ve just done? By giving you this evidence, I’ve betrayed the most basic rules of professional confidentiality. I’ve taken risks, Captain! Big risks.”
The image of the tomb flashed in his mind’s eye. The captain did not seem overly impressed.
“Well, don’t take any more, Mr. Dragonman. Because, if you think about it, your main argument has just fallen apart.” She looked down at the MP3 player again. “There isn’t any urgency anymore. We now know that Malone isn’t going to forget his memories. They’re stored on his hard drive. If they even are his memories.”
Now it was Vasily’s turn to watch the children near the Optimists. Some of them were laughing, others crying. A few stood apart, petrified by the little sailing boats that they were about to board.
“Captain, this child has nightmares every night. He won’t close his eyes because he prefers the dark night to the red screen he sees behind his eyelids. He thinks that raindrops are made of glass and are extremely sharp, that they will cut him to pieces if they touch him. And you’re telling me there’s no urgency?”
He had raised his voice again just as Benhami, Bourdaine, and Letellier were entering the station, running up the steps, hands on the guns in their holsters.
Contradictory instincts were wrestling inside Marianne’s head. She sensed that she shouldn’t allow the situation to go on any longer. Not like this. And, above all, not here. In front of the station. With this man. Alone. Without even a cigarette in her hand as a pretext.
The cop stretched out her hand.
“Give me that cup. And we’ll analyze the data on that MP3 player. If necessary, we’ll ask the public prosecutor to open a preliminary investigation.”
She was silent for a moment.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be quick and efficient.”
Vasily Dragonman flashed a discreetly triumphant smile. As he put on his helmet, Marianne couldn’t help eyeing his slim-fit jeans, his brown leather jacket, and his matching eyes, which disappeared behind his visor.
Stubborn, cunning, impertinent, sure of himself and arrogant.
He was exactly her type.
Still holding the MP3 player, she forced herself to put her thoughts in order. Despite her promise to the psychologist, she had to consider her priorities.
Catching Timo Soler.
Replying to Papy, too. Lieutenant Pasdeloup had got it into his head to mount a further investigation into Ilona and Cyril Lukowik. Gray areas, he’d said mysteriously. He wanted to dig up a furrow that the cops from Deauville and Caen had already ploughed weeks ago, without any results. Papy was another of those men: stubborn, cunning, impertinent, sure of himself, and arrogant.
But she needed him, here and now.
“Captain.”
Marianne looked up.
It was Dragonman. He hadn’t left yet. Visor raised. Just his eyes showing, like lasers.
“I have one last question to ask you. Perhaps you could help me.”
“Yes?”
“It might seem strange to you. It’s been nagging at me for weeks, and I haven’t been able to come up with a satisfactory response. And yet I have the feeling that it’s crucial. Maybe the key to it all, in fact.”
“Go on,” said the captain, with a sigh.
He took a photograph from his pocket.
“This is Gouti, Malone Moulin’s famous cuddly toy. In your opinion, what type of animal is it supposed to be?”
And then he left the captain, standing dumbstruck outside the police station.
A moment later, he started his Guzzi California and entered the flow of traffic on Boulevard George-V. He disappeared quickly, without noticing the Ford Kuga pulling out of a parallel parking space a few seconds later and following him down the road.
31
Graciette Maréchal took forever to put her coins away.
Every morning, at the Vivéco minimarket, she bought her bread and a pastry—never the same one two days running—and her ninety-year-old hands trembled for an eternity as she placed each centime in her purse. This morning it was taking even longer than usual, thought Amanda, behind the till . . . Unless she was imagining it.
Nothing had changed in Manéglise over the last week. Nothing ever changed in this village, in fact. The same customers, same greetings, same newspapers, same scratchcards, same swear words, same rituals, same boredom. And yet, this morning, it was as if everything had been turned upside down.
Unless it was all in her head.
She felt as if the customers were coming to the shop just to spy on her, that the local papers were being bought just so they could find out sordid information about her, that conversations were started just to entrap her.
Was it just a feeling?
While Amanda was handing a baguette to Oscar Minotier, a laborer from Saint-Jouin-Bruneval who had been waiting behind Graciette for the last ten minutes, another customer entered and headed over to the newspaper stand. He was wearing a navy blue anorak with the collar turned up. She had never seen him before.
Amanda was suspicious of everything.
Everything happened so fast in a village of less than a thousand inhabitants. The houses, the gardens, their hedges, their lives . . . all of it was nothing more than straw, dry grass, dead branches. It took merely a spark, the flame from a match, to ignite it all. An employee at the mayor’s office overhearing part of a conversation outside the school; a teacher speaking a bit too loud; a neighbor opening her door to a curious stranger. And the blaze spread, impossible to contain.
An internal, invisible fire. Rumor.
The mothers had smiled at her earlier, when she went to pick up Malone. As they did every day. As if there were nothing going on. But she wasn’t fooled.
Amanda had spent time in every corner of Manéglise since she was a child; she had spent more time sitting on the bench of the bus shelter in the Place de la Mairie than she had in school. She knew the boredom that takes hold of you and doesn’t let go in villages such as this, the routine, like gangrene in your dreams, those trivial things that become important because the slightest snag in normality is made to seem extraordinary. At best, a wedding, an inheritance, a journey. At worst, a dead husband, a cheating wife, a broken law.
A child who says that his mother—yes, his maman, you know her, she works behind the till at Vivéco—well, her kid, who’s only three, keeps telling everyone that his mother isn’t his mother.
Gangrene.
A godsend.
32
With the headphones over her ears, Marianne did not hear Papy come in.
Gouti had just found his promised land. Hazelnuts, acorns and pine cones buried under the sand had given birth to the most beautiful and dense of forests.
“Marianne? MARIANNE?”
The lieutenant was not giving up. Since nothing was happening in Le Havre, he insisted that she let him go.
The captain put the headphones round her neck.
“What the hell are you going to do in Potigny?”
“That’s where Ilona and Cyril Lukowik are buried.”
“So?”
“It’s also where they were born. Just like Timo Soler and Alexis Zerda. It’s where they all grew up. Where Cyril Lukowik’s parents still live now.”
“You’re a pain, Papy! If the cops from Deauville or Caen find out that you’ve
been sweeping up behind them . . . ”
Pasdeloup was a pain in the arse, but he was also an excellent investigator. Imaginative rather than methodical. He begged her with his cop-on-the-verge-of-retirement-who-wants-one-last-stab-at-glory eyes; his old-footballer-sitting-on-the-bench-who-wants-to-go-on-at-the-last-minute-and-score-the-winning-goal eyes.
The captain passed him a photograph. Lieutenant Pasdeloup stared in surprise at this picture of a cuddly toy: a sort of gray and cream rat, with a pink, pointy nose, dark eyes, and worn fur.
“Here, this should keep you busy! Figure out what kind of animal it is. If you do, I’ll even buy your ticket to Potigny.”
He didn’t have time to negotiate or protest, because at that moment JB burst through the office door. With the drawn face and dangling arms of someone whose luck had just run out.
“We lost Zerda! Bourdaine’s just called. He was following him outside the Espace Coty shopping center. Zerda was going from shop to shop. Apparently, there were lots of people around. He lit a cigarette and, the next thing Bourdaine knew, Zerda was gone.”
“What a fuckwit!” screamed the captain, tearing the headphones from her neck.
JB attempted to calm his superior’s wrath.
“Bourdaine says it was impossible to tell if Zerda shook him off deliberately or not.”
“Oh really? So he thinks Zerda didn’t notice the cops following him around all the time? For goodness’ sake! How long ago was this?”
“Maybe an hour ago.”
“And he’s only calling now?”
“He thought he might be able to find him again.”
The captain held her head in her hands.
“Ha! He’s outdone himself there! Did he think that Zerda had gone off to save him a spot on the terrace of the Lucky Store? Shit! Triple the patrols in the Neiges quarter! After all, maybe Bourdaine did us a favor. If Zerda is taking risks like that, he must be trying to get in touch with Soler. Maybe he doesn’t have any choice, if his friend is suffering so badly. Alert all the doctors and pharmacies in the city!”
JB was gone the next instant. Papy stayed there a while longer, observing the strange photograph that he held in his hand: a gray and cream cuddly toy with sweet eyes that looked like an innocent creature being pursued by a police force gone mad. Then he put the photo in his pocket and followed his colleague out of the station.
* * *
In the minimarket, the guy in the navy-blue anorak was concentrating on his magazine.
Wakou. For young nature lovers aged 4 to 7.
Which didn’t explain why he looked like a frightened teenager trying to sneak a look at the naked girls in an adult magazine. Amanda was almost amused.
The cop! Her friends had been thrilled to share their description of him. Side-parted blond hair, a long, giraffe-like neck, the slender fingers of a pianist . . . or a strangler.
A trainee cop at that. Barely out of school, by the looks of him. He’d been asking questions around Manéglise, with all the discretion of a roller-blind salesman on commission.
Amanda gave him a foul look. At worst, he would think she was just an employee doing her job. You read it—you pay for it! More likely, it would give him a scare, dissuade him from going too far, from getting too close to them.
To her. To Dimitri. But, most of all, to Malone.
Clearly, that snotty-nosed little policeman had done a good job. A good job of being a shit. Amanda’s neighbors and friends had had no qualms about talking to him. Letting him into their homes. Letting him listen.
A woman standing in front of Amanda handed her the receipt for a package she had come to collect. The shop also served as a depot for mail-order items. Amanda knew that, to survive, countryside shops such as this had no choice but to sell themselves to the online commerce that would eventually end up swallowing them.
She passed the woman her parcel and asked her to sign for it. Ultimately, she didn’t care about the fate of Vivéco: she wouldn’t be there when the last shop in the village closed down. She glared at the young policeman again as he leafed through another magazine like a false pervert.
Toboggan now—for six to nine-year-olds.
“It makes you want to be big.”
3:53 P.M.
Carole had better not be late for her shift. Not today of all days. Amanda was determined to be on time, to be waiting outside the school gates before the others got there. To confront the pack. They could say, think, spread whatever rumors they wanted. But no one would touch Malone.
No one would take her son away from her.
* * *
“Captain, it’s Lucas.”
Marianne Augresse parked her car outside the Hoc pharmacy.
“Is it urgent?”
“Well, I’m in Manéglise. In the bus shelter. You did ask me to report in twice a day.”
Instinctively the captain scanned the empty sidewalks of Rue du Hoc. She’d ordered two other police cars to survey the area around the pharmacy and five to patrol the streets of the Neiges quarter.
If Zerda so much as showed his face . . .
“Go ahead. Keep it brief. Anything new?”
“Oh yes. You were right to ask me to dig deeper on the Moulins, Captain. Behind the shiny veneer, I found unexpected . . . ”
“I said keep it brief!”
“All right, well, let’s just say that there are a few differences between the version given to us by the Moulin family and what I discovered from a bit of digging. Amanda Moulin, for example: it’s true that she has worked at the village grocery shop for the last six years. Except that she stopped work for three years while she was on maternity leave and only started again last June.”
Marianne frantically searched in the pockets of her jacket for a notepad and a pen.
“So she kept her son at home, under wraps, all that time?”
She contorted her body on the driver’s seat: the notepad was stuck inside the jacket’s lining. Three hours at the gym every week and she still could barely lift up her arse when her jacket was trapped underneath it.
“Not exactly, Captain. There are loads of witnesses who’ve seen Malone over the years since he was born. As a baby, then as a toddler. His doctor, friends, other people in the village. The kid never had a babysitter though. And he was never in a crèche. Not that there is one in the village anyway.”
“So Malone never had any contact with other children until he went to school, is that right?”
“Exactly, Captain.”
“Stop calling me Captain, it just wastes time. You said ‘for example’ before, when you told me about Amanda Moulin’s maternity leave. Any other new information?”
“Yeah, well some of it seems pretty odd. You remember I told you how the neighbors had sometimes seen Malone riding around the estate on a bicycle, always wearing his helmet? There’s a pond at the end of Place Ravel, with ducks that nest there in the spring. It’s quite pretty, actually, er . . . Marianne. A nice place to bring up a family. Not too far from Le Havre, not too expensive and . . . ”
The captain’s fingers finally got hold of the pen lodged at the bottom of her pocket. If the intern had been sitting next to her, she’d happily have stabbed him with it.
“Get to the point!”
“OK, Marianne, sorry. Well, the Moulins seem to have burned their bridges a few months ago. No more family visits or meals, which is understandable since all the members of their immediate family live several hundred kilometers from Normandy, except for Amanda’s parents, who are buried in Manéglise cemetery.”
The captain sighed.
“The Moulins stopped inviting people to their home, and the few times they went to other people’s houses, it was always without the kid. They also stopped visiting the doctor, Serge Lacorne. The neighbors also noticed something else that seemed a little bizarre. Last winter
, they would sometimes see Malone outside—in the garden, on his bike, by the pond—with his hat covering his ears and his scarf up to his nose. But when the weather improved and the days got longer, the kid didn’t seem to be around as often. Now it’s true that, in estates like this, when the sun is beating down, it can be as empty as Chernobyl—everyone goes off to the beach—but still . . . ”
After one last twist of her pelvis, the captain gave up trying to reach her notepad. Her thumb and index finger had just pinched hold of another object stuck at the bottom of her pocket.
“OK, Lucas, so what you’re saying is that the Moulins—the mother especially—protected their child until he was two and a half with a social life that was . . . minimal. And since he turned three, it’s been a complete blackout!”
“Except he’s been in school since September, Marianne.”
She preferred it when he called her Captain.
“Except he’s been in school . . . ” repeated Marianne. Except for the nursery school, which was mandatory for every child in France in their fourth year. Not enrolling a child in the village school would have been the worst way of attracting unwanted attention.
Carefully she retrieved the object from her pocket.
“Actually, Marianne, there’s something else I need to tell you and it’s important.”
“Lucas, please, stop calling me Marianne. Even officers who’ve been at the station for thirty years don’t call me that.”
“Er, well . . . I think she spotted me . . . ”
“Who? Amanda Moulin?”
“Yes.”
“So? We’re cops, not secret agents!”
“You think so, um, Mrs. Augresse?”
She sighed again and placed the object in front of her.
“Amanda Moulin will hate you, that’s for sure. She’ll hate your guts for nosing around in her private life. But I seriously doubt she’d kill you for it.”
She hung up without waiting for a response and then, impatiently, looked down to get a better view of the picture of Tinker Bell and her friends flying in the sky there on Rue du Hoc.