Alex (27 page)

“Or seducing Stefan Maciak?”

“Or murdering Jacqueline Zanetti?”

Louis makes rapid notes. From the printouts they’ve got, he might be able to reconstruct the girl’s itinerary, in part at least – some of the travel agency brochures have got dates; it should be possible to piece things together, but they’re still no closer to a name. There are no formal documents. Not a single identifiable trace. In what kind of life does a girl possess so little?

By the end of the night, the conclusion is blindingly obvious.

“She’s cleared things out, left nothing personal. Just in case the police found her stuff. There’s nothing here that will help us.”

Both men get to their feet, Camille slips on his jacket. Louis hesitates – he’d be happy to stay longer, rummage, go through things …

“Let it go, Louis,” Camille says. “She’s already got a serious rap sheet behind her, and looking at the way she works, I reckon she’s got one ahead of her.”

*

This is also Le Guen’s opinion.

It’s Saturday, early evening, Quai de Valmy.

Le Guen phoned Camille and now the two men are sitting on the terrace of La Marine. Maybe it’s the canal, the water evoking thoughts of fish, but they’ve ordered two glasses of dry white wine. Le Guen sat down carefully; he’s come across many chairs that wouldn’t take his weight. This one is up to the job.

This is the norm when they talk outside the office: they chat about everything and nothing and only get round to talking shop in the last few minutes, never more than a few sentences.

It is plain that what’s been preying on Camille’s mind all day is the auction. Tomorrow morning.

“You’re not keeping anything?”

“No, I’m selling it all,” Camille says. “I’m giving it all away.”

“I thought you were selling it?”

“I’m selling the paintings. I’m giving away the money. Done and dusted.”

Camille doesn’t know when he made this decision – he just blurted it out – but he knows it’s the result of much thought. Le Guen is about to say something, stops himself, but he can’t help it.

“To whom?”

This, on the other hand, Camille has given no thought to. He wants to give away the money, but he has no idea to whom.

“Is this thing speeding up or am I imagining it?”

“No, this is how it usually plays out,” Camille says. “You just need to get used to it.”

He says it casually, but in fact things have taken a serious turn for the worse. The body of Félix Manière has been discovered in his apartment. A colleague from work gave the alert when he didn’t show up for a “crucial meeting” he himself had scheduled. He was found dead as dead, his head hanging off the torso, the whole neck melted away with sulphuric acid. The case was immediately referred to Commandant Verhœven who, by the end of the day, had been summoned by the magistrate. This is serious.

It’s quickly dealt with. The call log on the victim’s mobile phone reveals that the last call, received on the night of his death, was from a hotel on rue Monge. They check and it turns out this is where the girl stayed when she got back from Toulouse. She arranged to have dinner with him that evening. This is what he told one of his colleagues when he left work.

Though the hair and the eyes are different, the receptionist at the hotel on the rue Monge positively identifies her as the girl in the E-FIT. The girl was gone the following morning. Checked in under a false name. Paid in cash.

“The kid, this Félix – who is he?” Le Guen says and, without
waiting for an answer, flicks through Camille’s report. “Forty-four …”

“That’s right,” Camille confirms. “I.T. support for a computer company. Separated, divorce in the works. Definitely alcoholic.”

Le Guen says nothing – he’s rapidly skimming through the report, making an occasional
hmm
that sounds like a whimper. People have whimpered over less.

“So what’s the story with the laptop?”

“Vanished. But I can assure you stealing the laptop wasn’t the reason she hit him over the head with a statuette and poured half a litre of acid down his gullet.”

“The girl?”

“Unquestionably. Maybe they’d been in touch via e-mail. Or maybe she used his computer and didn’t want us to see what she’d been up to.”

“O.K. So?”

Le Guen is angry – something that’s not his style. The national media, which scarcely turned a hair at the death of Jacqueline Zanetti (the murder of a hotelier in Toulouse is a bit, well, provincial), has finally been roused to indignation. The crime scene in Saint-Denis is a little downmarket, but the extra touch of using acid to finish off the victim is interesting. It’s just another murder, but the technique is original, almost exotic. Right now, there are two victims. Practically a serial killer, but not quite. So in the meantime, it makes the news, but no-one’s terribly excited. A third victim and the media would be celebrating. The case would be the lead item on the 8 o’clock news, Le Guen would be summoned to the top floor of the Ministry for the Interior, Vidard the magistrate to the Ministry of Justice, and it would all kick off like the Battle of Gravelotte. No-one dares contemplate
what would happen if the murders in Reims and Étampes were leaked to the press … The media would mock up a map of France (more or less like the one in Camille’s office) scattered with little coloured pins, with deeply moving biographies of the victims and the promise of a murderous road movie “
à la française
”. Joy. Jubilation.

For the moment, Le Guen has only had to deal with “serious downward pressure” – it could be worse, but it’s a headache. Le Guen is a good boss when it comes to dealing with his superiors; he keeps all that to himself. They only get to see the overflow; but today, it seems to be overflowing everywhere.

“You getting shit from upstairs?”

Le Guen is thunderstruck by the question.

“Camille, what could possibly make you think that … ?”

This is the problem with couples: the scenes are a little repetitive.

“I mean, we’ve got a girl who’s abducted and locked up with a pack of rats, a kidnapper who tops himself and takes a section of the Périphérique to a standstill for half the night …”

This scene, for example, is one that Camille and Le Guen have played out at least fifty times.

“… the abducted girl escapes before we can find her, we discover she’s already bumped off three guys using sulphuric acid …”

Camille always thinks it smacks of a cheap farce – he’s about to say as much, but Le Guen ploughs on.

“… by the time we’ve got a case file together, she’s despatched some old biddy in Toulouse to hoteliers’ heaven, come back to Paris …”

Camille waits for the predictable conclusion.

“… where she’s whacked some guy who probably just wanted
to get his leg over, and you’re asking me whether …”

“… they’re giving you shit upstairs?” Camille concludes for him, firmly put in his place.

Camille is already on his feet, already at the door. He opens it wearily.

“Where are you off to?” Le Guen bellows.

“If I’m going to have someone read me the riot act, I’d rather it was Vidard.”

“Honestly, you’ve got no taste.”

Alex let the first two lorries drive past, and the third. From where she’s parked, she can clearly watch the movements of the articulated lorries lined up next to the loading bay. For the past two hours the fork-lift operators have been loading them with pallets high as houses.

She came here the night before to check the place out. She had to scale the wall. It wasn’t easy; it meant climbing on the roof of her car. If she’d been spotted, it would have all been over. But no, she was able to perch on top of the wall for a few minutes. Every vehicle has a sign with the order number stencilled next to the top right of the destination. They’re all heading for Germany: Cologne, Frankfurt, Hanover, Bremen, Dortmund. She needs the one that’s going to Munich. She jotted down the
licence plate, the order number, but it hardly matters: seen from the front, the truck is unmissable. Across the top of the windscreen is a sticker reading BOBBY. She hopped down from the wall when she heard the guard dog, which had obviously caught her scent.

Half an hour ago, she spotted the driver climb into his cab to stash his stuff, pick up his paperwork. He’s a tall, lean guy in blue overalls with cropped hair and a moustache like a scrubbing brush. It doesn’t matter what he looks like – what matters is that he picks her up. She slept in her car until the place opened at about 4.00 a.m. The hustle and bustle started about half an hour ago and it hasn’t stopped since. Alex is nervous; she can’t afford to miss her cue, because if she does, she’s got no plan. Her only option is – what? To sit in a hotel room and wait for the police to arrive?

Eventually, just before 6.00, the guy goes over to his lorry, which has been idling for at least fifteen minutes, checks his paperwork. Alex watches him joking with a fork-lift operator and a couple of other drivers then, at last, he climbs into his cab. This is when she gets out of her car, walks round the back, opens the boot, takes out her rucksack, checks from behind the open boot that no other lorry pulls out in front of the one she needs, and when she’s sure, she runs to the vehicle exit.

*

“I never hitchhike on the road. Too dangerous.”

Bobby nods. For a girl, it wouldn’t be a good idea. He admires her resourcefulness; waiting at the gate of a haulage company rather than sticking her thumb out on the autoroute.

“But with all the trucks you guys have got, there’s bound to be someone who’ll take you.”

Bobby is astonished by the shrewdness of Alex’s technique. Though she’s not Alex. To him, she’s Chloë.

“I’m Robert,” he says, reaching across the seat to shake her hand. “But everyone calls me Bobby,” he points to the sticker.

Still, he’s surprised that she’s hitchhiking at all.

“Plane tickets are so cheap these days. Apparently you can get flights on the net for forty euros. Fair enough, it’s always at some ungodly hour, but if your time’s your own …”

“I’d rather hang on to my money and spend it when I get there. Besides, travelling is about meeting people, isn’t it?”

*

The guy is simple, friendly – the moment he saw her at the side of the road he had no hesitation in picking her up. Alex was not watching for his reaction, only the nature of his reaction. What she most dreaded seeing was a look of lust. She has no desire to spend hours fighting off a petrol-pump Lothario. Bobby has a statue of the Virgin Mary hanging from his rear-view mirror, and a little gadget attached to the dashboard, a digital photo frame that displays images with various transition effects: dissolve, venetian blind, page turn. The images loop endlessly – it’s exhausting to watch. He bought the gadget in Munich. Thirty euros. Bobby likes to mention how much things cost, not so much because he expects to be admired for it as because he likes to be precise, meticulous in his descriptions. And he likes to describe things. He spends almost half an hour talking about the slideshow, his family, his house, his dog; most of the photographs are of his three kids.

“Two boys, one girl: Guillaume, Romain, Marion, aged nine, seven and four.”

He likes precision. But he knows how to behave; he never
shifts the conversation away from stories about his family.

“When it comes down to it, people aren’t really interested in other people’s lives, huh?”

“No, honestly, I am interested …” Alex protests.

“You’re very well brought up.”

The day slips by quite pleasantly; the cabin is very comfortable.

“If you fancy taking a little nap, it’s not a problem.” He jerks his thumb at the sleeper berth behind him. “I have to keep moving, but you …”

Alex takes up the offer and naps for more than an hour.

“Where are we?” she says, brushing her hair as she clambers back into her seat.

“Oh, there you are. You must have been tired. We’re coming in to Sainte-Menehould.”

Alex pretends to be impressed that they’ve made such progress. Her sleep was disturbed. Not just by her habitual anxiety, but also sadness. This ride to the border is a painful turning point, the beginning of the end.

*

When the conversation dies away, they listen to the radio, to the news, to music. Alex watches out for stops, the obligatory rest breaks, for the times when Bobby will need to get a coffee. He has a flask, some food, everything he needs to keep driving, but still they have to stop; it’s maddening. When there’s a stop coming up, Alex is on the alert. If it’s a rest area, she pretends to sleep – too few people and therefore too much risk of her being spotted. If it’s a service station, there’s less risk and she’ll get out and walk around for a bit, buy Bobby a coffee; they’re good mates now. In fact, a little while ago, as they were having a cup of coffee together, he asked her what was taking her to Germany.

“Are you a student?”

Even he can’t possibly believe she could be a student. She may look young, but she knows she looks at least thirty, and her exhaustion can’t be helping. She decides to laugh it off.

“No, I’m a nurse. I’m planning to work when I get there.”

“But why Germany, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Because I don’t speak German,” Alex says with all the conviction she can muster.

Robert giggles; he’s not sure he understands.

“In that case you could have gone to China. Unless you do speak Chinese. Do you speak Chinese?”

“No. The real reason is my boyfriend is in Munich.”

“Oh …”

He gives her a look that says he understands everything. He shakes his head solemnly, his moustache quivering.

“So what does he do, your boyfriend?”

“He works in I.T.”

“And he’s German?”

Alex nods; she doesn’t know where this is going – she’s only two steps ahead of him in this conversation and she doesn’t like the feeling.

“What about your wife, does she work?”

Bobby tosses his plastic cup in the bin. The question about his wife didn’t offend him, it saddened him. They’re on the road again now; they flick back through the slideshow to the picture of his wife, a nondescript woman of about forty with straight hair. She looks sickly.