Alex (3 page)

He glances at Alexandre. Whatever he looks like it’s not an Alexandre, but he’s alexandrine enough to be four heads taller than Camille, which isn’t much of a feat, and he set off without waiting for Camille to give the order, which at least shows he’s got some bottle.

Alexandre drives like a maniac; he loves driving, and it shows. The G.P.S. system seems to be having trouble catching up with him. Alexandre wants to show the commandant he’s a good driver – the siren wails, the car speeds assertively through streets, junctions, boulevards; Camille’s feet dangle twenty centimetres off the floor, his right hand gripping his seat belt. In less than fifteen minutes they’re at the crime scene. It is 9.50 p.m. Though it’s not particularly late, Paris already seems peaceful, half asleep, not the sort of city where people are kidnapped. “A woman,” according to the witness who called the police, clearly in a state of shock, “kidnapped, before my very eyes.” The man couldn’t believe it. Then again, it’s not exactly a common occurrence.

“You can drop me here,” Camille says.

Camille gets out of the car, straightens his cap; the driver leaves. They’re at the end of the street, about fifty metres from the cordon. Camille walks the rest of the way. When there’s time, he always likes to view the problem from a distance – that’s how he likes to work. The first view is crucial, so it’s best to take in the whole crime scene; before you know it you’re caught up in countless facts, in details, and there’s no way back. This is the official reason he gives for getting out a hundred metres from where a crowd is standing waiting for him. The other reason, the real reason, is that he doesn’t want to be here.

As he walks towards the police cars, their lights strobing the buildings, he tries to work out exactly what he is feeling.

His heart is hammering.

He feels like shit. He’d give ten years of his life to be somewhere else.

But however slowly and reluctantly he walks, he’s here now.

This is more or less how it happened four years ago. On the street where he lived, which looks a little like this one. Irène wasn’t there. She was due to give birth to a little boy in a few days. She should have been at the maternity unit. Camille raced around, ran everywhere searching for her, did everything he could that night to find her … He was like a madman, but there was nothing he could do. When they found her, she was dead.

Camille’s nightmare had begun in a moment just like this one. This is why his heart is pounding fit to burst, why his ears are ringing. His guilt, the guilt he thought was dormant, has woken. He feels physically sick. A voice inside him screams, Get away; another voice says, Stay and face it; his chest feels tight. Camille is afraid he might pass out. Instead, he moves one of the barriers and steps into the cordoned area. From a distance, the duty officer acknowledges him with a wave. Even those who don’t know Commandant Verhœven personally know him by sight. It’s hardly surprising. Even if he wasn’t some sort of living legend, they know about his height. And his past …

*

“Oh, it’s you.”

“You sound disappointed.”

Flustered, Louis starts to panic.

“No, no, not at all.”

Camille smiles. He’s always had a knack for winding Louis up. Louis Mariani has been his assistant for a very long time and he knows him as well as if he’d knitted the man himself.

At first, after Irène was murdered, after Camille’s breakdown, Louis used to visit him at the clinic. Camille hadn’t talked much. Sketching, which until then had been a hobby, suddenly became his chief, in fact his only activity. Pictures, drawings and sketches lay in heaps around a room that Camille had otherwise left institutionally spartan. Louis would make a place for himself and they would sit, one staring out at the trees, the other down at his feet. They said many things in that silence, but it was no match for conversation. They simply couldn’t find the words. Then one day, without warning, Camille said he would rather be left alone, that he didn’t want to drag Louis into his grief. “A miserable policeman isn’t exactly riveting company,” he said. It was tough on both of them, being separated. But time passed. By the time things had improved, it was too late. After grief, all that remains is barren.

They haven’t seen a lot of each other for a long time now; they run into each other at meetings, briefings, that kind of thing. Louis hasn’t changed much. If he lives to be a hundred, he’ll die young – some people are like that. And he’s as dapper as ever. Camille once said to him, “If I was dressed for a wedding, I’d still look like a tramp next to you.” Louis, it has to be said, is rich: filthy rich. His personal fortune is like Le Guen’s weight: nobody knows what it amounts to, but everyone knows it’s fat and getting fatter. Louis could live off his private income for four or five generations. Instead, he works as a policeman for the murder squad. He did a bunch of degrees he didn’t need, and has such a breadth of knowledge Camille has never caught
him out. There’s no denying Louis is a queer fish.

He smiles. It’s weird Camille just showing up like this without warning.

“It’s over there,” he says, nodding towards the police tape.

Camille hurries after the younger man. Though he’s not so young anymore.

“How old are you, Louis?”

Louis turns.

“Thirty-four. Why?”

“Nothing. Just curious.”

Camille realises they’re a stone’s throw from the Bourdelle Museum. He can clearly remember the face of “Hercules the Archer”, the hero triumphing over monsters. Camille has never sculpted – he never had the physique for it – and he hasn’t painted for a long time now, but he still sketches. Even after his long bout of depression, he can’t stop. It’s part of who he is; he has always got a pencil in his hand – it’s his way of looking at the world.

“You ever seen ‘Hercules the Archer’ at the Bourdelle Museum?”

“Yeah,” Louis says and looks confused. “You sure it’s not in the Musée d’Orsay?”

“Still an irritating smart-arse, then.”

Louis smiles. Coming from Camille, this kind of quip means “You know I care about you”. It means, “Jesus, time flies, how long have we known each other?” Mostly, it means, “We haven’t seen a lot of each other since I killed Irène, have we?” So it’s weird the two of them being at the same crime scene. Camille suddenly feels the need to explain:

“I’m filling in for Morel. Le Guen didn’t have anyone else, so he put me on the case as a temporary measure.”

Louis gives a shrug to say he understands, but he has his doubts. The idea of Commandant Verhœven “filling in” on a case is improbable.

“Call Le Guen,” Camille goes on. “I need forensics down here now. Given how late it is, we’re not going to get much done, but we have to try.”

Louis nods and fishes out his mobile. He agrees with Camille. You can look at a crime like this two ways: from the kidnapper’s point of view, or from the victim’s. The kidnapper’s probably long gone, but the victim may have lived in the area, might have been snatched near home, and it’s not just what happened to Irène that makes both men think this; it’s the statistics.

Rue Falguière. They’re surrounded by sculptors tonight. They move slowly, walking down the middle of the street which has been cordoned off at both ends. Camille glances up at the buildings. All the lights are on; they are tonight’s reality T.V. show.

“We’ve got a witness, just the one,” says Louis, turning off his mobile. “And we know the position of the vehicle used in the kidnapping. The forensics boys from
l’identité judiciaire
will be here any minute.”

And here they come. The barriers are pushed back and Louis indicates the gap on the pavement between two cars. Four forensics officers, laden with equipment, pile out of the van.

“Where is he?” Camille says. The commandant is edgy. It’s obvious he doesn’t want to be here. His mobile vibrates – it’s the procureur.

“No, sir, by the time the call came through to the squad from the fifteenth arrondissement, it was far too late to start setting up road blocks.”

It’s a curt, almost insolent tone to take with a procureur. Louis discreetly moves away. He can understand Camille’s frustration. If the victim had been a minor, there would already have been an amber alert, but the victim is an adult woman. They’ll have to manage on their own.

“I’m afraid what you’re asking will be difficult, sir,” says Camille. His voice has dropped almost an octave and he’s speaking too slowly. Anyone who knows Camille would recognise the sign.

“You have to understand, sir, that as I’m talking to you there are …” he looks up “… I’d say a hundred rubberneckers staring out of their windows. The teams manning the cordon will have to inform another two or three hundred. But obviously if you’ve got any ideas about how to stop news getting out, I’m all ears.”

Louis smiles to himself. Classic Verhœven. Louis is overjoyed because it means Camille hasn’t changed. He’s aged a lot in four years, but he’s still completely upfront. And a public menace as far as his superiors are concerned.

“Of course,
monsieur le procureur
.”

From his tone, Camille obviously has no intention of keeping the promise he’s just made. He hangs up. The conversation has clearly done nothing to improve his mood.

“And where the fuck is
your partner Morel
? Why isn’t he here?”

Louis is surprised. Your partner Morel. Camille is being unfair, but Louis understands. Giving a case like this to a man like Verhœven, who already has a certain propensity for grief …

“He’s in Lyons,” Louis says calmly, “for the European seminar. He’s back the day after tomorrow.”

They walk on towards the witness, who is being guarded by a uniformed officer.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Camille says.

Louis says nothing. Camille stops.

“I’m sorry, Louis.”

But he doesn’t look at him as he says it, he looks down at his feet, then back up at the windows, at the heads all craning in the same direction, like a train setting off for war. Louis wants to say something, but he doesn’t know what to say, and besides, there’s no point. Camille makes a decision. Finally, he turns back to Louis:

“Why don’t we just act like …”

Louis pushes back his fringe. With his right hand. It’s like a whole language, this thing of pushing his hair back. Right now, using his right hand, it means sure, O.K., why not, let’s just crack on. Louis nods to a figure standing behind Camille.

*

He’s a man of about forty. He was out walking his dog, a creature currently sitting at his feet and looking like something that God cobbled together on an off-day. Camille and the dog stare at each other. The mutual loathing is instant. The dog growls then scurries to its master’s feet whimpering. But of the two of them, it is the dog’s owner who seems most surprised to find Camille standing in front of him. He glances at Louis, astonished that a short-arse like this could be a police commandant.

“Commandant Verhœven,” Camille says. “You want to see the warrant card or are you going to take my word for it?”

Louis is lapping this up. He knows what’s coming next. The witness will say:

“No, no, it’s fine … It’s just—”

“Just what?” Camille will interrupt.

The witness will dig himself deeper.

“I wasn’t expecting, you know … it’s just …”

At that point, there are two possible scenarios. Either Camille keeps up the pressure, forces the guy to keep digging until at last he begs for mercy – he can be ruthless. Or he gives up. This time, Camille gives up. They’re dealing with a kidnapping. This is serious.

So: the witness was out walking his dog and he saw a woman kidnapped. Right before his eyes.

“Nine o’clock exactly,” Camille says. “You’re sure about the time?”

The witness is like most people – when he talks about something, he’s really just talking about himself.

“Certain. I have to be home at half-past to watch the car crashes on ‘No Limit’. So I always take the dog out just before.”

They start with a physical description of the perpetrator.

“Thing is, I saw him only in profile. But he was a big guy, a big lunk, you know.”

He clearly thinks he’s being helpful. Camille stares at him, already exhausted. Louis takes over the questioning. Hair? Age? Clothes? Didn’t really see, hard to say, ordinary.

“O.K. What about the vehicle?” Louis does his best to sound encouraging.

“A white van. The sort a tradesman would drive, you know.”

“What kind of tradesman?” Camille interrupts.

“Um … I don’t know what kind – a tradesman, you know.”

“What makes you say that?”

It’s obvious Camille is trying to catch him out. The guy stands there, his mouth hanging open.

“Well they do, don’t they, tradesmen,” he mumbles. “They’ve all got white vans.”

“Yes, they do,” says Camille. “In fact, they tend to paint their
name, address and phone number on the side. Free advertising. So what did he have painted on the side of his van, this tradesman of yours?”

“Well, that’s the strange thing: there was nothing on the side of the van. At least I didn’t see anything.”

Camille takes out his notebook.

“Let me get this down. So, we’re saying an unknown woman kidnapped by an unknown tradesman in a vehicle with no distinguishing marks – am I missing anything?”

The dog owner panics. His lip is quivering. He turns towards Louis: come on, help me out here, please.

Camille snaps his notebook shut, and turns away. Louis takes over. Their sole witness statement doesn’t amount to much, but they’ll have to make do. Camille overhears the rest of the interrogation. Make of the vehicle? (“A Ford maybe … I don’t know much about cars. I haven’t owned one for years …”) But the victim was definitely a woman? (“Absolutely, positively.”) The description of the aggressor remains vague. (“He was alone, I know that; I didn’t see anyone else.”) All that’s left is the M.O.

“She screamed, she was struggling … so he thumped her in the stomach. He didn’t pull his punches. In fact that’s when I screamed. I was trying to scare him, you know …”

Every detail is like a knife in Camille’s heart, as though every word is directed at him. A shopkeeper had seen Irène the day she was snatched: it was exactly the same – he had nothing to say, he hadn’t seen anything or hardly anything. Same deal. We’ll see. He comes back.