Irene (38 page)

“What’s your name?” he asks one of the officers.

“Fabrice Pou—”

“And you?” he cuts him off and glances at the other officer.

“Bernard.”

Fabrice cannot be more than twenty-five and Bernard fractionally older. Camille looks back at the door, crouches a little, then, standing on tiptoe, he stretches his hand out, the index finger extended, to indicate the angle of the shot. He checks that the officers have understood, then steps aside and nods to the taller of the two, the one called Bernard.

The officer steps forward, extends his arm, and is gripping his service revolver with both hands when there is the sound of a key turning in the lock. Camille pushes the door open. A man of about fifty is standing in the hallway wearing boxer shorts and a rumpled T-shirt that had once been white. He looks drunk.

“Wha’s goin’ on?” he grumbles, staring at the revolver pointed at him.

Camille turns and motions to the officer to put away his weapon.

“Monsieur Brieuc? Nicholas Brieuc?”

The man reels and totters, the stench of alcohol on his breath is overpowering.

“This is all we need,” Camille mutters, gently pushing the man back inside.

*

Louis flicks on the lights in the living room and opens the windows wide.

“Fabrice, go and make some coffee,” Camille says, steering Brieuc towards a tatty sofa. He turns to the other officer. “You, stay here with him.”

Louis is already in the kitchen running the tap, it is some time before it runs cold. Meanwhile, Camille is opening cupboards
looking for a receptacle of some sort. He finds a salad bowl and hands it to Louis, then heads back into the living room. The apartment is not a ruin, merely dilapidated. The walls are bare, the green lino floor is strewn with filthy clothes, there is a chair and an oilcloth-covered table on which are the remnants of numerous meals. In a corner, a television flickers, the volume on mute. Fabrice strides over and turns it off.

Slumped on the sofa, the man has closed his eyes. His face is sallow and unshaven, a three-day beard, stippled with grey, encroaches on his high cheekbones, his bare legs are thin and bony.

Camille’s mobile phone rings.

“So …?” It is Le Guen.

“The guy’s completely rat-arsed,” Camille mumbles, staring at Brieuc, who shakes his head heavily.

“You need a team?”

“There’s no time. I’ll call you back.”

“Hang on …”

“What?”

“I’ve just had a call from the force in Périgueux. The Buisson family house is empty – in fact it’s been gutted. Not a stick of furniture left, nothing.”

“Bodies?”

“Two. Buried maybe two years ago. He didn’t take much trouble to hide them, the grave is on a hill just behind the house. There’s a team working to exhume them right now.”

*

Louis holds out the bowl of water and a faded dishcloth. Camille takes the cloth, soaks it in the water, and presses it to Brieuc’s face. The man barely reacts.

“Monsieur Brieuc, can you hear me?”

Brieuc’s breathing is erratic. Camille soaks the rag again, wrings it out and presses it to the man’s face. Tilting his head, he sees there are maybe a dozen empty beer cans stashed down the side of the sofa. He takes the man’s wrist and checks for a pulse.

“O.K.,” he says. “Is there a shower in this hovel?”

Brieuc doesn’t scream. The two officers prop him in the bathtub while Camille runs the tap, checks the temperature, then hands the shower hose to the taller of the officers.

“Shit!” Brieuc wails as water streams down his face, his threadbare clothes clinging to his scrawny frame.

“Monsieur Brieuc?” Camille says. “Can you hear me now?”

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you, fuck sake …”

Camille nods to the officer who lays the shower head in the bath. It continues to spray water over Brieuc’s feet, and he lifts them in turn as though wading through a river. Louis grabs a towel and hands it to Brieuc, who twists and slumps over the side of the bath. Water drips from his sodden T-shirt onto the floor. He pisses into the bath, soaking his boxer shorts.

“Bring him back in here,” Camille says, heading into the living room.

Louis has already searched the rest of the apartment: the kitchen, the bedroom, the wardrobes. He is now rummaging through the drawers of the Henri II sideboard.

Brieuc sits shivering on the sofa while Fabrice goes to fetch a blanket from the bedroom. Camille draws up a chair and sits facing the man, and for the first time they stare at each other. Slowly, Brieuc comes to and finds himself surrounded: two men are looming over him menacingly, another is rummaging through the drawers of the sideboard and the fourth man, sitting on a chair, is studying him coldly. Brieuc rubs his eyes and, suddenly
panicked, struggles to his feet and tries to push past, knocking Camille off the chair so that his head slams against the floor. Brieuc has barely taken a step when the officers grab him and pin him to the ground. Fabrice puts a foot on the back of the man’s neck while Bernard twists his arms behind his back.

Louis rushes over to where Camille is gingerly exploring the bruise on his temple.

“Get the fuck off me!” Camille growls, waving his hand as though shooing a wasp.

He struggles to his feet, then kneels down next to Brieuc. His face is pressed to the floor, he is having trouble breathing.

“Now you listen to me,” Camille says, barely controlling his rage. “Let me explain …”

“I … I didn’t do anything …” Brieuc manages to say.

Camille lays a hand on the man’s cheek, then nods to Fabrice who leans all his weight on his right foot. Brieuc howls.

“I said listen to me! There’s not much time.”

“Camille …” hisses Louis, but he is not listening.

“My name is Commandant Verhœven,” he explains, “and right now there’s a woman out there dying.” He takes his hand from the man’s face, crouches lower and whispers. “And if you don’t help me, I swear I will kill you.”

“Camille …” Louis says, louder this time.

“Now, you’re welcome to drink yourself to death,” Camille speaks in a low growl that causes everything in the room to shudder, “but not until I’ve left. First, you’re going to pay attention, and you’re going to give me some answers. Am I making myself clear?”

Unbeknownst to Camille, Louis has signalled to Fabrice who has gently removed his foot. Still, Brieuc makes no attempt to
move, he lies on the floor, face pressed into the green lino, he stares at the little man kneeling beside him and in his eyes he sees a strength of will that terrifies him. He nods.

*

“We pulped everything.”

Back on the sofa, Brieuc is allowed a can of beer and drains half of it in a single gulp. More alert now, he listens as Camille succinctly explains what is happening. He does not understand everything, but he nods vehemently, and that seems to satisfy Camille. These men are looking for some book. This is all Brieuc manages to take in. Bilban. How long did he work in the warehouse at Bilban? Brieuc struggles to think. It was a long time ago. Was he working there when the company went bust? What happened to the stock? From Brieuc’s face, it is evident he is wondering why it matters what happened to a heap of shitty novels. Why it seems so urgent. And what the fuck he’s got to do with any of this. He tries to concentrate, but he can’t make head nor tail of it.

Camille does not attempt to explain. He sticks to simple questions, careful not to let Brieuc stray from the point. “All we need are the facts. Where are the books now?”

“We pulped the stock, all of it, I swear. What else were we supposed to do? The books were shit.”

Brieuc raises the can to finish his beer, but Camille deftly grabs his arm.

“In a minute!”

Brieuc looks around for support, but he sees only the grim faces of the three other officers. He feels a surge of panic and begins to tremble.

“Stay calm,” Camille says. “We can’t afford to waste any more time.”

“But I already told you—”

“Yes, I get it. But no-one ever gets round to pulping everything. Publishers have stock all over the place, sometimes returns come in after the books have been pulped. Try to remember.”

“We pulped everything,” Brieuc mumbles vacantly, staring at the beer can in his trembling hand.

“O.K.,” Camille says, overcome by an immense weariness.

He looks at his watch: 1.20 a.m. He feels cold, suddenly. Looking around he sees the windows are still open wide. He places his hands on his knees and gets to his feet.

“We’re not going to get any more out of him. Let’s go.”

Louis tilts his head as if to say that it’s probably for the best. Fabrice and Bernard head down the stairs, elbowing their way past neighbours who have come to see what is happening. Camille brings a hand up to his face. It feels as though the bruise on his temple has swollen. He steps back into the apartment. Brieuc is still sitting on the sofa, dazed, cradling his beer can. Camille goes to the bathroom where he stands on the wastebasket so he can see himself in the mirror. There is a large bump on the side of his head which has already started to turn blue. He runs the cold tap and splashes water on his face.

“You know, now that I think about it, I’m not sure …”

Camille whips round to find the pitiful figure of Brieuc standing in the doorway, his boxer shorts sodden, a tartan blanket around his shoulders, like a refugee from some disaster.

“I think I brought back a few boxes for my son. He wasn’t interested. They’re probably still in the cellar, if you want to have a look.”

*

The car hurtles dangerously through the empty streets. Louis
is at the wheel this time. With all the swerving, braking and accelerating, and the constant shriek of the sirens, Camille cannot read. His right hand grips the door handle, and every time he attempts to let go to turn the page, he find himself thrown forwards or sideways. He manages to make out a word or two, the letters seem to dance on the page. Since he didn’t have time to put on his glasses, everything is blurred and he has to hold the book at arm’s length. After a few minutes of fruitless effort, he gives up and clasps the book against his knees. On the cover, a young blonde woman is lying on what looks like a bed. Her blouse is open to reveal a glimpse of her breasts and her swollen belly. Her arms are stretched out behind her head as though she is trussed. Her face is a mask of terror, her eyes are rolled back, her mouth open in a silent scream. Camille lets go of the door handle for a second and turns the book over. The back cover copy is white against a black background. He cannot make out the tiny print.

The car veers right and stops outside the
brigade criminelle
. Louis brutally yanks the handbrake, plucks the book from Camille’s hand and rushes up the stairs ahead of him.

*

The photocopier churns out hundreds of pages and, after an interminable interval, Louis reappears with four sets of copies in identical green folders to find Camille pacing the squad room.

“The book runs to” – Camille flicks to the back of a folder – “… 250 pages. If we’re going to find something it’ll probably be at the end. Let’s say after page 130. Armand, you start there, Louis, Jean and I will start at the end and work back. Doctor, could you take a look at the beginning just in case? We don’t know what we’re looking for. The smallest detail could be important. Cob, I need you to drop what you’re working on. Everyone else, when
you find a search term that seems significant, shout over to Cob so everyone can hear, got it? Right, let’s go.”

*

Camille opens the folder in front of him. Scanning the last pages of the book, his eye is drawn to certain paragraphs, he skims them quickly, resisting the temptation to read, to make sense of the text he knows he needs to search. He pushes his glasses up his nose.

Camille turned two pages.

Camille checks the page number then flicks back to page 181.

*

“I’ve got some character call Corey,” Louis calls out to Cob without looking up. He spells the name. “But I haven’t got a first name yet.”

“The girl’s name is Nadine Lefranc,” Le Guen shouts.

“There have to be three thousand girls by that name,” Cob mutters.

It has to come later, Camille thought, leafing rapidly through the loose pages, catching a word here and there, but nothing that seems relevant.

*

“I’ve got some cop called Matthéo, Francis Matthéo,” Armand says.

“He mentions an undertaker’s in Lens, near Calais,” Le Guen calls, “Dubois et Fils.”

“Slow down, guys,” Cob grumbles, typing as quickly as he can.

“The search results give me eighty-seven people named Corey – a first name would be helpful.”

Camille flicks back a few pages.