And that car they fired into! What car? The one over there – it looks like it stopped a charging rhino. Did they launch a mortar at it? And so begin the ballistic speculations and, as with the make and model of the car, there are advocates for every possible calibre. Makes a man want to fire a warning shot to shut them up, or shoot into the crowd to get a bit of peace.
Strutting and swaggering, the patron peremptorily announces, “.22 long rifle.”
He closes his eyes as he says the words as though to confirm his expertise.
I cheer myself up by imagining him headless, like the Turk, from a blast with the 12-bore. Whether it was a .22 Long Rifle rimfire or a blunderbuss, the crowd are impressed; these idiots don’t know shit. With witnesses like this, the cops are in for a treat.
*
2.45 p.m.
“Wha . . . why would you want to do that?” asks the commissaire divisionnaire, wheeling around, making a sweeping revolution on her major axis: a titanic, positively Babylonian arse that is preposterously disproportionate. Commissaire Michard is a woman of between forty and fifty. Hers is a face that promised much and failed to deliver; she has a shock of jet-black hair, probably dyed, buck teeth and a pair of heavy, square-rimmed glasses that proclaim her as a woman of authority, a safe pair of hands. She is gifted with a personality usually described as “forceful” (she is a pain in the neck), a keen intelligence (this exponentially increases her ability to infuriate) but, most of all, she is blessed with an arse with a capital A. It is incredible. It seems a wonder she can keep her balance. Curiously, Commissaire Michard has a rather placid face at odds with everything one knows about her: her undeniable competence, her exceptional strategic sense, her mastery of firearms; the sort of boss who works ten times harder than everyone else and is proud of her leadership skills. When she was promoted to commissaire, Camille resigned himself to the fact that in addition to dealing with an overbearing female at home (Doudouche, his beloved cat, is emotionally unstable and borderline hysterical), he would now have to deal with one at work.
Hence her question: “Why would you want to do that?”
There are some people with whom it is difficult to remain calm. Commissaire Michard comes over and stands very close to Camille. She always does this when she speaks to him. Between her well-upholstered physique and Camille’s slight, scrawny frame, they look like characters from an American sit-com, but this woman has no sense of the ridiculous.
They stand facing each other, blocking the entrance to the crematorium; they are among the last to go in. Camille has carefully orchestrated things so that at the moment he makes his request, they are overtaken by Contrôleur Général Le Guen – Camille’s old friend and Michard’s predecessor as commissaire divisionnaire. Now, everyone knows that Camille and Le Guen are more than simply friends; Camille has been best man at Le Guen’s weddings – a time-consuming responsibility given that Le Guen has just got hitched for the sixth time, remarrying his second wife.
Since she was only recently appointed, Commissaire Michard still needs to “run with the hare and hunt with the hounds” (she loves such clichés, which she strives to inject with a certain freshness), she needs to “hit the ground running” before she can afford to “rock the boat”. So when the best friend of her direct superior makes a request, she falters. Especially as they are the last members of the cortège. Though she would like time to mull it over, she has a reputation for thinking on her feet and prides herself on making quick decisions. The service is about to begin. The funeral director glances anxiously towards them. Wearing a double-breasted suit, with a shock of bleached blond hair, he looks like a footballer – clearly undertakers are not what they used to be.
This question – why would Verhœven want his team to take on the case? – is the only one to which Camille has prepared an answer, because it is the only pertinent question.
The robbery took place at 10.00 this morning, it is not yet 3.00 p.m. Back at the Galerie, the forensics officers are completing their examination of the crime scene, various officers are taking witness statements, but the case has not yet been assigned to a squad.
“I’ve got an informant,” says Camille. “Someone on the inside . . .”
“You had information about the robbery before it happened?”
Michard’s eyes widen dramatically, reminding Camille of the furious glares of samurai warriors in Japanese lithographs. This is the sort of stock expression Michard loves; the look means: you’re either telling me too much or not enough.
“Of course I didn’t,” Camille snaps. (He plays this scene very convincingly; he sounds genuinely affronted.) “I knew nothing about it, though I’m not sure about my source . . . I’m telling you this guy’s prepared to spill his guts, he’s desperate to cut a deal. [Verhœven is convinced this is the sort of cliché that appeals to Michard.] Right now, he’s prepared to cooperate . . . it would be a pity to not use him.”
A single glance is all it takes to shift the conversation from matters of protocol to simple tactics. Camille’s brief glance towards the man at the far end of the cemetery is enough for the tutelary figure of the contrôleur général to loom over the conversation. Silence. The commissaire smiles to indicate that she understands: O.K.
“Besides, it’s not just an armed robbery,” Camille adds for the sake of form. “There’s the attempted murder . . .”
The commissaire nods slowly and shoots Camille a quizzical look as though she has seen beyond the commandant’s somewhat heavy-handed ploy some faint glimmer, as though she is trying to understand. Or has just understood. Or is about to understand. Camille knows how perceptive the woman is: the slightest false step triggers her highly sensitive seismograph.
So he takes the initiative, speaking quickly, using his most persuasive tone: “Let me explain. This informant of mine is connected to another guy, a member of a gang involved in a different job – that was last year, and it’s not directly connected to this case, but the thing is . . .”
Commissaire Michard cuts him short with a weary wave that says she has problems enough of her own. That she understands. That she realises she is too new to her post to intervene between her superior and her subordinate.
“It’s fine, commandant. I’ll talk to the examining magistrate, Juge Pereira.”
This is exactly what Camille was hoping would happen, though he is careful not to show it.
Because had Michard not given up so quickly, he has not the first idea how he would have finished his sentence.
*
3.15 p.m.
Louis left quickly. Camille, given his rank, was forced to wait around until the bitter end. The service was long, very long, and everyone wanted a chance to speak. Camille slipped away as soon as was decently possible.
As he walks back to his car, he listens to the voicemail he has just received from Louis, who has already managed to put in several calls and has come up with a lead.
“I’ve been through the files and the only incidence of a Mossberg 500 being used in an armed robbery was on January 17 last. The similarity between the jobs is unquestionable. And the last case was pretty grim . . . Can you call me back?”
Camille calls him back.
“The incident last January was a lot more vicious,” Louis explains. “The gang held up four separate outlets. One person was killed. The leader of the gang was identified. Vincent Hafner. There’s been no sign of him since the January robberies, but today’s comeback stunt was clearly designed to attract attention . . .”
*
3.20 p.m.
There’s a sudden flurry of excitement at Le Brasseur.
The babble of conversation is interrupted by a wail of sirens and the customers hurry out onto the terrace to gawk as the sirens seem to rise in pitch. The patron peremptorily announces it is the ministre de l’Intérieur. People vainly rack their brains trying to remember the minister’s name. They’d remember if it was a game-show host. The chattering starts up again. A few pundits decide th
ere has been some new development, maybe they’ve found a body or something; the patron closes his eyes and adopts a self-important air. The customers’ conflicting theories are a testament to his erudition.
“It’s the ministre de l’Intérieur, I’m telling you.”
With a little smile he calmly goes on polishing glasses, he does not even trouble to glance towards the terrace, thereby demonstrating his faith in his own prognostication.
The customers wait feverishly, holding their breath, as though expecting the arrival of the Tour de France.
*
3.30 p.m.
It feels as though her brain is filled with cotton wool surrounded by veins thick as arms that hammer and throb.
Anne opens her eyes. The room. The hospital.
She stiffly tries to move her legs, like an old woman plagued by rheumatism. It is agonising, but she succeeds in lifting one knee, then the other. Drawing up her legs gives her a brief moment of relief. Tentatively, she moves her head to see how it feels. Her head seems to weigh a ton, her bandaged fingers look like the claws of a crab. There comes a rush of blurred images: the toilets in Galerie Monier, a pool of blood, gunshots, the skull-splitting howl of the ambulance, the face of the radiologist and, from behind him, the faint voice of a nurse saying “What on God’s earth did they do to her?” She feels a wave of emotion, she blinks back tears, takes a deep breath; she needs to keep her self-control, she cannot afford to give in, to give up.
She has to stand up if she is to stay alive.
She throws back the sheet – despite the excruciating pain in her hand – and manages to slide first one leg and then the other over the side. She feels a dizzying rush and waits for a moment, balanced precariously on the edge of the bed, then plants her feet firmly on the ground, hauls herself upright and is immediately forced to sit down again; only now does she truly feel pain rack her body, savage, specific, shooting through her back, her shoulders, her collarbone, she feels crushed, she struggles to catch her breath, hauls herself up again and finally she manages to stand, though she is clutching the nightstand for support.
The toilet is directly opposite. Like a climber, she gropes for handholds – the headboard, the bedside table, the door handle, the washbasin – until finally she is staring into the mirror. Dear God, can this be her?
This time, she can do nothing to stop the sobs welling in her. The blue-black bruises, the broken teeth, the gash along her left cheek where the bone has been shattered, the trail of sutures . . .
What on God’s earth did they do to her?
Anne grips the sink to stop herself from falling.
“What are you doing out of bed?”
As she turns, Anne suddenly faints, the nurse only just has time to catch her as she falls and lay her carefully on the floor. The nurse gets to her feet and pops her head out into the corridor.
“Florence, could you give me a hand?”
*
3.40 p.m.
Camille strides along fretfully. Louis walks beside him, half a pace behind; the precise distance he maintains from his boss is a calculated mixture of respect and familiarity. Only Louis would come up with such nuanced permutations.
Though Camille is anxious and harried, he nonetheless glances up at the buildings that line the rue Georges-Flandrin – typical exponents of Hausmann architecture blackened by years of grime and soot, buildings so commonplace in this part of the city that one hardly notices them. His eye is caught by a line of balconies supported at either end by twin Atlases with loincloths distended by large bulges, each balcony is supported by a caryatid with preposterously large breasts that stare into the heavens. It is the breasts that point heavenward; the caryatids’ eyes are demurely lowered in that coy expression of supremely confident women. Camille gives an admiring nod and strides on.
“René Parrain would be my guess,” he says.
Silence. Camille closes his eyes and waits to be corrected.
“More likely to be Chassavieux, don’t you think?”
It was ever thus. Louis may be twenty years younger, but he knows twenty thousand times more than Camille. What is most irritating is that he is never wrong. Almost never. Camille has tried to trap him, has tried and tried but to no avail; the guy is a walking Wikipedia.
“Yeah,” he mutters grudgingly, “maybe.”
As they come to the Galerie Monier, Camille stumbles past the wreckage of the car blasted by the 12-bore just as a tow truck is hoisting it onto the flatbed.
Later, he will find out that Anne was standing on the other side of the car when the shots were aimed directly at her.
*
The little guy is the one in charge. Police officers these days are like politicians, their rank is inversely proportional to their size. Everyone recognises the little one, obviously, given his height. Once seen, never forgotten. But his name is another matter. The café customers come up with a range of suggestions. They know it’s a foreign surname, but what? German, Danish, Flemish? One of the regulars thinks it might be Russian, then another triumphantly shouts “Verhœven.” “That’s it.” Everyone laughs. “You see? I told you it was something foreign.”
He appears at the corner of the passage. He does not flash his warrant card – when you’re less than five foot shit, you get special dispensation. The people peer through the café windows, waiting with bated breath, when they are distracted by something even more miraculous: a tanned, dark-haired girl has just walked into the bar. The patron greets her loudly and everyone turns to look. It is the hairdresser from the salon next door. She orders four espressos – the coffee machine in the salon is not working.
She knows everything, she smiles modestly as she waits to be served. To be quizzed. She pretends that she does not have time for questions, but her blushes speak volumes.
They want to know everything.
*
3.50 p.m.
Louis shakes hands with the officers already on the scene. Camille demands to see the C.C.T.V. footage. Right now. Louis is shocked. He knows only too well that Camille has little respect for etiquette and protocol, but such a gross disregard for procedure is shocking in a man of his rank and experience. Louis delicately pushes his fringe back with his left hand, then follows his boss into the shop’s back room which has been temporarily requisitioned as an incident room. Camille absently shakes hands with the owner, a woman decked out like a Christmas tree who is smoking a Gauloise set in a long, ivory cigarette-holder of the sort that went out of fashion a century ago. Camille does nothing to stop her. The first officers on the scene have already tracked down the footage from the two C.C.T.V. cameras.
As soon as the laptop computer is set up in front of him, Camille turns to Louis.
“Right. I’ll go through the videos. You go and find out what we’ve got so far.”
He jerks his chin towards the front of the shop, which amounts to showing Louis the door. Without waiting for a reply, he sits at the desk and stares at everyone. He looks for all the world as though he wants to be alone to watch a porn film.
Louis acts as though his boss’s behaviour is perfectly logical. There is something of the gentleman’s gentleman about him.
“Go on,” he says, ushering everyone out, “we’ll set up the incident room in here.”
The footage Camille is interested in is from the camera position just outside the jeweller’s.
Twenty minutes later, while Louis is watching the video, comparing details of the footage with the first witness statements, Camille goes out into the arcade and stands on the spot where the gunman stood.
The forensics team has finished collecting evidence, the shards of glass have all been picked up and collected, the crime scene has been taped off. Once the insurance assessors and structural surveyors arrive, the last officers will slink away and two months from now, the arcade will have been completely refurbished, new shops will open up ready for the next crazed gunman to turn up during opening hours and target their customers or their staff.
The scene is being guarded by a gendarme, a tall, thin officer with a jaded expression, a jutting chin, and bags under his eyes. Like a supporting actor whose name no-one can ever remember, Camille dimly recognises the man as someone he has seen at a hundred other crime scenes. They nod vaguely to each other.
Camille gazes at the looted shop, the smashed display cases. Though he knows little or nothing about jewellery, he cannot but wonder if this is the sort of place he himself would have chosen for a hold-up. But he also knows that appearances are deceptive. A bank might not be much to look at, but steal everything inside one and you would have enough to come back and buy the place.
Camille does what he can to stay calm; his hands are stuffed into the pockets of his overcoat because ever since he watched the video – replaying the harrowing, horrifying images over and over – his hands have not stopped trembling.
He brusquely shakes his head as though he had water in his ears, as though were trying to dispel this excess of emotion, to regain a sense of composure. But it is impossible. The crimson halos on the tiled floor are Anne’s blood; she lay exactly there, curled into a ball, while the man with the gun stood over there. Camille takes a step back and the tall gendarme watches him uneasily. Suddenly, Camille turns, holding an imaginary shotgun by his side; the gendarme makes to reach for his police radio. Camille takes three more steps, glances from where the shooter was standing towards the exit and then suddenly, without warning, he starts to run. This time, the gendarme grabs his radio but seeing Camille stop abruptly he does not press the button. Camille anxiously touches a finger to his lips and retraces his steps, he looks up at the gendarme and they smile warily at one another like two men with no common language eager to be friends.
Camille Page 5
