The roads were deserted. With a little luck, he thought he’d be knocking on Corneau’s door by seven in the morning.
He had to see the photographs of this Flaneau for himself: something told him that he was on the trail of a rather extraordinary story.
Corneau lived in Maintenon, where he ran a guesthouse. Boizot was therefore guaranteed to find him at home. What’s more, there were two advantages to showing up early and unannounced: first, it would demonstrate his interest in the story that Corneau had told him; second, the man would not have time to prepare any convenient lies.
He parked on Place du Château. By his watch, it was seven twenty. He dialed the number to Corneau’s cell phone. He answered on the second ring.
“Hello?”
“Monsieur Corneau, it’s Dimitri Boizot. I’ve just arrived in Maintenon. Can I come by?”
A brief silence, and then Corneau said, “Monsieur Boizot! Wow, you don’t waste time, do you? Come on by, I’ll be waiting for you. I’ll fix up some breakfast.”
He gave Boizot directions to his house.
The house was the last one at the end of a rutted dirt road, a large, stately manor with a pool and grounds covered in flowering vines.
One thing was obvious: Corneau wasn’t broke.
Moments after Boizot parked and turned the car off, a man emerged from the front door.
Wearing a salmon-pink Lacoste polo and beige trousers, tall, thin, with carefully styled blond hair, Ludovic Corneau did not quite look his age. Boizot immediately disliked him.
He walked over, his hand outstretched, an attractive smile on his face.
“Monsieur Boizot, and I was afraid that I might have bothered you last night with my story!”
Boizot shook his hand.
“Come into my office, it’ll be quieter in there.”
In the large entrance hall with a checkered tile floor, he noticed mounted deer heads. And as they passed by the dining room, Corneau spoke to a woman setting the tables: “Honey, let me introduce Monsieur Boizot from L’Actualité.”
Madame Corneau smiled and said hello. She was the female clone of her husband, the same golden blond hair, the same pleasant smile, the same discreet tan.
“We’ll be in the office,” he said. “Could you bring us some breakfast?”
“Sure, I’ll be right there,” she said. “Monsieur Boizot, would you like coffee or tea?”
“Coffee, please,” he said. “Thank you.”
The office was large and wood-paneled, with French doors overlooking the grounds.
“Are you a hunter?” asked Boizot. He had his guard up as he took a seat in a deep leather chair next to a coffee table.
“No, not at all,” responded Corneau, visibly surprised by this question.
Boizot said, “But what about the mounted animal heads in the hallway?”
Corneau laughed. “Those? We bought them at flea markets. You know, the people who come stay here want to feel like they are entering a home that has a history, a lineage, a pedigree of some sort. That’s not at all the case, of course. My wife and I couldn’t be less Parisian. We bought this house on a whim eight years ago. We redid it, decorated . . . finally, this year, business is starting to pick up.”
Obviously, Corneau was proud of what he had achieved. He walked over to the huge bookcase with glass doors that covered one wall of the office. Without any hesitation, he pulled out a big photo album. Then sat next to Boizot and put a snapshot right in front of him.
The photo was of four smiling young men seated at a sidewalk café. “See there, Monsieur Boizot. On the left, that’s me, and then in order you have Sylvain Gercourt, Jean-Michel Flaneau, and Charles Plesse. Take a good look at Jean-Michel’s face. Obviously, the photo is seventeen years old, but I think that there is a clear resemblance to the man pictured in your newspaper. Don’t you think so, too?”
Boizot did not answer immediately. He was busy scrutinizing the face of this adolescent. The door to the office opened and in came Corneau’s wife, her arms laden with a tray full of croissants and rolls.
“Thank you, dear,” said Corneau, turning up the wattage on his eternal smile.
For just a moment, Boizot felt like he had stumbled into some bad soap opera with fake scenery and fake-tanned actors playing their parts.
Once the woman had left, he turned to Corneau. “Your friend’s accident, do you remember exactly when and where it took place? Was Jean-Michel Flaneau alone in the car when it happened?”
Corneau nodded in the direction of the tray. “Go ahead, help yourself, please. Jean-Michel’s accident? It must have happened a year ago, almost to the day, toward the end of July. He was on some small country road in Lot, not far from Cahors. And yes, he was alone. His car skidded as it came out of a turn, and he wound up slammed against a tree.”
“What did he do for a living?”
“Geologist, he had a good job with Palonnier.”
“Palonnier? Isn’t that a mining company that mostly does work in Africa?”
“That’s right, yes.”
Corneau seemed to hesitate for a moment, then he opened the issue of L’Actualité on the coffee table to the page dedicated to the burglary in Batz. He pointed to the sidebar that detailed Perdiou’s biography. “Look, Monsieur Boizot, another strange coincidence. Lionel Perdiou is also a geologist and worked for Palonnier for a long time.”
Boizot couldn’t believe he hadn’t been the first to pick up on that detail. He suddenly felt a little stupid.
“Indeed,” he said. “It’s true that there might be something there, but I must admit that I am no expert. Be that as it may, Monsieur Corneau, if this is your friend, how do you explain how a man with a job, who was well integrated into society, who killed himself in a car accident, could reappear a year later, hundreds of miles away, with an entirely new identity, only to get bumped off in some botched burglary?”
Ludovic Corneau looked up and sighed. “I can’t explain it. Obviously, I know it sounds absurd, even spooky, but I’m pretty sure I’m right.”
Boizot watched him speak and listened to him carefully. There was nothing to suggest that this man was crazy. He didn’t seem like the type to make up stories. And Boizot knew those types: in twenty years of journalism, he had met loads of them, always convinced that they were about to give you the scoop, the story of the century. In the vast majority of cases, they were paranoiacs who needed better meds from their psychiatrist.
Corneau, however, was another story. He was smart enough to realize the absurdity of what he was saying. And yet he wouldn’t let it go. “You know, Monsieur Boizot,” he insisted. “If I were you, I would react the same way, and wonder if the man in front of me was insane or maybe a prankster . . . or both. But I assure you that I am neither. In fact, the only important question is the one you yourself are asking: How can such a mystery be explained?”
Boizot nodded slowly. “Here’s one possibility that would make your story check out: that it wasn’t Flaneau who died in the car accident last year, but someone else, who was buried under his name.”
“Not buried. Jean-Michel was cremated.”
“Oh? I mean, well whatever, there’s still a possibility that a body was switched. But even that doesn’t explain the sudden reappearance of your friend.”
Boizot was back in Batz by early afternoon, feeling troubled.
Corneau had been so insistent about the similarities when they’d compared the photographs of Marcel Orphelin and the late Jean-Michel Flaneau. “Look at the curvature of the eyebrows, the general shape of the face,” he’d said. “There is something there.”
Boizot wished he had the answers. Before returning to the villa, he went to buy the paper. He was spotted by a competing journalist, who had no shame in pointing him out to his sidekick photographer. Clearly, the guy was frustrated. Like the rest, he’
d been unable to find out anything more on the story.
It hardly mattered. By the next day, this episode would be forgotten, tourists having returned to the torpor of their vacations.
But Boizot wouldn’t forget. He wanted to pursue his own investigation. He was like Rouletabille on the trail of the “mystery of the two gunshots.”
Smiling at this foolish thought, he walked by Perdiou’s house. All the shutters were closed. There were no cars in the driveway. Monsieur was clearly spending the rest of his vacation in warmer climes.
Chapter 12
That same day, Boizot acquired the number of a courier company based in Cologne.
He was following a hunch. When he’d left Corneau’s earlier, the latter had told him, “It’s been years since I’ve spoken to Sylvain Gercourt, but the last I heard he was working for some big company in Germany, a director of some kind.”
It seemed that Gercourt had severed all ties with his former friends. “That’s life,” Corneau had concluded, with a melancholy smile.
Boizot dialed the company’s number and prayed that someone who spoke French or at least English would pick up.
That was the case, and he soon had Sylvain Gercourt on the line. The latter, at first taken aback, answered without being asked twice, even if he seemed a little annoyed.
Yes, of course, he remembered the Musketeers from his time at Fenelon High with Plesse, Flaneau, and Corneau. No, he had not heard from any of them for a very long time. He had landed his sales manager job in Cologne a dozen years ago. There he had met his future wife. Now they had three children, and he visited France only two or three times a year to see his parents.
“Marcel Orphelin? Yes, that was an inside joke we had. I was the one who created the character . . . or actually, that’s giving myself too much credit. Marcel Orphelin was the hero of an adventure novel that I really liked at the time.”
“Really? Your friend Ludovic Corneau was convinced that you had invented this Marcel Orphelin out of thin air.”
Gercourt laughed. “Well, that’s what I made them think. And apparently the legend continues.”
When Boizot informed him of the recent tragic deaths of two of the Four Musketeers, Gercourt seemed genuinely surprised.
“I don’t even really watch French TV anymore. From time to time, I’ll glance at a few Le Monde articles on the Internet, but that’s it. I tend to read the local newspaper instead.”
Boizot politely thanked Gercourt and then hung up, disappointed that he’d learned nothing of interest.
The optician in Batz who had sold him the magnifying glass had assured him it was the most powerful one on the market. Boizot had paid for it—a fortune by the standards of his meager bank account—and returned to the villa.
For more than an hour, hunched over the table on the patio, enjoying the sun, which had made a comeback in the Breton sky, he scrutinized every detail of the photograph Corneau had allowed him to borrow. Carefully, he compared its every detail with the photocopy of the ID that had supposedly belonged to Marcel Orphelin.
He looked closely at everything: the hairline, the shade of blond, the type of curls, the shape of the eyes, the nose, and the mouth. But it was impossible to make a definitive decision. There were, in fact, similarities, but no more than what you might find between brothers or cousins, or even two strangers who closely resembled each other.
He felt his enthusiasm and excitement wane as quickly as they had taken hold of him two days before.
He put the magnifying glass down and lit a cigarette. The wispy, quirky clouds seemed to taunt him in the blue sky. In two days, he would be returning to the leaden sky of Paris, his dark apartment, and his routine at the newspaper.
He felt a ball of anxiety form in his throat, a feeling he was all too familiar with. He sighed deeply, hoping he could ward off the miasma of his chronic depression.
Boizot felt surprisingly light after he left the restaurant, where he had just inhaled a platter of seafood.
He guessed it was probably the combined effect of the bottle of Muscadet he had emptied, the two aperitifs, and the whiskey he had enjoyed as a digestif at the very end of the meal.
Good thing I walked here, he thought. With my blood alcohol level and the police looking out for drunk drivers, I’d be liable to lose my license.
The restaurant was located on the water, about one-third of a mile from the villa. As he made his way home, enjoying the balmy evening, his footing at times was not very steady. He passed by several people out for a stroll who—he was sure—looked at him with an air of condescension. But he didn’t give a damn. The alcohol had given him back his optimism, and he had even made an important decision.
When he returned to the newspaper on Monday, still basking in the glow of his recent scoop, he would go see Magnin—surely, by then, the man would be back in the office and Etienne would no longer be in charge. He would give him a complete rundown of the case and ask to make the story his main assignment. That would give him a few extra days of freedom, and if it didn’t result in anything concrete, then at least the newspaper wouldn’t have lost much. News would be slower than ever in August, and at least with this story, Boizot maybe had a series that would keep the readers in suspense.
Lost in his thoughts, he did not notice a green Fiat Punto parked on the shoulder. The driver’s window was half-open, and a man sat behind the wheel, motionless, a camera resting on the passenger seat.
When he arrived at the villa, he realized that he had received a message on his cell phone.
It was from Ludovic Corneau, who’d found the contact information for Jean-Michel Flaneau’s family after Boizot had departed. He listened twice to the message and carefully noted the address and phone number of the family bakery in Senlis.
Happy to have a new lead, he told himself that it was a sign from God, an invitation to continue his investigation.
“You only believe in God when it suits you,” he chuckled to himself as he lay down. Then, he closed his eyes, and fell asleep.
Chapter 13
On the honorable Brigitte Le Guen’s desk, there was a framed picture of her two children. Often, when she was handling a case that put her on edge, she would look at the picture, as if to gather the courage to continue.
“Still nothing on Marcel Orphelin’s real name, captain?”
Tworkowski stubbornly shook his head. “Nothing. But I still find elements of this case disturbing. Of course, ballistic analysis confirms Lionel Perdiou’s statements, as does the autopsy of this Marcel Orphelin. But it is still strange that this burglar popped out of nowhere to target a villa that is far from the most luxurious in the region. If I were a thief, I’d go after a target in La Baule, not Batz-sur-Mer. By the way, I got confirmation from the police in Nantes that no ID card with the name Marcel Orphelin has ever been issued. And no one had ever heard of this guy on Rue Gaston-Turpin.”
“No fingerprints on file either?” asked the judge.
“Nope. No one knows this guy. That’s what got me thinking there may be something or someone else behind all of this.”
“You’re almost speaking like that journalist, captain.”
Tworkowski smiled. “Maybe . . . In any case, since the burglar spent a few days in the region, he must have stayed somewhere. I’ve asked my team to check out all the hotels, guesthouses, and rental agencies. But so far, it hasn’t turned up anything. And since he walked into Cycl-Ocean when he rented the scooter, he couldn’t have come from very far.”
“What is your personal opinion, captain?”
Tworkowski felt a cough coming from deep inside his lungs. When he finally managed to catch his breath, he had a flushed face and teary eyes.
“Excuse me,” he said.
The female judge had always made him uncomfortable. With her obsession with calling him “captain” all the time, as if she wanted to main
tain a strictly professional distance between them, with her tight-lipped face and her inquisitorial gaze, she was a far cry from her predecessor, the old judge Colemont, a longtime pipe smoker who never needed to be asked twice about a drink.
“Frankly, your honor, the complete anonymity of this so-called Marcel Orphelin really bugs me.”
She stared at him without blinking. Then she said, “Does that mean that you question the version of events provided by Monsieur Perdiou?”
Tworkowski averted his eyes, pretending to be interested in the clerk, but she seemed determined to keep her eyes on her notes. He replied: “No. At present, I have no objective reason to question Monsieur Perdiou’s statements. I just think that we are dealing with a rather strange burglar, that’s all. Speaking of which, I’d like your permission to post a statement on the Internet and get this guy on the national police’s wanted list with a photo, a description, and a summary of the facts.”
The judge looked disappointed. “No problem. But you know that these kinds of things usually do not yield any results.”
Tworkowski shrugged. “I know. But for the moment, it’s in our interest to cast a wide net. It costs nothing to try.”
“You’re right, captain. Write me up a draft of the statement. As soon as it’s ready, I’ll read it and sign the distribution request.”
“You’ll have it by this afternoon.”
Back in his office, Serge Tworkowski took great delight in lighting a cigarette. The clock next to his computer read eleven thirty.
He suddenly wanted to talk with his old pal Bernard Colemont. A moment later, he’d gotten him on the phone. After asking about his health, he invited him for lunch and drinks at Corsaire, a brasserie at the center of town where they’d been regulars until the judge had retired a year earlier. Colemont, just a little bit bored by retirement, had accepted the invitation from his old buddy without any hesitation.
They met each other at one o’clock. Tworkowski brought his friend up to date on the case and asked his advice, admitting candidly that he had set his sights on Perdiou—the opposite of what he’d told Brigitte Le Guen, of course. Colemont, sipping his pastis with great pleasure, said, “What are your suspicions based on?”
Mortal Ambitions (A Dimitri Boizot Investigation Book 1) Page 6
