“Absolutely. I have come to see you in the hope that you might give me your opinion on an interesting case: someone alleged to have died last year in a car accident has been recognized by a few people in the last several days as a burglar killed in Brittany.”
“Fascinating,” said Ménessier as he donned his reading glasses. “Do you have pictures of the person?”
“Of course.” Boizot placed a gray envelope on the table and pulled two photos from it.
The first was the copy of the ID photo that L’Actualité had published the previous week. The second showed Flaneau at his cousin’s wedding.
Ménessier turned on his desk lamp and proceeded to examine the two portraits.
“It’s a shame,” he said, pointing at the ID photo, “but the quality is not that great. However, I can be explicit: this is not the same person. I understand that a layman could mistake the two persons and find a ‘family resemblance,’ as they say, between the men, but this doesn’t hold up after a brief, even cursory, examination.”
He looked up, pushed his glasses down, and, revealing his shockingly white teeth one more time, smiled.
“What elements, doctor, lead you to be so categorical?” asked Boizot.
“It’s very simple. Without going into detail, simply compare, for example, the spacing of the eyes, the position of the mouth relative to the nose, the width. If you mentally draw a triangle, the base of which connects the exterior corners of the eyes and the tip of which touches the lower lip exactly in the middle, you’ll find the persons in the two photographs are not alike. They are so unalike, no plastic surgeon in the world could make them identical.”
Boizot nodded. Although unwilling to admit it, he felt disappointed. For a few days, he’d been convinced that he had put his finger on something extraordinary, and he resented having to face facts to the contrary.
So he insisted: “Knowing that the person in the picture on the left is supposed to have died in a serious car accident, would it be conceivable to think that this accident could cause so much damage to the face—”
“That it would have changed the proportions?” interrupted the doctor with a large, condescending grin. “No, it is inconceivable. Especially since in the second photo, there is no trace of injury of any kind. No, no, I will say it again, I am quite positive.”
In the afternoon, Boizot returned to his office at L’Actualité. Located in a beautiful building on a quiet side street not far from Porte de Saint-Ouen, it occupied two floors, directly opposite a square where, weather permitting, he liked to eat his sandwich. And also smoke a cigarette: ever since smoking had been outlawed in the office, he never missed an opportunity to go outside for some “fresh air.”
“How are you doing, Patrice?” said Boizot as he sat down in the square beside Patrice Censier.
“OK,” the man said.
Patrice Censier was in his fifties and more of a corporate success than a witty conversationalist. Tall and thin, with scant graying red hair plastered to his head, he was dressed as usual in a tweed suit. He seemed to think the suits gave him a British air. He was a consummate professional, discreet, if not self-effacing, and had a job he liked that enabled him to rub shoulders with the greats of the economic world. At home, his wife was suffering from multiple sclerosis. He devotedly cared for her with the help of a home nurse who cost a lot of money.
“Glad to hear it,” said Boizot, inhaling deeply from his cigarette.
“How was your vacation?” asked Censier.
“Very nice, a little lively toward the end, however.”
“I saw. Great scoop. And hey, speaking of that, a certain Monsieur Corneau called this morning. He wanted to talk to you about the Perdiou case. I offered to give him your cell phone number, but he told me he already had it.”
Boizot nodded. What did Corneau want? He took out his phone and called him.
At the other end of the line, the man seemed a little embarrassed. “It’s nice of you to call back, but I actually just wanted to find out if there was any news.”
Somewhat annoyed, Boizot explained that in all likelihood Flaneau and Orphelin were indeed two separate people.
“Oh?” said Corneau, seemingly disappointed. “What will you do now?”
“What would you like me to do?”
“I don’t know . . . But did you see that there was a burglary at the temp agency that Charles Plesse owned?”
Boizot suddenly felt like he had been punched in the chest.
“What are you talking about?”
“There was a small summary of it on Sunday in the local newspaper: someone broke into Job-Inter’s offices in Saint-Cloud, and the newspaper mentioned the company’s boss had died tragically just a few days earlier. Apparently, nothing was stolen.”
“I was not aware,” confessed Boizot as he rubbed his eyes.
“There may be no connection,” said Corneau.
“Maybe,” said Boizot. Then he hung up.
Two minutes later, Boizot was back in the office and Magnin was asking, “So, what did my friend Ménessier have to say?”
Boizot explained that the results hadn’t been what he had hoped for, but added, “I’m still convinced that there’s something out of the ordinary about this case. I just learned that the temp agency owned by Plesse, the guy who was killed at the same time as Orphelin, was burglarized. It has got to be more than a coincidence. I’m going to talk to my contacts in the crime squad, and tomorrow morning I’ll head over to Saint-Cloud and interview the people at Job-Inter. What do you think?”
“Go ahead. But it’s been a week now since we’ve had anything in the paper on the Perdiou case. I was wondering if you couldn’t come up with some short article reminding the readers that it’s ten days after the fact, and we still don’t know the real identity of the burglar. Let’s plan to publish that photo on the front page again and issue an appeal to our readers who might recognize him. That way, it puts the pressure on the investigators and reminds readers that it was L’Actualité that first broke this story.”
Boizot nodded. Magnin always knew which way was up.
That night, Boizot returned to his apartment feeling depressed and empty. The blues had come on without warning, just like that, on the drive between his office and Rue des Lyanes. He felt sapped of all his energy and wondered how he could have actually believed the tenuous story that Corneau had dished up all too eagerly.
He poured himself a whiskey before turning on the stereo, an ancient assembly of disparate elements he’d owned since his college days. He put on a record of Ella Fitzgerald singing Rodgers and Hart songs, sat down on the couch, and lit a cigarette. Smoking slowly, his eyes half-open, he hummed “Manhattan” faintly, as if he were afraid of being heard.
As he was reviewing the events of the past few days, he suddenly remembered the brasserie receipt that Mireille had discovered in his car.
He had stuffed it in his khakis, he was sure of it. He stubbed out his cigarette, stood up, and rushed into the bedroom to find the pants.
He had no trouble finding the receipt, and without thinking twice, he stuffed it into his jacket pocket and headed out.
The restaurant, Chez Maurice, was on Rue Belgrand. Boizot checked his watch. It was 7:25 p.m. What better opportunity to have a snack?
“Hey, Boizot, how’s it going?”
He returned Stan’s greeting and sat down at a small table next to the door.
As expected, the establishment was almost empty: Parisians had gone to the seaside, and tourists had no reason to venture this far off the beaten path.
Stan was a real old-time restaurateur. The brasserie, purchased fifteen years earlier, was his entire life, and customers or no customers, there was no question of closing. He walked over to Boizot, his belly sticking out. “Back from vacation? You’re so tan!”
Boizot told him about
his stay in the villa in Batz, omitting the Perdiou episode as there was no use in getting into details.
After ordering spaghetti Bolognese and a half carafe of red wine, he pulled the receipt from his pocket and showed it to Stan. “Would you by any chance remember a customer or customers who came in last Friday?”
Stan grabbed the slip of paper and examined it, then, looking up, said, “Why do you ask?”
He had expected this question and had prepared a canned response. “No reason. Would you believe that I had my kids last weekend, and after dropping them off at the old mother-in-law’s, I found this receipt in my car? It could have only come from the children, so I was wondering if my mother-in-law had maybe come in and knocked back a few beers here.”
As he spoke, Boizot smiled, trying to come across as nonchalantly as possible.
“I’ll tell you,” said Stan when he had finished. “If your mother-in-law is a badly dressed guy with no manners, then she definitely was here on Friday.”
Boizot stared at him but said nothing.
Stan sat down in front of him. “I remember that guy. It’s not every day you meet a guy that foulmouthed. And then . . .”
“What happened?”
Stan shrugged. “The fat bastard ate his sandwich over there, in the corner. He chugged a beer, burped like an animal, and ordered a second one. Up until that point, it was fine, more or less. But it all went downhill after he answered a call on his cell phone. Incidentally, you should get the ringtone: it was a kind of electronic version of Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries.’ It was pretty cool. When the guy picks up, he starts yelling, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Then his end of the conversation gets louder and louder, angrier and angrier, and he starts sweating. ‘You get your ass here pronto,’ he yells. ‘I ain’t walking. Get over here or you’re fired!’ He hung up and then wolfed down his sandwich. The customers didn’t know where to look. And a little later, we saw his ‘driver’ show up in a ridiculous green Fiat Punto. Let’s just say that everyone started talking once he left.”
Stan suddenly stopped, aware that he might be talking about an acquaintance of Boizot’s. But the latter quickly reassured him.
“Strange. Well, I can tell you, that’s not my mother-in-law.” He smiled. “I have no idea who that could be. And I still have no idea how this receipt wound up in my car.”
Stan sighed and stood up. “OK, let me put your order in.”
Chapter 18
In the driver’s seat of a green Fiat Punto parked a few hundred feet away from Chez Maurice, a man tapped the touch screen on his cell phone nervously.
“Hello, Monsieur Lullier, it’s Quiguer. I’m calling you like you said.”
As the man spoke, he kept his gaze on the window at Chez Maurice, behind which he followed Boizot’s every move. Boizot was engrossed in conversation with the owner.
“Yes, he’s busy eating in a brasserie on Rue Belgrand. Pierrot followed him over the weekend: nothing to report, he was with his children. Monday, however, was more interesting. He went to Senlis to meet a girl named Sylvie Flaneau. She’s some girl at the bakery there, but I’d be surprised if he got lucky.”
“What did you say?” barked Lullier.
“Sorry?”
“What was the name of the girl Boizot met on Monday?”
“Flaneau, Sylvie Flaneau.”
Silence followed. Lullier seemed to have lost his voice.
“Is there something the matter, Monsieur Lullier?”
“No, no. Keep going!”
“Well, yesterday, after visiting the girl, he spent the rest of the day at his paper. Nothing special to report. But the funniest thing happened, you’ll never guess: he went this morning to Le Vésinet to consult a cosmetic surgeon! Isn’t that crazy?”
“Indeed,” his correspondent said. Lullier hung up without saying anything else.
Quiguer put his phone in his shirt pocket.
He lit a cigarette, cracked open the window, and cursed. He was tired of always being at the mercy of demanding clients, who considered him no better than a servant, and all that for pitiful sums of money off of which he was barely able to make a living.
He looked at the clock on the dashboard: it was almost eight o’clock. He had done enough for the day.
What’s more, he’d promised Chantal he wouldn’t come home too late. Anyway, Boizot was going to take his time eating and then quietly return to his shabby little apartment, so what was the point?
He took a last puff, flicked the butt onto the street, tried twice before the car started, and then headed toward Place Gambetta, grumbling about his shitty life and his shitty clients.
Chapter 19
Philippe Congy had subscribed to L’Actualité for ages. As a kid—and that wasn’t yesterday since he had just celebrated his seventy-first birthday a few weeks earlier—the newspaper had been a familiar sight around his house. At the time, with the war barely over, the paper had comprised only a few pages and the rare illustration. But little Philippe had devoured the sports page, especially when there was talk of soccer.
He heard the mail truck stop in front of the house, then start again with a giant squeal of the tires.
He sighed, shook his head, and rolled his eyes: the new mailman fancied himself a racecar driver, and it really got on Philippe’s nerves. He stood up slowly—always those damn knees!—and left the kitchen, where he had just had his first cup of coffee of the day.
He opened the door, automatically glanced up at the leaden sky—not very promising—and collected the newspaper from the mailbox.
The mailman had the habit of folding it in half in the wrong direction—another thing that annoyed him!—so that when he first looked at the paper, he saw only the back page. He closed and locked the mailbox, unfolded the newspaper . . . and stopped dead in his tracks.
“That’s Franck!” he muttered.
On the front page was a large poor-quality photo. Even poor quality, though, the image left no room for doubt.
Philippe Congy hurried back inside, slammed the door, and rushed into the living room, where his wife was dusting knickknacks.
“Catherine, look!” he said simply as he shoved L’Actualité in her face.
Startled, she stepped back a little, and on seeing the photo, she had the same reaction as her husband: “It’s Franck Héron. What did he do?”
The front-page headline was concise but did not provide much detail: DO YOU KNOW THIS MAN?
Philippe Congy donned his glasses, which hung from a chain, and read aloud to his wife:
In the early hours of Monday, July twenty-eighth, a burglary was committed at the vacation home in Batz-sur-Mer (Loire-Atlantique) of the conservative deputy from Paris, Lionel Perdiou. During this break-in, the politician shot his assailant in legitimate self-defense. The next day, we were able to reveal to you the supposed identity of this man, who lacked any form of ID or personal effects. An ID card discovered by our reporter suggested that the man was from Nantes and known as Marcel Orphelin. However, we immediately questioned this identity, as it seemed likely that the ID card was fake. This assumption was proven correct in the following days. Today, nine days after the incident, the police in Le Croisic responsible for the investigation are still unable to determine the true identity of this man. This is why we are now appealing to our readers: If you recognize this man, let us know by calling the paper.
Catherine’s face had become increasingly distraught as she read the article.
“Oh, my God! So Franck is dead?”
Without saying a word, her husband folded up the paper and placed it on the table.
“And there is no doubt about it, it’s really him, that’s for sure,” she added, looking at the picture again.
“I noticed that the house has been empty since we came back,” said her husband. “But I thought Franck was on vacation .
. . or on a trip.”
He spoke between his teeth, almost as if speaking to himself.
“What are we going to do?” asked Catherine. “Should we contact the newspaper like they ask? Or is it better to warn his parents first? . . . I’ll call Marie-Jeanne and pretend that I just want to hear how she is doing, ask how everything is in Biarritz, if they still like the city, and I’ll use the opportunity to ask her how Franck is doing.”
“She’ll be surprised, though. After all, we’re the ones living next door to him, so why would we ask her how he’s doing?”
“I’ll handle it. I’ll bring up Franck and ask what he is up to, saying that we haven’t seen him for several days and thought that he went on vacation.”
She glanced at the clock; it was only eight. “It’s a little early to call. We’ll wait until nine. What a nightmare!”
An hour later, Catherine feverishly dialed the telephone number of Fernand and Marie-Jeanne Héron, their longtime neighbors on Rue Théodore-Gobert in Clamart. Two years earlier, when Fernand had retired after having spent his life selling cars, he and his wife had decided to move to Biarritz. They’d vacationed there regularly and knew it well, and seized the opportunity to buy a small apartment to live out the rest of their days. They had left their house to their son, Franck, a sort of good-for-nothing who was thirty years old, single, and lazy.
“Marie-Jeanne, how are you?” said Catherine, a bit too cheerfully. Philippe was listening by her side, attentive and tense.
It took a good fifteen minutes just chitchatting, promising to see one another in the more or less distant future, to get to the point. “Oh, by the way, since we came back from Lucie’s, we haven’t seen Franck around. Is he on vacation somewhere?”
“I suppose. The last time I heard from him was two weeks ago. I had called him—he rarely makes the effort to pick up the phone and call, you know—and he told me he was going to be spending a few days in La Baule. I suppose he must still be there.”
“Oh? That’s nice. I hear La Baule is very pretty.”
Catherine, shaken by this news, which left no doubt that Franck had indeed been the burglar in Batz-sur-Mer, did not know what to say. She hung up quickly after a vague good-bye to her old friend.
Mortal Ambitions (A Dimitri Boizot Investigation Book 1) Page 9
