Dax sulkily carried on handing the sheets to Capestan, who carried on glancing down at them. Suddenly she put her hand out and touched Rosière’s arm.
“Wait, wait,” she said. “There on the telephone record—that’s Maëlle’s number . . . Valincourt, first name ‘Gabriel.’ Same as on that Decathlon card . . . It’s the son, not the father! Dax, did you look for a Facebook account in the name Valincourt?”
The lieutenant jogged his mouse and clicked to maximize the page.
“Bingo!” Capestan said, pumping her fist. “Look at the profile pic.”
“Oh yeah, you’re right,” Dax said. “I didn’t recognize him without the helmet—it’s the kid from number 36!”
Finally they had an ID on him. The Squirrel was named Gabriel Valincourt, son of Divisionnaire Alexandre Valincourt, head of the brigades centrales de la police judiciaire, and a triple-murder suspect. The son had called Maëlle Guénan the day before her death.
“Super work, Dax,” Capestan congratulated him, beaming ear to ear.
For a few minutes they stayed like that next to the computer, in stunned, contented silence as Pilou wagged his tale earnestly. However eccentric his methods, Dax had just made a major breakthrough.
The day was drawing to a close. Orsini was tailing the divisionnaire and Lewitz had gone home, but the rest of the team was still hanging around the commissariat, enjoying a well-earned rest. Before taking over surveillance duty on the son, Merlot had heard back from HR: Valincourt, widower and father to an only child, had spent two years training in Miami at the start of his career, and later on had taken leave in Florida with his family. The ferry must have sunk on his return journey to France.
As for Torrez, he had called to let them know that he was out of the hospital. Capestan had not managed to talk him out of joining the surveillance operation. He was technically on sick leave, but enforcing that rule in this squad was verging on the ridiculous, as was any talk of insurance with Torrez. As such, he would be teaming up with the commissaire for the following day’s stakeout on boulevard Beaumarchais, just up from the divisionnaire’s apartment building. Torrez promised to bring some Spanish tortilla for sustenance.
Leaning against one of the new kitchen cabinets, Anne Capestan observed her officers, who had been drawn to the terrace by the last glimmer of sunlight. Évrard and Dax were propping up the wall, having a peaceful chat over a package of Haribo. Rosière, sitting at the round wrought-iron table, was scribbling page after page, then stacking them carelessly on top of her handbag. By her feet, Pilou checked each dispatch with a discreet sniff. Over in his deck chair, Lebreton seemed to be at odds with a midge that had landed on his jacket lapel. Just as he was about to shoo it away with a flick, he decided against it. Capestan’s initial thought was that he didn’t want to stain his clothing, but Lebreton chose not to blow it off either—he didn’t want to harm the insect. Capestan saw the commandant slide a cautious hand under his jacket and tap the material from inside to encourage a reaction. The midge took off and Lebreton, with an air of satisfaction, sat back in the deck chair and stretched his legs far out in front of him. His preference for peaceful solutions was without compromise, and even extended to insects. With every passing day, Capestan was appreciating her team more and more. The ones who had turned up, that is: her budget still way exceeded the ten or so officers who had reported for duty.
Lebreton glanced at his watch. It was 8:00 p.m. He straightened his limbs and somehow managed to extract himself from the deck chair with elegance before suggesting they order pizza. They all agreed, opting for two Napoletanas, one La Reine, one Quattro Stagioni, and three containers of vanilla and macadamia ice cream.
Once they had finished their feast, empty pizza boxes lay strewn across the coffee table. A roll of paper towels, which they had been using as plates, had escaped across the floor. Dax scooped it up before going to fetch the ice cream from the freezer. Capestan suddenly remembered that it was Thursday. Not only that, but they had a TV.
“Laura Flames, season 3!” the commissaire exclaimed joyfully, grabbing the remote control.
Rosière gave her a sideways glance from her armchair, where she was gracefully administering her pizza crusts to the dog. She was not sure whether Capestan was teasing or not. But the commissaire was already sitting cross-legged on the sofa, giving the screen her full attention. She turned momentarily toward Rosière:
“I’m not just saying it, but I love your series. I can’t have missed more than two or three episodes ever.”
For once, Rosière was speechless. For as long as she could recall, her series had only sparked a handful of scathing reviews; never a word of appreciation, just plenty of fault finding. This was the first time any colleague had acknowledged, in such an unaffected way, that they watched Laura Flames. Bit by bit, the others pulled up their seats, armchairs, or footstools and gathered around the screen. Rosière, still dumbstruck, held her dog a little more tightly on her lap.
As the theme song started up, Pilou yelped with joy like the well-trained fan he was. The moment Eva Rosière’s name appeared in the opening credits, Dax turned to her with a whisper that drowned out the music:
“Will you talk about us in the next one, huh?”
Capestan felt her cell phone vibrating. She disappeared to answer it and was back in her seat two seconds later. The show still hadn’t begun.
“Any news?” Lebreton asked.
“Merlot lost the Squirrel.”
“That’s not too serious. We know where to find him now. Although we could do with a word with him, couldn’t we?”
The commissaire nodded slowly. A plan of sorts was forming.
“Yes. In fact, I think we should even arrest him.”
Standing on the freshly polished concrete floor of his garage, Lewitz pulled his mechanic’s overalls on top of his clothes. He zipped them up, then plucked a torque wrench from the set of tools lined up on his workbench. He approached the vehicle lift and gazed lovingly at the beauty that was mounted on it: hydraulic front-wheel assist, twin steering axles, and a 3.5-meter turning radius. Bound to handle like a dream. Lewitz felt a joyous tingle of anticipation down his spine. Sure, the engine—a 2800 cc VM HR 494 Turbo Diesel—did strike him as a little modest. All it would need was a little opening up.
42
The radio crackled and belched, filling the car with the occasional flurry of voices. Torrez’s right arm was still in a sling, though his head was now free of its bandages. Perched at the edge of his seat, he was trying to adjust the tuning with his left hand. With her index finger resting against the bottom of the steering wheel, Capestan did her best to ignore the racket as she surveyed the entrance to Valincourt’s building on the opposite side of boulevard Beaumarchais. The accident had drawn a line under Torrez’s bad luck and filled him with a renewed sense of purpose, a point illustrated loud and clear by this radio, which he had added to his demands for a siren and a flashing light. He was doing everything in his power to find the police frequency.
A constant swirl of pedestrians paraded back and forth in front of their windshield, one mass of people immediately replaced by the next. The passersby kept obstructing their view of the entrance, causing Capestan to refocus at various intervals. This busy street was a nightmare for a stakeout.
The stale cigarette smoke in the 306 had been erased by the delicious smell of tortilla and peppers, but their day of surveillance had thus far yielded nothing new on the divisionnaire, and the Squirrel still had not been around to see his father. They would have to exercise some real patience as they waited for Valincourt to make a significant blunder. Aside from the video, they did not have anything substantive enough to collar him. They would need something more to lever a confession out of him.
In the DNA era, scientific proof was sacrosanct, but Capestan still swore by good, old-fashioned testimonial evidence: the detailed confession. Cross-checking information, a bit of remorse, words start tumbling out with relief, and then the final
word in the story. The suspect relaxes his shoulders, the culprit finds peace again, and the police officer can savor the sweet scratch of pen on paper. But with someone of Valincourt’s caliber, it was no foregone conclusion. They would need something concrete.
On Capestan’s lap, the sailor’s journal was lying open at some blank pages near the end. Her initial analysis had been extremely attentive, then she had skimmed it a second time. The journal charted the wanderings of a traumatized man trying to find peace. Various scenes from the shipwreck would pop up from time to time in the course of a long, introspective passage, but nothing in these ramblings ever corresponded with Valincourt: not a single name or detail seemed to relate to him. They were going to have to look elsewhere for the sequence of events.
“The reception’s terrible, but I think this is it. Something going on in the twentieth,” Torrez said, still fussing with the CB.
“Yes, an airport run. That’s the taxi frequency.”
Torrez let out a groan and hurled himself back into the search. As he bent down, Capestan suddenly noticed that the lieutenant’s thick, black hair was cut in a very unusual way—it was about an inch shorter on the right, with a slight wedge at the back. The commissaire was reminded of his head bandage in the hospital.
“Did they clip you up top?” she asked.
Without looking up from the radio, he ran one of his bearlike mitts around the back of his skull.
“No, it was my son. He wants to be a hairdresser, so I let him do mine. I give him two euros and—just like that—he’s happy and he’s learning.”
Capestan was touched by this fatherly sacrifice to his coiffure.
“How old is your son?”
“Nine. I know it’s not perfect, but I don’t mind. The poor kid’s got to make do with rounded scissors.”
Capestan gazed at the lieutenant’s hairdo for a few more seconds, then returned her focus to the surveillance. It would be a big help if Valincourt decided to leave his house. According to Orsini’s summary, the previous evening had involved a bit of shopping at the supermarket, a trip to the dry cleaner’s to pick up a uniform, then back to his apartment for the rest of the night. It was late afternoon now, and the light was still on in the window to his apartment.
Capestan’s cell phone vibrated. It was Lewitz.
“Yes, brigadier?”
“I’ve just spotted the boy. He’s on the boulevard, around Bastille, and he’s headed your way. Shall we nab him?”
Capestan hesitated for a moment. All they had on the young man was the offense of fleeing the scene at Maëlle Guénan’s and a telephone record that they’d obtained illegally. Not exactly a winning hand.
“Yes, arrest him, but go easy on him. Wait until he’s tying up his bike—that way he’ll have his hands full.”
She hung up and turned to Torrez. He stared at her, wide eyed with disbelief:
“Did you just ask Lewitz to make an arrest?”
“Yes.”
In an effort to mask her slight apprehension, Capestan had answered a bit abruptly. She turned to look down the street. The commissaire was always keen to put reputations to one side and promote a policy of trust, but at the moment of truth, some risks were more prevalent than others. Behind the wheel, Lewitz was capable of wreaking havoc. As the Squirrel aimed his green helmet down the street, Capestan was beginning to have her doubts.
The bicycle was weaving in and out of the traffic. At the lights, he veered right and came off at the pedestrian crossing, bringing his wheels deftly onto the pavement. He was moving fast and the commissaire feared he would reach his father’s door before they had time to intercept him. There was still no sign of Lewitz—the boy was going to escape from under their noses yet again. Capestan was about to open her door to race after him when the brigadier burst into view on the corner of rue du Pasteur-Wagner.
A bright-green street sweeper roared past the lights, all horns blaring, and joined the flow of traffic. In the glass operator’s cab, Lewitz was virtually standing up behind the wheel. He spotted the bicycle and sped after it with a tremendous rev of the engine. Cars swerved in every direction, drivers honking furiously, and a jam started to form in the wake of the mad runaway cleaning vehicle. Capestan saw Torrez jump up in his seat.
“Is that one of those pooper-scooper things?” Torrez said.
“No, it’s not a Motocrotte, I think it’s an Aquazura . . .”
“How on earth did he get one of those?”
“Rosière found it online. Apparently local authorities sell off their equipment when it goes out of date.”
Capestan’s nerves were on edge. A vehicle that was not too powerful and that would melt into the background: on paper, it seemed the perfect fit for a stakeout, especially given the driver’s past history. When it was going at full tilt, however, it lost marks on discretion, nor did it carry quite the same sense of danger.
Lewitz slalomed between the cars until he saw a pedestrian crossing that was wide enough to let him mount the pavement. He flung it around at 90 degrees, causing the sweeper’s tires to screech on the asphalt. After an almighty yaw from clipping the curb, he managed to steady his trajectory and continue full steam ahead. Bewildered pedestrians flattened themselves against the walls to avoid the brushes that were skimming the ground: thanks to this particular police effort, the pavements were gleaming. Lewitz, his face lit up by a combination of giddy happiness and stern concentration, was making good ground. He stepped on it again before having to make an abrupt swerve to steer clear of a bus shelter. The cleaning mechanism at the back of the vehicle came flying off with the momentum. Like a snake being held by its tail, it started flailing around in the air at the end of its hose, blindly whacking into posts and windows. A man dropped flat against the floor to avoid being decapitated. On the roof of the cab, beside the usual orange flashing light, the blue two-tone of the police judiciaire kept any would-be heroes at bay. The bike was now just a few yards away.
“Hey, that’s my siren!” Torrez said indignantly.
“Yes, but sometimes it’s nice to share . . . ,” Capestan said, trying to appease her partner without letting her eyes off Lewitz.
A hundred or so yards up the pavement, the glass exterior of a café jutted halfway across the pavement. Lewitz would never have room to get through. For a moment, Capestan was afraid he might try to smash straight through it, but he turned at the last second and hurled the vehicle into the bus lane, his left wheels biting into the tarmac while the right ones stayed on the pavement.
The sweeper careened like a speedboat doing a stunt, the brushes turning in midair and water splashing all around. In his helicopter-style cockpit, Lewitz tilted sideways, too, as if he were a superbike rider dragging his knee. He dodged a parking meter before righting himself with a clean turn that brought the vehicle back onto the pavement. Lewitz had not let the bike out of his sight for a second. He was bearing down on him, guzzling the last few yards between them.
The boy, alerted by the racket behind, skidded neatly to a halt. Lewitz slowed down as he made his approach, and the cleaning device slumped to the ground, dragging behind the vehicle like a defunct kitchen utensil. The brigadier stopped alongside the bike and leapt from the cabin. Contact with terra firma brought him rapidly back to his senses. He advanced toward the boy and took him by the biceps with a gentleness that surprised Capestan.
Mission accomplished. No injuries. No damage. The commissaire could breathe at last.
43
Gabriel was wondering what he had done to end up in the back seat of the 306. The lead weights he had felt knocking together in his stomach for weeks had disappeared. Now that he was under arrest, he did not feel uneasy anymore; he just felt scared.
It was because he had run away. He felt so ashamed. After hiding at Manon’s for three days, he had decided to go home to fess up and ask his father for advice. And now he was being questioned. His father could have helped him, told him how to behave, and explained what his rights were. Al
one in the back seat, Gabriel felt lost.
He looked through the window at the people going about their normal lives. They walked briskly, looked at shop fronts, or stopped in the middle of the pavement to read a text. As for Gabriel, he was in the back of a police car. He tried to calm down, but his father returned. Doubts were forming, timidly at first, then more insistent, like crows pecking at roof tiles. He felt the weights return to his stomach, solidifying into a dense mass.
His father.
Gabriel Valincourt did indeed have the squirrelly physique described by Naulin: good looking, nimble, and lively, with a reddish-brown complexion that matched his hair and eyes. He had a gentle expression, although that day it was swinging between alarm and despondency. Capestan decided it was best to avoid any strong-arm tactics with this young cub. That said, she needed to extract as much information as possible if she wanted to piece together any more of this story.
She ushered him toward the armchair by the fireplace. Despite the boy’s meager frame, they heard the pop of a spring. Évrard handed Gabriel a cup of tea, which he accepted with a polite smile. Lebreton spent a few minutes getting the fire going, then went and sat in the second armchair. Gabriel, who was familiar with his father’s place of work at number 36, stared at the freshly pasted wallpaper, the antique mirror, and Rosière’s golden slippers. He seemed to be wondering where on earth he had ended up.
Without any animosity, Capestan started questioning him about what he was doing at Marie Sauzelle’s and, more important, why he had fled the scene of a crime. Gabriel started apologizing profusely.
“I know, I never should have run away like that, I’m sorry, I really am, I made a mistake. It’s because . . . I was doing some personal research. My mother died when a ferry sank in the Gulf of Mexico in 1993. I was only two at the time and I don’t have any memories of her. All I have left is this photo,” he said, bringing out the laminated photograph of a woman. “Everything disappeared in the shipwreck.”
The Awkward Squad Page 21
