The Penny Thief

by Christophe Paul

  Henri seemed to be resting, and he breathed gently between immaculate white sheets, his head resting on a huge pillow that was equally spotless. She was surprised not to see a bunch of tubes coming out of his mouth—just one very fine one that went in through the right nostril and another that ended under a fabric tape on his forearm. They were connected to a series of hoses with switches in several colors. The hoses hung from transparent bags. Henri had a well-wrapped bandage on his head without a trace of blood.

  Yvette took Henri’s hands in hers, and, after concentrating briefly, she started telling him stories about Etienne that made her happy.

  12

  The front door creaked open, but there was no sound of the lock turning or the keys falling on the tray. Just some soft steps along the corridor.

  Tash came into the living room looking for Pierre-Gabriel. She’d seen his beige raincoat hanging on the coatrack and his keys on the tray. It was very rare to find him at home before her, especially this week when he was starting out in her father’s IT department. She was overcome by hope.

  There he was, bent over the dining table with the leaf folded out for more space. He was concentrating on a thick pile of lists that he’d spread out.

  “You’re back early. What happened, is Henri Pichon back?” she used that moment to ask, seeking peace of mind so that she wouldn’t have to ask later out of the blue.

  “Don’t worry, he won’t take my position even if he does come back. Your father wants me to be in charge. If Henri wakes up one day and doesn’t have too many aftereffects, I’ll be his boss. Your father asked me to set up a work team for transactions, and he’s giving me a corresponding salary.”

  Pierre-Gabriel straightened up and looked at her, proud of the future that awaited him.

  Tash smiled as best she could; this meant Henri was still in a coma.

  “Let’s go out for dinner to celebrate. How about Rotonde de la Muette? It’s been a while since we’ve eaten there.”

  “I’m exhausted. I’ve had a very complicated day, and tomorrow I have to be up very early and with a clear head. We could do it on Friday.”

  Pierre-Gabriel didn’t insist; to him it was all the same. He’d asked her out in a burst of euphoria, but he’d actually brought work home, and it was best to get it done.

  “I have work to keep me busy, and it’s going to be like that for some time. I don’t think I’ll be available for at least the first few weekends. You don’t mind, do you?” he said, turning back to the paper spread out on the table.

  “Of course not. Now is when you have to do your best—an opportunity like this doesn’t come every day,” answered Tash, thinking that she preferred to be alone at the moment.

  She left the living room feeling down. Henri had been in a coma for five days, and there seemed to be no light at the end of the tunnel. On Tuesday, she’d called all the large hospitals trying to find him. A very nice and chatty nurse had explained by phone that Henri’s case was special and that they admitted visits from non–family members. In fact, three people were taking turns by his side: two women and one man, directly or indirectly involved in the accident. Everything sounded very strange, like an incoherent nightmare she couldn’t wake up from.

  After a good shower, wearing her usual house T-shirt and low-cut socks, Tash put on some faded floral-print slippers and went to the kitchen to make dinner and stop thinking.

  An hour later, she came back to the living room carrying a tray loaded with two beers, two glasses, and a large four seasons pizza sliced up. She’d decided she wasn’t in the mood for cooking, least of all for Pierre-Gabriel. She had to be careful—she realized she was blaming her husband for Henri’s state, when in reality he was only taking advantage of the opportunity, as anyone would have done. But she couldn’t stand the contemptuous and arrogant way he talked about Henri. He had no right.

  She put the tray on a corner of the table where Pierre-Gabriel was spread out, then pushed delicately to squeeze in. He looked at her in surprise.

  “Do you want some? I brought you a cold beer.”

  “With a glass, I see, and it smells great. You’re such a good cook,” he joked, smiling and taking a sip of beer from the can as he grabbed a slice of pizza.

  “How’s it going?” asked Tash, just to say something. She wished she had an excuse to lie down on the sofa or go to bed.

  “It’s going well. I’ll never say it enough times: the guy is a genius. He is diabolically well organized; everything fits perfectly. I can’t understand why he never did what your father just asked me to do: organize a team around the different tasks. Which, by the way, Henri calls ‘tash’ instead of ‘task.’” Pierre-Gabriel laughed before continuing, “He misspelled the word in 1995, and you know how it goes with copy and paste—now you’re in almost all his programs. And it can’t be changed because there are too many, and they’re all interlinked. I guess that’s why he hasn’t corrected it.”

  Tash felt dizzy. Pierre-Gabriel was laughing—he found it funny that Pichon would make a mistake—but she knew that 1995 was the year of her IT assignment, the year her parents got divorced, the year she had to go to the United States with her mother.

  “Look, there are hundreds of Tash routines. This is Tash-251, here’s Tash-625, all of them in machine language and extremely specific. I haven’t had time to go through all of them. The only things I don’t understand are the comments from the beginning, it’s like a joke. First I thought it was an explanatory memory dump, but it’s not binary or hexadecimal, and its numbers from zero to nine are placed randomly. Must be some kind of pastime or linear sudoku for bored geniuses.”

  Tash almost collapsed, feeling weak in the knees. She took a sip of beer and a bite of pizza, and when she thought she was ready to see the papers, she came closer to Pierre-Gabriel and turned pale.

  “Show me.”

  “Here and here,” said Pierre-Gabriel, pointing at each page to show her the Tash routines, laughing in earnest.

  “I’m famous,” Tash managed to say as she mentally deciphered the first brief, encrypted message: “I miss you. I’m still thinking about you.”

  She looked at the date when the routine was created: in September 2008. Her knees gave in definitively, and she slumped down to the carpet.

  “Shit, my slipper,” she managed to say, struggling to get up before Pierre-Gabriel had time to react.

  “What happened? You’re pale. Are you crying?”

  “I don’t know. I was playing with my slipper while I looked at the routines, and I slipped. Help me get up—it hurts.”

  Pierre-Gabriel carried her to the sofa.

  Tash felt incapable of any movement. She felt confused. Henri had not stopped thinking about her. The numbers from zero to nine in the comments of the routine formed part of a code they’d made up together to illustrate the role of programming in data coding. It was a very simple code based on the numerical position of the letters of the alphabet and numbers, including a distracting frequency.

  “Ouch!”

  Distracted by her deductions, she didn’t realize that Pierre-Gabriel was touching her left ankle and she hadn’t reacted.

  “Does it hurt there?”

  “Yes, a lot.”

  “I’ll take you to the hospital.”

  “It’s not necessary. I’ll be fine with a bit of that cream for sprains.”

  “I’ll go get it.”

  “The blue tube with white stripes,” yelled Tash as he disappeared along the corridor. “The same one I always use.”

  It wasn’t the first time Tash had had this kind of accident, so he wouldn’t suspect anything.

  “There you go!” said Pierre-Gabriel after applying the cream and bandaging her ankle, which was perfectly fine.

  “Why don’t you get out the bottle of Moët? I think we have something to celebrate.”

 
“You’re right. I’ll have plenty of time tomorrow for Pichoning around.”

  Pierre-Gabriel left the room chortling at his own joke, not noticing the malice clouding Tash’s gaze.

  13

  “I slept like a log!” mumbled Pierre-Gabriel, who was walking into the kitchen still half-asleep. “Champagne always does that to me. I just fall asleep anywhere.”

  “And I’ve been reading the most beautiful words in the world,” thought Tash, looking at Pierre-Gabriel without answering. She drank the leftover milk from her cereal bowl. She must look awful, she thought—she’d been up all night reading the wonderful messages in the Tash routines.

  “Are you OK?” asked Pierre-Gabriel.

  “I didn’t sleep a wink.”

  “Was I snoring?”

  “My ankle!”

  “I forgot! How is it?”

  “Much better, but I think I won’t be going to the office today.”

  “Sounds right. I, however, need to hurry up. Today I’m going to analyze all the Pichon routines and complete the transfers scheme.”

  He poured himself a cup of coffee and put some bread in the toaster.

  Half an hour later, Tash was home alone, looking at the empty dining room. Pierre-Gabriel had taken his paper treasure away when he left, but Tash had spent the night making an indexed list in a spreadsheet on her laptop, first using the name of the Tash routine, then the date, and next to that each wonderful message. When she finished the sheet, she put them all in order and read them again in order of creation.

  She felt happy because of what she’d discovered, worried about Henri, and guilty about how she’d handled the previous night—the lie about her ankle, toasting Pierre-Gabriel’s new job when she was really celebrating her rediscovery of Henri, topping up Pierre-Gabriel’s glass again and again, knowing that he would sleep like a baby.

  That night, she’d made a decision. Perhaps it was late, but she couldn’t just sit idly in fear. She never used to be like that. She picked up the unruled journal she’d bought at a stationery store to jot down ideas that never arrived, and copied all the messages she’d collected from the Henri routines. Then she went to get ready.

  “I hope Henri doesn’t wake up today,” she thought as she looked at herself in the mirror.

  14

  They say that life can turn on a dime, that destiny is predetermined, that the stars guide our steps.

  Tash stormed into the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, asked for the intensive care unit, then asked for Henri Pichon.

  She stood in front of the door to the ward, seeking the strength to enter, when a sweet and clear voice said, “It’s your first time, isn’t it?”

  Tash turned around to find a kind-looking girl who looked at Tash with sympathy and invited her to open her heart.

  “Yes, and I’m really scared. It’s been more than seventeen years since I last saw him. I was very determined when I came, but now I’m terrified. If he leaves, I don’t know what will become of me. It’s a long story.”

  “Take a deep breath, and we’ll go in together. What’s the name?”

  “Tash. Well, Natasha.”

  “No, I mean . . .” The woman pointed at the ward.

  “Oh, Henri.”

  Valérie went pale. She didn’t know what to say. She thought Henri didn’t have any relatives, close or distant.

  Tash analyzed the swift change in the girl’s demeanor and knew that something was wrong, something bad, or she wouldn’t make that face. Tash couldn’t help it, and the anxiety that took hold of her was so strong that tears started rolling down her cheeks.

  Valérie reacted quickly, understanding what Tash had interpreted.

  “Don’t worry, Henri is fine. He’s getting better, and the doctor told us this morning that the edema oppressing his occipital region has almost vanished. He’s confident Henri will wake up soon. It’s even possible he won’t have any problems.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Valérie.”

  “I hope you don’t mind my asking, but how do you know Henri?”

  Valérie thought for a few seconds and replied, “The same way as all three of us who are taking turns to be by his side.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Stay here, and I’ll be right back. We’ll explain everything.”

  Valérie pushed the double doors of the ward and disappeared, leaving Tash drowning in a sea of questions, doubts, and confusion.

  The girl took a while to come back, and Tash didn’t know what to think. She was about to go in when the double doors opened, and there was Valérie again—young, fresh, and smiling—and a woman in her late thirties, looking tired but full of life.

  “Hi, Tash. I’m Yvette, Etienne’s mother.”

  “Etienne’s mother? I don’t . . .” said Tash, shaking her head in bewilderment.

  “We’re going to leave Henri alone for a moment and go to the cafeteria to explain everything. We’re only missing Marcel, the waiter at Relais de la Butte, but we’ll call him later. He’s free in the late afternoon and lives a couple of blocks away.”

  Henri was left alone until 3:30 p.m., when Marcel arrived. The three of them told Tash everything that had happened. Tash felt like she was living in a dream, a film—it all felt so surreal. Then she told them her story, which heightened the feeling.

  After exchanging telephone numbers with Tash, Yvette and Marcel walked away and Valérie went into the ward with Tash to “introduce” her to Henri. Then she politely left.

  Tash looked at Henri for a long time. It was him, but at the same time it wasn’t. Her memories went back seventeen years to when Henri was twenty-five. Now he was forty-two, with a few days of stubble, a bandage on his head, and several extra pounds. But it was Henri.

  She opened the clasp of the chain with the amulet that Henri had given her so many years ago and fastened it around his neck, just as he had done for her.

  “Now you need it more than I do. I need you to wake up for my life to make sense.”

  She gave him a soft kiss on the lips while she squeezed his hand around the talisman.

  “If you really do have powers, wake him up,” she whispered before leaving the room, feeling something between freedom and oppression.

  15

  “What’s this very urgent thing that can’t be spoken about on the phone and forced me to reschedule an important appointment?”

  “Henri Pichon has been diverting funds from the bank.”

  Jean-Philippe was shocked, but he analyzed the situation right away and smiled at Pierre-Gabriel.

  “Henri Pichon has been in a coma since Sunday, and in these five days there’s been no alarm regarding any significant discrepancy at any level.”

  “Nor will there be. According to my evaluation, he’s been doing it for more than twenty years, and nobody has noticed.”

  “So how much loose change has our friend taken over all these years without anyone realizing?” asked the savvy director, knowing that for a long time all financial discrepancies, even authorized ones, had been set to trigger an alarm and were analyzed by the risk team automatically.

  “I don’t know. Five, ten, twenty million—and perhaps a lot more.”

  Maillard lost his stalwart self-confidence for a few minutes and started to think that Pierre-Gabriel was serious. Henri Pichon was working in the transactions department, and he alone managed the organization of daily compensation. Who better to arrange a scam?

  Maillard sat down, signaling to Pierre-Gabriel to wait, picked up the telephone from his giant desk, and asked his secretary to cancel the rest of that afternoon’s meetings and postpone them until Monday, and to be so kind as to notify Morgane Duchène, the risks director, that today he couldn’t have lunch with her and that he’d call her as soon as possible. More than one person would be glad to se
e the tiresome Friday afternoon meeting cancelled.

  He got up and turned his back to his office, leaving Pierre-Gabriel behind, and looked out the immense window. The day was cloudy, it had rained that morning, and there were spells of wind. He thought it was the classic kind of sad, gray day that accompanies tragedies. He didn’t experience the usual sensation of superiority seeing the ants running around under their umbrellas in the esplanade fifteen stories below.

  “Does anyone else know what you’ve just told me?” he asked, turning around slowly and looking Pierre-Gabriel in the eye.

  “No, I haven’t told anyone.”

  “Not even my daughter?”

  “Nobody, Jean-Philippe. I’ve spent the morning reviewing the compensation routines, and only discovered the first sign of trouble an hour ago. I investigated a little more to be sure I wasn’t making a mistake and that it wasn’t a regularization of errors.”

  “OK, let’s sit down,” said Maillard, pointing at a conference table in the corner. “Explain to me what this is all about, because I find it hard to believe someone would be able to take millions out of here for more than twenty years without leaving a trace.”

  They sat down, and Pierre-Gabriel placed a pile of lists and other documents on the edge of the table.

  “If it works for you, I’ll explain the procedure and then we’ll go into the details.”

  “OK, I’m all ears.”

  “The procedure is very clever. I’ll illustrate it with an example. You issue a check for €234.27 and deliver it to the person you need to pay, who deposits it in his account. Would you notice if the bank made a mistake and charged €234.28 instead? And if, by chance, because you are a company and do notice that your accounts have a one-cent discrepancy, would you go to the bank to claim that cent?”

  Pierre-Gabriel allowed the example to sink in and added, “Now put yourself in the shoes of the person who deposits this check. Would you do anything if the bank gave you only €234.26, if you did happen to realize it?”