The Awkward Squad Read online

  “You want to say a quick prayer?” Torrez said in surprise.

  “No. That’s where Marie is buried. I just want to check something.”

  Back in the car, Torrez, hampered by his sheepskin coat, took two attempts to buckle his seat belt.

  “Aren’t you hot with that on?” Capestan asked.

  “I am a bit now, but it’ll be perfect in a month. Plus it has pockets,” Torrez said, turning the key in the ignition before finally admitting: “I don’t like the cold.”

  The churchyard was perched on the hillside above the village. They saw the dark outline of the bell tower and the cock of the weathervane slicing through the deep azure sky. The fields stretched for as far as the eye could see, dotted with reddish-brown cows. At least the dead could rest in peace with a lovely view. They had to climb a bit higher to reach the Sauzelle family vault, which was sheltered from the wind by a stone wall.

  The marble and the inscriptions were in an impeccable state. The headstone was resplendent, with no trace of moss, rain, or earth, all perfectly maintained and surrounded by fresh flowers. Three rows of azaleas filled a lush flowerbed, its perfect edges suggesting the use of a gardener’s line. The chaos of the house in Issy was still vivid in Capestan’s memory: André Sauzelle might have closed the door on that, but when it came to his sister’s tomb, surely he was not keeping it spick and span for show?

  The commissaire had seen what she had wanted to see. Torrez was still by the entrance to the churchyard, looking uneasy as he read the notices on the community board. Capestan came down some steps to join him again. Just off the walkway, a plaque with the pledge WE WILL NEVER FORGET YOU had fallen over and was lying half-buried in the ground, with one of its corners chipped. Capestan looked at all the photographs of the dead smiling for posterity. They only existed in this little patch, wedged inside their overelaborate frames.

  “Shall we go?”

  “It’s a trap,” Torrez said with a gloomy voice.

  “Not this again . . .”

  Torrez tapped his knuckle against a yellow leaflet, the way you knock on a door:

  “Sauzelle’s got no business in that hut. The fishing season has finished.”

  Capestan brushed the risk aside with a shrug, while Torrez shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at his boots.

  “We shouldn’t go there. I’ve got a bad feeling,” he said.

  The lieutenant was insistent, and his contagious anxiety was starting to irritate Capestan. In trying to play the role of Cassandra, he was simply inviting disaster. The commissaire was not one for superstition, but she did have an aversion to die-hard pessimism.

  It took them a couple of minutes to get to the pond. Two children were screeching with delight on the seesaw in the playground. Further on, the wooden hut could be seen nestling among the oaks and horse chestnuts of a little island, which they reached via a low embankment that served as a dam. The shade from the huge trees meant that every inch of the ground was covered in moss, and the air was thick with the smell of damp earth. They walked toward the hut. The door was open. The carpet of twigs and dead leaves crackled underfoot. Torrez made a slight motion toward Capestan’s arm, trying to make her hold back, but she refused to hold back. If the lieutenant was going to get over these nervous niggles, she would have to prove that she could work alongside him without the whole world crashing down. She gave a firm knock on the wooden door and stepped inside the hut.

  The small room was pitch black. Capestan’s eyes had no chance to get used to the darkness, because a violent blow struck her on the temple, sending a piercing pain through her skull. As the adrenaline flooded through her body, a single thought jolted through her mind just before she collapsed: “Whoever you are, when I wake up, I will kill you.”

  21

  “You won’t take me like this!” Sauzelle yelled feverishly.

  Torrez, hands in the air, was standing six feet from the shotgun aimed at his chest. The weapon, an old Browning that must have dated back to the seventies, was shaking in the man’s hands, but his face was determined. Sauzelle kept glancing worriedly at Capestan, who was still laid out by the doorway. It was hard to tell whether he was afraid she might wake up or not wake up.

  Torrez, who was unfortunately all too familiar with such situations, tried to rein in his frantic emotions. He was not going to lose his partner—not again. A steady stream of blood was running from her left temple. She appeared to be breathing, but her face had gone terribly white and she was not moving.

  He had warned her . . . Why hadn’t she listened? Despite his gnawing anxiety, Torrez managed to pull himself together. If there was to be any hope of rescuing the situation, he would have to stay focused.

  Sauzelle was nervous. His blue eyes, small and alert, were darting in every direction and strands of gray hair stuck to his sweat-covered forehead. Torrez needed to restore some calm to the confined space of the hut. It was up to him to prevent the situation from escalating. He found his voice, taking care to keep a measured tone:

  “No one wants to take you away, Monsieur Sauzelle. We’re just here to ask you some questions.”

  “That’s not true, I had a warning! You’re here to take me to prison, but I won’t go! Not at my age!”

  Sauzelle’s voice was strained and he was clinging tight to his weapon. Through a mix of desperation and sheer panic, he was refusing to go down without a fight. This state of mind meant there was a good chance of his letting off a shot. He was struggling to articulate his words, but they continued tumbling out:

  “Same as last time, you tried to pin the murder on me before you came up with the burglary story . . .”

  “You don’t believe it was a burglary?” Torrez said.

  “No, of course not! But it wasn’t me!”

  Interesting. The brother had his doubts, too. Surely he had his reasons: they just needed to figure out what those were in order to move the investigation forward. The investigation? First things first, they needed the commissaire to survive safe and sound. Torrez should never have agreed to be her partner. Not her, not anybody. He shouldn’t have given in.

  Capestan’s motionless body was still stretched out on the dark, dank floorboards. Above her, a khaki oilskin was hanging from a big, rusty nail. A pair of rubber Wellington boots, also khaki, had toppled over, and the heel of one was touching Capestan’s head.

  “Why don’t you believe it?” Torrez said, still trying to calm the aggressor.

  “I don’t know. Because of the flowers. Marie hated cut flowers—she never bought them.”

  This line of argument was even more speculative than their thoughts about the DVD player, the closed shutters, and the missing cat.

  “Someone might have given them to her.”

  Sauzelle nodded his head vigorously—that’s just what he was coming to:

  “Yes, exactly—the murderer.”

  “Or someone else—a boyfriend . . .”

  Torrez saw Capestan twitch. She was coming to. Torrez knew he must not let Sauzelle notice: he had to distract him somehow. A cluster of fishing rods and tangled nets occupied a corner of the hut, just within Torrez’s reach. He was reluctant to knock them over—too risky. The old man was on edge, and it would only take a slight surprise for him to pull the trigger. A verbal intervention would be a more sensible approach. Torrez took a deep breath and went for it:

  “You didn’t mean to kill her, it was only an accident.”

  Sauzelle reared at the accusation.

  “No! It wasn’t an accident, but it wasn’t me. Why would I have killed her, anyway?”

  “The house. A couple of million.”

  “But I haven’t sold it.”

  Capestan opened her eyes. After a moment, she discreetly brought a hand to the side of her head. She could feel the blood on her fingers and a fierce expression came over her that Torrez had never seen before. She sized up Sauzelle and prepared to act.

  “Plus, you have a history of violence,” Torrez said.
<
br />   “Me?”

  The old man seemed genuinely amazed. Torrez nodded at the shotgun and Sauzelle’s face contorted with embarrassment. The lieutenant turned the screw:

  “A man who beats his wife can just as easily kill his sister.”

  Sauzelle lowered his weapon in astonishment.

  “Me? I never touched Minouche! What are you saying?”

  In a fraction of a second, Capestan gathered herself and pounced on Sauzelle. She bundled him to the floor and grabbed the barrel of the shotgun in one hand, wrenching it away from him roughly, shoving it to the other end of the hut. Sauzelle stood up with his back to the wall, but Capestan didn’t let him regain his balance. She seized him by the throat and pinned him upright against the wooden boards, which quaked under the strain. She held him like that, arms straight and hands tight on his windpipe. Sauzelle’s blue eyes bulged with terror. In that brief instant, Torrez thought she was going to kill him, and he started forward to intervene, but Capestan abruptly released her grip. Sauzelle sank to his knees and spluttered to regain his breath.

  22

  The pharmacist pushed down on the pedal of the metal trashcan and threw in the alcohol-soaked sterile pad.

  “All cleaned up,” she said to Capestan, who stood up from the gray footstool where she had been sitting to have her wound examined.

  Standing before the shelves of medicinal infusions, Torrez and Sauzelle both looked as guilty as the other as they observed the end to the procedure. Traces of bruising were starting to break out on Sauzelle’s neck. He wasn’t hurt, but Capestan felt uneasy all the same. He was nearly seventy, and she had displayed a level of aggression applicable for a man half his age.

  They left the pharmacy under a clear blue sky. An airplane had left a vapor trail in its wake, a stratospheric oddity that you only seemed to see in the countryside. After installing Sauzelle in the back seat of their car, Capestan and Torrez leaned against the vehicle to discuss their plan of action.

  The man had taken two police officers hostage and threatened them with a gun. He had even knocked one of them out. At the same time, even though she could justify it as self-defense, Capestan’s response had been disproportionate. And the commissaire was anxious to spare herself another hearing with IGS—she did not have enough points left on her license. As for Torrez, he was reluctant to sustain another blow to his reputation. They agreed not to press charges against Marie’s brother. All that remained was to ask him a few questions.

  Sauzelle, still a bit shaken up, watched them through the car window, waiting for the verdict. Capestan motioned to him to lower it, which he did promptly. He welcomed the news of his exemption with relief and gratitude, then asked straightaway—aware that this might be pushing it—whether he could answer their questions at the same time as doing his round of deliveries: this whole incident meant he was running late.

  As soon as they arrived back by the pond, Sauzelle opened the back of his white van, which had the words VERGERS SAUZELLE stamped on its side, and took out a crate of apples, offering the officers two of the shiniest specimens. Torrez accepted with the fulsome thanks of a well-mannered schoolchild; Capestan declined with a shake of the head. Her scalp was throbbing and she still felt unsteady on her feet. She gave Torrez a meaningful glance, prompting him to take the lead—she would observe from the background, giving her temper time to calm down. The lieutenant bit into the apple before beginning, opting for a less mild approach in order to maintain their upper hand.

  “Did Naulin tell you we were coming?”

  “Yes. He told me that you’d questioned him, that you were on your way, and that you’d almost certainly be arresting me . . .”

  Sauzelle was standing in front of the back of his van, wiping his hands on his trousers, a washed-out pair of jeans with a neat crease running down each leg. The man didn’t really know what to think anymore.

  Torrez held out his apple to Capestan, then took out his notebook and pen to scribble a few words down.

  “Did you get along well with your sister?” the lieutenant asked.

  “Yes, we were very close.”

  “Despite living two hundred miles apart?”

  “It’s not that far, just a little drive. And we spoke on the telephone all the time.”

  “You’re right, it’s not that far, just a little drive . . . You could easily have made it there and back in one night to kill her.”

  “No, absolutely not, I never left the area. Plenty of people will tell you—”

  “Plenty of people can’t be monitoring you every day, and certainly not every night.”

  “That’s what your colleagues said last time.”

  “And what was your answer back then?” Torrez said, his pen hovering over his notebook.

  “I hadn’t bought enough gas for a journey that long . . . Anyway, that hardly matters. Nothing. I said nothing, but I never would have killed Marie.”

  Sauzelle swiped a stray curl of hair away from his forehead with a thick hand. His beige workman’s jacket was fraying at the elbows.

  “You know,” he resumed in a dull voice, “we had lost both our parents. She was a widow, I was divorced. Neither of us had children. She had lots of friends, but I—I only had her.”

  Capestan took a few steps back, taking the apple with her. Nearby, four trees with thin trunks and bright-yellow leaves had been pruned into a spherical shape. They looked like giant matches that had been planted there to light up the green grass.

  The smooth, syrupy surface of the pond shone like mercury. In the middle, a solitary duck was tracing a silvery furrow, following a decisive, unswerving trajectory. This duck knew where it was going. Unlike the murderer, Capestan thought to herself. He had been floundering, zigzagging. First he had brutally killed her with his bare hands; then he had sat the body back down and straightened her up with some dignity. He had strangled her, yet he had fixed her hair. There had been too many emotions bound up in such a staunch body. He had been unable to control them. Sauzelle fitted the profile, but did he have a proper reason to kill his sister?

  Torrez, who had forgotten all about his apple, pressed on with the interrogation. By his reckoning, they had dispelled any suspicions about the brother and were now investigating other potential leads. So the lieutenant adjusted his line of attack and slipped into collaboration mode: a one-man display of good cop, bad cop.

  “Was she on bad terms with anyone?”

  “Maybe that property developer, the one in Paris . . .”

  “Oh yes?” Torrez said, his voice at once gruff and encouraging.

  Capestan wondered how he managed that. The lieutenant was able to string together questions and registers. It wasn’t hard to see that he was an officer well accustomed to working alone.

  “She was refusing to sell, but he was insistent,” Sauzelle said. “But to go from that to . . . I didn’t pay much attention, in any case.”

  “She was a retired teacher, correct? Can you tell us about her? Her life, her personality . . .”

  “Yes, of course. But in all seriousness, do you mind if I start my rounds? You can fit in the van; it’ll be a bit tight up front, but we’re not going far.”

  Torrez looked over at the commissaire, and she nodded her consent.

  They jammed themselves into the front seats and Sauzelle tore off at full speed.

  “Where are we going?” Capestan said, returning to the fold.

  “Bénévent-l’Abbaye. They have a three-day antiques fair there every autumn. I keep the bar stocked up with apple juice,” the brother said, nodding at the cases of bottles in the back of his Berlingo.

  The way into the village was blocked off for the fair, and Sauzelle had to move the barriers aside to reach the place de l’Église. On the way, they had learned a little more about Marie. A chance posting had sent her to Paris, where a woman of her vitality had gotten into the swing of things right away. She loved traveling, and on the death of her husband, she had taken a trip around the whole of Europe�
��by herself. She had also been hiking in the Holy Land, crossed the Atlantic to visit the Americas, and roamed across India and the Middle East. Sadly none of these voyages had yielded a second husband. Aside from that, Marie was passionate about tango, tarot, movies, and Asterix comics. Her cat was even called Tunafix. André Sauzelle could not remember if it had died by the time of her murder, but it wasn’t something he had ever given much thought to.

  Still misty eyed, the brother hauled out a few cases of bottles from his van and shut the door with his elbow.

  “Give us a hand, big man,” he said, offloading one to Torrez.

  He thought better of trying it with Capestan, but she had the feeling that he had been tempted. The three of them headed to the beverage tent, and while Sauzelle chatted to his customers, Capestan and Torrez decided to sample his wares and a cheerful lady in a floral apron served them some juice that was murkier than the waters of the Seine. They went and sat on one of the benches and observed the gathering as they sipped at the nectar.

  “I’ve been thinking back to the unforced dead bolt, the muted television . . . Marie muted her TV to go and open the door—I’m sure of it. She knew her attacker.”

  Torrez nodded in agreement. He had evidently arrived at the same conclusion.

  “The brother fits the bill pretty well,” he said.

  “Yes . . . Even if I do find him less violent than the description in the file . . . ,” Capestan began.

  Torrez nearly choked on his juice. After regaining his breath, he pointed at his partner’s mangled temple.

  “Okay, but not really violent . . . ,” the commissaire maintained. “Unstable, more like. Good profile, but he doesn’t have a motive, he cared about his sister, he hasn’t received a huge inheritance, he hasn’t sold . . .”

  “Maybe he’s patient. Or he doesn’t have the means to pay her inheritance taxes. We’d have to check the title deeds, do a bit of digging. And the motive could well relate to something else: family resentment, some sort of betrayal . . . Perhaps he couldn’t bear sharing her affection.”