The Awkward Squad Read online

  Not so farfetched, Capestan thought to herself: this happens frequently where blood relations are concerned. Torrez traced a finger around the rim of his cup before saying:

  “And Naulin? Naulin’s not a bad fit.”

  Torrez had done his homework and found out that Naulin had a record for drug offenses. He peddled morphine and opium in the sixties but had been toppled by the next generation of dealers and seemed to have gone into early retirement. His current source of income was no less opaque.

  Capestan chewed it over for a moment.

  “He certainly looks like a tricky customer,” she said. “I just don’t know if the sale falling through is a solid enough motive. But then neighborhood spats are always tough to call . . .”

  “You start by pumping up the volume on the TV and end up poisoning the dog . . .”

  “. . . or warning a suspect that the police are on their way. Just in case he had to get rid of any incriminating evidence.”

  The square was buzzing with various traders and stands of charcuterie and other local produce. A lady was sitting in a deck chair embroidering the doilies she was selling. Leaning against her stall was a bicycle with a NOT FOR SALE sign flapping in the breeze.

  Capestan went to fetch two slices of pâté aux pommes de terre on cardboard plates, which they ate in silence with their fingers, enjoying the spectacle of the fair. In a vehicle that opened on the side like a pizza van, a man of about fifty gazed adoringly over his wares: a six-foot line of Kinder Surprises in tight formation, arranged by series in transparent boxes. The man was glowing, proud to be displaying his life’s work. At a tiny stand next to him, his wife was nonchalantly threading wooden beads onto charm bracelets.

  Sauzelle came over to break up their lunch party. Capestan put down her slice on the greasy cardboard and asked the question that been bothering her:

  “Why did you never clean up the house? There are companies who can do that for you.”

  “Out of the question. Someone killed my sister. And the police let him get away with it. They closed the case. If I cleaned the house and sold it, that would be the end of that—just move on to the next thing. And then what? The house will stay as it is until this mess gets sorted out.”

  So the house is to stay and blight the city, Capestan thought as she studied the old man. A mass of bricks and memories that provided a blot on the landscape. So long as his sister was prevented from resting in peace, that street would not sleep easy. The commissaire recognized genuine, righteous anger when she saw it. This man was waiting for a conviction. He scratched his cheek and stared at the ground for a moment before starting again:

  “This is where Marie is, not there. Here is where it counts, where it has to be tidy, well maintained. In the churchyard.”

  “One last thing, Monsieur Sauzelle. Was she wary by nature, or might she have opened her door to a stranger?”

  “She was confident, but within reason. Strangers were better off outside than in.”

  “Is there anything other than the flowers that’s stopping you from accepting the burglary theory?”

  Capestan did not believe in intuition. Intuition was just a detail that occurred at the back of your brain. It needed to be brought forward for analysis, to be scrutinized in the nerve center. She needed something else: an uncharted feeling about his sister’s death; a telephone conversation, perhaps.

  “What did she say the last time you were on the telephone?” Capestan said.

  Sauzelle scrunched up his face as he tried to remember, then suddenly he lit up:

  “That’s it! She had an evening, with one of her associations or clubs . . .”

  “Tarot? Tango? Residents’ association?”

  “I can’t remember. Hold on, she said it was something ‘not very cheerful, but close to her heart.’ That’s it. That’s the last thing she said to me,” Sauzelle said in a distant voice, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand. “So, shall I take you back to your car?”

  “Yes, thank you,” Capestan said, getting to her feet.

  She looked for somewhere to throw away her cup and saw a trash can that already had a good foot and a half of plastic cups spilling out of it. She managed to balance hers on top, and Torrez gave her his so she could perform the feat again. On their way to the van, the lieutenant stopped at a stand and bought two pots of honey. He handed one to Capestan.

  “Here. To support local business,” he said with a serious expression.

  “Thanks,” Capestan said, slightly taken aback. “I’ll bring it to the commissariat so that everyone can enjoy it.”

  “As you wish.”

  Key West Island, South Florida

  January 19, 1991

  Pushed up against the rear wall of the room, giddy from the deafening screams and crying, Alexandre squeezed her hand in his and stared through the windows at the back.

  “One more try! I can see his head!” the midwife said, urging her on.

  The girl from reception was standing next to them, gawking unashamedly at the event. Even the director of the museum had joined the party, wearing a striped polo shirt and a toothy smile fit for a lottery TV presenter. Alexandre would have chased them off right away, but he hadn’t seen them come in. The midwife’s encouragements became more intense and Alexandre started sweating buckets.

  Outside he could hear the hustle and bustle of Mallory Square. Tourists were gathering in droves around the plaza and along the docks. At that time of day, they turned their backs on the jugglers to admire Key West’s finest spectacle: sunset over the Gulf of Mexico. The expectation surrounding this moment of pure beauty spread across the entire island, forcing it to pause for a few minutes to catch its breath. His son was to be born here; he was to be born now.

  His first cry shattered the silence.

  One breath later, the child took hold of his father.

  One step later, Alexandre was by Rosa’s side, and they squeezed each other’s hands. Both of them were stunned into silent admiration of the cherry-red infant, all sticky and wrinkled.

  “Gabriel . . . ,” the new mother murmured.

  He was there.

  For almost nine months, they had thought about this presence that would become the mainstay of their lives, yet they had never seen his face. Now they were meeting him for the first time. They welcomed him with tears streaming down their cheeks, proud mammals dazzled by their cub.

  The midwife swaddled the newborn in a large terry towel, onto which the emotional director planted an I LIFTED A GOLD BAR sticker.

  Before Alexandre could protest, Rosa burst out laughing. She was right, he thought to himself. A wild commotion broke out in Mallory Square: the crowd outside had burst into rapturous applause as the last rays of sunlight disappeared. Gabriel had been born, surrounded by treasure, before the whooping adulation of a crowd celebrating his star.

  His arrival could not have been more auspicious.

  23

  Évrard had organized an impromptu darts tournament by pinning a target to the door at the end of the corridor. Two rooms down, Torrez must have been hoping against hope that no one would hurt themselves, but in the main arena it was all fun and games. Although not entirely: Capestan had just won her fourth round in a row. Out of four.

  “I think we should play without her,” Rosière announced, plucking her dart from the outermost ring.

  Évrard, Merlot, Orsini, and even Lebreton nodded enthusiastically before returning to their mark, which had been painted directly onto the wooden floor.

  “That’s mean,” Capestan protested, although secretly she was delighted.

  Each time a player threw a dart, Pilou set off like a mad dog, then trotted back confusedly, one ear pricked and the other down.

  “It’s a fair point: having a shooting champion does slightly kill the fun,” Évrard said.

  “It’s nothing like firing a pistol!”

  Capestan had won silver in the twenty-five-meter pistol event at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Twelve
years later, she was not even allowed to look at a gun.

  “Whatever,” Évrard said, lining up the tips of her sneakers with the red ochre.

  The telephone rang in the living room.

  “There you go, you’re all off the hook,” Capestan called out with a wry smile, knowing it would be for her.

  She went to her metal-top desk and cleared away the samples of English wallpaper that Rosière had submitted for group discussion. She picked up the telephone and sat down in her swivel chair. It was bound to be Buron, all set to deliver the roasting of the century.

  Earlier that morning, Riverni’s outraged face had been plastered across the front of every newspaper in the city, free and paid-for alike. The pages that followed contained ruthlessly precise and formidably well-informed articles about Riverni the Younger’s misdemeanors. Orsini, like the seasoned pro that he was, knew how to unleash a good story. He lit the fire online, kindled it by providing Le Canard enchaîné with the necessary documents, and by the eight o’clock news, which had no choice but to run it, the whole thing was up in flames, only for the sparks to land on the following morning’s dailies. Orsini always delivered the goods; the journalists knew how reliable a source he was. Buron must have been glued to his telephone all morning.

  Capestan held her breath as she picked up.

  “Typical,” Buron said. “I suppose I should have seen this coming!”

  “Good morning, Monsieur le Directeur. It was too tempting, yes. Only seems just.”

  “Just? Just! Do you know what Riverni wants to do with your ‘justice’? He wants to fire the whole group of you!”

  Buron was almost choking. Capestan pictured his scarlet face, bow tie ready to detonate. His receiver must be gleaming after that almighty shower.

  “Permission to shed a tear?”

  “It’s not tears you’ll be shedding, Capestan! You are intolerable: you’ll never change. Senior management, police headquarters, the ministry . . . the whole goddamn barnyard has been on my case since seven o’clock asking where this leak came from. It’s not a leak, it’s goddamn Aqualand! You didn’t pull any punches. You didn’t stop at telling the press about the boy and his cocaine; you had to tell them about his father attempting to hush it up.”

  The game of darts had resumed without Capestan, and the players were having a lot more fun. She always found it fascinating how much people hate losing—herself included.

  “You left me with no choice. And you know it,” she said.

  “You always have a choice. And you routinely opt for the one that appeals to your pride.”

  “The squad’s pride,” Capestan corrected him. She distractedly leafed through the wallpaper samples, eventually settling on the red ochre.

  “There we have it. Fine. I didn’t tell HQ that it came from your squad. That wouldn’t have done you any favors, Capestan. Let me remind you how close you were to going to the slammer. I decided to protect you. I’m not asking you to thank me—”

  “But I do thank you, wholeheartedly. Thank you, Monsieur le Directeur: thank you very much. I’m grateful for your understanding and for your exemplary discretion,” she said, surprising herself with her tone.

  It wasn’t insolence. She often tried that with Buron, but usually in less tricky situations as a way of lightening the mood. Not that he ever took offense: he was more than aware of the endless, unswerving admiration she had for him. Her respect for the chief was never genuinely in question. But her response had clearly been out of tune with the reprimand she had just received. It was like a sudden flash of inspiration. Capestan wouldn’t have been able to explain such a sudden, uninhibited display of nonchalance; this sense of play acting. Buron, however, far from reprimanding her, copied her benign tone:

  “And apart from this, how’s the squad? All going well?”

  After a few minutes of lighthearted conversation, Capestan hung up, only for the telephone to ring again immediately, like a rebound.

  “Did you forget something, Monsieur le Directeur?” she said.

  There was a moment of hesitation at the other end, shortly followed by an oily voice that Capestan recognized with a shudder of revulsion.

  “Good morning, commissaire.”

  “Monsieur Naulin, hello,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

  “I just wanted to let you know that a young man just rang my bell looking for Marie Sauzelle.”

  “Did he now? For any reason in particular?”

  “He just wanted to talk her, or so he said. He was very surprised and extremely upset to hear that she had died seven years ago.”

  “What did he look like?” Capestan said, pulling a pad toward her and picking up a ballpoint that turned out to be a dud. She tested three others by scribbling on the back of the wallpaper samples, ultimately finding a red rollerball that did the job. Why was it never the blue or black ones that worked?

  “Like a sort of young, squirrelly boy with reddish-brown hair. A ruddy complexion, almost as red as his hair. Around five foot eleven. A handsome boy, but gangly—not grown into his body, if you know what I mean. Timid, eyes darting all over the place. The lobe of his left ear was missing. And perhaps a finger, but I’m not entirely sure. He was wearing an orange zip-up hoodie, and one of those new cartoon-style T-shirts . . .”

  “Manga?”

  “Absolutely. He was also wearing beige Bermuda shorts and enormous sneakers, you know those ones that make them look like Mickey Mouse.”

  Capestan could hear Naulin smiling: he couldn’t resist a bit of humor.

  “And a bright-green bike helmet . . .”

  His precision was remarkable, suspicious even. Capestan had been around there the day before. She had wanted to share her thoughts surrounding the welcome she had received in Creuse thanks to his efforts. She had come for an explanation, but Naulin had stalled in classic fashion, denying any responsibility, then played the impenetrable, enigmatic card as soon as she started asking questions. Exasperated and still reeling from the blow to her temple, Capestan had rattled him a bit, but Naulin had nothing new to report. The commissaire should have gone easier on him. She left convinced that the guy was guilty, but she still didn’t have anything firm to go on. Naulin obviously woke up this morning and decided to make himself seem more innocent. Now here he was—description at the ready—providing the perfect smokescreen.

  “Did he leave a name?”

  “Unfortunately not.”

  Well, there you have it.

  “Shame, but thanks all the same, Monsieur Naulin. Your sketch was extremely precise,” Capestan said, with a hint of irony.

  “Always eager to help,” he said in his unctuous tone.

  Capestan said good-bye and hung up. She stood there for a few moments studying the notes on her desk. In the end, she tore off her jottings from the piece of wallpaper and went to knock on Torrez’s door, waiting for his response before entering.

  The lieutenant was sitting on his sofa reading through André Sauzelle’s tax records—paying particular attention to the inheritance—by the light of an adjustable architect’s lamp that he had bolted to a stool. On the floor, his old cassette player was issuing a melancholy Yves Duteil number. The heat in the room was suffocating. A new poster had been pinned to the wall: a junior football team—Paris Alésia FC—made up of three rows of youngsters in oversized shorts bookended by two coaches in undersized tracksuits.

  Capestan relayed Naulin’s telephone call word for word and Torrez noted down the description for himself.

  “What do you make of it?” the commissaire said, rubbing the scar on her index finger.

  “A nice present, all wrapped up with a ribbon.”

  “Exactly. Without a name, either. I’m struggling to see how the details hang together. A young guy with red hair and a hoodie . . . wearing Bermuda shorts at this time of year? Clearly he doesn’t feel the cold,” Capestan said.

  “When it comes to clothes and teenagers, the weather’s the last thing on their mind.”


  “You’ve got a teenager, too?”

  “You name it, I’ve got it,” Torrez replied earnestly. “We might be able to run a search on the bright-green bike helmet. Not a typical color—must come from a specialist cycling shop. If we find one in Decathlon, though, we’re screwed.”

  “Let’s just pretend for a second that this kid exists outside Naulin’s imagination: could it have any importance? A boy visits an old lady who’s been dead for seven years. Why?”

  Torrez scrunched up his dark eyes, hunting for a clue, a key, an opening.

  “Former pupil? Remember she used to be a teacher,” he said.

  “Yes, maybe. Listen, I’ll look into the helmet and we’ll bear the description in mind, but let’s not fret too much about this. It’s a tip-off from Naulin, after all.”

  Capestan was by the door, about to leave, when the evening event mentioned by André Sauzelle came back to her.

  “Did you find anything about a function or a meeting of some sort in Marie’s calendar?” she said.

  “No, no I didn’t: in fact I wanted to talk to you about that.”

  Torrez held up a finger to try and detain the commissaire, and with his other hand he searched through the documents scattered across his desk.

  “There wasn’t anything written in her schedule, so I thought about checking her mail to see if she’d received an invitation. But . . . have a look,” he said, digging out a piece of paper from the crim file. “Turns out there wasn’t a single letter in the list of evidence recovered from Sauzelle’s house.”

  “Maybe they didn’t see anything worth picking up,” Capestan said.

  “That was my initial thought, but I went to check the premises,” Torrez replied, exuding professionalism. “I searched the writing desk in the living room, the drawers under the bookshelves, the hall table: nothing. Apart from an electric bill and a letter about some competition from a mail order company, there wasn’t a single envelope.”

  “You’re right, that is strange. Especially for someone so involved in clubs and community life.”