The Awkward Squad Read online

  “It’s ten minutes away . . .”

  Rosière let out a puff.

  “You’re so cute,” she said, at which point she twirled a set of car keys and zapped a powerful-looking Lexus—a gleaming black full-hybrid luxury—parked on the corner of the street.

  8

  Twenty minutes later, the Lexus was still purring at the lights on rue Dauphine. A yellow pine-tree air-freshener was fluttering beneath the rearview mirror. Lebreton looked out at the tourists from the passenger seat as they snapped away at Pont-Neuf and the statue of Henri IV. With their sleeves rolled up and windbreakers tied around their necks, they were enjoying the mild weather and the lovely view down the river. Even walking backward, they were going faster than the cars.

  “You married?” Rosière said, gesturing toward the silver rings on Lebreton’s left hand.

  “Widowed.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. For how long?”

  “Eight months and nine days.”

  Rosière cleared her throat awkwardly, even though her instincts were screaming at her to probe further.

  “What was her name?”

  “Vincent.”

  “Ah.”

  Every time, without fail. The same “ah” that carried a mixture of surprise and relief. So this was not a real broken family; we were not dealing with a proper tragedy. Lebreton had lived with Vincent for twelve years, yet everyone seemed to think that he was not experiencing any real pain. Or at least not the same pain. Louis-Baptiste Lebreton had grown accustomed to it, but every “ah” was like being stabbed with a spike. By the end of the year he would resemble a porcupine. This squad was no different from all the others.

  The few remaining minutes of the journey were dominated by Rosière’s embarrassed silence. Lebreton carried on gazing at the crowd casually. Soon, however, they pulled up alongside the Habitat on rue Pont-Neuf, and Rosière spotted some striped canvas deck chairs that she absolutely had to look at. She parked at an angle across a loading bay and bundled her partner into the shop.

  She picked four to be delivered to rue des Innocents, along with a round iron table and some chairs to brighten up the terrace at the office. Rosière was already on to the next thing, and her most urgent plans concerning Lebreton now revolved around making him lug a potted rhododendron plant from quai de la Mégisserie to the terrace at the commissariat. The commandant was quite happy to offer his services, not that she gave him much choice in the matter. Rosière dropped him at the foot of the building and went to find somewhere to park.

  Up on the landing, shrub in hand, Lebreton managed to knock on the door with his elbow. He heard some shuffling footsteps followed by a furtive slide of the steel flap covering the peephole. After two turns of the key, the door swung open to reveal a familiar face: Capitaine Orsini. A sudden coldness fell over the commissariat. Maybe a window had been left open somewhere—or maybe it was simply Orsini’s being there.

  Lebreton set down the rhododendron and shook the icy hand of the former investigator from the brigade financière. He was only fifty-two, but he looked a good ten years older. He always wore the same gray chinos, with a white shirt and black silk scarf (navy blue every once in a while). Maybe a V-neck sweater in the same tones to keep him warm in the winter. His shoes were the only thing with any sparkle—the capitaine could not bear sloppiness of any kind.

  Orsini had taught violin at the Lyon Conservatory until he was thirty-four before passing his exams for the police judiciaire. A curious change of career, especially since he loathed the police and always seemed intent on bringing down the force: on more than one occasion, Lebreton’s internal investigations had been substantiated by evidence gathered by Capitaine Orsini. In the informant’s defense, he had raised only well-founded corruption cases, backing up his accusations with persuasive proof. He provided plenty of ammunition not just for the IGS, but also for the press. If this irreproachable individual had landed in this squad, it was because of his address book and his penchant for keeping journalists in the loop with every secret at the HQ. He had never been reprimanded for his failure to respect confidentiality, but some divisionnaire must have considered him to be the source of one inside story too many and decided it was time for him to go elsewhere—to hell, for example. Exit the bean spiller; enter one more soul into the lost brigade.

  Orsini was going to have a field day with his new colleagues. Lebreton could not help thinking that his arrival did not bode well for Capestan.

  Eva Rosière checked that she had not left anything in the driver’s door. She ran a grateful hand over the Saint Christopher sticker on the dashboard, then gripped the handle of her leather bag on the passenger seat. Before getting out, she turned to her dog, sitting at attention on the back seat.

  “Listen up, Pilou. As with most places, I’m fairly certain dogs aren’t allowed here, but we’re going to give it a shot. So behave yourself—understood?”

  “Yep!” Pilote replied, concise as ever.

  “Good. Now be polite to everyone. Especially the boss.”

  9

  The traffic along the river was fine, and the scooters weaved in and out of the cars like a flock of starlings. A few minutes earlier, Torrez had needed to take a moment when the beat-up carcass of the 306 rolled into view. Capestan had tried to explain with a reassuring smile that this Peugeot—along with a rusty Renault Clio and a Renault Twingo missing its bumper—represented the extent of the squad’s fleet of cars. Clearly the state allocated its vehicles according to merit.

  Torrez had initially refused to take the wheel, but Capestan had insisted: she hated driving, always preferring the pleasant opportunity for contemplation in the passenger seat.

  The 306’s interior was a perfect match for its bodywork. A screwdriver was wedged in the door to stop the window from falling down; the knob of the gearshift had been ripped off, reducing it to a long greasy bolt that you had to grip with some force to get it into first; electrical wires spilling out of the radio compartment jiggled up and down to the rhythm of the journey; and the fuel gauge was flickering around the zero mark. The two police officers had not exchanged a word in this hazardous cockpit since leaving the parking garage. At the lights on Pont de Grenelle, Torrez finally said:

  “Finding a burglar seven years down the line . . . this should be a laugh.”

  “We’ll need to get creative, that’s for sure.”

  The lieutenant raised two thick eyebrows and set off again. His optimism was a joy to behold.

  Fifteen minutes later, they were parking at the top of rue Hoche, a stone’s throw from the Issy-les-Moulineaux town hall. In the square, a stone monument boasted the grandiose inscription IN MEMORY OF THE FALLEN AND ALL VICTIMS OF WAR. No qualms about casting the net wide in this neighborhood: honor be to those at both ends of the rifle, throughout the ages and across the lands.

  Capestan and Torrez waited for a bus to maneuver itself into the terminal, then set off toward rue Marceau.

  The ramshackle house at number 30 was narrow and tall. It comprised one upper story with a loft above, as indicated by a dormer window in the tiled roof. Outside, the yellow paint on the shutters was flaking off, the render was crumbling, and a greenish sludge was oozing from the gutter. On the tinplate letterbox a worn, discolored sticker saying NO JUNK MAIL PLEASE was peeling off at the corners. The rusty gate creaked as Capestan pushed it open to give them access to the overgrown minuscule garden. The commissaire climbed up the three front steps and rang the bell. No answer.

  “It looks uninhabited,” Torrez said, stamping down the tall grass with his thick rubber soles.

  “Agreed. Even if it’s not, it has been neglected for some time.”

  Torrez stooped down to slip his hand between the base of the wall and a scrawny boxwood. He pulled out an old piece of fluorescent orange tape, the sort used to cordon off crime scenes.

  “From the time of the murder, you think?”

  He handed it to Capestan, holding it between thumb and forefinger for her
to inspect.

  It seemed unlikely. Seven years is a long time. The commissaire thought for a few moments before making up her mind.

  “Let me ask the neighbors. Stay here.”

  She came back ten minutes later. The couple at number 28 had only moved in a few years ago. A lady had answered the door, a little girl clinging to her leg with pigtails that stuck up like palm trees. The commissaire had held up her ID with a smile, prompting the mother to send the girl inside to play.

  The newcomers had never heard about the murder, and Capestan could not help thinking that the details might spoil their evening, not to mention the next few months. But the young woman had been able to confirm one thing: they had never seen anyone in the house next door.

  Capestan went back to Marie Sauzelle’s place, where Torrez was waiting, absentmindedly scraping the sole of his boot.

  “Are we going in?” he said.

  They were eager to avoid wasting time requesting permission from a juge d’instruction, so Capestan nodded. After a quick scan of the area, the lieutenant took out his lock-picking kit and manipulated the mechanism like a true pro.

  “The dead bolt hasn’t been locked,” he said with surprise in his voice.

  The wood had swollen and the door scraped against the frame as it opened. Capestan and Torrez were barely across the doorstep when they stopped suddenly in complete disbelief.

  Only the body was missing. In seven years, nothing else had moved. The floor was still covered with upturned drawers, scattered books, and broken glass. Curled-up rubber gloves from the forensics teams were lying on the coffee table, while the powder used to dust for fingerprints was smudged across the door handles and furniture. The teams had left it as it was, and no inheritor or real estate agent had spruced the place up, even to sell it at a knockdown price.

  “Ever seen anything like it? A crime that hasn’t been cleaned up for seven whole years?” Torrez said.

  “No. Especially not in a house that would be so easy to sell.”

  They made a start on their inspection. Compared with the photographs from the police report, the décor had turned gray from the dust. The spiders had made the most of the owner’s absence to weave their webs with great enthusiasm. Anne Capestan tried to picture the corpse on the sofa. Taking care not to trample on the shards of porcelain, she picked up a clear acrylic photo cube. There was a picture of Marie wearing a black-and-white djellaba as she perched on the back of a camel. On one of the other sides, she was grinning as she leaned at an angle next to the Tower of Pisa. Capestan turned the object over in her hands. The following photograph was all yellowed and featured a young man with a strong family resemblance—the brother, no doubt—standing next to a racing bike, holding it by the handlebar and wearing a polka-dot cycling jersey. Next up was a young couple—Marie and a slender, blond-haired man—posing beneath an apple tree. Finally, a photograph of Marie in jeans and sandals, drinking from a bottle of mineral water outside Buckingham Palace.

  Somewhere, perhaps even in this city, was the man who had killed this lady, snuffing out her wonderful lust for life. And to this day he had never had to face the smallest consequence.

  Capestan carefully laid the photo cube on a bookshelf, beside a box full to the brim with multicolored discount coupons. Torrez, his hair all over the place, was darting around the room, scowling as always like someone who had just crashed his car. He was relaying the start of the report aloud from memory:

  “Marie Sauzelle, seventy-six years old, sister of André Sauzelle, sixty-eight. Both originally from Creuse. Marsac, to be precise. I’m from Creuse too—Dun-le-Palestel,” he added, his face brightening for a brief moment. “Brother still lives there. Marie was married, but not for long: her husband died in Hanoi during the Indochina War. No children. She was formerly a primary school teacher.”

  He fell silent and seemed to be thinking hard as he glanced around the room. One detail was bothering him.

  “A burglar who strangles someone . . . that’s rare.”

  “He was trying to shut her up, no weapon available . . . The thing I find more out of the ordinary is that he took the time to sit her down again,” Capestan replied, gathering up a trinket that had miraculously survived and replacing it on a shelf.

  Sitting the victim down again was an unnecessary precaution that gave the burglar away as an amateur. He was frightened and strangled her in panic, then immediately registered what he had done. Overwhelmed with remorse, he sought to make amends, like a child clumsily gluing a vase back together after smashing it with a football.

  Torrez was now inspecting the entrance, hands on hips.

  “The lock’s been replaced, but the dead bolt is the same as before. And it’s intact. That means it can’t have been closed when the burglar forced the lock.”

  “Yes, otherwise he would have had to kick it down, more or less.”

  Just as she was about to pick up a CD of tango music from the rack, Capestan froze: she was thinking back to the police report.

  “The dead bolt wasn’t closed, but the shutters were. That’s strange. Normally you’d close the shutters and double-lock at the same time, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, definitely.”

  Torrez was fretting about something. He let out a sigh before continuing:

  “On the other hand, old people can forget stuff. Last Sunday, my mother came over and she was still holding a little garbage bag. She’d caught the métro, bought some chocolate éclairs, punched in our door code, and taken the elevator without once thinking to throw it away. It was like she was hoarding. Although I’m not complaining about the éclairs she brought—nice ones, and plenty of them, too. When it comes to remembering where the pâtisserie is, everything’s still working fine.”

  Capestan could not help smiling at the lieutenant as he voiced his concerns about his mother: what a good son. But he was undoubtedly right. A memory lapse was possible. Maybe the same was true of the muted television she had found so intriguing. Burglars do not come bursting in at prime time—far too risky. No, they come during the small hours, around three in the morning, when the old ladies have switched off their TVs. Capestan’s initial thought about that “mute” symbol had been that something was awry, but maybe the explanation was much simpler: Marie Sauzelle had just gone up to bed and forgotten to turn off the TV.

  The body had been found on the sofa, a chunky, rustic three-seater with a varnished wood frame. Capestan moved toward it. A piece of fabric from the back had been removed for analysis. The armrests and cushions were still intact, and on them the commissaire noticed an embellishment that she would have recognized anywhere: cat hair. The beige floral velvet was covered with the gray and white strands that indicate feline domination.

  She instinctively gathered a few specimens and rolled them up in her palm.

  She did not remember reading a thing about any animals in the police report. What had become of this cat?

  Capestan went into the kitchen. Not a single bowl on the tiled floor. If the cat had indeed fled through the burglar’s legs, its bowls would still be in place. It did not make sense.

  She headed back to the living room to explain the issue to Torrez, who offered his conclusion very matter-of-factly:

  “It died before the burglary. Maybe even a long time before: cat hair takes ages to deteriorate. Same with rabbits. It never ever goes away.”

  Torrez paused for a moment as he in turn observed the sofa.

  “You know what,” he said enthusiastically. “My son has a rabbit. He named it Casillas, like the Spanish goalkeeper. Only our Casillas is constantly leaving his area. Basically, the rabbit goes around eating all our electric cables. One day he’s going to get one hell of a shock.”

  Capestan looked at Torrez as he shook his head. For a man with a reputation as a lone ranger—silence, curses, and all that jazz—he was turning out to be astonishingly talkative now that he was up and running. Torrez blushed suddenly. He had gone too far, become too familiar, been too
remiss about who he was. Capestan could see his self-awareness gradually creeping back: harsh frown, lowered chin, tight lips. He returned to being the thickset, hirsute, brooding man with his hackles up. This black-haired cinder block was beset by dark clouds. To avoid embarrassing him any further, Capestan headed up the stairs at the end of the hallway.

  On the upper floor, a dark, narrow corridor led to the bedroom, where a ray of sunlight shone through a cloud of dust. The musty smell caught in Capestan’s throat.

  The large room was covered in mauve wallpaper and was furnished with a sleigh bed and matching bedside table, all of which was dominated by a crucifix. A shelf on the wall displayed an ancient collection of Asterix books—first editions, Capestan noticed, pulling one down. The parquet floor was slippery with dust, but little by little the commissaire got used to the odor and slowly released her breath. On top of the chest of drawers, a little figurine of an Ancient Egyptian goddess stood next to a jewelry tree laden with bracelets. Capestan opened the lace curtains. The window looked out onto the back garden, which was also completely overgrown. In one corner, a watering can with a dented spout had practically disappeared into the rampant grass. The gravel path was being swallowed up by moss and daisies. There was no way out of the yard, so the burglar must have entered and exited via the front door. Yet there had not been a single witness.

  Capestan let go of the curtain and headed toward the adjacent bathroom. None of the toiletries had been moved. For seven years, Marie’s ghost had been allowed to continue her existence without any disruption to her routine. A tube of Émail Diamant toothpaste, a small glass bottle of rose water, an old-fashioned bristle hairbrush, some violet soap, and cotton balls of various color in a large glass dish. There was also a tube of red lipstick in a small terra-cotta bowl. Marie Sauzelle had been quite the coquette.

  A sudden inkling forced Capestan to return to the bedroom. The bed was still made. So Marie Sauzelle had indeed been downstairs watching television when the murderer entered the house. He had dropped by unannounced in the early evening, like an old friend.