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  “No. As I’ve already said, any such e-fit will have been obtained illegally from a hacked website. I think it would be unwise to compromise all the teams’ investigations, Capestan. Just yours is quite enough.”

  “What about the other case – do we hold onto that info. too or shall we play the game?”

  “Hmmm, the other case . . . Listen: the B.R.I. and Crim. have their own lines of inquiry that are proceeding very nicely. Let’s not spread ourselves too thinly. Look into that yourselves, for the time being.”

  “Monsieur le Directeur?”

  “Yes, commissaire?”

  “Are you going to come out with it straight away, or will I have to guess like last time?”

  She could hear Buron’s smile broadening into the receiver.

  “There’s nothing to guess, Capestan. This is simply about considering other leads and methods. At the moment, the B.R.I. are making like Scorsese – they’ve only got eyes for De Niro. At least your rabble brings a bit of variety.”

  “My rabble, as you insist on calling them, have – ”

  “Yes, yes, I know. By the way, you’re getting a new recruit tomorrow.”

  “A new recruit?”

  “D’Artagnan. He was let out of the psych. ward this weekend. He’s one of yours, no doubt about it. He got a mention in the paperwork when your squad was set up.”

  D’Artagnan. Real name Henri Saint-Lô. His nickname stemmed from his belief that he had started his career as a musketeer to the king, making him immortal. Quite literally a man for the ages.

  After hanging up, Capestan went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. While the kettle was coming to the boil, she went to the terrace to join Lebreton who was sitting in a deckchair with his long legs stretched in front of him, smoking as he read the autopsy report.

  “Anything?” she said.

  “Nothing we didn’t know already, apart from a bit more precision on the time of the murder: between 6.00 and 6.30 a.m. And yes, he was beaten up, with fists and with the butt of a pistol. One, maybe two people.”

  A squeak caught their attention. It was Merlot’s rat, who was wiggling towards his bowl at the foot of the small rhododendron. The two officers watched as he took a few sips. Lebreton tapped his cigarette on the ashtray at his feet, and, between drags, said drily:

  “It could have been a pig.”

  Capestan stared at the rodent for a few seconds.

  “True, we did escape lightly,” she agreed, before changing the subject. “We’re going to have a meeting tomorrow morning, bright and early. Orsini has come across another murder with exactly the same M.O. as Rufus’s. He’s looking for additional info. and we’re going to review it. The article is in the sitting room if you want to take a look in advance.”

  “Yes, of course. Just let me finish this first,” Lebreton said, waving the autopsy report.

  Back at her desk, steaming mug in hand, the commissaire began rummaging through her papers for the profile of the fabled musketeer. Eventually she found it and switched on her lamp to study it.

  She was so engrossed in her reading that she did not hear Dax approaching, forcing the lieutenant to alert her of his presence by knocking her desk like it was a door. Standing tall with his shoulders straight, he handed her a document that he was clasping in both hands.

  “The e-fit, commissaire. It’s ready.”

  “Thank you, lieutenant,” she said with a smile.

  Her smile vanished the instant she set eyes on the image. The man did indeed have brown hair, a beard and glasses, and was an average height, but he was also covered in long green fur, and armed with a sword and scabbard. A speechless Capestan simply pointed at them as she glared at Dax.

  “Oh, don’t worry about those – that was just to give Évrard a laugh,” the lieutenant said, squirming a little. “It’s ‘World of Warcraft’.”

  “‘World of Warcraft’?”

  “Well, since we don’t have any Police Judiciaire software to make up e-fits, I used the system for creating avatars on ‘World of Warcraft’. It’s an online game set in a fantasy world. Come on, you must have heard of it? There are elves, orcs, gnomes . . . You can create some awesome characters! And because the shopkeeper couldn’t remember what clothes the guy was wearing, I thought it might be funny . . . O.K., I’ll redo the body. But I can’t guarantee I’ll find a shirt and trousers . . .”

  “They didn’t give you the software?”

  “Nope.”

  Capestan – raging inside about this latest example of institutional miserliness, yet another insult from the powers-that-be – examined the picture a second time. Overall, the image screamed online video game, but the finish was strikingly realistic. Dax was surprising her more and more.

  “It was an ingenious idea, lieutenant. Super work, well done.”

  Swelling with pride, Dax made to return to his station.

  “Just one thing, though – you didn’t delete your tracks after hacking into persorigolo.com, did you?”

  “Well no, you didn’t ask me to.”

  “True, true, I didn’t specifically request that. Next time, though, especially for the telephone records – stay under the radar. Always. That must be your default setting.”

  “O.K., noted,” Dax said, literally noting it on a Post-it to be stuck on the edge of his screen: Delete illegal hacks always.

  Just the sort of aide-memoire you want lying around when a suit pops in for a visit.

  Rosière, strapped in to a fluffy, mauve sheepskin dressing gown, placed the water bowl on her marble kitchen floor. The dog, somewhat disorientated by the change to the timetable, sniffed at the bowl for an explanation and, not finding one, stared at his mistress with one ear pricked up.

  “Olivier’s meant to be calling, but he’s hopeless when it comes to figuring out the time difference . . .”

  Olivier, Rosière’s beloved son, after years cheering up the house with his happy-go-lucky presence, had moved to Tahiti. The end of the earth. Every time he called was a huge moment for her, and Rosière needed a clear mind to make the most of their conversation. She had received an email the day before to book in the chat on Skype. With her hair done up and a notepad and pen next to her Mac, Rosière was ready. Christmas was fast approaching, so she would need to note down the flight times so she could send her boy the tickets.

  The computer beeped and she was online straight away. Her son’s handsome face filled the screen and his smile, despite being slightly pixelated, lit up her sitting room.

  “Hi, maman! How are you?”

  “Fine, and you, sweetheart?”

  Olivier was great, working like crazy, kite-surfing every morning. He looked well for it.

  “So, when are you getting here?” Rosière asked.

  “O.K., so, this year it could be tricky, maman. It’s our busiest period – we have to bring in temps and everything. The physio. practice is open every day, except for the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth. I can’t turn down the work, you know? Otherwise they’ll just replace me.”

  “Yes, of course, of course, don’t worry, sweetheart. It’s work, it’s important,” Rosière said, reassuring him despite her blank tone.

  After a few awkward niceties, the conversation ground to a halt. Rosière put her Mac on standby and leaned down to stroke her dog. After a while, she scooped him up and held him in her arms.

  Not for the first time, she wondered if it was better never to have known true happiness, or to have experienced it in all its perfection, only to be crushed at moments like this.

  10

  “Fair maidens and young squires, the heralds were not mistaken – I am here!” the man announced in a tone that was genuinely swaggering rather than theatrical.

  Short and sharp, he had removed his felt hat on entrance and was observing the assembled officers from the doorway. He wore a sardonic smile as he twizzled his moustache, before greeting them with a slow bow.

  “I wish you good day and beg of you – once and for all
– do not address me as D’Artagnan. My name is Saint-Lô.”

  A stunned silence fell over the team. No-one had heralded anything – they were simply getting ready for their meeting when the appearance of this sudden, excessive character had stopped them all in their tracks.

  The natural, welcoming atmosphere that prevailed in the team had been thrown into disarray thanks to the new arrival, who seemed determined to take charge of the greetings himself. Blind to any notion of brashness, Saint-Lô strode into the room, hat clasped behind his back, before shimmying effortlessly over to the window to scour the square below. His every movement was as precise and supple as quicksilver.

  “Surely it has not eluded you that the great Henri IV was butchered in this very quarter?”

  Their building did indeed look out on the rue des Innocents to the north, but to the south it backed onto rue de la Ferronnerie, where a stone memorial marked the spot where the erstwhile king had been assassinated by that mad giant Ravaillac.

  “Just down there.”

  Straight away, Dax and Lewitz looked at the floor, as if the king’s blood-soaked carriage would suddenly emerge from the parquet.

  “I was a mere fledgling when it happened – there was nothing I could have done. Nothing,” Saint-Lô said with a mournful shake of the head.

  Right, thought Capestan. Looks like Saint-Lô’s stint in the psych. ward may not have had quite the desired effect. He turned to her, pre-empting her opinion.

  “I know exactly what you’re thinking . . . You consider that . . .”

  Saint-Lô paused, then held his hand aloft to imitate the flash of a plume.

  “‘Treatment has been unsuccessful’.”

  He stowed away his hand before resuming, his tone a tad weary now.

  “No, it did not. For I have no reason to be healed. I know who I am, and no manner of internment will deny me that.”

  “Yes, of course, capitaine, no problem,” Capestan said, trying to calm him.

  “Let me finish, I beg of you,” Saint-Lô said, not aggressively, but with an unshakeable determination to bring his prologue to a close. “I tolerate such treatment without remonstrance as a way of preserving my post and my pay. You may imagine that hospital, at the very least, taught me to hold my tongue in order to keep the peace. But no. If I have learnt anything these last years, it is that silence is futile – we hunt witches even though we fear them. So I shall live as I see fit, and your petty opinions about my person will in no way alter my conduct. Scorn and rile me all you like . . . you are but the thirtieth brigade to gain my allegiance.”

  Capestan reflected for a moment on the countless philosophies that taught that age went hand in hand with wisdom and inner peace. This man appeared to turn that notion on its head. Buddha’s thousand reincarnations had produced a bona fide idiot. Anyhow, this charade had gone on long enough – a more recent crime demanded the team’s attention. Only time would tell whether Saint-Lô would deign to offer his services.

  “Right, thank you for that introduction, and welcome, capitaine. We have an investigation underway. Are you in?”

  Surprised and disappointed by the abruptness with which his swashbuckling entrance had resulted in a bloodless draw, Saint-Lô simply nodded.

  “Yes, of course. If I am able to help, then help I shall.”

  “So long as you’ve got a head on your shoulders, then you can help.”

  Rosière, who was busy wrapping a Christmas bauble in sparkly tissue paper, could not resist a whispered aside to Lebreton:

  “Not that that’s a strict requirement – just look at Dax . . .”

  Lebreton had set up the whiteboard in the narrow gap between the fireplace and the Christmas tree, which was now staggeringly bright thanks to each member adding their own decorations. The resulting hotchpotch would not have convinced many luxury stores or perfumeries, but here it somehow worked. Capestan had slotted some photographs into the frame of the mirror, showing the two victims, Serge Rufus and Jacques Maire, as well as the e-fit. She waited until everyone was in position before kicking off proceedings.

  “We’re in no doubt that both victims were killed by the same man, possibly him,” she said, indicating the two photographs and the e-fit in turn. “Ignore the green fur, it’s the other bits that count. We need to figure out what links this little group. But before all that, what’s the latest on Rufus, Merlot?”

  Due to the considerable extent of his network, the capitaine had been put in charge of dredging up any hearsay, nocturnal pastimes or unusual liaisons on the part of Commissaire Rufus.

  “As with many of his Antigang colleagues, Rufus was in constant contact with all manner of disreputable types. For the most part, his informants were pimps, racketeers and armed robbers, along with a few lapsed gangsters. Nothing especially original, at least no big Mafia names in his notebook. Since his recent retirement he seems to have turned his back on the criminal underbelly. All in all, his Parisian activities struck me as perfectly ordinary. On the other hand, I am yet to rummage through his previous postings: Lyon, Biarritz, et cetera. For that I shall have to touch base with my other associates.”

  Capestan thanked Merlot with a smile before inviting Lebreton to carry on.

  “The autopsy report is incomplete, but it does confirm the preliminary findings: Rufus was beaten for several hours, wearing handcuffs throughout – they dug into his wrists. No sign that he was gagged. There is therefore a strong possibility that our guy was trying to make him talk. But about what? That’s the bit we’re still unsure of. He was then moved to the street, where he was shot in the middle of the forehead: 9mm, silencer. Time of death is estimated at 6.00 a.m.”

  “That is some effort to go to, dragging a man – especially a big, strong guy like Rufus – just for the kick of shooting him in the right place,” Capestan said. “What could justify such an effort? The killer puts him underneath the street sign to perfect his gruesome crime scene. For his own enjoyment? To send a message? To frighten other possible victims? Maybe that’s what it was. Which brings us to our little newcomer: Jacques Maire.” The commissaire tapped the photograph with her marker pen. “He was the first to be shot, was he not?”

  Even though his research had barely begun, Orsini took the floor.

  “Yes, two days before, on November 25. Our colleagues in Avignon are heading up the inquiry and, since we are not supposed to make an official link between the cases, I haven’t been able to reach out to them for information. But I do know the La Provence crime reporter well. It was him who wrote the article,” he said to Capestan. “To all intents and purposes, we’ve got the same staging at the crime scene. Maire was struck on the face, but not as badly as Rufus. Maybe he talked sooner. Then he was killed with a bullet to the forehead, also in the small hours. It was the night after his name appeared on the war memorial.”

  “Well, he was no coward, this guy. If it’d been my name on a memorial to the dead, I’d have hopped onto the nearest scooter and made off like the clappers!” Rosière said.

  “True. But he was firmly rooted in the town – he will have had arrangements to make before running.”

  “What’s it like, this place?” Rosière asked, her patron saint medals jangling as she crossed her arms over her chest. Pilote, sleeping at her feet, cocked an ear in expectation, but lowered it immediately. False alarm.

  “L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue is a tiny town in the Luberon, just east of Avignon. There’s an antiques shop for practically every man, woman and child, and it gets very busy from April onwards. Most people touring the pretty towns of Provence will pass by L’Isle, Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, Gordes, Roussillon, and a few others. In short, a small town, but heaving with tourists. Jacques Maire was something of a pillar of the community. He owned one of the last big businesses in the area, selling bespoke Provençal furniture, handmade, quality wood, and all the rest of it. He sponsored most of the local sports clubs and societies. He also put money into the crèche and the library. He was an extremely courteou
s man with no apparent issues, and very popular, even though he wasn’t born and bred, which he took a bit of flak for, as in most small-town parts of the country. After all, he had ‘only’ moved there twenty years ago.”

  “Yup, nothing like injecting a load of wonga to soften up the local diehards. Those sorts of loudmouths are always long on opinions and short on loyalties,” Rosière said. “Anyway, what else do we know about old Jackie Boy?”

  “Seventy years old, relatively handsome, married to the same woman, Yvonne, for fifty years. She’s been living at a home called Les Lavandes ever since being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. The couple have two children, aged forty-two and forty-seven. The daughter lives in the north of England, whereas the son owns a house four hundred metres from the family home.”

  “Was the war memorial engraved or just painted?” Lebreton asked.

  Orsini bent down towards the coffee table, where a bulging paper bag of clementines had pride of place, a present to the team from Dax, who was busy tearing into his third. The familiar scent of citrus fruit filled the air, lending the meeting a fragrant, comforting feel that jarred with all the talk of murder.

  “Both,” Orsini said, helping himself to one. “According to a local craftsman I called, the engraving was fairly rudimentary, done with some sort of amateur artist’s tool. And the paint was applied pretty sloppily too. That said, we all know what craftsmen are like when it comes to other people’s work . . .”

  “But the person still went to the effort to do the engraving. Is there a C.C.T.V. camera we can pull any footage from?”

  “No, that’s not something I can glean without contacting the police,” Orsini said, peeling his clementine with the precision of a cellist.

  “Of course,” Lebreton said, snaffling a bright orange one for himself. “So is all this pomp the killer’s way of terrorising another victim, or as we were just saying, is he doing it for kicks? Sadistic pleasure?”

  “Yes. He’s a psychopath, even if the crimes aren’t completely ritual – he used a different medium for each announcement,” Capestan said. “We’ll need to compare the victims and try to guess who’ll be next. Dax, can you look into Jacques Maire’s records too and see if there’s any crossover with Rufus? Start with the most recent. Maybe they called each other or spoke to the same people.”