Authors: Pierre Lemaitre
“Don’t fuck with me,
commandant
!” Michard roars, then quickly puts her hand over the receiver. Camille hears a faint, stammered “Excuse my language, darling” that plunges him into confusion. Does this woman have children? How old would they be? A daughter maybe, though from her tone it does not sound as though she is talking to a child. When the
commissaire
comes back on the line, her voice is calm but her fury is still palpable. From the sound of her breathing, Camille can tell she is going into another room. Up until this moment, she has treated Camille as a minor irritation, but now, though given the circumstances she is forced to whisper, her long-suppressed hostility boils over in seething rage.
“What the hell is your problem,
commandant
?”
“Well, first, it’s not ‘my’ problem. And secondly, it’s seven in the morning, so while I’d be happy to try and explain, I need time to . . .”
“
Commandant
. . . [Silence.] I don’t know what you’re doing. I don’t understand what you’re doing. [All the anger has drained from her voice, as though she has changed the subject. Which, in a sense, she has.] But I want your report on my desk by the end of the day, is that clear?”
“No problem.”
The day is mild, but Camille is dripping with perspiration. A slick, cold sweat he recognises as it trickles down his back, the sort of sweat he has not felt since his race to find Irène the day she died. He had been blinkered that day, he had thought he could go it alone . . . No: he hadn’t been thinking at all. He had behaved as though he were the only person who could do what needed to be done and he had been wrong: by the time he found her, Irène was dead.
And what about Anne now?
They say men who lose women always lose them in the same way; this is what terrifies him.
*
8.00 a.m.
They don’t know what they’re missing, the Turks. Two fat holdalls full of bling. If it was half the weight, it would still be a good haul, even allowing for the fence’s cut. Everything’s going according to plan. And, with a bit of luck, I plan to make a killing from this stuff.
If all goes well.
And if it doesn’t, then there’ll be some real killing.
To be sure, to be clear, you have to be methodical. You have to be determined.
In the meantime, bring up the lights, it’s show time!
Le Parisien
. Page 3.
Fire in Saint-Ouen.
Perfect! Cross the road. Le Balto. A dingy little café. Cigarette. Coffee and cigarettes, that’s what it’s all about. The coffee in this place is like dishwater, but it’s eight o’clock in the morning, so . . .
Open the newspaper. Drum-roll, please.
SAINT-OUEN
TWO DEAD IN MYSTERY BLAZE
The emergency services were called to a major incident in Chartriers shortly after noon yesterday when a serious fire broke out following a fierce explosion. Fire officers quickly contained the blaze which destroyed a number of workshops and lock-up garages. The fire is all the more mysterious since the area, which is scheduled for urban redevelopment, is currently derelict.
In the rubble of one of the lock-ups destroyed by the blaze, police officers discovered the burned-out wreck of a Porsche Cayenne and the charred bodies of two individuals. This has been determined as the locus of the blast, and forensic evidence indicates the presence of Semtex. From fragments of electronic equipment found at the scene, forensics officers have suggested the explosion could have been triggered remotely.
Given the intensity of the blaze, it may prove difficult to identify the bodies of the victims. All available evidence points to a carefully premeditated killing intended to make such identification impossible. Investigators are hoping to determine whether the victims were alive or dead at the time of the explosion . . .
*
Done and dusted.
“Investigators are hoping to determine . . .” Don’t make me laugh! I’m happy to take bets. And if the cops somehow manage to trace this back to a couple of Turkish brothers with no record, I’ll donate their half to the Police Orphan Fund.
Nearly there. I’m on the Périphérique, I take the exit ramp at Porte Maillot and into Neuilly-sur-Seine.
It’s nice to see how the other half lives. If they weren’t so fucking dumb, you’d almost want to join them. I park outside a school where thirteen-year-old girls are trooping out wearing clothes that cost thirteen times the minimum wage. Almost makes me sorry that the Mossberg is not an acceptable social leveller.
I walk past the school and turn right. The house is smaller than those on either side, the grounds are not as extensive despite the fact that every year enough loot from burglaries and armed robberies passes through to build a new skyscraper at La Défense. The fence is wary, a smooth operator, constantly changing the protocol. By now, he’ll have had one of his delivery boys pick up the holdalls from the locker at the Gare du Nord.
One location for the pickup, a second to evaluate the merchandise, a third to deal with negotiations.
He takes a hefty cut to ensure the deal is secure.
*
9.30 a.m.
Camille would like to be able to question her. What exactly did she see in the Galerie? But letting her see how worried he is would mean letting her know that her life is in danger, it would terrify her and only add anguish to her suffering.
And yet, he has no choice but to ask again.
“What?” Anne howls. “See what? What do you want me to say?”
The night has done her no good, she woke more exhausted than she had been yesterday. She is fretful, constantly on the verge of tears, Camille can hear it in the quaver in her voice, but she is a little more articulate today, she is managing to enunciate more clearly.
“I don’t know,” Camille says. “It could be anything.”
“What?”
Camille spreads his hands helplessly.
“I just need to be sure, don’t you see?”
Anne does not see. But she struggles to rack her memory, tilts her head and stares at Camille. He closes his eyes: try to keep calm, try to help me.
“Did you overhear them talking?”
Anne does not move, it is impossible to know whether she understood the question. Then she makes an evasive gesture that is difficult to interpret.
“Serbian, maybe . . .”
Camille jolts upright.
“What do you mean, Serbian? Do you know any words of Serbian?”
He is sceptical. These days, he has more dealings with Slovenians, Serbians, Bosnians, Croats, Kosovars, waves of them are arriving in Paris, but despite all the time he has spent with them he still cannot tell the languages apart.
“No, I’m not sure . . .”
Anne gives up and slumps back on the pillow.
“Wait, wait,” Camille says. “This is important.”
Anne opens her eyes again and struggles to speak.
“
Kpaj
. . . I think.”
Camille cannot believe it, it is like suddenly discovering that Juge Pereira’s clerk speaks fluent Japanese.
“
Kpaj
? Is that Serbian?”
Anne nods, though she does not seem completely sure.
“It means ‘stop’.”
“How . . . how do you know this?”
Anne closes her eyes again as though she is exhausted by having to tell him the same things over and over.
“I spent three years organising tours in Eastern Europe . . .”
It’s unforgivable. She has told him a thousand times. She has been in the travel industry for fifteen years, and before moving into management, spent a long time organising trips all over the world. She dealt with all of the Eastern Bloc countries except Russia. From Poland all the way south to Albania.
“Did all of them speak Serbian?”
Anne simply shakes her head, but she needs to explain; with Camille, everything has to be explained.
“I only heard one of them . . . In the toilets. The other guy, I’m not sure . . . [Her speech is a garbled, but completely intelligible.] I’m not sure . . .”
But to Camille, this confirms his suspicions: the guy doing the shouting, rifling the display cases, jostling his accomplice, he is Serbian. The man acting as lookout is Vincent Hafner.
He is the one who beat Anne, he is the one who sneaked into the hospital and went up to her room, he is probably the one who broke into Anne’s apartment. And he does not have an accent.
The receptionist was categorical.
Vincent Hafner.
*
When the time comes for her to go for the M.R.I. scan, Anne asks for a pair of crutches. It can be difficult to understand what she wants. Camille translates. She insists on walking. The nurses roll their eyes and are about to manhandle her into a wheelchair and cart her off, but she screams, pulls away from them, sits on the bed with her arms folded. No.
This time, there can be no doubt. Florence, the charge nurse with the bee-stung lips is called, she is peremptory – “This is ridiculous, Madame Forestier, we’ll take you upstairs for your scan, it won’t take long.” She turns on her heel without waiting for a response, her brusque manner clearly signalling that she is up to her eyes this morning and is in no mood to deal with petulant demands . . . But before she can reach the door, she hears Anne’s voice ring out clearly, her pronunciation is a little indistinct but the meaning is crystal clear: Absolutely not: either I go on foot, or I’m going nowhere.
Florence comes back, Camille tries to plead Anne’s case, but the nurse looks daggers at him – who the hell is this guy, anyway? He steps aside, leans against a wall, he suspects that the charge nurse has just blown her only chance of finding a peaceful solution. Time will tell.
The whole floor of the hospital starts to shake, heads appear in the hallway, the nurses try to restore order – Go back to your rooms, there’s nothing to see! Inevitably, the house doctor shows up, the Indian with the interminable name, who seems to be here from morning to night, working shifts as long as his name, and he is probably paid no better than the cleaners. He comes over, and while he bends down to listen to what Anne is saying, he surveys the cuts and contusions; she looks terrible, but it is nothing compared to how she will look in a few days as the bruises develop. Gently, he tries to reason with her. Then, he listens to her chest. The nursing staff are confused, they do not understand what he is doing, M.R.I. appointments are set in stone, they cannot afford to be late. But the doctor takes his time . . .
The charge nurse becomes impatient, the porters are champing at the bit. The doctor calmly concludes his examination, he smiles at Anne and requests a pair of crutches. His colleagues glare at him, they feel betrayed.
Camille looks at the frail figure slumped over the crutches, two porters walk on either side of Anne, supporting her.
She shuffles slowly, but she is moving. She is on her feet.
*
10.00 a.m.
“This is not an extension of the commissariat . . .”
The office is an indescribable mess. The man is a surgeon, one can only hope things are more organised inside his head.
Hubert Dainville, head of the Trauma Unit. They met in the stairwell the previous night while Camille was chasing a ghost. In that fleeting glance, he looked ageless. Today he looks fifty. He is obviously proud of his shock of curly grey hair, it is the symbol of his ageing masculinity, this is not a hairstyle, it is a world view. His hands are carefully manicured. He is the sort of man who wears blue shirts with white collars and a handkerchief in the breast pocket of his suits. An ageing beau. He has probably tried to screw half of his staff and doubtless attributes to his charm the few successes that are simply statistical anomalies. His white coat is still immaculately ironed, but he no longer has the befuddled air he had in the stairwell. On the contrary, he is brusque and overbearing. He carries on working while he talks to Camille, as though the matter were already settled and he does not have time to waste.
“Nor do I,” Camille says.
“Pardon?”
Dr Dainville looks up, frowning. It pains him when he does not understand. He is unaccustomed to the feeling. He pauses in his rummage through the pile of papers.
“I said, nor do I . . . I don’t have time to waste,” Camille says. “I can see that you’re busy, but as it happens I’m rather busy myself. You have your responsibilities; I have mine.”
Dainville pulls a face, unconvinced by this line of reasoning, and returns to his paperwork. But still the officer hovers in the doorway, clearly unaware that the interview is at an end.
“The patient needs rest,” Dainville mutters finally. “She has suffered severe trauma.” He glares at Camille. “Her present condition is little short of a miracle, she could have been left in a coma. She could be dead.”
“She could also be at home. Or at work. She could even have finished her little shopping trip. The problem is that she ran into a man with no time to waste. A man like you. A man who thinks that his concerns are more important than those of other people.”
The doctor looks up and glowers at Verhœven. To a man like Dainville, the most innocuous conversation involves a confrontation, he is a shock of snowy locks atop a fighting cock. Tiresome. And pugnacious. He looks Camille up and down.
“I realise that the police consider themselves entitled to go anywhere, but a hospital room is not an interrogation suite,
commandant
. This is a hospital, not an assault course. I will not have you tearing around the corridors, upsetting my staff . . .”
“You think I’m running up and down the corridors to keep in shape?”
Dainville brushes the comment aside.
“If this patient does indeed represent a danger to herself or to this institution, then have her transferred to a secure unit. If not, leave us in peace to get on with our work.”
“Do you have much free space in the mortuary?”
A startled Dainville gives a little jerk of his head. The cock.
“I only ask,” Camille goes on, “because until we can question the witness, the examining magistrate will not authorise a transfer. You would not operate unless you were certain of your facts; the police likewise. And we have very similar problems, you and I. The later we intervene, the greater the potential damage.”