Camille (21 page)

“Has the
juge
ordered a reconstruction of the robbery?”

Camille has not contacted the examining magistrate since his first visit to the Galerie. By now, he has a lot to say. He will have to choose his moment carefully.

“Not yet,” Camille says confidently, “but given how fast things have developed, I’m sure that as soon as the witness is able . . .”

“So what happened here? Did he come to relieve Ravic of his share of the haul?”

“Whatever Hafner wanted, he needed to make Ravic talk. Maybe about the haul . . .”

“The case has thrown up a lot of questions, Commandant Verhœven, none of them more serious than the questions it raises about your own behaviour.”

Camille tries to smile; he is prepared to try anything.

“Perhaps I have been a little overzealous . . .”

“Overzealous? You’ve broken every rule in the book, you tell your superiors you’re mounting a targeted operation and then turn half the city upside down without so much as a by-your-leave!”

She is making the most of this.

“You clearly exceeded the authorisation given you by the
juge
.”

This moment was bound to come, but it is too soon.

“And by your superior officers. I’m still waiting for that report I requested. You’re behaving like a free radical. Who exactly do you think you are, Commandant Verhœven?”

“I’m doing my job.”

“And what job would that be?”

“
To Protect and to Serve
, isn’t that our motto? I’m pro-TEC-ting!”

Camille takes three steps, repressing the urge to grab Michard by the throat. He composes himself.

“You have grossly miscalculated this case,” he says. “It is not simply about a woman who was beaten to a pulp. We are dealing with a gang of experienced armed robbers who left one man dead last January. The leader, Vincent Hafner, is a vicious thug, and the Serbians he’s working with are certainly no angels. I may not know why, but Hafner is determined to kill this woman and, though I know you don’t want to hear this, I firmly believe he went to the hospital armed with a shotgun. And if this witness is killed, someone is going to have to explain how it happened, and you’ll be first in line!”

“Alright, you decide that this woman is of some vital strategic importance, so to neutralise a risk you cannot even prove exists, you round up everyone in Paris born between Belgrade and Sarajevo.”

“Sarajevo is in Bosnia, not in Serbia.”

“Excuse me?”

Camille closes his eyes.

“O.K.,” he concedes, “I haven’t followed procedure to the letter, I should have written up a report, I should—”

“Oh, we’re well past that,
commandant
.”

Verhœven frowns, his internal warning light is flashing faintly, he knows exactly what the
commissaire
can do if she so chooses. She nods towards the room where Ravic’s body lies in the glare of spotlights.

“With your little barnstorming operation, you managed to flush Ravic out,
commandant
. In fact, you made things easier for his killer.”

“There’s nothing to substantiate that.”

“Perhaps not, but it’s a legitimate question. And a brutal raid targeting a specific immigrant community, conducted without the backing of your superior officers and in breach of the limited authorisation given you by the examining magistrate, that sort of ‘operation’ has a name,
commandant
.”

This is something that Camille honestly did not see coming; his face grows pale.

“It’s called racial profiling.”

Camille closes his eyes. This is a clusterfuck.

*

What is Camille doing? Anne has not touched the food on the tray in front of her. The orderly, a woman from Martinique, clears it away: you got to eat, child, you can’t go lettin’ yourself waste away, it’s a cryin’ shame to waste good food. Anne suddenly feels a furious anger towards everyone welling in her.

Earlier one of the nurses told her, “It’ll all be fine, you wait and see . . .”

And Anne had snapped “I can
see
perfectly well right now!”

The nurse was simply being kind, she was trying to help, it was wrong to dismiss her desire to do good. But even as she tried the classic device of counting to ten, Anne found herself snarling.

“So, you’ve been beaten up, have you? You’ve had people pistol whip you, kick you, try to kill you? I suppose people fire shotguns at you all the time? Come on, tell me all about it, I’m sure it’ll help . . .”

As Florence made to leave, Anne called her back, in tears.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m so sorry.”

The nurse gave a little wave. Don’t give it another thought. As though people are entitled to say anything they like to nurses.

*

“You wanted this case, you demanded it be assigned to you on the pretext that you had an informant who, so far, you have been unable to produce. And, while we’re on the subject,
commandant
, exactly how did you hear about the robbery?”

“From Guérin.”

The name just slipped out. The first name that came into his mind. Racking his brain, he could think of no other solution and so he trusted to providence. But providence is like homeopathy: if you don’t believe . . . it is a stupid mistake. Now, he has to call Guérin, who is not likely to help him if it means putting his own head on the block. The
commissaire
looks thoughtful.

“And how did Guérin hear about it?”

She stops herself.

“I mean, why would he have mentioned it to you?”

Verhœven can see what is coming and has no choice but to raise the stakes, something he has been doing since the start.

“It just happened . . .”

He has run out of ideas. The
commissaire
is visibly now curious about this affair. He could find himself removed from the case. Or worse. The prospect of a report to the public prosecutor or an investigation by the
Inspection générale des services
now looms on the horizon.

For a split second, an image of five severed fingers hovers between him and the
commissaire,
they are Anne’s fingers, he would know them anywhere. The killer is on the move.

Commissaire Michard manoeuvres her gargantuan derrière out onto the landing, leaving Camille to his thoughts.

His thoughts are much the same as hers: he cannot exclude the possibility that his operation helped the killer find Ravic, but he had no other choice if he was to move quickly. Hafner is determined to dispose of all witnesses and protagonists involved in the Galerie Monier robbery: Ravic, Anne and probably the other stooge, the getaway driver . . .

Anyway, Hafner is the key to the whole case, he is the man in charge.

The I.G.S., the
commissaire,
the examining magistrate – Camille will deal with them in due course. For him, the most important thing is to protect Anne.

He remembers something he was taught at driving school: when you miss a bend, you have two choices. The wrong reaction is to brake, since there is every chance you will skid off the road. Paradoxically, the most effective solution is to accelerate, but to do so, you have to curb the natural survival instinct screaming at you to stop.

Camille decides to accelerate.

It is his only way out of this dangerous bend. He tries not to think about the fact that accelerating is also what someone would do if they were determined to drive off a cliff.

And, besides, his choices are limited.

*

6.00 p.m.

Every time he sees the man, Camille cannot help but think that Mouloud Faraoui does not look much like someone called Mouloud Faraoui. Though his Moroccan roots survive in his name, any North African traits have been diluted over three generations of unlikely marriages and unexpected couplings, an incongruous melting pot that has produced surprising results. Mouloud’s face is a distillate of history: light-brown hair verging on blond, a long nose, a square jaw slashed by a scar that was obviously painful and gives him a bad-boy look, ice-cold, blue-green eyes. He is between thirty and forty, though his age is difficult to guess. Camille checks the police record, where he finds documentary evidence that Mouloud was an exceptionally precocious career criminal. It turns out that he is thirty-seven.

He is relaxed, almost offhand, a man of few words and subtle gestures. He slides into the seat opposite, never taking his eyes off Camille, he seems tense, as though expecting the
commandant
to pull his gun. Mouloud is wary. Not wary enough, perhaps, given that instead of staying safely in his cell, he is here in the prison visiting room. Facing a twenty-year stretch, he was sentenced to ten, he will serve seven and has been inside for two. Despite his arrogant swagger, one look is enough to tell Camille that time has been dragging.

Surprised by this unexpected visit, Faraoui’s natural mistrust is on red alert. He sits ramrod straight, arms folded. Neither man has said a word, but already they have exchanged a staggering number of messages.

Verhœven’s very presence here constitutes a complicated message in itself.

In prison, word gets around. Hardly has the prisoner set foot in the visiting room than the news has spread along the landings. What would an officer from the
brigade criminelle
want with a small-time pimp like Faraoui? Ultimately, it does not matter what is said at their meeting, the prison, like a giant pinball machine, is already buzzing with rumours that range from sober speculation to wild conspiracy theories, depending on the vested interests of those involved and the relative power of the prison gangs, creating a complex web of misinformation.

And this is precisely why Camille is here, sitting in the visiting room, arms folded, staring silently at Faraoui. He need do nothing else. The work is already being done, he does not even have to lift his little finger.

But the silence is uncomfortable.

Faraoui, still sitting stiffly, watches and waits in silence. Camille does not move. He is thinking about how this little thug’s name popped into his head when the
commissaire
asked her point-blank question. Subconsciously, he already knew what he planned to do, but it took a while for Camille’s conscious mind to catch up: this is the quickest route to Vincent Hafner.

If he is to reach the end of the path he has chosen, Camille is going to have to tough it out. He feels a suffocating panic well up inside him. If Faraoui were not staring at him so intently, he would get up and open a window. Just walking into the prison gave him the jitters.

Take a deep breath. Another deep breath. And he will have to come back again . . .

He remembers the way he confidently announced that there were “three known suspects”. His brain works faster than he can; he only realises what he has said after the fact. He understands now.

The clock ticks off the seconds, the minutes; in the airless visiting room, unspoken words quiver in the air like vibrations.

At first, Faraoui mistakenly thought this was a test to see which of them would crack first, a silent form of arm-wrestling, a cheap police trick. And it surprised him that an officer of Verhœven’s reputation would resort to such a ruse. So it must be something else. Camille watches as he bows his head, thinking as fast as he can. And since Faraoui is a smart guy, he comes to the only possible conclusion. He makes to get to his feet.

Camille is expecting this, he tut-tuts softly without even glancing up. Faraoui, who has a keen sense of his own best interests, decides to play along. Still the time ticks away.

They wait. Ten minutes. Fifteen. Twenty.

Then Camille gives the signal. He uncrosses his arms.

“O.K. Well, I wouldn’t want you to think I’m bored or anything . . .”

He gets up. Faraoui remains seated. The ghost of a smile plays on his lips, he leans back nonchalantly in his chair.

“What do you take me for, a messenger boy?”

Reaching the door, Camille slaps it with the palm of his hand for someone to come and open. He turns back.

“In a sense, yes.”

“And what do I get out of it?”

Camille adopts a shocked expression.

“What the . . .? You get to ensure that justice is served! What do you want, for fuck’s sake?”

The door opens, the guard steps aside to allow Camille to pass, but he stands on the threshold for a moment.

“While we’re on the subject, Mouloud, tell me something . . . The guy who grassed you up . . . damn, what was his name again? It’s on the tip of my tongue . . .”

*

Faraoui never knew who squealed on him, he did everything he could to find out, but he came up with nothing; he would give four years inside just to know that name, everyone knows that. But no-one can possibly know what Faraoui would do with the guy if he ever found him.

He smiles and nods. Done deal.

This is Camille’s first message.

Meeting Faraoui amounts to saying: I’ve made a deal with a killer.

If I give him the name of the guy who grassed him up, he’ll do anything I ask.

In exchange for that name, I can get him to hunt you down and before you have time to catch your breath he will be right behind you.

From now on, you had better start counting the seconds.

*

7.30 p.m.

Camille is sitting at his desk, colleagues pop their heads round the door, they give a little wave, everyone has heard about his dressing down, it’s all anyone can talk about. With the exception of the officers who took part in the “racial profiling”, they have nothing to worry about, but still the word gets round, the
commissaire
has already begun to undermine him. It’s a nasty business. But what the fuck is Camille playing at? No-one seems to know. Even Louis has hardly said a word, and so rumours are rife – an officer of his reputation, he must have done something, the
commissaire
is livid – to say nothing of the examining magistrate who is preparing to summon everyone involved. Even Contrôleur Général Le Guen has been like a bear with a sore head all afternoon, but pop your head round the door of his office and there’s Verhœven, typing up his report for all the world as if this is a storm in a teacup, he hasn’t got a care in the world, like this whole business with the robbery and the gang of killers is some personal beef. I don’t get it, what do you think? I haven’t a clue, but you’ve got to admit it’s pretty weird. But the officers go about their business, they have already been called away to deal with other matters, there is a commotion downstairs, voices are raised in the corridors. No rest for the wicked.