Authors: Pierre Lemaitre
Deep breath.
*
In his car again, Camille sits motionless behind the steering wheel. Is it the fact that it still has not sunk in? That he can finally see light at the end of the tunnel? He feels cold as a snake, prepared for anything. He has everything set up for a finale that will be done by the book. He has only one doubt: will he be strong enough?
Standing in the doorway of his shop, the Arab grocer smiles cordially and goes on chewing his toothpick. In his head, Camille tries to replay the footage of his relationship with Anne, but nothing comes, the film is caught in the sprockets. He is too preoccupied by what is about to happen.
It is not that Camille is incapable of lying, far from it, but he always hesitates when the end is in sight.
Anne needs to get away from Maleval, this is why she agreed to spy on Camille’s investigation. She has promised to pass on Hafner’s address.
Camille is the only person who can help her, but his actions will signal the end of their relationship. Just as it has already signalled the end of his career. Camille feels a great weariness.
Let’s do this, he thinks. He shakes himself, takes his mobile and calls Anne. She picks up immediately.
“Camille . . .?”
Silence. Then the words come.
“We’ve found Hafner. You don’t have to worry anymore . . .”
There. It is done.
His calm tone is intended to persuade her that he is completely in control.
“Are you sure?” she says.
“Absolutely.” He hears a sound in the background, like a breath. “Where are you?”
“On the terrace.”
“I told you not to leave the house!”
Anne does not seem to understand. Her voice is quavering, her words come in a rush.
“Have you arrested him?”
“No, Anne, that’s not how it works. We’ve only just tracked him down, but I wanted to let you know as soon as possible. You asked me to call, you insisted. Look, I can’t stay long on the phone. The important thing is th—”
“Where is he, Camille?”
Camille hesitates, for the last time no doubt.
“We found him in a safe house . . .”
The forest around Anne begins to rustle. The wind whips through the treetops, the light on the terrace flickers. She does not move. She should bombard Camille with questions, gather all her strength and say:
I need to know where he is.
This is one of the lines she has been rehearsing. Or:
I’m scared, can’t you understand I’m scared?
She needs to make herself shrill, hysterical, she needs to insist,
What safe house? Where?
And if that does not work, she needs to be aggressive:
You say you’ve found him, but do you even know he’s there? Why can’t you just tell me?
Or she might try a little emotional blackmail:
I’m still worried, Camille, surely you can understand that?
Or remind him of the facts:
That man beat me half to death, Camille, he tried to kill me, I have a right to know!
Instead there is silence, she cannot bring herself to say any of these things.
She had precisely the same feeling three days ago as she stood in the street, covered in blood, clinging to a parked car, and saw the robbers’ jeep round the corner, saw the man aim the shotgun at her, the barrel only inches away, and yet, drained, exhausted, ready to die, unable to summon a last ounce of strength, she did nothing. And now, once again, she finds she can say nothing.
Camille will come to her rescue one last time.
“We tracked him down to the suburbs, to 15, rue Escudier in Gagny. It’s a quiet residential neighbourhood. I’ve only just found out, I don’t know how long he’s been there. He’s going by the name Éric Bourgeois, that’s all I know.”
Another silence.
Camille is thinking: That was the last time I will hear her voice, but it is not true because she continues to press him.
“So, what happens now?”
“He’s a dangerous man, Anne, you know that. We’ll stake out the area, work out exactly where he is, try to find out if there is anyone there with him. There may be several of them. We can’t just go storming a Paris suburb as if it’s the Alamo, we’ll need to bring in a tactical unit. And we’ll need to make sure the timing is right. But we know where to find him, and we have the resources to make sure he doesn’t do any more harm. [He forces himself to smile.] You feel better?”
“I’m fine.”
“Listen, I have to go now. I’ll see you later.
Silence.
“See you later.”
*
9.45 p.m.
I’d more or less given up hope, but we got our result! Hafner has been found.
It’s not surprising he was impossible to track down if he’s going by the name “Monsieur Bourgeois”. I knew this man, this ruthless gangster, when he was at the height of his powers, so it’s kind of pathetic to discover he’s saddled himself with such a name.
But Verhœven is convinced it’s him. So I’m convinced.
The reports that he was ill are true, I just hope he hasn’t pissed away all of that cash on chemo. There’d better be a decent wad left to compensate me for all my efforts, because otherwise cancer will be nothing compared to what I have in store for him. Logically, he’ll need to eke out the money, keep it handy in case he needs it.
Now I just jump in the car, head down the Périphérique, pedal to the metal, and before you know it I’ll be in Gagny.
Difficult to picture Vincent Hafner in a dump like that. Have to hand it to him, it’s a clever place to hide out, but I can’t help thinking that if he’s slumming it in a cosy little suburban house, there’s probably a woman in the picture. Probably the woman I’ve heard about on the grapevine, the sort of torrid May–December romance that can persuade a man to become Monsieur Bourgeois to impress the neighbours.
It’s the kind of thing that makes you think about life: Hafner spends half his life bumping off his neighbours, then he falls in love and all of a sudden he’s totally pussy-whipped.
It suits me. If there’s a girl involved, I can use it to my advantage. Women make for good leverage. Break her fingers and he’ll hand over his life savings, gouge out her eye and he’ll throw in the family silver. I tend to think of a woman as an organ donor, and every piece is worth its weight in gold.
Obviously, nothing beats a kid. If you really need to get your hands on something, the best weapon you can have is a kid.
When I get to Gagny, I drive around for a bit, take a tour of the neighbourhood, steering clear of the rue Escudier. Cordoning off the area won’t be a problem, the police just need to set up a couple of roadblocks, but raiding the house will be a lot more complicated. First they have to be sure that Hafner is in there, and that he’s alone. That won’t be easy because there’s nowhere for a G.I.G.N. Special Ops team to park in this neighbourhood, and given there’s almost no traffic in the area, a car prowling around would be noticed straight away. Best would be to bring in a couple of plain-clothes to keep a watch on the place, but even that can take half a day.
Right now, the boys at G.I.G.N. are probably devising complicated strategies, poring over aerial maps, marking out zones, sectors, trajectories. They’re in no hurry. They’ve got the whole night to think about it, they can’t do anything before about 6 a.m. and even then it’s all about surveillance, surveillance, surveillance . . . The operation could take two days, maybe three. And by then, their target will be no threat at all, I’ll see to that.
I parked the car two hundred metres from the rue Escudier, shouldered my bag and walked past the gardens, bludgeoned a few dogs that tried to play the tough guy, crept past the hedges and the railings and here I am, sitting in a garden under a pine tree. The residents are in the living room watching television. On the other side of the railing separating the gardens, I have a perfect view of the back of number 15, thirty metres away.
The only light is a bluish glow from an upstairs window, obviously a T.V. The rest of the house is in darkness. There are only three possibilities: either Hafner is watching T.V. upstairs, or he’s out, or he’s in bed and the girl is watching educational programmes on T.F.1.
If he’s gone out, I’ll be the welcome committee when he gets back.
If he’s in bed, I’ll be his alarm clock.
And if he’s watching television, he’s going to miss the ad break because I’ve got my own entertainment planned.
I study the place through my binoculars, then I’ll creep over and slip inside. Make the most of the element of surprise. I’m having fun already.
A garden is the ideal place for meditation. I assess the situation. Realising that everything is going smoothly, almost better than I had expected, I force myself to be patient – by nature I tend to be impulsive. When I got here, I felt like firing shots in the air and charging into the house, screaming like a lunatic. But just getting to this point has taken a lot of work, a lot of thought and effort, I’m so close to the money I can almost smell it, so it’s important that I keep a cool head. When nothing happens after half an hour, I pack up my things and do a recce of the house. No burglar alarm. Hafner wouldn’t have wanted to attract attention by turning his little haven into a bunker. He’s a crafty bastard, that Monsieur Bourgeois, he just blends into the background.
I go back to the tree and sit down, zip up my parka and again look through the binoculars.
Finally, at about half past ten, the T.V. upstairs is turned off. The small window in the middle lights up briefly. Narrower than the others, it must be the toilet. I couldn’t have wished for a better set-up. I get to my feet. Time for action.
It’s a standard ’30s house with the kitchen at the rear of the ground floor. The back door leads onto a small flight of steps and down to the garden. I move silently. The lock is so old you could open it with a tin-opener.
On the other side is the great unknown.
I leave my bag by the door, taking only the Walther fitted with a silencer and the hunting knife tucked into a leather sheath on my belt.
Inside, the silence is pounding; there’s always something nerve-racking about a house at night. I need to calm my heart rate, otherwise I won’t hear a thing.
I stand for a long time, watching, listening.
Not a sound.
I steal across the tiled floor, moving slowly because here and there the tiles creak. I emerge from the kitchen into a narrow hall. The stairs are on my right, the front door straight ahead and on my left is an archway that probably leads to the living or the dining room.
Everyone is upstairs. As a precaution, I hug the walls, gripping the Walther with both hands, the barrel pointed downwards.
As I pad across the hall towards the stairs, something catches my eye: the living room on my left is in pitch darkness, but at the far end, bathed in the faint glow of the streetlights, I see Hafner sitting, staring at me. I’m so shocked that I’m literally rooted to the spot.
I just have time to make out a woollen cap pulled down to his eyebrows, his bulging eyes. Hafner sitting in an armchair, I swear, like Ma Barker in her rocking chair.
He has his Mossberg trained on me.
The moment he sees me, he fires.
The noise fills the whole house, a blast like that is enough to stun anyone. I move fast. In a split second, I throw myself to the ground behind the door. Not fast enough to avoid the buckshot peppering the hallway, I’m hit in the leg, but it feels like a flesh wound.
Hafner has been waiting for me, I’ve been hit, but I’m not dead. I scrabble to my knees, feeling blood trickling down my shin.
Everything is happening so fast my mind is having trouble processing it. Luckily, my reflexes are focused in the reptilian brain, they come straight from my spinal cord. And I do what no-one would anticipate: even though I’m startled, shot and wounded, I snap into action.
Without taking time to assess the situation, I swing round to face him. From the expression on Hafner’s face I can tell he wasn’t expecting me to reappear in the doorway where he just shot at me. I am hunkered on the ground, my outstretched arm gripping the Walther.
The first bullet slices through his throat, the second hits him right between the eyes, he doesn’t even have time to squeeze the trigger. His body jerks wildly as the last five bullets leave a cavernous crater in his chest.
I have scarcely processed the fact that there’s lead in my leg, that Hafner is dead and all my hard work has resulted in an epic failure, when I dimly become aware of something else: I am kneeling in the hall holding an empty gun and the barrel of another gun is pressed against my temple.
I freeze. I set the Walther down on the ground.
The hand holding the pistol is steady. I feel the barrel dig into my flesh. The message is clear: I push the Walther away from me, it skids two metres and comes to a stop.
I’ve just been well and truly screwed. I spread my arms to indicate that I don’t plan to resist, I turn slowly, head down, careful not to make any sudden movements.
It doesn’t take long for me to work out who would want to kill me, and my suspicions are confirmed when I see the tiny shoes. My brain is still racing, trying to come up with some way out, but all I can think is: How did he get here before me?
But I don’t waste time trying to analyse what went wrong, because before I figure it out, he’ll have put a bullet in my brain with complete impunity. In fact I can feel the barrel drag across my skin and stop in the middle of my forehead, precisely where Hafner took the second bullet. I look up.
“Good evening, Maleval,” Verhœven says.
He’s wearing a hat and has one hand stuffed into the pocket of his overcoat. He looks as though he’s about to leave.
More worryingly, I notice that he’s wearing a glove on the other hand, the one holding the gun. I can feel the panic rising. No matter how fast I move, if he manages to get a shot off, I’m dead. Especially since there’s lead in my calf already, I’m losing a lot of blood and I’m not sure what will happen if I try to put any weight on it.
Verhœven knows this all too well.
Cautiously, he takes a step back, but his arm is steady, his hand doesn’t tremble, he’s not afraid, he’s determined, his bony face is grave, serene.