Irene (17 page)

“I doubt you lost any sleep over it. You obviously go for easy prey. I hope you managed to sell him a subscription while you were at it.”

“Come on,
commandant
, let me buy you a coffee. Five minutes.”

Camille had already turned to go. But since the journalist continued to dog his step, he said:

“What exactly is it that you want, Monsieur Buisson?”

By now his tone was more weary than angry. This was probably how the reporter usually got his way: by wearing his victims down.

“Do you really believe this hypothesis of yours about the novel?”

“Honestly, no.” Camille did not take the time to think. “It’s an unsettling coincidence, nothing more. One possible lead, that’s all.”

“You
do
believe it!”

Buisson was more perceptive than Camille had given him credit for. He made a mental note not to underestimate this man. They had now arrived at the doorway to his building.

“I don’t believe it any more than you do.”

“Have you found any more evidence?”

“If we had found anything new,” Camille said, punching in the keycode, “do you really think I would confide in you?”

“So Courbevoie being a scene right out of
American Psycho
, is that just another ‘unsettling coincidence’?”

Camille stopped dead and turned to face the reporter.

“I’ll make a deal with you,” Buisson said.

“I’m not a hostage.”

“I’ll keep that nugget of information to myself for a couple of days so you can get on with the investigation.”

“And in exchange?”

“When anything else happens, you give me a heads-up. A couple of hours, that’s all. It’s a fair deal.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Oh,
commandant
.” Buisson feigned a heavy sigh of regret. “Surely we can come to some arrangement?”

Camille stared into the man’s eyes and smiled. “Goodbye, Monsieur Buisson.”

Tomorrow morning was already off to a bad start. A very bad start.

“Shit!” he muttered as he opened the door to his apartment.

“What’s the matter, darling?” Irène called from the living room.

“Nothing,” Camille called back, remembering the flowers.

“Did she like them?” Louis said.

“Did she like what?”

“The flowers.”

“You have no idea …”

From Camille’s tone, Louis knew something had gone awry but did not ask.

“Have you got the papers, Louis?”

“They’re in my office.”

“Have you read them?”

Louis simply pushed his hair back with his right hand. “I have to be in Deschamps’ office in twenty minutes, so just give me a quick summary.”

“The Courbevoie–
American Psycho
connection is all over the papers.”

“Bastard!”

“Who’s a bastard?”

“Oh, the world is full of bastards, Louis, but that hack from
Le Matin
, Buisson, is leagues ahead of the rest.” Camille told Louis about his encounter the previous evening.

“So, not content just to publish the information, he’s passed it on to his fellow hacks,” Louis said.

“What do you expect? The guy’s all heart. Could you order a car for me? No point me being late on top of everything else.”

*

It was only on the way back, in Le Guen’s car, that Camille finally flicked through the papers. The
juge
had only briefly referred to the matter. Now that he saw the headlines, he could understand why she had been incandescent.

“Jesus, I’ve screwed this whole investigation,” he said, scanning the front pages.

“I’m not sure how else you could have gone about it,” Le Guen muttered.

“Thanks for the support, boss. I’ll bring you back a kilt.”

The papers had already given the killer a name: The “Novelist”. The first glimpse of glory.

“As I see it, the killer will probably be thrilled,” Camille said, putting on his glasses.

Le Guen turned to look at him in surprise.

“You seem to be taking this pretty calmly, all things considered. You’re threatened with suspension for failing to follow police protocol, you’ve been warned that you could be taken off the case for breach of judicial confidentiality, and you seem to be able to laugh it off.”

Camille let his hands fall onto the crumpled newspapers. He took off his glasses and looked at his friend.

“It’s killing me, Jean,” he said, suddenly overwhelmed. “It’s really killing me.”

At the end of the shift, Camille stepped into Armand’s office just as he was coming off the telephone. Before looking up at Camille, Armand took his IKEA pencil – now worn down to a stub a few millimetres long – and painstakingly crossed out a line on a vast computer printout that spilled over the sides of his desk and onto the floor.

“What’s that?”

“A list of wallpaper shops. Specifically those that stock the Dalmatian print.”

“How far have you got?”

“Number thirty-seven.”

“And?”

“And, I’m about to call number thirty-eight.”

“Obviously.”

Camille glanced over at Maleval’s desk. “Where’s he got to?”

“Some shop on the rue de Rivoli. A salesgirl there says she remembers selling a Ralph Lauren suitcase to a man three weeks ago.”

Maleval’s desk was always a mess: folders, reports, photographs spilling out of case files, old notebooks, and among these, decks of cards, racing magazines, betting slips. It resembled a teenager’s
bedroom during the summer holidays. There was something of the obstreperous teenager about Maleval. When he had first come to the department, Camille had remarked that he might do well to keep his desk tidier.

“Say you were sick and someone had to replace you at the drop of a hat …”

“Always fit as a fiddle, boss.”

“Not first thing in the morning, from what I’ve seen.”

Maleval had smiled.

“Some guy once said there are two types of order, vital order and geometric order. I go for vital order.”

“That would be Bergson,” Louis said.

“Mathieu Berson, who plays for Aston Villa?”

“No, Henri Bergson, the philosopher.”

“If you say so,” muttered Maleval.

Camille had smiled.

“Not everyone at the
brigade
has a partner who can quote Bergson.”

Despite his quip, that evening Camille had consulted an encyclopaedia to see what there was about the Nobel prizewinning writer of whose work he had never read a word.

*

“So where’s Louis?”

“Some brothel,” Armand said.

“Doesn’t sound like Louis.”

“I mean he’s interviewing Manuela Constanza’s former colleagues.”

“I suppose you’d prefer to be down the brothel instead of stuck here tracking down wallpaper suppliers?”

“Not really. When you’ve seen one brothel …”

“O.K., I’m going to Glasgow on Monday so there’s no way I can be home late tonight. I’ll leave you to it. If you need anything …”

“Camille!” Armand called as he reached the doorway. “How’s Irène doing?”

“She’s exhausted.”

“You should head home. I mean, we’re not making much progress here.”

“You’re right, Armand. I think I’ll knock off now.”

“Give her my love.”

Before he left, Camille stopped by Louis’ office. Everything was filed, neatly ordered. He stepped into the room. The Lancel desk tidy, the Mont Blanc fountain pen … And, classified by subject, his files, his notes, his memos. Even the photographs of the victims from Courbevoie and Tremblay were pinned to a cork-board, precisely aligned like pictures at an exhibition. Louis’ desk did not have the meticulous neatness of Armand’s; it was logical and orderly, but not obsessive.

As he turned to leave, something caught Camille’s eye. He scanned the room again and, unable to put his finger on whatever it was, left the office. But like a word in an advertisement or a name in a newspaper that rings a faint bell, the feeling continued to nag at him. He strode down the corridor, but still he could not shake the notion that he had missed something, and the thought of leaving the station without knowing what was intolerable. It was infuriating. He retraced his steps, and this time he saw it. He walked over to the desk. On the left-hand side lay Louis’ list of men with the name Jean Haynal. He ran his finger down it, looking for the one he had fleetingly noticed earlier.

“Jesus Christ!” he shouted. “Armand! Get in here now!”

With lights and sirens blaring, it took them less than ten minutes to reach the quai de Valmy. The two men arrived at the offices of S.O.G.E.F.I. a few minutes before it closed at 7 p.m.

The receptionist did her best to stop them, first waving, then calling out, but they strode on resolutely and she was forced to trot after them.

They burst into Cottet’s office. It was empty. His secretary was hard on their heels.

“Messieurs …” she began.

“Wait here.” Camille raised a hand to stop her.

He walked over to Cottet’s desk and sat in the absurdly expensive leather desk chair.

“Must be good to be the boss,” he mused aloud, leaning back against the headrest and staring straight ahead. His feet did not touch the ground.

Angrily, he jumped down from the chair, clambered up and knelt on it, then, dissatisfied with this position, he stood on the chair and a sardonic smile lit up his face.

“Your turn,” he said to Armand, getting down. Not knowing what was going on, Armand circled the desk and settled into the director’s chair.

“No doubt about it,” he said with sudden satisfaction, staring
out of the window that faced the desk: there, beyond the line of the rooftops, was a large neon sign – one of the letter “A”s had given up the ghost – that would have read: Transports Haynal.

“So, where exactly might we find Monsieur François Cottet?” Camille articulated each syllable.

“Well, that’s the thing, actually. No-one knows where he is. He hasn’t been seen since Monday night.”

The first two cars screeched to a halt in front of Cottet’s house, in the process Armand accidentally knocking over a bin that had been left out on the pavement.

The man’s definitely loaded. This was Camille’s first thought as he looked up at the imposing three-storey mansion, the grand flight of steps leading from the front door into extensive grounds separated from the road by an ornate wrought-iron fence. One of the officers in a third car got out and opened the gate. The cars roared up the driveway to the steps and even before they had come to a stop, four men including Camille had jumped out. The door was opened by a woman who, despite the fact that it was early evening, looked as though she had been woken by the sirens.

“Madame Cottet?” Verhœven said, climbing the steps.

“Yes …”

“We’re looking for your husband. Is he at home?”

The woman’s face suddenly brightened in a vague smile as though she had only just noticed the horde of police officers descending on her house.

“No,” she said, stepping back from the door, “but you’re welcome to come in.”

Camille remembered Cottet well, his appearance, his age. His wife, a tall, slender woman who had clearly been a beauty once, was at least ten years older than her husband and not at all as Camille had imagined her. Though her looks had faded somewhat, her manner and poise marked her out as a woman of taste – in fact she was almost chic, which could not be said of her husband, who had the charm and charisma of a jumped-up salesman. Though dressed in a pair of slacks that had seen better days and a very ordinary blouse, her languorous manner and a certain slowness in her movements made her the embodiment of what people call “noble bearing”.

While Armand and two other officers dashed about the house, throwing open doors and wardrobes, searching every room, Madame Cottet poured herself a glass of whisky. An oft-repeated gesture, perhaps, and one that had hastened her decline, that much was etched into her face.

“Could you tell us where your husband is, Madame Cottet?”

She stared at Camille in amazement. Then, finding it awkward to be looking down from such rarefied heights at such a short man, she settled herself comfortably on the sofa.

“With his whores, I presume. Why?”

“When was he last at home?”

“Truth be told, I have no idea, Monsieur …?”

“Commandant Verhœven. Let me put the question another
way: when did you last see him?”

“Let’s see … what day is today?”

“Friday.”

“Already? In that case Monday, at a guess. Yes, I believe it was Monday.”

“But you’re not sure?”

“I’m certain it was Monday.”

“Four days ago. You don’t seem worried.”

“Oh, I’m afraid if I were to worry every time my husband ‘went for a wander’ … That’s what he calls it.”

“And do you know where he usually does his ‘wandering’?”

“Not being in the habit of frequenting brothels with him, I have no idea.”

Camille looked about him, taking in the cavernous drawing room, the colossal fireplace, the carved wood tables, the paintings, the rugs.

“And you’re alone here?”

Madame Cottet gestured about her vaguely. “What do you think?”

“Madame Cottet, your husband is wanted for questioning in connection with an ongoing criminal investigation.”

She looked at him more attentively and Camille thought he saw the hint of a Mona Lisa smile.

“And while I appreciate your irony and your detachment,” Camille said, “we are investigating the deaths of two young women who were hacked to pieces in an apartment rented out by your husband, so you’ll understand why I need to talk to him urgently.”

“Young women, you say? Whores?”

“Two prostitutes, yes.”

“As far as I know, my husband prefers to visit them,” she said, getting up and pouring another Scotch. “He doesn’t entertain them at home. At least, not as far as I know …”

“You don’t seem to know very much about your husband’s movements.”

“True,” she said curtly. “If he does dismember young women when he goes wandering, he has not confided as much to me. It’s rather a pity, mind you, I might have found it amusing.”