‘Let’s stay here this evening, I don’t feel like going out.’
He holds out her coat, envelops her in it, keeps his arms around her and caresses her face with the fur collar.
‘What you feel like is of little importance, my beauty.’
Saturday 30 November
There is something sinister about the parking lot at La Villette at eight o’clock in the morning, in the middle of winter, bathed in the orange glow of the big city. The gleaming wet black tarmac, divided into long strips by granite pavements and marked off with white lines and puny saplings forms a desolate geometric universe a stone’s throw from the construction sites of La Villette. Two cop cars are parked in a corner, blue lights flashing and headlights glaring. The cops, four in uniform, two in plain clothes, are huddled by a row of shrubs. A Caribbean-looking man wearing a woollen hat and scarf and a leather bomber jacket is holding his wolfhound on a leash and pointing to a human form lying under the scrawny bushes.
The two plainclothes cops approach. Noria Ghozali, small and muffled inside a cheap black anorak, stands slightly back, behind Inspector Bonfils, a young trainee she’s working with for the first time. Instinctively, she’s on her guard: a man, her superior, she’s wary.
Bonfils leans over. The body is almost entirely covered by a cream-coloured raincoat. He touches the protruding wrist and hand. Cold, very cold. Gingerly he lifts the raincoat. A woman’s body lying on her stomach, black trousers and sweater, her face turned to one side, almost intact, her eyes closed, the back of her neck split open. All that’s left is a dark brown depression of soft matter, with splinters of greyish bone and matted hair. And under her chin, in her throat, the clean, clear impact of a bullet. Nothing spectacular, thinks Bonfils, surprisingly unaffected. A used thing lying there as if it had been thrown out a long time ago. He straightens up and turns to the uniformed cops:
‘Death from a gunshot wound. Call the station and the prosecutor.’
Then he takes out his notebook and continues:
‘Now, Mr Saint-André, tell me how you came across the body?’
‘I live on the other side of the ring road.’
‘Where, to be precise?’
‘36 rue Hoche, in Pantin.’
‘Go on.’
‘Every morning, I take my dog for a walk around the parking lot, or along the canal, before leaving for work. I also work on Saturdays, you know.’
‘Where do you work?’
‘Maintenance, at the Galeries Lafayette.’ A pause. ‘Anyway, this morning, it was the parking lot. My dog found the body at around a quarter to eight, or thereabouts.’
‘What happened?’
‘He was running ahead of me and he stopped by the bushes and started growling and tugging at something, the shoe, I think. I thought he’d found a dead animal and went over to fetch him back, and that was it. Then I ran to avenue Jean-Jaurès, called the police from a phone box, and I waited for you at the parking lot entrance.’
‘Did your dog move the body?’
‘No, he didn’t have time. I’m very fond of my dog, so I’m careful about what he eats. No rotting carcases.’
‘Do you only come here in the morning?’
‘Yes. At night, I just take him round the block, I’m tired, you understand …’
‘Did you meet anyone when you were out walking this morning?’
‘No, not today or any other morning. That’s why I come here, because I can let my dog off the lead without bothering anyone. Anywhere else and people always yell at you.’
‘What about yesterday morning?’
‘I went along the canal. Every other day, for a bit of variety.’
After repeating his contact details, Saint-André leaves with his dog.
Ghozali and Bonfils pace up and down side by side to keep warm. He’s broad-shouldered and much taller than her. Wearing a flying jacket that fits snugly over the hips, he looks elegant, laid-back. He takes out a pack of filter-tipped Gauloises from his pocket and offers her a cigarette.
‘No thanks, I don’t smoke.’
‘You’re very quiet.’
‘I’m watching you work.’
He exhales the smoke, savouring the first puff. The note of aggression in her voice doesn’t escape him. He shoots her a sidelong glance. Strange little woman, hair drawn back into a severe bun, a round, slightly flat face, not exactly attractive. But there’s a sort of fierceness locked in behind that concrete wall. He continues:
‘You know, this is my first posting, my first day on duty, and my first corpse. You won’t learn much from watching me.’ He pauses for thought. ‘I think I was expecting something more shocking.’
‘Are you disappointed?’
He smiles.
‘That’s one way of putting it.’
The Crime Squad arrives. Suits and ties, overcoats, elegant leather shoes. Polite, distant, busy and competent. At once the machine goes into motion. Bonfils makes his report, Ghozali, standing back slightly, listens. The parking lot is surrounded, cordoned off, the area around explored. The forensic team arrives, dressed in white overalls, and sets to work. Noria watches them, fascinated. Bonfils turns to her:
‘Are you coming? We’re going back to the station.’
She blurts out angrily, her face inscrutable:
‘You go back, I’m staying. To watch the real professionals at work.’
Her words hang in the air. A silence.
‘Right. I’ll tell the superintendent that you were needed here.’
Noria watches him walk off, puzzled. Could this man be different from the others?
Photos. Noria picks up a Polaroid of the dead woman’s face. Pathologist. A few simple movements of the body. Initial conclusions. Killed by a bullet through the neck, shot at close range, but not here. The body was dumped here very shortly after the murder, which took place about fifteen hours ago or a little more, hard to say at first glance, given the snow and the drop in temperature. Probably driven here. The lab tests will yield more precise information. No ID on the body. A very big pearl pendant, that might be useful later. No marks, no footprints on the tarmac or in the flower bed, seemingly no witnesses, until the building workers have been questioned. If she’s not reported missing, identification won’t be easy. Noria takes note. An ambulance takes the body away, and the parking lot gradually empties.
At nine a.m., Nicolas Martenot rings the bell of Bornand’s apartment. The door is opened by a manservant wearing a black open-necked shirt, sleeves rolled up, black trousers (I’ve always wondered what Bornand gets up to with a good-looking guy like that), who shows him into the drawing room and takes his coat:
‘Monsieur Bornand will be down shortly.’
Martenot goes over to the French window that opens onto a lawn enclosed by ivy-covered railings. On the other side is the Champ-de-Mars, all very peaceful. A glance at the Eiffel Tower, with its dark tangle of girders. He returns to the drawing room. Eighteenth-century blonde wood panelling, Versailles oak parquet floor. On the wall facing the French windows is a magnificent Canaletto, the Grand Canal in front of the Doge’s Palace. The painting has great elegance, the gondoliers’ silhouettes leaning over their oars and the froth on the surface of the green lagoon captured in a few brushstrokes. Beside it, three small scenes of Venetian life by Pietro Longhi, hung asymmetrically, look very flat. And, against the wall, a rare piece of furniture, a seat designed by Gaudí, in carved wood, extremely light and elaborate. Martenot gazes at it with a twinge of envy. On the right, a Louis XV marble fireplace. He goes over to the log fire, which is very pleasant in this damp weather. On the mantelpiece is the marble head of a Greek ephebe. He caresses its cheek with the back of his hand, relishing the smooth, cold feel. Opposite it, a terracotta statuette of a Cretan goddess with bulging eyes and a heavy, ankle-length robe, her arms outstretched and her hands clutching bundles of snakes. Above the fireplace hangs a portrait of Dora Maar by Picasso. In front of it is a vast sofa, two massive square armchairs upholstered in white and an ornate, inlaid low Chinese table standing on a Persian rug in varying hues of red.