"Were you already here in 1981?"
She giggled flirtatiously:
"Well really, inspector. I was still a student then…"
"Did anything strange happen in the school at that time? Anything serious you might have heard about?"
"No. What sort of thing do you mean?"
"The death of a pupil."
"No. I've never heard of anything like that. But I could find out."
"Where?"
"From the local education authority. I'll…"
"Could you find out if a little boy called Jude Ithero was at this school during those particular two years?"
The headmistress was now breathing heavily.
"Yes…No problem, inspector. I'll…"
"And quick about it. I'll be back later."
Karim ran down the stairs, then stopped halfway and turned round:
"Just one other thing, for your information. Nowadays, in France, you don't say ‘inspector’ any more, you say ‘lieutenant’. Just like in America."
The headmistress gaped after the rapidly receding figure.
Of all the cops in the station, Police Chief Crozier was the one Karim detested the least. Not because he was his boss, but because he had plenty of genuine experience and often showed signs of having a true cop's flair.
Henri Crozier came from the Lot, was an ex-soldier and had been on the force for the last twenty-odd years. With his potato nose and his greased-down hair, looking as if it had been combed with a rake, he oozed rigor and severity, but in the right mood he could also be disconcertingly jovial. Crozier was a lone wolf. He had neither a wife, nor any children, and imagining him at the center of a cosy family life was like picturing a slice of the craziest science fiction. This solitude attracted Karim, but it was their only point in common. Apart from that, the Chief was every inch a narrow-minded, chauvinistic policeman. The sort of bloodhound who would like to be reincarnated as a pit-bull.
Karim knocked and entered his office. An iron filing cabinet. The smell of scented tobacco. Posters to the glory of the French police force containing stiff, badly photographed figures. The Arab felt vaguely sick once more.
"What the hell's going on then?" Crozier asked from behind his desk.
"A break-in and a profanation. Two professional, discreet and very strange crimes."
Crozier grimaced.
"What was stolen?"
"From the school, a few files from the archives. From the cemetery, I don't know. We'll have to conduct a detailed search of the vault where…
"You reckon that the two crimes are connected?"
"It's an obvious conclusion. Two break-ins, the same weekend, in Sarzac. We're going to end up in the record books."
"But have you discovered what the connection is?"
Crozier cleaned out the tip of his blackened pipe. Karim grinned to himself: a caricature of the police commissioner in 1950s cop shows.
"I might have a connection, yes," he mumbled. "The link's tenuous, but…"
"I'm listening"
"The vault that was desecrated contains a little kid with a weird name: Jude Ithero. He died when he was ten, in 1982. Perhaps you remember something about that?"
"No. Go on."
"Well, the records the burglars lifted were for the years 1981 and 1982. So, I couldn't help wondering if young Jude didn't go to this particular school during those very years and…"
"Do you have any supporting evidence for this supposition?"
"No."
"Have you checked the other schools?"
"Not yet"
Crozier blew into his pipe, like Popeye. Karim went over to him and adopted his sweetest tone:
"Let me lead this investigation, superintendent. I just know there's something strange about all this. A link between the various elements. It sounds incredible, but I'm sure that this was a professional job. They were looking for something. Let's start by finding the kid's parents, then I'll give the vault a thorough search. I…you agree?"
The superintendent kept his eyes down and set about filling the dark bowl of his pipe. He murmured:
"It was a gang of skins."
"What?"
Crozier looked up at Karim.
"I said, the cemetery job was done by a gang of skinheads."
"What skinheads?"
The superintendent burst out laughing and crossed his arms.
"See? You still have plenty to learn about our little region. There are a good thirty of them. They live in a disused warehouse near Caylus. An old mineral water depot. About twelve miles from here."
As he stared at Crozier, Abdouf thought it over. The sun was shining on the superintendent's oily hair.
"I think you're wrong about that."
"Sélier told me it was a Jewish grave."
"No, it wasn't! I just told him that Jude was originally a Jewish name. That doesn't mean a thing. The vault has no Judaic symbols on it, and Jews prefer to be buried alongside the rest of their family. Superintendent, this child died at the age of ten. In cases like that, Jewish graves always have a design, or pattern, to illustrate this broken destiny. Such as an unfinished pillar, or a felled tree. This tomb is a Christian one."
"Quite a specialist. How come you know all that?"
"I read about it."
But Crozier simply repeated:
"It was a gang of skins."
"But that's ridiculous. This wasn't an act of racism. It wasn't even a piece of vandalism. The grave robbers were looking for something…"
"Karim," Crozier cut him off, in a friendly but slightly tense tone of voice. "I always appreciate your judgment and advice. But I'm still the boss here. Trust an old timer. The skins are the ones to question. I reckon if you paid them a little call, then we might learn a thing or two."
Karim stood up and swallowed hard.
"Alone?"
"You're not telling me you're scared of a few kids with short hair, are you?"
Karim did not reply. Crozier liked this sort of test. To his way of thinking, it was playing the bastard, but also a sign of respect. The lieutenant grabbed the edges of the desk. If Crozier wanted to play, then he was willing to play along.
"Let's make a deal, superintendent."
"What kind of deal?"
"I'll grill the skinheads, all on my own. Shake them up a bit and give you a written report by one p.m. In return, you'll get me a warrant to search that vault. All above-board. I also want to question the kid's parents. Today."
"And what if it was the skins?"
"It wasn't the skins."
Crozier lit up. His tobacco crackled like straw.
"It's a deal," Crozier wheezed.
"After checking Caylus, I lead the investigation?"
"Only if I have your report by one o'clock. In any case, we'll soon have the regional crime squad on our backs."
The young cop strode over to the door. His fingers were on the handle, when the superintendent called to him:
"You'll see. I'm just sure that your looks are going to go down a storm with the skins."
Karim slammed the door on the old veteran's guffaws.
CHAPTER 10
A good cop needs to know his enemy thoroughly. Inside and out. And Karim was a world expert on the subject of skinheads. During his years in Nanterre he had fought several bloody battles with them. Then he had written a report about them while at the police academy. As he drove at high speed toward Caylus, the Arab ran through what he knew. It was a way to work out what his chances were against those bastards.
The first thing that crossed his mind was the uniforms worn by the two main branches. All skinheads were not extreme right-wingers. There were also the Red Skins, on the extreme left. Multi-racial, highly trained and following a code of honor, they were as dangerous as the neo-Nazis, if not more so. The Fascists wore their pilot's jackets the right way round, green side uppermost. The Reds, on the other hand, wore theirs inside out, fluorescent orange side uppermost. The Nazis tied their Docs with red or white laces. The Lefties with yellow ones.
At about eleven o'clock, Karim came to a halt in front of the disused warehouse, "The Waters of the Valley". With its high walls made of corrugated plastic, the depot faded away into the clear blue sky. A black DS was parked in front of the gate. After a moment's preparation, Karim leapt out. The skins were presumably inside, sleeping off their beer. As he walked over to the warehouse, he forced himself to breathe calmly while reciting the words which would determine his immediate destiny: green jackets and white or red laces meant the Nazis; orange jackets and yellow laces, the Reds.