Let’s go over it all again. Romero, Lavorel, and the Martian too. With them, there’s one possible point of impact, the business with the chauffeur. That’s solid. We simply have to choose the right moment to pounce. My trump card.
And then there’s Annick Renouard. At this point, Sonny Rollins no longer fits the bill. Daquin puts on Thelonious Monk in concert in London and sprawls on the sofa again. Amazing Monk, discordant Annick. Image: Amélie’s head on his shoulder, the smell of hash, our generation is a bit off the wall. Annick’s sure of herself but she’s afraid of me. Why? Use that fear? Daquin pictures Annick leaning forward, seductive smile, husky voice. This woman can stand on her own two feet. If I try to get past her by sheer force, she’ll resist, and the outcome is uncertain. Michel, of course, Michel. I’ve got her. Daquin goes upstairs to get dressed.
Taxi to the clinic at Le Vésinet, a magnificent white nineteenth-century villa surrounded by gardens, trees and lawns interspersed with flowerbeds. A nurse shows Daquin up to the second floor, waxed parquet floors.
‘How is she?’
‘So-so.’ A dismissive shrug. ‘Drugged up to the eyeballs. She’s going home tomorrow, but don’t tire her out.’
‘Don’t worry.’
The nurse knocks on the door, shows Daquin in and leaves them. A small room, simplicity and comfort. Annick is sitting by the window looking out over the garden. She slowly turns her head, looks at Daquin, surprised to see him there. He’s wearing a dark grey heavy corduroy suit with a round neck over a cashmere sweater. Not exactly the same man as in his office.
‘Sit down, Superintendent, and tell me what you’re doing here.’
‘I’ve come to find out how you are…’
‘I’m fine, thank you.’
Her face hollow and pale, her pupils like pinholes, her speech and movements sluggish. And fully in control. Daquin smiles at her.
‘… and to talk to you about Michel.’
‘I saw Inspector Bourdier yesterday.’ Very curt. ‘I told him everything I had to say. It’s finished. I don’t want to talk to you about him.’
‘I’ve come to talk to you about Michel. Not the murder.’
‘His life is none of your business.’
‘It is, in a way. I spent a whole night with him, last week.’ She stares at him fixedly, without budging. Maybe it hasn’t sunk in? ‘I had sex with him, if you prefer. He enjoyed it very much, and so did I.’
She closes her eyes, still sitting motionless, opens them again after a moment, and says in the same slow, confident voice, as if stating the obvious:
‘I must have been wrong about you. You’re not a rapist cop.’
Daquin is surprised. Feels like telling her that it is perfectly possible to rape a boy. Flashback: he’s thirteen, it’s the year his mother died. Strangely, he is unable to remember the rapist’s features precisely. Just a moustache. The memory that is still etched in his mind today, just as acutely, is that of his own face, pushed down into the earth and the dead leaves, the taste of mud in his mouth, the smell of the earth, the suffocating sensation, the earth burning his eyes. Turns back to Annick. What experience does she have of rapist cops? Wait. Let it come out when she’s ready.
After a while, she continues:
‘Why do you say that?’
‘So that you know you are not alone.’ Daquin gets to his feet. ‘I’ll be off, you must be tired.’
‘Thank you for coming.’
Week-end with his family in Saint-Denis for Lavorel. His wife is a primary school teacher and town councillor. She raises their two daughters aged five and three competently and efficiently. The three of them form an organised, united trio who greet him warmly when he arrives. But he always feels like a tourist in his own home. His true life is elsewhere, it begins somewhere around Quai des Orfèvres. Long may it last. A few phone calls to his friends in the Fraud Squad to find a contact in Munich.
Sunday 29 October 1989
It is very early in the morning when Daquin’s phone rings. Annick’s voice.
‘Come to my place right away.’
An hour later, on the landing of the seventh floor, a glance at the closed door of Michel’s apartment and Daquin rings the bell. The door opens. She’s waiting for him.
In the main living room (a glance around, nothing’s changed since the other evening, the feeling of being back in familiar surroundings), Annick, wearing navy blue slacks and pullover, very prim, leads the way and sits in one of the wing chairs, her arms on the armrests, upright, slow, an air of suspense created with minimal effort.
Daquin sits in an armchair next to her, and waits. When unsure, do as little as possible.
‘I know who killed Michel.’
Ears pricked. ‘I’m listening.’
‘I want you to help me nail his killer.’
Daquin’s antennae sense danger. Things are moving a bit too fast, the situation is out of control. Flashback: internal investigation, being sent on leave. Lavorel and Romero. I don’t really have any choice.
‘To do that, I need proof.’
She stares at him for a moment. Stock-still. No coke for several days, probably on medication.
‘The murderer is a friend of mine called Christian Deluc…’
Daquin sinks back in his armchair. He feels slightly giddy. Runs his hand over his face. Me too, I thought Deluc could have had Michel killed. So what she has to say interests me. But it’s no more than speculation. And as for killing Michel himself…What is she trying to drag me into?
‘Apparently you know him?’
‘A little. I met him once. Tell me how you reached this conclusion.’
‘I came home this morning. And on the coffee table I found this cigarette case.’
Lying in front of Daquin is a metal case, strawberries-crushed-in-cream pink, beedies – Indian cigarettes. Those are the cigarettes Deluc smokes. Unusual. You don’t find them in that packaging in France. They come from Davidoff, in Geneva. This case wasn’t here when I left. I found it when I came home this morning. I called the concierge who did the cleaning here while I was away, and asked here where she had found it. It was there, under the cushion of the wing chair.
Daquin opens the case. Half a dozen slim cigarettes, dark brown, carefully laid out, a cloying smell.
‘Is Deluc a friend of yours?’
‘Yes, you could say so.’
‘So he’s been here before?’ She nods. ‘Even if this case is his, he could have lost it at any time.’
‘No. No way. Michel and I liked to keep the place neat and tidy, with everything is in its place.’ Daquin remembers the meticulously organised studio. ‘Michel cleaned the place thoroughly every day. If the case had been in the wing chair before Michel’s death he would have found it and thrown it away. Or put it away. But it wasn’t put away.’ After a pause, she continues: ‘Deluc came here last Wednesday. Not Tuesday, otherwise the case would have disappeared on Wednesday morning. Not Thursday, as nobody except the concierge came into the apartment after the police left. Deluc came on Wednesday afternoon, rang the bell, and Michel opened the door. Deluc sat in the wing chair. They had a drink, Christian smoked a cigarette. The concierge found two dirty glasses and an ash tray in the sink. They went into Michel’s studio, and there, Christian killed him.
Daquin listens carefully. A memory is struggling to the surface. The murder was on Wednesday. Thursday evening, at the Élysée, rack of lamb, Château Carbonnieux, Deluc puts down his glass. ‘Yesterday afternoon, a meeting of our working party to crack down on drugs’ And he repeated: ‘Wednesday afternoon.’ Was he stating his alibi?